by Sara Beitia
“Um …” Albert said. “We’re in the same chemistry class?”
“I miss a lot of class during basketball season. And baseball. And football.”
“Oh,” said Albert. He looked over at his parents, waiting for them to either excuse themselves or tell MacLennan to leave because Widdle Albert was grounded. But they just smiled stiffly, kind of confused, and stood there, the both of them. “Isn’t there anyone else you can ask? I’ve seen you with your friends in the lunchroom. Don’t any of them go to chem class, either?”
MacLennan looked down at his scuffed sneakers. “Dude, some of my friends are jerks. They don’t mean anything by it.”
“Whatever,” Albert said abruptly. It didn’t make sense that this guy would have the stones to look up Albert’s address, come over, and actually ask for help with his homework. They were never going to be friends. Albert couldn’t believe he was the only guy MacLennan could think of to ask, and he’d better not have come here to talk about Lily. He didn’t say any of this, though—not in front of his parents.
“So, do you have the assignment?” MacLennan asked. “Can I look at your notes?”
The guy was definitely sweating. Albert didn’t know what to say. He looked at his parents to see what they would say. One look and he could see that they were torn between the fact that they were still pretty pissed at Albert, and the fact that when there was a stranger in their living room they had to be civil. One of the core tenets of the Morales life strategy was that you never aired dirty laundry in front of company.
Albert’s father, clearly not understanding what was happening between this kid and his son, said, “Well, go on, Albert. Take the boy to your room and give him the reading assignment.”
“Come on,” Albert said, gesturing for MacLennan to follow him to his room. Since getting rid of him would be difficult without embarrassing explanations, he decided to just give him what he wanted so he would leave. Time was passing quickly, and he still needed to figure out how he and Olivia were going to sneak out.
He left MacLennan standing in the middle of his room while he searched his desk for his stupid chemistry notebook, wondering if that was even the real reason the guy was here. When he found it, he flipped to Friday’s notes and the reading assignment he hadn’t even thought of doing, and handed the notebook to MacLennan. “That’s it,” he said. “Knock yourself out.”
MacLennan grabbed a pen off Albert’s desk and sat on the edge of his bed with the notebook in his lap. After a moment, and without even looking down at the notes, he said to Albert, “Hey, do you think you could get me a glass of water? My mouth is really dry.” MacLennan cleared his throat as if to demonstrate how dry it was in there. He did look a little sick.
Albert didn’t care. “Are you kidding? It will take you ten seconds to jot down the assignment. I’ll even do it for you. And then you can get the hell out of here.” The half-buried phone on his bed gave a ring and they both jumped. Someone picked up another extension after two rings.
MacLennan continued as if they hadn’t been interrupted. “What’s the big deal, dude? I told you before that I was sorry about … the thing in the lunchroom. We were messing around, that’s all. It wasn’t even my idea.”
Even if he’d wanted to bother explaining, Albert didn’t know how to tell the guy it wasn’t the lunchroom thing. He just couldn’t get past the fact that MacLennan, who had supposedly been Lily’s friend, abandoned her the night of the accident. And then tried to act all tough-guy-protector about her in the lunchroom. As if MacLennan thought he was Lily’s worried boyfriend, not Albert. As if MacLennan was actually doing anything to help her.
MacLennan smiled, and Albert guessed it was the same supposedly charming grin he flashed at teachers when his homework was late. “It’s just water.”
“Is there something else you want to say to me?” Albert said. It seemed like MacLennan was angling at something and Albert thought maybe just asking him point-blank would surprise him into spitting out whatever it was. “I don’t want to talk about her with you any more now than I did before.”
But MacLennan just shook his head. They stared at each other, the energy in the room crackling.
“Albert.” They both glanced at the door where Albert’s mother was standing, her lips pursed. “There’s a girl on the phone, says it’s about an English assignment.” Her tone was doubtful.
