by Angela L.
“Wow.” I was speechless.
“So…can I stay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine with it but…hold on,” I said and called Raya. “Raya, can Jacob sleep at our house for a few days? His dad kicked him out!”
“Wait, why?” Raya said, startled, and came into the living room.
“Um…” I looked at Jacob to explain. I didn’t know if he wanted me to tell Raya that he was kicked out for being gay. It was his own business and I had no right to say anything.
“Hi, Raya. Sorry to trouble you. It’s a long story. I might have told my dad something and he kicked me out, so now I have no place to stay.”
“What was it? Do you want me to talk to your dad?” Raya asked. “I’m sure I can reason with him.”
“No. I’m positive he’s not going to change his mind.”
“But what exactly did you tell him?” she asked again with deep curiosity.
She must have known Jacob was uncomfortable with the question. He was hesitating and sweating badly.
“It’s okay. You can stay here until we figure something out,” she said.
“Thank you so much,” Jacob said with relief that he didn’t have to explain anything further.
“Demi, get him settled. You know where the blankets and everything are. If you guys need anything, just call,” Raya said and left.
I made Jacob take a long shower first because he smelled like he’d been living in a trash can for a month. While he cleaned himself, I got out some soft pillows and old blankets and laid them on the couch in the living room.
“Hey, you’re fine with sleeping on the couch, right?” I asked after Jacob came in to the room with his hair all wet. He smelled a lot better; he had a soft vanilla aroma, probably from our shampoo, that drifted around him when he walked up to me.
“Yeah. No problem.”
“Hey, I have been meaning to ask you. The other day when I was buying milk, I overheard these two girls talking. One of them said she made out with you? Care to explain?” I asked curiously.
“Oh. Yeah. After my dad kicked me out, I thought, ‘Hey, why not try and see if I can be straight?’ It was so stupid. Unfortunately, after I made out with her, I realized I was more gay than ever.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
(January 21, 1993, in Missouri)
The year was about to come to an end, and just like any other year in our high school, the seniors planned their traditional prank to finish off high school.
The senior prank the year before had been awesome. One senior stood on top of one of the tables outside during lunch time and started screaming out, “Free chocolates!” Of course a herd of people crowded around him because who doesn’t love chocolate? Once almost everybody was outside in a bundle, the rest of the seniors appeared on the roof with water balloons in their hands and started throwing them at the crowd like grenades. Apparently, the principal never told the teachers about it, so a bunch of the teachers also got extremely wet.
This year, the seniors didn’t exactly plan much. We just all gathered together two or three times and fooled around when we should have been brainstorming. My grade wasn’t exactly known as being productive, so in the end, we pulled something together last minute like the way we did for all our assignments.
The seniors were on the railings of the theater, looking down at the crowd of underclassmen and juniors, waiting as the seconds ticked by until we were ready for action.
The principal had gathered every other grade level together for an assembly, and just like any other assembly, the people looked dead as they sat in their chairs, wishing to be anywhere but there.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you all had a wonderful week,” the principal began.
The crowd answered with a tired groan.
I could see Ken, this guy in our grade who was also in my English class, hiding in one of the corners of the stage behind the red curtains. He was holding a camera, ready to capture the entire moment.
There were still a few seniors down at the assembly with the underclassmen and juniors so that it didn’t look that suspicious.
“The year’s about to end, and I know a lot of you can’t wait for summer.” The principal coughed two times, which initiated the signal, and without a second to waste, all of us dumped our high school essays, exams, notes, and papers all on the crowd below us.
“We’re free, losers!” one of the seniors yelled.
“Screw exams!”
You could tell that the prank was also like a therapy session for some of us who actually studied for the exams. We all had at least a bit of hatred when it came to finding X.
Along with the paper airplanes and paper balls made from our past tests, some of the seniors brought a load of water balloons and eggs and flour to throw at the crowd.
“Dude, I see the li’l brat,” Benji whispered to me and pointed at an annoying sophomore sitting in the sixth row who had been annoying him since last year.
“Now’s your chance.”
Benji filled a plastic box with water and dumped it at the region where the sophomore was sitting.
Five minutes later, the football team came in with huge bongos and started beating their chest like gorillas as the paper rained down.
“I’m so done with school,” Donna said to me. She then threw a balloon filled with paint. I don’t know if she planned it or not, but the balloon landed right on her chemistry teacher, Mr. Burton, whom she hated greatly. For the past year, Donna had seemed to complain about him during class rather than actually listening and taking notes.
“Whoa, where did you get that?”
“Anything for Mr. Burton.” Donna laughed and left to get more balloons.
In the end, you couldn’t even see the ground. Everyone was walking on eggshells and damp paper and broken pieces of plastic balloons. The flour was still drifting around in the air like snow, and when it landed on the floor, it got mushed together with the eggs and congealed into disgusting yellow clumps.
