The bell rang, and he walked with me toward homeroom until someone called his name. A group of guys I’d met uptown with him a few days before, with longer hair and sleepy eyes, were waving him over toward the parking lot. No matter how well I thought I was getting to know him, there was always some part of himself he kept hidden: people and places, activities in which I wasn’t included. I got a phone call each evening, early, just him checking in to say hello. What he did after that, I had no idea.
“I gotta go,” he said, kissing me quickly. I felt him slide something in the back pocket of my jeans as he started to walk away, already blending with the packs of people. I already knew what it was, before I even pulled it out: a Jolly Rancher. I had a slowly growing collection of candy at home, in a dish on my desk. I saved every one.
“What about homeroom?” I said. For all my pretend rebellion I’d never missed homeroom or skipped school in my life. Macon had a scattered attendance rate at best, and I didn’t even ask him about his grades. All the women’s magazines said you couldn’t change a man, but I was learning this the hard way.
“I’ll see you third period,” he said, ignoring the question altogether. Then he turned and started toward the parking lot, tucking his one hardly cracked notebook under his arm. A group of girls from my English class giggled as they passed me, watching him. We’d been big news the last two weeks; a month ago I’d been Scarlett’s friend Halley, and now I was Halley, Macon Faulkner’s girlfriend.
At the end of second period, someone knocked on the door of my Commercial Design class and handed Mrs. Pate a slip of paper; she read it, looked at me, and told me to get my stuff. I’d been summoned to the office.
I was nervous, walking down the corridor, trying to think of anything I’d done that could get me in trouble. But when I got there the receptionist handed me the phone and said, “It’s your mother.”
I had a sudden flash: my father, dead. My grandmother, dead. Anyone, dead. I picked up the phone. “Hello? Mom?”
“Hold on,” I heard someone say, and there were some muffled noises. Then, “Hello? Halley?”
“Scar—?”
“Shhhh! I’m your mother, remember?”
“Right,” I said, but the receptionist was busy arguing with some kid over a tardy slip and not even paying attention. “What’s going on?”
“I need you to come get me,” she said. “At the clinic.”
I looked at the clock. It was only ten-fifteen. “Is it over? Already?”
“No.” A pause. Then, “I changed my mind.”
“You what?”
“I changed my mind. I’m keeping the baby.”
She sounded so calm, so sure. There was nothing I could think of to say.
“Where’s Marion?” I said.
“I told her to leave me here,” she said. “I said she was making me nervous. I was supposed to call her to come get me after.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Can you come? Please?”
“Sure,” I said, and now the receptionist was watching me. “But, Mom, I think you have to tell them to give me a pass or something.”
“Right,” Scarlett said, all business. “I’m going to put my friend Mary back on the phone. I’m at the clinic on First Street, okay? Hurry.”
“Right,” I said, wondering how I was getting anywhere, since I had no car.
There were some more muffled noises, Scarlett giving instructions, then the same voice I’d heard earlier came back on. “This is Mrs. Cooke.”
“Hold on,” I said. I held out the phone to the receptionist. “My mom needs to talk to you.”
She tucked her pen behind her ear and took the receiver. “Hello?”
I concentrated on the late sign-in sheet on the counter in front of me, trying not to look twitchy.
“She does? Okay, that’s fine. No, it’s no problem. I’ll just give her a pass. Thank you, Mrs. Cooke.” She hung up and scribbled out a pass. “Just show this to the guard as you leave the parking lot. And keep it to show your teachers so your absence is excused.”
“Right,” I said as the bell rang and the hallway outside started to fill up. “Thanks.”
“And I hope the surgery goes well,” she said, eyeing me carefully.
“Right,” I said, backing into the door to push it open. “Thanks.”
I stood outside of P.E., waiting for Macon. As he passed, on his way to dress out, I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.
“Hey,” he said, grinning. I still felt that rush whenever he looked so happy to see me. “What’s up?”
“I need a favor.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“I need you to skip P.E. with me.”
