Southern Exposure

  * * *

  The store was a zoo. Everyone and their mother was there buying out the remaining school supplies. By the time I found the aisle with the book bags, there wasn't much left, just mostly kids stuff. I decided to pass on the Beauty and the Beast one. I could always use one of the knapsacks from the closet until they restocked; or if they were hideous, I could go without. It wasn't like the books were heavy for me. The book bag was more about fitting in. I picked up the art supplies I needed and was almost to the front of the store, when I spotted Cathy. There was no mistaking her, but she looked different, lost, like when we first met outside the school office.

  "Hey," I said, walking up beside her, "fancy meeting you here."

  "I'm not here to meet you," she replied in a distant tone.

  "Okay," I replied, "it's just an expression, right?"

  She didn't answer, just a quick glance.

  "You okay? Is something wrong?" I'd over-heard the girls in Latin mention Cathy's delusional ramblings.

  "You're wrong, that's what's wrong."

  "Me?"

  "You're not one of us, are you?" she said in an ominous tone.

  I glanced down at the pale, white skin of the back of my hands, but there was no prismatic refraction of light. How could she know? "It's not what you think."

  "Don't pretend. I saw your car."

  "My car?" I replied, the relief making it almost a gasp.

  "You think it's funny?"

  "No, nothing like that, the car was my brother's idea. It was either that or the bus and the bus is just so—"

  "Yes, I ride in with my mom—all that humanity." She scrunched up her face and shuddered. "What's with all the art supplies?"

  "I came in for a book bag, but the good ones were gone—these were on sale."

  "Around here you pretty much have to mail order or ebay."

  "I'll have to remember that." It was strange how one minute Cathy could look so lost and confused and then the next, carry on a completely rational discussion not to mention adversarial and then, well not.

  "You're so pale, new makeup—"

  "I think it's the florescent lights," I covered.

  "It's almost ghostly. I wish I could get mine to do that. Chores take me outside too much and you know what the sun does to your skin."

  I held back a smile—time to change the subject. "You just get here?"

  "No, I was getting ready to call my mom to come pick me up."

  "I could give you a ride."

  "In your car? It's so, so out there. So not Emo."

  "It is black—well metallic, sapphire to be exact."

  "I'd have to get permission."

  "That's fine."

  "Wait here." She walked quickly out front, pulling out her cell phone before disappearing around the corner.

  I stepped away from the exit, near the grocery carts, to wait. The store had an odd smell, one that I thought had prepared me for the close confines of school, but it hadn't done as much good as I'd hoped. A bus pulled up when Cathy appeared outside the entry doors, but she didn't come in. She had that deer in the headlights look again. She was blocking the door, and after one man squeezed past her the crowd from the bus swept her inside. She staggered away from the annoyed people toward me. It was immediately apparent that she was scared.

  "Your mother say no?" I asked. "It's okay, I understand."

  "She said yes."

  "And the problem is?"

  "We can't go," she said in a hollow voice.

  "Sure we can."

  "Derrick and his crew are around your car."