The Talents

by Inara Scott

  And if Jack was right about all that, could Cam be wrong about Jack?

  It was all so confusing, it made my head hurt.

  Grandma slowly pulled the car into our driveway, ran over the hose and an empty pop bottle I’d left outside the week before, and stopped inches from the garage door. She turned off the car and we sat there, neither of us moving. We sat there so long, I had almost forgotten my own question when Grandma finally spoke up.

  “I suppose there’s no good answer to that, Danny. I wish there was. But if you take the wrong path, something deep inside you will feel twisted. There are times when that will be the only way to know the right from the wrong.”

  Her words sat heavy in my chest. “You mean I won’t know until after I’ve done something if it was the wrong thing?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  I threw up my hands. Sometimes it felt like Grandma spoke in a code only she understood. “How do you know, anyway?” I asked. “Did you ever do anything wrong?”

  “Of course,” she replied, a little tear running down her cheek. “We’ve all done things we regret. But I left the meatballs on the stove. We should get inside before they burn.”

  GRANDMA LEFT me alone all day Saturday, except for a quick trip to Goodwill to look for a new blanket to cover the holes in our couch, and a visit to the hospital to pick up some new prescriptions.

  On Sunday afternoon we went to Walmart to get a couple of bags of Halloween candy. Grandma asked if I needed any new clothes for school, so I wandered around aimlessly, watching other girls shriek and coo as they held up outfits for their friends. They made it look so easy. I lingered over the shirts, rubbing the smooth cotton of a snug-fitting pink hoodie between my fingers, and wondering whether Cam liked bright colors. He probably didn’t like brown, gray, and more brown, which pretty much described my wardrobe.

  Grandma raised her eyebrows when she saw what I was doing. “Pink?” she said with surprise. “Now that’s a change. It would certainly be nice to see you in a pretty color.”

  She rifled through the rack and pulled out a large. “Looks like it’s made to fit a third grader,” she sniffed. “Well, try it on. Can’t hurt.” We walked over to the fitting room, and Grandma grabbed a few more shirts on the way. Another pink one, then a blue V-neck, and a purple-striped button-down. She was all business, grabbing shirts from the racks and handing them to me, shushing me with an impatient hand when I started to argue. I finally got to the dressing room with about six shirts, not a single one of them brown.

  I tried on the pink hoodie first. It clung to me in a way that none of my other clothes did, but I can’t say it looked bad. All that running had been good for me, I guess. I walked out to where Grandma was waiting. She had a strict rule about approving any clothes she bought for me.

  “Good Lord, child, are you sure they let you wear things like that at Delcroix?”

  I wasn’t committed to the pink anyway. “Probably not. I’ll go take it off.”

  “No, no, no, I was only asking.” She pursed her lips. “Turn around, let me see the whole thing.”

  I spun around slowly, hoping no one I knew was within a ten-mile radius to see me modeling clothes for my grandmother, like a six-year-old.

  “It’s fine. We’ll get it.”

  “But, Grandma, I don’t think…”

  She shook her head. “I’m tired of seeing you in brown.”

  I was too, I had to admit. There was something beguiling about the color, the way it made my cheeks look creamy instead of washed out. Besides, I was starting to wonder if dressing the way I did was a little silly. Was I really less likely to get into trouble just because I didn’t wear bright colors?

  The purple-striped number was a disaster, but the blue one made my eyes stand out. We took it, along with a new pair of jeans that weren’t quite as baggy as the ones I usually wore. Grandma seemed happy. I knew she had always hated my wardrobe.

  We picked up a few more things—some notebooks for me, a trashy tabloid and some denture cleaner for Grandma—and headed to the checkout. The woman in front of us had just begun to unload a full cart, so I looked around for a magazine to flip through while we waited.

  I turned toward the rack behind me, then stepped back.

  Jack was lounging behind the racks of candy and gum, hair falling into his eyes, hands deep in the pockets of his cut-off khaki shorts, pushing a cart almost filled with ramen noodles.

  “Are you sure you want that pink one?” he said. “It looks a little flimsy. Might get ripped if they make us go back over the wall.”

