Period 8 - By Chris Crutcher Page 0,21

just thought, what if it was over all of a sudden. You know, way too soon.”

“Say more.”

“We thought she was probably dead. At least I did. She was here one day and then just gone, like for no good reason. I just thought, what if that was me? I sit around thinking of all the stuff I’m gonna do someday, you know, when I get it together. What if there’s no someday?”

No shit, Paulie thinks.

“So I’m out there in the woods, thinking, man, I better get it together, and I feel, like, ready to do that. Like I crank myself up. And then—and this is bad—they find out Mary isn’t really missing and . . .” Bobby shakes his head. “. . . and I already feel it draining out. I know I’m not going to have the guts.” He shakes his head. “I went home yesterday thinking, what a schmuck . . . somebody’s gotta die for me to be brave.”

I will get that little bugger into the weight room, Paulie thinks, and then I will get him into the water.

Logs walks over and sits on a table at the side of the room. In a low voice he says, “Wow.”

Justin snorts, running a hand through his short hair. “Seems to me that was pretty brave right there.”

Bobby looks off to the side.

“Don’t do that,” Justin says. “You feel like you feel because you shrink off all the time. You look right in my eye and say, ‘Damn right it was brave, Justin Chenier.’”

The trace of a smile crosses Bobby’s lips again. He glances at Paulie, who nods.

“Fuckin’ say it,” Justin says.

Bobby looks at the ceiling.

“Don’t make me get up.”

“Damn right it was brave, Justin Chenier.”

“A’ight then,” Justin says and turns to Logs. “So, Brother Logs, when we get to hear the climax to this saga?”

“Soon as there is one, I suspect,” Logs says.

“Whatever’s going on with Mary,” Arney says, “she’s not going to let a shot at another four-point-plus GPA and more than a hundred thousand in scholarship money go down the drain. Trust me, she’ll come around.”

Paulie has been taking it all in. He frowns. Ol’ Arney. Always in the know. Even when he isn’t.

“And I’m guessing I can get her to bring us up to speed,” Arney says. “I’ve spent some time with her.” He looks at Bobby. “She’s more willing to talk about the important stuff than you might think.”

Justin sits up. “You mean . . .”

“Get your head out of the gutter,” Arney says. “I just mean she’s not as surface as everyone thinks. She’s just careful.”

“Mr. Logs,” Paulie says, “If you were sitting in a bar having a beer with your best friend with none of us around, what would you be saying you think happened?”

“You think I drink beer?”

“C’mon, man.”

“I don’t know what I’d say, but I get your point, Paulie. This is Period 8, where we let it all hang out. I’m being careful because when we don’t understand something, it’s because we don’t have enough information. Let’s keep focused on how you were feeling.”

“Long as we’re baring our souls . . .” Heads turn toward Taylor Max. Baring our souls comes out sarcastically. She pushes her dark bangs away from her eyes. “I think she was lucky.”

Silence.

Logs says, “Why lucky?”

Taylor hesitates, testing the waters with her eyes. Taylor Max would be pretty, if her life weren’t all over her face—and she’s tough as nails. Taylor isn’t silent because she’s shy. Taylor is silent because she doesn’t believe anyone wants to hear what she has to say.

“I come here, to this class, to learn something—anything—that goes against what I think the world is like,” she says. “But I always go away thinking I’ve got it about right.”

She takes in the room again, and says, under her breath, “What the hell.

“I’ve heard the same stuff everyone else hears,” she says. “Mary’s dad is a control freak, makes her give him her cell phone every day so he can look at the call history, calls the numbers he doesn’t recognize. He made her sign the ‘Saving Myself for Marriage’ vow, or whatever they call it. He’s not even religious, just has to have control. Who knows what’s true? The only times I’ve ever seen him, he looked like any parent, kind of quiet, maybe a little stern.”

Taylor breathes deep. “But I caught her crying in the bathroom once last year. She was, like, way not Mary. So I said right out what I