My heart crinkled at the memories, and I tried to brush them off. Remembering the way we were wasn’t going to help me deal with the way we are. Someday, when I didn’t have to manage—daily—the satanic version of the boy he’d become, I’d let my heart have its way. Until then, a fondness for my first crush—no, it was more than that—my first love, would have to wait.
A boy plopped down on the bench beside me, so I straightened automatically. I wasn’t supposed to meet my date for fifteen more minutes, but since he was the only guy in the room over the age of fourteen and smiling at me, I realized that once again, I’d underestimated Foster’s desire to keep me on edge by having my escorts be early.
I recognized this date. Dean Darnell was the campus celeb in the way that only the most annoying popular kids get to be. Nobody challenged his run at Homecoming King, though who else would want it? Dean was the kind of guy who blow-dried his blond shaggy Efron hair every morning, and I’d bet money that he had a skin-care regimen. He wore his two-hundred-dollar jeans with the same ease that he climbed into his shiny black Hummer. Those kinds of boys practice being effortless.
As only the very entitled would dare, he snaked his arm behind me and lounged in his seat, probably waiting for me to gush about the privilege of his company.
“Hey, Dean.”
“Hey, Laynster.”
“How are you?” I asked, pretending to care. We weren’t exactly friends, but we had friends in common. Well, as close to friends as I had. I didn’t hate Dean; I just really didn’t care how he was one way or the other.
“I’ll be better when we get out of here.” He didn’t have skates on, and he hadn’t rented any either.
“Sorry, you’ll have to suffer for one hour. Where are your skates?”
Dean leaned in close, way too close. Like get-out-of-my-bubble-bad-man too close. “You don’t seriously want to stay here, do you? We could go for a drive.”
The scent of alcohol on his breath drifted my way, and with it a deluge of unwanted memories landslided their way through my head. Random blips of ugly things I wanted to forget threw themselves into my path, throwing me off-kilter. The smell of whiskey…the heaviness of a hand…the spinning of the room. Things I hadn’t thought about in a long time.
I stood up quickly, forgetting I was on skates. Dean rose also, righting me as I slipped. “Thanks. Um, you better go get your skates. I think there’s a rule…”
“Everyone has to pay for skate rental. There’s no rule that you have to put them on your feet. Besides, we can’t really get to know each other here. Let’s go for a drive. C’mon.”
My gut twisted and I grew light-headed. I’d never had a panic attack before, and I sure didn’t want to start in a skating rink. My world spiraled to a pinpoint of light and my hands grew clammy.
“Are you okay? Do you need some air?” He reached for my hand, but I shook him off. “Okay, okay.” He held his hands in mock surrender. “We’ll stay here.” Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a flask. “Besides, I brought the party to us.”
We can have a party right here. Just you and me.
The rink pitched sideways as that voice from my past rang out in my mind as clear as the day he said it.
No, clearer. Clarity was one thing I had lacked that night.
My face flushed hot and cold and I fought the urge to throw up or run away. I couldn’t be scared. I don’t do scared. I stared at a candy wrapper on the floor until the world leveled again.
“Put the booze away, Dean.” Hugging my arms to my chest, irrational fear and anger coursed through me. Pride, perhaps my biggest flaw, was also the only one that kept me from falling part all these years, and I’d be damned if I lost my sense of self now, after all this time.
He pocketed the flask and his face pinched into a worried look. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look kinda pale.”
He grabbed my elbow, but this time he held on when I tried to shrug out of his grasp. Having all these feelings was sort of foreign to me, and having him clutch at me sort of popped my cork. I yanked my arm wildly, and when he saw the look in my eyes, he released me immediately, causing me to reel backward on the stupid wheels on my feet. Dean reached for me again to stop my fall, only he got slammed from behind by another skater who came out of nowhere.
The skater pushed Dean into the wall, pinning him in place. “Sorry, man,” he said but didn’t back off. “I lost my balance.”
