CHAPTER

8

MONDAY AFTERNOON, JAMIE pulled her stocking cap over her ears and left Angel’s house, where she had been holed up since Jack had dropped her off Saturday night. Overhead, the sky was fat and low with another front moving in from the west. She walked to the edge of the field next to the high school and stood at the chain-link fence with her backpack at her feet, her hands jammed in her pockets for warmth. The appointment with Jilkins and the principal had been set for three thirty, after the final bell.

She hoped that Toby was still inside the school, hoped he hadn’t bolted and left her to handle them alone. She’d helped him out plenty of times and he owed her one. They had survived the last eight years by being human shields for each other, and she would need him there later when she told Loyal about having lost the money. That’s how she planned to put it, make it sound like it had been misplaced on accident. He might buy that. Probably not. But the Monday night group were a bunch of laid-back shop owners, and if she told him right before they showed up things might go easy. He definitely wouldn’t hit her in front of them and they would be there for hours. Maybe by the time they left he’d be passed out.

At three fifteen the school bell rang and kids poured through the doors into the parking lot like a flood of minnows rushing through the shallows, climbing over the fence into cars and buses, walking alongside the ditch that led away from the football field. All of them wound up from too many hours spent in a compressed space, most of them in need of a smoke and a couple of unstructured hours. It had been less than a year since Jamie had been stuck inside those walls waiting for life to begin. She remembered the impulse to flee at the end of the day. Now, a year later, she was nagged by the suspicion that those days might have been the best she’d ever know.

Toby was the tallest kid in his class and easy to spot in a crowd. She didn’t see him leave the building. When the last school bus pulled away from the curb, Jamie went inside. She checked the detention hall behind the library, wondered if he was scamming the nurse again, and walked toward the main building to check the infirmary. She saw him through the tall glass windows, slumped on a bench outside the principal’s office, pretending to catnap.

He looked up when she opened the door. “Jilkins is hell-bent on some stupid program.” He rolled his eyes and dropped his chin back to his chest.

The school’s guidance counselor spotted her through the glass walls. She picked up a file off her desk and came out the office door. Ms. Jilkins followed her.

“We were expecting his uncle,” Ms. Hollins said.

Jamie took off her stocking cap and twisted it in her hands. “He’s sick today and sent me instead. Said to say he’s sorry.”

Ms. Hollins stretched her neck impatiently as if she’d expected something like this and said, “I guess you’ll do, then.”

Toby slumped forward, his elbows to his knees, hiding a smile.

“What’s going on? I’m sure Toby will apologize. Right, Toby?”

“Apologies won’t do this time,” Ms. Hollins said. “We’re seeing a pattern of behavior that needs to be addressed. We think Toby is a good candidate for a new program.”

Toby groaned.

Jilkins took the file from Hollins, flipped through some pages, and found a form. She gave it to Jamie. “This is a program aimed at helping young men who show signs of … well, who struggle with social skills. Toby is inclined to push smaller students around, tell them what to do. We’d like to change that.”

“He’s just bigger than most kids his age. He’s not a bully,” Jamie said, not believing her own words. She looked at the form. It was an evening program run out of the school. Toby would see it as nothing more than detention, but all she had to do was take this home, sign Loyal’s name, and this would be over.

“And we’d like to keep it that way. This program will help him learn to manage his temper.”

Toby started popping his knuckles, and Jamie cut him a look. Everything they were saying was true; he was used to getting his way using those long arms and big fists. Most kids kept their distance.

Hollins tilted her head and adjusted her glasses. “With a little empathy training, though, Toby could work this out. He might even become a mentor, a student liaison for this program across the county.”

Jamie asked, “That sound good to you, Toby?”

“It sounds gay,” he mumbled.

Jamie held his gaze. They wouldn’t get out of this until he went along. Finally he stood and said, “Yeah, I’d loved to improve my social skills.”

“Good. Have your uncle look that form over and sign it. Toby, you should bring it to my office tomorrow,” Hollins said.

“Consider it done,” Jamie said, but Hollins wasn’t finished. She pulled out a copy of Toby’s numbers sheet. “And we found out about this today. Apparently, he’s taking bets on the basketball team. This kind of gambling isn’t legal and it certainly isn’t allowed on school property.”

Toby scratched the back of his head and looked toward the front door. “The thing is,” he said, “I didn’t know that.”

Hollins cocked her head at Toby. “Yes, I think you did. You are to return all the money to the students you took it from. And you will get that done by the end of the day tomorrow. Do you understand?”

Toby splayed his big palms faceup like an innocent man and huffed. “Uh, okay.”

Jamie wondered how much of it he’d already spent, how much more she’d have to come up with to cover it. “I’ll make sure that happens.”

