Tru Love (6 page)

              That’s never happened before. No near-misses. No dangling stories above the ground. No rushing toward her own death. The breath is still shuddering in her chest as she scoots, crablike, to the peak, straddles it, and then lays herself against the cool, scratchy surface.

              She’s thinking too much.

              Even up here, the world is too much with her.

Chapter Seven

              This time, when she crosses the street in front of the school, Genny looks both ways,
twice
. She stays within the white lines that are supposed to guarantee her a little safety, and tries not to look for Truman Lennox. Several groups of girls stand together in the grass, under brightly colored umbrellas, laughing. The boys tough it out, collecting mist in their hair and wiping it from their faces as they joust among themselves in front of the stairs. Genny makes it to the sidewalk without incident and then stands there, gazing at her peers. It’s odd, that they stand so clearly defined by gender. A few couples, holding hands or sitting together on the benches, are minor exceptions. Genny and Hunter would have been an exception. They often met a few blocks from school and walked the rest of the way together. Sometimes they sat on a bench and talked music. Even before they started dating each other, they met in the mornings, sipped coffee and talked about stuff.

              She tries to shake those thoughts—they just make her feel lonely—and focus instead on Serena and whether or not Victor is

in school today. If he’s not, then Genny has someone to sit with at lunch; if he is in school, she’ll be a third wheel, even though Serena will probably insist she’s not. Finding Hunter when she did, way back in ninth grade, saved Genny from a lot of self-study. Which is exactly what she’ll be doing today, in the library—she can see the parking lot from where she’s standing and spots Victor’s shiny blue Cobra.

              Genny sighs and weaves a path through the crowd. The stairs are wet and in some places the black strips of sand paper have dissolved under so many feet; Genny is careful to place her feet squarely on each step. She plans to get through the entire day without one mishap.

              She pushes through the glass doors and enters the cavernous hallway. Her boots click on the tile floor, announcing her arrival at the office a full minute before she gets there.

              “Miss Vout,” the vice principal greets her. “Do you have the detention slip from your mother?”

Genny pulls it from a pocket in her back pack and slides it across the counter. Her mother agreed with the punishment—two hour of detention—and asked that Genny serve it today after school.

              The vice principal reads her mother’s note then looks up at Genny.

              “We prefer that students spend an hour after school each of two days,” Ms. Gower explains.

              “My mother understands that,” Genny says. But tomorrow is Friday and Genny’s father is playing at Candlestick. She’s supposed to invite Truman and even if he says no, Genny is expected to sit behind the dugout and cheer on her father. “She wants me to serve the two hours today.”

              She meets Ms. Gower’s stare without flinching.

              “Do you have plans tomorrow?” she asks. “Are the Giants in town?”

             
Obviously.

              “Well,” she continues, “maybe we can set this up for next week.”

              “My mother doesn’t want this waiting for me next week.” Genny’s supposed to move forward.

              “Really?” Gower’s eyebrow arches along with her voice.

“Really,” Genny assures her. “She doesn’t mind that I do

the time, but she did say something about this being merely an exercise.”

              Ms. Gower doesn’t know what to make of that. Her lips scrunch up into what looks like a pout, but Genny’s mother is a major contributor to the school, and the vice principal finally nods her head and applies her signature to the paper.

              “We’ll see you at two-forty, then,” she says. “Bring homework. There will be no letter writing, no talking. We take consequences seriously here at Fraser.”

              Genny nods and pushes away from the counter. The bell rings as she heads toward the staircase. History. Ugh. Mr. Cooke and his thin jokes at Genny’s expense. Truman Lennox and his attention-getting courtesy. His soulful eyes. His smooth voice. Genny thinks about plugging her ears with the buds from her iPod as she enters the classroom.

              A desk was added to accommodate the new student. It’s at the end of the row, like Genny’s desk, but on the other side of the room. Could be better, but it could be a lot worse, too. She’ll just pretend she’s wearing blinders.

              If he remembers her. Their walk back to school yesterday was silent. It was almost as if the touch they shared made them

mute. It definitely gave them something to brood about. And he did ignore her obvious willingness to be plundered.

              Heat rises to her skin with the memory and she vows not to relive that embarrassment again. At least not for the rest of the day. She drops her back pack beside her chair and sits down before Mr. Cooke even notices her.

              “Early today, Ms. Vout.” He smiles but his buggy eyes are cold. “Congratulations.”

She ignores him. The one and only time she complained about Cooke to her mother, she was told how amazing it is to have a teacher of his caliber working outside a university. So he wrote a few books, big deal, Genny thinks.

“Cooke is an ass.”

Genny’s eyes blink and she wonders if she said the words aloud. Impossible. It’s not her voice she’s hearing, but his. Deep, even as a whisper. Velvet-smooth as it curls through her ears and calls the little hairs on her neck to attention.

“He’s a brilliant mind,” Genny stutters. “An authority on the Civil War and the South.”

Truman laughs. It moves through his chest like a purr, at least that’s how she hears it.

“That’s your parents talking,” he chides.

              Genny’s blush sets her face on fire. She cringes and sinks back into her seat.

              “You’re right,” she admits. She avoids looking at him and starts doodling on the cover of her notebook.

              “I embarrassed you,” he points out. “Sorry.”

              She shakes her head. “I don’t know what I was doing, defending Cooke like that.”

              “Good manners,” Truman decides. “Come from a good heart.”

