The Moment Before by Suzy Vitello

Author:Suzy Vitello [Vitello, Suzy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION/General
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2014-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

After last period, I immediately dash out the main doors. Sore feet or not, I can’t stand another minute in this building. I’m halfway jogging, my backpack bouncing up and down against the soft cotton of my grandmother’s housedress. And then, there it is. In the school lot. Already retagged with a new parking sticker. Nick’s managed to find time in the last twenty-four hours to wax it up, and it reminds me of the way dogs have to pee against every blade of grass in another dog’s yard. There’s even a new bumper sticker on the back. LAX: Trample the weak. Hurtle the dead.

Really?

My stomach lurches up into my throat. I think I’m going to vomit. I start jogging for real, and oddly, my feet feel up to the task. The bump, bump, bump of my textbooks up and down in my backpack only makes me run faster.

It’s cool outside. Overcast and heavy. I’m not sure where I’ll end up, but I keep turning corners, crossing streets. I just want to be away from people.

My backpack starts ringing.

There’s a picnic table up ahead, in one of those miniature neighborhood parks that time forgot with a metal swing set and long, straight slide. By the time I extract my phone, there’s a voicemail.

“Hello, Brady? This is Rory Davis, from the Portland Journal. I’m writing an article on the Cupworth situation, and your number was passed along by your teacher, Vanessa Bowerman. I’d love to ask you a few questions. Do you have some time to chat this afternoon or tomorrow?”

In her practiced calm reporterish voice, she left various numbers and emails, and good times to reach her. I take a breath and realize that my heart is still beating like crazy from my accidental boot camp up the hill. Everything is happening so fast. Maybe Mrs. McConnell is right—people need to back off. Stop asking things of me. I look up and watch a mother push her young daughter on a swing. The mom is very pregnant and looks exhausted. The little girl wants more action; she wants to go higher, and she’s squealing “Do it harder, Mama.”

I want to let that little girl know that her mother will continue to disappoint her. Not only will she make her get off the swing before she’s ready, soon, there will be a needy little infant in the house gobbling up all her time. For the first time, I try to consider what it must have been like to be an older sister. To have your parents all to yourself, and then, suddenly, not have them all to yourself. Sabine must have resented the hell out of me.

I sit watching the mother-daughter show in mesmerized silence. I don’t call the reporter and I don’t hustle on over to the therapist’s. Instead, when at last the little girl is pried off the swing a tantrumy mess, the mother yanking her down the little grassy slope, I call Connor.

He picks up on the first ring with a “Yo.

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