Trace

by Pat Cummings

  “Theodore Raymond Carter,” Trace had said.

  Ty shook his head. “Won’t work,” he said. “They’ll eat you alive with that one.”

  Mr. Domenici was handing out worksheets and the room fell silent as the teacher cheerfully described the collection of horrifying germs that might be identified on the samples they had been given. The contents of the little dishes on Trace’s table looked innocent enough: one held a penny, one had a smear of what looked like dried mustard; there was a pink eraser in one and a rubber band in another.

  By the time he and Ty had figured out that they were risking their lives by handling the samples, he had decided to rename himself Trace. T. Ray C. He had considered Tracy, but that could be a girl’s name. He needed something sharp-edged and mysterious. Something that, if they had to whisper it in the halls at him, would sound cool. Trace.

  He had finished his dinner quickly. No amount of barbecue sauce could turn tofu into chicken, but his aunt’s rice was delicious. Yes, there were strange, crunchy little green things in it, but, having eaten one accidentally and liked the taste, he decided to embrace the mystery. Auntie Lea ate no meat, no eggs, and no vowel vegetables. Asparagus, eggplant, onions, okra . . . Trace was no fan of them either. Certain random vegetables that began with a consonant were on his aunt’s list as honorary vowels: squash, brussels sprouts, cabbage. Trace had no one to invite to dinner, so there was really no need to decode her system. This was one of his aunt’s quirks that would never embarrass him.

  Auntie Lea did not own a cookbook. She got an idea, invited one or more of her QTs, as she called them, or “Cuties,” and dinner was served. The Queen’s Tasters. Kings had official tasters, his aunt said. Their job was to taste whatever the king was to be served in case it had been poisoned by an enemy. If the taster didn’t drop dead, the king knew the food was fine. In the short time that Trace had lived there, he had gotten in the habit of waiting for the Cuties to be served first at dinner. Such a polite young man, they would say, misunderstanding his motive. If no one keeled over dead, Trace would fix himself a plate.

  Most of the Cuties were artists of one kind or another. Auntie Lea occasionally worked as a freelance production assistant, setting up photo shoots for magazines, music labels, and theater productions. In the two months that Trace had lived there, she had made at least a dozen new friends on various shoots, not a one of them who seemed to have a real job.

  “I hope youse guys saved room for dessert,” she cracked, turning on her Brooklynese. “I call this Coney Island custard.”

  Dawoud beamed. Brenda hurriedly cleared away plates to make room for the quivering mound of shiny yellow pudding that Auntie Lea brought to the table. It did sort of remind Trace of a roller coaster at Coney Island. There were definitely peaks and valleys. Bits of strawberries and blueberries, embedded in the slick, molded dessert, circled their way to the top, where a layer of dried apricots, nuts, and raisins swayed and cracked as the dessert came to rest on the table. It was scary.

  “You’ve outdone yourself, Lea!” Dawoud exclaimed.

  “May I?” said Brenda, bravely scooping spoonfuls into bowls for everyone.

  Auntie Lea had only moved to Brooklyn earlier that year herself, but she seemed to make new friends every time she left the house. The Korean grocer on Myrtle Avenue told her jokes. The Indian man at the corner newsstand debated politics with her. Even the Italian barista working the counter at Starbucks ignored the line when she arrived to give her updates on which beans had the most subtle or nutty or robusto flavor. In two months, the only person Trace knew was Tiberius. And that was because Mr. Domenici had put them together.

  The shivering, gelatinous pudding slumped before him, looking wounded after Brenda’s assault. Trace excused himself. He was full. He was suddenly sleepy. He had massive amounts of homework to do. He had a headache. He could not remember how many excuses he unspooled as he left the table. But he did know that he did not have a single friend, no one, who would taste Auntie Lea’s Coney Island custard for him. And that sucked.

  3

  Trace had done enough research while he ate breakfast to feel armed with tidbits about the 1860s that might impress Kali if he ran into her before class. He was not sure if they were sticking to United States history or if they had to cover the whole world. But she would know. In class, she was the one who always had all the answers. He smiled just thinking about her. She was gorgeous and smart.