He thought for about a second, then said, “Done. Let’s go.”
“Wait.” I pulled him back. “And I need a ride somewhere.”
“A ride?”
“Yeah.”
He shrugged. “No problem. Come on.”
We walked up to the parking lot and got into his car; he pushed a pile of stereo parts out of my seat. The car smelled slightly smoky and sweet, the same smell that followed him, faintly, wherever he went. He was always in a different car, which was also something he never felt it necessary to explain. So far I’d seen him in a Toyota, a pickup, and some foreign model that smelled like perfume. All of them had candy wrappers littering the floors and stuffed in the ashtrays.
Today he was in the Toyota.
“Wait a sec,” I said as he started the engine. “This isn’t going to work. You don’t have a pass to get out.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said casually, grabbing something from his visor, scribbling on it, and starting up the hill toward the guardhouse. The security guy, an African-American guy we called Mr. Joe, came out with his clipboard, looking bored.
“Macon,” I hissed as we slid to a stop. I doubted even the Jedi Mind Trick would fool Mr. Joe. “This will not work; you should just go back—”
“Hush,” he said, rolling down the window as Joe came closer, the sun glinting off his store-bought security guard badge. “What’s up, Joe?”
“Not much,” Joe said, looking in at me. “You got a pass, Faulkner?”
“Right here,” Macon said, handing him the scrap of paper he’d pulled down from the visor. Joe glanced at it, handing it back, then looked in at me.
“What about you?”
“Right here,” Macon said cheerfully, taking my pass and handing it over. Joe examined it carefully, taking much longer than he had with Macon’s.
“Y’all drive safe,” Joe said, handing my pass back. “I mean it, Faulkner. ”
“Right,” Macon said. “Thanks.”
Joe grumbled, ambling back to his stool and mini-TV in the guardhouse, and Macon and I pulled out onto the road, free.
“I cannot believe you,” I said as we cruised toward town, playing hooky on a Friday. It was my first time, and everything looked different, brighter and nicer, the world of eight-thirty to three-thirty on a school day, a world I never got to see.
“I told you not to worry,” he said smugly.
“Do you have a whole stack of those passes, or what?” I pulled at the visor and he laughed even as he grabbed my hand, stopping it.
“Just a few,” he said. “Definitely not a stack.”
“You are so bad,” I said, but I was impressed. “He didn’t even hardly look at your pass.”
“He likes me,” he said simply. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“First Street.”
He switched lanes, hitting his turn signal. “What’s on First Street?”
I looked over at him, so cute, and knew I’d have to trust him. We both would. “Scarlett.”
“Okay,” he said easily. And as I looked over, the scenery was whizzing past houses and cars and bright blue sky, on and on. “Lead the way.”
Scarlett was sitting on a bench in front of the clinic with a heavyset woman in a wool sweater and straw hat.
“Hey,”
I said as we pulled up beside them. Now, closer, I could see the woman had a little dog in her lap with one of those cone collars on its head to keep it from biting itself. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said quickly, grabbing her purse off the bench. To the woman she said, “Thanks, Mary. Really.”
The woman petted her dog. “You’re a good girl, honey.”
“Thanks,” Scarlett said as I unlocked the door and she slid into the backseat. “I paid her five bucks,” she explained to me. The dog in the woman’s lap looked at us and yawned. To Macon, in a lower voice, Scarlet said, “Go. Now. Please.”
Macon hit the gas and we left Mary behind, pulling out of the shopping center and into traffic. Scarlett settled into the backseat, pulling her hands through her hair, and I waited for her to say something.
After a few stoplights she said quietly, “Thanks for coming. Really.”
“No problem,” Macon said.
“No problem,” I repeated, turning back to look at her, but she was facing the window, staring out at the traffic.
When Macon stopped at the Zip Mart and got out to pump gas, I turned around again. “Hey.”
She looked up. “Hey.”
“So,” I said. I wasn’t sure quite where to start. “What happened?”
