The Long Wait for Tomorrow Read online

Patrick looked across a wide stretch of grass between the compounds and saw Principal Sedgwick, watching them with a disapproving stare. He stood with his arms by his sides, shoulders tense. The undecided stance of someone witness to a beating, telling himself that, any second now, he would intervene.

  He began to walk over, mouth moving in a silent rehearsal.

  Kelly didn’t notice, still doing what he could to reason with Edmund. “I’m sorry about what happened in there,” he assured him. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you like that, I really am interested in your theory.”

  “You’ve done enough!” Edmund cried out, the very specter of Kelly’s benevolence serving only to infuriate him. “You’ve done enough, you’ve proved your point!”

  “What are you—”

  “I’ve done everything you asked!” Edmund insisted, voice rising. “I haven’t told a soul!”

  Patrick could actually see the hair on Kelly’s neck stand up, nearly translucent follicles pointing north. He saw Kelly bend closer and whisper something, and for a moment, the fear left Edmund’s face; eyes focused as though managing a complex set of equations.

  Patrick found himself tensing, secretly hoping that a page was about to turn.

  And he was filled with honest disappointment as rage came rushing back to Edmund’s cheeks. “This is a test …,” Edmund seethed, shaking his head. Fists clenched.

  “No, Edmund, not a test—”

  “That’s all this is! You told me, you said not to tell anyone, not even you!”

  The stares were multiplying, on the verge of becoming a crowd.

  “OK, guys.” Principal Sedgwick stepped in. He remained to the side, doing what he could to address Edmund while keeping a stern eye on Kelly. “Edmund, what’s going on here?”

  Edmund took one more step back before turning on his heels and running like hell.

  Kelly looked as though he was about to give chase when something stopped him. Sedgwick had marked him with a cold stare, but Patrick sensed this wasn’t what had Kelly stuck in his own shoes.

  And it appeared as though Sedgwick was of the same mind. He could tell that Kelly wasn’t the least bit interested in whatever judgment he had settled on, and that stung. Gave him more reason for offense than whatever infraction he thought he’d just witnessed.

  “Kelly …” Principal Sedgwick cleared his throat, doing his best to assert his presence. “I’m getting pretty tired of all this—”

  “Something’s going to happen,” Kelly interrupted, speaking in a perfect monotone. Addressing no one, just gazing after Edmund with a glassy revelation. “Oh my God.”

  Sedgwick frowned. “Kelly?”

  Patrick put a hand on Kelly’s shoulder. “Kelly?”

  Kelly turned to Patrick with lucid trepidation. “Something bad is going to happen, Patrick.”

  The certainty with which he said it sent a cold finger down Patrick’s spine. “What’s going to happen?”

  “What are you talking about, Kelly?” Sedgwick asked, insisting that he still existed.

  “I don’t remember,” Kelly told Patrick. Dread replaced with outright dismay as he added the one thing he seemed absolutely sure of: “Soon.”

  Patrick watched as Kelly turned, trancelike, and walked away. He was about to follow when he was blocked by Principal Sedgwick.

  “Hold it right there,” he ordered. “I’m glad we’ve got this chance to speak.”

  Patrick didn’t think Sedgwick was glad about anything. “What is it?”

  “I’m not the only one who’s noticed Kelly’s disruptive behavior around our community,” Sedgwick told him, pink face a mask of forced consideration. “He’s got a lot of people worried.”

  “He’s all right,” Patrick told him.

  “Even though something bad is about to happen.” Sedgwick’s eyes glimmered with pleased accusation, pleased at having the upper hand. “Something soon, I presume?”

  Patrick decided to ignore the question. “I’m going to go and talk with Bill.”

  “He seems to have taken Kelly’s side these past few days.”

  “So now it’s about sides …” Patrick took the urge to spit in Sedgwick’s face, channeled it into a contemptuous sneer. “That’s some community you’ve got here, Principal Sedgwick.

  Close your eyes, and it’s just like another warm day in seventeenth-century Salem.”

