The Center of Everything - By Laura Moriarty Page 0,124

look at each other, and then back out the window. Deena’s grandmother does most of the talking, the rain falling on the shoulders of her zipper dress. When Mrs. Rowley opens her mouth to say something, Deena’s grandmother raises her voice and keeps talking, so Mrs. Rowley has to just stand there and listen, her hand over Jackie O’s muzzle. The cats creep slowly into my room, sniffing the carpet carefully. Just this once, I let it go.

“Huh,” my mother says, squinting out the window, nodding, as if she can hear what they’re saying. “Huh.”

Deena’s grandmother turns suddenly and hobbles down the steps, crossing the parking lot back to Unit A. The Rowleys’ front door slams shut. There are loud thuds, more yelling. Travis yelling. We can hear Mrs. Rowley crying when she crescendos up, so shrill it makes the cats tilt their heads up to the window, searching the sky for birds.

The Rowleys’ front door opens again, and Travis sort of falls out onto the balcony, wearing only shorts, no shirt, no shoes, the door closing behind him. He runs back and tries to open the door. He bangs and kicks, rain rolling down his naked back. The door opens again, and Mrs. Rowley throws a shirt and a pair of shoes down the steps to the parking lot. She slams the door shut, and he throws himself against it, kicking at it so hard we can hear the glass in their windows rattle.

Sam wheels into my room, bell ringing. He is wearing his red flannel pajamas, pointing in my direction, looking at the floor. The cats watch him, their eyes large with interest. “Glad you could join us, babe,” my mother says, hooking her foot around his, pulling him the rest of the way.

Travis moves slowly down the steps, picking up the shirt his mother threw, already wet from the rain.

“Can he come inside?” I ask.

My mother frowns. “If he’s all done kicking things.”

I follow her out of my room. We are like a parade. Samuel jingling behind me, the cats bringing up the rear. I stop in the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair, keeping the door open to listen.

“Hey, Tex,” my mother calls out, opening the door. I don’t know why she calls him this. I don’t think Travis has even been to Texas. “Why don’t you come in here and warm up for a while? You can dry off. I’ll make you some pancakes.”

From the bathroom, I hear him say no.

“Why not?” she asks.

“I don’t want to bother you.”

“Oh, honey,” she says, laughing now. “It’s a little late for that.”

“Is Evelyn awake?”

“She is. Come inside. I’ll make you some breakfast. Whatever it is, it’s not the end of the world.”

I come out of the bathroom just as he walks in, his hair wet with rain. He doesn’t look at me. My mother makes him take off his wet shirt, and she wraps one of Sam’s blankets around his shoulders. He sits down on the couch, looking straight ahead, and with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders he looks like a man from the Bible, or a war refugee. The cats move around him cautiously, sniffing his toes.

I sit down next to him, tap him on the knee. “What? What happened?”

“Deena’s pregnant.”

I hear the pancake batter sizzle on the skillet. My mother shakes her head slowly, her eyes closed.

“What?” I laugh the way Ray Watley did.

He turns, looks right at me. He’s breathing hard, rain still dripping off his nose. “She’s pregnant.”

I am angry, maybe at him. I try to remember Deena the last time I saw her, just on Friday, sitting in English class. She did not look any different. She could have made this up, told her grandmother a lie. “I thought you-all were being careful.”

He closes his eyes, and now he laughs. “I thought so too.”

“I thought…” I stammer. I don’t know what I want to say, what it was I thought.

Through the window, I can see that Mrs. Rowley has come back outside. She stands on their balcony, looking around the way she did the night Travis threw pebbles on her roof, Jackie O licking the rain off her neck.

“Travis?” she says, her voice wavering. “Travis, honey? Where’d you go?”

My mother opens the door and tells her he’s with us, and that she can come over too.

“Oh great,” Travis says. “Great.”

By the time Mrs. Rowley gets to our door, she is crying, her skin a blotchy red, her eyes a brilliant