What They Always Tell Us (10 page)

“Oh, like eight or so? Once the game is over?”

“Cool. See you then.” He’s still not sure if he’ll go or not. Maybe he will call one of his boys. Or there’s always Clare, who supposedly wants to go to a movie. Sheesh. He’s glad no obligations pull at him tonight. He can be lazy and continue to sit on his ass.

Later, after his shower, and after his mother gets home from a day of shopping and announces they’ll have leftovers for dinner at seven, James’s phone rings again.

“Yo,” he says.

There’s a pause, then Alice’s voice: “I have a new boyfriend, so you can go fuck yourself.”

And before he can respond, she hangs up.

Should he call Clare or not? Or should he go to Tyler’s party? These are the questions that occupy James on Saturday. Not life-or-death decisions or anything, but still, they distract him, even with the Alabama and Auburn game raging on TV. It’s a tug-of-war. Part of him just wants to stay home.

He sits in the den, watching the game with Dad and Mom. Mom isn’t really that interested—she reads magazines and looks up only when James or his father make exclamations about good and bad plays. Alabama is winning at the half, but barely. Anything can happen. The crowd is boisterous, loud, a sea of blue and orange—Auburn’s colors—with a chunk of Bama crimson in one pocket of the stadium. James imagines people all over Tuscaloosa—all over the whole state—glued to their TVs, armed with beers and soda and snacks, shouting and cursing, depending on what’s happening.

Alex pops in on occasion, but he’s not glued to the TV like the rest of them. He doesn’t give a shit about football. Mom and Dad entice him to stay—“It’s a great game, Alex, come watch”—but he begs off, claiming he has homework to do. At some point during the third quarter, Alex pops his head in and announces he is going for a run. As far as James knows, Alex has no idea about Tyler’s party later. He came in James’s room last night, when he was about to fall asleep. He gave a tentative knock, like he was almost hoping James wouldn’t hear it.

“Come in,” James had shouted from the bed. His TV was on, a repeat of the
Late Show,
but he wasn’t paying it much attention.

Alex edged his way in, pausing in the doorway. “Hey. Uh, sorry about you and Alice. I didn’t know. I mean, I figured you guys were—”

“It’s fine,” he said, cutting him off. “She’s a nutcase anyway.”

“Oh.”

“So don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. Well, I just wanted to say sorry.”

And before James could say anything else, Alex had pulled the door shut and left. James hadn’t meant to sound so short. But the phone call from Alice had pissed him off. He didn’t even want to think about her.

After a tense last quarter, Alabama wins the game, so James can finally peel his ass off the couch. He decides to call Nathen to see if he wants to go to Tyler’s party. He knows Greer has relatives in town and he has to hang out with his cousins, who are good little religious girls from Memphis. And Preston went to his mother’s house in Huntsville.

“Is Nathen there?” he asks when Mr. Rao answers, sounding proper and elegant with his British accent.

“Oh, hello, James. No, he’s out running. With your brother, in fact. I expect him home in a little while. Shall I have him call you?”

“Sure,” he says, then hangs up. Those two are always fucking running, he thinks. Can’t they ever take a break? It’s not like he’s playing tennis every minute of the day.

He decides he might as well go to Tyler’s later, with or without Nathen.

After dinner—chicken parmesan, a nice break from warmed-over turkey from the Watsons—and after Alex has headed to his room, James tells his mother he’s going to a party.

“A party?” she says, rinsing dishes in the sink. “Who’s having a party?”

“Well, it’s more like hanging out, I guess. Not like a big party, just a small group.”

“Okay. Just be home by twelve-thirty. Or midnight.” She hands him a rinsed plate to put in the dishwasher. “Whose party is it?”

“Um, one of the guys on the team,” he says.

“Who?”

“Tyler.”

“Oh,” she says, sounding pleasantly surprised. She has always liked Tyler, maybe because he’s such a good ass-kisser. Parents love a good ass-kisser, even if that person is obvious about it. “Is your brother going with you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno. Guess he’s not really invited.”

“Why not?”

“Mom, I don’t know!”

She shuts off the sink and wipes her hands. “I don’t get it.” She shakes her head and gets this irritated look on her face. Doesn’t she know that all of Alex’s friends have dumped him? Is she that clueless? James wonders.

