Pressing my fingers against my eyes I wish I could escape. It’s the same wish I made over and over in that hospital room last October when all I could think about was getting away from my father’s dying. That wish to escape still thunders in my head and makes guilt rain down inside me. I’m a terrible daughter.
“Is there a problem, Miss Edmund?”
I shake my head, keeping my eyes on my script and willing the tears in them not to trickle down my cheeks. “I need some water.”
“This is a good time to take a break anyway,” Mr. Smith says.
“Yes!” Jamal is the first one up. Dolores follows him out the door to the hall and I hurry after them.
I wait in line at the water fountain, then drink long and deep.
“You got the jitters?” It’s Dolores.
“No. Just thirsty.”
Dolores steps up and takes one more sip of water. “It’s K.T. Don’t look at her and you’ll be okay.” She never raises her voice. It’s as if she has one low volume setting for everything she says. She’s already down the hall and entering the classroom as I realize how relieved I feel that at least one person besides Mr. Smith hasn’t leered, glared or growled at me.
At the door, Jamal holds it open so I can enter behind him. “Thank you,” I stammer. I’m beginning to appreciate the smallest act of kindness.
When we start again Brabantio stabs Desdemona with words as deadly as any dagger. “I’d rather to adopt a child . . .” Then he says he doesn’t want her in his home ever again. I stumble through the scene, focusing on Pavan Gupta, trying not to hear my real dad who I imagine might say these things now that he can see into my heart, now that he knows those secrets I’m ashamed to admit.
I take Dolores’ advice and don’t look at K.T. I don’t look at either of her bookends, Chico or Juan. Anthony had to leave early, so I have one fewer pair of eyes to avoid. It helps to make fists and hide them under the desk.
Every time Juan speaks I force myself to concentrate on the page. “Honest Iago, My Desdemona must I leave to [you].”
How can he sound so, so Othello-ish? I don’t have any lines here, and I wonder what I’m supposed to do while he talks to me.
“Come, Desdemona. I have but an hour
Of love, . . . To spend with [you]. . .”
When Juan says this last line before our exit the temperature in the room shoots to boiling. My face is on fire. Then I glance at Chico and gasp. His sneaky evil look is perfect Iago and it’s leveled at me. I hate this play. I hate that creep Chico. Juan Pacheco I despise.
I’m exhausted and grateful when the rehearsal is over.
K.T. stops me at the door. “So next time you think you can drag yourself through that part, you know, say all the Des-da-mo-na words you’re supposed to?” She does a shifty-head move in time to each syllable.
“Sure. Next rehearsal, no problem.”
She snorts and, taking that as, “dismissed,” I start toward the car.
“Wait up, Princess.” When I look back Juan is jogging to catch up. I take out my keys and hurry to my driver’s door.
“Late for something?” He’s right behind me.
“I’ve got homework.” I’ve already opened the door and scooted behind the wheel.
“Sure. Just thought I'd tell you about Keith. See you tomorrow, Princess.”
“I’m not a — What about Keith?”
“It'd be good if he'd stop dissin’ the track team. He's talking to someone at Channing and some bad stuff is getting back here. The runners are steamed. You better tell him.” He goes to stand with Chico and K.T.
As I back out and roll past the three of them Chico and K.T. give me identical Las Pulgas scowls. Juan tosses off a quick wave. He’s driving me crazy. I can’t think when he’s taunting me with that—that smile of his. I hate him, for being so sure of himself. No, for calling me an uptight princess. He doesn’t know anything about me. He’s a judgmental jerk.
Mom’s at the kitchen table studying when I come back from rehearsal. “I’ve got to finish studying one more section then I’ll make dinner. Want to make a salad?” She doesn’t wait for my answer before diving back into her books.
While I wash and shred lettuce, I prop the script over the sink. We’ll be going through some of Act II Sunday, so I need to know what I have to do. The first part is a lot of Iago implying all kinds of rotten stuff. Great. Better yet I have a—“Oh no.”
