A scream escapes me as I jump back. My shaking hand flies to the light switch on the wall. A flash of light followed by a loud pop and a return to total darkness makes me scream and flinch again. I grab the towel around me before I lose it. Great, now the lightbulb is out and we probably don’t have a replacement.
“Vic,” I say, the quiver in my voice giving my apprehension away, “what’s wrong? Where have you been?”
“Where have you been?” he shoots back.
I’m at a complete loss, wondering what he’s getting at. When has he ever cared about where I go? He has no right to treat me like this.
“Since when is it your business?” I ask, my big mouth getting away from me. Bring it on.
He pulls something from his pocket and holds it up. The shiny paper in his hand catches a trace of light from the bathroom behind me, and I recognize it at once.
The photo-booth pictures.
“You thief.”
One hand flies out on instinct—my other still clutching my towel in place—and shoves him hard in the chest. He barely budges.
“You stole that money months ago and now you went back for more.”
“No,” he says. “You told me where to go looking for money months ago when you accused me of stealing from you.”
“Liar!” I shout and shove him again. “You’re nothing but lies, Vic. And your lies put Mama in prison!”
His hand captures my wrist before I can push him again. “Shut up!” he roars, the force of his voice driving me back. He pins me against the wall and thrusts the picture in my face again. “When did you take these pictures? How do you know him?”
“Cody?”
“Yes, Cody.”
“He goes to our school, Vic. And he told me you guys are friends.”
“Not anymore,” Vic says, the faint bathroom light highlighting the stern set of his jaw. “Stay away from him, Jewel.”
I snag the picture from him with my free hand. “Why?”
“His dad,” Vic starts, “is the FBI agent who put Mom behind bars. I met him.”
I say nothing. When Vic’s eyebrows drop down to accent the rage in his eyes, I realize he was expecting a bigger reaction from me. “You knew?” he roars.
“Not at first.”
“Jewel,” he yells, “his dad put our mom in prison.”
“No, Vic, you did that, and everything has been falling apart since.”
“And I’m trying to fix it!”
“What?” I shriek. Confused. Doubtful.
“What’s going on between you and Cody?”
“Nothing,” I say, knowing it’s a lie. I slept in his bed and I spent the past half hour reading a romance novel in the bathtub replaying every detail of the evening, from his thumb brushing my cheek to him taking off his shirt.
“Good,” Vic says and backs off at last. “Keep it that way.”
“Just because his dad is an FBI agent—”
“Stay away from him!” Vic lashes back. “I have a plan, Jewel. I can fix this. I can get us money, but you have to stay away from Cody Rush.”
This above all strikes fear into me. “What are you talking about, Vic? What are you up to?”
He brushes me off, like he’s already said too much. “Just go to bed.”
He slams his bedroom door. I dash to my room and do the same. I throw on pajamas and climb into bed. I check my phone and find four new text messages.
MISSED YOUR CALL, Dad wrote at 4:45. WILL HAVE TO TALK LATER.
And then three messages from Lucas, the first one received at 6:23 p.m.
WHERE ARE YOU? I’M ON YOUR DOORSTEP. ASLEEP ALREADY?
Eight minutes later: CALLED VIC. SAID HE JUST LEFT THE HOUSE AND DIDN’T SEE YOU COME HOME AFTER SCHOOL.
Forty minutes later: CALL ME.
I toss my phone aside and force myself to sleep, trying to ignore my heart and its tangled mess of emotions.
CHAPTER 24
Julianna
I hide in my room most of the day Saturday. Like, all day with my nose in the book I started last night, one of Mama’s romances I thought I’d never read. Vic comes and goes without a word, thankfully. I reply to Lucas’s texts, telling him I’m still under the weather.
When I can tell Vic is gone for the evening, I sneak downstairs to raid the pantry. I find some crackers wedged behind a stack of board games and head back upstairs to finish my book. I can’t lie; my little escape from reality yesterday with Cody was refreshing and I don’t want it to end.