  Trace sprinted across Bergen Street. The subway gods had been on his side today: he was early. With any luck, Kali would be lingering on the front steps with her girlfriends. He had struck gold with the 1860s: the Pony Express had just started, Jesse James and his brother Frank were robbing banks like crazy, and Abraham Lincoln not only got elected president, but he’d gotten himself assassinated, all in his decade. Trace could not help but grin: this was good stuff.

  He and Kali could chat about Jesse James. Maybe over lunch. There was that coffee shop on Smith Street that made those sandwich wraps that girls liked. Trace’s smile widened. It had nice booths and cool music playing whenever he walked by. Maybe they could do research there after school. He made a note to himself to see if the place had Wi-Fi or not.

  Kali and the girls she hung out with talked like they loved gangsters. He had overheard them in the cafeteria, in the hallway leaning against their lockers, in line at assemblies. He had even followed behind them once as they headed for the subway. The movies they talked about, the song lyrics they bounced off one another, even the way they snapped back at any stray guy who dared to approach without clearance convinced Trace that Jesse James would be his golden ticket with Kali. James was the original gangster, a serious OG. Skimming an online biography, Trace had lit on the word bushwhacker. He could read up on it later, but now, as he approached the school, he practiced letting it roll off his tongue.

  “Yeah, that Jesse was a real bushwhacker, huh?”

  “Did you check out that bushwhacker Jesse James yet?”

  “Man, what a bushwhacker James turned out to be!”

  Kali and her girls were lingering around the door just as he had hoped. He watched as Damon bounded up the steps and said something to them. Then he leaned in like he was going to kiss Dani Perez, a tiny, curly-haired girl who must have emptied the shelves at the Salvation Army for her outfit. Unfortunately for Damon, the look came with combat boots. One of them connected with Damon’s shin just as Dani smacked him on the side of his head. The girl was quick.

  Trace flinched as Damon recoiled in pain. That was not going to happen to him. Hesitating at the foot of the steps, he breathed in the crisp fall air and repeated the word to himself: bushwhacker. Feeling a surge of determination, he climbed the stairs in time to see Damon limping past the school guard in the lobby. He heard the girls laughing over Damon’s takedown, but Trace stayed focused only on Kali, whose back was turned to him.

  “H . . . h . . . hey, Kali!” he said. He had hoped to sound confident, but it had come out kind of like a bark. His voice sounded rough, as though it hadn’t been used in a long time and had cracked in places. Kali slowly turned, but only her face, to look at him over her shoulder.

  “Did you check out that gangster Jesse James yet?” Trace said brightly. Silence. Trace pressed on. “What a bushwhacker, huh?” He grinned, nodding, waiting for the light to go on in Kali’s eyes. Around her, the faces of the other girls registered confusion, distaste, and annoyance. Dani sniffed as though she were picking up a whiff of something foul.

  “Do I know you?” Kali said drily. Her eyes traveled down to his shoes. Trace looked down too, even though his brain was screaming at him to play it off. Silently, he cursed himself for wearing those beat-up sneakers with the ratty laces. He had new laces. He could see them still wrapped in plastic, spotless, sitting on the middle shelf of the cabinet in the bathroom. And he had been meaning to clean the grime off these sneakers. Not cool.

  Trace cleared his throat. “We’re in the same—” he began. But Ka
li had turned away. She shook her head and one of her girls, tall, with bizarro eyeglasses and a face splotchy with freckles, signaled a V to him with her hand. “Váyate,” she mouthed in case Trace had missed her point. Beat it.

  Seriously?

  At least it was Friday. Trace had dreaded this last class, but when it was over, the day would finally end. Nodding at Tiberius, he slid into his seat by the window just as the bell rang. Mrs. Weaver spent most of the class sneezing and coughing and blathering on about revolution and exploration and what an adventurous “thentury” the 1800s was. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wet. She had to run out of steam soon, but Trace did not dare look at the clock.

  He kept his eyes straight ahead. No way was he going to look at or near the door. No way would he glance at that entire side of the room where Kali sat. They would have to talk eventually, of course. She would have to work with him. But that was it. All business. No more Mr. Pleasant. Mr. Helpful. Mr. Do Some Research and Share It. No more Mr. Friendly.

