Sage's Eyes (25 page)

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“That I didn't go?”

“No, you idiot.”

He laughed, and as quickly as wiping a blackboard, the dark, sad moment disappeared. “Can I say how much I love the fact that I can't intimidate you?”

“You can say it,” I said. “It had to be a bad time for you and your father, especially with you being so young.”

“Yes. My mother was cremated. Her ashes are in an urn in our living room right now. We've never gone anywhere without her. I think you'd appreciate this. I wouldn't tell it to anyone else.”

“What?”

“I talk to her, talk to the urn, and when I do, I see her as clearly as I would if she were actually standing there. I remember every little thing about her, every movement in her face, her eyes, the tiny dip in her lower lip when she was very thoughtful, and, most of all, the wonderful scent of her hair. For me, she's never dead. She put me to sleep every night when I was little, and she still does now.”

I felt tears come into my eyes.

He smiled.

“Don't feel sorry for me,” he said quickly. “I should be the one who feels sorry for you. You have a heavier cross to bear. Both of your biological parents are dead to you. I don't care how good your adoptive parents are to you, good deeds don't replace blood and heritage.”

“What makes you so wise?” I wasn't being smart.
I was really interested. For most of my school life, my classmates resented me for being too wise, too grown-up. How was he getting away with it?

He shrugged. “I know what I know. So do you,” he added, and started to eat again.

“What do you mean, so do I? How do you know so much about me after just one day and one phone call? How I think, what I know, and what I want?”

“Maybe it's all just lucky guessing,” he said. “Besides, you don't want me to make it too easy for you by telling you, do you? It's the journey that matters, how you get there. Anyone can get there.” He looked over at our classmates. “Most just stumble into it. They don't have their eyes as wide open and don't make the right choices because they knew enough to make them. If they do, it's pure luck. So, speaking of right choices, have you decided what we should do Friday night? Should I make it formal and come to your house, or should we just meet?”

“I'm still thinking about it.”

“Good. As long as you're thinking about it, I still have a chance. I won't pressure you,” he added. “I don't think I can anyway, not you.”

“Why not?”

“You don't do anything you don't want to do,” he said. “Neither do I,” he added, before I could ask him how he knew that, too. “We're birds of a feather.”

“So we should flock together?”

“See? I knew you'd get it.”

Both of us ate silently. I was still struggling with my usually successful vision of the future, but he remained impenetrable.
When he went into deep silences, it was as if he had left his body. That was something I had been accused of from time to time, especially by my mother. “Where are you?” she would demand, shaking me back from wherever I was. Of course, I'd be too afraid to say.

When the bell rang to end lunch hour, Summer took my tray to put it on the shelf. I waited, but he surprised me by turning around and looking like he was surprised I was still there, and then, like someone brushing someone off, he said, “Don't wait for me. I'll see you in class and at chorus.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I told him, now feeling a little indignant and embarrassed. I hurried out to join my green-eyed girlfriends, who had been loitering behind to watch us.

“Sorry,” I said. I meant I was sorry that I didn't sit with them at lunch, but it was obvious they took it differently.

“Sure, you're terribly sorry,” Mia quipped. “You're suffering terribly every minute with him.”

“Did you find out about his father's novel?” Ginny asked.

“Yes. It was what I thought. He saw Kay buying copies in the bookstore.”

“And?”

“He thought it was funny.”

“Did he ask you out this weekend?” Mia asked. She was always one to get right to the point.

“He's trying,” I said.

“What's that mean?” Kay asked. “Trying?”

“He
wants either to come to my house to pick me up or have me meet him at the mall Friday night when we all meet to go to Jason's party and maybe just be with him.”

“So why is that trying?” Darlene asked. “Sounds like a clear invitation to me.”

“I didn't say yes yet.”

“To which one, him picking you up or meeting him at the mall?” Kay asked.

“Either.”

“You mean you might not want to be with him at all?” Ginny asked, her voice soaked in incredulity.

