No more fuck-ups, okay, Ventresca? Here’s your stuff.”

The matron shoved a pile across the counter. Frank caught a look at her badge. Her name was Becky. He almost laughed. She was at least six feet tall, with boobs big enough to support a set of Britannicas, and her name was not Helga, not Bertha, but Becky.

He examined his pile, one item at a time.

A black comb, two teeth missing. He ran his thumb down the teeth and listened to the plinking sound. A white T-shirt, a pair of black sneakers with laces knotted in several places where they’d broken, and a pair of Levi’s, still grease-stained and smelling of 10W30.

One cassette: Carlos Santana. He turned the plastic case over and scanned the list of tunes. Almost immediately, he began to sing softly. Got a black magic woman. He looked up to find the matron staring at him. He stopped singing and focused once again on the pile, trying to ignore the cords of pain at the back of his neck.

One ballpoint pen. And his wallet. Still in pretty good shape, the black leather molded comfortably by the curve of his ass. He opened it. Two credit cards, both expired in 1987. His driver’s license, car ownership, and the picture. The one he’d traded for.

Sure you can drive my car, if I can have a picture of you.

She was kind of half-smiling, her long brown hair in a single braid to one side, stray wisps floating around her face. He pulled the picture from the wallet and held it, stroking its surface with a dirty index finger.

The matron cleared her throat.

When Frank glanced up again, she was staring at the photograph. Then she looked him square in the eye and repeated, “No more fu—”

“Hey, don’t you worry ’bout me, Becky. I’m not coming back to Sunnybrook Farm.”

His things were packaged. The State of Massachusetts gave him a suit he would never wear, along with some cash. He counted it. Enough here to set up a small lemonade stand in a good neighborhood. Knowing he’d have to get a job, and fast, he grabbed his gear and felt himself being hustled to the door, Becky’s long strides proof of her eagerness to get rid of him.

He wasn’t quite prepared for the shock of late-autumn air that hit his face when he got outside. He inhaled deeply, waiting for a whiff of cafeteria food. Or stale urine.

But the air was fresh, and the sky was full of huge billowy clouds rolling eastward. At least he thought it was east.

When he reached the gate, he saw a bus pulling away and broke into a run to catch it. Then he stopped himself. He didn’t even know what bus fare cost these days. He wasn’t about to look stupid in front of anybody.

So he walked, following the direction of the clouds. He pulled the picture from his wallet once again. With the cool, clean air working its way into his pores and her pretty face in front of him, the knot in his neck began to loosen. Within minutes, he felt great.

2

So you want to hurt Jenny?”

“Yeah.”

“Why is that, Derek?”

Samantha Quinlan looked at the boy’s clenched fists, his tight jaw, the muscles in his neck straining against his black T-shirt.

He’s afraid if he loosens up, he’ll unravel.
“Because she hurt me . . . she hurt me so bad.” His shoulders slumped, his head dropped, and the tears came, the genuine sorrow that had been hidden beneath his armor of anger. She let him cry for a while, remembering her own pain of a lost first love.

Eventually, she asked, “Do you really want to hurt Jenny, Derek? Deep down?”

He shook his head miserably. “No.”

She waited.

“I still love her, Mrs. Q.” His voice broke, and he began sobbing again, his fists grinding away tears from bloodshot eyes.

Part of her wanted to cradle the youth in her arms, tell him there would be other Jennys, a lifetime of magic ahead of him. A trained counselor, she knew better, and she kept her mouth shut. Derek talked about the good times with Jenny and the bad times. Samantha listened.

Derek was the fifth student she’d seen this morning. He sat in a moss green chair, picking at the stuffing, rolling the pale yellow fluff between his thumb and index finger.

Only fifteen, Derek was built like a battering ram. His head was half a size too large for his body, and he was clumsy. He moved slowly, like a geriatric wildebeest, his bulk not enough on its own to get him on the football team. But when puberty had run its trying course, Derek would be a handsome boy. Right now he had the look of a tough young prizefighter who had gone a few rounds and lost. He spoke in a deep, garbled drawl, which made him sound a lot dumber than he was.

But he had a big heart. “That Derek is the nicest guy,” Samantha often heard girls whisper as they gathered by their lockers. But right now, his big heart was broken.

Samantha persuaded Derek to list all of Jenny’s positive qualities.

“She’s pretty,” he said after a while. “Fun to be with . . . uh, has nice clothes . . . uh . . .”

Samantha paused long enough to give him a fair chance to add to the list, but it came as no surprise to her the list was so short. She thought of Jenny, whose nice clothes were widely rumored to have been flung about the back seat of more than one make of automobile during the past year. Samantha knew Derek would be hard-pressed to make Jenny sound like Joan of Arc.

“I’m sure Jenny was very special to you, Derek.”

“Yeah, she was. But I shoulda listened to my buddies. They said I was too far gone, that Jenny’d just end up hurting me.”

“Can you count on those friends now? To help you through this?”

Derek nodded. “They want me to go to a party on Saturday.”

“Sounds like a plan. How do you feel about it?”

“I guess it’d be all right. Maybe I’d meet a few people.” Derek scratched his large head with chewed-off fingernails.

“Beats sitting around moping, doesn’t it?”

“That won’t bring Jenny back, will it.” Then he attempted a cautious smile, which broadened slowly to a grin. “Know what? I’m starting to feel a little better. Say,” he said, tossing his hair out of his eyes, “maybe I’m too good for Jenny. Whadya think?”

Samantha smiled. “Derek, I think there are a lot of nice girls out there just waiting for someone like you to come along.”

“Yeah? Hey, Mrs. Q., you won’t tell anyone about . . . you know . . . the crying and stuff?”

From the Hardcover edition.