The Beginning Of After Part 2

In the kitchen, I sat down at the table, and she served me up a plate of pancakes, turkey bacon, and eggs.

"What about Pa.s.sover?" I asked, eyeing the pancakes.

"I think we get excused this year," she said wryly.

I picked up one of the pancakes, slightly warm in my hands, and started to eat it like a big, limp cookie. It was something Toby and I loved to do, and it drove Nana crazy. But this time she just smiled and pushed the newspaper toward me. "Here," she said. "I know how you like to keep up with the headlines."

It was the New York Times, not our local paper, the Herald Gazette. Because every day the Herald Gazette was publishing a new article about the accident and how the police were looking for someone, anyone, who might have seen what happened. Nana had stopped the Gazette delivery service two days earlier.

Now she sat down across from me with her ginger ale and matzoh, but didn't eat. "Laurel," she said. "Suzie Sirico called this morning. She's the grief counselor you met the other night, remember? She wanted to know how we were."

I looked up from the paper. "How did she get our number?"

"I gave it to her."

"You told her I was fine, right? That we were both fine?"

Nana broke off a piece of matzoh and nibbled. "She thinks the two of you should talk."

"You met her. She's creepy."

"She's a professional who can help you."

"Do I look like I need help?"

Nana actually did look at me, up and down my face, across and back. She knew better than to answer.

"Next time she calls," I said, "please just tell her not to."

Nana stood up, put what was left of her matzoh back in the box, and quietly left the room.

I turned back to the paper and started reading an article about trouble in Latin America, and there it was in the first paragraph: demagogue. It was one of my SAT words. It meant "rabble-rousing leader," and my study trick image popped into my head. On the steps of our school, a straggly bearded guy wearing a T-shirt that said DEM on it was speaking to a crowd of students, working them into a frenzy.

It had been more than a month since I was in the Ds, but there was demagogue, crystal clear. The tests were in five days. I walked to my room and found my SAT vocabulary book on the desk where I'd left it, bookmarked, untouched since the night of the seder. I picked it up carefully; I'd had only two more pages to go on the list of a thousand words my dad had challenged me to memorize. He wanted me to go to an Ivy League school, preferably Yale, like he did. I wanted it too, because I'd visited Yale during one of his reunions and thought it was cool, but I didn't tell him that. I needed him to think he was convincing me.

"I'll pay you a dollar for every point you score over seven hundred on Critical Reading," he'd said. "It's not a bribe; it's motivation. Just a little something, because I know you can do it."

I put the book back down and went to find the phone.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to do that?"

Mr. Churchwell, my school guidance counselor, sounded happy to hear from me.

"Yes, I'm sure. I'm ready. I don't want you to take me off the list."

"I have no doubt that you're ready, Laurel. But your frame of mind . . . well, we just want you to be able to perform at your ability. There's another test date in June."

"I need to take it at the same time my friends are." I tried to keep my voice from shaking. I need to take it because if it weren't for all that time studying for this test, my parents and Toby might be alive right now. I would have gone with them that night and we would have taken our own car.

That thought grabbed hold of me and held on tight.

Mr. Churchwell paused, then said, "Okay, Laurel. I'll see you on Sat.u.r.day. If you have anything else you want to talk about, don't hesitate to call."

"Thank you," I squeaked out, then hung up.

Wiggle out of it. Focus.

I grabbed my SAT prep book and stared at it again, and it was like a hole I could climb through to escape this tight little box of guilt. I headed to my favorite study spot: the three-foot alley behind the white couch and a wall of windows in the living room. I was just getting settled in when I looked out the window and saw our neighbor Mr. Mita out on the street, walking Masher, the Kaufmans' dog. Masher was straining at his leash, desperate for a little speed and freedom, but Mr. Mita was having trouble keeping up. Masher was a good dog, a black-and-white Border collie with a T-shaped blaze down his forehead. He was always getting out of his yard and roaming the neighborhood, checking up on our houses like they were his flock of sheep.

I thought of Masher in the Kaufmans' house, not understanding why everyone was gone but sensing something big had happened. Whining at the windows. Scratching at the front door. Confused and devastated, sort of like me.