  Seeing Jack at Walmart was so unexpected, I found myself gaping at him. In my mind, Delcroix was hundreds of miles away—completely separate from my life in Danville. But here was Jack, wearing the same ripped shorts he’d been wearing a couple of days ago at school.

  “Eh? Who’s this, Danny?” Grandma thrust her glasses higher on her nose and pushed me aside to take a closer look at Jack. “What’s your name? You look familiar.”

  “Jack Landry.” He straightened and extended his hand. “But I’m not sure how we would have met. I only came to town a couple of months ago, just before school started.”

  “Where from?” Grandma demanded, shuffling over to shake his hand.

  “Portland. I moved here to go to school at Delcroix.” Jack gestured in my direction. “Dancia and I are on the same team.”

  “You never lived in Danville?” Grandma asked.

  “For a little while,” he admitted. “I moved when I was five.”

  Grandma considered him for another moment, then her face lit up. “Aha!” she said triumphantly. “You must be Tom Landry’s son. I knew you looked familiar.”

  The smile froze on Jack’s face. “You knew my father?”

  Grandma snorted. “He lived a few blocks away from us. Never saw you or your mother much.” She poked me in the side. “You remember Tom, don’t you? Teacher at the high school. He moved to California a year or two ago. How is he doing?”

  “We don’t see him,” Jack said, his lips curling as if the words left a sour taste in his mouth.

  The woman in front of us was arguing with the clerk, insisting that the nightgown she had picked out was on the clearance rack and should be fifty percent off.

  “Did you move up here with your mother?” Grandma asked.

  I threw her a black look. Didn’t she know it was rude to bring up such personal issues in the Walmart checkout line? I’d tried to talk to Jack a few times about his parents, but he didn’t like to talk about them much. He had something against his mother, and he always changed the subject.

  “I’m staying with a friend,” he responded.

  I’d heard all about his friend, who was really just the older brother of someone Jack knew in Portland. The guy didn’t have a job, and as far as Jack could tell, he spent most of his time doing drugs and crashing out in his house, which his parents had left him when they died.

  It didn’t sound like a good arrangement.

  The woman in front of us got fed up. She threw the nightgown at the clerk and stomped out. Grandma moved forward and started fumbling through her enormous purse as the cashier rang up our items.

  “Are you ready for Halloween?” I asked Jack. “I don’t see any candy in your cart.”

  “Nah. I’m just going to turn off the lights. I wouldn’t want any little kids coming to my place.”

  “You should come over for dinner,” Grandma said as she took our bag from the clerk and tucked the receipt into her purse. She examined the contents of Jack’s shopping cart, her cloudy blue eyes soft. “You look like you could use a good meal.”

  Jack looked from Grandma to me and raised his brows a notch. I could feel the question in his expression.

  I couldn’t muster a decent protest. Even though I wasn’t sure what to do about him, the thought of Jack sitting alone on Halloween, eating ramen noodles in the dark, didn’t seem right.

  “Sure,” I said. “Come on over.”

/>   Despite my fears that Grandma would do something horribly embarrassing, or Jack would say something weird about Delcroix, dinner proved surprisingly pleasant. Jack turned out to be one of those kids who could charm adults until they were putty in his hands. He entertained Grandma with stories about his childhood, like how he hadn’t learned to ride a bike until he was ten because he was so clumsy, and how he failed kindergarten because he wouldn’t share his toys. She seemed to find this hilarious. He asked her scores of questions, even got her to talk about how she had moved to Danville with my grandpa fifty years ago, when they were young and just starting out.

  Grandpa had been a logger. He died before I was born.

  Jack praised Grandma’s homemade chicken soup so much you would have thought she was Emeril, and he really seemed to like it, because he ate three bowls. I guess he was awfully hungry. Then Grandma broke out the sherbet, and we all had big bowls.

  “Mrs. Lewis, that was the best meal I’ve had in years,” Jack said, sounding sincere.

