League of Strays

by Schulman, L. B.

  I checked out a mystery from the library, but the first paragraph read like a continual loop, fading into the background of my fear. I heard the crunch of a postage meter against glass. I smelled the acrid plastic of a burning grade book. I saw myself in the parking lot, taking the punches and kicks for Dave Harper.

  It had been two weeks since our revenge against the school quarterback. Kade thought we should lie low for a while before starting our next plan. He didn’t want Reid connecting the dots, he said. That sounded great to me, but for a different reason. I needed a little time to settle down myself.

  Images from the League’s plans were flipping through my mind like a slide show. I wished I could talk to someone who might understand. But Kade had made it clear that we weren’t to discuss the League with anyone.

  Cleaning my room was my mother’s prescription for boredom. So on Sunday afternoon, I divided my clothes into two piles—Dorky and Passable. As I threw away socks that hadn’t seen their mates in years, I got lost in my favorite daydream.

  I’m in Kade’s apartment, but I can’t find him.

  “Here, Charlie!” he calls from the bathroom.

  I open the door. He’s standing under a surge of steaming spray. Skin, glistening with soapsuds. I move closer, one step, then another …

  “Hello?” I picked up my ringing cell phone.

  “Hi, Charlotte, it’s Nora.”

  “Oh, hi.” I fell back onto the bed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Organizing my black hole of a bedroom.”

  “Wow, that sounds like fun. Listen, you want to come over? I was thinking of having a barbecue. My parents are at a wedding in Colorado. They told me no big parties, then they had the nerve to laugh at the idea. It’s embarrassing how little they think of me.”

  I looked outside. “A winter barbecue?”

  “No prob. We have a fire pit.”

  “Oh, OK. So, uh, who’s coming?” I took a swig of Diet Coke, swishing it around like mouthwash.

  Like, will Kade be there?

  “Just you, me, and Richie. Zoe had an emergency. Her mom’s boss called to say she puked all over the tomato display, and Zoe needs to pick her up.”

  I felt sorry for Zoe. She was always on call.

  “What about Kade?” I asked.

  “He has to check in with his probation officer, I think.”

  The carbonated soda, halfway down my throat, reversed direction. “Probation officer?”

  “Something to do with an old shoplifting charge.”

  I pictured Kade stealing candy from a drugstore. Or maybe he’d robbed a warehouse in the middle of the night. It could go either way. Then I began to wonder why he’d share something so private with Nora, or more to the point, not with me? The serrated side of jealousy cut into me.

  “He didn’t tell me,” I said.

  She paused. “Why would he?”

  I couldn’t think of a response.

  “So are you coming or not?” she asked.

  I glanced at the hill of clothes in the Dorky pile. “I’ll be right over.”

  With sky-blue siding and gingerbread trim, 23 Meadow Court looked more like a birthday cake than a residence. A flagstone path, embedded in an expanse of synthetic grass, parted the massive yard. It took almost a minute to walk to the door.

  Richie invited me in with a bow and a flourish of the hand.

  “Thanks, Jeeves.” I laughed, following him up a winding stairwell.

  Nora’s bedroom was like a five-year-old’s fantasy. The walls were cotton-candy pink, and an enormous canopy bed, complete with lavender bedding that matched the lace curtains, sat in the middle of the room like a centerpiece. An overweight teddy bear with a missing arm perched on a pillow.

  I looked around. Nora wasn’t there. “Who kidnapped the princess?”

  “She’s retrieving iced tea and crystal goblets for her royal guests,” Richie said.

  Honor Roll certificates, from the sixth grade up, wallpapered Nora’s closet. Most were printed on pale-blue card stock, her name a shimmering swirl of calligraphy. Principal’s Honor Roll.

  “Maybe she can still be valedictorian,” I said. “It was her dream.”

  “It wasn’t a dream. It was a goal.”

  “What’s the difference?” I traced my finger along the gold border of a certificate. It was as close to straight A’s as I would get.

  “A dream is a wish. A fantasy. It’s based on luck more than skill,” he said. “A goal’s a measurable vision to achieve your dream. Believe me, I’ve spent way too long thinking about this.”

