From the cafeteria door to the table where Marie Fane usually sat was twenty-eight steps. She knew this because she counted them every once in a while. Between the door and the table was an open space where anybody who was interested could get a clear look at her and her foot. Most of the kids in school always thought of her the same way, as 'the pretty girl who's crippled.'
They meant nothing malicious by this; it's just the way human beings remember each other, kind of like name tags-big noses or crossed eyes or skin discoloration. Most people didn't know what had caused her foot to be this way, to be angled so that she jerked a little bit every time she stepped down, only that it was a shame that a girl so fetching and quiet and dignified had to be crippled. They didn't know about the car running a kerb and smashing into her when she was five, about the four operations that came after, about the nightmares she had of kids watching her and pointing when she crossed the empty space between the doorway and the cafeteria table where she sat every day. She wasn't poor-she and her mother were reasonably well off actually-but her friends were mostly the poor kids in school. And the oddballs; oh, yes, the oddballs.
As always, she put her head down when she walked to the table. She hated it when people called her name or drew any attention to her at all. She just wanted to get to her seat and sit down and be forgotten about utterly. This was why she always carried a sack lunch that she packed every night before school. Standing in the cafeteria line just gave more people a chance to see that she was crippled.
"Hey! Beauty!"
She didn't have to wonder who it was: Tommy Powell, an obese kid who spent most of his time in comic book stores and who proved that being an outsider didn't necessarily make you sensitive to other people. Marie had asked Tommy many times not to call out to her this way but he did it anyway. Tommy had this terrible crush on her (it was probably just as painful for her as it was for him) and he could only seem to express it in the most obnoxious and childish ways.
"Hey! Beauty!" he called again.
Then he started-another typical Tommy move-singing the words to There She Is, Miss America, pushing out from the table and standing up in his Batman T-shirt, lime-green pants, and scuffed white Reeboks on which a variety of people had inscribed obscenities.
Lucy Carnes started tugging on his sleeve and whispering for him to sit down. Lucy knew how self conscious Marie got. Lucy had this big purple birthmark all over her left cheek so she knew all about the eyes of strangers.
The third person at the table was Richie Beck. He was a nice looking seventeen year old who had transferred this term from somewhere upstate. His appearance, his manners, and his general bearing said that he should have been with the popular kids but for some reason he'd elected to run with Tommy's group. Marie, who was interested in Rich but too shy to tell him so, suspected that he had a secret, something he was ashamed of, which was why he hung out with the group.
When she reached the table and set down her lunch sack, Tommy said, "You pack any Twinkies today?" He always tried to cadge her dessert.
She wanted to tell him how much he'd embarrassed her by singing that stupid Miss America song but Tommy was hopeless. Like a surprising number of kids who were socially ostracised, Tommy took his bitterness and loneliness and anger out on others.
"How're you doing?" Lucy said, smiling up at Marie and pulling her chair out for her.
"Oh, pretty good."
Lucy leaned in and said, "Sorry about Tommy."
Marie smiled, grateful for the friendship.
She sat down next to Lucy and looked closely at her friend. Lucy was beautiful. Not just pretty the way Marie was but truly and classically beautiful. With her long but perfectly formed nose, her striking blue eyes, her soft and friendly mouth, Lucy was just about ideal. Many times Marie found herself envying Lucy her looks, which only made it all the more curious when
Lucy told nervous little jokes about herself- 'blotch face' as she many times referred to herself. Lucy didn't seem to know how beautiful she was no matter how many times Marie told her-because of the birthmark, Lucy saw herself as a freak.
"Have to work tonight?" Lucy asked.
Marie nodded.
"I'd come over and visit you except that I have to work tonight, too." Lucy worked at a Baskin-Robbins. Many nights, she'd bring sandwiches and come over to the bookstore where Marie worked and they'd have a great time.
"Too bad," Marie said.
"Maybe next week."
Marie worked two nights a week and Saturdays at a bookstore next to the university. She liked the job but her mother worried about it. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the store was only four blocks from the university, it was located in a transitional neighbourhood, so that in addition to students and professors, you also got occasional derelicts and perverts.
"If you had any comics, I'd come over," Tommy said. "All you got there is novels."
