Chapter Six

On the way home from school, Carlos pulled into step beside her. “Hey Sierra with the brown eyes.”

Why was he always calling her that? Brown eyes were nothing special.

“I’ve got some things to do at your place today. Maybe we could walk there together.”

Sierra nodded and kept moving.

“You’re gonna say something to me one of these days.” He flashed her a smile that said he was used to getting what he wanted.

She sped up her steps, but he matched her stride easily.

“No, really,” he said. “You’ll talk to me. And hey, maybe you’ll even smile at me like you smiled for that old guy.”

They crossed the street and Sierra headed down the sidewalk. She wouldn’t blurt something out this time. Anything she said would only double his effort.

When they entered the courtyard, she made a straight line to her apartment, but he kept pace with her. She clung to the railing, and he started up the steps with her.

She stopped. “Bye, Carlos.”

“I’m a gentleman, you know. I always walk a lady to her door.”

“Not necessary.”

“Sure it is.” He kept by her side until they were at her door.

“Bye,” Sierra said again, with more force this time.

“I could come in for a while.”

“I don’t think so. My mom’s at work.” She studied her fingernails. He winced. He actually looked hurt for a few seconds. Who knew? Maybe he was. It couldn’t be easy taking rejection from a bottom-feeder like her, even for a bet with his friends.

“Some other time then.”

All afternoon, Sierra sat in her room with a pen raised over her paper. “Write your heart out,” Mr. Foster said. “Put Sierra Wright into these poems,” Mr. Prodan said. There were no words that could live up to the requirement they’d given her. She shoved the paper aside.

When the afternoon began to dim, she couldn’t stand it anymore and began walking down the steps, out the gate. Once Sierra turned into his neighborhood, with its quiet houses and clean sidewalks, it seemed safer than ever, much safer than her run-down street covered in gang graffiti. The trees took the edge off the heat of the day. She knew Mom wouldn’t like her walking past their street, and she knew what she would say about visiting a man who’d spent time in prison, but Mr. Prodan wasn’t a criminal.

Romanian prisons hadn’t been like American prisons. Sierra knew a thing or two about Eastern Europe from her books. Secret police spied on regular people. The communists didn’t arrest people for murdering and stealing but for being brave enough to speak about their ideas. And Mr. Prodan had lots of ideas.

As she turned the corner onto the street, Sierra came to a halt. A pickup truck sat in Mr. Prodan’s driveway, and a man stood at his door.

She stood still, debating with herself. Under the shade of the old oaks, Mr. Prodan’s grass was trim and neat. The man was probably only selling something. She began walking again, taking steps slow as creek mud. Mr. Prodan came to the door, his hands folded in front of him. The man handed Mr. Prodan a small package. They nodded, and then the younger one turned back to his truck.

Mr. Foster? What was he doing at Mr. Prodan’s? It was odd, really odd. Mr. Foster backed out of the drive and drove by her. He slowed his truck and looked straight at her as he passed, then kept his truck idling at the stop sign. Sierra took a long steadying breath and shoved her hands into her pockets.

Mr. Prodan was about to step back into his house, but when he saw her, he came out to meet her. “My student has been writing haikus?”

She shook her head.

“Mr. Prodan,” she said, trailing behind as he turned back into the house. “Why was that man at your door?” She nodded her head in the direction of the street outside.

He stopped with his back to her, just outside the library. “It is not important.”

“Well, I guess it’s none of my business.”

“That is correct.”

“It’s only I know Mr. Foster, and I wondered. It was kind of weird, both of you helping me with the haikus. That’s all.”

Mr. Prodan turned to face her. “Haikus? What has the man you saw to do with your haikus?”

“Mr. Foster’s the teacher who told me I needed to put my heart into the poems.”

“Ah,” he said. He blinked. He balled up his hands and then turned pale. She could actually see the color fade from his face.

She sat down next to the bookshelf and waited. The silence echoed. Finally, she said, “Is there something wrong, Mr. Prodan?”

“I’m sure he is a fine teacher. He is my son.” His voice was way too quiet.

Sierra went cold. She didn’t know why. Mr. Prodan was her special friend. There was nothing so terrible about Mr. Prodan having a son, but she didn’t like her two worlds colliding. Maybe that was all.

She looked at Mr. Prodan, who would not meet her eyes. She rubbed her hands on her jeans.

No, it was more than her two worlds meeting. His skin going all white, his glance turning away from her—it was just bizarre.

She waited for an explanation, but he said nothing else. At last Sierra said a quiet good-bye. “I’ll see you soon, Mr. Prodan.”

He waved her out the door, as if he were shooing her out. What else was there to do but go home?

Days passed. Mr. Foster didn’t ask Sierra about her poems. Not only that, but when she saw him in the hall, he turned back into his classroom. Sierra trudged down the stairs outside his classroom, feeling the emptiness inside her widen into a gulf.

Thursday night she had just drifted to sleep when she woke with a start. She should have thought of it long before. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking at the yellow light that seeped through the curtains. The room seemed all wrong in the jaundiced light. Everything seemed wrong. How could Mr. Foster be Luca Prodan’s son? He didn’t have Mr. Prodan’s name. He wasn’t even Romanian.

She hardly slept that night. She had crazy dreams about Mr. Foster being a KGB agent and Mr. Prodan being marched through a frozen wilderness with a group of prisoners. She would wake up and nod off, only to have a new thought charge through her. Why wouldn’t a son use his father’s name? And what kind of father didn’t want to talk about his own son?