  Maybe my view of Richie as a parrot, echoing other people’s words, wasn’t exactly accurate. He probably had a lot of interesting thoughts that he silenced for whatever reason.

  Nora swept into the room, balancing a pitcher of iced tea and three wineglasses on a shiny silver tray. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “It’s my mother’s fault. I asked her if I could paint the walls a different color. She practically hyperventilated.”

  She sat down at the window seat and poured the tea. When she caught my eye, I realized that my finger was still on the certificate. I dropped my hand to my side.

  “I was a real Goody Two-shoes until I met you guys,” she said.

  “Now you’re rotten like us,” Richie responded.

  “All the books, the studying …” She added a soapbox-preacher drawl. “Then along comes the League of Strays, and I’m reborn!”

  “Hallelujah!” Richie cried.

  We clinked our glasses together.

  “Maybe we can lose the name now,” I said. “We’re just friends, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Richie said. “About the name, I mean. Not the friends part.”

  “I’m not perfect, you know,” Nora said, lost in her own tangential conversation. “But I’m perfect at pretending to be perfect.”

  Richie and I made a show of rolling our eyes.

  “Open my closet if you don’t believe me.”

  I slid the pocket door open, expecting to find her clothes arranged by type, season, and color. An avalanche of junk tumbled out.

  “The true me is in that closet,” Nora said.

  “Don’t worry,” Richie told her, a solemn expression on his face. “I’m in the closet, too.”

  I did my best to cram all the stuff back inside. It didn’t matter to me whether Nora was perfect or not, but I was curious why she invested so much time trying to appear that way.

  “Thank God Kade set me straight,” she said.

  Richie looked away, pensive. “He’s pretty amazing.”

  Nora jumped to her feet. “Hey, you guys want to see my sister’s room?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Richie and I trailed behind her to the end of the hallway. Running a finger over the ledge of the door frame, she brought down a straightened paper clip and jabbed it into a hole in the doorknob.

  The bedroom was a monument to a dead teenager. Pictures of Nora’s sister smothered the wall. I moved in, studying a close-up of Kelly’s leg in the air, soccer ball angling toward a goal post. In the photograph below it, she wore a strapless yellow cocktail dress. She barely reached the chest of the cute boy beside her. I didn’t get it. What would possess someone like her to commit suicide?

  From behind me, Nora said, “According to the autopsy report, she was ten weeks pregnant. My sister would rather OD on migraine medicine than tell my mother and father she was knocked up.”

  I wondered what it would feel like to tell my parents something like that. They’d freak out for a day or two, I was sure, and my mother would probably shed a few pounds in tears, but eventually we’d discuss what to do next. I knew they’d be there for me, no matter what.

  “They could’ve helped her,” I said.

  “You don’t know my parents.” She removed a brass frame from the wall, polished it with the cuff of her shirt, then hung it back up. “When my sister died, they anointed her Saint Kelly. I’ve wasted to
o much time competing with an almighty ghost.” Her eyes went glassy, threatening tears.

  Richie handed her a faded box of tissues. They’d probably sat in that room, untouched, for the past five years. Nora waved it away. “Enough of my blabbering. So are we going to barbecue or what?”

  Out in the yard, the sun wove in and out of pillowy clouds. The chilly breeze rocked the chimes dangling from the trellis. I set the table with a matching set of floral outdoor plates, napkins, and cups while Nora struggled to light the fire pit. Richie was in charge of the food, which was fine with me since scrambled eggs were the extent of my culinary repertoire.

  “I think I’ll stuff the hamburgers with feta cheese. Or maybe marinate them in a teriyaki sauce,” he said, rinsing his hands in the built-in sink beside the grill.

  I was impressed. “Where’d you learn to cook?”

  “After my mom died, it was either that or eat at McDonald’s every night.”

  He rattled off a list of his favorites. My mouth watered. Black bean lasagna, butternut squash casserole, and something called caramelized onion and goat cheese gratin. At chez Brody, my version of a gourmet meal consisted of a can of cream of chicken soup and a bag of frozen vegetables mixed with macaroni.

