“I am not a wuss,” I said. “God.”
She just looked at me. I stuck my head back out the window.
“Macon.” I said it a little louder this time, just because I was angry. “Macon.”
Another loud exhalation from Scarlett. I was getting completely soaked.
“Macon,” I said a bit louder, stretching my head completely out of the car. “Macon!!”
He jerked suddenly on the sidewalk, turning around and looking at me as if he expected us to come flying up the curb in our tiny car to squash him completely. Then he just stared, his shirt soaked and sticking to his skin, his hair dripping onto his face, stood and stared at me as if I was completely and utterly nuts.
“What?” he screamed back, just as loudly. “What is it?”
Beside me, Scarlett burst out laughing, the first time I’d heard her laugh since I’d come home. She leaned back in her seat, hand over her mouth, giggling uncontrollably. I wanted to die.
“Um,” I said, and he was still staring at me. “Do you want a ride?”
“I’m okay,” he said across me, to Scarlett. “But thanks.”
“Macon, it’s pouring.” She had her Mom voice on, one I recognized. As he looked across me, I could see how red his eyes were, swollen from crying. “Come on.”
“I’m okay,” he said again, backing off from the car. He wiped his hand over his face and hair, water spraying everywhere. “I’ll see you later.”
“Macon,” she called out again, but he was already gone, walking back into the rain. As we sat at the stoplight, he cut around a corner and disappeared; the last thing I saw was his shirt, a flash of white against the brick of the alley. Then he was gone, vanishing so easily it seemed almost like magic—there was no trace. Scarlett sighed as I rolled up my window, saying something about everybody having their ways. I was only watching the alleyway, the last place I’d seen him, wondering if he’d ever even been there at all.
Chapter Three
When I think of Michael Sherwood, what really comes to mind is produce. Deep yellow bananas, bright green kiwis, cool purple plums smooth to the touch. Our friendship with Michael Sherwood, popular boy and legend, began simply with fruits and vegetables.
Scarlett and I were cashiers at Milton’s Market, wearing our little green smocks and plastic name tags: Hello, I’m Halley! Welcome to Milton‘s! She worked register eight, which was the No Candy register, and I worked Express Fifteen Items and Under right next to her, close enough to roll my eyes or yell over the beeping of my price scanner when it all got to be too much. It wasn’t the greatest job by a long stretch. But at least we were together.
We’d seen Michael Sherwood come in to interview at the end of June. He’d been wearing a tie. He looked nervous and waved at me like we were friends as he waited for an application at the Customer Service Desk. He got placed in Fruits and Vegetables, his official title being Junior Assistant to Produce Day Manager, which meant that he stacked oranges, repacked fruit in those little green trays and sealed them with cling wrap, and watered the vegetables with a big hose twice a day. Mostly he laughed and had a good time, quickly making friends with everyone from Meat to Health and Beauty Aids. But it was me and Scarlett he was drawn to. Well, it was Scarlett, really. As usual, I was just along for the ride.
It started with kiwis. During his first week, Michael Sherwood ate four kiwi fruit for lunch each day. Just kiwis. Nothing else. He’d stick them on Scarlett’s little scale in their plastic bag, smiling, then take them outside to the one little patch of grass in the parking lot and cut and eat them, one by one, by himself. We wondered about this. We never ate kiwis.
“He likes fruit,” Scarlett said simply one day after he was gone, having smiled his big smile at her and made her blush. He came to my register once, but by the third day he was standing in line at Scarlett’s, even when my overhead light was flashing OPEN NO WAITING.
I looked out at Michael, in his green produce apron, sitting in the sun with those tiny fuzzy fruits, and shook my head. It would always take at least fifteen minutes for Scarlett to stop blushing.
The next day, when he got to the front of the line with his kiwis and Scarlett was ringing him up, she said, “You must really like these things.”
“They’re awesome,” he said, leaning over her little check and credit-card station. “Haven’t you ever tried one?”
