Strange Girl Read online

  Billard didn’t welcome the interruption but was forced to respond to him. “Like you’re an expert when it comes to cheating,” she said.

  Ted was so dumb he smiled; he thought he was being complimented. “Yes, ma’am, I suppose I am.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Weldon, how was it you happened to be watching Aja this whole time when you were supposed to be working on your own quiz?”

  Ted’s grin swelled into a smirk as he glanced around for support. He liked attention. “Well, it’s true I have a ways to go on this test. But as far as watching Aja, let’s just say she’s awfully easy on the eyes. If you know what I mean, ma’am.”

  Billard nodded with exaggerated patience. “Thank you, Ted, for your astute observations. But now . . .” Her gaze shifted back to Aja as she added in a deadly tone, “Now I want you to either admit that you cheated on your test or else I’ll have you expelled from this class.”

  “I can do that,” Aja said calmly.

  Billard hesitated. “You admit you did cheat on the test?”

  “Yes.”

  Billard pointed toward the door. “Report to Principal Levitt’s office immediately. I’ll be along in a few minutes. Go!”

  Aja collected her books and left the class.

  “Macy, pick up all the quizzes and put them on my desk,” Billard ordered as she collected the pieces of Aja’s tests she’d ripped in half, along with a copy of our textbook. “The rest of you, start reading chapter four. There’s to be no discussion on this matter while I’m gone.” She headed for the door. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  I stood quickly. “Mrs. Billard, may I have a moment, please?”

  “No, Fred, you may not. Sit down and do as you’ve been told.”

  Naturally, the moment Billard was out of sight the room exploded. Half the class jumped Ted, the other half me—and it wasn’t just because I’d tried to talk to Billard before she’d split. Elder High was like any school—the gossip highway was well paved. Yesterday, everyone had watched me having lunch with Aja. Now they wanted to know how I’d planned to defend her before I’d been told to sit down and shut up.

  Naturally I didn’t know. But the fact that Aja knew several languages made me suspect she had an excellent memory. I tried telling the class that but they latched on to the idea that Aja had a “photographic memory” and ran with it.

  “Let’s not go overboard,” I said. “Billard only quoted a few lines. It’s not like she read all of Aja’s answers. It’s possible Aja just happened to remember that particular paragraph word for word and wrote it down. If you ask me, Billard’s overreacting.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Macy Barnes spoke up from two rows over. Besides being a cheerleader and the student body president, Macy was a brilliant student. She was in fact Janet’s main competition to be class valedictorian. She studied for hours every night, never suspecting for a moment that Janet had no desire to graduate number one. Macy was also extremely religious. She headed a Bible-reading club on campus.

  Macy added, “I think Aja cheated. I mean, she quoted the book word for word. Who the heck can do that?”

  “She didn’t cheat,” Ted said. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I had an eye on her the whole time. Anyway, she was writing fast, real fast, like she didn’t have to stop and think. If you ask me she’s some kind of savant.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Billard that?” I said.

  “Like she gave me a chance. You saw how pissed off she was. I tried to defend Aja, I did.”

  “I know,” I muttered. “Sorry.”

  Ted grinned. “Hey, it’s cool. A guy’s gotta stand up for his babe.”

  I snorted. “She’s not my babe. I had lunch with her, that’s it.”

  “One thing’s for sure,” Macy said. “If all of Aja’s answers are right out of the textbook, Billard’s going to roast her in front of Levitt. I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets expelled.”

  “She just moved here,” Ted said. “No way that’s going to happen.”

  I stayed silent. I knew Principal Levitt better than most. Had Elder had a local KKK chapter, he would have been washing and ironing their sheets. My dad played poker with a group of guys every month at Levitt’s house and when our beloved principal got a few beers in him he inevitably ended up talking about the country’s southern border—he’d grown up in the South—and how a wall was the only way to keep the “Goddamn Mexicans” out of America. My dad only went to his house because he was a hard-core poker player and it was the only game in town. But he couldn’t stand the bastard.

