Don't Fail Me Now(9)

“Nice ride,” one of the boys, a thick football player–type who I vaguely recognize from my sophomore biology lab, shouts as I shove my key into Goldie’s temperamental lock, shifting my weight so I can press it all the way left while jiggling the door handle until it finally gives and the button pops.

“Thanks.” I toss my bag in the passenger seat.

“We were wondering who drove this,” another one in an Orioles jersey says. “We even got a dollar pool going for awhile. I had my money on that janitor with the lazy eye.” The rest of them bust out laughing, and I resist the urge to give them the finger.

“Yeah, well, until I win the lottery, this is what I got,” I sigh, trying to play along. I get in and slam the door, not even stopping to buckle my seatbelt as I start the ignition and back out of the space.

“Yo, yo!” The football player calls out, motioning for me to roll down the window. I crank it down halfway, and he flashes a grateful smile. “We were just playing. What’s your name, beautiful?”

I roll my eyes. “Why do you care?”

He takes a few steps toward the car and shrugs. “We gotta find out who won the bet.”

“Since none of you know my name, I don’t think anybody won,” I say. “Besides, I’m late.”

“Come on,” he pleads.

If I waste any more time, Denny’ll have to wait alone on the curb. “Michelle,” I say finally, giving him an are-you-happy-now? face. I lean over to roll up my window when I hear another burst of laughter.

“Oh, shit,” Orioles Jersey says. “That’s her. The one I was telling you about.”

I narrow my eyes. I’ve never talked to this guy before. I’ve never talked to any of them.

“You work at the Taco Bell, right?” he asks, barely suppressing a smile. “In Ellwood Park?”

I smile tightly. “Yup.” Once in a while someone from school recognizes me working a shift, which sadly is pretty much the extent of my post–three P.M. social life.

But Orioles Jersey looks too excited to be scheming a crappy discount on his Doritos Locos taco. He turns back to his friends. “I told you!” he cries. “Her mom got busted at the gas station last night!”

For a second I can’t breathe. Time seems to stop, one hand on the window crank, one on the steering wheel, my foot pressed on the brake, the outside of my body frozen while the inside cracks open. How can they know? I didn’t tell anyone. Even my so-called friends don’t know Mom’s history. Hell, I’ve studied as hard as I have mostly just so none of my teachers would ever have a reason to meet her in person. My whole life outside of school is spent dealing with my flesh and blood, but I’ve built my entire life in school around pretending they don’t exist. And now, in a heartbeat, in one humiliating night, it’s all come undone. If these guys know, I realize with a nauseating chill, Noemi knows, too. Everyone does.

I step on the gas without realizing I’m still in reverse, so I shoot backward and nearly hit another car that’s pulling out of a parking spot behind me. That driver leans on their horn, and I frantically shift gears, tearing out of the lot with cruel laughter echoing behind me.

You only have a month left, I remind myself as I stop at a red light a few blocks from the elementary school, gulping air and trying to clear my head. You can make it one more month. I know I need my high school diploma to have any hope of doing better than my parents. But even after years of going through the motions, all of a sudden I don’t think I can do it for another day, let alone an entire month. I feel like I’m caught in an avalanche, standing still while the rocks pile around me, the window of escape closing in with each passing second.

? ? ?

At Denny’s school, Mrs. Mastino meets me at the curb, looking like a bug crawled up her ass and built a two-tiered skyscraper.

“Dennis continues to disrupt class multiple times a day,” she says brusquely, shoving a piece of official-looking letterhead through the passenger side window. “He’s straining our resources to the breaking point, and it simply can’t continue.”

I skim the letter, which is signed by the principal. Hyperactive . . . defiant behavior . . . requires medication . . . pursue another institution more suited to his needs . . .

“Wait, are you kicking him out?” I ask in disbelief, trying to keep my voice down since Denny is loitering a few yards away, throwing rocks at a sapling that’s been roped off with a sign reading PLEASE LET ME GROW! I’m still reeling from finding out I’m the hot gossip at my school, and now this. “What did he even do?”

“He’s just . . . out of control,” she sputters. “Shouting, getting out of his seat, fighting, you name it. And don’t get me started on the imaginary friend. He needs help he’s not getting and we’re not equipped for.” She grabs on to the window, the fuchsia nails at the ends of her knobby fingers clattering against the glass, and leans in so close I can smell her perfume. “I need to see your mother,” she says. “You tell her she needs to return my calls. If I don’t hear from her by tomorrow, tell her I’m making a decision without her.” Then she turns and walks off in a huff.

“She’s mad at me,” Denny reports, a little too cheerfully, as he clambers into the backseat a minute later. His T-shirt, which was rumpled already when he put it on yesterday, now bears an enormous grass stain flecked with dirt.