November Blues (8 page)

JERICHO DIDN'T SLEEP WELL THAT NIGHT.
Dream images of a baby grinning at him with Josh's face, of a baby with tiny wings on its tennis shoes, jumping from a second-story window, darted through his mind as he tossed uncomfortably, praying for morning. Finally, just before his alarm clock was set to chime at six a.m., he gave up and lay there, his head smashed against his pillow, hints of dawn peeking through the vertical blinds.

His father tapped lightly on Jericho's bedroom door. “You up, son?”

“Yeah, Dad. I never really got to sleep.”

“Still having bad dreams?”

“Every night.”

His father sat down on the side of the bed next to Jericho and put his hand on his shoulder. “I really do understand, son. I do. But maybe it's time to start getting
back to your regular routine. Hanging around the house moping isn't going to help.”

“My regular routine was hangin' with Josh,” Jericho muttered.

His father ignored that and said, “Geneva says she's seen more of you in the past four months than in the past four years. And you know Josh would smack you upside the head if he saw you like this. Come to think of it, I haven't heard you play your trumpet in months.”

Jericho groaned. “I can't, Dad. I just can't. Besides, there's more goin' on than you know.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Jericho sat up. “What would you say if I got a girl pregnant, Dad?”

Mr. Prescott gulped, then asked carefully, “Have you?”

“You didn't answer my question, Dad. What if I told you I was going to be a father?”

“I'd ‘smack you all the way to Saturday,' as my grandfather used to say.”

“No, seriously, Dad.”

His father thought for a moment. “Well, I'd be deep-down disappointed, Jericho. And pissed. Truly pissed at you.” He paused. “Then I guess I'd make sure you took care of the child—because I sure wouldn't.”

“Is that all? You wouldn't yell and scream and call me all kinds of stupid?”

“Should I start collecting bad names to call you?” his father asked warily.

Jericho avoided the question. “Is it different for dudes, Dad? Do guys get off easier?”

“Ask the boys who are paying child support for being the ‘baby-daddy,'” his father said. “They don't think about eighteen years of taking care of something they produced one night in a motel room or the backseat of a car. Sometimes these boys have lots of babies to pay for. With different girls. I see it down at the precinct all the time.”

“But girls have to raise those kids.”

“I don't think it's fair or right, but yeah, I think it's harder on pregnant girls than the boys who get them pregnant. Girls get the bad reps, go through all that mama trauma, sometimes have to leave school to take care of the kid—yeah, it's rough for them.”

“I'm glad I'm not a girl,” Jericho said decisively.

“In my day people used to look down on girls who had babies before they got married. I guess that makes me old.”

“Nothing is like it was back in the day, Dad. To lots of kids, sex doesn't mean anything at all. It's just something to do, like going to the mall.”

“That's sad,” his father said with a shake of his head. Then he looked carefully at his son. “I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy, Jericho.”

“I know, Dad.”

“I still believe a girl ought to be treated like a jewel to be treasured instead of a rock to be tossed away when you're done with it.”

“I get what you're saying.”

“But even when I was in school, boys were sometimes congratulated for proving that the plumbing worked—that they were man enough to reproduce.”

“That hasn't changed. You'd faint if I told you what the dudes in the locker rooms say when they make it with a girl.” Jericho looked uncomfortable.

“Jericho, in my line of work, I've heard it all and seen worse. You can't shock me.”

“I guess you're right.” Jericho began kneading his pillow.

“So, are you going to tell me? Is it Arielle the airhead? I thought you broke up with her.”

“She dumped
me
, Dad. But it's not Arielle. These days she's letting Logan Holbrook be her plumber, not me.”

“Then who?” Jericho's dad tensed.

“You have to promise not to tell anybody yet.”

“News of a pregnancy gets out within nine months, I've heard,” said his father dryly.

“It's November,” Jericho said finally.

His father jumped to his feet. “November? Josh's girlfriend? She's having
your
baby? Jericho—what a mess!”

“No! No! You've got it all wrong!”

“I'm not following you, son.”

“Be for real, Dad. You make me sound like some kind of lowlife. Yeah, November's pregnant. But she was Josh's girl. It's Josh's baby.”

His father sat back down on the bed and exhaled. “Okay. I get it now.” He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “It's still a mess.”

“Yeah. November is way confused and scared. And her mother is a basket case. And Josh…” The grandfather clock in the downstairs hall chimed loudly.

