Crystal Grader by Tag Cavello - HTML preview

“Is that Miko?” Crystal asked, without turning around.

“Yeah.”

She looked over her shoulder to find a dark-complexioned boy—a Filipino—dressed in a gray dress shirt and blue jeans. “And I presume,” she told him, “that you’re referring to my friend Lucy?”

He nodded. “Indeed I am. May I sit down?”

“I’d prefer that you didn’t.”

“Okay.”

He sat down next to her. “I need a smoke,” he said.

“They frown on tobacco use here,” Crystal replied, showing him her teeth. “Why don’t you try the bike racks?”

“You mean the ones right outside the art room? Yeah, Mrs. Magi will be real cool with that.” He gave her a tap on the shoulder, which irritated her even further until his eyes dropped and she followed them to a pack of Marlboro reds peeking out from inside the pocket of his jeans. “How about the basement instead?”

“The basement? You’re out of your head; we’ll get busted for sure.”

“I know a spot.”

Crystal rolled her eyes. “What’s going on, Miko? Why are you here? Lucy said you hated me. That’s fine. So get lost.”

Miko responded by giving her a long, empty look. “I am lost, Crystal. Believe it.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“My mom wants to send me to a shrink.”

“Consider yourself lucky. Mine wants to have me euthanized.”

He sat up pertly at this. “Does she know about what we did last year?”

“No, but she’s not totally in the dark about what a horrible person I am,” she said, thinking of the night Lucretia had found her bikini, still wet from a pool party with Jarett. The night that had almost been too much for her, and far, far too much for Lucy.

Miko relaxed a little. “Good. You know if I had all that to do over again, the pictures and the printing, there’d be no way I would.”

Crystal wanted to slap him. “What a stupid thing to say! Of course you wouldn’t do it again. I wouldn’t either!”

“I mean even without…you know…foreknowledge of the suicide thrown in. I wouldn’t have done it.”

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here, Miko,” Crystal grumbled. “Spit it out. The suspense is killing me.”

The Filipino gave his pocket a tap. “First we smoke.”

“What the hell is this, a pow-wow? Forget it.”

But the temptation proved too much to resist. She’d been out of cigarettes for a week and pocket money had been scarce of late. Miko led her to the back of the cafeteria, where a small flight of steps led down to a door Crystal never bothered to wonder about until this very moment.

“It’s the bomb shelter,” she said, taking a stab in the dark.

“Not quite,” Miko replied. His hand reached for the knob. “Anyone looking?”

Crystal glanced over her shoulder. The cafeteria was abuzz with conversation, but no one looked clued-in on what was happening at the back wall.

“Nope,” she told him. “All clear.”

“Then away we go.”

***

They walked down a long, dimly lit hallway made of gigantic stones Crystal suspected were every bit as old as the ones used beneath Jarett’s farm. Ahead was another door, this one wooden, which was so decrepit it almost fell off its hinges when Miko pulled it open to reveal a storage room piled high with junk from another era. Like the door behind them, most of it was made of wood. Broken school desks notched with bygone graffiti. A black chalkboard diseased with moisture ripples. And on the floor, a plethora of cigarette butts.

"Are all of these yours?” Crystal asked, gaping down at the mess once Miko had screwed in a low-watt bulb on the ceiling.

He passed over a cigarette and lit it for her. Crystal dragged in deep, as always appreciating the sensation it provided. All the same, she was suddenly aware that the two of them were alone in a dark place few other people knew about or cared to visit. Perhaps, she told herself while casting a worried glance at Miko, coming here was even dumber than it had at first seemed.

But Miko kept his distance. He made no effort to look threatening as he smoked. He finished one cigarette and immediately lit another. Halfway through that one, his eyes at last moved to where Crystal was standing. Defiant, she stared back, though she was still a little afraid.

“I don’t want to go see a shrink,” Miko said, “but my mom says I’ll have to if things stay the same.”

“What things?” Crystal came back with.

“Never talking to anybody. Spending time alone in my room. Letting my grades tank.”

