by Bree Despain
“I have a meeting with Mr. Barlow this morning.”
“Mm-hmm,” Mom said. She was busy wiping down the already glistening counter. Her loafers reflected in the sheen on the linoleum floor. Mom had a tendency to get a little OCD when she was stressed. The harder things were for the family, the more she tried to make things sparkle. Like everything was perfectly perfect.
I poked my finger into one of the melting chocolate chips that formed a symmetrical smiling face in my pancake. Mom normally only made her “celebration pancakes” for special occasions. I wondered if she was trying to soften the blow for a discussion about Maryanne—prep us for one of Dad’s sermons about how death is a natural part of life and all. That is, until I saw the look of guilt in her eyes when she placed a glass of orange juice in front of me. The pancakes were a peace offering for her fight with Dad last night.
“Fresh squeezed.” Mom wrung her apron in her hands. “Or would you rather have cranberry? Or maybe white grape?”
“This is fine,” I mumbled, and took a sip.
She frowned.
“It’s great,” I said. “I love fresh squeezed.”
I knew right then that Dad wasn’t coming out of his study this morning. We weren’t going to talk about what happened to Maryanne. And Mom certainly wasn’t going to talk about their fight, either.
Last night Daniel had made me feel guilty for having a family that sat around the dinner table and discussed our lives. But now I realized that we never actually talked about anything that was a problem in our home. It’s why the rest of my family never mentioned Daniel’s name or discussed what happened the night he disappeared—no matter how many times I’d asked. Talking would be admitting that there was something wrong.
Mom smiled. It looked as syrupy and fake as the imitation maple drizzled on my breakfast. She flitted back to the stove and turned over a couple of pancakes. Her face fell into a frown again, and she dumped the barely over-browned batch into the trash. She still wore the same blouse and slacks from yesterday under her apron. Her fingers were red and chapped from hours of cleaning. This was perfection overdrive, big-time.
I wanted to ask Mom why she would hide her fight with Dad by making ten pounds of pancakes, but Charity came stumbling into the room.
“What smells so good?” she yawned.
“Pancakes!” Mom shooed Charity into a seat with her spatula and presented her with a heaping plate. “There’s maple syrup, boysenberry, whipped cream, and raspberry jam.”
“Awesome.” Charity dug into a container of whipped cream with her fork. “You’re the best, Mom.” Charity gulped down her pancakes and went for seconds. She didn’t seem to notice Mom practically scrubbing a hole into the skillet.
Charity grabbed the raspberry jam and then froze. Her eyes suddenly seemed glossy, like she was about to cry. The jar slipped out of her fingers and rolled across the table. I caught it just as it went over the edge.
I looked at the label: FROM THE KITCHEN OF MARYANNE DUKE.
“It’s okay,” I said, and put my hand on Charity’s shoulder.
“I forgot …,” Charity said softly. “I forgot that it wasn’t a dream.” She pushed her plate away and got up from the table.
“I was just about to start some fried eggs,” Mom said as Charity left the room.
I looked down at my plate. My smiling breakfast stared up at me and I didn’t know if I could stomach any more. I took another sip of my orange juice. It tasted sour. I knew I could convince Jude to give me an early ride to school, but I didn’t want to stick around and watch my mother’s display of perfection start all over again when he came down for breakfast. I wrapped a couple of pancakes in a napkin and got up from the table. “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’ll eat on the way.”
Mom looked up from scrubbing. I could tell my not eating hadn’t helped alleviate her guilt. For some reason I didn’t care.
I walked the few blocks to school in the cold and donated my breakfast to a stray cat I met along the way.
LATER, BEFORE SCHOOL
The clock in the art room ticked its way to 7:25 a.m. and I cursed myself for giving Daniel only a five-minute window for lateness. I closed my eyes and prayed silently that Daniel would come, just so I could prove Barlow wrong about him. But with every tick of the clock I started to think I was the one who was going to be disappointed.
