The Lovely Reckless(14)

I skid to a stop, hoping it will take off. But this animal is a fighter, and right now I’m the enemy. Images of rabid animals from a video we watched in seventh-grade science flicker through my mind, and I back away slowly. The cat matches me step for step, lowering its head and advancing like a tiger ready to spring.

A dog barks, and the one-eyed cat’s head jerks toward the parking lot. Some kind of husky mix darts between the cars and up the hill beside the steps where I’m standing.

The cat has no chance.

The husky reaches the sidewalk, and the one-eyed cat lunges, hissing and clawing. The dog trips over its paws as it changes direction and retreats down the hill, with the cat tearing across the asphalt behind it.

I suck in a sharp breath, and the basketball players laugh. They haven’t moved from the wall. I hope they get rabies.

The glass door swings open, and a woman about my mom’s age with an Afro of soft spirals strolls out of the rec center. “I see you met Cyclops.”

“Is that your cat?” I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans.

“He’s nobody’s cat. The kids here gave him that name. Not that he lets any of them get within ten feet of him. He doesn’t like people.”

“I picked up on that, thanks.”

She raises an eyebrow, a warning to watch my attitude. “Is there something I can help you with?” It’s clear from her tone that helping me is the last thing she wants to do.

“My name is Frankie Devereux. I’m supposed to check in with Mrs. Johnson.”

She sizes me up from beneath expertly shaped eyebrows. “Francesca Devereux?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Follow me.” She opens the heavy glass door and heads for the check-in desk. She scribbles something on a clipboard, and her expression hardens. “I don’t know how they do things in the Heights, and I don’t care. But the kids in my after-school program come here to stay out of trouble.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She points the clipboard at me. “I expect you to use better judgment than you did when you decided to get behind the wheel of a car drunk.”

For some reason, I want to tell her that it happened after my dead boyfriend’s tree-planting ceremony and that it was the only time I’ve ever driven with a drop of alcohol in my system. But I have a feeling it wouldn’t matter to Mrs. Johnson.

“I will.”

Mrs. Johnson gives me a slow nod. “Then we understand each other.”

“Yes, m—”

“Stop calling me ma’am. Everyone here calls me Miss Lorraine.”

I follow Miss Lorraine past a mural of a sunny garden that doesn’t resemble anything I’ve seen in the Downs. The happy-faced flowers cover the whole wall, but the cinder blocks are still visible underneath.

“You’ll be working with the middle school group. Thirteen-year-olds.” Miss Lorraine spots a boy nuzzling a girl’s neck near the weight room. She steps between them and pushes the boy out of her way, giving him an icy stare—all without breaking stride.

I like this lady already.

“Help the kids with their homework and keep an eye on them until they get picked up,” she says. “And don’t let any of the boys go to the bathroom at the same time as the girls.”

“Why not?”

She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Because when they go at the same time, they’re probably not using the bathroom.”

“Oh.” The idea of thirteen-year-old middle school students making out in a public restroom reminds me how different things are in the Downs. Not that middle school kids from the Heights don’t make out. They just do it behind the pro shop at the country club or at the parties they throw when their parents are out of town.

Miss Lorraine leads me to the back of the building. At the end of the hall, a muscular guy wearing dark jeans and a baseball cap under the hood of his sweatshirt stands in the doorway of the emergency exit. He’s probably close to my age, and he’s whispering in the ear of a girl who looks way too young for him.

“Deacon Kelley!” Miss Lorraine yells.

The guy looks up and twirls the toothpick tucked in the corner of his mouth, studying Miss Lorraine with ice-blue eyes. A web of raised pink-and-white scars creates a jagged path down the side of his neck and disappears under his shirt. “How’s it going, Miss Lorraine?”

She points at the exit door held open by a cinder block. “You’ve got one minute to get out of my rec center before I call the police.”

Deacon Kelley whispers something to the girl, and she rushes past Miss Lorraine with her head down. After she’s gone, he flashes Miss Lorraine the kind of smile that says Don’t push me. “You’re forgetting something.”

“What would that be, Deacon?”

He backs through the door and kicks away the cinder block. “It was my rec center first.”

The metal door slams, and Miss Lorraine’s shoulders relax. She walks toward the room closest to the exit. “Your group meets in there.”

Seven middle school kids hang out on the other side of a long window next to the door—gossiping, listening to music, and dancing. Only one girl has a book open, but it’s not clear if she’s actually reading or just using it to hide behind while she checks out the boy sitting across from her.