SW01 - The Edge of Nowhere Read online

  The woman said, “Hello, Debbie,” in a friendly way, although her expression reminded Becca of a dog that’s ready to be punished. “Hayley says you need to see me?”

  It was power, Becca realized, that was flowing through Debbie. It had altered her completely. She had no soft parts left. Debbie said, “This is my niece, Becca King. She’ll be staying with me for a while. My sister wants her to be enrolled in school. C’n we get that handled? She’s got a bit of a hearing problem, too. Becca, show Ms. Ward the AUD box.”

  Debbie handed over the meager transcripts that Becca had given her. Becca heard the flutter of terms flying back and forth between the two women: records . . . nonsense . . . immunization . . . can’t expect . . . when will it . . . sister? . . . there’s no stopping . . . It was a battle of wills without a word being spoken, and always between Debbie and Ms. Ward was the great unspoken of the death that had occurred.

  Becca waited for something to happen. The atmosphere was tense; it seemed the very air would explode. Finally Ms. Ward said, “Lovely. Come with me,” and she took them along the hall to what looked like another reception room. This one had yet another birch desk with a name plaque on it reading Stephanie Ward, Registrar. Beyond it two small offices were peopled by the A–L counselor and the M–Z one.

  Ms. Ward told them to have a seat and she took some paperwork out of her desk. She asked Becca how she’d liked living in San Luis Obispo, although her whisper was actually God . . . what makeup. For a moment Becca forgot what her question actually referred to, especially since what Ms. Ward was also thinking was how the hell am I going to as clearly as if she were screaming it.

  Becca told her she liked San Luis Obispo well enough except that there’d been a lot of sun and she had to be careful about the sun since she was prone to sunburn.

  Ms. Ward said, “Well you won’t have that problem here, will you? I hope you like rain.”

  “Keeps a girl’s skin young,” Debbie said. The girl and young part seemed rather like poison darts.

  Ms. Ward did some typing. There were various forms that needed to be filled in and signed, and Debbie sat there without moving until Ms. Ward had filled in each one. Becca had no idea what they were, but she had an inkling that what Debbie Grieder had said to her about being truthful wasn’t going to apply in this situation.

  When it was all finished and Becca was as enrolled as Ms. Ward could make her, the registrar said, “Come and meet your counselor, Becca,” and took her to the A–L office where the name Tatiana Primavera was printed on a placard on the door, and a woman inside the office was speaking on the phone.

  Becca was wondering what sort of name Tatiana Primavera was when Debbie, standing behind her, said quietly, “It’s really Sharon Prochaska.”

  Becca said, “Huh?”

  “That’s who she is. Sharon Prochaska. She changed her name when she came to the island. It’s something people do. Azure St. Cloud used to be Phyllis McDermott. Sage Sorrell was Susan Jones. You get the idea.”

  Tatiana Primavera hung up the phone. She said, “Hey, Deb,” as Ms. Ward started to introduce them. She got up and shooed poor Ms. Ward out of her office, grabbing the file of information from her and saying to Debbie, “Who’ve we got here, then?” and to Becca, “A hearing problem, huh?” in reference to what Ms. Ward had evidently typed about the AUD box.

  Becca explained the AUD box again, and she showed it to Tatiana Primavera. Tatiana told her to hand it over, and she listened through its earphone to make sure it wasn’t music. Becca watched her expression as she heard the static. She hoped the strangeness of it would see her through.

  “Unusual,” was Ms. Primavera’s reaction, and she handed the AUD box back to Becca. She made a note, shoved it into the file, and swung her chair around to face her computer. She said, “Let’s get you set up, then.”

  There wasn’t much to do. Since Becca was a freshman, she got one elective and the rest were classes she had to take. As her elective, she chose Yearbook. It seemed like a safe bet.

  Ms. Primavera banged away and finished up by hitting print. She’d get the schedule from the printer, she told them, and in the meantime . . . She opened her lowest desk drawer and brought out a jar of jelly beans. She said, “Welcome to South Whidbey High, Becca. Help yourself,” and she disappeared out the door of her office.

