I didn’t even dare to think until I was safe in Mom’s car in front of the school. Didn’t dare to stop moving until I was sunk down into the front seat with the door locked between me and the meeting.
“Go,” I said. “Just go home.”
“What’s wrong?” Mom asked. “What’s going on? What happened in there, Valerie?”
“Meeting’s over,” I said, closing my eyes. “Just go.”
“But why’s that girl running out the door? Oh, God, Valerie, why is she running?”
I opened my eyes and peeked out the passenger window. Jessica was jogging toward the car.
“Just go!” I shouted. “Mom, please!”
Mom stepped on the gas then, maybe a little too hard because the tires actually squealed, and we whipped out of the parking lot. I watched Jessica in the side mirror getting smaller and smaller. She stood on the curb where my window had been just moments before, watching us get smaller, too.
“My God, Valerie, what happened? Did something happen? Oh, God, please tell me nothing happened. Valerie, I can’t handle it if something else happened.”
I ignored her. It wasn’t until I felt a tickle on my chin and brushed at it only to discover that it was a tear rolling down that I realized I hadn’t been ignoring her after all. I’d just been crying too hard to answer.
A few minutes later, we pulled into the driveway. When Mom paused to allow the garage door to go up, I bolted. I ducked under the garage door and into the house. I was only halfway up the stairs before I heard her barking in the kitchen:
“Dr. Hieler, please. Yes, it’s urgent, goddammit!”
19
[FROM THE GARVIN COUNTY SUN-TRIBUNE,
MAY 3, 2008, REPORTER ANGELA DASH]
Lin Yong, 16—“When I see what he’s done, it breaks my heart,” Sheling Yong says when asked to describe her daughter’s injuries. “I’m grateful Lin’s still alive, but the bullet made permanent damage on her arm. She was all-state violin player. Now that’s gone. Her fingers don’t work right anymore. She can’t play.”
Yong was hit in the forearm, the impact of the bullet shattering her wrist and causing extensive nerve damage in her arm. After four surgeries, Yong still has limited use of her third finger and thumb.
“It’s my right arm, too,” Yong says. “So I’m having a hard time writing. I’m trying to learn to write with my left hand. But my friend Abby is dead, so I don’t complain too much about my arm. He could definitely have killed me, too.”
After the Student Council meeting, Mom bullied Dr. Hieler’s secretary into shoving us into his schedule.
“Your mom says you left the StuCo meeting upset, Val,” Dr. Hieler said before I’d even sat down on the couch. I thought I detected a hint of annoyance in his voice. I wondered if he would be coming home late in order to accommodate me. I wondered if at home his wife was keeping his plate warm in the oven, and his kids were doing their homework in front of the fire, waiting for Daddy to come home and play cowboys and Indians with them. That’s how I always envisioned Dr. Hieler’s home life—sort of 1950s-TV perfect, with a patient, loving family and never a personal problem to be had.
I nodded. “Yeah, but it’s not like it’s a crisis or anything.”
“You sure? Your mom says someone was running after you. Anything happen?”
I considered his question. Should I tell him yes, something happened? Should I tell him that what happened was that I publicly abandoned Nick, that they’d all finally gotten it through my head that Nick was bad? Should I tell him that I felt guilty as hell about it? That I’d caved to popular kids’ pressure and I was so ashamed by it?
“Oh,” I tried to sound nonchalant. “I dropped my calculator and didn’t realize it. She was trying to give it back to me. I’ll get it tomorrow in first period. No big deal. Mom’s just paranoid.”
I could tell by the way he inclined his head that he wasn’t buying a word of what I was saying. “Your calculator?”
I nodded.
“And you were crying about it? The calculator?”
I nodded again, looking down at the floor. I chewed my bottom lip to keep it from trembling.
“Must be some calculator,” he mused. “Must be a really good calculator.” When I still said nothing, he continued in slow, soft, measured words. “I’ll bet you feel really bad about dropping a calculator like that. Like maybe you feel like you should have taken better care of that calculator.”
