“I mean, he’s a jock. He teaches phys. ed.,” she said. “What genius decided he should teach English too? What does a jock know about literature?”
I picked up the crumpled mess of paper she had tossed at me, smoothed it out with my hand, and looked at the mark printed in red in the upper right-hand corner.
“B+,” I said. “Not bad.”
“Not bad?” she said. “I’ve never gotten a B+ in my life.”
It was true. Morgan didn’t just have an A average. She had a straight-A record. She pulled As on every essay, term paper, exam, test, and pop quiz ever thrown at her. She was usually modest about it. Mostly she would glance at her grade, shrug, give a (sometimes smug) half-smile, and not say anything at all. After all, what was there to say? The way it looked now, maybe it was true—maybe As were no big deal. But Bs, even B+? They were a whole different story.
“It’s still the beginning of the year,” I said. “Now that you know how Mr. Turturro grades, you’ll do better next time.”
“Next time?” she said. “I did better this time. This essay is brilliant.”
So much for modesty.
“This is an A+ essay, not a B+ essay,” she said. “I can’t believe that guy. I mean, he’s a jock.”
That’s when Billy chimed in. “You know what you need, Morgan? You need to get your mind off school,” he said.
I had to give him credit. It was a smooth segue. Too bad his timing was off.
Morgan turned her angry eyes on him. “What I need, Billy,” she said, “is for the Turtle to give me the grade I deserve. That’s what I need.”
“Yeah, but he’s not going to change—” He shut up when Morgan gave him a look that could have turned molten lava to cold, hard rock. Flustered, he glanced at me. I think he was looking for encouragement. I shook my head. I tried to warn him, I really did. But Billy didn’t pay attention. He pulled himself up straight and drew in a deep breath. He said, “Morgan, do you want to go out with me this weekend?”
Morgan was looking at me when he said it. She had her mouth open, as if she had been about to speak. It hung open a little longer. Then, slowly, she shifted her eyes from me to Billy.
“What did you say?” You would have thought she was accusing Billy of some heinous crime.
Billy’s face turned pink, then crimson.
“I said. . .I was wondering. . . .”
“Did you just ask me out?” Morgan said, incredulous and indignant at the same time.
Billy spluttered and nodded.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m having the worst day of my life,” Morgan said, which reminded me that everything is relative. “And all you can do is make jokes? That was a joke, right, Billy?”
“Come on, Morgan,” I said.
Morgan is my best friend. So is Billy, but Billy’s a boy, so maybe Morgan is more of a best friend. I know she’s not perfect. Nobody is. I also know that she can get just a little too wrapped up in herself. I’d have been willing to bet that she didn’t even notice what was glaringly obvious to me—that Billy looked like he had just been slapped. Hard. By her.
Billy’s face was still bright red. He stared at me as if I had ordered him on what he now realized was a suicide mission. He stood up. I pretended not to notice that Morgan had seen the look he’d given me.
“Billy. . . .” I said. But he stumbled away from the table and ran out of the cafeteria. Morgan looked at me with unadulterated disapproval.
“You put him up to it,” she said. “Don’t deny it. It was written all over his face.” She snatched her A+- marked-B+ essay from my hand and jammed it back into her pack.
“Morgan, I just—”
But by then, I was talking to her back as she cut between the tables, heading for the door.
Terrific.
As I screwed the lid back onto my bottle of juice, I saw someone watching me from across the room. Kenny Merchant. There was a girl sitting with him. She looked to see where Kenny was looking. When she saw me, she scowled.
I got up and started weaving my way through the tables toward Kenny. I half expected him to get up and walk away before I got there. Why not? Everyone else was doing it. But he didn’t. The girl’s name was Alison something, I’d seen her around, but didn’t really know her. She said something to him. Kenny barely glanced at her when he answered, but whatever he said sure got a reaction. She straightened out of her slouch as if she’d been jabbed in the back. She said something else but got no answer. She stood up and said something else. Still no answer. She glowered as she pushed by me.