****
I blasted the radio and Billy Joel’s song “Vienna” came on. I instantly turned off the music before I could burst into tears.
It had been almost a year and I wondered if he was still alive. If he was, which country was he in? If he wasn’t, I wondered if his funeral had been memorable at least.
I turned around in my chair and looked at the three college letters that were sitting on my bed. I wanted to know what they said, but at the same time I knew I was going to be disappointed. I just anxiously stared at them, conflicted on whether I should just throw them away or not.
Screw it.
I ripped all of them open and laid each one side by side before I dove down into the venomous words.
“Sorry to inform you…”
“It is our biggest regret…”
“Thank you for choosing our university, but we’re sorry…”
I tossed all of them in the trash without even finishing them. I wished Noelle had gone back to school. I wanted to ask Jacob if he’d heard any good news yet but at the same time I didn’t want to know.
“Hey, Demi.”
Jacob came in, startling me. Even though it had been about two months with Jacob living with me, I still kept on forgetting that he was here in the house.
“Yeah?”
“I forgot to tell you. Donna went up to the tree house yesterday, and she said part of the roof crashed down, so we need to repair it again.”
“Now?”
“I don’t know. She and Benji already started on it.”
“Come on,” I said, getting my jacket and keys.
“Where are we going?”
“To fix the roof,” I said and dragged him out of my house. I needed something to distract me from all the college rejection letters, so I might as well release my anger through pounding a nail into wood.
When we arrived at the tree house, Donna and Benji were lying down on the dirt next to the little stream while sharing a pack of licorice together.
“Hey, guys!” Benji waved a string of licorice in the air. I could see from his wet shorts that he had gone in the stream earlier. Maybe Donna pushed him.
“I thought you guys were fixing the roof,” said Jacob and took a licorice out of the bag.
“We were, but then after, literally, five minutes, Benji decided that we should take a break,” Donna said.
“Lazy much?” I joked.
“Very.” Benji groaned.
“Hey, where’s Noelle?” Donna asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since last week. Didn’t she show up at the grill?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t been at the grill these days. The manager’s on vacation so he told his son to look after the place, but his son does nothing. So I ditched,” Donna said.
“You have any idea where she could be?” I asked. I was getting worried. It seemed like Noelle had been disappearing more and more these days. She was never there when I visited her house.
“Nope. I actually covered her shift several times in the beginning of the week. Then…she just stopped showing up,” said Donna.
Chapter Twenty-Six
(February 4, 1993, in Missouri)
“Hey, did you get any news back from the colleges yet?” Jacob asked me as we walked toward Noelle’s place.
“Yeah, but none of it was good,” I said. We passed a corner where a mailbox stood. I could still see a little bit of the graffiti that we had done three years back. But of course, someone covered part of it with white paint.
“Demi, college is next year,” Jacob informed me.
“You think I don’t know that?” I said, then realized I’d just snapped back at him. “Sorry. What about you?” It was weird thinking that we three would be graduating in less than half a year. I didn’t want those months to come. But I didn’t think any one of us wanted to grow up.
“So far, nope. Got rejected from three already,” Jacob said and kicked a stone off the sidewalk.
“How many more?”
“Two.”
“Two. Not bad. There’s still hope.”
“Hope. Guess everyone in this town’s depending on hope.”
“Well, what else do we got?” I said. Most kids in this town only finished high school. A small percentage actually continued on to college and possibly one percent managed to escape this town if they got really lucky.
“What about you?” Jacob asked me.
“Don’t get me started. There’s absolutely no hope for me. I think I’m expecting one more college to reject me and then it’s over.”
“That’s right. Keep up the positive attitude,” Jacob said sarcastically.
We reached Noelle’s ratty old house. Her doorbell was always broken, but we never needed to ring it. We knew where she kept her spare key.
On her front porch were four different gnomes. Jacob knelt down next to the second gnome with the heart shaped beard and lifted its hat up where a tiny spare key was.
Knowing where the key was wasn’t enough. Her door was broken, so when you stuck the key in, you had to push it toward the left a little, then up, and keep on shaking it until it unlocked.
“Noelle!” I called in the house after closing the door behind us.
Nobody answered.
“Noelle!” I called again, and we walked into the kitchen.
The kitchen sink was filled with dirty plates like usual. There were boxes of fast cooked meals stuffed in the garbage can, and the trash was so full that the lid could hardly close.
“You think she’s out?” I asked Jacob.
“No. I told her we were coming the other day,” Jacob said.
We walked toward her room, down the hallway past her mom’s bedroom.
“Noelle?” Jacob yelled and opened the door.
Her room, like always, was messy with dirty clothes on the floor and shoes randomly placed on her table. Her schoolbooks were stacked on one side of the desk, untouched with broken pencils stuck in between the pages.
