SWEET PAIN

LILLIAN WAS THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SENIOR CLASS, and when she needed warm bodies to prepare for Homecoming Weekend, she got Heather and Casey to come down on a Saturday. It was the second weekend in October. A warm south wind blew clouds across the sky.

In the gym lobby, Casey and Heather knelt in front of a banner of brown butcher paper. They were painting "Westfield Warriors Rule!" in big block letters. Casey dipped a long brush into a jar of red tempera paint and laboriously began to fill in an e. The light made the paint glisten and she couldn't really see what she was doing.

The vast lobby echoed with voices. One of the cheerleaders stood on a wooden ladder and stapled a cardboard sign to a doorway. Another girl steadied the ladder, and all the while the two of them yammered. Guys from the football team kept stampeding up the stairs from the locker room, since there was a game at Hillside in two hours. Casey liked the noise and all the people. She wore an old gray sweat shirt over shorts, and old sneakers.

Lillian and Mrs. DiLauro came down the long, empty corridor into the gym lobby. Mrs. DiLauro was one of the senior class advisers. She taught Math, Casey remembered.

Lillian was complaining about how she wasn't getting cooperation. Casey said to Heather, "Listen to her!"

"Forget it," Heather said sourly. Her tongue moved along the rim of her upper lip in the direction of her paintbrush. "She gives me a pain."

"I think she's bent about the Drama Club and the Newspaper selling candy at the same time."

Casey listened intently. Lillian was saying, "We made a rule, and we printed forms, and everybody's totally ignoring it. We have no credibility."

Mrs. DiLauro listened, though her eyes darted around the gym lobby. She answered Lillian in a modulated voice and Casey couldn't make out the words.

"That was Lillian's rule," Casey said, "not everybody's. Lillian decided to gain control of the fund-raising situation."

"I wish she'd gain control of her life," Heather said. She sighed and sat back on folded legs. She had on a ripped pink sweat shirt over a white T-shirt, and she'd chopped her hair.

"I can't sit this way," Casey decided. She dropped the brush into the paint jar and stretched out on her stomach. She felt her bare skin touch the cool floor as her sweat shirt rode up.

Heather dropped her hands into her lap and looked misty-eyed. About twelve football players suddenly charged out of the stairwell and ran with a clatter past the girls. Casey watched them go outside, where a yellow school bus waited. She hadn't seen Glenn yet.

Casey grunted as she sat down. She discovered blobs of wet tempera paint on her fingertips and wiped them on the butcher paper. "Come on."

Heather sucked in a long, tragic breath and let it out. She looked toward the ceiling and bit her lip. "He's so cold to me when he writes. His letters used to be beautiful. He'd wrap a flower in Saran Wrap and put it in the letter, so I could pin it up."

"I don't know," Heather said. "What am I supposed to think? I mean, does he have somebody?"

"No." That was more of a whimper. "But how could he fall out of love so fast? What do I do, Case?"

Casey wished she could tell Heather that Jon had probably gotten sick of her smother-loving. But she couldn't.

"Why don't you sort of hint around in your next letter?" Casey suggested. "Ask him what's going on?"

Heather picked up her paintbrush again. "If he thinks he doesn't need me now, fine. He's still very immature, no matter how old he looks."

Casey stifled a laugh. Suddenly, Lillian's cylindrical legs, in powder-blue sneakers, appeared on the other side of the butcher paper.

Lillian pointed. "Over there, and over there. Are you going to paint over those?"

"Well, I hate to say it, but it's a week until Homecoming and we've got a lot of work to do. I mean, this is just one stupid banner."

Casey dropped the brush into the paint jar. "Yeah, you're right," she said. "It's a stupid banner." She stood up and wiped her hands on her shorts.

"You know, I've got all the responsibility," Lillian said. Her eyes suddenly glistened. "I did the whole darn showcase in the center hall by myself, eighth period, every day, and nobody gave me a hand."

