Everything I Never Told You (21 page)

By the time school started again, Lydia was relieved to escape the house, even if physics class was the first thing she had to face. She set the failed test—signed now by her mother—facedown on Mr. Kelly’s desk. Mr. Kelly himself was already at the chalkboard, drawing a diagram.
Unit II: Electricity and Magnetism,
he wrote at the top. Lydia slid into her seat and rested her cheek on the desktop. Someone had etched a dime-sized
FUCK YOU
into the surface with a pushpin. She pressed her thumb against it, and when she lifted her hand a backward
FUCK
rose on her fingertip like a welt.

“Good vacation?” It was Jack. He slouched into the next seat, one arm slung over the back, as if it were a girl’s shoulder. At this point she hardly knew Jack at all, though he lived just on the corner, and hadn’t talked to him in years. His hair had darkened to the color of beach sand; the freckles she remembered from their childhood had faded but not disappeared. But she knew that Nath didn’t like him at all, never had, and for this reason alone she was pleased to see him.

“What are you doing here?”

Jack glanced at the board. “Electricity and Magnetism.”

Lydia blushed. “I mean,” she said, “this is a junior class.”

Jack pulled a capless ballpoint from his knapsack and rested his foot on his knee. “Did you know, Miss Lee, that physics is required to graduate? Since I failed the second unit of physics last year, here I am again. My last chance.” He began to trace the tread of his tennis-shoe sole in blue ink. Lydia sat up.

“You
failed?
”

“I
failed,
” he said. “Fifty-two percent. Below below-average. I know that’s a hard concept to grasp, Miss Lee. Since you’ve never failed anything.”

Lydia stiffened. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I’m failing physics myself.”

Jack didn’t turn his head, but she saw one eyebrow rise. Then, to her surprise, he leaned across the aisle and doodled a tiny zero on the knee of her jeans.

“Our secret membership sign,” he said as the bell rang. His eyes, a deep blue-gray, met hers. “Welcome to the club, Miss Lee.”

All through class that morning, Lydia traced that tiny zero with her fingertip, watching Jack out of the corner of her eye. He was focused on something she couldn’t see, ignoring Mr. Kelly’s drone, the pencils scratching around him, the fluorescent light buzzing overhead. One thumb drummed a pitter-pat on the desktop.
Does Jack Wolff want to be friends?
she wondered.
Nath would kill him
.
Or me.
But after that first day, Jack didn’t say another word to her. Some days he came late, then put his head down on his desk for the entire period; some days he did not come at all. The zero washed out in the laundry. Lydia kept her head bent over her notes. She copied down everything Mr. Kelly wrote on the board, turning the pages of her textbook back and forth so often that the corners softened and frayed.

Then, at the end of January, at dinner, her mother passed the salad and the dish of Hamburger Helper and looked at Lydia expectantly, tilting her head this way and that, like a pair of rabbit ears trying to catch the signal. Finally, she said, “Lydia, how is physics class?”

“It’s fine.” Lydia speared a carrot coin on her fork. “Better. It’s getting better.”

“How much better?” her mother said, a touch of sharpness in her voice.

Lydia chewed the carrot to a pulp. “We haven’t had a test yet. But I’m doing okay on the homework.” This was only half a lie. The first test of the term was the next week. In the meantime she stumbled through the assignments, copying the odd-numbered problems from the answers at the back of the book and fudging the even ones as best she could.

Her mother frowned, but she scooped up a piece of macaroni. “Ask your teacher if you can do some extra credit,” she said. “You don’t want this grade to sink you. With all your potential—”

Lydia jabbed her fork into a wedge of tomato. Only the wistfulness in her mother’s voice stopped her from screaming. “I know, Mom,” she said. She glanced across the table at Nath, hoping he’d change the subject, but Nath, who had other things on his mind, didn’t notice.