Fifteen minutes later, I found myself on the Mitas' porch, knocking.

"What?" said Nana when I told her.

"I feel it's the right thing to do," I offered in my defense.

"Can I at least think about it overnight?"

"Mr. Mita's bringing him over in half an hour. He's just getting the bowls and food and stuff from the Kaufmans'."

"Laurel . . . ," Nana said, dropping her head so she could rub her forehead with two fingers. "You know how I feel about dogs."

But then she looked up at me and I met her eyes, and I could see her giving in.

Wow, I thought. She can't say no to me.

I'd always wanted a dog, for as long as I could remember. "We travel too much," my dad would say when I mentioned it. "I'm not a dog person," my mother would whine.

So I chose to picture only Toby's reaction-laughing, rolling on the floor with glee-when Masher burst into our living room that night, all hyper and poking his nose everywhere he could fit it. He smelled musty and his coat was dusty, and he kept shaking it out like he was trying to brush off the lonely, dark, sad place his home had become, and I vowed to give him a bath in the morning. In minutes he was curled on top of me, panting and licking my elbows, and getting dirty looks from the cats.

I started studying like crazy. It seemed my fingertips were always on the edge of the SAT book, feeling the frayed softness or running across the glossy surface of its cover. When Meg came over so we could quiz each other, we didn't ever talk about school, but one night she said casually, "Julia La Paz came over today and talked to me. She asked me how you were."

"Ew."

Julia was David's girlfriend and had neon-pink hair down past her shoulders. Sometimes people called her "My Little Pony" to be mean.

"No, she was like, kinda nice. Depressed, actually. She hasn't heard from David in a week."

I tried to picture Meg and Julia chatting together by a locker, their heads close, but couldn't do it. It was like trying to imagine the earth flat.

"Did she go to the hospital? She knows he's there, right?"

Meg nodded. "She knows. She's just scared."

And then I shut up, because yeah, I would be scared too.

On SAT Sat.u.r.day I awoke from the deepest sleep I'd had since the accident. I didn't have any dreams, and my sheets weren't even soaked with sweat. Right away, words started marching through my head. a.s.siduous: "hard-working." Ostentatious: "displaying wealth." Vindicate: "to clear from blame." Rancorous: "hateful." They came in an order that made no sense to me but seemed prearranged by something.

Dad? Is it you, doing that?

Then I shook the notion loose, out of my head. There was no room for that today.

An hour later, the Dills' minivan pulled up the driveway where I was pacing back and forth, and I was surprised to see Mrs. Dill behind the wheel with that wide, rigid smile she'd always had for me, even before the accident. Meg was slumped in the backseat. As I climbed in next to her, she rolled her eyes.

"Mom insisted on driving us. She says she wants me to relax."

"Are you nervous?" I asked.

"I stopped studying at eight o'clock and watched TV all night. I figure, if I don't know it by now, I never will."

We rode in silence toward the high school, and it hit me. I was going to see people. They were going to see me.

As we stepped inside the lobby of the main entrance, I locked my eyes onto a spot on the floor, not knowing where to look. But within seconds I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to see Mr. Churchwell.

"Laurel!" he said with a plastered-on grin. "It's so good to see you." Then, his voice got lower and the grin vanished. "You're okay? You still want to do this?"

I nodded, and then he pulled me aside.

"Well, we've arranged something a little special for you. The College Board gave us permission to let you take the test in a room by yourself. I will be there too, of course, but no other students. Would you like that?"

I looked at his bright eyes, that earnest wrinkle in the middle of his forehead, and wondered if anyone in the adult world thought he was cute.

"Thank you," I said. "That would be great."

"I'll take you to the cla.s.sroom we've set up for you." He started to lead me away, and I turned back to Meg, who had been watching us and was now shooting me a puzzled glance. I just shrugged at her before turning to follow Mr. Churchwell away from the crowd.

I hadn't even gotten the chance to wish my best friend good luck.

