You Can Run (9 page)

“That's Aunt Beverly's boyfriend,” he said.

“You never mentioned him before.”

“They've been seeing each other for a while,” he said grimly. “Now my aunt says it's serious.”

“Well,” I said, “there's that expression, love is blind.” The big man wasn't my idea of boyfriend material, but there was also that other expression, it takes all kinds.

“She says he brings her flowers,” Nick said, sounding bitter. “Does stuff around the house for her. He even takes her dancing.”

“He sounds like every woman's dream,” I said, trying to imagine the bullying hulk I had just seen waltzing Nick's aunt across a dance floor. Trying, but not succeeding.

“She's crazy about him.” He moved his sore arm tentatively and winced.

“Sit down,” I said.

He held his ground.

“Please?” I said.

He stepped a little closer. I took his good hand and pulled him to the bench. He sat.

“Let me see,” I said. I started to push up his left sleeve. I got it high enough to see some deep bruising before he let out a gasp of pain and yanked his arm away.

“Maybe you should get that looked at, Nick.”

“It's fine.”

“Your face is white.”

He didn't say anything. I might as well have been talking to a tree.

“What was going on back there?” I said. “I heard a crash.”

“I bumped into something.”

I waited for more, but in the end had to prompt him.

“When I got to Aunt Bev's, Glen said she was at the hairdresser. He said he was taking her out tonight.”

“On a Tuesday?” I know Nick's aunt. She's nice and, if you ask me, she really cares about Nick.

“They're going to celebrate their two-month anniversary,” Nick said.

“And your aunt didn't tell you?”

“Glen says she left a message for me at Somerset. But I never got it.” He looked angry and hurt.

“It sounded like you and Glen were fighting,” I said. “Physically, I mean.”

“I fell,” he said. But he looked at the ground instead of at me.

“Did he hurt you?” I said.

Nothing.

“That bruise on your arm,” I said, “that's at least a couple of days old.” There was no way a bruise that color was the result of what I had just overheard. I remembered Nick slipping on his hooded sweatshirt in the taco place. I wondered if he'd done it to hide the bruise. “What happened, Nick? How'd you get that?”

He jumped to his feet. “What are you doing here anyway?” he said. “You show up uninvited and you start in with a million questions.”

“I didn't—”

“I don't get along with the guy, okay? I don't like him and he doesn't like me. So what?”

“But if your aunt is serious about him—”

“If she's serious, she's serious. It's none of my business.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I gotta go,” he said.

“But Nick—”

He turned and started walking down the footpath that ran along the riverbank. I got up and ran after him. At first when I caught up with him, he pretended I wasn't there and kept walking, looking straight ahead. But after a couple of minutes, he slowed down and took my hand in his. He held it until we reached the bus stop.

“You going back to your aunt's?” I said.

He shook his head. “I think I'll head back to Somerset.”

“You sure you don't want to see a doctor about your arm? There's a walk-in clinic over on Franklin. I'll go with you.”

He shook his head. “If it still hurts later, I'll get Selma to take a look at it.” Selma was one of the onsite counselors at Somerset. Nick seemed to like her. He let go of my hand and slipped his arm around me instead. “Don't worry about me, okay? I can take care of myself.”

It felt good when he held me like that, so close I could feel the warmth of his body. It did not feel good when he released me and climbed up into the bus, especially when I saw the somber expression on his face.

B
illy's hand clamped over my arm like a trap snapping shut on a mouse.

“She's coming,” he said. He gripped my arm while he watched Morgan enter the cafeteria. She stood just inside the door, scanning faces until she found us.

“Are you sure I should do this?” Billy said. Sweat had broken out on his forehead.

“Billy, all I said was—”

“Breath mints,” he said. “Robyn, do you have any breath mints?”

“Billy, relax, it's only Morgan. Since when do you care what your breath smells like around her?” Besides, it usually smelled just fine—one of the positive by-products of being vegan.

He sprang to his feet, jarring the table so that I had to grab my juice before it spilled.

“Morgan,” he said, as if he were astonished to see her, as if the three of us didn't have lunch together almost every school day.

“Hey Billy,” she said absently, not so much as glancing at him as she slung her backpack onto the table.

When Billy raised his hand to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, I saw a huge stain under his arm.

“I got my English essay back,” Morgan said. She pulled a wad of paper from her backpack and flung it at me. “I can't believe it. Do you have any idea how hard I worked on that? And look what he gave me. Just look.”

He
was Mr.Turturro, Morgan's English teacher, fresh out of teacher training. A baby, is how Morgan described him. A baby with a (short) past in minor league baseball. The word was that, although he had been a good catcher, he was a slow runner, which was why he wasn't still in minor league baseball. His nickname when he'd been playing was the Turtle, which of course everybody at school called him now.

“I mean, he's a jock. He teaches phys. ed.,” she said. “What genius decided he should teach English too? What does a jock know about literature?”

I picked up the crumpled mess of paper she had tossed at me, smoothed it out with my hand, and looked at the mark printed in red in the upper right-hand corner.

“B+,” I said. “Not bad.”

“Not bad?” she said. “I've never gotten a B+ in my life.”

It was true. Morgan didn't just have an A average. She had a straight-A record. She pulled As on every essay, term paper, exam, test, and pop quiz ever thrown at her. She was usually modest about it. Mostly she would glance at her grade, shrug, give a (sometimes smug) half-smile, and not say anything at all. After all, what was there to say? The way it looked now, maybe it was true—maybe As were no big deal. But Bs, even B+? They were a whole different story.