  The grill sizzled, juices from the meat dripping onto the hot coals. Richie had never looked so relaxed, surrounded by ingredients and barbecue tools.

  “I want to open a restaurant one day,” he said so quietly I almost didn’t hear him. “If I can convince people that it’s not a dumb idea.”

  “It doesn’t sound dumb,” I said. “Where will it be?”

  “On a cliff, overlooking the Caribbean Sea. Whenever the hungry locals knock on my door, I’ll open for business.”

  “Maybe you can be his bartender,” Nora said to me, moving to the lawn chair. She lifted her shirt to her bra line in a futile attempt to tan her stomach. “Can you believe we’re almost done with high school?”

  “I hope college is an improvement,” Richie mumbled.

  High school hadn’t been a joy ride for me, either, but I knew it didn’t compare to Richie’s experience. I thought about Sam Burgess, my ninth-grade crush, and how I’d “coincidentally” run into him in front of his classroom every day. If Richie liked a guy and anyone found out, he’d get pummeled. My eyes skirted the bruise on his left arm. He already had.

  “Should I text Zoe?” Nora asked, her eyes closed to the sun.

  “She’ll call if she wants to come over,” I said. I didn’t want to remind Zoe of what she was missing. It seemed her mom demanded a lot of attention these days.

  Richie flipped the burgers. A puff of smoke spiraled into the air. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually wish Zoe was here. I kind of like her blunt honesty. Crazy, huh?”

  I knew what he meant. With Zoe, you didn’t have to read between the lines.

  “I don’t get why she hangs out with us, frankly,” Nora said. “She’s done everything in her power to scare away friends.”

  I remembered the bear hug Zoe gave me when I was at her house that first time. “That’s just a defense. She pushes people away so they won’t get too close.”

  “It’s not like she gets the opportunity to bring home playdates,” Richie said.

  “She needs us,” I told Nora. “And she definitely needs the escape.”

  “Whoa, we have a resident psychologist in our midst.” Sarcasm bled through Nora’s words. “Maybe Charlotte wants to give Kade a run for his money.”

  “I’m not Kade,” I blurted out.

  Nora shielded the sun with her hand, tilting her head back to look at me. “That was a compliment, Charlie.”

  I blushed. It was time to change the subject. “Have you told your dad that you’re—”

  “A fag?” Richie interrupted.

  I tensed. “No, Richie. Gay. Don’t use that other word.”

  “Everyone else says it.”

  “Well, you’re not everyone.”

  He took in my humorless expression. “Yeah, my dad knows. I told him over the summer. He said he always knew. But my brother? Well, Tony’s a different story.”

  Richie looked at the last corncob, over-roasted and rusty-orange. He rolled it onto his plate.

  I poured some iced tea into his empty glass. “I’m sure he’ll come around.”

  “Kade said it was too soon to tell him. I should’ve listened. Kade understands people.”

  “Too well,” I said without thinking. I fixed a smile on my face to lighten the words.

  “He’s been my only friend since middle school.”

  “But now you’ve got us, too,” I said.

  “So what’s it like being gay?” Nora leaned forward like a talkshow host trying to get the scoop.

  “Um, well, for starters, I keep it to myself.”

  “How do you know you’re gay? I mean, if you haven’t actually … ?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “What Charlotte means is, how do you know you’re a homosexual if you haven’t actually had sex with a guy?”

  Richie’s face turned the color of a fuchsia sweater hanging over the handle of my closet at home. “Um, that’s not exactly true. It was at camp, last summer, in Yosemite. His name was Ray.”

  “Oh my God,” Nora squealed. “How was it?”

  Richie looked away, blushing. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  Nora traded questions like a seasoned reporter. “So what happened when camp was over? Did you see him again?”

  Richie looked uncomfortable, the way I’d felt when Kade had made us share stories of our past humiliations. Like the one that never happened, said a voice in my head.

  “I bet you’re having a secret long-distance affair,” she continued.

