Darkness Before Dawn (20 page)

I cracked up. It felt cool to laugh again. “They ought to put you in charge of senior prank this year!”

“My committee has already formulated a plan of attack,” Leon responded in a mock falsetto of a business professional. “We shall have an
awesome
senior prank! When are you coming back to school? It won't be any fun unless you're there.”

“I'm coming to school tomorrow,” I told him, trying to sound confident. “I gotta graduate, and I have lots to do to catch up.”

“That's the best news I've had all day!” he told me. “Uh, Keisha?”

“Yeah?”

“Would it be OK if I stopped by in the morning to take you to school? Just in case you needed a little moral support,” he added, not trying to push me.

“I'd like that, Leon,” I replied. “And Leon?”

“What?”

“I need to apologize to you.”

“To me? For what? There is
nothing
that you owe me an apology for!” he said emphatically.

“I'm sorry I lied to you. And I never thanked you for the roses and the necklace. They were so lovely and so special. I thought they were from ... someone else,” I finished uncomfortably.

“You have no need to apologize. Just knowing they made you happy is cool with me.”

“The necklace stayed with me through a very dark time, Leon. I never take it off. I just wanted you to know that.”

“Thanks, Keisha. I'm glad you told me. And I'm
really
glad you're back! I'll see you in the morning.”

I hung up the phone. I was smiling. It had been a long time since I had smiled, and it felt good.

April dawned bright and
windy. For April Fool's Day, Leon brought a huge bag of seventeen-year locusts to school and released them in the outside courtyard where the underclassmen ate lunch.

“Roaches!” screamed several kids, who knocked over juice bottles and bookbags to run from the area. Angel hated bugs of any kind, and she ran screaming with the rest of them.

“Get some bug spray—a gallon of it!” yelled Joyelle. But she was laughing more at the students who were running from the confused insects than trying to get away. “They can't hurt you! They're just disgusting!” Leon peeked his head around the corner and viewed the scene with satisfaction. I was with him, cracking up with laughter. Joyelle saw us, figured we had done it, but said nothing. After all, it
was
April Fool's Day.

“Aren't you scared of bugs?” Leon asked her.

“No. My brother used to chase me with bugs all the time when I was little. I guess I just got used to it,” Joyelle explained. “But it was a great prank. Hey, watch your back—here comes the wig lady!”

Leon and I slipped quietly behind the courtyard wall and watched as Ms. Emmalina Wiggersly tiptoed daintily over the mess in the courtyard. Her wig was red today, and slightly askew. She obviously was afraid of bugs, but didn't want the students to see that. “Did you see the perpetrators of this incident?” she asked Joyelle. She always talked like she was a police officer.

“Nope. I didn't see nothing,” Joyelle told her.

“Didn't see
anything,
” Ms. Wiggersly corrected her.

“You didn't see nothing either?” Joyelle asked with fake innocence. The bell rang then and she giggled and said, “I got to get to class!” She ran from the courtyard in laughter, hurrying to tell Angel what had happened. Ms. Wiggersly remained there alone, checking the bottom of her shoe for insect bodies.

Leon and I ran down the long hall to the senior courtyard, laughing. I felt light and free. It felt good to laugh, be silly, do something stupid. I had been back at school for a month and had caught up with most of the work I had missed while I was out. All of my friends, my teachers, even kids I hardly knew had been helpful and supportive. They let me work at my own speed, and gradually I moved back into senior year. I went to a support group every Saturday, which helped; these were people who had been
through the same kind of stuff I had, and because they were strangers, I found it easy to talk to them, to work through some of the rough spots.

The most difficult problem I faced was that Jonathan Hathaway had not been found. He had simply disappeared. His father claimed not to know where he was, and the police had been unable to trace Jonathan at all. There were no credit card receipts to follow, no phone calls to trace, no plane tickets to verify. Jonathan had vanished. This made me unable to completely relax and heal. I was always looking over my shoulder. I was afraid I would see him on the street, at the mall, or in a dark movie theater. Sometimes I would glance up and see a man who was the same height, or had the same build, and I'd gasp in fear. Sometimes I'd hear a voice that was sticky-smooth like honey, and I'd tremble with memories until I was sure that it wasn't Jonathan.

