Count on Me (Bayview Heights Trilogy) (14 page)

Kurt’s answer was to dive for the ball and make a quick and dirty layup. Ransom took the ball out-of- bounds and drilled it down center court. Kurt planted himself in the pathway to the basket. Ransom rammed right into him, knocking him flat.

Surprised, Kurt’s eyes narrowed on the other man from the pavement. “I’d call that charging.”

“Yeah? Sorry.” Ransom jammed the ball to a still-seated Kurt. “Your ball, then.”

In minutes Kurt was ahead, three to one.

Ransom grabbed the ball out-of-bounds and went straight for a layup. Kurt charged him from the opposite side—in an effort to block him of course. It had nothing to do with a flash of memory—seeing the young vice principal and Zoe leave for a little moonlit stroll after campfire songs. Barreling forward, Kurt leaped up and missed the block. His elbow caught Ransom’s rib cage.

Ransom grunted, but said, “My point. Down by one.”

Ten minutes later, Ransom leaped up and came down to block the last shot of the game—they were tied—and missing the ball, managed to smack Kurt hard across the mouth. Stunned, Kurt dropped the ball and raised his hand to his face. He felt stickiness on his lip.

Ransom stared at him. “Oh. Sorry.” He watched the ball roll to the side. “I’d say we’re done.” Walking to the edge of the court, he picked up his shirt and wiped his face with it. Then he turned to Kurt, who was moping the blood from his mouth with the end of his T-shirt.

“I’m not going to leave her alone,” Ransom said simply.

Kurt’s eyebrows raised. “I didn’t ask you to.”

Ransom rubbed his rib cage, where he’d probably have a king-size bruise. His gaze flicked to Kurt’s mouth. “The hell you didn’t.”

o0o

SUNDAY’S ACTIVITIES were to end at three, when they’d all be bussed back to the high school. Barb Sherman began the day with a “trust fall.” Kurt watched Madison Kendrick, a quiet unassuming girl struggle with the natural fear she was feeling.

“It’s okay, Maddie,” Barb said, standing on the ground while Madison perched on a platform about eight feet above. “Stay stiff and fall back.”

Six people lined up beneath her gauntlet style, three on either side, forming a human net with their outstretched arms to catch her.

“I don’t wanna do this,” the girl said.

“If you really don’t, you can pass.” Barb smiled. “But I think you can do it. These people are your team. They’ll catch you.”

Cheers of encouragement abounded.

Kurt studied the kids in his group, wondering if they could handle his weight. He rubbed his shoulder. All he needed was to be slam-dunked into the ground again. He was already feeling all kinds of aches and pains from his contest with Ransom. Man, had that been stupid.

Taking in a deep breath and an even deeper gulp of courage, Madison went stiff and fell backward. The gang caught her easily.

Kurt groaned as his name was called. What the hell was he doing out here in the wilderness with all these young bunnies? he thought as he climbed the platform.

The emotional exercises were no easier for him. The last half of the day was devoted to a “twenty-four hours to live” series of responses.

Kurt stared down at his paper. They’d been told to be honest, but they could keep private anything they put down. Unfortunately Zoe was in Kurt’s group—the first time all weekend. Dressed in clingy black leggings and an oversize teal-blue sweatshirt, she looked young and healthy. The sun had kissed her face all weekend and her skin glowed.

As group leader, Dan Caruso said, “All right, everybody done?” When they nodded, he zeroed in on Zoe. “Ms. C, if you had only twenty-four hours to live, what are some of the activities you’d do, and what wouldn’t you do?”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “I
wouldn’t
do administrative paperwork,” she said, smiling. She glanced down. “I
would
go for a walk at midnight. I
would
spend some of the day on the water.” She smiled at them. “And I’d take a nap.”

“What?” Erica’s voice was stunned. Her color high, she was full of restless energy today. “You’d sleep part of your last day on earth. Why?”

“Because I couldn’t enjoy the hours I had on no sleep.”

For some reason Erica and Shondra exchanged a long look.

The kids argued vehemently about that with her, then Dan asked, “Dr. Lansing, what about you?”

 I’d spend every second with Zoe.

He named the things on his list he could share. “I’d want to see my daughter. I’d go out on my boat. I’d spend a few hours making sure things were intact at the clinic.”

