Breaking Point (4 page)

For one moment, I stood there, imagining it. I wanted to hurt them.

Then, a guy's hand reached down for the picture. I heard it rip. I looked up. He was gone.

Dad hadn't returned my calls. I'd left four, maybe five, messages, and it bugged me. I mean, even if he was away, he'd have called for messages. He couldn't be this big an asshole. Then, I remembered Hurricane Stephanie. Of course. She wouldn't want me living with them. Why should she? They had a new baby. Everything was perfect. She was probably erasing the messages before Dad even got them. That night, I left another.

“Dad and Stephanie?” I paused, stupidly, like they might answer. “It's me again. Paul.” One ear tuned to the hallway, to make sure Mom wasn't listening. I knew I was betraying her. “Your son, Paul. Look, if you let me live there, I won't get in the way or anything. I'll take the bus to school—whatever school's most convenient. Or walk. You wouldn't see me hardly at all. And if you need a baby-sitter for…” I stopped, realizing I didn't know my half brother or sister's name. “… for the baby, I'll do that too.”

The bell tower stood on the far end of campus, behind the chapel and near the athletic field. A three- or four-story structure, it stared over Gate's grounds, meant to symbolize tradition or excellence or something. Not to me. Every hour, when its bells rang, another hour of my life was gone.

Near the end of September, I walked in its shadow. Four o'clock. I kicked a rock, killing time until Mom was ready to leave. Usually, I went to the computer lab after school. I fooled around on the Internet away from Mom's eyes and ears. Sometimes, I even helped the sixth-graders with their homework because, I guess, it made me feel important that they thought I was some kind of computer genius.

But I wasn't in the mood today. Someone had made cookies in my locker. At least, it was filled with eggs and flour. I'd considered changing the lock. I didn't want to give them the satisfaction—whoever “them” was. Word of my untouchable status had traveled across campus, and now the spitballs flew so thick I sometimes ducked into the boys' room to rinse my hair between classes.

The day before, I'd asked Binky, “Why hang with me? Bet it does nothing for your image.”

She snorted, probably at the idea of her having an image. “Haven't you figured it out, Richmond? I don't care what the clones think. I buck the system.”

“So, I'm some project, some statement you're making?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, you're just Paul. But they can't tell me what to do.”

It was a philosophy I hoped to cultivate. I wasn't having much luck yet.

The clones were out in full force that afternoon. There was a game the next day, and a pep rally. The football team was grunting. Cheerleaders were yelling pointless things, bouncing and flashing their legs in those short, blue-and-white polyester skirts and sleeveless tops where you felt you could see more if you looked hard enough. I tried not to. Why bother? Looking only made you want to touch, and that wasn't happening. I walked alone, writing a letter in my head to Dad, since he wouldn't return my calls. I felt stupid, writing him, but I had no choice. I hated Gate, hated living with Mom. Hated my life. I had to leave.

I sat on a high tree stump away from the shadowy area where mosquitoes hid. I wrote in my mind. When I reached down for my notebook and pen, I saw him.

He was about my age. He led a small, white dog on a leash. I recognized him. David Blanco, from the cafeteria and the hallway. It was the first time I'd been near enough to get a good look at him. I'd been curious since Binky had compared us, but really, I saw no similarities. Where I tried to fit in, David clearly wanted to stand out. His dark hair was bleached white, and his face bore the scars of various piercings—not allowed by Gate's dress code. His pushed-up sleeves revealed a tattoo. I couldn't make it out. The dog, on the other hand, was white and clean, brushed like he'd just come from the groomer.

What was he doing with the dog, so far away from the cottage at the back of campus where he and his parents lived?

I shook my head, imagining having to live at Gate on top of everything else.

I watched him from a distance. He walked the white fluff ball in gradually tightening circles, near the football practice field. What was he doing? Finally, the dog hunched. David whispered something to it, I couldn't hear what, then picked it up by its fluffy shoulders and put it down right in the center of the athletic field entrance. I grinned. The guy had balls, not to mention the right idea. He was making his dog crap in the exact spot where the football team would be walking in their cleats.

The dog finished its business and walked on, red ear ribbons flapping side to side. David reached to pat its head. He caught sight of me. I smiled again. David saluted and walked away.

The sermon in chapel that week was “Love Thine Enemies.” I figured it would be a good idea for me to listen to that. But it was hard.

“Happy teen years are overrated,” Binky announced.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Show me someone who's cool in high school, I'll show you the unemployed guy eating double his share of hors d'oeurves at the ten-year reunion.”

Being Binky's friend wasn't doing much for my social life. But then, I didn't have one anyway. So every Friday, I went over her house after school. I'd never invited her to my place. I hoped I'd never have to. Usually, we watched television. Sometimes I got to hear Binky's theories about life. She had plenty.

“Hope you're right,” I said.

“I am.”

We sat a few minutes, watching soaps merge into Maury Povich. Suddenly, Binky stood. “I want to show you something.”

“What is it?” I was bored but too lazy to move.

“Just come on.”

She took off. In a few seconds, I gave up and followed her through the empty house. She was in a hurry, nearly knocking over priceless artwork with her flying arms, me behind her. It was almost dark. Mom was picking me up in an hour. I didn't know where Binky was taking me, but I followed, across the neighbors' yards, then over a fence and into an empty, fresh-mowed lot.

“Where are we?” I dropped over the fence after her.

“We're going next door. To my church.”

“That sounds fun.”

