CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: I Think A Man Should Be Strong…
Whenever it seemed like things were fine came the flash and the tremble from a distant storm line.
Dante received a D on his book report from Mr. Wolfe. It surprised him, not because the report wasn’t especially bad (it was), but because Mr. Wolfe, normally mild and highly forgiving of his students, had scratched a nasty criticism across the top of Dante’s title page:
BORING!
Dante looked up from his desk. Mr. Wolfe sat before a blank chalkboard, scribbling in a grade book. His face looked set. Expressionless. Down to business. His desk, Dante noticed, seemed a bit off, a bit strange. A brown, half-eaten apple lay on its side. Untidily stacked papers drooped over the waste-basket like melting ice.
Stacey was Dante’s seatmate in English. Now he turned to her and asked: “Is he okay?”
She looked at him. “Who?”
“Mr. Wolfe. He’s acting a little off lately.”
“Oh! Oh, yes.” Her eye went to the English teacher, who still wasn’t addressing the class, though the bell had sounded five minutes ago. “You haven’t been told? Word’s going around the halls.”
“No,” Dante said. “What’s wrong?”
Mr. Wolfe’s head snapped up. “Are you people talking?” he demanded bitterly to know.
No one answered.
“All right then,” he went on, “if you can manage to stay shut up for a few more minutes we’ll begin.”
Dante gaped in astonishment. He turned to Stacey and saw that she was doing the same thing.
“Wow,” she whispered. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“What’s going on?” Dante whispered back, cupping a hand round his mouth.
“It’s his wife,” Sunny’s friend replied. “She left him over Christmas. They’re getting a divorce.”
Mr. Wolfe scowled again. His eyes were red, as if he hadn’t slept in a week. He warned the class that if he heard one more word—just one more—he would keep everyone behind this afternoon for detention. How did that sound? Did it sound good? Because he meant it. Oh yes. Anyone who thought otherwise was welcome to test him.
No one did.
∞
At lunch Sunny kissed him and told him to eat his green peas. She smoothed the wrinkles on his shirt, brushed a lock of hair from his eyes. She didn’t seem to know about his encounter with Hadria over the holidays—or if she did, then her cousin had been telling the absolute truth, and this was how Sunny wanted things to be.
Not that Dante would ever dare speak to her about that night at the Hotel Consorcia. Rather, he paid extra close attention to her mannerisms throughout January, in case she let a clue slip that his secret was not really a secret at all. Dante didn’t think it was.
But if her mannerisms were the same today, her attire certainly wasn’t. Perhaps as a means of countering the dreary skies and bitter cold that had crushed the region’s false summer like a sudden illness, she’d come to school in bright colors. A yellow blouse floated on her chest; a stonewashed denim skirt clung to her pelvis. Pink ear-rings swung from her lobes as she listened to the other girls. What those girls were saying marked another slightly unusual difference for this particular lunch hour. Their chatter, which normally consisted of clothes, music, and TV shows, had taken a turn into more serious territory.
A dark-skinned girl named Rajani was telling the table how she’d just lost her grandmother. It had happened at church, she said with eyes wet, up near Port Clinton. A heart attack. Total collapse in the pews. A ambulance was called. Priests and nuns had tried to assist her in the meantime, which only seemed to make matters worse. She’d wailed, Rajani said, pushing her lunch away as a lost cause. She’d begged them to get away and leave her alone.
“Maybe she was afraid of being read Last Rites,” Dante said. “I’ve read about that. Church-goers not wanting to see priests when they’re sick.”
“My grandmother didn’t go to church,” Rajani said. “Ever.”
Dante blinked.
“Somebody took her,” the other went on to explain. “Somebody pulled her in. Then she died.”
Now Dante felt a hand on his knee. It was Sunny’s.
“Who took her?” she asked Rajani. “Do you know?”
Rajani shook her head.
“Can you find out?”
The head shake became a weak nod. “Maybe.”
