Free Deep Pockets by Linda Barnes Page A

any of your stuff, honest!” She started wailing again, and a new audience began to gather, eager for a show. I helped her to her feet, careful never to release my grip. Her eyes were wide and staring; I wondered if she was taking some kind of dope.
    “Come on, Jeannie,” I said gently. “Let’s take a walk.”
    Speak gently, it disarms folks. Call somebody by their name, people assume you know them.
No, Doris, don’t butt in. It’s not like it’s some stranger trying to abduct a kid
. Abductors know it; they always use a name.
    “I don’t want to talk to you.” She was too breathless from running to summon any volume. “I can’t talk to you. I can’t. Oh God.” If I hadn’t been holding her, she’d have fallen to her knees again. “It’s all my fault. Everything’s my fault.”
    If she collapsed, the guy in the rimless glasses was definitely going to come over and make a stink. She seemed so painfully young, so pathetically scared, I could hardly buy her as a blackmailer.
    “Have you eaten today?” I asked.
    She shook her head no. See, there it is; I’d tell Paolina.
    I half persuaded, half dragged her to Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage, a Harvard Square institution where the waitresses have seen everything, breakups and hysterics, drug ODs and marriage proposals, would-be grooms dropping to their knees on the saggy linoleum. After manhandling her into a booth near the rest room, I ordered a Pepsi for me and a breakfast burger for her, a glass of milk, as well.
    By God, I’d make somebody drink milk.
    “I’m missing class. It’s, like, finals review.”
    I’d blocked her exit, sitting next to instead of across from her. To escape, she’d have to crawl under the table.
    “I’m Carlotta,” I said, “by the way.”
    She ducked her head like a turtle retreating back into its shell. “Jeannie.”
    “So how’d you get to be Denali’s roommate, Jeannie? Luck of the draw?”
    Nothing in these easy questions to cause another outbreak of hysterics. Her eyes slid sideways as she considered her plight. I had custody of her backpack. I had her socked into the booth. I was bigger than she was and I could run faster. She stared at me as if I were the matron of some terrifying prison camp.
    “I guess they figured we’d have something in common. Like we were both freshmen, both hoping to be psych majors, interested in education.” Her voice was small and hiccupy.
    “Both in Professor Chaney’s class?”
    She responded almost eagerly, anything to shift the topic away from Denali. “Isn’t he, like, wonderful? Like most of the lectures, with his TA, it’s like she drones and we take notes, but when he comes in, everybody wakes up. It’s like this big challenge, like he wants to hear what we think.”
    The waitress plunked dishes on the table; I was happy to let Jeannie prattle on about Chaney.
    “Like this one class was about like who should get medicated? Like if we medicate students who are behavioral problems, instead of finding other ways to cope, what are we saying? I mean, I totally believe in all that chemistry shit. My mom, she’s like depressed for no reason, and I figure if they could just like give her a blood test and readjust her serotonin, she’d be way happier. But Chaney wanted us to think about who we’d do that for, and why we’d do it, and whether we’d do it if the kid wanted it, or if the parent wanted it, or if the school wanted it. Like it might not be such a great thing after all.”
    Right, I thought. Start by filing the rough edges, pretty soon you’re working with a cookie cutter instead of a file. Jeannie picked at her food, breaking the bun to pieces with nervous fingers.
    I said, “What about Denali — did she like Chaney, too?”
    Jeannie’s eyes narrowed. “Everybody wants to know about Denali, and then when I don’t answer, they think I’m hiding something. I don’t know if she liked Chaney or hated his guts. I don’t know where your stuff is! And I