“Oh, that poor kid. What is she going to do?”

“Have the baby, I guess. I told her I'd be there for her—
whatever that means—I guess to hold her hand and stuff. There's not much else I can do.”

“Do Brock and Marlene know yet?”

“No. We saw them at the store last night. It was like watching two cartoon characters—one moving at hyper-speed, and one in slow motion.”

“Maybe this news will cheer them up,” his father mused.

“I suggested that to November, but she got all prickly about it, so I didn't say anything else. And you can't either.” He gave his father a steady stare. “You can't tell them,” he said again. Then he asked, “How do you think Josh would have taken this news—about being a father?”

Mr. Prescott smiled softly. “Josh could be pretty silly, but he wasn't irresponsible. He would have done all he could to support November.”

“What must it be like, Dad, to know you're carrying the child of somebody who will never see it, never even know it existed?”

“I'm sure a lot of women whose husbands are killed in military service can answer that, son. Women have been dealing with that tragedy for centuries.”

“Do you think any less of November now that you know she's pregnant?”

“Of course not.”

“Is it because Josh was your nephew, and this baby will be related to you?”

Jericho's father started to answer, but the phone rang and interrupted their conversation. “I've got to get to the station,” he told Jericho after he hung up. “A semi has
turned over on I-71, and the whole interstate is shut down.” He hurried down the stairs.

Jericho thought about November as he got dressed—how her world was just about as messed up as that semi.

“GIRL, YOU PICKED THE WRONG DAY TO
skip school,” Dana said excitedly the instant November answered her cell phone.

“I didn't skip. I just didn't feel good. My body said go back to bed, so I did.”

“When my body tells me stuff like that, my mother makes me get up anyway,” Dana said with a chuckle.

“My mom is still in the guilty phase—like me being pregnant is somehow her fault. So she let me stay home.”

“I've been trying to call you since lunchtime.”

“I just turned my phone back on. What happened?”

“Are you ready for this? Logan Holbrook got arrested!”

“Shut up!”

“Prime time, girlfriend. Right in the middle of lunch. In front of everybody in the cafeteria!”

“And I missed it? No way! What did they get him for?” November made herself comfortable on the living-room sofa.

“Drugs!”

“Using or selling?”

“Probably both, but they found out he's been selling drugs to little kids at the elementary and middle school.”

“Logan? I can't believe it.” November's thoughts reeled. Logan, the captain of the basketball team. Logan, the National Merit Finalist. He was one of those kids who had a path of gold already paved for him. It didn't make any sense. Why would he get caught up in that stuff?

“I feel you. One of the teachers actually
fainted
. But most of them looked either shocked or kinda teary-eyed.”

“No way! Who passed out?”

“Miss Veneterri—teaches computer math.”

“Oh, she's so fake. She tried to act like she was gonna faint at Josh's funeral, but nobody paid her much mind, so she pulled herself together. But you still haven't told me how they busted Logan.”

“Some kid in the fourth grade finally spilled her guts.”

“Just like that?”

“Word is her mom found some strange pills in the kid's backpack, and the little girl told her mom that Logan had given them to her.”

“How would Logan ever even come in contact with a little kid like that?” November asked in disbelief.

Dana reveled in telling November the juicy gossip. She told the story with drama and flair. And she took her time. “Logan had an after-school job.”

“Yeah, I know. He always had lots of spending money. He once donated a hundred dollars when we were collecting money for the hurricane victims in New Orleans. Where was he working—McDonald's?”

“Nope. He drove the ice-cream truck.”

“Oh that's right, I remember. Jericho's little brothers used to break their necks when the truck came down their street.”

“So did I,” Dana said with a giggle. “But it turns out that Logan was selling more than popsicles and ice-cream bars. He had a huge stash of pills in the back of the truck.”

“No way!”

“Yes way!” Dana's voice rose in excitement. “He told the kids that the pills came from the health food store and would give them lots of energy. He gave them the first pill, then sold them any more they wanted. And they always wanted more.”

“But fourth graders are only nine!”

“No kidding. That's what made them easy prey. Little kids are gullible.”

“So the cops came into school?” November asked, getting Dana back to the story.

“Yep, the principal, along with four armed police officers with their hands on their guns.”

“Like somebody was gonna shoot them? Cops are so full of themselves.”