  I couldn’t count how many times Levitt had tried to bust Mike for bringing a joint to school. The guy was always checking his locker. Mike was too smart for him and usually stashed his dope in Dale’s locker, or in mine.

  Billard wasn’t back by the time the bell rang and so I left for lunch not knowing Aja’s fate. It worried me I couldn’t find her anywhere on the courtyard. Eventually I caught up with Janet, who had sources no one knew about.

  She told me that Aja had been expelled.

  “No way!” I cried.

  “Calm down, it’s temporary,” Janet said. “She might be back in class tomorrow, nothing’s been decided yet.”

  “Then why did you use the word ‘expelled’?”

  “Because that’s the word Wendy Hawkins used and she’s the only honest counselor we’ve got. She overheard Billard’s whole tirade in Levitt’s office. Now, don’t get upset but it does sound like Aja copied everything she wrote right out of the book. And—”

  I interrupted. “Ted swears she didn’t even open her textbook.”

  “I know that, I know everything. But look, as far as I can tell, Aja admitted that she cheated. She said it right in front of your class.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not the way it went down. Billard gave her a twisted ultimatum that gave her no choice but to admit she cheated. She told Aja she’d be expelled unless she confessed.”

  Janet considered. “That might explain some of what Mrs. Hawkins told me.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That Aja kept contradicting herself. First, Aja said she didn’t look at the book while taking the test. Then she admitted that she’d cheated. She just wouldn’t say how.”

  “She couldn’t explain how because she didn’t do it!”

  “Fred, I know you like her but . . .”

  “No, listen. Billard’s got something against her, I don’t know why. I saw it on day one. Billard went ballistic when she thought Aja might have cheated. And Aja saw that—she saw how upset she was. That’s why she told her she cheated. Aja was just trying to calm Billard down.”

  Janet frowned. “That wasn’t smart. Not for a smart girl.”

  “What’s the bottom line?”

  “Levitt’s going to talk to her family.”

  “She doesn’t have any family,” I said.

  “Well, her guardians, then, that Aunt Clara and Bart you told me about. They’re supposed to come in tomorrow and have a meeting with Billard and Levitt.”

  “Ted should be at that meeting.”

  “Do you really want Aja’s future depending on Ted Weldon?”

  “Where’s Aja now?” I asked.

  “Hawkins told me a black man came and picked her up.”

  “That was probably Bart.”

  “Yeah.” Janet squeezed my arm. “Relax. Aja’s new here, she’s from another country. Levitt’s a racist pig but he can’t let the town know it. He’s got to at least pretend to be fair and take Aja’s background into account. He can’t keep her from getting an education. It’s against the law.”

  I shook my head. “I just hate to see her treated so badly.”

  “Cheer up. From what Hawkins told me, Aja sounded like the coolest one in the principal’s office. I don’t think anything upsets that girl.”

  I continued to mope. “The bastards.”

  Janet’s touch went from my arm to my hand. She continued to eye me closely. “Are you sure you’re not f
alling in . . . ?”

  I quickly raised my hand, shaking off hers. “Don’t even start with that,” I interrupted.

  Janet smiled. “Yes, sir.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I’D TOLD JANET I didn’t love Aja and that was true. I hardly knew her. But I cared about her—I wasn’t sure why—and for that reason the next few days were hard on me. Aja didn’t reappear and Janet’s sources fell mute and there was no news to be had. I couldn’t even find out if Aja’s guardians had met with Principal Levitt. And Billard—there was no point in talking to her. The day after her blowout with Aja she acted like nothing had happened.

  She handed back our quizzes, though, and I got an A on mine. Apparently my insightful essay answers still appealed to her.

  I pressured Janet to get me Aja’s number but she said she couldn’t find it anywhere. I considered driving out to Aja’s house and speaking to her directly. I knew where she lived. But I didn’t have the nerve, and I think it had something to do with the fact that I knew she had my number and hadn’t bothered to call me. It was a poor excuse but it was how I felt.

