Cryer's Cross (2 page)

On this first day she tidies up the classroom in a way that old Mr. Greenwood doesn’t, turning the wastebasket so the dent is in the right place, straightening the markers on the dry-erase board and putting them in color order to match Roy G Biv as closely as possible, opening the curtains just so. Lining up the desks into their proper places in neat quadrants, one quadrant of six desks for each high school grade. Kendall creates aisles separating the quadrants to give the teacher room to walk between them, so she can address each grade individually rather than having all twenty-four desks together. It’s the way Kendall likes things.

Nobody’s ever complained.

Nobody even knows.

The desks are ancient and sturdy beasts from the 1950s, recycled by the state from who knows where. It’s a workout moving them all, but Kendall feels better when everything is back to normal. She sees where her old desk ended up, over in the freshman quadrant this year. Now the tenth graders will have an empty seat, unless the rumors are true. There’s a new family in town, according to Nico, though Kendall hasn’t seen anyone new around town yet. Kendall
hopes they have a sophomore to fill the spot left by Tiffany, to make things in that section neat again. Though Tiffany coming back would be the best thing, of course. But Sheriff Greenwood and the local news anchors say that’s just not likely. Not after all this time has passed.

Kendall opens the curtains wide enough so that the edges of them hang in line with the sides of the windows. Her irrational fear gets the better of her and she checks the window locks, first struggling to open the windows to make sure the locks are sturdy, then running her forefinger over each lock in the same manner. “All checked and good,” she says. No one is there to hear her, but she has to say it out loud or it doesn’t count.

When she sees students walking up the yard to the little school, Kendall looks over her handiwork. The door creaks open. Kendall moves to her new desk in the senior quadrant, takes out an antiseptic wipe from her book bag, and cleans her desk quickly before anybody can see and make fun. She’s not a compulsive hand-washer, like some. But she likes to know the germ status of her own personal work space at the beginning of a school year. Doesn’t everybody?

Nico spies her and comes over. His straight white-blond hair hangs in his eyes. He’s got his father’s Spanish name but his mother’s Dutch looks. Nico swishes his hair aside and gives Kendall a half grin. Throws his book bag onto
the floor and shoves his body into the desk just to the right of Kendall. “These desks aren’t getting any bigger,” he mutters, trying to fit his knees under the metal basin. He leans over and pecks Kendall on the cheek. “Hey. Sorry I was late. You want to go up to Bozeman this Saturday?”

“What for?”

“I gotta look at Montana State. Check out the nursing school.”

The guy behind them snickers. “Nurse Nico.”

“Shut it, Brandon,” Nico says in a calm voice. He whips his arm back without looking, and it connects with the side of Brandon’s head.

“Sure,” Kendall says. “I want to check out their theatre and dance program, just in case.”

Nico flashes a sympathetic smile. “Still no word?”

“No.” The chances of a rural girl with very little formal training in theatre or dance getting into Juilliard are probably less than zero, but Kendall sees no reason not to start at the top.

Kendall idly counts bodies as everyone else files in. She subtracts last year’s seniors and Tiffany Quinn, and adds the incoming freshmen. Ms. Hinkler explains the seating arrangement to the freshmen, new to this building. She also announces to the noisy room that there will be two new students this year, which is practically unheard of.
The rumor of the new family must be true. Cryer’s Cross is, apparently, a boom town.

“Looks like it’ll be a full house this year,” Kendall murmurs. Twenty-four students. Perfection.

The two new students enter the room and everyone watches curiously. Ms. Hinkler checks them in and assigns them seats. She directs one of the new students to the senior section. He looks beyond Kendall and frowns.

“Hey,” Kendall says when he stops at the only empty desk, to the left of hers.

The guy mutters something, but he doesn’t look at her. He sits down and puts his backpack on the floor under his desk.

Nico leans over Kendall’s desk. “Hey. I’m Nico. How’s it going?”

The guy nods, almost imperceptibly, but remains silent.

Nico raises his eyebrow.

Kendall laughs. “Okay, then,” she says. “This should be fun.” She studies the new guy. He’s tough-looking and muscular. Medium-brown skin, his hair black and wavy. His clothes aren’t anything special, but they’re clean and neat. His shoes are dusty like everyone else’s. Cryer’s Cross could use some rain.

