The gods shine upon me this morning, dropping the temperatures far enough overnight to turn the roads into an icy mess—at least, enough of a mess to grant us a two-hour delay for our first day back.
That means an extra hour of sleep, an extra bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and a few extra minutes for foul shots in the driveway before Miss Edna pulls up at the end of the street.
I’m at twelve in a row (fifty-seven out of sixty-two) when Branson pulls into the circle to get Tabby. He doesn’t flash his usual peace sign as he passes this morning, but whatever. Not gonna think about it.
He idles in front of her house for a few minutes before finally getting out and walking up to her door. After ringing the bell and knocking, he looks at his phone, tries to call her, and, after no response, finally looks over at me. He jogs—jogs—across her frozen front lawn and across the circle to the edge of my driveway.
“Wainwright, have you heard from Tabby?” he says, one hand still holding his phone, the other running over the top of his short crop of hair.
“Not since she left yesterday,” I say, maybe a little tickled that I might know something he doesn’t. I can still be an asshole on the inside, right? “She went up to see her grandmother for New Year’s. Some nursing home, like an hour or so from here.” Then, feeling particularly douchey—sorry, dicky—I add, “They go up to see her every New Year’s.”
“I know,” he says, oblivious to my attempts to be an asshole, which actually just makes me feel like an asshole—I thought we were going to stop thinking, here, bud? “I talked to her when she got there yesterday. But I haven’t heard from her since.”
He really looks worried, and panic starts to form deep in my gut.
“I’ve been texting and calling since last night, and she won’t answer. Did they come home last night?”
“I have no idea.”
Fuck. I have no idea.
“Here, let’s check the garage, see if her dad’s truck is parked in there. They might just be zonked after a full day of having an old woman call Tabby a slut.”
“What?”
Score.
“Sorry. Old joke,” I say. “C’mon.”
He follows me back across the circle in silence. My brain is working extra hard to not think. To not go where Liam’s is going. It’s not working very well. I can tell her dad’s truck is not in there before we’re even up to the windows.
“Shit,” Liam says, running his hand over his head again. He punches his phone and holds it to his ear, his breath coming out in puffs that rise up over his panicked face, staring out over the circle. I hear Tabby’s voice mail come on before he ends the call.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he says to himself, like he’s forgotten I’m standing here.
“Dude, Liam, it’s okay,” I say automatically, trying to get him to calm down. I’ve never seen him like this—unraveled—and it’s freaking me out, too. “Her dad may have gone back to work already. He works crazy hours,” I say.
He looks back up at her house, at her window, without responding. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but he looks like he could climb up the side of the house right now and break through her window.
But we both know she’s not in there.
“They probably got a hotel up there last night instead of trying to drive home in this,” I say, but I’m not even sure he hears me.
This late in the morning, the sun glistens off the thin layer of ice encasing every tree branch in the circle. A wave of panic rushes through me, from my stomach out, and I feel like I have to sit down, but I force it away. Because everything’s fine.
I hear my bus drive off at the end of the street.
Fucking everything is fine.
“I don’t understand why she isn’t responding,” Liam says, both hands white-knuckling the steering wheel.
I’ve reiterated my hotel theory three times on the short ride to school. I can’t think of anything else to say beyond, “I’m sure it’s fine,” because I’m sure it’s fine.
I get some strange looks from the other seniors in the parking lot when I step out of the passenger side of the black Accord. Liam doesn’t notice.
We’re in the middle of sharing our gifts-of-writing success stories in Mr. Ellis’s class when the announcement comes over the loudspeaker:
“Pardon the interruption…Teachers, please check your emails for some important information. Thank you.”
My classmates buzz around me while Mr. Ellis walks over to his desk and leans over to read his email. Normally, that’s the unofficial holy-shit-we’re-getting-out-early announcement. But that seems pretty unlikely, given we already had a two-hour delay this morning and the sunshine outside right now is nearly blinding, reflecting off the melting ice and puddles.
I don’t look around at anyone, not even Trip. In my head, I’m still trying to convince Liam that everything’s fine. More than twelve hundred kids in this school, and teachers get tons of “important emails” every day. Bus delays. Lunch menu changes. Meeting cancellations. Meeting reschedulings. All very important.
I watch Mr. Ellis read his email. After what seems like an impossibly long time, he gasps, puts a hand over his mouth. He crouches down behind his desk chair and continues staring at the screen. Then, without a word, he gets up and walks out of the room.
It’s fine.
Everything’s fine.
He comes back in from the hallway and gently closes his door. I refuse to look up from my desk, because everything’s fine, and who needs to hear an “important” announcement about an entrée change in the cafeteria? Like I care if we’re having hot dogs instead of chicken potpie.
Everything’s fine.
“Gang, I need to share something with you.”
His voice is a hoarse whisper—he struggles to even make it past gang.
The man must really love himself some potpie.
I close my eyes.
I really just want to go home and shoot some hoops in the driveway.
“Sorry. Let me just try to read this to you first.”
I bet I can hit fifty straight from the line.
“ ‘Students and staff: Late Sunday night, Tabitha Laughlin passed away in an automobile accident. Tabby was a freshman and a good friend to many of us here at Franklin High School. She will be greatly missed. Guidance counselors and crisis services will be on hand today for anyone who needs some support. Please do not hesitate to let teachers know when you feel you need to talk to someone.’ ”
It took Mr. Ellis two tries to get the name out. And when he finishes, tears are streaming down his cheeks. I can actually see one drop from the bottom of his jaw to the floor.
After the initial shock, people openly sob around the room, horrible choking gasps that don’t even sound real. Trip stares straight at me, his face frozen.
I stare down at my writing folder on top of my desk. I didn’t get to share how well my gifts of writing went. I made Gramma cry. A tear slipped off her face, too. Murray made me read his out loud three times in a row and every day of break after that. Three gift poems in all.
It’s okay. I didn’t really want to admit to everyone I’d written that many poems on my own, anyway, you know?
Everything’s fine.
The hallway is a mess of huddled groups and animated faces crying. It echoes off the lockers: Liam Branson. Liam’s girlfriend. That freshman. Occasionally just Tabby. I pass a particularly large, concern-stricken group huddled around an open locker, and I realize it’s Liam’s. I automatically think to tell him again that it’s okay. Everything’s fine.
Everything’s fine.
It’s the same in the cafeteria. I hear Liam’s name five times for every one time I hear Tabby’s. More crying. More arms around people’s shoulders. I eat my hot dog in silence. It’s just a hot dog. It’s not that big of a deal.
Everything’s fine.
I get called to the office at the end of lunch. Mom’s sobbing when I walk through the door. She immediately wraps me up in her arms, Murray clinging to her leg. He looks up at me, confused. I don’t know what to tell him, but I can’t stop the tears from streaming down my face. Mom keeps talking and crying and talking and crying, even as our car pulls out of the still-full parking lot. But I’m not hearing a word she’s saying.
It seems my brain has finally stopped working.