In the Middle of Somewhere (Middle of Somewhere, #1)(26)

“Okay, now, don’t worry. You’re welcome.”

There was a pause, but it didn’t feel nearly as awkward as the ones during our last conversation, which was heartening.

“Listen,” Rex said. “They say it’s going to get real cold on Saturday, maybe storm, so I just want to make sure you still want to come. To my place, I mean.”

“Yeah, of course I do,” I say. “I mean, this is Michigan, right? I knew it had to get cold at some point.”

“All right, then,” Rex said. “Good-bye.”

Then he hung up before I could ask for directions.




“AND YOU’RE all right with that, Daniel?” Bernard Ness is saying.

“Um, I’m sorry, Bernard, what was that?” I say. Clearly I’ve been nodding along with the meeting as I thought about Rex.

“You’re all right with heading the committee?” Crap. Way to not repeat yourself at all, Bernard.

“Yep, yep, sounds good,” I hear myself saying since I can’t think of any way to admit I’ve been zoning out.

“Wonderful,” Bernard says, and ends the meeting as I sit there, dazed.

I gather my things and make a beeline for my office to get my jacket. All I want is to go home, take a shower, and listen to music with a bottle of wine. I’m slipping on my jacket when Jay Santiago pushes my door open. Jay is maybe ten years older than me, in his early forties, and seems like a nice guy, though I don’t know him well.

“The first-year personal essay committee,” he says.

“Huh?”

“The committee Bernard stuck you on while you were staring out the window. It’s for first-year students’ personal essays. You pick a first place, second place, third place, and two runner-up essays and then they read them at an end of the year open house while their parents drink wine out of plastic cups, eat pepper jack cheese cubes, and brag about their kids to anyone who’ll listen.”

“Whoa, grim,” I say. But it could be worse. I actually like reading students’ creative writing. It’s kind of cool to see who they are outside the classroom, what they think is important on their own time.

“Yeah, I did it last year, so if you need any pointers, just let me know.”

“Will do,” I say. “Thanks, Jay.” He nods good-bye.




I WALK the long way home—well, it’s two blocks longer—so I can pick up some wine and get a pizza since I have nothing edible in my house. As I walk out of the store with my box of wine, though, there’s shouting coming from behind the store. It’s kind of a park, I guess, a patch of grass and a bench and a few trees.

Two guys are messing with a kid sitting on the bench. He’s maybe sixteen or seventeen, with longish, light brown hair and checkerboard Vans. You could ID him as a skater kid from thirty paces even if his feet weren’t currently resting on a skateboard. I can’t really see his face, but he’s skinny, and definitely smaller than the guys messing with him. They might be the same age, but they’re of the polo-shirt-and-boat-shoes variety, with lingering summer tans and muscles honed by football and fathers who expect certain things from them. I know the type.

Would I be intervening if it weren’t “fag” that the polo shirts were calling the kid? I’m not sure. But I was that skinny kid and I’m sure as hell not going to watch him get the shit beat out of him the way I did, even if these guys don’t look quite as hardcore as the ones who used to throw me up against crumbling brick walls and threaten me with busted bottles if I ever looked at them in the hallways.

The kid isn’t reacting to the polo shirts at all. Not sure if he’s scared of a fight or just knows they won’t actually throw a punch, but I walk over anyway. When I get a little closer, I can see that he’s smiling. It’s a mischievous, self-possessed smile. It’s a smile that’s going to get this kid a lot of ass in a few years, or in a lot of trouble, depending on who he’s smiling at. Right now, I’m banking on the latter, because the polo shirts do not seem amused.

When I’m ten feet away, the one in the salmon-colored polo shirt—seriously, kid, salmon?—throws a punch. Whatever skater said to him was too low for me to hear, but now they’re both on him, pushing him down on the bench.

“Hey!” I yell. “Get the f*ck off him.” I pull salmon polo shirt off, bobbing to the side so the punch he throws goes wide. Both polo shirts step away and stare at me oddly, but I can’t tell if they’re scared of getting in trouble or are about to start in on me too.

I’m still dressed for teaching, in gray pants, a gray and black striped shirt, and the vintage black wingtips Ginger gave me as a going-away present, but my sleeves are rolled up to the elbows, showing some of my tattoos, I’m carrying a box of wine, and, as it’s the end of the day, my black hair is probably a mess. I must look like some kind of drunken hipster poet or something.

“Get the f*ck out of here!” I yell, pointing toward the street, before they can decide.

“Screw you, *,” and “Fuck off,” the polo shirts say, but it’s halfhearted and they’re already leaving, shooting the kid poisonous looks from under the stiff brims of their baseball caps.

I smirk and set my wine and my messenger bag down on the bench. It felt really f*cking good to yell at those *s, especially since I’ve wanted to do it to students all week.