from me and I was glad—by ignoring each other’s existence, perhaps we could escape the mirror images of our failures. Up ahead, Stettlemeyer cranked up a boom box and shouted, “Superhits of the eighties! Oh, yeah! Superhits of the nineteen eighties!” The Pointer Sisters were fading out; Kenny Loggins was fading in.
“Jumping jacks!” Stettlemeyer yelled along with the synthesized beat. “One, two, three, and four! One, two, three, and four!” She began strolling along the ranks, clipboard and pen in hand. I heard her shout, “Name!” and heard a voice lower than my own respond, “Foley.” That was the blond kid’s name—Foley. He glanced my way and I quickly averted my gaze, yet everywhere else I looked was even more inappropriate: ponytails swishing, boobs bouncing, the hems of shorts swishing dangerously close to buttocks. I aimed higher, at the basketball hoop, and unsuccessfully pushed away the thought gnawing like a bug on my brain: all of these bodies, young and smooth and sturdy as they were, would end up in the ground, where their bones would be sifted through by a man like my father. Maybe a man like me.
“One, two, three, and four! Nice! Nice! Keep it going, ladies!”
Giggles erupted around me. I located Stettlemeyer and she was already wincing at her gaffe. I returned my eyes to the basketball hoop: Keep jumping, keep jumping. But I sensed Stettlemeyer’s approach and felt her tap on my shoulder. Go away, I willed her. Can’t you tell what I’ve done? Can’t anyone?
“Name!” she hollered as quietly as she could.
I halted midjump. My body parts jounced; I felt humiliatingly male. At least forty feet were pounding down in near unison. With the gymnasium echo, it sounded more like one hundred. Thundering over everything were the ripping guitar solos and computerized backbeats of superhits of the eighties. I should not have been able to hear anything over this commotion, much less a whisper, but perhaps my hours spent on alert in a desolate cemetery had sharpened my senses. Hissing through the ranks of female bodies came Stettlemeyer’s answer: my name, my true name, the only one I would ever have at Bloughton High.
26.
HARNETT CAME HOME AROUND eight, long after I had eaten a wholesome dinner of peanut butter and crackers. He made as much noise as possible tossing his gear into his room and tromping around, and I shot him glares between every math problem. Soon he was at my side, throwing wide cabinets in search of food. I smirked; earlier I had gone through the same futile hunt. Eventually I heard the thud of peanut butter, the jangle of a knife, the rustling of the bag of crackers. Bon appétit, I thought.
Instead of slumping into his rocking chair, he took a seat across from me on a stack of newspapers. I rolled my eyes and returned to my math. Despite my many absences, I was threatening to get an A in calculus, and that was exactly what it felt like—I was making a threat against Coach Winter’s insulting presumptions. The fact that he was the football coach made it all the sweeter.
Harnett began smacking his peanut butter and crackers. I gritted my teeth and faced my numbers again. Functions f, g, and h. The computation of the squeeze principal. Negative one is less than or equal to sine x is less than or equal to positive one. It was no use—his indulgent, expectant gaze weighed too heavy.
“Is there a problem, Harnett?”
“What’re you working so hard on?” he said through a mouthful.
“Calculus.”
“Calculus,” he said, swallowing. “That’s not going to be much help.”
“It’s going to be a big help to my grade point average, so if you don’t mind?”
He stuck a cracker into his mouth and ground it thoughtfully. “Now, geometry, we might find some use for that. When will you be taking geometry?”
I tapped my pencil in irritation. “Try two years ago.”
He nodded slowly. “That an important assignment?”
I shook my head in wonderment. “What? Who cares? You don’t care. Why are you asking me this?”
“Curious,” he said, picking at his teeth with a pinkie. “That an important assignment?”
I slammed down my pencil. The cardboard table did not give it the resonance I would have liked. “I don’t know. Yes? I guess so? I’ve missed so many classes now that every assignment is important.”
“When’s it due?” he asked.
I almost laughed at the absurdity. Since when did Ken Harnett become father of the year? “For your information, it’s due tomorrow morning. Second period. And if