After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away (7 page)

It’s almost one thirty
P.M
. I left Aunt Caroline in the high school parking lot at about eleven thirty
A.M
. I’m worn out and hungry. Whatever gesture I wanted to make, of independence, self-sufficiency, it’s past making now, I just want to go home and soak in a hot bath.

I didn’t need my aunt to point out the wood-chip trail beside Sable Creek, a deep, brackish stream that cuts through the town of Yarrow Lake, runs into a state park, and empties into Yarrow Lake about three miles from town. If you’re in reasonably good condition, running four miles to the lake and four miles back to my aunt’s house wouldn’t be much of a big deal, but I guess I’m not in the condition I should be. It’s typical of a runner to be in denial that she’s been incapacitated, willing herself to believe that in another few minutes, if she keeps trying, the hurt will go away.

Jenna, don’t overexert! Take it slow, one day at a time.

This is Devon’s warning voice. At the time I rolled my eyes.

“Oh.”

A hurt-little-mouse cry comes out of me. Sharp pains in both my ankle and my knee. I have to stop still, really sweating now.

Of course the guy on my trail hears this. He’s like a hunter with sharp eyes, ears. He trots past me, giving me a wide-enough berth so I won’t be skittish, the way you’d behave with a nervous cat. Then he stops, regarding me with bemused eyes.

Sloe-eyed. Beautiful dark, lustrous eyes on a guy, with dark lashes as thick as a girl’s.

He has a kind of hawk face, long and bony cheeked. His eyebrows are so thick, they nearly meet over the bridge of his nose. And his nose is long and narrow, with deep nostrils. Something glitters around his neck: a gold chain. His hair is jet black, and coarse, shaved at the sides and back of his head but longer and sticking up in tufts at the crown. I’m feeling kind of faint, how he’s watching me. How alone I am, in my life.

Like he can read my thoughts, he says, “Trying to run on a hurt ankle—that’s kind of hopeless, eh?”

I’m gritting my teeth. Is he laughing at me? I pull the rim of my cap down so I don’t have to see this stranger’s face.

“Don’t want a ride anywhere? You’re sure?”

No! I mean yes, I’m sure.

“Is there somebody with you in the park? Want me to look for them, so they can come help you?”

Why doesn’t he go away and leave me alone? I am so totally embarrassed.

I’m resting most of my weight on my left leg. I feel like a flamingo! My right ankle and knee are pounding with pain. The headache I used to get deep inside my head at the hospital is starting, like a flickering light.

Wish I’d never come out here. Wish I’d gone with my aunt, as she wanted me to. Why can’t I be nice to her, and to my uncle? This is my punishment now, what I deserve.

If this stranger has a cell phone, I could ask to use it; I could call my aunt and tell her what has happened—she’d drive out to get me. At the same time I’m thinking,
No! I can’t trust him.
He would know that I was alone in this deserted place.

The next thing he says makes me shiver: “I got a cell phone back with my gear. Want to use it?”

Suddenly I’m cold, in spite of being sweaty. My face must be smudged with blood and dirt. I’m still breathing hard, trying not to cry.

He repeats what he said about the cell phone. I’m so confused I can’t think how to reply. There’s a faint roaring in my ears like a waterfall. I’m thinking how the night before, climbing into the prissy canopy bed, in that room decorated like Martha Stewart where I’ll never feel comfortable, I was feeling sorry for myself, hating where I was, and now, in this forlorn place, exhausted, hurting, sick with dread, if I could return safely to that room,
I would be so grateful.

“You know what you look like? Like somebody who’s been in a car crash.”

My eyes widen at this, I’m so shocked.

He’s laughing, running a hand through his spiky hair. “How’d I know? ’Cause I been in crashes myself. You could say I’m accident-prone. Except the worst one was just last year, on my damn motorcycle, not even speeding, but the front wheel hit gravel and skidded, next thing I knew I was on the ground. Lucky I was wearing my helmet, which I didn’t always do. My brains would’ve been spewed out on the highway.”

The way he’s talking to me, like he’s confiding in me, inviting me to laugh at him, makes me want to trust him. But maybe it’s a trick. I smile, just a little. A scared-girl smile meant to evoke sympathy.

