After Dakota Part 15

Then they're running. Laughing. Empty halls. Empty desks inside every cla.s.sroom. Like being inside a memory of school. Like they're the last two people left. Claire could run forever.

Ricky stops inside one room long enough to swipe all the papers off the teacher's desk onto the floor.

He leads her out the furthest exit. They make it to the edge of campus and hop the waist-high fence, then move behind the grove of trees. He pulls her close and kisses her. The first time. His chin is scratchy, his mouth tastes like cigarettes and grape soda; it's open so wide, like he wants to swallow her whole.

Please do.

50.

Mr. Buckland hasn't failed to live up to those early expectations in English cla.s.s. He makes the books matter, makes reading fun. Even the cholos who normally sit in the back of cla.s.s in their white undershirts and dark blue-almost-black cuffed jeans, marking time until freedom try hard for Mr. B.

He says things like, "'Free from desire, you realize mystery. Caught in desire, you see only manifestations.'"

And "'We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.'"

And "'All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power.'"

When people ask what he's talking about, he simply smiles his smile.

Other facts about his past trickle out as the weeks by: he once lived in his van; he once jammed with the Grateful Dead; his stage name was Blackjack Stevie. Every Friday, he plays song requests, seated on the edge of his desk at the front of the room, fingers dancing across the strings like lightning. He seems to know every song anyone names, until Tara Gunther asks him to play some Olivia Newton-John. Someone launches a wadded up piece of paper at the side of her head.

Unspoken during all this is the obviously tragic ending to the Buckland story: that someone with a life like that ended up teaching high school.

Mr. B even provides Bryce with an easy excuse for getting out of a family bowling night. Seriously, a family bowling night! They're finishing their tuna ca.s.serole dinner when his dad suddenly floats the bizarre idea and Claire says, "It's a school night."

"Oh, come on, Eclaire. Let's live a little."

Bryce could bowl and still finish his homework, but they don't need to know that. Both parents are happy to hear of his dedication to academics, knowing that college application season is about to get underway. Claire silently spins noodles around on her fork,no doubt fuming that her brother got out of it before she could.

With the three of them gone, Bryce turns on Magnum, P.I. in the background and gets down to work. Or tries to. Tonight, instead of the usual ball troubles, his mind wanders from picturing Mr. B as a rocker, to imagining life in a band. Always on the road, women throwing themselves at you, adoring crowds.

Who would give that up to be a teacher?

Bryce stops to sharpen his pencil, and notices the daddy longlegs no longer up in the corner but on the floor, folded in on itself. Even being in the same room as Bryce is bad luck.

Two guest voices on the daily announcements: "Hi, this is Garrett Lucas, co-president of Peace Club."

"And this is Rosemary Vickers, the other co-president of Peace Club."

Bryce has yet to see the face connected to that voice, but he imagines Cam getting a hard-on right about now.

They alternate sentences from there on. "Our club has written a letter to President Reagan encouraging him to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons. We want to get as many signatures as possible so he knows there are kids out there who care about preserving the world. We're gonna have a table in the Commons starting tomorrow, so please come by. You can read a copy of the letter and hopefully sign it."

This late-breaking news just in, Thunderbirds: Bryce Rollins has testicular cancer and may soon be a bald, one-balled freak. Or be dead. Stay tuned.

Poor Mr. Terry, who runs the computers cla.s.s like a kindly old uncle, unaware he's surrounded by a motley crew that would've been at home on a pirate ship back in the old days.

Today, Victor, one of Ricky Zaplin's friends, somehow gets his screen to fill with a scrolling column of f.u.kC that he can't stop. The laughter of those at nearby machines even penetrates the permanent haze around Mr. Terry's head.

After school, Bryce stops at Tales of Wonder to pick up that week's comics. He gets home to an empty house, so he's able to sit on the toilet in peace, for as long as he wants, with the new issue of Alpha Flight. Reading a comic book on the toilet, with no one nagging you to hurry up... how can life get any better?

