Donna

  “Maybe you really are too smart for yourself,” Mateo said.

  “Maybe you should shut up,” Greg said, turning sharply on him.

  For a moment, all anyone could hear were the sound of the waves and the screams of the terns. Then Greg closed the lid of his basket, and Mateo got to his feet.

  “I changed my mind. Your mom’s food is only good for the birds.” Mateo tossed the sandwich toward the water, causing it to spill open and scatter on the sand.

  Greg looked at it.

  “Let’s just go, Greg,” I said.

  He nodded. “I guess you were right again. I shouldn’t have pushed you to be friends with him.”

  He began to take down our improvised tent.

  “Where you going, compañero? You need a siesta already?”

  “I’m not your compañero, Mateo,” Greg said, and completed rolling up the canvas.

  I folded our blanket and put my damp cover-up in my beach bag.

  “You can’t leave until you show these other girls your bare ass,” Mateo said. “That’s the deal.”

  Greg lifted his basket and put the rolled canvas under his other arm. I picked up the poles. When we started away, Mateo stepped in front of us.

  “Let ’em go,” Ernie called.

  “Greg never went back on a deal until he started up with Señorita Genius,” Mateo said.

  “I told you to stop calling her that,” Greg said. “Her name is Donna. Donna.”

  “Yeah, well, thanks to you, she’s going to have a new name: Mexi-Ho,” Mateo said. He looked to the others for a laugh, just as Greg swung his picnic basket at him, catching him smack in the center of his chest. The blow dropped him on his butt.

  For a moment, Mateo sat there stunned. Then, as we started away, he rose and reached out for Greg’s shoulder.

  As Greg turned, Mateo swung his right hand, cupping the small bottle of tequila, and smashed it into Greg’s left temple so hard that the bottle shattered, a few pieces cutting into Greg’s cheek and left eye. Blood spurted even before his legs buckled, and he hit the ground, unconscious.

  I screamed and fell to my knees beside Greg. No one else moved for a few moments. As quickly as I could, I opened my beach bag and took out one of my towels to pat the wounds. I had to be sure he had no fracture, so I kept the pressure light.

  “Help me!” I screamed at the other boys.

  Mateo, realizing what he had done, wobbled and backed away.

  Ernie and Damian got up and hurried to us. Greg was barely conscious and obviously in pain. They looked at me for instructions.

  “Pick him up!” I shouted. “And put him carefully in the rear of his truck. We have to get him to the hospital emergency room. Quickly!”

  They looked at each other. Damian, who was bigger, scooped Greg up in his arms and carried him toward the truck. I followed. Then I looked at Ernie.

  “Can you drive his truck?”

  He nodded.

  “The key is still in the ignition,” I said. Ernie lowered the tailgate so Damian could lay Greg in the bed. I got in, too, and continued to apply my towel. Damian closed the tailgate and hurried around to the cab. Ernie had started the engine.

  “Greg,” I said.

  He didn’t answer. His head felt limp in my hands. I rolled my other towel and put it under his head. I kept the first towel on his temple and eye. It was soaking in blood. Ernie turned the truck and headed away. I looked back and saw the girls standing next to Mateo, all of them watching us drive off, looking stunned and frightened.

  • • •

  Two nursing assistants came out with a stretcher after I had run into the ER and methodically explained Greg’s condition. They moved him quickly into an examination room. Ernie and Damian stood beside me, both mumbling about how they couldn’t believe this and how quickly it had all happened. A nurse came out to speak with us. Ernie and Damian let me do all the talking. I was as short and precise as could be.

  The nurse looked impressed and told us to wait. “The police will be here momentarily.”

  “Police!” Damian repeated. He looked at Ernie and then at me.

  “I don’t think you need an explanation for that,” the nurse said.

  I dug out my mobile and called home. As soon as my father said “Hello,” I rattled off a description of what had happened and where we were. I wanted him to know the police would be taking statements at any moment.

  “Just tell them what happened truthfully,” he advised. “We’ll be there as quickly as we can.”

  Never in my life had my parents had to worry about anything I had done or anyone I had as a friend. Stories about other kids my age swirled about our home like a tornado that dared not touch down anywhere near us. My mother heard more than two earfuls at her salon weekly, and whenever she brought a story back and told it at dinner, my father usually said something like, “Well, we’ll never have to worry about Donna when it comes to that sort of thing.”

  “Or Mickey, either,” my mother would add, reaching to pat him on the hand.

  Mickey, a bit of a bookworm himself now, was oblivious to that talk. He had friends, all mostly like him, who were into intricate video games and science fiction.

  But as nutty as it might sound, when my father talked about other kids in trouble and then complimented me, I thought he sounded wistful, as if he wished I was more like Huckleberry Finn. Getting into some kind of trouble, even if it was only being late to a class too often—something I couldn’t do, of course—would make me seem more “normal,” I guessed.

