Authors: Gillian Roberts
friday.
What’s wrong with this picture? I thought.
But nothing was.
Even that made me nervous.
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Look here, I told myself. Observe this most innocuous, ordinary all-American scene. Students readying the gym for a school dance, believing that with crepe paper and posters they can transform the room into their fantasies. Listen to the happy drone of people working together, planning a party. This could be a sac-charine greeting card, it’s so ordinary and pleasing, so be pleased.
I took a few more deep breaths, but the mild jitters, the uncomfortable sense that my veins were rushing the blood through persisted.
I saw no sign of Seth or Wilson, though Wilson had been part of the demonstration, wearing his bandages with a swagger.
Maybe he’d gone home to get into costume. Or maybe his mother had decided to surgically remove him from the bad influences even before rescheduling could be effected.
I watched another of the recent strange and strained Allie-Nita interchanges. Nita looked overwhelmed, propellering her arms and doing the head-shaking that seemed to be her basic communication with her best friend these past few days.
I felt sorry for both of them. They had worked hard and there really wasn’t enough time to get everything done. I thought I might help with triage—pick the most important task and do it—and I walked over to them to say so.
“It’ll all be your fault!” Nita was saying. “You could stop it and you aren’t!”
“They aren’t going to—”
“They’re
crazy
! ” I could see the tendons in Nita’s neck. Her voice wasn’t loud, but strained with the emotions it was barely containing.
I doubted that they were talking about the gymnasium décor.
Nobody cared that much. But there I was, beside them, so I felt obliged to say something. “Could I help?”
They stared at me blankly.
“I know you’re up against the wall with time, and I could take care of something, if you’d like. Maybe putting together that scarecrow you mentioned, Allie?”
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They glanced at each other and then at me. “It’s all right,”
Allie said. “It’ll get done, but thanks. Thanks a lot!”
It didn’t seem the right time to leave. Apparently, even preparty, they needed some kind of chaperone or referee.
When I looked back at them, Nita had huffed off, so I thought things had simmered down. I watched Allie collar Erik, who looked as if he wanted to bolt and run as she gave him instructions—several times. Erik behaved with her the way he too often did with me, blankly staring, then visibly letting his attention wander, his eyes checking out who was left on the bleachers, who else was still around—I nodded politely as he took note of me—and then he checked out what, if anything, might be going on up on the ceiling.
Allie looked up, too, following his glance, then drilled her index finger into his chest. He shrugged and nodded at the same time, said a little more, and moved on out of the gym. Maybe that’s what Allie had been requesting—a cleared-out room and space to work.
Such high drama over a possibly less than perfect Mischief Night party. Teens were exhausting.
My blood was percolating again, as it had repeatedly all this week. I couldn’t tell if it was due to accumulated events or apprehension about what was still to come.
I still had that note in my backpack saying something worse was going to happen.
When?
What?
Was the Friday note the answer to that?
Taking deep breaths did not help.
I checked the time. Too early to go to Sasha’s. She’s a photographer and even though she now uses the computer more than the darkroom, she does still work at home a great deal. I did not want to interrupt.
I could go see Juan Reyes. As soon as I had the thought, I felt better. Maybe by now he could have visitors and I could make 201
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him feel more a part of the school community. I didn’t know if he had any family close by, or whether Tisha Banks had the fortitude or interest to see this through with him.
Even if I couldn’t see him, maybe I could at least get more information about his condition, or I could find out something I could do to help out.
At the very least, it would feel a step in the right direction of paying attention and respect. The illusion of doing something seemed preferable to doing nothing at all or continuing to hang out with teenagers.
He was at HUP—the University of Pennsylvania hospital. I glanced at my watch. The bus would get me there in a matter of minutes.
First, I found Pip. “What are your evening plans?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s kind of not up to me.”
“Then promise you’ll stay here and help out for the next hour or so—until I get back. Then you can tell me what has or hasn’t worked out and if you’re staying, we’ll iron out the logistics.”