I looked up at him. His face was stony. “Something like that,” I said.
He nodded, shifted in his chair. “It doesn’t make you a bad person, Valerie, for forgetting a calculator every now and then. And if you end up not being able to find it and needing to get a new calculator… well, there are lots of good calculators out there.”
I chewed my lip harder and nodded.
A few days later, Mrs. Tate was hanging out at the office copy machine when I came in to pick up my tardy slip. I tried to slip away unnoticed, but the secretary always talks so loud and when she practically screamed, “You have a doctor’s note, Valerie?” Tate turned around and saw me.
She motioned at me to follow her and we walked back into her office, me with a pink tardy slip in my hand.
She closed the door behind us. Her office looked like it had been cleaned out recently. The stacks of books were still on the floor, but had been pushed into one central area. There were no used fast food burger wrappers on her desk, and her wobbly file cabinet had been replaced by a shiny new black one. She had moved all of her pictures on top of that cabinet, giving her desk a bare, uncluttered look, even though it still housed volumes of loose papers, tossed haphazardly one on top of another.
I sat in the chair opposite her desk and she edged one butt cheek up onto the corner of her desk. She used a manicured fingernail to tuck a stray piece of frizz back into her bun and smiled at me.
“How are you doing, Valerie?” she asked in this soft voice, like I was so fragile, the wrong volume would collapse me. I wished the secretary outside had used that voice and that Mrs. Tate would just talk to me normally.
“I’m good, I guess,” I said. I waved the pink slip in the air. “Doctor’s appointment. My leg.”
She glanced down. “How is your leg?”
“It’s okay, I guess.”
“Good,” she said. “Have you seen Dr. Hieler lately?”
“Just a few days ago. After the StuCo meeting.”
“Good, good,” Mrs. Tate said, nodding emphatically. “Dr. Hieler’s a great doctor from what I hear, Valerie. Very good at what he does.”
I nodded. When I thought about all the times I felt most validated, safest, Dr. Hieler was usually involved in one way or another.
Mrs. Tate stood and walked around her desk. She plopped into her chair, which creaked just a little under her weight.
“Listen, I wanted to talk to you about lunch,” she said.
I sighed. Lunch still wasn’t my favorite time of day. The Commons felt so haunted to me, and Stacey and I still passed one another at the condiment table, where she would go to my old friends, pretending she never knew me, and I would go out into the hallway, pretending that what I wanted more than anything in the world was to eat alone on the hallway floor outside the boys’ restroom.
“I’ve seen you out in the hallway every day,” Mrs. Tate said, as if she’d read my mind. “How come you’re not eating in the Commons?” She leaned forward, propping her elbows on her desk. She kept her hands clasped together in front of her, like she was praying. “Jessica Campbell was in here yesterday. She said she’s invited you to eat lunch at her table, but you won’t do it. Is that true?”
“Yeah. She asked a while back. It wasn’t anything personal or anything. I was just busy… working on an art project.” My hand involuntarily stroked the cover of my black spiral notebook.
“You don’t take art.”
“This is a personal project. I take a private art class at the community center,” I lied. Mrs. Tate wou
ld know it was a total lie, but I didn’t care. “Look, it’s nothing against Jessica. I just want to be alone. Besides, I seriously doubt Jessica’s friends want me there. Ginny Baker sits at that table. She can’t even look at me.”
“Ginny Baker is taking a little leave of absence from school.”
I had no idea. My face burned. I opened my mouth and then closed it again.
“It’s not your fault, Valerie, if that’s what you’re thinking. Ginny has a lot of trauma to work through and she’s struggled with coming back to school ever since the incident. She’s worked it out with her teachers and will be fine studying from home for a while. Jessica really seems to be reaching out. You shouldn’t run away from it.”
“I’m not running away,” I said. “I went to the StuCo meeting. It’s just…” Mrs. Tate stared at me over her nose, her arms crossed across her chest. I sighed. “I’ll think about it,” I said, meaning, hell, no I’m not sitting with those guys. I stood, gathering my books tighter in my arms.
