Singled Out (12 page)

Watching his mouth as he talked about Trig and watching, meticulously, his every movement was starting to get to me. I looked at him in the glow of the house lights and wondered if he had any flaws. His face was perfect. His hair was perfect. His smell was perfect. And I stood there, the tall, skinny girl with stringy hair, wondering why he was standing in this beautiful light with someone as plain as me. “Well,” I said, looking toward the front door, “I should go.”

He nodded. “Goodnight.”

“Thanks for helping me.”

“The least I could do.”

And then I remembered he was just doing charity work to atone for his past wrongdoing.

“Just the same, thank you,” I said.

N
ot only did I pass the next day’s quiz, but I got an A-. I stared at the ninety-one written at the top of my paper and double-checked to make sure it was mine. Then I did a small, girly jump of joy.

“Nice job, Miss Dresden,” Mr. Moesch said as I glided out the door.

“Thanks.” I couldn’t wait to tell Sam.

But I knew I couldn’t really talk to him in school, so I ducked into the women’s room to send him a text message. I couldn’t wait until nightfall to share the news.

I wrote: “I got an A-!”

I waited a minute, but got no response. Maybe his phone was off. We weren’t supposed to have them on in school, but we followed that rule as strictly as adults follow the no-cell phone law while driving.
Oh, well, I’ll have to tell him later.

Unfortunately, later never happened, at least that day. He wasn’t working out after school, and though he hadn’t told me to meet him in the library that night, I went anyway, only to find our usual corner empty. He didn’t call or text. I tried to rationalize his silence. He had agreed to tutor me, but maybe that was all.

Yet, for some reason, I felt like he was more than my tutor. I guess I had fooled myself into thinking we were becoming
friends. It hurt not to have anyone to share my victory with, so I shared it with Dr. Rich that night.

I found him in his den reading a magazine and having his after-dinner coffee. “Got an A on my Trig quiz!” I proclaimed.

He looked up from his magazine and over his reading glasses. “Well, that’s good news.”

I leaned against the doorway. “It is, isn’t it?”

“And your SAT scores are here if you feel like opening this,” he said, pointing to an envelope on his desk.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to ruin my good quiz grade with some low SAT scores. “Hmm, I have to think about that.”

“Eh, go ahead, open it. Maybe it’s your lucky day.”

I picked up the envelope and started to tear it open. “What’s a good score, Dr. Rich?” I said.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘good.’”

“You know, like, good enough to get into a halfway decent college with a good baseball program.”

“I’d say anything over seventeen hundred would suffice.”

I slowly unfolded the letter. I glanced all over the paper until I found the total—1840. I looked at Dr. Rich and smiled. “I’ve got to call my dad!” I said, and happily ran up to my room.

The next few days, I waited in vain to hear back from Sam. I did see him in the hall a few times, but he was always surrounded by the evil Statesmen. It was as if any time I came near him, they appeared out of nowhere and swarmed him. I couldn’t even catch a simple glance.

Friday was the beginning of Christmas break, and when my dad and brother pulled up in front of the Richards house to pick me up, I looked around campus before getting in the car, waiting to see if perhaps Sam would come out of the bushes and wish me a merry Christmas.

All I heard was the sound of car doors slamming as other parents picked up their kids. Sam Barrett was nowhere to be seen or heard. Maybe I had misinterpreted the whole situation. I wanted to be angry at him for ignoring me, but all I could bring myself to feel was disappointment in not getting to talk with him before the long break.

“Hey, 1840,” my dad said as I got into the car.

“Hi, Dad.”

“All right, let’s blow this brain barn!” he said, chuckling.

Over the break, I found it difficult to relax. I had nightmares about the Statesmen ruining my life, nightmares about flunking out, and nightmares about being unable to throw strikes at spring tryouts.

I did have a few good dreams about Sam Barrett, but they were really bad dreams because I knew they would never become reality. I checked my phone and e-mail daily, but just like the snow I was hoping for on Christmas Eve, no Sam communication came.

There was a different sort of storm brewing that evening.

On Christmas Eve at my house, my dad, my brothers, and I usually sat around the family room watching whatever movie we could all agree on. But my older brother, Brian, hadn’t come home this year. It was his first year out of college, and he was working at a sales job in Arizona and didn’t have enough time or money to get home for the holiday. So it was just the three of us.

And for the first time ever, my dad, without warning, turned the TV off in the middle of the movie.

“Hey, Pops, what gives?” Dan said.

It was weird for my dad to turn the TV off, even if there was nothing good on. Dad was famous for falling asleep at night with the television on and then waking up in front of it in the morning and catching the news without missing a beat.

Sometimes, I thought he used it to keep from thinking about how lonely he truly was. He wasn’t an old man, after all. He was only forty-five. I knew most kids viewed their parents as old, but the funny thing was, the older I got, the younger he seemed to me.

“What’s up, Dad?” I said. “Something wrong?”
Maybe he knows what’s happening to me at school.

“Yeah, there is. Well, no, that’s the wrong way of saying it. Nothing’s really wrong, exactly,” he said. “I just need to talk to you guys about something I should’ve told you a few months ago.”

“Are you pregnant?” Dan said.

Dad laughed lightly. “No, are you?” he said to Dan.

They both turned my way. “Don’t look at me,” I said with a shrug.

We all laughed. “Seriously, give me a minute to explain, then barrage me with questions, or get mad or whatever,” Dad said.

“Why would we be mad at you?” I asked.
What’s going on?

“He’s addicted to crack!” Dan said.

“Enough jokes, Dan,” I said, trying not to laugh with him.

