Played

by Liz Fichera

  But then before I knew it, her cheeks were growing splotchy and her eyes were turning shiny. I knew that I was upsetting her. My words had spewed out before I could stop them. I should have just told her that I needed to be alone for a while, that I had a lot on my mind and stuff to sort out. That I wasn’t ready to talk to her or anyone for that matter.

  My first day back at school was off to a lousy start. A shadow stretched in front of me. First, Riley. Now, Mr. Romero?

  “Sam?” Mr. Romero said, his footsteps stopping right in front of me. “Nice to have you back.”

  I wasn’t sure if nice was the word I’d use so I just said, “Thanks.”

  “Got a minute?”

  Like no was an option. “Okay.”

  “Walk with me.”

  I followed Mr. Romero toward the football field, away from the courtyard and the parking lot. Away from nosy ears. We crossed a stretch of recently mowed grass.

  “I see you got your bike back.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I understand Ryan Berenger got it back for you.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I gave him the pass to leave school.”

  “Was Riley involved in this, too?”

  “Getting your bike out of impound? Riley may have known about it. I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her but this was all Ryan’s idea.”

  It was hard to hide my frustration. A low exclamation seeped between my teeth before I could hold it in. “I really wish you hadn’t done that, Mr. Romero.”

  He stopped walking and then looked across the football field. “And why’s that?”

  From his tone, it was as if he already knew the answer. He didn’t respond.

  “Now I have to pay him back,” I said.

  “Of course you do. But thanks to him, you’ll owe him a lot less cash. Those impound lots charge you for every day your property sits unclaimed.”

  I swallowed. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Could have cost a small fortune.”

  It already has, I wanted to say. “Yeah. I need to thank him,” I said, although my tone hardly sounded thankful.

  Mr. Romero turned to face me. “You know, Sam, there’s no harm in letting someone do a good thing for you, especially when they want to.”

  My insides twisted. How could I answer that? How could I explain to Mr. Romero that the Berengers—Ryan, especially—were the last people on earth I wanted anything from? If Mr. Romero noticed how uncomfortable he was making me, he didn’t show it.

  “Kind of like what you tried to do for Riley Berenger,” he said, his head tilting. “You helped her. You wanted to do a good thing. That’s what people do, Sam. It’s called being a human being. In her way, she’s just been trying to thank you, although I gather that hasn’t been going so well.”

  My breathing quickened a little. “Riley? That was different.”

  “Not really.”

  I looked away in frustration before looking at him head on. “It’s just that Ryan and me. Well, we have a history.” Slight understatement. I wasn’t about to tell my guidance counselor all the sordid details involving me and my formerly wild crush on Fred.

  “You’re more alike than you know, you and Ryan,” Mr. Romero said, placing a firm hand on my shoulder.

  I wanted to shrug off his hand but it pressed down on me like a barbell. “We are nothing alike.”

  Mr. Romero chuckled a little. “Really? Okay, let’s see.” He lifted the thick fingers of his other hand in front of my face and got ready to count off. “You’re both extremely bright, stubborn as mules, hot-headed and always ready to defend your girlfriends.” He paused. “Oh. And you have families that care about you. How am I doing so far?”

  I forced a bored expression. “Seriously, Mr. Romero, I’d prefer it if you just didn’t say his name around me.”

  “Which one? Ryan or Berenger?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, that might be tough. Because Riley Berenger spilled the beans to me on Monday about your recent escapades. She’s the reason I’m working with Principal Graser to get your incident with Mr. Hawkins erased from your permanent record.”

  My jaw dropped. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  My mouth opened to speak but no words emerged.

  “You know, Sam—” Mr. Romero’s hand dropped from my shoulder and angled at his hips “—you’d feel a lot happier if you could drop that sizeable chip from your shoulder.”

  “I don’t have one.” I didn’t have a chip. I just had too many people messing with my life.