“Only in fruit salad,” Scarlett said, and I was so distracted listening I rang up some rigatoni at two hundred dollars, screwing up my register altogether and scaring the hell out of the poor woman in my line, who was only buying that, some pineapple spears, and a box of tampons. Between voiding and ringing everything back out, I missed half of their conversation, and when I turned back Michael was walking outside with his lunch and Scarlett was holding one fuzzy kiwi in her hand, examining it from every angle.
“He gave it to me,” she whispered. Her face was blazing red. “Can you believe it?”
“Excuse me, miss,” someone in my line shouted, “are you open?”
“Yes,” I shouted back. To Scarlett I said, “What else did he say?”
“I have these,” said a tall, hairy man in a polka-dot shirt as he pushed his cart up, thrusting a pile of sticky coupons in my hand. He was buying four cans of potted meat, some air freshener, and two cans of lighter fluid. Sometimes you don’t even want to think about what people are doing with their groceries.
“I think I’m going to take my break,” Scarlett called to me, pulling the drawer from her register. “Since I’m slow and all.”
“Wait, I’ll be done here in a sec.” But of course my line was long now, full of people with fifteen items, or eighteen items, or even twenty with a little creative counting, all staring blankly at me.
“Do you mind?” Scarlett said, already heading to the offices to drop off her drawer, that one kiwi in her free hand. “I mean ...”
She glanced outside quickly, and I could see Michael on the curb with his lunch.
“It’s okay,” I said, turning back to Scarlett as I ran Hairy Man’s check through the confirming slot. “I’ll just take my break later, or something....”
But she didn’t hear me, was already gone, outside to the curb and the sunshine, sitting next to Michael Sherwood. My best friend Scarlett had traded a kiwi fruit for her heart.
I didn’t get many breaks with her after that. Michael Sherwood wooed her with strange, foreign fruits and vegetables, dropping slivers of green melon and dark red blood oranges off at her register when she was busy. Later, when she looked up, there’d be something poised above her on her NO CANDY REGISTER sign; a single pear, perfectly balanced, three little radishes all in a row. I never saw him do it, and I watched her station like a hawk. But there was something magical about Michael Sherwood, and of course Scarlett loved it. I would have too, if it had ever happened to me.
That was the first summer when it wasn’t just me and Scarlett. Michael was always there making us laugh, doing belly flops into the pool or sliding his arms around Scarlett’s waist as she stood at the kitchen counter, stirring brownie mix. It was the first summer we didn’t spend practically every night together, either; sometimes, I’d look across the street in early evening and see her shades drawn, Michael’s car in the driveway, and know I had to stay away. Late at night I’d hear them outside saying good-bye, and I’d pull my curtain aside and watch as he kissed her in the dim yellow of the streetlight. I’d never had to fight for her attention before. Now, all it took was a look from Michael and she was off and running, with me left behind again to eat lunch alone or watch TV with my father, who always fell asleep on the couch by eight-thirty and snored to boot. I missed her.
But Scarlett was so happy, there was no way I could hold anything against her. She practically glowed twenty-four hours a day, always laughing, sitting out on the curb in front of Milton’s with Michael, catching the grapes he tossed in her mouth. They hid out in her house for entire weekends, cooking spaghetti for Marion and rentin
g movies. Scarlett said that after his breakup with Elizabeth at the end of the school year, Michael just didn’t want to deal with the gossip. The day we went to the lake was the first time they’d risked exposure to our classmates, but it had been empty on the beaches, quiet, as we tossed the Frisbee and ate the picnic Scarlett packed. I sat with my Mademoiselle magazine, watching them swim together, dunking each other and laughing. It was later, just as we were leaving and the sun was setting in oranges and reds behind them, that I snapped the picture, the only one Scarlett had of them together. She’d grabbed it out of my hand the day I got them, taking my double copy, too, and giving it to Michael, who stuck it over the speedometer in his car, where it stayed until he traded the car a few weeks later for the motorcycle.
By the beginning of August, he’d told her he loved her. She said they’d been sitting at the side of her pool, legs dangling, when he just leaned over, kissed her ear, and said it. She’d whispered it as she told me, as if it was some kind of spell that could easily be broken by loud voices or common knowledge. I love you.
