The File on Angelyn Stark (17 page)

“What about it?” he says in the tiredest voice ever.

“You said we’d talk about it. You promised, and it hasn’t happened yet.”

The girl is staring. She hasn’t even sat.

“You can find that information on the Net,” Mr. Rossi says.

Finally, I understand.

“Everything’s over. Because Jeni couldn’t keep her stupid mouth shut.”

More people come in. I push through them.

Mr. Rossi doesn’t call me back.

Steve’s heart beats against my back. His legs curve around mine.

Charity sits at the other end of the truck. “Did Rossi change the grade?”

Our hands twine. “No,” I say.

“He was treating you mean,” she says.

Steve puts his face by mine. “What did Rossi do?”

“I needed a book and he wouldn’t lend me one. He said,
Go buy it.
”

“Sounds like him. Charity, lend her yours.”

Her face gets pink. “I don’t have mine today.”

“Sure you don’t,” I say. And tilt my head to Steve.

We kiss, scraping cheeks.

“Like we never stopped,” he says.

I curl into him. “Yeah.”

“I’ll get that book for you,” Steve says. “Jacey’s got to have one.”

“Never mind. I’m done working for Rossi.”

He stands so fast his knee clunks my head.

“Ow!” I look up. “What are you doing?”

Sprawled across the cab, Steve shouts for JT and Jacey.

I pull up my knees and rub my head.

“He told us to let you back in,” Charity says.

I make a face. Not surprised. Not really.

“You’re so lucky. Everyone comes to you.”

“Sitting here,” I say, “you might see it different.”

Charity looks at Steve. “No, I wouldn’t.”

Jacey and JT come to the truck. Steve asks about the book.

“Angelyn can
have
mine,” Jacey says.

Steve squats beside me. “Problem solved.”

I lift my lips. “Thanks.”

“Yep,” Charity says. “Angelyn always gets what she wants.”

Steve nudges me. “Well, who wouldn’t give it to her?”

“I know a couple of people,” I say.

JT and Jacey pile in.

“The reservoir tomorrow for lunch?” JT says.

Steve says, “You know it.”

I look around. “All of us?”

JT laughs in Charity’s direction. “
She’s
not comin’.”

Jacey says,
“Aww,”
like he’s kicked a puppy.

“What’d that girl snitch about, Angelyn?” Charity’s voice is ragged.

“What girl?” Steve asks.

“Nothing.” I sit forward. “No one. I’m taking care of it.”

“Wait, the one that was watching us this morning?”

“Angelyn’s girlfriend,” Charity says. “But they broke up.”

“Shut up,” I say.

“Why didn’t she come to class?” Jacey asks. “I mean, if she was here.”

“She knew better than to come,” I say.

Charity grins. “Did you break her heart, Angelyn?”

“Girl drama,” Steve says when I don’t answer that one.

JT stretches. “Never know what Angelyn’s up to or who she’s doing.”

I look at him. “What?”

Jacey slaps his chest. “Be nice!”

JT catches her hand. “Just playing.”

I turn to Steve. “That’s okay with you?”

He shifts. “Hey, man—JT. C’mon.”

I wait for more. Nothing comes.

“I’m not going to the reservoir with anyone but you,” I say.

Steve smiles. “Sweet.”

I face away.

He spiders his fingers on my back. “Hey.”

“Don’t,” I say.

His fingers tickle. I roll my shoulders. Steve starts a massage.

The truck is like a rowboat, sunk with all of us.

“Hey, Angelyn,” Charity says.

I screw my face shut. “I am not hearing it.”

“Oh, but you’ll want to hear this. Here comes your girlfriend.”

Jeni is coming through the auto yard, arm to her chest holding something.

“That is the girl from this morning,” Steve says.

“Yeah.” My cool cracks. I hold my head a moment.

Raising it: “You’re crazy coming here!”

Jeni calls, “I’ve got some things for you.”

I roll to my knees. “I don’t want anything from you.”

JT laughs. “Tell her, Angelyn.”

“Run her off,” Jacey says.

“Kick her ass,” Charity says.

Steve is looking up at me.

Jeni marches on. I’m back at the office with everybody on me. Facing Mr. Rossi as he tells me: “Stay away.”

She stops an arm’s length from the truck.

“What are you
doing
?” I ask.