"Well, there are nine hundred other seniors. I have to handle the fund-raising, and Homecoming, and the banquet, and the trip, and, by the way, I have a six-period schedule and college applications. I'm supposed to be starting a research paper today. I'm not going to get near it." She hugged a clipboard to her pillowy chest and looked away with a tightly set mouth.

Casey said, "Well, Lillian, if you want help, then don't come around and harass people."

Lillian looked back at Casey. "I'd like it to look decent, not like a total mess."

"It'll look decent, don't worry. Half the kids in the school can't read it anyway."

Casey dropped down to the floor again. "Why don't you get lost for a while, Lil? Go bother the kickline girls. Tell them you see a varicose vein on their legs and watch them freak out."

Heather cracked up at that, and her brush, hovering over the paper, dripped. Lillian said, "Darn it, Heather! Watch what you're doing!"

Lillian tried to stare her down, but couldn't. "Remind me not to ask you for any favors again."

Lillian flounced away, viciously making some marks on the pad she carried. Heather watched her. "Twerp."

"She's okay," Casey said, as she tried harder to paint within the lines. "She's just insecure."

"Oh, yeah, make excuses for her." Heather swirled her brush in the paint. "She thinks she's Mother Superior. Between her holy-holy attitude and her phony injuries, I don't know why anyone talks to her."

"You like her," Heather said. "Then again, you like Paul VanHorn, so we can't go by your taste."

"Back off," Heather said. More football players came up and stomped outside. Casey could hear the bus chugging and the thin, raucous voices of the guys.

She went back to painting, her head throbbing. She hoped it wasn't another one of the headaches she'd been getting. "I notice that everyone stays away from me lately."

Heather turned. Her paintbrush dripped again. Casey pointed, and Heather put the brush into the paint jar. She wiped her hands on a paper towel. "You want it straight?"

Heather licked her lips. "Okay. Nobody cared that you started going out with him even though he's a fruitcake. But you're different."

Heather shrugged. "I don't know. You were always pretty deep, but you were normal. Now you're just—I don't know, sad all the time. Like we say let's go to the mall and you go"—she did a mock sigh—" 'Oh, I don't think so.' Or we go to the deli to get lunch and you go, 'Oh, no, I'm not up for that.' It's like you're too old for us." She exhaled. "Well, you wanted to hear it."

"I know." Casey pushed the brush down into the jar until she felt the bristles squish on the bottom. "I didn't think I was doing that."

"Well, you are. I mean, Faye's supposed to be your best friend and she's been going out with Ed Reese for about two weeks and you don't even know about it."

The headache intensified. It burned inside her skull, where Paul had banged her head against the car. "Who's Ed Reese?"

The team bus ground its gears and Casey turned to see it move away from the curb. She'd missed Glenn totally. She'd wanted to wish him good luck before he got on the bus. That made her feel lousy, too. "Faye didn't tell me."

She wanted to smash the damn jar of paint all over the banner and maybe ram the broken glass into her wrists. Or into Heather's eyes. Or somewhere. What a laugh. Did they all know she hadn't seen Paul since he'd beaten on her in the parking lot? Not a phone call, nothing. Not that she was about to call him. Forget it. One time, you overlooked it. Not the second time. If he was sick, let him get help. Obviously, he didn't need her assistance.

"Well, can't you be with Paul and us? Where do you two go, anyway? Nobody ever sees you anywhere."

"I'm sorry," Casey said to Heather. "I'm feeling rotten." She stood up, tingling. She folded her arms across her chest and took quick breaths to try to stave off the growing agony in her head. Great. She could go to the bathroom now, but when Mom came to pick her up, she couldn't fake being okay. Already her stomach rolled with nausea. Heather kept painting. Casey said, almost to herself, "Paul's a moody guy. He's got a lot of problems."

