chapter 31
Right after school, I stake out the boys’ locker room in the stadium. When Raymond emerges in his full-regalia blue-and-white uniform with a shiny whistle around his neck, I follow as he heads to the band staging area outside the football field. I’ve never been known for my grace and agility, but I’m doing a decent job of sneaking around. It helps that Raymond seems hyper-focused on his upcoming musical extravaganza. For an absolutely brilliant human being, he can be completely oblivious to what’s going on around him. He doesn’t seem to notice the skulking figure with the Go Hunters cap pulled low on her forehead to hide her mass of dry, split-ended hair.
He turns the corner and I turn the corner, landing in the middle of enemy territory. It stops me. Under a sky that’s so bright it hurts my skin, there’s a whole army decked out in matching blue uniforms with white, tasseled marching boots. Everyone’s warming up their instruments, humming the same notes and moving to the same rhythm. I hear the trill of trumpets, the running scales of clarinets and flutes, and the four-four-time beat of the drums, and it makes me dizzy.
Under the cacophony I make out Raymond’s song like a thread sewing together instruments and players, twirlers and marchers. That’s the power of certain music. Even when it’s a style of music you don’t usually like, a song can get inside of you. That’s what’s happening here. This is Raymond’s song, and it’s everything that he is—enthusiastic, honest, optimistic, trusting, forgiving, fair. Everyone is tapping into it. The song is contagious.
Damn it.
As Raymond passes through the crowd, people reach out to touch him. They rub his epaulettes like they are a combination rabbit’s foot and genie’s lamp. Hope is written all over their faces. This is what they’ve been waiting and practicing for. They need him and his song. They’re nothing without Raymond and his golden whistle at the helm. It’s what I suspected, and it scares me.
I peek through the gate leading into the stadium. I squint into the sunlight—no rain or fog to keep people home today—and I pick out individual faces in the stands. Mr. and Mrs. H with all the other teachers. Every kid untouched by us is there. I want to kick myself for being such a softy and not taking care of them when we could.
Behind me, the horns come alive. In front of me, I see other things that make me not happy. Not happy at all! So many moms and dads in the stands, including Alix’s father and Stephanie’s mother. The Leech! What is she doing here? In the second row of the home-team side, waving weakly, sit the Double Ds. And I’m not happy that right behind them is Pox, eating something. A fat, greasy corn dog. He’s definitely on the mend. And next to him, Gnat, Bubonic, and Rat Boy. In that section alone, I count at least ten other people whom we dispatched to a lifetime of misery and regret. Ten people recovering and getting a second chance.
I want to blink it away. I want to redo what’s being undone because right there, front-row center, is the ultimate slap in my face. This has got to be one of the worst sights of my life. Worse than my social worker’s annoyed look when I complain about a foster home. Worse than the eyes that looked back at me in the mirror when I was powerless.
Brendon. The sight of him makes my stomach muscles tense. He’s got a blanket wrapped around him and he looks like Grade-D crapola, but I can make out his eye crinkles because he’s smiling slightly. He has no right to be smiling. Things are moving fast in the wrong direction.
Damn the sunlight. Damn the flutes. Damn the color guard and its leader.
Why am I sneaking around? Who cares who sees me here? I’m the one with the muscle.
I charge through the clarinet section and walk right up to Raymond, who’s having an intimate conversation with a majorette in a short, twirly skirt. She’s happily humming the dreaded tune slightly off-key. I know he knows I’m there because he’s going overboard with his gay hairdresser routine. “Wear your hair up!” he tells the majorette. “Show off your lovely swan neck.” I tap him on the shoulder, and when he holds up a wait a sec finger I say, “I need to talk to you.”
“Later, Meg. After the rally. By the way, nice disguise. Oh so tricky.”
I rip off the cap, let my hair fly loose and set my jaw. “It’s important we talk.”
To irritate me further, he takes his time pinning up the girl’s hair and pulling out tendrils around her temples. “Don’t you stress over those fire batons. You’re going to be incendiary!”
“Now!” I insist.
