Five Minutes More (18 page)

I'm up to eighty-three when I hear someone coming. I tighten my fingers around the piece of glass in my hand, reassured by its sharpness.

I move only my head, slowly sideways, to see who it is.

“D'Arcy?”

Seth. My body goes slack with relief, and I realize I'd been hoping to somehow find him here.

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I had a fight with my mother. I just started walking and this is where I ended up.” I don't want to tell him what happened at the Majestic.

“Here.” Seth offers me a steaming Styrofoam cup, then sits down next to me. “It'll warm you up.” He has a blanket rolled up under one arm. “You want this too?”

I shake my head, tuck the piece of glass in my pocket where I can get it quickly, and take the cup in my empty hand. It's hot chocolate, with a heap of little marshmallows floating on top.

“What's that van?” I ask, gesturing up toward the road.

“That's the Chuck Wagon,” Seth says. “For Father Charlie, who drives it. He goes all over the city with food, coats, blankets and other stuff, for kids who need it. Sometimes I ride shotgun.” He shrugs. “You know, to help him out.”

“That's nice.” I sip the hot chocolate.

“Father Charlie's the one who introduced me to jazz.
Charlie Parker. Oscar Peterson. He has all these old vinyl records.”

“I thought all priests listened to was hymns and Gregorian chants.”

Seth smiles. “Father Charlie's not a real priest. I mean, he used to be, but he's not anymore.”

We sit in silence for a while. Seth tilts his head back and looks up at the sky. “Look at all those stars,” he says. “Some of them are already dead, you know. Burned out a million years ago. It's taken all that time for the light to get here.”

I turn my head so I can see the sky too. It's filled with stars.

“Father Charlie says that when you remember someone who's dead, it's just like the light coming from those burned-out stars. There's something of them left, still shining.”

“I like that,” I say.

The wind comes up suddenly behind me, sending an empty burger box skittering past us. I jump at the sound, slopping the steaming hot chocolate onto my hand. I drop the cup, press my hand to my mouth as tears fill my eyes.

“Did you burn yourself? Are you all right?” Seth leans over me.

I shake my head.

“Let me see.” Seth takes my hand, pats it dry with the hem of his jacket and gently examines the skin.

I wince and suck in a breath. He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses the place that was burned.

I know what's going to happen, even as the moment stretches between us. Then Seth leans in and kisses me on the mouth.
His lips are soft and warm. I kiss him back and he tastes like oranges.

We keep kissing and one of his hands is in my hair and the other is pulling me against him. I know where this is going and I'm not going to stop. I don't think about whether I should or I shouldn't. I don't think at all.

My mother's waiting in the living room, curled in a corner of the sofa in her robe, with a mug of something—coffee maybe—propped on her knees. “Where were you?” she says.

“Out.”

She stares at me without speaking for a long time, long enough that I have to fight the urge to squirm. “Okay,” she says finally. “If that's how you want to do it. Fine.”

Yeah, this is how I want to do it. I go upstairs without answering. I turn on the lamp in my room and pull my sweater over my head. That's when I notice my Mp3 player is missing. It was on the bed when I left and it isn't there now.

I go back down the stairs. Mom hasn't moved. “Where's my Mp3 player?” I ask.

“I took it,” she says.

“You can't take my stuff,” I say, clenching and flexing my
fingers behind my back because I don't know where to put the anger I suddenly feel.

“When you pay me the seventy-six dollars you owe me, you'll get it back.” She lifts her mug and carefully folds her robe over her knees.

“I'm not buying a stupid plate for Claire.”

“Then I'll sell your Mp3 player and get the money you owe me that way.”

“You go into my room and steal my stuff just to pay for a plate that Claire is never going to use anyway. And that she shouldn't even have.”

I want to throw something. Behind my back I link my fingers, squeezing my knuckles until they hurt so I won't grab the lamp and hurl it across the room. “How many times did Claire come here for Christmas? Or Thanksgiving? Or anything else? Claire should get nothing because that's what she gave.”

My mother's nostrils flare as she takes a breath, but it's the only hint that she's angry. “It doesn't matter what Claire did or didn't do. You had no right to do what you did.”

Rainbow swirls of color dance in front of my eyes. “Fine,” I shout at her. “Take it. Take all my stuff. Like I care.”

I storm upstairs into my room, stand in the middle of the floor, half out of breath, and look around. My
CD
player. My mother gave it to me for my birthday. I unplug the speakers, carry the pieces one at a time down the hall and set them outside Mom's bedroom door. Then I go back for the pillows on my window seat and then the blanket from the back of my rocker and my fleece hoodie and the glass witch's ball that
hangs in my window. I leave everything my mother has given me in a heap in front of her bedroom door.

And then I go to bed.

I wonder if Seth will be waiting for me as I start down the hill to the school in the morning. He is, sitting on the wall by the bottom door of the school, juggling three polished wooden balls. I clap when he finishes, and he dips his head in my direction.

“Hi,” I say, suddenly feeling awkward.

“Hi.” He catches all three balls and stuffs them into a side pocket on his backpack.

I don't know what to say. Things are different with us now. But I don't know what it means. I realize I'm shifting my weight from one foot to the other, swaying from side to side.

