“I have to shower before my class,” Stephanie said.
“Oh yeah, what class?”
He was making conversation, she realized. He liked her company. Why? He was a cherub floating on his good fortune, while she was a backward-looking rain cloud.
“I have to go,” she said, turning away from him. She gave a little wave without really making eye contact, as if that was enough.
Back at her dorm, she stood for a long time under the hot shower, washing off the cafeteria smells. The bathrooms were mercifully quiet and empty. It was one of those off times, still too early for the late risers but too late for those who had morning classes. Stephanie let herself cry a little. God, she was miserable. She missed her mother — it was that simple — but her longing was mixed up with an anger so powerful that she couldn’t really touch it without hurting herself. She had no idea what she was supposed to do to save herself. She didn’t have God; she felt lost to her father. She could devote herself to her education, but her idea of becoming a doctor did not seem big enough, or maybe specific enough, to carry her to a different place. Lots of people here wanted to become a doctor; it was an ambition so ordinary that many of her classmates — Raquel included — viewed their undergraduate years as a kind of respite before medical school. It was a kind of entitlement Stephanie wasn’t familiar with, but which she recognized, because she had also envisioned her college years as a kind of respite — from her mother. And now she needed her mother more than anyone else. She didn’t care if her mother was depressed, she didn’t care what her mother said or did, she just wanted her mother’s body in the world.
Stephanie had the urge to take a nap when she got back to her room, but Theresa’s neatly made bed seemed to goad her to action. She couldn’t skip another class. And anyway, she liked going to Psych I. Raquel would be waiting for her, saving her a seat. She would write notes to Stephanie in her notebook and slide her sticks of gum. Afterward they would get lunch or maybe they would fill paper cups with cereal and go to the library to nibble granola and sip tea. Stephanie tried to dress in an outfit that Raquel would approve of: a plaid shirt, clashing plaid skirt, black tights, and Mitchell’s hand-me-down boots. She still hadn’t heard a word from him. At this point his lack of communication felt deliberate, a message in and of itself. He was saying that she had to learn how to be herself without his friendship.
She was drying her hair when she heard her phone’s high ring over the dryer’s blurry roar. Her instinct was not to answer it, even though her father hadn’t called in almost two weeks. Or maybe Theresa had stopped giving her messages. She and her roommate had reached a wary understanding: in exchange for minding her own business, Theresa got to have the room to herself most of the time.
The phone kept ringing, so finally she switched off the dryer and picked up. A small voice answered.
“Steffy? It’s Robbie.”
“Oh my God, Robbie!” Stephanie hadn’t heard from him since the weekend he’d called from Aunt Joelle’s. That was the night she and Raquel had gone dancing, a night Stephanie could really only remember in flashes, as if the whole evening had been edited with severe jump cuts. Blackout drunk, Raquel said. Stephanie knew she wouldn’t have gone that far if her brother hadn’t called, if his high voice hadn’t reminded her of everything she missed and had lost.
“Guess where I’m calling from? A pay phone! I snuck out of gym class. I said I was sick and they sent me to the nurse’s office. But then I just walked out the door.”
“Robbie, you can’t do that, you’re going to get in trouble.”
“They won’t notice. I have lunch right after gym. I’ll get back in time.”
“You could get suspended.”
“It’s only middle school,” he said. “No one cares what you do in middle school. It’s just where they hold you until you’re ready for high school.”
There was some truth to this, so Stephanie let it go. She didn’t want to antagonize him. “So aside from sneaking out of school, what’s new?”
“Um, I’m going to Outdoor School at the end of the month.”
“You are? Already? That’s cool. October is a good time to go. Our class had to go in the winter, it was so cold. All the animals were hibernating. We had to study taxidermy animals instead.”
“Gross, like the dead stuffed animals?”
“Yeah, exactly. But the end of the month will be good. The leaves will be falling. You’ll have fun. How’s Bry?”
“He’s completely a Jesus freak now,” Robbie said. “We went to church with Aunt Joelle again last weekend and he went down front and witnessed.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s like when you hear God talking to you and you start crying. They give you a chance to do it at every service. Like, after the sermon and the money basket and all the prayers for everyone, the minister asks if anyone wants to take Jesus into their heart. And last time this lady raised her hand and everyone made a big fuss over her, so Bryan raised his hand this time and the minister asked him to come down to the front. And then in front of everybody the minister asked Bryan if he wanted to take Jesus into his heart and he said yes and then the whole church clapped and then the minister said this prayer and put Jesus in his heart. And ever since then he’s been bugging me and Dad to put Jesus in our hearts because otherwise he doesn’t get to be with us in heaven.”
“What does Dad say?”
“He ignores it.”
Stephanie heard cars in the background of Robbie’s call. “Are you at the pay phone by the Tastee Freez?”
“No, the one near the post office.”
“I didn’t know there was one there.”
“It’s kind of hidden. I saw it when I was walking by and then I thought, ‘Let me call Stephanie.’”
“So it’s not like Dad doesn’t let you call me or anything?”
“No, I just don’t want Bryan hearing me complaining because he’ll make me feel bad. I like church fine, but I don’t understand Aunt Joelle’s. I think it’s cheesy.”
“Why do you keep going?”
“I don’t know, we just do. Dad doesn’t go. He stays home.”
Listening to him, Stephanie got a glimpse of her own childhood, the way things just happened to her and she just accepted them because what choice did she have? Maybe going on walkabouts was Robbie’s way of getting some freedom.
“Hey, Steffy, a voice said I have to put in more quarters but I don’t have any. So good-bye!”
“Wait, Robbie! Go back to school, okay? Robbie? I love you!”
The line was dead. Stephanie wondered how much he’d heard. A sense of his vulnerability overwhelmed her. Where would he go next? To Willow Park? The cemetery? Back to Asaro’s, where their mother used to take them? She had an urge to tell someone his whereabouts and wondered if she should try to call her father at school. But at the same time she took a kind of angry satisfaction in knowing something he didn’t.
LAURA’S SMALL, WINDOWLESS office was barely unpacked, the decor echoing her apartment, with stacks of books and files piled on the floor, waiting to be shelved. “I keep meaning to come in some weekend and straighten things up,” she said airily as she let Dean in. Dean understood her small-talk excuses were a show put on for her receptionist, a woman who also worked for the principal and vice principal. Their offices were nearby, but more prominently located, with interior windows overlooking the main corridor.
He began to kiss her as soon as she shut the door, feeling protected by the painted cinder-block walls.
“Dean!” Laura pushed him gently away. “We can’t.”
“Why not?” He stroked her arm, bare below a silk shell. A blazer was draped over a chair nearby. He liked how formally she dressed for work.