It was a long morning taking the critical reading and then the writing parts of the test at a desk in the middle of the faculty lounge, Mr. Churchwell sitting at a nearby table with a copy of Rolling Stone, but the tests didn't surprise me at all. I felt prepared-thank you, SAT prep course! During the breaks I got at the end of each hour, I used the teachers' private bathroom and listened to the buzz of voices in the hallway.

I finished the math section early and signaled Mr. Churchwell.

"I'm done. What should I do?"

"You want to check your answers?"

"I did. I'm done."

He glanced at his watch and came over to me. "Then I guess I'll just take that," he said, holding out his hand for the test, "and you can go early." I handed him the answer sheet and he took it gently, like it was something precious. "How do you think you did?" he whispered.

The way he said that, as if he was begging for me to share a secret, sounded almost exactly like my mother.

Do you think Mrs. Dixon liked your project? Did everyone laugh at the right times during your mock newscast?

She never wanted to sound like a pushy, overbearing parent. She wanted to be like the encouraging friend, confident that I'd do well in whatever I tried. So she'd ask me with her voice at half volume to sound like she only half cared, which totally bugged me. Because she fully cared, and I knew it.

The sensation of missing Mom came at me fast and hard, right into my chest. I might have even stumbled backward from the impact.

Not here! Not now! And definitely not in front of Mr. Churchwell.

I quickly imagined that I could reach my hand into my chest, yank out that awful feeling, place it on an invisible cloud of air right in front of me, then push it away. Push it away.

And it worked. I could almost see it float past Mr. Churchwell's head and out the door.

"I think I did okay," I finally said, trying to pick up his question even though several long, terribly quiet moments had pa.s.sed.

"You have a ride home?" he asked. If he sensed how close I'd just come to losing it, he didn't let on.

"Megan's mom."

"And so I'll see you again . . ."

"On Monday." That just came out. I hadn't really decided when I was going back to school. But now that I was there, it seemed so totally possible. I could come back. I could pick right up where I'd left off and still finish the school year on time.

"Are you sure?" Mr. Churchwell asked.

"Absolutely," I said, and stood up, moving toward the door. "Have a great weekend."

I opened the door slowly and peeked my head into the hallway. It was empty, so I slid out, knowing exactly where I needed to go to wait for Meg. I made it outside quickly and flew down the steps of the school's entrance, following a concrete path around the side of the building and to the oak tree. It was our oak tree, the only one on school grounds with a trunk wide enough for two people to disappear behind, now fully green with shade. This was where Meg and I liked to hang out at lunchtime.

Most kids coming out of the school would be headed straight for their cars in the opposite direction; they'd never think to come this way. I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text message to Meg that just said: @ d tree Then my thumb reached toward the 2 b.u.t.ton that would speed-dial the house.

And I froze. I'd been about to call home. Holy c.r.a.p, is it that easy to forget they're not there?

No. You were just going to call Nana. Nana, who IS there.

It was simpler at that moment not to call at all.

I heard the front doors open and some voices, loud for a moment or two, then fading slowly. The front doors again, then fading voices. A third time I heard the doors open, and the voices, but they didn't fade; they were getting stronger, along with footsteps.

I looked up, hoping to see Meg, but it was Andie Stokes and Hannah Lindstrom. Pretty and popular, not mean but unapproachable. Generally superhuman. And they were walking toward me.

"Hi, Laurel," said Hannah.

"Megan Dill said you might be here," said Andie.

I had to shield my eyes from the sun to look up at them, but didn't stand. I was really just too nervous to move, and then I felt like an idiot for that. These were girls from my school who I'd known forever. Once, when we were little, I'd taken a bath with one of them, but I couldn't remember which.

Now they came and sat down with me, on the ground made b.u.mpy by the oak tree's roots.

"We just wanted to say hi and let you know how sad we are for you," said Andie, sweeping her famous chestnut brown hair away from her face. "You must be going through h.e.l.l."

"It's so brave of you to do this today," added Hannah, blond, touching my shoulder.

"Thank you."

"We're starting up a memorial fund, from our cla.s.s to your family," said Andie. She was known for her obsession with charities, always coordinating some kind of clean-up day, food drive, or group donation. Some kids did sports, Andie did Good.