I Just Got a Letter from Allyson Pringle Page 15

  “They’re saying Ren will probably only get a slap on the wrist,” lisped Ben. “His father’s on the city council. You watch, somebody else will end up the scapegoat.”

  Sure enough, the next day, Caleb, who’d checked into my accounting class just a few days before, wasn’t in school. I heard from Abe that the powers that be had come down hard on him and he wouldn’t be returning that year or graduating with us. Ren, however, was laughing and visiting and joking in the front hall with Alysse and some others that same day, acting like nothing whatsoever was wrong. After school he was sitting on the stairs in the exact place I’d occupied for a while. And he was there again the following day. But Alysse wasn’t.

  It was a relief to me when I didn’t see Alysse with Ren all that week. A few weeks later I heard that Alysse was going to the Spring Formal with Carlin Stevens. Carlin was a good guy and I was happy for them. At least, I told myself I was.

  Ren was soon strutting around the school with a junior whose skirt barely made it over her behind. Next thing we knew, Ren had taken up smoking. I felt kind of sorry for him. Ren had taken a nosedive in acceptance just like I had, but for different reasons. I felt a little less sorry for him, however, when he cornered me in the school basement and slammed me against the lockers. “You don’t have Alysse to protect you now, do you?” Nate came around the corner right then, as if it had all been planned out. His surprise punch in the stomach knocked the wind out of me. But I was bigger than I’d been in junior high, and I think they were aware of that, so it was basically a hit-and-run.

  Other than that episode, things seemed to be going a little better for me. Time has a way of easing problems. I had an hour here and there when I was able not to think about what had happened with Alysse. You move on because life continues and because you don’t have much of a choice. After the big party scandal, people stopped making comments and giving me dirty looks. I guess just about everything gets old, and they had new and more exciting things to talk about. Still, it was a happy day for me when Alysse was reinstated as a student body officer. I still remember the exact date: April 10th. It wasn’t long before the next elections, but I was still thrilled and relieved. I really wanted to congratulate her by e-mail, text her, or maybe even call her, but by that time, we hadn’t talked for so long that I couldn’t bring myself to push the keys.

  Gradually, life pretty much went back to how it had been before I’d become good friends with Alysse—boring, in other words. I decided it was just as well, and I began thinking ahead to graduation and to my mission. But it wasn’t like I could just wipe the memories of Alysse and her friendship from my life. I still saw her in the halls off and on, and she had a chance to conduct another couple of events.

  On days when I didn’t see her, I was hearing about her. Students were really looking forward to the play, and there were nice-looking posters all over the school that somebody said Charlotte had designed. I was looking forward not only to the play itself but also to those last two rehearsals when the orchestra would be joining the rest of the performers. “It’s gonna be a good one,” Parry let me know.

  Things became a little more exciting for me when my balsa bridge science project went on to region, where it got an award for excellence. Then several teachers nominated me for the “Student Academic and Community Service Award” sponsored by the newspaper. Alysse was voted “Most Caring Student Leader” by Hollenda students, and “Top Drama Student” as well. There were rumors that a talent scout was coming to Kalamazoo just to see our play.

  And then on a Monday morning a few days before the play, I heard something that sucked the air right out of me. Janette Osborne told me the unbelievably bad news in first period.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “I’m surprised you didn’t know. I thought you and Alysse were good friends,” Janette said. She’d been out of school with mono for almost two months and had apparently missed more than just school work.

  “I haven’t talked to Alysse too much this semester,” I finally managed to choke out. I wasn’t about to explain, not right then. “I can’t believe it. Are you sure that really happened? Are you sure her brother was actually killed?”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s all around the school. It happened Saturday.”

  I shook my head and exhaled slowly as I remembered the happy look on Allyson’s face, the lilt in her voice whenever she’d talked about Pete. “She was really close to him,” I told Janette.

  Janette nodded, her mouth pulled down. “That’s what I heard.”

  “Do you know any more?”

  “Just that it was some freak accident that happened when he was on his way to the library at his college. He goes—I should say he went—to some Ivy League school, Harvard or something.”