“What’s wrong, honey?” Mom asks in that tense, protective tone I hear whenever she senses the tiniest danger about Keith or me.
“Uh, nothing.” Othello kisses Desdemona? I'd forgotten there was kissing involved in this part, but it’s right there in the stage directions. I will not kiss that—jerk. That has to be changed.
At dinner Mom talks about the real estate course and then she circles around into Quicken, which leads to Jeb Christopher and what a really great guy he was to come here and return our cat.
I wonder what she means by a great guy, but I don’t ask. I stuff more salad into my mouth and wash it down with milk.
“So give us a report on your day,” she says.
“I saw Lena at the Shack.” I tell about lunch with Lena, leaving out the part about that Juan person. It annoys me to even think about him, let alone talk about him.
“How did the rehearsal go?” she asks.
“Good.” I choke and gulp more milk.
She turns to Keith. “Did you see Mitch today?” Mom keeps trying to kick-start a family conversation.
Keith grunts.
“Do you feel okay, honey?”
“I’m good.”
He’s always in some kind of funk, but he hasn’t been this down since right after the memorial service. I know tonight’s gloom is all about our visit to Channing and Brent’s stupid hip-hoppity flea impersonation. Probably the green house too. That ugly color. What’s become my Las Pulgas growl rumbles at the back of my throat.
“I have some things to do before I fall into bed. The kitchen's all yours.” Mom yawns her way up from her chair, gathers her real estate books and disappears down the hall. Her back is more rounded than I remember. It's probably the books and that disgusting job.
Keith shares kitchen duty with me, and, since the dishwasher went belly-up last week, tonight it’s my turn to wash, his to dry. Quicken curls up next to her cat bowls. Her ribs show along her sides and she eats and drinks every few minutes as if she’s making up for a long hunger strike.
“Aren’t you glad Quicken’s back?” I hand Keith a clean plate.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re so grumpy.”
“And you’re Miss Sunshine all of a sudden?”
“Sheesh. Sorry I’m bothering to talk to you.” I shake cleanser in the sink and scrub hard. Keith tosses the dishtowel on the counter and leaves.
I dry my hands and kneel to pet Quicken. “Please tell me you don’t like Jeb Christopher and that you’ll never go back there again, okay?” I walk with her to my room and she purrs when I hold her close. I love her warm, familiar sound. “I’ve missed you so much.”
I close my bedroom door and put Quicken down. She hops onto the foot of my bed and snuggles into her cushion.
Tonight the neighbors aren’t thrashing each other in the next apartment. I think I’ve figured out that on Saturday nights they either go out or watch a TV program they agree on. I get a break at least one night a week.
There’s not much homework and I’m tired of studying Desdemona’s lines. I peel back the pages of my journal to the last entry I wrote and crossed out so long ago, that night at the Franklin house. I add another line through the sentence.
“Sometimes bad things happen . . . even in Channing.”
“Don’t give up writing from your heart, Carlie love.”
My heart has nothing to say.
Chapter 21
This is the beginning of the third week of my sentence at Las Pulgas High. Lena’s emails and phone conversations with
news about Channing keep me both sane and insanely jealous. She’s on the Spring Fling dance committee; the table centerpieces are going to be violets and the cloths blue. If I were at Channing I’d be on that committee. I’d be choosing the centerpiece colors—and not blue either.
I’m running these thoughts through my head while Mr. Smith returns our essays from last week.
Last night when we talked Lena said so many girls had signed up for Sean’s tutoring he had to add two more hours a week and one on Saturday. Her words, “God, is he hot!”
I know. I know. That’s when I pounded my pillow with my fist and Quicken leapt off her cushion.
“And Carlie, Nicolas is calling you. He told Eric.”
I’m glad someone is. I haven’t heard from Sean in over a week. Can he be so busy with French lessons that he can’t at least pick up the phone and talk to me?
Mr. Smith’s voice brings me back to Room 9. “As usual I’m reading two of the best papers. With your permission, Miss Edmund, I’d like to read yours.”
