Cloudburst (12 page)

“Why don't you tell your mother to have it fixed and send him the bill?” I asked.

“That's a good idea,” Vera said, but Mary shook her head.

“He'll procrastinate just to aggravate her, and all we'll hear from our mother is why did we tell her to do that.”

Vera looked at me, perhaps hoping I could come up with some other solution.

“Then one of you call him yourself and complain.”

“Yeah, right,” Mary said. “That always works with my father. He has what are known as very holy ears.”

“Holy ears? What's that?”

“Ears with holes in them for requests he doesn't like or care to fulfill,” she said. “It's my mother's description, but it fits.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

The more I talked with most of these girls in Pacifica and heard about their family lives, the more I wondered if any of them was ever any better off than I was.

We entered the classroom.

“I have a copy of
Flicks
magazines in my bag,” Vera told me in a whisper, and nodded at Ryder. “His father is on the cover.”

“Vera,” I said, “unless he's a fireman, he puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like your father. Stop thinking of him as anything more.”

I left both her and Mary looking a little stunned and took my seat.

“All right,” Ryder Garfield said before the class began. I looked up at him. “You're right.”

“Pardon me?”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?”

“For being a nasty bastard,” he said.

We stared at each other, and then I smiled. “Okay. Now that you have reached the point where you can admit it, you can join the NBA.”

“The NBA? Basketball?”

“No, Nasty Bastards Anonymous. It works the same way Alcoholics Anonymous works. The first meeting is today at lunch.”

He laughed. “Are you in it, too?”

“Sometimes. Especially around here,” I said. “It is like an addiction.”

His smile widened. “I'll be there,” he said.

Damn you, Kiera,
I thought,
your techniques with boys really are infallible.
Maybe I had taken on many of Kiera's traits, I thought, but what of it? They weren't bad so far and certainly weren't bad for me, someone who had once been too shy and embarrassed to look at herself in a mirror.

Later, when I walked outside with my lunch and stepped away from the girls, Jessica practically leaped out of her seat. “Where are you sitting?”

I nodded at the table where Ryder was sitting alone.

“Did he ask you to sit with him?”

Everyone paused to hear my response. “Since he joined the NBA, I thought I would give him another chance,” I said.

“Huh?”

I laughed to myself as I headed for Ryder's table. He looked up, and then, to my surprise and I'm sure that of just about the rest of the student body who were watching, he stood up before I sat.
Won't Kiera be interested in that?
I thought. She thought Richard was the only proper gentleman.

“Is that all you eat for lunch?” he asked me, nodding at my salad.

“I could live on salad, cheese, and bread.”

He sat and stared guiltily at his hamburger and fries. “My parents are neurotic when it comes to food, too.”

“I'm far from neurotic, Ryder. I just think about what I eat. Why are your parents neurotic?”

“Are you kidding? My mother claims the camera puts anywhere from five to ten pounds on her, and my father, although he pretends not to, thinks the same way. It's not who you are and what you can do in this world. It's what you look like. Don't you know that?”

I shrugged. “Not to me. I must be from another planet.”

He nodded and began to eat his hamburger. “So, am I permitted to ask how you came to be living here and attending one of the most expensive private high schools in California, if not the whole country?”

“Gary seems to have told you everything else. He didn't tell you that?”

“Maybe he thought I wasn't interested enough.”

“Maybe you led him to believe you weren't.”

“Maybe I wasn't,” he replied sharply. “Maybe I am now, okay?”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you interested now?”

He looked away. I could see the frustration in his face from the way his neck strained and tightened his cheeks and jaw.

“I don't want you to strain yourself thinking of a good answer, Ryder,” I said. “Forget it.”

“You are a tough nut to crack,” he said, turning back to me.

“You're not exactly soft yogurt.”

He laughed. “No, I guess I'm not.”

He looked up, and then his eyes narrowed and the humor left his face. I saw that he was looking past me, and I turned to see his sister sitting between two boys. I kept eating and tried to ignore the new rage I could see building in his face.

“So, tell me,” I said, “why are you interested in learning about me now?”

“You want the truth?” he asked, sounding and looking so upset that I thought he was going to start shouting or something. But I wasn't going to back down.

“Yes, I'd like that for a change. It's like taking a shower or a bath here.”

“You're the first girl I've met in a while who is at least vaguely interesting to me.”

“Vaguely? Well, I guess that's sort of a compliment,” I said. “Maybe that's the best you can do.”

“Maybe it is.”

“Okay.” I shrugged. “Next time I see you, I'll bring along a magnifying glass so I don't miss anything nice.”

He stared at me a moment and then he sat back, smiling and shaking his head. “What is your name?”

“You don't know my name?”

“I heard our teachers call you Sasha, but what's your whole name?”

“Gary didn't tell you that, either?”

“I didn't really feel like talking about you with Gary,” he admitted. “You show the slightest interest in someone, and the whole school has you practically married.”

“Sasha Fawne Porter. What's yours?”

“Ryder Martin Garfield.”

I put my fork down, wiped my hand with my napkin, and then extended it.

He looked at it and took it.

“Enchantée,”
I said.

“De la même manière.”

“You speak French?”

“A little. We lived in Paris for five months when my father was making a film there and my mother was doing some modeling for a French designer. What about you?”

“Just what I'm learning in class. How come you're not in French class? It would probably be easier for you.”

“No, it wouldn't. I never had a formal class. I just learned on the streets,” he said. “The streets, get it? So maybe we have something in common.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“To some people, I guess, but you want to know something?” he said, leaning toward me. “I'm convinced that what we learn on the streets lasts longer and has more meaning than what we learn here. Take it for what it's worth, and make whatever you want out of it,” he added. “If you can't stand it, leave.” He bit angrily into his food.

