“Okay. What made you mad?”
“He implied that I should like . . . write an essay about me and what I’ve gone through . . . meaning that I should exploit my sister’s death. Like some ridiculous college essay is worth stooping so low. God, can you believe that idiot?”
Ro stared at him, then shook her head. “You know the trouble with you, Vicks? You don’t live in the real world.” She turned tail and stalked off.
“Wait! What did I . . . shit!” He slammed his locker door shut. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“Ben?”
He whirled around. Lilly had a slightly stunned look on her face. Her cheeks were red. “You dropped your book.”
He looked at the lit book in her arms. “Right . . . thanks.”
She backed away, and then waved from a safe distance.
He went looking around for Ro. She was at her locker, wiping her eyes with her shirtsleeve.
“Okay,” he said. “What’d I do wrong this time?”
“Nothing.”
JD had suddenly materialized. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she repeated. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Is it something I did?” JD asked.
Ro slammed her locker. “You know I can be sad without it having anything to do with you.”
“Of course.” JD turned to Ben. “I’ve got it from here, Vicks.”
Ro grabbed Ben’s arm. “He doesn’t have to leave just because you say so, okay. You’re not the center of the universe.”
“If I’m not, I should be,” JD said. Ro rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but smile. He put his arm around her. “You shouldn’t ever have to cry. You’re the hottest-looking girl in the entire school. Probably the hottest girl in the entire state . . . maybe even the hottest girl ever. And you just happen to have the hottest boyfriend ever. What’s there to cry about?” He turned to Ben. “Am I right about this?”
Ben said, “I would contest a lot of what you’re saying, but not her hotness quotient.”
“He’s complicated.” JD pointed to himself. “I’m not. Sometimes simple is better, right?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Right?”
“Sometimes being alone is even better than simple.” She walked away.
When she was gone, JD said, “What the fuck just happened?”
“She’s pissed at me. It might have to do with college essays but I’m not sure. I’m kinda dumb when it comes to girls.”
“Let me tell you something, Vicks. That ain’t ever gonna change.” JD shook his head. “You got shit on me, so you don’t have to answer this. But what . . . exactly is your relationship with her?”
“I think we’re friends . . . loosely defined.”
“Friends?”
“Loosely defined.”
“Awesome.” JD slapped his back none too lightly. His voice dripped sarcasm. “Benjamin Vicksburg has finally made a friend.”
Chapter 9
The two boys were nervous. As Ro looked in her rearview mirror, she saw that they weren’t talking much, but they were punching each other a lot. Even though Griff had gone out with Haley and Lilly tons of times, Ezra’s presence made it an official double date. The girls were no longer friends, they were love interests.
Ezra Rael was half Hispanic, half Jewish. He seemed like a nice kid, although Ro had only met him a few times. She was happy that Griff was making friends with a boy. It showed he was integrating and probably doing a better job at it than she was—taking his time to pick the right people: kids whom Griff liked, not just those who’d serve him well.
She grew tense as she approached Vicks’s house. Like most of the homes in the area, it was fashioned from brown adobe, a sprawling one-story home fronted by a free-form adobe wall, short pi?on pines, and silvery Russian olives. It sat on undulating land in the midst of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The one thing this state had was lots and lots of land. That kind of space was something that Ro wasn’t used to. Sometimes she found it liberating. Most of the time the vast expanse scared her as if the bogeyman was just waiting to come out from behind a rock. She hadn’t had a conversation with Ben in a very long time. If he was upset about it, he hadn’t said anything. But she was attuned to nuances. They both knew what was going on and it made her feel small.
When she pulled over, Griff said, “Thanks for the ride.”
“I’ll walk you to the door.”
Griffen sneered. “Seriously?”
“Just gonna give Vicks a quick hello.”
Griffen sighed. “Please disappear quickly, okay?”
“Fine.”
They walked up the pathway and Griffen rang the bell. The two little girls came out. Although their outfits were the standard uniform of jeans and a T, both of them had done up their hair and had put on makeup. Ro would have liked to snap a picture, but it would totally embarrass her little brother.
Haley said, “We’ve got a little time before the show starts. Wanna come in?”
The two boys nodded like bobbleheads. Haley could have suggested anything and they would have agreed. Ben’s mother came out. She was a pretty woman with hair streaked with silver. She had wonderful smooth skin and full lips. Her eyes were chestnut gold, like Haley’s and Ben’s. And like Ro’s own mother’s eyes, Mrs. Vicksburg’s showed eternal sadness.
She said, “Thank you for bringing them over. I’ll drop them back off after the movie.”
“Only if it’s convenient,” Ro said. “Griffen can call me.”
“No, no. I’m happy to do it.”
An awkward silence. “I’m Dorothy Majors, by the way.” Ro held out her hand. “I’m in Vicks . . . Ben . . . I’m in Ben’s class. Is he here? I thought I might say hello.”
Mrs. V looked surprised. “He’s in his room.” Another silence. “Come in.”
Ro followed her into a neat living room, unadorned except for family pictures and a piece of pottery here and there in a shelving unit. There was a leather couch, a couple of kilim chairs, and a sofa table with a few paperbacks. In the corner was a small beehive fireplace, common to this area, called a kiva. The floors were oak and the ceiling was made up of latilla strips vertically and big, whole log beams called vigas that ran horizontally. New Mexico had its own architecture and architectural terms. Ro had had to learn an entire new vocabulary once she got here.
There were four rooms off a small hallway. Two doors were open—the master bedroom and Haley’s room. Two doors were shut. The mother knocked on one of those.
Ben’s voice. “Busy.”
The mother said, “You’ve got a visitor.”
They both heard shuffling. Ben opened the door and peeked his head out. When he saw Ro, his eyes widened.
Ro said, “I just dropped Griffen and Ezra Rael off. Apparently, they are having an afternoon with Haley and Lilly.” Still no response. She said, “I just thought I’d say hi.”