Breaking Point (11 page)

“Dad, it's me. Paul.”

“What is it?”

“Have you gotten my calls, my letters?”

“Yes.”

“Well, can I—?”

“It's not a good idea, Paul.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. It's a bad idea.”

“But you don't understand. You don't know how it is here, how mean everyone is. How much I hate…” I stopped. Ever since what happened with Charlie, it had become important again to move out. School was terrible. Home was worse. I didn't want to betray Mom by saying how I hated living with her. But how else could I convince Dad?

He didn't let me finish anyway. “I can't talk now.”

“Then when?”

“Look, can't you take a hint?”

“What?” Sure I'd heard him wrong.

“You're a smart kid. Take a hint. You can't live with us. I was trying to spare your feelings, but there it is. You wouldn't fit in here.”

“But—”

The line went dead.

I held the phone until the operator came on saying, “If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. If you need help…” Gently, she said it. Three times, gently before attacking my ears.

I needed help. But not from the operator. I slammed the phone down and went downstairs and out the guard gate before even realizing what I was doing. I sat on the curb, my legs resting in Kendall Drive with cars swerving to avoid them. I didn't care. Every one of those cars had someplace to go, someone to go to. Everyone but me. I had only Mom crying and clinging, needing me to do everything for her. Dad, who'd found someone else. People at school, who laughed at me.

And Charlie.

And suddenly, Charlie's request didn't seem unreasonable. Not at all. Why had I thought it was a big deal? It was a victimless crime, really, changing a grade. If there was a victim, it was the school. And I hated the school and everyone there.

Charlie would protect me from them. Charlie was strong and would make me strong by association. Changing the grade seemed almost too little to do in return. No wonder Charlie was mad. No wonder he expected loyalty. He was the only one who'd been loyal to me.

It was almost dark, and the distance between cars had lengthened. I took a pebble from the roadside, threw it across the lane. It hit an eastbound car. The driver honked. I didn't care.

I don't know how long I sat there. Long enough for Mom to look panicked when I came in. She started to talk, but I passed her without a word. She was a stranger to me. I went to my room and punched in the number I realized I'd been dialing in my head for more than a week. Not Dad's number. Never Dad's number again.

When Charlie answered, I said, “I'll do it.”

“Good man,” came his reply.

And I smiled. It felt great to be back on Charlie's good side.

Finding Mom's key was the easy part. I'd scoped it out before I'd even agreed to Charlie's plan, because maybe I'd always known I'd do it. It was on her key chain, between her car key and keys to our three front-door locks. Taking it without her noticing was another matter.

As usual, Charlie had the answer. “Get it Friday, when she won't need it all weekend. Then, copy it before she notices it's gone.”

We'd been screwing around on the computer in Charlie's room. First, we were playing Quake III Arena. Then, Charlie said he'd heard of a website with secrets on how to get to the next level, so we looked for that. But it had nothing we didn't already know. I'd been at Charlie's house every day that week—not doing his work, either. We'd just been hanging, like friends. Like best friends.

“She notices everything.” I rolled my eyes. “Besides, it's one of those keys you can't copy.”

“Ah. School security measures.” Charlie started down to the kitchen. I followed him. He rummaged through a drawer. I tried not to watch over his shoulder. I mean, it was a junk drawer, nothing special. Like our junk drawer at home. He found what he wanted. “Like this?” Holding up a Medeco key. When I nodded, he handed it to me. “Okay. Switch it for the one on her key chain. We'll do the deed Saturday, and switch them back before she needs hers.”

It would work, I realized. Yet, I felt something in my stomach. A twinge. Like someone had tickled my insides with barbed wire.

Binky was mad at me. Ever since I'd told Charlie I'd do what he wanted, he'd been including me in his group at lunch. So now, I had all these friends, even girls. Binky ate alone. I felt bad about that. But was that my responsibility?

Thursday, I found her in the second-floor breezeway. Lunch was nearly over, and people were hanging by lockers, pretending they might cut afternoon classes or it didn't matter whether they went or not. Except Binky. She had a book propped inside her locker, reading. I glanced at it. Sartre. Not assigned reading, either.

“Hey,” I said. “Good book?”

“It's a play,
No Exit
. I've read it a bunch of times.” She closed the book, then the locker and twisted the combination-lock dial. “The thesis is, Hell is other people.”

“Oh.”

“Missed you at lunch.”

It was an accusation. I squirmed, glanced down the hall. A bunch of jocks were screwing around by the water fountain. One waved. I nodded at him. Binky smirked. “What's wrong?” I asked her.

“Oh—nothing.”

She was mad all right. And suddenly, I was mad at her for being mad. Why should she be? She'd do the same, in my situation. “Can't I have lunch with someone else once?”

“Who said you couldn't?” She started to walk away.

“Would you stop? Please.”

“I have to go to class.”

But she stopped. Down the hall, the jock who'd waved was looking at me like,
Why's he talking to her?
But I knew why. Because she'd been my friend when I'd had no others. Because of guilt. So, I said, “Look. We're still friends.”

“Were we ever really?”

“Of course we are.” Over her shoulder, I saw Charlie. He stood with Amanda Colbert, gesturing at me. I pretended not to see and walked all the way to class with Binky. The next day, I had lunch with her. It was the least I could do.

Friday, after school, I waited until Mom was half-hypnotized by Rosie O'Donnell, so she wasn't watching her purse. It was on the kitchen counter, behind her. I opened the refrigerator, using the door as a shield so she wouldn't see me rifling through it.

“Paul, you drinking soda again?”

