Black Tuesday (7 page)

“But I'm old news.”

“For anyone else, you would be.” Her dad's voice was calm. Soothing. Just like it always was. “But you're a bright, pretty girl who got some bad luck thrown her way. And you need to keep in mind that you're Gen Thompkins's daughter. They probably want to get an on-air comment to take her down a notch or two.”

He turned and grinned at her. “At least your mom dressed you up today, right?”

Jayne knew he was trying to make her feel better. Instead, he was making her feel like a special-needs person.
At least your mom dressed you up today
.

“Do you want me to drive to another entrance? Or maybe come back later?”

“Yeah, Jayne, let's ditch.” Ellie was still pulling at her seat. Jayne was feeling dizzy from the movement.

“No, we're not ditching.” The sooner this day got started, the sooner it would be over. “I'll just keep my head up and my eyes forward.”

That's what her mother had taught her. “Guilty, shameful people look at the ground, Jayne. If you're ever in trouble, act like the queen of England. Otherwise you're going to be judged and executed by the public.”

Her mom had told her this when she was seven and about to welcome the parents to parent-teacher night on behalf of the first grade.

She opened the door, keeping a hand knotted around the strap of her book bag. “Come on, Ellie.”

“Wait.” Her dad had grabbed Jayne's wrist.

“Yeah?”

“I don't know. I don't know what to do. I know that's an undadlike thing to say, but these people”—he nodded toward the reporters, who were about five seconds from the car—“are going to eat us alive.”

If she was a lesser person, she would've turned tail and headed home.

But she wasn't that kind of person. Then again, it might've been easier if she
was
that type of person.

“I just want to get this over with.” She turned toward the backseat. “Ellie, get your bag, stay close, and don't answer any of their questions. Got it?”

Jayne opened the door without waiting for a reply and plastered a small smile on her face. In the distance, she saw the principal making his way down the steps.

The vultures screamed, “Jayne, Jayne!”

She heard her name but everything else was a jumble of words. The ten or so reporters were talking over one another. She kept the smile in place.
Forty yards. I can make it that far. Just keep heading straight and don't say anything
.

One of the reporters, a woman who was on the network that came in second after Jayne's mom's, shoved a mike about two inches from her nose. “Jayne, how do you feel after hearing the news?”

Hearing the news? After watching it?
What was this woman yammering about?

The woman had a follow-up: “How do you feel knowing six-year-old Brenda Deavers is brain-dead?”

Brain-dead? Jayne's feet stopped working and she came to a standstill. Cameras flashed around her. But she didn't see them. That little girl was on a ventilator. Jayne hadn't heard anything about her brain being . . . dead.

She didn't have an answer for this lady. She didn't have an answer, period. But she had questions. A lot of questions.

“Jayne.” Ellie hissed the word in her ear. “Jayne, get going. C'mon.”

She had to get to the library. To the computers. Computers always had the answers if you searched them correctly.

And she was a master researcher.

Jayne slowly started walking again as she focused on the front doors. As she did, a tiny voice chanted.

 

The first-period bell had already rung by the time Jayne made it through the double doors. Behind her, she heard the principal shout, “You're not allowed on school grounds. Get off my campus!”

She beelined it toward the library.

“Jayne!” Ellie had stopped in front of the door to her classroom. “Isn't your homeroom down the other hall?”

“Yep.” But she wasn't going there.

Her dress shoes, a respectable pair of two-inch pumps, clicked down the hallway, away from Ellie. She was momentarily transported to the day her mom click-clacked into her hospital room. The day all of this started.

Minutes later she was seated at a computer terminal, the Internet up. She clicked onto one of the sites that had made her stay away from the computer for the last few days.

A news site.

Once the
Phoenix Herald
home page popped up, she clicked on a link buried low on the page:

The words, in black and white, made her really, really regret she'd eaten anything today. She didn't cry, though. She thought she should've felt like crying.

But she didn't. She didn't feel anything. Not even the shoes pinching her toes.

Jayne concentrated on each word of the article. She hadn't known any of this. Then again, she hadn't wanted to know any of this. And her family, whether they had known about the details or not, hadn't told her about any of this.

For now, she forgot about her family and what they didn't tell her. Instead, she read about six-year-old Brenda Deavers.

About how she wasn't wearing a seat belt.

About how the air bag hit her after the head-on.

About how the impact snapped her neck.

And broke it.

10

SOMETHING WAS DIGGING into her arm. Jayne glanced down. A piece of notebook paper, folded into a triangle, was poking into her.

It was third period. Honors English Lit. It was her first class of the day. After two periods in the library, Mrs. Fullerton had prodded her to go to class. It wasn't an order, though. The librarian had helped Jayne with enough research papers to know that the sixteen-year-old was a bright, conscientious student not given to ditching class.

As such, Jayne received a polite nudge. “Jayne, why don't you get yourself to class? You wouldn't want to miss too much more school, would you?”

Jayne had taken the hint. She'd also heard the words Mrs. Fullerton had left out:
You wouldn't want to miss too much more school than you have because you broke that little girl's neck, would you?

She'd gotten to class ten minutes after it started, holding a hall pass from Mrs. Fullerton saying she'd been “helping out” in the library. She took her seat while Mrs. Peabody lectured about
The Scarlet Letter
.

She had just started discussing Hester Prynne's public humiliation in the town square.

Jayne could relate.

Her arm was being poked again. She clenched her teeth together and took the note. She never got notes. She wasn't a note kind of girl. And Janice Wells, a quiet girl with a solid B average, was a well-known pawn in the note-passing game.

The note had to have come from the Wicked Witches in the back row.