“It’s the way you move, see. I was watching you. I mean, I wasn’t actually watching you, you caught my attention when you fell down. See, you walk like me, like walking on thin ice. After a bad crash you hold yourself tight and stiff like somebody scared as hell of falling through the ice, scared of feeling pain.” He demonstrates, hunching his shoulders like an elderly man and walking with an exaggerated stiff gait. This makes me laugh, though I guess it isn’t funny.

“Okay. I got the solution.”

It’s like in an instant the guy has lost interest in me. He’s watching a vehicle driving a short distance away where there must be a park road, except it isn’t visible from where we’re standing. He trots off without a backward glance. I’m left to look after him. Thinking it would serve me right if he abandoned me here.

But what he does is flags the car to a stop, speaks with the driver, explains my situation, asks if she has a cell phone. It turns out that the driver is an athletic-looking woman with two young children, the take-charge type who’s happy to hike over to where I’m standing, shivery and forlorn, on the creek embankment, dabbing at my nose with a bloody tissue.

“That boy said you needed to call someone at home? Here’s how my cell works.”

Lucky I’ve memorized Aunt Caroline’s number. And lucky that Aunt Caroline is back from her errands. Picking up the phone so quickly, her voice so hopeful—“Yes? Hello?”—it’s like she has been waiting for this call, and for me.

So grateful I could cry.

8

See, you walk like me. Like walking on thin ice.

Wish I’d been nicer to him. Wish I’d asked his name. Wish I’d thanked him for his kindness. Wish…

9

“Jennifer—that’s a pretty name. People call you—Jen? Jenny?”

“…my mom is a good friend of Mrs. McCarty—I guess she’s your aunt? Mom was saying…”

“…Tarrytown, you said? What’s it, like, a suburb of…”

“…get into Manhattan a lot? Is that what people do, like, can you take a bus, or…”

“…living here all the time now? Or…”

“…friendly here. Really nice kids, mostly. Our teachers are great, too.”

“Except…”

“…there’s some people…”

“…bikers, druggies. But…”

“…my dad knows Mr. McCarty real well; they were in the same class here…”

“…someone said track? We could use…”

“…girls’ sports are cool here. Mostly.”

“…Mr. Farrell, he’s weird at first. Don’t let him scare you.”

“…Mrs. Terricotte, she’s great. But…”

“…so you’re living here, like, permanently?”

“…Ms. Bowen, she’s our track coach, she’s really cool…”

“…algebra, it can be fun, sort of…”

“…living with your aunt? And Mr. McCarty is, like, your…”

Their names are Christa. Melanie. Brooke. Rosalyn. Susan, maybe Suzanne. Their last names flew past me. Why are they being so nice to me, making an effort I can see, like everybody in Yarrow Lake knows about me, an effort like trying to be nice to a crippled kid, somebody with leukemia? My aunt has spoken to her friends (of course—this is what women do) to ask them to ask their daughters to be “nice” to the new girl:
See, she’s practically an orphan, her mother was killed in a terrible accident on a bridge it was on TV and in the papers, she was almost killed too.

“I’m sorry. I don’t care to discuss my family. I don’t like personal questions. Excuse me.”

The looks on their faces, as I shove back my chair, grab my backpack, leave my tray and food, and exit the cafeteria stiff backed and my heart pounding and determined not to limp.

The codeine has worn off, I’m feeling jittery and shaky.

Hiding in a restroom. Nowhere to go. What’s my next class?…

Those girls: Christa, Melanie, Brooke…The looks on their faces like the cripple-orphan girl suddenly screamed at them.

Why’d Christa jump up to approach me, smiling, inviting me to sit with her and her friends? Christa has the look of a class officer, and her friends are obviously popular girls, A-list girls, their power as popular girls to anoint any girl they wish if they decide she’s worthy.
So rude! Like we were prying into her private life when we only meant to be nice.

I hope my aunt doesn’t find out. In a small town like Yarrow Lake, probably she will.

“Ab-bott, Jen-nifer.”

Show-offy Mr. Farrell reads my name from the class list in a mock computer voice. He’s been reading off names in exaggerated accents like somebody once told him he was funny, which probably he’d believe since everybody in the room is laughing at him, except me. I answer, “Here,” I guess so softly Mr. Farrell doesn’t hear it, or pretends he doesn’t, so he repeats, “Ab-bott, Jen-nifer,” in the same flat way but louder now, peering out into the classroom, searching for this Ab-bott person like you’d look for a deaf or retarded person, and naturally this draws laughs. My face is hot with dislike. I want to tell this guy he should try out for Comedy Central. A strange fiery feeling comes over me:

don’t have to answer to that name

don’t have to play this game

So I don’t answer. I don’t play the game. Hunched in my desk with the rim of my hat pulled low over my eyes, and all Mr. Farrell can see of my face is it’s (maybe) a girl’s face shut up tight as a fist.

