Dark Hope Page 4

  When I turned the corner back into the front room, I spied Mrs. Bibeau peeking into boxes and tallying up Mom’s recent redecorating changes to discuss at her next bridge club. I swallowed my anger and cleared my throat, giving her time to settle back on the sofa before I came in.

  I waited a grudging ten minutes while she continued to press me for more information, peppering her conversation with gossip about our neighbors. Time seemed to drag until finally she took my hints about studying and left me to my own devices, satisfied that she could give a good report to my mother and that she had gotten enough dirt to dish to make the visit worth her while.

  I watched her march back up the cul-de-sac, her apron strings flying in the wind. As soon as I was sure she wasn’t coming back, I tried my mom’s cell phone, ready to bemoan my miserable day. But the phone rolled over directly to her voice mail, so I hung up. I pressed redial, pressing it over and over until I finally gave up, throwing the phone onto the sofa.

  The entire day had been a study in frustration. I looked at the book I’d taken out of my backpack—a book I’d already studied two years ago at Holy Innocents—and shook my head, tossing the book aside.

  “This is not what was supposed to happen,” I pouted to myself out loud. “Not at all.”

  I was getting ready to recount my various injustices again when a little voice in my head rebuked me. But nobody looked at you like a freak, did they?

  I shoved my books into my book bag, sullenly acknowledging to myself that I had, indeed, been treated as normally as any new kid in school would be. It dawned on me that while I’d always stood apart at Holy Innocents, my presence had been accepted. I wasn’t ignored, nor was I constantly ridiculed and teased. After ten years, I was as much a part of the environment as the dusty chalkboards and smelly gym. At least until the incident that finally drove me to move in with Mom. How long would it take to become invisible in this school?

  I sighed. Maybe things would seem better after I’d eaten dinner. I went to the extra freezer tucked away inside our pantry, thinking I’d heat something up. When I lifted the door, row after row of Trader Joe’s eggplant parmigiana stared back at me. I dug around inside, but no matter how deeply I dug, I found nothing except eggplant. I let the freezer door fall closed and turned to the pantry shelves. Similar repetitive rows of just a few items stood at military attention on the shelves.

  Sheesh. I knew my mom liked structure in her life, but this was a bit much.

  I left the pantry behind and walked back through the kitchen. For a second, I thought about calling my mom one last time.

  She’s not here to fix things for you. The little voice in my head admonished me as I reached for the delivery menus Mom had left behind. You’re going to have to take care of it yourself. Just like you wanted.

  The next morning, after running the gauntlet of the bus ride, instead of going to shop class I went straight to the front office. I waved Mom’s vaunted red folder in my hand and demanded to speak with the principal.

  “I can’t stay in these classes,” I asserted, causing the nice lady behind the counter to blanch. “I took some of these when I was a freshman. I can’t be stuck in them for a whole semester. My entire schedule is wrong. My mother is going to be very unhappy when she finds out, especially after all the trouble she went through to register me properly.”

  “We don’t need to bother the principal with that, honey.” The lady scurried around the counter and snatched the folder from my hands. “Why don’t you take a seat here while I see what I can do?”

  I parked myself on a bench inside the office and waited, proud of myself for having taken a stand. Behind me was a glass wall veiled by half-opened blinds. I could hear the voices inside. Or voice, I should say. Only one person was talking, and by the stern tone, it sounded like a serious conversation. A quick glance at the nameplate by the door informed me this was the principal’s office. I strained harder, trying to hear what had gotten someone in trouble.

  The door swung open and a pimply boy in saggy pants shuffled out, trailing his backpack behind him.

  “This is your last warning, Ethan,” the voice trailed out after him. “I don’t want to see you back in here for the rest of the semester.”

  “I bet Ethan doesn’t want to be back, either, by the looks of it,” a low voice, smooth as honey, whispered to me conspiratorially.

