Gluttony (31 page)

Adam,
she thought.
Remember Adam
. She could hear him breathing next to her. She could smell his familiar, comfortable scent, and knew that if she put her hand on his, he wouldn’t pull away. He wasn’t repulsed by her. He didn’t hate her. He wanted to help—he wanted to forgive.

He didn’t think she was worthless. And that was a start.

It seemed silly to hope, to think that anything good could happen or that her life could return to some kind of even balance, something tolerable, not weighed down by guilt and misery. But she couldn’t help it. Behind her, Vegas was dipping beneath the horizon, and it felt like all the horrible things she’d done—or, at least, that one horrible thing she’d done—was receding along with it.

Maybe Harper had been right.

Beth didn’t deserve happiness, forgiveness, or peace.

But maybe somehow she would find them anyway.

The coach stood up. “This is him, our star.”

The man sitting across from Coach Wilson stood up and grasped Adam’s hand, pumping it up and down. “A pleasure,” he said. “The coach was showing me some game tapes, and that shot you got off in the playoffs? Remarkable.”

“Uh … thanks,” Adam said, shooting a helpless look at his coach. When was somebody going to tell him what was going on?

“And your foul-shot ratio is damn impressive,” the guy continued, “though we may have to work on your shooting stance—it’s a little loose, but that’s easily fixed with the proper training. No offense, coach,” he said, turning toward Coach Wilson, who’d settled back into the guidance counselor’s chair.

“Hey, you’re the expert,” the coach said, grinning. “I’m just a lil’ old high school coach. What do I know?”

“Enough to beat me eleven-three last time we played,” the guy pointed out.

“Oh, that’s right!” The coach slapped his forehead in exaggerated surprise. “I forgot all about that.”

“Bullshit. It’s all I heard about for a month.”

“Uh, Coach?” Adam said hesitantly. He nodded toward the clock. “My next class is going to start soon, and—”

“Where are my manners?” the guy said, indicating that Adam should take a seat. “The name’s Brian Foley. Your coach and I went to high school together, back in the Stone Age.”

“Brian’s a coach now at UC Riverside,” his coach said, giving Adam a look that was obviously supposed to be meaningful; Adam just didn’t know what it was supposed to mean.

“Here’s the deal, Adam,” the UC guy said. “I’ve got a last-minute spot on next year’s squad, and I want you.” He tossed Adam a white and yellow T-shirt reading
UCR HIGHLANDERS
. “You’ve got Highlander written all over you.”

“Me? But—I didn’t even apply to Riverside,” Adam said. “I’m going to State, in Borrega.”

“Do they even have a basketball team?” the UC coach asked in disdain. “Listen to what I’m telling you, Adam. I
want
you on my team. And I can
get
you on my team. Doesn’t matter if you applied to the school or not. I’ve seen your transcripts, I can get you admitted. I think I can even manage a scholarship. It’ll take some doing, but … I’ve seen you play, and you’re the guy to play for me.”

“You can really do all that?” Adam asked, trying to process. He was going to the state school in Borrega; that had always been the plan. It was an hour away from home, one step up from community college, and everyone he knew would be there, too. Harper would be there.

“Adam, my friend, welcome to the wonderful world of college athletics.” Coach Foley stretched back in his seat. “I can do pretty much anything I want. And, once you’re a Highlander, so can you.”

Adam squirmed under the guy’s fiercely confident stare. “I don’t know …” He’d been counting the days until he could finally get out of school and never come back. Moving hundreds of miles away to some strange place where he wouldn’t know anyone, and would need to work even harder than he had in high school? What was the point? “School’s not really my thing.”

“Morgan, be smart,” Coach Wilson said. “This is your shot—UC Riverside’s got a great team and, more than that, you’ll get a degree that’s actually worth something. And, once Brian here works his magic, you’ll practically get it for free. This is what we in the coaching biz like to call a ‘win-win situation.’ Don’t pass it up.”

“He doesn’t have to decide right now,” the UC coach said, standing up. He leaned over and shook Adam’s hand again. “You’ve got two weeks.” He handed Adam a business card. Adam stared down at it, stunned, still expecting the whole thing to be a joke. But the card looked real. And both coaches looked dead serious. “Call me by June fourteenth, if you’re interested. Otherwise, the spot goes to someone else.”

Beth flipped through the empty pages of her yearbook, trying not to care. There were a few signatures, all variations on a theme:

It was fun being in_____class with you. Good luck in college next year—not that you need it!

Whenever Beth was asked to sign a yearbook—and it didn’t happen often—she scanned the other entries, comparing them to the ones in her own. They referenced wild nights and inside jokes, testified to years of friendship, and bemoaned the end of an era. But Beth didn’t get any of that. No, she just got
Have a great summer!

There was only one section whose pages were filled with cramped handwriting and messages of enthusiastic sincerity. But that was more of an embarrassment than a triumph. Lucky for Beth, no one ever bothered to search through her yearbook, counting up her signatures, so there was no one to notice that after four years of high school, her only true friends were her teachers.

“I’m really going to miss you,” Ms. Polansky said, signing her entry with a flourish.

“I’ll miss you, too,” Beth told her junior year English teacher, wishing she could slip back in time. Things had been easy when she was a junior;
life
had been easy.

“Oh, I doubt it,” the teacher said, laughing. The rare smile made her look several years younger. Although Beth knew that Ms. Polansky had been intimidating Haven High students ever since her parents were in school, she sometimes had trouble believing that the lithe, impeccably tailored woman in front of her was well into her sixties. Maybe all that snapping and eraser-throwing kept a person young; it certainly kept her students alert. “Once you get to Berkeley, you’ll forget all about us—you’ll get a chance to see what
real
teaching is like.”