Toby walked past the woman and leaned on the glass door at the entrance. “I have a lot of homework. Can we go now?”

Jamie followed him to the door, but Jilkins stopped her. “By the way, Jamie, how’s college?”

“Fine,” Jamie said straight-faced. “Good, fine, it’s all good.” She turned to catch up with Toby, who was holding the door for her.

“Oh, good. I always knew you were a bright kid,” Jilkins called.

Right.

“Me too,” Toby said when they were outside. He loved mocking Jilkins’s high-pitched voice. “I’ve always known you were a bright kid.”

“Shut up.”

“Loyal won’t sign that form. He’ll say it’s for fags.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Jamie said.

They cut through the cemetery. Last week’s storm had blown the plastic flowers everywhere. She hated plastic flowers and was glad to see the place torn up. She looked in the direction of their father’s plot, somewhere near the back corner, and thought for the millionth time that she should take Toby there again, at least show him where to look for the headstone. They’d gone there once when Toby was ten. He’d covered the engraving on the headstone with his foot and rubbed his eyes till they turned red. He’d refused to speak to her for the rest of that day and, since then, they’d fallen into an unspoken ritual of silence when they walked by the cemetery on their way home.

Each time a car came up the road, Toby ducked his head and stepped off the curb.

“What’re you so twitchy about?”

“Billy Pivens. He says I owe him.”

A snow tractor had shoveled Main Street, leaving clumps of mud and snow along the curb. Cold, flat air slapped the blacktop dry. She wondered again if she could leave this town if her brother never did.

“Do you?”

“I sold the same square twice by accident and it hit. I paid him half but he wants it all.”

She stopped midstride and swung around to face him. “Jeez, Toby. How’d that happen?”

“I said it was an accident.”

“Christ.”

“It didn’t go like I thought.”

“You got to be tight if you’re going to run a sheet.”

“The fuck you got to tell me that for? I think I know that now, don’t I?”

She rubbed the back of her neck, sensed a headache traveling up from beneath her left shoulder blade, and switched her backpack to the other side. “Listen, you aren’t the only one in trouble.”

“Yeah, Loyal was pissed when you didn’t show up at Keating’s or all day yesterday.”

“It isn’t just that.” She realized her eyes were dampening. She stopped and, after a couple of steps, so did Toby.

“What?”

“I didn’t get the deposit to Jack.”

Toby stepped closer and lowered his voice. “What the fuck did you do? Spend it?”

“I just needed a loan, for a day or two. Loyal wasn’t supposed to find out.”

He squared up to face her. “How much was it? Can you get it back?”

“No, we went to Mimawa. Lost it all.”

Toby wrapped his arms around his chest and rocked forward. “Jesus. He’ll kill us both.”

“He won’t take it out on you,” she said.

“Right,” Toby said. “Because we both know he never takes it out on me.”

It was true. Toby was the boy and he got smacked harder, longer, and more often.

“He’s been good to us, Toby. I mean overall.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sort of. He’ll go crazy when he finds out about this. He called you all day yesterday.”

“I know. I turned my phone off and stayed at Angel’s house, trying to come up with a plan.”

“Hiding out is more like it.”

Jamie wondered if she should lay low for a few more days or face her uncle now, wondered which option would be less painful. She could show him the laptop, explain how she thought she had the money to cover it, how she had planned to pay him back. It wasn’t her fault the government had shut down the sites.

They turned at the corner of Main and First and slowed to look in the storefronts. The same set of golf clubs had been sitting in the front window of the pawn shop for over a decade. A new gun shop sat between Blind River Funeral Home and the men’s shoe store. Farther down was a wholesale casket store that was perpetually empty.

Mack Dyson, the pawn shop’s owner, came out of the Main Street diner cleaning his large teeth with a toothpick. He was a tidy man with thick-soled shoes and vacant eyes. Everything about him seemed bland until he smiled, and then he resembled the Doberman he kept chained at the back door of his store. The dog lived out there during the day and inside the store at night.

They stopped at the diner and Toby shaded his eyes, looking through the plate-glass window.

Dyson walked the twenty feet from the diner to his store. As he went inside, he called back to them, “She’s out sick today.”

Jamie hated that everyone in town knew they were Phoebe’s kids.

“Damn. I wanted a burger.”

“We’ll get something from the 7-Eleven. Myers still has my last paycheck.”

He pulled a box out of his jacket pocket and opened it to show Jamie. “Her birthday’s tomorrow.”

It was a silver chain with a tiny cross on it. “You bought her a necklace?”

“Well, I didn’t steal it.” He snapped the box shut and stuck it back in his pocket. “It’ll make her happy.”

“Try not getting your ass expelled from school before you graduate,” she said, and started walking. “That might make her happier.”

