Mr. Vickers opened the door, and there was Jala in her hijab, holding a late pass from orchestra.
“It is a terrorist!” Mr. Vickers proclaimed, beaming like it was his best punch line ever.
A few guys at the back of the room laughed, as usual. But everyone else seemed to go into a shocked, frozen silence. Jala looked frozen too, for an instant, and then she muttered something like, “Sorry. Wrong class,” even though it wasn’t. She belonged in that class as much as I did. But she turned and walked away.
And, somehow, that was too much for me. The triumphant cruelty on Mr. Vickers’s face balanced against the stunned horror on Jala’s—it was the last straw for me, the tipping point. At that exact moment I had suddenly had enough of cruelty and horror and people hurting other people. I couldn’t stand another second of the world being so filled with pain; I couldn’t just sit there, shocked and frozen and silent like almost everyone else. I had to do something.
I raised my hand.
“Mr. Vickers, I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.
I didn’t wait for permission. I just fled the room, scurrying after Jala. I caught up with her easily. She barely glanced at me from under her hijab.
“If you think we’re such good friends that you’re going to come cry with me in the bathroom, don’t bother,” she said flatly.
Her hijab blocked so much of her face that I couldn’t tell if she was crying or not.
“No,” I said. “No. That’s not what we’re going to do. We’re going to go down to the office and we’re going to tell the principal or the vice principal—or somebody!—exactly what Mr. Vickers said. And we’ll say he has to be fired. People like him shouldn’t be teachers.”
Jala turned so I could finally see her whole face.
“Okay,” she said. “That sounds like a better plan.”
And then it was like Jala turned into Rosa Parks, because when we got down to the office, she did the talking. She even said, quite calmly, that she was sure DHS didn’t want a reputation as a bigoted school, and it’d be better if the administration could handle this quietly, without any sort of lawsuit or national media coming in. . . .
I almost choked over that, but it didn’t matter. Mr. Vickers was out of the building before the end of the day. And he’s never been back.
“I wouldn’t have had the nerve to tell, if it hadn’t been for Becca,” Jala says now, finishing up her version of the story. “I wouldn’t have even told my parents. But after that—well, that’s when Becca and I really became friends.”
It’s strange she remembers it that way. Because the whole way down to the office that day, I’d been thinking, It’s not like Jala and I can ever be friends, because I can’t tell her about my daddy. But at least I can help her with this.
“Whoa, Becca, you are a saint,” Oscar says, and it’s humiliating how much admiration glows in his eyes.
“Stop,” I protest. “I was just doing what anybody would do.”
“But you were the only one who did it,” Jala says quietly.
And it’s awful that I can’t tell them why I’d followed Jala, or why I’d been so anticheating with Stuart. I want so badly to say, “I’m not a saint. Kind of the opposite—I’ve lied to all of you for the past three years. And it’s not like I’m innately good or anything. It’s that my daddy got caught and sent to prison and that changed everything.”
Is it possible that I’m actually a better person because of what Daddy did?
I sort of want to tell my friends everything and ask them this question. But of course I can’t.
How is it that I can care so much about these people and their opinions when they don’t know me at all?
Now—
the drive south
We change drivers every hour or two, sticking to some schedule Stuart’s parents came up with to make sure we do this as safely as possible. I get the second leg of the trip, from Cincinnati to just south of Lexington. I’m glad Cincinnati traffic is so bad that I have to concentrate on driving, rather than obsessing, This is where the Courts live now. What if I turn my head and look out the window and see one of them driving beside me?