“Do it. Then I’ll have my dad handle the rest. Speaking of which”—she smiled at Dante—“that little business trip of his I told you about? It’s happening on my birthday. March fifteenth.”
“Wow,” Dante said. “And you’ll be alone in the house?”
“No. My dad says I’m not allowed to be alone.”
“Okay—“
“You’re going to be there, Mister.” Sunny’s green eyes sparkled. “Right?”
The entourage began to giggle mischievously. Even Rajani looked better. Holding court as the queen bee, Sunny gave everyone a nod. Her hand found Dante’s under the table, slipped inside. It was soft and dainty, the nails sharp. Dangerous yet delicate. Dante stroked her fingers. He gave them a light, careful squeeze.
“So it should be interesting,” Sunny said to the table, as if all of the girls were going to be there on March fifteenth. “But between now and then we have some business to take care of.”
The girls leaned forward. None of them were smiling now. Their eyes were wide and unblinking. Plates were pushed aside, straws bent down. Rajani had wiped her tears.
“As everyone already knows,” Sunny began, lowering her voice, “we have a plan of pain set in motion for the little Girl Scout known as Maris Dubois.” She shot Dante a look after saying this last.
“Is that what her surname is?” Dante asked innocently.
“In order for the plan to work,” she continued, “we had to involve someone else. A boy named Shaya Blum. He usually eats lunch right down there.” She indicated an empty seat clear down by the lunch counter. “He seems to be absent today, but who cares as long as he doesn’t die on us.”
The girls all tittered. Dante felt along Sunny’s fingers, investigating the sharpness of her nails. Were they volatile at the moment? Did they still wish to cut him over that whole fiasco about remembering Maris’ last name? It seemed not. Indeed, her hand felt more like a sleeping kitten. Relaxed and content.
As for the rest of her…
“Quiet, please,” she ordered.
Everyone shut up.
“Good. Now what we’re going to do is humiliate Maris in front of the whole school. Destroy her popularity. I figured the best way to do that is to go political. So I made Dante write a mock love letter. Or rather a poem. The poem is addressed to Maris and looks like it comes from Shaya. Again, all of you know this already; this is just for review. Questions so far?”
Stacey’s hand went up. “How will you make the handwriting look like Shaya’s?” she asked.
“I think I’ve pretty much nailed that,” Sunny told the group. “I’ve been practicing with some stolen samples. In fact I stole one of his notebooks. His handwriting is crap. I had to use my right hand to make the letters stagger all over the page.”
More laughter from the girls. This time Dante joined in. “Remember I offered to do the copying,” he reminded. “You adamantly refused.”
“I adamantly refused,” Sunny repeated. “I didn’t want you to feel like you were doing everything.”
“Not at all.”
“Anyway,” she went on, “it should be convincing enough for Maris. Have any of you ladies ever gotten a love poem?”
They looked at each other. To judge by their clueless expressions, Dante guessed none of them even knew what a love poem was.
“Me either,” Sunny said, with a hint of accusation.
Dante blushed. “Oh God, you’re right—“
At that moment a fat fly, the biggest he had ever seen, fell onto Sunny’s plate and began to squirm for life in the pasta sauce. Sunny gave it a scowl. She did not look appalled or even the tiniest bit grossed-out. Rather, Dante thought, she wanted to smash the creature with her fist.
But she didn’t smash it. Her eyes went back to the group. “When you get a love letter you don’t go analyzing the handwriting,” she said. “Assuming of course the boy is brave enough already to put his name on it. And lucky us, Shaya has guts he never knew about.”
“But how will we expose it to the whole school?” Stacey blurted, then slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry!” she said into her palm.
Sunny looked at her steadily. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a fair question. It was also the biggest challenge of this whole sting. I was stuck on it for a long time.”
“Was?” Dante asked.
“That’s right,” she said, smiling theatrically. “Because it’s solved. It took me a long time because I tried too hard. I made the whole problem bigger than it actually was.” Sunny leaned forward, gesturing for everyone else to do the same. Her green eyes were as the gecko of gold day dust, disport with predatory gleam. Her grin was the grin of a shadowed gargoyle high above a rainy street.
