Impulse

by Steven Gould

  That’s the best part—the crusty cheese. He put mine down on a paper towel and added a cup of the soup.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  He shrugged. “Bangladesh. The water hasn’t receded and they’ve got another tropical depression approaching. They’re trying to pre-stage supplies this time.”

  “Is she trying to bring them in herself? Does she need help?”

  He shrugged. “Planning stages right now. I’m scheduled to move a shitload of water filters later.”

  “Do you need help?” I didn’t say my help. I wanted to leave that open. Not that I didn’t want to help. It was just that Dad didn’t see me that way much. Sure, I might be hauled along to learn something, but as a resource?

  He shook his head. “Not for the water filters.” He paused and then said, “However, depending on how bad the storm is, we might need you later.”

  I blinked. That was a first.

  “Besides, you have a meet tomorrow, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, then. You’ll need some rest. We’ll see what you can do after, right?” He gave me a one-armed side hug.

  I drank my soup and was, well, comforted.

  There were two voice mails waiting when I popped back to New Prospect to let my phone connect.

  The first one was from Jade and the time stamp was right after I’d jumped to the cabin from home.

  “Hey, where’d you go? My Dad’s here. Do you need a ride home?”

  There was a similar text from her as well.

  The next voice message was from Joe. “Cent, you left before we talked about tomorrow, but the van leaves at the usual time.”

  The league meets were at Cedar Mountain ski area, which was pretty central to all the participating high schools. We’d have to drive farther, but the meet wouldn’t start until midday, so we didn’t have to leave earlier than usual.

  Joe paused and then said, “If Brett is being a jerk, let me know. I will take care of it.”

  I stared at the phone. Oh, really? You’ll make him like me for my own sake?

  I texted his phone: CU@Van 7:30 a.m.

  I texted Jade: Sorry phone was off. Thnx for ride offer but I was ok. CU a.m.

  I left the phone on the charger in my room at the house and went back to the cabin. I showered and when I’d changed into pajamas and was sitting in front of the fire downstairs, brushing my hair, Dad brought me a dish of Rocky Road ice cream—my favorite.

  “We didn’t have this in the freezer,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “What’s your point?”

  He’d gone and got it, as Iago said in Othello, “especial.” I ate it too fast and got brain freeze. But I gave him a good hug before I went up to bed.

  I tried to sleep, but kept coming around to Brett’s face and his smile and his hair.

  And his behavior.

  I couldn’t help it. The first sobs were soft, and I was burying my face in the pillow to muffle them, but they grew stronger, louder.

  Earlier I’d heard Dad come up to bed, but he was probably still reading just across the hall.

  I jumped to my bedroom in New Prospect and cried myself to sleep.

  NINETEEN

  Millie: Floods

  There were heavy winds and torrential rain the first four hours, but then the rain slowed to a steady drizzle for the next two days. Millie thought they’d dodged this bullet. Up-country the soil had soaked up more water than expected, unlike during the monsoon season. The river did rise, but it was still within its banks.

  “We might have to move the rations back to warehouse.”

  “Really?” Davy put his hand on his lower back. “I guess that’s good, right? No one flooded out of their homes.”

  “You hurt your back?”

  “It was the tent. I shouldn’t have tried to move both bags at once.”

  Millie put her arms around him and rubbed his lower back.

  “Mmmm.” Davy said. “We should continue this in the tent. Or, better yet, at home.”

  Millie kissed him. “Whatever your feelings about Cent going to school, you’ve got to admit it’s been nice to have the cabin to ourselves in the afternoon.”

  Davy’s response to this was nonverbal. Millie returned to the tent two hours later. Though rain still fell lightly, there were breaks in the clouds, and sunlight shone through in glorious glowing columns.

  “Well, do you think we’re okay for this storm?” she asked Akash as he walked by.

  Akash shook his head. “You haven’t heard the forecast, I take it? That depression near Sri Lanka is now a tropical storm and it’s coming straight up the Bay of Bengal. This—” He gestured at the clouds and light rain. “—is just a prelude.

  “We’re in for it.”

  TWENTY

  “Chukri.”

  Dad was gone when I got up, but Mom appeared shortly thereafter and made me waffles and eggs. “After all, it’s your first athletic event. You need the fuel.”

  She looked tired.

  “Have you been up all night?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t night where I was. I slept yesterday, but I’m definitely upside down in my sleep cycle.” She gestured toward me. “Dad said you weren’t your usual self last night.”

  For a moment I thought he’d heard the crying, but decided it was just how I’d looked when I got home. I shrugged. “Teen angst. I had a crush on someone but it is not to be.”

  She studied me silently. When I didn’t say anything else, she said, “Had? Crushes don’t just evaporate, usually.”

  I looked away.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe after the meet,” she said.

  The meet, by its nature, included Brett. I changed the subject. “Dad said you might need some help with the flood supplies.”

  She raised her eyebrows and looked at me, considering. “It’s possible. I’ve been locating high ground near places likely to flood. Especially those places that will be cut off.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “We’ve done a pretty good job of getting supplies to the NGOs but their warehouses aren’t very evenly distributed. Also, we’ve had some trouble with local authorities appropriating the supplies, even if their people aren’t the ones with the most need.”

