Part 2 (1/2)

Hopefully, no girls have invented a system like this for rating boys.

Bryce and Cameron both agree the next girl at the punch bowl is a nine, mainly because of her little black dress that shows off both B's. After her, the boys look at each other and remember where they are.

At home later, Cameron changes into a T-s.h.i.+rt and shorts, then goes through his ca.s.sette collection in the wooden storage box until he finds the one he has to play today, in Dakota's honor: the Star Wars soundtrack. He cranks the volume, closes his eyes and pictures the yellow letters crawling out into the infinite. Pictures her.

Outside his window, past the blazing orange berries of the pyracantha bushes, the sun goes down on this rapidly fading summer.

FIRST SEMESTER.

AUGUST DECEMBER, 1983.

7.

Bryce and Claire used to sit at the breakfast table and fight over who got to read the back of which cereal box while they ate Cinnamon Life or Fruity Pebbles. Or their dad would drive to Winch.e.l.ls early every Sunday morning, knowing there are few things like the joy of waking up to a box of fresh donuts. Or their mom would make pancakes with food-coloring smiley faces on them.

Today, the first day of school, the whole family sits together for scrambled eggs and toast. ”You'll look out for your sister, show her where all her cla.s.ses are?” their mom asks Bryce.

”Mom, I'm not a first grader,” Claire says.

”Honey, it's a big campus. Much bigger than your last school.”

Unspoken here is the understanding that, other than her brother, Claire will be friendless on this big campus.

At the front door, mother hugs daughter and whispers, ”I know a lot has happened. You're going to do fine.”

Claire and Bryce ride to school in Bryce's pee-colored car. Cameron drives right behind them, in that big vehicle of his that makes Bryce's look like a Hot Wheels toy. Bryce babbles for most of the drive: snack bar... cafeteria... campus patrol... cholos... top locker...

At a stoplight he asks, ”Wooden nickel for your thoughts?”

”What d'you think it was like when the plane crashed?” she says. ”I heard if you fall from really high up that you like pa.s.s out before you hit the ground.”

”I dunno. Look, this isn't really what I want to be thinking about on the first day of school, okay?”

”I'm just trying to understand why that happened to her.”

”Sometimes only G.o.d knows,” Bryce replies. ”Next time I ask what you're thinking, make something up, ok?”

The singer on the radio keeps repeating Abracadabra.

Cameron pulls up next to them at a red light. He says through the open window, ”Paaaahdon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?” and both boys laugh. Sometimes Claire feels like the older one when these two are together.

They circle the campus parking lot, looking for a s.p.a.ce. Out the window, other cars, skateboards, bikes, swerve around each other. Like looking at an aquarium full of exotic new creatures. Legwarmers. Mohawks. A boy carries a blasting radio on his shoulder. Most girls' hair is twice the size of their heads, in contrast to Claire's, which always lies flat despite her best efforts.

They park, but Cameron skips the spot next to them and keeps driving. ”He's paranoid about someone denting his car,” Bryce says. ”He has to get as far away from everyone else as he can.”

Claire gets out, puts her backpack on like normal until she sees everyone else wearing theirs only on one shoulder and immediately switches. ”You don't have to hold my hand and walk me around,” she tells Bryce. ”I can figure it out.”

The closest bathroom is empty. Claire locks herself in the stall, unzips her backpack, and takes out Dakota's shoes. She'd taken them with her on her last night as the petsitter. The shoes were too good for the Salvation Army, and it's not like Mrs. Vanzant would start wearing them. Claire told herself she would just try them on, to see if they fit which they didn't, exactly, but what's an inch or two? When she walked out the Vanzants' door she had the Tarot cards too.

Claire ties the shoes and puts her old ones in her backpack. After someone else comes in the bathroom, pees, and leaves, Claire does a quick makeup job in the mirror: swishes of blue across her eyelids, her lips a smear of red. She walks out, ready as she'll ever be.

8.

First Period Economics: Cameron and Bryce. All the males in the room, suddenly awake at eight a.m., ponder the baffling (and fortunate) chain of events that led to Ms. Sarah d.i.c.kinson choosing a career as an economics teacher instead of an international s.e.x symbol. Her chocolate fountain of hair caps the full F-B-B package.

Every time she writes on the board, these same males focus on nothing but the back of her form-fitting slacks. She writes on the board a lot that first day. Geoff Winters, in the same battered leather jacket he's worn every day of high school, keeps squinting and saying he can't read what she's just completed. Ms. D keeps turning around and writing it all bigger, bless her heart.

9.

First Period English: Claire. The bubbly Ms. Harper, surrounded by colorful grammar posters, tells the cla.s.s all about herself (two cats, favorite pastime is skiing, favorite book is To Kill A Mockingbird) before pa.s.sing out a freshly dittoed questionnaire. Some students begin writing immediately, others pause to sniff the ink first.

Something you should know about me as a student is __________________.

My favorite thing to do on a weekend is _____________________________.

Claire writes her answers, thinking the whole time that they should cancel school for a day after someone dies.

10.

Third Period English: Cameron. Mrs. Gordon (aka, Mrs. Gorgon) has been an inst.i.tution at the school for as long as anyone can recall; she taught several current staff members, and even a couple of their parents. Her hair has been the same shade of gold, literal gold, for eons. And her cla.s.sroom: the desks in their military rows, the bare walls.

”Quiet down, people” are the first words she says to them.

It's when Mrs. Gordon puts on her reading gla.s.ses and is outlining everything a student can do to lose points in her cla.s.s that the girl next to Cameron whispers, ”I feel enlightened already.” The accent (British or Australian) makes him look over, and looking over makes his heart stop.