The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(76)

“Or what?”

“Or we’re going to go at it right here.”

Lark smiled. “I’ll fucking kill you, Hell.” He said it without animosity, with a chuckle in his voice.

“You’ll have to kill me,” I replied in the same even tone. “Because once we get started, I’m not stopping. Then we’ll both get expelled and throw away our futures, and next year the senior class can come by the McDonald’s where you and I will be flipping burgers together instead of you playing football at Brown. Explain that to your mother and father.”

For a moment Lark’s face looked like he was attempting to solve a complex mathematical equation and failing miserably. Then he grinned, and I felt everyone in the room breathe a collective sigh of relief. “You’re a red-eyed crazy motherfucker, Hell, but I like you.” He stepped past me to where Mickie stood with Alicia and Ernie. “Hey, Mickie.” She considered him with scorn. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, or said those things. If Hell likes you, you must be okay.”

Mickie wiped her cheeks but did not respond. Lark looked at me and nodded. Then he left.





11

I retrieved Mickie’s shawl and escorted her through the hotel lobby to the parking lot. She kept her head down, her shawl draped over her shoulders. I opened the passenger car door and helped her in, gathering her shawl for her so it wouldn’t get caught in the door. As I walked to the driver’s side, I took a moment to catch my breath. We were misfits, Mickie, me, and Ernie. For all his exploits, Ernie remained the black kid. For all my achievements in the classroom and on the newspaper staff, I was still the devil boy—or at least the kid with the red eyes—and Mickie was the girl with the reputation. We were something for other people to talk about and make fun of. I thought of all the times Mickie had stood up for me, all the times she’d been there for me. She had been having so much fun that night, happier than I might have ever seen her. I wasn’t about to let Lark ruin her evening. When I slid in, Mickie remained pressed against the passenger door.

“We have a problem,” I said. Mickie raised her head to look at me, her makeup still smeared. “I can’t drive with you sitting way over there.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You’re sorry because Lark is a drunken moron?”

“I’m sorry you had to go with me, if I embarrassed you.”

“I had to go with you? Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you going with me.”

“Maybe that would have been better.”

I had never seen or heard Mickie defeated like this, never truly realized the depth of her pain. Her home life had not improved with her parents’ divorce. Her mother drank most nights and either passed out or became belligerent, belittling Mickie. Her father had moved on, found himself a hot young girlfriend, and expressed little interest in being a father. It was a loveless home, and I wondered if that was why Mickie was promiscuous, if it wasn’t about the sex at all, but about feeling loved, if only for a little while.

“Did you see the heads turn when we walked in?” I asked.

“I know why the heads turned.”

“Really, was it because I look so great in this frilly shirt and burgundy tux? I look like a frigging red-eyed waiter in a Las Vegas Denny’s.”

Mickie grinned.

“They turned because you look beautiful, Mickie, because you are beautiful. And Lark just did what every guy in that room wanted to do. I felt like I was escorting a movie star, and I’ll tell you something else—”

But I didn’t, because I didn’t get the chance. Mickie had leaped across the seat and pressed her lips against mine. Unlike Donna Ashby’s kiss, no tongue probed my mouth, just the warmth of Mickie’s lips. She pulled back and curled beside me. “I love you, Sam Hill,” she said.

And this time I got the chance to reply. “I love you, too, Michaela Kennedy,” I said, and she did not even protest that I’d used her real name.





12

As our senior year wound down, Ernie was mulling scholarship offers from all over the United States. I was debating between a few colleges, trying to determine what my parents could afford. I had received a $2,000 journalism scholarship for a feature article I’d written about Ernie, and the organization that gave me the award held a luncheon to honor me. My mother and I drove to Monterey and sat at a table with the president of the association, a man named Howard Rice. My father couldn’t attend because of work. Rice was a 1944 Stanford University graduate and prominent booster, and he seemed intrigued by what I had accomplished, probably because I’d done so despite my “condition.” At the luncheon, Rice was seated beside my mother and said, “I hope your son is considering Stanford.”

Stanford was $14,000 per year in tuition and room and board, more than I felt fair to ask of my parents even with my scholarship money and what I’d saved working at the store.

“He’s considering several different choices,” my mother said diplomatically.

“Sam,” Mr. Rice said, turning to me, “I want you to apply. I’ll have an application sent to you tomorrow, and I want you to put me down as a reference. I will write you a letter of recommendation.”

Mr. Rice was a man of his word. A week after the luncheon, an admissions packet arrived in the mail. I wasn’t going to fill it out, but my mother insisted, saying, “We don’t know God’s will, Samuel. Have faith. Besides, it would be rude to Mr. Rice not to fill it out. He went to the trouble to send it, after all.”