On Thursday, Jaris was walking toward the lunch spot under the eucalyptus trees. Then he spotted Zendon, walking with a tall, pretty girl he did not recognize. Jaris did a double take. Zendon and the girl seemed very affectionate toward each other. At one point, they stopped, and Zendon leaned over and kissed her. As Jaris drew closer, he heard the girl say, “I just think the grunge bands were awesome. I mean, they were before my time, but I’ve got all the music. Your stuff is so fresh, Zen. But it reminds me of the best grunge ever. It’s your own sound, but it’s eerie.”
Zendon laughed. In some weird way, he sounded like Greg Maynard. Maynard chuckled and laughed a lot too when he and Mom were talking. It was his way of showing approval of what she was saying. He was showing delight in all her wonderful ideas. He’d go, “Monie, why didn’t I think of that? You’re amazing!”
Jaris never liked Zendon, and he didn’t like Greg Maynard either. When Jaris got down by the trees, he saw his friends— Sereeta, Alonee, Oliver, Destini, Derrick, and Carissa. He was really surprised to see Carissa. She hadn’t been coming since she broke up with Kevin. Kevin kept coming alone, but then he sort of dropped out too.
“Hi, you guys,” Carissa greeted. She seemed a little nervous, sitting down quickly. She opened her carton of yogurt, peeling off the top and licking it. “Lemon, my fave,” she remarked.
“How you been, Carissa?” Derrick asked. “You been a stranger for a while.”
“Oh . . . I just had stuff to do at lunchtime,” Carissa explained. Suddenly she looked very sad.
Sami Archer came down the trail and declared, “Well, look who’s here. The little lost sheep has returned!”
“I missed you guys,” Carissa admitted. “I . . . uh . . . miss Kevin a lot too. I mean, we had this stupid argument. I was listening to Zendon’s music, and I guess Kevin got the wrong idea. Well, I mean, I hung with Zendon for a while, but he’s not for me. I wish I’d never done it. Kevin gets mad so easy. I mean, I never stopped caring about him but . . .” She looked around hopefully. “He still comes here, doesn’t he? I mean . . . to have lunch with the gang?” There was hope in her eyes.
“No child,” Sami replied, “he ain’t been coming lately. He got a new friend now, and they hang up on the stone benches.”
Carissa’s pretty eyes widened. “A girl?” she asked.
“No,” Sami shook her head. “He been hangin’ with that strange dude, Lydell Nelson. He the one all the time writin’ in his book, like he’s a spy or somethin’. Like he takin’ down notes about us.” Sami laughed. She didn’t really think Lydell was a spy.
“Oh,” Carissa sighed, relieved. “I just thought if I came down here, I’d run into Kevin. I mean, we were really tight you know. I thought if I explained to Kevin that it really wasn’t any big deal with Zendon . . . I just sorta liked his music, and one thing led to another.”
Jaris thought about what was happening in his own house. It was just like what happened to Kevin and Carissa. Mom liked and admired Greg Maynard. As Mom often said, it was no big thing. But maybe Greg Maynard would come on strong when they got to New Orleans. Maybe something would happen, and everything would change forever. Louisiana moonlight would work its magic.
Jaris knew he was letting his imagination run away with him again. He hated himself when he did that. He was going down that dark path again, where he feared all was going wrong. Jaris found it all too easy to get lost in the onrushing darkness. That’s why he understood Pop. His father knew that darkness too, and it sometimes overwhelmed him. Mom was sunshine and light, and she never felt the darkness.
“Tell you what, child,” Sami suggested. “Kevin been real moody lately. That dude is hangin’ with Lydell, and they fightin’ their demons together. Y’hear what I’m sayin’? They kinda found each other in the dumps. Now they go down to some ratty old gym and punch bags. They let the anger out like that. Kevin kinda like a buzz saw right now. You best stay clear of the boy till he settles down.”
Carissa looked hurt. “Just ’cause I enjoyed some other guy’s music and told him so? That’s no reason for Kevin to hate me. I mean, I didn’t do anything terrible.” Carissa quietly finished her lemon yogurt. Then she left the spot under the eucalyptus trees in search of Kevin.
Kevin was sitting alone on the grass by the statue of Harriet Tubman when Carissa found him. He had just run around the football field, and he was getting his breath. Carissa approached him slowly, “Hi Kevin,” she said.
“Hi,” he replied in a flat voice.
“Kevin, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, but all I did was—” she began.
“Get lost,” Kevin snapped, getting up from the grass.
“Kevin, I wasn’t dating Zendon or anything. I was just—” Carissa stammered.
“Get lost, girl,” he snapped again, brushing the grass off his running shorts.
“I didn’t do anything,” Carissa began to cry.
“Nothin’ but kissin’ up with that punk Zendon behind the oleander bushes by the gym,” Kevin sneered. “Good old Jasmine Benson told me all about it.”