Crystal dropped her cigarette, crushed it under her boot. “Whoa,” she said. “If you’re coming to me for a lifeline, I’m sorry, but I don’t have one. I’ve got my own problems treading water right now.”

“So why don’t we help each other?”

“I prefer to help myself.”

“Crystal, you’re not doing any better than I am. Don’t bullshit me,” he went on, cutting off her rebuke. “I’ve seen you this year. You sit by yourself during lunch hour. You hardly ever talk in the halls. You quit cheerleading.”

“I lost interest in cheering,” she told him. “So what?”

“But you loved doing it.”

“How the hell would you know what I love, Miko?”

He looked at her for a moment before answering. “Lucy told me.”

“I have to go now,” Crystal said.

She started towards the door—and almost screamed when Miko grabbed her wrist.

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry,” he said, letting her go almost instantly. “But think about it? Please?”

“Think about what, Miko?”

“Helping me. Letting me help you.”

“I told you don’t need help.”

He looked tragic, which made her wait just a moment longer amidst the broken furniture. The fear and anger she’d felt began to recede.

“I wouldn’t know how to help you, Miko. If I tried I’d probably make things worse.”

The tragic expression grew deeper. “You don’t sound like the Crystal that Lucy used to tell me about.”

“I guess she didn’t know me as well as she thought.”

On that remark, Crystal left the room, half expecting her distressed smoking companion to chase her down in the hallway. Yet again her anxiety proved groundless. Miko let her go without a word. As she reached the door that let back on the cafeteria, Crystal turned around to see him still standing beneath the naked bulb, looking naked himself. Abandoned and lost. Totally alone.

***

They did not speak again for the rest of that year, though sometimes his face materialized by the lockers between classes, like the ghost he had all but become since losing Lucy. On each of these occasions the Filipino would inevitably spot Crystal as well, but rather than look at her for long, his eyes always darted away, as if unable to alight for lack of a warm perch.

Also silent throughout the holidays was Jarett. At first Crystal paid it no mind—after all, she had made no effort to contact him going all the way back to April. Not until the Christmas holiday crept closer was her irritation with him kindled afresh. The fact that she missed his company (at last, she missed his company) went ignored, mostly because to admit such a thing to herself would be just the same as admitting weakness. It would also make her a liar, as she had already told Miko that she preferred to soldier through these dreary times alone. Yet the happy memories she had of Jarett were strong, and their vividness became all the more bittersweet with the decorating of the house for Christmas, and the need to bake cookies, and Hannah’s incessant cheerfulness over the growing number of presents appearing under the tree.

On Christmas Eve night Crystal could stand it no more. After dinner she went upstairs to her room and read a book until nearly midnight, then sat down by the window and dialed the number to Jarett’s landline. There was a click, and the phone rang twice before what sounded like a wind storm erupted on the line. Wincing, Crystal held her cellphone away from her ear, until all at once the storm stopped cold, and a man whose voice she didn’t recognize spoke through the ear piece.

“Who’s this now?” he asked.

Crystal’s eyebrows came together in bemusement. The dry drawl of the man’s voice sounded southern.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m hoping to speak to Jarett Powell?”

The voice laughed rudely. “That Sunday soldier? I reckon he’s hiding in the potato cellar. He’s played out, don’t you know? A lost case.”

“I’d…like to speak to him, please,” Crystal said again, more confused than ever.

“You’ve been doing more than speaking to him most times, little missy. Isn’t that right?”

“Who is this?”

“I’ve got forty dead men in one hand,” the voice told her, “and an Arkansas toothpick in the other. Every lowlife Jonah who comes back here is gonna either get one or both. You hear that, missy?”

The storm came back as he spoke, so that Crystal wasn’t quite sure whether she heard or not.

“Acknowledge the corn, missy,” she was admonished through ever worsening noise. “Hard times are coming.”

The line went dead. For seconds Crystal could do nothing but stare at her phone in disbelief. Summoning all of her courage, she dialed the number again. This time the phone rang on the other end over and over in the normal way, but nobody answered. She cancelled the call, considered dialing Jarett’s cell, then cancelled that too.

