19 
The nightmare stalked me again just before the alarm rang the next morning. I’m in the street, dodging cars, trying to get to the other side, rain plastering my hair to my head, sticking my eyelashes together. And then, headlights bearing down on me—
I sat up in bed, clammy with sweat. I hoped it was sweat anyway. I was too young for hot flashes, wasn’t I? I sank back against my pillow—then sat up again. Wait a minute. The dream was wrong, flipped around, as if my memory had turned inside out. I shouldn’t be the one in the street; I was supposed to be in the car. I . . .
Denny sighed in his sleep and heaved his body onto his left side, facing away from me. And then I knew. This dream wasn’t about the accident that happened nearly a year ago. It wasn’t a memory at all.
It was fear.
I gave up on sleep, slid out of bed, grabbed Denny’s robe off the door hook, and followed Willie Wonka to the back door for his morning ablution. I started the coffee while keeping an eye on the dog as he waddled in the early morning’s half-light to the corner back by the garage to do his business. The patchwork of Johnny-jump-ups, petunias, and marigolds nodded happily along the fences, enjoying an early morning breeze. Looked like a nice day. Should be a nice day. But apprehension stitched my insides into a knot.
I dreaded the coming week.
It wasn’t just because my classroom tended to run amuck after Memorial Day, even though the long holiday weekend signaled “summer” to the third-grade collective brain, and they all came back to school acting like Mexican jumping beans. (My MO for the last few weeks of school? “Just get through them—somehow!”)
It wasn’t just because the sophomore dance at José’s school was next Saturday, although Amanda had been acting as if all the sands of time, all cells and molecules, all the stars and the moon and the sun, all significant historical events, scientific discoveries, and great literature had been created for this one weekend.
The coffee maker gurgled its final burp. I poured myself a mug, stepped out onto the back porch in Denny’s oversize robe, and sat on the aging porch swing. No, the main reason I dreaded the upcoming week was because Denny hadn’t even blinked when Mark asked him to come to the rally next Friday. “I’ll be there,” he’d said when he returned Mark’s phone call. “Just tell me where.”
And because Josh, when he heard what was going down, leaped on it. “Me too, Dad.”
Oh God, I groaned. I don’t even know what I’m afraid of. The unknown. I mean, what in the world were we getting ourselves into? It was bad enough that Nony’s husband wanted to take on these white supremacists toe to toe. But why drag Denny and Josh into it? What if . . . what if . . .
My mind zeroed in on its target like a heat-seeking missile. What if the rally got ugly? What if some of the minority students got offended at this “white is right” harangue and reacted violently? Were they going to distinguish my “white guys” from the White Pride nuts? I rolled my eyes. Wouldn’t they just love to know Josh had a stack of that White Pride filth under his bed!
Wonka finished his morning business and wandered back toward the house, pausing to sniff the new day. Grabbing the pooper-scooper, I hustled down the porch steps in my bare feet. It suddenly seemed very important to get rid of Wonka’s poop now.
HALFWAY INTO THE WEEK, I realized I still hadn’t called Delores to find out what was troubling her—or Ruth, to see if she was feeling better.
Hadn’t been upstairs to see Becky Wallace either.
Some friend you are, Jodi Baxter, I scolded myself as I came in the house after school on Wednesday. I’d been so busy keeping myself busy so I didn’t have to think about this rally business, I’d been neglecting—well, a lot of stuff. Prayer. Friends. Promises.
Dumping my tote bag and kicking off my shoes, I headed for the kitchen in my sock feet, let the dog out, grabbed the phone, put on the teakettle, and pulled open the freezer door to see if, by some miracle, a magic elf had left an already-prepared supper there.
“Hello?”
Good grief, whose number had I dialed? “Uh . . . is Delores there?”
“No, Mama’s at work. Do you want her to call you?”
Which Enriquez cutie was this? Wasn’t José. Didn’t sound like Emerald. “Yes, please. Tell her Jodi Baxter called, OK?”
Admit it, Jodi. You’re not very good at multitasking. I took a big breath, put some pork chops into the microwave to thaw, poured hot water over a tea bag, and sat down before I made my next call. The phone on the other end picked up.
“Garfield.” The voice was gruff. Curt. Male.
“Ben? It’s Jodi Baxter. I’m calling to see if Ruth is feeling better. We missed her at Yada Yada on Sunday.”
The briefest of pauses, like a skipped heartbeat. “Yeah, sure, she’s OK. Some low-grade bug she’s been fighting, nothing serious. Or maybe it’s, ah, you know, a female thing. But she’s at work today. Be home in an hour or so.”
“Oh.” I swallowed my disappointment. So would my family, and once supper, the evening news, kids on the phone, and homework kicked into gear—and oh, yes, tonight was midweek Bible study at Uptown—it’d be bedtime, or tomorrow, before I’d get a chance to call again. “Just tell her I called, OK? Thanks, Ben.” I started to hang up.
“Hey! Miss In-a-Hurry. You called me. So talk.” The gravelly voice at the other end chuckled. “Actually, I’ve got a question. Is Denny there?”
“No. Baseball practice after school, you know.”