“Worried I wasn’t going to show?” Daniel flopped into the chair next to mine just in time. He wore the light blue woven shirt and khakis I’d left for him, but his clothes were crumpled like he’d had them wadded up in his pack until only a few minutes before.
“I don’t really care what you do.” I felt tiny pricks of red-heat forming on my neck. “It’s your future, not mine.”
Daniel snorted.
Mr. Barlow came out of his office and sat at his desk. “I see Mr. Kalbi decided to join us after all.”
“It’s just Daniel. No Kalbi.” Daniel pronounced his last name like a cuss word.
Barlow raised an eyebrow. “Well, Mr. Kalbi, when you become a famous musician or the Pope you can drop your last name. But in my class you will go by the name your parents gave you.” Barlow looked Daniel over like a critic appraising a new work in a gallery.
Daniel leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
Mr. Barlow clasped his fingers together on top of his desk. “You are well aware that your scholarship is contingent on your behavior. You will act and dress appropriately for a Christian school. Today was a nice try, but you might want to invest in an iron. And I highly doubt that is your natural hair color. I will give you until Monday to do something about it.
“As for my class,” Barlow went on, “you will be here every day, on time, and in your seat when the bell rings. Every AP student is required to compile a portfolio of twenty-three works on a specific theme and ten more projects to show their breadth. You are coming into this class late, but I expect you to do the same.” Mr. Barlow leaned forward and stared into Daniel’s eyes like he was challenging him to a game of chicken—daring him to glance away first.
Daniel didn’t blink. “No problem.”
“Daniel is quite proficient,” I said.
Barlow stroked his mustache, and I knew he was about to deliver the catch. “Your portfolio will consist only of work done in this class. I will monitor each of your assignments at the beginning, middle, and end of their progression. You will not turn in anything you have done previous to now.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “It’s almost December and I’m not even a third of the way through my portfolio.”
“That is why Mr. Kalbi will be joining us every lunch period and will report directly to my classroom for one hour after school, each and every day.”
Daniel almost lost the staring contest but regained his composure. “Nice try, but I have a job in the city after school.”
“I’ve been informed that the school has given you a stipend for your living expenses. You are obviously in one board member’s good graces, but don’t expect any special treatment from me. You will be in this class every day after school, or you will not be here at all.”
Daniel grabbed the edge of the desk and leaned forward. “You can’t do this. I need the money.” He finally looked away. “I have other obligations.”
I sensed a twinge of desperation in his voice. The word obligations made my mouth go dry.
“Those are my stipulations,” Barlow said. “It is your choice.” He gathered up some papers and went into his office.
Daniel threw his chair aside and tore out of the room with the fury of a threatened bear. I followed him into the hall.
Daniel swore and smashed his fist into a locker door. The metal crunched behind his knuckles. “He can’t do this.” He punched the locker again and didn’t even flinch with pain. “I have obligations.”
There was that word again. I couldn’t help wondering what it meant.
“He wants me to be his trained little circus pup. I
even wore this stupid shirt.” Daniel clawed at the buttons and tore it off, uncovering his whitish tee and long sinewy muscles in his arms that I hadn’t noticed before. He slammed his dress shirt against the locker. “This is total bullsh—”
“Hey!” I grabbed his hand as he pulled it back for another swing. “Yeah, those lockers really tick me off, too, sometimes,” I said, and stared down a couple of gawking freshmen until they hurried along. “Damn it, Daniel!” I reeled on him. “Don’t swear at school. You’ll get kicked out.”
Daniel licked his lips and almost smiled. He unclenched the fist I still held, dropping his blue shirt. I tried to inspect his hand, expecting his knuckles to be purple, considering the deep dent in the locker door. He pulled out of my grasp and shoved his hand in his pocket.
“This completely sucks,” Daniel said, and leaned against the abused locker. “That Barlow guy doesn’t get it.”
“Well, maybe you can reason with him. Or maybe if you tell me about your obligations, I can explain it to him for you….”
