Out of Nowhere (2 page)

I gave her a look that said
Do I ever have plans on school nights?
“No problem.”

“Good. I swear, I take one day off and the whole place falls apart.” She dumped the chopped onion into a frying pan, stirring it with a spatula. “The phone did not stop ringing all day. Do you have any idea what it’s like to walk your employees through ten different tasks with a cranky baby screaming in your ear the whole time?”

“No,” I said, placing a handful of Cheerios in front of my brother. Instead of eating them, he picked up his sippy cup and started crushing them into dust, one by one. “I don’t have employees.”

She laughed. “Maybe someday you will.”

Maybe
, I thought. But not like my mother. She managed a women’s clothing store in the mall, a great job for an ambitious, social fashion plate like her. As for me, I had no interest in organizing work schedules and meeting sales goals. I wanted to be a doctor. No…I
would
be a doctor, and instead of employees, I’d have patients. Someday.

Mom jerked her head toward the bag of rolls on the counter. “Defrost those, will you?”

I left Tristan to his Cheerio demolition project and opened the rolls, arranging each frozen globule on a plate with a lot more meticulousness than such a task required. Finally, I turned to face the microwave, which rested on a wooden stand in the corner of the kitchen. In order to reach it, I needed to get around what I liked to refer to as “the spot”, the section of floor on which my father had landed—and then stayed—after he’d collapsed. I tried to avoid that spot as much as possible. The few times I did cross over the invisible lines, it felt like I was treading on a ghost.

Now, almost unconsciously, my feet shifted neatly around the patch of floor as I headed toward the microwave. I shoved in the rolls and watched them turn, taking care to keep my appendages in the safe zone and my eyes on the glowing numbers, ticking down.

The spinning motion was so entrancing, I didn’t realize my mother was behind me until her manicured index finger jabbed at the
stop
button. “Pay attention, Riley,” she said, her voice lightly scolding. She extracted the now-hot rolls and brought them back to the counter, walking across that spot like it was just an ordinary part of the floor.

Chapter Two

A pain in my abdomen woke me out of a dead sleep the next morning. I grunted and then curled up like a frightened caterpillar, my brain sluggishly working to identify the cause. Appendicitis? Food poisoning? Hernia? I cracked open an eye and glanced down to investigate. Two huge green eyes peered back at me, all innocent. My cat Lucy had a fondness for walking on me—and then sprawling on me—as I slept.

It was time to get up for school. I could hear Tristan’s impatient wails and Mom’s shuffling gait in the hallway, but Lucy’s warm, considerable weight and rumbling purr lulled me back to sleep. Less than five minutes later I was jolted awake again, this time by a pair of small, slimy hands on my face. I grunted again as Lucy suddenly took flight, digging her hind leg into my bladder in farewell.

“Why why da gah,” said a voice in my ear. “Mow mow ga baga.”

“Good morning, Tristan.” I opened my eyes and grinned at him, mentally trying to translate everything he’d just said. I knew “why why” was his version of “Riley”, and “mow mow” meant the cats, but my brain was still too foggy to decode the rest.

He grabbed hold of my bed sheets and pulled, his way of telling me he wanted in. I folded the blankets down and lifted him up, tucking him in beside me. “Did you chase Lucy away?” I asked, tickling his stomach. He giggled and twisted away from my hand. “Time to get up, Tristan. We’re both feeling better today, so I have to go to school and
you
have to go to daycare.”

He let out an explosive sneeze, guaranteeing my sheets a spin in the washing machine later. Before I could wipe his nose, he slid off the bed and bolted for the door, diaper crinkling as he ran.

I looked down at my orange-cat-hair-and-snot covered sheets and sighed. Typical morning in the Tate household.

In the kitchen, Mom was cutting up a piece of toast for Tristan. “How are your sinuses today?” she asked me, dumping little squares of bread on his highchair tray. “Sinuses? Is that right? Or is it sini?”

I made a beeline for the coffee maker. “Sinuses is right. And they feel a bit better, thanks.”

“Tristan’s on the mend too, aren’t you, baby?” She leaned over to kiss the baby’s blond head. He didn’t have a lot of hair, but what he did have was coming in light and curly. He resembled his father more and more each day.

