A Stitch in Time Pt. 02

"Mr. Sterling has favored us with his attendance for the fourth day in a row," she said to giggles from the class. "A season-best, if I'm not mistaken, Mr. Sterling?"

"Yes, ma'am," I felt my face flushing with heat.

"As well as an excellent example of the kind of essay I was looking for," she pulled me back from the edge of humiliation. "He selected a single fact from Melville's life, the scarlet fever from which he suffered as a young boy. From that, he created a hypothesis, that Melville would feel more sympathetic — although I believe a better word would have been empathetic, Mr. Sterling — toward the weak and downtrodden in society, toward people whose afflictions might make others view them with pity, or even with scorn. And in his next paragraph, he explained what he would look for in Melville's work to support his hypothesis. Beyond that, he did me one better; he explained what he would look for to dispute his hypothesis. I would ask him to read his paragraph to you, but I've embarrassed him enough already and you're all perfectly capable of reading. What some of you are going to need practice on is writing. Miss Smith, did you read the Bartleby?"

With that, we plunged into a discussion of "Bartleby, the Scrivener." At the end of class, Mrs. Palmer passed back the papers, and mine had a red A-plus circled in red. All right! I was on my way. Let the games began.

Without my knowledge, though, a different game had already begun. By the time I got to lunch, not only had Tanya run out of Religion before I could even turn to talk to her after the bell, but the radioactivity of my table had spread to all the surrounding tables as well. With Tanya's table full, and with its occupants, like the rest of the crowd, glancing at me with expressions that ranged from discomfort to outright hostility, I simply reclaimed the seat I'd taken on Thursday. After a few minutes, I realized that nobody was sitting within twenty feet of me. Some people, in fact, left the cafeteria altogether when all of the other tables — the ones not near me — had filled up.

I'd been getting dirty looks from other people all morning, growing in number and intensity as I passed through my classes, but I just shrugged them off. Sure, Stephie was obviously a popular girl. Sure, I was going to have to suffer a little purgatory for breaking up with her. But I was a popular guy, too, right? I mean, I was a star athlete. So eventually, the little Stephie circle would go its way, and my little jock circle would come around my way, and things would settle down to normal. As I looked around the cafeteria, though, I had the distinct feeling that that was going to take a little longer than I thought.

I spent the rest of the day in study hall, trying to figure out the retrograde motion of Venus, something that Mr. Carruthers had started lecturing on today, and that nobody else seemed to have as much trouble with as I did. It took me the rest of the afternoon to figure out, interrupted only a summons from Coach Torianni to remind me that "we" had a tryout for a scout from the Atlanta Braves tomorrow afternoon.

Even my own family was cool toward me. Jeanne had eagerly accepted my offer to drive our car to school on Monday morning, and had expertly placed the car in the seniors' parking lot. After school, though, on my way to the lot, I watched as she almost ran to the line of buses. Thinking that perhaps she'd just forgotten we drove in together, I managed to drive myself home without, as far as I knew, breaking any laws.

Dinner that evening was no different than "usual." As we had every evening since the day after Christmas, we all listened to Tiffany describing in minute detail what she did during the day and how the pregnancy was affecting every organ of her body. Since the organs under discussion invariably included her boobs — their growing size in particular — it wasn't a subject that drove me from the table as quickly as it usually did Jeanne and Jill. This time, though, they departed with even more haste than usual, both of them glaring at me as they retreated to their rooms. After I'd done the dishes — without Jeanne's help this time — I knocked on her door. No answer. I called her name. Still no answer.

I was seriously bummed. This was the week that I was going to start tracking down the mystery of life. Or at least the mystery of my life. Who the hell was Patrick Sterling, and how the hell did he get that way? I already had a pretty good answer to the first question. He was an arrogant asshole who said "That was great, baby" to a woman he'd adored since the seventh grade, and who'd dumped Cammie Rowe when she wouldn't put out. He'd had at least one affair with a married woman, and at least one session with his current stepmother, I hoped to God before she married to his dad. He hadn't visited his relatives in a year and a half, and, oh yeah, he'd been dating a bigot.

