Inferno (12 page)

“Emily, I'm sorry but if I can't trust you to be honest about where you're going, you can't go anywhere.” She lets out a long breath. “You're grounded.”

Dad nods, like it's only reasonable. I'm sixteen and therefore I have to do whatever they say, whereas they can do whatever they want. And they don't
want
anything. They just go along, time ticking by, getting older, Mom agonizing about wrinkles and experimenting with new cosmetics and Dad setting up war games and cutting his food into cubes.

I can't stand it.

“Aren't you going to say anything?” Mom demands. “Well, Emily?”

“Dante,” I say. “It's Dante.” I stare out the window all the way home.

The next morning, I wake early but don't bother getting up. What's the point? I can't go anywhere. I finally drag myself downstairs at noon because I am starving.

I peek into the living room. Mom is scrapbooking the photographs from a vacation we took before we moved here. A lifetime ago. Glossy rectangles of beaches and Mayan
ruins litter the glass-topped coffee table, along with everything from plane tickets to menus.

She doesn't look up, and I have no desire for a heart-to-heart chat about last night, so I make myself some toast and grab an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter. I'm about to go back upstairs with my food when the phone rings.

I look at it, hesitating. Mom gets up and comes into the kitchen to answer it.

“Hello?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “Yes. Just a minute.” She passes it to me and taps her watch. “Two minutes.”

This is part of my parents' version of grounding— time limits on calls, no phone in my room, no
TV
and no Internet.

I take the phone from her. “Hello?”

“Dante? It's Leo.”

Mom is standing about six inches from me, and I bet she can hear every word. I step away and turn my back. “Hi.”

“Hey. I was just wondering what you were up to tonight. Paul and Keenan are having a party, nothing huge, just a few friends. Want to come?”

“I don't think I can.”

“Really? That's too bad.” He sounds disappointed. “Can't you come for a bit, even? I could pick you up. We're going early, to make some signs and stuff for Monday's demo.”

I'm pretty sure he likes me. It would be so easy if I could like him back. I glance at Mom. She's standing by the island, carefully rearranging the fruit in the bowl,
which apparently I disturbed by removing an apple. “I'm grounded,” I tell him.

“Shit. How come?”

“Long story.” I don't want to explain in front of Mom, which is kind of stupid since obviously she already knows why.

“Ah. Can't talk?”

“Right.” I wonder what Leo's thinking. None of his friends have to deal with parents. Keenan and Paul obviously have their own place, like Jamie and Parker. I wonder if Leo lives alone or if he has roommates or anything. Maybe he has a girlfriend, although you'd think I'd know that by now. I want to ask him if we're still on for Monday but I can't. “So...,” I say, wanting him to keep talking.

“Man. Your folks keep you on a pretty short leash, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I glance across at Mom and she taps her watch. I lower my voice. “Um, is Parker okay? She seemed kind of upset last night.”

Leo pauses, like he's considering his answer. “It's not the first time. She's...well, she's a complicated girl, Dante.”

“Yeah, but...”

“She'll be fine,” he says. “They fight sometimes but they always seem to work it out, you know?”

I don't know. Personally, I think Jamie's a jerk, and from what Parker said, it sounded like he'd hit her. I think she should dump his sorry ass. I think Leo and I should be helping her pack her stuff. But I don't say any of that.

Mom clears her throat and taps her watch again.

“I better go,” I say reluctantly.

“Well, I'll see you Monday then. You're still up for that, right?”

“Absolutely.” I put the phone down with a click.

“Who was that?” Mom asks.

“A friend.” I reach deep into the carefully rearranged fruit bowl and pull out a pear. “Changed my mind,” I say, putting the apple back on top of the now crooked pile. Then I smile brightly at Mom and head upstairs.

Monday morning, I tell Mom I'm going in early. I run all the way to school and I'm at Mrs. Greenway's office at eight o'clock. I hand the secretary my outline and ask her to please give it to Mr. Lawson first thing. I figure he'd love to fail me. No way am I going to give him an excuse to do it.