“OK, that’s not my question. What I want to know is, is your good-looking husband going to that sicko rally at Northwestern on Friday?”
Now it was my turn to skip a heartbeat. “Yes,” I admitted. “Josh wants to go too.”
“Good for the boy. Good for Denny. Tell both of ’em to keep me in line just in case I’m tempted to wipe the mouth off a White Pride kisser or two.”
I think I made a strangled noise. Couldn’t be sure if it was me or static on the line.
“Jodi, sweetheart. Just kidding. I’m going to behave myself. Mark Smith asked me to be there, so I’m going to be there. Glad I’ll have some company. OK. Now you can hang up.”
“Wait! Ben?” Ben Garfield had to be older than Ruth by at least ten years—she was close to fifty, which probably made him fifteen or twenty years older than I was. For some reason, his teasing and gentle gruffness made me feel like a little girl being hugged by my daddy. And I found myself blurting out the whole business of Josh ordering books from the White Pride people, and there they were, sitting in my house, making me feel like a party to all this mess.
Ben listened. At least he was quiet while I bumbled along. Then he said, “The kid’s got guts. What’s he finding out from these books?”
“Uh, I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything.”
“Said anything! Of course he’s not going to say anything. This kind of venom isn’t exactly dinner-table talk. I meant, have you looked at these books? Didn’t you tell Yo-Yo once upon a time—one of you Yada Yadas did—that parents or guardians better watch what their kids watch, read what their kids read, listen to what their kids listen to? Of course, this is different, because Josh is educating himself about this mess. Still, I’d go look at those books if I were you, Jodi.”
How long had Wonka been scratching at the back screen door? “Um, thanks, Ben. You’re probably right. Don’t forget to tell Ruth I called.” I hung up quickly, getting rid of the phone like a hot potato. Absently, I let the dog in.
Did I want Ben Garfield telling me I should look at those books?
Maybe because it was Ben. Maybe because Denny had told me some of Ben’s family history during the Holocaust. If Ben Garfield thought I should look at those books, maybe . . .
I glanced at the kitchen clock. Amanda might be home any minute; I wasn’t sure about Josh. Denny wouldn’t hit the door until six thirty. But for the moment, I had the house all to myself.
Slowly, I walked to Josh’s bedroom. The door was ajar. Usually I pulled it shut when I passed by, not wanting to see the puree inside, as if bedclothes, dirty socks, ratty jeans, gym shoes, underwear, books and papers, soccer equipment, and a hundred CDs had been dumped into a giant blender. Out of sight, out of mind, I figured—until the next cleaning orgy at least. But today I pushed it open and entered. Don’t go snooping into anything else, Jodi Baxter, I told myself. Just the books.
Took me several minutes to find them, stuffed under his bed. What else was under there, only God knew. Probably Josh himself had no idea. I shuddered. As long as it wasn’t crawling, growing mold, or multiplying, I’d let it go. For now.
I pulled out the books. Most were thick, four hundred pages at least. But I picked up a small booklet. The Pro-White Creed—A Summary of What We Believe.
A summary. That would do it for me.
I glanced at the table of contents. It read almost like a religious handbook, designed to instruct the novice believer. “The Ten Commandments of White Pride” . . . “We Believe—A Daily Affirmation of Faith” . . . “Fifteen Principles of Healthy Living.” I steeled myself for a twisted form of Christianity, like the Crusades or the Ku Klux Klan. But the more I read, the weaker I got in the knees until I ended up on the floor.
“We believe our race is our religion. . . . The inferior races are our avowed enemy, and the Jewish race is the most dangerous of all.” The enemy? Dangerous? I didn’t get it. I mean, by definition racists thought other races were “inferior”—but why the “enemy”? And why the Jews? I always thought of Jewish people as “white.” They looked that way to me.
“Christianity was invented by the Jews to destroy the White Race. . . . Christianity rapes the minds of otherwise intelligent White Men.” My eyes practically bugged out of my head. What? What in the world did they mean, “invented . . . to destroy the White Race”? Seemed to me most Jewish people got rather offended by Christians claiming Jesus was the Messiah. But hey, if these White Pride types didn’t believe in God or Jesus, that was fine with me. Gave me less to apologize for.
“What is good for the White Race is the highest virtue. . . . There is nothing more despicable than a traitor to his or her own race.” I read that one over at least three times. What were they talking about? Mixed marriages? Disagreeing with them?
“Eat only raw vegetables . . . drink no poisons like coffee or alcohol . . . exercise regularly. Build up the White Race!” OK, so they were health nuts. I flipped more pages.
“It’s a law of nature to protect one’s own. . . . Do nothing illegal. But be ready to defend yourself. Racial war is only a matter of time—”
A door slammed. The phone started ringing. “Mo-om! Where’s the car? Can we go shopping? I need new underwear for the dance!” The ringing phone cut short. “Hello? Baxter’s Beauty Barn . . . Oh, hi, Mrs. Garfield. . . . Mo-om! It’s for you!”
I quickly shoved the books back under Josh’s bed, scrambled to my feet, and met Amanda in the kitchen with a smile plastered on my face.