City of Boys by Beth Nugent Read Free Book Online Page A

more sure of what it is they think they know. They jerk their shoulders up high and smile, but they are frightened and angry, and in their excitement they smash cans and toss potato chips at each other. In the middle of it all, Annie finishes her pie, staring straight ahead at nothing.
    It is cocktail hour and my parents sit happily at the table, planning the first cocktail party they will give in this new town. When I consider how quickly my parents make new friends, and compare it with my own slow, predictable progress, I think I may be adopted. But, like mine, their friends in each new city resemble exactly those from the last: nervous, bony women with black dresses and long fingernails, and faceless men under thinning hair, in white shirts and dark jackets and ties. It is almost as though they accompany us, a crowd of cocktail guests creeping in a black cloud that follows us down the highway. Within weeks of a move, my parents are attending and hosting cocktail parties, and tonight they smile in the golden light as the world slows to the even motions of my father rising and sitting again, and to the quiet excited hum of their voices as they go through all the names of their new friends.
    On the way to school, I tell Annie I am sick and will be going home early today, so she should not wait for me for lunch, and at lunchtime I stay in my classroom until the halls are clear. From the cafeteria door, I watch Annie move with hertray alone to the end of a table and eat her food quietly. Her head is down and she doesn’t look at anything. I take my lunch to the other side of the room, to a table full of the kind of people who would ordinarily be my friends by now. There is space at the end, which I take, and though they ignore me, we are like an island here, surrounded by an ocean of boys and girls who know more than we do. I watch Tommy and his friends walk by Annie’s table. They stand over her, but she doesn’t look up; she slowly fills her mouth with potato chips, slowly chews them. When the boys go on, she looks up, around the room, and sees me at my new table. The bell rings and she blinks; then we rise together.
    —Sally, she calls, —hey, Sally, and all the other Sallys turn their heads to the sound of their name, but I move out of the room and into the hallway, where I can’t hear her over the noise of boys and girls talking to each other.
    At the end of the day, she is waiting outside my room. —Hey, she says, —didn’t you hear me?
    —What? I say. —No.
    —I called your name, she says. —Didn’t you see me?
    —No, I say, and watch as people gather into their groups. Any one of the groups would be fine, and I look back at Annie, at her long thin arms and legs. She looks down at herself to see what I am looking at, and watches me watch the others leave. They are already drawn together in tight arrangements that won’t open very easily to admit me.
    —Well, she says. —Let’s go.
    —I guess I’m going to stay late, I say. —To help out, is all I can think of to explain it, but she nods and moves away. I hold my books to my chest and watch the boys she passes, to see if they turn.
    On Friday I stand near a group of quiet girls who are planning something, but they take no notice of my presence andfinally they break off into smaller groups and say goodbye and wander off with their mild happiness, leaving me to go home for my parents’ party. I stand at the school door until Annie is almost all the way across the playground; then I follow her to our street.
    My mother empties and fills ice trays for the party and from my window I can see Annie in her front yard. She stares at our house and finally she heads across the street. I wait several minutes for her knock, but when it doesn’t come, I open the door and find her sitting in our yard, pulling up blades of grass one by one.
    —Oh, she says. —Hi. You know, your dad should mow your yard one more time before it gets cold. She brushes her hand