Marie smiled at his intolerance. While most people weren't interested in middle aged men who jumped around in the somewhat goofy costumes of most comic book super heroes, Tommy saw the real squares as Marie's customers.
"Anyway, I've got some studying to do. I've got to get at least a B in trig to graduate," Tommy said.
For the first time today, Marie found herself feeling sorry for Tommy, the way his sister might, or his mother, or some weird combination of the two. While Tommy was indisputably a brain-very high SATs, for instance-he was a terrible student. He'd never learned anything remotely resembling good study habits. He spent his time with comics-some of which Marie enjoyed-and let his grades slide lower and lower, so that now he really was sweating graduation. She knew what was going on here: a counsellor had once explained the concept of self esteem to her. People like Lucy and Tommy didn't have much. A few visits to Tommy's house had told her why, too. All the time she was there studying, Tommy's mother was in the bedroom of their tiny apartment, arguing violently and profanely over the phone with her boyfriend. Every once in a while, his mother's sharp voice got so loud that Tommy looked humiliated. His mother had been married four times and was planning on marrying the guy she was presently shrieking at. So instead of retreating into his schoolbooks and making way for a better future, Tommy retreated into adolescent fantasy-he sometimes talked about Batman as if he had not only met the man but also become his confidant-and let his grades slide. When Batman liked you, you didn't have to worry about not having much self-esteem.
Marie was just about to tell Tommy that she would help him study for trig when Richie Beck leaned across the table and said, so quietly she couldn't even be sure he said it, "I'll come over to the store and sit with you tonight, Marie."
Lucy kicked Marie under the table and smiled. Lucy knew how much Richie's soft spoken words meant to her friend. Marie had expounded many times on how much she liked this strange but intriguing boy. Right now it was hard to tell who was more excited, Lucy or Marie.
Lucy and Marie looked at each other. Marie didn't want to do or say anything that would spoil the moment here. All she could muster was "Really?"
"Sure."
"You don't have to. I mean-"
"I know I don't have to." He averted his eyes, glanced elsewhere in the cafeteria, then looked back at her. "But I want to." He shrugged again. "Probably not a good idea for you to be in a neighbourhood like that by yourself."
"Gosh, Richie, I really appreciate it."
He leaned forward. "How're you getting over there?"
"I usually take the bus."
"Why don't I pick you up?"
She felt herself flush. "Really?"
He grinned. "Really."
"Gosh, that would be great."
"What time, then?"
"Five-thirty is when I usually leave."
"I'll be there at five-thirty. I'll just honk if that’s all right."
"Sure. But you don't even know where I live."
Once again, it was Richie's turn to look uncomfortable. "Uh, yeah, I've, uh, driven by a few times."
"You have?"
"Yeah. On my way, uh, downtown."
Then he was up on his feet, a slender boy not a great deal taller than Marie. He wore a white button down shirt and plain Levi's jeans. He always gave the impression of quiet intelligence coupled with a kind of sadness, which was why Marie had always suspected he had some kind of secret. "I'll see you tonight," he said, and then faded away, into the sounds of rattling plates, the odours of steam table food, and the spectacle of more than thirteen hundred high school kids eating lunch at one time.
Lucy cocked her head to the left and cupped her hand behind her ear, as if hearing a distant sound. "Are those wedding bells I hear in yon castle?"
Marie punched her playfully on the arm. "All he said he'd do is give me a ride to work No big deal."
"Right. No big deal, Marie. I can tell you're not excited."
Marie grinned. "God, I can't believe it."
"I can," Lucy said. "See, I told you he had a crush on you."
"Yeah, right."
"Wait till you tell your mom. She told me how you had his graduation picture on your bureau. Did you ask him for it?"
Marie shook her head. "No, I got it when I worked on the yearbook. After the printer returned everything, they were just going to throw everything away so I-"
And then she saw Tommy and realised what an impact all this must have had on him. Obviously, he'd heard everything. He was only two chairs away at the table.
Lucy followed Marie's gaze.
Tommy had his hands folded in front of him and his head hung very low. He was not moving at all. Even just watching him, you could sense his grief over Marie's happiness.
Marie said, "Don't you have that appointment in the counsellor's office?"