“Lydia, how’s Shelley doing?” James asked. Lydia paused. Last summer, at her father’s urging, she’d invited Shelley over once, to hang out. Shelley, though, had seemed more interested in flirting with Nath, trying to get him to play catch in the yard, asking him whether he thought Lynda Carter or Lindsay Wagner was hotter. They hadn’t spoken since.

“Shelley’s good,” she said. “Busy. She’s secretary of the student council.”

“Maybe you can get involved, too,” James said. He wagged his fork at her, with the air of a wise man delivering an aphorism. “I’m sure they’d love your help. And how about Pam and Karen?”

Lydia looked down at her plate, at the picked-over salad and the sad clump of beef and cheese beside it. The last time she’d talked to Karen was over a year ago, when her father had chauffeured them home from a matinee of
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
At first she’d been proud that, for once, her plans had not been a lie. Karen had just moved to town and Lydia, emboldened by her newness, had suggested a movie and Karen had said, “Okay, sure, why not.” Then, for the whole ride, her father had tried to show off how
cool
he was: “Five brothers and sisters, Karen? Just like the Brady Bunch! You watch that show?”
“Dad,” Lydia had said. “
Dad.
” But he’d kept going, asking Karen what the hot new records were these days
,
singing a line or two from “Waterloo,” which was already two years old. Karen had said, “Yeah,” and “No,” and “I don’t know” and fiddled with the bottom bead of her earring. Lydia had wanted to melt and seep into the seat cushions, deep down where the foam would block every bit of sound. She thought of saying something about the movie, but couldn’t think of anything. All she could think of was Jack Nicholson’s vacant eyes as the pillow came down to smother him. The silence swelled to fill the car until they pulled up in front of Karen’s house.

The next Monday, at lunch, she had paused beside Karen’s table and tried to smile. “Sorry about my dad,” she said. “God, he’s so embarrassing.”

Karen had peeled the lid from her yogurt and licked the foil clean and shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “Actually, it was sort of cute. I mean, he’s obviously just trying to help you fit in.”

Now Lydia glared at her father, who grinned brightly at her, as if proud to know so much about her
friends,
to remember their names. A dog, she thought, waiting for a treat.

“They’re great,” she said. “They’re both great.” At the other end of the table, Marilyn said quietly, “Stop badgering her, James. Let her eat her dinner,” and James said, a little less quietly, “I’m not the one nagging about her homework.” Hannah prodded a pebble of hamburger on her plate. Lydia caught Nath’s eye.
Please,
she thought.
Say something.

Nath took a deep breath. He had been waiting to bring something up all evening. “Dad? I need you to sign some forms.”

“Forms?” James said. “What for?”

“For Harvard.” Nath set down his fork. “My housing application, and one for a campus visit. I could go in April, over a weekend. They have a student who’ll host me.” Now that he had started, the words tumbled out in a breathless blur. “I have enough saved for a bus ticket and I’ll only miss a few days of school. I just need your permission.”

Miss a few days of school,
Lydia thought. Their parents would never allow it.

To her surprise, they nodded.

“That’s smart,” Marilyn said. “You’ll get a taste of campus life, for next year, when you’re there for real.” James said, “That’s an awfully long bus ride. I think we can afford a plane ticket for such a special occasion.” Nath grinned at his sister in double triumph:
They’re off your back. And they said yes.
Lydia, making trails in the cheese sauce with the tip of her knife, could think only one thing:
He can’t wait to leave.

“You know who’s in my physics class now?” she said suddenly. “Jack Wolff, from down the street.” She nibbled a shred of iceberg and measured her family’s reaction. To her parents, the name slid past as if she hadn’t spoken. Her mother said, “Lyddie, that reminds me, I could help you go over your notes on Saturday, if you want.” Her father said, “I haven’t seen Karen in a while. Why don’t you two go to a movie sometime? I’ll drive you.” But Nath’s head, across the table, jerked up as if a rifle had gone off. Lydia smiled back down at her plate. And right then she decided that she and Jack were going to be friends.