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “What did Riley tell you?” I asked, changing topics. I hope she hadn’t made a bad situation even worse which, it had been my experience, was completely possible.

  “Among other things, she told me you were the best friend she’s ever had.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Riley has plenty of friends.”

  “Apparently none like you.”

  “Okay, you’ve totally lost me.”

  “You heard me,” he said, backing away, his palms in the air, before he turned for the front doors.

  I remembered that I was still holding my grandmother’s dream basket. For some reason, I lifted the round woven lid. Inside I found a folded piece of white paper. Carefully, I unfolded it, holding the single white page so that it wouldn’t flap in the breeze. With a black pencil, Riley had sketched a girl and a boy on a motorcycle, the girl holding on tight, her chin resting on the boy’s shoulder. I had to say, she had talent. The girl wore a helmet, but the boy’s black hair was long, longer than mine now, and it stretched backward in the wind. Their profiles looked straight ahead. They were smiling dreamy cheesy smiles and I liked it. Somehow she was able to capture that moment, the one where words weren’t necessary but yet being together said everything. Below the sketch, in pink ink it said:

  Riley loves Sam

  53

  Riley

  On Saturday, I spent most of the day on the window seat in my bedroom overlooking the street, watching the day pass by. Cars, delivery trucks, people walking yellow Labs. Mrs. Exeter across the street, planting pink-and-purple petunias in the window boxes next to her front door. She even looked up and waved. I didn’t think she saw me beneath her pizza-box-sized straw hat.

  The biggest excitement of the entire day was when a black limousine pulled up in front of our house just as the sun dipped below the mountains, turning the sky the color of a bruise. That was when someone knocked on my door.

  “Riley?”

  “Go away.” I gathered my knees to my chest and stared at the shiny limo. A palm tree reflected in the hood of the car. The setting sun glinted off the windows.

  Ryan opened my bedroom door.

  I sat straighter. “Knock much? Jeez.” Ryan was dressed in a black tuxedo. If I hadn’t already known he was going to prom, I would have pegged him for best man at a wedding. A cobalt-blue handkerchief thingy was stuffed like a triangle in his front pocket. I assumed that meant that Fred would be wearing blue, which would be a perfect color for her. Even though he was my brother, I had to admit he looked pretty handsome, although I’d never tell him that. I’d rather that he think that I was still pissed at him, even though he kept giving me reasons to love him even more.

  He ignored my frown. “Are you ever going to talk to me again?”

  I turned back toward the window. “Don’t feel like talking.”

  “That’s what you said yesterday. And the day before.”

  I shrugged. I really didn’t have the energy to talk to anyone. I still had a lot on my mind—school, Sam, the possibility of changing schools. I was seriously thinking about asking my parents if I could transfer to the Catholic school up the street. New school, new friends (in theory), a new start. I just wanted to be left alone to feel sorry for myself, as if holing up in my bedroom all weekend didn’t make that painfully obvious. Although Mom had left a plate of homemade brownies dusted with powdered
sugar outside my door, baiting me outside my bedroom. Must admit, I wasn’t too offended by the offering.

  Ryan walked closer, unbuttoned his jacket and then sat opposite me in the window seat as I pretended to be intrigued by Mrs. Exeter’s flowers, which looked pretty gorgeous, actually. I thought about sketching them….

  Ryan tugged on his collar. “Look, Riley, I’m sorry for being such a crappy brother.”

  I rubbed my arms and looked from Ryan to the window. My tongue thickened and I had a feeling I was going to cry. I absolutely did not want to cry, not in front of Ryan. It’s just that everything was making me sob today—Taylor Swift songs, television commercials, an elderly couple walking down the street this morning, hand in hand.

  “I’m sorry for not being there,” he said, “especially after all the times you had my back. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you sooner about Jay. I’m just…sorry, Riley. I wish you didn’t hate me so much.”

  Tears built behind my eyes but I blinked them back. I forced an eye roll. “I don’t hate you.” I could never hate you, you idiot, I wanted to say. But you do drive me crazy on a regular basis.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “This isn’t about you.” For once.