  My father would hear others talk about their kids, but he would only listen and maybe smile when they told him he was lucky. I never cursed, never wanted to smoke, had no opportunity to drink too much alcohol, and knew what physical damage it could do anyway. I certainly avoided any form of drugs, and I didn’t drive yet, even though I could start, so I didn’t get cited for speeding or get parking tickets, much less dent one of the cars. I didn’t even play music too loudly in my room.

  Yes, this was the first time I was involved in anything negative, and look at what it was: an incident requiring the police. My parents were stunned and looked lost when they arrived just after two patrolmen had begun speaking to Ernie, Damian, and me. Again, the boys let me do all the talking, nodding when the policemen looked at them for confirmation. I made sure to mention that Mateo had drunk too much tequila. We had to give them the names of the others. Everyone was a witness now. My parents spoke with the officers, and then Ernie and Damian went out to call their parents.

  Greg’s father and mother arrived shortly after. The moment I saw them, the concern on their faces, I felt my body crumbling inside. Tears came to my eyes. My mother looked at me and put her arm around me. The police waited until Greg’s dad spoke with one of the nurses and then told them what they knew, gave them our testimony, which was ninety-nine percent mine. Greg’s parents looked my way as they spoke.

  Suddenly, I felt this was entirely my fault. All I would have had to do to prevent it was to have said no to Greg’s invitation.

  Shortly afterward, a doctor came out and spoke to Greg’s parents. They followed him into the hallway that led to the examination rooms.

  “I’ve got to know how he is, Mom,” I said.

  She nodded.

  As the police were leaving, most likely to find Mateo, my father leaped to his feet and stopped them. They spoke with him briefly and then left. He returned slowly.

  “They’ve called an eye surgeon, but it doesn’t look good,” he began. “It’s going to be quite a while, Donna. We should go home. I’ll find out everything later. I know the ER doctor.”

  When we rose to leave, Greg’s parents came out. I looked at my mother and then broke away to approach them.

  “I’m Donna Ramanez,” I said. “Greg took me to the beach.”

  His father no
dded, but his mother just stared at me. Did she have trouble with English? I repeated it in Spanish.

  “Greg was defending me when the other boy was insulting me and him. The boy who hit him was borracho. Greg didn’t want to have a fight. He wanted us to leave, and the other boy stopped us.”

  His father nodded.

  “Greg is the nicest boy in school,” I said. I realized that complimenting their son when he was in such pain and trouble only sharpened their agony and anxiety. I told them I hoped it would all go well and then rejoined my parents.

  “You can’t blame yourself for this, Donna,” my mother said.

  Despite how cluttered my mind was with facts and information, she was able to read it. There was nothing to study about it, no tests to measure it, no psychiatric report to research. It was clearly and simply part of what a mother was: connected to her child.

  • • •

  My father came to my room a little after nine P.M. I had refused to eat any dinner. My mother brought some toast and jelly with a glass of milk and left it for me, but I never touched it. All I did was shower and change and lie on my bed, drifting into short sleeps on and off. I sat up when I saw my father in the doorway.

  “What?” I said. I didn’t want to go through any preliminary preparation for what he was going to say.

  “I’m afraid he’s lost the eye, Donna. The piece that pierced it was too large and damaging. But he’ll be fine otherwise.”

  “There is no otherwise after that,” I said.

  “They’ve arrested that boy.”

  “He’ll have an easier time living with what he’s done than Greg will have living with what has happened to him.”

  I could see how much my cold facts and the way I could state them so clearly, firmly, and almost without emotion bothered him.

  But that’s who I was and probably why I hated myself.

  “I’m sorry,” my father said. What else could he say? He left, retreating from the cold, hard, and bitter look in my eyes.

  Of all the others at the beach with us, Renata was the only one who called me. I had the sense that she had seen worse things in her life in Honduras. There was something hard and terribly mature in her voice when she spoke, reliving the details before and after the fight.

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself for any of it,” she said. “Mateo is a hothead. I wouldn’t bet on his future.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  She was silent a moment and then added something that I didn’t know yet would affect a major choice in my life.

  “I want to warn you. Not everyone agrees with me. You’ll probably hear others say ‘Señorita Genius,’ and not in a nice way.”

  “I don’t care what they say. But thank you.”

  “Buena suerte, Donna,” Renata said before hanging up.

  It almost brought me my first laugh since the fight. Who would believe it? Me, Señorita Genius, needed one of those “normal” girls to wish me good luck? Me? I could be the next Albert Einstein.

  On Sunday night, I told my parents that I didn’t want to go to school on Monday. I could do what I did there in my own room, even in my closet. They both looked troubled, but neither offered any arguments.

  I didn’t go on Tuesday, either. I had no intention to go on Wednesday.

  I didn’t know it then, but my parents had been called to meet with Mrs. Pelham on Wednesday. My father had to take the morning off. Neither revealed anything until after dinner. They wanted me to speak with them in the living room. Mickey was sent to his room to do his homework. I imagined it was going to be a lecture about my not returning to school. I had decided I would go back the next morning. Maybe that would make the lecture shorter.

  The coffee table had been cleared, and there was some sort of pamphlet opened and spread out on it. I glanced at it and sat on the sofa. My parents sat in the two matching chairs across from me, neither of them smiling.