“Anyway, I doubt Alex would want to go,” he says.

She nods and turns away from him, walking to the pantry, peering inside for something. “Well, like I said, be home by twelve-thirty. And drive safely.”

She sounds the way she does when she’s mad—her tone all snide and whiney. But what can James do? Nothing! So he heads back upstairs to get dressed.

Once he is dressed and has fixed his hair, James grabs his keys to go. He clutches his keys firmly, so they don’t jingle, and walks quietly past Alex’s door, afraid he’ll open the door and ask where he is going. Not that James really has anything to hide.

Downstairs, Mom again reminds him to be home by twelve-thirty, and then he’s safely outside. He backs his Jeep out of the driveway. Before he drives off, he looks up to the second floor and sees Alex’s window. The lights are on in Alex’s room, and the closed blinds are parted a little bit. And then the parted blinds drop back in place, and James drives off.

Tyler lives in a newer neighborhood not too far from where James lives. It’s full of big redbrick homes with white trim that all look the same, all with decent-size yards with a few skinny trees here and there that still have a lot of growing to do. By the time James arrives, he sees a number of cars lined up and down the street.
Small party my ass,
he thinks. Nathen had said he was too tired to go—he and Alex had run ten miles and he was beat. So James is flying solo.

Inside, the party’s in full swing but not too crazy. To his left, in the main TV room, a group is gathered, listening to the stereo and watching TV and drinking and talking loudly. He sees some other juniors and seniors, a few girls, and some other guys—about thirty or forty people. Ron and George are on the couch sipping from red Dixie cups, and both seem to be working this one girl James doesn’t recognize. They give him slight, distracted waves.

“Hey, you made it!” Tyler exclaims, walking down the hall from the kitchen, holding two Heinekens, one of which he hands to James. He’s wearing a crimson button-down shirt. Lots of people, James notices, are in crimson—Bama colors.

“Thanks,” James says.

Then Kirk walks toward them from the kitchen, also holding a Heineken. “Hey, man, what’s shaking?” Kirk, Tyler’s sidekick, another one of Alex’s former friends. His eyes look lazy, like he’s stoned. He probably is. Kirk is also wearing crimson—a Polo. They’re both so hyped-up, and for a moment James wonders how Alex was even friends with them. He can’t picture quiet Alex with these two guys, so brash and loud.

“How about that game?” Kirk says, holding up his hand for a high five.

James high-fives him—how can he not? “It was awesome.”

“Fucking Auburn losers,” Tyler says.

“You got a cigarette?” James asks Tyler. He doesn’t smoke, really, but he wants an excuse to go outside, in the backyard.

“I got one,” Kirk says, pulling a pack from his back pocket.

“Thanks. I’ll be back in a sec.”

“We’ll be here, buddy,” Kirk says, laughing like he’s just told some funny joke.

James walks down the hallway, to the kitchen, and then out a sliding glass door onto their back patio, which is lit by two over-bright floodlights. There’s a pool, but it’s covered now for the winter by a big forest-green tarp. He doesn’t even light his cigarette, just stares off in the distance, past the pool, over the back fence at the other houses, lined up like ducks.

He hears the door slide open behind him and turns to see Clare.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she says, sliding the door shut. “Weren’t we supposed to see a movie?”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Shit—what is
she
doing here?

“I’ll live,” she says, smiling in a way that lets him know she’s a little miffed but that she’ll forgive him anyway. He knows that smile well, from when they dated. Seems like he was always doing something that miffed her.

“I didn’t see you when I came in,” he says.

“I was in the bathroom. I came with Suzy Parker.” She smiles.

James nods, then realizes he has no lighter for the cigarette. Oh well.

“Is Alex here?” Clare asks. She’s in jeans and a black shirt under a little black jacket.

“Huh? Oh, no, he’s not.”

“Really? He’s good friends with Tyler, right?” She hugs her arms to her chest, like she is cold. Her blond hair hangs loose tonight, framing her smooth face.

“Yeah, well, he
was.
You know, before all the…the stuff happened.” James pulls the cigarette to his mouth and then realizes it’s not lit.

“I see. Well, he seemed like he was doing okay the other night.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Why’d you come outside?”

“Well, I was gonna smoke. But I don’t have a lighter. And, uh, I just…I dunno. I shouldn’t have even come to the party. It feels weird.”

