All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook (23 page)

O
n Saturday morning my rezzes have my back. Big Ed comes to distract VanLeer.

“There's our district attorney!” he says. “How about you drink a cup of coffee with me? You'd like that. Sure you would.” VanLeer is looking over his shoulder at me.

Mr. Rojas comes up the other side of VanLeer, saying, “Coffee. Yeah! Yeah! This is a man . . . this is a man who loves coffee. Needs coffee!” So VanLeer is squished between Big Ed and Mr. Rojas, and he's not getting out of there. They take him to a table where some of the rezzes are serving sweets to the Saturday visitors.

I walk up to Mom. We skip the swing-around. She says, “Perry, what's up? You've got everyone keeping six.” She sticks her chin out toward the common. “Is this about Halsey leaving?”

“No. Mom, we need to get lost in Blue River today. Way away from VanLeer.”

She's confused, but she's with me. We circle around the common and find Fo-Joe. I've never had to ask him for a favor this big. “Please,” I say. “Can you let us go upstairs?” I beg him. He rolls his eyes like I'm asking for the moon. Fo-Joe can be like that. “You're the temp,” I tell him. “You can decide.”

“Yeah, yeah.” His lips barely move. “Back it up this way,” he says. His eyes scan the common while we shuffle back toward the bottom of the stairs.

Across the way, Miss Sashonna is chirping at Mr. VanLeer. “You'll like that cookie. Oh that's a
good
cookie!” She holds the oatmeal raisin in a set of serving tongs. She pushes it at him. He's already holding a very full cup of coffee in the other hand.

“That's your cookie,” Big Ed says. “Take that cookie.” He points. But VanLeer is not taking it. He's trying to turn around.

Sashonna gives us wild wide eyes. She reaches out and gives VanLeer's hand a slap. “COOKIE!” she repeats. He draws the hand back. His coffee sloshes. There are people up his back now. He's taking the cookie. I think he's afraid to take his eyes off Miss Sashonna or she'll swat him again.

We back all the way up to the stairway rope. Fo-Joe unhitches it. “Wait . . .” He checks on the refreshment table. VanLeer is occupied. “Go!” Fo-Joe says. Together, Mom and
I take the stairs two at a time.

“Your room! Your room!” Mom says. Her hands steer my shoulders. We duck into the room at the top of the stairs just off the Upper East Lounge. It's the first time I've been inside my old bedroom since I left Blue River.

Mom breathes. “Perry, please. You have to tell me what's so important.”

“I have to show you something.” I pull out my camera. I find a picture I took of the smashed watch face. I hand the camera to her. She takes a look but shakes her head at me like she doesn't understand. I take the camera back and advance to a close-up shot of the writing on the orange band. I show her.

Mom's breath goes into her lungs, and it sounds like a cry from an animal. She brings her voice back to a whisper. “Perry! Where did you get this? My God, tell me where?” She looks at the shot again. She is shaking and frantic and now I don't know what to say.

“Mom, it was a coincidence,” I tell her. “I met the tow truck driver. He collects stuff after crashes. Nobody even comes for it—”

“It's not possible!” she says. Her eyes fill, and she sits back hard against her chair. She drops her face into her hands. I look at the picture again, at the words in black pen.

“J.C. is for Jessica Cook, right, Mom? Who is Flip?”

Her shoulders are shaking. It's real crying, and Mom doesn't do that. “Perry, why did you do this?” I fight to hang
on, but then I start to cry too. She leans forward, hugs me hard, and then holds my hands. She squeezes them tightly.

“I didn't mean it like that. No, no. Don't you be sad,” she begs me. “It's okay, it's all right. I'll tell you everything. Right now. No pencil notes, no videos.” She wipes her face on the inside elbow of her chambray.

“So, I once loved a boy,” she begins. She sniffs hard. “You're probably not surprised to hear that, because, well, here you are.” She manages a tiny smile.

“I know the biology part,” I say with a shrug. “Everybody has a father.”

“Yep. I called him Flip. His initials were FLP, and he had the quickest flip turn and the best push off the wall of any swimmer in the state. I gave him that watch. We used it to time each other during practice. We did everything together . . . and he was with me that night.

“We were trying to talk to my parents. We'd both won swim scholarships at the same school. We had decided to live together off campus in a co-ed house with some other swimmers. We wanted my parents' blessing, and of course, they wouldn't give it—quite the opposite. They were angry and drinking, and they said horrible things to that boy that I loved. I fought with them. Flip was better. He tried to be reasonable. He defended me.