Jeni holds up a World Cultures text, her folder stuck inside.

“You’re giving me your book? How did you know—”

Steve pops up beside me. “We’ve got the book situation covered.”

“The notes for our report are here too,” Jeni says. “You’ll need them, Angelyn.”

“Like you won’t? Forget it, Jeni. I’m not doing the report. You do it. It’s yours.”

“I can’t,” she says. “We’re moving. Like, now.”

All I can think to say is, “Why?”

Jeni pulls her arm down. “Does it matter why? I tried to tell you this morning.”

“This morning?”

She pushes the book at me again. The notes. “Take the stuff, all right? And turn my book in?”

I sit back. “Turn your book in? After you trash me and—”

“I didn’t say
anything.
” Jeni looks as mad as I’ve ever seen her. “I don’t care if you don’t believe me.”

She’s lying
, I think. “You’re lying.”

“Yeah,” Charity says. “Angelyn hates you. Snitch.”

Jeni’s face twitches.

I look around. “Hey, I’ve got this!”

The girls and JT smirk at me.

Steve asks what’s going on.

My head droops. “I don’t know. All right?”

Charity says my name singsong. Pointing.

Jeni is walking away.

I look at Steve. “It’s not over with her.”

“Then go,” he says. “And, Angelyn? Come back.”

I stand with Jeni in the auto yard among wrecked cars and rusted parts.

“Did you come to kick my ass?” she says. Little and fierce. “You won’t have it around much longer.”

I check the truck. They’re hanging off it. “Are you trying to show me up, coming here?”

“No.” Jeni pulls the book to her chest. “I really did want to give you the World Cultures stuff.”

“Right.” I kick the nubby asphalt. “The office was rough. Mr. Rossi was there. My mom too. And Miss Bass. They were all over me for going to his house.”

“You weren’t in that office because of me, Angelyn.”

I look at her.

“Do you really think—” Jeni stops. “Really think I’d go find that lady before school and tell her how you spent your weekend?”

“Not the weekend,” I say faintly. “Just one night.”

“Who else knew you went there?”

“Nathan. But he didn’t know whose place it was. Unless you told him.”

Jeni says, “I didn’t tell anyone! So, not Nathan. Who else?”

I get it. “Oh no. Mr. Rossi didn’t tell. Why would he?”

“Maybe so he wouldn’t get in worse trouble?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I say.

“He’s a teacher. He’s an adult. They do what they have to, to keep going.”

“But—Miss Bass said he could dump me from his class. Mr. Rossi said I could stay.”

Jeni shrugs.

“If he were mad at me—if he
told
—why would he give me another chance?”

“I don’t know.” She pushes the book into my hands. “Take this, all right?”

I hold it loosely. The folder slips. “I’m not doing the report. I meant that.”

“You should. We put in the work.”

“Hey, Angelyn!”

We both look. Steve is standing in the truck. He waves.

“Well,” Jeni says.

“Listen,” I say. “I believe you. I don’t know that Mr. Rossi told, but I believe you didn’t.”

Her face smooths. “Okay.”

“Really?”

Jeni points over her shoulder. “Walk me out?”

We pick our way around the oil spots.

“It took guts to come here,” I say.

“You scared me this morning.”

“I know.”

“I don’t like being scared. I
won’t
be scared. That’s why I came back.”

I nod. “You knew where to find me.”

“I checked the library first,” she says.

I laugh, then Jeni does. “So, why are you moving?”

“Mom’s
romance
ended, and we have to leave town.”

“Oh.”

“That’s how things work out for her. They
never
work out for her.”

“Where are you guys going to go?” I ask.

“Back to San Jose. Mom has a friend who lets us crash. Nathan’s taking us to catch the train.”

I walk slower. Down the steps out of the auto yard, I see Nathan’s truck parked on the street.

Jeni stops. “I’m sick of it, Angelyn.”

I don’t know what to say.

“My life won’t be like hers. I have to believe it.”

“It’s up to us, right?” My words sound hollow.

“Things are always ending,” Jeni says.

“You’ll make things happen. What you want to have happen.”

She looks at me. “How can you know that?”

I pull up words like water from a well. “The way you’ve been with me.”

“Okay,” Jeni says, “then I’ll tell you this—don’t give up on Rossi’s class.”

“It’s going to suck, being there. He can hardly look at me.”

