The Academy - Introductions (14 page)

“Oy,” Gabriel said, his voice surprising me as it was
deeper than Victor’s. “So you’re the troublemaker.”

Heat radiated at my cheeks. Was that what they were saying
about me?

Victor gave him a chop on his head. “Don’t pick on her.”

Gabriel ducked away from Victor's hand and then moved to
sit next to me. “Hey, I was only teasing,” he said. “I didn’t mean anything by
it.” He turned to me. “Don’t listen to me, okay?” His face was so bright and
happy. He had an angular chin, a slight nose and shaped eyebrows. His crystal
blue eyes were dazzling like sunlight in pool water.

Kota tucked his chair back toward his desk and then sat
across from us. Victor plopped down on Kota’s bed, hands tucked behind his head
and looking up at the ceiling.

“We need to be more careful around her parents,” Nathan
said.

Kota nodded. “I think that’s why we need to talk about it.”
He looked at me. “Tell us what we need to do.”

I blinked at him, not sure what to say. What was this? They
seemed to freely accept that my parents were difficult and now they’re willing
to learn how to handle this? This seemed impossible. Anyone normal would have
told me to go home and wouldn’t want to get in the middle of it. I flitted
looks from Kota’s green caring eyes, to Nathan’s serious expression, to Gabriel’s
curiosity... I even caught Victor turning his head, looking at me, and the fire
in his eyes a little subdued but working, as if thinking.

“I’m not sure where to start,” I whispered. Did Victor and
Gabriel know? Did Kota tell them?

The guys looked at each other. Gabriel and Nathan had that
same knack to read the others. There was the slight incline of the head from
each of them before they turned back to me. “What would we have to do if we
wanted to come over?” Kota asked. “Let’s start with that.”

As soon as the words were spoken, a thudding sound started
to reverberate from the quiet of the neighborhood. A basketball was being
bounced outside in the street.

Looks were exchanged between all of us. Nathan jumped up
and rushed to the window seat, leaning against the frame to look outside. “It’s
Derrick.”

Everyone else got up at once. Kota and I stood on either
side of Nathan and looking down into the street. Victor and Gabriel moved to
the other window to look out.

A guy about our age was walking up the street. His hair was
black with a bowl cut. He was tan. His shirt was removed and hanging over his
shoulder and he was wearing jean shorts and was barefoot. He bounced a
basketball in his hands as he walked down the street.

“Where is he going?” Nathan wondered out loud.

We watched in silence together as the boy walked to my
house and started to head up the drive.

My eyes widened. What was he doing?

Kota caught my hand that was fluttering at my throat,
enclosing it with both of his hands. “Did you meet him? Is he going to ask for
you?”

I shook my head, watching as the boy disappeared into the
open garage attached to the house toward the side door. “I’ve never seen him
before.”

He let go of my hand. I think we were all holding our
breath, waiting for whatever was going to happen.

In what felt like eons, the boy reappeared again. Marie
trailed behind him, slow, hesitant.

They started playing basketball.

I blinked. My sister was playing with the boy down the
road. What was she doing?

“Looks okay to me,” Nathan said. He turned to me. “Maybe we
should go over.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, taking a hold of his shirt sleeve
to stop him before he could leave. He looked at me and then back out at the
house.

It only took a few minutes. They were trading off the
basketball in what looked like a game of HORSE or PIG. The ball was tossed at
the goal. Marie started to run for it but stopped dead. They turned their heads
toward the garage. My sister ducked her head and ran for the garage. The boy
collected his basketball and started his way back down the drive.

“What happened?” Nathan turned to me. “Was it your mom?”

I nodded. “She called to them at the door.” I watched as
the boy made his way back up the road. “
You should go home. She has chores
to do
,” I recited the line my mother always used. While we didn’t live
close to other kids, a few neighbors had grandkids that visited and would ask
to play if they saw us in the yard. My mother always sent them away.

“Do you have chores?” Gabriel asked.

I shook my head. Marie and I did split chores, but the
house was usually pretty spotless. We were never outside our rooms so most of
the house was never touched. Depending on my mom’s mood now, Marie might be
told to get on her knees in the kitchen for hours or something else. I
shuddered, worried for her, too. I wondered what she was thinking to run
outside like that. There was a possibility Marie thought she was dead asleep.
She was wrong. “I don’t know what will happen to her.”

Victor made a fist and then flopped back onto the bed. “I
don’t like this.”

Kota and Nathan moved away from the window seat, but I
remained, watching to see the boy disappear around the bend in the street.
“It’s her way of keeping control,” I said softly. My face was radiating heat
and I felt a tear in my eye and I blinked it back. I thought I had gotten used
to the way my parents handled things. Keeping it in the dark was how I handled
it.

Gabriel moved to sit on the bed near Victor’s legs. He patted
the floor below him with his hand, looking up at me. “Come here. Your hair is
bugging me. Kota, do you have a brush?”

Kota leapt up and disappeared into his bathroom for a
moment. He found a blue hair brush and tossed it over to Gabriel.

Gabriel caught it with one hand and curled his fingers at
me. “Come on,” he said.

I felt awkward but did what I was told, moving to sit at
his feet, leaning a little against the bed. I pulled the hair clip away,
letting my hair fall in a wet clump against my neck.

“And what do you call this look? Wet shag?” His fingers
fell over my hair, lightly tugging at the knots.

Victor toed at Gabriel’s back to poke at him. “Leave her
alone.”

“Hey, I’m fixing it.” He smoothed out my hair at the tips,
starting with combing out the ends. “I’m going to detangle it, but we’re going
to wash it out and then dry it.”