He promised, and I went to catch my bus. The daylight was shrinking and the temperature falling, issuing stern reminders that it would be November in two days and any happy dreams we had of ongoing Indian summer warmth were naïve and irrational. I was lost in my shivers and contemplation of whether my coat, which was just about ready to collect Social Security, could make it through another winter, when I realized that in addition to a tiny Asian woman, a red-cheeked sturdy woman in a thick wool coat, and two dark-eyed, dark-skinned girls who looked like twins trying to not look like twins, Erik Steegmuller, in the ubiq-uitous thick winter letter jacket, was waiting for the same bus, and not only that, looking at me with concern.
His expression flattened out instantly. “Miss Pepper!” he said.
“Going home?”
I smiled and shook my head. “How about you?”
He looked down at his feet. “Not really,” he said.
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“Not really” is a phrase that drives me to distraction. What does it mean and why can’t they simply say “no”? Why do they feel obliged to hedge, to skirt the periphery of possibility?
Not
really.
Then what? Yes falsely? In his delirious imagination, he was going home, but not in reality?
“Getting ready for the party, then?” I asked.
He nodded. “Have to find Nita first, though.”
“It looks like it’ll be fun,” I said insincerely. “I’m sorry to miss it. Are you coming in costume?”
“Well, we thought, probably. Everybody is. Unless . . .” he shrugged. “They don’t. Then . . .”
He could get a job as living proof that some people were im-pervious to twelve years of instruction in the mother tongue. You could try to leave no child behind, but some children were determined to stay where they were. “Kind of a cool costume. You’ll like it.”
“Can’t wait. Meanwhile, I’m going up to the hospital,” I said.
Erik took a step back from the curb. “You okay? Were you hurt today?”
“No, no. I’m going to try to see Mr. Reyes. Or at least see about him.”
He nodded, as if I’d verified a theory he held. “Well, then,”
he said. “Well, then . . . is he—can he talk now?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked worried. “I mean is he awake, you know?” He shrugged and realigned his muscles. He looked as if he had no idea what to do with his hands. If only he had a basketball to dribble. “I heard he was still pretty much unconscious,” he mumbled. “Like it’s . . . unusual to go see somebody unconscious. I mean, I guess it’s nice, but . . .”
“You know, they say people can hear what you’re saying while they’re unconscious.”
“Really? But, like—he can’t talk yet, can he?”
The bus approached, and I believe we both heard it with re-203
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lief. It wasn’t until I had boarded that I realized Erik hadn’t gotten on.
“Changed my mind,” he called out. “Getting late. See you.”
“Kids,” an exhausted woman next to me said. “They’re all idiots.”
I walked softly, but the hospital wasn’t quiet the way I always imagined it. Even here, in a semi–intensive care unit, nurses called out to one another, spoke brightly to patients and visitors; families with active—and often noisy—children picnicked in waiting areas; and all of that might have annoyed the truly ill, but for the moment, it was a good thing because when Nita saw me, she shrieked. In a hushed place, her scream would have cracked the plaster walls, but here, it almost blended into the low-grade din.
“Nita!” I said, clutching the small flowering plant I’d bought in the gift shop. “What is it? Why are you acting afraid of me?” I didn’t say I was surprised to see her here, because I wasn’t, not after Erik’s pitiable attempt at casual conversation. He’d been headed here, looking for her, but turned back when he realized I was going in the same direction, though I couldn’t understand what I had to do with his mission. “Nita?” I repeated.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m—surprised.”
“Well, so am I. Why are you here?”
“I come every day,” she said in a low voice. “I—I needed to know how he is. I mean really know.”
“And how is he?”
She shook her head. “Not good. No visitors. He might . . .
He’s not getting better. Not enough. It’s . . .” And then her nose turned red and her eyes welled up.
“Nita,” I said softly. I braced the plant on my hip and put my hand on her arm, gently, almost to keep her from fracturing and falling apart. “What is it?”
