The File on Angelyn Stark (2 page)

“It’s ’cause he likes you,” Charity says when we’re on our way to lunch.

I shiver in my stomach. “Does not. He’s a teacher.”

“Rossi let you out of trouble quick enough,” Jacey says.

“It was that girl coming in. That’s why.”

“Where does she know you from anyway?” Charity asks.

“Nowhere.” I walk faster. “She was being stupid. I fixed that.”

“You hit her,” Jacey says, like she’s seen it all before. With me, she has.

I rub a fist against my jeans pocket. “Sure.”

We take the sidewalk three across. Girls step off the curb. Guys let us by without giving us shit. It’s good to be us.

Lunch is in the back of my boyfriend Steve’s truck on the street behind the Agriculture Building. While the boys holler up the block, Jacey, Charity, and I take beers from the cooler and share chips around. Every couple of minutes I check for Steve, pissed at the time he’s not spending with me.

“He’ll count those cans,” I say when Charity reaches for a second one.

“You don’t have to tell me!” But she pulls her hand back.

“Angelyn,” Jacey says, a spark in her voice. “Your dog is following you again.”

I swing around. “What?” And see him. “Shit.”

It’s Nathan Daly, the Ghost of Blue Creek High, fingers twisted in the hurricane fence that divides the street from Ag, staring at me like I’ve got his dinner.

I stand, wobbly on my heels. “Go home, dog!”

The girls are laughing.

“Retard,” Charity calls.

“Loser,” Jacey says.

Nathan doesn’t flinch. “Angelyn, I need to talk to you.”

“No!” I say so loud it scrapes my throat. My friends stare at me.

I call him the Ghost because I wish he’d disappear.

Steve molds me to the driver’s side door, blocking out the daylight, my butt gripped in his hands, my arms around his neck. He kisses me and I taste beer and cigarettes and
him
. I try to forget that Nathan could be watching and that Charity
is
, as she passes beers over the side to Steve’s friends. Jacey’s up the street with her boyfriend, and I’m wishing mine weren’t quite so popular.

“What we need is to be alone,” Steve says, an inch from my lips.

I grin. “You read my mind.”

With that he pushes off, shooing his friends, ordering Charity from the truck.

I straighten my T. “Wait,” I say to no one. Nathan isn’t where he was.

Steve comes back, his eyes lit up like Christmas. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Um.” Everybody’s watching. Charity looks mad. “Like, where?”

“The reservoir,” he says, smile fading. He is big, sandy-haired, good-looking.

“We’d never make it back in time.”

Steve taps his fingers along his thigh. “So, today we ditch fifth period.”

“I can’t. I almost got detention already. Ask Charity.”

Charity steps forward. “She did. From Rossi. He barely let her off.”

Steve’s head is down. “Angelyn, you’re not being cool.”

I spread a look around the ones watching. Most of them turn.

“Steve.” I touch his hand. “I said I couldn’t go today. I didn’t mean, not ever.”

He raises his eyes. “It’s been too long.”

Dry-mouthed, I nod. “Yes.” I’d say anything.

Steve jerks his head to the back of the truck. “We’ll have some fun right here.”

I roll with Steve in a slow-motion wrestle, my back to his chest, his legs anchoring mine like we’re on a toboggan. Empties and half empties rattle and tip around us, splotching my jeans and his
from ankle to seat. Steve nips at my neck and runs his hands along my ribs like he’s trying to count them. I squirm, breath caught as his fingers spread and stretch. From the street I hear loud talk from the boys and Charity’s brassy voice trying to stay even with them.

Steve flips me so I face him, my legs bent between his, his arm around my back, our shoulders to the cab. Covering my mouth with his, he dips his hand to my waist, my stomach, between my thighs, working the denim against me. The rising rhythm takes me and I reach for him, not caring anymore for anything but this feeling between us.

The voices blur to a steady hum that’s easy to ignore. Until it stops.

I pull my mouth from Steve’s, listening.

He presses my hand where it rests on his crotch. “Angelyn—”

“Wait.” My voice is ragged.

“Teacher coming,” someone says.

My heart beats like a bird’s as I struggle to untangle.

“Relax,” Steve says, sprawling off. “They never come this far.”

“Yeah, and if they do?” I ask, pissed that he can’t see it. “The
beer.
”

Steve goes white. Possession can get you tossed from Blue Creek High.