Yeah, could I be any more obvious?
Daniel looked at me for a long moment. His eyes seemed to reflect the fluorescent lights in the dimly lit hall. “You want to get out of here?” he finally asked. “You and me.” He held out his uninjured hand. “Let’s blow these jerks off and do something fun.”
I was an honors student, daughter of a pastor, citizen-of-the-month winner, and a member of the One for Jesus Club, but for the briefest nanosecond I forgot all of those things. I ached to take his hand. But that aching scared me—made me hate him.
“No,” I said before I could change my mind. “I can’t miss class, and neither can you. You skip one more day, and you’ll lose your scholarship. You still want to get into Trenton, don’t you?”
Daniel balled his hand into a fist. He took a deep breath, and his face shifted into a cool, unruffled façade. He pulled a crumpled slip of paper from his pocket. “So, precious, how do I get to geometry?”
I studied the list, relieved that AP art was the only class we would have together. “Room 103 is down the hall and to the left. Past the cafeteria. You can’t miss it. And don’t be late. Mrs. Croswell loves to give detention.”
“Welcome back,” Daniel mumbled. “I forgot how much I hate this sh—crap.” He smirked at me and laughed to himself.
“Yeah, welcome home,” I said. And this time I was the one who walked away.
LATER
I didn’t know how many people would remember Daniel Kalbi. He’d had only a handful of friends growing up, and he’d moved away from Holy Trinity before his sophomore year. Regardless, I expected the appearance of someone like Daniel to at least spark some controversy and gossip. However, there was another scandal sweeping through the halls of school that upstaged Daniel’s return tenfold: the sudden death and mutilation of Maryanne Duke, devoted Sunday-school teacher, childhood babysitter of many, and—despite her old age and meager means—volunteer at almost every school activity.
I was the recipient of many sidelong glances and backhanded whispers as I made my way from class to class. I was used to people talking about me. Watching me. It was just part of being a Divine. Mom always said I had to be careful about the clothes I wore, how late I stayed out, or what movies I was seen going into, because people would set their own behavior by what the pastor’s kids were allowed to do—like I was some kind of walking morality barometer. Really, I think she was more concerned about people having a reason to talk bad about the pastor’s daughter.
Kind of like the talk that was going on today. Except, it was Jude’s and Dad’s names that came up in conversations that halted as I approached. A lot of people had the decency to stick up for my dad against Angela Duke’s accusations of mistreatment, but stories spread fast in a small town. It was only inevitable that wild speculations about my family’s “involvement” in Maryanne’s death would be everywhere. Crap like, “I heard that Mike said that the pastor refused to take Maryanne to her doctor’s appointment and then he said he was going to kick her out of the parish if she didn’t …” Or this gem I heard outside the gym: “They said that Jude’s on some type of meds that made him go all nutso on Maryanne about being sick …,” which I’m ashamed to say made me break the rule I’d set for Daniel about not swearing at school.
But as sad and distraught—and prone to bad language and dirty looks—as I was, I could only imagine how Jude must have felt. April was the only person considerate—or clueless—enough to actually speak to me in person about all the things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
“Okay,” April said the second I sat next to her in art. “Number one: where the heck were you last night? Number two: what the heck is he doing here?” She pointed to Daniel, who sat with his feet up on a table in the back of the room. “Number three: what the heck happened to your brother, and is he okay? And number four: numbers one, two, and three had better the heck not have anything to do with one another.” She scrunched her lips and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I want answers, sister!”
“Whoa,” I said. “First of all, I’m sorry I missed you last night. I got stuck in traffic.”
“Traffic? Around here?” She pointed her finger at Daniel. “You were in the city,” she whispered. “You were with him.”
“No, I wasn’t—”
“I know he lives downtown because I saw him by the city bus stop this morning.”
“That could mean anything….” But really, what was the point in lying? “Okay, I was. But it’s not what you think.”
“It isn’t?” April did this sassy little head shake that made her curly hair bounce like spaniel ears.