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She looked at me with wide, overflowing gray-blue eyes, and shook her head. “This is all so horrible. He could die or be blind or disfigured. Nobody ever, ever meant anything like this to happen.”
“What do you mean?” This elicited nothing but silence.
“What, instead,
did
somebody mean to happen?”
“Nothing! I said nobody meant anything!” She pulled away from me. “Please,” she said, sniffling. “I can’t explain. I would, but I can’t. Don’t ask me to.”
“Why do you keep coming here?”
She looked at me as if I were ignorant of the most rudimen-tary rules of civilization. “Because he could have died!” she said.
“And then what?” Her voice rose, became tight and shrill. “Then what?” She was still sniffling and her eyes still teared. “And nobody else comes. Nobody else
cares.
What’s wrong with them?”
“He’s lucky to have a friend like you,” I said. “You must be quite fond of him to keep visiting.”
“Not really.”
There was that phrase again. Did that mean she was somewhat fond of him, or disliked him?
“Nobody liked him,” she whispered. “He didn’t like us, either. But even so, nobody meant . . .”
She didn’t need to say anything more definite. “I know somebody put sodium in a jar in the sink, meaning it as a prank. Probably just part of the hide-and-seek you were doing with the chemistry supplies. But the person who put it there didn’t realize that if the water tap was turned on, it would explode. Is that what you’re talking about? This horrible result was an unintended consequence.”
“Can there keep on being unintended consequences?” she asked. “Forever? Something happens, then something else, and then because of that, something else—and nobody meant any of it at the beginning?”
I didn’t know how to answer. I hated that we were talking in 205
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code. “I suppose so,” I said. “Maybe we’d call it cause and effect?
Action and reaction?”
She said nothing except: “I have to go now.”
“First, please, I’m worried that something else is going to happen, that somebody else is going to be hurt.”
She’d gotten back control of herself, and she stared at me with deliberate blankness. A slate wiped clean. “Yes?” she said.
“Nita,” I said. “I can help you, or at least try, but you need to help me.”
“I’ve been trying to as much as I can.”
“Tell me what you know. If nobody meant any harm—”
“That was then.”
friday, the note had said. Was she the one who’d sent me the warnings? Trying as much as she could to tell me something worse was going to happen—today?
“No offense,” she said, “but you have no idea what you’re talking about, because if you did, you’d know you can’t do a thing about it. You think everything’s like in your books, but it isn’t.”
I waited for an explanation, but when none came, I asked for one.
She blinked. “Like Antigone. Like you think you can just decide what’s right and be brave and go ahead and do it, but even there—look what happened to her. She died!”
“But—but—today was the perfect example of doing what was right with all of you out on the street, protesting something you thought was wrong.”
“Oh, that. That was different. That was something everybody agrees on. I mean freedom of speech—come on! It’s basic.”
“So something else is more complicated. That doesn’t mean you can’t still talk about it, and wind up doing the right thing, does it?”
She said nothing, and in fact, bit at her bottom lip as if to make sure it didn’t act independently. “Don’t feel bad,” she said.
“You’re a teacher, not Wonder Woman.”
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“But I want to help.”
“Nobody expects you to. Everybody knows it’s impossible.”
Everybody except me. I was useless, uninformed, misguided, and, worst of all, deluded into believing I could change things or make a difference.
Nita put her hand on my arm, a gesture of consolation.
“Don’t blame yourself,” she said softly. “Some things . . . well . . .
they just have to play themselves out. It’s fate.”
Nineteen
Ispoke with the nurse and really didn’t get any more information than I had from Harriet. She did add that although the potted plant was quite lovely, we could all probably hold off on visits and gifts like that for a while.
It didn’t take long to hear what in essence boiled down to: not a good situation, but not without hope—now go home.
I phoned Sasha from the hospital. “I’ve got time on my hands,” I said. “Want some help getting ready?”
She again told me how casual it would be and that I didn’t have to—but if I really wanted to, she’d like the company. It seemed a plan.