Her Name in the Sky (34 page)

“Joanie. I’ll be okay. I don’t need an escort. Seriously.”

Joanie eyes the hall behind her and sighs. “Alright. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“It will be. Thanks.”

The walk to her locker is full of stares and hushed gossip. A few people smile nicely at her, but most of her classmates openly gawk. She clears her throat just to reassure herself that she is still there.

She spots Wally at the end of the hallway, his booksack propped against his side as he switches out his books. She yearns to go to him, to find reassurance in his steady expression, but she stops at her own locker instead.

Ms. Carpenter isn’t at school. Hannah’s heart drops as soon as she sees the substitute teacher standing in Ms. Carpenter’s doorway.

By late Monday morning, the news that Ms. Carpenter has been fired has spread around the entire school. “The diocese called for her immediate dismissal,” Michele says pointedly as Hannah walks past her during class change. “I heard Ms. Gramley telling Mr. Jasper. The teachers are just as pissed about it as we are.”

“Carpenter was the only cool teacher at this school,” Jonah says. “This is so fucked up.”

All eyes are on Hannah when she walks into the lunch courtyard that day. She walks to her usual table, her blood pounding in her ears, and opens her lunch bag as if everything is normal, as if she’s not absolutely alone in this hell. She scans the courtyard for Wally and spots him at Luke’s table, the sun reflecting off his glasses. He does not so much as look at her. She checks Clay and Baker’s table: Baker sits on the opposite bench today, so that her back is to Hannah. Hannah stabs a fork into her salad and swallows against the burning lump in her throat.

Joanie joins her a minute later, brushing her hair back from her red face. “We just had the dumbest assignment in Pre-Calc,” she says. “I almost got into an argument with Ms. Hersch about it. Just because she got dumped doesn’t mean she can force us to recap everything we learned last semester.”

“You don’t have to talk to me like everything’s normal,” Hannah says. “Let’s just acknowledge it.”

Joanie’s face falls. “How’s it been?”

“Shitty. Really shitty.” Her voice breaks on the last syllable.

“Four more days. That’s it. Just four more days.”

Hannah looks up and makes eye contact with a table of guys who are clearly talking about her. As she watches, Bradford leans into the center of the table and says something that makes all the guys roar with laughter.

“How was school?” her mom asks when she gets home from work that evening. She asks the question offhandedly, but Hannah notices the anxious look in her eyes.

“Fine,” Hannah says. “Nothing different.”

“No one said anything about it?”

“Nope.”

“Well that’s good,” her mom says. Her hands fumble over the grocery bags on the counter. “Will you help me put these away?”

On Tuesday morning, when Hannah opens her locker, a crumpled note falls out.

Nice going lesbeaux.

She tries to intercept Wally in the parking lot after school, but he marches straight past her to his car. She follows him and knocks on his window, but he does not turn to look at her. He blares his music and reverses out of his parking spot with fast, jerky movements.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have fucked with his heart,” someone says, and when she whips around, she comes face to face with Luke.

“I never meant to.”

Luke stuffs his hands into his pockets and squints at her. Up close, he looks haggard and more jaded than he ever did before. “Look, Hannah,” he says, “I’m sorry that you’ve been going through all this stuff. I really am. I wish we’d been able to help you. But just because you were confused or going through a hard time or whatever, doesn’t mean you had the right to string him along. You hurt him. You hurt him just like my parents hurt each other and Joanie hurt me.”

“Joanie loves you,” Hannah says thickly. “You know she loves you.”

Luke swallows. “This isn’t about that. Just leave him alone. I hope you figure things out and I hope you feel better, but leave him alone.”

He shuffles away, his hands still in his pockets, his shoes scuffing against the asphalt.

Clay’s end-of-year party is scheduled for the Friday night of graduation weekend. The seniors gossip about it all week, trading ideas for how to lie to their parents, bragging about how wasted they plan to get, whispering to their friends about which person they want one last chance to hook up with.

“Hannah,” Joanie asks her timidly one night, “are you considering going to Clay’s party at all?”

Hannah looks at her like she’s gone insane. “Are you joking?”

Joanie lowers her eyes. “I want to hang out with Luke one last time. See if he’ll talk to me.” She pauses. “But I don’t have the guts to go alone.”

Hannah sets her makeup remover on the bathroom sink. She stares hard at the faucet for a long moment.

“I’m sorry, Joanie,” she says. “I can’t.”

Joanie nods her head, her expression sad but understanding.

Michele Duquesne wanders up to Hannah after graduation practice on Friday morning. “Crazy that I’m invited to the party and you’re not,” she says.

“Leave me alone,” Hannah says.

“I’m not actually trying to be mean,” Michele says, and by looking at her, Hannah can tell that she’s speaking the truth. “I wanted to tell you that it’s not personal, what happened with the e-mail. I was trying to get at Baker, not at you.”

“I don’t care who you were trying to get at,” Hannah says. “What you did was disgusting.”

“I’m trying to be nice to you.”

“I don’t need you to be nice to me. You’re a jealous snake.”

Michele’s eyes thin to slits. “Remember who ultimately betrayed you, Hannah. It wasn’t me. It was her. It was your friends. They saw something they didn’t like and they left you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“You’re a piece of shit,” Hannah says. “You’re a hateful, bitter piece of shit, and whatever I have left to hope for, it’s not your friendship.”

She storms out of the gymnasium while Michele glowers behind her. She makes her way down empty hallways, listening to the classrooms full of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, pausing outside Ms. Carpenter’s room to see if her energy still lingers around its doorway.

She wanders down the senior hallway and counts her friends’ lockers as she passes. 142—Luke’s. 151—her own. 159—Baker’s. 174—Clay’s. 203—Wally’s.

