County Line (17 page)

Coach had fresh expectations for this year.

My father knelt in the mud
—

Jimmie was smarter. He’d wrestled, a more individualistic sport in a school not known for its wrestling program. There’d been no Clarice Moody among the muscle-bound farm boys who made weight during the season by switching from beer to vodka. And now Jimmie had constructed a hell for Ruby Jane to share with her mother and fled, nine excruciating days before her own first day of school. With Bella’s help, word got out fast. Dale Whittaker ran off and left those children and their mother. Bella was a master of working the crowd for sympathy. Ruby Jane saw the
tut-tut
chins at the store, at the doctor’s office when she went in for her athletic physical. At home, she suffered through days and nights of her mother, moaning and intoxicated. “Where is your father? Ruby, why has your father left us?” As if Bella hadn’t orchestrated the whole thing.

During the long, dead week after Jimmie escaped to Bowling Green, Ruby Jane could run only so far, could practice only so many shots on the playground court at Farmersville Elementary. Two hoops, no nets, one rim less crooked than the other. The start of the school year offered refuge. Classes, homework, practice, and, as always, roadwork. Basketball practice, even with Clarice Moody, beat the oppressive house on the Walnut Street, haunted by her pickled mother.

“Are you awake in there?”

“Mmm?”

“You. In there? Are you awake?”

Her mother had kept her up late, cataloguing Ruby Jane’s character flaws. Ruby Jane hadn’t gotten to bed until three. Six o’clock alarm. Bella’s timing was impeccable as always. Ruby Jane blinked and looked into the eyes of a strange man with a razor nick on his chin and big, brown eyes. Crisp white shirt and a thin tie in Spartan blue.

“What?”

“The bell rang. First period?”

“Oh. Sure.”

“Where are you supposed to be?”

She dug into her backpack and pulled out her schedule. “Halstead.” She didn’t know the name, someone new. “Constitutional Law.”

He smiled. “That’s me.”

“You’re late too.”

“That was the warning bell. We still have about forty seconds. We can make it.”

“You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

“Is there a problem?”

The corridor was emptying as stragglers raced to their classrooms. “I need to make a stop.”

“You should have thought of that sooner.”

Among her frazzled thoughts, she found the one topic sure to drive him away: “I just hope I don’t bleed all over my seat.”

“Oh.” He stepped back. “Of course. Well, be quick.” He turned and trotted up the stairs.

Too easy.

She moved down the main hall toward the gym, her pace unhurried. She ran her fingers along the white wall, eyes stinging as she passed through the lingering cloud of some freshman’s Drakkar Noir overdose. Soon, once the pep squad got to work, the bleak expanses between classrooms would be adorned with butcher paper banners, rallying cries in tempera paint. TAME THE WILDCATS! … FELL THE LUMBERJACKS! … SPARTAN SPIRIT!!! For now, it was bare cinderblock and speckled industrial tile. The cool sterility suited her. When the Farmersville and Germantown school districts consolidated back in the late 60s, this post modern catastrophe arose in the no-man’s land between the two towns. Everyone hated it, except her. Ruby Jane liked to imagine herself running two-ball speed dribble drills up and down the long hall, each smack of leather against the floor like a gunshot.

“Ruby Whittaker! Where are you going?”

Mrs. Parmelee seemed to appear out of nowhere, tall and imposing.

“Mister Halstead’s.”

“The stairs are behind you.”

“I’m getting a pop. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“So? You forgot today was the first day of school?”

No. But my mother was drunk and required an audience last night
. But she only looked at the floor between her feet. Speckled industrial tile. “Sorry.”

Mrs. Parmelee put a hand on her forearm, a feathery touch. “Be quick. And tomorrow, get your soft drink before the bell rings.”

“I will.”

“See you sixth period.”

- 16 -

First Day of School, September 1988

The pop machine was empty, most likely by the football team during two-a-days. At least she didn’t have to explain to Mister Halstead why she was bringing a Pepsi to class when she was supposed to be in the bathroom arranging to not bleed all over her seat.

He smiled nervously when she slipped through the door, sent her to an empty seat near the back. An unfamiliar girl had the spot next to her. Ruby Jane nodded a greeting as she sat down. Halstead was talking. “Welcome to the new year,” and so on. She hadn’t missed much. She dropped her backpack on the floor and looked at the textbook centered on the desktop. She’d never known a teacher to put the books out like that.

He droned on for a while: test schedule, homework policy, term project requirements—the usual rulesy syllabus hooey. She retrieved a pen and her notebook from her backpack and pretended to take notes. After a while, the girl next to her gave her a nudge.

She looked up.

“Your book.”

The girl had her own book open. Ruby Jane saw everyone else did as well. Some people were writing their names inside the front cover.

“Oh.”

