Don’t Let Me Go(101)

“Everything is so tiny,” Billy whispered to Jesse.

“Is it freaking you out?”

“Very much so. It makes me claustrophobic. Like I’m in a doll house. It reminds me of my school days. And I really thought I’d managed to forget them.”

“Are you breathing?”

“Not very much, no.”

“I’d recommend it.”

Rayleen held the office door open, and they massed in. A young black woman with close-shaved hair looked up from behind a desk.

“We’re here to see Grace Ferguson’s dance performance,” Jesse said.

The woman looked baffled for a moment. She looked them over, stopping to pay particular attention to Billy. Or was that his imagination? No. He didn’t think it was.

“All five of you?”

“All five of us,” Jesse said, without missing a beat.

“And you would be…”

“Her neighbors.”

“Ah. I see. You know her mother is already here, and with a family friend.”

“Good,” Jesse said.

Billy admired Jesse’s ability to answer only the question in front of him, and not the subtext of the situation.

“Well, OK, then,” the woman said. She pulled open a drawer while sneaking another glance at Billy. “Five more visitor’s passes. That makes seven just for Grace. I think that’s a new record.”

“She’s an unusually popular girl,” Jesse said.

? ? ?

Billy struggled with the clip on his visitor’s pass as an excuse not to look at the lockers and water fountains and classroom doors. When he looked up, he saw the sign for the auditorium, and his heart jumped.

“Was it just me?” he asked. “Or was that office lady looking at me funny?”

“Oh, no,” Rayleen said. “It wasn’t just you. I think it was the sunglasses. And the fact that you look nervous. But it doesn’t matter now.”

They stopped in front of the auditorium. Billy could hear the din of hundreds of grade-schoolers inside. Jesse opened Billy’s hand and pressed something into his palm.

When he examined his hand, he saw two little foam cylinders.

“Earplugs,” Jesse said. “It’s going to be noisy in there.”

“It’s noisy out here.”

“Here, I’ll show you how to put them in.”

Jesse tugged gently on the outside of his ears, one at a time, and slid the compressed cylinders into place.

“They’ll expand,” he said. “You’ll still hear, but it should muffle things.”

Then he swung the door to the auditorium wide, and the sound of kids’ voices hit Billy, a solid wall of noise. He couldn’t imagine what it must sound like unmuffled. But the earplugs created a sense of distance, which felt almost like dreaminess. As if he were dreaming the sound. And maybe the herbs were making him just a tiny bit sleepy. So he decided to pretend he was dreaming about a grade-school auditorium.

They sat together in a roped-off area of seats, the first two rows in the center section. Billy glanced around briefly and found himself eye to eye with Grace’s mom. She was sitting with Yolanda, one row forward and five or six seats over. She glared at Billy and then made a point of looking away.

“Eileen is shooting daggers at me,” he whispered to Rayleen and Jesse, wondering if the earplugs made him talk too loudly without knowing it.

“Oh,” Rayleen said. “To be expected, I guess.”

Silence. If you could call the din of three hundred noisy kids silence.

Then Rayleen said, “Did I ever tell you that was my mother’s name? Eileen?”

Jesse said, “Yes,” and Billy said, “No,” at exactly the same time.

“I meant Billy, actually. And my dad’s name was Ray. Ray and Eileen.”

“Oh,” Billy said.

“So…”

“So…Oh! Right. Ray and Eileen. Rayleen.”

A grown-up took the stage and demanded quiet, so the show could begin. And, amazingly, the kids shut up. Not on a dime, but in a matter of tens of seconds. So it was a quieter dream after that.

? ? ?

“How long is this whole thing?” he whispered in Jesse’s ear. “Is this play part an hour all in itself?”

“The whole assembly is fifty minutes. Including Grace’s dance.”

“My God, it’s been more than fifty minutes already. Hasn’t it?”

Jesse peered at his watch.

“It’s been nine minutes,” he whispered.

“Oh, dear God.”

A moment later Billy glanced down to see Jesse’s hand close to, but not touching, his panicky gut. Billy breathed deeply and received all the healing he could gather.

? ? ?

When Grace walked out on the stage, all five of them applauded. And Billy could see Eileen and Yolanda clapping as well. He pulled out the earplugs and took off Jesse’s sunglasses, so he wouldn’t miss — or even muffle — a thing.

She was wearing the blue tunic Mrs. Hinman had made for her, over black tights. Billy hadn’t even known Grace owned black tights. Someone must have bought them for her for this occasion.

He leaned over Felipe and touched Mrs. Hinman on the shoulder.

“Told you she’d love it,” he whispered.