At first Lucy looked confused, then catching on, she nodded and said, "Say, you're right. I do.''
"I'll see you in study hall at two o'clock."
"Right." Then Lucy started grinning. Obviously she was going to say something more about Richie and Marie.
But Marie shook her head and glanced again at Tommy.
Lucy nodded and said, "I'll see you at two, then."
And left.
Tommy sat unmoving for a long time. So did Marie. She made a pass through her notebook, getting ready for history next hour, and then read a few pages of Of Mice and Men, one of her favourite novels, and the book she was reading again for English with her favourite teacher, Mrs. Lattimore. Twice, kids came up to sit down and eat lunch at their regular table but then they saw Tommy with his head down and then Marie sort off waved them on to an empty table nearby.
Finally, she got up, her leg and foot very stiff as always whenever she'd been sitting for a time, and walked down the long table and sat near Tommy.
"You feel like having a Pepsi? I thought I'd go get one." Actually, she didn't want a Pepsi and if she did go and get one, it would have been the first time in her three years at Polk. Because getting one meant walking in front of everybody for a long time, then walking all the way back to her table. Her friends were nice enough to save her the trouble by automatically getting her one whenever they went up.
He didn't raise his head. "No, thanks."
She wanted to tell him about how he dressed sometimes-say, Tommy, those comic book T-shirts you wear just emphasise your size and make you seem younger. But now that she sat here looking at him, she sensed the obstinate pride he took in his T-shirts. Wearing Batman on his chest was his way of telling people he didn't care what they thought of him. Wearing Batman on his chest was an act of defiance-he probably knew how silly it made him look, and he probably revelled in it perversely. She was no different in always wanting to hide her foot, nor was Lucy any different in the self deprecating jokes she told about the birthmark on her face. She did something now she'd never done before-she reached out and touched Tommy's hand. She could feel him jerk at the touch, as if he'd been shot or electrocuted, as if he could not quite believe it.
But he didn't raise his head.
"Tommy."
He said nothing. She left her hand in place.
"Tommy."
Long pause, then: "What?"
"Do you know how much I like you?"
He said nothing, kept his head down.
"I consider you one of my best friends."
"Yeah. Right."
"I do."
He raised his head. She could see the tears in his eyes. "Is that what you consider Richie? A friend?"
She felt herself blush, heard herself stammer. "A different kind of friend."
"Right."
He hung his head again. He said, "Please take your hand away."
She removed her hand.
They sat there silently for a long time. Kids came and went; the kitchen help dropped plastic trays, shouted joking insults to each other, ran automatic dishwashers that roared with the force of Niagara and smelled oppressively of heat and detergent.
"Tommy."
"What?"
"Won't you look at me?"
"Why should I?"
"Because we're friends."
"No, we're not."
She sighed, waited, then: "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings."
"I suppose you think he's cute, huh?"
Now he raised his head. "I'm sorry I said that."
They both tried to disregard the fact that he had tears in his eyes.
He put his hand on her wrist. It was a fleshy hand but a strong one, and damp with sweat. In a curious way, it felt like a baby's hand, and so the sensation of it lying on her wrist was not unpleasant.
He said, "I don't like you as much as I used to, anyway."
She smiled. "Well, I like you more so I guess that evens things out."
"You don't like me more. You like me less. I can tell just by the way you look at me. About half the things I do irritate you."
She said carefully, wanting to change the subject but not be too obvious about it, "Whatever happened to Judy?"
He shrugged. "Said she didn't want to see me anymore."
"Why?"
He shrugged again, fatty shoulders beneath the Batman T-shirt. "Said I embarrassed her every time we went to the comic book store."
"How did she say you embarrassed her?"
"Oh, arguing with people and all. Like one day there was this guy in there who said that the Green Lantern was better than the Flash. So I just kind've told him his opinions sucked."
"In a real loud voice?"
"Well."
"And making your argument very personal?"
"Well. He was kind of a geek, you know?"
"We're all geeks, Tommy, our whole little group and everybody like us-don't you understand that yet?"
He stared at her. "Is Richie a geek?"
"I suppose."
"Really?"
"Why else would he sit here with us?"
