“I wouldn’t give that man the satisfaction.”
I picked up the knife again and really gave those peppers what-for. “This isn’t about the principal or you,” I said. “This is about Frank.”
Instead of blowing up at me, Mimi closed her eyes the way Frank did sometimes when the world was just too much for him. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything of his face in hers. “Frank has already been somewhere else, Alice,” she said. “He’s been invited not to return to so many somewhere elses that any other somewhere he hasn’t been to yet might be even worse than this one.”
THE NEXT MORNING I explained to Frank that khakis would probably be okay for him to wear to school with his new T-shirts and tennis shoes, and that we’d work up to wearing jeans in a week or two. Or not. Up to him. I wanted to make it seem he had some control over the situation.
Frank stood there in his underwear and argyles, staring at the clothes I’d laid out. Two fat tears rolled down his cheeks. “I don’t know how to wear these,” he said.
“It’s easy,” I said. “The shirt pulls over your head and you don’t even have to button it.”
“But surely no one can want me to go out in public in a shirt meant to be worn as underwear.”
“Lots of kids wear T-shirts out in public and think nothing of it.”
“Lots of kids chase me around the playground, too, but that doesn’t make it right.”
I didn’t have a comeback for that.
Frank didn’t eat his breakfast. He sat at the table, staring at his waffles and plucking at the place where his collar should have been, stroking his bare forearms, scrabbling at his wrists that would under normal circumstances be cuffed and cuff linked.
Xander had to carry Frank out to the car and ride with us to school. I offered to let him drive Frank on his own, since Frank would probably like that better anyway. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Xander said. “I’ll just sit back here with my buddy. I’ll walk him to class, too, to be sure he gets there safe.”
When he got back in the car, Xander said, “This is a bad idea. A bad, bad idea.”
“I think so, too,” I said.
“Mimi is a genius, you know. But sometimes smart people do the stupidest things.”
“Mimi doesn’t know what else to do,” I said, surprising myself now by sticking up for her. “Frank has gotten kicked out of so many places already.”
Xander shrugged. “So what? Who hasn’t?”
Me, I didn’t say.
“It’s lucky I could drop everything and come when she called,” Xander added. “You know, I have to wonder sometimes what that woman would do without me.”
HER BOOK WASN’T finished yet, but I was. I told Mimi I was leaving before I told Mr. Vargas. I wanted my bridges burned.
“Nobody’s holding you prisoner here,” Mimi said. “Go.”
“You’ll be all right,” I said. “As long as Xander’s here you don’t need me.”
“Xander,” she said. “Ha.”
( 18 )
PACKING MY BAGS was easy. E-mailing Mr. Vargas to explain why I was deserting my post wasn’t. No matter how sane I sounded at the outset of each effort, by the time I was a line or two in, I started to sound as whiny as a jilted lover. How can I help Mimi when she keeps me at arm’s length? She doesn’t appreciate me. There’s someone else, someone blonder, prettier, and more popular. I’m coming home.
I got a call from Frank’s school but pressed “ignore” and turned my cell off. If there was a problem, it was Mimi’s problem now. Or Mimi’s and Xander’s. Not mine. I sat there holding the phone, feeling guilty and worried and not typing anything else to Mr. Vargas. Somebody knocked. If Mimi needed me to pick up Frank, I’d do it. Just this one last time.
It was Xander. He hadn’t been in my room since last summer when I thought I’d dreamed In-the-Manner-of-Apollo to life. Back when I was a know-it-all teenager, I’d wondered how my sensible mother had gotten hornswoggled into marrying a deadbeat like my dad. Seeing Xander there on my doorstep, I finally got it. Sometimes smart people do the stupidest things.
“Mimi says you’re going back to New York,” Xander said. “How long will you be gone?”
“I’m not coming back.”
“What?”
“Mimi won’t let me do the work Mr. Vargas sent me to do. She doesn’t like me. Frank only tolerates me. I don’t belong here. I want to go home.”
“Mimi likes you as much as she can like anybody. Frank loves you. He’ll be devastated.”
I felt a twist in my gut. “Not with you around, he won’t.”
“That’s not true.”
“Of course it is. I’m sloppy seconds whenever you’re here.”
“Not in my book.” Xander stepped closer. “Don’t I count? Maybe I’ll be devastated when you go.”
“Ha,” I said. That syllable reminded me of something, but I couldn’t remember exactly what.
“Hey.” He touched my cheek so lightly that only the tip of his middle finger brushed against my skin. “Are you leaving because of me?”