After a very awkward minute or two, Farrell catches on that this is the “new” girl, this must be “Ab-bott, Jen-nifer.” And everybody else in the class catches on too.

Now it’s like I
am
retarded. Or “mental.” Something special and scary about me. The rest of the period Mr. Farrell avoids looking at me.

I wonder what kind of mark he’s made next to my name on the class list.

“Jenna? How was…”

Aunt Caroline is eager to be told how my first day was. Hoping I will confide in her. Expecting to hear how “nice” people were to me. How already I’ve begun to “make friends.” How “terrific” my teachers were. Which activities and clubs and sports I’ve signed up for. My uncle will want to know too. My little cousins Becky and Mikey are brimming with excitement about their first-day adventures.

Politely I say it was “fine.”

My classes were “fine,” people were “nice.”

“…guess I don’t feel hungry tonight, Aunt Caroline. I have lots of homework. Especially math. I hate math. Maybe I could just have some fruit and yogurt upstairs, okay? Thanks.”

Trying not to see my aunt’s look of hurt. Upstairs, quietly shutting the door to my room, and when my aunt hesitantly knocks later in the evening, I will pretend I’m asleep.

…tight and stiff, like somebody scared of falling through ice, scared of feeling pain. Like me.

10

“Hey.”

I look up startled, and it’s him.

This time he’s smiling like he knows me. Like there’s something between us. For a panicky moment I can’t catch my breath, my heart is beating so rapidly.

“Guess you got back home safe the other day?”

Yes. I did.

“Ankle’s okay?”

I’m blushing, yes. That a stranger should care in the slightest about my ankle is embarrassing.

“You didn’t seem like you were from around here the other day. You go to school here?”

I tell him yes, I just started.

“Just moved here?”

“I…guess so.”

My voice is low and hoarse, and I know this is a weird thing to say. His eyes wander over me. I’m sitting by myself on a crumbling concrete wall at the far end of the parking lot behind Yarrow High. It’s the second day of classes, lunch break. I’m avoiding the cafeteria altogether. Going over my math homework is like dragging a comb through snarled hair. Equations dance in my vision like deranged sunbeams. This morning I was aware of people watching me covertly. A few guys stared openly. Out here I’m wearing the grimy white sailor cap pulled low to shield my eyes.

Just when I’ve stopped expecting to see him, here he is. Maybe in fact I’d forgotten him. For there is nothing at Yarrow Lake Consolidated High School that holds out any promise to me, after the misery of the first day.

Where he’s strolled over from, I guess, it’s that group of loud-laughing older students hanging out at the other end of the parking lot where somebody’s pickup is parked, and some motorcycles. These look to be seniors of a certain type, not exactly what you’d call preppies or jocks—in a city high school they’d be “druggies,” but I don’t know what they’re considered here, at Yarrow Lake—smoking cigarettes and drinking out of cans. (Beer? Would they dare to drink openly behind the high school in broad daylight?) Today in this safer setting, clean-shaven, this guy doesn’t seem so menacing, except he scares me anyway, his sharp-boned face, fierce, spiky black hair, the tattoo on his left forearm that looks like a coiled snake (!). There’s something gold-glittering in his left earlobe, must be a stud. He’s wearing work trousers of some rough fabric like sailcloth, and a long-sleeved black T-shirt with frayed cuffs. I’m having difficulty looking at his face, those long-lashed beautiful eyes.

He’s saying, in his sort of teasing way, “Would it be rude to ask your name?” and I say, trying to be relaxed, my voice like sandpaper rubbing sandpaper, “It would not be rude,” and he says, “Then I’m asking,” and I tell him, swallowing hard, like this is the most crucial utterance I will make since coming to Yarrow Lake, New Hampshire, “Jenna.”

“Jen-na.” He pronounces the name in two syllables as if it’s a foreign sound. “‘Jenna No-Last-Name’?”

“You haven’t told me your name.”

“What I am named, or what I am called?”