  At the same time I had to rehearse long hours with the band to get ready for our trek to the Roadhouse. Our usual source of transportation to shows was an old camper van Dale’s parents let us borrow. It was the only vehicle we had that was large enough to carry all our equipment, along with the five of us.

  Unfortunately, the camper’s radiator overheated and cracked the night before we set out for the Roadhouse, just after we’d driven back from our gig at Stoker High. The parts and repairs would have cost us over a grand but we were lucky Janet’s father—Mr. Bradley “Bo” Shell—wasn’t merely a mechanic but an expert welder. He kept us from having to go out and buy a new radiator. He just welded the crack shut. Given the internal pressure an overheated radiator could generate, it was an amazing feat. On Saturday morning, before we left town, I helped him finish up with the repairs in his garage while Janet packed for our trip inside their house.

  “I can’t thank you enough, Bo,” I said. Everyone called him by his nickname, even Janet. “When we get rich and famous, none of us are going to forget it was you who kept this RV running. Seriously, without your help we wouldn’t be a working band.”

  Bo chuckled at my remark as he scrubbed away at the thick, rusty buildup near the spot where we needed to plant the radiator. Bo was the most popular and respected mechanic in town and was never at a loss for jobs. He worked hard—seldom less than sixty hours a week—and made good money. But the Shell home had only two bedrooms and a kitchen you could hardly turn around in. Everyone knew he was saving his money for Janet’s college education. He was that kind of guy.

  He was a football freak, though, particularly when it came to the NFL, and had indulged in an expensive giant-screen TV. I loved watching games with him. He always had plenty of beer on hand and three decades ago had played right tackle at the University of Michigan. He knew the game from the inside out and I usually ended up turning off the babbling commentators so I could listen to his more colorful remarks.

  He still had his bulk from those days, although it was now more fat than muscle. He had put on the pounds when his wife—the relatively young and far more educated Cynthia Shell, Janet’s mother—had divorced him for a Wall Street lawyer. That had been seven years ago and Janet had actually left town with her mom to live in Manhattan in a ten-million-dollar penthouse that overlooked Central Park. Talk about a step up from Elder.

  But a year later Janet had returned home to be with her father and I could only assume it was because she’d had a falling-out with her mom. The woman didn’t exactly have a strong maternal instinct. Janet swore her mother had been born on the planet Vulcan.

  Janet had never told me why she’d left such a glamorous lifestyle to return to Elder, or why, for that matter, she’d left Elder in the first place. The topic was taboo with her, which was weird because Janet and I talked about everything.

  Bo continued to chuckle at my comment. “Does that mean you’ll give me a share of your songwriting royalties?” he asked.

  “No way,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought.” Bo stopped to give me a serious look. He could have been a handsome man but with his weight and the grime from his job—and the hard years—he wasn’t going to be meeting another Cynthia soon. Still, I never looked at him without seeing a sparkle in his eyes. He had suffered terribly when his wife had left but he had his daughter back and that was all that mattered to him.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Jan tells me you’re writing great stuff. She’s told me about the demo you’re working on. She says it’s a given—you’re going to be big. Huge.”

  “Best friends make lousy critics.”

  “Jan always speaks her mind. You know that.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I hope she’s right.”

  A half hour later we had the radiator in place and were good to go. The RV was already loaded with my guitars, and after taking a quick shower at Janet’s house, I drove over to Shelly’s and collected the rest of the band’s sound system. Mike had recently picked up a used bass amp—bass amps were notorious for being heavy—and we had to struggle to fit it in the back.

  We hit the road. It was still early: a quarter after nine. As usual, I drove and Janet sat up front with me while the others hung in the back and played video games on Shelly’s tablet and took frequent hits off a fifth of Jack Daniel’s Mike had smuggled aboard. Because I was driving, the open liquor bottle made me nervous, but there was only so much control we could exercise over Mike. I knew Shelly and Dale would inevitably take larger nips of the bottle than they would prefer just to keep Mike from walking onstage totally smashed.