“Yeah. I only came because Suzy dragged me. She has a crush on someone here. And, well, here I am.”

“Yeah, here we are.” He cracks a smile. He realizes that he feels comfortable with her now, alone, like a weight has been lifted or something. “We should have gone to a movie.”

“Well, we can go some other time.”

“That would be cool.”

“But just as friends,” she says.

He looks at her, sort of annoyed that she said that first, before he could make it clear that he only wanted to go as friends anyway. “Yeah. That would be cool. I’m over girls anyway.”

“And I’m over guys, so it’s perfect.” She smiles to herself and stares off to the back of the yard.

“Well, I guess we should go back in.”

“I guess so,” she says.

Inside, in the TV room, James sits on the couch next to Tyler, who’s regaling everyone with a story about how he got out of a speeding ticket yesterday.

“So, like, this cop takes my license, and I guess he recognizes my last name, and he realizes who my dad is.”

Tyler’s dad is the local district attorney. James’s father is a lawyer, too, but he mostly deals with bankruptcies and wills and shit like that. Tyler’s dad, meanwhile, is always in the papers and on TV, talking about how he’s tough on crime.

“So he asks me if Earl Shaughnessy is my dad,” Tyler continues. “And I tell him he is, and he just smirks and gives me a warning!” He’s drunk and seems almost ecstatic. James watches as Kirk hangs on Tyler’s every word, laughing like this story is the funniest thing ever. Two slobbering, stinky puppy dogs is what they look like to James.

He sips his beer in big gulps and tries not to think of Alex at home in his room.
He
should be here, not James. Not with these guys he doesn’t even like, not really. And then he realizes that Alex shouldn’t be here, either.

Across the room he sees Clare, who seems to sense his stare. She looks at him and smiles sympathetically, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking.

The Monday after Thanksgiving isn’t as bad as James thought it might be when he woke up with that typical, post-holiday dread of school. It’s sunny again, which always helps lift his mood. But all day he hopes to avoid seeing Alice. She’s like a living ghost, haunting his days. In this avoidance he is successful, and by sixth period, he knows he is in the clear. He won’t have any close encounters with Crazy Girl. And that holds true for the entire week, miraculously.

On Friday afternoon, while he is changing for tennis practice, George tells him about Valerie Towson. She’s this supersmart—and superquiet—black girl in their class. James has AP English with her, in fact, and French, too.

“She got into Duke, man. Didn’t you hear?” George says.

“Are you serious?” he says, his heart pounding.

“Yeah. I heard in my calculus class. Mr. Runyon was making a big deal out of it. Valerie was embarrassed about it and didn’t really say anything.”

“Huh,” James says.

“You didn’t hear yet?”

“No. Not yet.” He feels like he has just missed a flight, or a bus.

“Well,” George says, “I’m sure you’ll hear from them soon.”

All through practice, James can’t focus. He hits balls into the net or into the back fence, misses his serves left and right.

“Donaldson, you’re a mess today,” Coach Whitley says.

After practice, James drives home quickly. He just
knows
that damn letter from Duke is waiting for him at home. He just knows it. He feels sick to his stomach, his belly full of both dread and anticipation. Good news or bad—what will it be?

When he pulls into the driveway, he gets out of his car without taking out his bags. He heads straight for the mailbox. That kid Henry is outside, but James ignores him even though Henry shouts hello.

He yanks open the mailbox and sifts through the mail—a few magazines, some bills, the usual crap. And then he finds it. The letter from Duke. Off-gray envelope, with Duke’s logo in the corner. A thin envelope. Is that good or bad?

He hesitates.

“Hi, James!” Henry shouts again.

James tears open the envelope and pulls out the letter. It’s only early admission, he tells himself. If they say no, it’s okay. But, now, seconds away from seeing the words on the page, he senses the news will be good. Everything, so far, has gone his way. Plus, he’s in the top ten of his class; sure, Valerie is smart, too, but James plays sports, is in extracurricular clubs. How could she get in and not him? He’s ready to celebrate.

“Dear Mr. Donaldson,” he reads. “After careful review of your application, we are unable to grant early admission.”

James stops reading. He can’t go on. He just stands there, frozen, in a daze, until Henry shouts his name one more time.