Chapter 28
W hy is Officer Berrett waiting for me? My internal alarm bell rings.
Commence army crawl.
My elbows scrape the floor. My goal is the women’s bathroom a dozen yards down the hall. The scenario takes me away into my own farce-like thoughts, imagining I’m in the trenches while machine guns are firing live rounds in this hallway jungle. The more rapid my execution of bent arms and a perfect plank, the better chance I have at survival.
A few teenagers walk past looking at me as if I’m some wild animal, completely flummoxed, just as a boy approaches the hallway corner choking on a laugh before he asks his friend what in the world I am doing. I smile back at them and then look over my shoulder to find Officer Berrett in the front office turning his head so that he has a clear window view of the school hallway. If he turns any more, he will have a clear view of me.
Any humorous thoughts that had entered my mind in response to my actions are instantly wiped as I process Officer Berrett’s searching expression. Fear pounds inside my chest and I exert all my physical effort into the last ten feet of my crawl.
Why is he here! Did he spot me? The nerves I felt at dinner the night before are back in full force, this time strangling my intestines so that my stomach feels like it’s a ball of knots about to turn into stone from the internal pressure.
He meant it when he wrote in my crossword book that he’d be in touch. He must’ve sensed my crumbling foundation at dinner and now he wants to send a final jackhammer through it with more clarifying questions. I can’t let him approach me.
I spring up off the floor in a single operative motion. The humid bathroom air greets me with a needless amount of air freshener and I find the nearest stall, claiming it as my hiding spot.
The minutes pass slowly, inhaling stuffy bathroom fumes until my patience wavers enough that I lean my head out past the stall door in order to glance at the clock on the wall. There’s still ten minutes until the wave of students spill out of the classrooms like reservoir water being released from the spillway. It’ll be much harder for a cop to find me in a river of students.
A thud at the door brings in a group of squealing girls.
“His last note was so romantic though. I always leave him a lipstick kiss at the bottom when I write back. You should try it sometime. It really heats up the conversation if ya know what I mean.” A familiar voice boasts to the giggling girls. I recognize it as Erica’s—she must be checking her hair in the mirror with some friends. I gracefully slide out from the stall and greet her friends, before pulling her aside.
“Was a police officer out in the hallways?” I ask her.
“No, we walked here from the mechanics building outside but I didn’t see a cop anywhere,” she answers.
“Was there a cop car in the parking lot?” I ask. She shakes her head. “A motorcycle? A police motorcycle?” I clarify.
“No. Nothing like that. Why?”
“It’s our neighbor cop. He’s giving me the creeps. I saw him in the office earlier. He had them call me over the intercom, and I’ve been hiding in the bathroom ever since.”
“Weird,” she says, contemplating why I’d be hiding from our neighbor cop. She looks concerned but moves on.
“You brought the shorts to practice, right? We’re doing pictures today. I laid the uniform on your bed.”
“Yeah, the red and white striped shorts? I did,” I assure her. The thought of receiving developed photos of myself in red and white striped cotton mini shorts, matching the rest of the team in split poses makes me want to shudder and snort at the same time.
It was only an hour until school was out.
If Officer Berrett decided to look for me after school I’d need Diana to act as my sidekick for the afternoon. Enlisting her for lookout duty was one way I’d be able to endure posing for cheerleading team pictures with a genuine smile and not a distracted gaze.
“We’re going to be taking them outside the gym in the courtyard behind the school where the four large trees are,” she says. Good. That wasn’t where we usually held practice, so if Officer Berrett asked, he wouldn’t easily find me.
When I find Diana, she’s at her locker deep in thought. Her back rests against the tall locker with her feet stretched out wide. She looks dazed but in a happy sort of way, as if she’s love drunk on Tyler, the future bird-watcher.
“Di, you think you can come with me to cheer practice today? We’re doing pictures for half an hour or so,” I say, working to convince her.
Just like always, it doesn’t take long for her to say yes.
“You need a ride or something?”
“Actually, Officer Berrett, the one at dinner last night, stopped by the school today and requested that I meet him in the office. I need you if he decides to show up again.”
“Are you serious?” The daze has fully passed and her cheeks grow hot from my statement. “What is he doing? He was looking for you?”