  “Yale,” I said. “Alysse said he went to Yale. She was really proud of him.”

  Mrs. Cavanaugh had been deployed and wasn’t teaching that semester, and her substitute for the remainder of the year had already pulled out her binder and looked like she was ready to get started. “School isn’t over yet, students,” she reminded us. “We do have a few more weeks.” I was glad I had a reason to turn to the front of the classroom.

  For the remaining forty-five minutes I just sat there staring straight ahead, kneading my hands, aware that our teacher’s lips were moving but not hearing actual words. I couldn’t stop thinking about Alysse and how she had to be feeling. For an instant or two I found myself imagining how I would feel if something happened to my brother or one of my sisters—especially Monica. It had been hard enough having her go away to school, and even harder when she got married. The thought of her suddenly not being here on earth anymore was too painful to entertain. Even with the gospel and what I knew, just thinking about losing one of my family members hurt so badly that I had to leave that place in my mind. My throat felt tight and my whole face stiffened as I realized that for Alysse this wasn’t imaginary or some mental scene she could click off. This was real. How was she going to cope? It was clear she didn’t have the best support system at home. Even worse, she didn’t have the gospel of Jesus Christ in her life to comfort her. It had been Pete who’d been her main support, and now he was gone. How was she going to make it through this?

  Arnold had driven home with some of the band members, but he stopped by my house afterwards. I was still out on the porch when he quietly joined me. My friend respectfully took off his new, even better, Australian outback hat. “Pretty awful about Alysse’s brother, huh?” he said quietly.

  “It sure is,” I answered, barely moving. He didn’t say much else, but sat on the edge of the green metal chair across from me for quite a while even though it was really cold again.

  “Are you going to do anything? Call her or anything?” he finally asked.

  “I really don’t know if she’d want to hear from me,” I answered. “We haven’t talked for a long time, and we’re not really what you’d call friends anymore. Not since . . . well, you know. I guess I could send a card or something.”

  “I’ll bet she’d appreciate that,” Arnold said.

  “You think she would?”

  “Sure, wouldn’t anybody?”

  I nodded slowly, and as I thought again about how I might feel in Allyson’s place, I realized that knowing people cared would definitely help. “Maybe I will run over to the drugstore and find a card. Do you wanna come?”

  “If you need me to,” Arnold said. “What I should really do is get home and catch up on geometry homework. That is, if I want to graduate.” Arnold had a bad habit of avoiding homework until the last possible minute. If he said he needed to get home and do geometry, it probably meant it was an emergency. But I was in no position to be judgmental. I’d had my own struggles with time management there for a while.

  “I think I can handle it,” I let him know.

  “K, my mate, good luck.” He picked up his hat. His eyebrows and mouth were pressed forward, his hair flat against his head for a change. Arnold’s face had filled
out a little during the past school year and, like me, he’d bulked up some in the previous few months.

  “Thanks.” I smiled and slapped his palm listlessly.

  After he’d chugged away in the old Pontiac, I didn’t move, but stayed on the porch until Mom came out. “Don’t you think you’d better come in now?” she asked gently. “It’s a little cold to be sitting out here.” She was right. It had been springlike earlier in the week, but now winter had come back with a solid right jab, as if letting us know it wasn’t going to go quietly. I pulled myself off the swing and followed her into the house. “Do you want some hot chocolate, honey?” Mom had heard about what had happened through a woman in her book group whose son had graduated the same year as Pete.

  “I’m thinking I might run to the drugstore and get a card.”

  “That’s a good idea, but don’t you want to get warm first?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Well, maybe getting Alysse a card will help you both feel a little better.”

  It would take more than a card, I thought, but I nodded numbly as I pulled the van keys from the hook in the hall, my jacket on my shoulder where Mom had thrown it. But then I just stood there swinging the keys. I guess Mom realized she was hovering, so she left for the kitchen. After several minutes, I hung the keys carefully back on the hook. “Never mind,” I called out.

  “You’re not going now?”

  “No.”