Mrs. Tate looked at me for a beat and then stood up, too. “Listen, Valerie,” she said, tugging on the bottom hem of her suit jacket, which looked tight and uncomfortable. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but eating outside the Commons without teacher permission is not allowed anymore. Mr. Angerson has put a ban on all solitary student activity.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if you’re seen hanging out by yourself without permission you’ll be getting detentions.”
For a second I didn’t know what to say. Is this a prison now? I wanted to shout. Are you wardens now? But she’d probably answer We’ve always been that, so I let it go.
“Whatever,” I said and started for the door.
“Valerie,” she said and tugged on my elbow lightly. “Just give them a try. Jessica really wants to make it work.”
“Make what work?” I asked. “Am I the class project now? Am I some sort of big joke? Why can’t she just leave me alone? They were fine leaving me alone before.”
Mrs. Tate shrugged, smiled. “I think she just wants to be friends.”
But why? I wanted to scream. Why does Jessica Campbell suddenly want to be my friend? Why is she suddenly nice to me? “I don’t need friends,” I said. Mrs. Tate blinked at me, a crease between her eyebrows, her lips pulled in on themselves. I sighed. “I just want to get my schoolwork done and graduate,” I said. “Dr. Hieler thinks that’s what I should concentrate on right now. Just keeping things in line.”
The last wasn’t exactly true. Dr. Hieler had never given me any sort of directive to “dig deep and get it done” or any of that nonsense. Mostly Dr. Hieler was about keeping me from killing myself.
When Mrs. Tate didn’t say anything else, I took that as my cue to leave. I walked out of there, my leg throbbing from being poked and prodded at the doctor’s office this morning, my tardy slip in my hand, not thinking about anything other than how I was going to get out of having to go to lunch today.
20
[FROM THE GARVIN COUNTY SUN-TRIBUNE,
MAY 3, 2008, REPORTER ANGELA DASH]
Amanda Kinney, 67—Kinney, Garvin High’s head custodian of 23 years, was nicked in the knee by a stray bullet while ushering kids to safety in a nearby supply closet. “The closet was already open on account of I was putting fresh bags in the trash cans,” she tells reporters from her home, her knee heavily bandaged and propped up on some pillows. “I just jammed kids up in there until I couldn’t fit no more and then closed the door. I don’t think he even knew we was in there. I didn’t know I was shot until one of them kids told me I was bleeding. I looked down and my pants was all covered in it and there was a little tear in the knee.”
Kinney, who has been known to befriend many Garvin High students, knew Levil well. “Actually he lived just a few blocks down from me so I knew him ever since he moved to Garvin. Thought he was a real nice kid. Seemed kinda mad for no reason sometimes, but nice kid. His mom’s a real nice person, too. This has got to be tearing her up.”
“Sorry I’m late,” I said, rushing in and flopping onto the sofa. I reached out and grabbed the Coke that Dr. Hieler had set on the coffee table for me, like he always did. “Had Saturday detention and it ran over because the teacher got off on some lecture and lost track of time.”
“No problem,” Dr. Hieler said. “I had paperwork to catch up on anyway.” But I caught him toss a little sideways glance at the clock. I wondered if he had Little League games he was missing today. Maybe his daughter’s gymnastics meet. Maybe a lunch date with his wife. “Why the detention?”
I rolled my eyes. “Lunch. Didn’t eat in the Commons like they want me to. So I got detentions every day and then on Friday Angerson gave me Saturday detention. Thinks he’s going to break me, I guess, if I have enough detentions. But it’s not going to work. I don’t want to eat in there.”
“Why not?”
“Who am I going to eat with? It’s not like I can just walk up to some random person and go, ‘Hey, can I sit here?’ and they’d be all ‘Sure!’ My old friends won’t even let me sit with them.”
“What about the other girl? The one in Student Council.”
