Hero (4 page)

Truth, he decided. It was a way for him, at least inside, to feel like less of a wimp. Like he was standing up to Spence. “Meeting Kate here in a few minutes,” he said.

Spence nodded.

“Right,” he said.

“Play practice,” Zach said.

Spence said, “So you two can walk home together.” Not a question, just a statement of fact. Spence nodded again.

“Yeah,” Zach said, opening his locker door, trying to find a place for his books in the mess in there. Hoping the conversation was over.

Knowing it wasn’t.

Knowing the old Spence was back.

“Must be tough,” Spence said. “Being you right now. Your dad and all.”

Everybody else at school had at least stopped talking about it.

Zach kept himself busy, rearranging his locker. “Gets a little easier every day,” he said. “You know.”

“Man, I don’t see how that could be,” Spence said. He leaned against the locker next to Zach’s, Dave Epstein’s, as if settling in for a while. “Seriously, dude? How can that be possible? I mean, if it were me? My dad dying like that? I don’t think I could ever get over it.”

Don’t let him get to you,
Zach told himself. Feeling like some kind of red warning sign was flashing inside his head.
Walk away.
But he was stuck here, knowing he couldn’t tell Spence he had to be someplace, had already told him this was where he was supposed to be, waiting for Kate.

Leaving would just be another way of running away.

“Oh, it’s like grown-ups are always telling you,” Zach said, keeping his tone casual, not wanting to give Spence the satisfaction of knowing he was getting to him. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

“But, see, that’s what I’m trying to say,” Spence said. “This must be killing you even worse than it would somebody else.”

Zach blew out some air, feeling tired all of a sudden. “Why is that?”

“Well, if it was
me,
at least I’d have a lot of friends at school, having my back, so to speak. But let’s face it, you being you, all you’ve pretty much got is Kate.”

Behind that came a grin that Zach knew as well as he knew the way to school, the look of total triumph.

Why wouldn’t he feel that way? Spence Warren was starting a fight with Zach he never lost.

“And Kate pretty much
has
to take care of you, right?”

It always came back to her.

The words just came out of Zach now, before he had a chance to stop them.

“Shut up, Spence.”

If he wasn’t standing up to him exactly, at least he wasn’t backing down.

Spence looked confused now, as if Zach had said something to him in a foreign language.
“Shut up?”
he said. “Dude, I thought we were just conversing here.”

“No,” Zach said. Not just feeling tired now, feeling exhausted. “No, we weren’t. You just waited for the right time to start busting my
stinking
chops again. Now
that
must have killed
you,
having to wait a whole month to start up again. Did you have to go find somebody else to practice on while I was away?”

Spence still hadn’t moved, was still leaning against Dave’s locker, looking so relaxed he could fall asleep right there.

And in that moment, Zach saw himself slapping that self-satisfied look off his face, slapping him hard, then grabbing him by the front of his gray Parker hoodie and banging him hard into Dave’s locker, imagining the surprise on his face, the shock, even the pain . . .

A Zach he didn’t know.

Spence said, “I’m sorry, what did you say, Harriman? I stopped listening after
shut up.”

“Too bad, you missed some really good conversing.”

“You did tell me to shut up, didn’t you?”

“It’s a shame Kate’s not here, Spence,” Zach said. “So she could see just how much of a loser you really are.”

Now Spence straightened up. Not grinning any longer. “You’re calling me names now?”

“Yeah,” Zach said. “I guess I am.”

Spence dropped the books he’d been carrying, got right up on Zach, slamming his locker door closed as he did, the sound echoing up and down the empty hall.

“You’re gonna need to take that back.”

“Take it back?”
Zach shook his head. He felt himself grinning now. “What are you, seven years old? No kidding, Spence, for a smart guy you can sound dumber than a bag of hammers.”

One of his dad’s old expressions popping into his head, out of nowhere.

Where did
that
come from? Where was
all
of this coming from?

