Waterways (18 page)

“But it certainly wouldn’t hurt,” his mother said. “And what else will you be doing with your Thursday afternoons?”

“Homework?” Kory said, but he knew that wouldn’t fly.

“You do well enough in your studies that you can spare one afternoon a week to prepare for your future. Thanks to your charity work, you’re reasonably well-rounded, but these classes help you gain that extra edge. If you want to get into Whitford or Gulliston, you’ll need that edge. Nick, finish your beans.”

Nick grumbled, taking one lima bean at a time and chewing forever, a strategy he’d developed to try to outlast his mother at the dinner table. So far, it hadn’t worked. Usually Kory would give him an encouraging grin, but tonight his attention was elsewhere. “Mom, I…”

“If you have time to do your charity work on weekends, you have time to spare one afternoon a week for this.” He didn’t respond to that, not wanting to jeopardize the weekend visits to Rainbow Center, and she nodded her head. “I’ll call the school tomorrow.”

And that was the end of that. It wasn’t worth his time to argue, and the only thing he could think of to say was that he wasn’t interested in going to Whitford, nor to Grick, nor to anyplace that was going to take him that far from Samaki. But this was not the time for that argument. That argument was going to take careful planning. That argument was going to last a long time.

After dinner, he helped clean up and worked on homework in his room until eight twenty-four. He opened his phone and closed it, fingers skittering impatiently across the buttons as he waited for eight-thirty.

At eight-thirty and two seconds, he dialed. Samaki picked up on the first ring.

Kory felt himself relaxing just at the sound of the fox’s voice. He listened to Samaki tell him about his classes and classmates. He’d mentioned some of them in e-mail, but it was nice to hear them in person. Kory told the fox about his classes too, and about his mom signing him up for the college prep course.

“You’re lucky,” Samaki said. “I already know I’m going to State.”

“You’re lucky,” Kory said. “You already know you’re going to State.”

Samaki laughed. “You don’t want to go to State. You have to go to Whitford so you can send me your coursework.”

“And you can come visit me on weekends.”

“On the weekends that you’re not visiting me.”

“Or at home.”

The fox chuckled. “Kande comes home once a month. I’ll probably come with her.”

“I don’t really want to go to Whitford, though.”

“They had a really good-looking brochure.”

Kory paused. They hadn’t really talked much about colleges, apart from looking at the brochures Kory’s mother had set out for him. But something was crystallizing now, something he’d missed in all the casual glances at the brochures. The “school Kory” was the one looking at them to make a decision about his future, what he wanted to be.

What if he didn’t want to be “school Kory” any more? What if he stopped trying to decide which would be the best school, and just picked the one he wanted to attend? If he said, ‘I want to go to State with you,’ Samaki would say… would say… 

What?

“I want to go to State with you,” he said.

He heard an exhalation on the other end, and then silence. “I mean it,” he said.

“Your mom won’t let you,” Samaki said. “Anyway, you can go anywhere. Why would you go to State?”

“Because you’ll be there,” Kory told him that Saturday morning, as they were finishing up the work on the fence at Rainbow Center.

“You think I’m going to forget about you if we go to different schools?” Samaki grinned at him, paws working evenly to apply the white paint, up and down. Kory thought of how those paws had been moving just the previous night, and of the bright white patch of fur he loved to explore with his own paws, and shivered.

“No,” he said, focusing back on his own painting work. “That’s just where I want to go.”

“What if I got into Whitford?”

“Could you?” Kory looked up, hopeful.

Samaki chuckled and shook his head. “On a full scholarship, maybe, but do you know how smart I’d have to be to get one of those?”

“Too smart to be wasting your weekend here,” Malaya chimed in. She had elected to paint with them rather than go with Greg and the boys up to a baseball game, a rare treat for the kids. “Never liked baseball,” she claimed. She painted apart from them, her black leather getting dotted with white specks, the acrid scent of cigarette smoke concealed by the rich paint smells unless Kory stood right next to her, which rarely happened.

“See?” Samaki said. “No chance. My dad’s working hard to put us through State. Kande will be done by the time Ajani’s ready to go, and I’ll be done when it’s Kasim’s turn. He’s allowed two kids at a time.”

