Leaving Paradise (20 page)

forty-one

Caleb

Meyer points to me and jabs his finger into the air with each word as he says, “Okay, Becker. In my office.”

I follow him into his office, then he closes the door once I’m sitting in the chair opposite his desk. He’s pissed off. I can tell by the way his neck muscles twitch and the colors of his face and bald head turn a deep shade of red. He doesn’t even sit in his chair. He sits on the edge of his desk right over me. He’s trying to be intimidating, to scare me into being a good kid. But he’s never roomed with a guy like Julio. And if Julio didn’t intimidate me, Meyer doesn’t stand a chance.

“Why did you start a fight with Drew Rudolph?”

I can’t tell him the truth. If the whole thing comes out, Leah could be dragged into this, too. And Kendra. And Maggie. Leah has been acting creepy. I don’t know what she’ll end up saying. Will she blurt out the truth, that she was the one who hit Maggie? “I don’t know,” I say dumbly.

Meyer’s anger deflates while frustration takes its place. “What
am
I going to do with you, Becker? I’ve had a parent call and say you were responsible for coercing a peer into consuming alcohol. Another complaint was filed by the wrestling coach from Fremont . . . something about you bullying one of his top wrestlers. You’re on thin ice here, on the fast track to being a delinquent forever. Don’t you understand the only person your behavior ultimately hurts is you? Unless you can explain yourself, I have no choice but to give you a suspension.”

Suspension? Oh, shit. I would defend myself, but it’s no use. The guy wouldn’t believe me, anyway. I stay silent.

“You have nothing to say about these accusations?”

“Nope.”

“Caleb, have a seat outside while I figure out how to proceed with this.”

So now I’m stuck in another metal chair outside Meyer’s office. Closed doors and metal chairs are the recurring themes in my life.

I look up when the door to the front office opens.

Maggie walks in the office, just feet from where I’m sitting. Only able to check her out from the side, I study her face. She has high cheekbones and a straight nose. It’s not small; it has a little bump in the middle, almost as if God wanted to put it there so her nose wouldn’t be perfect. She wouldn’t be Maggie without that imperfection. She’s not in-your-face pretty like Kendra, but there’s something about her . . . that mix of insecurity and regal features that don’t fit. Every one of her features reflects who she is. Except her scars.

Those I wish I could take away with a touch of my fingers and transfer them to my own body.

Maggie is focused on the counter, reading something intently. Her hair falls like a curtain shielding her face from me. I’m barely aware of Sabrina, Kendra, and Hannah in the room, too. This place is getting crowded.

Mrs. Gibbons, the art teacher, knocks on Meyer’s door. She peeks her head inside when he barks for her to enter his sacred domain. “We’ve had a situation with some of the senior girls.”

The girls head single file into his office. Kendra looks defiant, Hannah looks scared, Sabrina looks indifferent, and Maggie is . . . she seems resolved to handle whatever comes flying at her.

The girls come out a few minutes later. Maggie doesn’t look at me. She files out of the office with the rest of the girls.

Meyer reappears at the door. “Okay, Becker. Your turn.”

I go into his office and am directed to yet another chair. This one is padded. I rest my elbows on my knees and think of what Meyer said: I’m on the fast track for being a delinquent forever. Maggie was probably right: if you disappear, then you don’t have to always be reminded of the past wherever you turn.

I did my community service, but haven’t gotten my final release papers. Damon is seriously going to kill me when he finds out I got in a fight. What the hell is going to happen when I go back to the DOC? I hope Mom and Leah don’t go over the edge.

I hear the clicking of shoes and look up. My mother is standing in the doorway of Meyer’s office. Her lips are tight. I can sense she has a loose rein on control because I see her wobbling slightly from side to side.

“Ah, Mrs. Becker,” Meyer says. “Thanks for coming so quickly.”

Mom nods and holds onto the door frame. “So . . . should I take him home?”