Which made it so much worse when he was gone so quickly, just two weeks later. The only boy who had ever said it to her and meant it. The rest of the world didn’t know how much Scarlett loved Michael Sherwood. Even I couldn’t truly have understood, much as I might have wanted to.
On the first day of school, Scarlett and I pulled into the parking lot, found a space facing the back of the vocational building, and parked. She turned off the engine of the Aspire, dropping her keychain in her lap. Then we sat.
“I don’t want to do it,” she said decisively.
“I know,” I said.
“I mean it this year,” she said, sighing. “I just don’t think I have it in me. Under the circumstances.”
“I know,” I said again. Since the funeral, Scarlett had seemed to fold into herself; she hardly ever mentioned Michael, and I didn’t either. We’d spent the entire first part of the summer talking about nothing but him, it seemed, and now he was out of bounds, forbidden. They’d planted a tree for him at school, with a special plaque, and the Sherwoods had put up their house for sale; I’d heard they were moving to Florida. Life was going on without him. But when he was mentioned, I hated the look that crossed her face, a mix of hurt and overwhelming sadness.
Now people were streaming by in new clothes, down the concrete path that led to the main building. I could hear voices and cars rumbling past. Sitting there in the Aspire, we held on to our last bit of freedom.
I sat and waited, shifting my new backpack, which sat between my feet, a stack of new shiny spiral notebooks and un-sharpened pencils zipped away in its clean, neat compartments. It was always Scarlett who decided when it was time.
“Well,” she said deliberately, folding her arms over her chest. “I guess we don’t have much of a choice.”
“Scarlett Thomas!” someone shrieked from beside the car, and we looked up to see Ginny Tabor, in a new short haircut and red lipstick, running past us holding hands with Brett Hershey, the football captain. Only Ginny could hook up with someone at a funeral. “School is this way!” she pointed with one red fingernail, then laughed, throwing her head back while Brett looked on as if waiting for someone to throw him something. She waggled her fingers at us and ran on ahead, dragging him behind her. I couldn’t believe we’d spent so much time with her early that summer. It seemed like years ago now.
“God,” Scarlett said, “I really hate her.”
“I know.” This was my line.
She took a deep breath, reached into the backseat for her backpack, and pulled it into her lap. “Okay. There’s really no avoiding it.”
“I agree,” I said, unlocking my door.
“Let’s go then,” she said grudgingly, getting out of the car and slamming the door behind her, hitching her backpack over one shoulder. I followed, merging into the crowd that carried us down through the teachers’ parking lot to the courtyard in front of the main building. The first bell rang and everyone moved inside, suddenly thrown together in front of the doors and causing a major traffic jam of bodies and backpacks, elbows and feet, a tide I let carry me down the hallway to my homeroom, keeping my eye on the back of Scarlett’s red head.
“This is it,” I said as we came up on Mr. Alexander’s door, which was decorated with cardboard cutout frogs.
“Good luck,” Scarlett called out, pulling open the door of her own homeroom and rolling her eyes one last time as she disappeared inside.
Mr. Alexander’s room already smelled of formaldehyde and he smiled at me, mustache wriggling, as I took my seat. The first day was always the same: they took roll, handed out schedules, and sent home about ten million different memos to your parents about busing and cafeteria rates and school rules. Beside me Ben Cruzak was already stoned and sleeping, head on his desk, with Missy Cavenaugh behind him doing her fingernails. Even the snake on Mr. Alexander’s counter looked bored, after eating a mouse for the audience of science geeks who always hung out before first bell.
After about fifteen minutes of continuous droning over the intercom and a stack of memos an inch high on my desk, Alexander finally handed out our schedules. I could tell right away something was wrong with mine; I was signed up for Pre-calculus (when I hadn’t even taken Algebra Two), French Three (when I took Spanish), and, worst of all, Band.
“Have a good day!” Alexander yelled above the bell as everyone headed toward the door. I went up to his desk. “Halley. Yes?”
