“And we’re all going to do what’s best for everyone, okay?”
Another nod.
“Good girl.” He stands, takes Freddie by the hand, and wheels her suitcase back across the street to the bus. Mrs. Sabrina is still there, looking blankly up at a backseat window where a cloud of condensation has obscured her daughter’s face.
Freddie gives me a final hug and climbs aboard. She takes a seat in the back, near Sabrina, wipes a clear patch with her palm on the window, and waves to us. I can’t remember the last time she smiled at her father.
“Oh, Malcolm,” I say, smiling on the outside only as I wave to my daughter. “What the hell have you done?”
“Just what you wanted, Elena.”
TWENTY-FOUR
THEN:
The popular girls stood in the short line on Monday, hipshot and chatty, lips shining with gloss. They compared notes on the weekend’s parties and football game, adjusted hair that didn’t need adjusting every five seconds, and cast sultry, unteenage looks at whichever boys were choice of the week.
I hated every single one of these girls. At the same time, I wanted to be them. I wanted to be part of the “us” crowd, not part of the super-geek, bring-your-own-lunch, never-get-invited-anywhere crowd that sat together at a corner cafeteria table. Jimmy Fawkes, Cheryl Comstock, Roy Shapiro and his pimply girlfriend, Candice Bell—sixteen-year-olds who had nothing in common other than straight As and the shared hatred of the pretty, popular people.
This Monday, though, with Malcolm to my left and Cheryl to my right, I was happy. I was waiting for the shit to hit the fan. When it did, it would hit big-time.
Malcolm sniggered and elbowed me in the side just as pretty Margie Miller reached the lunch counter, tapping her plastic tray with bright pink fingernails. I figured her brain was hurting from trying to decide which flavor of nonfat salad dressing she wanted on her rabbit food.
Well, Margie was in for a surprise.
The new ID cards had rolled out that morning, distributed during homeroom while all the Margie look-alikes flirted with their weekend conquests, and the undesirables like me had their noses in a textbook, cramming for the day’s geometry test. I watched Mrs. Parsons hand them out—gold, green, and white—and watched Margie and her crowd slide their new white cards into purses and pockets. The handouts Mrs. Parsons gave out with them ended up on the floor or in a trash bin.
“Watch this,” Malcolm said, elbowing me again as Margie ordered.
She had her ID card out, ready to scan, when the lunch server shook her head. “Other line, dear.”
Margie looked around. The other line snaked around the far end of the counter, along the wall, and back to the rear of the cafeteria. There might have been a few kids past the doors. It was hard to tell.
“No way,” Margie said. “I’ve only got a half hour before cheering practice.”
This time I sniggered along with Malcolm. Roy Shapiro reached across the table and slapped me a high-five. They all knew what was coming, even if Margie didn’t.
“White-card holders in line two,” the server said. “This line’s for the gold and green cards only. New policy.”
Margie shook her head. “Starting when?” By now, the cafeteria had gone quiet; only a murmur made its way through the longer line, from front to back, and again in the opposite direction.
“Didn’t you get the handout?”
“Freaking ridiculous,” Margie said to the other girls in line with her. She twirled, her blue and white skirt belling out, and marched off, tray in hand, fingernails no longer clicking.
Twenty-five minutes went by. We were all back at our corner table after speeding through the express lane, lunch bags forgotten, eating the fruit salads and cheeseburgers and Rice Krispies bars that usually disappeared before our eyes while we were crowded out of the lunch line. On top of a gold ID card, I had extra babysitting money and bought the last of the