The Good Life Page 27

  “. . . the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’m going to put that on my Christmas list!”

  “. . . marvelous charity.”

  “Did you see the . . . ?”

  “. . . always does such a nice job.”

  Eileen shut her eyes and the voices became discordantly musical, a symphony of words. Her stomachache was beginning to ease.

  “. . . the original bitch.”

  “Who does she think she is? Strutting around the stage like a peacock.”

  Eileen opened her eyes and saw two women standing several feet away from her. Others were still milling about, digging car keys and cell phones out of purses, saying their good-byes, but most of the women were already on their way home. These two lingered, appearing to prefer the warmth of the carpeted, red brick lobby to the ice-covered parking lot. They talked freely, seemingly unaware of Eileen’s presence. “I used to think she was pretty, but I think she’s gone overboard,” said the redhead in black pants and an emerald green top.

  “Completely overboard,” said the other, a blonde in a royal blue outfit. “She really does look like the scarecrow everyone calls her.” They laughed. “Maybe she’ll keep dieting until she just disappears altogether!”

  “No one would miss her. How refreshing this town would be without the presence of the Baronses.” Tempted to approach the women, to scold them for their unkindness, Eileen instead held her ground and her tongue. But she could not stop herself from listening.

  “Except for Mike. God, he’s gorgeous.”

  “How does she hold on to that handsome husband of hers?”

  “How do you think?”

  “Sex, sex, and more sex?”

  “Exactly. That’s all any man really wants.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, I’d be happy to take him on.”

  “He’d be grateful for something to hold on to!” They laughed again.

  Just then, Ann appeared in the lobby. Eileen waved and Ann approached her, walking past the two gossipers, who were now chatting about March break vacation plans. “Have you been waiting long?” she asked.

  “Not really,” said Eileen, standing and making eye contact with her daughter before briefly shifting her gaze to the two women. One of them looked back at her. Eileen gave her daughter a quick hug.

  “What was that for?” asked Ann, steering Eileen toward the exit.

  “You did a good job today,” said Eileen.

  “Why, thank you,” said Ann.

  “Do we need to drive Jesse home?”

  “No,” said Ann. “She’s all set.” Ann pushed open the heavy glass door to the outside. Her headache was finally gone. “Well, that was fun,” she said. “Did you have a good time, Mother?”

  “I did,” said Eileen. “And lunch was wonderful. Thank you.”

  Ann stopped and looked at her mother. She smiled warmly. “You are most welcome.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Lauren first heard the news in chemistry class. She heard it again in American History and a third time in gym. By noon, it was everywhere. When she sat down for lunch, the first thing out of Katie Allan’s mouth, in whispered urgency, was, “Did you hear?”

  Judd Acker and Angel Spiller had broken up.

  The details were sketchy. Katie said she heard Angel was cheating on him—had been, in fact, for months—with Danny Haynes, another football player, who had moved into town just last summer from St. Louis. Jenny Robson said Jamie Palumbo told her it was the other way around: Judd dumped Angel because he wanted to play the field. Katie looked at Lauren. “Looks like today’s your lucky day.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Lauren. “Like the guy even knows I exist.”

  After lunch, Lauren had study hall in the library. She sat down at the table farthest away from the ancient but eagle-eyed librarian and opened her history book. Before she had finished the third paragraph of chapter 12, Stephanie Pappas, a volleyball teammate, sat down and asked her if she’d heard the news. Lauren gave her a weary stare. “About forty-seven times,” she said.

  “Well, how does it make you feel?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know,” said Stephanie, flipping her dark brown ponytail over one shoulder. “It makes me kind of sad.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I’m not,” said Stephanie. “Judd and Angel are like the king and queen of the school. They’re our leaders; we all look up to them. If they’ve broken up, what does that mean for the rest of us?”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way,” said Lauren.

  “Because you’ve got the hots for Judd,” said Stephanie, smiling with heavily glossed lips.

  “Who says?”