“Uh. Sure.”
It’s hard to sit still listening to my own words being read aloud. I try to keep a blank look, but I can’t stop fiddling with my pencil, then rubbing the edge of my desk with both thumbs. When I glance across the room at the clock, Juan’s eyes are on me, and I tangle my fingers in my hair. Why did I write such a friggin’ long essay? K.T. fixes me with her usual look of contempt and I don’t have to turn around to know I’m the main attraction for Anthony and Chico. I’d like to become invisible.
When he’s finished, Mr. Smith hands me my paper. “Well done, Miss Edmund. An excellent piece of nonfiction.”
It might have won first prize for the nonfiction category of the Scribe’s contest this year at Channing. Who will win it now? Not me.
I crumple my A paper and stuff it into my backpack. Mr. Smith holds up a second essay. “The next is by Mr. Chico Ramirez.”
I expect some kind of gang war essay with gnarly descriptions of muscled combat, but Chico’s essay ties in long distance running with setting goals and reaching them. The biggest surprise is that it’s well written.
At the bell, I stuff my notebook into my backpack and head toward the exit. While Mr. Icky’s backpack searches make the mornings hell, I hate the five minutes between classes almost as much. Elbows out and push. That’s the only way to make the trip. By chemistry I’m as tired as if I’d run laps with Keith, but it’s my final class. I’m close to being sprung for the day.
I’m working the combination on my locker when K.T. and her “girls” swing their way down the hall, spreading attitude ahead of them like confetti. They sweep around me, slam open the swinging door to the girls’ restroom and file inside. I had considered a quick bathroom break before my next class, but I change my mind.
Tossing my geometry book at the back, I lean in to retrieve chemistry and while I have my head stuck inside K.T.’s voice booms loudly. She’s coming toward me, so I stay put.
“I’m creaming her next time I catch her anywheres alone.”
“You got a plan?” That sounds like her main sidekick, the tall girl with big teeth. I worry about bites when she’s near me.
“Do I got a plan?” Today K.T. sounds like she’s chewing on gristle. I hope I have nothing to do with her mood. “Whaddya think?” She’s one of the most physical people I’ve ever met, so even though I’m not looking at her I know she womps Big Teeth in the arm.
“Hey! Des, you sniffin’ something’ in that locker of yours.”
I step back and close the door. “Very funny.”
“I’m going to do you a number one favor.”
Please don’t. I hold my chemistry book to my chest like a shield.
“Do not pee in any of these bathrooms starting today. Go to the annex.” K.T. smiles but humor’s not involved.
“Excuse me?”
“Something’s goin’ down in here soon.” She leads her gang away, but calls over her shoulder. “Don’t want our star to get messed up.”
When her back’s to me I make a face. Some favor. Now I have to plan an extra walk around the back of the school to the so-called annex if I have to use the toilet. And for what? Is she pulling some kind of newbie joke on me?
At least in chemistry I have a nonviolent lab partner—nonviolent but very unfriendly. He’d been working alone until I arrived, then Mr. Mendoza stuck him with me, the future English major.
“Hi Doc.” I keep trying to soften him up. I nicknamed him Doc because he’s already decided to be an Orthopedist and plans to apply to Columbia University. He didn’t tell me; I overheard him. He talks to other kids, just not me.
While he sets out the experiment he grunts commands at me. I’m not allowed to touch the set up. He may let me hand him stuff.
“So what’s the—”
“Combustion experiment.” He sets a Bunsen burner on the counter along with small square pieces of screen.
“Can I—”
“Light the burner when I tell you.”
Mr. Mendoza strolls past as I hold the matches at the ready, looking productive. “Remember to use all the fire safety precautions during this experiment,” he says.
“Okay, light it now.” Without looking at me Doc adjusts the flame, something else he won’t let me do. Then, using tongs, he slowly lowers one of the screen pieces onto the flame. “Make notes.”