“When does Jeff get back, again?” I asked, now that Tristan’s dad was on my mind.

“May fourth. A week from tomorrow.”

I found my bottle of antibiotics and swallowed one with a gulp of coffee. “Is he staying with us until he has to leave again? I don’t think I can handle that, Mom.”

“Oh stop. That was two years ago, Riley. His apartment was being renovated and it made no sense for him to stay at a hotel.” She lifted Tristan out of his highchair and held him up to sniff his diaper. Satisfied, she set him down on the floor. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Says you,” I muttered. It wasn’t that I didn’t
like
Jeff. He was a nice guy, and cute too—tall and muscular, blond-haired and blue-eyed, with a disarming smile that finally convinced my mother to start dating after two years of lonely widowhood. They’d met via a blind date set up by mutual friends and immediately hit it off. Then, after three months of steady dating, Tristan happened. It was a shock for everyone involved, including me. I was fourteen at the time, and having an unmarried, pregnant mother at that age can be humiliating. Even
more
humiliating is having your unmarried, pregnant mother move her boyfriend in for a few weeks while his apartment is being renovated. After about a week of pee puddles on the toilet seat, shaving scum in the sink, and disturbing noises seeping from my mother’s bedroom at night, I’d practically moved into my friend Eva’s house for a month.
Her
parents were normal.

“Cut the guy a break, babe,” Mom said now. “He’s been practically living in nuclear power plants for the past six months. I’m sure he’d like to spend some time with Tristan when he comes home.”

I drained my coffee cup and put it in the sink. She had a point. Jeff was only tolerable in small doses but he did love Tristan, and his child support payments were always on time.

“Do you miss Daddy, baby?” Mom said to my brother in that high baby voice I kept telling her not to use with him because you’re supposed to talk to babies like they’re humans, not dogs. “Daddy’s gonna take you to the beach and teach you how to play catch and—”

“He doesn’t remember his daddy,” I said, grabbing my backpack as a horn blasted outside. My ride to school. “It’s been six months. Tristan won’t even know him.”

Mom’s smile froze in place, then drooped into a frown. “I was just...”

“I know,” I said quickly. Who was I to remind her she’d accidentally procreated with a man whose welding career required that he disappear for months at a time?

Tristan was sitting on the floor by the front door, trying to get his shoes on. When Mom went to help him, he shrieked. He had to do it himself. Seeing the single-minded concentration on his little face, I almost envied him for a moment. Not for his determination, but because he was still young enough to forget completely.

* * *

Eva Fowler was the only one of my friends with a car. Most kids in Weldon didn’t drive, but Eva’s parents had issues with the public transportation system—namely, they worried their precious daughter might get raped and/or murdered on the bus. Ironically, Eva was a total menace behind the wheel of her red Honda Civic and the bus was a much safer option for everyone involved.

“You look better today,” she said when I slid into the passenger seat. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” I told her, even though I still felt guilty about dousing my mother’s Jeff enthusiasm. She wanted Tristan to have his daddy, that was all. Wanted him to have what I no longer did. “Where’s Sebastian?” I asked, getting my mind off the subject.

“The poor darling has a cold.” She pulled away from the curb and hit the gas, narrowly missing our neighbor’s garbage cans. “He’s home in bed. After school I’m gonna pick up some soup and bring it to him.”

“I’m not holding it for you.” I sympathized with Eva’s boyfriend, but not enough to sustain third degree burns for him.

Two minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of Ridgeway Apartments. Sydney was waiting for us out front.

“Good morning, bitches,” she called as she walked to the car and climbed in the back seat, ever-present travel mug of coffee in hand. “Where’s Sebastian?”

“Sick,” I said, absently scratching an itch on my wrist.

“He’s sick too? What did you do to him, Riley? Slip him the tongue?”

Most girls would have bristled at that, but Eva just smiled mildly. We were both immune to Sydney’s provocative remarks by now.

“Maybe I coughed on him by accident,” I said.

Sydney reached over to poke Eva’s shoulder. “How come
you’re
not sick then? I imagine swapping spit, among other things, would be a surefire way to spread germs.”