Casey had to walk to the nearest showcase and lean against it. She tried to focus on the color photos of the football team behind the streaked glass. She found Glenn's picture. He seemed too cheerful and mischievous to be a jock. But he looked mint standing there in the sunshine. She wished he could step out of the picture and hold her.

Maybe she should have called Paul. Not that he had any excuse for hitting her again, but the guy had walked into Little Tony's dead tired, and she'd dumped all over him for forgetting her stupid birthday. He was breaking his rear end, and she was being a princess. She'd told him she'd stand behind him. Some loyalty.

She wanted to talk to Faye about it, but she didn't know how, and anyway, Faye had Ed Reese, so forget about her as a friend. So what? Casey was used to being alone. It was like Paul said: You did tricks to make people like you and then they kicked you anyway. He knew what he was talking about.

Casey's eyes fluttered open. She forced herself to straighten up and to rest her back against the showcase. "Yeah. I just have a headache."

"You look terrible," Heather said. She touched Casey's forehead. "Oh, man, you're sweating like a pig."

Heather glanced at a clock high up on a wall. "It's only eleven. You'll never make it."

Casey couldn't answer because the right side of her head was pounding too hard. Each throb made her wince. She stepped gingerly over the banner as Heather guided her toward the doors.

Casey was daydreaming in Homeroom two days later when Mr. Adelman called her name. She turned her head sharply; she'd been gazing out the window, past the twisted venetian blinds. "Me?"

Mr. Adelman held out an envelope. Casey got up and took it, wondering what it was. Some of the other kids watched.

Casey turned the envelope over as she went back to her seat. The envelope was a plain white one, and on it was Casey's name. But it wasn't a school envelope.

Casey slid back into her seat and tore off the end of the envelope. Behind her, Mike Leonard leaned forward. "What's that?"

She took out a doctor's bill and a folded piece of lined paper, the kind that came from those writing tablets you bought at Cheap John's.

She faced front to block his view and opened the doctor's bill. It was from the State University Department of Psychological Services. It was for ten dollars, for an initial consultation. And it was charged to Paul.

Casey's heart jumped. With fumbling fingers, she opened the lined paper. It was a note from Paul. It said, A long journey starts with a single step. But I can't walk alone.

She folded the note over for a moment, her mouth dry. She realized just how much she'd been depressed that he was gone. Not just that he was gone, but that she'd screwed up everything.

She let out a long breath. This wasn't anything to get crazy about. He had a lot to prove. She looked at the note again, and it asked her to meet him at the beach at Smith's Point, tonight at sunset. He wrote out directions to the exact spot.

"Nothing," she said crisply. A voice crackled over the P.A. She slid the note and the bill back into the envelope and stuffed the envelope into her pocketbook. "Pledge," Mr. Adelman called out. She stood up, as thirty other chairs scraped, and absentmindedly pressed her palm to her blouse. For some reason, this time, she wasn't afraid to see him again.

When she got home, Mom was in the kitchen, looking at a bunch of The Budget Gourmet TV dinners. "Casey, I need to talk to you," she said.

Casey had one foot on the carpeted stairs, her pocketbook slung over her shoulder and her schoolbooks balanced against her ribs. "One minute."

Casey whispered a curse and dropped all her junk on the landing. She heard JoAnne out in the backyard with her friends. She went into the kitchen and stood impatiently, one hip thrust out. "Yes?"

Mom was dressed up, and Casey's stomach knotted. Mom looked from one box to another, through her reading glasses. She smelled of freshly sprayed Shalimar. "Which do you like, Casey, chicken with broccoli and cream sauce or sweet and sour chicken?"

"Well, you can have either one. JoAnne won't eat a TV dinner, so you can microwave a hamburger for her."

Mom said, "Your father and I are going out to dinner and then we're going to start looking for a new dining-room set."

Casey bit down on her teeth and tried to control her panic. "I had some plans, yeah."

"Sorry. I didn't think you'd have plans on a Monday night. I need you to watch JoAnne."