  Becca took a handful of the candy and shoved the beans into her jacket pocket. She put one in her mouth.

  Tatiana Primavera returned. She had the schedule in hand along with a slip of paper with a locker number on it. She said to Debbie, “You c’n leave her with me now. I’ll see to it she gets where she needs to go.”

  Debbie told Becca she’d pick her up after school but not in the parking lot. After today, she’d have to ride her bike because the hours were different to get Josh and Chloe to and from school. Today, however, she’d come for her and she’d wait across the road where the water treatment plant was.

  Becca could tell that being in the building was difficult for Debbie now. The power she’d felt was diminished.

  Before Debbie left, Tatiana said to her, “See you next week. I think,” and Debbie seemed to know what this meant. She didn’t appear to like it, though, because she shrugged and said, “Whatever, girl. I hope you know what you’re doing.” There was something left unsaid between them, but hints as to what it might be were blocked by the AUD box.

  When Debbie was gone, Tatiana said, “Let’s get you going.” She looked at a wall clock, said, “Eastern Civilization,” and headed out of the office.

  At the front desk, she stopped to speak with the girl Hayley, motioning Becca over to join them. “New student,” she said to Hayley. “Becca King, this is Hayley Cartwright.”

  Hayley smiled. She was pretty in an old-fashioned way, with straw-colored hair cut in a neat bob. She had ruler-straight bangs, frameless glasses, and large blue eyes. When she stood up to grab something from the top of a cabinet, Becca could see that she was tall.

  She handed over a calendar of sorts and told Becca it was the athletic schedule. “Welcome to the home of the Falcons, Becca.” She said this in a friendly enough way, but sadness came off her, then faded quickly, like something she knew she had to hide.

  Tatiana said, “Nice girl,” as she shooed Becca out of the office. “Let’s get you to class.”

  Tatiana hummed as she walked. She wore stiletto heels, which made her taller and made her ample breasts bounce. They also made her the first person Becca had seen on Whidbey Island who wasn’t wearing sensible shoes.

  They went across a large room that Tatiana said was the “old commons.” It had a bank of windows on one side and a wall of bulletin boards on the other, and in between was a scattering of tables. At one side of this room they climbed a stairway, and at the top the classrooms began. Tatiana ushered Becca to one of the doors and flung it open. She tilted her head, meaning Becca was supposed to go in first.

  Becca did so, acutely aware of all eyes turning in her direction. At once, she dropped her gaze to the floor so she wouldn’t have to meet the stares because she knew exactly how she looked, which was bad, very bad, extra bad from the top of her dyed head to the tip of her tennis-shoed toes. She had an enormous urge to look up and say to the class, “I’m prettier than this. Really.”

  Becca felt the other students’ interest like mice scurrying around her ankles. They were extremely happy to have the diversion. She glanced warily at the teacher to see if he was why.

  His name was Mr. Powder. He shot one look at Becca and another at Tatiana. His expression said that he hated them both, but it also said that he hated anything having to do with South Whidbey High School. He was going to be a lousy teacher.

  Tatiana handed over Becca’s schedule, which Mr. Powder signed. He looked at the class in front of him and said to Becca, “Take that seat over there. Class, this is”—he referred to the schedule before he handed it back—“Becca King. Thank you, Ms. Primavera.”

  He’d said that last
part because Tatiana hadn’t left the room yet and he wanted her to, that much was obvious. But she was looking around and she said, “Good. Take the seat next to Derric. Derric, will you show Becca around the campus today so she can find her classes?”

  Becca looked up, absolutely horrified. There had to be more than one Derric, she thought. The first Derric had looked too old to be a freshman.

  But it was the same Derric from the ferry, she saw, the very same Derric from in front of Carol Quinn’s house, the Derric who was Josh Grieder’s Big Brother and who would probably be hanging around the Cliff Motel.

  “Some things are written in the stars, hon,” Becca’s grandmother would have said about all this.

  Becca’s response would have been, “What things?”—a question she wanted desperately to have answered as she crossed the room to take the vacant seat next to this boy.