I grabbed the bench and steadied myself again but recognized the voice. “Foster?” What was he doing here? “What are you doing here?”
Dean growled at him. “Get off me, dude.”
Foster had braced his arm across Dean’s chest just below his neck. “Sorry, my bad. Haven’t been skating in a few years. Are you both okay?” He spoke to me over his shoulder. “Are you all right, Logan?”
“I’m fine.” Oh my God. Was he pinning Dean to the wall for me? “Foster, let him go.”
“So your date is over, then, Dean.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement. Things were definitely veering toward Testosteronelandia between the two boys. I’d never seen Foster like this.
Dean pushed back and Foster let go. As Dean brushed off his clothes, he answered, “The date just started. We’ve got an hour.”
“I don’t think you do.” Foster planted his feet so that he was between Dean and me. “I think the date is over now.”
This new Foster surprised me. I suppose he looked taller because of the skates, but he also looked more menacing than I remembered. And trust me—roller skates don’t usually up the intimidating quota for guys.
Which of course meant that Dean had to ante in his most threatening pose. “I’m not on a date with you, Foster. So back off.”
The boys took a step (roll?) closer to each other and turned all kinds of primal-looking. The shock of it snapped me out of my earlier meltdown and into fix-it mode because if I didn’t do something fast, there was going to be a fight.
“Foster.” I reached for his sleeve.
With his other hand, he pointed to Dean. “What part of not touching her was unclear in the contract?”
“Relax. I wasn’t groping her. I was keeping her from falling on her ass.”
“Hey!” I blurted. Well, he had a point. Still, I needed to call a halt to the fight about to happen.
Despite not recognizing the song that was playing, I clutched Foster’s arm. “Oh my God! I love this song. Let’s skate.”
He didn’t come willingly at first, but I tugged hard enough that he got the point. We stumbled toward the opening in the rink wall, mostly because he refused to lose eye contact with Dean and half walked, half rolled backward as Dean strolled backward out the door.
I’d never pretended to understand testosterone.
As soon as my wheels touched the smooth floor, I worried that I’d made a huge mistake. I should have let them fight it out while I put my shoes back on instead. Foster held me up for a few seconds until I found my center. We started rolling without speaking until I felt myself falling back into place, piece by piece. Like riding a bike, to overuse a cliché, something a good reporter is never supposed to do.
“Why are you here tonight?” I asked. The roller rink wasn’t really high on places Foster would like to spend time now that he wasn’t thirteen.
“You’re welcome, of course,” he answered.
“No, really. Why?”
“I’ve gone on all your dates.”
My lovely rhythm suddenly faltered. “What? Why?”
“For times like tonight.” Foster put his hand out to catch my fall, just in case. “Look, I know you get off casting me as the bad guy in your little dramas, and most of the time I’m happy play the part. That doesn’t mean I’d let you go out with twelve strangers without backup.”
As my mind whirled into action, my motor skills kicked in and I was able to fall into the easy gliding of my youth. Because I couldn’t concentrate on my feet and my mortification at the same time. He’d been
on every date? “Where? How?”
“Usually in the manager’s office. I stay out of the way. Before you ask, I didn’t tell you because I was hoping it wouldn’t be necessary. I figured you might be self-conscious if you knew someone was watching—”
“Spying.”
“Watching.”
We cruised another loop with no words. I was just fresh out of them.
I don’t think I’d been at the roller rink for more than half an hour, but I felt like I’d been put through one of those old-fashioned wringers they used to use to wash clothes. At some point, I was going to have to apologize to Dean for turning all wacky on him and letting my partner cause a fight, but I didn’t want to think of that at the moment. Nor did I want to dwell on my little episode brought on by the smell of the whiskey on Dean’s breath.
That left either how I felt about Foster going caveman when I felt threatened or the bittersweet nostalgia I was feeling for days of yore.
Neither were safe zones.
