by Anne Pfeffer
“What? No, we’re just friends,” I say.
“Right.”
“No, really.” She and I are just friends, and I have a bad feeling it’ll have to stay that way.
“She’s in a bunch of my classes.” He doesn’t say it, but he means the AP classes. “She’s very cool. She’s hachimenreirou.”
Jonathan breaks into Japanese every once in a while. He speaks it at home with his family.
“What’s that?”
“It means perfect serenity—beautiful from all sides.”
Wow. Jonathan nailed it with that one. “I can’t believe you have a word in Japanese for that.”
“We do.” He gets an evil look on his face. “We also have bakku-shan. That’s a girl who’s pretty from the back, but from the front, it’s like no way.”
I try to look disgusted at him, but I can’t help smiling. I’ve known Jonathan since the second grade, although not as well as Michael. “What’s your point, Takahara?”
“Just that an asshole like you could do a lot worse than Emily.”
“Thanks for the tip, asshole.”
There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask him. He’s into all this weird spiritual stuff, and sometimes we talk about it.
“Jonathan, do you believe in karma?”
Because I do. I believe that everything you do somehow comes back around to you eventually. The night that Michael died, I made enough bad karma to fill an ocean.
“Yep.” Jonathan answers instantly.
I reach up and shift the strap of the loaded backpack that’s biting into my shoulder. Not sure I really want to know the answer to my next question, I ask it anyway.
“What happens if you’ve got a lot of bad karma? Do you go to karma hell?” We turn a corner and pass some guys we know, raising our hands briefly to them as we go by.
“Kinda, yeah. If your karma’s bad enough when you die, you get reincarnated as some lower form of life.”
Great. I’m probably scheduled to come back as a sea slug.
“On the other hand, you can work off bad karma and create good in its place.”
I get this image of a giant worksheet in the sky, where the karma gods keep track of how everyone’s doing. Right now, I’ve got a whopping balance of negative karma.
“How do you know all this?” I ask.
“I have two uncles and three cousins in Japan who are Buddhist monks.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. My father’s the black sheep of the family, because he went into the import/export business.”
So Jonathan knows what he’s talking about. I can redeem myself, if I do good deeds. But what about Emily? Since I lost any right to be happy when I left Michael in the stairwell that night, the karma gods would probably count being in love with her as a bad deed on the worksheet.
Jonathan brings my thoughts back to the hallway. “Ryan, did you ever figure out anything about Michael’s secret—the thing that was bothering him?”
I shake my head. “I have no clue.”
There’s no one else he would have told. Letting it go doesn’t feel good, but I don’t know what else to do.
“Okay, well, see you later,” Jonathan says, and we go to class.
Chapter 15
Emily has put on white gym shorts, a white polo shirt, and a pair of white Keds, the color scheme being a requirement of my tennis club. She looks cute, with her hair up in a ponytail. She’s going to have her first tennis lesson.
It has taken me a while to get up the nerve to go back to the club. I park my car and get out, setting my feet carefully on the asphalt of the parking lot, as if I’m not sure it will hold me. I would go around to open Emily’s door for her, but she’s already out and pulling the tennis rackets from the back seat.
“The last time I came here, I was with Michael,” I say. “In fact, probably the last fifty times I came here, I was with Michael.”
Her forehead wrinkles. “Do you want to do this? We could go somewhere else.”
“No.” I grab a couple of cans of balls. “I promised you a tennis lesson.”
I’m wearing my best, most professional looking whites. In addition to giving her a few pointers, I wouldn’t mind showing off to Emily the true God of Tennis that I am.
As we walk through the club gates and onto a court, I follow close behind her, grateful I’m not here alone.
“You won’t laugh at me, will you?” she asks.
I bounce a tennis ball. “Only if you’re really bad.”
“Don’t!” She wags a stern finger at me as the corners of her mouth turn up in a smile.
Once again, I’m drowning in those gray-blue eyes. I have to force myself to say, “Okay, well, I guess we should get started.”
I demonstrate a basic forehand and backhand, and we practice for a while. I hit gentle shots straight to her, while she tries to get anything at all back to me. I shouldn’t be, but I’m appreciating the sounds and feelings of tennis again: the grip of my feet on the court, the thwack of the racket strings against the ball. My mind stops churning, and my senses take over. It’s sweet relief, like when a good, strong pain pill kicks in.
Emily’s hitting balls out of bounds, into the net, and even backwards, gritting her teeth and saying, “I’ll get it! You’ll see!” And after a while, she does get it, hitting three shots in a row back to me.
“Good work!” I tell her.
A guy I know, Alex, who’s a really good player, stops to talk to me. Emily, out of breath, invites us to play together.
“Sure,” I say, acting cool and casual.
I stand at the service line, bouncing a ball up and down. Emily is watching me. A few brown tree leaves tumble across the court.
As I look across the net at Alex, sudden rage floods me, and all the good feelings vanish. I hate the guy just because he’s not Michael. I bounce the ball again, tensing as I get ready to serve.
