The Cat That Went to Homecoming (16 page)

“Maybe through Haley he will learn how to be
more considerate of those of us who are different,” I added.

“Maybe he has already.” She said, “You won’t
know unless you talk to him and find out what he has to say.”

I thought her point was valid, but it was
most likely me that had changed, not him. The only way I’d know for
sure was to see it for myself. Mom’s remark nagged at me the entire
time I was getting Hershey settled in back at home. I passed my
vanity then stepped back in front of it, looking myself over. The
abrasion on my face was almost fully healed, but you could still
tell that something had happened. I fluffed my hair a little,
grabbed a lip gloss off the vanity and rolled it on. Maybe it
wouldn’t hurt to take a few minutes out of my afternoon to chat
with Mr. Perfect.

Mom gave me a few dollars to buy a hot dog
and chips at the concession stand. She then went to meet one of her
girlfriends who was in the beer tent listening to a local band
perform. Before she left, we agreed to text each other about where
and when to meet up later.

I thought I was fine until I was within ten
feet of St Augustine’s concession stand. Then the butterflies
started to take flight in my stomach and my legs were wobbly. I
hoped that John had decided to find something else to do. I didn’t
think I’d be able to talk without stuttering. That would give him
more fodder to use against me! When I turned to escape the area, he
was behind me.

“I’m glad you changed your mind,” he said.
“Come on, let’s get in line and order before they run out of food.
They look pretty busy.”

I could see Cindy at the cash register at the
head of the line. I tried to see if Brandon was there and prayed
that he wasn’t.

“Ellen!’ Cindy shrieked when we reached the
head of the line. She tried to reach over the counter to hug me,
but the counter was too high. As she reached across the counter,
she noticed I was with John.

“What’s going on here?” she asked as she slid
back to a standing position, looking from me to John and back to me
again.

“I’m really not sure. John wanted to talk to
me and asked me to meet him here,” I said, hoping she could sense
my fear and save me.

“Do you think that’s wise?” She leaned in and
said quietly.

“No,” I replied honestly, “but it’s too late
now.”

Cindy greeted John. “Hi, John, how has
football practice been going? Do you think we have a winning team
this year?” she asked.

“I sure hope so. I’d like that a lot. Coach
pushes us pretty hard and some of the younger guys can’t handle it.
It’s just a good thing I’m as fit as I am,” he said, egotistical as
always. That hadn’t changed!

“Are you sure you should eat any of the items
we have? Hot dogs and burgers probably aren’t a good choice for an
athlete,” she said with a hint of sarcasm.

“I’ll be able to burn the calories off with
no problem,” he said, as if he caught her sarcasm. “Ellen, what
would you like?’

“John, I will pay for my own meal. You go
ahead and order first.” I said nervously.

“No, Ellen, I am paying. I asked you to meet
me here. I’m paying.” He faced Cindy and placed his order, “I’d
like a cheeseburger, two hot dogs, a bag of chips, and a large
Coke.” Then he looked at me and waited for my order. For some
reason, I thought one of the hot dogs he ordered was for me, not
realizing he meant to eat all of that by himself!

“Oh! I’m sorry; I thought you ordered for me
already,” I said. “I’d just like a hot dog.”

He laughed, “I can’t help that I eat a lot,”
he patted his stomach, “I’m a growing boy,” he added.

Cindy wrote down our orders and handed the
ticket to the staff behind her. I looked around for Brandon, but
thankfully he was not there.

“Ellen, your mom was here earlier. She
invited Sarah, Margaret, and me to join you guys later tonight for
the fireworks. Sarah and Margaret left a little while ago. They’re
getting us some subs to eat later. I ordered you a turkey sub. Is
that okay?”

“That’ll be awesome,” I said as I fumbled
through my purse for some money to pay for my food, but John beat
me to it. I argued a little to get Cindy to charge me for my own
hot dog, but it didn’t work.

“When you are off duty, text me and we’ll
meet up,” I said to Cindy.

“I will do that,” Cindy said, “it looks like
we have a lot to talk about.”

