Chapter 27
I ’m about to head out the door to catch my morning ride with Diana when I remember my crossword book is lying on the counter. I grab it from off the island, thankful I won’t be left without a few eighties references to ruminate over after I plot out my day on the way to school under another unfinished puzzle line.
Ben has made notes at random within the incomplete crosswords and from what I can tell this was some sort of ruse to mess with me. I’m finding GENESIS planted in between blocks with blank spaces untouched past a few tabbed pages. It seemed one thing would remain constant between my two worlds: Ben’s track record of messing with my crosswords. It wouldn’t be my first time scratching out his markings and filling in everything around it, ignoring his graffiti. He’s also supplied me with a few blocks of profanity and rated a few of the clues.
*This one will take you days to find
*This one’s beyond your comprehension
*Better chance of finding a leprechaun than getting this one
*Good luck. You’re going to need it.
Gee, thanks for the encouragement, Ben.
On my way to second period the answer for clue #16, Section with time travel stories, haunts me as I walk the hallways surrounded by teenagers in oversized everything. I think I know the answer.
“Science Fiction,” I say underneath my breath as a pack of unfledged boys wearing Kentucky Waterfall hairstyles slide their arms around their girlfriends passing by me. Every now and then one boosts their girlfriend up for a piggyback ride—a most romantic form of transportation. I’ve gotten used to dodging flying objects as I pass through—Rubik’s Cube-like toys, and my personal favorite, hostess cupcakes still in the wrapper. It was like wading through a pool of fearless teenagers who look like full-grown adults and I knew one thing for sure. It wasn’t science fiction. I was living it.
I stare across from me at a girl’s Huarache shoes that I’d seen on half of the cheerleaders last week. It’s a bit chilly today so I opted for black slouchy boots and black tights to go under a denim miniskirt—I’d learned the significance of a miniskirt in the eighties. It was as if it were a tacitly implied rule to wear one a couple of times a week.
“Cute outfit,” the girl with the Huarache shoes says. I thank her, saying the same about her shoes as a familiar set of legs pass by with a flock of cheerleaders. Legs that tall and lean belong to only one person, Corky—whom I hadn’t had another conversation with since Diana popped Genesis into the tape player at the party. I didn’t expect to talk to her after I became partially to blame for her and Bennette’s drama.
I catch Diana’s name floating by in the air of their conversation and perk up to make out what’s being said as they step around the corner.
“Yeah, can you believe it? On their first date.” Tiffany, the petite flyer, says. “They’ve only been with each other for like a week and their first kiss was an accident.”
“So, Annie heard this?” Corky looks to verify.
“No, she saw them parked behind the milkshake shack next to the lookout. When they drove by a second time their car was all fogged up. Supposedly they were at the skate rink and ditched Ben and Atta.”
A third girl I don’t know chimes in. “Ben and Atta were together?”
“Yeah, and caught kissing too,” Tiffany confirms. I feel a sense of imminent danger at that and leap into the nearest classroom before anyone can see me react to their conversation.
Thoughts begin to swivel through my head like a spinning top, as if bullying forces are coming at me from all directions. First, I think of what’s being said about Diana. They were probably parked because Tyler was tired. Though I’d never seen Tyler act or say he was tired in my life, it’s still a plausible explanation.
But I can’t help but think if this rumor gets around to Ben he’s not going to like it. I’m afraid he’ll do something about it, just like Bennette might when she hears Ben and I kissed less than a week after their breakup.
Teenage life is stressful when the gossip rolls around. I can’t help but feel out of place as an adult—at least in mind and spirit—hiding behind the classroom doorframe in a world where other girls find fault in my relationship with the man I’d spent more than half of my life with.
Feeling even an ounce of guilt in this situation wasn’t worth it. Ben’s open confession that night was groundbreaking stuff, warranting passionate behavior. After such a vulnerable, emotional conversation it was bound to happen, but just because he got caught up in the moment of intense feelings doesn’t mean he wants to be with me. I had yet to get his thoughts about us .
I had planned to gauge his response after our kiss but that was becoming increasingly difficult since he had decided not to show up to class. We hadn’t exactly left on satisfying terms that night either. Ben seemed more focused on the fact that Tyler had wronged him by ditching us, breathing fire down Tyler’s neck behind the headrest as the four of us rode back home together. They dropped me off first, Ben hardly acknowledging my departure, and I spent the rest of the weekend wondering what he thought of the other night.
Typically someone who planned to pursue a relationship after kissing them would make a lot of effort to see that person, right?
Was he avoiding me?
After lunch I officially call it quits on reading newspapers in class while the teacher scratches the chalkboard. Six hours a day, for weeks on end, staring at headlines, ignoring what’s being taught in eighties high school, and hoping for Marigold answers is tiring. So I decide to gawk over a few crossword boxes instead, occasionally admiring Ben’s graffiti scattered throughout the pages.
I take inventory of the uneventful schedule I've written for today and notice the pages are stuck together. With both hands, I separate today’s crossword from the page behind it, noticing the newly freed page is not only another target of graffiti but it occupies someone else’s handwriting. Someone other than Ben. My eyes look fixedly at the lines of handwriting I don’t recognize.
Agent Suarez. I’ve been in touch with all of my contacts at the Bureau. No one seems to know who you are. After our dinner tonight I can’t help but think you’re avoiding me. We need to chat about Marigold. I’ll be in touch.
-Officer Berrett
I shake my pen between my fingers, startling myself when I accidentally hit it against the desk. How did he manage to leave a message in my crossword?
The island counter. After dinner.
Officer Berrett is digging more than I thought. Why does he think we need to chat about Marigold? There’s no way he’d know about the future or even time travel.
Should I be more concerned? They were pretty relaxed in the eighties, right? No one wore seatbelts and half of the jocks rode to school in the back bed of someone’s truck. And in the few weeks he’d been here, Officer Berrett had gained the reputation of taking girls up into the mountains on his police motorcycle. So it was safe to say I likely wouldn’t be prosecuted for requesting a ride from an officer using an FBI badge from the future. If anything it’s Officer Berrett’s connection with Marigold and his desire to question me that should scare me. And it does.
As long as I could convince him I know nothing of Marigold or, better yet, if I avoided him entirely, I was safe.
A fuzzy, distinctive telephone sound chirps through the classroom’s intercom speaker, an early signal that the main office has taken the phone off the hook to project an announcement. The room collectively pops their heads up from a sluggish my-desk-might-as-well-be-a-bean-bag position.
“Atta Atkinson, Jamie Williams, and Brad Jones you’re needed in the front office.” I look up from the crossword under my desk to stare at the teacher in confusion.
Who needs me in the office enough to make me stand up and turn my back to a bunch of students who’ll stare at my backside en masse right now?
I walk down the hall, taking a right turn at the corner. When I reach the hallway to the front office area, I only make it halfway before stopping in my tracks. The office looks empty through its large rectangular windows, except for a man standing and facing the front desk lady.
Two boys, who must be Jamie and Brad, walk out the office door with what looks like the wrestling coach, leaving me to conclude that the man is here for me. I need to get closer to see who he is. Does he have something to do with why Ben wasn’t in class today?
I approach the middle of the hallway carefully, ready to drop low to the ground if he turns around and spots me before I’m able to identify him. As I walk down the hall, with slow, accessing steps, my eyes sweep over his face. From this distance his outline is uncanny. Curls that shape only take on one form. A mullet. A familiar mullet and an eerily familiar uniform.
I hit the ground fast.