The Impossible Knife of Memory(7)

“She’s not my stepmother.” I stood up. “She’s a cheating, alcoholic * who can’t open her mouth without lying. She . . . You can’t talk to her about me. Can I go?”

She nodded slowly. “I hear what you’re saying and I understand. But I still need to talk to your father. If he doesn’t want to call me, I can stop by your house.”

“He’ll call,” I said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“One more thing.” Benedetti opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a sealed envelope. My name was written on the front in black, spidery ink, familiar handwriting.

“She sent this.” Benedetti set it on top of my books. “The woman who apparently was not your stepmother. She asked me to give it to you.”

I opened my precalc textbook and shoved the envelope inside. “I’m not going to read it.”

“Your choice. Oh, and don’t forget to sign up for your SATs. You’re running out of time.”





_*_ 9 _*_

Instead of heading for precalc, I detoured around the technology pod, looped through the music wing, behind the cafeteria, and through the back entrance to the library. I flashed my late pass at Ms. Burkey, the last librarian left standing after the school board fired the rest of the staff, and hurried to the far end of the nonfiction stacks like I was on a mission, the way Gracie taught me. When Ms. Burkey turned her attention to a loud group of guys in the computer room, I emerged to hunt for something real to read so that I could distract my brain from imploding.

A small table covered with a red paper tablecloth had been set up next to the new books display. A cardboard sign with genocide awareness written on it was taped to the front edge of the table and a banner reading one world, hung on the wall behind it. A bulk-sized box of Snickers and a Tupperware container of homemade brownies had been placed on the table next to laminated photos of mutilated bodies. Dark blood pooled on the dirt and ran in slow rivers from the dead toward the photographer. In one picture, a child’s hand clutching a rag doll poked out from underneath a heap of broken adults.

An index card showed the price of the snacks: Brownies $1, Candy $2.

A tiny girl with rings on all of her fingers sat behind the table reading a tattered paperback.

“Is this a club?” I asked. “A genocide awareness club?”

“One World is more than just genocide.” She stuck a scrap of paper in the book to mark her page. “We build schools in Afghanistan and dig wells in Botswana.”

“Do members of the club get to travel to those places, you know, to do the work?”

“I wish,” she said. “We try to raise awareness. And money. The candy bars are the best sellers. Do you want one?”

“I’d rather have a brownie.” I reached in my pocket and sorted through the change while she put a brownie in a plastic bag for me. “Thanks.” I handed her the quarters and she handed me my lunch.

“We meet every Wednesday,” she said. “Ms. Duda’s room, 304, next to the stairs.”

I took the brownie. “Do the pictures ever gross anyone out?”

She shook her head. “People don’t really look at them.”





_*_ 10 _*_

My math teacher noted the precise time that Benedetti had marked down on my late pass and calculated that I had blown off one-third of his class. He scolded me for so long that I had to hustle to make it to English. I was in luck; Ms. Rogak was still standing in the hall, deep in conversation with the technology teacher who always wore a huge, blue union button on his shirt. I scooted past them and through the door.

My usual seat, back row, center aisle, was already taken by Brandon Something, a tennis player who constantly misused the word literally. I needed that seat. It had the best view of the door and a solid wall to lean against. If trouble walked in, I’d have plenty of room to maneuver. Yes, I was being paranoid. I knew that Trish was not going to storm my English class with a commando team, but hearing her name, knowing that she was snooping around and could show up to make life even worse had driven me perilously close to a three-alarm anxiety meltdown. Sitting back row, center aisle was not an option. It was a requirement.

“You’re in my seat,” I told Brandon Something. “Sit on my face,” he said.

“Move,” I said.

“What’ll you give me?”

A couple of heads swiveled to watch us.

My adrenaline turned up a notch. “How about a swift kick in the balls?”

Before he could respond, Ms. Rogak click-clicked in on her stiletto heels, shutting the door hard enough to stop all snickering and conversation.

“Up front, Brandon,” she said. “I don’t need you scheming back there today. Books open, everyone. Attention on me.”

Brandon bumped into me as he carried his books to the empty seat in front. “Bitch,” he whispered.

Ms. Rogak had Melody Byrd read a passage: Circe trying to bewitch Odysseus: “‘Now you are burnt-out husks, your spirits haggard, sere,

always brooding over your wanderings long and hard,

your hearts never lifting with any joy—

you’ve suffered far too much.’”

I stared at the page until the letters melted into the paper. Trish’s envelope waited in my math book. Ticking. Sweat trickled down my neck and soaked into my shirt. I kept breathing, slow, slow, steady, but my hands would not stop shaking. Why did she call Benedetti? How did she even know where we lived?