“You're pretty sensitive. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Me? You practically had me assassinated for asking about your street life.”

“That's different.”

“Because it's you. Maybe you're not so interesting, after all. Maybe that's why you're so guarded.”

“Maybe I'm not.”

“I'll bring a magnifying glass to school tomorrow and tell you,” he replied.

We stared at each other, neither wanting to give ground by relaxing a lip or even blinking, and then we both laughed.

I glanced slightly to my right and saw that my girlfriends—most of the school, in fact—were watching us intently. If they could hear our conversation, they would think they were watching a tennis match.

“Okay,” I said. “I'll tell you about myself, but only if you do the same.”

“I don't have much to tell,” he said. “You'll be disappointed, even bored.”

“I'll pretend not to be,” I said, “and that will make you feel important.”

He smiled again. “You are more than vaguely interesting.”

“Ah, more than vaguely. I guess that's progress,” I said. “You're slowly slipping into the body of a human being.”

He laughed. “Okay,” he said. “We'll play you show me yours and I'll show you mine.”

“Careful,” I said. “You could end up naked.”

His jaw finally fell.

“Finish your hamburger,” I said, “before it gets cold.”

Obediently, he began to eat, not taking his eyes off me. I could almost feel the wall between us begin to crumble. The question was, did I really want it to crumble? Did I really want to relive my past, and from what he was telling me, did I really want to hear more family dysfunction?

“I've been to five different schools since grade school,” he told me when the warning bell sounded.

“Five? Why?”

“Our traveling, mostly. For a little while, Summer and I had a tutor.”

“I had one when I first came here. I hadn't been in school for nearly a year, so there was a lot of catching up to do.”

“How come nobody checked on you? I thought you had to be in school. It's a law.”

“Are you kidding? When you're homeless, you don't exist. Nobody even looks or cares, and that includes policemen. Believe me.”

“Sometimes I feel like I don't exist. Maybe I'm homeless and don't realize it,” he said as we entered the building. “I mean, a house doesn't automatically mean a home, and having parents doesn't mean you have a family.”

I thought about Kiera. Maybe he had far more in common with her than he had with me. “I know what you mean.”

“Do you?” he asked, as if he thought I was patronizing him.

“Yes. My stepsister would say the same thing, and for her, it would be very true.”

“I'd like to hear about that.”

“All you seem to want to hear is bad, ugly, or dark news.”

“It's like flies attracted to garbage,” he muttered.

I can't say I wasn't used to other students staring at me from time to time, but walking with Ryder, I felt the eyes of our classmates so glued to us I wanted to flick them off the way you might flick dandruff or dust. He either was oblivious or simply no longer cared.

“I think we're going to need more time to get to know each other,” he declared at the classroom doorway. “These little intermissions between classes don't do it.”

I was speechless a moment, recalling my first dream about him. He had used almost the exact same words in the dream. Neither of us moved or spoke for a moment. Other students brushed by us, all of them looking at us as we stared at each other.

“What do you suggest?” I asked.

“Well, you have your own car, so I can't offer to drive you home, and I have to take my sister home first, anyway.”

“Let me think about it,” I said.

“Yeah, do that,” he snapped back, and entered the classroom.

Did I really want to have anything to do with anyone who had such a hair trigger, I wondered, no matter how good-looking or interesting he was?

I entered the class and took my seat. I could see the girls smiling at me and laughed to myself. If they only knew how hard to know Ryder Garfield was, they wouldn't be anywhere nearly as envious, I thought.

He grew calmer as the day came to a close, and before we left to go to the parking lot, he gave me his cell-phone number.

“Let me know whatever you decide,” he said. He looked toward his sister approaching. “Unfortunately, my life isn't exactly my own right now.”

“I'll call you,” I promised.

My thought was to have him come over after school after he had dropped off his sister, but I wanted to get
permission from Jordan first. I always got her permission before I invited anyone to the house, even though she had told me countless times to consider the March house my house, too, and not to stand on any ceremony. Despite the years and the many, many wonderful things they did for me, I couldn't take that final step she so wanted me to take and truly see myself as her and Donald's daughter. It didn't have to do with their not legally adopting me yet, either. Even if and when they did, I was sure I still wouldn't get to the place Jordan wanted me to get to. I doubted that I ever would or even should.

The moment Ryder left me, Charlotte Harris, Jessica, and Sydney pounced.

“Wow, what's going on with you and Ryder?” Charlotte asked.

“You two were pretty tight all day,” Sydney said.

“C'mon, tell us,” Jessica whined.

“Nothing's going on. We simply got to know each other a little more. And we weren't that tight, Sydney.”

They stared at me, waiting for something delicious to add.

“I don't know if it's going anywhere yet, so don't go blabbering about us,” I said.

“Did he invite you to his house? Are you going to meet his father and mother?” Charlotte asked.

“I don't know,” I said, and started for my car.

“You don't know what?” Sydney asked. The three of them followed me like cans tied to the back of a newlywed couple's car.

“Stop making something of it. It's nothing.” I paused. They waited, and with a smile I added, “Yet.”

They all squealed as I got into my car.

“If there's anyone who could handle him, it's you,” Sydney said before I closed my door.

“Why?” I asked her. I gave her an intent look, and she started to fumble for words.

“I just mean . . . I mean . . . with . . . what's happened to you . . . you just know what to do better than any of us.”

“Not everyone and every situation is the same, Sydney. And I didn't grow up around kids whose families were rich and famous.”