by E. R. Frank
Even after I grab a flashlight from our garage, I don’t know where I’m going, exactly. It’s strange this late at night. Maple Avenue is empty, and everything is really quiet, except for the crickets humming like some huge refrigerator in the distance. I get to school, and I think I’m going to the soccer field, but instead, I wind up at the playground swings, dangling my feet into the little trench underneath the seat and holding on to cool, pinching chains at my sides.
I try to imagine where Simon is right now. Riding his bike through black streets? Or up in the mountains somewhere, sitting at a fire? Maybe he’s with Dawn.
I arch backward, dropping my head and pumping my legs, making the swing set squeak with my moving weight. I pump a little more, a little faster, until I’m sweeping through the air in a smooth back-and-forth arc. The night rushes around my ears and insects flick at my face, and the metal links nip at my fingers as I push myself higher and higher.
“Hey, Stacy,” I say right out loud. “Bet you can’t do this.”
And then I launch myself out of the seat, fly through the air, and land hard.
* * *
It’s the end of July, and everything’s been decided. I can’t face going back to Forest Alternative with all that’s happened and Simon and Tim not there. And my parents can’t face enrolling me in any other private schools because the only other one they like is too far away, and another one is too religious, and St. John’s is for boys only, and the other two have bad politics or something.
But my parents promised that if I go to Lincoln, they’ll help get me on the boys’ soccer team. Lincoln has a girls’ team, only when we researched it, we found out that last year they always forfeited games because they never had enough players. I guess the girls at Lincoln must like some other sport better than soccer, but I don’t want to be on some lame team. I want to be on a good one.
“You have to be skilled enough if we’re going to push for you to play with the boys,” my father had said. “It wouldn’t be right if you’re not up to their level and we make a fuss because you’re a girl and our fuss is the only reason you make the team.”
“It’s going to be hard, Alex,” my mother had said. “They may not like it. They might really not like it.”
So now I have to pick up some stuff I left in my locker: a couple of book report poems I had to do at the end of the year for Sheryl, my calculator, a mechanical pencil, that blue sweater, and whatever else is in there. My mom keeps the car running in the parking lot, since this is supposed to be fast. We have to get to the post office before it closes, so I can send my letter to Simon, Priority Mail. My parents are making me send it that way, and they’re also making me pay for it out of my allowance.
Things are overgrown between the plates of the slate path. Bees fly up out of the tall weeds when my sandals pad up to them, and the long grass makes my ankles itch. Inside the upper school the walls are bare, and the chairs and tables are shoved along the glass wall of the silent study room. The bathtub is filled with books. I don’t know where all the pillows went.
My stuff is right where I left it in the locker: stray homework, a crumpled lunch bag, a comb, the blue sweater, an old pack of gum. I fish it all out, and right when I think I’m done, I knock something that rolls from one side of my locker to the other. It’s a candle. The same one I gave to Stacy. The one you’re supposed to light on the anniversary of someone’s death. To show you remember them. To show you honor them. When I pick it up, I see how the green wax is cracked and sort of dusty. I wonder if Stacy put it in my locker the very same day she got it, and if it’s been lying there, forgotten, ever since. I use my palm to wipe off the dust, and then I hold the candle close to my nose and close my eyes. It still smells just a tiny bit like pine trees. I open my eyes, trying to think if I should save the candle or not, but then I forget all about it, because in the spaces between the stacked tables and chairs, through the glass wall of the silent study room, I suddenly see Simon.
My heart flops down to my stomach and digs in, and I feel dizzy, like I’ve just spotted a burglar at my bedroom window or the president in the neighborhood supermarket. I hold still and try to breathe in and out. In and out.
Simon’s by his desk in there, with boxes scattered every which way and piles of papers all over the place. His bike’s not on the hooks or even leaned up against a glass wall. I wonder how he got here. He doesn’t notice me for a second, but then, for no reason, he looks up and over and meets my eyes through the glass. Without waving or nodding or anything, he walks out.
“I left my sweater here,” I say, nervous. Simon’s tan, and he’s wearing a pair of stiff new jeans. I look over at the boxes. Some of them are full and taped up already. “I’m not coming back either,” I tell him.
“Uh-huh,” Simon says, extra neutral.
“Do you know where Stacy is?” I ask him.
“How the hell would I know that?” Not neutral anymore. Just mad. His face is different than I remember. Harder or something. It scares me.
“You two left at the same time,” I try to explain. A part of me thought maybe they ended up in the same place. I guess that doesn’t make much sense.
“Why didn’t you tell them Stacy was a liar?”
“I did,” I say. “And, anyway, I thought . . . I mean . . . You told me everybody lies.”
“I told you what?”
“That everybody says stuff . . .” What was it? “You said there’re things that are untrue in all the truths and things that are true in all the—” I stop because I think I’m getting it wrong and because he’s looking at me like I have five heads. My teeth start to chatter, even though it’s summer and I’m not cold.
“I told you nothing of the kind,” he says. Spit flies out of his mouth.
“You did, too,” I argue. “You said—”
He doesn’t wait for me to finish. “What I said was that behind every lie there’s some grain of truth! That’s what I said.”