I peek over the gate while he crabs for cans, winging them into the cooler.

Charity and the boys are gone. In the auto shop yard that
borders the street, six or seven kids bend and stoop like they’re trying to find something. Sacks on their backs.

“It’s the lunch detention crew,” I say. “Picking trash.”

Steve grunts. “I got some cans for them.”

In the yard a big boy shifts, and I see the teacher behind him.

I duck, I turn, I grab Steve’s arm. “Mr. Rossi’s with them.”

Together we tamp the cooler lid. “Stay down,” he says to it, to me, to us.

On our backs I stare at the sky. Cloudless blue.

“Rossi hates me,” Steve says. “He has since freshman football.”

I snort. “He almost gave
me
detention today.”

“Yeah. But he didn’t, did he?”

We look at each other, noses close to touching.

The shop gate creaks open to the street.

“Hurry it up.” Mr. Rossi’s voice.

Steve’s throat works. Me, it’s hard to swallow.

“We should sit up,” I say. “It’ll look worse if—”

“Quiet,” he says.

Outside, the
scrape scrape
of shoes on asphalt works my nerves as it stops and starts, each time a little closer to where we hide.

Then: “Party down,” some guy says.

Steve’s eyes look questions at me. I shrug, one-shouldered.

“Whose truck is this?” Mr. Rossi asks.

“Coslow’s, I think.”

“Steve Coslow’s?” Mr. Rossi’s voice is sharper. Closer.

Steve is mouthing swears. I curl in like that’s going to save us.

His shadow knifes across. Mr. Rossi, looking down.

“Well, what is this?” he says after forever.

“We were just—” I’ve got nothing else.

Steve lifts himself on an elbow. “Coach, hey. We fell asleep. Is lunch over?”

“Sit up,” Mr. Rossi says. “Both of you.”

As Steve rises, his arm hits the cooler. The lid slides, settling tilted. I kneel beside him, trying not to look.

Mr. Rossi watches us. Behind him, the detention kids point and grin, whispering things I’m glad that I can’t hear. One girl isn’t smiling. Jeni, from the bathroom this morning. She’s seeing this. I shut my eyes.

“What’s the deal?” Steve says. “We were only sleeping.”

Mr. Rossi points outside the truck. “Sleeping it off?”

We look. Beer cans around the back tire where the boys stood. Some tipped, others flattened, some nearly full, ready to drink. Souvenirs.

Steve clears his throat. “Those aren’t mine. Right, Angelyn?”

“Right.” I croak it out.

Mr. Rossi eyes me. “Is this what you do for lunch?”

My face burns. “We’re off-campus, Mr. Rossi.”

“That excuses nothing. Tell me about the beer.”

Steve squeezes my thigh. I put my hand on his.

“I don’t know anything about it.”

Mr. Rossi takes a step in. The cooler pulses, sending its own light.

“I should have given you detention before.”

Steve’s fingers twine with mine. His hand is wet.

“Give it to me now,” I say.

Mr. Rossi looks off. “Ms. Stark, you come see me after school.”

I sink back on my heels. “Okay.”

He faces the trash crew. “I need someone to pick up these cans.”

Everyone but Jeni finds somewhere else to look.

Mr. Rossi points to her. “Get them, please.”

He leads the crew off as Jeni crouches by the truck scooping cans. I’m almost sorry for her. Our eyes meet. The look she gives makes me wish I’d hit her after all.

I push into the V building as everyone is pushing out. My boot heels ring like gunshots on the steps to the second floor.
You’re the best
, Steve said when we were alone. Down the hall to Mr. Rossi’s room, I play the words back.

“Come in,” he says, like he’s been waiting.

I check the clock. “I can’t stay long. I have to meet my mom.”

Mr. Rossi points to a desk near his. “Sit.”

I slide in. “Sorry for whatever.”

“I hated seeing you like that,” he says.

“Can you just give me the detention?”

“You changed your shirt,” Mr. Rossi says.

“Yes,” I say, like a question. “I keep an extra in my gym locker.”

He stands. “I can still smell it on you.”

In shock I watch him start down the length of the board. Erasing.

“Smell what? Mr. Rossi, I do not stink.”

He erases some more. “Beer. Did you drink your lunch?”

I’ve showered. Brushed my teeth.

“No,” I say, picking at my jeans.

Mr. Rossi turns. “I saw the cooler. I know
you
didn’t bring it.”