Not wanting to admit he had the portable phone in his room, Albert thought for a second. It had to be Olivia calling, in what was about the world’s worst timing. “Um …” he said again. He looked at MacLennan. “Are you done yet?”
“No.”
Now there were two people looking expectantly at him. Albert didn’t know what else to do, so he reached into the pile and retrieved the portable phone. He figured he had no choice, even if it meant he’d be getting another lecture later.
His mother’s eyes flashed. “Damn it, Albert.” She jerked the receiver from his hand with catlike speed. “You know damn well ‘grounded’ means ‘grounded from the phone,’ too. You can take the call in the kitchen, and make it fast.” She turned her glance to MacLennan, for a moment seeming to want to say more.
“It’ll only take a second,” Albert said, reaching to get the phone back.
“It will only take a second in the kitchen, then,” his mother said, turning abruptly and taking the portable with her.
Albert knew there was no point arguing over which phone he could use. It would be faster just to get rid of Olivia. He didn’t like to leave this jerk MacLennan alone in his bedroom—it creeped him out, actually—even if it was only for a minute.
“Be right back,” he said finally, and MacLennan nodded without looking up from the chemistry notebook.
“This had better actually be about school,” his mother said as he busted into the kitchen. “All of this had better be about school.”
Albert ignored her and picked the phone up from where it rested on the counter, its cord hanging down like coiled rope. His mother made a big show of ignoring him and fussing with the dishwasher, but he knew better—she was eavesdropping, enforcing the whole grounded-from-the-phone policy.
“Hello?” he said, his voice coming out kind of breathless. He cleared his throat into the receiver.
“Gross,” came Olivia’s irritated voice on the other end. “Hey—I thought you were going to pick up the phone when I called? I had to make up some lie about homework.”
“Yeah,” Albert said. “I think I have my notes from The Canterbury Tales. If I can find them, I’d be happy to lend them to you.”
“Can’t talk right now, huh?”
“Totally. Listen, can I just call you back after I find them?”
“Sure,” Olivia said, “but don’t call before nine, okay? Perry and my mom are watching TV in bed by then. Usually. Perry’s acting weird tonight, really restless, and when he thinks I’m not looking he’s been staring at me. He knows something. Or suspects something, anyway.”
“He definitely does,” Albert said, hoping she understood his meaning. “But there’s nothing he can do about it right now? I think I brought my notes from class home—I’ll call you back after I check.” Without waiting for her reply, he disconnected and hurried back toward his bedroom. He was still expecting MacLennan to threaten him again about Lily.
Before he got there, he met MacLennan coming down the hall.
“Thanks, Allen,” MacLennan said, holding up a piece of notebook paper with a few lines written on it. “You saved my ass.”
“It’s Albert.”
“Right.” MacLennan went straight to the door and paused for just a second before leaving the house. “Thanks again.” Now that he had what he wanted, he seemed in a hurry to leave. That was fine with Albert.
Then it was just Albert and his parents alone again in the living room, and Albert’s parents were back to their active and hostile ignoring. They stared at the television and made no comment as he went back to his room. Also fine by Albert.
&nb
sp; The door to his room was wide open, and his chemistry notebook lay open in the middle of the bed. A heavy musky scent, probably MacLennan’s aftershave, crawled up Albert’s nose. He wasn’t pleased to have the guy’s smell lingering in his personal space. It was revolting. Waving the door a couple of times to drive away the odor, Albert gave up and shut his door instead. He sat down heavily, brushing the notebook to the floor and wondering how much time he would have to give his parents before trying to call Olivia back.
He reached under the pillow for Lily’s journal. As his fingers searched but didn’t find it, all the blood drained from Albert’s face. He pushed the pillow away. The thick yellow phone directory was there, but the thing he cared about was gone.
He tore the bed apart, peeling away the cover and the sheets and reaching down to feel between the headboard and the wall, in case it had somehow fallen. Panicked now, he checked under the bed and under the mattress and pulled the bed a few inches away from the wall. Nothing.