  “I get that.”

  “No, I don’t think you do.” I paused. “Don’t I get to flip out every now and again? Why am I always expected to be perfect?”

  He blinked back at me. “Because you are. You always have been.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Well, it’s true.”

  “How come you get to mess up and I don’t? It’s like you have a Get Out of Jail Free card with Mom and Dad, and I… Well, I just don’t. I get the silent treatment and the removal of all my electronics.” At least I got my cell phone back, not that I’d been using it very much. The only one who’d texted me was Drew, and even her texts had been few and far between. At least she’d started talking to me again.

  “You’re too smart to make the same lame mistakes that I did, Riley. That’s why. You’re better than that.”

  My voice rose. “Maybe I’m not. Maybe I don’t want to be. Maybe I don’t know who I am yet. Is that so bad?”

  Ryan’s voice only got softer, totally surprising me. “It’s not bad, Riley. You’re not bad. Not at all. In fact, as far as little sisters go, you’re pretty…awesome.”

  “That’s debatable.” I shook my head, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. “I didn’t mean to drag down Sam with me. I hadn’t planned on that.”

  “I think he feels pretty awful about everything that happened, too.”

  “He shouldn’t feel bad. None of it was his fault.”

  “I don’t think that’s how he sees it,” Ryan said.

  “Who told you that?” I sniffed.

  “Fred.”

  “Well, for once Fred is wrong. I tried to apologize to him on Thursday and he pretty much told me to get over myself.”

  Now it was Ryan’s turn to chuckle. He even sighed a little bit, like he was relieved, like he was happy that we were actually having a fairly civil conversation. “You got to cut the guy some slack, Ri. He’d just gotten back to school after being suspended.”

  My voice rose again. “You think I don’t know that?”

  Ryan leaned back, his palms up. “Hey, don’t bite my head off. I’m just sayin’. Sometimes a guy just needs his space. We don’t react at the speed of sound like you do, okay?” He sighed, loudly. “So now what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you going to spend the rest of your life in your room? Are you going to talk to Mom and Dad again?”

  My chin dropped to my knees. “Yeah. I’ve just been feeling kind of embarrassed about everything.” I looked across the room at my laptop.

  “Hawkins took the pictures down from his Facebook page. I think he’s officially scared of Sam, despite the phony tough-guy act. Thanks to Sam, he’s been knocked off his mighty perch. That’s a good thing for everybody, especially him.”

  “Good. But it wasn’t just the pictures. It was that I thought Jay was someone he’s not. How could I have been such a poor judge of character?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake, Riley. Don’t beat yourself up over that.”

  “Yeah, but it was also how I let him treat me.” I squeezed my legs tighter, remembering the party. “How could I have been so desperate? It was stupid.”

  Ryan’s jaw clenched.

  “It was also how I tried to manipulate Sam. You. Fred. It was…everything. I’m a fool.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Am, too.”

  Ryan sighed. Then he rose to button his jacket and looked down at the limousine. “Just don’t take forever to sulk, okay? I miss you, Riley. We all do.”

  The lump in my throat grew to the size of a peach pit. I looked away but couldn’t stop the tears trickling down my cheeks. “Your limo awaits,” I croaked. “Go have a good time at your prom.” I wiped my nose. “Tell Fred I said hi.”

  And then Ryan did something that he hadn’t done in years. He leaned over and wrapped his arms around me, drawing me close to his chest, sloppy tears and runny nose and all. I was afraid I’d stain his pretty blue handkerchief with my tears but he didn’t seem to care.

  I didn’t know how long he held me or how long he kept the limousine waiting but I did know that it was long enough that I finally felt like everything could be okay—not perfect, just okay. And I could live with that.

  54

  Sam

  I rode north on my motorcycle, the sun setting over my left shoulder. The freeway was buzzing with Saturday-night traffic but it was easy to weave in and out of the lanes.

