Todd Strasser: Blood on my hands

“What say ye, sweet Callie?” Katherine asked.

“This is definitely the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted,” I said, licking the creamy icing off a cupcake called a Hummingbird.

“Easy to say for someone who’s probably only had Hostess Twinkies,” Katherine quipped. The smiles fell off the other girls’ faces as they waited to see if I’d rise to the dig or let it pass. I decided to take the middle road.

“We can’t all be gourmands, like you,” I said with a somewhat forced smile.

“You mean ‘gourmet,’ ” she replied with a dismissive roll of her eyes. “A gourmand is an indiscriminant eater.”

“Ooh, look who remembers all that vocabulary we learned for our SATs,” Jodie teased in a way that I suspected was meant to defuse the situation.

“I am so happy that’s over with,” Zelda groaned, and turned to me. “So what are your plans for after high school, Callie?”

I assumed she’d meant the question in a genuine way, to change the subject. But unfortunately it was one I’d been trying to avoid. I hoped I’d go to Fairchester Community College, which I hoped we’d be able to afford with the help of financial aid. I was a pretty good student and had been a pretty good cross-country runner, but didn’t excel at either enough to deserve any kind of scholarship. But the prevailing attitude in Katherine’s crowd was that community college was for losers. So I answered her question with “I don’t know.”

“I wish I could be like that,” Jodie said with a wistful sigh.

“Like what?” I asked uncertainly.

“Just not having to worry,” she said. “I mean, about the future.”

I was about to argue that I did have to worry about the future, but then I caught myself. She was right. I wasn’t that worried about the future . I was too caught up in the present-busy thinking about Slade’s recent announcement that he’d signed up for the Army National Guard and would leave on May 21 for three months of training, and wondering whether my mother could cope with taking care of my father, and whether there was still a way to appeal the judge’s decision that had put my brother in prison for eight to fifteen years.

“You know, maybe if you were with the right kind of guy…,” Katherine said, then pretended to catch herself. “I mean, maybe if you were with a different kind of guy… Someone more goal oriented.”

“Slade is goal oriented,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” Katherine said, dabbing some white cream filling off her lip with a napkin. “Construction.”

“Drywall,” I said. “It’s what’s in most houses and buildings unless they’re really old. Slade and his dad install it.”

“Manual labor,” Katherine said with a snarky and superior little smile. It was one of those moments when another girl might have backed down and pretended to ignore the insult. But I resented the insinuation.

“It’s honest work,” I said, jutting my chin forward.

Katherine’s eyes sharpened, and she leaned toward me, as if accepting the challenge. “No one said it wasn’t.”

For a moment we stared at each other as if it were a contest. Katherine was right. No one had said that what Slade and his father did wasn’t honest work, but she’d made it obvious that she thought it was the sort of honest work only a moron would do.

“I’m just curious,” I said. “What does your father do?”

A pall swept over our table. Zelda stared down at her caramelmeringue cupcake, and Jodie suddenly seemed fascinated by the pedestrians passing. Katherine gazed at me, appearing unruffled, although I thought I detected a tic under her left eye.

“He’s”-she hesitated, then continued-“between jobs.”

I was just about to ask her how long her father had been unemployed when Zelda suddenly said, “Katherine’s family is in real estate.”

There was nothing wrong with being unemployed. It happened to lots of people. But it certainly didn’t put Katherine in a position from which she could look down on people who were at least doing something, even if it did involve-God forbid-manual labor.

Sunday 1:05 A.M.

MOM HAS GIVEN up trying to reach me. Slade either hasn’t gotten my messages or has decided to ignore them. So now what? I can’t hide in this playhouse forever. What am I going to do? How am I going to fight this? There is no way I’m going to turn myself in, like Mom suggested. I saw what almost happened to my brother thanks to an inexperienced public defender. You may be innocent until proven guilty, but sometimes you’re guilty in people’s minds long before you set foot in a courtroom.

And I will not allow that to happen to me, or to my mother, or to what little is left of our family.

The phone vibrates. I flip it open and look at the number. It’s Slade! My heart leaps.

“Where are you?” he asks.

Oh my God! How many nights have I cried myself to sleep, yearning to hear his voice? I try to answer his question, but what comes out is a choked gurgle followed by sobs as I’m overwhelmed by a flood of feelings.

“Cal?” Slade says.

“I… I… Just give me a minute.” I try to catch my breath and calm myself. I’m happy and sad and scared and stressed. “Just don’t hang up. I have to talk to you. Don’t go away.”

“I won’t.”

I have to focus, get ahold of myself, stop trembling, breathe steadily. Finally I feel like I can speak again. “Thank you for calling me back. I know you didn’t have to. You probably didn’t even want to. I’m so sorry for what I did, Slade. You don’t know how many times I wanted to tell you. And now you probably never want to see me again.”

“No, that’s not true,” he says, but his voice is clenched like a fist.

Still, that’s all it takes for my filter to fall away and allow me to blurt, “I still love you.”

First there’s silence. Then he says, “Don’t say that, Cal.”

It would have been better if I hadn’t told him so soon, but now it’s too late. There’s no backing away. “Slade, I want to explain why I broke up with you. It was such a stupid, idiotic reason, and I’ve regretted it every second since. But I don’t have time now. Because… you won’t believe what happened tonight. Slade, I need to talk to you. I need your help. I… I-” When I think about the enormity of the task I’m faced with, tears start to bubble up and the shaking returns.

“Okay, stay calm,” he says. “Take a breath and tell me where you are.”

I do what he says and feel the cool air fill my lungs before I exhale. “Up in the Glen. In someone’s yard. In a kids’ playhouse.”

“What street?”

“I don’t know. The first one on the right when you drive in. A couple of houses down. I’m so sorry, Slade. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long. I just wish it didn’t have to be like this. Please, believe me.”

“Cal, I can’t-” he begins, his voice suddenly anguished. I hear something bang in the background; then he curses under his breath.

“What is it, Slade?”

He ignores the question. “I’m coming. Just promise you won’t go anywhere, okay? Just be there when I get there.”

A surge of grateful relief floods through me. “I will, I promise. Thank you so much.”

We met at a football game when I was in eighth grade. I’d never been to a high-school game before, and my friends and I thought it would be daring and exciting to sit in the stands with the older kids.

At one point my best friend, Jeanie, and I decided to go get something to drink. Neither she nor I was a big football fan, and thus far, we’d been underwhelmed by what we’d seen. The snack bar was across the field and Jeanie suggested we cut across rather than walk all the way around.