I walk down the empty hallway. It's clean and silent and smells like bleach. I step into the washroom for a pee; then I wash my hands and face and look at my reflection in the mirror. The front of my T-shirt is a V of sweat. I wish I'd brought a clean one to change into.

I hate it here. I hate everything about this school: the shiny green and blue lockers, the kitschy artwork on the walls, the never-quite-erased chalkboards, the green metal garbage cans, the locker room smell that the bleach can't completely hide.

I walk down the empty hallway and wish I was leaving forever instead of just skipping one morning. My heart is
racing and I keep half expecting Mrs. G. or some teacher to pounce on me and ask me where I'm going. I make it outside and take one last look back at the building.
GRSS: The tenth circle of hell
. Dante Alighieri's demons had nothing on Mr. Lawson and his ilk. I'd take heat, high winds and hornet stings over the petty rules and excruciating boredom of this place. I blow out a long breath, trying to steady myself. Then I jog slowly all the way back to the corner and wait for Parker and Leo and Jamie to pick me up.

They arrive about two minutes after I get there, Leo's car rattling down the wide lawn-edged road.

“You know what I hate about school?” I say, getting in the car. “I hate the color of the washrooms. Who would choose that color, unless they actually wanted to be unkind to the inmates? Seriously.”

Jamie rolls his eyes, like he can't believe I am so petty and small-minded.

Parker giggles. “What color is it?”

I picture it. It's a revolting shade that hovers somewhere between pink, orange and beige. “Hard to describe,” I say. “Okay, you know what it is? Imagine if you ate a can of ravioli, followed it with a glass of milk, and then threw up. That's the color.”

Leo gives an appreciative chuckle. “Puke Pink. Nice.”

“They were pale green at my school,” Parker says in a low voice. “Institutional, you know? Hospital green.”
Her jaw tightens and she ducks her head, fumbling for her smokes. “I hate that color.”

There's something about her voice that makes me shiver, and I wonder if she's been in a hospital or something. I don't feel like I can ask though, not in front of the guys. “You ever heard of Dante Alighieri?” I say instead.

She shakes her head.

“He was an Italian guy, like seven hundred years ago. He wrote this long poem called the
Divine Comedy
. You've heard of Dante's
Inferno
, right?”

She nods.

“Well, that's part of it. It's pretty cool. It's about this guy—well, Dante himself—who travels through hell and purgatory and heaven, and describes it all. Hell is divided into these circles, nine circles, with different kinds of sinners ending up in different places.”

“Are you named after him?” Parker asks.

“Yeah. Well, I chose the name, but that's why.”

Jamie cuts me off. “Don't tell me you're a Bible-thumper.”

“No, no.” I shake my head quickly. “It's not like that. I mean, I don't believe in this. I don't take it literally, you know? I just like it.”

He looks at me like I'm nuts. “If you don't believe in it, what's the point?”

“I don't know.” I shouldn't have brought it up with Jamie here. I bet Parker would have liked it, if I'd waited, but anything I say now will sound stupid.

Leo turns down the music. “It's a metaphor, right?”

I look at him gratefully. “Yeah, that's right. Or, um, what's the word? An allegory.”

“Listen to you two,” Parker says. “I feel like I'm back in school.”

She looks interested though, so I keep talking. “I love the idea that hell is almost this orderly place, with these circles and rules and gateways and guards. Monster guards, granted, but still.”

“Yeah, that's cool. Hey, I made it out without getting lost this time.” Leo turns onto the highway and speeds up. It sounds like the car needs a new muffler. “I don't think I could read all that heaven and hell stuff though. My parents are into all that. They're the insurance policy type of Christians, you know? Like, we better say we believe it and show up at church once a week in case it's really true. I don't suppose they ever think about God or what any of it means, but they don't want to risk burning in hell.” He shrugs. “It's hypocritical, but at least they're not crazy religious like Parker's folks.”

A clue about Parker's family. I file it away to ask her about later.