  “So you might need to move the supplies?”

  “Yes. So, we’ll see. The flooding from the last storm is just starting to fall, but the new system was just upgraded to a tropical storm.” She shook her head almost angrily. “This is supposed to be the dry season.”

  I winced. It made my troubles seem petty.

  “I’d like to help,” I said.

  “Forty-eight hours will tell. If I need you, it will be then. Good?”

  “Good.”

  * * *

  I jumped myself and equipment to my cliff ledge near the edge of the wood and determined that today, at least, no one was lying in wait for me. I hiked across to the bleachers and around the school to the parking lot, hauling my bags.

  I’d made sure I was on time, but with very little to spare. I didn’t want to stand around waiting with Brett. I didn’t want to ride with Brett, either, but I didn’t have much choice.

  Most of the team were there standing next to the van, but Joe saw me first. He said something to Brett and Brett turned, a pained expression on his face. I was wondering what that was about, when Brett started jogging across the parking lot toward me.

  I froze, but Brett slowed to a stop about ten feet away.

  “Go away,” I said.

  He held out his hands palm out. “Please. I’m to apologize.”

  I stared at him.

  “I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to look at your phone without permission. Yes, Donna asked me to look for a picture you took of Caffeine. She said it was embarrassing and I should delete it if I could. But I was doing it for Donna, not Caffeine.”

  “Embarrassing? She said it was embarrassing? Not, say, felony assault?”

>   Brett blinked. “She said it was horsing around.”

  I wondered if he’d ever been kicked by a horse. “Caffeine and her peeps were beating up freshmen in an alley. It wasn’t ‘horsing around.’ Donna went through my backpack in the locker room.”

  “I didn’t know that,” he said.

  “Which?”

  “Both.”

  I was getting tired of holding my equipment. “Who told you to apologize?”

  He looked at the ground.

  I looked back at the team. Joe was watching us intently.

  “Ah. Joe did, didn’t he?”

  Brett twisted awkwardly. “Maybe.”

  “Cause if I quit the team, the transportation dries up, right?”

  He waggled his hand. “He said he’d quit the team if I made things unpleasant. He said he had enough of that shit when Caffeine was on the team.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “And you care because?…”

  “He’s my friend. I wouldn’t be on the team without his help. I would’ve flunked geometry and physics.”

  I started walking again.

  “I can help carry your stuff,” he said.

  I shook my head and tried to ignore the small voice in the back of my head that said, Let him.

  He turned and walked back, ahead of me, not with me.

  Joe said something to Brett when Brett neared the van, but Brett shrugged. I went to put my bags in the back and Joe was there, taking them from me. “Did he apologize? I meant it. I’ll kick his butt if he’s still being a jerk.”

  “He said the words. Just keep him away from me and we’ll be all right.” Joe still looked worried so I patted his arm. “S’cool, Joe.”

  Joe and Brett sat in the very back, Jade and I had our usual middle bench.

  I was not expecting Donna and Caffeine to be at Cedar Mountain.

  I don’t know which was worse. Caffeine in any form or watching Brett tongue wrestle with Donna on the lift chair ahead of me.

  Lany placed first in women’s freestyle, Joe came in fourth in the slopestyle, and I came in third in women’s slalom. The girl who took first had shoulders as wide as Carl’s and could really heave herself out of the gate. It would’ve been trivial to win with just a little bit of added velocity at the start—my time was only four tenths of a second behind.

  But I doubted if Brett would like me any better if I’d taken first.

  At the end of the meet, we all took a few runs for fun. Jade and I were doing a nice broad intermediate slope when she yelled, “Look out!”

  I jumped in place, killing all of my forward velocity, and Caffeine shot across the slope in front of me, stupidly fast. She would’ve run right into me if I hadn’t stopped so suddenly. She wiped out, trying to turn at the edge the slope.

  I slid down the hill slowly, taking my cell phone out, and, when I passed her, upside down on the snowbank, I took a picture.

  “For the yearbook.”

  Dad met me at the base.

  “I didn’t know you had a jump site here,” I said fiercely. “I would not have minded missing that van ride this morning!”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t have it until right before the meet started.” This meant he’d gotten as close as possible, then taken public transportation. He pulled a video camera out of his pocket. “Had to record your races for your mother. She’s knackered—catching up on her sleep.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “Goggles, scarf, hood. Too many other people taking video and pictures. You want a ‘ride’ home?”

  “Hell yes.”

  He pretended to be shocked at my language, then jerked his thumb back toward the van. “I’ll just clear it with George, then.”

  Jade was cool. She didn’t see any difference between riding four hours in the van and four hours in my imaginary car, even if her parents had given the necessary permissions ahead of time. “And I know you’d just as soon be away from Brett boy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That obvious?”

  “Duh.”

  I wished I could tell her the truth—give her a ride home in seconds. Dad carried my board bag and I took the other and we walked down to the lower parking lot. When we were screened from sight by two SUVs, Dad met my eyes and we jumped to the cabin.