  I jumped in my seat. I’d been so intent on eavesdropping that I hadn’t noticed the boy sitting down by me. But now that I had noticed him, I couldn’t stop staring.

  The boy sprawled out across the bench, somehow managing to fill the small space with his entire body. His outfit was odd, more California surfer boy than Georgia public school: baggy khakis bleached almost white, and a tank topped by a white linen shirt that was definitely out of season. When he shifted his position, his pants stretched across his taut thighs. Underneath all that fabric, he was lean and muscular. He didn’t have the shaggy haircut I associated with most boys my age—‘Bama Bangs, as my father always called them. His hair was clipped close, almost military in style. It was a contradiction to his laid-back attire. And he was tan. No, tan doesn’t do it justice. He was so golden he seemed to glow.

  He broke through my daydream with his chuckle, blue eyes sparkling with humor. “I think it was the smoke bombs in the boys’ bathroom this time. Van Aken hates that.”

  “Van Aken?” I asked, aware that I was gawking and feeling strangely stupid as I tried to follow the conversation.

  “The principal,” he said, cocking his head to one side as he looked me up and down. “You don’t look like you belong in the principal’s office,” he said. I felt myself flush. Flustered, my hand flew to the back of my head, smoothing my long hair over my neck, making sure my scarf was still in place.

  The lady from the front desk slipped by us, cracking the door to the principal’s office open to whisper something to him as she shoved in some files.

  “Michael? Michael Boyd?” The principal’s gruff voice cut off any response I might have made.

  “That’s my cue,” the boy said, and with a wink, he uncoiled from the bench and slipped inside the office.

  I didn’t have to strain to hear their conversation; the principal’s voice boomed but Michael wasn’t intimidated, talking back to the principal as if he were an adult. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman behind the counter hanging on to their every word.

  “What’s this business about you being absent again?”

  “I had a written excuse. Surely this is not a problem.”

  “Are you just doing this to make me look like a fool, Boyd? Because I won’t be made to look like a fool,” the principal threatened in a thick Georgia drawl.

  “Sir, this has nothing to do with you.” Michael’s voice was calm and conciliatory. “I just had other things to do on those days.”

  In the pause that followed, I could almost imagine Van Aken scowling. “It’s that damned emancipation. If you had adults who could advise you, we wouldn’t have to deal with all this foolishness.”

  “Yet I am emancipated, and I am legally able to make these decisions for myself. I promise you, I have and will continue to make good use of the guidance counselors here to avoid making any foolish mistakes.”

  Emancipated? What does that mean? I thought to myself.

  “Well, as you say, you are legally able to make these choices for yourself.” I heard a shuffle of papers as the principal apparently signed off on some form. “Just don’t make a habit of it. This is a school, not a country club. I can’t have you messing up my No Child Left Behind performance with a string of unexcused absences, even if you can write your own damn note.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Van Aken,” Michael said smoothly.

  The door swung open and the counter attendant scrambled to look busy. Michael came out and passed his form to her, pinning her with a wide smile. “I think this should do it, Mrs. Thompson,” he grinned.

  “Michael,” she said, nearly bl
ushing with pleasure as she took the paper from his outstretched hand. “You give us all fits with this emancipation business, don’t you?” He laughed and shrugged. “Do me a favor, hon, and bring this new girl to her classes. We had a little mix-up yesterday, but I think we’ve got it all straightened out.” She passed another form across the counter to him.

  He scanned it quickly. “Hope?” he asked, flashing me a brilliant smile. “Let me show you to your class.”

  I still hadn’t gotten into home ec, but art was a step up from shop class. All of my other classes seemed to have been magically rearranged, and oddly enough, Michael was in most of them.

  “It’s because we’re both new,” he’d replied when I asked him about it halfway through the day. “Nowhere else to go.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” I frowned, nibbling the eraser on my pencil as I settled into the AP environmental science class we now shared.