I shot a pleading look at Kota, feeling awkward. It was as
if I was being told I didn’t know how to handle my own body, like being told I
was smelly and needed some deodorant. Kota didn’t seem fazed by it.

“It’s my fault,” Nathan said. “I pushed her into the pool.”

They all looked at him. I did, too. I hadn’t expected him
to talk about it. My blush continued on my face, now waiting to see if Kota or
Victor appeared angry that I went swimming with Nathan instead of coming over.
Why I felt that way, I wasn’t sure.

Only they didn’t look angry. They looked surprised. “What
happened?” Kota asked.

Gabriel brushed out my hair while Nathan explained about how
he found me in the tree and how he’d pushed me into the pool, all the way up
until we were standing at Kota’s door. He complimented my swimming. Again the
warm, tender sensation washed over me. I appreciated how normal they were. We
were talking and hanging around together. For the moment I was so glad they
were forgetting about my problems. I tried not to look as excited as I was. I
knew that Kota sitting on the floor a couple of feet away wasn’t feeling his
heart thudding or even thinking about the situation in the way I was. Touching,
talking, laughing... So this is what happens when people got together?

I was envious of the years they must have spent together to
be so comfortable with one another. Would I ever be so cozy with them? Would
there ever be a day when I wasn’t really conscious about the moment?

Gabriel patted my now smoothed strands of hair. Soft curls
fell around my shoulders, still wet but now brushed. “Your color is amazing,”
he said. “How is it so many different colors?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. “It’s like a dirty blonde or
something.”

“Or something is right,” he said. “There’s a little red in
there. Various shades of blonde. It’s crazy.” He urged me up by nudging me in
the shoulder. “Let’s go wash it. I want to blow dry it and see how it looks.”

I again looked at Kota, who only smiled a little
sympathetically at me. Nathan was smirking. I think he was enjoying this. I was
feeling silly but I stood up. Gabriel stood, grabbing my arm and pushing me
toward Kota’s bathroom.

He shut the bathroom door and we stood alone in the
enclosed space. I felt my breath catch, not expecting this. Flashes of my
imagination went through my head of things my mom would tell me about when boys
got you alone. If being in Kota’s room together with all of them wasn’t bad
enough, here I was in a locked room with one who wanted to play with my hair.

Gabriel went to Kota’s shower and found a bottle of shampoo
and conditioner. “These aren’t ideal for you but it’s what we have right now.”
He made a gesture to the sink and then patted me on the hip. “Let’s get to
work.”

My cheeks radiated and I moved forward to face the sink.

Gabriel stood next to me and twisted the knobs, testing the
temperature with his fingers. “Tell me when you think it’s okay.”

I reached in, waiting for the water to warm. When it did, I
nodded to him.

“Get in there,” he said.

I could hear voices from the other side of the door. I had
a feeling it was about me and I was straining to hear over the sound of the
rushing water.

When I ducked my head under the faucet of the sink, I
couldn’t hear the voices. Just Gabriel.

“You’re going to our school, aren’t you?” he asked, his
fingers combing through my hair again, rubbing along my scalp behind my ears
and really working his fingers along the base of my head. The massaging motion
relaxed me. He was good at this.

“Yes,” I croaked, not sure what to say. I was feeling even
shyer now that he’d seen such an intimate side of me and learned the
awkwardness of my family. He just met me and he knew the worst things so far.

“We’ll be in the same grade,” he said. “Going to sign up
for art class?”

I laughed. “I can’t draw.”

“Neither can I,” he said. He moved behind me, I felt his
hip meeting mine. Touching was impossible to get used to. I resisted the urge
to leap away from him though it was difficult. “I hear you just show up and
play with paint. There’s not much to it.”

There was the fragrance of soap filling my nose and his
fingers lathered up my hair with shampoo. “So you want an easy grade?” I asked.

“They don’t offer the classes I want to take.”

“What do you want to take?”

He finished rubbing the shampoo in and then pushed my head
a little until I was further under the running water. He cupped his hand into
the water to redirect the flow to run over the base of my neck. “I wouldn’t
mind learning bass. I already play guitar. There’s one class at... um...
another school.” His fingers smoothed over the locks of my hair. I thought I
felt him curling some of the strands but it was hard to tell.

His hesitation confused me. “Another school?”

“Just one of the private schools.”

“Are you considering going to the private school next
year?”

His hands moved away from my head and he was silent. I
thought I might have said something wrong but I heard a bottle being squeezed
and he was rubbing something between his hands. “Might.”

“Is there a requirement to get in?”

He moved his fingers through my hair again, taking time to
work the conditioner through every strand. “There’s always a requirement for a
private school, sweetie.”

The endearment made my breath catch. People don’t call
other people sweetie up north, not unless they were sweethearts. I wondered if
there was a hidden meaning or if that was just how people talked here in the
south like I’d seen in movies.

“So it means you won’t be going to my school if you go to
the private one,” I said softly.

“Maybe,” he said. “Victor’s so mean, isn’t he? Did you see
him kick me? I was trying to be nice and fix your hair and he’s kicking me.”
Was he dodging the question or was it obvious?

“He’s not so bad,” I said, thinking of the day before of
how he had held my hand on the way out of the mall and of the sheet music.

“No, he isn’t bad. He’s just a pain in the ass sometimes.”
He finished the lather and then had me dunk my head into the water once more.

When I was finished and dripping into the sink, he found a
towel in the tiny bathroom closet and held it out to me. I wrapped my hair into
it while he dug around in the cabinet under the sink. He pulled out organized
blue bins, reaching deeper inside for one near the back.

“So how do you know everyone?”

“Huh?” he asked, pulling an older model brown dryer out
from under the sink.