  “I’ll go to school tomorrow,” I said as soon as I sat.

  “Maybe you won’t,” my father replied. “Or if you do, it will be to get more answers about this from Mrs. Pelham.”

  “Mrs. Pelham? Answers about what?”

  “We met with her this morning,” my father said. “She called me at the drugstore yesterday when you weren’t in school. Of course, everyone knows what happened at the beach. We talked for a while, and then she suggested that your mother and I visit her this morning. She said she had a solution for you and that she was very excited about you. She’s very fond of you,” he added.

  Suspicious, I leaned forward and picked up the brochure.

  “Spindrift? It looks like some old mansion.”

  “Open it up,” my mother urged.

  I did. There were pictures of what looked like a modern high-tech library, a computer room, and a chemistry laboratory that made our school’s look like some child’s playroom.

  “Piñon Pine Grove? That’s in the Coachella Valley,” I said.

  “Not that far away,” my father said. “It’s a very unique school.”

  I nodded and read more of the description. They watched me and waited.

  “It doesn’t sound like any ordinary school or college, for that matter.”

  “You saw that there’s no so-called school year, semesters. It’s like something constantly going that you can jump on anytime,” my father said. “What you don’t see there is the criteria for acceptance.”

  He reached into his inside jacket pocket and handed me a card that opened. There were no names, just numbers, and next to them were obviously IQ scores as well as the scores of other tests I had taken during the last few years. The scores were off the charts like mine.

  “Those are past graduates and a few current attendees. It’s obviously privileged information,” he said.

  I put the card down and looked at the brochure again.

  “The school was started by a famous biochemist who himself had those sorts of scores,” my mother said.

  “The point is, you’d be with boys and girls like yourself,” my father added.

  “Seems odd to call them boys and girls,” my mother told him.

  He smiled and nodded. “Young men and women, for sure. Some of the graduates of Spindrift work for NASA. Some of the other places are also privileged information, but I’m thinking government security positions, the military and government brain trusts, as well as corporate ones.”

  I looked at the pictures again. “Seems walled in or something,” I said. “Why?”

  “They’re very protective of their assets.”

  “Assets?”

  “He means their students. Mrs. Pelham used the word assets.”

  “That sounds like the CIA,” I said.

  “You work at your own pace, but there are teachers with doctorates, specialists, part-timers from high places, constantly challenging the students.”

  I looked at the back of the brochure. “So there are dorms. I’d be leaving home.”

  “This has to be your decision entirely,” my mother said. “But in light of what’s happened and your happiness . . . going to another school might be wise.”

  I nodded. “I wouldn’t exactly refer to it as another school. I don’t imagine they have a prom.”

  “You make everything yourselves there, social life included,” my father said. “Of course, we’d visit you periodically.”

  “Is it expensive?”

  “There are some costs,” my father said. “But we’d have those costs when we sent you off to college anyway, and at Spindrift you’d earn any and all degrees you were seeking.”

  “The work would be postgraduate; that’s why it’s more challenging,” my mother added, obviously parroting what Mrs. Pelham had told them.

  “The place seems like one gigantic experiment.”

  “I’m sure in
a way, it is. But it’s apparently quite successful.”

  “Did Mrs. Pelham describe any failures?” Before they could answer, I added, “Not that Spindrift would admit to any.”

  “Probably true,” my mother said. “There are no guarantees. Somewhere in the description, it implies that.”

  I nodded. “What do you two want?” I asked them, staring at the brochure.

  “We want you to be happy and productive,” my father said.

  “We want you to be satisfied with yourself,” my mother added.

  “A big headache shipped off,” I said.

  “You know that’s not true, Donna,” my mother said.

  I looked up. “You said you’d visit me periodically, but neither of you mentioned my coming home for anything.”

  “Of course you would,” my mother said quickly. “All the holidays.”

  “We know how you are about making a decision,” my father said. “So go to school and see Mrs. Pelham tomorrow, and—”

  “I don’t need to,” I said. “But I want to do something else tomorrow.”

  “Sure. What?” my father asked.

  “I want to visit Greg at the hospital.”

  They looked at each other. My father smiled and nodded.

  “I’ll take you,” my mother said, “and wait for you in the lobby.”

  “Okay.” I rose, holding the brochure. “I want to tell Mickey about this first.”

  “Good idea,” my father said.

  Although she did nothing to indicate that she would, I suspected that as soon as I left the room, my mother would start to cry. I wouldn’t have minded seeing her do it.

  Maybe nothing she had done recently would make me feel so good. I would know she really cared as much for me as any mother could care for her daughter, Señorita Genius or not.

  5

  Mickey wasn’t surprised to see me come into his room, even though it was usually the other way around. He thought I was his private Wikipedia. Whenever I explained things to him, whether it was a math problem or a science theory, he often told me I did a better job than his teachers did. They never explained it so clearly. I suspected that his teachers, most teachers, were often frustrated because students didn’t pay attention the first or even the second time, and they felt they were teaching in an echo chamber.