Twenty Minutes Late

by Caroline Crane

  “Life has to go on.”

  “It already stopped,” said Cree. “First Troy, and then Kip, and now I can’t even get to New York.”

  “It’s only thirty miles. What happened to Troy?”

  “Nothing. It’s me it happened to. And thirty miles isn’t the point. I have to be there.”

  No one understood. She couldn’t do it by commuting, she had to live in the city. She needed money to support herself and take two or three dance classes a day. And singing lessons, and acting. And go to auditions.

  They found Cree’s mother looking out the bay window. Peggy Penny was sleek and slender with red-brown hair, like her daughter’s, in a French twist. “What’s going on over there?”

  “The kid’s missing,” Grandma said.

  “Which kid?”

  “The baby.” Grandma gave her the details, even about their walk in the woods.

  Mom shook her head. “That Olive. She must have gone out to meet her boyfriend.”

  “She has one?” said Cree.

  “Don’t be naïve,” said her mother.

  Grandma said, “She always struck me as kind of a tart.”

  Because she wore a lot of makeup. So did Grandma.

  “Mom,” Cree said cautiously. “I won’t be getting paid for today. And maybe tomorrow, or who knows how long?”

  “That could be true.” Her mother sounded wary. She must have guessed where this was going.

  Cree talked faster, before Mom could flat out refuse. “I’ve been working really hard to get some money in the bank. Do you think you could help me out maybe a little? Just for a while. I’ll pay you back as soon as I start earning.”

  Mom lifted her chin and Cree already knew the answer.

  “We’ve been over this I don’t know how many times,” said her mother. “I told you I’d take care of college. That makes sense. But singing and acting—”

  “And dance. You paid for Madame Olga.”

  “I thought it would help your coordination.”

  “But this is my whole future! It’s what I want! Not college. Don’t I have a right to do what I want with my own life?”

  “That’s true. But it’s my money you’re asking for. I’m not going to waste it on something so unrealistic.”

  “What’s unrealistic?” Cree tried to keep her voice down. Hysterics never helped. “Why won’t anybody believe in me? A lot of people make their living in show business.”

  “Even more people don’t,” said her mother. “It’s very competitive. Even talented people don’t always make it.”

  “Are you saying I’m not talented?”

  “I did not say that and I’m not saying you shouldn’t try. But not on my dime. I work hard, too, for those dimes.”

  Cree ran upstairs and threw herself onto her bed.

  From there she could see Olive’s house, the police cars, and Mrs. Bosley waving her arms at the Chronicle man.

  She needed that future. She needed success. She needed something.

  On the wall above her was a poster of a dancer sitting on the floor. Her tights had holes in them, her pointe shoes were battered into mush.

  If only she could be that dancer, working her practice clothes into shreds.

  Not in a ballet company, but a Broadway show. The biggest shows were musicals. If she could get into one, even in the chorus, she would be on her way up. She would show them all. Especially Troy and Stacie.

  All of Southbridge would notice her. She would be their Favorite Daughter. She would have interviews not only in The Chronicle but the New York Times.

  She could do it. She could drop out of school and start right now, taking what little money she had.

  Who needed the Harvest Moon Dance? Who even needed Troy Zoller?

  She burrowed into her pillow and cried.

  Chapter Four

  “Corduroy overalls, blue and yellow plaid. A white, long-sleeved sweatshirt. White socks, yellow stripe at cuffs, blue sneakers—”

  Grandma sat at the breakfast table with The Chronicle spread in front of her, reading aloud.

  “They left out the pacifier,” said Cree. “He always has his pacifier. It wasn’t in the crib.”

  “So he took it with him. You’re in here, kiddo. He even got your name right.” Grandma read that aloud, too. About how Cree was the one who discovered Kip missing. Who called the police. Reimer tactfully didn’t mention that she was late getting to Olive’s house.

  “Why should he?” Grandma said. “It’s Olive’s fault for going off and leaving her kids. Stop beating up on yourself.”