  “For the lath fifteen minutes of clath I want you to break into your sthudy groups,” Mrs. Weaver sniffed. Around her neck on a cord hung a half-used roll of toilet paper. Every few minutes, she unwound a foot or so of tissue from the roll and noisily blew her nose. “By next Friday, be prepared to give your prethentations.” She snorted loudly and the gurgle of mucus being inhaled brought on a chorus of eewwws and grosses and puh-leeeeses from the girls in class.

  Mrs. Weaver lowered her glasses to the tip of her reddened nose and scanned the room. “Thank you for your conthern,” she said sarcastically. “Now, break into your groupths, and Prethley”—she turned and motioned to a girl who had been absent the day before—“you join Theo’s group, pleeth.” Waving her hands as though mixing a witch’s brew, Mrs. Weaver oversaw the chair sliding and desk scraping that followed.

  Trace did not move. If Mrs. Weaver herself tried to budge him, he would not take one step toward Kali. But he did not have to. Ty was scooting his desk around to face him just as Presley Jackson slid into a nearby seat that had been abandoned when everyone shifted places. In extreme slow motion and with an air of complete and utter weariness, Kali walked over and perched on the windowsill by the three of them. Sitting with them was clearly out of the question.

  “Okay,” Tiberius said, whipping out his iPhone and punching up Google. “Lincoln’s elected, we’ve got the Civil War, oh, cool . . . the Battle of Bull Run. I want that.” He pulled out a pad of paper and began making notes.

  “Ooooh, can I do Lincoln’s assassination?” Presley asked. “I love, love, love the theater. There was this musical I tried out for—”

  “He got shot. He died. End of story,” said Kali. Crossing her arms, she rolled her eyes heavenward, then breathed the word pa-THET-ic toward the ceiling. “We need to divvy this up fairly,” she continued. “I’m not getting stuck with doing all the work while you guys pick out one no-brainer event to cover.”

  “Look,” Trace said gruffly. “We’re just discussing what went on in general, okay? We need to get an overview.” Not only was Kali rude, she was what his mom called a prima donna. Now they glared at each other. This was not exactly what he had had in mind at breakfast when he had daydreamed about looking into her eyes. When he had hoped that working together might make her actually see him. She mouthed the word overview and shook her head as though Trace had been trying to impress her.

  Fine. Let them slice up the decade without him. Trace sat back and studied the tree outside as Ty rattled off events, claiming most of the major Civil War battles for himself. Presley called dibs on Lincoln and practically every invention that Ty mentioned: the typewriter, motorcycles, advancements in photographic film. Kali took the Pony Express and Black Friday, a day when the gold market crashed and banks in New York apparently went ballistic.

  “Oh, yeah,” Kali added, leaning over to tap the pad where Tiberius was taking notes, “put me down to report on Jesse James, too.” She smiled sweetly at Ty. “He was such a bushwhacker.”

  That did it. Trace felt his legs twitch. They were itching to get up, walk to the door, and go. They would carry him out of the building, across the Brooklyn Bridge, through the Holland Tunnel, and all the way down I-95 to Baltimore if he just stood up now and let them. Later for this.

  Ty was watching him, a frown creasing his brow. “So, that leaves all the race stuff, Trace. You cool with that?” he asked.

  Trace nodded and said nothing.

  “Okay, man,” Tiberius said. He ticked off topics as he made notes. “That means you’ve got the whole slavery thing, the Black Codes, the draft riots, the KKK . . .” Ty looked up from his list. “Maybe we can split things up after we start researching. This is a lot.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Trace said in a low voice. He glanced at the clock. He could not hear it over the good-natured fussing and haggling rising from the pockets of students around the room. But he could see that he was three clunks away from getting out of there. Ty was saying something to him, but he had stopped listening. Two clunks. “Sure,” he replied. “Whatever.” One clunk.

  “All right, clath,” Mrs. Weaver broke in. The bell rang and the noise level rose instantly. “Thee you next week.” The teacher unrolled a huge wad of tissue, smashed it into her face, and trumpeted a deafening sneeze into it.

  “Good grief,” Presley groaned. “If we have to face germ warfare then I’m wearing a hazmat suit next week.” She gathered up her books. “Thanks for looking all that stuff up and taking all those notes,” she said sweetly, flashing a shy smile at Tiberius. “See you guys tomorrow.” And Presley darted off.

