Victor strolled into his calculus classroom nearly ten minutes tardy, which was no dire concern for the majority of high school seniors. This occurrence, however, was unusual enough to generate a smidgen of alarm from his teacher. After assuring Ms Stein that everything was as it should have been, Victor tried to engage in the lesson his teacher had scribbled on the whiteboard. Although he normally computed the mathematical formulas while barely referring to his calculator, Victor could not concentrate on this occasion. His friend’s assertions still rebounded in his head and did not dissipate from his thoughts as easily as he wished. He sat at his desk anyway, chewing on the nub of a pencil’s eraser for twenty-five minutes. By the time class concluded, he had not copied a single problem from the board into his notebook.
The lesson may have been discarded, but Victor managed to devise a strategy that assuaged his friend’s current predicament. The best method to solve such a conundrum, Victor deduced, was to orchestrate a distraction from the initial dilemma. Victor knew of no better diversion for his friend to occupy his hours than to become smitten with the unprecedented beauty of Belle Falls. Since Hailey had apparently already broadcasted her admiration toward Ryan all over school, Victor’s chore seemed considerably more manageable. He merely had to fabricate a credible reason for Ryan’s reluctance to contact the girl. If Ryan refused to go to Hailey, then Victor figured he might as well provide her with the proper motivation to visit him.
Victor’s task of getting close enough to Hailey to convey his plan presented yet another challenge. Conversing with her privately was not as conveniently achieved as it was a few days ago. Since Ryan never called Hailey, she stopped frequenting the library. Logic suggested that she had already abandoned her short-lived infatuation with Ryan and returned to the ranks of her former admirers. After searching the school’s corridors, Victor finally located Hailey standing by the gymnasium consumed within a circle of goliath-sized jocks. One of her cronies happened to be Neil Chandler.
The sight of Neil draped over the girl’s shoulder like a wet tarpaulin caused Victor to reassess his commitment to his friend’s plight. A wiser choice for him was to simply walk away and pursue a less altruistic enterprise, but the circumstances as they now stood seemed too crucial to overlook. Besides, Neil had already threatened bodily harm on him once today. It was not likely for even a primordial-brained buffoon like Neil to initiate another confrontation so soon.
Whatever Neil’s intentions, Victor still considered his choice to infiltrate the jocks’ clique as a feat that pushed the boundaries of his social limitations. Before Victor reached the fringes of the gymnasium floor, a series of perturbed scowls shot forth like laser beams in his general direction. Hailey, who arrived at school today sporting her black and orange cheerleading uniform, did not express an immediate desire in speaking to Victor again. If she really wanted him to vanish from the scene, however, she could have easily persuaded one or two of the brutes to accommodate her wishes with a mere flutter of her luxurious eyelashes.
Victor partly expected Neil to at least be the most vocal protestor of the bunch, but he remained shockingly mute. Witnessing such apathy from the typically covetous clod certainly perplexed Hailey. She almost anticipated an explosion of testosterone-laced rage from her swollen devotee. The rest of her followers buzzed around her as if she was the queen bee of a hive. Another jock named Eric Martin, who happened to be the quarterback of the football team, took on the responsibility of defending their territory.
“Do you want me to get rid of this creep?” Eric asked Hailey.
Hailey rolled her eyes in annoyance at Eric’s proposition. Eric had a reputation of being one of Neil’s most obedient henchmen at school. Whenever a rumor leaked that Neil did not feel was quite important enough for his involvement, Eric usually stepped into mop up the spillage. A few weeks ago, Hailey might have entertained Eric’s offer, but she suddenly felt an urge to deal with Victor on her own terms.
“I’ll handle this,” she told Eric, crossing a row of boys. They assembled in front of her like stonewalls, but Hailey brushed Eric aside with a firm nudge. Her concentration drifted momentarily to Neil, who still seemed remarkably composed. “You look a little pasty,” Hailey said to Neil. “In fact, you’ve been quiet all morning, too.”
Neil’s silence was surely no loss to those who preferred refinement in their articulation, but it still seemed oddly out of character for him.
“I’m fine,” said Neil resonantly. Hailey knew that if Neil was truly unbothered, he would not have thought twice about clobbering Victor for his encroachment on the gymnasium floor. He then said to Hailey rather subserviently, “Go and see what he wants. I’ll wait here.”