Jayne
was on the front. She didn't recognize the handwriting. There were flowers with large petals and heart centers on both sides.

The happy scrawl across the paper didn't fool her. This wasn't a note taking a poll about which guy was the hottest or asking what she was doing Friday night. She didn't get notes like that.

Which meant it was a note searching for gossip about the accident.

Jayne went with her gut. She tore the note in half and stuffed the pieces in the last pages of her book.

She didn't give a crud what was in that note. Or what people were thinking about her.

Then why did she keep thinking about how long it would take to tape that note together again?

 

At lunch, Jayne sneaked a diet pop into the reference section of the library. Most of the students who came to the library were there to check e-mail on the opposite side of the silent, over-air-conditioned room.

This side of the library was the perfect hideout. No one ever came to use the encyclopedias anymore. Not when there was
Wikipedia.com
.

“Jaynie, I think it's time you stopped ignoring me.”

Jayne's hand jerked, spilling soda droplets on the table. Her heart stopped for a millisecond longer than usual, the good girl in her worrying that one of Mrs. Fullerton's assistants had caught her with the contraband drink.

But it was just Tom standing in front of her. His dark blue eyes were—what? Sad? Annoyed?

“You almost made me pee my pants, Tom. Good job.” She attempted a smile, but her nerves were stretched too thin for that. She concentrated on using a piece of notebook paper to wipe up the amber spill. “How'd you find me?”

“I know your favorite study areas.” He sat down and put his backpack on the table. He leaned over it, his voice low. “Hey, did you get my messages? I e-mailed you, IM'ed you. I even braved your mom and phoned you a couple of times. Well, I left messages with your dad, but still. She probably knows about them.”

Jayne saw the teasing in his eyes, but she also saw some hurt. He didn't deserve her being a crappy friend. But it went hand in hand with feeling like a crappy human being.

“Life's just been a little nutty, you know?” She closed the French textbook that had been open in front of her. She hadn't been studying, anyway. “I wasn't up for chitchat.”

“I know you've been through a lot. Ellie's told me most of it, and I heard a lot on the news.” His hands played with a strap on his backpack, and he concentrated on the knots he was making. “I also saw the reporters out there today, stalking you.” His mouth twisted in disgust. “I just wanted to let you know I'm here if you need to, you know, whatever.”

Tom wasn't too good with words sometimes, but he always meant what he said. Well, at least what he
tried
to say.

“I appreciate that.” She absentmindedly opened and closed the cover of the French book. Jayne wasn't going to take him up on that offer to spill her guts anytime soon. She couldn't do that with anyone. Not with her parents, not with her sister, not with Larry the Fairy, not with the media.

The little girl was brain-dead. Not just hurt, as in physical therapy hurt.

But brain-dead. Like one step away from
dead
dead.

She couldn't say those words out loud. They were ugly, ugly, soul-crunching words.

When she was going to talk, it was going to be to that lawyer. And even then, hopefully, she wouldn't have to
talk
talk.
Maybe I can just hand him Mom's notebook and let him look up the answers.

“Hey, I brought you something.” Tom pulled his hand away from his backpack and dug around in the front pocket. “It isn't really anything. Just something, you know, to make you feel a little better.”

He gave her a crumpled lunch bag. Inside was a framed photo of both of them sitting on the curb outside a roadside diner. Tom's head was on her knee, and she was sticking her tongue out while she made bunny ears behind him.

“Finally.” She managed a weak smile. “I've been after you forever to get this developed.”

She cradled the cheap black frame as she remembered that day on Route 66. They'd been outside of Flagstaff, on their way to the Painted Desert. Her dad had dragged her mom out to look at hieroglyphics; Jayne, Tom, and Ellie had amused themselves by taking tons of pictures. Jayne with her digital Nikon, Tom with his disposable cardboard camera.

“Ellie took this one, right?”

Tom grinned. “Yeah. The one your mom took is blocked by her thumb. For such a skinny woman, she's sure got a fat thumb.”

“It's great. Thanks.” She slipped the photo into her messenger bag. The moment of happiness started to give way to sadness. The picture had been taken this past March. The biggest worry she'd had back then was how to study for four tests while fitting in ten hours of tennis practice and putting on three car washes in one Saturday for three different clubs she belonged to.

The good old days.

“Jayne, are you sure you don't want to talk?” Tom attempted a wink. He wasn't very good at it, though. He never was. “This is your chance to unload on me. Ellie things. Gen things. Any things.”

The first bell rang.

“Nope, I'm good.”

Tom got up, his hands again twisting the backpack strap. “We better get going, then. Heard a rumor there's a pop quiz in chemistry.”

A pop quiz she hadn't studied for. Yeah, that was going to get her on her feet and pushing her way through the crowds.

Jayne opened her French book again. “That's okay. You go ahead. I'll be right behind you.”

She looked up when Tom didn't say anything. He had his backpack over one shoulder and was looking intently at the strap. He was contemplating something. He definitely had on his “How do I put this” face.

He'd had that same look when he told her his dog had eaten their team art project in fifth grade. That had been the first and last time Jayne had been partners with him.

She closed her book and rolled her eyes. “What? Whatever it is, just tell me.”

He finally met her eyes. “I know you're trying to avoid people, but I can walk you to class. No biggie.”

“Why?” A hint of suspicion was in her tone. It wasn't like she was Gloria Salas, his girlfriend in ninth grade. The one who'd led him around on a leash and had him opening doors and walking her to class and making him blow his pizza-job money on her.

“We'll be going past Jenna's and Lori's lockers.”

Jayne looked down at the cover of her French book, warped after a decade of students using it. She forced out, “So?”