“I was in Mr. Averett’s homeroom? Aaron Ririe?” He leaned over the seat a little, his tanned arms near my neck. I moved to face him better.
“So?” I said. There was a nasty feeling crawling around inside me like a worm. It was all Tattoo Guy’s fault.
And Momma’s.
No! Not Momma’s. Tattoo Guy’s.
Aaron didn’t even flinch at my rudeness. “Do you remember me? I said hi to you a few times? And talked to you about Great Expectations?” He paused. Shook his head, then said, “I hated reading that book.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I love that book,” I said. “And I remember you.” All the girls chattering about him and his skater friends and Jace Isom. I felt my face warm up thinking about Jace. That group was hard to forget. In class Aaron spoke so low you could almost not hear him. He smiled a lot.
The whole ride today he had seemed nice.
Until the Tattoo Guy called out.
“Cool.” He grinned, showing white teeth that were a little crooked. “I live across the street from you? Down a few houses?”
Why was everything he said a question?
He slung his hair from his eyes again. “You know, in that newer subdivision?”
Me and Momma, we live in an old place. Our house is so ancient that when the wind blows Momma says it’s spirits running through looking for peace. “Granddaddy,” she says on bad nights, “I hear Granddaddy searching.” When there’s a storm, and the wind shakes the walls like a thousand hands I’m not so sure I don’t hear Granddaddy, too.
“I skate in front of your place?” Aaron’s face turned red like he was running out of energy. His voice went soft the way butter gets when you leave it out of the fridge too long. Like he was embarrassed for something he’d done. Or my not saying anything. Well, good!
Good?
A horrible thought came into my head. Maybe, maybe, he had heard Momma. Had seen her during one of her frightened evenings. Had she climbed his front porch? Knocked on his front door? Told people to beware the evil that was coming to destroy the world? The thought horrified me. The thought sealed my lips even tighter.
Please God, don’t let Momma have paid his family a visit.
“Okay then,” Aaron said, and shifted like he might get up.
Speak, Lacey, I thought. Now. Or he’ll leave.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah,” I said. My voice sounded like I needed a sip of water. “I know about where you live. And I’ve seen you, too. You know.” I pointed to his skateboard. “With that.”
When I realized that Aaron Ririe’s family had moved into the new subdivision a few years back, I’d taken to watching the street in the late afternoons. He sometimes skated in front of my house, most of the time with his guy friends. There were five or six of them. Jace Isom was there, too. They laughed loud, skated hard.
Sometimes.
Sometimes at night, when the house settled in and before Momma called for me, I tried on the idea of me skating with that Jace Isom. In my imaginations he would say, “Good job, Lacey. You’re a natural.” He would touch my hand the way boys touched girls in school. His words would be kind. Not the things he had said.
Again, the memory of my dreams caused my face to burn. I looked away from Aaron. We were both quiet a moment. Did he know what Jace had said?
“Do you know Jace Isom?” Aaron said.
Could he read my mind? Like Momma? Like Granddaddy?
“He was in your homeroom, I think. And some other class?”
“I know him,” I said. Had the air-conditioning quit working on the bus? Why, it felt like I had stuck my head in an oven under the broiler. Knowing Jace Isom was a kinda truth. Kinda because Jace and I were in the same classes just a week ago when school let out, but I’d never really talked to him. Or anyone in our eighth-grade class for that matter.
But you thought about him. And you looked at him. He called you “Freak.”
You are a freak!
I’m not.
You are!
The bus let out a sigh and I stared at the huge tinted window, not seeing anything outside. In the reflection of the glass I seemed like a ghost, a freakin’ ghost.
I shook my head. Don’t think of that, Lacey. Don’t think of Jace or Tattoo Guy or any boy for that matter.
“My stop’s coming up,” I said. Ahead the library squatted like a coquina-rock bug, half of it on land, the other half perched out over the Peace River on huge concrete legs that had been driven into the shallow water. I could smell the ocean now. I pulled the buzzer. The bell sounded.
“No way,” Aaron said. His face broke out in a wide grin. “Mine, too.”
“No it isn’t.” My face went from hot to cold with his words. He was making fun of me. Like the other kids in school. He must know about Momma. It seemed at that moment, sitting on the plastic seat of the bus, everyone knew about Momma. Well, I wasn’t going to take it! I wouldn’t!
I glared right in Aaron’s face, something I would have never done in school. Never. In school, after Jace, I kept my stares to myself, where no one would notice.
“I swear this is where I get off,” Aaron said, raising his hands like the truth might be on his palms. He let out a little laugh. His voice stayed soft. “Skate park.” He tapped his board to prove what he said was true. I saw his arm was road-rashed near the elbow. “I go almost every day. And I skate at home. But you know that already.”
I rocked forward with the
