Fade to Black (15 page)
Authors: Alex Flinn
I’m drowning. I feel myself come up for air, but I’m drowning. I want to believe her, want to pick her up like in some movie and drive off into the sunset. But I remember what she said that day in the hospital, about it not being my fault, being positive. Would she see me differently if she knew the truth?
I say, “Um … really?”
“Yeah. I want to be friends. I want to be friends and maybe…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Friends, at least. To start with.”
Maybe it’s the novelty, the being able to say she was so liberal, so smart that she’d even hang out with me. Maybe when the novelty wears off, she’ll bail. She’ll probably bail.
Who cares?
“But what about…?”
If I get sick? Or if people don’t want to talk to you because you’re with me?
“You don’t need to get involved with someone like me.”
Why are you arguing with her?
A day, a week of being with someone is a lot better than nothing. I feel my aching face, and I think, Even hurting is good. Being hurt is at least being alive. Being real.
“I’m not worried about what people think, if that’s what you’re thinking. And I’m not worried about you getting sick. I mean, I don’t want you to. But who knows what could happen? Maybe they’ll discover a cure tomorrow. Maybe I’ll get hit by a bus on the way home. Who knows?”
“Who knows?” I echo.
“You have to let people in,” she adds. “Not be afraid of them.”
“I know that. But…”
I stop. I know I have to tell her the truth about that one thing, tell her and hope it doesn’t matter.
“You said you were lonely. You said you wanted someone to talk to. Why not me?”
Even if it’s only a day, I’m ready for it. I nod.
“So, how about that ride?” I say.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great.”
I start to take her hand, but it ends up being a hug. Then I do take her hand, and I lead her around to the passenger side. I open the door for her.
“But, Jennifer,” I say when we’re both inside. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
The author would like to thank her family for their support, and the following persons for their invaluable help with this book:
Stacie Murray, Terry Link, Mary Mettis, and Loretta Etienne, all of AIDS Project Florida, for their guidance and fact checking; Pat Gladieux, Kersten Hamilton, and Lucille Shulklapper for various help with poetry, Down Syndrome, and Down Syndrome as poetry; George Nicholson, Paul Rodeen, Laurie Friedman, Marjetta Geerling, Catherine Onder, Meghan Dietsche, and Phoebe Yeh for help with this manuscript.
Special thanks to Barbara Brooks Wallace, writer and apparent Spanish scholar, for the poem which precedes this volume.
As always, a thousand thanks to my mentor and good friend, Joyce Sweeney. You are the best!
Reading Group Guide for
Fade to Black
by Alex Flinn
1. What do you think Daria saw on the morning of October 27? Did she misunderstand what she saw, or did she merely have difficulty communicating with the police?
2. In the early chapters, both Alex and Daria speak of feeling invisible or ignored. Does Clinton share this feeling? Why or why not? Do you see kids at school being treated like they’re invisible, and for what reason?
3. Alex describes Clinton as his “arch nemesis,” and Clinton would probably agree that the two boys have little in common. Is this true? In what ways are Alex and Clinton alike? How are they different?
4. How does Clinton justify his treatment of Alex at the beginning of the book? Does he change this attitude by the end, or does he merely agree with Alex to get out of trouble?
5. Why do Alex’s parents encourage him to lie about how he contracted HIV? How does this make him feel? Why does he want to tell the truth?
6. Would it bother you, as it did Clinton, to have to sit next to Alex in class? Why? Did your attitude change after reading this book?
7. Alex debates whether to tell the truth about Clinton’s involvement in the crime. Do you think he would have been justified in lying? Why? What would you do in his situation?
8. Why do you think the author chose to tell the story through three different characters’ eyes? In what ways might the story have been told differently if it were told in only one viewpoint? Do you think the “truth” is affected by who is seeing it?
9. Why do you think the author chose Daria as a narrator for the story? What does her narrative add?
10. In what ways, if any, do the viewpoint characters grow in the course of the story? Which character do you think experiences the most growth?
11. Why does Jennifer tell Alex the story about her experiences with her father?
12. Discuss the relationships Alex, Clinton, and Daria have with their families. How are these relationships similar and different? In what ways do these relationships change in the course of the book?
13. Did you feel sympathetic toward Clinton? What factors, if any, made him a character worthy of sympathy?
14. How do people at the school react to the crime against Alex? Do you think this is how you or people you know would react to a similar crime?
15. Why is Jennifer drawn to Alex? Why does she talk to Clinton about him at school? Why does Alex get angry at her for doing so?
16. What do you think would have happened if Clinton had never been accused of the baseball bat incident but, instead, had been picked up for throwing the rock? Would the outcome have been different? What would the relationship between the two boys have been if Clinton had been accused only of the crime he actually committed?
17. Alex dislikes Pinedale, yet doesn’t want to leave when his mother says they will go back to Miami. Why? How does his attitude toward Pinedale change during the course of the book? What factors contribute to this change?
18. At the end of the book, Daria says, “Mama says I am still a hero.” Is she? If so, in what way?
19. What is Alex’s attitude toward Daria? Does it change in the course of the book? Why and how?
20. If the three characters were unable to settle their differences but were, instead, required to testify under oath in a court of law, what would the likely outcome be?
My mother, in her sweet way, always reminded me that Daddy wasn’t my real father. “Be on your best behavior, Emma,” she’d said since I was old enough to remember. “He could ditch us anytime.” Sooo comforting. I don’t know why she said those things. Maybe she was jealous. True, Daddy and I looked nothing alike. He was tall and slim, blond and hazel-eyed, while I was short and clumsy with frizzy hair the color of rats. Yet on days like this one, as we sat across from each other at Swenson’s Ice Cream, it seemed impossible that I wasn’t Daddy’s and Daddy wasn’t mine. We had been together since I was three, after all; ten years since he and Mother had married. If I’d known my other father, the father that
had
left, I didn’t remember him. This was the only dad I had.