“Yes.” I stare at the locker I have yet to unlock.
“What a pervert. He already tried getting you on his bike,” she starts. While that’s not technically true, I’m fine with her thinking that to help my case.
“Is he obsessed with you or something?” she asks.
“Possibly. I just need to avoid him. That way I won’t have any more creepy encounters.”
“Ugh, but he’s your neighbor. How are you going to avoid him?”
“I don’t know,” I say. Another problem I don’t have a solution to.
Diana meets me at my locker after school to accompany me on my walk to the photoshoot in the school’s courtyard. She’s not what I’d call a qualified lookout, carrying her bag stuffed with textbooks and spinning her keychain around her fingers, but she’ll give me fair warning via a thwack to my side if Officer Berrett shows up.
“Have you seen Ben around today?” I ask, trying to get to the bottom of his disappearance since he should have been in the two classes we have together.
“Once or twice,” she says without much care.
“Has he said anything about me?”
“Not particularly.” The way she says it tells me he hasn’t said a thing about me to her.
“So Tyler. You really like him, don't you?" I say. "You sure he was tired and it wasn't just an excuse to spend two hours alone kissing?
Diana bumps me with her hip. “It wasn’t like that . He really wore himself out. He almost threw up that night. He wasn’t feeling well.” She lets out a smile and we both laugh.
The photoshoot is just as syrupy as I thought it would be. Thin red stripes run down the legs of our white cotton shorts and matching red bungee cord bracelets dangle along our wrists. Erica walks around checking to make sure our white shirts are crisply tucked into our shorts and that our red wool socks bubble over our white Keds.
Diana sits in the grass watching us with a pleasant smile as the photographer guides the team into various acrobatic positions. Corky and Bennette are on opposite sides of the picture, but I catch them both sending Diana a few glares in between posed smiles, during the game of “avoiding eye contact” that they both seem to be playing. It seems they have yet to make up.
We finish team photos with a trickle of rain dotting our clothes, just a minute's worth. The sun peeks through, promising a blue sky of warmth but I still feel the goosebumps skate down my legs. By the time we get to individual photos, most of the team has lost all seriousness. The photographer will face a roll of funny faces and fuzzy photos when he goes to print, due to all the shimmering and laughing that’s happening at this point in the session. I watch as a photo contest to see who can create the best shoulder shake emerges from all the chaos.
At Erica’s request, we sneak in a sister photo, one that includes a mini stuffed bear posed in our begging hands—the kind of pose you’d only see in an eighties photo studio. If I were to ever have the chance to tell my mother—Non-80s-Land Erica—about time traveling to her past, I’d give her such a hard time about this.
“This means a lot to me,” she says, as we break the corny pose together. “Regardless of your reasons for joining, I love that you’re here with me.” Her eyes scrunch when she smiles and when I take a closer look I can see they are glossy with watery emotion as if the experience is playing back in her eyes. I feel a ping-pong ball try to make its way down my throat at the realization that sitting in the split position in front of the accordion TV with Erica every night before bed makes her happy.
Taking a time travel vacation may have given me a lens to look at my life from an outside perspective. A perspective where I see an opportunity for improvement—to spend more quality time with my mom whether it be in this life or the other one.
With the amount of time I hadn’t spent with her over the last few years anyone would think I’d signed my time over to the Bureau.
As long as I was here I’d make it a point to give her my time, as her sister.
“I’m glad I joined the team,” I say, hoping she takes it as a heartfelt comment and not as the sarcasm that typically splits out of my mouth.
Corky finishes off a group photo with Kelly and another cheerleader, then starts walking toward Erica and me.
“Atta, I need to talk to you for a sec,” she says, pulling me aside, smiling at Erica as she does so. The other cheerleaders' eyes follow our movement as we agree to plant our conversation a few feet away next to a large tree in the courtyard.
“It’s about you and Ben. You’ve really hurt Bennette you know. I’ve hurt her too, so I’m not qualified to say this, but I was trying to keep the secret for the best interest of their relationship. I had good intentions, despite acting stupidly, but couldn’t you wait to kiss Ben?” she says with righteous indignation. “It hasn’t even been a week. You didn’t think how she would feel for one second or give it some time!”
