Part 5 (1/2)

”I'm Zach,” he said, even though he knew I knew that. ”I like them, too. Icicles, I mean. Only good thing about winter.”

We stared at each other. I saw how smooth his skin was, how fine the pores. Then we looked up at the icicles. Fifteen of them. Each one dripping.

”You think they're going to last the day?”

”No,” I said. Surprised that I could find my tongue. ”It's too warm.” Why was he talking to me?

He took a step closer. ”We're in biology together, aren't we?”

I nodded.

”That Yayeko is weird, don't you think? Smart though. She's probably the smartest teacher we got.”

I nodded again. No boy had ever stood this close to me before.

”I like those cla.s.ses,” he said, moving even closer. He didn't mention that if we were in school where we were supposed to be, Yayeko Shoji's cla.s.s would be starting soon. ”Cells and glycolysis and fast-twitch muscles. I play ball better from learning all that stuff, you know?”

I nodded. I wasn't sure I could speak with his breath misting so near my own. But it was true. Yayeko taught us about life, broke it into its components, so that our movements through s.p.a.ce made sense. When I ran I thought about the movements of my muscles and joints, the glucose and oxygen making energy together.

He brushed his lips gently along my cheek.

I didn't move. The shock of it froze me. Why had he done that? He'd never looked at me that way. He'd never really looked at me any kind of way.

His lips were dry and warm. No other part of us touched. Blood moved faster through my veins and capillaries. Without willing them to, my lips parted slightly. An ”oh” escaped from me.

”Biology is probably my favorite cla.s.s,” he said, letting his lips slide toward my ear, gently pressing his teeth into my lobe.

”Mine too,” I said, glad to be able to speak again. Because it was true: biology is the only cla.s.s I like.

The smell of him was curling into my nose and mouth. Sweat, meat, soap, and something else I didn't have a word for. My pulse beat faster. I felt it in my throat. The skin all over my body tightened.

Why was he kissing me? How many other girls had he kissed like this?

”No one else notices. But I seen how pretty you are,” he said. ”You got the biggest eyes.”

He kissed the corner of each and the tip of my nose with his dry, soft lips.

Something crashed beside us.

We turned.

The largest of the icicles lay shattered into hundreds of slivers of ice. I bent and picked up one of the largest pieces. Cold, and the broken edge sharp like a knife.

FAMILY HISTORY.

Dad grew up with two crazy white ladies who worried about the family illness, how to increase apple and hay yields, how to keep the farm animals living longer, and whether their children were running too wild or just wild enough.

Grandmother had the one child. Great-Aunt Dorothy and Great-Uncle Hilliard had six. If he hadn't died it would probably have been more. Four of them with the family illness. Because of that they homeschooled all of them. Not Dad, who didn't have the illness. He went to a boarding school in Connecticut on a scholars.h.i.+p, where he was one of only five black students. None of whom he liked. He kept to himself, proving himself to be more of a Wilkins than he cared to admit. He studied French and everything he could about France, especially Ma.r.s.eille. Because all he knew about his father was that he was a French sailor from Ma.r.s.eille.

Dad went to France when he was eighteen. Worked his way over as a merchant marine, which he hated. He didn't find his father. But he did find lots of pretty French girls. Including my mom. He brought her home, though not all the way upstate. He stopped in the city and stayed there.

Mom's never gone back to France. When I ask her if she misses it, she laughs.

Here, she is a schoolteacher. Teaching French, while Dad writes. He's a professional liar, Mom says. Even his journalism is lies. Travel writing. Appraisals of hotels, spas, and resorts. If they pay him enough he'll say whatever anyone wants him to say.

He's away a lot. When he's away they don't fight so much.

I never tell anyone about my family. Especially not counselors like Jill w.a.n.g.

I never talk about the family illness and how Dad pa.s.sed it on to me.

AFTER.

Sarah is following me home from school. She thinks she's being stealthy.

She's managed to stay a block behind me since we left school. But the blocks between school and my home aren't that crowded even after school on a weekday. So at every corner, as I turn, I glance back and see her. Finally I'm around a corner waiting.

Sarah turns and there I am staring at her.

”Oh,” she says, taking several steps back, looking away. ”Oh.”

”Hmmm,” I say.

”I,” she begins, looking at me briefly, slipping her hands under the straps of her backpack, resting her left foot on the curb.

”You,” I say, mocking her. She blushes and looks down.

”I was . . .”

To increase Sarah's discomfort I continue to stare at her.

”I was going to . . . ,” Sarah says. ”I was just . . .”

Sarah hasn't found the rest of her sentence yet, so I give it to her: ”You were just following me?”

”Yes,” she says, incurably honest. ”I wanted to see where you live.”

”Why?” I ask. She's still not looking at me.

”I heard that he'd come visit you.” She slides her right hand out from under the backpack strap, wipes it on her skirt, and then slips it under again. ”I wanted to see.”

”To see what? Him with me? He's dead, remember?

Sarah shakes her head, her heavy loose curls swaying.

She's still looking down.

”What did you want to see, Sarah? The outside of my apartment building? The inside? My bedroom?”

She looks up. Her eyes are wide and wet. ”Yes,” she says. ”No. Maybe. I don't know. I didn't think it all the way through.”