Dying on the toilet wouldn't be a bad way to go. Elvis Presley supposedly died on the can. If Bryce had found out that was the method of his upcoming death, he'd be ok.

Afterwards, he discovers one of the UHF channels has replaced Gilligan's Island in the 4:00 p.m. slot with Star Trek. It's like G.o.d is giving him some good to make up for the big bad. He sits down with a pepperoni Hot Pocket, and as "The Man Trap" unfolds, with its transporters and phasers and salt vampire, Bryce forgets about everything for one glorious hour.

But after that hour, the tide retreats and he's back to counting down the minutes of his life.

51.

Ricky Zaplin lives in an apartment with his dad, Rick Sr., all six foot six of him with his walrus mustache. When Rick Sr. isn't at his gas station he's in front of the TV, a beer and a bottle of nasal spray on the tray close by. The two Ricks don't talk much; they're more like roommates than father and son. Ricky's mom lives in the apartment downstairs, from where she still wants to be part of her son's life.

This is the version Claire is able to put together from different comments she's heard.

Today is her first time over at the apartment. They're in Ricky's bedroom, among his piles of clothes and collection of car parts. A stolen stop sign hangs on the wall. They stand by his window and smoke his pipe and, like every time, Claire sucks in too deeply and ends up in a coughing fit.

She's never been alone with a guy in his bedroom before (other than Bryce, and he's not really a guy). When Ricky suggested hanging out here today, she asked, "Who else is coming?"

"Just you and me."

So here they are. He takes money from his pocket and places it in an almost-full s...o...b..x from under the unmade bed.

"My bank account," he says, tilting it so she can see.

After that he sits, shoves the loose clothes to the side, pulls her down next to him. The mattress groans under them. "I really like you, Claire."

"I like you, too," she answers in a voice that doesn't sound like hers. She closes her eyes and as he keeps going, telling her more, all the things he likes about her.

She's a million miles from home. An astronaut.

His face is sandpaper when he kisses her but it doesn't matter. He takes his shirt off, revealing a thin stripe of hair leading to his outie belly b.u.t.ton. His gold chain dangles between them. Claire would feel self-conscious about her shirt coming off but she'll do it for him if he asks.

She opens her mouth to tell him about a recent sermon "Help in Troubled Times" and how Pastor Mark said G.o.d can send an angel to lift each of us up right when we need it most, how we might not even recognize the person as an angel. She thinks Ricky might be hers. But saying it out loud? That she doesn't think she can do.

Claire runs her finger over a pink X of raised skin on his bicep. "What happened?"

"I needed to, y'know, feel pain," he says. "Real pain. So I heated up my knife on the stove and..." He trails off, staring at the mark. "After that I got it. Like, really got it."

He kisses again, forcefully, folding over her, his weight like a pile of blankets on a winter morning. He brought her here to do it! It's so obvious why didn't she see that until now? Everyone knows that the way to get out of it is tell the guy you're on your period, but Claire doesn't know if she wants to get out of it.

Stairs squeak outside. As fast as he kissed her, he's up off the bed with his shirt back on. "Dammit, my old man's home." He spray-paints the air with Lysol until the room smells like a hospital.

Claire hears the apartment door open and close. The floor squeaks with each footstep. Ricky puts a finger to his lips.

Through the wall, the sound of pee hitting water.

Ricky leads her out, shutting the front door silently behind them, tiptoeing down the stairs.

In the car she asks, "Why did we have to go?"

"He doesn't know s.h.i.t about my life and I don't want him to start now."

"I thought maybe you're embarra.s.sed about me. Because I'm a freshman or something."

He puts his right arm around her, steers with the left. "I'm not embarra.s.sed. Can we go to your house?"

"Not a good idea." Her mom could be home, or Bryce could see Ricky and have a heart attack, or both. Claire doesn't want to bring him into that world; she doesn't want to bring herself into that world. Can't they keep drifting, way out here?

