Forever Innocent (3 page)

Then there were geodes. My grandpa, way back when I was a kid, had bought me one once. He cracked it sharply on the step in front of our house, and the dull smooth exterior revealed something fantastic inside, a sparkling burst of colored crystal — the opposite of what it had once appeared to be. I immediately ran to Corabelle’s to give her half, leaving my grandpa behind to laugh at my surprise.

Life had turned out exactly the opposite of that rock. What once had been so bright and full of promise had gotten buried in the dull grays of the daily grind. I still had that geode, though, and it had inspired me to get my high school diploma squared away and take up geology at UCSD. Pick a new dream, as far from my old life as possible.

I wiped the sweat off my neck, glad for a hat as the sun was more like summer than fall. Honest work, my mother would have said. I should call her. I hadn’t spoken to her, hell, since Christmas. I yanked open the back door, feeling guilt but pushing it back. I knew why I didn’t call. Dad would jerk the phone from her hand, start yelling about when I was going to pay him back for that semester he covered when I took off. Four years and he wouldn’t let it go. He never let anything go.

I decided to roll the next tire, and chose one so bald it showed the tread ghosts. Still, I wasn’t seeing the rubber or the stack, but Corabelle’s face, not the features of a girl any longer, but sharper and more defined. I’d looked into that face more than anyone’s, even my mother’s, from the time we could walk. We lived back to back across an alley, and the path from my house to hers was one I could do in the pitch black, the driving rain of a monsoon, sick, angry, lost, or desperate.

I smashed through the door, already tired of rolling. Corabelle had been my whole life for eighteen years. The last four without her had been nothing. I hadn’t seen it until I looked up from that piece of paper listing her name, and there she was.

Right now, it was her choice to reject me and that had to feel good to her. She was getting me back for leaving and for all the things she didn’t even know.

Maybe I shouldn’t quit. Maybe I should keep letting her throw punches at me. If she gave a good hard shove that truly and finally hurt, maybe I’d finally stop wanting her back.

Chapter 5: Corabelle

The strap to my backpack was going to break clean off if I jerked on it any more. I sat across from my counselor, who looked frazzled from dealing with first-day mishaps. Folders and loose pages covered her enormous desk. The office was small and hot, and a rivulet of sweat trickled from her hairline down her temple as she typed.

“Corabelle, you have three choices. Pick a different time slot for a class. Drop below a full load for the quarter.” She glanced up at me. “Or stay in astronomy.”

My fingers tightened on the strap again. “I have to ask my manager if I can change my hours. He has to work around all our schedules.”

“Well, I can’t help you if I don’t know any other times. There’s nothing else useful to you on Mondays at 9 a.m. unless you want another PE-type credit. I can get you into interpretive dance or weight lifting.”

I groaned.

“Enrollment is way up this year and classes have started. Pickings are slim.” She tapped more keys. “I’ve got seven students hoping you’ll drop astronomy. It’s a popular class.”

“How long is the waiting list for the speech class, or what was the other?”

“Ancient Rome. Too long. Those are small classes and I don’t think enough could possibly drop.” She swiveled in her chair. “Corabelle, if you want to graduate on time, you should just take this class. I don’t understand why you’re suddenly so opposed.”

I couldn’t tell her it was about a boy. “It’s got too much extra work for an elective.”

“The star parties are what make the class. You knew that going in.”

I swallowed. “I have to get out.”

She pushed a folder aside. “Let me pull up your actual records rather than this printed overview. We can take a good hard look at your transfer history and see if maybe we can wiggle some class over to cover this one.”

I slammed my hand on the desk. “No!”

She looked up, startled.

I forced myself to relax. “I mean, no, it’s fine.”

She turned from the keyboard to study me. “I’m just trying to see where you might switch something around. Maybe there’s an online course.”

My face burned. I’d gone this far without anyone finding out what happened in New Mexico. I couldn’t risk the consequences if that professor had saved any note in the system. “I’ll stay in astronomy.”

The woman nodded. “That’s a good choice. You’ll find the star parties fantastic.” She closed my folder full of official printouts I painstakingly kept, all bearing seals and formal letters, anything I could do to avoid people digging too deeply into my electronic past. So far, I had been able to count on people being busy or lazy.