She stops at the end of the hallway and peers through the empty space between the two rows of burgundy lockers. She can see the echoes of herself and her friends in front of each section of the lockers, their Oxford shirts sticking out of their skirts or khakis, their shoes scuffing against the tiled floor, their laughs reverberating off these sacred walls.

I don’t want to hate this place.

Joanie approaches her again that evening. “I’m gonna go to Clay’s party,” she says.

“Are you sure?”

“Luke leaves for Alabama on Monday. And I probably won’t get a chance to talk to him at graduation.” She pauses. “This might be my last chance to talk to him.”

Hannah nods. “Good luck. I hope it works out.”

“Han—will you please go with me?”

“No.”

Joanie rubs her left elbow. She stares hard at the grandfather clock in the family room. “Hannah…” she says, her voice small, “I need you to go with me. Please. We only have to go for ten minutes. I just have to tell him that I love him.”

Hannah sighs. “I can’t, Joanie.”

“No one has to know you’re there. Even if they do, it’s not like they’ll say anything. Please, Hannah. I mean, isn’t there a part of you that wants to go anyway?”

“No,” Hannah lies.

Joanie rubs her elbow harder. “Alright,” she says, her voice only half-there. “I’ll just try to go see him tomorrow instead.”

Hannah sighs into the pages of her book. She presses her hands to her eyes. “Fine,” she mutters, her heart pumping faster. “Fine. I’ll go with you.”

Joanie’s eyes shine with gratitude when Hannah gets off the couch. They drive to Clay’s house in silence. 

Chapter Fourteen: The Fall

There’s music blaring from a set of speakers mounted on the outdoor bar. Two long card tables have been set up at the top of the lawn, covered with plastic red cups and beer cans, and dozens of Hannah’s classmates crowd around them, watching as the players shoot bone-white ping pong balls back and forth into each other’s cups. Beyond them, swarms of people cover the backyard, all of them dressed alike in Polo button-downs and khaki shorts, in sundresses and pearl earrings, their sandaled feet planted on the summer green grass and their hands cupping Natty Light cans.

Clay has lit the torches along the perimeter of the backyard, just like he did on Mardi Gras. The torches blaze with primitive fire, adding a ritualistic feel to this final high school party. The old swing set sits motionless at the back of the yard, the worn away wooden beams and rusted metal chains speaking eerily to Hannah, as if from some haunted place she knew a long time ago, though she sat upon the swings just last month with Wally.

The rest of the property is shrouded in darkness, but Hannah can sense the silent majesty of the age-old trees reaching into the sky in the woods below the backyard. The trees peer out over the party like uninvited guests, their status made clear by the rickety old fence that runs along the edge of the backyard, protecting these backyard partiers from falling down the hill into the trees’ thick dark mass.

“Clay’s looking at us,” Joanie says, and Hannah turns to see Clay eyeing them from across the yard, his expression unreadable.

“Maybe he wants us to leave.”

Clay takes a long sip from his beer can, his gaze still on Hannah. Then he shifts his body away and responds to one of the players at the beer pong table, who shoves the ball into Clay’s palm and claps him on the arm. Clay grins and moves closer to the table, raising his arms in the air and shouting something that makes everyone around him laugh.

“Guess he doesn’t care,” Joanie says.

“I want to leave,” Hannah says nervously.

“Just help me find Luke first, okay?”

They walk silently around the perimeter of the party, leaving several feet between themselves and everyone else. Joanie carries a cup of vodka-lemonade but Hannah walks empty-handed, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes darting all over the backyard. A few of her classmates make eye contact with her, some of them smiling politely or nodding uncomfortably, but most people ignore her.

At last they find Luke. He stands in a small circle of guys in the back right corner of the yard, his curls catching the light off the torches. As Hannah and Joanie approach him, Hannah recognizes Wally standing across from him.

“Shit,” she whispers. “I’d better hang back. Go ahead. Do your thing.”

Joanie clears her throat and hands Hannah her drink. She straightens her back and walks confidently up to Luke, her hair now carrying the torches’ light too. The circle of guys stops talking as she approaches, and Luke turns just a fraction of an inch to face her. Wally’s eyes land on the two of them—his eyes look thoughtful—before flitting over to meet Hannah’s. Hannah pulls her lips together and nods her head very slowly, keeping her eyes on him. He gives a quick jerk of the head in response, then looks down to his beer.

Joanie has spoken to Luke for less than thirty seconds when the music abruptly cuts off and there’s a commotion at the front of the yard. Clay has jumped up onto the short brick wall that encloses the outdoor bar, and even from her spot at the very back of the yard, Hannah can see him, his tall, muscular form towering over his party guests, his smile huge and easy.

“Thank you for coming!” he shouts, and the partygoers all around the yard holler and cheer and raise their beer cans and plastic cups into the night. Luke, Joanie, Wally, and the rest of their circle stand in silence, waiting to see what Clay wants to say.

“It’s just after midnight,” Clay continues, his deep voice spilling out over the yard, “which means we’ve officially finished our last ever day as high school students—yeah, yeah, I know!—but anyway, I’m drunk and I just wanted to say that St. Mary’s Class of 2012 is the best damn class that school has ever had, and I’m really glad I was a part of it with all of y’all!”

A deafening cheer goes up through the yard. People yell and whistle and shout Clay’s name, and in the back right corner of the yard, Hannah claps tepidly along with Luke, Joanie, and Wally.

“Before I turn the music back on and get totally wasted,” Clay says, “I just need to thank my girlfriend for helping to set this whole thing up. Where are you, Bake?”

A collective cheer goes up at the sound of Baker’s name. Clay surveys the yard, his tree-dark hair falling onto his sweaty forehead, until he spots her, for he grins and extends his hand chivalrously into the crowd. Hannah squints through the mass of people in front of her, but she can’t see Baker’s face.