“Three fucking letters. That too hard for you? Would the world end if you said it?”
Nothing.
“I know you, Mrs. Garrett. I know you.”
Eyes to eyes. Connection. Silence.
“Just once. Try.”
A pen is picked up. Then a pad. Smooth, barely-there movements, like this moment has been practiced. Waited for. It has. She knows. Zoe Beth Buckman. A cakewalk.
Mrs. Garrett’s cakewalk.
She hands the slip to Zoe, and says only word.
“Good-bye.”
Forty-Two
She sits in Mrs. Farantino’s office. Sitting but floating, too. Unconnected. Mrs. Farantino shuts her file drawer a little too strongly. Almost a slam.
“Was it worth it?”
Zoe has no answer. Mrs. Farantino doesn’t expect one. She shuffles through papers. Angry. Violation of probation. Suspension from the tennis team pending a review by the counseling team. “Is this what you wanted?” Again, no response is required. She is busy fielding phone calls and other interruptions. Zoe is not the only pain in her life.
“I like you, Zoe. I want you to know that. But you have to do your part, too. There’s only so much I can do.” She fills out yet another pass for Zoe. Study hall for the remaining twenty minutes of the period. “Was it worth it?” she asks again. This time the phones are quiet and she expects an answer.
Zoe sit-floats in her seat. Above it all. Unconnected. What is Mrs. Farantino asking? Worth what? There is no answer. Zoe’s gray other world does not match Mrs. Farantino’s neat black-and-white one. But she sees what is happening. What they are trying to do.
“Don’t take tennis away from me, Mrs. Farantino. Don’t.”
“It’s done, Zoe. You did it. You made a choice.”
When?
When in her whole fucking life did she ever get to make a choice?
She thinks about the connections. Connections that aren’t even seen. Not even there. But they are. Like Mr. Kalowatz’s sprinklers, barking dogs, and chirping tree frogs. Distant events barely connected by a mist of thought or circumstance. The distance between her, tennis, and Mrs. Garrett. The distance between her and a childhood that wasn’t. The distance between her, ninety dollars, and a room she calls her own. The same distance as the sprinklers and barking dogs. There but not there, except in Mrs. Farantino’s strangely connected world.
Her thoughts snap clear to Saturday. The next match. Zoe, the star. Opal and the Count in the bleachers.
“Don’t,” she says again, but Mrs. Farantino just sighs and shakes her head.
Forty-Three
The rutabagas are sprouting. The earth pushes up in chunks, and baby-soft green peeks through cracks. Zoe hunches like a two-year-old on her heels. Watching. She has never grown anything before. How long will it take? Did Opal say? The last long arms of the sun reach between rooftops to warm her plot of ground, and she checks her watch to make sure she won’t be late for Murray’s. Even if she kisses every ass three times over at the diner tonight, she will never make enough in tips to meet the rent due on Friday. She fingers a piece of earth away to make growing easier for an emerging sprout. She could give Opal an excuse. She could tell her she was just a little short. She could tell her she’d make it up soon. She could give—
One of the thousand excuses Mama always gives.
Zoe stands.
She brushes dirt from the edge of her skirt and adjusts her apron.
Opal will have her money on Friday.
Forty-Four
“Your windshield’s looking just fine, miss.”