  “How about this, then: we’re just smarter than everyone else, so it’s natural we’d end up in the same classes.” His eyes danced as he took in my puzzlement. “C’mon, Hope, I can’t be your stalker. We only just met.”

  His choice of the term “stalker” stopped me in my tracks. Stalker is only one step away from kidnapper. Was it just a coincidence he’d used that word? What did he know about me? I was surprised—and secretly ashamed—by how easily I’d wrapped myself in the mantle of my father’s paranoia, but it didn’t stop me from asking my next question.

  “Just how new to this school are you?” I demanded, telling myself not to be drawn in by his easy jokes.

  “Just off the turnip truck three weeks ago,” he smiled, putting a finger to his lips to quiet me as the teacher stepped to the front of the room.

  My day was a whirlwind of new classes, but with Michael as tour guide it wasn’t as overwhelming. He seemed to radiate a sense of authority, and the endless torture of being singled out as the new girl miraculously stopped. One look from him and people swallowed their questions, bit off that smart comment before it even left their lips. Everyone gave us a wide berth, and by the time we emerged from our last class, I felt like I was secure in my own little bubble.

  Who could have that kind of effect on teenagers? I thought to myself. I peppered him with questions, trying to figure him out.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Here and there,” he said vaguely, not even bothering to hide the grin that stole across his face.

  “But where most recently, before Dunwoody?”

  “What is this, a crime scene? Relax, Hope—there’s nothing fishy about me that you have to uncover.”

  “If that’s true, then where are you from?” I pressed him.

  He turned to the locker bay and started twirling a combination absentmindedly while I fumbled with mine, waiting for his answer. “I grew up on a commune in Iowa,” he finally said. “I didn’t really have parents; the whole community raised me. You know—that whole ‘takes a village’ thing.”

  “A commune?” I asked, unsure of what that meant.

  “Some called it a commune. Some called it a cult. It doesn’t really matter.”

  “Oh,” I said dumbly, trying to take this in. “So what happened to your parents? I mean, your commune?”

  “It was shut down by a police raid last year. And because I was over sixteen, the district attorney gave me the option of staying with the community as they went through social services and the courts, or of being declared an emancipated youth.”

  “An ‘emancipated youth’?” The term was starting to make more sense to me as I began to understand his situation.

  “For all intents and purposes, I am treated as if I were eighteen. It means I operate on my own. No adults telling me what to do.”

  “But how—?”

  “I had distant relatives here in Georgia, and apparently there was a bit of money stashed away that my real parents had never told me about. It was against the rules, you see, to have any private property or money on the commune.”

  “So your real parents—?” I left the question hanging in the air, afraid of what he might say.

  “It was all a big mix-up. They weren’t really brainwashing people or anything. So they have moved on to California. And now I’m here. I live by myself and drive myself to school and every now and then a relative checks in on me.” He flashed me that brilliant smile again and shrugged. “I know it’s an odd story. Probably one of the strangest you’ve heard.”

  I laughed to myself. If only he knew.

  “I’ve heard stranger things,” I said, knowing exactly how it must have felt to have such an odd upbringing. I was impressed by what he had shared with me. I’d had enough experience in the juvenile legal system to know that to be able to convince a judge to treat you like an adult was no mean feat. It seemed to explain how comfortable he was around everyone, the weird sense of authority that he just seemed to take for granted and to which everyone else succumbed. He’d been through a lot and was on his own. He had to come across as in charge.

  Michael suddenly stiffened. A group of boys came careening around the corner, crashing into the lockers next to mine. Michael deftly maneuvered me out of the way, somehow managing to get me past the crowd without ever touching me.

  “C’mon, let’s get you on the way home.”

  Swinging my backpack, I looked over my shoulder at the knot of fighting boys. On the edge of the crowd, I saw my tormentor from the bus. He was not paying attention to the fight. Instead he was looking straight at me, pointing me out to one of his friends. The friend was tall and dark and seemed to be staring after Michael and me with a smirk. He didn’t stop looking even when I started to blush. Instinctively, my hand flew up to my neck, smoothing my hair. I checked behind me, hoping that maybe the smirk was meant for someone else, but nobody else was there. Before Michael could usher me out of the school, I looked back over my shoulder. Both of them were gone.