How he got that way, though, was a little more difficult to figure out. I figured that Jeanne would be the best source of information, and while I had no intention of actually telling her the truth, I kind of hoped that if I enlisted her aid in my reformation project, I could sneak in a few questions about the downward spiral that my life had taken in the last three years.

I hadn't broached the subject up until now because frankly, I hadn't had the time. I think it was Socrates who said that the unexamined life isn't worth living. Easy for him; he didn't also have to spend time examining physics and baseball and American history, not to mention writing a paper on T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral." And in any event, I think what he had in mind was an examination that was a little more introspective than I was capable of at the moment; with respect to the last three years, at any rate, I was solely depended on extrospection, or whatever the opposite of introspection is. And of course, that was dependent on Jeanne's actually talking to me. For the life of me, I just couldn't understand why my breaking up with Stephie would make Jeanne mad. The way she'd said Stephie's name when we were waiting for the bus last week, in fact, had led me to believe that she would welcome my breaking up with her.

Jill's reaction was a little easier to understand. She was more than likely the Queen Bee of her own class, and my horrible faux pas had probably, through some strange commutative property of high school transference, been considered some sort of reflection on her. I didn't know that for a fact, though, because I still hadn't really gotten to know Jill yet. She'd obviously grown up, as evidenced by the fact that she'd had dates every night between Christmas and the start of the school year. And not with the same guy, either; I don't think I'd seen the same car yet pull into the driveway and honk its horn to summon my hot youngest sister. Since school started, we simply hadn't been in the same room long enough for me to start up a casual conversation about the last three years of her life.

Jeanne continued to scorn me the next morning. She responded to my offer to once again let her drive our car to school by turning her back on me and walking to the bus stop. I was unwilling to drive myself in, so I hurried after her. Once on the bus, I found all the other kids turning their heads to look out the window as I walked down the aisle. Even Bobby Bunt, who'd made a complete nuisance of himself the week before by sitting in front of me and explaining his athletic prowess every morning, found a seat at the front of the bus.

The rest of the morning followed a similar course. Nobody would initiate a conversation with me, and the responses to my own openings were brushed aside as quickly as possible. Tanya, in fact, bluntly told me to "fuck off" when I tried to talk to her before Religion Class. As a result, the only people I really talked to on Tuesday were Coach Torianni, and the guy from the Braves. Even Tommy Narburg, whom I didn't knock backward this time when he caught my tryout, responded to my banter only with grunts and single-word answers.

By Wednesday, it had spread to the faculty. Mr. Anson and Mr. Kennedy both looked at me like I was the lowest form of life on earth, and Mrs. Palmer refused to look at me at all. Mrs. Jenkins met my eyes in Religion, but her eyes were filled with such pain and such disappointment that I found myself unable to hold her gaze for any length of time.

Mr. Carruthers spoke to me, but only because we had lab on Wednesdays and he had to assign me a lab partner. Or assign me no lab partner, as it turned out. My classmates were already sitting next to their first choice in lab partners, and he eagerly ratified their choices.

"Mr. Sterling," he uncomfortably turned to me after going through the rest of the class, "because we have an odd number of students this year, it seems that you'll have to do your lab work by yourself. I assume that won't be a problem."

"No, sir," I shrugged. "I kinda figured that after, um, the other girl I'd been sitting next to dropped the class."

"Good, very good," he dismissed me from his mind. "Now about next week, class, I told you that I wanted each pair of you, or just you, Mr. Sterling, to look for a particular area of the night-time sky to focus your studies. We're going to continue with the planets of the solar system for the next two weeks, and after that we'll start looking at our own sun as an introduction to the stars. So some of you won't really have a lot of information on which to base your selection."

He pulled down a picture of the sky from a set of rolled-up maps that hung above the board in the front of the room.

"Now I know," he continued, "that some of you are already familiar with the heavens, and that places like the Horsehead Nebula are going to be quite popular. So I'll warn you right now, if more than one set of partners —" he gestured at me as if he wanted to continue reminding everyone that I didn't have a lab partner "— picks the same general area, we'll have a drawing for that one."

"So what are we supposed to be looking for?" asked a kid from the other side of the room.

"Pretty much any area will have enough of interest in it to allow you to complete the project I have in mind," Mr. Carruthers answered. "If it doesn't, I'll let you know."