“Okay,” Crystal said out loud to no one in particular. “Merry Christmas.”

She got into bed but did not sleep, so that it was with red eyes and a weaving gait that she went downstairs at dawn to celebrate the birth of the creator’s son.

25

 

In the middle of January, Jarett called and all but begged Crystal to come back to the farm. It irked her to hear it. His voice had never sounded so agitated, so destitute of self control. Where had she been? he demanded angrily, like a father who’d been sitting up all Saturday night for his daughter to come home. Was she aware that they hadn’t seen each other—hadn’t engaged in a single lesson—in almost a year? How could she commit to writing a book if she couldn’t even spare two hours a week to learn a few ins and outs?

From a shoe store at the Sandusky Mall where she’d been eyeing a new pair of boots, Crystal reminded him that 2006 had been a far from pleasant year, and that she needed some extra time alone in her room to make peace with a number of bad memories. Jarett was indignant. He missed her company—what about that? Didn’t she miss him too? And if not, why? Here the writer all but lost it completely, his entreaties escalating to a point that forced Crystal into a less crowded aisle of the store to avoid undue stares from the other shoppers.

“How could you be so happy with me one day and then shut me out the next?” he demanded.

“As a matter of fact, I tried to call you last month,” Crystal said. “Somebody else answered.”

“What do you mean somebody else answered?”

“Well gee whiz, Jarett, how many meanings can that statement possibly have? Somebody else answered your damned phone.”

“Who?”

“How the hell should I know who? The guy sounded southern. Like he was from Georgia or Alabama.”

Jarett blew an exasperated puff of air into the phone that made her want to hang up on the spot. “Oh for fuck’s sake, Crystal, I live alone here. You know that.”

“Also, you can stop acting like I’m the only guilty party,” Crystal forged on. “You never called me, either. And I never heard a single stone against my bedroom window.”

“I didn’t think it’d be wise,” Jarett replied, with a trace of remorse in his tone. “Your mom really had her eye on us last year. It wasn’t wise to do it today either, I know.”

“Jarett,” Crystal said, “I’m pretty sure my mother knows everything about us.”

“What?”

His outburst made her eardrum squeal in discomfort. “You shout at me one more time and I’m hanging up,” she warned. “I mean it, mister. Are we clear?”

“What happened with your mom?”

“Are we clear, Jarett?”

“Yes. Fine. We’re clear. Now what happened?”

She decided to leave the store before answering. What little satisfaction a new pair boots might have provided had gone sour by this time anyway. After telling Jarett to wait, Crystal made her way outside to a fountain full of five cent wishes and sat down under one of its myriad plastic trees.

“Still there, darling?” her mouth writhed.

“I’m here.”

“Marvelous. Anyway, like I said, my mom knows about us. She found my bathing suit in my bag on the day that…on the day that Lucy died. She got really mad. She almost called the police.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. She’s cooled down a lot since then. Lucy…”

Here Crystal trailed off a second time, and almost didn’t make it back. A girl wearing glasses had just pitched another coin into the fountain.

“Crystal?” Jarett said.

“Yeah.”

“Are you all right?”

Forcing herself to look away from the water, Crystal said, “Well no, not really, Jarett, thank you for asking. I was about to say that Lucy’s death hit my mom at least as hard as it hit me. They liked each other.”

“So she forgot about us.”

“Yeah. Wasn’t that convenient? But if we start seeing each other again, who knows?”

It was a long time before the writer said anything back. Crystal waited. She was used to holding her breath for him. And at last he told her, in a voice almost too weak to hear, that he wanted to see her again anyway. He’d spent Christmas alone. New Year’s, too. Couldn’t he at least have a few hours with her, if only for the conversation?

“Don’t kid yourself,” Crystal said.

“Have you been writing anything lately?” Jarett asked.

“No.”

“So come back to the house. Let me start teaching you again.”

“Okay. But I’ll have to think of a way around my mother. I’ll let you know when I do.”

“Don’t take too long.”

