Cloudburst

  Attending Pacifica was special for so many reasons. Few schools glittered and sparkled as much. Dr. Steiner, the principal, was obsessive about cleanliness. Our desks were actually washed down nightly with antiseptic soaps to prevent the spread of colds and flu. Vandalism here was equivalent to a capital crime. There were little signs warning about it everywhere, especially outside. A student could be expelled for it, and his or her parents would forfeit the tuition, an amount that would surely keep some families in food and shelter for two years. We also had a security service to monitor visitors and protect the property at night.

  I suspect that I would have done as well in my academics at a public school as I did here, but being in this environment was so safe and pleasant that I looked forward to schoolwork and assignments every day, just the way I had when I was six and seven. Our teachers were happy, too. They could maintain discipline easily and were paid better than public-school teachers. My music teacher, Mr. Denacio, was the only teacher I had who growled and looked dissatisfied at times, but I knew from the start that his bark was worse than his bite. I also knew he bragged about me and how quickly I had become one of his best clarinet players ever.

  Despite the families and the wealth these students came from, the chatter in homeroom and in the hallways between classes was no different from the chatter that occurred at most public schools that were populated instead by mostly low- and middle-income students. All of my girlfriends were anxious to talk about themselves and about boys they liked or wished liked them. One other thing I had learned from Kiera was to let them all blabber first and then, almost as an afterthought, give my opinions and talk about myself. It always worked. It gave me that authenticity, that demeanor of an experienced observer. In their eyes, I had the patience and the wisdom. Sometimes I felt they were more attentive to me than they were to their teachers and parents and would do whatever I suggested, even though their parents and teachers were dead set against it and the consequences could be severe.

  After this particular school day began, I noticed that Shayne Peters not only avoided talking to me all morning but avoided looking at me as well. I didn’t think anyone else noticed, but at lunch, Sydney Woods looked as if she had won American Idol or something when she came charging into the cafeteria. She was that ecstatic. She rushed over to my table and held up her right thumb. All of us stopped talking to look.

  “You’re da bomb!” she told me, while it was she who looked as if she might explode.

  “Who set you on fire?” Jessica asked.

  “Never mind. Sasha, what did you do to Shayne?” Sydney asked. Everyone turned to me.

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “He’s telling his friends you treated him like . . . how did he put it? Like a nobody,” she said with glee. “You acted as if you didn’t know who he was when he called you? Perfect. When did he call you, anyway?” she asked, obviously wondering if he had called while they were still technically a couple.

  “Well, nobody called this morning,” I said.

  “So, when did he call?”

  “I just told you. Nobody called this morning,” I said. She stared a moment, and then she broke into a hysterical laugh, and so did everyone else. That, I knew, was going to be the quote of the day. Nobody called this morning. Sydney, who was a good student, especially in English, walked around reciting Emily Dickinson’s poem, especially when she was in Shayne’s hearing range. I’m nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too?

  It was turning out to be another fun day for me. Any of the girls who hadn’t heard the story caught up with me in the hallways between classes to find out what was going on. As casually as I could, I described Shayne calling me to pick him up and my refusal. I made it sound like nothing, which in my mind it was, but often the most trivial things became important at Pacifica. Maybe that was because most everybody had a father or a mother to solve serious problems for them.

  In any case, it felt good to be the center of everyone’s attention, the subject of all the busy-bee buzzing. I couldn’t wait to get home and to my computer to describe it all in an e-mail to Kiera. I knew how much she would appreciate my actions and the results. I didn’t know why it had become so important to me to please her. If there was anyone in the world I should enjoy displeasing, it was Kiera. Perhaps I was still trying to prove myself to be as exciting and as popular as she was. I suspected she didn’t enjoy that. This was just another way to demonstrate it.

  And then something happened that replaced the headlines about Shayne and me before the day had ended. That afternoon, there was a new buzz about two new students who were entering the school. Cora Hatch, who helped Mrs. Knox, Dr. Steiner’s secretary, during her free period, was rushing around with the breaking news. It reached me at the start of chemistry class. Cora came right to me as I was taking my seat.

  “Guess what? Bradley Garfield’s kids are transferring into Pacifica,” she said, nearly out of breath. “One is in the eighth grade—his daughter, Summer. And his son, Ryder, is in our class, a senior.”

  “Did you say Bradley Garfield?” Lily Albert, who sat behind me, asked. She had big eyes as it was, but at this moment, they looked as if they would pop and ooze all over her face like broken egg yolks.

  “Yes.”

  “The Bradley Garfield?”

  Cora nodded.

  I wasn’t into soap operas the way most of the girls in my class were, but I knew Bradley Garfield was a lead on Endless Days, the top new soap opera. During his television acting hiatus, he starred in a big movie with Julie Thomas, who had been nominated for an Academy Award last year. The movie was a blockbuster love story, Reflections of a Broken Heart. There was already chatter about a possible Academy Award nomination for him, too.

  “Don’t these two have a mother, too?” I asked Cora. “Or did he give birth to them, as well?”

  “Oh, yes. She’s an actress, or was. Don’t you know who she is?”