“I'm not sure. That's all.”

They all wore the same amazed expression now.

“The one girl he chooses has to think about it,” Ginny said, shaking her head. “Maybe he's not as sharp as we think.”

The others nodded. I could see that made them feel better about not being the one Summer had gone after first. We started walking again. I remained a step or two behind, struggling to foresee where all this was going. Now I was sorry I had wished I didn't have a third eye. Maybe, because I was ungrateful, it had disappeared, and I was just as vulnerable as the others.

Peter and Danny were talking just outside the classroom. They were arguing about a new smartphone app. They paused when I broke away from the girls and stepped up to them.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” Peter said. “We saw you with the new guy. What's he like?”

“Don't you know?
You helped him with where we are in history class.”

“Huh?”

“Didn't you?”

“I have yet to exchange two words with him,” he replied. He looked at Danny, who shrugged. “What's this about?”

I turned and looked for Summer. He was lagging behind with some of the boys. They paused when a senior boy, Ned Wyatt, came hurrying up the hallway past them. He was a good fifty pounds overweight and often bullied by other boys. They called him a mama's boy and had made up a song about him to illustrate how overly protective his mother was. They often tracked behind him and sang: “Ned cannot play hardball; softball yes, hardball no.” It usually drove him to tears.

I saw how they were all looking at him now, smiling as Jason sang the song. I was surprised to see Summer join in with them. Ned tried to ignore them. He looked back once, and then his legs inexplicably twisted as if they had turned to rubber, and he fell forward, his books splashing on the floor, his glasses leaping off his thick nose, and his pens and pencils rolling away. There was a roar of laughter from everyone in the hallway. He struggled to get up, but it was as if the floor beneath him had turned to ice. He slipped and fell repeatedly. Other students stopped to watch him, until Mr. Hardik, who was about six foot four and easily more than two hundred pounds, came out of his science classroom and literally lifted him up. Mr. Hardik shouted at the others to get to class.

I looked at Summer. He smiled at me as if he expected I would be just as amused by what had happened as everyone else seemed to be. It gave me a chill. I went into the classroom and got to my desk quickly, trembling a little from the confusion I felt. Someone who had suffered so much emotionally should have more compassion for others, I thought, but then again, maybe the tragedy had embittered him and he was just good at keeping that hidden most of the time. I wasn't sure whether I should feel sorry for him or annoyed at him.

He didn't try to explain anything when he came into the room. We didn't talk; in fact, he didn't look at me, and he was with the boys again between classes. By the time I arrived at chorus class, he was at the piano, playing as beautifully as yesterday, only now he was running through the numbers selected for the performance as if he had been playing them all his life. Mr. Jacobs stood by watching him and listening with more wonder on his face than I had ever seen on anyone's face. It was as if he had stumbled upon a true prodigy who was only his to employ and enjoy. He had found gold.

I took my seat quickly and observed how every other girl in the class was just as mesmerized. Again, for reasons I couldn't understand, I was more annoyed by it than pleased for Summer. He looked like he expected no less than adoration, and that arrogance was starting to wear on me. My girlfriends would never understand.

When we got up to sing, I was shocked when Mr.
Jacobs said he wanted to make a change with two of our numbers. His change was to replace Jan with me to sing the solo parts in both numbers. I looked at Summer. He held a tight smile. I started to protest, but Mr. Jacobs insisted I do it, and we began. Jan looked devastated. Afterward, when we were leaving the room, I told Mr. Jacobs it wasn't fair to replace Jan so abruptly.

He had started to chastise me for telling him how to run his team when I fixed my eyes on his and, using the same concentration I had when I willed my father's file drawer to close, willed him to stop. Suddenly, he did stop lecturing me. He blinked his eyes rapidly and then looked at Jan, who had lingered behind, despondent. He nodded to me.

“Yes, well, maybe I'll have you do a solo in a different number, one that we're not using a solo for yet,” he said.