  * * *

  EIGHT

  For Becca, it was the oddest sensation. For the first time since that terrible moment in the kitchen in San Diego when she’d heard Jeff Corrie’s whispers and she’d known what he’d done, she felt safe. Sitting next to this boy to whom she’d barely spoken, she felt perfectly safe, and she didn’t know why.

  She couldn’t stop herself from shooting glances at Derric’s arm. It was bare, it rested on the side of his desk, and it was roped with muscle. An athlete, she decided.

  Her feeling of safety didn’t last long. The classroom door crashed open as Becca was opening her notebook. A girl entered and Becca recognized her with an internal uh-oh. It was the girl from the ferry, the girl who had tried to cheat the cashier.

  At the front of the room, Mr. Powder took one look at her and said, “That’s your second tardy, Jenn. One more and it’s detention. Got it?”

  Jenn didn’t answer him because she’d seen Becca, and what came out of her was a galloping horse of astoundingly dirty whispers, audible even over the AUD box. She said to Becca, “You’re in my seat.”

  Mr. Powder said, “So tomorrow try being on time. Do something really amazing: Try being early. Go to the back.”

  Becca dropped her gaze. She looked at her notebook, which was crisp and new, and she could feel how much Jenn wanted to snatch it from her and rip off its cover. But instead, she stomped to the back of the room and flung herself into her seat. So much for safety, Becca thought. Obviously, she’d made an instant enemy out of this girl.

  Next to her, Becca sensed Derric moving, and she glanced at him quickly. She saw him make the A-OK sign with his fingers. They were long and sensitive looking and the sign they were making was intended for her. Don’t worry about it, his fingers were telling her, as if he knew what she was feeling.

  Mr. Powder resumed his lecture. No one wanted to listen and who could blame them? He was boring, sounding the way cold oatmeal tasted. When the bell finally rang at the end of the class, Becca felt as if she’d been in the room for more than a week.

  As the students began to leave, Derric spoke to her. He was over six feet tall, and he towered above her so he leaned toward her to say with a grin, “I’d tell you it’s not always this bad, but it is. What’s your next class?”

  She looked at her schedule. “Physical Science,” she said.

  “Come on, then. I’ll show you where it is.”

  LUNCH CAME AFTER second period, at eleven o’clock in the morning. Derric had told her to wait by the classroom door and he’d come for her and show her what the situation was in the new commons, so she stood outside the classroom and tried to look inconspicuous. But when he showed up, Jenn was with him, as if she’d heard his promise to show Becca where lunch was and had decided upon the best way to give her indigestion.

  Jenn was shooting her looks that recommended she drop dead as soon as possible, and Becca heard her say, “I can’t believe you’re supposed to have lunch with her, too.” She added a swear word that made her face shrivel when she said it. Becca felt Derric fend off the word, like someone holding up his hands against a rotten tomato, but he didn’t say anything.

  South Whidbey High School, Becca found, wasn’t at all like the school she’d been supposed to attend in San Diego. There, two thousand five hundred students were enrolled, and they had to eat in shifts. Here, it seemed that the whole student body ate together, with about six hundred kids in a sprawl from a rec room that was the new commons, opening into another rec room called the old commons. She trailed Derric and Jenn to it, and she recognized it from earlier in the day. She raised the volume on the AUD box to block the secondary noise of hundreds of whispers.

  Derric turned once to make sure she was following. Jenn turned him back, deliberately. Becca wondered if Jenn was trying to say the boy was her property. She wanted to tell her to go ahead and claim him. As long as she looked like a walking trash heap in makeup, there wasn’t much chance he’d be interested in her.

  Nearly every girl they passed said hi to Derric. A lot of the boys did, too. Only the boys didn’t called him Derric. They said Nyombe or Big Math or Der. All of this seemed very odd to Becca because if Derric was a freshman, everyone was supposed to ignore him.

  They got into the food line, Jenn placing herself firmly between Becca and Derric. When it was her turn to get something, Becca knew she had to be careful. Debbie hadn’t given her money for lunch—not that she’d expected it—and she had to use what she had as sparingly as she could. So she bought only a PBJ and ignored Jenn when she said, “Want to check my money, chick?” as they reached the cash register. But the remark was nothing more than throwaway nastiness because Jenn herself, as things turned out, had brought her own lunch from home. She’d only gone through the line in the first place to stay with Derric, it seemed.