"I wish we had someplace to hang out." He drives past the Albuquerque Academy, site of those long ago summer camps with Meredith and Evie, who started wearing a bra when she was nine. Claire lifts the sungla.s.ses from his face and puts them on.

The hard rock station plays on his radio; all the songs sound more like screaming than singing. "Got some Iron Maiden for you on this Wednesday," the DJ says. "Number of the Beast."

Claire looks at Ricky when they're stopped at a light, her eyes now the ones hidden behind mirrors. The music floats angry in the car. "I heard you scammed with a lot of girls."

"Who told you that?"

"So it's not true?"

"People talk all kinds of s.h.i.t. I've had girlfriends."

"Did you write poems for them?"

"Poems? Why are you asking me that?"

She looks at him for a smile, any hint. "No reason."

Inside her locker earlier that day was a folded paper exactly like the other two.

When you gaze upon me what do you see?

When I gaze upon you it's all my fantasies Without you my life is an empty charade My whole heart is the price I am willing to pay.

They go through the Dairy Queen drive-thru for milkshakes, drive around long enough to finish them. He takes her home, dropping her off around the corner; it's better if his car doesn't even enter the cul-de-sac.

On the phone with Meredith that night: "I waited for you at the arroyo today. You know I haven't seen you in, like, a week?"

"Sorry," Claire says, blowing on her rainbow-striped fingernails. "What are you doing?"

"Reading this book Catcher in the Rye for homework. Our teacher said it's supposed to be all scandalous, but it's just this dude complaining about his problems. I'm like, I'd trade places with you a second, buddy. So what's happening? Is your senior boyfriend over?"

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Whatever. Boy. Friend."

"Dork."

"You are. Do you wanna come see The Nutcracker with us? Please say yes and don't make me sit through it alone."

Afterwards, Claire goes upstairs and sorts through pictures on the floor of her bedroom. The final project for photo cla.s.s is called My Life: twelve pictures, with captions. "The focus is on composition and storytelling," Mr. Duran said. "Tell me a story about you."

Too many of Claire's pictures don't say anything about her. The black widow living in the garage. The dead rabbit. Hot air balloons. A candy wrapper on the sidewalk. Dakota's old bedroom, with a gash of sunlight coming in between the closed drapes.

Ah, here's one of her parents watching TV, looking like prisoners serving out a sentence. She lays that down as her first.

52.

Cameron sits at his desk, listening to Supertramp, ready to start one of the college essays he needs to submit. He may be the only one from school worrying about this at the moment. Some of his cla.s.smates won't stress at all the only way they'll be on a college campus is if they're hired as janitors.

What has been an intellectual experience that has given you great personal satisfaction?

Being a member of Junior Honors Society sounds like a good answer. He had the GPA and the teacher recommendations. His mom got to brag to all her friends about it. But if the essay reader asked him why he stopped going, would they want to hear the truth? That he was too embarra.s.sed to keep attending meetings after Amy Dorfman turned him down.

Choose an issue of local, national or international concern and explain its significance to you personally.

Nuclear weapons. No, everyone will write that. He can imagine Daryl Jennings's essay already.

Discuss a person who has had a strong influence on your life.

His dad. No, colleges probably want to hear about a positive influence.

The electric typewriter hums faintly beneath the music. He stares at the blank page. On the wall, a field of sun rows filters in through the blinds.

Every school he'll be applying to is in California.

Paradise.

The family went to the west coast every year for summer vacation. When they arrived in Anaheim, on the way to Disneyland, Cameron would look eagerly out the window for the snowy Matterhorn peak, rising above the city. Besides Disneyland were the beach and Sea World and Universal Studios with the ginormous shark. The sidewalk with all the handprints. The store called Toys "R" Us, like walking into a cathedral. Or further north, San Francisco with its fog and lighthouses. California had everything. Cameron came home every year exhausted, weighed down by souvenirs, and already panting to go back.

He types for a while, then looks down to see he's transcribed the lyrics to the song "It's Raining Again."