But she was wrong. I shed a million tears on the sidewalk that night, and Tommy was worth every one.
By the time I got home, the universe had shrunk to ten billion light-years across.
TOMMY
I CHASE TOMMY DOWN THE sidewalk, calling after him to wait. My backpack, riding low on my shoulders, slaps my spine as I run.
“Come on, Tommy! What’s wrong?”
Cloud Lake Middle School is less than a mile from Tommy’s trailer, and Mom lets me walk home with him to play after school, but Tommy isn’t in the mood to play. I knew he was mad at me when class let out, and I should have ridden the bus home. But I want to know why he’s so angry.
“Tommy? Why won’t you talk to me?”
He doesn’t answer. Tommy’s taller than me by almost half a foot. I take three steps to every one of his. He grew during the summer between seventh and eighth grade. Sprouted like a dandelion. His voice broke into a deep bass, and he grew fuzz on his upper lip that he refused to shave until Lua told him it looked like worn-out Velcro.
We’re both sweaty by the time we reach his trailer. It’s actually a manufactured home—not quite a trailer, not really a house, and it rests on cement blocks instead of wheels—but Tommy’s always called it “the trailer.” The patchy grass out front is littered with cigarette butts and crushed beer cans. A semicircle of beat-up lawn chairs sits off to the side, and Mr. Ross and his drinking buddies will occupy them by sunset. One of my parents always makes sure to pick me up before Tommy’s father returns home from work.
Tommy flings open the screen door and lets it slam shut behind him. I stand outside debating whether I should call my dad to see if he can cut out of teaching early to rescue me, which I know he can’t, so I end up shucking my backpack onto the dirt and flopping onto one of the chairs. The cheap plastic-woven straps creak, and I wonder how they don’t break.
I’m only alone a minute or two before Tommy’s mom peeks her head out the door. “Ozzie? That you?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to come in?”
“That’s okay. I’m good.”
Mrs. Ross scrunches her face and then steps out. I once asked Tommy why his skin wasn’t as dark as his mom’s—I was seven and stupid and Cloud Lake isn’t exactly the most diverse town in the world. I thought it was because his father was white, but Tommy said that wasn’t it, but he was glad, which I didn’t understand at the time because I thought Mrs. Ross was at least as beautiful as my own mother. She’s got sharp new-penny eyes and cheeks that honest-to-God glow when she smiles. But she moves slowly, like she’s afraid to disturb the air around her. Today she bound her hair in a handkerchief and is wearing frayed, paint-stained overalls. Also, she smells like turpentine.
“You and Tommy fighting?”
“I guess.”
“What about?” She leans against the side of the trailer.
“Don’t know.”
I expect her to keep prying, and I’d tell her why Tommy’s angry if I knew, but instead she says, “Want to see what I’m working on?” I nod. “Follow me, then.”
Mrs. Ross walks around the side of the trailer. The manufactured homes are set so close together I could reach out and touch them. Behind the trailer isn’t exactly a yard, but if you ignore the other trailers and the people peeking out their back windows, you can pretend well enough.
The first thing I notice—because it’s impossible to miss—is an enormous crucifix propped against the back side of the trailer. The cross is painted red, white, and blue like the American flag.
“You like it?” she asks.
“I don’t get it,” I say. “Is it finished?” Jesus is wearing gray slacks and shiny black dress shoes, but he’s naked from the waist up.
Mrs. Ross shakes her head. “I bought the pants at Goodwill for a dollar, but I’m having a devil of a time finding a shirt and jacket that fit.” She walks toward the crucifix, which is taller than her, and smooths a wrinkle out of Jesus’s pants. “It’s an interpretation of the corporate bailouts. How the government shelled out billions to save the folks who drove us off the cliff but didn’t give a damn about those of us really hurting.”
“Oh.” I don’t know much about politics. Tommy’s interested in that stuff, but it bores me to sleep. “It’s nice.”
She takes a last look at her work before sitting on a pile of stacked paving stones Mr. Ross has been promising for years he’s going to use to build a path to the front door. “You and Tommy have been friends for a long time. You’re good for him. Good for each other.”
I kick the dirt with the toe of my sneaker. “He’s my best friend.”
“Tommy doesn’t always know how to say what he means. He takes after his daddy that way. Sometimes what’s in his head and what’s in his heart are too big for words. You know what I’m getting at?”
I shake my head. “Not really.”
Mrs. Ross smiles. There are those cheeks, lit up like fireflies. “Give him time. He’ll work out how to tell you what he’s sore about.”
“Okay. I think I’ll go wait for my dad around front.”
I take up the same chair I was sitting in earlier. I’ve got an hour before Dad picks me up, so I dig out my battered copy of The Giver to start reading the chapters Mr. Strother assigned us.
I’m lost in the black-and-white world—where life is unambiguous and easy to grasp, everyone says what they mean with clarity and specificity, and each person understands their role in society—and I don’t notice Tommy standing in front of me until he clears his throat. I look up. He’s holding two plastic cups of apple juice; he offers me one.
“Thought you might be hot.”
“Thanks.” I take the juice even though I’m not thirsty.
Tommy sits, leaving a chair between us. “You see what Mama’s working on out back?”
“Pretty crazy.”
“Yeah.”
Tommy’s jaw muscles twitch and he bites the corner of his bottom lip. He’s gazing into his juice like he can scry the surface for answers. I wish I could help—I wish our lives were black and white, the solutions to our problems readily available—but I don’t even know the questions.
Finally, he says, “You really taking Sonia to the Halloween dance?”
“She asked me, so I guess.” I sip my juice, which is the cheap kind from the dollar store and mostly sugar. “She didn’t really give me a choice.”
“Oh.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“You going to kiss her?”
“I don’t know.”
Tommy throws me side-eye. “Do you want to kiss her?”
At Noah Trumbull’s last birthday party—my first boy-girl party—some of the kids played spin the bottle. I sat out the game because the idea of kissing a randomly chosen girl scared me more than being trapped in a car while a rabid, blood-thirsty dog tried to break through the windows to eat me.