Night Road(6)

“I do.”

Eva bobbed her head in a little nod and backed into the hallway, closing the door behind her. Lexi put on the pink sweatshirt and stepped into a pair of faded Target jeans. Then she filled her hand-me-down backpack with the notebooks, paper, and pens Eva had brought home from work last night.

In the kitchen, she found Eva standing by the sink, dressed now for work in her blue Walmart smock, lemon-yellow acrylic sweater, and jeans, drinking coffee.

Across the small, tidy space, their gazes met. Eva’s brown eyes looked worried. “Mrs. Watters worked hard to get you into Pine Island High. It’s one of the best schools in the state, but the school bus don’t come over the bridge, so you’ll have to take the county bus. Is that okay? Have I already told you all this?”

Lexi nodded. “It’s fine, Eva. Don’t worry. I’ve been riding buses for years.” She didn’t add that she’d often slept on their dirty seats when she and Momma had nowhere else to go.

“Okay, then.” Eva finished her coffee and rinsed out her cup, leaving it in the sink. “Well, you don’t want to be late on your first day. I’ll drive you. Let’s go.”

“I can take the bus—”

“Not on the first day. I got the late-shift special.”

Lexi followed her aunt out to the car. As they drove toward the island, Lexi studied her surroundings. She’d seen all of this on maps, but those little lines and markings only told so much of the story. For instance, she knew that Pine Island was twelve miles long and four miles wide; that it was accessible by ferry to downtown Seattle and by bridge to mainland Kitsap County. On the Port George side of the bridge, the land was tribal. Pine Island, she saw now, was not.

She could tell by the houses that the people who lived on the island were rich. The houses over here were practically mansions.

They turned off the highway and drove up a hill to the high school, which was a collection of squat redbrick buildings huddled around a flagpole. Like many of the schools Lexi had attended, Pine Island had obviously grown faster than expected. A collection of portables ringed the main campus. Eva parked in the empty bus lane and looked at Lexi. “These kids are no better’n you. You remember that.”

Lexi felt a rush of affection for this careworn woman who had taken her in. “I’ll be fine,” Lexi said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

Eva nodded. “Good luck,” she said at last.

Lexi didn’t say that luck was useless at a new school. Instead, she forced a smile and got out of the car. As she waved good-bye, a school bus pulled up behind Eva, and kids poured out of it.

Lexi kept her head down and started moving. She’d been the new girl often enough to know the tricks of the camouflage trade. The best tactic was to blend in, disappear. You did that by looking down and moving fast. Rule one: never stop. Rule two: never look up. By Friday, if she’d followed this pattern, she’d just be one of the kids in the freshman class, and then she could try to make a friend or two. Although it wouldn’t be easy here. What could she possibly have in common with these kids?

When she made it to Building A, she double-checked her schedule. There it was. Room 104. She merged into the crowd of students, all of whom seemed to know one another, and let their tide carry her forward. In the classroom, kids slid into their seats and kept talking excitedly.

Her mistake was to pause. She looked up just long enough to get her bearings, and the classroom went quiet. Kids stared at her; then whispering began. Someone laughed. Lexi felt her flaws keenly—her thick black eyebrows and crooked teeth and frizzy hair, her lame jeans and lamer sweatshirt. This was the kind of place where every kid got braces at adolescence and a new car at sixteen.

In the back of the room, a girl pointed at her and started to giggle. The girl seated beside her nodded. Lexi thought she heard nice butterfly, and then: did she make it herself?

A boy stood up, and the room went quiet again.

Lexi knew who he was. Every school had a guy like him—good-looking, popular, athletic, the kind of boy who got what he wanted without even trying. The football captain and class president. In his aqua blue Abercrombie T-shirt and baggy jeans, he looked like Leonardo DiCaprio, all golden and smiling and sure of himself.

He was coming toward her. Why? Was there another, prettier girl behind her? Was he going to do something to humiliate her, to make his friends laugh?

“Hey,” he said. She could feel everyone looking at them, watching.

Lexi bit her lower lip to hide her crooked teeth. “Hey.”

He smiled. “Susan and Liz are bitches. Don’t let them get to you. The butterfly’s cool.”

She stood there like an idiot, dazzled by his smile. Get a grip, Lexi. You’ve seen good-looking guys before. She should say something, smile; something.

“Here,” he said, taking her arm. At his touch, she felt a little jolt, like an electrical charge.

He should have moved, led her somewhere. That was why he was touching her arm, right? But he just stood there, staring down at her. His smile faded. She couldn’t breathe all of a sudden; the whole world drained away until only his face was left, only his amazing green eyes.

He started to say something, but Lexi’s heart was pounding so fast, she couldn’t hear his words, and then he was being pulled away from her, led away by some beautiful girl in a skirt that was smaller than a dinner napkin.