Driver's Ed (15 page)

But, oh, how it counted! She actually rested her head on his lower, smaller shoulder. “Mac, it was such fun! Morgan and I were having so much fun.”

“You never thought of what might happen?” he whispered.

“I thought of what might happen to
me
. I never thought of what might happen to
her
.” She was clinging to him now. “Oh, Mac! Why couldn't Denise Thompson remember the crossing? Why couldn't she have driven home a different way? Why did there have to be such a big truck coming? If she'd hit some lightweight little Chicken McNugget of a car, she'd be alive.”

I'm starting to hate the woman I killed, thought Remy. Like it's her fault. Little by little I'm not nice anymore. I want to be a nice person!

Her brother's voice was not junior high. Not taunting or teasing or obnoxious. It was sad. “You're in trouble now, Rem,” he said, as if he loved her, and was willing to be in trouble with her.

“Not if we don't tell. Oh, Mac, they really could sue us. Or put us in jail. But not if we don't tell. The odds are they can't find out unless we admit it! So we're not telling.”

Mac was quiet for a long time. “I think you're in trouble whether you tell or not,” he said at last.

“Y
ou gotta understand something,” said Nickie.

Nickie was smoking. Any minute the party guests would begin to arrive and it was entirely possible that Morgan's parents would glance out the window and see Nickie in their driveway. Mom and Dad hated both Nickie and cigarettes. Nickie was sucking slowly and
grandly, rotating smoke in his mouth, shifting his jaws, as if his smoke had more substance than other people's smoke and required space.

Nickie leaned on the Buick's open door, midswagger. He used the cigarette as a pointer.

“I'm not gonna get hooked into this,” said Nickie. “You can't prove a thing, Morgan. You're the one has that sign, remember. And in case you didn't know it, every sign has a code number on the back, so the traffic department can identify it. It isn't just any stop sign you got in your cellar, buddy. It's
the
stop sign.”

Nickie grinned. His teeth were separated, fanglike. His clothes fit even worse, as if he had grown over the weekend. How could he not notice that everything was too small on him? Didn't it make him crazy to have his pants halfway up his calf?

“You chose the sign,” said Morgan. “You picked that stop sign. You and I both took it.”

“You're lying, Morgan. And if you say I had anything to do with this, I'll ruin you.” He was calm. He was making no threat. Ruining Morgan was a fact.

Nickie sounded primitive, and yet modern. Like one of the terrible civil wars they kept studying: where brothers and cousins decided Yes, this is the day we'll shell the neighbors, murder the firemen, kill the schoolchildren, and bomb the hospital.

Morgan got sarcastic. “I should wear a bulletproof vest? Have somebody taste my food?”

Nickie smiled and in that instant Morgan saw why parents didn't want their kids near Nickie Budie. “I'll make it worse,” said Nickie gently. He spread the words through a swirl of gray smoke. The smile grew on his face and the smoke hung like the smile. “I'll tell the police, and your parents, and your friends, and all those
teachers you cozy up to, that you were
hoping
there'd be an accident. That's the kind of person you are, Morgan. You hung around the intersection, Morgan, and when it happened, you watched. You enjoyed yourself when Denise Thompson bought it.”

P
olitics drew lawyers. Campaigns and publicity excited them. The Campbell house, magnificently decorated for Christmas, was packed with lawyers. Morgan was always slightly surprised to be reminded that his father as well as his mother was a lawyer.

Men and women gathered round with puppy-dog excitement. If they'd had them, tails would have wagged continually. Instead they ran their mouths. They were lawyers, they had to talk. They couldn't say anything once, they had to say it twelve ways.

CNN, mute, ran on one television, while the stereo played Christmas carols sung by English boy choirs. A lawyer with a weight problem turned the TV channel. “I want to see if the guy runs the ad again,” he said.

Morgan was passing hors d'oeuvres. His tray had bacon-wrapped mushrooms, shrimp-filled rolls, and miniature asparagus quiches. He kept the tray steady.

The lawyer put three little quiches on a red-and-green napkin and speared a mushroom with a toothpick.