As the sun goes down, I check my phone yet again, denying my disappointment when I find no new texts. Not like Cody would have any reason to text. I’m hooked on the romance until the last page, finishing the final line before a soft tap on my door drags me back to the present.
I sit up. It’s eleven o’clock. “Yeah?”
The door opens and Dad’s head of graying hair peeks in.
“Dad,” I say, relieved to see him home.
“Ready for bed already?” he asks and steps in.
I look down at my pajamas, the same ones I put on last night and haven’t changed out of. “Yep. You made it home fast.”
“I left as soon as I could,” he says. “I’ve got good news.”
“What?” I say, doubtful.
“Some repair guys are coming Monday morning to fix the AC.”
I’m speechless. Actual good news was the last thing I expected. “How?”
“I made some calls to clients who still owe me. It was a really productive weekend.”
Dad seems different today.
“That’s awesome, Dad. I tried to call you yesterday. It’s about Vic. He punched a hole in the wall.”
“I saw it,” he says. Not quite the reaction I was expecting.
“And?”
“Vic apologized. I can understand. I was upset about the Yaris being taken, too.”
“But Dad, it’s not just that . . .” I pause, not ready to admit the possibility of Vic being involved with drugs again.
“Right now,” Dad says before I can finish, “I’m concerned about you.”
To say that I’m confused doesn’t begin to describe this moment.
“Me? Why?”
“Is it true?” he asks. “What Vic tells me—is it true?”
I fail to temper the sudden jumpy rhythm of my heart. Vic, that tattletale. It’s like they’re all ganging up on me. Now I realize, however, this was inevitable. How did I ever think tutoring Cody was going to work? This is Mama we’re talking about, the person whose absence has left a huge void in our home. We all miss her, Dad perhaps the most.
“That was him, wasn’t it?” he asks. “The other day in that sports car.”
I close my eyes and nod. “Dad, we hardly know each other. He just needed my help with art and we barely started—”
“Good,” he cuts me off with a commanding finality in his tone I’ve never heard from him before. “Then make sure it ends now.”
I head toward math Monday morning, remembering well the warnings Vic and Dad issued. Cody didn’t call or text. Checking my phone every half hour did nothing to lessen the letdown. I couldn’t help it. Spending so much time with him, listening to him talk about Jimmy and the accident, waking up on his soft bed with medicine neatly laid out and feeling his thumb gently brush my cheek—no wonder I was confused about what was going on.
Now I know. Nothing is going on. It’s for the best. Cody is just a good guy, and I happened to be the recipient of his kindness.
Only a few people are sitting in Mortimer’s room when I arrive. I start toward my seat, my gaze instantly drawn to the huge pile of school supplies on my desk. I count the desks, making sure I’m at the right one before poking through the mysterious heap.
Colored pencils, colored pencils, colored pencils. Box after box of brand-new colored pencils. And five rolls of quarters.
“Good morning.”
I whirl around toward the voice, a smile breaking loose when I find Cody standing over my shoulder
. He smiles, the thick stubble covering his face unable to hide his deep dimple.
“Feeling better?”
“Yes,” I say. “Tons.”
He starts toward his desk with a smile, walking backward with his thumbs tucked under the straps of his backpack. “Didn’t happen to have anything to do with the sleeping arrangements, did it?”
I laugh. “It might have.”
With less than two minutes until class starts, people start flooding in.
“Hey, Cody,” I say, “thank you.”
He nods with a grin before Candace strolls in and takes up her usual spot beside him. I shove box after box of colored pencils in my backpack as class starts, remorse yanking me back to reality as I realize this makes what I’m about to do all that much harder. Why does he have to be so nice?
The jangle of colored pencils in my backpack on my way to my locker after math takes me back to my elementary school days. I wait by my open locker, split between hoping Cody shows and dreading what I’ll have to say when he does.
He rounds the corner for better or worse, and I remind myself that none of this was supposed to happen: me and him, friends. I never should have agreed to tutor him.