  We wound through the hallways, Michael unerringly charting a path through the chaos and crowds, until we emerged into the low light of the afternoon. I blinked at the light and breathed in the crisp air, for the first time really cherishing the freedom that my new school seemed to promise.

  I turned to Michael and drew in my breath. The sinking winter sun was hanging low on the horizon, its glow catching Michael’s hair and making it look like it was kissed by flames.

  He caught me staring and grinned.

  I flushed, my gaze dropping to my shoes as I fumbled for something to say. “Um, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Why, are you staying after school?”

  I looked up, confused by his question. He was looking at me with amusement, almost laughing at my awkwardness. I flushed more deeply before answering him.

  “Uh, no. But my bus is over there,” I said, gesturing weakly behind me.

  “You prefer spitballs and vomit in a yellow tube of tin to a ride home with me?” he asked, mockingly stabbing himself through the heart. “Carmichael, you really know how to hurt a guy.”

  “No!” I said, too eagerly. “I mean, I didn’t know—”

  “Right this way,” he said. Winking, he turned on his heel, tossing his car keys in the air and catching them deftly with one hand as he strode away, leaving me to scramble after him.

  As we wound our way through the parking lot, he slowed his stride, allowing me to catch up.

  “You’re in the teacher’s lot,” I commented, surprised.

  “If my life of crime is too much for you, Hope, you can always take the bus,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Oh, no. No judgment here,” I said quickly, thanking the heavens for a ride home.

  “Here we go,” he said, pulling up short and then gesturing broadly to the side before making a sweeping bow. “Mademoiselle, your chariot awaits.”

  He’d stopped in front of a car so sleek and slung so low to the ground it reminded me of a bullet. That is, it would have reminded me of a bullet if it actually looked as if i
t had any speed. This thing was decrepit. The panels were a dull gray, except for a few patches where the steel body had been replaced with pieces taken from other cars. The driver’s side mirror was held on by duct tape and a pair of fuzzy dice hung from the rearview mirror.

  “Uh, thanks?” I said, unable to suppress the questioning tone.

  He swept his long, lean body upright, shielding me from the sun as he shrugged and held out his arms in a gesture of feigned hurt. “Again, Carmichael, I am not picking up the right tone of appreciation here.”

  “Oh, I appreciate it. I’m just wondering if this death trap has seat belts.”

  He ran his hand along the hood as he walked around to the passenger side. “Old cars didn’t have seat belts. They’re exempted.”

  “Really?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  “C’mon, live a little, Hope. It’s only a few miles.”

  I froze, every muscle in my shoulders and back tensing. “How do you know it’s only a few miles?” I asked him sharply. “How do you know where I live?”

  He laughed as he swung the passenger door open for me. “Everyone who goes here lives within a few miles. So what do you say? Are you coming?”

  Slowly, I felt the tension draining out of my body. How could I be as paranoid as my dad? Of course I lived nearby. It was obvious. Everybody did.

  I looked up at Michael standing there waiting for me and felt a pull of longing. He was the kind of guy for whom everything was easy, everything was fun. Hadn’t I always wanted some of that?

  “Sure, why not?” I said, giving him what I hoped was my best nonchalant smile as I walked over to his side. I ducked under his arm, uncomfortably aware of how close I was to him, before climbing into the low bucket seat. “But the instant this thing drops a muffler or anything, I’m out of here.”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” he laughed, closing the door on my protests.

  As we pulled out of the parking lot, I remained hyperaware of how close I was to Michael in the tiny front seat. I could even smell him—an earthy smell that reminded me of sweet hay and leather. I looked at my hands, which were twitching nervously in my lap, and willed them to be still.