One

Henley

2009

March

I swear to God, I’m five seconds away from turning around and punching Jessica Renfro, right in her dumb, loud mouth.

“… Well, I heard her mom is cheating on her dad with a guy who owns a used car lot in Charlestown,” she says behind me, her voice loud enough to carry. She’s talking about me.

My mother.

And it’s probably true.

On cue, her sidekick bitches join in.

“Well, maybe her new daddy can buy her some shoes that actually fit,” says one.

“Yeah, maybe he can pay to get those freckles removed while he’s at it,” says the other.

I wish Tess was here. Her dad called her in sick to school today. Either he’s backed up at the garage and needed her help doing tune-ups and oil changes, or she didn’t study for our history test. Either way, if she were here, I could at least pretend I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

As it stands, I can feel my hands tightening into fists, one anchored around the strap of my backpack, the other swinging free at my side, itching to be used. I can see myself dropping my backpack and launching myself at Jessica. Grabbing her by her perfectly straight, perfectly blonde hair and knocking out her perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. I want to, but I won’t. Can’t.

If I get caught fighting again, my mom will kill me.

Ladies don’t use their fist to solve their problems.

Which is rich, coming from her.

“Come on, guys,” Jessica chides them in a snide tone. “I think her freckles go with her orange clown hair perfectly.”

That’s it.

My mom’s gonna have to kill me because I’m punching this bitch.

Out of nowhere, Conner Gilroy is walking next to me.

“Hey,” he says, slightly out of breath from running to catch up to me, his shoulder nudging mine as he falls into step beside me.

“Hey,” I say cautiously, looking around for my big brother, Ryan. The two of them are always together. There he is, walking about two blocks behind me, with Conner’s older brother Declan and a few of their friends.

Even though we’re all in high school, I’m just a lowly Sophomore. Like Conner, Ryan’s a Junior and would never lower himself to walk home from school with me. I’m the little sister, which makes me uncool, at least in public anyway. But here’s Conner, out of breath and slightly awkward—both of which are out of character for him—walking beside me. I can’t help but wonder what he wants.

Behind us, Jessica and her mini-girl gang fall silent. The Conner Gilroy is less than ten feet in front of them. With me.

“What do you want?”

His mouth twists for a second like he has to think about it. “Did you take notes in math today?” he finally says to me, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

Relief floods through me, with disappointment, not far behind.

“I take notes every day, Conner,” I say to him, hitching my ratty backpack up on one shoulder. One of the straps is broken, and it’s heavy which makes it hard to carry.

He laughs at me, not in a mean way but in a way that makes me feel like I’ve made a joke. The kind only the two of us would understand. “I know that, Hennie,” he says, reaching for the not-broken strap of my backpack and pulling it off my shoulder. “I guess what I mean is, can I borrow them?” He shoulders my backpack without breaking his stride. Behind us, Jessica and her girl gang start to whisper.

Math isn’t just math. It’s advanced calculus. The only class we have together. Conner is not the AP type.

I can see my building, about a half-block ahead. Our apartment is on the second floor, and the living room window is open. I can hear my father yelling at my mother from here. The whole neighborhood can. It’s my mother’s day off, so that means she’s been in his face all day, getting him riled. I look over my shoulder. Behind Jessica’s smug, bitchy face, I can see Ryan at the end of the block. As usual, he’s pretending he can’t hear a thing.

“So, can I borrow them?” Conner says, forcing me to refocus on him. “I’ll give them back tomorrow, promise.”

That he’s asking for my notes isn’t all that surprising, actually. I’ve never seen him so much as lift a pencil in class. He’s usually either reading or playing games on his phone. “I’m not doing your homework for you, Conner,” I say and begin to walk a little faster. My parents are still yelling. I’ve got to get home before the yelling turns into screaming. Because screaming inevitably turns into hitting. It’s a toss-up on who will start swinging first

He laughs again. “I didn’t ask you to do my homework, Hennie,” he says, easily keeping up with me. “I just need the notes.”

“Don’t call me that,” I mumble, my cheeks stained a bright red. I can feel it, the blotchy heat of it, creeping down my neck. Hennie. It’s almost as bad as Hen, short for Little Red Hen. That’s what Ryan calls me when he’s feeling especially horrible. I hate it. Mostly because, with my unfortunate hair color, smashed-in nose from too many slides into home plate, pointy chin and knobby knees, that’s exactly what I look like. Which is absolutely nothing like the girls I see Conner and my brother talk to in the halls at school.