Mom stared at her. "No, I can't get a sitter. You can reschedule your appointment. You know, I wish, just once, you'd say, 'Okay, Mom,' without giving me a hard time."

"Go to your room," Mom said disgustedly. "I really don't want to see you right now."

Casey stormed out of the kitchen, picked up her stuff, and pounded upstairs. She slammed her door hard enough to make it shake. She lay on her bed for half an hour, as the sun slanted across her wrists. She had Paul's phone number. She could call him and change the date. But she didn't want to. Defiance burned under her skin. She was almost seventeen, and she had a license, and she resented having to stay with JoAnne. She resented not having her own car, even though she worked fifteen hours a week. She hated JoAnne's guts for being alive.

What scared her was her flat-out fury. This was the first time she just felt mad. Not mad as in cry on her bed with the light off and the stereo playing. Not even mad as in write a poem that made smoke come off the page. Mad as in, screw everything and be free.

So she sat up and dialed Lisa's number. When Lisa got on, Casey said, "I need a big favor, Lise. Really big."

"I'm supposed to watch JoAnne tonight, but I have to go out. It's incredibly urgent. Can you fill in for me? I get paid tomorrow and I can pay you on Saturday."

There was an agonizing silence, with just the hard rock and the howling in the background. Finally, Lisa said, "Yeah, I guess so. What time?"

When Casey hung up, she couldn't concentrate on homework, so she forgot about it. She knew she was going to be in deep trouble if she got caught sneaking out, and she'd never done anything like this, but she wanted to meet Paul tonight. She tried not to think about how she was lying to her parents, and disobeying them. It was up to them to listen to her a little and not mess up her life.

Lisa came over about ten minutes after Mom and Dad left. Casey had showered and put on a soft lemon-colored blouse, jeans, and lavender sneakers. She wore her dark blue Westfield windbreaker. JoAnne was at her friend Connie's house.

"Give JoAnne a hamburger or something," Casey said, as she fingered her keys. "Let her watch TV or whatever she wants to shut her up. She goes to bed at eight. She's supposed to, anyway."

Lisa wore old sweats, and she methodically set up her nail stuff on a stack table in the family room. "What if your folks come home?"

"Yeah, what if?" Casey said. She was breathing too fast. "Tell JoAnne, and my folks, that I had to go to my friend's house, that my friend's mom got really sick and she was all alone."

"I don't know yet. I have to get whoever it is to back me up tomorrow. Okay?" She hugged Lisa. "Thanks a billion. You're terrific."

Casey blew out a nervous breath. "Well, it's important. I'll try to be back before my folks."

Lisa seated herself on the couch. "Okay," she said, unscrewing the cap from the polish remover. "Have a good time."

The Toyota was the family's second car. "Yeah," Casey nodded. "I have the copy of the registration. Daddy keeps it in a cubby in the hall closet."

"Don't remind me," Casey said. "I won't get stopped." She looked around the house as if leaving it forever. Suddenly, she was struck by the enormity of her actions. She had a tremendous urge to send Lisa home, to stay here, to forget the whole thing. At the same time, the need to see Paul, the need to go through with it, pulled her as if she'd been brainwashed.

She shook off her hesitation and went out the front door. The sky was flooded with cherry light, darkening to a deep blue horizon. Casey heard JoAnne's squeal three houses down. As she unlocked the Toyota, she prayed that she would get through this in one piece.

I am settled, and bend up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

Away, and mock the time with fairest show:

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Her fingers stopped on the car key. Macbeth. They were lines from Macbeth, from last year! And she'd remembered them, and they fit the moment.

She turned the key and warm air rushed through the vents, but she shivered in her windbreaker. She wished she could tell Mr. Young that she'd actually thought of a literary reference at a critical moment. He'd be so happy. But it wasn't something she wanted him to know about. And she didn't like equating herself with Macbeth, of all people!

With a quick intake of breath, she shifted into drive, then sped around the corner toward the crimson sky.

Chapter Nine