"So what if we find life there?" asked Teddy Collins. Teddy had been the class clown since we were in the seventh grade together. He was a pretty smart guy, too, although he never missed an opportunity to get a laugh.

"If you find life," Mr. Carruthers gave Teddy his chuckle, "I'll give you an A-plus on the spot. Yes, Judy?"

"How do we identify the area for you?" Judy Wilson asked.

"Aah, an excellent question," the teacher answered. "A single star will suffice. If you give me a single star, we will consider your area to be everything that we can see when we center the school's telescope on that star. In fact, the following Wednesday, I will provide you each with photographs of your areas."

The bell rang and we all got up.

"Oh, one other thing," he said as we were leaving. "Make sure your star appears in the evening sky. I don't want to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to take pictures for you. If you have any questions, the room's open first and seventh periods."

I had nothing better to do the next period, so I remained in the lab while everybody else, including Mr. Carruthers, filed out. I was looking at the star chart, trying to figure out some rational basis for my choice, when he came back in.

"Oh, Patrick," he was clearly discomfited by my presence. "Can I help you?"

"Just trying to pick a star, sir," I smiled at him.

"Oh, well, carry on," he said. "I just need to collect some papers."

So I carried on, turning my attention back to the chart.

"Patrick," he said quietly after a few minutes.

"Sir?" I turned around.

"Have you considered transferring to another school, Patrick?"

"Another school?" I was dumbfounded. "Why?"

"Because of your recent, er, notoriety."

I had no idea what the word meant, but it didn't sound good. Particularly if it was something that would make me think about leaving John Marshall.

"You mean because I broke up with Stephie," I paused a few seconds, trying to remember what Jeanne had said her last name was, "van Carlen in the cafeteria last week? You mean because I threw her my car keys?"

"Because your attitude toward women has become so, er, well known," he said.

"My attitude?" I was treading carefully now. My attitude toward women at the current moment was exactly what it had been in ninth grade — extreme bafflement. On the hand, I had no idea what attitude I'd exhibited over the last three years.

"I think we both know what we're talking about, Patrick," he gave me a patronizing smile as he collected his papers and prepared to leave. "Just give it some thought."

"Yes, sir," I nodded slowly.

By Thursday, I simply couldn't take it anymore. After another day of silence and sneers, even dinner itself was ominously quiet. Tiffany had apparently caught wind of whatever was going around; and whenever she found me looking at her, she simply shook her head and returned to her food. After Jeanne had run off to her room, I excused myself and followed her.

"Jeanne!" I said, rapping hard on her door. "Jeanne, I need to talk to you."

"Fuck off!" came her muffled response.

"Jeanne," I said, "I'm gonna stand here all night until you talk to me."

A few seconds later, I heard the creaking of her bed, followed by the shuffling of her feet on the carpet and the click of her door unlocking.

"What?" she asked, cracking the door open.

"Are you okay?" I asked. Her eyes were red, her face stained with tears.

"Of course I'm not okay, you asshole," she spat. "You think it's easy being the sister of the school perv?"

"The school perv?" I asked. "Look, I don't even know what Stephie is saying I did!"

She stared into my eyes, apparently thinking the truth was buried somewhere in there.

"I don't believe you," she said.

I stuck my foot in the door just before she tried to slam it closed.

"Jeanne!" I protested softly.

"All right," she said. "Just answer one question. Did you ever make a videotape of you and Stephie fucking?"

I stared at her, my mouth opening and closing like a fish.

"Ya know," she said. "I kind of hoped you could at least deny that. Now get out."

I let her push me backwards and slam the door in my face. As I walked numbly back to my room, I wondered whether it was the tape itself that upset everyone or whether it was something on the tape. Probably both. Back in my room, I searched my computer for all of the video files I could think of. Other than a bunch of porno clips that "I" had saved — none of them starring me — I drew a complete blank.

It wasn't until Saturday that I found out.

If anything, Friday was worse than the day before. The stares had turned from disdainful to malevolent, as if the concentrated telekinetic power of the entire high school could make me drop dead where I stood. The only ray of hope was a note I found in my locker at the end of the day: "Let's throw tomorrow at Lemmon's Park at 10. RP."