  Grandma smiled, but something underneath her smile was serious. “You come here for dinner anytime you want, Jack. You shouldn’t be eating those noodle things. You need protein, a growing boy like you.”

  “I appreciate that. I’m not much of a cook. But you know they feed us pretty well at school.”

  Grandma leaned over and patted his hand. “It isn’t home cooking. You come here when you want some real food.”

  I’d never seen her fawn over someone like that before. It was embarrassing.

  I stood and started gathering our bowls. Grandma pushed back from the table and took them from my hands. “Why don’t you and Jack go sit outside and watch for the trick-or-treaters. I’ll clean this up.”

  Now this was disturbing. Was Grandma, with that innocent gleam in her drippy eyes, trying to set Jack and me up? That was definitely not on the menu for the evening. Jack and I were friends. Nothing more.

  “I don’t think—”

  “I’ll need to be getting home soon,” Jack said.

  “Go.” Grandma pushed me toward the front door. “You’ve got a few minutes to talk before Jack heads home.”

  We walked out onto the porch, where an old wooden bench was slowly decaying by the front door. I sat down on one end, Jack sat next to me. Closer, I thought, than was absolutely necessary. It had been warm and sunny all day, one of our rare Halloweens where we got a last taste of summer weather, and I ran my hands over my bare arms nervously. Somehow things felt different at my house than they did at school. At school we’d sat next to each other hundreds of times while we studied or ate dinner. And it felt like there was always someone watching. Here, it felt too private. Like anything could happen.

  “My grandma’s a little pushy,” I said apologetically.

  “She’s great. I wish I had someone like her.”

  “Were you serious when you said you didn’t know if you had grandparents?” I looked straight ahead, focusing on the fact that we were outside, in plain view of the entire street. There were little kids in costumes starting down the block with their parents. It wasn’t like Jack was going to jump me right then and there. And it wasn’t as if a little part of me was curious to know what that would be like, if he did.

  “Yeah. I guess they’re dead. My mom and I don’t talk much. She never really mentioned them.”

  “Is your mom in Portland?” I asked.

  “I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her since the spring.”

  I pulled back, puzzled. “Really? Then who did you live with?”

  He shot me a sideways look. “I don’t mean to shock you, Dancia, but some kids don’t have a cozy little house to live in. I bummed around. There are lots of places to go.”

  I turned to him, unable to hide my shock. “You mean you were homeless?”

  He shrugged. “I usually had a friend I could crash with. I’d rather be on my own anyway.”

  “Isn’t that illegal? For you to be on your own, I mean. Don’t they put you in a foster home or something?”

  “They didn’t know about me,” Jack said. “They thought I lived with my mom.”

  I leaned back on the bench. Jack usually had a friend to crash with? What did he do the rest of the time? I thought about what I’d overhead Mr. Judan say—something about Jack living under a bridge. Was that what homeless kids did in Portland? Lived under bridges?

  Jack scowled when he saw the expression on my face. “Look, it’s not so bizarre. Lots of kids do it. I still went to school. I made money doing odd jobs for people. I did okay.”

  “But how…I mean, was it scary?”

  He turned that half smile on me, the one that he’d used so effectively on Grandma. “I’m telling you, it wasn’t a big deal. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about me. How’s cross-country going? You haven’t mentioned it for a while.”

  “It’s fine.” I tried to shake the image of Jack sleeping on the street, or under a bridge. I wondered what kind of “odd jobs” he had done to make enough money to support himself. “We run a lot more than I did on my own. It feels good. It helps me clear my head.”

  “I’m not much of an athlete, myself. I doubt I could run to the end of the block.” Jack leaned back and laid one arm on the bench behind him. He practically touched my shoulders as he did, and goose bumps broke out on my arms. I scooted a few inches to the side.

  “I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do,” I said. “You probably want to get back home.”

  “I guess so.” Jack stared at the street. “I do like it here.” There was something wistful in his voice, and a little part of me felt like reaching out and grabbing his hand.

  He must have read my mind, because he turned his head and looked down at me. There was no smile now, just a serious expression no boy had ever aimed at me before.