“Hey,” he says as he draws near.
“Hey,” I reply and take a deep breath to gather courage as I extend the stack of colored pencils to him. “And the quarters. I can’t accept them.”
His lifts his arm to the wall of lockers and leans against them. “And I won’t take them back.”
“Listen,” I say, short of breath as nerves stack up around my lungs, “I have a ton of my own homework to do today so I won’t be able to tutor you.”
“Math?” he cuts in.
“Yes, math.”
“I’ll help you.”
Cody is the perfect solution to my failing math grade. He aces every pop quiz and Mortimer loves him.
“Thanks, but I can’t. Besides, you don’t need my help. You’re not that bad at art.”
He drops his chin, giving me an incredulous look. “Uh-huh, right. Out with it, Jules. What’s going on?”
I bite my lip, hating the way this will sound. “I can’t tutor you anymore.”
He pushes away from the lockers, standing tall. “How come?”
“Well, my mom, you know—”
“I know, Jules.”
“And you act like it doesn’t matter.”
“I wish it didn’t,” he replies.
“Vic found out, Cody.”
“Found out about what?”
“The photo-booth picture,” I say.
“And?”
“He wasn’t happy,” I say, receiving a puzzled look from Cody in return. “He sure acted like you guys aren’t friends. Not anymore, at least.”
Cody looks more than confused.
I see it now, subtle similarities between Cody and Vic that could serve as common ground for friendship: athleticism, a love for basketball, and a good heart at the core of both of them.
“I’ll talk to him,” Cody says.
“No.”
“Come on, Jules. You can’t let Vic make your decisions for you.”
“I’m not,” I snap. Is he accusing me of being weak? I’m doing the hard thing here—the right thing. Family first. Doesn’t he see this?
Cody tucks his thumbs under his backpack straps. “I thought you needed the money.”
“I shouldn’t have agreed to tutor you in the first place. It was a mistake and I’m done.” I close my locker and turn to leave.
“I’ll up it from fifteen an hour to twenty,” he says.
“Yeah, and how exactly are you going to pay me? With your dad’s money?”
“No, my own.”
“Your own?” I repeat, highly doubtful. “You don’t have a job.”
“No,” he agrees.
“Then it’s not your money.”
“You’re right, it’s not. It’s Jimmy’s.”
“Jimmy’s?”
“It’s ours, I guess. Definitely more his than mine, though.”
The one-minute bell rings and I curse it, wanting to hear more.
Frustration shapes the features of his face, drawing emphasis to the faint scar that runs from his eyebrow down into his cheek. “If you don’t believe me, look his name up on YouTube.”
Cody starts down the hall, the boot slowing him down on his way to the class he’s already late for. He gave me a lot of reasons to reconsider, which can only mean one thing: For some reason, Cody Rush wants me around.
Nothing stands a chance of getting Cody off my mind until cool air sweeps over my skin when I step inside our house after school.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?” he grumbles from the kitchen.
“The AC is fixed.”
“Yep.”
“That’s wonderful,” I say.
When I find him at the kitchen table working on the coral reef, I unzip my backpack and unload the boxes of colored pencils in front of him. By the third box Dad’s attention is effectively pulled from his work. His lips part when I finish, and I see the obvious question in his stare.
“Don’t ask,” I say and start for the stairs.
“Jewel,” he calls out, and I turn. His gaze sweeps over his project. “Would you . . . well, do you think you could help?”
“Help?”
“Yeah, with this coral reef.”
Dad’s never asked me to help. When I was a kid pestering him to let me help with his projects, it was just that—pestering. He’d shoo me off. My loyalty to my family runs strong, a force like gravity that keeps my feet planted here, and yet I hardly spend time with them.
“Sure,” I say and take the seat beside him. Neither of us says a word. Dad doesn’t even give me instruction, but he doesn’t need to. Creative instinct takes over as I scan the two clusters Dad has already finished and open a box of pencils.