  Mom came to the door. “Why not?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  I passed her and went into the kitchen, where I sat on one of the wooden chairs by the table. Finally I took a sip of the hot chocolate my mom had poured for me, holding the cup with both hands as I tried to answer the question myself. I knew part of the reason I wasn’t taking over a card was because I wasn’t sure I’d know what to say to Alysse when I gave it to her. It had been a few days since the accident, and it felt too late to mail a card. The bigger concern was whether Alysse would even want to hear from a person who’d made life so much harder for her during her senior year. I was afraid my showing up with a card would make her feel worse than she was already feeling. “We’re really not friends anymore,” I told my mother.

  “Of course you are. You’re friends with everyone.” It was a mother thing to say.

  The next day I heard from several sources that Alysse still wasn’t in school. After school, I almost changed my mind again about the card and thought about stopping at Walgreens, but I didn’t.

  Alysse wasn’t in school that next day either. In orchestra, Jake Huong was talking with Amy about the accident when I came into class. “They’re not sure if he fell asleep or what happened. Maybe he was high on something.”

  “I don’t think he would have been high on something,” I butted in. “Alysse said he was a sensible guy.”

  Jake changed course then and started talking about the play, which was scheduled for the weekend. “Everybody’s wondering if Alysse will be able to pull off Bye Bye Birdie now. I heard Julie Felix is practicing the backup, just in case. But I heard Alysse was kind of the assistant director, too, and was helping everybody with their parts.”

  I remembered then that Parry had told me the same thing. Even though her own part wasn’t huge, Alysse had been playing a major role in pulling others along and encouraging cast members to really put it all out there.

  Jake’s bringing up the play reminded me again that the orchestra was scheduled to rehearse with the cast members that very night. Mr. Hammond had only reminded us a few hundred times. In fact, as soon as he called us to attention, he reminded us again. With all that had happened, I’d forgotten completely. The big one, the dress rehearsal, was scheduled for the following day—Thursday.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Before we started the rehearsal that night, Mrs. Dallask gathered the performers together. “As most of you have probably heard by now, Allyson Pringle had a death in her family—her brother. I imagine you’re wondering if she’ll still be participating with us, and I don’t think anyone knows that right now. I’m really not sure if Allyson knows herself. But even if Allyson doesn’t feel she can perform, I think she’d want the rest of us to do the best job we can. I think Allyson would want us to knock ’em dead.” Mrs. Dallask paused for a split second and blinked a few times, as if concerned about that particular choice of words. She opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again to continue: “Anyway, before we get started today, I have a sympathy card here that any of you are welcome to sign, if you’d like to, and if anyone would like to contribute to flowers, I’ll send an envelope around as well. At least, I hope that isn’t against school policy. If it is, I guess I’ll be giving you the money back.”

  “What if one of us collects? What if I collect?” said Mitzi, stepping in. “If it’s a student’s idea to do it, then there shouldn’t be any trouble about it because they won’t be able to say anyone was pressured by the school or anything.” Mitzi was apparently more street smart than she looked. Mrs. Dallask seemed to recognize the wisdom in Mitzi’s suggestion and readily went along.

  As the card and envelope were passed from one person to the next, I saw kids open their wallets without any hesitation and pull out bills. I put in a five myself, all I had, but it still didn’t seem enough.

  After rehearsal, I once again thought about stopping by the drugstore for a card. Just a card and even flowers with a large group seemed too impersonal. But it had been several days now. Maybe it was already too late to even drop a card off. And again, would Alysse even want to hear from me?

  But on the way home, I put myself in Allyson’s place one more time. As I thought about how I would feel if something happened to Kip or Lynette or Monica, I realized that losing such a close family member would completely dwarf just about anything else that had ever happened to me. It occurred to me that Alysse probably didn’t care anymore about what had happened at the end of first semester. Even being relieved of her school office for a while, as awful as it had seemed at the time, wouldn’t be all that significant in comparison to what she was dealing with now. I realized as well that it probably would never be too late to let her know somebody cared. Losing her brother would be impacting her for a very long time—her entire life.