Meyer walks up to my mom and puts his hand on her shoulder to steady her. “The boy whom Caleb assaulted has not filed any charges as yet, but policy forces me to keep him off school grounds until this is resolved. You’ll get a call from me after I’ve consulted the district superintendent to inform you of the length of Caleb’s suspension.”

Mom nods, then focuses on me. She looks tired. The deep lines under her eyes and at the corners of her mouth look deeper than I’ve ever seen them. I put those lines there. Without meaning to, I’ve broken my mother’s spirit.

In the car, I’ve got nothing to say. And when silent tears start dripping out of her tired eyes, all I want to do is escape. Because I can’t tell her anything to make her feel better, I can’t fight this snowball of bullshit that has become my life.

I sit in my room until darkness falls, when someone knocks on my door. “Caleb, open up,” a familiar transition counselor’s voice rings out.

Great, now I get to be reamed out by Damon.

“Let me have it,” I say dryly as I let him in.

If you’ve never seen a black guy’s face get red with anger, you’ve never seen Damon Manning pissed off. “What the hell is going on? I got a call from your principal this afternoon telling me you’re suspended for two weeks. You want to go back to the DOC?”

“Sure. You got cuffs ready?” I say, holding my arms out in front of me.

Damon gets in my face, real close. “Listen, punk, I have no problem slapping cuffs on you and hauling your ass back to prison. But I don’t think you realize your eighteenth birthday is just around the corner. And you know what kind of eighteenth birthday present you get from the State of Illinois? You get transferred to the big boy jail. That’s right, the adult place where the inmates rule, and not one day will go by that you won’t be threatened or forced to do shit you’ve only heard about. I don’t want you in there, Caleb, because you’ll go in a confused smartass boy and come out a hardened bastard. They’ll eat you alive there and nobody can save your ass. You hear me? Now tell me why the hell you’ve been getting into fights.”

I’m so used to pleading guilty, I forget sometimes to tell the truth. I look Damon straight on, no playing around this time. “I was protecting Maggie. Drew insulted her.”

Damon takes my desk chair and sits in it. He puts his hand on his forehead and starts rubbing it, kind of like Meyer did this afternoon. “Caleb, what’re you doing? She’s your
victim
. You hit her with your car.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“What?” he snaps.

“I said I didn’t mean to do it.”

Damon takes his hand off his forehead and leans forward. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, but it’s not good. If you can’t pretend Maggie doesn’t exist, then leave town. She called my boss this morning expressing concern about her safety. She said you’ve been sexual with her, and now that it’s over you’ve harassed her.”

“What?”

Damon looks straight at me. “Maggie Armstrong says she’s filing a complaint. Oh, don’t look so shocked, Caleb. What did you expect? When you don’t follow the rules you pay the consequences. It’s simple.”

Nothing is that simple. I swallow. My throat feels constricted. Maggie hates me enough to send me back to the DOC?

“I need to know,” Damon continues. “Did you have a sexual encounter with her?”

I sit on my bed and rest my head in my hands. Jeez, this cannot be happening. “That depends on what you mean by a sexual encounter.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Becker.”

“I
didn’t
have sex with her.”

“Did you harass her?”

I shake my head. “We had a relationship, a
mutual
relationship. It was no big deal. It’s over. Done.”

“How did it end?”

“Abruptly.”

Damon blows out a breath in frustration, then pulls out a stack of papers from his briefcase. “I got your release papers signed. You finished your community service.”

I stare at the papers as if they have angels’ wings on them, but my head is still reeling. I thought what Maggie and I shared was . . . well, it was a hell of a lot more than I ever had with Kendra. If Maggie hooked up with me just for revenge . . . oh, hell.

“You’re released, but we have a bit of a problem. You can’t go back to school. Caleb?”

“Yeah.”

“Everybody isn’t against you, you know.”

