What Happens to Goodbye(13)

“Mclean,” I said.
He nodded. “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too.”
I could hear the music from the party, that same bass thumping, as I crossed to the deck. As I pulled open my side door, I glanced back, just in time to see him climbing back down the stairs, the flashlight’s glow rising up around him.
I went into my house, kicking off my shoes and padding down the hallway to the bathroom. When I turned on the light, the brightness startled me, as did the faint dusting of dirt that covered my face. Like I, too, had been tunneling, digging, and had only just now come up for air.
Three
Jackson High was not the Gulag. It was also no Fountain School. Instead, it was pretty much just like all the other public high schools I’d attended: big, anonymous, and smelling of antiseptic. After filling out the typical mountain of paperwork and having a rushed meeting with a clearly overworked guidance counselor, I was handed a schedule and pointed toward my homeroom.
“Okay, people, quiet down,” the teacher, a very tall guy in his early twenties wearing leather sneakers and a dress shirt was saying as I approached the door. “Typically, we’ve got twenty minutes’ worth of stuff to do in five minutes. So help me out, all right?”
No one appeared to be listening, although there was a barely discernable reduction in volume as people made their way to a half circle of tables and desks, some pulling out chairs, others hopping up on tables or plopping on the floor below. A cll phone was ringing; someone in the back had a hacking cough. By the door, there was a TV showing two students, a blonde girl and a guy with short dreads, sitting at a makeshift news desk, with a sign behind them that said JACKSON FLASH! The teacher was still talking.

“. . . Today is the last day to hand in your yearbook orders,” he was saying, reading off various pieces of paper that were on the desk in front of him as a few more people straggled in. “There will be a table in the courtyard during all three lunches. Also, doors will open early for the basketball game tonight, so the earlier you get there, the better seat you’ll get. And where’s Mclean?”
I jumped, hearing this, then raised my hand. “Here,” I said, although it came out sounding entirely too much like a question.
“Welcome to Jackson High,” he said, as everyone, en masse, turned to look at me. On the TV screen, the student reporters were signing off, waving as the picture went black. “Any questions, feel free to ask me or anyone here. We are a friendly bunch!”
“Actually,” I said, reflexively going to correct him, “it’s . . .”
“Moving on,” he continued, not hearing me, “I’ve been instructed to tell you again that you are not to touch the wet paint outside the cafeteria. Most people would know this without being told, but apparently some of you are not like most people. So: keep your dirty mitts off the wet paint. Thank you.”
The bell sounded, drowning out the various responses to this message. The teacher sighed, looking down at the papers he obviously hadn’t gotten to, then shuffled them into a stack as everyone got up again.
“Make it a good day!” he shouted halfheartedly, as people started spilling into the hallway. I hung back, standing to the side of his desk until he glanced up and saw me. “Yes? What can I do for you?”
“I just,” I began, as a pack of girls in cheerleader uniforms filed in, gabbing, “I wanted to say my name isn’t—”
“Wendy!” he called out suddenly. His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t we just have a conversation about dressing appropriately for school?”
“Mr. Roberts,” a girl groaned from behind me, “get off my case, okay? I’m having a bad day.”
“Probably because it’s January and you’re half naked. Go change,” he replied. He looked back at me, but only for a second before his attention was again diverted by a crash in the back of the room. “Hey!” he said. “Roderick, I told you not to lean on that shelf! Honestly . . .”
Clearly, it was useless to try to do this now, so I stepped out into the hallway, looking down at my schedule as Wendy—a big girl in what I had to admit was a very short skirt for any season—huffed out behind me. I retraced my steps to the guidance office, figuring I’d try to tackle the rest of the building from there. Once I found it, I hung a right toward what I hoped was Wing B, passing a group of people gathered in front of the main office.
“. . . sure you understand our position,” an older man with curly hair, wearing a dress shirt and jacket, his back to me, was saying. “Our son’s schooling has been a top priority ever since we realized his potential as a small child. Which is why we had him at Kiffney-Brown. The opportunities there—”
“—were exceptional,” a short, thin woman finished for him. “And, as you’re aware, it was when he transferred here that all these problems began.”
“Of course,” the woman opposite them, in a pantsuit and sensible haircut that screamed administrator, even without the laminated ID hanging around her neck, replied. “But we believe he can get everything he needs, both academically and socially, here at Jackson. I think that by working together, all of us, we can help him to do just that.”
The man nodded. His wife, clutching her purse with a weary expression and looking less convinced, glanced at me as I passed. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her, at least not at first. So I kept walking, taking a left and consulting my schedule again.
I was scanning doorways and room numbers when I saw Riley. She was sitting on a bench, leaning slightly forward and craning her neck to look out in the hall, a backpack parked beside her. I knew her instantly, from the rings on her fingers and the same puffy jacket, now tied around her waist. She didn’t look at me as I passed, too intent on watching the group in the hallway.