Everything I Never Told You(47)

“Good vacation?” It was Jack. He slouched into the next seat, one arm slung over the back, as if it were a girl’s shoulder. At this point she hardly knew Jack at all, though he lived just on the corner, and hadn’t talked to him in years. His hair had darkened to the color of beach sand; the freckles she remembered from their childhood had faded but not disappeared. But she knew that Nath didn’t like him at all, never had, and for this reason alone she was pleased to see him.

“What are you doing here?”

Jack glanced at the board. “Electricity and Magnetism.”

Lydia blushed. “I mean,” she said, “this is a junior class.”

Jack pulled a capless ballpoint from his knapsack and rested his foot on his knee. “Did you know, Miss Lee, that physics is required to graduate? Since I failed the second unit of physics last year, here I am again. My last chance.” He began to trace the tread of his tennis-shoe sole in blue ink. Lydia sat up.

“You failed?”

“I failed,” he said. “Fifty-two percent. Below below-average. I know that’s a hard concept to grasp, Miss Lee. Since you’ve never failed anything.”

Lydia stiffened. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I’m failing physics myself.”

Jack didn’t turn his head, but she saw one eyebrow rise. Then, to her surprise, he leaned across the aisle and doodled a tiny zero on the knee of her jeans.

“Our secret membership sign,” he said as the bell rang. His eyes, a deep blue-gray, met hers. “Welcome to the club, Miss Lee.”

All through class that morning, Lydia traced that tiny zero with her fingertip, watching Jack out of the corner of her eye. He was focused on something she couldn’t see, ignoring Mr. Kelly’s drone, the pencils scratching around him, the fluorescent light buzzing overhead. One thumb drummed a pitter-pat on the desktop. Does Jack Wolff want to be friends? she wondered. Nath would kill him. Or me. But after that first day, Jack didn’t say another word to her. Some days he came late, then put his head down on his desk for the entire period; some days he did not come at all. The zero washed out in the laundry. Lydia kept her head bent over her notes. She copied down everything Mr. Kelly wrote on the board, turning the pages of her textbook back and forth so often that the corners softened and frayed.

Then, at the end of January, at dinner, her mother passed the salad and the dish of Hamburger Helper and looked at Lydia expectantly, tilting her head this way and that, like a pair of rabbit ears trying to catch the signal. Finally, she said, “Lydia, how is physics class?”

“It’s fine.” Lydia speared a carrot coin on her fork. “Better. It’s getting better.”

“How much better?” her mother said, a touch of sharpness in her voice.

Lydia chewed the carrot to a pulp. “We haven’t had a test yet. But I’m doing okay on the homework.” This was only half a lie. The first test of the term was the next week. In the meantime she stumbled through the assignments, copying the odd-numbered problems from the answers at the back of the book and fudging the even ones as best she could.

Her mother frowned, but she scooped up a piece of macaroni. “Ask your teacher if you can do some extra credit,” she said. “You don’t want this grade to sink you. With all your potential—”

Lydia jabbed her fork into a wedge of tomato. Only the wistfulness in her mother’s voice stopped her from screaming. “I know, Mom,” she said. She glanced across the table at Nath, hoping he’d change the subject, but Nath, who had other things on his mind, didn’t notice.

“Lydia, how’s Shelley doing?” James asked. Lydia paused. Last summer, at her father’s urging, she’d invited Shelley over once, to hang out. Shelley, though, had seemed more interested in flirting with Nath, trying to get him to play catch in the yard, asking him whether he thought Lynda Carter or Lindsay Wagner was hotter. They hadn’t spoken since.

“Shelley’s good,” she said. “Busy. She’s secretary of the student council.”

“Maybe you can get involved, too,” James said. He wagged his fork at her, with the air of a wise man delivering an aphorism. “I’m sure they’d love your help. And how about Pam and Karen?”

Lydia looked down at her plate, at the picked-over salad and the sad clump of beef and cheese beside it. The last time she’d talked to Karen was over a year ago, when her father had chauffeured them home from a matinee of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. At first she’d been proud that, for once, her plans had not been a lie. Karen had just moved to town and Lydia, emboldened by her newness, had suggested a movie and Karen had said, “Okay, sure, why not.” Then, for the whole ride, her father had tried to show off how cool he was: “Five brothers and sisters, Karen? Just like the Brady Bunch! You watch that show?” “Dad,” Lydia had said. “Dad.” But he’d kept going, asking Karen what the hot new records were these days, singing a line or two from “Waterloo,” which was already two years old. Karen had said, “Yeah,” and “No,” and “I don’t know” and fiddled with the bottom bead of her earring. Lydia had wanted to melt and seep into the seat cushions, deep down where the foam would block every bit of sound. She thought of saying something about the movie, but couldn’t think of anything. All she could think of was Jack Nicholson’s vacant eyes as the pillow came down to smother him. The silence swelled to fill the car until they pulled up in front of Karen’s house.