“Thank you,” I told him. Jan had overheard and was smiling again.

When I looked at Summer, he seemed furious for a moment and then smiled and shook his head at me.

I turned and started away.

“You can be very convincing when you want to be,” he said, catching up to me. “Are you always that successful so quickly?”

“I don't know what you mean,” I said, a little nervous, because I, too, was impressed with what I had done.

“Maybe you don't realize yet how effective you can be.”

“All I did
was point out how wrong he was to replace Jan like that.”

“You're better than she is.”

“I don't think so. I don't think he really thought so, either,” I said. I paused and looked at him. “Speaking of convincing people quickly . . . I suspect that you somehow convinced him to do it in the first place.”

“All I did was point out the obvious.”

“Right,” I said, “the obvious.”

“I was just thinking about what's good for the chorus.”

“Of course. I'm sure that was your only reason.”

He laughed. I continued walking, and he caught up again. “I see. You think I'm trying to endear myself to you quickly so you'll go out with me Friday night.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“Now, do you really think I'm that conniving?”

“Let's just say I have my suspicions.” I stopped walking and looked at him with disapproval.

“What now?”

“That wasn't nice ridiculing Ned Wyatt earlier. Looks to me like you're being influenced by the wrong boys.”

“It was all in fun.”

“At someone else's expense. I thought you would have more compassion and understanding,” I said.

He looked at me oddly for a moment, as if the entire idea was something he'd never expected to come from my lips. His expression changed quickly. “You're right,” he said. “Sometimes I try too hard to make new friends. I haven't had all that many opportunities to have friends, don't forget, so I probably do make mistakes,
compromise my values, and kiss up too much. You're not the first one to notice. My father's bawled me out for it a few times, too.”

Because he sounded sincerely remorseful, I walked slowly so we could continue together to our last class of the day. Something else came to mind, however, and I thought that since he was being so honest, I should bring it up.

“By the way, I spoke to Peter a little while ago,” I said, before we reached the classroom.

“Peter, Peter . . .”

“Peter Murphy, the boy who supposedly clued you in on where we were in the history text?”

“Oh, right. Peter.”

“He said he never spoke to you about it. He's hardly spoken to you at all, in fact.”

“That's true.”

“But you said he showed you where we were in the textbook.”

“I saw where he was and figured it out, so in a sense, he showed me.”

“Cute explanation,” I said. “But you were giving me the impression you had made friends with him quickly, weren't you?”

“Guilty.”

“Why did you do that?”

He shrugged. “I was told you liked him.”

“I do. He's very bright and a lot more decent than most of the boys in this school.” I gave him a disapproving look, the way my mother would give one to me.

“What now?”

“You don't
have to pretend untruths to impress me, Summer. Just be honest. You're picking up bad habits quickly in your new school. Or maybe you always had them, and now you're passing them around.”

“
Moi?
” he joked.

I nodded and continued walking.

“Listen, Sage, if you really want to know, it's Jason who's the instigator in that group,” he said, when we saw them all pushing and shoving on the way to their last class.

He paused to watch them, so I stopped, too. I could believe what he said about Jason. I was the one who had warned Mia about him.

“If he is, he should get his just rewards,” I muttered.

“That's possible,” Summer said. “Maybe sooner than later.”

I looked at him with surprise. He was staring at the boys with angry eyes. As they passed the stairway, Skip Lowe suddenly lost his balance, as if his left leg had turned into butter, and he hit Jason on his right shoulder with his left the way a football tackler might. The blow pushed Jason to the top step. He tottered for a moment and then fell awkwardly to his left, tumbling down the stairs. Everyone nearby screamed. I shot forward and looked down. Jason had broken his landing with his left hand, and from the way it looked and the pain he appeared to be in, I was sure he had broken his wrist. His friends shot down the stairs to help him to his feet, Skip included. He was
apologizing profusely, claiming he didn't mean it. He claimed his leg had just given out on him.