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“Mom’s not too good, I’m afraid. I’m going to stay here, but don’t you come down, okay? There’s nothing you can do right now. Listen, I’ll call you after school, or this evening, and let you know how she is.”
He thinks I’m useless, she thought, because I froze when Mom was sick. “Will she be all right?”
“Yeah, she’ll be fine.”
Liar, she thought. “Are you coming home later?”
“Maybe not. I’ll let you know.”
“Dad, if she’s feeling better tomorrow—”
“I don’t think I can talk about that right now. One thing at a time. Okay?”
There was always an excuse to keep her away. “Okay,”
Zoë muttered. Left out again. She clenched the phone tight.
“There’s a good girl. Take care.”
“Bye,” she said, and the phone clicked off. She slammed the receiver down.
In the quiet she heard her clock-radio’s alarm going off in her room. It was too late to go back to bed now; she had to get ready for school. She went to shut off the awful music.
Zoë was looking under the couch for her shoes when the phone rang again. She snatched it up. Had her father changed his mind? But it was Pat Reynolds, the owner of the gallery her mother showed at.
“We’re having an opening tomorrow night,” she said.
“I thought you might like to come. I mean, I know Harry’s busy. I thought you might like to get out.”
“I don’t know, Pat,” Zoë said. “I’d feel out of place without Mom.”
“There’ll be people you know there.”
But they’d all be her parents’ friends. They would greet her with overly jolly hellos and then not know what to say next. She hated those awkward silences. She’d be miserable. “Can I think about it?”
“Sure, Zoë, call me. Take care.” They both knew she wouldn’t come.
She left early, to avoid more phone calls, although maybe that was a mistake. Usually the walk to school meant a welcome chance to think, but today she didn’t want to think. It would be all right if Lorraine were there. Lorraine could make her feel better. But Lorraine had driver’s ed at eight o’clock, and had left an hour ago. It was the only course she showed up for consistently.
The rhythm of Zoë’s steps reminded her of another walk. Who was that boy, Simon? Was he a runaway, or what? He wasn’t from around there, because he seemed to have a slight accent of some sort. He was so matter-of-fact about his parents being dead. Was he lying, she wondered, or was it so long ago it was like an old wound—only aching sometimes? Could you get used to it? If so, maybe he had something to teach her about survival. She couldn’t figure him out. One minute he was nervous, and the next he seemed so confident. It was funny, she had thought she was leading him, but now that she looked back on it, she realized he had never hesitated once, as if he knew the way. Silly, she thought. He couldn’t have.
Zoë kept her eyes on the moss-bordered flagstones of the sidewalk as she walked, glancing up to avoid the occasional pedestrian, or to cross an intersection. Step on a crack; break your mother’s back, she thought, remembering childhood magic. Then, irrationally, she was stepping into the middle of each paving stone, avoiding the grooves between them, trying to coordinate her steps at an even pace to miss the cracks. She had to hop now and then to correct her momentum. She went faster and faster, challenging the ground. Then she came to a street corner and had to stop for traffic.
Could I really make a magic spell?
she thought. If I see a silver car pass before the light changes, my mother won’t die. The light changed immediately, and she bit back a cry of dismay. I’m a child, she thought. A stupid child. No wonder they hardly ever let me see her for long.
There were only a few people outside school. It was still a long time until the bell. Zoë sat on the semicircle of stone wall that faced the flagpole to wait, but as she thought over the day’s classes, she realized she had left her calculus textbook at home. She had thought everything she needed was in her locker, but now she remembered she had last seen it on top of the refrigerator. Perhaps she had time to go back and get it. No. If she left now, she wouldn’t come back to school today.
That idea caught her fancy at once. Why should she go, anyhow? She couldn’t possibly concentrate. How much could she get done? Lorraine does it all the time, she thought, and she doesn’t get caught. And what if I did? I’ve got an excuse. A bitter snort escaped her lips. Yes, who would blame me? she decided. She got up at once and left the school grounds.
Where did people go when they skipped school? Did the police really pick you up for truancy? She had cut a few classes before, but never the whole day. She walked back the way she had come but passed her home and went to the park.
It was too early for the young mothers and their preschoolers, but there were people anyway. Two scruffy teenage boys yanked on the swing chains and tossed the seats back and forth. Bandannas sprouted from the calves of their old blue jeans like weird, bedraggled plumage. Three swings were already wrapped all the way around the top pole. Vandalism comes to Oakwood, she thought with disgust. She hoped those rats hadn’t been chewing away at the gazebo as well.
No use staying here. She didn’t feel like answering a round of “Hey, baby” ‘s from some jerks in cutoff denim and leather. One of them looked like he’d been in a fight. Great, she thought. Another place I can’t go. Just what I want, a bunch of heavy-metal maniacs invading my park.
But that was unfair. Simon wore leather, and he seemed all right. She remembered him standing in front of her, his nervous fingers unable to stay still, uncomfortable as she had been so many times. Then she had felt an empathy that had drawn her to him; now she saw what he’d been toying with. She drew her hand from her pocket and looked down. It was a star—like the one that lay in her palm, the one she had found on her back steps.