Let it be a car ad, thought Morgan, who knew perfectly well it was not a car ad. All these guests were already driving the car of their dreams.

Few were deflected from their wine and conversation. Only Morgan and the heavyweight lawyer glanced at the screen.

The ad came on.

Once more Morgan watched Denise Thompson
hold out her arms, and once more listened to the end of the story: Bobby Thompson would never hug his mother again.

Morgan's parents were over by the tree, telling where they had acquired their crystal star collection. This one in Paris, this one in San Francisco, this one in a darling little gift shop on the Cape.

“What would happen to the people who took that stop sign?” said Morgan very casually. “If they were ever found, I mean?”

Morgan's lawyer jumped right in and chewed on it. The man actually flexed his forehead wrinkles. “It's an interesting legal question. Taking a sign is only a misdemeanor. A larceny.”

Morgan set the tray down, locked his fingers together, and studied his white knuckles. “You mean it's no big deal?”

“Maybe a fine. Fifty bucks. Unless you get into reckless endangerment.”

Morgan felt his way. “And if there is reckless endangerment? Would they go to jail?”

The lawyer swallowed a baby quiche whole, like a raw oyster, chasing it with wine. He shrugged. “It's probably kids. Probably no priors. It'd be very rare for a juvenile with no priors to do time. They might get a felony sentence. One to five.”

One to five. As in
years
. One to five
years
! Out of his life!

But that was fair. Denise Thompson, after all, had no years.

“With kids, though,” said the lawyer, stabbing a toothpick through a mushroom as if he were executing it, “none of it would be served.”

“None?”

The lawyer shook his head. “Never happen. Kid would get probation and community service.”

They had been joined by a law partner of his mother's. She also took a baby quiche, but nibbled hers crumb by crumb. They were about to get a second opinion. That was fine with Morgan. He wanted to hear again about how none of the five years would be served.

“Your dad would like to see that changed, Morgan,” she said. “The system is stacked so that criminal teenagers rarely end up paying for what they do wrong. Not in money. Not in prison terms. Not in public shame. Say the person who took that sign is a male minor, which is probably the case. You prove it, but you can't even get the boy's name in the newspaper or on television to shame him, never mind jail time. What's the penalty? Basically, see, in this case, a woman dies and the kid responsible for her death sails along on a fair wind.”

“Now, wait. The law says he's not responsible,” said the other lawyer. “He's responsible only for taking the sign.”

“Correct,” said the woman, “but the law and morality don't always cross paths. Anyway, your dad's idea, Morgan, is to put the parents' name in the paper instead. Make parents responsible. So they catch little Neddy Smith, who stole this sign, but little Neddy's name cannot be printed. So instead you get
this
into the paper: The fourteen-year-old-son of Joe and Mary Smith, who live at 150 South Main Street, was convicted today of the theft of, et cetera, et cetera. Joe teaches school at Center Elementary and Mary is a real estate broker.” She finished her final crumb. “The parents,
with any luck, lose some customers, some friends, and some standing in the community. At least somebody pays a price.”

Over by the beautiful Christmas tree, glittering like one of her ornaments, Nance Campbell burst into peals of laughter. Her laugh was wonderful and room filling. Everybody turned to admire her.

The sixteen-year-old son of Rafe and Nance Campbell, of 1127 Farmington Avenue, was found guilty of stealing a stop sign, which resulted in the death of Denise Thompson. Nance Campbell is a prominent attorney. Rafe Campbell is running for governor
.

F
ood Court at the mall. A thousand strangers having pizza wedges, egg rolls, curly french fries, or frozen yogurt. A thousand strollers with a thousand cranky babies, a thousand packages resting against a thousand knees. Morgan did not see how any of those people could have a problem as big as his.

“So in other words,” said Remy, “we wouldn't go to jail, we wouldn't go to prison, we wouldn't get our names in the paper, and we wouldn't even pay much of a fine.”

Morgan made piles of salt and pepper on the table and mixed them with a thin red-and-white-striped coffee stirrer. “Right.”

“All that would happen is, our parents will hate us. Their lives will be ruined. Your father's campaign will end before it starts.”

