A Certain Slant of Light (34 page)

  
"A friend gave it to me," I told her. As if she would try to pull
it from my bag to examine it for fingerprints, I rested my arm
over the button.

  
"Why don't you wear the button Grandma sent you?" said
Cathy. "What would Jesus do?"

  
WWJD.
That's
what it meant. "This is Dickens," I reassured
her. "It's academic."

  
"Not everything academic is moral," said Cathy.

  
This struck me as a very disturbing way to live life. I felt an
noyed with her suspicion of literature but kept my mouth shut.

  
Once at school, I unbuckled my seat belt as fast as I could.

  
"Behave yourself," she warned as I stepped out.

  
"God bless us every one!" I said, and waved her off, feeling
not a bit guilty that I would be lying to her when I saw her next.

  
On my way to class I bent to pick up a penny from the ground
and then stood up too quickly; I don't know which it was, that I
hadn't eaten anything since the night before, or that I remem
bered what I saw in Dan's briefcase. But everything went gray for
a moment, and I heard a warping echo sound like being under water. Next a janitor and a teacher I didn't know were helping
me up. After assuring them that I didn't need to go to the nurse's
office, I put my bag back over my shoulder and slipped away into
the crowd. I left the penny unclaimed and missed making a wish.

  
The jackknife Dan put in his briefcase wasn't a new one. It
was worn, the ivory sides scratched and brown with age. And the
stack of letters was tied with a ribbon. The framed picture wasn't
a recent portrait of his family but an old black-and-white print of
himself holding up a fish he'd caught. It wasn't what you gather
before you go on a business trip.

  
It was what you take when you know the house is going to
burn down.

  
Like other half days I'd spent with Mr. Brown, each class was
only thirty minutes long. Still, first period seemed like hours. I
was too restless to sit at a desk. I didn't go to the rest of my classes
but instead meandered the paths during passing periods. When I saw something I thought Jenny would like, I opened the camera,
the way I'd seen Mr. Brown do with his, and took a picture of it.
The photographs sprang out all gray and turned into images like ghosts materializing. A dead leaf caught on a window, a squirrel
sitting on the grass beside a sign that said, KEEP OFF THE GRASS.

  
And even Mr. Brown. I saw him stop and talk to a boy on his way across the quad. His briefcase was fat with his novel inside.
After the night I'd flown from him to James, he seemed anxious
around the eyes. Today he looked like himself. I watched from a
distance and waited until he was moving toward a farewell with
the student; then I caught him on film. I watched the image
darken on the slick little square of paper—a stolen moment of
Mr. Brown's life. He was smiling, giving a wave over his shoulder,
the white wall of the administration building behind him like a
primed canvas. I put the picture into my bag, keeping it safe from bending by slipping it between two of my books.

  
While classes were in session, I hid in the girls' restroom.
During passing periods, I collected several black-and-white pic
tures, filing them away with the portrait of Mr. Brown. By 11:30
the day was nearly done, and the students were to gather in the
auditorium for an assembly. I shuffled through the crowded halls
with my classmates, who celebrated their nearing freedom by
teasing one another, trying to trip one another, boys bumping
into girls on purpose and bearing the reprimands cheerfully.

  
I had just entered the dim theater when a hand grabbed my
wrist and James pulled me into the back row of seats.

  
"Does your mother know about the half day?" he whispered.

  
"No.".

  
We sat quietly, merely holding hands hidden by the armrest
until the aisle cleared and everyone was seated. James leaned over
toward me but stopped when a security guard stepped into our row from the other side and stood there to watch the program.
The principal tried to quiet the hall. James moved close to my ear.

  
"Mitch is right. I am irresponsible."

  
"Why?"

  
"For not using protection."

  
The thought hadn't occurred to me until that moment. There
would be no reason these two bodies couldn't create life. I instantly felt afraid, as frightened as I had been when Mr. Brown
was naming his unborn child.

  
But James was not thinking of babies. "Before I came along,"
he whispered, "Billy could've been with a girl who had a disease that could kill you."