  “She must have had a really good reason.”

  “What’s more important than the kids? If she had to, any normal person would take them with her.”

  Cree examined the three boxes of cereal from which she was to choose her breakfast. “I don’t think I can go to school.”

  “Go. If you stay out, it’s that much harder going back.”

  Grandma thought she was in a panic over Kip. That, too, but it wasn’t the only reason. Cree tried to imagine going through the day, paying no attention to Stacie and Troy. Acting her usual self, if she possibly could.

  Acting. That was the key. If she were ever going to make it on Broadway, she would have to master not only singing and dancing but acting most of all. On the way to school, she rehearsed her new role, the Cree who didn’t care.

  As she approached the school, Emerson Santiago veered toward her. He was Olive’s weekend sitter. “What’s this I hear?”

  “I don’t know what you heard,” she said.

  “About the kid.”

  “If you heard he was missing, that’s all I know.” She tried to open the door.

  He blocked her way. “Paper says you’re the one that reported him missing.”

  Who had time to read the paper before school? “I did. I got there and Kip wasn’t there, or Olive. Only Davy.”

  “Where was Olive?”

  “She didn’t say.” Cree pushed past him and managed to reach the upstairs hallway.

  A crowd had gathered around the bulletin board. South Pacific. She hadn’t tried out. Her job would have prevented any rehearsal time.

  Now she might not even have a job. But others had tried out, including Stacie. Curious, she squeezed her way through the mob.

  Nellie Forbush— Stacie Marr

  Cree felt a surge of nausea.

  Emile de Becque — Troy Zoller

  Troy couldn’t even sing. It must have been politics, Stacie getting him the role in exchange for the Harvest Moon Dance.

  She glanced over the rest of the cast and the alternates, then turned and collided with a solid body. It was the same girl she had nearly crashed into yesterday on the stairs.

  Cree mumbled “Oops, sorry,” but couldn’t move for the crowd.

  The girl had shiny brown hair in a pageboy cut and wore a sage green blazer. Very classy. Nobody dressed like that at Southbridge High. She asked. “Can you tell me what that is?”

  “It’s the cast for South Pacific,” said Cree. “Did you try out?”

  “No, this is my first day. I thought it might be a list of classrooms.”

  The classrooms had been assigned more than a month ago when school first opened. Cree eased them both out of the crowd. “Where do you want to go?”

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Tabasco’s homeroom.”

  “Tarasco. It’s Tarasco. That’s where I’m going. I’ll show you.”

  The girl didn’t seem to remember their encounter on the stairs. She was probably confused with all the new faces and Cree was glad. It hadn’t been one of her finer moments.

  She said, “You’re just starting here today? Where were you before?”

  “I was at the Lakeside School with my brother. I live on Lake Road.”

  No wonder she looked so classy. Lakeside was a private school. Rich kids and maybe an elegant dress code.

  “I’m Madelyn Canfield,” said the girl. “Maddie for short.”

 
“I’m Cree Penny. Lucretia for long, but nobody calls me that.”

  As Cree presented her to Mrs. Tarasco, she noticed a shadow on Maddie’s face.

  Not a shadow, a bruise. It was on her left cheek, just below the eye. Maddie had tried to hide it with makeup, but the blue showed through.

  Cree took her own seat and ignored Stacie. She knew Stacie watched her for some kind of reaction, which she wasn’t going to get. Stacie got everything else, even a new car. Plus the lead in Nutcracker and now in South Pacific. What was it about the universe that Stacie got all that while Cree was left to eat dust?

  Thinking of Kip, she couldn’t help wondering about Emerson Santiago. He was such a weirdo. Olive trusted him but Olive’s judgment wasn’t the best. She even trusted Cree, who was late getting there and look what happened. If Cree had a cell phone, she could have let Olive know. Everybody else had one but she wasn’t going to spend her New York money. And Mom wouldn’t pay for it. Mom never thought of it as a safety thing. She figured Cree would only gab.