I looked at Kenny.
“Hi,” I said. I didn’t expect an answer and I didn’t get one. “Look, about Trisha. . . .”
“You’re not a friend of hers,” he said. He was telling me, not asking me.
“I never said I was. I said we did a project together and we had a problem.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know anything about her, so you can stop asking me.”
“You know she’s missing, don’t you?” I said. If he knew, he didn’t seem to care. If he cared, he didn’t show it. “Her parents are frantic. Her mother is sick.”
Nothing.
“Maybe something happened to her,” I said. “Don’t you care?”
“I already told you, I don’t know anything about her.”
Right. And one of the main things he didn’t know about her was that I wasn’t her friend.
“Don’t talk to me again,” he said. “Don’t ask me any more questions. And don’t follow me. You got that?”
I looked at him one last time before I turned and walked away. Maybe that teacher my father had spoken to was right. Maybe she had seen Kenny and Trisha together. But I couldn’t imagine their conversations going any better than mine just had.
As I was making my way out of the cafeteria, I got that prickly back-of-the-neck feeling that makes you think that someone is staring at you. I turned, but all I saw were kids—kids leaving the cafeteria, kids entering the cafeteria, kids just hanging around outside the cafeteria—none of whom were paying any attention to me. Most of them were in pairs or trios or larger groups—except for one person who was standing by herself. Alison, the girl who had been with Kenny. She was rummaging in her purse for something. I started to turn away. Then, maybe because there was something about the way she was fumbling around, I took a second look. Our eyes met—she was staring right back at me. She kept staring too, giving me a condescending, challenging look. I turned to walk away.
“Hey,” a voice said. Someone jolted my shoulder from behind. I spun around, angry. Now Alison seemed to be sizing me up. “You stay away from him, okay?”
“What?” What was she talking about? “You mean Kenny?”
“You’re not his type,” she said. “You don’t have a chance with him. You know where he lived last?” She paused dramatically before telling me. “Somerset.” Well, what do you know; one of the rumors circulating about Kenny Merchant was true. “You know what Somerset is?”
“Yes, I do,” I said. She took a closer look at me, surprised by my answer. Then I caught the look in her eyes. She really thought I was interested in him. She was jealous—trying to stake out her territory. She wouldn’t be doing that unless she felt threatened by me. I wondered if she felt threatened by Trisha too.
“What about Trisha Carnegie?” I said.
“What about her?”
“You think she has a chance with Kenny?”
Her expression became more sullen and resentful.
“I don’t know why he wastes his time with her,” she said.
“So he is interested in her?”
That earned me a sharp look. “No,” she said. Then her face softened. “At least, not the way you think.” She didn’t seem sure, though. “He’s interested in me. We’re going out.” She studied me again. “You sure you’re not after him?”
“Not even remotely,” I said. “Although I’m sure he’s very nice.”
I caught the hint of a
smile before she said, “He has his good qualities.”
“Look, Alison, I’m not interested in Kenny. I’m interested in Trisha. You heard the announcement in homeroom last Friday, didn’t you? She’s missing.”
Alison snorted derisively.
“Yeah, I heard the announcement,” Alison said. “But I don’t know where she is, and I don’t care. I think she’s a freak. She talks to herself, you know? I’ve seen her in the hall, muttering under her breath like a bag lady. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist for her. When she ran out of here one morning last week, she slammed right into me. She almost knocked me over. And you know what? She didn’t stop, didn’t apologize. Nothing. If she’s gone, good riddance.”
“What do you mean, she ran out of here?”
“What I said. I saw her rooting around in her locker, then boom! She ran down the hall and slammed right into me.”
“When was this?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Was it Wednesday? Wednesday morning?”
She looked surprised. “Yeah,” she said. “Just after the late bell rang.”