“Okay,” said Dad, “so a few months ago—I guess it was mid-August or so—I got a call from a man named Darren Orville.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“He’s your mother’s fiancé, actually.”

For once, Dan was speechless. So was I.

“That’s the reaction I thought I’d get. Anyway, he called to give me some news about your mother that I guess he thought we deserved to know.”

“Is she okay?” I surprised myself with my sudden concern.

“She’s fine now. Well, as fine as can be expected, I suppose.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Long story short, your mom’s been suffering from depression for most of her life. I didn’t really understand that when we were married. I thought, you know, women are moody. But I guess it’s more than that,” he said. “Years after she left, she called me and told me she was in treatment and taking medication to help. I thought that was that. But after speaking with Darren, I realized it was much more serious than I was aware of.”

“Serious how?” I said.

He rubbed his chin and then massaged his brow. “She took a lot more pills than she was supposed to. She tried to kill herself.”

Over the years, I had thought of my mom not so much as a deserter of our family, but as a flake. I always pictured her as selfish and immature and too spacey to be tied down to one man and one family. I’m not sure why I had that image of her. I guess it was more comforting to think she was flaky than that she hated all of us. But it never once crossed my mind that she was mentally ill.

Dan spoke before I could. “So, she’s nuts,” he said, seemingly comfortable simply writing her off as a nut bag and moving on with his life.

“No, Dan, she’s not nuts. Depression is really complicated. I’m just now learning about it myself, and to be honest, it has helped me forgive her a little for leaving.”

“Depressed or not, Dad, she left,” Dan said. “In my book, that made her a bitch. Now she’s just a crazy bitch.”

“Daniel, I never want to hear you speak that way about your mother ever again,” said Dad. “I know she left when you were very young, but I won’t tolerate that language about the woman who gave birth to you.”

Dan backed off and looked out the window at the streetlights.

I couldn’t figure out how I felt. Did this news make it better—knowing she left because of depression?
And what is that really? Is that a reason to ditch your family?
“Dad?” I said quietly.

“Yes, honey?”

“She’s not dead, is she?”

“No, honey. Darren found her in time and rushed her to the emergency room. She’s been at a treatment center since the summer. And Darren called last week to tell me she’s feeling much better.”

Dan got up and paced around before parking himself by the kitchen doorway. “So what’s the point of telling us all this now?” he asked, not trying to hide how upset he was.

“As a part of her therapy, she has to deal with her past and make apologies to people she wronged as a result of her depression,” said Dad. “Darren says she’s been carrying around a lot of guilt about what she did to you guys, and I guess she wants a chance to explain herself.”

“What, so we can tell her we forgive her so she’ll feel better about herself?!” Dan yelled.

“Dan, relax. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Well, good, ’cause I don’t want to.”

Until then, I’d never realized how angry Dan was about
Mom. He was only two years old when she left. He had absolutely no memory of her, but he seemed the angriest of us all.

“Listen, it’s up to you guys. If you want to talk with her, it’d be on your terms. But no pressure to do anything.”

“Where does she even live?” I asked.

“Right outside of Philadelphia.”

She’s that close? Has she been that close all these years? Just one state over?

“Really?” I said.

“You’re not considering talking to her, are you, T?” Dan asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You could do it face to face or over the phone,” Dad said. “Whatever you want, honey. Or not at all.”

“Have you talked to her, Dad?” I said.

“Yeah, about a week ago,” he said. “Just on the phone. We talked for over an hour. I told her about you attending Hazelton and how well Dan’s doing in school. She was really interested in what you guys are doing, and I have to admit”— he paused and rubbed his head again—“it was nice. She seems different somehow. Better than before.”

I was getting more curious about her. When I thought she was thousands of miles away in Flakeland, I hadn’t cared about her. But she was only an hour away. And the thought that she might have died before I had a chance to talk to her kind of made me want to do it before it was too late.

What if she had died and I hadn’t talked to her? What if I don’t get a second chance? Maybe that’s what I should be learning from all this crap at Hazelton—to take a chance when I’m given one.
Just as Hazelton was my last chance to get into a good college, maybe
this was my last chance to make peace with my mother.

“I’ll think about it,” I said finally.

W
hen school resumed after the winter break, I felt happy. I was eager to maintain my new studious attitude all the way through the marking period.

I was still thinking about whether or not to talk to my mother. Dad assured me there was no rush and to call him if and when I felt up to it. I wanted to do it. I just wasn’t sure of exactly when. Dad kept reminding me that at the end of the marking period, we would have to start applying to colleges. I also realized that in a month, baseball tryouts would start. Everything was happening at once—and too quickly.

That Monday, I did not see Sam Barrett anywhere. He was not in the halls, not in the café, and not in the gym. His brother, Ben, was there, but not Sam. Guessing he must be sick, I figured I would see him around the next day. But Tuesday came and went, as did Wednesday and Thursday, and still there was no sign of Sam Barrett. I desperately wished I could ask someone where he was, but nobody spoke to me other than the teachers and coaches.

In the bubble that Friday afternoon, we had another round of batting practice. I was taking turns pitching with a sophomore, Todd Leary.

“Hey, Coach Madison,” I said casually while warming up in the bullpen. “Is that one guy who got a hit off me last time
here today?” I knew he wasn’t on the bus earlier, but I asked just the same.

“Oh yeah, uh, Barrett, right?”

“Yeah, I think that was his name,” I said. “I’d like to face him again and see if I can strike him out this time.”

“Hey, Davenport, is Barrett practicing today?” he yelled toward the dugout.

“No, he’s sick—mono or something.”

Coach shrugged. “Don’t worry, we’ll find you a challenge.”