             
He probably heard
that
from
his
parents.

              She peers at him from the corner of her eye. Truman’s mouth is set in a grim line.

              “He doesn’t deserve your defense,” he explains. “He’s sour, straight through.”

             
He seems to know a lot, for a new kid,
Genny thinks.

              “Sometimes it takes a fresh perspective to see things in their true light.”

              “How did you do that?” she asks. And so she doesn’t look at him and fall victim to another dose of brain-freeze, she begins rubbing at an ink blot on her desk.

              “What?”

              “Know what I was thinking,” she says.

              “You were frowning,” he explains. “It wasn’t hard to guess.”

              But she has the very uncomfortable feeling that he knows her, too. And that’s not possible. Until two days ago, Genny never heard of Truman Lennox. Never even caught a glimpse of him.

              But he spoke of her near-miss with the Mercedes as though he should have known beforehand that they would be in that moment together.

              Yesterday, in the park, he seemed to know what she was thinking, when she felt totally drown by the rain and by her emotions.
“You look fine.”
She can hear his words curl through her brain as a whisper. And even that feels intrusive on a level she’s not used to.

              Genny has heard about people with extraordinary perception. The TV is filled with shows on that kind of stuff; some of it even looks real.

              She doesn’t get the chance to explore the possibility further, though, because Truman snags her attention with her least favorite observation.             

              “So, you’re Genevieve Vout,” he says. “Of the best pedigree—super model mother, professional athlete father.”

              She turns her head and stares directly into his face. Glare is more like it. It has the very opposite effect she was hoping for. Truman tips his head back and laughs. Genny feels the weight in her lips as they thin into a fierce frown, but that just makes him laugh harder and cover his stomach with his hands.

              “Great Santa impersonation,” Genny mutters. Her scowl deepens and then she finally looks away.

              “Sorry,” Truman says. “Again. But you’re very funny. Most people don’t have a problem looking at me,” he reveals, like she didn’t already know that. “You’re different.”

“
In
different,” Genny corrects. And even though she knows she’s lying through her teeth, she continues, “Your smile doesn’t melt me. Your eyes don’t make me think of Ambrosia Truffles.              Your body doesn’t belong in a museum,” she finishes grumbling.

              “Me thinks the lady protests too much,” Truman says. When Genny doesn’t reply, he adds, “Ambrosia Truffles? Really?”

              “I didn’t come up with that one myself.” She overheard girls in the locker room, ascribing a different kind of chocolate to each of his best attributes. That one stuck because it’s close to reality. He
seems
immortal. And godlike.

              Genny rolls her eyes, disgusted with herself. “Please,” she says, “like you’ve never looked at yourself in the mirror.”

              “Just to shave. Pull a comb through my hair,” he admits.

              The bell rings, cutting through his words, and Genny turns and looks toward the front of the class. Cooke is placing a transparency on the overhead. Quiz. Ten questions in ten minutes. And not multiple choice.

              “Write your answers in complete sentences,” Cooke reminds them. “Any sentence that starts with the word ‘because’ is not a true sentence and, therefore, will not be read.”

              Genny opens her notebook to a clean page and scribbles her name in the top, right-hand corner. She watches Truman do the same.

              Cooke snaps on the overhead, their signal to begin, then addresses Truman,

              “You won’t need to take the test, Mr. Lennox.” A frown presses his lips together. “I placed a desk in the row nearest the windows for you.” He waves a hand toward the seat now occupied by a girl with blond hair. An uncertain smile opens her face and the pink bands of her braces peek out.

              Truman doesn’t move. “I’m comfortable here, sir,” he explains, and then says, “Thank you,” like it’s a done deal.

              Genny watches all of this go down and doesn’t refocus on the quiz until Truman angles his head slightly toward her and whispers, “Stonewall Jackson.”

              Genny’s brain is definitely on ice. It must show in her expression because Truman taps his finger on her paper and repeats the answer.

“Five minutes,” Cooke announces and Genny jumps in her seat. Ugh. She cannot fail another history quiz. She scribbles Truman’s answer without even reading the question, then moves onto number two, which asks for a date. She knows this one and writes it out. Three and four are easy, too. Five she has to guess. Number six she leaves blank and the rest she knows but doesn’t have enough time to write out a complete sentence for number ten. She passes her quiz up, wondering if Cooke will give her half a point for the effort. Probably not.

              “Eighty percent,” Truman says. “That’s a B.”

              “What?”

              “Your quiz. You missed numbers six and ten.”

              “You read my answers?”

              “Yes.”

              Cooke hangs a topographical map on the board. It shows natural land forms that influenced the progress of the civil war.

              “Your job,” he explains, “is to identify at least four ways in which natural land forms impacted both the confederate and union armies. Two pages. Type it up tonight. Hand it in tomorrow.”

              Genny sinks in her seat. Her favorite class is science. She’s studying human anatomy this semester because she knows she’ll need it if she majors in sports psychology. Of course, she could be swayed into giving up college altogether and sailing around the world for a few years. But it would break her mother’s heart. She expels a heavy sigh. Her mom never went to college and she wants Genny to have the experience. It doesn’t matter to her what Genny studies. It doesn’t matter to her father, either, so long as she attends Notre Dame. His alma mater. But it snows there and she wants sun. Maybe she’ll major in marine biology and attend the College of the Virgin Islands.