“I don't know. They just looked scary serious. No smiles. No conversation.”

“I bet the cafeteria got so quiet.” November could only imagine what the tension must have been like.

“It was like all the air had been sucked out. Nobody breathed. Nobody said a word. Everybody watched and waited to see who the cops had come for. I got a couple of unpaid parking tickets in my car. Made my heart go flip-flop for a hot minute!”

“I don't think they come in with guns for just some unpaid tickets.”

“Thank goodness! No—they stomped into the lunchroom, marched over to the table where Logan and Arielle were eating lunch, pulled Logan to his feet, and handcuffed him in front of two hundred gaping students.”

“Busted!”

“He had only taken one bite out of his hamburger.”

“Then what? Did he say anything?”

“No, he was way cool. He looked like those criminals on TV—like he was too smooth to look scared or show emotion.”

“Did they read him his rights like they do on the cop shows? Girlfriend, I'm kicking myself that I missed this!”

“Yeah, they did! You could almost hear every kid there gulping. Then they walked him out. His hands were behind his back, plastic cuffs on his wrists.”

“I thought handcuffs were silver.”

“You're thinking cowboy shows. This is the twenty-first century. Cops nowadays use stuff that's probably impossible for anyone to get out of.”

“I guess you're right. So, what was Arielle doing while all this was happening?”

“Before Logan even left the room, she picked up her books, left her lunch, and split.”

“I don't blame her. Talk about embarrassing! What about Jericho? What did he say?”

“He was sitting with me and Kofi. But you know Jericho—he keeps his thoughts inside. He left shortly after Arielle did.”

“You think he went to make her feel better?”

“Not likely. I think he went home. I didn't see his car in the parking lot after school.”

“You know, even though Logan put up a good show, I bet he felt like he was gonna pee in his pants.”

“You got that right. If I was Logan, I'd be real scared.”

“I bet he gets some serious jail time,” November commented.

“You know, he had a scholarship to college—basketball,” Dana told November.

“And just last week Arielle was boasting that Logan had a recording contract ready to sign—big label.” November shook her head.

“A girlfriend. A job. Parents with cash. Good looks. A car.” Dana sounded perplexed.

“Why would he toss all that away?” asked November.

“Just stupid, I guess. Hey, I gotta go, girl. See you at school tomorrow.”

NOVEMBER'S FIRST-BELL CLASS WAS
American history. The teacher, Mr. Fox, was a retired army sergeant who seemed to march instead of walk, and he carried himself as if he was still a soldier in dress uniform. He always smelled of cigarettes. It would seem that a man with a military background, someone who had been in actual battles, would be a dynamic teacher of history. Not so.

Instead of making history come alive, as her European history teacher had the year before—letting them build castles and play with swords and stage mock battles—Mr. Fox assigned a new chapter in the textbook each Monday, passed out study questions on Tuesday, did a vocabulary review on Wednesday and a review of important people in the chapter on Thursday, then gave a quiz on Friday. He never varied his schedule. Talk about dull!

A lot of kids tolerated him because he didn't make them
work hard. If they turned in every single assignment and passed all the quizzes, they were guaranteed to get at least a B. Nobody ever remembered anything they learned in his class, in spite of the fact that no one ever left the classroom.

Mr. Fox never let students out of class. Ever. He had tossed his hall pass in the wastebasket the first day of school. Counselors who wanted to check a student's schedule had learned to get that person out of English or gym or band. Not Mr. Fox's class. Kids learned to use the toilet facilities before class, or hold it until after.

November wiggled in her seat uncomfortably. She really had to go to the bathroom. Her mother had insisted she drink two large glasses of orange juice before she left for school. November was sure her bladder was about to burst.

“I gotta pee!” she whispered to Olivia.

“You gotta hold it,” Olivia whispered back.

“I
really
gotta go bad! Feels like a brick is sitting on my bladder. It's gonna pop like a balloon!”

Mr. Fox looked up disapprovingly.

“That's no brick. That's the baby!” Olivia hissed.

“I
really
gotta get out of here.”

“He won't let you!”

“How is he gonna stop me?” November retorted. She stood up.

“May I help you, Nelson?” Mr. Fox said, looking up from the book he was reading.

“I need to be excused, sir.”

“Sorry. You know my rules.”

“But this is an emergency.”

“Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency for me.”

“Nobody plans when they have to pee! When you gotta go, you gotta go! And I gotta go.”