  Mom wandered downstairs in a bathrobe almost as soon as we got home and Dad cued up the video. I’d never seen myself boarding before. I saw my arms were not as still as they should be, something Ricardo had mentioned once, but that they were better than they’d been during my first practice.

  Mom cheered loudly for recorded-me and after said, “You beat the other person each run. Why didn’t you win?”

  I smiled. “I didn’t race against everyone, Mom. Some of them were faster. I had the third best time.”

  She gave me a one-arm side hug. “I’ll definitely have to be there next meet.”

  I looked down, pleased. “How’s the flooding?”

  Mom sighed. “I’ll know more tomorrow. Maybe you could come home after school instead of going to the coffee place, this once?”

  Dad looked at her, his eyebrows raised.

  She patted his leg. “Just in case.”

  I said, “Definitely.”

  Mom said, “Good.”

  * * *

  I hadn’t been keeping track of the days, so it was a surprise when I saw Caffeine’s blonde hair and black roots again in the school hallway. I shook my head. I wondered how long it would take her to get home if I jumped her to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. I could do it in such a way that she’d never see me.

  I cheered up. She didn’t know it, but she was the one who should be worried.

  When she spotted me I was still smiling.

  She pushed away from the wall and took a step toward me.

  Someone cleared his throat loudly. I looked up the hall and saw Coach Teichert. He was looking at Caffeine. She looked at him and then turned abruptly and went down the hall in the opposite direction.

  I nodded as I went by and Coach said mildly, “Don’t provoke her, Cent.”

  I bobbed my head again and didn’t say anything.

  My three freshmen—Dakota, Tony, and Grant—had been avoiding me ever since I started pressing them about the video. Now, lunchtime on the first day of Caffeine’s return, they appeared, clustered together, and asked if they could sit at our table.

  I didn’t think it was a coincidence.

  Jade and Tara looked at me, but I just looked at my big bowl of udon and kept fishing up thick noodles with my chopsticks. Jade shrugged and Tara, still watching me, said, “It’s a free country.”

  Grant sighed and said under his breath, “I wish.”

  I winked across at Tara and Jade, but kept my attention on the noodles.

  I wondered if they were there to talk to me but decided, pretty quickly, that they weren’t. They were there to keep Caffeine from talking to them. When I got up to go to PE, I said, “Wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t have to worry about her?”

  I didn’t wait for a response but as I turned away I saw them exchanging glances, thinking about it.

  Good.

  * * *

  We ran relay races in gym that day, teams of four, each team member running one circuit and transferring the baton in a standard twenty-meter hand-off zone. Teams were decided by pulling colored sashes from a bag.

  Caffeine pulled out an orange one.

  So did I. I looked at Coach and he shrugged his shoulders.

  For the first race, I ran the first leg and Caffeine finished, so I didn’t have to deal with her at all. We won our heat, running against two other teams. But for the second race, Coach had everyone rotate forward, which put me in fourth position and Caffeine in third.

  I’d have to take a hand-off from her.

  When our second teammate handed off to her, we were slightly ahead of the other two teams. Caffeine gained on them but I saw something in her face as she neared the handoff zone. I started running and she push
ed the baton toward my hand, but as I closed my fingers she jerked it back slightly and let go.

  If it hit the ground, we were disqualified.

  I jumped in place, killing my speed, and it dropped into my hand. Then I ran, flat out, trying to catch up, but I’d killed too much of my forward velocity.

  For a moment, I considered regaining the lost velocity by jumping in place and adding it back, but instead I just ran my best.

  We came in last.

  My two teammates had been watching, so I didn’t think they were mad at me, but they were mad.

  Coach had us switch the order. I was now first and I would be handing off to Caffeine. While we waited for our team’s turn to race again, I considered doing the same thing to her, fumbling the pass and letting her drop it, but that wouldn’t be fair.

  When the time came, I ran fast, hard. Ten meters from the handoff zone, well before Caffeine began running, I added five meters a second velocity and closed in on her like a missile.

  She flinched, flinging up hands to stave me off, and I slapped the baton into her hand and killed my velocity at the same time. She staggered away, but then ran, fast—not quite racing as much as running away from me.

  I made sure I was sitting up on the bleachers by the time she came around to hand off to our third runner.

  We came in first, but only because the team in the lead fumbled a hand-off, dropping the baton, disqualifying themselves.

  That was it for class. In the locker room, Caffeine shrank away from me while we changed, though I kept my eye on her.

  She kept her distance and, though she also eyed me occasionally in art class, she left me alone.

  Good.

  * * *

  I’d already told Tara and Jade I couldn’t do the coffeehouse after school because I was helping my mom with a project, so I walked into the bathroom once I had my things, and, finding it empty, jumped to the house.

  Neither Mom nor Dad were there, so I put my backpack in my room and jumped to the cabin. Dad was there, standing in the kitchen with rain gear on. He was dripping.

  “Still raining, eh?”

  “After landfall the system stalled. Worst possible combination.” He pointed to a pile on one of the kitchen chairs. “Rain gear.”