  Sedgwick returned the glare. “Watch it.”

  “I’m going to talk to Bill.” Patrick moved to shoulder his satchel. Remembering that he’d left it in his previous class, he skipped the dramatics and simply walked away.

  Immediately cleansed of all posturing as Kelly’s words returned to stake their claim.

  Something bad is going to happen, his angels said. Looks like we’ve got a genie and no bottle here.

  So much for the triumphant return of the Old Kelly McDermott.

  ill lived in a trailer near the edge of the old soccer field.

  This was Patrick’s first time there. His first time even using the dirt road, an uphill climb of fifty yards or so that cut through the forest and opened up to a small gravel tableau. An uneven relic of Wellspring Academy’s humble beginnings, once used for game-day parking. All that remained from those less prosperous times was Bill’s trailer. Situated at the far end, perched on a series of industrial cinder blocks.

  From what Patrick understood, Bill had lived there for years. It doubled as Bill’s office. There had been a time when he would take meetings there with his students, but that had stopped right before Patrick had been assigned to his homeroom. Part of a new policy protecting the school from any kind of liability. As a result, Bill was stuck holding conferences anywhere on school grounds that he could.

  The gravel crunched soundly under Patrick’s shoes as he made his way over.

  He hopped the wooden steps up to the front door, opened the screen, and knocked.

  From a distance, Patrick heard someone calling his name.

  Across the way, on the edge of the old soccer field, Bill waved him over. He was standing next to what appeared to be a giant upright caterpillar. As Patrick trudged across the parking lot, he realized it was actually a set of golf clubs. Bill was already teeing up by the time Patrick made it to his side. Lining up with a driver and focusing on the ball. He took another look at the abandoned expanse of mangy grass scarred with rocky patches of clay-colored dirt.

  Patrick gave him room, saw Bill pull back and swing.

  The pair of them watched the ball sail up into the sky.

  It disappeared in the midday glare, reappearing at the far end of the field as a distant hailstone.

  “Look at that,” Bill commented as brush swallowed his ball. “And I sliced it too far.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Know anything about golf, Patrick?”

  “No …” Without thinking, he added: “Do you?”

  “Ha!” Bill reached into a bulging pocket, dropped another ball on the ground. “Good one.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I deserved it.” Bill sheathed his club, pulled out another. “Saw that Kelly’s back.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little hot for that jacket?”

  “Superstition, Kelly said.”

  “Never understood that kind of paraphernalia.” Bill readied himself for another swing. “Like students who wear their college across their sweaters. If they can’t remember that kind of thing on their own, they shouldn’t be allowed on campus.” He swung, followed the trajectory. No analysis this time, just a question as he continued to stare out into the forest. “How did you and Kelly end up becoming friends?”

  Up to that point, Patrick hadn’t even realized they were having a conversation. It wasn’t the easiest thing for him to do, give in to any kind of communication. Awareness had always stood in the way. Exchanges between people made him suspicious; he regarded the practice as a little dirty. Shameful, a strange form of adultery. Fabricated peace between periods of
never-ending conflict.

  The exception to the rule had always been Kelly.

  Though starting the day before, Jenna had joined in.

  And now, it appeared, Bill of all people had made an impression.

  “I guess we met in the hospital.”

  Bill looked a little surprised. “Buddies since the beginning, really?”

  “No, it was … When I was eight, I was in a car accident. I was carpooling back from school with my brother and two other kids when there was a head-on collision with a cab. Even that, I had to take people’s word for. Last thing I remember was standing with my brother outside the school, waiting for our ride. Then I woke up in the hospital…. I was the only survivor. More than that, I’d scraped clean with nothing but a mild concussion.”

  “Was this how your brother died?”

  Patrick hadn’t remembered mentioning his brother. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Bill would know he once had one. “Yeah. On impact, so thank God for that, I guess. Anyway, I came to in observation, and Kelly was lying in the bed next to me.”

