Charlotte Rogan - Now and Again

But then Tyler Hicks thumped into him and said, “Jeezus, Rayburn. What’s up with that report?”

“Anybody can fool some of the people some of the time,” said the boy who was with Tyler. “Even Rayburn.”

“I guess they can,” said Will amiably. But then he muttered to Tyler’s retreating back, “Why the hell not!” He could do anything if he put his mind to it. He took a sharpened pencil out of his backpack and pressed the point against the skin of his arm until it went in a little way. He had a high pain threshold, and now that he had proved he was smart, he wanted to prove the nurse had been right when she had called him tough. Tough enough to kick Tyler’s ass if he wanted to, but smart enough to leave it alone.

That’s what he was doing when Tula Santos appeared in the stairwell and said, “Hello.”

“Why hello, Tula,” he said, without hesitating and without putting his hands in his pockets the way he would have done only the day before.

To his surprise, Tula paused with her hand on the railing even though they were blocking the way for the other students. When one of them muttered, “Move over. Can’t you see you’re in the way?” Will glared at him in a way that made Tula laugh.

“I’ve got to get going anyway,” she said. “I don’t want to be late for class.”

“Can you meet me later?” asked Will. “I could use a little advice.”

“I guess so,” said Tula. “Is tomorrow okay?”

Will sat for a little while longer contemplating how one thing led to another in the chain reaction of cause and effect. When he finally got up to change into his practice uniform and make his way down the hill to the ball field, he could feel his aura moving with him, perfectly in sync with the movements of his muscles. The cast on his arm was due to come off in another week, but now it seemed like an enhancement rather than a deficit. It felt sturdy, like the arm of a cyborg, and the scrawled signatures of his friends seemed confirmation of his new status despite the fact that most of them had been written before any mention of doctoring or college had been made: WAY TO GO, GENIUS and SEE YOU AT STATE.

“When’s that cast coming off, Rayburn?” asked the coach. “We need you back at third.”

“Next week,” said Will. “I’ll only miss one more game.” He had missed four games already, and he was worried about losing his position to a skinny freshman.

The next day Tula was waiting for him after practice in a grove of apple trees that had been an orchard way back before the school was built. Will settled himself beside her and pulled the most recent letter from the state university out of his pocket. It was crumpled, but the words hadn’t changed even though he’d practically worn them out by running his index finger over the lines of text, something he did again as he read the letter aloud. All the while his aura stretched and flexed, and occasionally it intersected with Tula’s aura, which retreated slightly in deference to their comparative forces, but advanced too, in response to the magnetism that had an attractive as well as a repelling force. The letter talked about his accomplishments and test scores and indicated that the college gave generous scholarships to promising student-athletes like Will.

“Why, Will! That’s wonderful news!” exclaimed Tula. Her eyes shone, and when she looked at Will, he saw himself reflected in her expression of surprise.

Will rested the dirty cast on his knee and said that college was only the first step, that after that came medical school. The notion that the idea had been planted there by the headmaster’s report landed briefly in his consciousness before taking off again.

Tula didn’t blink as she asked him what kind of doctor he was going to be.

“An orthopedic surgeon,” replied Will.

“I volunteer at a health-care clinic!” exclaimed Tula. “I’ve already gotten all seven Rainbow merit bars, so I’m working on getting my service jewel. You could come along with me some time if you want.”

This was an unexpected invitation, and Will readily accepted. It wasn’t a date, exactly, but it was the next best thing.

5.2 Maggie

One morning, apropos of nothing, Valerie stopped what she was doing and said, “Of course people make mistakes. We’re only human, after all.”

Since there was no one else in the room, Maggie assumed Valerie was talking to her. “Excuse me?” she said, but Valerie just snapped her gum and made little huffing sounds as if what she was doing was physically exhausting.

Maggie spent the rest of the morning pondering Valerie’s strange outburst. Had she been talking about the justice system or about something else? Did she know more than she was letting on about prisoners who had been wrongly convicted? If so, why was she so glib in denying it whenever Maggie brought the subject up? And what had made her mention it on a quiet day when the director was out of the office?

When Valerie went on her break, Maggie sat in her co-worker’s chair and flipped through the neat stacks of papers on her desk, but she found nothing out of the ordinary. Then she prodded Valerie’s computer to life, but she didn’t have the password and wasn’t able to get past the log-in screen. By the time Valerie returned, Maggie’s curiosity had gotten the better of her. “What mistakes?” she asked. “A few minutes ago you said something about mistakes.”

“Oh,” said Valerie. “DC’s in a twitter because he can’t find a top-secret report some muckety-muck sent him. I’m sure I don’t know where it is, but you know DC. It’s always someone else’s fault.”

Ever since taking the document from the munitions plant, the word “top-secret” had held a special meaning for Maggie, and she hoped she didn’t look as eager and unsettled as she felt. Now she wondered if she was being accused of something. She had copied Tomás’s file, but she hadn’t really taken it, and as far as she knew, it wasn’t secret. “What’s so top-secret?” she asked as casually as she could.

“Lord if I know,” said Valerie. “I just push the papers, I don’t read the damn things.”

Maggie had begun to notice how importantly Valerie presided over the office and how quick she was to pass the boring or unpleasant tasks on to Maggie. “You don’t mind if I delegate, do you?” Valerie would call to DC through the glass partition of his office, and mostly he would wave his hand dismissively. “Just so the job gets done, I don’t care who does it,” he would tell her, although now and then he would shake his head and say, “I want you to handle this personally. Give it that special Vines touch.” Then Valerie would laugh knowingly and pass something more menial on to Maggie. It wasn’t as if Valerie was shirking, for even though she left every day at exactly five o’clock, she worked hard and often arrived half an hour early. Lately, though, she seemed to be going out of her way to make it clear to everyone what the pecking order was.

A few days after telling Maggie about the missing report, Valerie wore a blouse that was so sheer in the back that the black hooks on her bra were entirely visible and anyone standing behind her could read the writing on the label that said 36 D . The front panel of the blouse was made from a respectable navy fabric and from that angle, Valerie looked proper and businesslike, but from behind, she looked like a slut. The blouse bothered Maggie out of all proportion to what it was, for it seemed to say something not only about how Valerie had hidden sides to her, but also about how everyone did.

All morning, Maggie kept sending irritated glances in her co-worker’s direction, but mostly Valerie ignored her, answering the phone and making neat stacks of documents for DC to review or for Maggie to cart down to the file room. It was almost as if someone had snuck up behind her and altered her blouse without her knowledge. At one point, the lanyard that held her ID badge looped over one of her breasts in a way that would have embarrassed Maggie, but Valerie did nothing to fix it. She only stretched her arms above her head when DC walked by, further emphasizing her anatomy before getting up and walking to the hallway alcove where the copy machine was kept. The director had his head down, but if he had looked up just then, he would have been treated to a view of the see-through part of the blouse and the thick elastic of the bra. Maggie could stand it no longer, and when DC went off to an afternoon meeting, she cried, “Valerie! Your blouse is completely inappropriate!”