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Amber parks in the lot on the north side of the school, as far away from where Tyler always parks as possible. She grabs her backpack, gets out of the car and slams the door. I sit in the car. She comes around to the other side and opens the door.
“Well?” she says.
“I can’t do it.”
“Come on. It’s only school.”
“No. It’s Tyler and Shawna this period.”
“You can’t just keep cutting class.”
“I’m NOT going to go to creative writing and sit in the same room with Shawna and Tyler, and pretend nothing happened!”
“Okay. Okay. Stay there. I’ll come back and walk with you to peer communications.”
I shake my head. “Don’t you see? I really can’t see Shawna.”
“Well, I’ll see you in English then.”
I nod. Amber closes the car door and walks away toward her zero period. I take Jane Eyre from my backpack and find the spot where I left off. Jane Eyre was cold and hungry and had no place to stay since she left Mr. Rochester’s. She sat in the driving rain, waiting to die. I’m sitting in a warm car. I’ve had breakfast and I have a home to go to. But I believe I am as sad and desolate as Jane Eyre ever was. Should that make me feel better, knowing my feelings are so common that a woman way back in the nineteenth century could write about the same emotions? I try to look at things philosophically. Many people suffer terrible disappointments in love. Why should I expect anything different? But it’s all theory, and I feel just as lost and empty inside as ever.
I notice when it’s time for English, notice the bell and students milling around between classes. I slump down in the car so no one will see me. Second period passes. Then third.
Amber comes to the car and tries to talk me into at least going to afternoon classes. I say yes, but I don’t leave the car until time for volleyball practice. It will do me good to hit the ball, and I don’t have to worry about seeing Tyler or Shawna there.
Coach Terry lectures me way too long about missing practice, then I take my place on the court. It’s still Marcia I serve, but now it’s Shawna I spike. Wham! Down to the ground! Smash that face! Once, when I’m set up for a perfect spike, I try to turn the ball into Tyler’s face.
“Hey, keep your mind on the game!” Coach Terry yells when the ball bounces lightly off my fingers and lands outside the boundaries.
Practice is nearly over when Shawna comes walking onto the court, heavy flannel shirt, baggy jeans, head down.
“Hey, off the court! What’s going on here?” Coach Terry yells.
Shawna keeps walking, straight toward me. She stops right in front of me, throws her hair back so I can see those gray-blue eyes.
“I’ve got to talk to you!” she says, loud and firm, in a voice I’ve never heard.
The scene from the nursery flashes before me and my head is spinning with Shawna, her face, her presence. I haul back and slam my open hand into her face, aiming it over the net, but it goes nowhere. I haul back again but someone blocks my arm. Coach Terry, Amber, the rest of the team, swarm around us. Amber is in front of me, blocking Shawna.
“No! Stop!” she’s yelling right in my face.
I jump high, trying to pull my arm loose, to spike Shawna, but I can’t reach her.
Coach Terry has Shawna by the arm, pulling her away.
“I’ve got to talk to you, you stupid bitch!” Shawna yells.
“Let me go!” I yell to whoever is holding my arms, pulling at my waist, but the pressure only tightens. I struggle to squirm away, to get at Shawna, but they’ve got me.
Two security guys come running over, one grabbing me by the shoulders and the other grabbing Shawna. Their walkie-talkies are squawking and a crowd is gathering. Across the courts I see Tyler running toward us.
We’re already being led away to the vice principal’s office by the time he joins the crowd. My last glimpse of him is with Amber, talking intently.
––––––––
“What’s this about?” Dr. Ogden asks, motioning us to sit down.
Coach Terry sits between me and Shawna. The two security guys stay standing, one next to Shawna and the other next to me. My hands are trembling and it’s everything I can do not to cry.
“Terry?”
“This young woman, Shawna, came walking onto the volleyball court in the middle of practice. She defiantly refused to leave, engaged in a fight with my student, used foul language, and tried to fight off security.”
“Do you have anything to add?” Dr. Ogden says, looking from one security guard to the other.
Both shake their heads.
Dr. Ogden’s secretary comes in carrying two big file folders and sets them down on his desk, then leaves. One of the folders has my name on it and the other has Shawna’s. Our permanent records, I suppose. Shawna’s is about twice as thick as mine.
“What is the meaning of this, Shawna?” Dr. Ogden asks.
Shawna is hidden behind her hair and doesn’t answer. I wonder what her cheek looks like under that mass of hair. My hand, the one I hit her with, is red and throbbing.
“Do you have anything to add, Lauren?” Dr. Ogden says.
I shake my head.
“So this is the version we’re going with?”
“I was right there,” Coach Terry says. “Lauren was minding her own business when Shawna came looking for trouble.”
Dr. Ogden shakes his head sadly as he thumbs through Shawna’s file, looking at referral after referral.
“Well . . . Harry, will you sit with Shawna in the office for a few minutes, until I’m finished here with Lauren?”
They leave. Then Dr. Ogden gives Coach Terry and the other security guy each forms to fill out, and they leave. Dr. Ogden opens my folder and leafs through the pages, stopping now and then to read more thoroughly.
“Now, Lauren, I can see from your permanent record that you are not a trouble maker. But anytime there’s an event of violence, all parties must have at least a one-day suspension. So you’ll stay home from school tomorrow, even though you obviously were not the aggressor. ”
I could tell him I’d treated Shawna’s head like a volleyball, but I don’t.