  Maddie waited for her as homeroom adjourned. They had their first class together and agreed to meet later for lunch.

  That was a lucky break. Cree had planned to skip lunch and starve, rather than wander through the cafeteria, tray in hand, looking for a seat far from her usual table with Troy, Stacie, and the others.

  Maddie felt the same way. “I’m so glad I met you. I was scared I’d have to eat all by myself and this is such a big place.”

  They found two seats together and Cree set down her tray of tomato soup and cheese crackers. She would have liked to add strawberry yogurt, but that would run up the cost.

  “How come you’re transferring now in the middle of a semester?” she asked. In the middle of a week, for that matter.

  “There were problems.” Maddie unwrapped her sandwich. Cree, sitting on her left, could see the bruise again.

  Maddie asked, “What are you taking besides English?”

  “Nothing useful. Trig. Chemistry. Who needs it? I wish they had dance instead of gym. I hate gym.”

  “A lot of colleges have dance,” Maddie said. “They’re often more flexible about phys ed.”

  “I’m not going to college. I’m going to New York and study acting and singing and dance. I was earning the money to do that, but yesterday the baby I look after got kidnapped.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “It’s in the paper. Actually I don’t know if he was kidnapped, but he’s too little just to walk out like they say.”

  “Here in Southbridge? A kidnapping?”

  “Right on Riverview Boulevard.” Cree gave her the full story.

  “It must have been her ex,” Maddie said. “That’s the sort of thing people do when they split. People can be so nasty.”

  She watched Cree spoon up the last of her soup. “Is that all you’re eating? Just soup and crackers?”

  “It’s all I ever eat for lunch. It’s cheap and I like it and I get enough health food at home.”

  She was down to her last three crackers when Stacie came over. Troy was with her but he hung back.

  Stacie leaned across the table. A fine gold chain, probably another gift from daddy, glittered down into what passed for cleavage. That was one thing Cree had over her, was more cleavage.

  With a curious glance at Maddie, Stacie asked, “Any more news about the kid? Last I heard, he was still missing.”

  “Where did you hear that?” How could Stacie know so much?

  “I called Mr. Culpepper,” Stacie said. “You know, the old guy across the street.”

  It was six years since Stacie moved from Riverview. “You stayed in touch with Mr. Culpepper?”

  “I looked him up, doofus. Come on, Troy, let’s go outside.”

  So that was why she came over. To show off Troy.

  “I wonder if she puts out,” said Cree. “Maybe that’s how she got him.”

  “A lot of people do.” Maddie crumpled her sandwich paper. It smelled of tuna fish. “What’s outside?”

  “Fresh air, if those two don’t pollute it.”

  Maddie pushed back her chair. “I wouldn’t mind a look around. Do we have time?”

  Cree ate the last cracker and picked up her tray. “I’ll bet she does. Put out, I mean. Why didn’t I see that? Am I so dumb?”

  They went out through the front entrance and walked past the cafeteria’s long windows. Then another row of windows that was the library. Cree looked to see if Maddie was the least bit overwhelmed. Southbridge was not a large school but bigger than Lakeside.

  “Did your brother transfer, too?” she asked.

  “No, he’s still at Lakeside. My parents think it’s better for him. It’s smaller.”

  “Why, is he a lot younger?”

  Maddie hesitated. “No, in fact he’s older by a few months. This is his last year.”

  They reached the south end of the school where the tennis courts were. Maddie laced her fingers through the chain link fence that surrounded them. “They don’t look used.”

  “They’re not. There’s no money for upkeep and who would play tennis anyway?”

  Probably the kids at Lakeside had their own courts at home.

  What Maddie said finally registered. “Only a few months older? How—” Cree stifled the rest of her question.

  Maddie didn’t mind. “See, what happened was—” She seemed intent on watching tufts of grass growing through the pink clay court. “My parents got to thinking they couldn’t have kids, so they put in to adopt. About the time it came through, they discovered they were having me. It happens.”

  “Couldn’t they cancel him?”