Lexington traffic is not so extreme, so I have time to wonder, Do I really have cousins here, going to UK? Will Mom ever get to see her family again? I also start thinking about how Mom said it’s safe for me to have a driver’s license only because Excellerand has no contracts with Ohio. If I were to get stopped in Kentucky for, say, speeding, would that kick my name into some database Excellerand could see? I drive very carefully, and try not to worry. Fortunately, everyone else in the car is talking a lot, so I can mostly tune out my own thoughts and listen instead. My friends argue over whether it’s better to listen to satellite radio or to hook up somebody’s iPod. They make up ridiculous college-essay spoofs for various people from our senior class: Shannon Daily’s as a Miss America–style “I just want world peace” discussion; the football captain’s as a diatribe about how elections should be decided by sporting events. They debate endlessly about the best place to stop for lunch—until I’m so disgusted that I pull into a McDonald’s.
“Fine, because you can’t make up your mind, you get the most ubiquitous food in America,” I tell them.
But once we get out of the car, we somehow are suddenly in exact agreement: We’ll leave the car right where it is but walk over to the Burger King next door.
Oh, yeah. We are such a band of rebels.
After lunch it’s Rosa’s turn to drive, and Stuart and Oscar fall asleep: Stuart with the front passenger seat leaned back against Jala’s knees, Oscar hunched over awkwardly in the middle backseat between me and Jala.
“You know they’re faking,” Rosa says. “Thinking we’ll start talking about them and they can eavesdrop.”
“Rosa,” Jala says, “you are talking about them.”
“Only because I’m hoping guys in college will be more mature,” Rosa says. She reaches over and flicks Stuart’s arm. He doesn’t even flinch. “I do not know how my sister could have wanted anything to do with high school guys.”
“Maybe because they’re kind of cute to look at?” I say, glancing toward Oscar. In his sleep—or, I guess, pretend sleep—he eases into a soft grin. I know he expects me to bust him for it, to call out, “You are such a faker!” or hit him, like Rosa just did with Stuart. But I don’t. I just keep watching his face.
“Yeah, but underneath the pretty packaging, they’re like five-year-olds,” Rosa snorts. “Psychologically, emotionally, mentally . . .”
Jala yawns.
“They do have the right idea about taking a nap,” she says. “I think I’m going to need one before it’s my turn to drive. Rosa, are you okay if all the rest of us go to sleep?”
“Why do you think I got the jumbo Diet Coke?” Rosa says with a laugh.
Jala huddles against the door and seems to be out in about three seconds.
“I guess her conscience isn’t bothering her about lying to her parents,” I whisper to Rosa.
“I think that’s a very forgivable lie,” Rosa whispers back.
So many lies, I think.
On impulse, I lean forward so I can talk practically right in Rosa’s ear. There is one thing I might be able to make right with her.
“Did the Courts tell you what really happened to Whitney after high school?” I ask.
Rosa shoots me a startled look, as if to say, Oh, so now you’re willing to talk?
“Yes,” she says. “Because they said somebody else’s essay made them realize not all DHS students knew the whole story. It was yours, wasn’t it? I would have warned you before you went in, if I could have, but—”
“There wasn’t time,” I say, shrugging. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t think I knew all along that Whitney was mentally ill, and I kept it secret to mess you up.”
“I wouldn’t think that!” Rosa says hotly. “But is that what messed you up?”
“I messed myself up,” I say. For a mome
nt I feel like someone from Old Deskins—I don’t want to tell Rosa about Whitney’s strange behavior. Or am I just protecting myself? Am I scared that if I start describing my interview, I’ll end up telling Rosa all my secrets?
“None of that matters now, anyhow,” I say.
It hits me that this is entirely true. Even if I won the Court scholarship, I’d never be able to claim it. Not if I get what I’m asking for in Atlanta.
And then I can’t keep talking to Rosa one-on-one anymore. She’s smart. She’ll figure out that something is really, really wrong. She’ll make me tell her.
I mutter something about being afraid of waking the others, and I settle back in my seat. But I’m too jittery to sleep myself. I think about making another attempt at college essays, but it’s impossible to write an essay when I don’t know who or where I’ll be when I send it in.
I pull out Mrs. Collins’s iPhone instead. I dropped out of the whole cell-phone scene before everyone started getting smartphones, so it’s amazing to me that I have the entire Internet at my fingertips while I’m sitting in an SUV speeding across southeastern Kentucky.