“That,” said Morgan, “and Mr. Thompson will buy a shotgun and stalk us.”

“Oh, well, then,” said Remy. “What are we waiting for?”

They giggled hysterically. They were in a booth. They had started with Morgan on his side and Remy on hers, facing each other, but Morgan got brave and switched and was next to her now. Very next to her. The arm not lying on the table mixing salt and pepper was around her waist, pulling her in tight and warm.

Her left hand and his right balanced the glass shakers on their sides, tilted tepee-style over the salt.

Remy brushed her lips over his cheek.

He held her a little tighter. “But that's only the legal side,” said Morgan. He let out his breath so hard, the salt blew in a tiny white hurricane across the slick tabletop. “Now I have to tell you about Nickie.”

R
emy forced Henry into his high chair, but Henry was sick of the high chair and buckled his knees, curled his toes, and fought.

Using hands, elbows, and even chin, she tried to shove Henry down and jerk the tray in to hold him. Henry preferred sliding out the bottom. He slurped down like an otter until only his little nose showed above the tray.

“Some Jesus he'll make,” Mac observed. “He's lying there as limp as a war protester. The only difference is, protesters don't drool.”

Now the baby was panicking. He was too far down, couldn't get back up, and couldn't go out the bottom. “Come on, Matthew, baby, you can yell louder than that,” Mac told him.

Remy got the tray loose, hung on to the baby's right arm, hauled him back, and set him upright. It was a miracle his arm wasn't stretched several inches by all this hauling around. Henry grinned his soppy four-toothed
grin and started fighting the tray again. Remy whipped Henry on the third try and Mac smacked a bowl of Cheerios in front of him to keep him occupied.

“Mac!” yelled their mother. “He eats them dry!”

Mac had added milk. Henry joyfully splatted his fist down into the bowl. Milk and O's hit the wall. It was wonderful!

Dad, whose entrance was unheard over the shrieking and giggling and Cheerios-splatting, said, “I'm not sure that kid is really an A-one choice for Jesus this year.”

“Morgan deserves better,” agreed Remy instantly. She wanted Morgan's pageant to be perfect.

Henry stared in awe at the mess he had achieved and did it again, and managed it a third time before his mother could get in there and take the bowl away. What fun!

Too much laughing made Henry throw up, and sure enough, they leapt back with experienced timing and then had a good stirring fight about whose duty it was to clean the floor. Mac failed to see his responsibility in the matter.

“Remy, you have stars in your eyes,” said Mom, laughing.

“Every time she sees vomit, she thinks of Morgan,” explained Mac.

“You're dead, Mac Marland,” said Remy. “You—” She heard herself. Mac heard her, too, and winced.
You're dead
.

“It's that serious?” said Dad, grinning. “Even Cheerios-throw-up is romantic to you now?” He hugged her. “I like a girl in love. I'm even going to forgive you for quitting basketball, although it's not going
to be easy for me, and I want you to know how hard I'm struggling to continue loving you.”

Oh, Dad! The struggle isn't here yet.

What if Nicholas carried out his threat? What if he told these parents of hers that Morgan and Remy waited to see if somebody would get killed? Enjoyed the entertainment event of the year?

No. Remy could not,
not
, let her parents hear Nickie's horrible suggestion. Because another horror had come to Remy.

They might believe him
.

S
tarr answered the phone. She was so surprised by whatever she heard that she stared down into the receiver for a moment before she said anything. “It's Remy's mother, Morgan. For you.”

Remy told, thought Morgan. Or Mac did.

He wasn't ready. A few hours ago he'd been ready; now he was totally unprepared. It was going to be like war, and Morgan needed to have his artillery. He felt exposed and weak.

“Oh, my goodness,” said his mother. “You don't suppose something's happened, do you? Remy's hurt?”

“I love that!” said Starr. “They call Morgan when Remy goes into the hospital? That's so romantic.” She rested her chin in her hands, looking at Morgan as if he were the cover of a romance novel, instead of a useless older brother.

“Is it true that Remy's real name is Rembrandt?” said his mother. “Or is that just one of those peculiar rumors that get started out of nothing?”