  “Cancel Ben? I can’t imagine life without him.”

  It sounded so romantic. Cree said, “I always wanted an older brother. What’s he like?”

  “He’s geeky. Always on the computer looking up stuff. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

  “No, just me. And Mom and Grandma and Jasper. He’s our dog. My father’s in Borneo.”

  She stopped and listened. There it was again, the harmonica. Out of sight but closing in. She shrank against the chain link fence and hoped he would go on past.

  Instead, his big yellow shoes walked straight toward her. “Hey, Cree. Who’s your friend?”

  “Emerson, it’s not polite to ask that right in front of the person. You start by introducing yourself. Or you wait for me to do it.” Which she did, reluctantly. She wanted no part of him, especially with Maddie right there.

  “Emerson Santiago,” Maddie repeated. “Your name is almost as long as you are.”

  He grinned. “Seven syllables.”

  Cree started walking, hoping to lose him.

  He trotted after them. “Hey, you know what I discovered? When you flush the toilet sometimes, you can hear voices. I’m not kidding. You can’t hear what they say but it’s like a lot of voices just when the water goes down. You ever notice that?”

  Cree stared hard at the pavement.

  Maddie said, “Really? You’re right, I never noticed.” She sounded politely interested, not at all sarcastic.

  Which only encouraged Emerson. “You have to listen for it. It might not be everywhere but I can hear it at my house. I get it with the air conditioner in my dad’s car, too, but there it’s more like singing.”

  “Like choral music?” Maddie asked.

  “Yeah, that.” He peered at her bruise. “What happened to your face?”

  “Emerson,” said Cree, “that’s a personal question.”

  “What, this?” Maddie touched the bruise. “I ran into a door.”

  “You mean people really do that?” he said. “I thought it was more like a figger of speech.”

  “If they don’t watch where they’re going,” Maddie said.

  Cree tugged at her arm. “It’s almost time for the bell.”

  Maddie said goodbye to Emerson and Cree apologized for him.

  “I think he’s a riot,” said Maddie. “He’s one of a kind.”


  “Good thing there’s only one.”

  “I mean he’s spontaneous. You can tell it’s not an act. Some people, they’re always playing to an audience, but he’s for real. He’s sort of like my brother, but funnier.”

  So much for her brother. Cree said nothing.

  “What I mean is,” Maddie went on, “they’re both original. I don’t know why people get upset when somebody’s different. Just because they’re different doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them. Can you imagine a world of clones? That would be so boring.”

  Cree hoped this was not a reproach, that Maddie was only venting.

  Maddie said, “What does your dad do in Borneo? Is it a job?”

  “All I know is he drags around an old typewriter and takes pictures. He says he’s a travel writer, but I don’t know who or what he writes for.”

  “He must see a lot of the world.”

  “All of it. He took off right after I was born. I guess he couldn’t stand me.” Cree tried to make it a joke, but it wasn’t.

  “Does he ever come home?”

  “Once. A few years ago. But we didn’t see much of him. He was always going into the city.”

  They reached the parking lot in back of the school. Rows of cars gleamed in hazy sunlight. Cree’s bike stood alone in the bicycle rack. “This is where I got dumped yesterday.”

  “You got dumped? Right here? What happened?”

  “Greener pastures. Or blonder. You know those two who came over at lunch? That was them.” Cree described what happened.

  “Men!” said Maddie. “But you got off lucky.”

  “Me? Lucky?”

  “I don’t mean lucky, exactly. It’s just that—I wish it happened to me that way. It would have been easier.”

  “Than what?”

  They went in through a side door and started up the stairs. Slowly, so they could talk. Other people pushed past them.

  “Than what did happen,” Maddie said. “I was the one who did the dumping and he couldn’t handle it. He thought he owned me. He always thought that. It’s why I wanted out. But when I got out, it only made things worse.”

  The bell rang and they walked faster.

  “Your friend was right about this.” Maddie pointed to her bruise. “It wasn’t a door.”