Pointe

by Brandy Colbert

  “Except . . . I was late because of the stupid train,” I say as I stack my bag and coat on the empty seat next to Phil.

  He stops pulling his trig textbook from his bag to look at me, his dark eyes narrowed behind the clear lenses of his aviator eyeglasses. The thin gold frames almost blend into his light brown skin when I look at him from a certain angle. “Good story, Theo.”

  I make a face at Phil. Then: “I have a question.”

  “The answer is probably no.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” I lower my voice a little. “Do you still get your pot from Hosea Roth?”

  “Of course.” Phil looks at me carefully. “You in the market?”

  “No way.” Sara-Kate shakes her head emphatically across the table, her silver lip ring glinting in the light. “Half the fun is freeloading from Phil. You can’t buy your own.”

  “I’m not,” I say, laughing at the look Phil shoots her. “But a friend might be. In the market, that is.”

  “Pills or grass?”

  “Shrooms,” I say, just to throw him off his game.

  His face creases. “That’s random. What friend is this?

  Everyone at school goes through Hosea.”

  “A friend from dance. She doesn’t go to school here.”

  “I can check and get back to you.”

  “No, it’s okay.” God, what would Hosea do if he knew I was asking about him? “She said all the guys in the city are flakes or creeps, so she was looking for someone chill.”

  “Hosea’s the most chill dude I know.” Phil raises an eyebrow at me like this is common knowledge. “If he can’t get them, he’ll find someone who can.”

  “No, it’s fine.” I pretend to search for something in my bag so Phil can’t see my lying eyes. “She probably wasn’t serious anyway.”

  Sara-Kate twirls a straw among the ice cubes in her cup. “I don’t think I’ve heard Hosea say more than twenty words the whole time I’ve known him.”

  “Probably because he can’t get a word in around Klein.” Phil opens his book to the study guide section.

  “Why are they friends anyway?” I ask, buttoning my cardigan all the way to the top. It’s pilled from too many washings and the once-vibrant green has faded to a murky olive, but I keep it in my bag for trips to Casablanca’s because it is always freezing in here. Too much A/C in the summer, not enough heat in the winter.

  “It’s not that complicated.” Phil shrugs, flips a piece of dark hair out of his eyes. “Hosea has the drugs. Klein has the money.”

  “Hosea is cute,” Sara-Kate says thoughtfully before she sips from her straw. “But I do not like his big black boots. They’re oppressive.”

  The sixtysomething waitress who’s been giving us the stinkeye since I got here trudges over from behind the counter to take our order. Jana. She hates us and is here every time we are. Or maybe that’s why she hates us. She taps the sole of her dingy canvas sneaker against the floor as she recites the daily specials, sighs when Sara-Kate takes too long to decide between fried pickles and onion rings to accompany her grilled cheese. Phil orders a bowl of chili.

  Everyone bitches that the lentil soup here is bland but I choose it because I know exactly what I’m getting. They put it on the menu after someone complained about the lack of vegetarian options, and the cooks either don’t know or don’t care how to prepare it well. So it’s kind of mushy and virtually tasteless, but at least I don’t have to worry about creams or cheeses in my soup.

  Someone asks Jana to turn up the television when she walks back behind the counter, and that’s when I notice. That every person on a stool and in a booth, every server and busboy and fry cook is staring at the television hung in the corner of the diner. Usually it’s tuned to soap operas or Bears games or crappy made-for-TV movies.

  But today, everyone’s eyes are glued to the breaking news report on the screen, and our eyes follow. At first I think it’s the exhaustion from class catching up to me now that I’m able to relax. Because as I look at the news anchor, the camera flickers from her face to a picture of my old best friend.

  My dead best friend.

  I’m standing and then I’m walking toward the counter without thinking, oblivious to Sara-Kate and Phil, who are close behind.

  Donovan’s name comes up once or twice a year—on the anniversary of his disappearance or when someone submits a false lead. Like, someone saw him in a Burger King in Vermont, or he was spotted in line at an amusement park in Utah. I figured out a long time ago to stop believing I would see him again. He was my best friend, but everyone knows kids missing longer than twenty-four hours were sexually abused or killed or both.

  But this time is different. The news anchor’s glossy lips are stretched into a smile and she stumbles over her words, trips over the last-minute script. She’s telling us that he’s alive. Donovan’s been found.

  My ears are the first thing to go. I can no longer hear voices, just this buzzing. Raw and unstoppable and I can’t tell if Sara-Kate and Phil and the rest of the diner hear it, too, because then my eyes get stuck on the school picture that was taken the last year I saw him. I used to keep that picture in my nightstand, separate from the photos of my other classmates. Seeing it on-screen, I feel like someone has stolen my journal and displayed it for the world to see.

  I am somewhat aware of the silence as I take in that for the first time ever, no one in this greasy spoon is saying a word. That they’re all looking from the television to one another, slack-jawed. That Sara-Kate is stepping forward for a closer look, and Phil is rubbing my back, searching my face with his huge, dark eyes.

  Donovan is alive.

  “They found that boy,” Jana says, her hands gripping the black handle of a coffeepot.