“I’m going to have a hundred copies made,” her tongue slithered. “Then we—all of us—are going to hang them up in the halls.”
“Wow!” Stacey said. She sounded too full of delight this time to care about mindful ordinance.
Sunny kept talking. “Put them on lockers. Put them on chalkboards and bathroom mirrors. In library books. Stairwells. Tack them to bulletin boards. Put one on Mr. Hogan’s butt if you think it’ll help.”
“Ew,” Rajani grimaced.
“Just make certain they’re seen. By a lot of people. The more the manier.”
“Merrier,” Dante said.
“Exactly. Does everyone understand?”
The girls all nodded. Dante put a hand on Sunny’s knee and squeezed.
“You will each get a measured amount of copies,” she went on gravely. “Don’t lose them. And don’t hide any back. I shall know if you do.”
Her voice was cold as dirt thrown over a grave. The girls all nodded again, but this time nodding didn’t cut it.
“Everyone say: Yes, Sunny, I understand. Right now.”
To which the girls immediately complied. Sunny looked at Dante. She didn’t expect him to comply; rather, she was asking for his approval. He gave it.
“Very good,” he said to the girls. “Wait for your copies to come. Sunny and I will take care of them.” He looked at Sunny. “How does Valentine’s Day sound for activation of our devious little plot?”
“It sounds good, Sir,” Sunny replied, before again addressing the table: “Everyone hear that? Valentine’s Day. Let me hear a yes, Dante and Sunny this time.”
“Yes, Dante and Sunny,” the girls responded, almost robotically.
“Then we’re finished for now. At ease, ladies.”
There came a high, musical sound—the breeze of winter through black thorns—as several pairs of female lungs let out a breath. Then, as if on cue, the lunch bell rang, and everyone adjourned.
∞
At the end of the day Dante went to Sunny’s locker. Not that it was a long trip—only straight across the hall from his own—but he met her there often to carry her bag and walk her outside.
Today Sunny’s locker was closed. She’d either already been here or hadn’t arrived yet. It didn’t alarm him at first. She’d told him earlier that her dad had gotten off work early and would be here to pick them both up. Perhaps she was already waiting outside.
He turned to go and bumped into Stacey. Her books hit the floor, the pages splattering open.
“I’m sorry!” she gushed, kneeling to pick up the mess. “Omigosh!”
Dante knelt with her, grabbing the books. “Don’t be silly. It was my fault. Listen, have you seen Sunny?”
“Yeah, she went to the girls’ room. The one beside the science lab.”
Dante picked up the last book—Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison—and handed it to her. “Thank you. Take care getting home.”
He went to the science lab still thinking Sunny was okay. Other students gave half-hearted waves as he passed, but things were thinning out now, getting quiet. A boy wearing a denim jacket stopped to get a drink, then went outside. Another followed him from the library. After that Dante was alone.
He waited by the girls’ room for a minute before someone came out—a mouse with brown hair and glasses. Dante asked her if Sunny was inside. The girl claimed not to know Sunny, but said she was quite sure she’d been alone in the bathroom. Dante thanked her. He was beginning to worry now, to feel an instinct old and natural as fire swell in his chest. Hoping she had indeed gone outside after all, he took a step towards the exit—
And stopped as a sound of breaking glass came from the lab.
Dante went to the door. It should have been locked but wasn’t. The knob turned in his hand. Another noise came. Springy. Metal on tile. The sound of a chair being dropped. Dante opened the door to find Sunny pinned at the back of the room by a short, muscular boy with blond hair. The boy held her wrists against the wall. Sunny’s face was twisted with pain. Tears wet her cheeks.
“Are you gonna say you’re sorry?” the boy asked. He squeezed Sunny’s hand, making her wince.
And slowly, silently, Dante came up behind him.
“Come on. Say it. I’m sorry, Billy.”
Dante got directly at his back and stopped. “Hello, Billy,” he said.