Just after I’d yelled at her. Just after I had told her that I didn’t care about her mother being sick. “You saw her leave school?”
“I just said I did, didn’t I?”
“Did you see her after that?”
“No,” she said, sounding impatient now. “Why?”
“Her mother is sick. Really sick,” I said. “And it’s not helping that she’s worried about Trisha. I promised to help find her.” Well, promised my father. If Alison got the impression that I had promised Trisha’s mother, well, that was her problem. “I heard someone say they’d seen Trisha and Kenny together. I thought he might know something.”
She shrugged.
“But he knows her, right?”
Finally she said, “Kenny doesn’t talk about other people. He respects their privacy, you know?” He sounded just like Nick. “But I get the feeling he knows Trisha from before.”
“Before what? Before he transferred to this school, you mean?”
She nodded. “I’ve heard people talk about her. I heard she’s a runaway queen. Something bad happens at home and she hits the streets. I think maybe that’s where Kenny met her. He’s spent some time on the street too.” Another rumor about Kenny turned out to be true. “I get the feeling he identifies with her.”
Based on my two brief encounters with Kenny, I found it hard to believe that he could identify with anyone. He came across as hostile and indifferent.
“Why would he identify with Trisha? What do they have in common?”
“They both have messed-up parents,” Alison said. “It’s what makes them run. What used to make Kenny run. His dad is a real creep. Drinks too much, gets really mean. He was always telling Kenny he’s stupid and worthless, stuff like that. His mother isn’t much better. By the time Kenny was twelve, he’d run away something like ten times. After that, he fixed it so they’d never send him back home again.”
“Meaning?”
“I told you. He was in Somerset. He’s living in another group home now, you know, for kids who can’t live at home for whatever reason. He’s settling down a little. Coming to school most days.”
That explained a lot about Kenny. Still, I wondered. . . . “Trisha’s parents aren’t like Kenny’s. She runs away when she gets mad at her mother, not because her parents treat her badly. Her stepfather seems like a nice guy.”
“Yeah, seems.” Alison shook her head. “You never know what someone is really like until you live with them. I caught Kenny and Trisha together one time. She was whining about her stepfather. I missed the specifics, but, man is she pissed off at her mother for marrying the guy. She wouldn’t feel that way if he was such a nice guy, would she? I bet you anything that’s why she took off.”
Or maybe it was someone else she didn’t like. For instance, me.
“Do you think Kenny knows where she is?”
“If he does, he won’t tell.”
“Not even if you asked him?”
“No way,” Alison said.“If Kenny wanted me to know, he’d tell me. If not. . . .” She shrugged.“I told you. Kenny likes his privacy, so he respects other people’s privacy.”
Nick had seemed a lot like Kenny when I’d first met him. He probably still seemed that way to a lot of people. I wondered if maybe Kenny showed Alison a side of himself that he hid from the rest of the world.
“Maybe you could tell Kenny that Trisha’s mother is really worried,” I said. “You know, in case he happens to see her.”
“It’s none of my business,” she said. She studied me for another few moments before finally walking away.
. . .
When I left school that afternoon, I was surprised to find Nick waiting for me at my bus stop. I wasn’t surprised to see his left arm in a sling.
“Is it broken?” I said.
“Sprained.”
“Are you going to be able to do your job?” On Wednesdays after school, Nick reported to a drop-off point to collect bundles of newspapers that he loaded onto a little cart. He pulled the cart with one hand and threw the rolled-up papers onto people’s porches with the other.
“I’ll manage,” he said.
Not that I didn’t want to see him, but, “Shouldn’t you be on your way there now?”
“I have a little time,” he said. “Come on.”
He led me to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant across the street from my school. Most days after school, the place was usually crammed with kids. Today, for some reason, it was quiet. We bought some Cokes at the counter and carried them to a booth at the back. Nick sure does love back booths. I slid onto one of the benches. Nick sat opposite me. He said, “I’m sorry for the way I acted, okay?”