“I couldn’t do it,” she blurted out, as if she’d only been waiting, holding her breath, for me to ask. “I tried, Halley, really. I knew all the argurnents-I’m young, I have my whole life ahead of me, what about college-all that. But when I lay down there on that cot and stared at the ceiling, just waiting for them to come do it, I just realized I couldn’t. I mean, sure, nothing is going to be normal for me anymore. But how normal has my life ever been? Growing up with Marion sure wasn’t, losing Michael wasn’t. Nothing ever has been.”
I watched Macon as he stood in line inside, tossing a pack of Red Hots from hand to hand. Two months ago, when Michael died, I hadn’t even known him. “It isn’t going to be easy, at all,” I said. I tried to imagine us with a baby, but I couldn’t picture it, seeing instead just a blur, a vague shape in Scarlett’s arms. Impossible.
“I know.” She sighed, sounding like my mother. “I know everyone will think I’m crazy or even stupid. But I don’t care. This is what I want to do. And I know it’s right. I don’t expect anyone to really understand.”
I looked at my best friend, at Scarlett, the girl who had always led me, sometimes kicking, into the best parts of my life. “Except for me,” I said. “I understand.”
“Except for you,” she repeated, softly, looking up to smile at me. And from that moment, I never questioned her choice again.
We spent the whole day just driving around, eating pizza at one of Macon’s hideouts, looking for some guy he knew for a reason that was never quite clear, and just listening to the radio, killing time. Scarlett called Marion and said she’d taken a cab home. Everything, for now, was taken care of.
Macon dropped us off a few streets over from our houses, so I could pretend I’d taken the bus, then drove off, beeping the horn as he turned out of sight. Scarlett steadied herself and went to wait for Marion, and I walked in the door and found a strange, uneasy silence, as well as my father, who darted out of sight the second he saw me. But not fast enough: Milkshakes. Big Time.
“I’m home,” I called out. The house smelled like lasagna, and I suddenly realized I was starving, which distracted me until my mother stepped out of the kitchen, holding a dishtowel. Her face had taken on that pointy, angular look, a dead giveaway that I was in trouble.
“Hi there,” she said smoothly, folding the towel. “How was school today?”
“Well,” I said, as my father passed by quickly again, into the kitchen, “It was ...”
“I would think very hard before answering if I were you,” she interrupted me, her voice still even and calm. “Because if you lie to me, your punishment will only be worse.”
Busted. There was nothing I could do.
“I saw you, Halley, today at about ten forty-five, which I believe is when you’re supposed to be in gym class. You were in a car, pulling out of the First Street Mall.”
“Mom,” I said. “I can—”
“No.” She held up her hand, stopping me. “You’re going to let me finish. I called your school and was told, to my surprise, that I had just spoken with someone to have you sent home due to a family emergency.”
I swallowed, hard.
“I cannot believe that you would lie like this to me.” I looked at the floor; it was my only option. “Not to mention,” she went on, “cutting class and running around town with some boy I don’t know, and Scarlett, who of all people should know better. I called Marion at work and she was equally furious.”
“You told Marion that Scarlett was with us?” I said. So she knew; she knew before Scarlett would even have a chance to explain.
“Yes, I did,” she snapped. “We agreed if this was a new trend for you two, it needed to be nipped in the bud, right now. I will not have this, Halley. You’ve been pushing it with Ginny and camp all summer, but today was the last straw. I’m not going to let you openly defy me when it suits you. Now go upstairs and stay there until I tell you to come down.”
“But ...”
“Go. Now.” She was shaking, she was so mad. There’d been that strange uneasiness all summer, the rippling of irritation—but this was the real deal. And she didn’t even know half of it yet.
I went up to my room and straight to the window, grabbing my phone. I dialed Scarlett’s number and just as it started ringing I saw Marion’s car coming down the street. Scarlett answered right as she turned into the driveway.
“Watch out,” I said quickly, whispering, “we’re busted. And Marion knows you didn’t do it.”
“What?” she said. “No, she doesn’t. She thinks I took a cab home.”
