The City of Rossford

Chapter Twelve

Yarn

MEREDITH AFFREN WOKE UP in her clothes, which she hated, under the comforter. Mathan was snoring fitfully beside her and he grunted and woke up when she pushed herself up on the futon. Beyond the living room she could hear Milo and Dena.

“It’s morning,” Meredith discovered. She yawned, turning her mouth, and what she supposed was her bad breath, away from her boyfriend.

“It happens at the end of every night,” he said. He got up and shaking his legs out, headed for the bathroom.

She hoped he hurried up. Meredith was a little resentful of the fact that he had just gotten up and gone when she could feel the pinch in her bladder and had been up longer, if only a minute and a half longer. She looked around the room. For the first time in a long time there was sun and the illusion of spring. Gold orange painted the walls which were bare except for a few photos, one of her grandmother and grandfather when they were young, the wedding photo of Milo and Dena, one of Meredith. There was a crucifix, bare and dark brown against the off white wall.

“Meredith, are you up?” Dena was calling.

Her sister came down the hall, still in a housecoat, her hair falling over her shoulders.

“Honey, your head looks like a rat’s nest,” Dena declared.

“You’re one to talk.”

Dena reached into her head, frowned, and admitted, “You’ve got a point.”

The toilet flushed.

“Oh, thank God,” Meredith said.

“Call Mom and Bill,” Dena told her.

Meredith nodded. “When I get out,” she told Dena.

Mathan was coming down the hall, and Meredith said, “It wasn’t a gallant thing to do at all, making me wait for you to get out of the bathroom.”

“Now, I didn’t really know you needed to go, did I?”

Meredith made a face and went in.

On the other side of the door, Dena was saying, “Are you all still going?”

“We’re still going, and we’re still going as soon as I brush my teeth and pull a comb through my hair.”

“You don’t want to shower first?” Mathan said, yawning.

“Look,” Meredith said, turning on the water faucet so that no one could hear her pee, “if I think about it, I’m not going to want to do it.”

“She’s got a point,” Dena murmured to Mathan.

Despite the water faucet, they heard the toilet flush, and then Meredith opened the door and they saw her reaching for the toothbrush, putting toothpaste on it, pushing her hair out of her face.

“Should we call Chay and Sheridan?”

“What for?” Meredith said to Mathan, sticking the toothbrush in her mouth.

“To let them know we won’t be around today.”

Meredith, mouth full of toothpaste, shook her head and brushed vigorously.

She shut the door a little as she spat.

“No,” she said, coming up from the sink. “They don’t tell us anything anymore and, besides, they’ve got their own drama going on, I’m sure.”

“YOU’RE NOT SAYING MUCH of anything,” Sheridan told him as they pulled into the school parking lot.

Chay said, “I don’t know. There isn’t that much to say, you know?”

Because Sheridan did know, he said nothing. They stopped the car, and just sat in it. They were in the very end of the parking lot, right off of the football practice field. The stadium was in the distance. Closer to the school, other cars were stopping, and kids were getting out, boyfriends were letting their girlfriends out, packs of guys were climbing out of a van. Rich kids were coming out of their own cars that were more expensive than what the teachers drove.

“I’m not mad at you,” Chay said. “If that’s what you wondered. I just don’t know what to say. Everything’s so different.”

“Yeah,” Sheridan said.

“It doesn’t really seem like we’re still in the school year. I mean, it feel like it should be summer. Not almost March. It just seems like too much has happened.”

“I’m tired,” Sheridan said.

“A vacation. Christmas wasn’t that along ago, and now I need a vacation,” Chay was saying. “But, it doesn’t seem like there’s enough vacation, or there’s far enough to travel. Everything’s so crazy. Everything has been so crazy. And then when I think of Logan…”

Sheridan didn’t say anything.

“Is it true? About you and Logan?”

Sheridan looked at him.

“Huh?”

“That you and him are together?”

“Yeah,” Sheridan blinked.

“Um,” Chay said. And then, “How come him and not me?”

Sheridan didn’t say anything, and so Chay said, “It really doesn’t make any sense, you know? All of these years, and then… Him and not me.”

Because this deserved an answer, Sheridan gave one.