Maybe he expected me to say, okay, sure, no problem. Some people are like that. They act like jerks and then when they get around to apologizing, they expect that to be the end of it. I took a sip of my Coke.
Nick leaned forward across the table, paying real attention to me for the first time in awhile. “Robyn? I said I’m sorry.”
“It’s a nice change to have someone apologize to me instead of telling me to mind my own business or walking out on me,” I said. “Which, in case you’re interested, is the kind of week I’ve been having.”
“I really am sorry,” he said, and when those purple eyes of his fixed on mine, I believed him. “I get so mad sometimes,” he said. It wasn’t the first time he’d admitted it to me. He had anger management issues. “But I’m trying. I really am.” He reached out and laid his right hand over mine.
“I know. I’m just having a bad day,” I said. “Morgan yelled at me. Billy is treating me like I’m Judas. And this guy, Kenny Merchant, told me to get lost and stay lost.” There was a flash of surprise in his eyes, like summer lightning. You think you see it, but before you can be sure, it’s gone. “You know him, Nick?”
“Who?” Nick acted like he hadn’t caught the name. I might have believed it too, except for that flash.
“Kenny Merchant,” I said. “Know him?”
“Why?”
“I think maybe he knows something about a girl who’s missing.” I told him about Trisha. When I said her name, he looked down at the table. “So, do you know him?”
He shrugged, but it came off lopsided because his right shoulder did all the work.
“Oh,” I said. “Because he was at Somerset too.”
Anyone watching us would have thought he was looking directly at me. But he wasn’t. His eyes were focused to the left of me, avoiding my eyes.
“Must have been before my time,” he said.
“Are you sure?” I said. He tensed up, angry. “Trisha’s father is a friend of my dad’s.”
Nick liked my father. I think he admired him. But all he said was, “Sorry, I don’t know Kenny what’s-hisname.” Then, “I have to get to work.”
He lifted his cup with his right hand and drai
ned it. Then he stood up and dug some money from his back pocket—again with his right hand.
“What did you tell them?” I said as he threw some coins on the table.
“About what?”
“What do you think, Nick? About your arm.”
“Robyn, I can’t be late. I’ll get into trouble.”
I got up and followed him out of the restaurant. “Did you tell them what he did?” I said.
“Tell who?”
“At Somerset.” I was struggling to keep my temper now.“Did you tell them what Glen did? You could report him, Nick. If he assaulted you, you could press charges.”
“Robyn, leave me alone about that, okay?” He sounded annoyed.
“They must have asked you about it.”
“I already told you. I fell,” he said. “It’s no big deal.”
“Nick, I heard him at your aunt’s house. I met him, remember?”
His bus lumbered toward us. Nick stepped in close to me and kissed me lightly. His lips were soft and sweet. I wrapped my arms around him, gently, so I wouldn’t hurt him. “I’ll call you later,” he said. “If I can, okay?”
I watched him get on the bus, his right hand cradling his left elbow in the sling until the last minute, when he had to show his bus pass. He looked at me through the window as the bus pulled away. He even smiled. He thinks I believed him, I thought. He thinks I don’t know he’s lying. But I did. About Kenny, about Glen, about falling. I knew it for a fact.
When I got home, I found my mother curled up on the couch in her bathrobe, her hair wrapped in a towel. She had the TV on, which was startling enough. My mother doesn’t watch much TV. She especially doesn’t watch sitcom reruns. But that was exactly what she was doing when I walked in. She was also eating ice cream right from the container—something else she never does. Or, at least, something she hasn’t done since right after she and my father split up. She told me at the time that separating from my father was the right thing to do, but she cried a lot when she thought I couldn’t hear her and she’d scooped her way through enough ice cream to keep a small town cool for an entire summer. It had taken her a couple of months of serious gym work to lose all the inches it had added to her butt and thighs.
You Can Run Page 7