It dawned on him what had to have happened, if not yet why.
Son of a bitch.
MacLennan had gone, and with him, Lily’s notebook.
The first time Lily asked Albert to sneak over to her house at night, he agreed without thinking about it first for even a moment.
After she’d asked and he’d said yes, she added, “Unless you’d rather I came to you?”
“No,” he said quickly, picturing his family’s small house and the extreme likelihood that his parents would bust them if she did. “I mean, how could I let you go sneaking around at night alone?”
“Then I’ll see you tonight at my house, around twelve,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Come to the window and I’ll let you in.” Then they separated to go to their afternoon classes.
Albert had the rest of the long afternoon to daydream about Lily, and after school and during the even-longer evening he suffered through dinner, then prime-time TV, then waiting for his parents to finally go to bed. He also had time to think about the hundred things that could go wrong with the plan—that he might get caught by his parents sneaking out, or even worse, caught by Lily’s parents in her room.
Then he thought about Lily again, and tried to imagine what it would be like to be alone with her in the dark of her bedroom, and the thought made him stop worrying about the rest.
As it turned out, sneaking out of his house was easy. His parents went to bed around ten-thirty, after the local news was over. After that, he gave them an hour—a tedious, watchful hour—to get to sleep before he slid open his window and slipped out of the house. No sirens or dogs or cries of alarm stopped him. There was just a sliver of moon and the shadows to watch him hurry out across the yard to the street.
Little Solace was a quiet town even during the day, something Albert had figured out about the place quickly. When he found he had the streets to himself, Albert relaxed a little. He still had a tight ball of nerves lodged somewhere between his heart and his lungs, pushing, and he had to force himself not to run all the way to Lily.
He was relieved to see that the windows of Lily’s house were all dark. All of them except hers, he discovered when he cut around the dark yard to the back of the house. The shade was up and as he got closer, he could see the glow coming from the bedside and desk lamps. Lily was lying on her stomach, propped up on her elbows and facing the end of the bed, a book in front of her. Her bare feet kicked absently at the pillows as she read. Albert stood in the dark yard, leaning against the tall tree that shaded her room and watching her for a moment through the glass.
He was nervous as hell, standing out there all sweaty-palmed and cold, with an optimistic condom in his wallet. Lily, on the other hand, was calm and looked like a princess in a tower to Albert. He felt like he didn’t belong in the scene. But for some reason she actually wanted him here, so here he was. After a moment, he left the cover of the tree and went to the window. He raised his hand to knock but before he could touch his knuckles to the glass, Lily looked up. Getting to her feet in one fluid motion, she put a finger to her lips as she came to the window. She lifted the sash and motioned him inside.
“It’ll be fine as long as we keep our voices low,” she said.
Albert climbed through the window and pulled it down softly behind himself. When he turned around, Lily put her arms around him and pulled him farther into the room.
“Brrr,” she said, trying to peel his sweatshirt from his body. “The cold came in on your clothes.” He helped her with the sweatshirt and her hands were pleasantly warm on his bare arms.
“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he said. “I wanted to bring you something nice, like flowers, but I didn’t know where to get them this late and I was afraid they’d die before I got here, anyway.”
“Who cares about flowers,” she said. “I’m glad you came.” She pulled the shade over the window, blocking out the night, and switched off the desk lamp. “What do you want to do?”
He sat on the edge of her bed but she stayed where she was, standing by her desk. “I want to kiss you.”
“One track mind,” she said. “How long can you stay?”
“As long as it’s dark, my parents won’t even know I left. Come here.” He leaned forward and caught her wrists, pulling her closer.
She fell forward willingly, knocking them both back onto the bed in a pile. While she had him pinned, she took the first kiss. Then she reached over him toward the lamp.
“Don’t,” he said. “I want to look at you for a while.”