And I can look up anything without having it traced back to me, because this isn’t my phone. . . .
I type the name, “Robert Catri” and “Tennessee” into a search engine. I couldn’t do this at home, not if there was any chance Mom would see what I was looking for. I’m a little sloppy on the unfamiliar keyboard—I forget to put quotation marks around the name. So I pull up information about all sorts of Catris and unrelated Roberts, all across Tennessee. I’m about to go back and start over when I see “fourth conviction for breaking and entering.” I slow down and scan the articles I pulled up.
It looks like, in the corner of Tennessee where Daddy grew up, the Catris are some big crime family. They’re not necessarily talented; they don’t seem to have ever made off with more than a couple hundred dollars from any of their crimes. But they are amazing in their persistence and their dedication to breaking the law.
My eyes well up with tears.
What if Daddy didn’t take his fake identity because he wanted a life of crime? I wonder. What if he was actually trying to get away from it? What if ‘Roger Jones’ was supposed to be a clean slate for him, a chance to start over and be good? And, then—he couldn’t stick with it?
Do normal teenagers get this constant sense of seeing their parents redefined?
I don’t know if my new version of Daddy’s life is right or not. I can’t think about it anymore, not when I’m in a car with four other people. Not when I look up and see Rosa waving her hand at me over the back of her seat, then frantically pointing toward the window.
It’s the welcome to tennessee sign just ahead that she’s pointing at.
I lean forward, nod, smile, and flash a double thumbs-up at the rearview mirror so she can see how happy I am to be entering the next state. But I’m quelling panic as I settle back again.
Tennessee, I think. Where Daddy grew up. Where I might go to Vanderbilt someday. Or not. Where we’ll at least visit Vanderbilt on our way home, after Emory. Where this is the last state before Georgia, before I have to make the plea that will affect the rest of my life. . . .
I’m so flustered, I accidentally hit the contacts icon on Mrs. Collins’s phone. The screen floods with names.
Do normal people really have that many people they stay in touch with? I wonder.
Of course they do. Back when I had a cell phone, I had hundreds of friends available to me anytime I wanted to call or text.
And then, after Daddy was arrested, I had no one.
That just proves none of them were true friends, I remind myself. Mom’s wrong to worry about me running into any of them. They wouldn’t recognize me. I wouldn’t recognize them.
But it strikes me that there’s an easy way to find out what my old friends look like now, so I can at least see them coming, if they’re by Emory or Mr. Trumbull’s office. Jala did give me permission to log on to her Facebook anytime I wanted, and now I have a legitimate reason.
I have spent the past three years trying not to think at all about any of my friends from Georgia, but the names come flooding back: Brittany Connors, Alicia Giovanni, Savannah Hayes, Hailey Korshaski, Dustin Ivers, who was technically my first boyfriend, back in sixth grade when everyone started “going with” guys, but never actually went anywhere . . . I log into Jala’s Facebook account on Mrs. Collins’s phone and start looking up everyone. My old friends evidently didn’t learn much from hearing about my father stealing from Facebook: Very few of them have good privacy settings. So I can see pictures of Savannah and Hailey where they’re clearly drunk; I can read every word of Brittany’s explanation of how God saved her from committing suicide. Some of my old friends have become partyers; some have become devoutly religious; some are fixated on activities like soccer or ballet or Habitat for Humanity. I scan certain Timelines and discover that a few of my old friends have passed through several of these phases over the past three years. And I wouldn’t have been able to predict any of it—sometimes it’s the ones I thought had the world at their feet who seem to have messed up their lives the worst, while some of the ones I’m almost afraid to look up seem to be doing fine.
I’m like a glutton devouring all this information—I can’t stop myself. I’m obsessed.
Oh, wait, what about Annemarie Fenn? I think belatedly, remembering the friend I was with when I was exposed on Facebook, when I found out I couldn’t go on with normal life after Daddy’s arrest.