In a quiet voice, Spence said, “So let me get this straight: Now I’m
dumb
on top of everything else?” Zach could feel the heat of Spence’s breath on his face, like exhaust.

Spence wasn’t all that much taller than Zach. He’d just always seemed taller; Zach felt as if he’d been looking up at the guy as long as he’d known him. Like having Spence in his life had given him a permanent stiff neck.

“Stop it! Both of you! Stop it right now!”

Kate.

Zach and Spence both turned. There she was at the end of the row of lockers, hands on hips. Like a teacher.

Spence spoke first, smiling at her. His class president smile. “Stop what?”

Kate said, “How about whatever’s going on here? How would that be?”

“Nothing interesting going on here,” Spence said. “Right, Harriman?”

There was no point in getting Kate in the middle of this, even though she was always in the middle, right there between him and Spence, whether she was actually around or not.

“We were just messing around,” Zach said. “You think I’d actually pick a fight with
this
guy?”

“Right,” Kate said. Knowing both of them were lying, and not liking it from Zach. She looked at him carefully, then decided to let it go.

“You ready to roll?” she said.

“Yeah.”

To Spence she said, “See
you
tomorrow, Mr. Warren.”

“Done deal,” Spence said.

Just like that he picked up his books and was gone, around the corner, up some stairs.

Kate said, “Do I want to know?”

Zach said, “No.”

Then she looked down at her own books and said, “Idiot!”

“Okay,”
Zach said. “I’m sorry.”

“I mean
me,”
she said. “I left my jacket in the auditorium.”

“Total idiot, you’re right.”

“Shut up,” she said, smiling at him for the first time. “Meet you on the bricks in five.”

Outside.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t ‘ma’am’ me,” she said. “I’m not your mother.”

As she walked away, he said, “Act like you are sometimes.”

Without looking back, she said, “Heard that.”

He watched her disappear up some steps and realized he hadn’t exactly been glad she’d shown up when she had.

It was then that Zach felt something and looked down.

Looked down and saw something he’d never seen before, no matter how angry he’d gotten at Spence, no matter how badly he’d been humiliated:

Clenched fists.

His hands and his arms shaking, because that’s how hard he wanted to hit something. Practically his whole body shaking. Not with fear this time.

With something else.

Without thinking about what he was doing, or where he was going, he walked slowly down the row of lockers to one of the old brick walls at the basement level of Parker, one with old photographs on it, from sports teams out of the past.

He found an empty place in the wall and just like that started pounding his fists into it. First a right, then a left, and then no pattern—just all these wild, random punches. Zach threw them with everything he had.

The punches he’d imagined himself throwing at Spence Warren when he was still there in front of him.

When he was finally done, out of breath and dripping with sweat the way he had been when he ran home across the park the day his dad died, he looked down again, expecting to see his fists bruised, his knuckles raw and covered with blood.

Zach saw nothing.

More amazing, considering the fact that he’d just gone twelve rounds with a brick wall?

He
felt
nothing.

ZACH
wasn’t the only one trying to settle back into the old routines and fit them around his new life.

His mom was, too.

Even before his dad had died, his mom had been working hard to help get Senator Robert Kerrigan of New York elected president, and not just because Senator Kerrigan went all the way back to Harvard with Zach’s dad the way Uncle John did. She believed in the good of the man. It was why she was back into the campaign full-time, throwing herself into it harder than ever.

His mom, Elizabeth Townsend Harriman, was pretty famous herself. She was the daughter of a former U.S. senator, niece of a former secretary of state, and now ran the Townsend Foundation, traveling the world to give Townsend Foundation money away to people in need.

“I need the work,” she had explained to Zach, “I need the outlet, I need something to take my mind off what happened. And on top of all that? This country needs Bob Kerrigan.”

“Mom,” Zach said. “You don’t have to explain to me. I know how much Dad liked Senator Kerrigan. I see him sometimes on TV, and even I like listening to his speeches.”