  Richie poked at the dwindling stack of burgers. “I wrote him a letter when I got home. It took him a month to write back. A newsy letter, the kind you get from your grandma. He told me about this girl he’d met at his homecoming dance, thanked me for a fun time at summer camp, and that was that.”

  “Well, college is a whole different enchilada,” Nora said.

  Richie looked like he wanted to climb into the firepit. “Yeah, maybe.” He sunk his teeth into the overdone corncob.

  “This marinade’s great, Richie,” I said. “Soy sauce and mustard? I bet we’ll have a lot of repeat customers at the Brody and Morris Cliffside Restaurant.”

  He pretended to be offended. “Oh, so now you’re a partner, huh?” He sent me a lopsided smile of gratitude. Even so, I knew my help was about as effective as a Band-Aid on a broken leg.

  MONDAY MORNING, MOM DECIDED TO STRENGTHEN OUR mother-daughter bond over a bowl of Cheerios.

  “I know this was a rough move for you, Charlotte. I’m so happy you’ve adjusted to school.” The smile didn’t mask the concern in her eyes.

  I looked down at the cut-up chunks of banana floating on top of my cereal. I hated bananas in Cheerios. Always had. Why didn’t she know this?

  “You can talk to me about anything,” she said.

  My mother was like the dishtowel in her hand, ready to soak up the details of my life. I wanted to talk to someone who would listen, but I wasn’t that desperate.

  “Mom, you need to get a life,” I snapped.

  Pure meanness didn’t make me feel better. I wished I could take the words back. She swooped down on my half-eaten bowl of cereal and headed for the kitchen before I could apologize.

  I picked up my instrument. “Everything’s great, Mom. You don’t have to worry.”

  I waited for her usual good-bye, with a perky “Have a nice day!” at the end, but all I heard was the rumble of the dishwasher.

  My mother seemed to annoy me more every day, but it wasn’t fair to react the way I had. Kade was right about my parents; they were too involved in my life. I hoped Mom would loosen her grip on me so I wouldn’t have to shake her off.

  In English, Mr. Holmquist pounced on me the nanosecond my eyes glazed over. I’m a senior, I wanted to say. Go
pick on a freshman for chrissakes. Instead, I asked, “Um, what was the question again?”

  “Would you please explain what the broken rose in chapter seven means?” he asked, tacking on a tired sigh.

  Nothing, I thought. The author was describing her favorite flower as a kid, but meanwhile, in schools across America, people were finding the demise of communism in a bent stem.

  I didn’t think the answer would suffice, so I just blinked.

  Mr. Holmquist turned his back to the class and scrawled the next day’s homework on the whiteboard. I laid my head on my arms and watched the clock, desperate for the ten-minute break between classes when I’d see my friends. We’d devised a secret language that worked almost as well as talking.

  A head scratch meant “What’s up?”

  A touch to the neck: “All’s cool.”

  A hand on the hip: “Something or someone sucks.”

  When I saw Kade before last period, he’d added a new one: Two fingers to the lips with a wink. My heart banged against my chest like a caged gorilla.

  I watched as he walked away, his back straight, stride determined. Richie came out of a classroom and joined up with him. They walked side by side, arms brushing together, hips bumping as they jostled through the crowd. I wanted to be Richie just then, walking casually with Kade through the hallways of Kennedy.

  One of Lawrence’s friends, who I recognized from the post office parking lot, strode in their direction, eyeing Richie coldly. Richie swerved at the last minute to avoid a collision, but the guy also swerved—driving Richie into the chairs outside the counseling office.

  Heads twisted around at the noise. I looked at Kade, who stood placidly beside the behemoth football player. Slowly, he drew his hand out of his pocket. His fist popped out, hitting the guy in the thigh. The football player yelped like a dog who’d had his paw stepped on. Kade retracted his hand, and I spotted the tiny stub of a pencil. He covered the tip with his thumb and kept on walking. The guy pirouetted on the ball of his foot to see who’d stabbed him, but Kade was already gone. And so was Richie.