“You were with Casey. And you weren’t talking to me. And Logan and I just happened.”

“Well, none of it makes any sense,” Chay observed. Both of them were looking ahead, watching students walk into the back entrance of the school. Cassidy Lahler came out of the back door pushing her black dyed hair back as she lit a cigarette and Destiny came to join her. “For me to be with Casey. You to be with Logan. We should have been together.”

Neither one of them said anything for a while, and then Chay did speak again.

“I guess that’s all I’m saying,” he said.

There really was no other reason to sit in the car, so Chay turned to Sheridan, who didn’t seem to want to move. Sheridan said, at last:

“That guy… the one who attacked Logan, yesterday.”

“Yeah… you saved Logan.”

Sheridan nodded.

“The guy didn’t escape,” Sheridan told Chay. “I killed him.”

Meredith Affren chuckled after they parked. Mathan’s driving had become a little slower the closer they came to the large structure.

“It’s just not a place anybody wants to go,” he said.

After they had passed through the security booth, Meredith said, “It’s not a jail, exactly.”

“Well, it’s not exactly not a jail, either.”

It was long and grey, grim and ugly. Punishing. They parked as near to it as possible so that when leaving they could get away as quickly from it as possible.

“So this is juvy,” Meredith sighed. “And I thought he was lucky.”

“It’s better than prison,” Mathan told her, undoing his seat belt and pocketing his keys.

“Well, that’s what they say,” Meredith shrugged.

Once inside, they waited and Meredith commented: “It’s just like jail on TV.” She shuddered. “I don’t ever want to come here.”

Mathan smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. You’re not far from eighteen, and if you play your cards right, you won’t commit a real crime for a long time. Then you’ll go to prison instead.”

“You’re sort of a horrible person,” she murmured as, in an orange jumpsuit, looking considerably thinner, Kip Danley entered the room.

“Well, you wear socks all the time. You get a thin blanket. But it’s not real cold. Let’s see,” Kip said. “You can’t carry pencils or keys or paperclips or toothbrushes. Or anything that might be a weapon.” He looked at both of them. “And you would be really surprised to find out all the things that might be a weapon.

“However,” he went on, “the good part is that I get out in time for summer school.”

“Not to trivialize,” Mathan said, looking around, “but I never realized how much schools look like penitentiaries.”

“Well, they’re locking kids up,” Kip said. “They don’t want us running all over town commiting the crime of being teenagers. They’d lock us up all the time if they could.”

Meredith murmured, “I think you’ve got a point.”

“I’ve gotten philosophical here.”

“Can I ask you a question?” said Mathan.

Kip nodded.

“The other guys? Whaddid they get?”

“Uh… the ones who couldn’t be placed… Two of them, nothing. Everyone who admitted to… rape,” Kip said in a quieter voice, “is in jail.”

Then he added, “And everyone except Wally and Donald will be out by the end of the next year.”

Meredith’s eyes went flat. She didn’t speak.

“It doesn’t seem fair?” Kip said.

“Well, Robin’s dead. And that’s that. And so is Russell for that matter,” Meredith added.

“The truth is, I don’t even know what fair is.”

In French class, Chay slipped a note to a distracted looking Sheridan.

He blinked, opened it and read.

“Where are Mathan and Meredith?” he whispered.

“Mr. Klasko,” Mr. Beauclair eyed him, “am I interrupting something between you and Mr. Lewis?”

Sheridan was ready to say, “No sir,” but Chay simply said, “We were trying to figure out where two of our friends were. They sort of disappeared. And,” Chay added before, Mr. Beauclair could continue with the smart-ass remark Chay knew he was dying to make, “We’ve already lost one misplaced friend this year.”

“Yes,” Mr. Beauclair’s attitude changed.

“I need to step out,” Sheridan announced, standing up.

He left the classroom and then Chay said, “I need to step out too.”

But when he got up it was after putting his books in his bag. And then he picked up Sheridan’s notebook and French book and went out after him.

After shutting the classroom door, he looked at Sheridan, who was standing beside the lockers.

“What I said,” Chay said. “My note?”

“Am I alright?” Sheridan asked him. “No. Not really. Can we go?”

Chay showed him his books, and Sheridan nodded, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his car keys.