Beth flushed and dipped her head, letting her blond hair fall over her eyes. “I, urn, didn’t get into Berkeley,” she admitted to the woman who’d written her a rave recommendation for her dream school.

Ms. Polansky pursed her lips, then gave a sharp nod. “No matter, no matter,” she said briskly. “Plenty of good schools, and students like you can excel anywhere. If I remember, your second choice was … UCLA?”

Beth rubbed her hand against the back of her neck and made a small noise of agreement. She glanced over her shoulder at the door, wishing there was some graceful way she could cut short the conversation and flee. Anything not to have to admit the truth and see the look on her favorite teacher’s face. Telling her parents had been difficult enough. This would be unbearable.

“And you were accepted, I presume?”

Beth made another noncommittal noise.

“What’s that?” Ms. Polansky asked sharply.

“Yes,” Beth said, sighing heavily. “I got in.”

“Buck up,” the teacher told her. “I spent some time in L. A. as a young woman—many, many years ago, as you can imagine—and it’s really quite the exotic locale. I’m sure someone like you will have no trouble—”

“I’m not going,” Beth admitted, ripping it off fast, like a Band-Aid. But it still hurt.

“What’s that?”

Beth settled into one of the chairs in the front row of the empty classroom, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu, as if any minute Ms. Polansky would start lecturing about MacBeth’s motivations in the third act while Beth struggled not to think about whether Adam would like her dress for the junior prom.

“Some stuff happened this year, and, uh, I turned down my acceptance,” Beth said. She didn’t say the part about how she’d thought there was no point to planning a future when she couldn’t imagine living through the next day, or the next. Nor did she mention that she had expected to spend next year lying on a couch with her stoner boyfriend, choking on a cloud of pot that would help her forget everything she was passing up.

“Why would you do a stupid thing like that?” Ms. Polansky snapped.

Beth winced. She had always loved the teacher’s bluntness and her high expectations—but that was back when she could meet them. “I’m just stupid, I guess.”

“You’re the farthest thing from that.” Ms. Polansky settled down at the desk next to her. Her voice softened. “What happened?”

Beth shrugged. “I made a mistake.”

“Can you fix it?”

“No.” Not that she hadn’t tried. Her father had tried. Her guidance counselor had tried. But it was permanent; it was over. “I missed the deadline. They’d still be willing to let me in, but … I lost my scholarship. And without it …” Beth shrugged again. Without the money, there was no way. She’d always known that. It was the reason she’d worked so hard every day, every year, knowing that her only shot for the future was in being perfect. And she’d actually managed it, right up until the very end, when she’d thrown it all away. “I’m thinking about taking some night classes … community college or something….”

Ms. Polansky handed the yearbook back to her and stood up. “Well then. That’s settled. I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it work.”

“I’m sorry,” Beth said.

“For what?”

“For … letting you down.”

“Nonsense,” the teacher said. “You’re only letting yourself down.”

Beth realized it was true. And that was even worse.

“For old time’s sake?” Miranda had begged, launching into a long guilt trip about how they didn’t spend enough time together anymore, and how everything was about to change, and all she was asking was this one tiny thing….

Eventually Harper had agreed, just to shut her up.

She stuffed a limp, greasy fry in her mouth, washing it down with a swig of flat Diet Coke. “Exactly which part of this are you going to miss?” she asked Miranda, who was gazing at the tacky fluorescent décor like it was the Sistine Chapel.

Miranda squeezed closer to Kane, who was stroking her arm with one hand and stealing fries off her untouched plate with the other. “This,” Miranda insisted.
“Us.”

“I see you every day, Rand,” Harper pointed out. “And next year, when we get the hell out of here and get our own apartment, I’ll see you even more. And as for your boyfriend, here,” she jerked her head at Kane, “I could do with seeing him a little less.”

“You know you’ll miss me next year,” Kane said, flashing her a smug grin. “What would you do without me?”

“Ce-le-brate good times,”
Harper sang tunelessly.

“Your life would be dull and colorless without me,” Kane argued.

“Oh, Geary, I know how much you love to be right, so why don’t you prove it? You leave and never come back, and I’ll e-mail you to let you know how it all turns out.”

Kane grabbed a straw from the table, tore off one end of the wrapper, then brought the straw to his lips and blew the wrapper into Harper’s face. “Patience, Grace. All good things come to those who wait.”

Harper grinned—then spotted the hint of a quiver in Miranda’s lower lip.
Stupid
, she told herself. Miranda had been dreaming about Kane for years, and now that she finally had him, he was headed east to college in less than three months. And Harper just
had
to dredge it up and turn it into a joke.

“I’ll be waiting a long time,” she said quickly. “Fall feels like forever away.
Graduation
feels like forever away.”

“It’s only two weeks,” Miranda pointed out, picking at her salad. “And I just thought coming back here at least once before it’s all over—it would be like the old days.”

The Nifty Fifties diner, with its peeling movie posters and Buddy Holly tunes blasting out of the ancient jukebox, was the perfect spot for nostalgia. Especially since they’d been coming here several nights a week since ninth grade. The fab four: Harper, Kane, Miranda—and Adam.

Now Kane and Miranda were nuzzling each other and sharing a shake, while Harper sat on her side of the booth, alone. And Adam was … somewhere else.

“You’re such a sap,” Harper told her best friend.

“That’s what you told me the first time we came here,” Miranda said, beaming. “When I said I wished people still wore poodle skirts and went to drive-in movies and danced the Jitterbug.”

Harper rolled her eyes. “You’re also a freak—how do you remember
everything
that’s ever happened?”

“I think it’s cute,” Kane said, giving her a peck on the cheek. Miranda blushed, and her smile grew wider. “Freakish, but cute.”

“As long as you two are already in mockery mode,” Miranda said, “now would probably be a good time for …” She pulled out her digital camera.