Eva pulled the car back out onto the street and pointed it toward the high school. “I never get sick. I have an excellent diet and no unhealthy habits.” She shot a glance at Sydney in the rear view mirror. “Unlike some people.”

Sydney pulled her shirt down over her stomach bulge. “I know, I know. If the cheeseburgers don’t kill me, the cigarettes will.”

“There are more common ways to die,” I muttered as we swerved sharply to avoid a parked car.

We got stuck in construction traffic on Gerard and had to take a detour down some side streets. We arrived at school just as the bell rang for first class. By the time I visited my locker and wove my way through the huge maze of hallways, I was ten minutes late for math.

“Second time this week, Ms. Tate,” said my teacher, Mr. Steele, when I walked in, interrupting his captivating lecture on binomial distributions. “One more and you’ll be visiting the office.”

I gave him an apologetic little smile and scurried to my seat. Lucas Massey, who sat next to me, waited until Steele started talking again before scribbling something on notebook paper and shoving it toward me.
Did she take out another cyclist?

I snickered softly. He was referring to an incident last fall when Eva turned at an intersection without looking and bumped into a guy on a bicycle. He wasn’t hurt—he didn’t even fall down—but the incident freaked out Eva so much she had to pull the car over and apologize to the poor, shaken-up man. That time we were a half hour late for school.

Lucas and I had English next, so we walked upstairs together. “What’s your schedule like this weekend?” he asked.

“I open on Sunday,” I said, scratching at my wrist again. “You?”

“Evening shift on Saturday. I guess I won’t see you.”

I shifted to the right to avoid getting plowed down by a group of football jocks. The hallways of Nicholson High were kind of like the streets in the bad part of town. Pay attention, avoid eye contact, keep walking. “Not unless you come in for free coffee.”

Lucas was the one who’d gotten me my part-time job at Jitters, a locally-owned coffee shop in downtown Weldon. Last summer, when I turned sixteen and started looking for a job, Lucas was in his third month working at Jitters and suggested that I apply. He’d put in a good word for me, he said. The manager was cool, a laid-back stoner type who didn’t care if you smiled at the customers or took long lunch breaks. Lucas must have really talked me up because I got the job in September. Usually we were on shift together, which made steaming milk and stacking cookies a lot more fun.

At first, I couldn’t figure out why Lucas, a guy I’d known for only a few months, would do such a nice thing for me. Sydney said it was because he had a crush on me, and I thought so too until I realized the truth. He had a crush on someone, all right, but it wasn’t me. However, I doubted Liam Hogan—student council president and all-around Big Deal at Nicholson—felt the same way about him, seeing as he’d been dating Zoe Lambert, Ms. Big Deal, since the eighth grade.

So, no, Lucas wasn’t nice to me because he privately lusted after my bony bod. He was nice to me because I needed a job and we were friends. And after seven months with Adam, it felt good to have a guy—sexual preference notwithstanding—accept me for me and ask for nothing in return.

* * *

At lunchtime we met up with Sydney and Eva at the main entrance. Lucas lived only a couple of blocks from the school, and this year we’d made a habit of walking to his house for lunch on the days he didn’t have basketball practice. It was better than dealing with our zoo of a school cafeteria.

“Man, this is the best part of my day,” Sydney said in the elevator on the way up to Lucas’s third floor condo.

“The elevator ride?” I asked. She’d commented numerous times that her entire apartment could fit in here. The building
was
pretty fancy. Lucas’s parents were both professors at the university.

“No, getting out of that shit-hole for an hour. It’s so quiet here. No fights breaking out in the hallways either.”

The second we got into the condo, Lucas headed for the fridge, Syd headed for the coffee maker, Eva headed for the kitchen island, and I headed to the bathroom to wash the school germs off my hands. As I scrubbed, I noticed a small red patch forming on my wrist, right where I’d been scratching all morning. I pulled my sleeve over it and vowed to leave it alone.

Back in the kitchen, I sat next to Eva at the island and unpacked my lunch. We always brought our own food instead of poaching Lucas’s. My stomach felt a little queasy from the pills, so I left my sandwich and just ate the pretzels.

“Can I have that?” Lucas asked, nodding toward my turkey sandwich. I pushed it across the counter toward him and he grabbed it, taking a huge bite.