“Like you should talk. Try not getting your ass sent up for grand theft.”

He turned up the street taking long angry strides. He’d grown a couple of inches this year, his cheeks losing some of their roundness. The peach fuzz was gone from his chin and she figured he’d shaved that morning, maybe for the first time ever. She followed behind, letting him cool off.

When they got to the 7-Eleven, Myers was behind the cash register. “I saw you out back the other day, you know. You got balls coming in here after that.”

“Wasn’t me. I’ve been out of town,” she said.

Toby went straight to the back and grabbed two hotdogs off the grill.

“Uh-huh,” Myers said. He reached, blank-faced, under the counter where she knew he kept a pistol. Jamie froze. For an instant she thought he might pull the gun on them. He could say he thought they were robbing him and no one would be able to prove different. All the cops that came in here every morning to buy coffee and cigarettes, they were all his friends. So, who would take their side if he shot either of them right now?

He pulled his hand out from beneath the counter and held up an envelope. “Your last paycheck.”

Jamie stared at the envelope feeling ridiculous, letting the air reenter her lungs.

Toby filled a Big Gulp cup, drank half of it, and refilled.

“Hey,” Myers snapped. “It’s not a goddamn water fountain.”

She looked at the amount of the check. He’d docked her for a uniform she’d spilled grease on and twice because she forgot to mop the floor. She slid it back across the counter. “Just cash it.”

“Take it to the bank.” He rang up their drinks.

“Come on.” She pushed the check toward him on the counter. “It’s fifty-two dollars.”

Myers folded his arms over his chest. “No.”

“You want to get paid for this stuff? ’Cause we’re broke.”

He shook his head hopelessly and searched his pocket for a pen. “Sign it then.” He took the cash, less the sodas and hotdogs, from the till and slapped them on the counter. “Got a new guy for the morning shift. A good worker, does everything I ask.”

“That right?” Jamie said, stuffing the money into her pocket. Toby walked to the door and pushed it open.

“That’s right,” Myers said. “Goes to show you really can still find decent help these days.”

She smirked. She had definitely not been decent help. Her heart wasn’t in it. Never had been. She didn’t want to be good at a minimum-wage job that would keep her stuck in this town. She wanted to be good at something that would get her the hell out of here.

Toby held the door for her and she briefly glimpsed the man he might become. He muttered, “I bet he bends over for him, too,” and she laughed.

He spit on the sidewalk, stepped on the splat, and ground it with his boot. “Let’s cut through the woods.”

“As long as you don’t fuck around on the tracks.”

Sleet was beginning to fall. Jamie put her stocking cap on, and even though she hated walking beside the tracks when the afternoon train was due, she followed him. They took the south end of the trail through the woods and in a few minutes were walking alongside the tracks.

“Who’d you go to Mimawa with?”

“Jack.”

“What the fuck, Jamie? That’s your way out, right there.”

“Blame Jack? No. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Oh, yeah. We’re back to doing the right thing, are we? He was there, right? It would take the heat off you. You, meaning us.”

Jamie sipped her soda, debating the idea quietly.

“Mom went there once,” Toby said.

“Where? Mimawa? Huh-uh. That was Atlantic City. Remember, she brought you that T-shirt with the dice on it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The dice.”

“Why’d she go there anyway?” he asked.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, why’d she go to Atlantic City?”

“I don’t know. Probably met a guy,” Jamie said, but she wasn’t really sure.

“Which one?”

“Elvin, you know, the one with the Camaro.”

“Oh, man, that was a nice car.”

“You remember that? You were so little then.”

His eyes darted back and forth as he searched his mind for the memory. “It was red with yellow flames on the side. Man, I loved that car.”

Jamie nodded, though the car had been green. She remembered that guy and all the others Phoebe had brought home. Toby had fallen for every one of them. But that was before Phoebe went to prison and they ended up sharing that room in the back of Loyal’s trailer.

A mile out, the train sounded like distant thunder. In another minute it would come barreling around the bend, just fifty yards away.

Jamie said, “Come on,” and walked down into the gully.

Toby stayed on the tracks, turned around and faced the direction of the train, spread his arms Christlike, and raised his face to the sky. She hated when he fucked around like this, hated him for needing such a rush.

“Get off!”

The train came into view, hurtling toward him.

She screamed.

He opened his eyes and smiled. The conductor leaned out the window and tugged on the horn. A screeching wind boomed down the gully as Toby jumped off the tracks. He hit the ground, rolled into her, and took her out at the knees. The train whipped past them, pinning their hair to their heads while the conductor shook his fist at them, mouthing something like fucking kids.

“You’re a goddamn ass,” she screamed, but he was curled in a ball at the bottom of the gully laughing too hard to breathe.