“People are scared shitless of chaos,” Leo says. “That's why everyone thinks anarchists are bad or messed up. Like if there was no government telling us what to do, we'd all run around killing each other or something.” He laughs. “It'd be funny if my parents got to hell and it turned out it wasn't chaotic at all, but more like some kind of crazy bureaucracy.”

“Yeah.” I nod. “With Satan in charge of the whole hierarchy.”

“Satan as the ceo.”

“Or the principal,” Parker says.

I laugh. “Handing out detentions. Yo, sinner—I hear you ate a whole pizza. Go spend a week in the third circle with the gluttons.”

“What happens to the gluttons?” Parker asks.

I frown, trying to remember. “I think they had to wade through stinky frozen slush or something. Or lie in it, maybe. Cerberus guards them anyway. He's a three-headed dog and he snaps at them if they try to get away.”

“Nice.” Leo slows down as he exits the highway and turns onto King Street. “Almost there.”

Jamie hasn't said a word. He's in the passenger seat, facing forward, but I don't have to see his face to know he's pissed off. I look over at Parker and she grins at me. Under her left eye, a dark purple streak fades into light blue-gray. A bruise.

She sees me looking and her grin slips from her face. She shakes her head ever so slightly, warning me not to say anything. As if I would. I turn away from her and stare at the back of Jamie's head. I wouldn't mind siccing Cerberus on him.

There are a ton of people
milling around in front of Central when we arrive, and for a moment I think this protest is going to be huge. Then I realize that most of them are just Central students heading to class like they do every day.

Jamie lifts some cardboard signs out of the back of the station wagon and drops them on the ground.
NO FREE SPEECH AT CENTRAL
, the top one reads. “Here, guys,” he says. “Stick these up anywhere you can. And if anyone asks you what you're doing, see if you can get them to join the protest. We want the classrooms to be empty. That should get their attention.”

He flags down a passing student, a serious-looking girl carrying a stack of books. “Hey, you know your school doesn't recognize your right to free speech?”

She looks at him like he's crazy and keeps on walking. Jamie strides off into the crowd, handing out flyers and
talking to anyone who will listen. Leo grabs a stack of signs and follows him, heading toward the front doors of the school.

I look at Parker, feeling oddly disengaged from what is going on.

She tucks her thumbs through her belt loops. “So.”

“So.” I reach out and almost touch her cheek, the bruise there, but pull my hand back at the last minute. “What happened?”

“Nothing. It was just stupid.”

“He hit you, didn't he?”

Parker doesn't deny it. She just watches me with those pale eyes and says nothing.

“I knew it. That asshole.” I clench my fists, feeling the nails dig into my palms.

She's quiet for a moment. “When all this stuff was going on with my family last year and I was such a mess...I don't know. He was the only one who even tried to understand what I was going through.”

I try not to roll my eyes. “Okay. Fine. Points for Jamie. But that doesn't mean he gets to treat you like dirt now.”

“No. He doesn't though. Not all the time. You see his worst side.” She looks at me thoughtfully. “He doesn't like you very much.”

“It's mutual. Sorry.”

“Whatever.” She picks up some signs. “We're supposed to hang around by the doors and talk to students. Try and talk them out of going to class.”

“We're supposed to?”

“Well, Leo says.” She looks at me, considering. “What's up with you and him anyway?”

“Me and
Leo
? Nothing's up.”

Parker watches my face for a long moment, and I can feel my cheeks getting hot. She shrugs. “Well, whatever you say.” She starts walking toward the school.

“Um, why did you ask?” I grab a sign and follow her, glancing down at it as I walk.
How Many Lives per Gallon
? it reads in blocky black letters. “Did Leo say something?”

“Aha.” She stops and turns to face me. “I knew it.”

I don't want to lie to her, and besides, maybe she already knows. “Okay. So when we hung the sign from the roof last week, it was kind of intense. And Leo kissed me. Once, for about three seconds. But that is absolutely it. End of story. Nothing is going on with us.”

“I'm pretty sure he likes you.”

“You think?”

“Mm-hmm. Are you interested? He's a good guy, Dante. A real sweetheart.” She winks. “If I was single, I'd be all over him.”