“My name is Gabi.”

“Hi. I’m Ruby.” She wrote her name in the first slot in the Assignment Form printed inside the front cover. Halstead had noted its condition: Good. The book was brand new, but somehow Hardy Berman had managed to draw a cartoon of an erect penis on the flyleaf. She knew it was Hardy because the dimwit had signed his artwork.

“You’re on the basketball team.”

The girl was still talking to her. Gabi. “Yeah, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I haven’t decided if I’m going out this year.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“Just wondering what the team is like.”

“You play?”

“I did back in Cleveland. Bay Village, actually. No one’s ever heard of it. I’m living with my grandparents this year.”

“What position?”

“Guard.”

“Point?”

“We rotated. Three-guard offense.”

“We run a post-up.”

“You have a good center?”

Ruby Jane hated to admit it. “Yeah.” Clarice would probably be the dominant Femzilla in the league this year.

“Why aren’t you going to play?”

“Maybe I don’t want to.” Gabi flinched at her sharp tone, and Ruby Jane blushed. “It’s just … I haven’t made up my mind.”

“Sorry. None of my business.”

Ruby Jane turned back to her book and pretended to be fascinated with a sidebar on Roman law. Halstead had moved from the syllabus to a grand speech about the history of jurisprudence. Hammurabi’s Code. English common law. Some guy named Montesquieu. Fascinating. She found herself glancing at Gabi, who watched Halstead in a kind of rapt trance. She was a slight girl, ginger-haired and freckled, with long, ball-handler’s fingers. She wore jeans and a boy’s white t-shirt, red-trimmed Nike basketball shoes.

Gabi turned her head, noticed Ruby Jane staring at her. Ruby Jane made sure Halstead wasn’t paying any attention to them. “You know about the team meeting Thursday after school, right?”

“Already?”

“No one told you?”

“They had me fill out an athletics form when I registered, but no one mentioned the first meeting. At Bay, we don’t start until October first.”

“It’s Coach talking about heart and effort. Practices won’t begin for a few weeks.” Ruby Jane pointed at her feet. “Are those your shoes?”

“Why?”

“Coach will want you to have new ones by start of the season.”

“Oh.” Gabi looked at her shoes. Her face cycled from carrot to pomegranate. “Okay.”

“They have to be Spartan blue and white. But don’t worry. I know where to get the best discounts.”

“Thanks.”

Ruby Jane was quiet for the rest of class. Afterwards, in the corridor, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Ruby, hey.”

It was Finn Nielson, one of the cirrhosis cases who hung out with Jimmie the last few years—a senior now. Ruby Jane stopped in the hall and folded her arms across her chest. “Hi, Huck.” He answered to Huck only for her.

“What’s up with James?”

“What’s what with James?”

“He vanished. Never showed for the party a couple of weeks ago. No one has heard from him.”

“He went to Bowling Green.”

“Early?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“How should I know?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“I forgot to subscribe to his newsletter.” Ruby Jane didn’t bother mentioning the Jersey shore lie. If Jimmie checked in with any of the blockheads, who knows what he’d say.

“When’s he coming back?”

“Thanksgiving, I guess.” Or never.

“He missed the party.”

She rolled her eyes. There was always a party.

“What are you doing this weekend?”

“Not going to some blockhead bash, that’s for sure. You think with Jimmie gone you get to hit on me?”

“Jesus, just asking.”

“I don’t know. I’m busy.”

“I’m not hitting on you.”

“Whatever.”

He pointed to the Con Law textbook tucked in her arm. “Aren’t you supposed to take American History first?”

“I took it last year.”

“What’re you, some kinda super genius?”

“Not really. Impatient, maybe.”

“You could help me out. Be my term project partner.” She hadn’t noticed him in class.

“I already have a partner.”

“What are you talking about? We don’t even pick til next week.”

Had Halstead said that? Ruby Jane saw Gabi ahead of her in the hallway, looking lost. Valley View wasn’t complicated. Two floors, two wings. U-shaped, and without a second floor on the south wing because of the gym. Maybe it wasn’t her next class she was looking for though. Had to suck to move halfway through high school.

“I’m going to be Gabi’s partner.”

“Who?”

“New girl.”

“Oh. What’s she like?”

“You gonna hit on her too?”

“Fuck, Ruby, I’m just asking.”

“She’s quiet.” Hopefully Gabi would agree about the project partner thing. Nothing wrong with Huck. She maybe even liked the attention. But the habit had been ingrained into her since her freshman year by her brother’s overprotective interventions: don’t fall for a blockhead.

And anyway, a boyfriend was not in the plan. She didn’t know what the plan was, but a boyfriend would add unnecessary complications. She had to get through the next two years. Then escape. Like Jimmie.

The fucker.

- 17 -