“No, it isn’t. I was just delivering a message for Barlow. It’s your fault, anyway.” I mimicked her feisty stance. “You’re the one who turned in his picture and made Barlow want him back in class.”
“Oh, no. Did I get you in trouble? I didn’t mean to. How did he know it was Daniel’s?”
“I told him.”
“What, are you crazy?” April’s eyes widened. She leaned in close and whispered, “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“With Barlow?”
“You know who I’m talking about.” She looked back at Daniel, who was playing the drums on his leg. “You’re still in love with him.”
“I am not. And I never was to begin with. It was just a stupid crush.” I knew she was wrong, but I felt heat rushing up my neck. I grasped for the first thing I could think of to change the subject. “Don’t you want to hear about Jude and Maryanne Duke?”
April’s demeanor changed immediately. Her eyes softened, and she brushed her fingers through her hair. “Oh, my gosh. He looked so sad last night when I came looking for you at your house. And then this morning I heard Lynn Bishop—her brother is an Oak Park paramedic—talking about Maryanne Duke in the hall. I heard her say that Jude and your father had something to do with it. But I couldn’t tell what she was saying. And these guys in bio were going on about the Markham Street Monster.”
I shook my head. “You know the monster’s just a story, right? Besides, Maryanne doesn’t—didn’t—live on Markham.” I knew it was just a story—one I hadn’t heard since I was a kid—but it gave me chills to hear people talk about the monster again. And I also knew not living on Markham didn’t make one immune from strange happenings, either. I hadn’t been able to get the memory of my mutilated little dog out of my head since I’d heard about Maryanne.
“Yeah, but what happened to Maryanne wasn’t a story,” April said. “And why is everyone saying that Jude was involved?”
I glanced up at the window of Barlow’s office. Barlow was on the phone, and he looked like he was going to be a while. April seemed genuinely concerned, and I really wanted to talk to someone about what had happened. I lowered my voice so no one else (especially Lynn) could hear, and I told April about how Jude had found the body and how the Dukes blamed my father. I told her about the aftermath, too. How Jude had fre
aked out and how my parents had fought.
April gave me a hug. “It’s going to be okay.”
But how could she know that? She hadn’t felt how strange it was to eat dinner at the table by myself, or heard the way my parents shouted at each other. But I guess April would know how those things felt. She moved here when her parents split when she was fourteen, and her mom’s work hours had been getting longer and longer lately. I’d invited her to our Thanksgiving dinner so she wouldn’t have to spend the day alone.
None of that seemed “okay” to me.
Barlow came out of his office. He dumped a box of empty Pepsi cans on his desk and went to work without any instruction to the class.
“Do you want to go to the café for lunch today?” I asked April. “Jude totally wouldn’t mind if we just showed up. In fact, I think he could use the change.”
April bit her lip. “Okay,” she said. “He could probably use some consoling.” She half frowned, but trembled in that excited way of hers.
LUNCH
It usually took a lot of coaxing to get April to come with me to the Rose Crest Café. And the few times she had come, she’d hung back from the group with Miya, Claire, Lane, and a few of the other juniors who watched the seniors with nervous reverence. April was so like my old dog Daisy that way. She had a lot of yap and spunk when it was just the two of us, but she totally cowered in most social situations.
Except today she seemed like a totally different breed.
We had been there only long enough to order our food before she was the center of attention, talking animatedly about her trip to Hollywood with her dad last summer. Brett Johnson and Greg Divers were practically drooling at her feet, but when Jude came through the door, she ditched them and went to his side. Within a matter of minutes, they were sitting together in a corner booth. April patted his hand sympathetically as he spoke to her in low, confidential tones.
“Wow,” Pete said as he pulled up a chair next to me. “I can’t believe April’s cracked his stoic shell.” He tipped his soda can toward Jude. “I haven’t gotten a word out of him all day. In fact, he’s been acting strange for almost a week now.”
