RANDY, CLUTCHING THE FLYER DELIA HAD FOUND, RAN across the gym and headed to the pay phone in the corner. Delia knew it was out of order, because she had tried to use it earlier that day, but she was afraid to say anything else to Randy. She had never seen him so angry. She watched with dismay as he slammed the phone to the floor.
Bomani came back into the gym then, and Randy ran to him, talking quickly and rattling the flyer in this hand. Delia couldn’t hear the conversation, but she figured that Randy was telling Bomani what a low-life friend she turned out to be. Bomani glanced at her, and she lowered her head in shame. He carefully read the sheet of paper, then spoke quietly to Randy, who seemed to calm down. Delia was afraid to move as she saw Randy walk back over to where she sat. He did not smile.
“I gotta go. Bomani said I should call the number on the flyer from his house, ’cause its long distance.” He turned and headed toward the door.
Delia was near tears. “I’m sorry, Randy. I didn’t want to upset you. I was going to tell you after the tournament that I found that flyer. I knew you’d be upset to know that criminal posters about your dad were hanging around. It’s got to be embarrassing for you to know your dad is wanted by the police.”
Randy turned suddenly. “Criminal?” Randy roared. “Are you crazy? My father is no criminal!”
Delia jumped back a little from the power and anger of Randy’s reply. “What do you mean?” she asked in confusion. “The poster ... the police . . .” She hesitated.
“This is the first clue I’ve had in months,” Randy explained. “My first real hope.”
“Randy, I don’t understand,” Delia admitted. Her brain felt fuzzy. “I thought you said your dad wanted you to move to California?”
Randy took a deep breath. “I guess I should have told you the truth. My dad has been missing for the last two months.”
“What do you mean ‘missing’? You told me you talk to him all the time.”
“I didn’t want anybody to find out, so I’ve been covering for him. Every day I figured he’d come back. But he didn’t. I haven’t heard from him since he left on a long-distance haul.”
“Oh, Randy, you’ve been all by yourself?” Delia gasped.
“That’s why I’ve been so hungry all the time, and so hard up for cash.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought he’d deserted me, like my mother did,” Randy replied quietly. “But this flyer tells me different and you hid it from me!” Randy’s anger was returning.
“So what does the poster say?” Delia asked hesitantly. “He’s not wanted by the police?”
“Can’t you read, Delia?” Randy asked, looking at her as if she were one of Yolanda’s Martians.
Delia sat on the bleacher and finally released the torment of the last few years. She cried loud and long, ignoring the stares of the few remaining people in the gym. “No, Randy,” she said finally. “I can’t read. I’ve been faking it for years.” She repeated for emphasis, and the words seemed to echo in the almost deserted gym: “I do not know how to read.”
“How is that possible? Everybody knows how to read!” Randy answered in disbelief.
“It’s easy if you know how to play the game. At the store when I shop for groceries for my mom, I know the colors and the sizes of the packages I want. At the fast-food places they have pictures of everything. I just ask for a number two with a Coke. At school, I guess, I listen real good, I get the video instead of reading the book, and I do really well on nonreading reports like our project for English. But it’s hard to keep up,” she admitted. “I’m so tired of it all.”
“What does your mother say about your, uh, reading problem, Delia?”
“She doesn’t know,” Delia replied. She pulled at the hair of the Barbie doll.
“That’s impossible. How can a mother NOT know something like that?”
“It’s not so hard to hide the truth, Randy. Look at what you did. Nobody knew you were living all alone.”
Randy sighed. “I guess you’re right.”
“I feel so stupid,” Delia said with her head down.
“But you seem so smart!” Randy blurted out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say you were dumb.”
“I wasn’t smart enough to read that flyer about your father,” Delia said quietly. “I really AM stupid. What does it say?”
“The police aren’t looking for him—they have found him!” Randy said with excitement.
“What? How? Where is he? He’s . . . alive?” she asked cautiously.
“Yeah, at least he was when this flyer was made up. There’s no telling how old it is. Looks like it was sent out as a fax from a hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Gee, Dad,” Randy mused, “you only got as far as Columbus?” He shook his head in disbelief.
“Wasn’t he on his way to California?” Delia asked.
“Yeah, he was. From what I can tell here, he was beat up and robbed and left for dead near a truck stop. How’d you let them get the drop on you like that, Dad?” Randy said more to himself than to Delia. “He was in a coma for six weeks, but it seems, now that he has come out of it, his memory is foggy, and they are looking for anyone who knows him and can help him. And that’s me!” It was Randy’s turn to break down with emotion. “I was afraid he was dead, Delia.”
“I almost threw that flyer away, Randy. I thought it was something really bad that would hurt you. Because I’m so stupid, I almost cost you the chance to get your daddy back.”
Randy didn’t disagree with her. Instead, he said, “I gotta go. I gotta make this call.” Clutching the flyer, he ran out suddenly, leaving Delia sitting alone on the bleachers, listening to the echoes of all the victories and defeats that gym had witnessed—including her own.