Hailey was not sure if she wanted to ridicule Neil or congratulate him for his sudden demonstration of restraint. At any rate, Neil acted entirely too paranoid, which none of his friends were accustomed to witnessing.
“Hey, man,” said Eric, trying to stoke his friend’s fiery disposition. “Aren’t you gonna rearrange that kid’s face?”
“Not right now,” Neil responded modestly. “Leave him alone.”
“But he’s friends with that dork who’s been trying to score with your girl,” Eric reminded Neil.
Upon hearing those words, Hailey shoved past both boys and addressed Eric again. “I’m not Neil’s girl,” she declared rather staunchly. “Why don’t you guys try to get your facts straight for once?” She continued to break the ranks with her cohorts and met Victor halfway across the gym. Judging by her initial expression, Victor guessed he would have had more luck chatting with Neil. Victor was not sure how to defuse her turbulent mood, but he only had a few seconds to formulate a strategy.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” Victor offered humbly, obviously procrastinating for time to mold his thoughts.
“What are you doing here?” Hailey fumed. “I don’t remember inviting you here.”
“I didn’t think I needed an invite to the school’s gym,” replied Victor, losing some of the polish of his earlier statement. “Actually, I came here to talk to you about Ryan.”
Hailey seemed even less thrilled with hearing this name than she did by Victor’s presence. “I kept my phone on all last night waiting for him to call me,” she huffed. “I guess I don’t have to tell you that he never did call.”
“I know all about it, Hailey—that’s why I’m here.” Victor attempted to sound apologetic as he continued. “It’s not Ryan’s fault.”
Hailey smirked with disapproval, but remembered how protective Victor was in regard to Ryan. “Don’t make excuses for your friend, Victor. It doesn’t help you.”
Victor seemed momentarily deflated as he mulled a way to appeal to the girl’s sensibilities or gullible nature, whichever surfaced first. “I don’t normally come to Ryan’s defense,” he started, lowering his voice so that her eavesdropping supporters were left out of the exchange of words. “If you’d just give me a minute to explain what happened, I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“Okay,” Hailey reluctantly agreed, glancing at her watch. “You got sixty seconds.”
In order to sound more heartfelt, Victor lowered his voice to a whispery tone. “Ryan’s been having a lot of problems with his grandfather lately.”
“What kind of problems?”
“The man’s very ill,” he answered hastily, hoping that he would not be expected to divulge much else in regard to the origin of Frank Banner’s ailment.
“Has Ryan been taking care of him or something?”
“You can say that—he’s trying anyway. I spoke to Ryan earlier and he’s been busy juggling school, college applications, and keeping his grandfather content. But he wanted me to tell you personally that he still wants to go out with you.”
Hailey edged closer to Victor and peered at his eyes through his plastic-rimmed eyeglasses. She sought to detect a shred of deceit filtering through the boy’s expression, but Victor proved to be as cunning at social deception as he was in the adv
ance sciences.
“Why should I believe you?” asked Hailey suspiciously.
“I’m his best friend,” Victor remarked. “I know what’s bothering him.”
“I want to trust you, Victor, but I can’t help but to wonder what you stand to gain for being his apologist.”
“Me?” tittered Victor innocently. “Absolutely nothing.”
Hailey neither believed nor disbelieved Victor’s excuse for Ryan’s absentmindedness, but she did not want to let Victor walk away without investigating the matter further. Whether Victor was being disingenuous or not, one point remained uncontestable. Victor revealed a tenacious pursuit to ensure that his friend was connected to Hailey in some way.
“I’m starting to think that Ryan isn’t the one who really wants to take me out after all,” said Hailey, minus her flirty intonations. “Maybe it’s you who wants to date me.”
Victor had attempted in vain to conceal his obvious attraction toward the girl, but it was no prophetic leap of judgment to suggest that he or any boy would have gladly welcomed the company of a girl as comely as Hailey. Yet, in this instance at least, Victor’s motivation was not shadowed in duplicity. He genuinely sought to assist his friend and any ulterior interpretation of this deed was not by his design.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find you attractive, Hailey,” Victor confessed, “but I’m speaking on Ryan’s behalf today. It’s fair to say that he wants to go out with you more than any other girl in this school—”
Victor’s eyes momentarily collided with Neil’s steely-eyed gaze, which had not broken away from Hailey since she approached Victor. Hailey did not need to glance behind herself to know that Victor’s distraction was generated by Neil’s vigilance. Though she never verbally encouraged Neil’s watchdog mentality, enough people at school believed that she had not done what was necessary to curtail his possessiveness.
