WHEN I RUN onto the field twenty minutes late, Marcos hands me a handwritten note, the old-fashioned way. His words are as deliberate as his penmanship. I’m sorry for getting in your business. You’re right; I don’t know you guys as well as you know each other. After that, I meet him for sixth-period math tutoring. He stays safely on his side of the table, no longer close enough to touch. His eyes, though, are just as warm when we look up from the textbook and I pause in the space between finishing what I’ve just explained and asking if he has any questions.
Of course he has questions. He’s Marcos. He leans back in his chair and says, “What’s your favorite play?”
“I’m going with Hamlet.”
He wrinkles his nose. “Eh, couldn’t get into that one. I’m more of a Julius Caesar guy. Favorite movie?”
“Lord of the Rings,” I say immediately. “All of them. My brother made me marathon them with him, so I never had a chance.”
His eyes widen. “Seriously? Same here.” He raises his hand for a high-five and I slap it, our calluses lining up against each other. “Except Victor had to do the extended versions. Who do you think would win in a throw down, Elrond or Galadriel?”
It’s the best part of my day.
ONCE I’M HOME, I work my way between the pine trees, cut behind the Vogels’ chicken coop, and arrive in Cassie’s backyard. The blanket of pine needles and twigs cracks beneath my sneakers.
Cassie’s house is a nondescript ranch, save the lawn trinkets on the way up the walk. Shimmering glass shapes dangle from the birch tree, glowing turquoise and amethyst in the sunlight. Hand-painted flower pots and half-finished mosaic tiles form a disjointed path up to the steps. While Mr. Hopeswell works inexplicable scientific magic in the laboratory, Mrs. Hopeswell tries to make her own magic.
“Tea?” Cass greets me. She’s in a dress and full makeup, like she’s on her way out or has just dashed back in.
Entering Cassie’s home is like stepping into a universe that runs parallel to Ponquogue, one filled with statues of exotic animals, prickly carpets depicting images of men riding elephants, and wooden floors that shine a brilliant orange-amber. Despite the gleam, it’s always a little too cold and drafty in here.
I accept the cup of steaming tea. We settle in across from each other at the kitchen table, Cassie squirts an indiscriminate amount of honey into her cup, and I decide that I will let her ask the questions.
I last for ten seconds. I’m as bad as Marcos. “How are you?” I venture.
Cassie doesn’t blink. With a sweep of her hand, she sets the honey back down. “Better than this morning. What’d I miss?”
“Do you really care?”
She grins as she lifts the mug to her lips. “No, but you’ll feel better if you tell me, so go for it.”
The teasing look in her eyes. Her normal voice, laughing as I scowl at her because we both know she’s right. I choose to believe her.
TUESDAY. WEDNESDAY. THE rest of the week passes without Cassie missing school (though she rolled her eyes about it), without that defeat creeping into her voice, without me asking questions that she doesn’t want to answer.
Until 3:03 a.m.
Who’s playing “Stairway to Heaven” directly next to my ear? It can’t be time for school, can it? My hand gropes around the nightstand and finds my phone. I fumble for it and it knocks me in the temple. “Deliver us from evil,” I mutter.
Cass, reads the bold letters.
Too late for gallivanting to 7-Eleven. Too early for her to tell me why she’s skipping school again.
Led Zeppelin’s singing about the two paths you can go by and it’s too loud, too much, just let me sleep, Cassie.
The phone falls to the floor.
CHAPTER TEN
YOU CAN TELL what kind of day it will be by the noise that hits you when you enter Ponquogue High School, your shoes squeaking on the red-and-white tiles that saw their better days in 1980.
The normal pitch is high tide. Shouting and chatting and last-minute text tones chime. Impassioned lovers press together after a night apart. The soccer team whoops and high-fives, euphoric after last night’s victory against Center Moriches. High tide means that PHS maintains equilibrium. Oh-my-gawd-I-can’t-believe-it and what’s good for this weekend? blends with squawks from the band room and other signs of students trying to do something with their lives.
It’s slack tide you have to watch out for. Everyone’s afraid of being heard. Conversations take place in huddles next to lockers. Lovers hold each other closer than usual. Something has happened. Like UCK YOU SPICS.
Low tide is the worst. The student body moves so quietly that the squeaking shoes echo. Teachers avoid eye contact. The announcement: Please report to the auditorium instead of your first period class. That happened on my second day of high school, when William Peacock and Molly Shroud were killed in a car accident on their way to school. Low tide means something has gone terribly wrong.
When Cass didn’t answer my texts, I rode with Dad to school. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, he received a terse phone call for an emergency teacher’s meeting.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said. He left the car before I did, making sure to take the keys with him. I figured the meeting was for something like when Ella Mancuso hacked into the system and changed grades.
I must have been wrong. PHS is silent this morning.
No sound ekes out from the band room. Catalina Dover, saxophone virtuoso, sits against a row of lockers, staring up at the lights. Jacki Guzman, my locker neighbor for the past three years, turns to me with glassy eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. Then she bolts around the corner.
Uh?
A cluster of freshman girls disperses as soon as I look over. Andreas and Dimitri, the forward on the soccer team, offer me high-fives, but Andreas’s wide smile doesn’t hold. Before I can ask what’s wrong, they vanish.
Cassie will know. She has a better pulse on this place than I do. She’ll loop her arm around me, whisper the story, and start scheming afresh about how we’ll share a Brooklyn closet together.