Billy let go of Sunny. He spun around. Though short, he had powerful-looking arms and a wide chest. Dante thought he recognized him as being on the JV wrestling team. He also recognized him from somewhere else, though for the moment it didn’t matter. Nor did Billy’s muscles, or the sneer on his face. Right now only one thing mattered. Only one.
Smiling, Dante said: “I’m sorry, Billy.”
He picked Billy up and threw him over one of the desks. The desk fell over, spilling broken pencils. Billy hit his head on a chair. Snarling, he leaped to his feet. He cocked a fist at Dante.
Dante punched him in the eye. Billy screamed and flew backward over another desk.
“I’m sorry,” Dante said again, “that I’m gonna beat you so badly you’re gonna need an ambulance.” He hesitated. “Oh wait. No I’m not.”
And then he proceeded to beat Billy very, very badly, slamming his head on the tiles, the chairs. He punched Billy in the nose and felt it break. Blood flew. Crimson droplets of life. Some of it splattered Mr. Sitz’s desk. Dante didn’t care. He slammed Billy against the chalkboard, cracking its slate wide. A huge piece fell on the floor. Then he punched him under the chin so hard it knocked him cold.
The sound of crying made him stop. Chest heaving, Dante turned to see his girlfriend still standing at the back wall. Her knees were buckled; her hair was a mess. Make-up streaked her face. But she was smiling at Dante like a shark.
“That,” she told him, “was so, so awesome. Really, Dante. Wow.”
He went to her, jumping over toppled furniture, so she could fall into his arms.
“Baby?” he whispered, holding her close. “Sweetheart? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she sobbed. “I’m okay.”
But her whole body was shaking. Dante thought if he let her go she might fall.
“Easy,” he told her. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. It’s all right.”
“Did you kill him?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Could you, please? Never mind,” she added quickly. “We’re at school. I’ll have Daddy do it.”
Dante wanted to laugh, except he wasn’t quite certain just how funny Sunny was trying to be.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Do you want me to carry you?”
“I sure do, but I think it would attract too much attention. Let’s just walk.”
Dante’s eye went to the mess. Toppled furniture, broken chalkboard, blood. Knocked out jerk on the floor. “I think,” he began clumsily, “I’ll be going to juvenile home. The one on Benedict Avenue most likely—“
“No one will know about this,” Sunny said into his ear. “Daddy will handle it. All of it.”
“I hope that’s true,” he said, not really believing it was. How could anyone cover up chaos like this?
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Sunny said with a little laugh. “It’s all right. And thank you.” She kissed his ear, and then his cheek. And then on the lips. “Very.” Kiss. “Very.” Kiss. “Very much.”
Dante let his arms tighten around her. Despite what had happened, the assault she’d experienced, the pain, the fear, he was smiling. This probably wasn’t the best time to tell her he loved her. They stood on a bloody battlefield, the enemy conquered. It probably wasn’t the best time—it was probably better than that. It was probably perfect.
“I love you, Sunny,” he said. And if her green eyes were to suddenly catch fire and burn him to death for that statement, so be it.
Instead they shined, like two planets set beneath the moon on a wintery night, where ice hung from the eaves of abandoned places, and bare trees trembled along unkempt boundaries of snowy fields.
“I know you do, Dante,” she whispered. “I know. Just like I’ve always known you were the one.” She kissed him again. “Let’s go, before somebody comes in.”
Dante gave Billy one last look. He was beginning to stir. His eyes blinked. Saliva drooled from his chin.
“Isn’t this the kid we saw at the lockers last year?” Dante asked. “The one who got bitten by the spider?”
And Sunny, gently tugging him towards the door: “Yes. Come on, Dante. My dad’ll be outside.”
Billy blinked some more and looked around blearily. Dante wanted to kick the brute one last time for good measure, but couldn’t. Sunny was right. They had to get gone.
They slipped into the hall, where no one saw them, and outside to the January sun, which burned in a sky so blue it was a wonder fish weren’t swimming in it.