  “I forgot to renew my subscription to Hollywood Gossip Girls.”

  “Very funny. She works on and off, but she still models and does commercials. Beverly Ransome. She’s beautiful. She was in People last month. She’s the one who brought them here today. I said hello to her. She’s even more beautiful in person, but I was too shocked to ask for her autograph.”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Knox wouldn’t have liked it if you had,” I said.

  There were other children of people in the entertainment business attending our school. Making them self-conscious about their fame was an unwritten no-no, but I did really know that Bradley Garfield was the flavor of the month. His picture was on billboards throughout the city, and he was on the covers of dozens of magazines. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to be the son or daughter of someone like that. Would it make them arrogant? If there was one thing this school didn’t need more of, it was arrogance. It was practically seeping out the doors and windows.

  I didn’t have long to wait to find out. Just after our class began, Dr. Steiner escorted Ryder Garfield to our room. Our teacher, Mr. Malamud, stopped his introduction to the day’s lesson instantly, and all eyes turned to the doorway. I could almost hear the chorus of heart throbs beginning. Even my own heart felt as if it shuddered and skipped a beat.

  Ryder Garfield had inherited most of his father’s good looks. He was easily six feet tall, with a tennis player’s firm-looking but lean body. He wore his light brown, almost amber-colored hair long but swept back neatly on the sides. He was dressed in a leather jacket with a black T-shirt and straight-leg jeans and a pair of black cowboy boots. He didn’t look timid or nervous to me. He looked bored, even a little disgusted, as if he entered a new school on a weekly basis or something.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Malamud,” Dr. Steiner began. “I’d like your class to welcome a new student, Ryder Garfield.”

  “Sure,” Mr. Malamud said. “Welcome to Pacifica, Ryder. Were you taking chemistry in the school you had attended?”

  “Of course,” Ryder said.

 
Mr. Malamud nodded and quickly looked around the classroom. He reached behind himself to pluck a textbook off the shelf and then walked down my aisle. There were two empty desks in the classroom, one to my right and one in the rear on the left. He put the textbook on the desk to my right and smiled at Ryder, who lowered his head a little and slipped onto the seat. He was carrying a briefcase and opened it immediately to take out a notebook.

  “That’s what I like. Someone who comes prepared to get right to work,” Mr. Malamud told the class. Ryder didn’t move a muscle or lift his head. “Does the textbook look familiar?” Mr. Malamud asked him.

  Ryder looked it over as if he were considering buying it and nodded. He didn’t smile or look up at Mr. Malamud. He clicked a pen open and then sat back. He didn’t look at anyone else, either, but I could see the tightness in his jaw. It radiated through his shoulders and into the stiff way he held his upper body. He looked like someone readying himself for a head-on crash.

  “Ryder has a sister entering the eighth grade,” Dr. Steiner said. “Her name is Summer. I hope you will all give them both a warm welcome. Please don’t hesitate to come see me if you have any problems or questions, Ryder,” she added.

  He didn’t turn to her or respond. Dr. Steiner nodded at Mr. Malamud, and he returned to the front of the classroom.

  “We were just about to begin the chapter titled ‘The Mole,’ ” he began. “Can anyone tell me what a mole is?”

  A dozen hands went up, mostly girls who were eager to show off for our new celebrity student.

  I saw Ryder begin to thumb through the text, so I leaned over and said, “It’s under the heading Chemical Reactions.”

  He glanced at me.

  “No kidding, Dick Tracy,” he said.

  I recoiled like someone slapped. Many of the boys in this school could be unpleasant, especially if they were with their friends and wanted to show off by belittling someone. Normally, I would send it right back to them threefold. I had a reputation for the quick comeback. Since they knew of my former life, they were always a bit wary of me, anyway. Ray Stowe was the latest victim who could testify about it. Who knew how rough I could be considering the world from which I came?

  But for a brand-new student to be this way to me immediately took even me by surprise. From the way he sat there staring at the text, I thought he might be very angry that he had been enrolled at Pacifica and just wanted to take it out on anyone who made himself or herself available. Right now, he looked more like someone sulking, someone ready to jump down anyone’s throat.

  “Well, pardon me,” I muttered, “for caring enough to offer you some help.”

  He acted as if he hadn’t heard me. He never looked at me again, nor did he look at anyone else, for that matter, during the entire class. Mr. Malamud didn’t call on him or ask him to read anything. I had the feeling that if he had, Ryder would have ignored him anyway. Even though he had acted as if he would, I saw that he didn’t take a single note during class. When the bell rang, he got up quickly and started out, still avoiding looking at me. He spoke to no one. Some of the girls sped up to walk beside him in the hallway. I saw Jessica speak to him. He looked at her, shook his head, and kept walking, even a little faster. She stopped dead in her tracks, looking after him.

  “What did you ask him?” I asked when I caught up to her.

  “What class he had next and if he needed any help to find it,” she told me. “He just shook his head, but did you see his eyes? Did you ever see eyes so blue?”

  “Maybe they’re tinted contacts,” I told her, and headed for English class.