“She’s a liar!” Carissa gasped. “You’d believe that two-faced liar?”
“Yeah, I believed you for a long time, didn’t I?” Kevin snarled, “Jaz saw what she saw and that’s it. It’s okay, babe. Don’t sweat it. Just stay out of my way, okay? Everybody been talkin’ about what’s going on with you and Zendon. I’m sick of it. I wanted to punch Zendon out, but that was stupid. I thought, ‘Hey, the dude did me a favor taking a chick like that off my hands.’”
“Kevin,” Carissa wept, “I made a mistake, okay? Can’t you forgive one little mistake?”
“Know what, babe?” Kevin said, standing squarely in front of Carissa. “We were juniors, and I confided in you. I told you the biggest secret of my life—that my pa was a murderer who died in a prison riot. You blabbed it to your mom, and she spread it all over the neighborhood. Marko Lane put me through hell because of that, but I forgave you. I forgave you, babe, ’cause you didn’t do it on purpose. I forgive mistakes, not stuff like wrapping yourself around Zendon Corman. You blew it, girl. You can’t lose what you never had, and we never had anything. So, like I said, get lost.”
“Kevin, I thought you were better than this,” Carissa wept.
Kevin looked right at the girl with near hatred in his eyes. “That makes two of us, babe. I thought you were better too.” He turned then and walked away.
Carissa turned too, sobbing loudly. She ran across the campus. Alonee spotted her and ran after her. “Carissa, are you okay?” she called to the other girl.
Carissa kept on running. Jaris saw her and walked up to Alonee.
“What’s that about?” he asked Alonee.
“I guess she and Kevin had it out. She’s done with Zendon, and she wants to get back with Kevin. I guess he wasn’t ready to be with her,” Alonee said.
“I like Kevin,” Jaris commented. “He’s a good guy. But you don’t cross the line with him. He’s done a lot of favors for all of us, but he doesn’t fool around. Carissa made a bad mistake. She stepped over the line. If she wanted to date another guy she just should have been up front about it. But she sneaked around and made a fool of Kevin.”
“So you think he’s right in not forgiving her, Jaris?” Alonee asked.
“Oh brother, who knows?” Jaris sighed. “Who knows anything anymore?”
As Jaris walked to his afternoon classes, Sereeta fell in step beside him. “Too bad about Carissa and Kevin,” she remarked.
“Yeah,” Jaris replied, “maybe they weren’t a good match. Carissa went for Kevin when this Twister mania was all around the school. Remember? When Kevin first arrived at Tubman and turned out he could run like a Texas twister. Then Zendon got hot with his band, and she’s gone to him. Maybe the girl needs to do a little growing up.”
“It’s kind of Kevin to be reaching out to Lydell Nelson,” Sereeta said. “A lot of us reached out, but he got through.”
“I bet Ms. McDowell very quietly and gently enlisted Kevin’s help with Lydell,” Jaris replied. “That’s something she would do after we had our talk with her. She sees something in Kevin. She sees that he can help Lydell better than anybody else. She’s got an amazing insight into people.”
“When I was feeling so low,” Sereeta responded, “she helped me so much. She told me something I’ll never forget. I kinda borrow trouble. I worry and worry about what’s going to happen down the line. It keeps me from being happy in the present. Ms. McDowell said, ‘Sereeta, don’t think about tomorrow.’ Just a few simple words. Now, when I start to torture myself with what-ifs, I just remember those words. I don’t think about tomorrow.”
“I’m that way too,” Jaris admitted.
“Yeah,” Sereeta went on. “I’d be freakin’ out before that first family dinner at the Manley house. But no, I refuse to do that. Grandma is making stuffed pork chops tonight with cream-style corn and sweet potato pie. And I’m gonna enjoy today with all my might. Then Grandma and I will watch her programs on TV. It’ll be nice and peaceful.”
After school, Lydell and Kevin went down to the gym again. Lydell didn’t like the gym as much as Kevin did, but he really liked being with Kevin.
“You know, Kevin,” Lydell remarked as they drove toward the gym, “I told you I never told anybody else about my pa dying like he did. I told you ’cause you seem as screwed up as I am. I thought you’d understand.”
Kevin threw back his head and laughed. “You got that right, dude. I like those guys I hang with at Tubman, but none of them are like me. I mean, none of them as bad as me. I think I could kill Marko Lane, but none of them could. I won’t kill him, or anybody. But I think I could. Those guys like Jaris and Oliver, they couldn’t even imagine such a thing.”
“I’m not strong enough to do somebody in,” Lydell confided. “But I’d like to have hurt the guys who killed my pa. He was all I had, man. He was a big, fat guy, and I looked up to him. I felt safe with him. I thought nobody could hurt me ’cause I was with my pa. We’d go fishing and to the amusement parks. We’d always be having fun, him and me.”