“It's almost the end of the school year, Nelson. Surely you know I don't let students out of class. I have not yet, and I do not intend to do so. Now sit down. You can wait thirty minutes.”

“But I can't!” November's voice was pleading and desperate. She hopped from one foot to the other.

“Please sit down, Nelson.”

“What if I walk out? What are you gonna do—shoot me in the back as I leave?” November moved closer to the door.

“No one leaves my classroom. That's my only rule. I think that's quite reasonable.”

“It not like anybody would miss anything in this boring, bootleg class!” November shouted. “A trained chimp could pass this class!”

“What has gotten into you, young lady?” Mr. Fox asked, his voice bristling with anger. The class looked at her in awe.

“What's in me? You really want to know? Well, I'll tell you! Two glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice, one large poppy-seed bagel, one bowl of blueberry yogurt, and a baby! Yes, a real, live baby, who is at this moment doing a tap dance on my bladder.”

Several students gasped at this revelation. November, flushed and angry, continued, “So you're just gonna have to mark me as AWOL because I'm walking out of that door
this instant, down the hall, and to the bathroom before I pee all over your floor!”

She dug her fingernails into her palms to keep from crying, then stormed out of the room. She could hear the class cheering as the door slammed. She knew Mr. Fox would silence their outburst with just a look.

Well, there goes Mom's big secret
, she thought a few minutes later as she washed her hands.
It's not like it wasn't gonna creep out eventually
. She sighed.
Now it begins
. She wandered the halls until the bell rang, when she darted into the room, grabbed her books, and scooted back out. She avoided looking at Mr. Fox or anyone else.

By the end of the day, everybody at school knew that November was pregnant. Cell phones had come out like buzzards after a kill as kids sent calls and text messages to one another, passing along the news and trying to get more details. That's all anyone talked about—November, and the fact that Logan had been arrested at school. It was better than reality television.

The conversations in the hall hummed with half truths and rumors.

“I heard Logan was caught doing drugs.”

“No, he wasn't doing drugs—he was dealing!”

“To little kids!”

“That's pretty low, if you ask me.”

“I heard one kid almost died because of what Logan gave him.”

“I think it was a cop's kid.”

“Somebody said they searched Logan's house and found a garbage bag full of stuff.”

“I wonder what cops do with a big stash like that.”

“I bet they divide it up and take it home.”

“You think?”

“You so dumb. You believe anything.”

“Logan's dad hired a big-name lawyer, I heard.”

“He's gonna need one!”

“What about Arielle? They find anything on her?”

“I don't think so.”

“Too bad.”

“You too cold.”

“Yeah, tough break for November, too. She deserves better.”

“Straight up.”

“Naw, Miss Thing got what's comin' to her.”

“How you figure?”

“She used to think she was all that, but now she ain't nothing but!”

“Girl, you just be hatin'!”

“I wonder who else she been with.”

“She keepin' the baby?”

“She got a dead baby-daddy. That sucks.”

“I've seen some live baby-daddies that ain't much better than a dead one!”

“Straight up.”

“I wonder what Josh's parents think about the kid. They have lots of cash, somebody said.”

“So?”

“Well, if you got enough money, you can do anything!”

“Would you give up your baby to its grandparents?”

“Not me. But my man's parents are whacked. I wouldn't do that to a kid.”

“I might think about it—I could go out and have fun and not have to worry about some cryin' baby back home that needed changing!”

“Then you better keep your pants on, girlfriend. You ain't fit to be a mother!”

November knew what the kids around her were saying, and not only did it embarrass her, it ticked her off. It made her blush to imagine what kids were saying about what she and Josh had done, and she felt like smacking some of the self-righteous girls who tried to look down on her. Arielle was one of them.

“What's up, November?” Arielle said one day after school.

“Nothing much,” November replied, trying to dig her English book out of her locker in a hurry so she could avoid talking to her.

“Word is you and Josh were a lot closer than you let on.”

“Why you tryin' to be all up in my business?” November slammed her locker door.

“So you're keeping the baby?”

“It's really none of your business, Arielle,” November replied tersely as she snapped the lock onto the metal hasp.

“You don't have to get all salty,” Arielle replied, rolling her eyes. “I thought we were tight.”

“We used to be,” November said after a pause, a hint of sadness in her voice. “But lately you been acting like you all that and a bag of chips!”