Diana appears at my side and cuts in with the defense. “I get it, Corky. I really do, but that’s between Ben and Atta who’ve had a friendship since they were five.”
“You shouldn’t have done that you know,” Corky says to Diana. She’s now referring to Diana’s Genesis concert confrontation.
“I’m sorry, but if anything, you should blame my brother. If he’d answered our questions in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to do that.”
“You thought about your situation, but you didn’t think for one second about Bennette.” Corky stands in front of us with her arms folded across her chest.
“True, but this all started because you and Ben kept a secret from Bennette.”
Corky looks down knowing they’re both in the wrong. She must feel Bennette’s eyes on her because she turns to look at her with an unsure smile.
“Are you and Bennette still doing track this year?” Diana asks, trying to ease the conversation.
“I am. I hope she is too.” She looks over at Bennette again.
“It starts soon,” Diana says. “I hope she does. I was thinking about joining the 4x400 meter relay on top of pole vaulting, but I’ll have to make things work with Bennette first.”
“Good luck to the both of us I guess,” Corky says before walking away. Her temperament seems to have softened after Diana tried to tie some strings together with track and field small talk. For me, the turn of conversation is just another reminder that Diana starts pole vaulting in just a week.
I scan the courtyard and surrounding trees for Officer Berrett as Diana carries our current conversation, feeling grateful she was able to steer me clear of high school drama in the previous one. Officer Berrett still hasn’t shown himself around these parts, thankfully. Maybe it was a bit of an overreaction having Diana act as my after-school intelligence officer.
A faint thumping of rubber steps beats against the cold sidewalk, distant and out of eyesight. As the sound grows closer the members of the team turn around to the fluttering sound of a man sprinting around the corner wall. I freeze as his pulsing steps draw nearer.
How did the cop find me here? Was he going to make a scene in front of all these people? My hip begins to tremble as I brace myself for a running start. My emergency senses flare, imploring me to grab Diana’s bare arm and drag her away with me. She was at the dinner, too. She’s potential bait.
Diana looks confused, but she’s firm in her position, not giving in when I try dragging her away with me. She knows what I don’t know—that the pair of black All-Star high-tops and gray sweats running toward the gym doors don’t belong to Officer Berrett but to Ben.
He looks a bit ruffled with his grubby tee and messy hair. What could’ve possibly happened to make him look so disheveled? He jogs past me and Diana, just as the doors burst open like pressurized water, letting the basketball team flood out from the gym, with Tyler at the lead.
Everyone stops to watch as the intensity in the air becomes as thick as the evening fog. The sun is hardly a promising sign, tucked behind clouds and a bruised sky.
Ben looks as if he’s about to initiate something with Tyler who’s just ten feet away. He has clenched fists and I notice his forearm veins are bulging out of his skin as he walks toward the basketball team with an intensity I hardly recognize. I can’t tell if he’s trying to look intimidating or if that’s just how a former basketball player greets his past teammates, and then I remember Corky’s little package of gossip from earlier today. That must be it. We are about to witness Ben’s wrath in the form of killing Tyler. He must believe the rumors. The one about Diana, Tyler, and the foggy parked car. This is it. The end of Tyler’s funny business. The end of Tyler.
Ben closes in on Tyler, who lets out a yelp like a frightened dog before a case of hiccups erupts from his throat. He holds a basketball from the gym in one hand and a water bottle in the other, unable to defend himself if Ben’s next move is to throw a punch. They exchange a few words and I’m unable to hear anything until someone begins to shout. But it’s not Tyler who’s shouting.
The bird-like chatter dissipates as we all try to tune in to the conversation and make out what’s being said—so loudly across the courtyard—from a visibly distressed Evan.
I’m not able to make out much of it, but the look on Evan’s face becomes unpleasant with aggression. With Ben’s back turned to me I can only imagine the face he’s giving Evan. Likely anger—he’s possibly even taunting Evan now. But as Ben backs away from both Tyler and Evan coolly, as if belligerent steps will rock a boat that’s about to sink them all, it’s clear to me Ben’s facial expression is no longer anger but confusion.
Evan lunges forward, sending a full swing at Ben. His knuckles scrape against Ben’s jaw with more force than Ben’s ready for, rocking Ben’s face back with the blow.