Senator Kerrigan had been a few years behind Zach’s dad at Harvard. And both of them had ended up in government service. Tom Harriman had become President Addison’s troubleshooter, the globe-trotter. Bob Kerrigan had started out as a New York City lawyer, become a judge and gone to work in the Justice Department before finally becoming President Addison’s attorney general.

But eventually he’d moved back to New York and run for the U.S. Senate and won. Last year he’d surprised everybody—including Zach’s mom and dad—by announcing in the middle of his first term in the Senate that he was going to run to succeed President Addison, whose term limit of eight years was almost up.

And he was supposed to be the same kind of long shot, the same kind of inexperienced guy that Zach knew President Addison had been. Except now he was the front-runner in the polls, even running against the current vice president, Dick Boras. Zach’s mom had explained to him that usually the sitting vice president was a shoo-in to get the nomination.

Just not this time.

When Zach had asked why not, she’d said, “Because Vice President Boras is old and mean and Bill Addison never should have picked him as a running mate in the first place.”

“Works for me,” Zach’d said.

Tonight, his mom was holding a fund-raiser for Senator Kerrigan at their apartment, her first big social occasion of any kind since Zach’s dad had died. Down the road, there would be a much bigger New York City event for Senator Kerrigan in Central Park, one that Zach’s mom was already planning in her head. For now, she was using the Harriman name—and Townsend, her maiden name—to attract people who were willing to make contributions to the Kerrigan campaign.

“Small crowd,” she said, “but deep pockets.”

“Ooh,” Zach said, “ rich people. My
favorite
!”

“Hush,” his mom said, “and go make sure your nice clothes are clean.”

He used an old line of his dad’s on her then, knowing it would make her smile.

“Don’t worry about me tonight, Mom,” he said. “I promise not to bother the decent people.”

She pointed upstairs. “Go,” she said. “I have to go into the kitchen now and yell at the caterer a little more.”

But she looked happy just to be busy, the first time she had really looked that way to Zach since the funeral. That was good enough for him.

He was keeping himself busy, too, on a campaign of his own.

Just not one that he wanted to tell anybody about yet.

 

Zach put on the same blazer and tie he’d worn to his dad’s funeral, telling himself that they were just clothes, that putting them on didn’t mean you had to be sad all over again.

Kate was in the new dress Alba had bought for her.

“You look great,” Zach said when she came to his room to get him.

“And you,” Kate said, “you look about as happy to be dressed up as you always are.” And then she couldn’t help herself and straightened his tie.

Zach had never seen a politician give a speech in person. He had met plenty of them, gotten to shake Senator Kerrigan’s hand at the funeral, and even President Addison’s. But he had never been in a crowd like the one in his living room, some people sitting, most standing, Secret Service guys with their dark suits and earpieces leaning against walls, standing in front of windows, taking in the whole scene.

But as soon as Senator Kerrigan started talking, Zach understood why everyone had come to hear him and meet him.

And give him boatloads of money.

“
I
would have paid to see this,” Kate said in a whisper from where they were standing, near a door to the kitchen. Zach had promised his mom that they’d stay out of the way for the most part.

“Same,” Zach said.

“He’s talking to some of the biggest and most famous people in New York,” Kate said, “but it’s like he could be talking to our class.”

Senator Kerrigan began by talking specific issues, about war and immigration and the economy. But then he shifted to the difference in life between talking tough and actually being tough, about courage and honor and doing the right thing and trusting your instincts and never wavering on your core beliefs. It was all in the context of talking about America, but somehow Zach felt as if the senator were talking directly to
him.

And Zach knew everybody in the apartment, including Kate, felt exactly the same way.

Eventually Senator Kerrigan talked about Zach’s dad, how nobody forced him to serve his country, how he wasn’t drafted into doing so. How he’d decided on his own that service, courage and honor were his destiny.