“Thank you. Sorry for wasting your time.”

She waved me away. “It’s all right. See you at the end of the quarter so we can establish your final coursework.”

I slung the backpack over my shoulder and opened the door, stepping over the line of students sitting along the wall, waiting to get in.

My head buzzed as I stormed through the building. Maybe I could switch TAs. Yes, if I told them I had a permanent conflict with Thursdays, it would make more sense to switch study groups now than to constantly do makeups. Gavin would be in the classroom, but I could avoid him. As long as we were at different star parties, it would be okay.

The day was still bright and colorful outside, making it difficult to stay upset with a world full of birdsong and eucalyptus. I was back on track, in school again, and the last thing I needed was to let Gavin Mays derail my life a second time.

Jenny caught up with me at the quad, her pink ponytail as vivid as a blossom. “You ran out of class. And that hunkalicious man-meat followed you. What was that all about?”

“Someone I used to know.”

“Ahhhh! Someone you used to bang!” She grabbed my arm and stopped me from walking. “Is this the boy who chilled off Frozen Latte? Tell! Tell! Tell!”

“He’s from my hometown.”

“And…”

“We dated.”

“And…”

“I just can’t be in his study group.”

Jenny plunked down in the grass, setting her messenger bag beside her. “I can get that. I don’t have a single ex I want to see again unless it’s in a body bag.”

I sat next to her. “I tried to drop just now, but the counselor couldn’t get me anything but interpretive dance.”

“Really?” Jenny jumped back up and held out her arms in a ballet pose, spinning neatly in a circle. Just as I wondered what the heck she was doing, she dramatically dropped her head and shoulders, like a puppet whose strings had just broken.

“What are you doing?”

She peered up at me. “What, you don’t like my interpretation of a flower in the rain?”

“Seriously? You took dance?”

She plopped back into the grass, lying down with her head on her bag and her black leggings crossed at the knee. “The teacher was so freaking hot.”

I had an idea. “Hey, you wanted lumberjack boy, right? The other TA?”

“Yeah, sure.” She tugged on her orange miniskirt and straightened the crop top, like she was arranging herself for display. Jenny always looked like she had stepped out of the shop window of a trendy store.

“Why don’t we switch? Then you could do the star parties with lumberjack boy, and I wouldn’t have to be in the same group as Gavin.”

She lifted her sunglasses to peer at me. “Gavin. Is that hunk boy?”

Surely she wouldn’t go for him. The thought of her fawning on Gavin made me feel sick.

“Don’t look all distressed.” She took my hand and crossed an “x” on my palm. “Girlfriends don’t date girlfriends’ exes. Period.”

I swallowed, pushing against the pain of picturing Gavin with any other girl. He’d been my first and only, and I had been his. But no telling how many he’d been with since then.

“Hey! Cora! I’m serious!” Jenny sat up and waved her hand in front of my face. “I can see how upset you are. Girl, you’ve got to learn to keep that face in check.”

I looked at her, all color and tight clothes, vivid lipstick, big shades, and colored hair. She was cute and fun. Gavin just might eat her up.

“I’m saving myself for Lumberjack,” Jenny said. “Don’t worry about it. And sure. Their e-mails are on our paper whatsits. We can get them to switch. Say we have to work.”

My shoulders relaxed a bit. “Thank you, Jenny. You’re saving me here.”

She waved at some guy who was checking her out as he walked by. “Oh, no, you’re saving me. I’ll be rolling logs with Lumberjack in no time.”

Chapter 6: Gavin

The last damn tire was in the bin.

Mario had already taken off, telling me to call him later if I wanted to shoot some pool. Bud was still inside, closing up.

My back was screaming, and I stretched my arms high in the air, trying to head off a cramp. I wouldn’t need to work out tonight, and I’d be hurting tomorrow. But it felt good.

Bud waited inside the back door. “Brace yourself for a lecture,” he said as he flipped the lock.

Great. I passed on by him to head to the tiny break room, just a little closet where we had a fridge and a sink. I yanked a bottle of water from inside and chugged the whole thing in one long gulp. Bud had mostly been hands off as a boss. He brought me on two years ago when I was flat busted and going to have to drop out of school.