The other new student, a sophomore girl, has brown skin too, with a spattering of darker freckles across her
nose and cheeks. Black wavy hair. They’re both striking. “Is that your sister?” Kendall asks.

The new guy closes his eyes, feigning sleep, arms crossed over his chest. Kendall sighs. She turns her attention to her new desk, reading the graffiti. But it’s already familiar—she’s been reading and memorizing desk graffiti for years now. She knows every desk by heart. She can’t help it. It’s one of those OCD things.

Being Kendall is exhausting.

Once Ms. Hinkler has all the freshmen students checked in, she introduces them to the rest of the class. Like everyone else, Kendall pretty much knows them all. Some of their parents work on the Fletchers’ potato farm. But all eyes are on the transfer students. They are introduced, brother and sister indeed. The girl is Marlena and the guy is Jacián Obregon. Ms. Hinkler stumbles over his name.

“Not JAY-se-un,” he says, suddenly awake again. “Hah-see-AHN.”

Ms. Hinkler blushes. “My apologies.” She repeats it the right way. Jacián Obregon. It sounds like a melody. Or a tragedy.

It’s a boisterous, testosterone-filled day for Kendall, wedged between Nico and Jacián, with stupid Brandon directly behind her and two more guys on either side of him—Travis Shank, and Eli Greenwood, who is the son of the sheriff and
grandson of the janitor. It’s always been like this. Kendall’s the only girl her age in the entire town. It figures that when they finally get a new kid in her grade, it’s another guy.

But Nico’s there like always. He’s been her best friend ever since they were babies. He knows about Kendall’s OCD, understands it, and it doesn’t bother him at all. Best guy in the world? Kendall thinks so. She gives him a wide smile when she passes the syllabus to him.

At lunch Kendall and Nico trade sandwiches like they’ve done every day since kindergarten, except when Nico brings tuna salad, which Kendall can’t stand. They eat together in the grass, talking about college options and how it’s going to suck to be apart.

After school Kendall and Nico head to soccer practice out in the field behind the building. Soccer here is coed and all varsity since there aren’t enough high school girls in Cryer’s Cross to make up a girls’ team, and there aren’t enough students who want to play soccer to have a JV team as well. Kendall’s the only girl to stick it out. And she’s better than most of the guys.

As Kendall finishes stretching, Jacián shows up to the field, dressed in Nike soccer apparel like they’re sponsoring him or something. Kendall jogs in place, rubber band between her teeth, and whips her hair into a ponytail as she watches him walk. She can tell he’s an athlete. She says his
name to herself so she doesn’t forget how to pronounce it—not a lot of Jaciáns around here.

A moment later Marlena appears, dressed for practice in less obvious designer sportswear. She sees Jacián and runs toward him.

Kendall stares. “They’re both playing?” she says under her breath to Nico.

“Looks that way.” Nico grabs a ball from the ball bag and tosses it at the ground in front of Kendall, who captures it with her foot and dribbles automatically away from the others.

“Well, we definitely have room on the team.” They pass the ball back and forth. Kendall thinks of the four team members they lost to graduation last year.

“Yeah, there’s too much room, and only one freshman that I know of wants to join us. And this new girl. I suppose Coach will take anybody with a pulse. But we’re still short. How many is that, number girl?”

“Eight,” Kendall says automatically.

“Yowch.” He scratches his head. “I hope Coach can recruit a few more, or we’re going to be killing ourselves playing against full teams.”

Kendall squints and shrugs. “We’re not the only team with low numbers. We can do it with eight. Though it’ll be hell playing Bozeman teams with the full eleven.” She watches the Obregons stretch, waiting to see what they
can do. “You know, it might be nice having another girl around,” she says finally. “Jacián, on the other hand . . . Well, I guess it won’t make a difference.”

When Jacián plows into Kendall during a four-on-four practice scrimmage and leaves her with the wind knocked out of her, though, she realizes he actually might make a difference. “Asshole,” she mutters when she gets her wind back. “Coach, hello! That was a foul.” She gets back up and runs to help protect her goal, but it’s too late. Jacián scores against her team.

After practice Kendall follows Marlena to the tiny girls’ locker room, which is more of a lean-to against the school building than anything else. “You guys are good,” Kendall says.

Marlena smiles. “Thanks. Jacián is great. I’m just okay.” Her voice is warm and rich.