  I try to hold myself up, but these legs, these same legs that will dance me all the way to New York—they can’t. They are made of jelly and I would fall to the ground if Phil didn’t catch me. This particular combination of relief and confusion and elation is too big to comprehend, too big to do anything but lean on Phil in front of the counter, tears streaming down the hills of my cheeks until he and Sara-Kate lead me out on my jelly legs.

  Outside into the brisk autumn air, where I catch my breath for the first time in minutes, where I say it aloud to convince myself it’s true:

  “Donovan’s alive.”

  Donovan came back to us.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MY NEIGHBORHOOD IS A SHITSHOW.

  The Pratts’ house—Donovan’s house—is two doors down from us, so our street is blocked off. I stop at the corner and show the policemen who I am, pull out my ID with unsteady hands as I try to look down the street to see what’s happening. I’ve dreamed about this day plenty of times, but in my version, Donovan was standing outside on his porch—waiting for me like I’ve been waiting for him all these years. My version didn’t look like this.

  I receive an escort to my driveway and a couple of officers hold back the reporters while another walks me to my front door, smiles, and makes sure I’m safely inside before heading back down the porch steps.

  The house is quiet and calm, the antithesis of the clicking shutters and shouted questions and hum of too many people on the other side of the door. I breathe in the silence.

  “Mom?” I call out.

  But I know she’s not here. She works part-time in the research department of the library and today is her late day. Dad won’t be home for another half hour, either. And I don’t know what to do with myself, so I sit on the couch with my coat buttoned up to my neck and I wait.

  Exactly thirty minutes later, I hear the slow crank of the garage door, my father’s car pulling in, the creak of the door as it shudders to the ground. Then I hear his urgent footsteps, the flipping of light switches as he navigates his way through the dark house, looking for me.

  “In here,” I say when he rushes pa
st the living room doorway.

  He loops back down the hallway and into the room, stands in front of me while he scratches the back of his head. “Did you get my messages? Mom and I both called you a few times.”

  His eyes are slightly dazed, his silver tie with teeny black polka dots askew. I gave him that tie for Father’s Day last year. He uses everything I give him. Even the misshapen ceramic pencil cup I made in third-grade art class sits on the desk at his accounting firm in the city.

  “Oh, yeah.” I looked at my phone once, I think, to check the time. I don’t remember hearing it ring or seeing the missed calls. “Sorry. I got distracted.” I gesture toward the commotion on the other side of the curtains.

  He smiles a bit. “Right. It’s kind of a zoo out there. But what do you say we brave the paparazzi and go out to dinner when your mother gets home? We should celebrate.”

  “I already ate,” I say, digging my fingers into the empty cushions on either side of me.

  I don’t realize this is a lie until I think about the cup of lentil soup that never came to the table. I wonder if Jana ever brought out our food, if she was pissed that we left without canceling our order.

  “Could I stay here instead?” I twist my hands in my lap as I look at him. “I want to watch the news.”

  Dad has too much energy. He wants to get out. He can’t stop fiddling with his collar and glancing toward the windows. But he smiles again, bigger this time. He says, “Of course, babygirl. You’re right. It’s probably best if we all stay in.”

  So that’s how Mom finds us, side by side on the sofa in the den, watching the same story play out on different channels. She settles on the other side of me, and when our eyes meet, I have to look away because I see the happy tears in hers and if she starts crying, mine will spill over again. She puts her hand on top of mine as I turn back to the television.

  Donovan Pratt, 17, returned to his home in Illinois after four years in captivity

  Breaking News: Chicagoland teen rescued from years-long abduction

  Locals call missing teen’s return a miracle

  The news is the type of nonstop coverage that makes people turn away after a while, say they no longer care. I absorb it all, find a little pocket to store each new piece of information. The reports are vague. Every news anchor alludes to the abuse, brings up old long-term abduction cases and some that were never solved. They talk about where Donovan was found: a Las Vegas breakfast buffet, with the person they believe had him all these years. A few minutes past nine, the thick-haired anchor with the tired eyes says.

  I was in second period. Chem. My throat tightens as I try to remember if I felt anything during class. But no. I was zoning out, same as any other day of the week.

  Some of the channels show timelines to illustrate his life. They use fancy graphics and bold colors, but it all adds up to the same conclusion: thirteen years as a normal kid in Ashland Hills, four years at the mercy of a stranger. I wait and I wait, but they haven’t revealed the identity of the abductor. All we know is there’s a suspect in custody.

  “You should get ready for bed,” my mother says gently, around eleven.

  The coverage has slowed except for the major cable news channels. There’s nothing new to be learned at this point, but I’m afraid I’ll miss something if I go to bed. I want to know who took him. What they did to him.

  “He’ll still be here in the morning,” my mother says, as if she can read my mind.

  Somehow I float up to my room and then I’m under the covers. But I can’t sleep. How can someone be here every day for years, then disappear? How can they be gone so long and just come back on a Thursday, like that was the plan the whole time? I won’t believe he’s really here until I see him.

  Donovan was brave. In a speak-first-think-later sort of way, but there was always truth behind his words. Like that day during our sixth-grade history lesson. I’d been dreading it all week because we were studying the Civil War and there’s nothing worse than being the only black kid in class on the day your teacher talks about slavery.

