Eighteen (18) (4 page)

It’s raining pretty good
when I get outside and I’m grateful for it. No one can see my tears as I walk across the parking lot and head down the street towards Lincoln. There’s a bus stop there at the corner. And even though I lied to Bowman this morning about not having money, I have two dollars.

Jason, my brother-in-law, leaves me five dollars a day to eat and I still have two left over from lunch. He never buys groceries, just formula for little Olivia. She’s a good baby, I think. I don’t have any experience with babies, but she sleeps a lot. Any time someone asks about her, that’s the one thing Jason says.
She’s a good sleeper.

Those are magic words in the baby world, I guess. New parents are supposed to long for sleep.

When Jill got pregnant we were living with Michael in Navy housing down in San Diego. She never married him, thank God, because it wasn’t his baby. It was Jason’s. Jason came over one night and they had this huge fight in front of the whole neighborhood. And if you’ve never seen Navy housing, it’s packed with families. Just people everywhere. Kids playing, soldiers hanging out in driveways, wives gossiping like crazy.

And let me tell you, the night Jason showed up at Michael’s house was one for the books. I bet that neighborhood is still talking about it.

Jill, to put it lightly, was drama. Nothing but drama. I’m so sick of drama, but that’s my life too. I can’t seem to escape it. And today is proof. I just bawled in front of a complete stranger over math.

But I was a quiet kind of drama. People knew I was heading in the wrong direction, but it wasn’t so obvious. Jill was obvious. So when our mom, who had us really close together and really late in life, died, it was Jill, at the tender age of eighteen, who took over.

I guess the social workers figured I was seventeen, so not worth their time. And Jill jumped through hoops to keep me at home. Our house and car were paid off, so we could get by with her job as a checker at the grocery store down the street.

But no one predicted that she’d sell the house, pack us up in the five-year-old family sedan, and take off for California. It was an adventure, she said. And even though I wanted to stay so bad, how could I? She sold our house. I didn’t have anywhere to go except with her.

Biggest mistake of my life, I realize now. Because she’s dead from drugs, I’m stuck living with her husband, and her baby will grow up with no mother.

I get to the bus stop and of course, it’s not the kind with a shelter over it. This is sunny California. Who needs protection from the rain here?

I’m soaked, anyway. Who cares?

So I just stand there, looking down Lincoln and praying for a bus.

A motorcycle roars up and stops right in front of me. I squint my eyes and then the rider flips the tinted visor up on his black helmet and Jesus Christ. It’s Alesci.

“Get on,” he says.

“What?” I look around, bewildered.

“Get on the bike, Shannon.”

He scoots forward and I have a moment where I think I might tell him where to shove his bike. But… I can be home taking a warm shower in five minutes if I do get on.

My leg swings over, and then he takes his helmet off, reaches around, and pushes it down on my head. The world dulls as the padding inside the helmet squishes against my hair, and I let out a long breath when he gives it some throttle and we take off, the wind whipping against my wet clothes and the rain stinging my bare arms like little bullets.

He slows when we get about half a mile down the road and then turns into a bank that looks like it closed down a decade ago. We come to a stop under the shelter they have over the drive-through, and then he cuts the engine and gets off the bike.

“What the fuck are we doing?” But I realize I’m talking to the visor of the helmet, and lift it off my head. “What are you doing?” I ask again.

“It’s not safe to ride in the rain, Shannon.” He says this like I’m a child and all the things need explaining. “Besides, I only have one helmet.”

“Oh,” I say, looking at the helmet in my hands. I thrust it towards him. “Thanks. I can wait it out here.”

He takes the helmet, but instead of putting it on and riding away, he sets it down on his seat and walks over to the little curb up against the bank building. He slides down the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him like he did under the table at school. That excited feeling he gave me comes back.

“What are you doing?” I ask, hugging my arms to my chest. I’m soaking wet and my shirt is white and plastered up against my skin. I’m one hundred percent certain my bra is showing through the fabric.

“Waiting with you. I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“Why not? I’m not helpless.”

But he ignores me and tabs something on his phone. He sets his phone down on the concrete and takes off his leather jacket. It’s black, and old-looking, like he’s been wearing it his whole life. He holds it out to me and asks, “You cold?”

I’m freezing. I’m so cold my teeth might start chattering. And besides, I don’t want him to be looking at my bra through my shirt. So I reach out and take the jacket and slip my arms inside.

It’s warm. And heavy.

It makes me sigh and I wander across the small distance that separates us and take a seat next to him. Not too close. He makes me nervous. That’s a new feeling for me. Usually I’m the one making guys nervous.

I rummage around in my backpack and pull out a cigarette, offering Alesci one. He shakes his head and leans back against the brick wall. I light up my cigarette and blow out a puff of smoke into the cold air.

The silence hangs there between us and I start shuffling my feet, unable to figure out what’s going on. Should he be offering me rides? Should I be accepting them? Should he be allowed to be so hot and my teacher at the same time? Does he always wear a suit under his leather jacket?

“I’ve known Bowman for a long time,” he says.

“That right? Did he ask you to be my teacher?”