“But what if you could get a full scholarship to Whitford? I mean, I’m going to need some financial aid, too. We could research scholarships, see what’s out there.”

“If you want to,” Samaki said. “But it’ll be a lot easier for you to get into State. Which you shouldn’t,” he added quickly.

“Whitford’s too far away.”

“Forester, then.” Samaki dipped his roller in the tray. “That’s close.”

“It’s not as good as Whitford and not as cheap as State.”

“No, but it is close.”

“Isn’t that where that gay kid got beat up by the football player?” Kory touched up the post Samaki had just painted, filling in the spots of brown with white until it was all uniform.

Samaki nodded. “That could happen anywhere, though. And it might have turned out to be a good thing, in the long run. The players got kicked off the team, and it raised awareness on the campus.”

Malaya shook her wings out. Drops of paint adorned them too, white speckles radiating up from her hands like part of her coat. “I don’t know why you two are so obsessed with college. Just move in somewhere, some cheap place in the city, and get jobs. It’s not that hard.”

Violet vulpine eyes peered around Kory at her. “Doing what?”

“Whatever you want.” She shrugged. “My old man’s dumber’n a pile of bricks and he makes enough to afford a house.”

“What does he do?” Kory asked.

“Construction. Any idiot can stack bricks on top of each other.”

Samaki grinned, rolling the paintbrush up and down the next post.. “I don’t see me on a construction site.”

“Except maybe to stare at the guys,” Kory said.

The fox laughed. “Why would I stare at other guys if you’re around?”

“Oh, God.” Malaya snorted.

“This friend of Nick’s,” Kory said, “his dad runs a painting business and he offered Nick a job next summer, when he’s older.”

“Good money in that,” Malaya put in, waving the broad brush. “Not here, but…”

Samaki nodded. “I don’t think I want to just be a painter, though. I want to be a reporter. You kind of have to go to school for that.”

Malaya didn’t answer. After a moment, Kory said, “Well, I can apply to State, anyway. I don’t have to make a decision yet. But you should apply to some other places too, just to see.”

“Sure.” The fox smiled at him. “It’ll be fun filling out those applications.”

“Oh, God,” the bat said again, turning pointedly away from them as Kory laughed and leaned over to kiss the fox on his muzzle, a bold gesture, but safe in the confines of Rainbow Center, even if they did both end up with smears of white on their muzzles.

They kissed again in the foyer, just before leaving. “Think of me when you brush tonight,” the fox said with a sly grin.

“And you think of me,” Kory said.

“I don’t know if I’ll need to brush for a couple days, after last night.”

He spoke in a low voice, but Kory still looked around to make sure nobody was listening before he giggled. “I could brush again right now.”

Samaki leaned down to lick his nose. “If my bus weren’t coming in four minutes, I’d take you up on that.”

“Mmm.” Kory felt himself getting hard again, so when he hugged the fox, he pressed his groin against Samaki’s hip. The fox didn’t comment, but the hips he pressed back against Kory were just as full of desire. They separated, and with a glint of regret in the violet eyes, Samaki tugged him out to the bus stop, where he had to stand and wave good-bye for another whole week.

He wandered back to Rainbow Center, up the stairs and onto the porch, but the sharp tickle of cigarette smoke pulled him to the side of the house before he could walk inside.

He leaned over the railing, where the smell was strongest. “Malaya?”

“Shit,” she said, “I thought you were gone.”

“I’m taking a later bus.”

“Spending more time with your boyfriend?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “That’s sweet.”

“I don’t get to see him much, with school and all.” He heard a noncommittal sound from her. “You ever have a girlfriend?”

A puff of smoke floated up past him. “Not really,” she said.

It didn’t look like she was going to come out, so Kory sat on the wood porch and rested his back against the house, mirroring the position he thought she was sitting in below. He ran his fingers over the paint of the porch and wondered which kids had painted it. It looked recent. Maybe Samaki had helped, last year. “But sort of?”

“There was this one girl.” Indrawn smoke. Slow hiss of exhalation. “She was a bitch, though.”

“Sorry,” Kory said.

“Not your fault she was a bitch,” Malaya said.