“Oh.” I clench my teeth to stop the chattering.
He blows air out hard through his nose and glances back at the boxes. “Do you know what this has done to me?” He sounds twisted, uneven.
“Everybody was saying I should be her friend,” I tell him. “Everybody was saying I should be fair.”
His jaw pushes out under his chin, and the corners of his lips start tugging. “You should have known the difference between a man who would do those things and me.” Dread creeps into my skin like some kind of poison.
“I know it now,” I say, ashamed.
“Everyone knows it now.” His voice isn’t so loud, but it’s a wail anyway, thickening that dread to the inside of my bones until I think I might just die. “But we can’t reverse what’s been done to us, can we?”
He’s right, and there’s nothing I can say. Nothing that will be enough, nothing that will change how I helped mess everything up for him. He stares at me, mad and cold, just stares until I can’t take it anymore, can’t take what I did to him, and I grab my stuff to leave.
I’m halfway out the double doors when he says, “Wait.” I turn around. He moves forward a step and then stops. He hooks one ankle around the other. I miss him so much.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me. I never knew before how many different things you could be sorry over.
“So am I,” I tell him back. I should have been the one to say it first. Then I remember my letter. I pull the envelope out of my back pocket. “Here.” I hand it to him. “This is for you.”
I slip my arms into the blue sweater, trying to think of something else to say. But I can’t, so I just take my things and walk out.
My sweater is too small. The cuffs only reach to my wrists. I peel if off and leave it on top of a chair on top of a table underneath the girl kicking a soccer ball on the wall of the lower school. Then I get into the car with my mom, who doesn’t even ask what took so long.
22
IT’S THE NIGHT before school starts, and my clothes are laid out for to
morrow: new jeans; a red V-necked T-shirt, even though my mom thinks I’ll be cold; my first bra, with a little yellow rose in between the cups; two sets of tiny hoops for my ears; and a seashell choker.
I’m using my heels and toes to dip and roll in my rocker while I think about this new feeling I have. It started a few weeks ago, around my thirteenth birthday, and I can tell it’s important. It’s this hole, this empty space I don’t really get. Something I’ve lost and can’t find because I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know where to look.
I’ve been pretty good about shoving this feeling aside when it creeps up on me, but it can be tough to shake. Then I rewind most of last spring inside my head and play it back again, thinking maybe that’s where I’ll find some explanation, some answer. Obvious and easy. Like when you first look out the window of a soaring plane, and an entire city is tiny and ordered, with every piece of it in just the right place below; so small and clear, you can’t believe it ever seemed complicated.
* * *
My parents drive me to Lincoln. My father packed a lunch for me, and when I peeked a second ago, there was a Hostess cupcake, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, carrot sticks, a napkin, and a piece of paper that reads Rabbit’s Foot. My parents don’t believe in real rabbit’s feet, even fake real ones, because of cruelty to animals, so my dad gave me the paper instead. I guess he wants me to laugh and have good luck at the same time. The only thing is, I’m trashing the whole bag before I walk into the building. Nobody brings their own lunch to Lincoln. I know that much, at least.
“We love you,” my mom says as I slam the car door. She never says that. Which makes me even more nervous than I already am.
I watch them drive away in the rush-hour traffic and feel my stomach take an elevator ride when I see all the school buses lined up in front of the building across the street. I check my watch. Five minutes till homeroom. I picture Tim at St. John’s right this second, wearing a shirt and tie and scared of being beat up in the boys’ room.
I have to cross Lincoln Avenue, which is a pretty busy street, in order to get to school, but I let a lot of chances go by without moving. I hear a bell ring and see kids streaming into Lincoln’s different doors. Once I go in there, I’m going to start a whole new life. There’s going to be new teachers and new kids and a new system, and I’m not going to know how anything works. Once I go there, I’m going to be in the ninth grade, where everybody knows everything. Where everybody is old, and the girls all have their periods already. Where Danny’s cousin might hate me for wanting to be on his soccer team.
In a way, I feel a little hop of excitement. But I also feel that clump from last spring creeping up my throat. I wonder what everyone’s doing in the upper school classroom. I wonder if they’re scratching down flash card meanings: Neo: “new.” Poly: “many.” Trans: “across.” I want to be back there, where I know how it all goes. Where it’s safe.
A car zooms past me, rippling my red T-shirt. I don’t know why, exactly, but right then I know I have to stop thinking that way. I can’t ever go back to my old school. Because it’s different, and so am I. We’ve outgrown each other. I never knew you could do that with a time or a place. Only I think that’s what’s happened. It was such a big part of my life, but the truth is, I don’t really fit into it anymore.
Another car flashes by, except when I look around, the busy traffic has slowed way down. I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here.
There’s no kids left outside. None. I’m late.