  “Everybody knows that,” said Stephanie, taking her math book from her backpack. “I read it on a stall in the girls’ room the other day.”

  “Get out!” said Lauren, closing her book. “Which one?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Stephanie, choosing a pencil from the wallpapered coffee can on the table. “Everybody knows.”

  “Well, shit,” said Lauren, thinking about Josh and wondering how this looked through his eyes.

  “Anyway, it’s the end of an era,” said Stephanie, routing through her backpack again. “It’s kind of like Brad and Jen.”

  “That’s going a bit far,” said Lauren.

  “Not really,” said Stephanie, now taking everything out of her backpack. “I’m borderline mourning.”

  “You’re borderline psycho,” said Lauren, returning her gaze to her history book.

  “Crap,” said Stephanie, using the word she uttered whenever she missed a shot in volleyball. “I left my science notebook in my locker. Think that nasty Mrs. Filhaven will give me a hall pass?”

  “Smile sweetly,” said Lauren, not looking up from the page. “And tell her you’re disoriented because of the breakup.”

  Stephanie stood and put everything back into her backpack. “You’ll see I’m not wrong,” she said, slinging one strap over her shoulder. “You have to be in touch with the pulse of the school.”

  Lauren watched Stephanie walk through the turnstile, before turning back to her book. But her thoughts wouldn’t focus on the War of 1812. Judd Acker was a free man. It was an absurd notion, really—a concept so far out of normal space and time that Lauren wondered if the rumors and stories had all been a part of a dream. She looked around the library and found that everything was as it should be. People were talking quietly at the study tables or roaming through the beige metal stacks in search of a book. The computers were all occupied, as usual. The librarian and her student assistants were busy behind the large circulation desk in the center of the room. And the afternoon sun was shining through the large windows above the lounge area, where two boys were dozing in matching plaid armchairs. It was all happening, including the breakup of the prettiest girl in school and the boy Lauren had fantasized about since last spring, when he said hello to her for the first time in the hallway near the gym. He was so beautiful, so perfect, godlike in every way imaginable. His thick, wavy blond hair swept across his face and hit the top of his shoulders, which were broad and, in football gear, looked like they could support her mother’s jewelry safe. His stomach, Lauren had seen last summer that blessed day at the lake, was flat with a thin trail of light brown hair that ran from his belly button into the top of Hawaiian-style jammer shorts. His butt looked firm in the faded jeans he wore on his hips, like the male models in Hollister ads. He had muscular arms and perpetually tanned, soft-looking hands that could on weekends throw a football seventy yards into the eager hands of a wide receiver and during the week delicately steer Angel through the crowded school corridors. Judd’s best feature, however, were his eyes, which were a green and blue combination like the water in the Virgin Islands and intense, like Lauren’s father’s eyes. That day he looked at her—when he said hello in the hallway—she felt pulled into them, as if sucked off the edge of a cliff into a deep lagoon.

&n
bsp; What she wouldn’t give to be in an isolated lagoon in the Caribbean with Judd, their sailboat bobbing in the distance as they lay on the beach, far away from Angel and the sad memories; far away from her parents; far away from Josh; far away from anyone. Judd would be an excellent skipper, of course, and would confidently sail them from bay to bay, day after day, in radiant unerring sunshine. Lauren, who in her daydream transformed her body into that of a Victoria’s Secret model, would sit by his side, occasionally popping up to retrieve more lemonade or fresh fruit from the cabin. In the late afternoons, after they had anchored their boat for the night, they would swim together; Lauren in a fabulous floral bikini and Judd in brightly colored trunks that accentuated his tanned, toned abdomen. Afterward, he would cook local fish on a barbecue attached to the boat’s stern, and they would feed each other, sipping island drinks between bites.

  “Where are you?”

  “What?” said Lauren, rocketing from the Caribbean back to the library.

  “You’re lost in thought,” said Stephanie, sitting down.

  “What time is it?”

  “About five minutes before the bell. I went all the way to my locker and emptied it looking for that stupid science notebook. I must have left it at home, which means another stupid detention from Willouer.”