  “Huh …” Bill’s face was respectfully free of opinion, though his eyes had softened somewhat. “What was he in for?”

  “He was in the cab that hit us.”

  Bill straightened, as though Patrick had just told him that Kelly had actually died in that accident.

  “That’s right …” Patrick nodded. “His parents were out of town doing the pharmaceutical circuit, and his aunt had picked him up. She and the driver were killed. Kelly was the only survivor…. Nothing but a mild concussion.”

  “Stands to reason you two became friends.”

  “With a little help from my parents. They kind of appropriated him. Hired his services as my new little brother. He never really warmed to the idea. My parents worship him, and he goes along with it, like celebrities when they get fawned over by random fans. I guess he kind of just let it happen. I kind of let it happen. Thinking about it these days, all that’s happened, it feels as though that was only a cause for our relationship…. No real reason, though.”

  Bill nodded once. “So is Kelly all right now?”

  “You mean from the accident?”

  “I mean with the memory lapses, erratic behavior, falling off the face of the earth.”

  “You don’t like Kelly very much, do you?”

  “Well …” He pulled out another golf ball, let it drop at his feet. “He’s never struck me as cruel, stupid, or unruly…. You know, this school used to be a lot different. Back when we were still Pleasant Evergreen. This place was built on some very revolutionary ideas, some very good ones. Desegregation, specialized attention. When we took that money, though, put every last dime into sports, things changed.”

  “I thought the donor said the money had to be spent on sports.”

  “That is what they say….” Bill turned sideways, bent his knees, and lined up his club. “Once we had the gym and the new stadium, we had to keep them maintained. We had to attract more athletes, invest in our future alums to cover our bases. We added the supplemental grading system to help students get into the bigger universities. Meanwhile, we’re still using secondhand books, our science labs are still waiting for upgrades they’ve needed since day one.” Bill swung a little too hard, the frustrated result sending the ball at an ungainly forty-five-degree angle. “But Redwood calls the shots. It’s all about the sports now. If we win this state championship, we stand to … I can’t even bring myself to say it. And it’s not that Redwood doesn’t think he’s doing good. It’s no different from half the people that came out of the sixties … bit by bit, doing good has spiraled into something else.”

  “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” Another ball was readied. “I guess when I look at Kelly, I see what this place has become.”

  “You seem to be taking quite an interest in him now.”

  “I like the new Kelly McDermott.” Bill smiled, smacking the ball out into the trees.

  The sun crawled across the sky, burning the ground beneath their feet.

  “I think Kelly’s …” Patrick didn’t want to get into detail, but he felt as though he needed to sound it out. “I think he’s trying to be all right.”

  “You know”—Bill plunked down another ball and turned to face Patrick—“once a change has occurred … once you’ve gone too far, once the world is no longer the one it was yesterday … it’s very hard to go back. Most people kind of get the idea and try to make the present match up as best it can. But it’s just an excuse.”

  “For what?”

  “To keep from going forward.” Bill’s face looked sadly resigned. He ran a hand over his head, down past his gray ponytail. “I like the new Kelly McDermott, but I don’t know how welcome he is around here. We’re just not ready …”

  Patrick didn’t know what to say.

  He didn’t think there was anything to say.

  “It’s like we’re all just waiting for tomorrow,” Bill murmured, taking his position alongside the golf ball. Patrick gave him his space, wiping off sweat with his priceless Armani jacket. The pair of them kept quiet as Bill continued to rocket those miniature comets over the desolate field. As lunchtime drew to a close, they made their way across to collect the ones they could find.

  t wasn’t much more than Zack and a few members of the football team who saw how it started. They would say, later, that it began with Kelly. With Kelly laughing at Cody, unapologetically laughing at him. Around a dozen students had seen the simple argument escalate to an incomprehensible shouting match over that freshman geek with all the upper-level math and science classes. By the time the first unsuccessful punch was thrown, the crowd count stood at around fifty.

  That was when Patrick had happened upon the scene, making it around fifty-one.