The majorette flashes me a dirty look. Me! I can’t believe she has the guts to do that. I’ll deal with her and her disrespect another time. Her eyes question Raymond: Do we have a situation here, or what? His eyes assure her: I can handle this. We both watch her walk away and then Raymond turns to confront me. He has his whistle in the corner of his mouth, so he has to talk out of one side of it and it’s making a little toot with each breath. He’s doing this on purpose. Being passively-aggressively annoying is one of his best argument techniques.
“You want to talk, Meg? Talk.” Toot.
I steady my mind. Don’t let him get to you. No doubts. I have to use extraordinary means here. I need to pull out all the friendship stops and hit him with every bit of warm and fuzzy that I can. I drop my gaze to show that I’m all humbleness. “It’s … it’s…”
The whistle shifts to the other side of his mouth. “It’s … what?” Woot.
“Private. It’s a private conversation.”
He removes the whistle, waves it at me like a weapon. “No secrets here. Everyone is up front. You can say what you need to say.” His gaze is steely. He turns his head slightly, shows me his profile in that ridiculous feathered helmet.
I put a quiver into my voice and the start of tears into my eyes, regret for my insensitive actions, hints of good times past. I need them all. “Please, Raymond. I need to talk to you. Like old times. Remember them? I only need a minute.”
I motion for him to follow me to the big live-oak tree that stands at the edge of the parking lot. Branches jut out in every direction. I don’t give him a chance to turn me down or ask too many questions. I walk away at a steady clip. I sense his hesitation, but I keep moving. When I glance back over my shoulder, he’s tilting his head toward the sky like he’s heard something up there, and that’s when I think: I blew it! He’s going to run off in the other direction. We’re done.
But he tosses off whatever stopped him, an actual shake of his head like a golden retriever shaking off water. He takes a couple of steps before breaking into a run to catch up. He’s got a real goofy run, feet splaying out, whistle bouncing on his jacket. His right hand keeps his helmet from flying off as he makes straight for me. I lean against the tree, but he stands back a good three feet, suspiciously checking right and left. The ground is spongy with decaying leaves. A leaf falls from the tree. I step closer and he flinches when I brush it off of his head.
“Alone at last.” He says this flatly, cuttingly. He takes out his cell phone and sets the timer. “You asked for one minute. Talk!”
“Is that necessary?”
“You’re down to fifty-five seconds.”
“Jeez! I just want to say I’m sorry.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Let me get this straight: you’re apologizing?”
He doesn’t believe me. More extraordinary measures must be taken. I look wounded and thrust out my pinkie.
“Pinkie promise? You’re offering me our Holy Sacred Vow of Pinkie Trust? Meg, you know that you’re jinxed forever if you’re lying. You know that, right?”
“I know all about eternal damnation. The Furies practically invented it!” For good measure, I give him an extra-sincere puppy-dog look. “I went out of control. We all did. I know that now.”
I see his brain conducting a lie-detector test, scanning back and forth to size me up. I guess I pass with flying colors, because he presses his hand to his chest, taps it, and addresses his heart. “Be still, baby. Everything is going to be okay now. Our Meg has come back home to us.”
To me: “I’m so relieved. Ms. Pallas wanted to do something even worse. Something permanent. She wanted to…” His voice drifts away for a second, comes back stronger. “That’s all over and done with. I persuaded her to try the homecoming rally first. I knew you weren’t lost. I knew you’d come to your senses. I knew—”
I break in. “It’s like you said. People are people. Everyone’s human. I have to forgive them sometime.”
He motions for me to rub the powdered-sugar mustache off my upper lip. “Doughnut,” I explain. “Besides, we Furies are too weak to fight against you and her. She’s a major goddess, after all.”
“So you know then about Ms. Pallas! Athena walks among us. Crazy, right?”
“The whole thing is crazy. Us, her, you.”
A shyness comes over him. “So we’re good then, you and me? All is right in the wonderful world of Raymond and Meg?”
I answer him with a hugging motion. He steps in with arms spread wide.
From her hiding place up in the tree, Stephanie drops a sheet over him, and Alix springs out from behind a bush to tackle him in a bear hug before he can get his whistle to his mouth. Raymond’s a good screamer, but the horns and drums drown him out.
We rush him into the back seat of Alix’s car, held down by me and Stephanie. Engine on. We tear out of the parking lot.
The blue sky directly over the stadium opens up and spits down hail the size of eyeballs.