“But it went on and on. We gave up.” Mom's face twists up. Her voice pitches high. “I told my parents this was good-bye. Flip and I got up to leave, and that's when my father doubled
over with chest pains. We wanted to call an ambulance—how I wish we had. But my mother refused. She got his heart meds for him. But his pains continued. Like I told you, I was the one with my keys in my hand that night. How they ended up in Flip's hand instead, I can't remember. My mother and I struggled to get my father into the car—so maybe it was then. Anyway, Flip got behind the wheel.”

A breath goes over my lips. I understand now. Mom looks at me. She nods.

“In so many, many ways, Perry, I am to blame for what happened. I pushed him to go fast, and so did my mother, screaming from the backseat. So he did, even when we drove into the hailstorm. When we got to that intersection, he slowed to take a left. He would've come to a full stop just like he was supposed to. The hail was beating down; my adrenaline was through the roof. I looked to my right and saw this silver sheet of hail with lights in the distance. I thought we had time, and I told him to go. I
made
him go. He trusted in me—and I put us right in the path of an oncoming truck.” Mom shakes her head.

“So what you told me is true,” I say. “You made a mistake at the intersection.”

“Yes, I did. Flip probably saved my life by speeding straight across instead of trying to make the left. It was a split-second decision. We got nipped hard in the rear quarter instead of dead on the side. We spun out and stopped when we smacked into a pole.”

It makes me cringe. I look at Mom. She could so easily be gone . . .

“Everything stopped.” She says it slowly. “Frozen moment. I raised my head, turned to see if Flip was okay. He looked right at me. We were both okay! I reached to hug him, and that's when I smelled his breath, and I knew he'd been drinking.”

“Wait. Drinking with your parents?” I ask.

“No, no. He drank before we sat down with them. He knew it would be tense and awful. He was scared, and he thought a drink would take the edge off.”

“He made a mistake too,” I say.

“He did. I saw both my parents, unconscious in the backseat—terrifying. I asked Flip how much he'd had to drink—and this was all in a matter of seconds. He was afraid it was too much. The police would know.” Mom sighs and presses her hands out along her knees. “I couldn't let him be caught. This was
my
fault. So I told him to run. He didn't want to leave me. But I reminded him about school, and how he'd lose his scholarship. His life would be ruined. I convinced him that I'd be okay—I was sober. It was just a bad accident. I made him go. Later, I told the police I was driving. I figured I'd be in some trouble, but I thought it would all work out.

“The rest is like I told you, Perry. Within hours I learned that my father was dead. My mother froze me out. I knew that she would never forgive me, and I would not forgive
myself. Those were the loneliest hours I've ever known.”

“But didn't Flip come back?”

“Oh yes. He tried. More than once. He talked about turning himself in. But I wouldn't have it. I pushed him away because . . .” Her face drops, and she can hardly talk again. “The more things went wrong for me, the more I wanted him to be free. My father's death was my fault. That haunted me. But the thought of Flip paying for it, well, that would have been unbearable. I cut off communication. Finally, he put all the money he had into my commissary account. I know because the deposit was exactly the amount we each made lifeguarding that summer.” She smiles a little. “It was all he had to give me, and all I would take from him. And you should know, Perry, he never knew about you. Several months went by before I realized you were coming. You were my sign—my reason—to go forward. I figured if there came a time when I couldn't have you with me, I'd make the next plan. But our Warden Daugherty made things work for us.” Mom cups her hand around my head. “For a very long time.”

I squeeze onto her chair to be beside her. It's a chair for one, but we fit. “I'm sorry, Mom. You lost so much,” I say. “I thought I knew. But I didn't really know.”

“Of course you didn't. I didn't tell you.”

“But now I get why you didn't tell me,” I say. “Sorry, Mom.”

“Don't be sorry,” she says. “You know, I was always afraid my mother would come forward and say that Flip had been
driving. But she didn't. Then a lawyer sent word a few years after you were born saying that my mother had died. That hurt. But mostly because she'd left me long before that.” Mom rests her cheek on my head.

We sit in the quiet as if a bubble has dropped down over us. If someone walked in right now—even VanLeer—I think our calm would be unbreakable.

“Mom . . . what if the watch is the one thing that could get you out now?”

Mom shifts. She says, “Perry, keeping secrets is hard. I know. I'm an expert. I believe that no good purpose would be served by telling anyone. I won't bind you with a promise. That would be wrong. But I hope with all my heart that you won't try to use what you've learned. It scares me that the watch is even out there.”

