“I’m gonna stay out your way,” he said during that first week. And he was true to his word. He’d stare off into space or tell me about last night’s football game while I poured and calculated.
He was like a radio that knew instinctively when to turn on and off while I worked. Plus, he always clapped me on the back and said, “Yeah, boy!” or “Yeah, that’s how we do it!” when the teacher passed us back our papers with red A’s on the fronts—which made him the only person outside of my mother who ever touched me. So I liked him. But unlike most girls my age, I knew the difference between affection and love, because I didn’t love him. Not like I loved James.
Besides, Corey was for real in love with Veronica Farrell. He followed her around like a homeless dog, even though she had a reputation for only dating college boys, and even then, only college boys with some change in their pockets.
But Corey had plans for getting rich that Veronica’s disinterest only encouraged. All these scouts out here looking at James, well, there were also scouts looking at him, he told me. “They can only be one quarterback, but they got all type of room for running backs,” he told me. “Especially if you real consistent-like. Colleges like that. Flashy don’t cut it if you cain’t get that ball down the field.”
And Corey made sure the ball got down the field. He was James’s fiercest ally: He never showboated, and he did his job.
While James liked football and seemed to take it as seriously as any young man of talent raised in Texas should, everybody knew that after college that was it. According to Corey, “James already been said it don’t matter if the NFL come knocking on his door. He supposed to take over Farrell Fine Hair, so his daddy can retire.”
It made me feel sorry for James. When I made it to eighteen, everything would be different. Because of my good grades, I would go to college on a scholarship. I would start talking again, and then I would go on to be anything I wanted. My life would be mine. Finally.
But James’s life would belong to somebody else. He had probably always known exactly how it was supposed to turn out, and that was kind of sad.
It was a Monday when Corey dropped the Polaroid. It fell out of his open backpack while he was pretending to fight with another football player. High school boys were an enigma to me. They fought when they disliked each other, and they pretended to fight when they were good friends. I had never seen two boys hug at my school. And I wondered if this was just a phase or if it was always like this. Did boys who liked each other go on play-fighting forever?
Anyway, Corey and his friend were play-shoving each other, and that’s why Corey didn’t notice the picture fall out of his backpack and onto the floor underneath our lab table. I saw it from my chair. Saw who was in it immediately, even though it was halfway under the chemistry table. Still I didn’t dare pick it up.
Maybe I could have pretended that I was picking it up to give it back to Corey, if anyone caught me. But then I’d have to give back the only non-newspaper-generated picture that I had ever seen of James.
So I waited. And I prayed that Corey wouldn’t look under the table and see his dropped picture.
I faked more interest than usual in his sports analysis during class. I turned my face to him and pasted on what I hoped was an open expression.
Finally the end-of-class bell rang and Corey left, his backpack still hanging open. This happened often with Corey. Usually I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the open backpack.
Today I let him walk out of there, dropping pencils and other backpack paraphernalia like an unwitting Hansel.
As soon as he cleared the door I ducked underneath the desk and picked up the Polaroid.
“Hey, Monkey Night!” I looked up. Corey was standing in the doorway.
“Did you see a Polaroid back there of me and James? I think it fell out my backpack.”
I stood up and shook my head, quickly stuffing the picture in the back of my jeans.
He came farther into the room. His eyes searched the floor as he picked up all the pencils he had dropped.