She rolled away from him and sat up. “I don’t want anyone to get up and see the light under the door.” She reached up again to turn out the light.
Then Albert noticed a huge bruise on her wrist, one he hadn’t noticed earlier that day. He put a hand on her shoulder to stop her for a moment. “How’d you get that?” he asked.
She looked down where he was looking and gave an embarrassed-sounding low laugh. “That’s what happens when you take out your frustrations on a chair,” she said.
Turning her arm over gently, Albert looked more closely at her wrist. The spot was a couple of inches wide and an ugly reddish-purple color, with a dark bluish knot at its center.
“Are you going to say anything more than that?” he asked.
“Can’t we just talk about something more interesting? I thought we were going to make out,” she said.
“I won’t be able to think of anything else until you tell me how you got that thing.”
“I told you; I punched a chair.” She looked at the expression on his face and sighed. “It’s just my stupid mother and her stupid husband. They piss me off sometimes, and since I can’t punch them … well, you know. It’s nothing.”
“Why were you pissed at them?” He kicked off his shoes and leaned back against the mound of pillows at the headboard.
She curled up under his arm and rested her head on his chest. “They found out about a couple of classes I blew off, and the D I got on my last English paper—which, by the way, I totally could have done better on if I’d read the book. And so they were lecturing me, you know, teaming up in the kitchen, trading off lectures or whatever, and of course my sister was probably lurking in the hall enjoying the whole thing. So it was bad enough, but not more than I was expecting, you know? But then Perry starts yelling at me about my attitude. And he grabs my chin in his hand and his nose is this far”—she held up her thumb and forefinger with an inch of space between them—”from mine. And he says, ‘You must like high school a lot, since you’re going for a third try at your senior year.’ And he laughed.”
Picturing her parents, Albert felt a hot tingling in his face and neck.
Lily rubbed absently at her wrist, eyes alert and on Albert. “Your face is all red. Please don’t get mad. I just want to forget about it.” Now she did switch out the light, and this time Albert didn’t object. The room went black.
Ignoring her, he said, “I can’t believe he would say that, an
d that your mom would let him.” He was trying to keep his voice down. “I’d like to squeeze his face, see how he likes it. Maybe I could make his jawbone crack.”
Arms snaked around him and when he heard her voice again, it came from where her face was now cradled in the crook of his neck. Her breath was feathers against his skin. “She probably thinks they’re helping me. And maybe she’s right, at least a little.”
Albert said nothing. Part of him knew there was some truth to what she said, but he didn’t want to admit it. His anger at her parents was pure and he didn’t want it complicated. Picturing her stepfather grabbing her face did the trick to keep it going. His arm tightened around her.
“I think I’m going to try harder,” she said after a moment. “If only because I can’t wait to get out of here.”
He said, “I don’t like anyone hurting you.”
“But I’m the one that did it,” she said.
“You know what I mean.”
“I could take off now,” she said. “I’m eighteen. Sometimes I think I should just clear out.”
“Great idea. You can be a dropout. Or you can finish school, and then get as far away as you need to from these—”
“—assholes. Whatever.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid that you’ll regret later.” He knew how he sounded, but he didn’t know what else to say. Of course he didn’t want her to leave.
She sighed. “I didn’t ask you to come over to talk about my stupid problems.”
“Then why did you ask me to come over?” he asked.
“I’ll show you.”
And she did, and Albert forgot about his anger and his worry as little starbursts of pleasure went off in his head.
By the time Albert realized, sickly, what had happened, MacLennan was long gone in his truck and Albert was stuck pursuing him on foot. As he hurried frantically down the dark pavement toward MacLennan’s house, he realized two things.
First, that ever since this mess with Lily started—about the time the police started to pretty much accuse him of doing something to her—he’d wanted to punch someone. After he’d found Lily’s journal and had a run-in first with Kogen and then with his mother, that desire had only gotten stronger.