Barb Sherman interrupted. “I want you all to compare the list of what you’d like to do with how you actually spend your days and nights.”

There was stark silence. Adults, like him, knew and accepted that most people did what they should do, not what they wanted to. Kids always found it a surprise.

“All right,” Caruso said. “Who would you miss most and least if you died? Share one of the five on each list.” He glanced at his own paper. “I’ll start. I’d miss my little brother most. My mother least.”

“I’d miss my mother the least, too,” Shondra said.

“My father the least,” Erica put in.

Kurt battled back a groan. What would Lauren put here? Which list of his daughter’s would
he
be on?

When Barb admonished them to think about who they spent most of their time with now in comparison with the list, the kids were again astonished to see how much time they spent with people not on the “miss most” list but those on the “miss least” one.

The counselor said, “This is the last activity of the weekend. Write a letter to one person in your life telling them how you feel about them and what they mean to you. You might want to clear up some old baggage between you, if there is any. I’d pick a person from list number one,” she said, smiling.

The kids nodded wisely.

“These will be private. You won’t be sharing them with the group. But we’re going to collect them and return them at the end of the course. At that point, if the person you wrote to is still as important to you, we’ll urge you to give the letter to him or her.”

They stayed in their groups to write.

Hunkering over his paper, Kurt forced himself not to look at Zoe. Every bone in his body yearned to know who she was writing to. Cassie? Ransom? Him?

He began his own letter, which he had no intention of turning in:
Dear Zoe
…

CHAPTER SEVEN

JERRY BOSCO had squeezed himself into a student desk in the back of Zoe’s room and was watching her like Big Brother. He’d shown up Monday afternoon unannounced, no doubt to catch her either unprepared or perhaps doing something unacceptable; he’d completely ignored her suggestion that today might not be the best day to observe the curriculum.

Typical of the Monday after their Down to Earth weekend, the kids were buzzing excitedly. They ignored Bosco’s presence, which might not be good, as they retold stories and highlighted memorable events.

On the blackboard, Zoe had written, “Down to Earth,” with “Most Valuable” and “Least Valuable” columns underneath. She smiled at the class. “Hi, guys. Long time no see.”

They laughed and settled into the semicircle of desks or into the beanbag chairs. Some kids even sprawled on the carpeted floor. The casual seating arrangement would clearly be strike one in Bosco’s playbook.

“Who’d like to write?” she asked.

“I will.” Madison Kendrick surprised Zoe. It was the first time the shy girl had volunteered for anything in class.

 Score one for the good guys
, Zoe thought. Here was tangible proof that her course was helping kids.

Dressed in clingy black slacks and a black tank top, her hair pulled severely off her face, Maddie picked up the chalk and faced the class. The kids knew the drill. Zoe would elicit responses, and the volunteer would record them.

“Let’s start with the positive. What was the most valuable thing to you about the weekend?”

“Seeing you take five tries to do the log mount,” Rob teased her from his desk, where he lazed in typical teenage-boy fashion, half in, half out.

“Five?” She feigned indignation. “It was only three. Four at the most.”

From the corner of her eye she saw Bosco frown and write furiously on his yellow pad. When he’d taught at Bayview High, his classes were a series of formal lectures during which the kids claimed they often fell asleep. She didn’t think he’d know anything about establishing a positive atmosphere with students.

“I thought it was cool when Dr. Lansing got chocolate all over his face.” This from Erica, who giggled loudly. She’d been unusually talkative lately.

Zoe tried hard not to remember how “cool” Dr. Lansing had looked and what a good sport he’d been. She’d thought about him all night after they’d gotten back yesterday and a lot today, though she struggled against it. For the first time since he’d dumped her for Elizabeth, she was truly angry. Watching his success with the kids this past weekend, she couldn’t help thinking that the two of them should have been together, doing things like Down to Earth as a couple.

She tried to listen with interest as the students threw out other funny or embarrassing incidents: Evan losing his sneaker in the “crawl-through” and the kids playing keep-away with the big jock; Vivian getting doused with cold water in the shower before they realized it wasn’t working properly; Shondra’s general klutziness, which she acknowledged with good humor.

Madison wrote nothing and just rolled her eyes.

Bosco checked his watch. No doubt he thought she was wasting time. The guy just didn’t have a clue.

“All right,” she said easily, “let’s get serious. The most valuable things—for real.”

