The Next Person You Meet in Heaven(23)

From their hasty cross-country journey to their new roots in rural Arizona, Lorraine held her secrets close. She took great pains to erase her past. She got rid of old photos. She stopped calling old friends. She never mentioned her ex-husband. She never spoke of Ruby Pier.

She hoped a new state would mean a new life. But the things we have done are never far behind us. And like a shadow, they go where we do.

Annie, meanwhile, had given up on old hopes. By sixteen, she had accepted her role as a high school outcast. She had few friends and spent much of her time at home, reading, with her dog, Cleo, curled against her. Her figure had developed, and she sometimes caught boys staring if she wore tight clothing. Their attention confused her. Being noticed was all right, but she wanted to be known. They never even spoke to her.

One day, in history class, Annie’s teacher was asking about family roots.

“What about you, Annie?”

Annie slid low in her seat. She hated being called upon. She glanced sideways and saw one of those boys with the juvenile stare.

“I don’t know much,” she said.

Another student sang those words, “Don’t know much,” from a popular song, and the class laughed. Annie reddened.

“Well, you weren’t born in Arizona, were you?”

“No,” Annie admitted, breaking one of her mother’s rules.

“Where did you begin?”

Trying to get this over with, Annie spat out a few details, the town, how many years, where she thought her grandparents came from.

“And why did you move here?” the teacher said.

Annie froze. She couldn’t think of a lie. She heard someone snickering, “It’s not a trick question.”

“I had an accident,” Annie mumbled.

An awkward silence.

“All right, who else?” the teacher said.

Annie exhaled.

Before the class ended, the teacher assigned the students to research world events on the day they were born. They could use the school library or, if they had access, computer search engines, which were new.

Annie didn’t own a computer. She used the library microfilm. She learned that on her birthday, a crisis in South Africa ended and a famous hockey player broke a league record. She wrote it down.

At the end of the week, the students were asked to report their findings. Annie rose and recited her meager facts, then quickly sat, glad that it was over. She gazed out the window, drifting, until she heard Megan, the girl who had ruined everything with Paulo, ending her report by saying, “Also, I used a computer, and I found out that Annie’s ‘accident’ was in an amusement park and that someone died because of her.”

Students gasped. One yelled, “What?” Annie flushed with chills. She began to cough. She couldn’t find her breath. Her mind was racing between the faces staring at her and that day at Ruby Pier, replaying fragments, the train ride, her mother taking off with Bob. She felt woozy. Her arm slid off the desk.

“Annie, are you all right?” the teacher said. “Come here, come here, let’s go …”

She rushed Annie out the classroom door.



When Annie came home that day, she marched into the trailer, slammed her books on a table, and started screaming about what Megan said in class. Lorraine, hovering over a pile of bills, froze for a moment, a pen in her hand. Then she resumed scribbling, looking down through her reading glasses.

“You knew it was an amusement park,” she said.

“What about the rest, Mom?”

“What?”

“Did I kill someone?”

“Of course not!” Lorraine capped the pen. “That’s an evil lie by an evil girl.”

“Are you sure?”

“How could you even think that?”

“Did someone die?”

“It was a big accident, Annie. There were workers.

Operators. Riders. Lots of people were affected. You were a victim, remember? We could have sued. Maybe I should have. All these bills.”

“Did someone die?”

“An employee, I think. No one that you knew.”

“What else happened?”

Lorraine pulled off her glasses. “Do you really need more details? Now, all of a sudden? Haven’t we been through enough?”

“We?” Annie screamed. “Really, Mom? WE?”

“Yes!” Lorraine screamed back. “Really, Annie. WE!”

“I have no friends, Mom! I want to have friends!”

“I’d like some, too, Annie!”

“I’m never going back to that class!”

“You’re never going back to that school!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Both of them were red-faced and breathing hard. Lorraine rose to the kitchen. She smacked the faucet and rubbed her hands vigorously under the water. “Honestly, what kind of learning is that? Looking up your birthdays? You’d be better off homeschooled.”

“I’m not doing THAT!” Annie yelled.

“We’ll find someplace.”

“Oh, God, Mom! GOD!”

Annie dropped on the couch. She pulled a pillow over her face.

Later that week, she transferred, and when she didn’t like that school, she transferred to another. The matter of the accident was not spoken about again.