  As they were making their way to a table, the sense that everyone liked Derric altered. A boy leaned far back from his seat the second Derric walked behind him. He did it fast and hard so his body crashed into Derric’s tray. He meant to knock it to the floor and spill the food, but Derric was too fast. He dodged easily. Still, the boy rose in a rush and said, “Hey, watch the hell out, asshole.”

  Becca recognized this boy from his spotty face and the ski cap rolled into a beanie on his head. He’d been with Jenn on the ferry, challenging her to cheat the cashier. He was sitting with a group of boys similarly dressed, with similar attitudes. Everything about them marked them as stoners. They slouched and smirked and waited for Derric to react.

  Jenn said, “Grip yourself, Dylan,” and shoved the boy out of the way.

  “Oooh,” Dylan said, “Big Der lets a girl protect him.”

  There was one of those silences in the immediate area as kids waited for what would happen next. Becca could feel the tension whip through Derric’s body as he considered how best to react. It wasn’t tough to see he could take the other boy down with his little finger. Dylan was as skinny as the handle of a shovel. He tried to hide this with baggy clothes, but he had the wrists of a ten-year-old.

  “Hey, I let girls do my homework, too,” Derric said. “You should try it, too, if you c’n find one willing.”

  “That’ll happen when it rains frogs,” Jenn remarked.

  Dylan’s eyes narrowed as his tablemates laughed.

  Derric walked off. Jenn followed. Becca brought up the rear. She heard Dylan tell his friends what they could do to themselves as he sat down again, his neck red with fury.

  DURING THE REST of the day, as Derric showed her where her other classes were, Becca learned more about him. His full name, she discovered was Derric Nyombe Mathieson. She learned that he was from Uganda and that he’d been adopted as an eight-year-old by an island family. He revealed that he was sixteen years old and the reason he was only a freshman was that he’d not been able to speak English when he’d come to this country. He also added with an appealing honesty that he’d not been able to read or write or do math in any language at that point, which contributed to his problems. So his mom had taken a year off work to homeschool him, and then it was a matter of his catching up wit
h everyone else.

  “Never went to school in Uganda,” he said. To Becca’s question of what he did instead, he said with a shrug, “Got by,” and that was it. She could tell he didn’t want to talk more about the subject, although she heard the whisper rejoice coming from him as well and she thought that anything worthy of rejoicing about was surely something a boy would want to talk about.

  At the end of the day, Derric walked her out to the parking lot. Jenn wasn’t with them. This gave Becca a chance to thank him for hanging out with her, especially during lunch. He returned with, “It’s cool. It’s tough to be new. Especially here where everyone already knows everyone else.”

  Derric’s name was called. Jenn was just coming out of one of the six double doors at the end of the school building, and as she approached, Derric said quietly to Becca, “Hey, don’t let Jenn freak you. She’s pretty much okay.”

  This was about the last thing Becca was ready to believe because it felt like quicksand all around her as Jenn came up to them.

  Before she had a chance to make a comment, Becca asked the girl, “D’you know where the water treatment plant is?”

  “Why?” Jenn inquired. “Thinking of finally taking a bath?”

  “It’s where I’m meeting my ride,” Becca told her.

  “At the water treatment plant? Whoa. Someone must not want to be seen with you.”

  Derric said kindly, “It’s just across Maxwelton. We can show you if you—”

  “No we can’t,” Jenn said. “You’ve got jazz rehearsal and I’ve got cross-country.”

  “S’okay,” Becca said. “I c’n find it. Thanks.”

  “Mrs. Grieder picking you up?” Derric asked.

  “Yeah. She said—”

  “Derric. Come on.” Jenn was clearly unhappy about any conversation between Becca and the boy.

  Derric ignored her. He said to Becca, “Josh’ll be with her. I need to say hi,” and he added to Jenn, “See you later, okay?”