“Like what?” I grab my notebook and a pencil. He snorts, but I ignore him and say, “Just tell me so I don’t screw up your lab report, okay?”
“Flame doesn’t penetrate screen when lowered from above.”
I write, then wait for the next step.
By the end of the experiment I have one page of dictation. “So why did we do this?” I know my question annoys him, but how else am I to learn anything in this lab?
“We’re observing heat dispersion.”
“Hmm.” I’ll have to read the chapter to find out what I need to know. Doc’s already packing away the Bunsen burner and preparing for the next experiment. We’re always ahead in lab. He’s always ahead in lab. I begin to plot how I can screw up his A in this class.
After chemistry I have one more stop at my locker before I can quit the stuffy halls of Las Pulgas High until tomorrow. I stack the books I’ll need for homework into the crook of my arm, close my locker door and chart my passage to freedom. When I’m near the girls’ bathroom the door swings open and with the force of an explosion hits the wall. I jump back. The loud scream is mine.
A blonde wearing nothing but a bra and panties falls into the hallway. K.T. swings after her on crutches then tosses them aside and pounces on top of her. Locked together, they roll across the floor, K.T’s cast thumping with each rotation. The gang of six jams together in the doorway, yelling and waving what the girl had been wearing.
The stripped girl screams as K.T. rips off her bra. The hoots from males in the area are deafening. Mr. Icky pushes the growing crowd aside and plucks up the nearly naked blonde by the arm. With his foot he pins K.T. to the ground. Principal Bins is suddenly there, his jacket off and wrapped about the victim whose face streams with tears.
Mr. Icky hands K.T. her crutches and marshals her down the hall toward the office. The principal follows, keeping the girl close to his side. “Show’s over,” he calls to the gawking bystanders.
The gang of six trails after the rest of the students jostling toward the exit. “K.T. got her good,” Big Teeth says. “That’ll shut her down.”
One of the gang who has beads knitted into her hair sends them chattering against each other as she swings her head. “That skinny witch shoulda knowed better.”
Another, the shortest one, scurries to stay up with the rest. “What’ll happen to K.T. this time?”
“She’ll get some time off school that’s for sure, but maybe not as long. Bins is gonna see what’s on that wall in there.” At the exit Big Teeth separates from the others. “Catch ya tomorrow.”
When the door closes on the last stude
nt I exhale.I’d been holding my breath and I’m still pressed against the wall biting my lips, staring at the open door to the girls’ restroom and letting the sudden eerie silence crowd around me. The surveillance cameras hover like vultures overhead, scanning, patient; I don’t want to alert them to my being here, so on cat feet I step inside to see what provoked K.T. into ripping off someone’s clothes. The peeling gray paint is covered with the same initials, phone numbers and gross poems about body parts that I’ve seen since day one. The first stall door droops from a single good hinge, and one mirror has a crack from corner to corner. I don’t get what that fight was about.
But I turn to leave, there, next to the light switch by the exit, is a crude drawing that sends my stomach into spasms. A chair is tipped on its side. Dangling over it is the lifeless form of a woman hanging by her neck from a thick rope.
I escape into the hall. What did that drawing mean? Was it some kind of gang code? Doesn’t matter. It’s a terrible thing that will make going to the annex bathrooms much more appealing. I hurry outside.
Keith’s at the curb, but he's not alone. Chico, standing a couple of inches shorter than my brother, has his hands in Keith's face, flipping him off. Keith shoves him and Chico's hands ball into fists. He's about to take a swing when a police car, lights flashing, drives up to the front of the school and two officers get out. Chico turns the swing into a wave and jogs off.
Chapter 22
Our dented Tercel sweeps up to the front of the school and parks behind the police car. Mom’s out almost before the car stops rolling.
“Are you all right?”
“It has nothing to do with us, Mom,” I say holding both hands up as if that will calm her down. “Some kids got in a fight.”
Still she’s shaking as she puts her arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go.” Mom’s Las Pulgas Market uniform has perspiration stains under both arms and if she combed her hair today it was early this morning.
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