“My schedule is wrong,” I said. “I’m signed up for Band.”
“Band?”
“Yes. And Pre-cal and French Three, and none of those are my classes.”
“Hmmm,” he said, and he was already looking over my head at the people streaming in, his first class. “Better go to your first class and get a pass to Guidance.”
“But...”
He stood up, his mustache already moving. “Okay, people, take a seat and I’ll be sending around a chart for you to fill in your chosen spot. This will be the seating chart for the rest of the semester, so I suggest you choose carefully. Don’t tap on that glass, it makes the snake crazy. Now, this is Intro to Biology, so if you don’t belong here...”
I walked out into the hallway, where Scarlett was leaning against the fire extinguisher waiting for me. “Hey. What’s your first class?”
“Pre-cal.”
“What? You haven’t taken Algebra Two yet.”
“I know.” I switched my backpack to my other shoulder, already sick of school. “My schedule is so messed up. I’m signed up for Band.”
“Band?”
“Yes.” I stepped aside to let a pack of football players pass. “I have to go to Guidance.”
“Oh, that sucks,” she said. “I’ve got English and then Commercial Design, so I’ll meet you after, okay? In the courtyard by the soda machines.”
“I’m supposed to be in Band then,” I said glumly.
“They can’t force you to take Band,” she said, laughing. I just looked at her. “They can’t. Go to Guidance and I’ll see you later.”
The Guidance office was packed with people leaning against the walls and sitting on the floor, all waiting for the three available counselors. The receptionist, whose phone was ringing shrilly, nonstop, looked up at me with the crazed eyes of a rabid animal.
“What?” She had the kind of glasses that made her eyes seem wider than platters, magnified hundreds of times. “What do you need?”
“My schedule’s all wrong,” I said as the phone rang again, the row of red lights across it blinking. “I need to see a counselor.”
“Right, okay,” she said, grabbing the phone and holding one finger up at me, like she was pushing a pause button. “Hello, Guidance office. No, he’s not available now. Okay. Right, sure. Fine.” She hung the phone up, the cord wrapped around her wrist. “Now, what? You need a counselor?”
“I got the wrong schedule. I’m signed up for Band.”
“Band?” she blinked
at me. “What’s wrong with Band?”
“Nothing,” I said as a kid carrying a clarinet case passed me, scowling. I lowered my voice. “Except I don’t play an instrument. I mean, I’ve never been in Band.”
“Well,” she said slowly as the phone rang again, “maybe it’s Introduction to Band. That’s the beginning level.”
“I never signed up for Band,” I said a little bit louder, just to be heard over the phone. “I don’t want to take it.”
“Fine, well, then write your name on this sheet,” she snapped, losing all patience whatsoever with debating the merits of musical training and grabbing the phone again in mid-ring. “We’ll get to you as soon as we can.”
I took a seat against the wall, under a shelf with a row of teenager-related books on it, with titles like Sharing Our Differences: Understanding Your Adolescent and Peer Pressure: Finding Your Own Way. My mother’s second book, Mixed Emotions: Mothers, Daughters, and the High School Years, was there too, which just put me in a worse mood. If I’d really felt like torturing myself, I could have picked it up and read again how good and strong our relationship was.
It was hot in the room, and everyone was talking too loud, crammed in together. A girl next to me was busy writing Die Die Die in all different colors on the cover of her notebook, a stack of Magic Markers beside her. I closed my eyes, thinking back to summer and cool pool water and long days with nothing to do except go swimming and sleep late.
I felt someone sit down beside me, leaning back against the wall close enough that their shoulder bumped mine. I pulled my arms across my chest, folding my knees against me. Then I felt a finger against my shoulder, poke poke poke. I opened my eyes, bracing myself for hours in Guidance Hell with Ginny Tabor.
But it wasn’t Ginny. It was Macon Faulkner, and he was grinning at me. “What’d you do?” he asked.
“What?” The Die Die Die girl had switched to the back cover, methodically filling letter after letter with green ink.