Arielle leaned against the lockers. “It wasn't me who changed. When I broke up with Jericho, you and Dana acted like I'd dumped you as well. So I moved on.”

“Well, keep moving. I gotta get to lunch.”

“I'd wondered why you were gaining so much weight,” said Arielle as she walked alongside November. “You used to have such cute clothes.” Arielle brushed a speck of dirt from her Ultrasuede miniskirt.

“And you used to be likable,” November retorted. She hurried away in the other direction—angry, embarrassed, and hurt.

She threw her books onto the lunch table and flopped down next to Dana and Olivia.

“So who peed in your cornflakes?” Dana asked.

“Teachers. Haters. Arielle.” November blinked hard—she wasn't sure if the tears were from anger or frustration, but she was really tired of crying all the time.

“Don't let lowlifes get the best of you, November,” Olivia said gently. “I face it all the time.”

November sniffed. “I'm okay. At least for the moment. Can I have some of your fries?” she asked Olivia.

“You want to go to the mall with us after school?” Dana offered. “Shopping cures all problems!”

“I'm with you on that, but I've got a doctor's appointment after school,” November told them.

“You going by yourself?” Dana asked. “I can drive you if you want some company.”

“Thanks, but my mother's going with me. I guess she's finally quit pretending this will go away, and now she wants to get information so she can stress me out for the
next five and a half months! Already she's got me drinking guava juice and eating raw carrots. And save me from Internet baby blogs!”

“Aw, quit complainin',” Olivia said, intently mixing a slab of butter into her mashed potatoes. “At least you got a mama to fret over you.”

November and Dana exchanged glances. “What happened to your mom?” Dana asked gently.

“She died the day I was born. A rare childbirth complication called postpartum hemorrhage,” answered Olivia. She buried the butter into the potato mound. “Basically, she bled to death.”

At the words “childbirth complication” November shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Complications? She'd never given a moment's thought to complications. Man, she was totally clueless. She forced her attention back to Olivia. “That's so sad,” she whispered.

“I didn't know,” Dana added softly. “I'm really sorry, Olivia.”

November inhaled. “My dad died when I was ten. I still miss him.”

“You got memories of him?” Olivia asked.

“Yeah, lots of good ones, although it's like they fade as I get older,” November mused. “I hate that.”

“I don't have one single thing to remember,” Olivia said, her eyes filling with tears. “It's like a clean notebook—full of pages with nothing written on them.”

“My mother makes me itch,” Dana told them, “but I wouldn't know how to breathe without her. It must be really hard.”

“You know what it's like not having a mother?” Olivia asked.

“I can guess, but not really,” November replied.

“Imagine being born without your right hand. You learn to do stuff without it. You eat with your left hand and figure out how to tie your shoes. You only need one glove in the winter. But you can't clap.”

November rubbed her hands together unconsciously. “Deep.”

“You function, sort of, but you're missing something vital. Feel me?”

“Yeah,” said Dana.

“My daddy raised me. He did a pretty good job, and he loves me something fierce. But he never much cared about what I ate, so I grew up on Froot Loops and french fries, and he never once took me shopping for anything other than groceries. I've always envied girls who go to the mall with their mothers. I bought my first bra by myself.”

“I think I'd rather do that trip without my dad,” Dana said with a smile.

Olivia smiled back. “Don't get me wrong. I owe a lot to my dad. He used to read to me every night, and that's how I learned to love books. He made me study so I could make good grades, and he taught me to be tough so I could face airheads like Arielle.”

“Sounds like you got her on your mind,” November teased.

“I could care less about that little twit. She's the one who's thinking about me. Every time I see her in the hall, I make a fist and mouth, ‘I'm gonna pay you back!' She
wrinkles up her face like she's about to cry or puke, then runs in the other direction.” Olivia laughed. “The threat of terror is a powerful thing!”

“Are you really going to get her?” Dana asked.

“Of course not. But she doesn't know that. It's the intimidation factor that makes me powerful. As long as she's scared of me, she won't bother me.”

“Arielle's been laying kinda low anyway since Logan got busted,” Dana added.

“I heard she dumped him just like she dumped Jericho. The girl does not deal well with stress!” November said.

“Anybody know what's going to happen to Logan?” asked Olivia. “Not that I care.”

“Lots and lots of jail time.”

The bell rang and the three girls put away their lunch trays and headed for class.