“This whole ordeal with Ryan has turned out to be much harder than I ever thought it would become,” Hailey finally admitted to Victor. A hint of frustration invaded her tone now. “Besides, based on what everyone is saying, Ryan might be a little bit too far out there for me.”
Victor briefly motioned to Neil and his friends before he said, “Consider where your information came from, Hailey. Ryan is still the same person you wanted to date last week. If you liked him then, why not now?”
“I don’t know,” Hailey replied with a trace of reservation. “Neil and some of the other kids were telling me that he came from a bad family.”
“As I just said—consider the source,” Victor reiterated.
“But it’s not just Neil—I checked Ryan’s background out on the Internet. I found some articles about how his family disappeared when he was a little kid.”
“That’s accurate,” said Victor reluctantly.
“What do you know about that?”
Victor realized that the longer their interaction lingered, the more vagaries he would have to clarify in order to protect Ryan’s dignity. But aside from the recent admissions revealed by his friend, Victor did not have access to any more of Ryan’s past than the other students at school.
“I know Ryan’s had a tough childhood,” Victor stated candidly. “He basically had to come to Belle Falls and start his life over again. Then, just when he was getting used to living with his grandparents, his grandmother died a couple of years ago. That’s quite a bit for any kid to handle.”
“Yeah,” Hailey debated, “but all of that doesn’t explain what happened to his family.”
“No one really knows what happened to them, Hailey. That’s one of the reasons why you’re reading about his life on the computer. I’ve known Ryan for a long time, and he’s just as confused about the facts as the rest of us. He was only seven years old when his family vanished.”
Common sense dictated that even a seven-year-old maintained the ability to remember an incident as traumatic as losing his entire family. But because Hailey secretly admired Ryan more than anyone else suspected, she became increasingly susceptible to Victor’s ploy for sympathy.
“He could’ve made things a lot easier for himself by just picking up the phone and calling me,” Hailey remarked.
“Of course, but instinct tells me that you never liked an easy catch anyway,” said Victor perceptively. “I’d even be so bold to predict that a girl as pretty as you would never get hooked on a guy who scuttled around in your footprints.”
Hailey giggled unabashedly. She could not deny the veracity of Victor’s observation in this instance. In the meantime, Neil wondered about the source of her amusement, but since no gesture had been extended in his direction, he remained oblivious to the content of their discourse.
Eric and the other boys seemed less patient with Hailey’s cordiality toward someone of Victor’s woefully low status. One by one they disassembled, leaving only Neil to stand in wait for the girl he would never have as his own.
“I guess I can’t blame Ryan for what happened to his family,” Hailey continued, “but I don’t know how to deal with the situation now.” Hailey’s admission was really a signal for Victor to smooth out the details for a union between Ryan and her. Luckily, this was the strategy of Victor’s plan since he arrived at the gymnasium.
“Actually,” Victor started, “Ryan wanted me to ask you what your plans were for tonight—”
“Tonight?” Hailey repeated with a constrained delight. Such a proposition proved to be more abrupt than she anticipated. Considering Ryan had not yet called her to confirm anything, she could not agree to an invitation as hastily as Victor wanted.
“Tell him to call me—then we’ll make plans.”
Victor’s fabrication had gained enough momentum now so that he could not have stopped it unwinding from his mouth in wayward strands even if he desired. In his own mind, he rationalized his actions by reminding himself that his words were not completely fictitious. Victor also presumed that if Ryan had been aware of his benevolence, he would have regarded it as an act of convenience. Yet, despite the support Victor had thus far given to Ryan, the story needed more padding around its edges.
“Ryan doesn’t have a cell phone,” said Victor, which was a fact he did not have to lie about. “And since his grandfather is sick, he doesn’t answer his house phone often.”
Hailey winced at the rubbish presented by Victor. “Are you saying your friend has no way to call me?” she huffed. “Come on, Victor, you can’t expect me to believe that crap.”