  “Can’t you just use another notebook to take notes?”

  “No way,” said Stephanie, frowning. “Willouer’s as compulsive as they come. He checks our notebooks every day.”

  “Sweet-talk him,” said Lauren, checking her cell phone for text messages.

  “I’ve tried,” said Stephanie. “I think he’s allergic to it.”

  “Bummer,” said Lauren.

  “Tell me about it,” said Stephanie as the bell rang.

  Lauren put her history book back in her backpack and realized she, too, had forgotten something: her worn school-issued copy of Othello for English class. She searched again, then closed her eyes, focusing on where she’d put the book.

  “Are you coming?” asked Stephanie.

  “Yes and no,” said Lauren, standing and slinging the backpack over her right shoulder. “I’ve got to run to my locker before English.”

  Lauren walked as quickly as she could out of the library and into the overpopulated hallway, down two flights of stairs and another hallway to her locker, the second one in from the End of the World. Even though she continually vowed to carry everything she needed for the day in her backpack, she inevitably forgot something. And each time she made a hurried trip to her locker, inconveniently located near nothing that had anything to do with her life, she swore to herself that it would never happen again. The bell rang just as she flung open the metal door. She grabbed the book from the shelf, slammed the door, and sprinted back down the hallway and up one flight of stairs. She ran down the now empty halls, around the corner to her classroom, and saw the shut door.

  “Shit,” she said, breathing hard.

  Mrs. Bennigan shut her door precisely sixty seconds after the bell. She said that was adequate time for the prepared student to be in his or her seat, silent, and ready for instruction. Those unable to do so were expected to get a late pass from the office. They would be admitted to class at the halfway point, when Mrs. Bennigan allowed another full minute for what she called a Fidgety Stretch. She timed all kinds of things on the stopwatch she wore around her neck.

  Lauren took her time walking to the office, where she found several people already in line for passes. When she reached the head of the line, she gave the office assistant her name, the teacher’s name, and the classroom number, all of which were written on a green slip, torn off the pad, and given to her. Slip in hand, she meandered back to Mrs. Bennigan’s room. She arrived with another fourteen minutes before the door would open and sat down on the floor, resting her back against a locker. She thought about taking her book out of her backpack and having it open to the murder scene, the topic of discussion for that afternoon. But she had plenty of time for that. Shakespeare made her kind of crazy anyway. Nobody talked directly about anything. Instead, they relied on messages that always got lost or the advice of a friend who turned out to be an enemy. If the characters only communicated better, there would be no need for the senseless violence. Lauren closed her eyes.

  “Hi,” said a boy’s voice. Lauren opened her eyes to see Judd Acker standing in front of her. She blinked, thinking she was imagining his image, and then blushed.

  “Hi,” Lauren said meekly.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Judd.

  “I’m late for Mrs. Bennigan’s class,” said Lauren, explosions in her chest, cheeks hot.

  Judd smiled. “And so you can’t go in until she opens the door, right?”

  “Yes,” said Lauren.

  “I had her last year,” said Judd. “She’s a great teacher, but she’s kind of a nutcase.”

  Lauren smiled. “What are you doing here?” she asked tentatively.

  “That’s my locker you’re leaning against.”

  Lauren thought his locker was in the U hall. Now she knew it must be Angel’s—and Judd no longer kept his things there.

  “Oh God,” said Lauren, jumping up. “I’m so sorry.”

  Judd put his hand on her right shoulder, his touch sending a current of energy through her entire body. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of time. I’m in study hall.”

  “Oh.”

  Judd turned the combination wheel on his locker. “You’re Nate Barons’s little sister, aren’t you?”

  Lauren swallowed, trying to moisten her dry throat. “Yes,” she said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lauren.”

  “I’m Judd Acker,” said Judd, extending his hand.

  “I know,” said Lauren, putting out her hand and blushing again.

  “How do you know?” asked Judd, taking her hand in his.