“Shawna will be transferred to a more appropriate placement, since this is just one of a long string of difficulties she’s had here.”
I tuck my hands under my legs, trying to control the trembling.
“I’m only telling you what will happen with Shawna because I don’t want you to be afraid to return,” Dr. Ogden says.
He and Coach Terry have totally misinterpreted the whole thing. But that’s what happens a lot with the adults around here. They don’t quite get it.
But what does it matter? Nothing matters. I half listen to Dr. Ogden’s advice while I pay more attention to the pain in my hand. I’m glad my hand hurts. It’s a distraction from the deeper hurts inside me.
––––––––
I’m only about three blocks from school, walking home, when I think I get a glimpse of the red Honda. I don’t care, I just keep walking. Then, about halfway home, I hear the familiar sound of Tyler’s car. I don’t turn to look. The car stops, engine shuts off. I keep walking, faster, head down.
“Lauren! Lauren!”
I don’t answer him.
“I’ve got to talk with you. You don’t understand!”
I’m running now, Tyler close behind me. He catches me by my arm, pulls me around to face him.
“You’ve got to listen!”
I jerk free and run ahead. Again he catches me, this time holding me with both arms. I pull away, hard, but he hangs on harder. His face is troubled, intent.
“It’s not . . . ”
The red Honda slams to a stop on the sidewalk right in front of us. The driver jumps out of the car and hurls himself at Tyler.
“Leave her alone!” he demands, grabbing Tyler and throwing him to the sidewalk.
“Come on,” he says, trying to pull me into his car.
“No!” I scream.
Tyler is up again, pulling with all his might at the man’s large, hard-muscled arms, freeing me.
“Run, Lauren! Run!”
For one paralyzed moment I look at Tyler, see the man effortlessly free himself, hear the thud of Tyler’s body slam into the sidewalk as the man again starts toward me. Fear rushes through me and I run for all I’m worth. Footsteps are behind me, not the light fleet footsteps of Tyler Bronson, but the heavy, pounding footsteps of the red Honda man, gaining.
“Rennie! Rennie!” he says, his grip so hard on my arm I feel it all the way up to my shoulder and down to my wrist.
“You’re all right. I won’t let him hurt you.”
He’s looking straight into my eyes. “You ’re safe now, Rennie,” he says softly, his eyes brimming with tears.
Rennie, Rennie, Rennie, Rennie, Rennie . . . echoes in my head, a chant, like a drum beat from some ancient time.
Tyler runs up, shoving at the hunk of a man. I watch as if it were far away, on some old-time tiny television screen, the picture small and blurred. The man shoves Tyler’s arm behind his back, pushing upward. Tyler cries out in pain.
“I’m taking you to the police station,” the man says. His voice sounding distant, bubbly and waterlogged, barely understandable. But louder and clearer in my head rings RENNIE, RENNIE, RENNIE . . .
“Hurt her and I’ll kill you!” Tyler yells.
“Hey! I’m not the guy who’s hurting her! You’re the one who grabbed onto her and wouldn’t let her go!”
RENNIE, RENNIE . . . bouncing around in my head, in my heart, until . . .
I look at his face, look into his eyes, hear the reassurance, “. . . safe now, Rennie.” Something resounds within me.
“Jack? . . .” I am shaking from head to toe.
He releases Tyler and turns to me.
“Yes,” he says. “Yes.”
He stands, still as a statue, his eyes on mine, moist and searching. I know he is telling the truth. He is familiar to me, not from this life, but from some other life.
“It’s me, Rennie, Daddy Jack.”
He takes a step toward me, his arms open. I back away. He stops, drops his arms to his side. We stand, eyes locked on one another.
“I’ve wanted for so long to see you again,” he says.
Tyler stands rubbing his arm, watching us.
“You know this guy?” Tyler asks.
“My father,” I tell him, my voice sounding whispery and unsure.
“You know him?” Jack asks, nodding in Tyler’s direction.
“He used to be my boyfriend.”
“God, Lauren . . .” Tyler starts.
“Is he bothering you?” my father says, looking at Tyler as if he could tear him apart.
“I just don’t want to talk to him,” I say, not meeting Tyler’s eyes.
“Give me a chance, please,” Tyler says, his voice shaky with emotion.
“I don’t want to talk to you!”
Tyler looks from me to Jack and back again.
“Whatever,” he says, and walks slowly to his car.
The promise ring shines in the sun as he rubs at a skinned place on his forehead. I look away.
Jack and I stand close, not talking. I look for something of me in him. His hair. His eyes. His lips. He reaches up and touches my hair.
“On you it looks good,” he says.
A mail carrier walks by and looks curiously at the Honda parked halfway up on the sidewalk. He gives us a funny look, then walks on.
“Let’s go somewhere and talk. Do you drink coffee, Rennie?” he asks.
His voice is deep and resonant, making music of my long- forgotten nickname.
“I only drink cappuccino,” I tell him.
“Well, let’s go find one.”
He opens the passenger door for me, and I get into his car.
He walks to the other side and squeezes into the Honda behind the steering wheel. He’s way too big for this car.
As if he’s read my mind, he laughs.
“It’s the best I can do when I’m making an honest living.”
Then, suddenly, he turns serious.
“That’s the only kind of living I’m ever going to make again, Rennie. I’m through with all that other stuff.”
I remember how Marcia swore she was through with drugs, too. But she wasn’t. Only death could stop her drug use. I don’t trust any promises about drugs.