I rush across the street without even thinking, until my brain kicks in, and I’m stopped short at those double lines, trapped and in trouble. Two cars are barreling down the road in opposite directions at just the right speed and distance to tear me apart if I move forward or backward. No time to run. No time to do anything but snap my feet heel to heel, hold my breath, and throw out my arms, high and stiff like a scarecrow. I hear that loud whine of rushing air underneath blaring horns, and my shirt dances around my stomach, and the wind mangles my hair, and everything is screaming, and I wait for Simon to save me, but he doesn’t, and then it’s quiet except for the whoosh of one car whispering away and the other skidding to a stop, and then I’m running toward Lincoln, running from the driver, running.
* * *
My homeroom is in the green hall, number 132. There’s a milky glass window set in the top third of the door, and I can see murky rows of kids, heads bent over desks, filling out forms. I wait there, listening and catching my breath.
“Clayton, Pat,” the teacher’s saying.
“Here.”
“Compton, Ellen.”
“Here.”
“Compton, Richard.”
“Here.”
All I have to do is open the door.
“Crocker, Alexandra.” Nobody calls me Alexandra. “Crocker, Alexandra.”
I turn the knob.
“Crossfield, Adam.”
“Here.”
I open the door, expecting it to be heavy, like the double doors I’m so used to, but it’s not. It’s light and it flies on its hinges, hitting the wall behind with a bang. Everybody jumps, including the teacher, and I cross my arms and tilt my head, hoping to cover up how freaked out I feel.
“Hi,” I say. I picture Stacy the first time I ever laid eyes on her, standing so tough with her hands on her hips. Filled with secrets that none of us could see through all that attitude. “I’m Crocker, Alexandra.” I imagine how scared and brave she must have felt, both at the same time, and imagining that helps me smile my best smile. “So,” I say, “let’s get this party started.”
Postscript
Dear Simon,
I’m sorry this letter took me so long. I wrote so many, but none of them sounded the way I wanted them to. I understand a lot of things now that I didd’t before. One of those things is that when you have something really important to say, it’s practically impossible to say it the right way. The other thing is that the older you get, the more confusing everything else gets. Did you know that? I don’t know if you know this, either, but the reason why Stacy lied about you was because her father was touching her and doing sexual stuff with her. My dad says that Stacy was scared and that she might have felt safer telling people that it was you who did all that than saying it was her own father. I think that’s a messed-up, mean thing to lie about, but my dad says that when kids are being hurt badly, they sometimes do messed-up, mean things and that you probably know that and probably would forgive her. I guess the thing that’s harder for me is that nobody was doing that stuff to me, but I got confused anyway, and I guess (I hate to admit this, but you already know), I guess I started wondering if you had done or wanted to do things to me. After everything happened and you left, I tried to imagine what it would be like if Tim ever accused me of doing something terrible, like setting a dog on fire or beating up a really little kid in the lower school, and what it would be like if he really believed it and if he got other people to believe it too. I could barely even imagine what that would feel like, but even just thinking about it made me want to throw up. I’m serious. I guess that’s how you must have felt when we were in Maggie’s office with that detective and at other times, too. Like throwing up. So I wanted to write that I’m sorry, and I am sorry, but it feels so stupid to write those words and expect that would make things better for you. “I’m sorry” is so lame, after what’s happened, and I know that. You are the best teacher, ever, and you taught me so much stuff about school things and about life things too. I feel so bad because I wasn’t smart enough to know that you’d never hurt anyone, especially not a kid. I know that you wouldn’t, Simon, and I’m so so so so so so sorry that I doubted all that before, when it mattered so much. If you don’t feel like writing me back, I’ll understand. Tim really likes your letters, even if his letters back to you sound like he doesn’t care (he lets me read what he writes sometimes—I hope that’s okay), so please keep writing to him. I guess you know he’s going to St. John’s next yea
r, and I’m going to Lincoln. Nobody knows where Stacy is, but my dad still calls that detective for any news. My parents are not happy that this letter took me so long to write, and they say to tell you they send their best wishes and to call them anytime. Well, I guess that’s all for now. I’ll never, ever forget you.
Love, Alex
P.S.
Maybe someday we could run down a mountain again together.
P.P.S.
If you’d rather not, that’s okay.
P.P.P.S.
Remember when you taught us what P.S. means?
Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges and warmly thanks:
Jessica Roland, for a decade of invaluable encouragement and for heroic readings of multiple versions.
Kathy Farrow, for two drafts’ worth of feedback, as well as for being there from the start and calling out on the subway so many years later.
Stephen Lucas, for his steadfast mind and heart and for wisely suggesting a different ending.
Karin Cook, Kerry Garfinkel, Stacy Liss, and Amy Rosenblum, for their ongoing support and editorial assistance.
Bunny Gabel, her 1996–97 students, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, for providing the space.
Charlotte Sheedy, for wanting it from the absolute beginning.
Richard Jackson, for always.
David, Rebecca, and Ilana, just because.
Turn the page for a preview of E. R. Frank’s gritty new novel, Dime.
WHEN I FIRST understood what I was going to do, I expected to write the note as Lollipop. But in the six weeks since then, I’ve had to face facts. Lollipop has lived in front of one screen or another her whole life, possesses the vocabulary of a four-year-old, can’t read, and thinks a cheeseburger and a new pair of glitter panties are things to get excited about. Using her is just a poor idea.