“Sorry. Henley,” he says with a grin like he knows he got under my skin and is happy he did.

I sigh and stop at the foot of my front stoop. Above us, my father’s yelling at my mother, telling her to shut the hell up and go fuck your car salesman while she’s screeching about what a lazy, piece-of-shit drunk he is. Beside me, Conner pretends he doesn’t hear a thing. I can’t decide if it makes me angry or grateful. Maybe a bit of both.

His parents would never talk to each other like mine do. Mr. Gilroy worships the ground his wife walks on. He coached my baseball team when I was still allowed to play, and Mrs. Gilroy was always there to cheer us on.

After Sunday games, they’d take us back to their family bar. Turn on the fryers and cook us anything we wanted. Play pool and listen to the jukebox for free. I miss baseball, but I miss those Sunday afternoons even more. I wonder if Conner knows how lucky he is.

I doubt it.

“Gimme,” I say, making an impatient gesture with my hand. The hitting is going to start in a matter of minutes, and it’s a toss-up between which one of them will start swinging first. I won’t be able to stop it, but I can at least shut the windows before it gets completely out of hand.

Conner shrugs off my backpack and holds it out to me. I take it, dropping it on the ground between us. Crouching in front of it, I unzip it slowly because if I don’t, I’ll have to spend a half-hour trying to get it to zip back up. I dig through it to pull out a folder that’s held together with strips of duct tape. Behind him, on the sidewalk, Jessica and her mean girls-in-waiting stroll past us, only to stop a few feet away.

“You can borrow my notes if you want, Conner,” Jessica says, flipping her long blonde hair over her perfectly tanned shoulder. Next to her, her friends giggle.

“Can you even spell calculus?” I say under my breath. Above me, Conner makes a noise, and I glance up to see him looking down at me, trying not to laugh.

“No thanks,” he says, giving her an over-the-shoulder grin that kicks their giggles into a frenzy of high-pitched twittering. “Hen’s got me covered—right?”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever,” I mutter, fighting the unflattering blush that turns my fair, freckled skin into a red, blotchy, mess.

Stooping next to me, he starts poking around in my backpack. Before I can stop him, Conner pulls out a tattered paperback with BOSTON CITY LIBRARY stamped on its back cover. “What’s this?”

“Give it back,” I hiss at him, reaching out to snap it out of his hand.

I’m quick but Conner’s quicker. He jerks back with a grin. “Easy,” he says, turning the book over to get a look at the title. “The Great Gatsby,” he says, reading the faded front cover.

“Yeah. So?” I snap at him. Jerking it out of his hands, I throw it back into my backpack.

“Is it any good?” he asks with what sounds like genuine interest.

I can feel my face soften a bit, my embarrassment momentarily forgotten. “It’s my fav—”

“Come on, Con!” Ryan shouts at him. He has no intention of going home anytime soon and wherever they’re going, I not invited.

Like it even matters. Even if I was invited, my mom has made it clear I’m not allowed to run the neighborhood anymore. I’m also not allowed to play baseball. She made me quit the city league at the end of the season. The only thing she hasn’t taken from me is books, and I suspect it’s because even she understands that there is something fundamentally wrong with not allowing your child to read.

Finding what he’s after, I rip today’s calculus notes out of my binder and stand. “Here,” I say, thrusting the pages at him. My face is on fire. Across the street I can see my brother and his, standing on the corner, watching us.

“Thanks,” he says, peeling the notes from my hand. About ten feet away Jessica and the rest of them stand on the sidewalk, watching us with sly sideways glances. “We’re going to the park for a game—we could use a fourth,” he says, his tone casual. Like he doesn’t care if I come of not.

I let my gaze drift over his shoulder. My brother is watching us. He doesn’t look happy to see his friend talking to me.

“Can’t.” I look back at Conner and shrug. “I’m not allowed to play ball anymore.”

I’m not allowed to do anything anymore.

“Oh…” he says, frowning like he doesn’t understand what I’m saying. “Okay. I’ll get these back to you tomorrow then.”

I nod, suffering through a moment or two of awkward silence. Suddenly, Conner takes a half-step toward me, the corners of his mouth cocked upward, one just a bit higher than the other, his clear green eyes pinned to mine. “For the record,” he says, his voice pitched just loud enough for them to hear. “I like your freckles.”

And then he’s gone, my notes jammed into his back pocket, loping across the street to join his friends as they run down the street. Ten feet away, the whispering stopped, Jessica’s glare narrowed dangerously on my face, but I don’t care.

Conner Gilroy likes my freckles.