"But he isn't fat and he isn't crippled and he doesn't have any birth defects and he-" He shook his head. "He doesn't look like a geek to me." He patted his massive belly. "I'm a geek."
"So am I."
"No, you're not, Marie. You always say that but-"
The bell rang, ending lunch hour, summoning the kids back to class.
She said, "When's the last time you talked to Judy?"
"Last weekend. She hung up on me."
"Why?"
"Because she said this copy she had of Wonder Woman was in mint condition but it wasn't. It had a crease on the cover and the back was kind of wrinkled and-"
"And so you told her that?"
"Sure. It was just the truth."
"Sometimes you need to spare people the truth, Tommy."
"You mean lie?"
"I mean take their feelings into account. Judy's probably proud of her comic book. Then let her be proud. Don't spoil it for her."
Tommy stared at her and sighed. "I screwed up, huh?"
"Yes."
"And I should call her?"
"Yes."
"And tell her the comic book's really in mint condition when it isn't?"
"No, call her and tell her that her feelings are a lot more important than any comic book, and that you're sorry, and that you'd like to see her again."
"What if she hangs up?"
"Then wait a few days and call her again."
Tommy smiled. "You always make things sound so easy, Marie."
She touched his hand. "Things can be easy, Tommy. At least easier than we make them sometimes."
He shrugged. "Maybe so."
"Well, good luck, Tommy. I hope things go well for you with Judy."
He smiled. "I hope they go well with Richie, too." He patted her small wrist again with his big hand. "I really mean that, Marie."
"Thanks," she said.
Then it was time to walk back across the space between table and door where everybody interested could watch her walk. The nice thing about the end of the hour was the congestion. You didn't stand out in a crowd when you had people on all sides of you pushing toward the EXIT door.
When she was out of the cafeteria and heading down the long phalanx of lockers, she started thinking again of Richie, and a wildness filled her-a wildness that was one part joy and one part terror.
She had no confidence where boys were concerned. She did not want to hope for too much with Richie because she might end up getting nothing at all.
For a time, he put his head back and closed his eyes and let the apple blossom breeze through the open window balm him.
It was almost possible to forget that he was on a city bus, and that he did not know who he was, and that he was going to see-3567 Fairlawn Terrace.
Who lived there? he wondered.
Every few minutes the bus stopped and the big doors whooshed open and people got on and off.
And then the bus started up again. He liked the lunge of power. It was relaxing somehow; made him feel he was being mercifully carried away from trouble.
With his eyes closed, he smelled the pieces of the day: grass and sun, warmth and wind, diesel fuel and cigarette smoke.
And the sounds: children, car horns, radios, black people, white people, Mexican people, aeroplanes, motorcycles.
The whole human jumble of it made him feel safe again, hiding once more in his own humanity.
Unlikely as it was, he slept.
When he woke, he made a tiny frightened sound.
An old lady in a faded head scarf turned to look at him with accusing blue eyes.
Drunk, and sleeping it off, her gaze said.
He sat up straight, looking desperately now at the scene surrounding the bus.
Again, he sensed that this was an area he was familiar with but his mind offered no objective proof Neat ranch houses, neither cheap nor expensive, lined the low grassy green hills on either side of the street.
I live in one of these houses.
The bus pulled over to the kerb.
The old lady, overburdened with K-Mart and Wal-Mart shopping bags, got off. She still glared at him.
The bus pulled away once more, the forward rhythm relaxing him immediately.
If only he could ride forever…
Two blocks later, he saw the street sign that read FAIRLAWN TERRACE.
He reached up and grasped the cord that would signal the driver to stop.
And then he saw the police car. It wasn't marked, of course-the police were not stupid-but it was one of those bulky dark Ford sedans whose very plainness announced it as an 'official' car and 'official' in this case meant police.
They're waiting for me.
The driver pulled over to the kerb.
He sat down again and said, self conscious because he had to speak so loudly in order to be heard, "I made a mistake. Just drive on, all right?"
Mistake? What a stupid story. I reached all the way up there and yanked on the cord. And it was a mistake?
He saw 3567 then.
It was a particularly nice ranch style, one made of both lumber and natural stone. He put his face to the bus window like a small lonely boy peering into a house.
Why was 3567 so special to him? Who lived there?
But of course he knew the answer to that one.