“But I do promise.” I hold the camera where we both can see it. I delete one photo then the other. I wonder if I should tell her that the watch isn't out there—that it is safe inside a pocket of the warden's suitcase, deep inside the VanLeer closet. Mom squeezes me like she feels better for having seen the photos disappear.

“Mom,” I say, “there's something else. You'll want to know this.” I show her two more pictures—the intersection, before and after.

“Oh . . . look at that.” She breathes. “They fixed it.” Her voice is hoarse and squeaky. “A traffic light . . . thank goodness.”

“It was a really dangerous spot, Mom. It wasn't your fault.”

“Thank you, Perry.” She puts her lips to my head and whispers into my hair. “You know, he saved you that night too,” she says. “Tiny, tiny unknown being that you were. Your father saved you.”

“Yeah, he did,” I say. We sit curled together a little longer in the peace of my old bedroom up above the common.

When we slip back down the stairs, we move through the visitors to the refreshment table. Mom gets a coffee. I'm not hungry. But Miss Sashonna has saved the last oatmeal cookie for me, and I know better than to refuse it.

We sit down at one of the long tables where Mr. and Mrs. Rojas and Cici and Mira are visiting. They have crayons and photocopies of family pictures. Mrs. Rojas likes to bring them. I see the photograph of Mr. Rojas with his girls—the one I took at the Fathers and Daughters Dance—how many weeks ago? I was still at Blue River. Everything was different.

“
Hola
, Perry!
Hola
, Miss Jessica!
Dame cinco!
” The girls put up their hands. Mom and I give them high fives.

Mr. VanLeer sits down beside me. We all get quiet. But Mira Rojas is little. She looks up at him with big eyes. She smiles, puts up her hand for him. VanLeer smiles back, and claps his palm against hers. “We're making art,” she tells him.

“I see that,” he says. “Nice job.” Mira offers him a crayon, and he takes it.

I'm nibbling the cookie. Mom is slowly sipping coffee. She's still upset and sniffling. Mrs. Rojas passes her a tissue. We watch the artists put borders on their photos. I think to myself that it is a comfort to have a mouse in the house, and even better to have two.

But soon VanLeer looks itchy. He tells me, “Time to wrap it up, Perry.”

Mom leans up and says, “You know what? He's going to eat his cookie.” Then she tells me, “Perry, take your time.”

“Fine. Fine.” VanLeer rests back in his chair.

Cici climbs onto her father's lap. She draws a box around the picture from the Dads and Daughters Dance. She adds a roof and a chimney. She writes
home
at the top. Mr. Rojas picks up a purple crayon and adds more writing at the bottom. He reads it to us.
“El deseo de mi alma.”

“What does it mean?” Mom asks.

I can feel VanLeer leaning in to hear the answer.

“The wish of my soul,” says Mrs. Rojas. “It's an expression.”

“Aw, that's beautiful!” says Mom. She thumps her fist to her heart.

I take a mouse-size bite from the cookie. I'm going to make it last.

A
fter Perry left, Jessica found an empty chair in the common and folded herself into it. She watched the crowd of visitors slowly thin. She missed him so much. Again. But today there was a certain sort of warmth at her core—something akin to peace, or contentment, or, this time, relief. When he'd asked to write the Blue River Stories, Perry had made the case that it was easier to tell the truth than to step all around it. He was right. Jessica felt like her long, awful secret had moved out. A much better feeling was filling the space.

This morning, she couldn't have guessed she'd end up revealing the whole story to her boy—that amazing boy. But he'd pushed her into it. Oh, he was a brave info-digger. Now that he knew, he seemed to understand. Maybe she should credit his weird life at Blue River for preparing him. Perry, she thought, was an excellent student of human nature.
How else could he have done the one thing she'd craved all these years—to have someone hold her and say,
It wasn't your fault.
She caught a flood of hot tears in her fist and held onto them close to her chest. How badly she wanted to make a home on the outside for Perry.

At Jaime Rojas's urging, Jessica had pressed again for information on her parole hearing. “They can't put it off this long.” He'd said it purposefully. “They have thirty days to get it back on the calendar after a postponement. They've gone too long on you. They have to at least grant you the hearing. After that you just have to hope. And I have plenty of hope for you, Jessica. This has to go your way.”

“But there's VanLeer,” she'd said. She heard his name the way a hammer drives a spike—and not for the first time.

“Not today,” she told herself as she rose from the chair in the common. She determined
not
to let thoughts of Thomas VanLeer eat wormholes in her soul on this amazing, wrenching day. She climbed the stairs, paused just a second to look at the door to Perry's old room. Then she air-swam all the way down the Block C corridor to her room.