Boy Nobody (19 page)

It’s the track-and-field rotation in phys ed, and a few students have persuaded the teacher to let us run outside. Sam and Erica are up ahead of me, leading the class. Erica is in first position, her legs short and powerful like a gymnast’s. Sam is a couple of paces back, her strides longer, her build narrow and beautiful. I watch her hair bouncing in a ponytail across her shoulders as she runs.

One more day with Sam.

She glances back at me, but I avoid meeting her eye.

We haven’t spoken since I ran from the mayor’s penthouse last night. I noticed myself shying from her in class, my body turning away as hers turned toward. Even now, I look down rather than meet her eye.

I don’t know this person, the one who avoids a girl because he doesn’t know what to say to her. I don’t know the guy who is distracted, who worries, who takes chances that are not strictly necessary.

Sam glances back again from the front of the pack.

She has questions. It’s obvious.

I have questions, too. Different questions.

For now, I run through Central Park, grateful to be in motion. I would run harder if I could, run past all these people, run until the doubts disappeared and I felt like myself again.

“You think you’ll win the Asshole 10K again this year?”

It’s Darius. He plods up beside me, sneakers slapping on pavement.

“Give it a rest,” I say.

“No, I’m not going to give it a rest. You think you can give me a drink at a party, and that’s a free pass to chase after our women?”

He looks at Sam and Erica up ahead.

“What’s with you, Darius? You’ve been on my back since day one.”

“Do you know how many guys I’ve watched take a shot at Sam?”

“Why don’t you take a shot and join the club? You’ll feel better about yourself.”

His face goes red.

He says, “If you cared about her, you’d leave her alone.”

I look at him. He’s serious.

“Why does she need to be left alone?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Tell me something. Help me understand.”

I play like I’m on his side in this thing, like we can find a way to deal together.

“You’re making her life more complicated than it already is.”

“Why is it complicated?”

“Because of that Israeli asshole.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Sam says.

She’s dropped back to our position.

I glance at Darius. He warns me off with a subtle head shake.

“What guys always talk about,” I say.

“You mean sports,” she says. “And your crotches.”

“Two for two,” I say.

Erica notices us behind her and drops back, too. “Did you guys get interrogated by the administration yet?” she says.

“What for?” I say.

“Didn’t you hear? Justin and his boy got into it in the hall today and messed each other up. They’re asking if anyone saw anything.”

“I saw the whole thing,” I say.

“Really?” Erica says.

“More than saw. I’m the guy who kicked both their asses.”

The girls burst out laughing.

“Like hell,” Darius says.

He side-checks me, shifting in midstride and slamming me with his hip. Nothing too hard. Just enough to make his point.

I stumble like he knocked me off balance.

“Yeah, you’re a real badass,” he says.

He laughs and runs ahead. Erica looks from Sam to me.

“Wait up, Darius,” she says, and she runs up to join him.

Now it’s Sam and me, running together near the back of the pack.

“Am I allowed to run next to you, or am I still getting the silent treatment?” Sam says.

“Can you run quietly?” I say.

She smiles.

“What happened to you last night, Ben?”

“I felt sick. I think it was something I ate.”

I hope to get a laugh and distract her, but it doesn’t work.

“I don’t believe that,” she says. “I think you ran away.”

“Why would I run?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

The phys ed teacher passes us. She says, “Stay together, okay? I don’t want to lose anyone in the park.”

We wave to her, and she runs on.

“I’m getting tired,” Sam says.

I look at her legs, toned from regular exercise. There’s no way she’s tired from this little run. She slows, and I slow to keep pace with her. Now we’re dead last in the pack.

“I’ve got a cramp or something—” Sam says.

She limps for a few steps, then stops. The rest of the class continues on.

“Anything I can do?” I say.

“You can try to keep up,” she says, and she darts down a side path and disappears from sight.

So much for the cramp.

I take off after her.

Sam is quick, much quicker than I expected. She cuts from the side path to a dirt path and then into the woods, all without telegraphing a move. I can barely keep up with her.

It’s not that she’s faster than me. She simply knows this place better. Home-court advantage, so to speak. She moves in directions I don’t expect, down paths that I can’t see until I’m nearly past them. I catch brief glimpses of her running between trees.

Brief glimpses, and then nothing.

Because she has disappeared.

I stop and listen to her footfalls receding in the forest, trying to determine which way to go. I hear something off to my left where the trees are so dense that the sunlight is blocked out.

I hesitate for a moment, and then I step off the path.

I wind my way through the trees, pausing to listen for Sam every few steps.

There is no sound but distant traffic outside the park.

I stop and look around.

I’m lost.

I consider turning back, but instead I stay where I am. I project my energy outward.

I sense her off to my left.

I move in that direction and pop through a thicket of trees into a clearing. There’s a statue in front of me, a giant stone obelisk that comes to a point at the top.

Sam waits by it, smiling and breathless.

“You found me,” she says. “I’m impressed.”

“What was that all about?”

“You’ve been running away from me all day,” she says. “I wanted to reverse the direction.”

“Why would you want that?”

“Come on, Ben. What really happened last night?”

“I was confused.”

“About what?”

I think of Sam and me in the bathroom last night, her lips inches from mine.

“My feelings,” I say.

She smiles.

“You do have feelings for me.”

I turn away from her. I walk around the deserted plaza, examining the statue, giving myself some breathing room.

“What is this place?” I say.

“It’s called Cleopatra’s Needle,” she says.

I look at the statue behind her, the green-black stone rising into the sky.

“It’s the oldest statue in the park,” she says. “The oldest in New York, I think.”

“What’s written on it?”