“The way we helped each other Saturday during the physical activities,” Shondra said. “I couldn’t’ve done it without everybody.”

“How we mastered things we were sure we couldn’t do,” Erica put in. “I didn’t know I had it in me to do that pulley thing.”

“I liked the written exercises best,” Dan said. “They made me articulate what I was feeling.”

“Hey, Caruso, where’d you learn that fifty-dollar word?” Vivian teased. Yet there was something underneath—some genuine sarcasm. Zoe made a mental note to watch her.

“I thought having Dr. Lansing and the rest of the supervisors along was the best.” This from Rachel.

The others shouted a chorus of agreement. Zoe turned away, ostensibly to check the board, hoping they wouldn’t extend this line of thinking.

“Wow, Maddie, I didn’t know you could do that,” Zoe told the girl. Madison had scripted the list in calligraphy. “It’s lovely.”

She gave Zoe a pained look that clearly said,
There’s a lot about me nobody knows
.

“That’s another thing,” Rachel added. “We never knew Maddie could write like that before she took notes for our group this weekend. We all let other people see things about us that we kept to ourselves before.”

“I got a ‘least valuable,’” Shelley Marco said. “Seeing Dr. Lansing dangle from the safety harness. I thought I was gonna sh—” the girl blushed “—die when he fell.”

Bosco sat up straighter. Here was something concrete he could grasp on to. No doubt he was scrawling “physical risk” in big letters on his pad.

“Dr. Lansing was perfectly fine, wasn’t he?” Zoe asked. Feeling like the worst hypocrite—she’d never forget how she’d panicked when Kurt fell—she needed to clarify this point. She stared right back at Bosco. “These kinds of glitches happen. No one was hurt.”

“Yeah, and he was so cool,” Rachel added. “He never yelled or swore or anything.”

“Grace under pressure,” Julia called out. “Right, Ms. Caufield?”

“Right,” she said. “Now let’s finish debriefing. We’ve got a writing assignment to go along with this.”

The kids groaned and Bosco’s eyes narrowed on them. It was going to be a long afternoon.

o0o

“DAN?” VIVIAN STARED UP at him from eyes laden with heavy liner. “You coming?”

Julia and Dan stood in the hall outside Ms. Caufield’s classroom after school when Vivian approached them.

“Yeah, Viv,” he said. “In a sec.”

“Ms. Lansing won’t like it if you’re late for our meeting. You know she usually leaves at noon. She stayed just for this.”

“The room’s right there,” he said, pointing to the door connecting Caufield’s and Lansing’s rooms. “I won’t be late.”

Julia frowned. “What’s that all about?” she asked as the other girl stomped away.

“Dunno.” Dan shrugged. “What’d you wanna talk about?”

Suddenly Julia felt shy. They’d gotten close this weekend, or so she thought. Now he was treating her as if they were Jets and Sharks. “Um, I was just wondering...You were worried about your brother all weekend, and I…”

He smiled and Julia blushed furiously. He
knew
. He knew this was just an excuse to talk to him, to be with him for a few minutes before she went to work.

So she found a role she could play. Haughty sophisticate, like Katherine Hepburn putting Spencer Tracy in his place. “Never mind. Sorry I was concerned.” Shoulders back, head up, she started to walk away.

Dan grabbed her from behind and pulled her around to face him. His chocolate-colored eyes warmed to the color of hot fudge. “Look, if you wanna be with me, you don’t need an excuse.”

An arched eyebrow. A curl of the lip. “Who says I want to be with you, Caruso?”

He straightened. He was usually slouched over in his seat or against the wall like a reincarnation of James Dean, so she was always surprised he was so tall. “
I
say,” he told her, tightening his grip. “
This
says,” he added, stepping closer. And then he took her mouth in a deep sexy kiss.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ms. Caufield. Can’t you get these kids to control their hormones?”

Julia sprang back from Dan. The remark came from Bosco, and Julia saw Ms. C’s gaze narrow on the man.

“Sorry, Ms. C,” Dan said quickly, though he shot Julia a look that said he was anything but sorry. “We know not to do this here.”

Ms. C smiled at Dan gratefully. The message to Bosco—that their teacher had taught them decorum— was clear. Julia, actress extraordinaire, was tongue-tied and couldn’t get a word of defense out.