My first serve blisters its way over the net, practically spinning Alex around. Point, Ryan. I do it again, and then again, serving three aces in a row. When Alex finally does get a volley going with me, I push him back behind the base line, then tap over a little drop shot that he misses by a mile. I run him all over the court with my deadly topspin shots and end the match by ripping him a forehand that leaves a cloud of yellow fuzz in the air beside me and skitters the ball into a far corner of the court. He tries for it, but he’s not even close.
“Jeez, Ryan,” Alex says and leaves, scratching his head.
We kicked his ass, didn’t we, Michael? Serves the guy right for trying to take your place.
“I can’t believe how good you are,” Emily tells me when I finish and walk over to her.
“Believe it, baby,” I say, putting on a swagger and toweling off my face and neck. Yes. I have blown her away with my excellence.
As I walk around picking up tennis balls, Chrissie comes by in a short little tennis skirt. I haven’t seen her since the funeral, but now she comes up to me.
“Wow, Ryan. You looked great just now!” Chrissie’s accent is straight off a Mississipi mud flat. She has always reminded me of a Fourth of July sparkler, sending off light in all directions. She has blonde, curly hair and a blonde, curly personality.
From the side of the court, Emily is watching us. She has probably noticed that Chrissie merits a high score on the Hotness Scale.
Although Emily is the most beautiful girl ever, I still have to take an extra look at gorgeous Chrissie, who is pursing up her rosebud mouth in a way that makes me shift uncomfortably and think, Dang, Michael got a piece of that!
Neither Chrissie nor I mention Michael; it’s like we’ve both decided that subject’s off limits today. She starts to tell me a story about one of the club pros. Chrissie flirts as easily as other people breathe, tossing her hair, laughing, giving off sideways glances and little arm touches. She does this to every guy at the club, including our ninety year old half-blind garage cashier, Raoul.
Emily walks o
ver to stand next to me. “Hi,” she says to Chrissie in a friendly tone. She’s low key about it, but I notice she’s really close to me, her arm almost touching mine.
I introduce them, and Emily asks Chrissie where the nearest Ladies’ Room is.
“Honey, you read my mind! I’ll take you there.”
As I wait for the girls to come back, a couple of the club pros walk by.
“Great match, Ryan. You should go back into training!”
“Thanks. Maybe I will.” But I’m not serious about it.
The girls return, and Emily and I go out to my car.
“So she said she’ll be quitting the club pretty soon,” Emily says as she slides into the passenger seat.
“Who?”
“That girl we just saw. The blonde.” Emily’s voice goes neutral on the word blonde.
“What do you mean?” I start the car and begin backing out of our parking spot.
“I mean she can’t play tennis much longer.”
I turn my head to stare at Emily. “What are you talking about?
A second later, I slam on my brakes, throwing both of us forward, and just avoid sideswiping another car. The driver blasts his horn at me, but I barely hear him.
“What did you just say?”
Her eyes round with surprise from my reaction, she repeats the terrible piece of news as if it’s nothing.
“Didn’t you know?” she says. “That girl’s pregnant.”
• • •
I pull my car into an empty spot and sit there gripping the steering wheel. We’ve travelled a whole fifty yards or so in the tennis club parking lot.
“Ryan, what is it?” Emily’s shoulder touches mine as she leans into me. Worry clouds her face.
“How do you know she’s pregnant?”
“She was feeling sick in the bathroom, and she told me. Why? What does it matter?”
“The night of your party, Michael told me he slept with Chrissie. Once. At the tennis club.” I’m staring straight ahead, my eyes burning. I can’t believe this.
“What are you saying? That the baby’s his?” Emily’s voice hits the high end of the register.
I nod. “It could be.”
“But he only slept with her once!” she says. “I mean, it could happen, I guess. But it just seems like … that girl? She could have a lot of boyfriends.”
And she probably does, her tone implies.
“You don’t like her, do you?”
“Well, it’s just that….” Emily looks sideways at me, “She flirts a lot.”
I can’t deny it. “She flirts with everybody.”
“Exactly. So she’s got lots of men around.”
“The thing is, Michael was worried about something that night. He said he had something bad to tell me, and I had to keep it secret. But he didn’t get a chance to tell me.” Guilt stabs at me. He tried to tell me, and I wouldn’t listen.
“Really?” Emily sits very still, her hands folded in her lap, as she takes in this new information. “But you said he was slipping back into drugs, so it could have been that, too. And if it were his, wouldn’t Chrissie have gotten in touch with his parents, you know, after he ...?” She doesn’t finish her sentence. “She could have found them through the tennis club.”
“I guess so.” My hands loosen on the steering wheel, and I sink back in my seat, drawing in a big breath.
“Or she might even choose not to have the baby,” Emily says. She puts her hand on my arm.
“Yeah.” As always happens when I’m with Emily, a calm creeps over me. The tension drains out of my neck and shoulders, and my head clears.
“It shouldn’t be my problem, but it feels like it is. Michael was like my brother, you know?”
“Well, I bet it’s not even Michael’s.”
She’s probably right. I relax even more. We sit in silence for a few seconds.
Then, “How does that happen, anyway?” Emily’s studying the can of tennis balls in her lap. “To just sleep with someone once?”