“You’re way better than Brandon,” Kendall says, feeling generous.

“Which one is he?”

“The immature senior loser with the light brown hair. Kinda big and dopey, about this tall.” She holds up her hand to about six feet four. “He sits behind me in school. I’m sure you know who I mean. The guy who
didn’t actually manage to touch the ball the entire scrimmage but fell down multiple times.”

“Yeah. I think so.” She grins.

They strip down, clean up, and change back into street clothes, layering on deodorant. Couldn’t shower even if they wanted to, but there’s a sink at least. “So,” Kendall says, “what’s your brother’s problem?”

Marlena raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“He’s not very friendly. Hasn’t said a word.”

“Oh, that. He’s just upset,” Marlena says. She lowers her voice, even though it’s just the two of them. “He doesn’t really want to be here.”

“Why not?”

Marlena shrugs. “Moving away from all his friends for his senior year. Leaving his girlfriend, trying to do a long-distance-relationship thing. And then when we got here . . . Well, you probably know.”

“Know what?”

“About the sheriff coming over. Right when we moved in. Everybody seems to know everybody else’s business here.”

Kendall shakes her head. “I don’t know. I was isolated on a tractor twelve hours a day all summer. What happened?”

Marlena pulls a makeup bag from her backpack and starts applying eyeliner. “Well, we moved here in May,
right after our school year was done down in Arizona. Right before that girl Tiffany disappeared, I guess. Sheriff Greenwood and the state police thought maybe Jacián had something to do with it.”

Kendall’s eyes widen. Her heart skips, and the irrational fear wells up. “Oh. . . .” The word gets caught in her throat, and bad thoughts start looping.

“He didn’t, though, obviously. After a while the sheriff stopped bugging him.” Marlena scowls as she swipes her lips with gloss. “Jacián was really pissed off, though. Called the sheriff a racist.”

Kendall swallows hard. “So . . . why did you guys move here?”

“My grandfather.” She replaces the cap and fishes around in her makeup bag. “He’s getting older, and his business wasn’t doing very well. He’s not keeping up with technology. Still uses horses to round up cattle. Can you believe that? My mother and father decided to come here and take care of things. Family is a big deal to them. To all of us.” Marlena turns to look at Kendall. “Are you all right?”

Kendall stops staring at Marlena and turns on the faucet, washes her hands, stares at the water instead. “Wait . . . so, who’s your grandfather? I don’t know any Obregons around here.”

“It’s my mother’s father. Hector Morales. A mile down RR-4.”

Kendall grins. “Oh, Hector’s Farm! Everybody loves him. We buy lots of stuff from him—milk, beef. I didn’t know he was having trouble.” Somehow, Marlena and Jacián being related to Hector makes them a little less scary.

“It’s not too bad, my mother says. He’s just not able to keep up with beef orders as well as he used to, and he lost some cattle over the winter. Plus, he’s too stubborn to hire help, so I guess he lost some commercial business. We’re trying to get it back.”

“Well, we’ll keep buying all our stuff from you guys, I’m sure. And the cool thing is you can ride. He’s got beautiful stables. You can even ride to school if you want. There’s a hitching post over on the side of the building.”

“No way, really?” Marlena grins and picks up her backpack. “This place is so old-fashioned. We rode back home too, but just for fun. It’s in the blood, I think. We’ll be switching Grandpa over to four-wheelers soon.” Somebody outside the building pounds on the wall, and Marlena startles.

“That’ll be Nico,” Kendall says. She grabs her bag. “Nice getting to know you.”

Marlena smiles. “Don’t let my brother get to you. He’s just pretty mad about everything right now.”

“No kidding,” Kendall says. She pushes the door open and comes face-to-face with Jacián Obregon.

He glares.

She glares back, but her stomach twists. “You fouled me,” she says.

He doesn’t speak for a moment. When he does, his voice is lower than she expects. “Stay out of my way, then, if you don’t want to get hurt.” He dismisses Kendall by the mere act of looking beyond her, to Marlena. “Come on, Lena,” he says sharply. He turns in the dirt and starts walking toward the parking area.

Marlena smiles an apology to Kendall and takes off after Jacián. “See you tomorrow,” she calls out.

Kendall waves halfheartedly at Marlena as Nico walks up. “He’s a jerk.”