Cloudburst (27 page)

Being here now, walking where I had once walked timidly, often terrified, tightened every muscle in my body the way someone would tighten up before the dentist put a drill in her mouth. The dryness in my mouth made my tongue feel like slate. For a moment, I couldn't swallow. It was as if the air had disappeared around me. All sound dulled. My heart began to race. I could hear it beating in my ears. I felt light. Any moment, I might just get swept up in the breeze and drift out over the ocean like some human kite. I glanced quickly at some of the homeless people, the women with greasy, dirty hair, their cheeks red or smudged, and the men shuffling along in shoes too large or too tight. No one seemed to look at me. Perhaps instead of them becoming invisible, I had become invisible.

I stepped onto the sand, slipped off my shoes to walk more easily, and searched the beach for a sign of Ryder. I didn't have to go far. He was almost directly in front of me,
sitting with his back to me, his arms around his pulled-up knees, his head down. I hurried toward him.

“Hey,” I said.

He turned, looked at me, and then looked out at the ocean. I sat beside him.

“It's my fault. I shouldn't have told you so fast,” I began.

“What? You think those guys wouldn't have started teasing me if you hadn't told me what Summer had done? You had nothing to do with it.”

“What did they say?”

“You don't want to hear it,” he said, and threw a handful of sand at the water.

“What's going to happen now?”

“My parents will find a way to blame it mainly on me.”

“But why? They've already had problems with your sister. It won't be a surprise.”

“They've had problems with both of us. My sister is an idiot. They said that if things didn't work out here, they'd send us both to more military-style schools. I'm not going to any place like that.”

“What will you do?”

“Disappear,” he said. “Like you did out here.”

“You don't want to do that,” I said.

He stared at the sand and then looked at me. “I don't know what I want to do.”

“Then I'll tell you what to do. Go home. Yes, apologize for losing your temper, but also explain how hard Summer made it for you today.”

“My father will say what he always says. ‘You should
have known better.' No matter what, it's always that. Like I have this committee of advisers with me all the time, and I would always know the best way to handle anything, but I don't listen. Look, even though I've told you some of it, you really don't know. No one knows how we live, what my family life is like, if you want to call it a family life. You saw some inkling of it yesterday, but in case it didn't sink in, I'll tell you. My parents are totally into themselves. End of story,” he said, and stood. “I guess I'll go home and let them play their parts.”

I started to rise, and he took my arm to guide me up and into his arms.

For a moment, he just held me, and then he kissed me. I don't think I'll ever forget that kiss, that moment. Yes, it was like some very romantic movie scene, the two of us on the beach, the ocean in the background, the breeze lifting strands of my hair, the terns circling as if they were part of it.

But the truth was, it wasn't one of those “I love you so much” kisses. He was kissing me and holding me as if he would never see me again. It felt more like a kiss good-bye than a kiss of love.

“You're something special,” he whispered, still pressing me to him. “I wouldn't even bother to put up a fight if it weren't for you.”

“Then put up a big fight,” I told him.

He finally smiled.

Hand in hand, we walked back up the beach toward the pier. Neither of us spoke until we arrived at where we had to part to go to our cars.

“Will you call me later and let me know how it went?” I asked.

“Why ruin your night?”

“If you don't call, my night will be ruined.”

“Okay,” he said. He kissed me again. “I'll keep my temper under control, take the verbal whipping, say whatever I need to say, and keep my fingers crossed behind my back.”

“Fingers crossed behind your back?”

“Don't you know that when you say something, make a promise, but keep your fingers crossed, it doesn't matter if you're lying? I wouldn't have known that, either. I don't think it's a big thing now, but it used to be. I saw it in a television movie my father was in. He had a son who did that.”

To illustrate, Ryder held his right hand up with his middle finger crossing his index finger.

“I read that it dates back to a belief that it would ward off witches or other evil spirits. Maybe I'll do it every time I'm around my sister.”

“Don't hate her,” I said.

He pulled his head back. “Don't hate her? If anyone should, you should be the one who hates her today.”

“I've seen what that kind of hatred does, and not to the person you hate but to yourself.”

He shook his head. “You sure you're not an angel or something?”

“Hardly.” I looked back at the boardwalk. “When we were living out there, there was this homeless woman who was a practicing psychic. I know that's kind of a trite
character in movies, the vagabond person who utters some prophecy.”

“Like the blind soothsayer in Shakespeare's
Julius Caesar
.”

“Exactly. I saw lots of people give her money to get their fortunes told. Even other homeless people would do it. She would hold a person's hand, close her eyes, and make some very dramatic statement.”

“What made her so special, especially if she was homeless?”

“There were many reasons people were homeless. There were stories about some of the people we saw, stories that they had enough money to rent a room but would rather live the way they were living. Maybe they were crazy. I don't know. She made enough money to survive. I did ask my mother why she could make predictions, and she told me to ask her, so one day, I did. The three of us were eating some sandwiches, sitting on a bench.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she had the ability to feel either the love or the hate in people, and if there was more hate, she could predict unhappiness ahead, but if there was more love, she could feel pretty certain that they would eventually find happiness if they didn't have it. That was it. The whole thing.”

