A Heart Divided (20 page)

I waited a moment for the idea to sink in. The more I thought about it, the more I knew it was exactly the right solution.

“It could work, Jack, I know it could! You could finish senior year there. Or take acting classes. Or both. You could audition for Juilliard right in Manhattan. It’s perfect!”

“I… could,” he said slowly, as if trying the idea on for size.

“You have your own money—you told me so. Plus you turn eighteen in March. I don’t think your mother would chase you. It’d be too humiliating.”

He frowned and ran a hand through his hair. “What about my soccer kids?”

“We’ll talk to Nikki. I’m sure she can find them a new coach. We can do this. We can. Don’t leave me. Please, Jack. Don’t leave me.” I slid onto his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him like a life preserver. The overwhelming neediness I felt seemed to belong to another girl, one Lillith and the former me would have disdained. And yet there she was. She was me.

Jack held me for a long time. Then he touched his lips to the pulse of my wrist. And he said, “Yes.”

We spent the next few hours planning. We decided he would depart that night and found a flight that left Nashville at eleven-thirty I called an actor I knew from the Public Theater who basically lived at his girlfriend’s place and arranged for Jack to stay in his apartment for a while. When Sally Redford got home, she’d find a note saying that Jack was fine and he would contact her later. I’d fly to New Jersey on Sunday. Knowing how strenuously my parents would disapprove, I wouldn’t tell them Jack would be in New York too. By the time anyone figured out that we were together, it would be too late to stop us.

Jack packed a small suitcase and put it in his car; we returned to school just in time for the final bell. As kids streamed from the building, we tracked down Nikki—the
only person in whom we planned to confide. She was with her boyfriend, Michael, who’d come down from Louisville for the weekend. After Nikki introduced us, I was about to tell her our news. But before I could, she came at us with hers. Michael was here to help organize a boycott of that evening’s football game—they were trying to convince the black players not to play. Could we make some calls?

I forced down a wave of shame as I told her we were leaving town. Though I could see that she was hurt, she didn’t try to guilt-jerk us. But she didn’t want to discuss it, either. She had work to do. In the face of that, neither Jack nor I dared to ask her about helping to find a new coach for the Warren Elementary Strikers.

I could hardly believe it, though, when Jack decided to ask Chaz. Chaz, who wasn’t speaking to him. But Jack refused to believe that one disagreement could erase a lifetime of “brotherhood.” Plus, he didn’t want to just slink off. No matter what happened, looking Chaz in the eye to say good-bye was the right thing to do.

I understood, in a way. It would be like me having a terrible fight with Lillith and then moving away without another word. I knew how much it would mean to Jack if Chaz said yes—that this wasn’t a forever parting; that the ties that bound them were frayed but not torn. I wanted Jack’s faith to be rewarded, so much.

We knew we could find Chaz at Jimmy Mack’s with the rest of the football team, putting on the feed before the game against South Columbia High. We got there at five
o’clock. The buffet line already snaked out the door. Jack took my hand, and we edged inside. The place was packed—a raucous meal presided over by Big Jimmy, who wore the world’s largest Redford Rebels football jersey. We maneuvered through the crowd to the booth near the window, where Jack and his friends always sat. They were all there. Chaz. Crystal. Sara. Terry and Tisha. Joined by Pansy Clifford and a guy I didn’t recognize.

“Okay, we got seven black starters,” Chaz was saying. “We’ve been together for years. They told Nikki if they don’t play, they’re hurtin’ their own! But the pressure’s still on ′em.”

“People are such sheep,” Sara said, tossing her hair. “I don’t think—” The moment Sara saw Jack and me, she quit talking. So did everyone else.

Be nice to him. Don’t blame him. He didn’t do anything. Please.

That’s when I saw it. Miracle of miracles, there was empty space between Tisha and Terry, as if they’d saved us two seats. There could only be one explanation: Sara had talked to them. A rush of gratitude washed over me.

“Hey, Kate. Hey, Jackson,” she said, greeting us warmly.

Jack’s face stretched into a grin. “Can we get in there?” He nodded at the open seats. Terry eyed him, then edged closer to Tisha, closing the gap. As they moved, Sara’s eyes caught mine, and she made a helpless gesture. Then the conversation at the table picked up again as if we didn’t exist.

Jack stood there, arms dangling, unable to digest their cruelty. But cold fury washed over me. I leaned close to him so he’d hear me over the din of the restaurant. “Let’s just go.”

He shook me off and tapped Chaz on the shoulder. “Hey, buddy. When has my word ever not been good enough for you? You’ll throw it all away over a lie about Kate?”

Chaz’s face tightened. But he didn’t look up.

“What about ‘I got your back, man. Always’?” Jack went on. “That doesn’t mean anything to you?”

“Yeah,” Chaz finally said. “It means something.”

“Well, all right, then.” Jack held out his hand, a peace offering.

Chaz got up slowly and faced Jack. “You’re the one turned on us, Jackson. You want your friends, just come on back, buddy.
Alone.”

“That’s how it is?”

“Yeah, Redford. That’s how it is.”

Jack nodded and lowered his hand.