“This place hasn’t changed much.” Foster’s gaze swept over my face briefly, and in it I remembered a very different boy and a very different girl. The young boy with less cynical eyes and a quicker smile.
What would I tell them now if I could go back and give little Layney and little Jimmy advice about treading the treacherous waters of the eighth grade? Not that they would listen. Why would they? Layney Logan and Jimmy Foster would have LOL’d their way across the rink. Everybody knew they were rock solid. The L word had been passed between them. Two bases had been stolen. He’d given her a heart necklace for Valentine’s Day. She promised third base when they got to high school.
They were in love.
“No, it’s still the same here,” I answered. The memories tasted like an unripe berry dipped in sugar—sweet with a bitter ever after. Still, I smiled. The music pumped out Beyoncé, my body remembered the groove, and the movement felt good—like a stretch after a nap.
He smiled too, loosening up. “I’d forgotten how fun skating is.”
“You going to start coming back every weekend?”
“Maybe.”
“Careful. You’ll be eighteen soon. They’ll label you a pedophile.”
“Seriously. It’s fun, right? You’re having a good time?”
I cast him a sidelong glance and decided to dam my first instinct to resort to sarcasm. “I’m not…wishing I was someplace else right now.”
Foster clutched his chest. “Don’t phunk with my heart, Logan.”
I answered with a playful punch. “You’ll need to get one first. I hear they sell them at Evil ’R Us. You have an account there, don’t you? Maybe you can pick one up on the ‘still beating/just pulled from a sacrifice’ aisle.”
“Do you have any idea how expensive those are? Even with my discount—”
The song ended, but instead of immediately sliding into the next one, the lights dimmed, and the announcement proclaimed “couples-only skate.”
We hit an awkward patch that was hard to navigate, and clearly neither of us knew what to do. Our past collided with our present and the two of us were trapped in the wreckage. Leaving the rink would mean giving too much importance to a should-be-forgotten childhood pastime. Staying meant…well, the same thing probably.
Foster kept his eyes forward but silently reached for my hand.
Children all around us paired off. At first, holding hands with Foster was like driving someone else’s car—everything seems weird and wrong, but you still know how to drive it, and and after a minute or two, you don’t have to think about it. You just are.
Transported to another time, another lifetime, we eased into our old selves. Never more aware of his body, I allowed myself to sync to his movements and found that we still made a pretty good team.
“Do you remember how to skate backward?” he asked me.
“Huh?” Then as he tugged, I answered, “No Foster, don’t.”
Too late, he swept me into our old waltz-pose and I didn’t lose a beat as I began skating backward while he held me. Exhilarated, I felt that zing racing through me, just like when we argue, only we weren’t at cross-purposes for once.
Back in the years of our roller-skating glory, Foster and I spent so much time on wheels that we had our own routines, especially for couples’ skate. Minus lifts, jumps, and bedazzled matching costumes, of course. More or less, they were just patterns we’d developed over time. Except that when we were kids, the weight of his hand on my hip didn’t reboot my nervous system in quite the same way.
After a few minutes, he spun me around until we faced the same direction again with his right arm behind me, holding my right hand and resting on my hip, and my arm extended in front of him, holding his left hand. That we didn’t trip over each other’s feet amazed me. When he moved so that he was behind me, I instinctively tilted my head because he used to rest his chin on my shoulder. We let go of our hands, and his arms crossed in front of me, pulling me in tightly. We were one person, if only for a few seconds.
And all it took was one kid tripping to undo the moment.
The fall happened in super slow-mo. Not the kid’s fall. My fall.
The kid tripped. I saw it happen and instantly knew he would be my own downfall. Literally. Foster tried to spin around, so he made first contact, tripping on the boy’s skate and landing hard on his butt with me following right after. I thunked my knee hard, but Foster broke my fall. Unfortunately, he couldn’t also shield me from the couple right behind us, who both toppled and landed mostly on me.