The pathetically winsome plea caused another flash of anger in Crystal’s chest. “It’ll take as long as it needs to take, Jarett,” she said. “You made it through all summer and autumn without me, so what’s a little while more?”

“I need you,” was all he could manage by way of defense.

“Then sit tight. I’ll think of something.”

***

An idea came on that very day, but she decided to wait until the end of the month to employ it. By the evening of the 28^th it was polished and ready to go. Crystal woke up the next morning and told Lucretia she wasn’t feeling well, and could she please stay home from school. There came some questions regarding what hurt and how much. Crystal’s dance steps through these were every bit as elegant as the ones she used to carry off in her cheerleading skirt, so that it wasn’t long before Lucretia felt satisfied enough to leave her alone for the day with a box of tissue and a bowl of chicken noodle soup. This part of the ruse accomplished, Crystal’s next step was to call Jarett and inform him that she’d be on his doorstep in under two hours. Sounding like a Latin lover from a cut rate telenovella, Jarett told her he would count the seconds until her arrival. From here all that was left to do involved preparation for the journey. A shower, some clothes, some makeup. Crystal took care of these tasks in her usual, meticulous way, more out of habit than of any true desire to look glamorous. Wearing a black skirt, blouse, and heels, she went downstairs for a cup of hot chocolate. As she slurped the last of its contents from her mug someone knocked on the front door. She rose and went to the living room window, ready to tell whoever it was that she didn’t want any Avon products, thank you very much. It wasn’t a saleswoman who stood on the porch, however; it was Michael Ilagen.

“What the hell?” Crystal said out loud.

And the boy turned his head to look straight at her. “Crystal?”

“Go away!” she told him through the glass.

“I need to see you,” he said.

“Oh come on!”

But one look was all she needed to know that Miko’s plea was sincere. The lost, naked expression on his face had not gone away. Rather, it had deepened, become even more tragic. He wore a denim jacket that looked scruffy, which in itself seemed odd, for Crystal knew that he came from a wealthy family, and his hair was disheveled. Also, he stood with a noticeable list in posture, like a ship at sea in danger of being claimed by the depths.

“I can’t!” she shouted, in a last, desperate attempt to send him away. “I have an appointment!”

“Just for a few minutes, Crystal,” Miko called back. “Please.”

She stepped away from the curtain with her eyes rolling. Why couldn’t the men in her life fend for themselves as well as she?

“Get in here,” she ordered him, holding the door open on a frosty breeze.

He thanked her and put on an awkward show of removing his boots in the vestibule. She then led him into the kitchen, where he took a seat at the table. He was still shivering from the outside air. His ears were red; his nose dripped. Crystal made him a cup of hot chocolate, though her defiance at this unannounced visit remained; thus, rather than sit at the table with him, she stood against the wall with arms crossed, lips tight, and eyes beady.

“Thank you,” he said again, sipping.

“You look terrible,” she told him. “What did you do, sleep outside last night?”

“As a matter of fact…yes.”

“What?”

Miko gave her a sheepish look, the way Chubby sometimes did when he left one his chew toys on the floor. “I got into a huge fight with my parents,” he said. “Told them I wasn’t going to see any doctors. That I was going to remember Lucy the way I felt was best, and if it hurt my grades at school or alienated me from my friends, then so be it.” His eyes dropped. “That didn’t go over so well. My dad said he was going to make an appointment today. So I ran out the door and didn’t go back.”

Crystal stared at him for several moments, unable to get her mind around what she had just heard. “So where did you sleep?” she repeated, for want of anything better to say.

“I didn’t sleep.”

“Answer me, Miko.”

“I stayed in the park across the street.”

Her shoulders dropped. “Wow. And now you’re here to do what? Beg me to mop up the mess?”

“No,” the other said, his eyes still down.

“Then what?”

“I want to know how you’re coping, Crystal. Can you tell me please?”

“Coping with what happened to Lucy?” A deep sigh plumed from her chest. There were no easy answers to that question. “I don’t know, Miko. Why are you asking me?”

His fist came down hard on the table, rattling plates. “Because I can’t, that’s why!