  Tomorrow? Trace had missed something.

  “And be on time, please.” Kali sighed. She did not look at Trace or Ty but slung her book bag over her shoulder, lifting her braids from under its strap before sailing off to join friends who waited for her by the door.

  “Tomorrow, what?” Trace asked.

  “The library?” Tiberius raised his eyebrows. “We’re meeting at one p.m., right?” He paused. “You said it was cool, dude.” Tiberius looked a little annoyed.

  “Yeah, sure,” Trace bluffed, “one o’clock sharp. Over on Clinton Street, right?”

  “No, man. NYPL main,” Tiberius said. “The one with the lions? The big building on Forty-Second and Fifth?” He packed up his book bag, carefully sliding his pad in between his heavily illustrated notebooks. “You okay, Trace?” he asked.

  “Duh-UH,” Trace said. “Just messing with you, man.” He poked Ty in the ribs and they headed for the door. One o’clock would be tricky. Even if the subway ran on time, it ran slowly on weekends. Maybe if he had a legitimate reason, and research for a school assignment was seriously legit, maybe the doctor could finish shrinking his head a little early tomorrow.

  4

  It had been a rough night. There was the dream, of course. There was always the dream. But the strong dark hands that were yanking him from the car had been so insistent this time that Trace awoke rubbing his forearms and, still sleepy, had even checked them for bruises. He was burning up.

  It was five a.m. Too early to get up, but if he went back to sleep he risked going back to the river. Asleep, the waters might overtake him again, choking off his air. Awake, thoughts of why and I shoulda and if only would stoke the hot ache in his chest until that suffocated him.

  Trace kicked off the covers. Stretching his legs to the ceiling, he let it cool the soles of his feet. And he thought about smiles. What was that smile that Presley had given Tiberius? Had that meant something? Girls smiled for too many reasons. Trace followed the thought, putting some distance between his mind and the river. His legs felt cooler now. Maybe she had a crush on Ty?

  Presley Jackson had skipped a grade, which meant she must be smart, but the whole class treated her like a ditzy kid sister. No one teased her or gave her any attitude, they just didn’t take her seriously. She was cute. But cute like lion-cub cute or koala-bear cute. He couldn’t guess what her parents mus
t be: she was caramel colored, green-eyed, and kinda Asian looking . . . but not. Trace laughed softly in the darkness. The girl had no figure yet. What was she? Like twelve? Probably too much woman for Ty. He laughed again.

  He was actually feeling cold now. Dropping back under the covers, he gave himself a few minutes to enjoy the warmth; then, unwilling to risk falling asleep again, he climbed down from the bed to get ready. Carpe the diem, Auntie Lea liked to say. Seize the day.

  Dr. Proctor’s office was on the first floor of a tidy brownstone on a leafy street in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn. It was only blocks from his aunt’s apartment, but a world apart all the same. Here, gracious town houses were not necessarily broken up into tiny apartments. Most had only one doorbell and shaded driveways and nannies to help the toddlers who lived in them navigate around the stone planters decorating their front steps.

  After his parents’ funeral, when Trace had come to live with her, Auntie Lea had first suggested, then insisted, that he talk to a therapist. Trace had not wanted to talk to anybody. But seeing a stranger once a week had seemed a lot easier than explaining to his aunt why he did not want to talk to her about his “feelings.” So Auntie Lea paid for one hour of Dr. Proctor’s time every Saturday.

  It was on his third visit that he had run into Yolanda Stringer in the narrow hallway of the building. She was slouching down the stairs, rolling her eyes as her mother, standing on the landing above, called out a list of groceries for her to remember. Yolanda had looked over his head at the sign on the doctor’s door, then leveled her gaze on him almost triumphantly and snorted. She had something on him. And Trace never had to wonder how it was that everyone at school seemed to know his business.

  “Come on in, Theo,” Dr. Dorothea Proctor said now, stepping into her small waiting room just as he arrived. On his first visit, the doctor’s name had seemed ridiculous. He had spent the whole hour pretending to think about her questions, but really, he had been cataloging words besides doctor that rhymed with Proctor: Rock more. Lock door.