I’d been hauling groceries but my car had crapped out and I couldn’t afford the parts. I sold the Camaro early on to pay for my first year of school, replacing it with junkers, but I’d run slowly in the hole with college expenses. Mario and I knew each other from the pool hall, being about matched for skill, and won money off each other at an even clip. He brought me to Bud, who hired me to rotate tires and change oil for twice the pay I earned as a sacker.

Bud filled the doorway, stinking of grease and sweat and a long day.

“So you gonna tell me to stay in school?” I asked.

He wiped his hands on a rag, slowly, with deliberation. “I know you got a shit dad.”

I exhaled in a rush. “Who the hell thinks that?”

“Nobody had to say it. I can see it. Chip on your shoulder as big as my dick.”

I snorted. He had a way with words, that Bud. “So you’re stepping in?”

“Don’t get smart with me.” He pointed a finger at my nose with an intensity I’d never seen in him. “I got a boy at home.”

“I didn’t know you had a son.”

“Don’t talk about him much.” He fumbled in his overalls and pulled out a wallet. Like me, he had a single picture in the center. The boy in the shot was a man, full grown, but with a kid quality to him. His eyebrows were high in the air, like he was surprised, and his goofy grin was infectious.

“He’s all grown, but he lives with me still. Thirty now, but his mind…” He pointed at his forehead. “His mind is like he’s about five.”

I looked down at the picture again. I could see it.

“Marci and me, bless her soul, we only had the one.” He turned the photo around. “Never could seem to get her pregnant again.” He tucked the wallet in his pocket. “Don’t get me wrong, Andy is enough. And now that she’s gone, I’m glad he’s with me. Gives me something to come home to.”

I leaned on the fridge, staring at a big scratch across the freezer door. I wasn’t sure about his point, but I had a feeling it was coming.

“What I’m saying is that if you’ve got the opportunity, you take it.” He cleared his throat. “When I hired you, you wanted your degree. You needed a job that got you the extra to get you through. I know you ain’t got nobody to fall back on. So don’t throw away what opportunity God gave you, ’cause the Big Guy don’t go around giving it to everybody.”

He turned away and stormed across the empty bays.

I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the cool fridge. I couldn’t tell how much of what Bud said was blowing smoke and how much he meant business. Maybe I could find some other way. I mean, if Corabelle was dropping astronomy, then that would be fine. I just had to make sure I didn’t run into her anywhere else. Lie low. Eyes to the ground.

We were adults. We could do this. It was just the shock of it, seeing each other again after all those years.

I pushed away and headed to the time clock to punch out. Bud was sitting at his desk by the front window, locking up the register.

He turned to me as I passed through. “You all right?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“You going to give me your schedule so I can work you in?”

I unlocked the door and pushed it open. “I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

“Good.” He stood up to lock the door behind me.

The gravel crunched beneath my boots as I headed toward my Harley, the only transportation I could manage these days, gas being what it was. Mario had found the body as a junker and I worked on the parts, building it piece by piece. I wondered if Corabelle had ever ridden a motorcycle, if she had had a chance in the intervening years.

The motor vibrated between my legs as the Harley roared to life. Something unfurled in me, coming down like I’d been coiled up. Staying in school was the right thing to do. Bud was right. I’d make it work.

•*´`*•*´`*•

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to Wednesday and astronomy class. My Harley cornered hard as I circled into my usual spot. Students needed to wise up to bikes. Way easier to park and no buses or schedules to worry with.

A girl smiled at me, holding a couple books to her chest, long blond hair flowing down her back. I yanked off my helmet and dropped it in the saddlebag. Chicks and bikes. Secondary benefit, although not one I availed myself of, at least not with girls like her. I had no use for them. No matter how much precaution you took, things could go south. I had very precise taste in women these days, and sweet sorority girls didn’t qualify.

As I secured the bag, Corabelle flashed back into my memory, her hair across a pillow. We lived together for two months, two sweet damn months, once we figured out we were staying in New Mexico to raise the baby. We had a little apartment, and hell, the whole town was helping us out. Low rent, used furniture. And I had her all to myself, all the time.