“Called me up last month and said he had a job for me. I’m between jobs right now. Well…” He laughs. “Technically I’m supposed to be writing my dissertation for my PhD. I go to UCLA and after ten years of work, the shit is about to pay off. All I gotta do is write up my contribution to science and I’m on my way. But I figure you’re a good excuse to procrastinate, because while math might be my thing, writing is not.”

“UCLA, huh?” I say. Last semester I worked in the office at Anaheim because my school in San Diego said I had a ton of credits and only had to go to school half a day. So at Anaheim I worked in the library first period shelving books and the office second period sorting mail into little cubbies. One day a catalog came for the art school at UCLA and I put it in my backpack and took it home.

I’ve never thought about college. No one has ever talked to me about college. Not even my guidance counselors back home.

But that catalog was so pretty I had to have it. So I stole it. And I read it cover to cover that same night. I’ve always wanted to be an artist. That’s why I was in that alternative school back in Ohio. I was taking graphic design and learning Photoshop, and that’s the closest I’ve came so far.

But UCLA art school. God.

“What are you taking at UCLA?” I ask, genuinely interested.

He laughs. And it’s such a warm, hearty laugh, I want to bottle it up and keep it with me for all the days ahead that I will be sad. “Computer engineering with a concentration in physics,” he says.

“Jesus,” I say. “If they make me take physics, I’m quitting.”

He laughs again and this time I catch a little gleam in his green eyes. “It’s not really my thing, either. My thing is astronomy. But I have a plan that ties it all together. Now I just need to sell people on it.”

Astronomy. That is so cool. “Do you think you will?” I turn my body to face him and wait for his answer. “Sell people on your plan?”

But he just shrugs. “Dunno. I did my best, so whatever.”

“How do you know Bowman?”

“I was his first student when he came to Anaheim ten years ago.”

“You’re twenty…?”

“Eight,” he says, smiling at me like he’s hungry.

Jeeeesus. Why does my teacher have to be so hot? Ten years older than me. I almost can’t stop staring. I have to force myself to look away and take a drag off my cigarette.

“He helped me get into CU right after high school. I was sorta like you. Smart, but unmotivated. He motivated me.”

“CU?”

“University of California.”

“Oh. I’m not up on all that college stuff.”

“You should be.”

“Why? It’s not like I’m ever going.”

“Why not?”

“Um.” I laugh. “I’m broke, number one.”

“They have scholarships. But you have to apply.”

“My grades are terrible. And the occasional A in biology won’t cover that fact up.”

“There’s lots of ways to go to college, Shannon.”

“Maybe it’s just not for me,” I say, irritated.

“Maybe you have no idea what’s good for you.”

“And you do?”

He shrugs again. “I know you can do trig.”

“Like hell. I’m not sure why everyone thinks I’m so smart here, but back in Ohio I was nothing but average. So you people either have very low standards or you have no idea what mediocrity looks like.”

He laughs. “Mediocre people don’t use the word ‘mediocrity,’ Shannon.”

I sigh and take another drag. “I’m tired of talking about this. I’d rather just be invisible, thanks. Bowman should mind his own business and ignore me like everyone else.”

“Who’s ignoring you?” He chuckles. “I can’t imagine you get ignored much. You’re like a little explosion in a bottle.”

“You’d be wrong. Everyone ignores me at this school. Some girl started talking Spanish to me this morning. She just assumed I was Hispanic because I have brown hair. And I’ve seen and even talked to her at least half a dozen times, yet she never saw me.” I take a drag. “It pissed me off too. Invisible, that’s what I am. I guess I should get used to it.”

“Your call,” he says, standing. Just then a yellow cab pulls under the shelter and comes to a stop next to his bike. “Your ride’s here anyway.”

I get up and wipe the stones off my ass, but it’s no use. I’m still soaked. Alesci walks over to the cab and talks to the driver through the window. He turns to me, opens the back door of the cab, and waves me in.

“This is me?” I ask, dumbfounded. “I don’t have enough to pay for a cab.”

“I paid with a credit card online.”

“Oh.” He planned this pretty thoroughly. I start to slip the jacket off and give it back, but he stops me with a warm hand on my shoulder.

“Keep it on, Shannon. I can see your tits through that bra. And next time you wear a white shirt, check to see if it’s gonna rain before you leave the house without a jacket.”

My whole face heats up and I’m quite positive it’s bright red.

“You’re good for the jacket, right?”

I nod and swallow hard.

“I’m gonna be seeing a lot of you, Shannon Drake. There’s no way in hell you’ll be invisible to me.”

I don’t even know what to say. So I just slip into the cab and lean back against the seat and wonder why my heart is beating so fast.

“Mateo,” he says, leaning down into the cab, his face so close to mine I can feel the heat of his breath.

“What?” I whisper.

“My name,” he says. “Mateo Alesci. Happy birthday, Shannon. See you tomorrow.” And then he closes the door and pounds twice on the roof to signal the cabbie to leave.

I’m still repeating his name in my head fourteen blocks later when the cab pulls up in front of my apartment.

And then it hits me. He knows where I live. He knows everything about me because he has my file.

Chapter Five

Our building is a collection
of one-story apartments in a u-shape, centered on a grassy quad. There are only about fifteen of them. There’s an alley on the other side of the laundry room building where people have small garages. The 5 freeway is less than fifty yards from where I stand on the curb, and less than twenty feet from my bedroom window.