  “Mom, I’m going to the drugstore,” I called out as I stepped in the door. “This time I’m really going.”

  “Okay, Kendall.”

  It was much warmer than it had been the night before, and the snow had pretty much melted. Walgreens was just around the corner from our house and west a couple of blocks, close enough to cycle. I pulled my bike out from behind some bins in the garage, checked the tires, and then headed down Wilshire.

  It was obvious by the huge bin of colored baskets in the front of the store that Easter was on its way. Several giant Easter baskets on the aisle end were stuffed with toys and candy, and I could make out a bucket and shovel in one of them. Not that many years before I would have been salivating at the sight of such a big basket stuffed with cheap toys. There’s something about cellophane. But now I headed straight past it down the aisle to the cards, barely glancing at the jelly beans, chocolate bunnies, and so forth crammed into the shelves.

  In the past I’d found some fairly decent cards for birthdays and holidays at this store, but this time as I pulled out one card after another I couldn’t find anything at all that seemed right. One sympathy card had a picture of a cross and rosary on the front—another was far too fancy and glittery looking. None of the messages even came close to capturing what I wanted to say. Not that I knew what I wanted to say. Finally, I moved to the blank card section and found a card with a painting by Monet—the one with the bridge. Girls seemed to like Monet paintings, at least my sisters both did, and I pulled it out and took it to the register.

  Back home I couldn’t bring myself to open the card, and it wasn’t until almost eight that I finally found a pen and wrote, “I was sorry to hear about your brother.” Then I signed my name and stuck
it into the envelope. But I didn’t seal it. A few seconds later, I pulled the card out again, feeling strongly that I needed to say something more. I stuck my pen in my mouth and studied the watercolor print of some apples on our kitchen wall. Alysse, as far as I knew, wasn’t at all religious, but at a time like this . . . what could I say that would help her feel better? I said a silent prayer and then, digging deep, wrote a few words that I hoped were inspired. I sealed the envelope, let my mother know my plans to drop the card off, and found the van keys.

  After I pulled up in front of Allyson’s midsized, fairly upscale rambler about ten minutes later, I stayed in the van for quite a while trying to muster up some courage. Finally, I opened the van door, climbed up the nice cobblestone stairs to a rich-looking front door, and tapped the copper knocker against it.

  The sleekly dressed older woman in a navy jacket and checked pants who answered the door looked a little old to be Allyson’s stepmother.

  “I go to school with Allyson,” I said. “I heard about her brother and, umm . . .” I didn’t know if this woman was a relative, but just in case, I said, “I’m sorry about your family’s loss.” The words seemed small and stupid and meaningless. “Could you please give Allyson this card?”

  “Thank you,” said the woman politely. “I’m Allyson’s step-grandmother and I’ll make sure she gets this. And your name is . . . ?”

  “Kendall Archer.”

  “Well, thank you, Kendall. You’re very kind.” She remained formal. “Goodness, it’s getting dark out here already.”

  “Yes it is.” I couldn’t think of anything more to say, and I took a step back. “S’okay, anyway, thanks.” My knee buckled as I turned, but I caught myself and made it back to our van, where I hurriedly shut the door. But even after I slid back into the front seat, I just sat there staring straight ahead. Finally I turned the key in the ignition, flipped on the lights, and stepped on the gas pedal. Instead of heading straight, however, I turned in the direction of the school, pulled onto Autumn Street, and then headed into the park. Inside, I followed the inner park road until I got to the baseball field where I’d played Little League. In the distance was the outfield where just about every year I was assigned to right field and where I’d made a few catches, but missed the rest. It was getting dark and I could hardly see the field but I stared in that direction anyway. Finally, I hit the dashboard. A card? A stupid card. Why hadn’t I done more? Was that really all my friendship with Alysse was worth to me? Why did I have to be such an insecure idiot? I should have taken flowers on my own—done something. A card didn’t seem anywhere near enough. Life stinks, I thought. And then, I did something I rarely do. I swore under my breath.