Leon was the rock that he promised he would be. He listened if I needed to talk. He comforted me if I needed to cry. He made me laugh. He asked for nothing for himself, not even attempting to hold my hand unless I offered it first. I needed lots of space, and that's what he gave me.

When we got to the senior courtyard, most of the other seniors were already there. It was the day of the senior meeting, where we got information about prom, caps and gowns, graduation tickets, and other senior concerns. Gerald and Jalani waved for me and Leon to join them. Rhonda sat with Tyrone on the other side. B. J. sat with them.

“Ms. Emmalina Wiggersly might be a bit late,” Leon announced, laughing.

“Couldn't find her wig?” Tyrone yelled across the courtyard.

“Ah, now
that's
a good idea for a senior prank!” Leon said devilishly. He seemed to have found his place in the senior class—finally. Instead of being the kid that other kids just laughed at, Leon was the kid who told the best jokes, who pulled the best pranks, who could be depended on to bring the senior class together with laughter. More importantly, Leon was known not really as my boyfriend, which was fine with both of us, but more my special protector—the one who made sure nothing would hurt me or frighten me or upset me. He was real good at that.

Gerald asked, “What
are
we going to do for senior prank, Leon? It's gotta be something better than last year when the seniors dumped sand in the front hall.”

“That was stupid,” Rhonda said.

“And a mess to clean up,” Tyrone added.

Jalani offered, “At the school I went to last year, the seniors made a sculpture out of wet toilet paper and raw eggs. It was supposed to be a hand with two fingers making the sign for victory—a sign the seniors were victorious, I guess. But one of the fingers fell off, and it ended up being an insult and getting them in trouble.” She laughed as she remembered the middle-fingered tribute. “Worse than that,” she continued, “after two days it really began to stink!”

Leon stood up. “I have an idea that will be remembered for all time—a prank that will be funny, but not messy;
memorable, but not destructive—a prank that will make our class stand out as the best one ever!”

“What do you have in mind, Leon?” I asked, giggling a little.

“It's gonna be ...” At that moment Ms. Wiggersly hurried into the courtyard.

“Seniors! Attention! These are the procedures for an orderly end to the school year. I will insist on decency and decorum and will
not
allow interruptions such as was found in the freshman area today!”

“What did those nasty little freshmen do now?” Leon asked innocently.

She ignored him and continued with her speech. Most of the information she gave us we already knew—dates for the events had been posted since last September. But today she was to announce the results of the senior voting for special responsibilities at graduation. Finally, she cleared her throat and said, “I have the results here of the senior voting. Please give me your full attention.”

“You got it!” somebody yelled across the courtyard. She was never quick enough to catch who made the smart remarks, so she just became flustered. The kids enjoyed every minute of it.

Ms. Wiggersly glanced at her paper. “The senior who has been chosen to sing the class song is . . . Leon Hawkins!” Leon looked up with surprise, but bowed with pride and pleasure to the class. By choosing him, they showed him that they had not only noticed him, but accepted him as well. I grinned at him.

“Way to go, Leon!” I whispered as he sat down.

“Almost makes me feel guilty for the prank I've got planned—almost.” He grinned at me with a look of mystery. “What are you going to do?”

“Can't tell you,” he whispered back. “That way, if you are captured by the enemy and the wig woman is beating you with her wig, you can't be forced to tell details of our attack plans!”

“You're nuts, Leon.” I smacked him on the back of his head.

“I've been trying to tell you that!” he said, crossing his eyes so he looked distorted. “Nobody believes me!”

Ms. Wiggersly continued with her reading of the names. “The invocation and benediction will be given by ...”

The entire senior class said in unison along with her,
“B. J. Carson!”

B. J. waved his thanks to the class. “Bless you, my children,” he said, grinning.

Ms. Wiggersly cleared her throat. “It seems
that
one was a unanimous decision.” She could have smiled then, but she didn't.