  He cut into the crowd, bursting through the membrane to find Kelly and Cody rolling around on the ground, between grass and gravel. Close body blows, arms a tangle as they continued to shout through clenched teeth.

  “What did you do?!”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Tell me!”

  “I’ll kill you, you fucking—”

  “What did you do to him?!”

  Patrick was frantically seeking a chance to intervene when Coach Redwood shoved his way past the cheering students and yanked Kelly off of his only son and heir. Cody vaulted to his feet. He charged once more, under the impression that his father might actually continue to hold on to Kelly, allowing Cody to pound some respect into the insurgent McDermott.

  Apparently, even Redwood had his limits in public. Grabbing hold of Kelly’s jacket with one arm, he launched out his free hand. It was spot on, fingers wrapping around his son’s arm in an iron grip. He swung Cody, sent him flying backward.

  “Cody, you stay back!” he barked, pointing. “Stay back!”

  “You tell me what happened!” Kelly yelled, struggling to break loose.

  “You shut up!” Redwood ordered. “Shut up!”

  “He started it!” Cody fumed. His face was smudged with dirt, a bit of blood crusted around his ear. “I didn’t—”

  “I won’t have this!” Redwood shoved Kelly away, then grabbed him again. He dragged him toward Cody, whom he collected in his other hand. “Not when we’ve got state tonight! You two want to kill each other afterward, fine! Move it!”

  Shoving Kelly through the wall of students while dragging his son behind, Redwood made off with the two. A few people kept watch as the coach headed off toward the proverbial woodshed. Most, however, turned to Patrick as the crowd dispersed. Not seeking any answers, because few people ever talked to him. Though their faces displayed no shortage of questions.

  And he knew it wouldn’t be long before someone was going to want some answers.

  But Patrick wasn’t one for being proactive. He spent the last few minutes of lunch wandering the campus, looking around unenthusiastically. Searching for answers the same way he had always pretended to search for people at schoo
l dances, anything to keep from actually having to dance. Students floated past him, every now and then engaging him in a question-and-answer routine that was growing tired.

  So tired that Patrick eventually snapped: “He’s a time traveler, OK?”

  The sophomore girl who stood before him took a moment to digest this information. Her bright yellow dress lifted gently in the breeze, exposing sandals and green painted toenails. For a moment, Patrick was certain she would simply walk away, disgusted with his disregard for her genuine concern over Kelly McDermott.

  But her expression remained benign as the daisies in her tangled sandy hair.

  “Well …,” she mused, smiling sweetly with deeply stoned eyes. “No cure for that.”

  “No,” Patrick agreed, a little angry at how absolutely right this little hippie girl was. “No, there’s no cure for time travel. Nothing to be done.”

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Didn’t you just hear me?” Patrick replied, laughing nervously at the opportunity to actually have this conversation with someone. “Nothing to be done.”

  “Yeah, but you can still … you know, help him.”

  “Help him?”

  “No cure for cancer, either.”

  “No.”

  “So you accept it, right? And then you find ways to live with it. Work around the rest of the world.”

  It was almost fitting, this advice from someone renting a summer home outside reality. “You really think that works?”

  “Works for my mom and me,” the girl said with a funny little sigh.

  Patrick held back the sympathetic wince, swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “Your mom … the cancer and everything.”

  Patrick was taken aback by her sudden laughter. “My mom doesn’t have cancer….”

  She giggled, snorted, and absently brushed a finger along his collar, then wandered away.

  Son of a bitch, though, Patrick’s angels marveled as the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch hour. Even without all that tragedy, the pothead’s got a point.

  Patrick didn’t know how he knew Kelly would be sitting on the bleachers. Or he told himself he didn’t know. Now that he had finally decided on a course of action, Patrick’s angels were taking every opportunity to demonstrate the dangers of flirting with Kelly’s madness. Their babbling voices did all they could to shove his face in it, the tight grip of a master’s hand forcing his dog to see just what he’d done to the living-room rug.