Seth leans forward and tucks a stray curl of hair behind my ear. His finger lingers on my cheek for a moment. And it's as though time is holding us there, the same way it did last night when he kissed my hand. “I'm going to remember last night for the rest of my life,” he says, locking eyes with me.

I nod. “Me too,” I say softly. I'm not sure if this is an ending or a beginning. Then he smiles at me and there, finally, is the Seth I've been trying to find for days.

Mr. Keating gives me his mournful, I'm-disappointed-in-you horse face again. I have the urge to laugh as I go past his desk.
I bite the inside of my cheek so that I'll look sorry. Because I'm really not.

Marissa is avoiding me. She wasn't waiting at the lockers like every other morning. But I see her watching me all through the announcements when she thinks I'm not looking.

What would I say to her anyway? She can't understand me or my life anymore. I wonder if she's told anyone about my dad. I could just say she's lying.

I sleepwalk through my morning classes. I take notes I probably won't ever look at. In English we have a quiz on a book I'm not sure I've read. At lunchtime I leave the school and just walk around. I'm pretty sure I won't be eating lunch with Marissa and Andie anymore, and I don't want to sit in the cafeteria by myself like some loser. And anyway, I'm not really hungry.

Math is my last class of the day. Seth is already there, working at the front of the room with Mr. Kelly. I stop just inside the doorway and watch them while everyone else files in around me.

Seth takes a stub of chalk and starts writing rapidly on the board. Mr. Kelly watches, arms folded, head tipped a bit to one side. Seth underlines one equation, says something and taps on another with the chalk. Mr. Kelly nods and begins to smile. Seth keeps scribbling. Mr. Kelly's head is going up and down now like a bobble-headed doll. Seth scratches out one last equation and then sets the chalk on the ledge.

The bell rings. I find my seat. Mr. Kelly explains the problems and sends the worksheets around the room. I'm on the second problem when Seth leans over my desk.

“Hi,” he says. “You doing all right?”

He looks so different with his hair short. He looks good, but I liked it long. “Yeah,” I say. “I pretty much understand it all.”

He looks at my work for the first problem, following my figuring with one finger. “Okay, that's good,” he says. “Watch out for number five. It's kinda tricky.”

I circle five on my worksheet. Seth watches me, his eyes on my face almost like he's trying to memorize what I look like.

“Can you wait for me after class?” he asks all of a sudden.

“Sure,” I say.

“Good.” He moves up the aisle before I get a chance to ask why.

When the bell rings, I take my time gathering up my books. Seth is across the room, one elbow on Tim Mullen's desk, explaining something. I drop my worksheet on the growing pile on Mr. Kelly's desk. He turns from the board and smiles at me.

Out in the hallway, I lean against the wall by the door and wait for Seth. People stream by me, headed for the stairs, talking, laughing. I see Jaron and Ric coming from the Language Lab with Becca. The guys are too busy talking—Ric's walking backward and gesturing with one hand—to notice me, but Becca waves and calls, “Hi, D'Arcy.”

I raise one hand in a wave back. And then...oh crap. It hits me. Brendan. I haven't talked to him or even thought about him in the last day and a half. What am I going to do? What do I say to him?

How can I...I can't explain about yesterday. And how can I tell him that Seth and I...I can't tell Brendan anything about Seth and me. Is there a Seth and me? I don't know.

And I don't want to talk to him about my dad. He won't understand any better than Marissa did. Oh God. Would she tell him? Something does a belly flop in my stomach. Did he call last night?

“D'Arcy?”

I give a start and drop my math notebook.

“Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you,” Seth says, bending down to pick it up.

“No. It's okay. I was just kind of spacing out,” I say, taking the book from him.

“I...uh...have something for you,” he says, swinging his backpack off his shoulder. He leans one knee against the wall next to me and props the bag on top so he can root around inside it. “Here.”

He holds out a stack of
CD
s. There are six altogether, held together by an elastic band.

“What are these for?” I ask, taking them from his outstretched hand.

“They're for you.”

“I know that. Why?”

“Because I want you to have them,” he says.

I slide the elastic off and check out the
CD
covers. Diana Krall in Paris. Oscar Peterson's “Canadiana Suite.” The last
CD
in the stack has no paper cover. “What's this one?” I ask.

Seth gives me a half smile and shrugs. “That one's me.”

I have to swallow down the sudden lump in my throat. “I...uh...” I run my fingers over the jewel case. “Thank you. This is the best present I've had in a long time.”

Seth smiles. “I have to go,” he says. For a second I think he's going to say something else, but he doesn't. He swings his bag back over his shoulder and walks away down the hall.

I don't head for Brendan's house on purpose. I walk around after school, mostly because I don't want to go home and maybe run into my mother, and somehow I find myself on his street. I make myself go ring the doorbell. There's a squeezing, aching knot in my stomach. Maybe he isn't home. But he is.

“Hey, babe, c'mon in,” Brendan says.

He's wearing jeans and his red school sweatshirt, and his hair is damp. I remember when seeing him used to make my heart race. Now it just makes my insides hurt. When did that change?

I shake my head. “Uh-uh, I can't stay.”