•   •   •

At the beginning, it seemed impossible. Jack hadn’t come to class in nearly a week, and she hovered near his car after school for days before she caught him alone. The first day, he came out of the building with a blond junior she didn’t know, and she ducked behind a bush and watched through the branches. Jack slid his hands into the girl’s pocket, then inside her coat, and when she pretended to be offended and pushed him away, he tossed her over his shoulder, threatening to throw her into the snowbank, while she squealed and giggled and hammered his back with her fists. Then Jack set her down and opened the door of the Beetle, and the blond girl climbed in, and they drove off, steam billowing from the tailpipe, and Lydia knew they wouldn’t be back. The second day, Jack didn’t show up at all, and Lydia eventually trudged home. The snow was calf-deep; there had been record low temperatures all winter. A hundred miles north, Lake Erie had frozen; in Buffalo, snow drowned the roofs of houses, swallowing power lines. At home, Nath, who had sat alone on the bus for the first time he could remember, demanded, “What happened to you?” and Lydia stomped upstairs without replying.

On the third day, Jack came out of the building alone, and Lydia took a deep breath and ran down to the curb. As usual, Jack wore no coat, no gloves. Two bare, red fingertips pinched a cigarette.

“Mind giving me a ride home?” she said.

“Miss Lee.” Jack kicked a clump of snow off the front tire. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your school bus?”

She shrugged, tugging her scarf back up to her neck. “Missed it.”

“I’m not going straight home.”

“I don’t mind. It’s too cold to walk.”

Jack fumbled in his hip pocket for his keys. “Are you sure your brother wants you hanging out with a guy like me?” he said, one eyebrow raised.

“He’s not my keeper.” It came out louder than she meant, and Jack laughed out a puff of smoke and climbed into the driver’s seat. Lydia, cheeks scarlet, had nearly turned away when he leaned over and popped up the knob on the passenger side.

Now that she was in the car, she didn’t know what to say. Jack started the engine and eased the car into gear, and the big speedometer and gas gauge on the dashboard flicked to life. There were no other dials. Lydia thought of her parents’ cars: all the indicators and warning lights to tell you if the oil was too low, if the engine was too hot, if you were driving with the parking brake on or the door or the trunk or the hood open. They didn’t trust you. They needed to check you constantly, to remind you what to do and what not to do. She had never been alone with a boy before—her mother had forbidden her to go out with boys, not that she had ever tried—and it occurred to her that she had never had an actual conversation with Jack before. She had only a vague idea about the things that happened in the backseat. Out of the corner of her eye, she studied Jack’s profile, the faint stubble—darker than his sandy hair—that ran all the way up to his sideburns and all the way down to the soft part of his throat, like a smudge of charcoal waiting to be wiped away.

“So,” she said. Her fingers twitched, and she tucked them into her coat pocket. “Can I bum a cigarette?”

Jack laughed. “You’re so full of shit. You don’t smoke.” He offered the pack anyway, and Lydia plucked out a cigarette. She’d thought it would be solid and heavy, like a pencil, but it was light, like nothing at all. Without taking his eyes off the road, Jack tossed her his lighter.

“So you decided you didn’t need your brother to chaperone you home today.”

Lydia could not ignore the scorn in his voice, and she was unsure if he was laughing at her, or Nath, or both of them at once. “I’m not a child,” she said, lighting the cigarette and putting it to her lips. The smoke burned in her lungs and made her head spin and suddenly she felt sharp and aware. Like cutting your finger, she thought: the pain, and the blood, reminded you that you were alive. She breathed out, a tiny cyclone funneling between her teeth, and held out the lighter. Jack waved a hand.

“Stick it in the glove compartment.”

Lydia snapped open the catch and a small blue box fell out and landed at her feet. She froze, and Jack laughed.

“What’s the matter? Never seen Trojans before, Miss Lee?”

Lydia, her face burning, scooped up the condoms and tucked them back into the open box. “Sure I have.” She slid them back into the glove compartment, along with the lighter, and tried to change the subject. “So what did you think of the physics test today?”