Realizing that such an excuse was as dated as a wired phone, Victor adjusted his tale before it became too foul for his own consumption. “Let’s just say that it hasn’t been easy for him to use the phone. His grandfather can be very demanding.”
“So why is tonight different from any other? His grandfather still needs care—right?”
Victor shrugged his shoulders artlessly and specified, “Hey, Hailey, I’m just the messenger here. I should also mention that Ryan doesn’t have a driver’s license, so picking you up isn’t an option either.”
Hailey marveled at the compromises she was willing to endure for a boy she barely knew. “Let me get this straight,” she debated aloud, merely to hear how strange the situation sounded compared to what she had been familiar with for all of her dating years. “Ryan has no family, no phone, no license—so I’ll assume no car—and probably no job either.”
Under normal circumstances Ryan would not have been granted honors to wash Hailey’s coveted Mustang let alone escort her on a date. But anyone who knew Hailey would have confirmed that these were not typical times for this girl. In fact, the more unusual details surfacing around Ryan only compelled her to delve deeper within herself to uncover something decent about the boy that trivialized all other matters.
Perhaps if Ryan sported the refined countenance of an athlete or a creative flare of a bohemian artist, Hailey could have rationalized her obsession. But these descriptions held no merit in Ryan’s makeup. In truth, if she took some time to write a check
list on the boy’s desirable attributes, she would not have dispensed much ink in his favor. Despite the unlikelihood of their compatibility, Hailey simply could not resist a temptation to be in Ryan’s company again.
“I wish I could just walk away from this,” she sighed. “But I can’t.” Hailey then centered her eyes on Victor. An impassioned plea formed on her lips. “Tell me what I need to do next,” she said compliantly.
Since Victor spontaneously crafted the specifics to his plan based on Hailey’s reactions, he had not precisely figured out everything in advance. The obvious solution was to ensure the girl’s accessibility to his friend.
“Ryan thought it would work out best if you picked him up at his house,” Victor suggested. “He felt kind of funny about asking you himself.”
“I don’t even know where he lives.”
Victor immediately reached into his shirt pocket for a pencil, but he remembered he had forgotten it in his calculus classroom along with his notebook. Hailey then forwarded her credit card-sized phone from a handbag she had nestled at her side.
“Give me his address,” said Hailey. “I’ll pop it into my computer later and get directions.”
“He lives on Pine Drive. I’m not sure about the house number, but it’s a gray two-story with white shudders—oh, and the front door is red.”
“Pine Drive—that’s off East Main Street, right?”
“Yeah—I think so.”
“I’ll find it. Did he say what time?”
“Time?”
Hailey flattened one hand on her hip and flippantly remarked, “Duh—what time should I be at his house?”
Victor cackled at his own forgetfulness before he said, “Of course—um, I think seven should be fine.”
“For you or him?” Hailey remarked knowingly. She then made a mental note of the details before slipping her phone back into her purse. “You better not be wasting my time, Victor,” she cautioned, while casually projecting a glance in Neil’s direction. “I’d hate to have to come to school tomorrow and tell everyone that Ryan Hayden stood me up.”
“Don’t worry,” Victor assured her. “I can personally guarantee that won’t happen. Ryan is a good guy. He just needs someone to be a little aggressive with him at times.”
Victor had already surpassed his own expectations in regard to this meeting. For the sake of his preservation, he hoped Ryan was as receptive to an unannounced visit from Hailey as most boys undoubtedly would have been. But since Ryan could not be viewed in conventional terms when predicting his dealings with girls, perhaps Victor should have primed Ryan for her arrival. Victor lent consideration to this point, but then figured that his friend would have concocted another excuse to decline her visitation.
By the time Victor arrived at his next class he decided the proper course of action was to keep Hailey’s intentions as clandestine as possible. Victor needed to ensure that Ryan remained at home until at least she knocked on his door. Whether or not the pair’s pending meeting turned out favorable did not strike Victor as particularly essential. In Victor’s mind, it was far more vital for Ryan to clear his head from the thoughts that currently consumed him. If anyone in Belle Falls had the influence to envelope a boy’s insecurities and deliver harmony in its place, Hailey rated as the courier of choice. When judging the circumstances from this perspective, there was no apparent way to identify the boundless possibilities awaiting either teenager for their forthcoming encounter.
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