A Heart Divided (18 page)

TIA: Well, what are we supposed to do, just let them take over our school?

CINDY: We don’t have to worry about that. Kids at this school are such sheep.
Baa-a-a.
We rule this school. We tell the sheep how to vote, and we win.

TIA: You’re right, Cindy.

DAN: Yes. I agree.

TIA: After we win, I’m going to tell them: We won, you lost. So you and all your low-life, agitating, boon-coon buddies can kiss my lily-white Confederate flag-waving ass.

Sick to my stomach, I basically quit reading, though the scene went on for several pages in the same ugly vein. God. Everyone must have seen it. That’s why people were acting so weird. I thought of Jack. Would he think for even a moment that I’d written it?

I whirled toward the door the moment Mr. McSorley came back to his office. “This is some kind of… of sick joke. I did not write this!”

“Frankly, Miss Pride, I don’t believe you.” He sat heavily behind his desk.

“Mr. McSorley, whoever wrote this doesn’t know what they’re doing. It’s not even in correct play form. Plus, the writing is terrible. Why would I do something like that?”

“You’re the only one who can answer that, Miss Pride. I’m certain you didn’t want copies floating all over the
school just yet—I suppose you planned to spring the entire work on us at some point—but someone beat you to the punch.”

“That’s not true,” I insisted.

He gave me a jaundiced look. “This school has a strict code against hate speech. In my book, what you wrote merits immediate suspension.”

“You can’t suspend me for something I didn’t do.”

Anger flashed in his eyes. “This is not a court of law. It’s my school, and I’ll decide how to proceed. Now, I’m going to call your—”

There was a discreet rap on his door. It opened. Sara Fife stuck her head in. “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir. But I heard you brought Kate Pride in here, and I really do need to speak with you. About her play.”

He motioned her in. My hands clenched into twin fists of rage, realizing that this incident could easily ruin our new friendship. I held the stapled pages out to her, praying that she’d believe what I was about to say. “Sara, I did not write this.”

“I know that,” she said calmly. “That’s why I’m here.”

I exhaled with relief. Mr. McSorley looked momentarily thrown. He rubbed one eyebrow. “Okay, Sara, have a seat. Let’s hash this thing out.”

She did. Then she talked for five minutes straight, recounting some of our conversation at Starbucks and backing up my claim. “Mr. McSorley, I know for a fact that Kate has been interviewing people on both sides of the issue.

She’s trying to be open-minded. I respect that. Kate and I may have had our differences in the past. But I don’t believe she wrote this.”

Mr. McSorley’s lips were pressed into a thin line. He bounced a pencil on his desk while we waited. “Okay,” he said finally. “The jury is still out on this thing. I have to do some investigating, then we’ll take this up again. Both of you, get to first period.”

“Yes, sir,” Sara said as we both stood up. “Thanks for listening.”

We left the office. When we reached the hall, I realized I was shaking. Sara lightly touched my shoulder. “You okay?”

“No.” I took a ragged breath. “Thank you for what you just did.”

She shrugged. “It was the right thing to do.”

I smiled gratefully. “Do you have any idea who—”

She shook her head. “Someone who hates you. Well, I’d better get going.”

I thanked her again and we took off in opposite directions. My feet carried me to Miss Bright’s room; I felt as if I was about to face the guillotine. When I pushed through the door, Miss Bright was midlecture. “In commedia dell’arte, the actor uses movement to—”

The moment Miss Bright saw me, she stopped and plastered her fluttering hands against her sides, as if willing herself not to wrap them around my neck. I looked at my classmates. Everyone was staring daggers at me. And then
my eyes found Jack’s. He was gazing at me with such love and solidarity. He gave me strength. I realized I didn’t have to act guilty if I wasn’t guilty. “Miss Bright, may I please say something?”

“No, Kate, you may not,” she replied. “I believe you’ve disrupted this class enough already. Now take your seat or leave. I really don’t care which.”

I made the endless twenty-five-foot walk to my desk. As I did, I saw copies of “my” play on desks and sticking out of backpacks. Everyone had read it. And they all loathed me for it.

Miss Bright resumed her lecture. For the rest of the period I sat stone-faced, staring at the ring I wore on the thumb of my right hand. Silver, with a tiny diamond chip, I’d inherited it from my father’s mother, Gramma Rose. She had really loved me. I reminded myself that lots of people loved me. My parents. Portia. Lillith. And Jack.

“Kate?”

I looked up. Nikki stood by my desk, backpack slung over one shoulder. Next to her was Jack. “The bell rang,” he said.

“I can’t think of a good reason to move.”

“Well, we can sit with you,” Nikki offered. “Or we can blow this pop stand.”

I stood. “So, today pretty much sucks.”

“We pretty much know,” Nikki acknowledged.

“I can’t believe… I just can’t believe…” I couldn’t get the words out.

Jack ran his knuckles softly over my cheek. “No one who really knows you could ever believe you wrote that thing, Kate.”

I felt pathetically grateful. Or maybe just plain pathetic. I hugged him. Then I hugged Nikki. Then I hugged him again. Over his shoulder I could see kids gawking through the open door.

“We could make this a three-way hug and really give them something to talk about,” Nikki suggested.

I dredged up a weak laugh. Then our trio headed out to face the storm.

