Durham High School - Messenger Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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green eyes. I can read in them what you never will tell me, Allison lowered her face so that Phoebe could not see. Phoebe frowned. I don ' t want your old help, said Phoebe, still frowning. Well, maybe so, but that isn ' t what the girls at school say. They think you ' re a terrible snob. You just think you are. You like to pretend that. But really, you ignore us all. At school you wanted to be with Miss Brooks more than us. It gets to them . . . they talk about it to me all the time. Allison ' s eyes seemed darker to Phoebe than be¬ fore. Is that all? Phoebe stirred in her position on the bench beside Allison. She could feel her hair sticking to her blouse in a wet place on her back. They ... Allison looked at Phoebe with the intent stare that made Phoebe feel as she used to at night when she was undressing for bed. She P } thought that people were staring at her body. Oh nothing, finished Allison. It was nothing, really. Well what? I don ' t care what they said. You can tell me. Phoebe stared at her hands. Allison lifted her eyes. They say you ' re in love with Miss Brooks and they wanted to know what it was like having you for a best friend, And you told them that I loved everything that moved, interrupted Phoebe. Allison took off her glasses and polished them clean. I didn ' t. I said you didn ' t confide in me any¬ more and that you never bothered with anybody onymore. Phoebe looked away. Well, you don ' t, said Allison, watching her. Phoebe moved, reached down and picked up a blade of grass and split it with her thumbnail while Allison said nothing and did not watch. I waited for you. I went to the library to return those books and saw you over here, Allison started again. Phoebe bent the blade of grass double. Allison whispered: I saw Miss Brooks in the library. She asked about you. Phoebe looked up, interested. She did? What did she say? Oh, I don ' t know. Allison leaned back on the bench and Phoebe watched her out of Ihe tail of her eye, waited. She said she wanted to see you about something. That was all. Allison shrugged her shoulders. Does she study in there? she asked, pointing behind her¬ self to the library. She spends all her time in there, answered Phoebe. Phoebe, too looked towards the library and the magnolia trees shading the entrance to it. Phoebe regarded Allison meditatively, as if seeing her for the first time. She might not teach another year. Allison ' s part was crooked. The breeze wisped her short black hair around her face. You never had her, did you? asked Phoebe quietly. No, I never did. She might not teach another year. Phoebe raised her hand and pretended to sketch the outline of a faraway building. I said that though, didn ' t I? Phoebe stared at her hands. She frowned as if remembering something unpleasant. 16

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Phoebe looked at her. I think I ' m going to swim lops now. I hove to practice some more, she called, still squirting water like a whale in the deep end of the pool. Sunlight flashed on Allison ' s spectacles from one of the high windows sunken in the wall. Phoebe started swimming towards the shallow end. Allison left and closed the door behind. Phoebe stopped swimming and climbed out of the pool. In the dressing room her teeth chattered. She stuck the lump of towel in her teeth and looked in the mirror over her dressing bench. Phoebe was a tall girl for fourteen with narrow shoulders and long dark brown hair. She parted it in the middle and let it touch her shoulders when she tilted her head back to see if it were growing any longer. Her green eyes deepened in sunlight as she combed her hair in the dressing room. She sat down and dried herself and squeezed a lump of her hair in the towel to help it dry faster. The empty locker room trailed a film of water with islands of dry cement jutting out. The window at the far end of the locker room with the metal guard railing around it emitted a breeze which pulled and pushed at the white window curtain like a bellows sucking at the air it releases. The sunlight streaked through the green quartz-like windowpanes. It gleamed on the coil of radiators lining the side of the bench. Through the foliage of a magnolia outside with its petaled blossoms reaching up to the window, a yellow light winked on and off. The warm smell of chlorine sank heavier into the room with the breeze. It burned again in her eyes as she remembered it in the bottom of the pool. The marble bench in front of the campus library was vacant. Phoebe sat down and parked her red striped swimming bag between her feet and watched the yellow light blinking at the crosswalk outside of the library entrance. The campus bus trudged around the quadrangle and stopped at the cross¬ walk. The black exhaust leaked out from its tailpipe and trailed behind, clouding the afternoon mood with its film. Fumes and gases distorted the stone building beyond like a sheet of faulty glass. The bus gunned its motor, lurched off, edged around the last corner more slowly, easing the front of the bus around and then pulling the end after it like an inchworm. Phoebe became aware of the sensation that she was being watched. What are you doing way over here? called a voice behind her. Phoebe turned. The girl wore her hair in bangs across her forehead and a clean white part was running down the center of her black hair, cut short like an inverted bowl. Her shorts were wrinkled. 1 thought you were going home for lunch, Allison, said Phoebe, reaching down for the draw¬ string on her swimming bag, tugging hard at it. I was. Allison sat down on the bench. Aren ' t you hungry yet? she asked. I thought I ' d wait a while first, replied Phoebe, not looking directly at Allison, but over her shoulder in the direction of the blinker light. Shade feels good, huh, she offered. Allison stared at her. I know why you ' re waiting, she said. You ' re waiting for her, aren ' t you? You ' re waiting for Miss Brooks. Phoebe tightened the string on her swimming bag and dropped it down between her feet. So what. It ' s not your bench, you know. 1 can sit here all I like. Is that why you come home late everyday from swimming practice? Is it? quizzed Allison. Phoebe sat up straighter on the bench. She tilted her head so that her long brown hair touched on the back of her neck. She looked away. I ' m only trying to help, Phoebe. 1 knew you were coming to see her. You didn ' t have to say. It ' s your 15

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Phoebe, began Allison. No. Phoebe dropped her hands to her lap. I wouldn ' t say anything about next year. I would just watch her a moment. I could do that. She looked over Allison ' s shoulder towards the blinker light. Do you think she could see me sitting way over here? Phoebe sensed something elipsing the sun. The shadow lengthened. Allison was standing over her. Phoebe, I wouldn ' t see her if I were you, said Allison, watching her. It ' s for your own good. Allison! You just don ' t understand. But Phaebe sat on the bench, watching the shadow on the grass. Sometimes, she, said, I imagine she comes out to talk and I think of all the things we might say. When I go home I have a fear of never seeing her again. That ' s silly. You can see her at school on Monday. That ' s just it. I ' m afraid my parents won ' t let me keep on going to school where I wish. They ' ll send me away to school. But your grades are fine, insisted Allison. Just the same, I have that fear. I had it once when my Irish Setter ran away from home one day in the summer and I just knew he ' d never come back. It was because I loved him so much. Phoebe felt Allison ' s shadow rnove. She watched the grass again. I found him one day. A car had run over him. He was just lying there, by the side of the road with dried mud caked in his paws, and his mouth. And blueflies were buzzing around his head and in his ears. I never wanted another dog. She looked up at Allison. It just wouldn ' t be the same. But you just can ' t give up, caaxed Allison, taking the towel she had brought with her from its place on the bench to her arms. You ' re not being fair to yourself, Phoebe. Try to be fair to yourself. 17