The fact that he couldn’t see her made it feel like a confessional. “What’d she do to you?”

“Just about everything two girls can do to each other.” She puffed again. “Including talk behind my back and fuck me over.”

Kory didn’t really know what to say to that. After a moment, Malaya continued. “She wasn’t really in love with me. At least, that’s what she said. She just thought I was cool, at first. I guess I’m not.”

“Were you in love with her?”

The bat didn’t answer right away. “Sure, why not?” she said finally.

“Are you still?”

“Yeah. Don’t you have to have someone new before you can forget someone old?”

Kory looked out at the crisp, blue sky, and at the trees, whose leaves were still bright and green. “I don’t know,” he said.

She was quiet for two more puffs of the cigarette. The smell faded into the warm fall air after that, so she must have ground the cigarette out, but she didn’t come out from under the porch. “Did you tell your mom yet?”

“No,” he said. “My mom’s pretty religious. She’d flip out.” Of course, that wasn’t all there was to it, was there? He was religious too. He went to church regularly because he believed in its teachings, just like his mother did. So why did he feel it was all right to be with Samaki, when his mother didn’t? Fortunately, Malaya didn’t give him time to dwell on the question.

“No dad?”

“Nah.” He didn’t want to say more than that, but felt he owed her more. “He took off.”

He didn’t expect the response he got. “Lucky.”

When he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t say anything. Malaya didn’t let the silence last. “My mom died when I was two. I never knew her.”

“Does your dad know?” Kory asked.

“That my mom died?” She laughed a dry laugh. “I know what you mean. Yeah, he knows. Why d’you think I ended up here?”

“I don’t know why you’re here.”

Her wings rustled. “My dad caught me with Jen. He chased her out of the house, took my door off its hinges, and said if he caught me breaking God’s rules again, he’d break my legs. So I ran away. Stayed in a couple shelters, heard some kids laughing about the ‘sissy shelter,’ and ended up here.”

“Jeez,” Kory said. The matter-of-factness with which she accepted the threat of violence in her life made him terribly sad.

“He might’ve killed my mom,” she said, with the same tone, as if she were telling Kory about a house her father had built, or a car he drove.

That concept was too much for Kory. He knew he was supposed to help the kids here and support them, but Malaya was only two years younger than he was, and he didn’t have the words or the experience to help her. He wanted to ask how she’d lived in her home for fifteen years, how she hadn’t run away before now, but he didn’t know how to ask without insulting her and he didn’t know what else he could say. So he got to his feet, brushed the seat of his pants off, and said, “My bus’ll be here soon.”

“Okay,” Malaya said. “See you next weekend.” Her long, narrow hand, leathery wing trailing down from it, reached above the porch to wave to him, white splatters of paint gleaming on it like bone in the bright afternoon sun.

 
“This is the most important decision you’ll make in your life.”

Kory had to try not to roll his eyes at the lanky red fox at the front of the classroom. Perry had told him that Mr. Pena was “a bit dramatic.” The wolf, it turned out, was understating things.

“You are all standing on the cusp of adulthood. College is where you will make that transition. The college you choose will determine what kind of an adult you become. Go to Pemberton and you’ll emerge a leader. Go to Race and you will be equipped with all the tools to make important scientific discoveries. Attend Whitford, and you may become one of the luminaries of our time in any field. So it’s worth spending not just this hour, but many more hours at home, making sure that your applications are in order. There’s still time to join extracurricular activities to make sure you’re well-rounded enough to get into the best schools. Last year, Carter High sent six students to Whitford, Race, and Pemberton.” He looked around for effect. “All six of those students took this college prep course.”

Kory looked around the classroom at the fourteen other students there. He recognized most of them from his advanced English class, and knew that most of them were also in the advanced math and science classes he hadn’t made it into. Of course, he thought, if any of Carter’s kids were going to get into the top three schools in the country, it would be those kids anyway, and of course they were so studious that the thought of skipping the college prep course had probably never occurred to them. But he paid attention to Mr. Pena anyway, because his mother was sure to ask him what they’d talked about in the class.

“All right,” he said after his opening remarks. “Let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves. Tell us what schools you’re applying to. Next week you’ll bring in the applications and we’ll start working on those.”