I nod. Right now, I can’t agree. I was so pumped to fix everything when I returned home. But all I’ve been doing is fighting instead of fixing. I’m at a loss here.

After Damon leaves, I head to the kitchen. Mom is leaning against the sink. She’s shaking as she takes a bunch of pills and swallows them with a gulp of water.

“Mom, what are you doing?”

“Taking medication for tension and stress.”

I snatch the bottle of pills off the counter.

“Give me that back,” she orders.

Taking a closer look at the drug’s name on the bottle. Diazepam. Valium. “How long have you been taking these?”

“Give them back,” she says, pulling the bottle from my hand and clutching them as if they hold her sanity.

“You can overdose on that shit, Mom. It’s dangerous.”

My mom laughs, a throaty laugh so strong it makes her cough.

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding getting close to me. You’ve become a closet pill popper?” Damn, why didn’t I see this before?

“It’s not in the closet anymore, is it?”

“Does Dad know?”

“What do you think? It’s the only way I can keep a smile on my face all day. He doesn’t like to think about the bad stuff. He’s too busy. I’ve been a failure, haven’t I? A terrible wife, a terrible mother . . . it’s no wonder I was kicked out of the Ladies’ Auxiliary.”

“Stop caring what everyone thinks!” I yell. “You’re killing the entire family.”

“Did you think about
the entire family
when you hit Maggie?” she whispers, then huffs out a disgusted breath.

“This isn’t about me, Mom.” I don’t tell her it never was about me.

She shakes her head. “You don’t get it, Caleb, do you? There’s four people living in this house and we’re all strangers. It
is
about you. It’s about all of us.”

I don’t even know who I am anymore. I thought I did, but with Maggie’s betrayal I’m back where I started.

My mom turns to face the sink, her body shaking and wrought with despair. As I walk over and put my arms around her, I want to tell her I’ll help her. I need help, too. But she stiffens as soon as I make contact. “Don’t touch me.”

I take my hands off her and back away. Everything around me is crashing into a million pieces. There’s no way I can mend them no matter how hard I try. “Don’t wait up,” I grind out before leaving the kitchen and taking the stairs two steps at a time. I bang on Leah’s bedroom door. “Open up.”

“What do you want?” Leah says through the door.

I pound harder. “Leah, open this door or I’ll break it down.”

She opens it right before I’m about to kick it open. “What?”

“How long has Mom been abusing prescription drugs?”

She shrugs. “After you got sentenced. She stopped for a while, but started up again when you got released.”

“How can you just stand there like it’s no big deal?”

Leah stares at me and cocks her head to the side, her black makeup in stark contrast to her white skin, making her look like a mime. “When she’s numb she doesn’t ask questions.”

Huh? I stare at my sister as if she’s a ghost, a shell of a person I once knew. “Do you even have a conscience anymore?”

Leah shrugs.

I grab her shoulders and yell, “Leah, grow up and finally take responsibility for something . . . anything!”

Tears start streaming down her cheeks. I shouldn’t be satisfied that I’m making my sister cry, but I swear any emotion from her pleases me. I feel her emotions, too. But they’re so conflicted with mine I can’t be close to her. Not now. A part of Leah has always been a part of me. Her misery has become mine, and right now I want nothing to do with it.

She’s sobbing while I leave the house and head down the street.

I walk ten houses away before I realize where I’m headed: Mrs. Reynolds’ house. The lady is the only one who’s tough enough to help. Maybe she’ll let me live with her, in that little room above the garage.

Waiting twenty minutes for a bus to come to take me to Hampton seems like forever. When it comes and I take one look at the old lady’s house, I feel like I’m home.

I ring the doorbell, hoping she can hear it. Maybe I’ll install one of those bulbs that light up every time the doorbell rings, so if her hearing really goes she’ll be all set.

The second time I ring, the door opens. But it’s not Mrs. Reynolds, it’s the guy who owns Auntie Mae’s Diner. “Is Mrs. Reynolds home?”