Davidia Farrell the Fourth.
I liked that. It was a name with history and resonance. And it occurred to me that after I married James and we moved away from Glass, the new people I met would never be able to tell—unless I chose to let them know, which I wouldn’t—that I came from nothing and that I used to be nothing. James would change my life in that way.
. . .
I should say that stalking James wasn’t all about sneaking looks and clipping articles. Sometimes I found things through no intention of my own. I guess it’s what other people might have called luck.
Not having a steady source of money, I’d fallen into the habit of hanging back a little after the end-of-class bell rang. You’d be surprised what kind of stuff kids left behind. I picked up change just about every day, and once in a while somebody would leave a bill. Sometimes I’d find whole wallets, but that’s not as lucky as it sounds, because it’s a lot harder to steal money when you know who it belongs to. I much preferred the orphaned bills, which came without guilt. Usually, if it was a whole wallet, I would just turn it in to the principal’s office.
One day after chemistry class, I found something better than money. A Polaroid. A two-shot of James and another guy, who he had in a friendly headlock. They were both laughing—not just smiling for the camera.
I recognized the other guy as Corey Mays, the football player who I’d heard talking about James replacing Perry Pointer as the team’s quarterback.
He and James had become best and instant friends of the sort that only football can make, and they could often be seen walking the halls of Glass High, side by side but not equal.
Corey wasn’t as smart as James—he was in chemistry with me, a sophomore, even though he was a senior. And of course, James had a lot more money. Corey’s mother bought his polo shirts from the mall during the Dillard’s one-day sale—and only because Corey had asked her for them within a week of making James’s acquaintance.
James bought all his clothes in New York from stores that bore the same names as the labels on the inside of his jeans and collars. He never wore the same thing twice in a week, and he never wore anything with a designer name plastered all over it. His clothes were so expensive, they were completely simple. Flat-front Calvin Klein khakis with polos or Tshirts that stretched just enough across his chest to let you know he had muscles. His sunglasses had “Ray-Ban” stenciled in tasteful cursive on the handles and were perfectly suited to his face.
After football practice, he would jump into his forest green Saab. “His daddy gave him that car. It’s only three years old,” I heard Tanisha Harris say to another cheerleader during gym.
James was too cool to insist on a brand-new, showy convertible like his sisters. But even his hand-me-down vehicle reeked of expensive habits and expectations that Corey, in his seventeen-year-old dented Volkswagen Rabbit, which he had inherited from his tired, single mother, would never know.
I liked Corey. He had chosen me for his partner in chemistry by taking the empty seat next to me and saying, “You smart. You going to be my partner.” Real simple.
He didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t speak. And even better, he spoke to me about a steady stream of sports teams and people I didn’t know, but that was okay. I liked his voice and the real emotion that ran through it when he talked about Ozzie Smith or the ’87 Lakers lineup or the pass his boy James had thrown at the last game. He must have really understood me, because he never expected answers and he never asked me questions. Also, he never offered to help me with any of our assignments.