“It's still the beginning of the year,” I said. “Now that you know how Mr. Turturro grades, you'll do better next time.”

“Next time?” she said. “I did better this time. This essay is brilliant.”

So much for modesty.

“This is an A+ essay, not a B+ essay,” she said. “I can't believe that guy. I mean, he's a jock.”

That's when Billy chimed in. “You know what you need, Morgan? You need to get your mind off school,” he said.

I had to give him credit. It was a smooth segue. Too bad his timing was off.

Morgan turned her angry eyes on him. “What I need, Billy,” she said, “is for the Turtle to give me the grade I deserve. That's what I need.”

“Yeah, but he's not going to change—” He shut up when Morgan gave him a look that could have turned molten lava to cold, hard rock. Flustered, he glanced at me. I think he was looking for encouragement. I shook my head. I tried to warn him, I really did. But Billy didn't pay attention. He pulled himself up straight and drew in a deep breath. He said, “Morgan, do you want to go out with me this weekend?”

Morgan was looking at me when he said it. She had her mouth open, as if she had been about to speak. It hung open a little longer. Then, slowly, she shifted her eyes from me to Billy.

“What did you say?” You would have thought she was accusing Billy of some heinous crime.

Billy's face turned pink, then crimson.

“I said. . .I was wondering. . . .”

“Did you just ask me out?” Morgan said, incredulous and indignant at the same time.

Billy spluttered and nodded.

“In case you haven't noticed, I'm having the worst day of my life,” Morgan said, which reminded me that everything is relative. “And all you can do is make jokes? That was a joke, right, Billy?”

“Come on, Morgan,” I said.

Morgan is my best friend. So is Billy, but Billy's a boy, so maybe Morgan is more of a best friend. I know she's not perfect. Nobody is. I also know that she can get just a little too wrapped up in herself. I'd have been willing to bet that she didn't even notice what was glaringly obvious to me—that Billy looked like he had just been slapped. Hard. By her.

Billy's face was still bright red. He stared at me as if I had ordered him on what he now realized was a suicide mission. He stood up. I pretended not to notice that Morgan had seen the look he'd given me.

“Billy. . . .” I said. But he stumbled away from the table and ran out of the cafeteria. Morgan looked at me with unadulterated disapproval.

“You put him up to it,” she said. “Don't deny it. It was written all over his face.” She snatched her A+- marked-B+ essay from my hand and jammed it back into her pack.

“Morgan, I just—”

But by then, I was talking to her back as she cut between the tables, heading for the door.

Terrific.

As I screwed the lid back onto my bottle of juice, I saw someone watching me from across the room. Kenny Merchant. There was a girl sitting with him. She looked to see where Kenny was looking. When she saw me, she scowled.

I got up and started weaving my way through the tables toward Kenny. I half expected him to get up and walk away before I got there. Why not? Everyone else was doing it. But he didn't. The girl's name was Alison something, I'd seen her around, but didn't really know her. She said something to him. Kenny barely glanced at her when he answered, but whatever he said sure got a reaction. She straightened out of her slouch as if she'd been jabbed in the back. She said something else but got no answer. She stood up and said something else. Still no answer. She glowered as she pushed by me.

I looked at Kenny.

“Hi,” I said. I didn't expect an answer and I didn't get one. “Look, about Trisha. . . .”

“You're not a friend of hers,” he said. He was telling me, not asking me.

“I never said I was. I said we did a project together and we had a problem.”

“Yeah, well, I don't know anything about her, so you can stop asking me.”

“You know she's missing, don't you?” I said. If he knew, he didn't seem to care. If he cared, he didn't show it. “Her parents are frantic. Her mother is sick.”

Nothing.

“Maybe something happened to her,” I said. “Don't you care?”

“I already told you, I don't know anything about her.”

Right. And one of the main things he didn't know about her was that I wasn't her friend.

“Don't talk to me again,” he said. “Don't ask me any more questions. And don't follow me. You got that?”

I looked at him one last time before I turned and walked away. Maybe that teacher my father had spoken to was right. Maybe she had seen Kenny and Trisha together. But I couldn't imagine their conversations going any better than mine just had.

As I was making my way out of the cafeteria, I got that prickly back-of-the-neck feeling that makes you think that someone is staring at you. I turned, but all I saw were kids—kids leaving the cafeteria, kids entering the cafeteria, kids just hanging around outside the cafeteria—none of whom were paying any attention to me. Most of them were in pairs or trios or larger groups—except for one person who was standing by herself. Alison, the girl who had been with Kenny. She was rummaging in her purse for something. I started to turn away. Then, maybe because there was something about the way she was fumbling around, I took a second look. Our eyes met—she was staring right back at me. She kept staring too, giving me a condescending, challenging look. I turned to walk away.

“Hey,” a voice said. Someone jolted my shoulder from behind. I spun around, angry. Now Alison seemed to be sizing me up. “You stay away from him, okay?”

“What?” What was she talking about? “You mean Kenny?”

“You're not his type,” she said. “You don't have a chance with him. You know where he lived last?” She paused dramatically before telling me. “Somerset.” Well, what do you know; one of the rumors circulating about Kenny Merchant was true. “You know what Somerset is?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. She took a closer look at me, surprised by my answer. Then I caught the look in her eyes. She really thought I was interested in him. She was jealous—trying to stake out her territory. She wouldn't be doing that unless she felt threatened by me. I wondered if she felt threatened by Trisha too.