I’m in the computer lab during English three days later, finishing a report. Mindy and Trish are at the printer, waiting with a few others for their papers to print. When I send mine to print as well, I wait for a feeling of satisfaction. I’m caught up on my assignments. No homework today. This should at least make me feel relieved, but my mind is preoccupied.
Cody and I haven’t talked since I told him I couldn’t tutor him anymore. I’ve busied myself with work and school and even the coral reef project with Dad.
I even went to the skate park with Lucas and his friends last night, filming the last of their stunts for the clip Josh is putting on YouTube.
Which reminds me . . .
My eyes sweep the row of computers I’m sitting at—the back row. Only Dan and I are still here. With four minutes left of class, he’s typing frantically, immersed. Everyone is either finishing up, waiting by the printer, or at the door, talking loud enough to cover any sound.
Before I think better of it, I pull up YouTube and type in Jimmy Rush. I glance up as the page loads, unable to ignore the jumpy beat of my heart as I make sure no one is watching. Visiting any Internet page not related to a school assignment is against policy.
A list of videos pops up. The first one looks like an ad for yogurt. Then I see him, the scrawny boy with curly blond locks I recognize from the pictures at Cody’s house. And there are several of him.
I click on one titled Six-year-old Baseball Prodigy, making sure the volume is low. Cody appears on the video first, and I feel the familiar flicker in my heart that his smile always elicits. He’s young, maybe seven or eight, yet I see the Cody Rush I know in the boy before me.
“All right,” I hear their mom’s voice call out. She’s filming. “Let’s see it, Jimmy!”
Cody stands on a makeshift pitcher’s mound in the middle of a field. Jimmy stands a ways off, perched with a bat over his shoulder. Cody winds up and sends a baseball soaring toward Jimmy, an impressive throw for a kid his age. When Jimmy’s bat strikes the ball, however, I see who the real star of the show is.
As the camera follows the high arc of t
he ball as it rockets into the pasture of cows behind Cody, I realize he had some mad skills.
Over and over, Jimmy bats what could be a home run, the film spliced to show each swing in rapid succession. Cody flings his ball cap into the sky, both boys laughing and celebrating as they clash into a side hug.
And then Jimmy is on a real home base with Cody on a real pitcher’s mound on a baseball field. Jimmy hits home run after home run, a small crowd on the bleachers cheering louder with each successive ball Jimmy hits over the outfield fence, their disbelief understandable. Only a few balls skid to the ground in the outfield. The kid was amazing.
The video ends, and I notice for the first time how many views the clip had: over twenty-five million. The next clip is of little Jimmy in a huge stadium, the stands filled with cheering spectators. It’s a pro ball game, part of a pregame show perhaps. The clip is titled Jimmy Meets His Favorite Baseball Player, Chipper Jones. Jimmy hits a ball into the outfield, the crowd cheers, and, as the title suggests, he meets Chipper Jones.
I spot a video with an even higher number of views than the first. Mentos in Coke: A Slam-Dunk Experiment. It has over two hundred thousand likes.
I click play with one minute left of class. The filming is a little shaky, and I quickly realize Cody is the one behind the camera. Jimmy shows the camera how to fix a row of Mentos on a piece of string. He drops it into a liter of Coke, screws on the cap, and shakes it.
“Cody, Cody, take it,” he shouts, his panic evident as he grabs the camera from Cody and switches off. “Go, go, go!”
Now the camera is on Cody. He runs up to a basketball hoop, the overshaken Coke held in one hand as he jumps up and makes a slam dunk. The rim is on the lowest setting, but Cody can’t be older than eight, and he slams the Coke through the hoop with authority.
The Coke bottle hits the cement and a spray of dark liquid splatters the screen as it rockets into the air. Cody loses his footing and crashes to the ground as Coke showers him.
“Cody!” his mom shrieks, the screen door of the house behind them swinging open to reveal an enraged Janice Rush. Jimmy is laughing.
Between Now & Never Page 20
