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The bruises on my hips have faded but are still visible, a green-yellow smudge over my bones, but the tenderness is gone. I haven’t seen Warren again, although Mom and Cal have had people over a couple of times. I don’t know whether I want to see him or not, but I know that when I hear voices in the living room, my stomach jumps, either hoping he is there or hoping he is not. The whole thing is very confusing. What does it say about me if I do want him to be there? After everything that happened?
I am in gym, changing into my red and yellow gym suit, noticing the green bruises, realizing that if it weren’t for those bruises, I would believe it had all been a dream, of sorts. For a second I remember the heat from his mouth covering mine, and I bring my fingers up to touch my lips. When I glance up, I can see myself in the mirror, and my cheeks are flushed with the memory. I turn away. Ashamed that the whole experience confuses me. I liked kissing him, anyway.
I join the other girls going into the gym, and Anna catches up to me. Anna is small with curly, brown hair that she tries to tame and only succeeds in making it big, fuzzy. She has a limp and thick glasses. We team up in gym because we’re kind of the oddballs out. Kelci and the popular crew make up five of the girls in class. Toni Britton, bad-ass Toni, and her four friends make up the rebels in the class, and Anna and I just try to get through it. Anna’s mother is a writer of romance novels, and they live in a huge house south of town. Her father runs the bank. If anybody in town should have had a free pass into Kelci’s clique it was Anna, but she is a little too quirky and badly put together to fit. So we suffer through kickball and softball, and together, we don’t care so much about not fitting.
Today we play volleyball. We have four teams and two nets going. Mr. Spintz calls the teams, and today I have the misfortune of being on Kelci’s team, with two of her girls. I’m not a talented volleyball player and, quite honestly, don’t like any team sports. My lack of confidence makes me hesitant, and when other people are counting on me to do well, my lack of coordination combines with the confidence thing and I just want to not be there. Gym is a nightmare always because I can’t be invisible here. I am all geared up for jeering and groans, but my stars must be aligned because when the ball comes to me, I make contact and it goes where I hoped. Kelci smacks me on the back as we head to the locker room. We won both games. “Good job, Ali.” She walks beside me, and I crowd the wall, wondering what she wants.
“Thanks. You, too.” We’re going down the hall and are about ten feet from the door into the locker room. Our silence is awkward.
“How was your Christmas?” she finally says. “I saw you had some people over.” Which means she was past my house at some point, most likely on her way to share gifts with the Winthrops.
I nod. “It was good. How ’bout yours?”
“It was all right. We went to my grandparents. Ugh.” She rolls her eyes and reaches out to open the door, laughing as we pass through the door, and I realize there is something else she wants to say. “I didn’t know you knew Warren.” I’m stunned and stop short. My face, I can tell, is flushing.
“I didn’t. Not until then, anyway. I don’t really. Know him, I mean.” This is the closest I’ve gotten to talking about my mixed-up feelings, and I want to know something about him. More than what I do already.
“Isn’t he gorgeous?” We’ve reached the edge of the row of lockers. “He works with my brother.” She laughs, explaining how she knows him, and we part to shower. This sudden friendliness makes me very nervous. Why would she mention him to me, out of the blue like that? I’m suddenly sick to my stomach and afraid that I may faint. I sit down on the bench and wait for the nausea and thin-headedness to pass. I feel naked, from the soul out—everybody can see what I’ve done, what happened. When the wave of dizziness finally passes, I slip out of my clothes and wrap my towel around me to head to the shower. I wrap my hair into a knot as I walk. Steam rises from the showers, and I cut through to a back corner, facing the wall and soaping quickly. Girls are talking and laughing as the water runs down. I rinse and turn my water off. I wrap the towel back around my body, escaping from the showers with my eyes on the tile floor. Back in the locker room, I dress, still damp. I stop in front of the mirror and let my hair down.
A movement behind me makes me spin.
“Hey, um, can I talk to you about something?” Tammy Bridges is standing there, already dressed. She’s one of the Toni crew, but not quite as rough as the others, maybe.
“I guess.” I straighten and return her gaze. She glances away from me. Twice in one day, to be approached by people who normally don’t seem to know I exist, is really too much, but twice in fifteen minutes is simply overload.
“You ready to go?” she asks, clearly not wanting to talk here.
“Sure.” We leave the locker room together, me carrying my books, her carrying nothing.
“Look, Alison, this isn’t any of my business or anything, but I overheard some things and thought you should know.”
“What?”
“Well, it doesn’t matter who, and if you ever say it was me that said anything . . .” Her words drift off with an upraised eyebrow, suggesting that perhaps I should not tell anybody about this conversation. I nod emphatically, feeling very mafioso, curious about what she might have to say. “Well, anyway, couple of days ago I overheard something. I know it’s none of my business, but I thought you should know. Like I said . . .” Clearly she has a speech planned out. I’m surprised that she has given any thought at all to what I should or should not know, let alone spent effort on composing something to say to me. Suddenly I am feeling distinctly not invisible after a lifetime of trying to blend to grey. Her attention is making me uncomfortable, and I’m afraid that she, too, is going to say something about Warren, and I know my face is red again.
“Okay,” I say to move her along.
“Look, you know Cal Robinson, don’t you?” I’m surprised and relieved. I can cope with that conversation. Of course I know Cal Robinson.
“Why?” I ask, hesitant.
“You know him, right?” she demands.
“I do.”
“Yeah, I know.” I stop walking and look at her. She turns. “He’s bad news, ya know?” I nod my head. “I mean serious bad news.” Her voice drops low and becomes conspiratorial. “Drugs and other stuff, too. You should really tell your mom to stay away from him.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t really ask my opinion.”
She drops her voice lower. “She needs to watch herself. He should be in jail, but some evidence got contaminated.”
“What are you talking about?”
“His last old lady.” She glances around. She slashes her hand across her throat, sticking her tongue out, lolling her head in a grotesque pantomime for dead. “He’s a loose cannon.” She tells me he’s been arrested a couple times, the last time for attempted murder. “Shot in the head, should have killed her, but she ended up in some institution. She’s all messed up in the head, like an invalid, ya know?” It strikes me that she says that word “invalid” just like my mother has, as two distinct words and not one. “She can’t feed herself or go to the bathroom or anything.” She waits for a couple of kids to pass us by. “They couldn’t prove he did it, but you know he did. He’s just really not a nice guy.”
“Who did they say did it if it wasn’t him?”
“Said she did, self-inflicted, suicide attempt.” She glances behind us, as if checking to see if anybody can hear. “I’d hate to see anything happen to your mom. I mean, she was always a nice lady.”
“Me, too,” I say, mulling over the possibility of telling my mother any of this. “Well, thanks for letting me know.” The class bell rings, and kids start coming out of classes. She stops and turns back to me. Her black eyes look deep, like chasms in the night.
“Just know, they’re watching where he’s staying. I’d hate to see anything happen to you, too.” She is gone, making her way down the hall amongst other students. I turn and go the opposite direction to my civics class. What exactly am I supposed to do about that?