Free Come Sit By Me by Thomas Hoobler Page B

guilty.
    â€œAre you going to write a story about him? Because you know Ms. King won’t let us publish it.”
    â€œMaybe I’ll start an underground newspaper.” That sounded good. The sort of thing a kid from New York would do.
    She didn’t have a response to that, so I knew I’d hit a nerve. I pressed on, “The first person I’d want to interview is you,” I said. “I know there’s something you’re not telling me about Cale. Did you ever have any kind of conversation with him?”
    Still no answer for a second. Then in a low voice, she said, “Yes.”
    I was excited, because to put Terry on the defensive was an achievement. “What about?”
    â€œYou know, I told you I was the only one in Ms. Hayward’s class to finish reading Look Homeward, Angel ?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWell, even though he wasn’t in the class, Cale was reading it too. I thought that was kind of…well, it wasn’t his kind of book.”
    No shit. I didn’t tell her that it wasn’t my kind of book, either.
    â€œBut one day, at lunch, I was sitting by myself. Almost everybody else had finished and had gone outside. I had stayed behind in class to go over some math problems with the teacher. Anyway, all of a sudden, there he was, standing there looking at me. I was creeped out, and pretended not to notice. But he said, ‘I see you’re reading that book.’ Actually, I had been reading it while I ate.”
    â€œRight,” I said. Never waste time eating when you could be reading too .
    â€œWell this was right after…you know about him and Donna?”
    â€œYeah, he asked her for sex.”
    â€œSo it ran across my mind that I might be his next choice. Really embarrassing to think he would have started with her and then I was second choice.”
    I smiled. Terry would hate to be second at anything.
    â€œBut he wanted to talk about the book. That was all. He sat down. Across from me. I looked around, but nobody seemed to notice, so I didn’t tell him not to. I was curious, that’s all. I mean about what he would say.”
    â€œI can understand that,” I said.
    â€œHe told me he was reading it, and I asked why. He said he’d taken it out of the library because his grandmother asked him to.”
    â€œI heard she died.”
    â€œIt was her favorite book, and she was blind, so she wanted him to read it to her. And then, like you heard, she died. Before he finished. But he was determined, I guess, to finish it anyway. By himself. Sort of in her memory. I thought that was sweet.”
    â€œBut it was too hard for him.”
    â€œYes, it would have been. Well, then he asked me to…I don’t know…he wanted me to help him with it.”
    â€œHelp him? How?”
    â€œHe said he wanted to discuss it. But, you know, he wasn’t the sort of person you could discuss a book with. I had a feeling he wanted me to sort of explain it. Walk him through the story. Help him finish.”
    â€œSo, did you?” I thought I knew the answer.
    It didn’t come right away. “I didn’t have time ,” she said. “I was taking a senior-level lit class, and advanced science too. Pre-calculus. And really…” It was hard for her to say this, I could tell. “He was kind of needy , and if people had seen me sitting around with Cale, they would have thought I was doing what Donna wouldn’t.” She looked at me, and I could see it bothered her.
    â€œIt’s O.K.,” I said. It crossed my mind to say At least you got a Miata out of it . My mind runs that way, but I had enough sense to keep my mouth shut. “Look, you couldn’t have known. He shot the librarian, anyway.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œWell, she was on his case about returning the book. And he wouldn’t.”
    â€œHow do you know that?”
    Of course I