Once he had our food, we headed to the
condiment station to add our ketchup and onions. Then we looked
around for somewhere to sit. John found a pretty secluded spot
behind the stand, so we sat on the grass and made ourselves
comfortable.

John started out by asking me how my summer
has been. I gave him short responses, not revealing much.

“How was your summer?”

“Good.”

“Did you go on any vacations?

“No.”

“Are you working at all?”

“Yes.”

“Boy, you aren’t very talkative, are you?” he
said with a mouthful of hot dog, which was not at all
attractive!

“No, I’m not,” I replied. I kept my eyes
peeled for any sign of trouble, watching for Darcel.

“So when is she going to be here?” I suddenly
got bold enough to ask.

“When is
who
going to be here?” he
asked, again with a mouth full of food. Yuck!

“Darcel. This is a set-up, right? What’s the
plan, John? Beat me up in plain sight of the entire town?” I asked,
feeling even more daring.

“You are really paranoid, aren’t you?” he
said rhetorically. I put my hot dog down on the ground and looked
him straight in the eyes.

“Paranoid? Do you see this scar on my face?”
I asked, pointing out the nearly healed abrasion on my cheek. “This
is what Darcel did to me after my mom got you kicked out of
Summerfest. The two of you have been bullying me for years, but to
escalate from verbal to physical gives me reason to be cautious!” I
said, full of pent-up anger and frustration.

He looked down at the ground in shame. “I am
so sorry, Ellen. I didn’t know Darcel had attacked you. I haven’t
even seen her or spoke to her since that night.”

“Bullshit,” I said. I was an entirely
different person. Maybe it was his disgusting eating habits that
showed me he was not the perfect specimen that everyone always
thought he was, or maybe it was my anger at the way he had treated
me over the years. At any rate, I felt like I finally had a
backbone. “I’m sure she let your entire Facebook community know
about it. I bet I was the talk of the popular crowd,” I said in
disgust.

“Ellen, I don’t even talk to Darcel anymore,”
he said grabbing onto my shoulders and lightly shaking me to calm
me down. “Listen to me, I am not the same person I was before. My
time with Haley has changed me.”

“I don’t believe you. A tiger can’t change
its stripes John,” I said.

“Will you at least let me explain something
to you?” he pleaded. When I nodded, he went on to tell me about his
niece.

“For three years of Haley’s life, I avoided
her. She has Down syndrome and I was embarrassed by her,” he said.
“My sister is a single mom. Haley’s dad ran off when he found out
he had an imperfect child. My sister and Haley had to move back
home in June. I’ve been helping my sister out by babysitting while
she works and I’ve been doing it all summer long.”

John went on to tell me how he was afraid to
be seen with Haley at first and would not take her out in public
because he didn’t want to be ridiculed. He spent time with her at
home playing, watching movies, and reading. Then one day after he
got his driver’s license, he decided to take Haley out for ice
cream. They ran into Darcel. She was polite, but aloof at the same
time.

“She wouldn’t interact with Haley or even
look at her,” he said. “Haley is very friendly and talkative, as
you saw for yourself. She doesn’t know she’s any different than
anyone else.”

Darcel had asked John to go to the concert
with her that night and he agreed. “That was a big mistake,” he
said.

When he picked Darcel up, she had a bottle of
vodka in her purse and immediately began taking swigs out of it. He
was less than thrilled, especially since he had just gotten his
driver’s license and did not want to get pulled over with an open
bottle of vodka in the car. Darcel was being such a pain in the
ass, hanging out of the window and shouting at people. He was sure
he’d be pulled over.

He said the afternoon went from bad to worse.
He was convinced Darcel was high on something, and the vodka on top
of it was turning her into a raging bitch. He thought if he got her
something to eat, he could sober her up and that was when they ran
into my mom and me.

“It was a horrible mistake to point you out.
I should have known better. The security guard came over and
questioned us because there had been a complaint about our
behavior. Darcel immediately started to swear at him and act like a
fool. He tried to remove us and I was okay with that, but Darcel
wasn’t. She carried on like a lunatic. We couldn’t calm her down so
he had to call in reinforcements. Needless to say, we were removed
from the grounds, but thankfully, the security guards did not call
in the cops and no tickets were issued.”