“If this is about Steve—” I stop.

“You’re here and Coslow isn’t.” He sits on his desk. “Why is that?”

“You told me to come.” I work to keep my voice steady.

“You volunteered. He let you do that.”

“However it went.”

“Give yourself away and you’ll have nothing left.”

Now I’m squirming. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“Is that what you say to Coslow? During those lunches?”

I stare at him. “What?”

Mr. Rossi curls his lip. “Rolling around in the back of some kid’s truck—”

Face burning, I stand. “I’ll be there at detention.”

“Whoa,” he says. “Angelyn, don’t take me wrong. Sit. Please.”

I bite my lip. And sit.

“You’re not in trouble. You don’t have detention. I only want to talk.”

“About Steve? I won’t.”

Mr. Rossi moves from his desk to one by me. I stare ahead.

“You’re on a path it’s hard to turn back from,” he says.

“You don’t know me to say that.”

“I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong.”

I fold my arms. “You are.”

“I saw what I saw. But I think you’re better than that.”

“What makes me better?” I ask.

“You’re smart. There’s more to you than people know. Am I right?”

“I make C’s,” I say. “When I’m lucky.”

“You could do better,” Mr. Rossi says. “Couldn’t you?”

I look at him. “In elementary I made A’s. Check if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you. What was different in your life then?”

“Oh.” No one’s ever asked. “There was a neighbor lady who helped me with my homework. Mrs. Daly. She used to be a teacher. I’d stop by her place after school.”

Mr. Rossi nods. “And? What, she moved?”

I swallow past a sour taste. “Yeah. And I guess I just grew up.”

“It’s good you had someone like that. Do you now?”

“No,” I say.

He taps the desk. “I could help, if you’ll let me.”

The late-afternoon sun is streaming in, baking the room. I watch the dust dance in the light.

“Why would you want to?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve been like Coslow.”

“Mr. Rossi—”

“And I’ve been like you. Giving myself up.”

I don’t know what to say.

“Got ten minutes? I’ll tell you about Africa.”

“I guess I do. But why Africa?”

He smiles. “That’s the unit we’re studying in class.”

“Oh.” I grin. “I knew that.”

Mr. Rossi tells me to turn my desk to his. He talks about Africa and AIDS, about the starving people and the economy. He says that his mother was there with the Peace Corps in the 1970s, and he tells me about a trip he made with her when he was only seventeen—
It was beautiful, Angelyn
. I listen to him like I never do in class. I almost forget why I’m here. Almost.

Mr. Rossi asks if I’ve understood everything.

“Yes,” I tell him. “Thanks. I want to travel sometime. And see things.”

He motions me up. “Then you will.”

We put the desks in line.

“I want to do those things, Mr. Rossi. But I don’t know how I can. I’m not going to college or anything. Mom’s never been out of state. Neither have I.”

“When I was student-teaching in the Bay Area,” he says, “I had a student join the Coast Guard. They sent her everywhere. All over the world. She loved it.”

“Coast Guard?” First time I’ve heard those words together.

“I can tell you more another time,” he says, back behind his desk.

I gather my stuff. “You’d do that?”

“Sure I would. Now, you will get that homework done.”

“I will, Mr. Rossi.”

“Okay. I’ll be expecting it.”

I stop at the door. “The thing with Steve, and the beer—”

He waits.

“It’s not what we do every day.”

“That’s good to know,” Mr. Rossi says. “Oh, and, Angelyn?”

“Yes?”

“Tell Genius not to bring that stuff anywhere near school.”

“It won’t be a problem.” I leave smiling.

I lied to Mr. Rossi. I don’t
have
to meet my mother. Not right away.

After I leave him, I head toward town instead of the bus yard, where Mom works as a dispatcher. Town is three blocks uphill, and I reach the top hungry. Down Main Street I stop at a food cart by the park for a hot dog and Coke. Paying, I see two skate kids watching me while they toe their boards. The bigger boy says something about “boobs,” and the smaller one palms his chest. When they see
me
watching
them
, they giggle together like a pair of first-grade girls.

They need to be squelched.

“That isn’t cool,” I say, down to the bench where the boys are kicking it.

The bigger one fades, but the smaller kid is grinning. “What isn’t?” he asks.

“Saying stuff about some girl.” I look at each of them. “Some
older
girl.”