He lived there.
He rode the bus for the next hour and a hall. During this time he fell asleep and when he woke, he was disoriented. Not only was his name vague now; so was his purpose.
I'm on a bus. Why? Where am I going?
And then he felt the shift in his stomach.
He touched his hand to the slight swell of his belly, felt something thick and round curving across the arc beneath his sternum.
He recalled something that had happened to him once as a boy.
On the back porch, autumn winds blowing dead colourful leaves scratching across the screened in windows, he saw something move in a gunny sack his father kept on the back porch for storing walnuts. He had never forgotten what happened next. He knelt down and touched the palm of his hand to the top of the gunny sack He was sure he'd seen the sack move — and then he knew why. Beneath his hand, just under the fabric of the sack, uncoiled a fat writhing snake. He jerked back in panic. He had never been able to forget that odd sensation-the unseen reptile slithering beneath the rough material of the sack
Just as something slithered inside his belly just now. He could feel it coil and uncoil, coil and uncoil.
The image of something inside him made him sick suddenly and he wanted to vomit. But he knew he would have to hold it as long as he was on the bus. Which was why he got off.
Fortunately, the stop at which he left the bus was a forlorn section of taverns and Laundromats and large empty fields filled with rusting deserted cars and hundreds of jagged busted pop bottles and heel-crunched beer cans.
There was an alley between two rotting taverns that seemed to be having a war of country and western jukeboxes.
He ran into the alley just as a Hank Williams, Jr., song came on and he vomited so long he was half afraid he would start seeing blood.
As he stood up, he saw that a skinny, bald guy in a dirty white apron and holding a broom in one hand was watching him.
"Only three o'clock," the bald, skinny guy said. He was obviously the owner of the tavern.
"What?" he said, pulling the back of his hand across his mouth.
"Only three o'clock. Too goddamned early to start puking."
And with that, the guy hefted his broom and went back inside.
Twenty minutes later he came to a phone booth. This was on a corner loud with semis and thick with diesel fumes. Faces were mostly black; clothes mostly bright and cheap. The people moved as if they were dragging chains behind them. Somebody had recently pissed in the phone booth. It reeked. And somebody had also smashed his head against the glass of the booth. In a circle of shattered safety glass, you could see splotches of blood and hair. A starved dog, all ribs and crazed brown eyes, stood at his feet smelling the rancid piss.
He called a phone number.
He had no idea what number it was.
A woman answered, "Hello."
He said nothing for a time.
"Hello?"
He was afraid to speak.
"It's you, isn't it?"
"I–I don't know your name."
"They said you might be confused, honey. The electroshock you've had recently and everything."
"Who are you?"
"You really don't know?"
"No."
"I'm your wife. Karen."
"Who am I?"
She paused again. "Honey, I'm afraid. For you, I mean. You can't walk around in this condition."
"A while ago I rode by in a bus… I saw a police car there."
"Two of the detectives came back."
"They're looking for me."
"Yes. But you haven't done anything really. Nobody's been hurt. They'd just like to get you back into Hastings House."
The thing in his stomach shifted again.
"I'm afraid," he said. "There's something in my stomach."
"In your stomach?"
"Yes. Something. There's no other way to describe it."
"There's something in your stomach?"
"Yes. I know how that must sound but-there is."
She sighed. "Honey, can't you see that you really need to go back to Hastings House? They want to help you. They really do."
"I can't."
"But why not?"
"I'm not sure."
A pause again. "This morning Cindy heard about your escape. While I was in the bathroom, she went into the living room and turned on the set. She saw your picture."
"Cindy?"
"Our daughter. She's six."
"My God."
"She's afraid she'll never see you again. She's been crying all day."
"I'm sorry. I–I'm just so confused."
"Won't you let me help you, Richard?"
Richard. So that was his name.
"What's my last name?"
"Oh, darling."
And then she started to cry.
He couldn't stand the sound of it, her tears. He'd made her cry. And made his daughter cry. Why couldn't he help them, stop running the way she wanted him to, turn himself in?
"I'm sorry," he said again.
He hung up and left the booth, pushing the dog out on the sidewalk as he did so.
The dog barked at him.
Richard just shook his head and walked away.