  
My pulse calmed. This seemed a trifle. The rules of this world
were a wisp of smoke, easily waved away. "We're all right," I told
him.

  
The principal made an announcement, and then the cheer
leaders danced to taped music. We had to speak into each other's
ears.

  
"When we're married," I said, "we should travel."

  
I wasn't sure he had heard, but after a pause he said, "By
train."

  
"And ship," I said. "To England."

  
"And China."

  
"And Africa."

  
James brushed the hair away from my ear. "We can read to
each other every night."

  
I rested my hand on his throat and could feel his heart beat
ing. I tried to bring my pulse in stride with his, but mine had a
faster gait. "What will we do for money?" I asked.

  
"I'd do anything," he said. "I'd dig ditches for you."

  
"I'd scrub floors for you," I told him.

  
As the applause for the dance faded, James jumped at the roll
of a drum. He looked to the stage where the band was marching in from the wings. His attention had been stolen, a suitor called
from my porch by a bugle's call. He watched the band and not
me. I held the collar of his shirt, my hand hanging over his heart
like a medal.

  
Finally the student body was dismissed, and James pulled me
out the door, taking my book bag as we broke into daylight. I could feel that he wanted to run, and I did too, but we walked,
hoping to avoid attention. When we got to the parking lot, he
didn't move to the bike rack but led me toward the sidewalk.

  
"Are we walking?" I asked.

  
"My chain broke."

  
Half a block down at the city bus stop, we stood holding
hands with our book bags at our feet. Students passed on bikes
and on foot, a few laughing and yelling out the windows of
passing cars, but none waited with us for the bus. One old man reading the paper sat on the bench. A car honked at a gray-and-
white dog that trotted along the gutter across the street. As the
animal turned suddenly into traffic, my heart jumped for the
poor thing.

  
"Diggs!" James leaped into the traffic. A car screeched to a
stop inches from his outthrust hands. "Look out!" His eyes were
wild, and he was shaking as the dog shot guiltily between his legs
out of the street and into an alley. Two other cars honked as well. James breathed deeply and blinked back tears as the driver of the
stopped car rolled down his window and yelled, "Moron!"

  
James stepped back up on the curb as the traffic resumed.

  
"Was that your dog?" I asked him.

  
James took my hand. "I don't have a dog."

  
"Then who's Diggs?"

  
"Diggs?" He looked puzzled for a moment but shrugged it off
with a smile. "I don't know."

  
A woman pushing a stroller passed us. The baby's hoarse cry
sent a shiver through my heart. But then James put a protective
arm around my waist, and I felt something relax inside me, like a
braid unbound. I felt completely at home, as if we could go any
where together with luggage no bigger than the two bags we had
with us, and be perfectly happy until mortal age crumbled us to
dust.

  
Even then, watching the hands of the elderly gentleman
seated near us rub together like grooming birds, I wondered why
old age should stop us. Could we not find two young abandoned
bodies again when these bodies died?

  
When the bus arrived, James dropped several coins into the
slot beside the driver. Up the narrow aisle we marched, making
sure our book bags didn't bump into the passengers. As we took
an empty row near the back, it felt as if we were on our honey-
moon, eloping, escaping by stagecoach. I wanted to kiss him, but
two nuns sat directly behind us. James pressed so close to me, one
of the sisters could have fit on the seat with us.

  
I kept my voice low. "Are you sure the house will be empty?"

  
James smiled but took a moment to speak. "Mitch's last girl
friend didn't leave him."

  
This change of subject was so sudden I didn't answer.

  
"He broke off their relationship because he caught her giving
Billy drugs. His friend Benny told me."

  
"Mitch loves you," I said. The shadows, as the bus rattled un
der poles and wires, flashed across his face like a silent movie.

  
"Last night he was reminding me about once when Billy was
thirteen and they were trying to chase a mouse out of the garage. Billy put on this monster mask to scare it. Mitch was laughing so
much when he told me, he could hardly breathe," said James.
"He told me a dozen things I'd done that I couldn't remember, of
course. Silly things."