“Jessica’s friends aren’t my friends,” I said. “They never were. That’s why Nick and I had them on the Hate—” I stopped abruptly, surprised at myself for almost mentioning the Hate List so casually. I tried to shrug it off, switched gears. “Angerson’s just got a thing about school solidarity so he doesn’t look bad on TV. That’s his problem, not mine.”
“Sounds like it’s not just his problem. Saturday detentions aren’t ideal ways to spend your weekend, are they?” I could swear he flicked another glance at the clock.
“Whatever. I don’t care.”
“I think maybe you care more than you want to admit. What would happen if you gave it a try just one day?”
I had no answer for that.
Mom was gone when I got out of session. She’d left a Post-it note on the outside of Dr. Hieler’s door, saying she was running an errand and would be right back, to wait for her in the parking lot. I got to the note before Dr. Hieler noticed it, ripped it down, and shoved it in my pocket. If he saw it he’d feel obligated to stay longer and I felt bad enough as it was.
Plus, I was done talking.
I left the office building and stood outside for a moment, not sure what to do with myself. I was going to have to lie low, so Dr. Hieler wouldn’t see me when he walked out. I considered scooting behind the row of hedges on the side of the building, but wasn’t sure if my leg would let me do much scooting. Plus there was some sort of animal under there; I could hear things rustling around and I saw the branches jerk twice.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and ambled across the parking lot, kicking pebbles with my toes as I walked. Soon I’d reached the sidewalk. I stopped and looked around. It was either the hedges or the business district across the highway. Or be spotted by Dr. Hieler and go back in for an extended session, no thanks. I pulled my hands out of my pockets and waited at the edge of the sidewalk for the cars to pass. Maybe I could find Mom’s car at Shop ’N’ Shop in the strip mall just on the other side of the highway. There was a clearing in cars and I jogged/limped across.
Mom’s car wasn’t in the lot at Shop ’N’ Shop; I’d looked them all over, twice. She hadn’t pulled back into Dr. Hieler’s lot, either. That much I could see from the Shop ’N’ Shop parking lot. And I was getting thirsty.
I hoofed it into Shop ’N’ Shop and puttered around until I found the drinking fountain. I stopped at the magazine racks and flipped through a few magazines. I walked down the candy aisle, wishing I had money for a chocolate fix. But it didn’t take long for me to get bored.
Back outside I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck to see Dr. Hieler’s parking lot. Mom’s car still wasn’t there, and now neither was Dr. Hieler’s. I sighed and sat on the sidewalk, my back pressed against the front window of Shop ’N’ Shop until the manager came and told me I had to move o
n; customers didn’t like to see homeless people loitering in front of the store, he said. It makes them nervous, he said. “This ain’t the City Union Mission, kid,” he said.
So I walked a few doors down, looking for a good place to sit.
The cell phone store was jumping, and so was the place where Mom used to take me to get my hair cut when I was little. I stared in the windows, watching a little girl cry as her mother held her head so that the beautician could have a go at her blond baby locks. I gazed into the cell phone store, too, where everyone looked angry, including the employees.
Soon I was at the end of the strip and was just about to turn around and head back to Shop ’N’ Shop, when I saw a door open on the side of the building. A giant-breasted woman wearing a denim smock busy with fabric paint and costume gems stepped out and shook a cloth into the air. Glitter flew everywhere when she shook it; she looked like Cinderella’s fairy godmother behind the cloud of all that glitter.
She saw me watching her and smiled at me.
“Sometimes we have a spill,” she said brightly, and disappeared back inside, pulling the glittery cloth in with her.
I’ll admit it, curiosity got me. I wanted to know what kind of spill would look so glorious, so shiny. Spills are usually ugly and messy, not beautiful.
As soon as the door closed behind me I could feel the whole world shut out. Inside, the place was crammed, dark, and smelled like church on Easter Sunday. There were rows and rows of ceiling-high shelves nearly toppling under the weight of plaster busts, ceramic bowls, wooden trunks. Baskets, pots, interestingly shaped cardboard boxes. I wandered down one of the aisles, feeling dwarfed.