There had been hundreds of copies of “my” scene distributed around school before anyone arrived, and the scene had been written so that to anyone but the most anarchic of the pierced-punk battalion, I’d be an instant pariah. Even those against the flag decided that I was an outsider who’d branded Redford with my poison pen. Jack and Nikki tried to convince people it wasn’t my doing, but few believed them.

Throughout the day, Jack demonstrated his boundless optimism. He assured me this was nothing more than the high school
scandale du jour
, and that tomorrow or the next
day it would be—as it always was—on to the next. Even when his friends froze him out, his spirits stayed high; he was sure it wouldn’t last.

But his optimism couldn’t shield me from the anonymous calls that started the moment I got home. Sometimes they came one after another, sometimes a half hour would pass before the next one. There were different voices, male and female, all well disguised. “We don’t want your kind in Redford.” “I hope you rot in hell, bitch.”

My parents phoned the police, who told us they’d run some extra patrols past our home and advised us to turn off the ringer on the phone.

For obvious reasons, I had trouble sleeping that night. Two o’clock in the morning found me at the kitchen table, taking solace in peanut butter cookies and my dog-eared copy of
The Crucible.
It seemed like appropriate reading material: My peers had pronounced me guilty and were ready to hang me for something I hadn’t done.

“Couldn’t sleep, huh?”

I looked up. My mom stood in the doorway, wrapped in her favorite, oldest bathrobe. I nodded, feeling about five years old. She came and hugged me. I wished her strength would seep into me through that ratty robe of hers. But it didn’t. Too soon, she let me go.

“Want some milk?” she asked. I said I did. She poured us glasses, handed me one, and sat down. “At the risk of understatement, Kate, I know this is tough for you.”

“I worked so hard to get Jack’s friends to accept me. And they finally did. Even Sara. Now it’s ruined.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to use all this in the play you’re
actually
writing.”

“What play? I haven’t written one decent scene yet.”

“You will.”

“Ha. It’s November, and all I can do is interview people for some stupid thing I can’t actually write. Not that it matters,” I added with a bitter laugh. “What’s the point?”

“Listen to me, sweetie. These are small-town, small-minded people. And frankly, I don’t think they’re going to change anytime soon.” She pinched the spot between her eyes where her headaches began. “I honestly believed that moving here as a family would be the best thing for us. But I was wrong. Portia’s fine, I’m fine, and it was the best thing for your dad. But it wasn’t the best thing for you.”

“I don’t blame you, Mom, if that’s what you think—”

“I know you don’t. But your dad and I have discussed what I’m about to tell you. We’re in complete agreement. I’m calling Lillith’s parents in the morning. If they okay it, and I’m sure they will, you can go home. You can live with them and go back to Englecliff High. And I’ll call Marcus, too, and try to get you back into Showcase. You haven’t missed much time, really.”

Two thoughts slammed into my brain at the same time: One was: a lifeline. The other I said aloud: “I’d have to leave Jack.”

She regarded me for a moment. “Did I ever tell you that I once did an internship at
Newsweek?”

“No.”

“Right out of college. I had all these plans. I was going
to be an investigative journalist and change the world. I used to carry around
All the President’s Men
, the book about the Watergate scandal, like a Bible.”

“I thought you always wrote… well, what you write.”

She gave me an arch look.
“‘Sex Tips of the Supermodels’?
Hardly.”

“So what happened?”

“I could say life happened. I got married. Had you. Had Portia. But those are just excuses. Turned out the world was not holding its breath waiting for me to become the next Bob Woodward. Writing fluff, though, came easily to me. I took the path of least resistance.”

“Are you sorry?”

“Only when I let myself think about it,” she said lightly, “which doesn’t happen too often.” She leaned toward me. “Listen to me, Kate. You are a better writer than I will ever be. You have a gift.”

“You’re the only one who thinks so.”

“I
know
so. You can’t let these people, or your relationship with Jack, sidetrack you.”

“From what? Whether or not I write the stupid play?”

Her eyes searched mine. “Do you have any idea how common it is for girls to let love consume their life? All the passion that should go into their dreams and their futures goes into loving some guy.”

“That’s not what I’m doing!” A lump rose in my throat. “God, why do I always have to prove myself to you?”

She looked surprised. “Is that what you think?”

“Jack’s mother hates me. His friends hate me. Complete
strangers
hate me. And it hurts, okay? That’s all I know right now. It hurts.”

“Oh, Kate.” She reached for me again, and rocked me like she hadn’t since I was a little girl who still believed my mother had the ability to make everything okay. “It’s going to be fine, honey. You’ll go home. You’ll be happy again.”

I sat back and fisted the tears from my cheeks. “You really think I should go home?”

“Absolutely. And sweetie? If you never wrote another word, I’d still be proud of you. Night, Kate. Try to get some sleep.”

“Night, Mom.”

I didn’t get any sleep. Instead, I sat at the table until the sun rose, thinking about what she’d said. If I went back to Englecliff, I’d get my life back. But there’d be no Jack. If I stayed in Redford, I’d have Jack. But there’d be no life.

Jack picked me up for school. He looked squeaky clean and shiny; I looked as bedraggled as I felt. But he just held me close and said everything would be all right. I wanted to believe him so much.

When we parked and got out of the car, we heard the commotion; the sounds of chanting and rhythmic clapping. But we couldn’t understand what was being said until we’d rounded the corner and the main entrance was in view.