“We're not going to a service, Squid. We're going to swing.”

Which didn't make a whole lot of sense, either. But I had no other options, so I followed her, across the lot, over another fence, through a garden where she stopped.

“Look!” Pointing at something, nothing.

“What?”

“Don't you see?” She pointed someplace different. “There!”

“What am I looking for?”

“Hummingbird.” Pointing back at the first spot.

And then I did see. Or, at least, I saw something bouncing from limb to limb, over the yellow flowers lining the fence. It moved so fast I doubted it knew where it was going. Could have been a moth, in that dim light. Or the wind. “How do you know it's a hummingbird?”

“Just do. It's here most nights, this time.”

“You're here every night?”

“It's peaceful.”

I'd had enough peace for a lifetime. I really wanted something besides just peace for a change. We stood, watching until the bird or whatever it was disappeared over a red-flowered tree. Binky motioned for me to follow her and, finally, we reached an old swing set crusted with leaves and spiderwebs. She brushed off a swing and sat.

“Oh,” I said. “You meant swing like …
swing
”.

“Sure, what else? It's fun, pretending to be a little kid with no deadlines or worries, nothing serious at all. Right?”

I didn't know. I'd never been a kid like that. I flashed back—Mom pushing me on a swing at some kind of army picnic, Dad saying I wasn't a baby anymore. He'd been mad I'd placed last in the sack races. We hadn't gone the following year. But I said, “I guess.”

“So, do it,” she said. “Swing.”

I started to. It came back to me, the pumping motion, pushing my body through the chains, legs flying ahead of me and back. Soon I was watching Binky, trying to outdo her.

But she wasn't competing. She looked like she was someplace else, someplace really flying. And as she swung, she sang softly, a sort of lilting tune, blending with the rhythm of her swinging legs.

“What are you singing?” I asked finally.

Anyone else would have stopped, caught in something so private, silly. Not Binky. She didn't care what people thought, lucky her. She kept singing until she finished.

“What is that?” I asked when she did. “Some Cuban folk song?”

She laughed. “It's a show tune.”

The last thing I'd expected from her. “Where'd you learn a show tune? Thought your family was from Cuba.”

She slowed a little. “My dad's family is, but they've been here a long time.
Abuelo
and
Abuelita
—my grandparents—left early. They were lucky. Sometimes, I wonder how our lives would be if they hadn't.”

She paused a second, thinking about that. We both thought about it.

She said, “But Mom's family is different. They're Irish, from El Dorado, Kansas. Mom's father worked in the oil refinery. But Grandma was a beauty who tried for the Rockettes at Radio City. She'd have made it, too, except she was two inches too tall. She raised Mom on Broadway show tunes, and after Grandpa died from all the asbestos he'd inhaled at work, Grandma lived with us and raised me on them too.” Binky swung higher.

I laughed at her long, stupid explanation. “So, what's the song?'

“One of Grandma's favorite swinging songs. She had songs for every occasion.”

I kept looking at her. She began to swing high, singing loudly:

She stopped, self-conscious, suddenly, but swung higher. “That's all I remember. I've looked for sheet music, or a tape with the rest of it, but there's nothing. It died with Grandma.”

We swung in silence, me hearing the song in my head still. Finally, she said, “What do you think it means?”

“I don't know. I guess that you should try to get the best stuff, no matter what it costs.”
Like Dad
, I added silently.

“Even if you don't need it?”

“I don't know. What do you think?”

She stopped pumping, slowing until her feet started hitting ground. Finally, she said, “I think the pretty apples are the poisonous ones. I think I'd rather have a plain, old Hershey bar than the most beautiful candy in the world. That's what I think.” She jumped from the still-moving swing and ran, hair streaming behind her, to the church. “Come on!”

I jumped off too and followed her, past the stained-glass windows that glowed from within. She was right. About the Hershey bar, I mean. I wished I could feel that way. But I needed something else, something more. I needed some beautiful candy.

Binky led me to a side door. She pulled the handle. It didn't give.

“Locked,” I said, starting back toward her house.

But she pulled harder, and it opened with a crack of peeling paint. “They leave it unlocked in case someone has spiritual needs outside normal church hours or something.”

“They aren't scared of vandalism?”

“Guess they trust people.”

I shook my head at this. We stepped into a small alcove that had a Bible, some used-up candles, and, of course, a collection box. Binky pushed through the door on the other side and entered the sanctuary.

I'd never been in a Catholic church. It smelled different from Protestant churches I remembered or the chapel at Gate. It smelled ancient, like candles and dust. The room glowed dull red. Binky led me around to the side, then stopped by a statue in a glass case. I could barely see in the dim light, but the case, at least, was locked. The glass looked thick. Binky crossed herself, and I barely made out that the dull, red-brown object was a wooden statue of a woman.

“What is it?” I asked.

She looked at me like I was stupid. “It's the Madonna. The Virgin Mary.”

“Oh.”

“It's been here forever. Someone brought it back from Spain—said the guy who sold it to him told him it was a thousand years old. They found it singing by the road.”

She stopped a second, and we both listened, like it might be true. Nothing.

“He didn't believe that,” she said. “Still, he bought it and brought it back here, and when it came to our church, it began to weep.”

“Weep?”

“You can still see the marks on it. It wept for six days, real tears.”

That was truly stupid. Probably a roof leak. These people were worshiping a roof leak. Then, I felt bad for thinking that. Gate was a Christian school. Did I believe in anything?