  He was in my English class, too, which meant that he would also be in my math class, the last class of the day. By the time I entered the room, Mr. Madeo already had given him the anthology of English literature and was showing him to the last desk in the first row, which, again, was just across from mine. I took my seat without looking at him.

  “Another class with Dick Tracy,” he said, just loudly enough for me to hear, but still not looking at me.

  I turned to him slowly. “Are you addressing me?”

  He jerked his head around. “Sure. I thought you’d tell me what page to turn to,” he said, turning to the correct page, Act II, Scene 1, of Hamlet. Obviously, Mr. Madeo had already told him where we were.

  “Looks like you already asked Sherlock Holmes and don’t need the help of poor Dick Tracy,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him nearly smile. It was nearly, because as soon as his lips began to relax, he seemed to catch himself and return to his deadpan look.

  Mr. Madeo always had a little twinkle in his eye when he called on students in his class. He knew whom he would catch unawares and who would probably have the answer. There were some students in the class who hadn’t been introduced to Ryder, but most knew who he was by now and had already whispered about him to others. Some gaped at him without any pretense. They had gaped at me, too, on my first day but not like this, I thought. I was sure he wished he was somewhere else. However, I wasn’t surprised to see Mr. Madeo call on him about halfway through the class discussion.

  “Let’s hear from a new voice,” he said. “Ryder, what do you make of this line, ‘for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’?”

  “It’s pretty obvious,” Ryder said.

  “Not to everyone. Enlighten us.”

  “What’s good to someone might be bad to someone else, depending on what they bring to the situation. Hamlet’s depressed about his father’s death and his mother marrying his uncle, so the world of Denmark looks like a prison to him but not to his friends.”

  “Sasha, how do you rate that answer?”

  I glanced at Ryder. “It’s good to me but maybe bad to you,” I said. “Thinking makes it so.”

  Mr. Madeo laughed.

  Ryder looked at me and, this time, couldn’t stop his smile.

  He didn’t say anything to me when the bell rang, but on the way to math, he walked by and said, “Neat answer.”

  He kept going, not waiting for my response. We were on completely opposite sides of the classroom in math. He was closer to the door. When the bell rang to end the class and the day, he practically shot out the door like someone already late for an appointment.

  At the end of lunch, I had decided to invite Jessica over, and she had called her mother to tell her she was going home with me. She was waiting at the exit to the parking lot.

  “Did you speak to him yet?” she asked. “If anyone can get him into a conversation, I bet it’s you.”

  “Speak to whom?”

  “Ryder. What other boy could I have meant?” she cried, bouncing on her feet.

  “There are about thirty other boys in the senior class, Jessica.”

  “Oh, come on,” she said. She smiled. “I saw him say something to you in the hallway, but I couldn’t see if you said anything back.”

  “What were you doing, following his every move?”

  “Are you kidding? Like a moth to a candle,” she said unashamedly. I laughed, and we stepped out to the parking lot.

  Both of us stopped instantly. Just ahead of us, Ryder was talking excitedly and obviously angrily at his sister. His arms were flailing about, his hands clenched into fists. His sister stood there with her head down and then looked up at him undaunted.

  I thought she was a very pretty girl with diminutive facial features. She had hair the same shade as his, neatly styled with bangs. I remembered she was in the eighth grade and thought she was quite tall for her age. She was developing a very nice figure, too. She turned away from him, and then he pushed her toward his car, a classic-style Ford Mustang. We could see she said something nasty to him and then got in quickly.

  “What was that all about?” Jessica muttered.

  He got in and backed out of his space, almost hitting Yesenia Romero. Her father was the weatherman for one of the more popular Latino television stations. She screamed after him and waved her fist as he drove out, but he was still y
elling at his sister and jerking his right hand in the air between them and surely didn’t notice or hear Yesenia.

  “What was that shouting all about?” Jessica asked Yesenia before I could. She had been closer to them than us before they got into his car.

  She looked at us and calmed down. “That’s that new boy.”

  “We know who he is,” Jessica said. “What was going on between him and his sister?”

  “He was bawling her out for taking off her bra.”

  “What?” I said, smiling.

  “That’s what he was angry about. He said he was going to tell their mother. He called her some names, too. She must have gone into the bathroom between classes to do it, I guess. He said with the blouse she had on and no bra, she might as well have started the new school topless.”

  Jessica and I looked at each other and laughed.

  “Did you see him back out? He didn’t even notice he almost hit me,” Yesenia said, growing angry again. “I might just report him. You saw it!”

  “Oh, give him a break,” Jessica told her. “It’s his first day. He’s just nervous.”

  Yesenia raised her eyebrows. “As nervous as a rattlesnake and probably just as dangerous,” she said, and headed for her car.

  “So what do you think? He’s some kind of prude, someone who has a sex hang-up or something?” Jessica asked me as we got into my car.

  “Maybe he was just being her big brother,” I suggested.

  “My brother wouldn’t waste his breath telling me what to do and not to do, especially when it came to what I wore, and he certainly wouldn’t bawl me out in a parking lot loud enough for others to hear.”

  Her brother was a sophomore at Michigan State and on the football team.