  Martin had offered his truck but I couldn’t take the chance of stalling in the middle of the Rez before I reached the freeway, which, with Martin’s wheels, remained a certainty. I was already late and a little petrified, but I knew my bike wouldn’t fail me, despite a few new nicks and scrapes. So I took a deep breath and stepped on the accelerator.

  By the time I reached the door, the sky was purple-black with a faint strip of wispy orange in the horizon. I dragged my fingers through my hair a couple of times, straightened my tie, rang the bell and prayed that I wouldn’t start sweating. Despite the crisp air, heat rose up my neck, threatening to choke off my air supply.

  The door opened and he smiled.

  “Hi, Mr. Berenger,” I said. My voice echoed in the entryway.

  “Hey, Sam. Good to see you again.” I hoped that was true.

  We shook hands. Mr. Berenger had been friendly on the phone when I’d called earlier. I’d thanked him for helping me out at Durango, and that seemed to please him. Then I’d told him I really wanted to take his daughter to the junior prom—and I wasn’t certain he’d be pleased by that request given that Riley and I seemed to attract disaster whenever we were together. To my surprise, he’d said, “If you can pry our daughter from her bedroom, you’d make her mother and me the happiest parents on the face of the earth,” which I thought was a little over-the-top. But I did appreciate his enthusiasm, not to mention the fact that he didn’t hang up on me.

  Mr. Berenger opened the door wider and then pointed to a set of wooden stairs that curved up to the second floor. “Her bedroom is the second room on the left. Godspeed,” he said, grinning at me. From the tilt of his head, I was guessing he gave me about a fifty-fifty chance.

  My shoulders pulled back. What did I have to lose? Well, tons, if I was being honest, like my pride and my heart. But if there was one thing I learned from Riley Berenger, it was that sometimes you had to take a chance. “I’ll do my best.”

  He clapped my back. “I know you will.” But then he gripped my shoulder. “And, Sam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Nice suit.”

  My smile finally matched his. Little did he know that it was the best I could do. The suit belonged to my dad, along with the blue-and-green striped tie. Dad had said I could borrow it the day
after Riley and I got into our big fight at school—the night Dad and I stayed up till three o’clock in the morning, talking. I’d decided to take Mr. Romero’s advice and start to chip away at the boulders on my shoulder. Dad and I had talked about many things for the very first time. First I apologized for giving him and Mom more reasons to worry. Then I’d told him I knew that he couldn’t read. I’d told him that I wanted to help him learn. Instead of storming away like I’d figured he would, Dad had nodded and said, “I think I’d like that, son. I’ve put it off long enough.” We both got teary-eyed from all the talking and sharing and the late hour, but it had felt good. Calm had returned to our house again, like a cloud had lifted. Maybe things could be better between Dad and me.

  Good thing Dad’s suit fit. With dinner, gas and the prom tickets, I hadn’t had any money left for a tuxedo rental. My savings account was officially tapped dry, three times over. Mom had stuffed an extra twenty in my wallet when she didn’t think I was looking.

  Mr. Berenger released my shoulder. The dance technically started thirty minutes ago, so I was already late, but, when she was helping me with my tie, my sister, Cecilia, had told me that showing up on time to prom was not cool. Without another word, I ran up the wooden stairs, taking two at a time, trying to reach Riley’s bedroom before I lost my nerve. The last time I’d taken a chance on a girl, I’d been shot down like a wild turkey during hunting season. I had planned a little speech on the ride over but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember a single word as I raced up the steps. I was sure it was lame.

  I stood in front of a dark wooden door, second from the left, exactly as Mr. Berenger had instructed. Then I listened outside the door for movement but heard nothing, not a radio, cell phone or computer hum. For an instant, I thought about bailing. But in the next instant, my hand raised and rapped on the door, loud. I didn’t mean for it to be so loud, but everything seemed to echo inside the Berengers’ house, even my own breathing.