“No,” I said, and I could hear my mother coming up the stairs, down the hall, “my mother called her. She knows.”
“She what?” Scarlett said, and I could see her garage door opening.
“Halley, get off that phone!” my mother said from outside my door, rattling the handle because thank God it was locked. “I mean now!”
“Gotta go,” I said, hanging up quickly, and from my window I could see Scarlett in her kitchen, holding her phone and staring up at me as Marion burst in, her finger already pointing. My mother was outside my own door, her voice meaning business, but I saw only Scarlett, trying to explain herself in the bright light of her kitchen before Marion reached and yanked at the shade, making it fall crooked, sideways, and shutting me out.
Chapter Six
I had to sit and wait for my punishment. I could hear my parents downstairs conferring, my father’s voice low and calm, my mother’s occasionally bouncing off the walls, peaking and plummeting. After an hour she came upstairs, stood in front of me with her hands on her hips, and laid down the law.
“Your father and I have discussed it,” she began, “and we’ve decided you should be grounded for a month for what happened today. You are also on phone restriction indefinitely. This does not count your birthday tomorrow; the party will go on as planned. But as far as anything else goes, you may go to school and to work but not anywhere else.”
I was watching her face, how it transformed when she was angry. The short haircut that always framed her face looked more severe, all the angles of her cheekbones hollowing out. She looked like a different person.
“Halley.”
“What?”
“Who was the boy who was with you today? The one who was driving?”
Macon flashed into my head, smiling. “Why?”
“Who is he? Was he the boy who cut the lawn that day?”
“No,” I said. My father had either forgotten Macon’s name or was choosing, wisely, to stay out of this. “I mean, it’s not him, it was my—”
“He took you off campus and I need to know who he was. Anything could have happened to you, and I’m sure his p
arents would like to know about this as well.”
The thought alone was mortifying. “Oh, Mom, no. I mean, he’s nobody. I hardly know him.”
“You obviously know him well enough to leave school with him. Now what’s his name?”
“Mom,” I said. “Please don’t make me do this.”
“Is he from Lakeview? I must know him, Halley.”
“No,” I said, and thought You don’t know everyone I know. Not everyone is from Lakeview. “You don’t.”
She took a step closer, her eyes still on me. “I’m losing patience here, Halley. What’s the boy’s name?”
And I hated her at that moment, hated her for assuming she knew everyone I did, that I was incapable of life beyond or without her. So I stared back, just as hard. Neither of us said anything.
Then the phone rang, suddenly, jarring me where I sat. I started to reach for it, remembered about phone restriction, and sat back. I knew it was Macon. It rang on and on as she stood there watching me, until my father answered it.
“Julie!” he yelled from downstairs. “It’s Marion.”
“Marion?” my mother said. She picked up the phone next to my bed. “Hello? Hi, Marion.... Yes, Halley and I were just discussing what happened.... What? Now? Okay, okay ... calm down. I’ll be right over. Sure. Fine. See you in a minute.”
She hung up the phone. “I have to go across the street for a few minutes. But this conversation is not over, understand?”
“Fine,” I said, but I knew already things would have changed by the time she got back.
Marion met her at the end of the walk, by the prickle bush, where they stood talking for a good five minutes. Actually Marion talked, standing there nervously in a mini-dress and wedge heels, chain-smoking, while my mother just listened, nodding her head. From across the street I could see Scarlett in her own window, watching them as well; I pressed my palm against my window, our special signal, but she didn’t see me.
Then my mother walked inside with Marion, shut the door, and stayed for an hour and a half. I expected to see a ripple, a shock wave shaking the house when my mother was told the news; instead, it was quiet, like the rest of the neighborhood on a Friday night. At seven the Vaughns arrived, and by eight I could smell popcorn from downstairs. The phone rang only once more, right at eight o’clock; I tried to grab it but my father answered first and Macon hung up, abruptly. A few minutes later I heard the blender whirring as my father did his part to mend fences.