Maybe I should give up, start reading XVI Ways, and figure out how to deal with the inevitable. A sliver of light from the hallway shone under the door and illuminated the room just enough for me to make out Ginnie’s picture by Dee’s bed.
Ginnie. She’d never been like Sandy’s mom, who always pushed and encouraged Sandy to follow Media guidelines. Mrs. Eskew’d bought Sandy every how-to vid that XVI Ways put out. She even made Sandy practice flirting and flaunting herself in front of her leering stepdad. I’d never say it to Sandy, but her mother was an idiot.
Ginnie never pushed me—except to do art, and that wasn’t exactly pushing. She’d been so against Media hype that she’d installed a disabler for the commercial feed on our FAV and would switch it off whenever she could. Once, she’d forgotten to turn it back on before Ed came over; as soon as he realized what she’d done, he was furious.
Lying there under the covers, I shivered. The ice-cold memory of his brutality gripped me. I could still hear him after he found the masking device in the controls: “Where did you get this?” When Ginnie refused to answer, he made her get out his box of vids. “You need a refresher course, babe,” he’d said. Then he ordered me to take Dee next door to Sandy’s. He never wanted his daughter to see what a horrible person her father was. Me, on the other hand, he didn’t care about at all. I knew I’d come back, and Ginnie would be in bad shape. She could barely walk for a week. Her right eye was swollen shut for days. He told Dee her mother was clumsy and ran into a cabinet door.
I hated him.
I wanted to believe in a different kind of love, like Gran said Ginnie and my father’d had. But I didn’t even know what that would look like. If it was all as bad as Ed’s vids made it out to be, I had a hard time imagining the human race would’ve survived. Fingering the T on my charms necklace, I stuffed back tears, whispering into the darkness, “How am I supposed to know what the truth is?”
XVI
Next day in homeroom, Wei turned to me and said, “Sal told me about your mother. I’m really sorry. That is so awful. And then to have to move to a new school…”
Her expression was so kind and the remark was so unexpected, I thought I was going to lose it and cry right there.
“I’m doing okay.” I didn’t look at her. Instead I fiddled with the text chips on my desk. “Actually, I’m fine.” Lying about my feelings was becoming a lot easier.
“If you need to talk, I’m a good listener. Sal is, too.” She reached across the aisle and pressed my arm. “And he knows how it feels.”
“Why would I—”
Mr. Haldewick sashayed into the room tapping the floor with his pointer and shushed us all.
I knew Wei and Sal were friends, but I wondered just how well she knew him. Though she was right, Sal must have known how it felt—he was alone, too.
The bell rang, and Wei ducked out after class before I had a chance to say anything else to her.
I spent my last period running back through my plans to visit Robin’s Roost instead of focusing on Media Throughout History. Maybe today I would find something that led to my father. Dee was going home with her friend Maddie this afternoon. Derek and Mike weren’t expecting me either: Derek was rehearsing music with his brother and Mike had to go pick his dad up after a day of Bio-tester experiments at the government’s medical research building. If anyone asked, I said I was going to the zoo, then home. I was ready.
Finally, school ended and I got on the number 33 heading south, and got off the trans at Lincoln and Wells. I stood on the corner, like I was waiting for the light to change, until the transit was out of sight, then turned around. There, looming right in front of me, was Robin’s Roost.
I was stunned. I must have walked by this dilapidated wreck of a building a thousand times or more, but had never taken a second look. Let alone known what it once had been.
I don’t know what I’d expected to find there, but Robin’s Roost wasn’t much. The green awning from the photo was long gone. Its pitted and broken framework clung to the grimy, tagged walls like dead vines. Most of the windows at ground level had been broken and boarded up. A ghost of a rectangle on the stone by the front doors was the only evidence of where a sign had been. Someone must have taken it for scrap metal, or maybe for a souvenir of happier times. I hoped it was the latter. An orange plasticene notice glued on one of the doors proclaimed THIS BUILDING CONDEMNED. Underneath, in smaller print, it said, DEMOLITION SLATED AND CONFIRMED, DECEMBER 10, 2150. My birthday—only a month away. If I’d found out about this place much later, it would’ve been gone. For once, luck was on my side.
A heavy chain and padlock ran through the door handles. I rubbed on the glass, trying to clean a spot so I could see inside, when a voice behind me said, “Something interesting in there?”
I whirled around, surprised; it was Sal.
“No.” I felt heat creeping up my neck—what was it about Sal that had this effect on me? It was like I was two different people. I wanted nothing to do with him; but I also seemed to want him so much closer to me. It seemed to me that I was in a constant struggle to keep my wits about me. And when he stood so near to me, it was like I had no desire to struggle quite as hard as I should.
He cupped his hands to the door and peered in. “Dirty, probably stinks in there, too. So, Nina, what’s the fascination with this building?” His eyes searched mine and the blush on my cheeks kept growing.
“I was curious, that’s all.” I didn’t need to explain anything to him. What I did was none of his business.
“Really.”
“I have an old picture of my dad and a friend standing in front of this building.” I fiddled with my necklace, twisting the charms. “His and my mother’s wedding reception was here—I thought I’d take a look.” It was true. And he didn’t need to know anything more than that. I tried turning the tables. “What’re you doing here?”
He didn’t answer. “C’mon, you want a Sparkle? I’m buying.”
Why was it that he could get an answer out of me, but I could never get an answer out of him? I didn’t want a Sparkle, but I did want away from Robin’s Roost. “Sure… I guess.”
We crossed the street, dodging through the crunch of transits and hire-trannies and stopped at a vendor wagon on the edge of the park. Sal tried to pay, but I swiped my card before he had a chance to. Drinks in hand, we walked down the path.
“That’s where we met.” He pointed to the mound where I’d been standing when I first saw him.
“Yes.” Just thinking about it made me feel embarrassed for him. “I’m sure you’d rather not remember that day.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you were, uh… getting beaten up.”
“Yeah.” His voice softened. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”
I was trying to imagine what he was thinking about, when an unexpected stampede of butterflies invaded my stomach. I took a long drink of the soda; it didn’t help. When I lowered the can, Sal was smiling at me.
“What?” I swiped my chin with the back of my hand and checked the front of my sweater.