  Most days, I don’t think too much about being a novelty in this town. Chicago is really segregated, and my suburb is almost all white, but people don’t treat me like there’s a big divide or anything. We’ve been in school together for so long, it’s like they forget my skin is darker until someone or something reminds them. And the slavery discussion is one of those instances. It goes one of two ways: either the teacher calls on you because you must be the expert, or they avoid you and look all around the room at your blond-haired, blue-eyed classmates.

  Mr. Hammond was old-school, so he jumped right in. Something about the modern-day effects of Jim Crow laws, and as soon as he finished his question, he looked right at me and said, “Theo, maybe you have an example of how Jim Crow laws have affected you or your family so many decades later.”

  I felt eyes on me and I felt eyes trying not to be on me. The room was so silent, I heard Macy Wilkins’s stomach growling in the next row. And no matter how hard I wished it, Mr. Hammond did not get swallowed up by the floor and whisked away to a hell built for insensitive teachers.

  I was just sitting there, trying to figure out how to answer him without being exceptionally rude, when I remembered that this year I wasn’t the only black kid in this class. Donovan sat on the other side of the room and I didn’t have to look over to know he was seething.

  But I didn’t expect him to say anything.

  Before I could open my mouth: “Why did you call on Theo, Mr. Hammond?”

  Our teacher looked away from me, confused. “Excuse me, Donovan?”

  I peeked at him. He was sitting straight up in his chair, forearms placed calmly on the desk in front of him. Palms flat. His brown eyes were narrowed and his cleft chin jutted out so far, it nearly pointed at the whiteboard.

  “I said, why did you call on Theo? Her hand wasn’t up.”

  Mr. Hammond’s face puckered. “Would you like to answer the question?”

  “No. I don’t think either of us should have to answer.” Donovan’s voice was calm but his eyes were shooting poison.

  “Well, Donovan,” he said slowly, as his neck then jowls then forehead burned an intriguing shade of red. “I’m asking because perhaps you could offer a . . . unique perspective, as your ancestors were so closely involved.”

  And that’s when Donovan lost his cool. “That’s bull. Why don’t you ask Joey or Leo or anyone else in this class about their perspective?” He was leaning forward over his desk then, his fingers gripping the edge like it was the only thing holding him back from a full-on fit of rage. “Last time I checked, their ancestors were closely involved. Yours, too!”

  He was sent to the principal’s office for talking back but the smirk he shot me on the way out of the room told me it was all worth it. I blinked a quick thank-you back at him. Mr. Hammond never called on either one of us again during the Civil War lessons.

  Donovan was brave, but you can be brave for only so long, and as I lie under my covers staring up at the ceiling, I can’t stop wondering if four years was long enough to break him.

  I had a hard time sleeping after the abduction. I would slip into my parents’ room in the middle of the night and ask if I could stay with them.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” Mom would ask as she sat up in bed, the silk headscarf she slept in wrapped tightly around her hair.

  I was thirteen. Much too old to run to my parents’ bed for comfort. I couldn’t tell them that in the back of my mind, I thought that if this could happen to someone as good and kind as Donovan, it could happen to me, too.

  But they never made me feel bad about it. Dad would say, “Can’t shut off your brain?” and I’d nod and crawl into bed between them, instantly soothed by the rhythmic patterns of their breathing, the familiar smell of their room, the warmth of their sheets.

  But that was f
our years ago, and Donovan is back. There’s no reason to be scared unless I think about who took him, and still, it doesn’t matter because that person is in custody. I’ve thought about that person often over the years. Man or woman? Old or young? Black like Donovan and me, or white like most everyone else in this town? I think about the pages and pages of sex offenders registered online in Chicago, how most of them have nothing in common except their desire to hurt people.

  I fall asleep for a bit but I wake around two in the morning. I have to pee. I sit on the toilet for a while, wondering if the last few hours were a dream. Maybe I sat in the back booth at Casablanca’s and finished my chemistry homework while Phil studied for trig and Sara-Kate worked on her poem for English. Maybe I ate that cup of mushy lentil soup and maybe Donovan isn’t just two houses away from me after all.

  My mother is in the hallway when I come out.

  “Mama.” I haven’t called her that since I was a little girl. “Mama, did they really find him?”

  She reaches out to me and we mold into each other. My nose is pressed into the crease of her armpit. She rests her cheek on top of my head.

  “Yes,” she says into my ear. Her voice is tinged with sleep, but most of all, it is content. “He’s home.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  MOST EVERYONE AT SCHOOL TREATS FRIDAY LIKE A FREE DAY anyway, but the news of Donovan’s return means it’s worse than usual, so the principal cancels second period and holds an assembly instead.

  Before it starts, I duck outside to meet Sara-Kate and Phil behind the athletic field for a smoke.

  They’re standing in a little circle between the bleachers and the fence that marks the end of school grounds, next to Klein and Hosea. Klein can be found out here most mornings. I bet even he couldn’t tell you the last time he made it through a school day sober.

  He sees me before everyone else does. It’s subtle, but he stands a little taller, holds his jaw a little higher.