He went on to tell me that he got her in his
car and started driving them home. Darcel carried on and on about
how much she hated me, and how it was my fault they were
evicted.

“She told me that my sister should hire you
to baby-sit for my ‘retarded ass niece’ because I deserved to be
free from such a terrible job.” He looked angry. His hands were
clenched into fists. “At that moment, I had an epiphany. Darcel’s
cruel comment opened my eyes. I love my niece. She’s special to me.
There is no reason to treat her any differently than anyone else.
There’s also no reason to treat YOU any differently than anyone
else. What gives us the right to judge another person?”

After dropping Darcel off at home, he said he
went straight home and went to Haley’s room. He watched her sleep
for a few minutes, kissed her forehead, and went straight to his
laptop. He searched for a local Down syndrome support group, and
had been actively attending meetings ever since.

“Like I said, I have not spoken to Darcel or
seen her since that night. I deleted her from Facebook and I
blocked her number from my phone. When I saw her at the skating
rink, I took off before she could find me. A few of the guys at
practice the other day told me she was trying to reach me. She told
one of them to get the message to me, but I still don’t want to
speak to her.”

Was he making this up? This was the guy who
would poke me with pencils to ‘pop’ me. I didn’t know if I should
believe this story or not.

I thought about the gentle way he handled
Haley earlier today. I thought back to the night at Summerfest, and
remembered that he didn’t say anything other than ‘Isn’t that
Ellen?’ At the skating rink, he had followed me, uninvited, to sit
and try to strike up a conversation with me. What was going on
here?

“Wow, John, I’m not sure how to react right
now,” I finally said. “I really don’t. I want to believe you, but
you can understand why I’m skeptical. You haven’t been a very nice
person over the years. You’ve been a real asshole.”

“I know, and I don’t blame you, Ellen. Please
believe me. I am being sincere right now. I am sorry for all the
things I’ve said and done to you.”

There it was, the apology I had daydreamed
about for so long. It was a surreal moment for me so I had to soak
it in. Summer vacation was ending in two days. I was going to be
sorry to see it end because this was the summer that had changed my
life.

“I accept your apology,” I said and nothing
more. No long speech and no throwing old wrongs in his face. I just
accepted his apology and mentally told myself that I was moving
on.

He asked me to hang out with him until Cindy
was off duty. I had nothing better to do, so I agreed. I didn’t
feel any threat from him. We walked through the Midway and he got
suckered into a game. He had to pop balloons with a dart. The
balloons must have been made of steel because it cost him eight
dollars before he finally succeeded. He chose a giant stuffed pink
dog for his prize and gave it to me. It felt strange to be walking
through the park with the most popular guy in the town, carrying a
stuffed dog he had won for me. I saw the looks on the faces of kids
in our age group, some I knew and some I didn’t. I didn’t know
which shocked them more, the change in me or the fact that I was
with John Peck. It didn’t matter which it was because I felt
confident.

John and I were waiting in line to go on a
ride when my phone went off. I figured it was Cindy.

“I suppose that means you have to go,” John
said, as I read the text.

“Um, yeah, I do,” I stammered, closing my
phone. “I’m sorry, but I really do have to go. I had a lot fun with
you today.”

“Can I at least get your number?” he
asked.

“Sure,” I recited my number to him and he
entered it into his phone right away.

“Can I walk you to wherever you are going to
meet Cindy?” he asked.

“Actually, it’s not Cindy that I’m meeting
and I’d rather go myself. Thanks anyway,” I replied.

Chapter
Nineteen

Fireman’s Park was located across the street
from the library. According to the text I got from Brandon a few
minutes ago, this was where I’d find him. I made my way through the
park and headed for the library. My thoughts were confused as I
crossed the street and saw him sitting on a step in front of the
building. I stopped for a second to look at him. From that
distance, he didn’t look like he had been in a fight, but as I got
closer, I saw his nose was swollen and he had a black eye that was
in the yellow-green stage.