As Jack and I stood outside Jimmy Mack’s, he peered back at the windows as if, by force of will, he could make his friends understand. A college-age black couple passed us on the sidewalk. Suddenly, I had a flash of a moment from decades ago, one I’d heard about from some of the
people who’d lived it: Eight or ten black college students, dressed as for Sunday church, were being led out of the restaurant by a pair of grim-faced cops. As they walked, they passed a gauntlet of screaming, cursing white people, some of whom were brandishing Confederate flags. Two women were trying to stop the angry crowd, but no one would listen.

“Kate?” Jack reached for my arm. “You okay?”

My cell phone rang before I could answer him. It was my mother, calling with an update: Everything was set for New Jersey. Lillith’s parents would be happy to have me, and Lillith was apoplectic with joy. I’d been re-enrolled at Englecliff High. Best of all, she’d reached Marcus, who said he’d take me back in Lab
and
Showcase.

She also said that Nikki had called off the boycott of the football game. Evidently the black players didn’t want to let their teammates down against arch-rival South Columbia. Instead, there’d be an antiflag rally on the courthouse square on Sunday, after church.

“Let’s see, what else,” my mom went on. “Portia’s going to the game with Cassidy, Alan, and ‘Barney-the-boy-in-her-class.’ Your dad and I are driving to Nashville to see a movie.”

“Have fun, Mom. And thanks for everything you did for me.” I gulped. I felt awful, hiding my true intentions from her.

“Hey, that’s what mothers are for. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Fine. Really.” We hung up.

I wasn’t fine, of course. As much as I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge, I knew that people would take my disappearing act as a sign of guilt, believing that I’d turned tail and run scared. That thought made me sick. Jersey girls don’t back down from a fight when we know we’re right.

Jack and I were in some weird space between gone and good-bye, so we spent the next couple of hours driving around Redford. His eyes lingered on every store, church, and landmark. We stopped at the Peace Inn to see who might be there. Just a handful of kids and one of the volunteers, who told us everyone else had gone to the football game.

Jack turned to me. “Let’s go,” he said impetuously.

I wasn’t sure what he meant. “To the game?”

“I haven’t missed one in years. We don’t have any reason to hide. Neither of us did anything wrong.”

Well, that was certainly true. And these last few hours in Redford meant so much to him. I couldn’t say no. So we went.

always a major event; this year, because there were league championship implications, Redford’s stadium was packed well before kickoff. As we passed through the entrance and looked for a place to sit, we greeted so many of the people I’d come to know in my brief time in Redford. Jimmy Mack. Birdie from the Pink Teacup. Mr. Derry from the Shell station. Our garbage man, who always told me to “stay sweet” when he saw me. Our next-door neighbors from Beauregard Lane, who’d brought us banana bread the day we’d moved in.

Jack and I were making our way to some empty seats on
the thirty-yard line when we heard a kid’s voice calling. “Hey, Jack! Kate! Over here!”

We turned and saw Cooper Wilson, the redheaded boy from the Strikers soccer team. He stood at the top of the bleachers, waving his hands wildly to get our attention. We waved back and made our way up to him. He looked skinnier than I’d last seen him, his skin sallow, his jeans full of holes.

“Hi,” I said. Cooper gave me a bashful salute.

“Hey, buddy,” Jack said, giving Cooper’s shoulders a quick hug. “Who’re you here with?”

“My sister Tiffany and her zit-face boyfriend. Hey, lookit.” He pulled a sheet of notebook paper from his pocket and thrust it at Jack. It was a math test, with a big red A on it, and “Excellent!” scrawled in a teacher’s handwriting. “′Member you helped me study for it?”

“This is great, Cooper!” Jack exclaimed. “I knew you could do it.”

“I never got me no A in my life,” Cooper said proudly, hitching up his pants. “My momma don’t even know some of them answers.” Some kids walked by, carrying slices of pizza. Cooper licked his lips. “Hey, we goin’ for pizza Sunday? After we whup the Lions?”

Jack blinked quickly. “I might have to miss the game.”

“Nah,” Cooper insisted. “My cousin’s comin’ from Clarksville. I done told him all about you. His soccer team ain’t even got T-shirts.”

“Cooper James Wilson, don’t you hear me hollerin’ for
you?” His older sister loomed in the aisle about twenty feet away, hands on hips. “I said come on, we’re sittin’ over yonder.”

Cooper rolled his eyes. “I gotta git. I’ll catch you Sunday. Go Strikers!” he yelled, thrusting his fists in the air as he headed for his sister. “Go Rebels!”

Jack puffed air against his lower lip. “Damn.”

“I’ll find them a coach,” I assured him. “My dad, maybe. It’ll be okay.”

Jack nodded, but he didn’t look convinced as we found two seats directly on the aisle, about twenty rows up from the field. The home side of the stadium was now standing room only, and the visitors’ side was rapidly filling with South Columbia fans. Most of them were black. Behind them loomed Redford Hill, with its gigantic
GO REBELS
logo spotlit against the darkness.

“There’s your sister,” Jack pointed.

I saw Portia with her friends down by the field, at the fifty-yard line. Barney sat to her right, Cassidy to her left. Cassidy’s mother sat a little ways down from the foursome. My sister was facing Barney, so she didn’t notice me. She was laughing about something, and she whacked Barney’s shoulder. I was going to miss her. A lot.