Lydell stared out the truck’s windshield. “He sold insurance,” Lydell went on. “He was just an ordinary guy, but he was really big in my world. I lived in his shadow and when the shadow was gone I felt like I was naked before the world. For a long time, I just cried. Then one day I saw the light. And it was like I just started to write in my journal. Kevin, it’s what keeps me from going crazy.”
“I hear you, man,” Kevin affirmed. “With me it’s running and boxing. It’s like all these demons are clawing at me. Then I bust out and run. I outrun them all. They’re trying to catch me, but they can’t. And in the gym, I’m beatin’ on those bags. They’re my demons, and I’m pulverizing them. Running and boxing. Like they save me.” Kevin looked over at Lydell. “Wackos like us, Lydell, we got to find an escape hatch in this insane world.”
Lydell laughed a little. He didn’t mind Kevin calling him a “wacko.” Plenty of people called him that, and he hated the name. But with Kevin it was different. The thing that blew him away with Kevin was that Kevin said, wackos “like us.” Lydell wasn’t all alone anymore and being mocked for his strangeness. Now he had a partner. What Kevin said was like somebody giving him a hand when he was drowning. This cool, handsome athlete, Kevin “Twister” Walker, was comparing himself to pudgy little Lydell Nelson, who felt totally unloved and unwanted.
The major earthquake over Mom’s upcoming trip to New Orleans had subsided. But in its aftermath, the family atmosphere had changed. No more did Pop try to make it home early. He no longer went into the kitchen to whip up one of his masterpieces for dinner. No more did Pop come home whistling and making jokes with Mom as soon as he entered the house. Pop was staying later at the garage. When he did come home, he wasn’t very cheerful. That change in their dad’s mood bothered Jaris and Chelsea a lot. It was great when Pop came home happy and bantered with everybody. They liked to see him and Mom kidding each other and Pop stealing kisses from her.
Mom worked constantly on her presentations for the convention. On top of her lesson planning and homework, she had additional work for the convention. Mom was very aware that she was delivering an important verdict on the new language arts initiative. Many of the teachers in the room would be older and more experienced than she was. They would be listening very closely to what she had to say. Who was this woman trying to change how they had been teaching for decades?
Many of the teachers would reject everything Mom was saying. Many would reject her as well, and she knew it. So Mom was not in the best of moods either. Pop’s grumpy attitude was like pouring gasoline on the fires of anxiousness already burning in her heart.
One day after school, Jaris heard Mom on the phone with her mother. “No,” Mom was saying, “he’s not home yet. I dread him coming home. He’s deliberately staying late at the garage to punish me for going to this convention. He has this childish attitude that a woman’s main role in life is wife and mother. To him, everything else is piffle. . . . I know, Mom. I know you did. . . . Yes. . . .” Jaris knew what his grandmother was telling his mother. Her mother was reminding Mom of the times she warned her daughter not to marry Lorenzo Spain.
Chelsea came into Jaris’s bedroom. She looked at her brother glumly. “She’s on the phone to Grandma Jessie now, complaining about Pop,” Chelsea reported glumly.
“Yeah, I know,” Jaris replied.
“Now Grandma Jessie will probably want to come over and cause more trouble,” Chelsea said. “I wish Mom wasn’t going to that stupid old convention.”
“Yeah, but she has to go,” Jaris responded. “It was a big honor for her. If she turned it down, it would be like a slap in the face for the district. The educational publishers got a lot of money invested in these new programs. Mom has to try to make it look good. She really believes in it too. She thinks it’ll help the kids learn.”
“I hate it that she’s going though,” Chelsea insisted. “It’s not nice around here anymore. Pop’s an old grump. Mom’s all stressed out and mad at Pop. And another thing too. The other day I saw Elise Maynard. That’s Greg Maynard’s daughter. She was shopping with her mom. She’s coming to Tubman next year. She’s in eighth grade at Anderson now. She told me her dad really, really likes Mom. She said Mom is his favorite teacher in the whole school!”
Jaris stared at Chelsea. “You mean Maynard’s kid told you that?” he gasped. Greg Maynard had been divorced from his wife for a long time. His children lived with their mother, but they spent many weekends with their father at his luxurious condo.
“Yeah,” Chelsea replied. “But I don’t like her. Elise is a little sneak. She waited till her mom was at the other end of the store. Then she comes creeping over real catty like. She goes, ‘My dad likes your mom a whole bunch.’ And I go, ‘What’s with that? My mom and pop are married, and they’re really happy.’ And she just giggles. Then her mom comes, and she can’t say anything else.”
“Kids say stupid things,” Jaris asserted. “They don’t mean anything.”
Chelsea shrugged and left the room. But what she told Jaris made him feel even worse. Mom on the phone with her mother and now this. Jaris’s spirits were sinking fast.