He smiled and shook his head at me. “You sound like a New Age priestess or something.”

“There's nothing new about that idea. Ever hear ‘Love your neighbor'?”

“Okay. I'm convinced. I won't hate my sister. I'll thank her for being a bitch today.”

“Don't thank her. Just try asking her why she did it.”

“That's easy. She hates me because my parents made me her personal policeman.”

“Find some common ground, Ryder. Make her see you don't relish the role your parents gave you to play.”

“I should be afraid of you,” he said after a long moment.

“Why?”

“You give me hope.”

“So? That's good, isn't it?”

“Not if what's usually been true comes true again. It's a longer, harder fall when you raise yourself higher only to be disappointed.”

“You won't be,” I said.

He took my hand. “What do you feel? More hate or more love?”

I smiled. “I'm not a psychic because I lived out here, Ryder.”

“Exactly,” he said. He held me a moment and then walked off. I watched him. He never turned to look back at me.

I wanted to believe I had helped him, but he seemed to be walking into the darkness from which I had been rescued.

13
Bad News

I
remembered promising Donald that I would go to his office after school to see his advertisement campaign for the High Rollers, the rock group, but I was too upset to go. I thought I would simply say that I wasn't feeling well if he called the house. I should have known none of it would matter.

I knew my friend Jessica had a big mouth. Sometimes, when I asked her to keep something to herself, as I had done with the information she had dug up about Summer Garfield, I felt as if I was trying to plug up a leaky faucet with a piece of cotton.
Good luck,
I would tell myself. I already knew what her mother was like, and as Mr. Denacio was fond of saying every time a sister or brother did something wrong or right, “The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”

I suppose the Garfields were a big topic for discussion at the homes of most of the Pacifica students, anyway. It hadn't taken long for me to see that parents of students at
Pacifica took pride in whose children were sent to attend school alongside theirs. Their bragging rights were boosted with the news that a popular actor and model had entered their son and daughter at the same school. Maybe they thought this validated their own decision to choose Pacifica for their kids and pay the very high tuition.

Bad news always has a way of being sent special delivery, but bad news involving Ryder Garfield had e-mail speed. It arrived at the March home before I did, which probably shouldn't have astonished me, but what especially amazed me was how quickly the information had been shared with Donald. After I spoke with Jordan, I had the distinct impression that they had already had considerable discussion about my budding relationship with Ryder Garfield since I had brought him home with me. The intensity of this new concern about whom I associated with surprised me, especially because it seemed to originate more with Donald than with Jordan.

Jordan came hurrying down the corridor and called to me as I was opening the front door. I had the impression that she had been watching one of the video feeds of the gate, just sitting there and waiting for me, and therefore knew exactly when I had arrived.

“I heard about the terrible event at school,” she began. “Apparently, the Peters boy had to be taken to the hospital to check for a concussion.”

“No, probably to check for brains,” I said. I even sounded like Kiera. My comeback startled Jordan, and for a moment, she stood there speechless. “I always thought I could look through one of his ears and out the other.”

“This isn't at all funny, Sasha. Donald is very upset,” she said. “He's very, very worried about you.”

“Me? Why?”

“Why? Well, this boy . . . whom you're now seeing . . . he's the son of famous people, but obviously, he's unstable. We saw some of that when he was here, but this terrible event at the school makes it all so much worse.”

“Don't say that. You don't even know what happened and why,” I said.

“You don't condone such behavior, do you?” she snapped back at me. “You, of all people should know what violence can do to everyone involved.”

“Yes, I do. That's why I feel sorrier for Ryder, Jordan. There are all sorts of violence. Saying and spreading hateful things can be just as devastating as a blow to the face. You, of all people, should know that,” I countered.

It was a poorly veiled reference to the stories about Donald having affairs. Her face reddened, and she bristled. I had never been disrespectful or combative with either her or Donald, even when I had been accused of doing all sorts of things to Kiera. I was younger when that all happened, of course, and far more fragile than I was now, but I didn't feel I was defending myself as much as I was defending Ryder, who, despite what everyone thought about him and his rich and famous family, needed defending.

“Well, we'll talk about this later,” she said.

“Good,” I said. “We should.”

I started up the stairway, trying to look strong and determined, even though my legs were trembling. Yes, the Marches owed me a lot, perhaps more than they could
ever repay, but they had given me a great deal, too, and provided for me. I didn't need to be reminded that I was still technically a foster child, their ward, someone without any of my own family willing to claim me and provide for me. I was, for all practical purposes, an orphan. I didn't have to hear the threat of their giving up on me. They had almost done that when Kiera had them believing I was responsible for the bad things that were done when she was trying to destroy me. The echo of that threat lingered despite the revelations and my accomplishments. It hung out there like smog. The Marches could give up on me and turn me back to the state until I was eighteen.