floor.
Well, they have a thing called Parents Night not long after school lets in, and I took special pains to get to it. I didn't do as much pussyfootin around with Selena's home-room teacher as I had with Selena herself; I just stepped right up n asked her if she knew any particular reason why Selena was stayin for the late ferry this year. The home-room teacher said she didn't know, but she guessed it was just so Selena could get her homework done. Well, I thought but didn't say, she was gettin her homework done just fine at the little desk in her room last year, so what's changed? I might have said it if I thought that teacher had any answers for me, but it was pretty clear she didn't. Hell, she was. probably scat-gone herself the minute the last bell of the day rung.
None of the other teachers were any help, either. I listened to them praise Selena to the skies, which wa'ant hard work for me to do at all, and then I went back home again, feelin no further ahead than I'd been on my way over from the island.
I got a window-seat inside the cabin of the ferry, and watched a boy n girl not much older'n Selena standin outside by the rail, holdin hands and watchin the moon rise over the ocean. He turned to her and said somethin that made her laugh up at him. You're a fool if you miss a chance like that, sonny-boy, I thought, but he didn't miss it - just leaned toward her, took her other hand, and kissed her as nice as you please. Gorry, ain't you foolish, I said to myself as I watched em. Either that or too old to remember what it's like to be fifteen, with every nerve in your body blastin off like a Roman candle all of the day and most of the night. Selena's met a boy, that's all. She's met a boy and they are probably doin their studies together in that room after school. Studyin each other more'n their books, most likely. I was some relieved, I can tell you.
I thought about it over the next few days - one thing about warshin sheets and ironin shirts and vacuumin rugs, you always have lots of time to think - and the more I thought, the less relieved I was. She hadn't been talkin about any boy, for one thing, and it wasn't ever Selena's way to be quiet about what was goin on in her life. She wasn't as open and friendly with me as she'd been before, no, but it wasn't like there was a wall of silence between us, either. Besides, I'd always thought that if Selena fell in love, she'd probably take out an ad in the paper.
The big thing - the scary thing - was the way her eyes looked to me. I've always noticed that when a girl's crazy about some boy, her eyes are apt to get so bright it's like someone turned on a flashlight behind there. When I looked for that light in Selena's eyes, it wasn't there . . . but that wasn't the bad part. The light that'd been there before had gone out of em, too - that was the bad part. Lookin into her eyes was like lookin at the windows of a house where the people have left without rememberin to pull down the shades.
Seem that was what finally opened my eyes, and I began to notice all sorts of things I should have seen earlier - would have seen earlier, I think, if I hadn't been workin so hard, and if I hadn't been so convinced Selena was mad at me for hurtin her Dad that time.
The first thing I saw was that it wasn't just me anymore - she'd drawn away from Joe, too. She'd stopped goin out to talk to him when he was workin on one of his old junks or somebody's outboard motor, and she'd quit sittin beside him on the couch at night to watch TV. If she stayed in the living room, she'd sit in the rocker way over by the stove with a piece of knittin in her lap. Most nights she didn't stay, though. She'd go in her room and shut the door. Joe didn't seem to mind, or even to notice. He just went back to his easy-chair, holdin Little Pete on his lap