It had been his idea to spend the day together, “Daddy-Emma time,” without even Mother. I’d found out just the night before. He’d come home from work and told me he’d gotten tickets to the national tour of
Wicked
. It had been sold out except for nosebleed top balcony seats. At least, that’s what Mother had said when I’d begged to go. But Daddy told me one of his clients had given him second-row seats and he was taking me as a special surprise.
I’d breathed a secret sigh of relief. He and Mother had been arguing all week behind closed doors, alternately whispering and yelling, the sound muffled by television shows I knew neither of them watched. I’d sat in the family room, worrying in front of endless
Full House
reruns. Maybe Mother was right and they were getting a divorce. Maybe I’d end up like Kathleen, this girl in my class who’d had to be a flower girl in her own mother’s wedding. Maybe I’d lose Daddy. Occasionally, I’d hear my own name. Mother would say something like, “What about Emma?” and Daddy would reply, “What about Emma? I’m thinking of Emma.” Thursday night, Daddy had said, “I won’t discuss this anymore, Andrea!” and the house had gone silent.
But now, I understood. The whispered conversations had been about this. Mother was obviously angry because she’d wanted to go to the play herself, but Daddy was taking me. Me!
Our seats had been so close I could see the actors spit when they sang, and the play had been perfect, perfect for me because the ugly girl, the weird girl, the girl no one understood was the heroine. I identified with Elphaba, the outcast, except for the part about magic powers. Perfect, also, because Daddy had taken me, which meant he got it. He understood me as my mother never could.
After the matinee, we went for dinner, and even though I’d ordered an adult cheeseburger instead of the kids’ meal Mother would have pressured me to get in the name of “portion control,” Daddy let me get a Gold Rush Sundae too. “Not much of a meal without ice cream,” he’d said, and I agreed. I tried to eat slowly, like a lady, and also to make the day last longer. Plus, I had on a new dress, BCBG, and I didn’t want to stain it. Dad said, “What do you want to do now?”
“Now?” A bit of fudge dribbled onto my lip, and I caught it quick with my napkin. Mother would have said it was piggish, but Daddy didn’t wince.
“Sure. I told your mom we’d be late. Gameworks, maybe?”
Most people I knew would rather go there than anywhere, but the sounds of
Wicked
still filled my head, and I didn’t want to drown it out with pulsing game music. So I said, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the bookstore instead?” I loved going to the big bookstore, selecting a pile of novels, then spending an hour or more examining them over tea. “Would you be bored?”
Daddy grinned. “No, I can read. They prob’ly even have some of them there magazines with pitures in.”
“I didn’t mean that.” The kids at school all thought I was a nerd too.
“I know you didn’t, Pumpkin.” He glanced to the side. “Hey, don’t look now, but you’ve got yourself an admirer.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Right. Nine o’clock. Redhead’s been looking at you since dessert arrived.”
“Guys don’t look at me.”
“See for yourself.”
I shook my head. Parents lived in some happy place where everyone my age dated or had guys in love with them when, in truth, only popular girls like Courtney and Midori did. I looked around. To one side was a crowd of stick-thin girls in Greek letter shirts, pigging out on Earthquake Sundaes. But when I got to Daddy’s “nine o’clock,” I was surprised to see he was right. Someone
was
looking at me. It was Warner Glassman, a boy from school, a smart boy who’d won a playwriting contest. As soon as I saw him, I wondered if my face was clean, if I had whipped cream on my lips. It wasn’t like I could lick them now, though, not in front of Warner. I’d look like a perv. I fumbled with my napkin. Warner looked away.
“He’s a boy from school, Daddy. He’s looking at me because he knows me, that’s all. He’s probably trying to figure out where he’s seen me before.”
Daddy took a sip of his coffee. “You are a beautiful girl, Emma.”
“Mother says I’d be pretty—pretty, not beautiful—if I lost ten pounds and did something about my hair.”
“Mothers are too picky. You look great. Boys are going to be swarming.”
“Right.” Still, I straightened my shoulders and resolved to eat extra neatly until Warner and his family left. Maybe, if they passed close enough, I’d say hi. I took a minuscule bite of ice cream and glanced at Warner again. He
was
looking. This was the coolest day ever!
I knew I wasn’t ugly or fat either, just plain, like the heroines in books I loved, like
Jane Eyre
or
Little Women
. Of course, those girls usually ended up getting the guy.
“There’s something I have to tell you, Emma,” Daddy said.
“Sure.” I took another nibble, trying not to look at Warner. Still, I could sort of see him out of the corner of my right eye.
“… and her name is Lisette,” Dad was saying.
“What?”
“I said her name is Lisette.”
“Whose name? Start at the beginning.” I slurped up the ice cream that had melted to soup on my spoon. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I said I wasn’t sure if you remembered that, before I married your mom, I had another wife, and we had a daughter named Lisette.”
Remembered? I was three. But, yes, I knew he’d had a wife before Mother, in some foggy part of my mind. The daughter was news, though. I’d have remembered a daughter. “Where?” I choked out.
“She’s been living in Lantana with her mom.”
Lantana. Lantana wasn’t far. We passed it all the time when we drove up to visit my aunt. My aunt was two hours away, and Lantana was closer. How weird was it, that I’d never met her? Had my father had a secret life all these years, like one of those guys on talk shows who turns out to have two families? What else was there, what else I didn’t know?