“Egyptian hieroglyphs. It’s called Cleopatra’s Needle, but it has nothing to do with Cleopatra. It was created a thousand years before her reign. I come here sometimes when I need to think. It’s my private place.”

“Now I know about it.”

“You know all my private places,” she says with a grin.

“Not yet I don’t.”

I walk around the obelisk. The stone is crumbling, the glyphs fading from exposure to the elements.

Sam says, “I have dual citizenship, did you know that? Maybe that’s why I like the statue. Something so foreign plopped down in the middle of the city. Kind of like me.”

The sky has darkened, and a wind is starting to blow. She comes and stands beside me.

“Do you ever wonder where you belong?” she says. “Like maybe life made a mistake and put you someplace you weren’t supposed to be?”

I think of my real parents. My first life.

“Sometimes I think about that,” I say.

Between assignments. Never during.

Never before now.

She stares at the statue, lost in thought.

“For a while I was scared that you and Erica were a match, but the more I get to know you, the more I don’t think so.”

I want to ask her more, but I stop myself. I have only one day, and I keep getting distracted by these conversations.

I need to surprise Sam right now, change the focus of the conversation. Back to her father. To the future.

There’s something big brewing, and I need to know what it is.

“Your father told me everything,” I say.

Sam stops walking and looks back at me.

I’m bluffing, but she doesn’t know that.

“Why would he tell you?” she says.

“Because he’s worried about you.”

That part is true. I don’t know why he’s worried, but I’m guessing Sam does.

“They asked him to be Special Envoy for Middle East Peace,” she says.

She slumps down at the base of the statue.

I think about the Presence, the Arabic spoken by his man. Is it possible the mayor is working with them in some way? Is this why they’re after me?

“Did he say yes?” I ask.

“Not yet. He’s weighing options. I told him he should just go back to his company, but he says he’s made enough money for ten lifetimes. He wants to stay in public service.”

“It sounds like the envoy position will let him do that.”

“And ruin my life at the same time.”

“How will it ruin your life?”

“Bad things happened in Israel, Ben. I don’t want to go back there.”

A drop of rain hits my forehead.

“It’s starting to rain,” she says. “We should get back to school.”

She looks at the sky. It’s overcast now, and the wind is gusting.

“Or—where do you live?” she says.

“98th Street,” I say.

“School’s closer.”

“It is,” I say as the drops become a steady drizzle. “But we’re going to get wet either way.”

“Are you inviting me to your place?”

“Sounds like it,” I say, and I take off running.

For a second I worry that she won’t follow me. But then I hear her footsteps splashing behind me. She catches up to me a second later.

“You’re not going to get away this time,” she says.

“I wasn’t trying to get away,” I say.

We run together through the rain, leaping across puddles and dodging traffic as we make our way uptown.

“I’m soaked through,” she says. “Do you have a robe or something?”

I look at her standing there, wet clothes pasted to her body.

“Hello?” she says.

“Sorry. Let me grab something.”

I don’t know if I have a robe, but I check the closet in the bedroom, and I find one hanging on a hook on the wall. The Program thinks of everything.

Not everything. They weren’t thinking about this when they left me a robe.

I go back into the living room to find the gas fireplace lit. Sam is drying off in front of it.

“I’m freezing,” she says.

She grabs the robe from me.

“Turn around,” she says.

“The bathroom is right—”

“I don’t need the bathroom,” she says.

She gestures with her finger for me to turn around.

I turn toward the wall as Sam gets undressed behind me.

“I’ve been thinking about the first day in AP European,” I say over my shoulder.

“That was a long time ago.”

“Only three days.”

“It seems like ten years.”

I hear wet clothes hitting the floor.

“What were you thinking?” Sam says.

“I was wondering why you spoke to me after class that day.”

“There was something about you. I wanted to know who you were.”

“Do you want to know who every new student is?”

“Only the cute ones,” she says. “You can turn around now.”

I turn and Sam strikes a pose. She is wearing the robe cinched tightly in the middle, her hair slicked back, her legs bare.

“What do you think?” she says.

“I think you should wear more robes.”

She laughs. The flames flicker at her feet.

She walks around the living room. She touches one of the photos on the end table.

“You said you didn’t have a lot of photos,” she says.

“I have a few.”

“Are these your parents?” she says.

“Supposedly. I never see them.”

“Lucky you.”

“I thought you were pro-parent.”

“I fooled you.”

“But you have a great relationship with your father.”

“I do. In public.”

“In private, too. I’ve seen you.”

“If you saw us, it wasn’t private, was it? You think that just because you’re in a politician’s house, you’re seeing the real person? Pretty naive, Ben.”

“You sound angry.”

“Yeah, well. I have my reasons.”

She puts a smile on her face, but it’s like she’s putting on a mask. I’ve seen this before with people in the public eye. Real emotions, quickly covered by fake ones.

And I’ve seen it in myself. It’s what I’ve been trained to do.

She touches the photo of my parents one last time, then continues around the apartment.

“Your place barely looks lived in,” she says.

“We have a great cleaning service. And I’m not home much.”

“Poor Benjamin. It must be hard being trapped all alone in a big apartment.”

“I’m not trapped,” I say.

“We’re both trapped in lives we didn’t choose.”

“Speak for yourself.”

I watch her moving around the room, examining things.

I don’t like how much focus she’s giving the place, almost like she’s investigating. Is this what it feels like when a girl is in your space for the first time?

“I know all about your life,” she says.

“What do you know?”

I watch her face in the flickering firelight, monitoring it for signs of dangerous intent.

“I know you’re trapped by the system,” she says. “You’re trapped by this country and the way you think about it. You’re trapped by being a teenager, and—I haven’t met your parents, but if they’re sending you to a school like ours, you’re trapped in their expectations of you.”