A beat. The conversation has taken an interesting turn. “I don’t know, Emily,” I tease her. “How does it happen?”
I say it very suavely, as if I know all about it, when in fact I have not exactly had sex with a girl yet. It’s on my list of things to do, but I haven’t quite made it there.
She’s turning pink now. “I mean, usually when you have sex with someone, you really like them, right? You plan to do it more than once.”
A really interesting turn. But I can’t be with Emily now. Not after what I did to Michael.
“He said it was in the Pro Shop. At the club.”
“You mean, the store? Don’t people come in?”
I give her a dry look. “I didn’t discuss the logistics with Michael.” A pause. “But knowing him, well…. He didn’t exactly plan things out, you know? Especially not something like this.”
“I guess.”
I start the car again, then turn to her. “Thanks for coming with me today. It made it a lot easier.”
Dimples appear in both of her cheeks. “You’re welcome.” We sit there smiling at each other, until I finally pull myself together and take her home.
Chapter 16
“Please take the last fifteen minutes of class,” Mr. Simpson announces in physics, “to pair up with one or two other students. You will be in these groupings for the rest of the year for lab work and the second semester physics project.”
I stare down at my hands on my desk. Michael would have been my lab partner if he were still alive.
Get up. Go find someone else. But I can’t think of who to ask. Maybe, if I behave as if Michael’s still alive, I can make it true.
So I don’t look for another partner. I sit there, while the other kids mill around, forming groups. When the bell rings, I finally get up and try to make my escape.
Jonathan stops me at the door. “Do you want to work with us? I’m with Calvin Yang, but we can take a third person.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Jonathan.” I know it’s a pity offer, but I’ll take it.
For a moment I consider telling him about the pregnancy. But I haven’t heard anything about it from my folks or Michael’s. Emily’s probably right – it’s not Michael’s baby. I let it go.
A few minutes later, outside of Spanish class, Chase walks up to me. He’s wearing this sweat-shirt that looks like he dragged it up off the floor after maybe walking on it for a month.
We haven’t spoken since our fight by Emily’s locker. I set my backpack down—better to keep my hands free in case he tries to jump me. As anger and grief rise again, I imagine a margarita-soaked Chase coated in sand like some giant breaded pork chop. It’s a satisfying thought.
Chase starts this shifting thing he does, from one foot to the other. “You don’t have any of Michael’s stuff, do you?” he blurts out. “He was supposed to get something for me, but then he, you know…” His voice trails off.
“No. Like what? What was it?”
Chase shakes his head. “Never mind.” He drifts off.
That was strange. I would just as soon not learn what Michael had for him.
• • •
It still burns me, the fact that Chase got Michael back into drugs after he’d been clean for three years. I remember the first time I saw Michael high. It was at our seventh grade school retreat, when we were taken off to this fancy resort place for three days to bond with our new classmates. I was sharing a room with Michael.
On the second night, I had gone to bed early. A hand on my shoulder woke me up.
“Get up.” Michael sat on me, crushing my arm into my ribs.
“Go away.” I pushed him off me and turned over.
A moment of peace, then, “You force me to take harsh measures.” He yanked the pillow out from under my head.
Groaning, I grabbed some flip flops and followed him out of the room in my t-shirt and gym shorts.
“Man, what are we doing?” I was yawning and half-stunned by the bright li
ght of the hallway.
“Just shut up, okay?” We walked as quietly as we could down the hall to another door. Michael knocked on it, saying to me in a low voice, “You’re with Phoebe.”
“Huh?” I did a double take. “Michael, what’s going on?”
“Just trust me, man.”
The door opened. In the room were another guy and three girls. It was a small room—and crowded. One of the girls gave me a meaningful look and walked over to me. This must be Phoebe. She was in my math class and had just moved here from some place like Houston. She wore skimpy shirts that rode way up on her belly and had this blonde hair that she flipped around while she talked. She talked a lot.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.” I didn’t look at her.
“So I heard you know all these movie stars.”
I grunted a reply.
“That must be so cool. Like, who’ve you met? “
I’d met plenty, as a matter of fact, but I would have eaten battery acid before I told her anything. “No one really.”
I heard the striking of a match as this guy, Josh somebody, lit a joint and took a drag. Miss Anderson had warned us what would happen if we did drugs on a school retreat: “You will be immediately expelled.” I was sweating, picturing myself thrown out of school after only three weeks. But if I left now, I’d look like a total wimp.
The joint started moving around the circle. Phoebe, standing next to me, inhaled noisily and handed it to me. I did the only socially acceptable thing and sucked in a lungful of smoke, and then more lungfuls as the joint kept working its way around to me.
Soon, I was in some kind of time warp. Just lifting the joint to my mouth took about five minutes, and it was taking me ten minutes or so to inhale the smoke. Phoebe was laughing very, very loudly, a high-pitched laugh that went into my ear drum like an ice pick.
My head turned very, very slowly and I registered, far away, as if through the wrong end of a telescope, Michael on the bed with Kayla, and three or four minutes later I realized that he was lying on top of her! They had their clothes on, but still! I started to crack up, then stifled my laughter, willing myself to be cool.