  I swallowed hard, hoping he would look away, but he didn’t.

  He was going to kiss me. I knew it. It would be my first kiss.

  But this wasn’t right. I fought the invisible fingers that seemed to hold me in place. I didn’t like Jack. Not like that. I liked Cam. Cam was the guy for me. Not Jack.

  My mind was screaming for me to move, to get out of the way before he leaned closer and touched his lips to mine, but my body seemed determined to stay put.

  A million questions ran through my mind. Would his lips be warm? Soft? Wet or dry? Did you tilt your head like they do in the movies? What if I wasn’t good at this—

  In the midst of my panic, the shrill sound of the phone ringing cut through the silence.

  A second later, Grandma called, “Dancia! Phone for you.”

  I jumped up and practically flung myself across the porch. “I’ll be right back.” I bolted into the house; my heart was thumping as if I had just gone running.

  Grandma handed me the phone. “It’s Esther.”

  I took a few deep breaths before holding the phone to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  Esther’s voice bubbled through the receiver. “Dancia! Do you have your costume on? Are you ready for Halloween? I couldn’t believe it when I got home—my little sister is going to be a pumpkin and she looks so cute, I can’t stop pinching her cheeks. It’s driving her crazy!”

  “Esther, can I call you back? I have a friend over.”

  Jack stood in the doorway. The sun was setting behind him, so I could only see a dark outline, not his face. He said something to Grandma as Esther continued to chatter in my ear. Then he grabbed his Walmart bag from the couch. He waved at me from the doorway and turned to leave.

  “Esther, hang on a sec.” I covered the receiver with one hand, walked as far toward the door as the cord would stretch, and yelled, “I’ll see you Monday.”

  He looked back and smiled, then threw his bag over his shoulder and kept walking. I watched him go, with only an ounce of regret and a pound of relief.

  I FOUND myself glancing repeatedly in the side mirror as we drove to Delcroix early Monday morning. It was dark and cold outside, and I ha
d that creepy feeling you sometimes get when you think someone’s watching you. For a few blocks I thought a beige sedan was on our tail, but then it turned off the road, and I cursed Jack for getting me so wound up.

  We arrived at the parking lot fifteen minutes early, but there were already half a dozen cars sitting in the lot. I went to stand under the foggy glow of one of the streetlights. Paul and Alessandro were the first from my team to arrive, and they joined me. We exchanged halfhearted waves, but didn’t say much. I liked them both, but we hadn’t spent much time together since orientation. Marika got there next. I still couldn’t look at her the same way, after the incident in pottery class. In her defense, I don’t think she liked Catherine that much either. She mostly hung out with Allie and Emma.

  I was wearing the pink hoodie and an old pair of jeans that hung low on my hips. When we’d talked the night before, Esther had persuaded me to leave my hair loose. This seemed like a huge mistake to me, but she was always complaining about how it drove her crazy that I kept my hair locked up in a ponytail. She believed in being natural and loving yourself the way you were, and she kept telling me how beautiful my hair was.

  I thought this was complete nonsense, but it seemed to work for Esther. Besides, she was persistent, and I couldn’t help but wonder what Cam would think. So there I was, in a tight pink shirt with crazy blond curls spiraling out from my head in every direction. The real Dancia, exposed for all the world to see.

  The crowd got bigger and the sky turned pale gray as the Silver Bullet appeared up the road, making its way toward the parking lot. I looked around for Esther or Hennie but didn’t see them. More people had gone home this weekend than usual, I guess for Halloween, and there were lots of cars and parents milling around. The iron gates creaked open to let the bus through. I suppressed a shudder as Jack’s words rang in my ears again.

  Keep the bad guys out, or us in?

  He’s paranoid, Dancia, I reminded myself. Of course he’s going to think weird things about the gates.

  The Silver Bullet rolled to a stop, and Cam jumped out. They always sent an older student to make sure that all the freshmen who had left school over the weekend were accounted for Monday morning. I don’t know what they’d do if you weren’t there. Sound the alarm and call your parents, I guess. No one had missed the bus yet.