four rings.
“Hi,” Lois said.
“Hi,” I answered, my voice breaking. “It’s Jamie.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so glad you called. I’ve been trying to reach you. I don’t want to think you’re avoiding me, but . . . won’t you talk to me? You left so quickly that morning . . . was it something I said? . . . did you get my messages? . . . Jamie, are you still there?”
“Yeah . . . sorry . . . anyway, me and my friend Elaine . . . I think I may have told you about her . . .
and . . . well . . . I’d . . . I mean we’d . . . I mean . . . I don’t know if you’re busy but can we come and see you?” I took a deep breath, “Girl trouble.” Weird how that covered everything.
“Hey, kiddo, I’m here. You’ve got my address.” We agreed we’d see her on Saturday, and I’d call to tell her what time.
I can’t believe I made that call.
Run!
43
9.
The next day in the caf I headed for the table where Kay and Georgina were sitting. Carol was at the back of the line. Everyone usually went around her, for she always asked the hairnet server ladies questions about every dish.
She couldn’t help herself. “Well,” she’d always say when we’d tease her, “don’t you want to know what’s going down your gullet?” When I looked back, she was hovering over the Jell-O and pudding dishes.
“Why are you all whispering?” Carol said in a loud voice when she arrived.
Georgina rolled her eyes. “Don’t you just hate it when people say that, like ‘Why are you kicking me under the table?’”
“Sit down, Carol,” Kay said. “We weren’t whispering.
I just asked Jamie if her dad’s home like the paper said and if she’s heard from Elaine.”
44
“Is he and have you?” Carol asked me.
“Yeah. Elaine’s fine,” I hesitated, “and my dad is too.” Now that’s at least one major lie, possibly two. I stood up.
Time to cut this short. “Have to check up on my assignment from the Record office. See you guys later.” Three nods. Last week I was added to the paper’s masthead, so everyone accepts that I have additional responsibilities.
Right now, though, I need to be alone, to stop feeling so rattled.
Nobody knows about Elaine and everybody knows about Dad. Before he went to prison, I never talked about my family. I made up stories. If you took the elevator to the third floor of our building, there’d be no apartment 3C. I made us invisible to the world.
No more.
The bell rang, and kids started to pour into the hallway. Gail Boseman’s locker was near mine. Too near.
There’s always one in your class who makes you feel like all of you is a huge scab that’s been picked at. That’s Gail Boseman.
“So, Jamie, I see you’re now on the Record ’s masthead.” She held up the latest edition of the paper.
This is when you’d die for a snappy answer.
“I remember in junior high,” she went on, “when some kids thought you should have been kept off the school paper.”
The sharpness of the pain startled me. Back then I only wrote articles about the Thanksgiving pageant or the new 45
cafeteria menu. Safe stuff. Then, splat, Dad’s name was in the New York Times . The next day half the school knew who I was, and I was thrown out of the newspaper home-room. Me, who’d never missed a deadline. I’d fought it and got back on the paper. But Dad didn’t get reinstated. The Board of Ed fired him, the best math teacher in South Side High on the other side of the projects. One day in the classroom, the next day gone, then behind bars. And now, searching the want ads. An ex-political prisoner. I haven’t talked to Dad about Paul’s interview. I want to be there.
But I’ve too many movies-in-my-mind about prison, so I also don’t want to be. Dad hasn’t talked about it, except to say federal prison is different. Still, you’re locked behind bars, in a cell, for months. No exit.
Run!
Suddenly I was angry. For me, for Dad, for everyone in a cell. “Yeah, Gail, and you