Disengaging and getting upright proved to be a lot more awkward than even the falling. Being manhandled by Jimmy Foster at the skating rink used to happen two or three times a week. The difference was he used to do it on purpose so he didn’t apologize when he brushed against my breasts. This time, he blushed and stammered.
By the time we made it to the benches, we were both war weary and said very little while we unlaced the boots. We limped our way to the counter and then finally to the parking lot.
“Well, there’s my car,” I stated, even though it was obvious. “Where is yours?”
“I parked a block away so you wouldn’t spot me.”
It figures. “That’s right. I almost forgot to be upset about the spying part. Thanks for reminding me. Expect that I’ll be angry with you on Monday morning.”
Foster shrugged. “I always expect you’ll be angry at me on Monday mornings.”
He declined the offer of a ride to his car but offered to stay long enough to make sure mine started. As I limped away, I could tell he was staring at my ass by the burn.
Funny that rather than making me angry, it made me smile.
CHAPTER SIX
Mr. May
“I JUST got a blue slip to see Maple,” I told Tyler, who was on the other end of my cell phone call.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“I have no idea. So we can talk more about my near panic attack later, I guess.”
“You just don’t want to talk about it all.”
“It was no big deal. I have to go.”
And it wasn’t a big deal. I just had a moment of panic that sorted itself out. Talking about it wasn’t going to change how I felt last night or how I felt in eighth grade. Stuff happens; move on.
The secretary was on the phone and waved me into the office. Ms. Maple, our vice-principal, rose from her seat when I entered her office. She’d stuffed herself into a lime green suit today. It went really well with her brassy red bun. I’d watched Facts of Life on Nick at Nite before. She was Mrs. Garrett’s evil twin.
“Miss Logan.”
“Ms. Maple.”
She indicated to a chair. “Please have a seat.” Which meant sit whether you want to or not. She didn’t waste time and started speaking as we both sat down. “I’ll get right to the point, Layney. The district is not happy with your little newspaper club causing so much trouble about the cell phone issue. The topic is already heated enough.”
; My little newspaper club? I leaned toward her over the desk. “Are you referring to the journalists of a highly regarded periodical asking questions? I don’t see how that is causing trouble, Miss Maple. I see that as students thinking critically, something your staff attempts to teach us every day.”
“I’ll remind you that there is no longer a ‘highly regarded periodical’ as you say. You are now participating in a campus club and will adhere to the directives of …” She paused briefly as she noticed a memo pad on her desk. Her eyes darted back to me quickly. “The directives of the administration, or we’ll shut you down.”
Nonchalantly—which, by the way, is very telling to bloodhounds like me—she palmed her memo pad and slid it closer to her side of the desk.
What was she going to do with it, and why didn’t she want me to see it? “Ms. Maple, my staff is not out to cause trouble. There is a legitimate story here. Not only do students deserve to know if their rights are being violated, but they also need to know if they are not. We are conducting interviews with key members of your staff as well as…” This time I paused. She ripped the top page of her memo pad off and folded it in her hand several times before pocketing it. Interesting. “As well as members of the governing body of the school. Your bosses, I guess you could say.”
She arched an eyebrow. I’m not afraid to give credit—she does it better than I do. “You are not conducting interviews. You’re conducting witch hunts.” She tucked the pad between a couple of folders and then folded her hands in front of her again. “Do you think we came about this decision lightly?”
No, but I did think she was hiding something from me. “Of course not. The paper will lay out the story in an unbiased way, I assure you.”
“There is no paper, Layney.”
“The Follower is not dead.” I stood. “We are coming back and we’ll be even better than before.”
“You have no print press. And don’t think you can use school materials to xerox your little newsletter, either.”
Getting angry would not help. In fact, that is probably what she wanted me to do. Then she could punish me and maybe even bury the Follower forever. The question remained—why? “There is such a thing as free speech still, isn’t there?”