Rabbit Parker was waiting for me in the bleachers at Lemmon's Park.

"Where's your glove?" I asked him as I approached. It had been a very odd winter so far; it was already January 13, and we still hadn't had any snow to speak of. So I actually thought the note was sincere. I sat down next to him in the bleachers.

"I didn't want to throw," he said quietly. "Some of the guys on the team just wanted me to tell you they're behind you."

"Pretty damn far behind," I pointed out.

"True," he acknowledged. "They all have girlfriends. And they're not about to give them up for you."

"Will somebody for God's sake tell me why?" I answered, near tears myself.

"For what it's worth," he said. "Cammie doesn't believe it."

"Cammie Rowe?" I asked him.

He nodded.

"Are you and she, uh..." I began.

"We're just friends," he said. "But I'd never get another date with any other girl that saw me here talking to you."

"WHY?" I almost screamed at him.

"Cammie told me that you're an arrogant asshole," he said, "but she says there's no way you would hit a woman."

"Hit a woman?" I gasped. "Stephie's saying I hit her?"

He turned away from me and stared out toward centerfield, steeling himself. After a deep breath he turned back.

"She says you were physically and verbally abusive," he said. "That you slapped her, that you choked her, that you spit in her face, and that you called her a cock-sucking whore."

I could hear my heart hammering in my chest, and I knew that Rabbit was waiting, just as Jeanne had waited on Thursday night, for me to deny it.

"I would never," I said, "ever. I couldn't."

I suddenly realized that this was the "attitude" Mr. Carruthers had been talking about. But no matter how much I'd changed in the three years since Christmas Eve, 2003, there was simply no way that I would ever start treating a woman like that. Finally, I became aware that Rabbit was talking again.

"Apparently, none of your other former girlfriends think you could do it," he said. "It's not like they were going to join your fan club, though, after you kind of worked your way up through them to Stephie."

"Rabbit," I said. "You have to believe me. I'd never do anything like that."

He looked at me and nodded.

"Paula claims there's a video," he said.

"Paula?" I asked.

"Paula Owens," he said, as if I should know her. "Stephie's best friend? Apparently you pissed her off in science class last week."

No doubt Paula was the hot blonde, my one-time future lab partner in Astronomy.

"Has she seen a video?" I asked.

"She won't say," Rabbit shook his head. "But she says that Stephie just has a clip, which you e-mailed her after you shot it."

"Rabbit," I implored him.

"Yeah, I know man," he nodded. "I can get the word out that you deny the whole thing, including the taping, and that the team supports you. But at this point everybody thinks Stephie has a clip."

"But she can't!" I protested. If she did I might as well just shoot myself right now.

He shrugged.

"This ain't Law and Order, man," he said. "They don't need to see it to believe it. Oh, shit. One other thing. Completely different subject."

I sat there waiting.

"You're sister Jeanne's lookin' pretty nice these days," he said.

"And?" I asked, suspiciously.

"And, uh, Sammy wants to ask her out," he said after a pause.

I was delighted, but cool.

"So tell him to ask her out," I said.

"He wants to know if she'll say yes," Rabbit said.

"So tell him to ask Cammie," I said. Wasn't that how these things were normally done?

"Cammie told him to stop being such a baby and ask her out," Rabbit smiled.

"So he came to you?" I asked. "And you didn't tell him the same thing?"

"Sammy and I have been friends since second grade," he said. "I told him I'd ask you."

I was about to repeat my earlier advice, which corresponded so perfectly with Cammie's, but I figured I owed Rabbit. And if the price of his conversation with me was finding out if my sister would accept a date with Sammy Houghtaling, I could do that. I just nodded.

Rabbit clapped me on the shoulder and left me sitting in the bleachers. I slowly walked home. On the one hand, I at least knew now what I was being accused of. I just didn't know what I'd done.

Cammie drove Jeanne to church the next day, and I drove myself, becoming more and more comfortable with the act of driving. I sat at the very back. The Episcopalian confession of sins requires that we ask God to forgive us for those things that we have done, as well as those things that we have left undone. To it, I appended my own fervent prayer that He be a little more specific about exactly what those things were.