She read several more names—the flag bearers, the ushers, the introducers of the school board members who would attend. Ms. Wiggersly said finally, “The last two names are for our student commencement speakers. I am pleased to announce that our valedictorian this year is Nicole Kay-well.” She paused as the entire class stood to cheer for Nicole. Being first in the class was something to be celebrated—nobody else had worked that hard, or consistently
made the high grades to get to that point. Nicole stood, pleased and blushing with pleasure at the recognition.

“And, as class president, our final speaker will be Miss Keisha Montgomery!”

Once again, everyone stood and applauded, but this time it was for me. I remained sitting, looking amazed. I couldn't understand why they were cheering for me.

“We just want to show you that we all love you, Keisha,” Leon told me. “Stand up and wave or something!”

The class was now chanting, “Keisha! Keisha! Keisha!” with loud intensity. Ms. Wiggersly started to try to quiet them down. Then the boys started shouting,
“Seniors! Seniors! Seniors!”
and we all joined them as the bell rang. Ms. Wiggersly gave up. The senior class trooped out of the courtyard, shouting at the top of our lungs,
“Seniors rule! Seniors rule! Seniors rule!”
It was good to be back.

The rest of April
was a whirlwind for me. The end of the school year seemed to be spinning by. Final school projects, the senior class weekend trip to New York, shopping for a prom dress—all of the activity kept my mind occupied and my thoughts focused on the present and the future. I tried not to linger on the past. I worked on my graduation speech a little each day, alternating between fear about giving it and confidence that I would say just the right thing.

I still went to my support group meetings every Saturday morning, so I liked feeling normal with my closest friends around me in the afternoon. The first Saturday in May was Rhonda's birthday. I'd asked everybody to stop by my house that afternoon to celebrate it. I had bought a small cake at the bakery the day before and stopped to get some chocolate chunk ice cream, Rhonda's favorite.

I glanced in the mirror as I combed my hair, trying to make it look as if I hadn't been working at it for half an hour to get it just right. I put the brush down for a moment and looked at the girl I saw in the mirror. It had been weeks after the attack before I had been able to look at myself. At first, all I saw in the mirror was shame and fear, pain and dark memories. After a few meetings with my support group, I was able to see just Keisha—a girl with brown skin, brown eyes, brown hair—a girl that could blend into any background. That day, I looked in the mirror and I actually smiled. The face I saw had personality and spunk. My eyes, no longer sunken and depressed, sparkled with anticipation as I looked forward to the afternoon. My hair was not just plain old brown, but a rich auburn, streaked with reddish-brown highlights that showed up in bright sunlight.

I decided to wear a pair of white jeans that I'd bought on a recent shopping trip with Jalani and Rhonda, with a loose-fitting black sweater that I loved. On my neck I wore the silver butterfly necklace. I wore it always; it made me feel safe. I was just putting on a dash of lipstick when the doorbell rang.

Leon was the first to arrive. “What's up, Sunshine?” he said.

“Not much sunshine today—the sky looks like steel wool! I'm glad we didn't decide to do this in the park.”

“Springtime weather is so unpredictable,” Leon commented, “but I
love
the rain! I like the way it smells when it's over—like grass and dirt.”

“There's gotta be something wrong with a dude who likes to smell dirt!” I said wryly.

Gerald and Jalani pulled up into the driveway before I had a chance to close the door. Angel sat in the back seat, holding a wrapped gift. They had stopped by to pick up Monty, who sat next to her. The first drops of rain had started to fall just as they got out of the car. “It's going to rain hard,” Gerald noted, checking out the ominously dark sky, “maybe even a thunderstorm.”

“This morning I heard the weather reporter say thunder and lightning for sure most of the day,” Jalani added.

“Well, I guess I bought her a dumb gift,” Monty said with a laugh.

“What did you get her?”

“A kite!”

“As long as she doesn't try to fly it today, she's OK,” Angel said as she came into the house. “Now
we
got her something awesome!”