“It’s not about him. Get the grades for you. Do it for you.”

I dip my head. “It’ll sound crazy, but I wish you weren’t leaving.”

“I wish that too,” Jeni says.

I lose hold of the book. It hits the ground and the folder slides, spilling pages.

Jeni and I crouch at the same time. She reaches the papers first and hands them to me. I thank her and stick them in the folder.

We stand together.

With a tiny smile, she says, “Guess you
really
don’t want to do the report.”

I tuck the book and folder to my chest and make a show of holding them.

Jeni looks toward Nathan’s truck. “Anyway—”

“You would have believed me,” I say.

She turns.

“I told Jacey about my stepdad. Back in seventh grade. It was during this health assembly. You know, some lady saying we shouldn’t let boys touch our private parts. We were being little bitches, asking if anyone had ever touched hers. We got sent out and ran and hid in the bathroom. So, we’re fixing our hair, and I say:
‘My stepdad touches me.’
”

“That must have been so hard,” Jeni says.

“No. It slipped out. I didn’t plan it. Anyway, Jacey laughed.”

“She did? Wow.”

“ ‘Oh, Angelyn, he does not.’ ”
I say it from memory.

“Maybe that’s all she had in her,” Jeni says.

“Maybe. She never told Charity. That was all I cared about.”

“You’re right,” Jeni says. “I would have believed you.”

Down the walkway: “Before all that this morning,” Jeni says, “I was going to ask—do you want to write back and forth?”

“Write?”

She looks sideways. “Letters. You know, not texting.”

“I know what they are. But I don’t really write.”

“Okay.” She says it fast.

“My mom would be all up on me if I started getting mail. You know.”

“Sure,” Jeni says. “It’s just—maybe we weren’t ever really friends, but this is the first time it mattered. To me.”

I think of something. “If you wrote care of Mrs. Daly, I could get the letters then.”

Her smile lights her face. “I’ll do that.”

Their things are in the bed of Nathan’s truck. A duffel. Two shabby suitcases. Jeni’s backpack. Her mom is in the cab next to Nathan. Rumpled. Tearstruck.

“We’ll miss the train!” she says.

Jeni looks at me. “I know, Mom.”

I nod to her. “You take care.”

“You too, Angelyn.”

Nathan starts the truck.

“Wait.” I cross in front. “Hey.”

He stares ahead.

I curl my fingers on the window ledge. “I talked to your grandma.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“We talked about—what you and me talked about.”

Nathan’s jaw works. “Uh-huh.”

“So now you don’t care.”

“Thought you didn’t want me to care, Angelyn.”

I shift. “I got into big old trouble, going to that place you took me.”

Good
, I hear him think.

“Someone I thought wanted me—didn’t want me at all.”

“So what?” Nathan says, but now he’s looking at me.

“So—that makes me sad, like you.”

He snorts.

“Sad,”
I say. “Like you.”

Nathan glances at Jeni and her mom. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” I say.

He winces.

“I mean—Nathan, find someone you like who can like you. You shouldn’t have to figure me out.”

“I’m not even going to try, Angelyn. Not anymore.”

“What are you going to do after you drop out?” I ask.

“I’m going to work,” he says. “I’m good at working.”

“That’s cool,” I say, and Nathan looks at me again.

Jeni leans across her mom. “Guys, we really do have to go.”

Nathan clears his throat. “Yeah, we’re leaving.”

I let the ledge go. “I don’t hate you.”

His shoulders straighten.

“All right?”

“I heard you,” Nathan says.

I can’t tell if it matters to him or not.

“It’s— It’s good you stopped him,” I say.

Nathan looks at me. “What?”

“You heard.”

He waits. “I never thought I’d hear that.”

“Yeah, well.” Hardest of all, I say it: “Thanks.”

Nathan fights a smile and lets it through. “Sure, Angelyn.”

I stumble crossing back, a hand to the hood to catch me.

Jeni mouths,
Bye
, as they pull away. I nod from the sidewalk.

Goodbye.

“Friend, father,
lover.
” Mom spits the last word. “What was
that
?”

I’m slumped, stuck beside her as we inch through town traffic.

“Let’s don’t talk about it,” I say.

“We’re talking about it.”

Someone honks.

“I think you’re supposed to move,” I say.

Mom punches into the intersection.

“What have you been saying to that teacher?”