The door behind us suddenly creaked.
“Hi, Demi and Jacob. I didn’t hear you guys. Can I help you?” Noelle’s mom came into the room. She was dressed comfortably in sweatpants and a T-shirt with her hair tied up in a bun. She looked like she was planning to have a relaxing day at home, reading or watching the television.
“Hi, Ms. Griffin, is Noelle here today?” I asked.
“No, I’m afraid not. You can come back later if you want. Or you can wait here until she comes back.”
“It’s okay. Do you know where she is?”
“No, sorry.”
“It’s all right. Thanks,” I said.
“Well, you’re welcome to stay. I’ll be in my room if you need anything,” Ms. Griffin said and walked away.
Jacob sat down on Noelle’s bed. “Where do you think she is?” he asked as he ran his fingers over the sheets.
“She’s probably at the grill. I mean, where else would she be?”
“Good point.”
We rode our bikes to the grill because we were both too tired to walk. When we got there to see if she had come in today, the only person working was Donna, who also didn’t have a clue where she was.
We then checked the tree house, but it too was empty with no sign that anybody had gone up recently. Everything was left the way it had been last seen: the jars of licorice were untouched with the lids half open, a hammer lay in the left corner, and a bag of unopened peanuts were sitting in the middle of the floor.
I sat down in the tree house, making the floorboards creak. “You think there’s something wrong?” I asked Jacob.
“Like what?” he said and sat down with me.
“I don’t know. What if she got kidnapped?"
“Let’s not assume the worst right now,” Jacob said. “She could probably be at Benji’s house or, I don’t know, buying soda at the grocery store.”
“I know this sounds weird, but I have this weird feeling in my gut. When and where was the last time you saw her?” I asked Jacob.
“Two to three days ago? I saw her at the stream near here. She was just sitting there with her feet in the water,” said Jacob. “What about you?”
“About five days ago,” I said. “I seriously think something happened to her.”
“But…each of us vanish from time to time and we always come back.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I said. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“My place,” I said and got on my bike.
“Wait. Why?” Jacob asked, following me.
“I need to make a call.”
The bike ride back home to and from the tree house was always a pain. The roads were bumpy, and it always felt like I was riding on top of rocks.
The minute when we reached my house, I grabbed the telephone and dialed Ms. Griffin.
“Hello?” Her voice sounded muffled through the phone.
“Hi, Ms. Griffin, this might be a strange question but I was wondering exactly when and where you last saw Noelle?”
“Two days ago at home. She told me she was sleeping over at Donna’s for a night. She was supposed to come back today, but you know Noelle. She’s always wandering around. I just assumed she slept over at another friend’s place.”
“Got it, thanks, Ms. Griffin,” I said and hung up the phone.
“What did she say?” Jacob asked me.
“She said Noelle told her she slept over at Donna’s place two days ago,” I said.
“But…that’s not right. We asked Donna and she hasn’t seen Noelle for a week.”
“I know. I told you something was wrong,” I said and quickly called Donna and Benji to meet up at my house.
When they arrived, we all got on our bikes and rode around the entire town in search for Noelle. Jacob went south, Donna went west, Benji went north, and I went east.
I checked every single store, asking all the cash registers or the janitors if they’d seen Noelle.
By the time I reached the end of town with no luck, I had a huge lump in my throat and a feeling of something caught in my chest.
The entire time I couldn’t help but imagine Noelle alone and scared in a dark alley.
What if something had happened to her?
When night came, none of us knew where she was or anybody who’d seen her.
It was as if she’d just vanished.
We went back to Noelle’s house to tell Ms. Griffin the troubling news before calling the cops.
“Do you think she’s safe right now?” Donna asked with her head down on the kitchen table.
We were all waiting for the police in the kitchen. Jacob was stress-eating while Ms. Griffin huddled on the couch, imagining the worst scenario. There was nothing that we could do but wait, and yet waiting was worse than anything because it was a sign that we couldn’t do anything that mattered.
“She better be safe, at least,” said Benji.
“Let’s not assume anything right now,” Jacob said optimistically.
I heard the police sirens a few minutes later with the red and blue lights dancing around like disco beams.
We were told by the police to leave the matter in their hands, but none of us felt settled. Even though we wanted to believe she was at a friend’s house, in the back of our heads, we knew there was something wrong…and all we could do was hope for the best.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
(February 24, 1993, in Missouri)
Raya had gone into labor a few hours ago and was already at the hospital. I sat in one of those uncomfortable waiting chairs outside her room. I was allowed to go in, but I was afraid Raya wanted me to stay while she gave birth, and I wasn’t ready for any images of a baby being squirted out of her body yet.
Jacob was supposed to be here, but he’d decided he had better stay at home, considering he wasn’t even related to her.
I took out my notebook and began to lose myself by writing down a new set of lyrics rather than thinking about Raya.