Nabbed. “No, I was just…” I glanced around, finding something easy. “… getting some grapes.”

She glanced back at me, and I struggled to make eye contact. Lying to her was easier than I'd thought. I was so tired of being good. Behind the door, my fingers searched. Could she see the movement? No. Found them. My hand closed around them, so they'd make no sound. I shoved her key chain into my pocket.

“Sounds good. I'd like some, too.” Her voice reproached me. Normally, I'd have offered. She turned back to Rosie, who was talking to some woman from
Saturday Night Live
.

I fumbled with the purse, almost dropped it, caught it by its strap. I stuck the purse on the counter, then arranged it like it had been in case maybe she'd memorized its position. Not paranoid at all, Charlie would have said.

I found the grapes and washed them, not noticing the water was hot until it burned me, then still letting it run over my hands, long after the grapes were clean. I brought them to her.

She patted the sofa. “Sit with me.”

I had no choice, so I sat. I held the bowl in my lap, and we ate grapes for ten mind-numbing minutes. Finally, I stood, holding the grape bowl. “I'll put these in the fridge. I'm going to do homework before dinner.”

She seemed satisfied. At least, she kept watching her show.

Then I was working on the key chain. With a knife, I separated the metal rings, switched the keys. The medallion caught my eye. Gate's emblem, a cross. I flipped it over, like Christ wouldn't see if I turned the cross over. But then, I didn't really believe in God anyway. I slipped the key chain back into the purse and rearranged it on the counter.

Charlie answered on the first ring.

“Got it,” I said.

“Good man.”

“You're sure it will work?”

“Of course it will. You're magic.”

Gate at night was a different place. By day, oaks and pines shaded its paths. At night, they blacked the moon, surrounding me like storm troopers. It was black. Hundreds of scurrying feet, none human, filled the parking lot. Fireflies, mosquitoes, nameless night creatures flew in my path. I stepped forward. One step. Two. Getting less cautious. Suddenly, the parking lot was bathed in light. I stopped. Who was there? My head jerked. My pupils dilated. I froze, remembering Dad's long-ago words:
Movement is most of camouflage, Paul. Remember that
.

Bastard
. I waited to be caught. Nothing. The lights went out.

I looked up. They blazed on again. I laughed. The floodlights were on a motion sensor. No one there. Still, I flew past the administration building and to the classroom building like something was chasing me.

Charlie was outside. We hadn't taken his car. “Too recognizable,” he'd said. Instead, he'd borrowed the housekeeper's Civic. It had been past midnight when we reached the school's iron gates.

“I don't have the gate key,” I'd said.

“That's okay. You can squeeze through the hedge.”

I
could squeeze. And where will
you
be? Charlie was smaller, after all, more able to get between the gate and the hedge-covered chain-link fence. But I hadn't said it. Now, creeping down the cement walkway, into faceless dark, I could be bold and think it. But Charlie had answered my question anyway. As usual, Charlie had all the answers.

“Sorry, Einstein. Can't do it.” He rested fingers to brow, tired of the whole thing. “I have a tournament tomorrow.”

“What's that got to do with this?”

“Can you see Big Chuck's face if I broke my arm or something squeezing through?” He got a faraway look on his face, like he was actually picturing it. He smiled.

“Charlie?”

The grin vanished. “One time, I got tennis elbow. No practice for weeks. Man, was he mad.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Can't have that, can we? Besides, I can barely turn on a computer. I'll be the lookout.”

And if I broke
my
arm? Another question I hadn't asked. Hadn't needed to. I knew the answer: He'd drive away.

I understood that. This was
my
job. I was the one with something to prove.

“Relax, Paul.” Again, he'd read my thoughts. “Nothing will happen.”

And I'd believed him, sliding between gate and fence, shuffling through dark gravel to the black parking lot with the storm-trooper trees and, now, to Mom's office alone.

Mom worked in the attendance office, in the classroom building. It was breezeway style, open, so I didn't need the key to enter the building, just her office. “No flashlights,” Charlie had dictated. “The neighbors might see you. Or Old Carlos.” But the janitor's cottage was in back, separated from this building by cities of ficus trees, each with three or four trunks and curtains of hanging moss. A murderer could hide there, unseen. Besides, anyone in his right mind would be asleep now. It was dark, but not as dark as the parking lot. Drops of moonlight seeped through tree limbs like water through a washcloth. I strained to make out room numbers in the dim light. Behind me, footsteps. I turned. Nothing. I fumbled for the key, heard it hit ground and bounce. I searched, sightless, on the ground, finally finding it amid tracked-in gravel and discarded gum. Screw Charlie. Easy for him to say no flashlights. He was in the damn car. I slid the key up to the wall and let it drop into my hand.

No. Charlie was my friend. He wasn't slacking off. He was the lookout. He had to be. And his dad
would
kill him if he hurt himself. Not like me, with no dad to worry about.

Besides, I was part of Charlie's group now, part of his plans. He'd even been taking me with them to lunch. With Amanda, hair like falling leaves. I couldn't think about her now, but I liked to, at strange times of day, or at night, when I squirmed in bed, unable to sleep.

I found the doorknob, inserted the key.

I didn't need lights in the office. Mom's desk was near the window, and the seeping moonlight would illuminate my work. But could you see the monitor's glow through the window? I removed my black Carolina Panthers sweatshirt and hung it so it blocked the light. I threw the switch.

The old system started with a jolt. It ran through its setup, slow. When would it be ready? Finally, a prompt for my name. I typed
LAURA
. Error. I tried
LAURAR
. Right.