  “I heard you guys rocked in Stoker,” Janet said as we left town. I always felt a wave of relief leaving Elder and getting on the interstate. I imagined what it would be like when I said my final good-bye to the town. My favorite part of the trip was driving over the Missouri River and visualizing how far it traveled before it merged with the Mississippi and flowed all the way down to New Orleans. If LA and New York did end up rejecting me, I thought it likely I’d end up in “Nawlins,” backing up a jazz band in the French Quarter. I loved jazz but, like masturbation, it wasn’t something a guy talked openly about at school.

  “We sucked,” I said. “The place had the acoustics of an aquarium and the students kept calling out for us to play Mariah Carey’s greatest hits.”

  “That’s sick,” Janet said.

  “Tell me about it. We compromised and ended up playing Coldplay, Maroon 5, and the Beatles. Eventually they shut up and danced with their dates.”

  “Did you get paid in cash?”

  “Their student body president insisted I take a check.”

  Janet fumed. “That asshole. He swore on the phone he’d pay cash. If that check bounces we swing by there next weekend and torch their new hockey rink. Can you believe the good people of Stoker voted to pay two million for that rink when their only high school has computers that still use floppy disks?”

  Lightning struck. “So that’s why the sound was so bad and why it was so cold! We played on top of that damn rink! They must have covered the ice with wrestling mats or something.”

  “You’re kidding me?” Janet said.

  “I’m not. My hands were numb by the time we played our encore.”

  “What did you play?”

  “Foreigner’s ‘Cold As Ice.’ ”

  Janet smiled. “I think tonight’s show’s going to be hot. I’m glad we’re spending the night.”

  As much as I disliked Elder, I couldn’t compete with Janet when it came to wanting to get out of town. The girl took every excuse to escape. I sometimes suspected she’d volunteered to manage us just so she’d have a reason to split on the weekends.

  “Any news on the Aja front?” I asked.

  “Oh, I meant to tell you. Heard from Macy Barnes that she’d heard from Kathy Hawkins that Aja should be back
in school on Monday, just not in Billard’s class.”

  “Who the hell is Kathy Hawkins?”

  “Our counselor’s nine-year-old daughter.”

  “You couldn’t find a better source than that?”

  “Kathy’s solid. Remember, it takes at least a decade of living to learn how to lie properly. Besides, Macy knows Kathy well—she’s her babysitter.” Janet paused. “Cheer up. You should be happy with the news.”

  “I am, I just, I don’t know.” I paused to wipe the sweat off my brow. The camper had air-conditioning but I didn’t want to push the repair job we’d done on the radiator. I added, “I’d just like to know why Billard took such an immediate disliking to Aja.”

  “Billard’s explosive. Aja didn’t sass her or anything like that?”

  “Not even remotely. It makes no sense.”

  “You’re thinking about what you saw. The two may have met before Monday morning.”

  “I doubt it. Aja just moved here.”

  “According to my sources she’s been here two months.”

  “Really? Why’d she miss the first two weeks of school?”

  “I don’t know why she decided to sign up at all.”

  “We’re doing it again. We keep talking about my love life. What about yours?”

  Janet shook her head. “Point to one guy in our town that I could take seriously and I’ll go out with him tomorrow night.”

  I could think of several guys that might make a good match for Janet. But I knew if I brought them up she’d just start pointing out all their flaws.

  I worried Janet was walling herself off. I wasn’t sure why. She was no knockout but she was cute enough. Her hair and eyes were brown, like mine. However, over the summer she’d taken the scissors to her hair and cut most of it away. Now she looked vaguely butch. It was almost as if she’d been trying to create an image, or sign, that said: Stay Away.

  We reached the Roadhouse at six in the evening and immediately began to set up. A few non-servicemen were having a beer and a sandwich but the Ellsworth Air Force Base crowd wouldn’t begin to trickle in until later. Burrito Bill was happy to see us and offered us free dinner while we were in the middle of our sound check. Naturally we accepted—we were starved.