I’m a little worried calling up her Facebook page because, until that last day, I always felt like I needed to protect Annemarie. She’d always seemed like someone meant for a kinder, gentler world.
Annemarie hasn’t made a picture available to the general public, but she’s posted a status update for anyone to see:
Thanks to everyone who sent flowers or came to Mom’s funeral. Her fight against the breast cancer was long and hard, and she appreciated each and every one of you who supported our family through that struggle.
And below that it says, “RIP Jocelyn Carter Fenn” with her birth and death dates.
The death date was only last week.
Annemarie’s mother just died of cancer? I think. She had to deal with all that, and I didn’t even know?
I haven’t seen or talked to Annemarie in more than three years, but I feel a strange emotion burrowing into my gut: guilt.
I should have been there for Annemarie, I think. Who did she have to take care of her?
I search back through Annemarie’s page. I find a link to a newspaper article about Annemarie and Mrs. Fenn participating together in a breast cancer benefit race, at a time when Mrs. Fenn could barely walk, let alone run.
It looks like Mrs. Fenn found out about her cancer the week before my father’s trial.
And then I remember something I hadn’t thought about in three years. One day, shortly before the trial, I was hiding away in our house, feeling sorry for myself. The doorbell rang and rang and rang, and even though we’d stopped answering the door long before that, I peeked out and saw Annemarie. And I almost opened the door to her, almost rushed out and threw my arms around her and clung to her like she was my last hope.
I didn’t, of course. I told myself she’d be like everyone else; I told myself she would only want to gossip or make fun of me, or smash me down into the shame so hard that I could never get back up.
I can’t place that day exactly in time, but what if that was the very day Annemarie found out about her mother’s cancer? What if she was coming to me for comfort?
I try for balance: I make myself remember how mad I was at Annemarie when I was outed on Facebook. But now even her question that hurt me so much sounds different in my memory: Why didn’t you tell me? What if Annemarie was just stunned and bewildered and a little hurt herself? What if there wasn’t any malice behind her words?
What if she has felt for the past three years that I abandoned her, instead
of the other way around?
I have been sitting sideways to look at Mrs. Collins’s phone so no one else will see it, even if Oscar suddenly opens his eyes. But now it’s my face I need to hide: Suddenly tears are streaming down it. I turn my face to the window, to the riotous explosion of yellows and oranges and reds of the trees around us. It’s autumn in all its glory, and this makes me cry harder. Autumn is about endings, and it was a huge ending when I abandoned all my friends in Georgia three years ago. And now, if everything works out with Mr. Trumbull, I will abandon my Deskins friends just as completely. Getting a new identity doesn’t just mean being safe from Excellerand. It also means leaving Deskins and never seeing or speaking to Rosa or Oscar or Jala or Stuart or anyone else from high school again. And even though I’ve told myself they’re only school friends, only people I’ve held at arm’s length for the past three years, somehow they became more than that.
I can’t do this, I think. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
But I have to.
I sniff, making a disaster of my attempts to keep my crying silent. A second later I feel Oscar’s warm hand patting mine and then, wrapping around mine.
He’s holding my hand.
And it feels wonderful.
It doesn’t mean a thing, I tell myself. He’s still asleep and just flailing around, or . . . it’s more of his joking around. . . .
But I know lies, and I know truth, and there is no way I can make myself believe this.
I glance quickly toward Oscar, and he is so completely Oscar. Of course all that flirting that was supposed to be fake was actually real—it was Oscar being awkward and scared that I wouldn’t like him back, and me being awkward and scared about letting anyone get too close. A normal guy, acting interested straight out, would have sent me running. But Oscar was slow and steady and goofing around, and just so kind every time I needed him to be that way.
And now here we are and he’s holding my hand.
And I’m holding his right back.
Without even opening his eyes, Oscar slides his other arm around my shoulder and pulls me close and whispers in my ear, “Will you go to homecoming with me next week?”
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