  Lauren looked down at their joined hands and couldn’t speak. The warmth of their hands spread up her arms and into her lungs, now ablaze. His hand fit perfectly around hers, like the worn oven mitt she used at home to remove tuna and melted cheese sandwiches from the toaster oven. “I’m sorry,” Lauren said.

  “What are you sorry about?” asked Judd, releasing her hand but still looking intently into her eyes. Lauren, convinced she would combust at any moment, took a deep breath, then looked at the floor.

  “I’m sorry about you and Angel,” she said softly.

  “Thank you,” said Judd, as softly as she had spoken.

  “You must be sad,” said Lauren, feeling strong enough to attempt looking into his eyes. When she got there, he looked away. He opened the door to his locker and grabbed a book from the shelf.

  “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “It was time.”

  He bent down and extracted another book from a neatly stacked pile on shelves at the bottom of his locker. It was one of the neatest lockers she had ever seen. No mass of crumpled notebook paper at the bottom. No tests with bad grades that never made it home, no old lunch bags, or fast food cups, or broken pencils, or plastic pen shards, no pieces of erasers—just stacks of books and notebooks, and a pencil case hung on a hook next to the navy blue pea coat she loved. Judd shut his locker door just as Mrs. Bennigan opened her classroom door. “Ready to join us, Miss Barons?” Mrs. Bennigan asked with an amused expression.

  Lauren looked at Judd, willing him to ask her to run away with him.

  “Hey, Mrs. Bennigan,” said Judd. “How’s it going?”

  “It would be going perfectly,” she replied, “if my students would arrive at my class on time.”

  “Don’t be too hard on her,” said Judd. “She’s a friend of mine.”

  “Ah,” said Mrs. Bennigan, nodding her head.

  “See you, Lauren,” said Judd, turning to walk down the hall.

  “Bye,” Lauren said to his back.

  “Come join us, Miss Barons,” said Mrs. Bennigan. “Desdemona is in terrible trouble!” Lauren walked pa
st her teacher and took the empty seat in the front row that was reserved for late people. She opened her book, looked down, and daydreamed about Judd until the bell rang. As she put her book, notebook, and pen into her backpack, Mrs. Bennigan approached her desk. “I’ll see you at two thirty-five,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Lauren dejectedly. She had hoped Mrs. Bennigan would skip the detention, as a favor to Judd. Lauren walked down the hallway and was just about to walk into her writing workshop when she heard Josh’s voice. She turned around.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  Josh led her out of the doorway. “I called you last night.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t pick up,” said Lauren. “Pammy was in crisis mode. I was on the phone with her until eleven, and then I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “And I’m sorry this whole dating thing isn’t turning out too well,” he said. “I want to take you out. My parents have been driving me absolutely crazy with weekend plans.”

  “That’s okay,” said Lauren, meaning it. Judd was free.

  “I think we’re around this weekend, though,” said Josh as the bell rang. “I’ll call you later.”

  After her writing class, Lauren walked back to Mrs. Bennigan’s room. There she sat, flipping through Othello but for the most part looking at the clock, until three fifteen. Mrs. Bennigan thanked her for her time, a practice Lauren found annoying, and excused her, along with several others, thanking them all. Lauren dragged herself down the hall and down the stairs; she had no money for a cab and it was a long walk home. Her mother wouldn’t pick her up; she was always too busy. And Nate, even if he did answer his phone, would only laugh at her. She scuffed her feet all the way down the empty hallway to her locker and exchanged the books she didn’t need for those she did. She slammed her locker door as hard as she could, gratified by the amount of noise generated by metal hitting metal. If school had been in session, she would have received another detention for that little trick. She walked back down the hallway and up the stairs to the back of the school. Outside, she sat down on the cold cement wall to fortify herself for the walk and wish for a miracle, like her mother, on a whim, swinging by school on her way home from Nellie’s Nail Salon. Two minutes later, Lauren slid off the wall and heaved her loaded backpack onto her shoulders. She walked on the sidewalk down the hill to the access road, and then out to the main road, where she readjusted her backpack as she waited for the light.