Surfacing Read Online Free Page A

instead.
    “There’s fifteen more minutes of class,” he said. “I trust you can all find something productive to do.”
    He sat down at the teacher’s desk and offered no further explanation about Mrs. Michelangelo’s disappearance. He looked stoically out at the class, like a captain in rough seas.
    The boy in front of Maggie turned around in his chair. “I bet I know what happened.”
    He had the local area code shaved into the very short hair on the side of his head and a diamond earring, too big to be real. Maggie remembered he was in her seventh-grade English, but other than that she didn’t know much about him, except his name, Tommy. Maggie tried to give Julie that please-don’t-encourage-him look, but it was too late.
    “Yeah, how’s that?” Julie asked. She had slid off the desk and into the seat next to Maggie.
    “My mother and Mrs. Michelangelo went to college together. Or high school — I don’t remember.”
    Which seemed kind of interesting, so Maggie said, “Really?”
    “You think I’d make that up?” Tommy snapped back.
    “No, I mean,
Really
. Like,
Really, that’s pretty cool
,” Maggie said.
    “Oh, yeah, it is,” Tommy continued. “So, they’re friends, and I happen to know that Mrs. Michelangelo’s husband is in big trouble. He’s going to lose his business and maybe their house.”
    “So what does that have to do with Mrs. Michelangelo leaving the room?” Julie asked.
    “It just probably does. They owe tons of taxes and they can’t pay their mortgage. Which is funny, since my family doesn’t even have our own house.”
    The girls exchanged looks. Maggie had often shared the strange confessional experiences she had with Julie.
    “We rent above Smitty’s Garage, you know. My dad does leaves and mows lawns. He probably mows your lawn.”
    “My dad cuts his own grass,” Julie said.
    “Yeah, well,” Tommy said. “He’s the only one in town, then.”
    Over the years, Maggie noticed that truths came in categories. Mostly they were things someone was embarrassed about, a physical thing or an emotional issue, or a social problem, real or imagined. Home life, personal life. The only common denominator was that everyone seemed to think everyone
else
had it all together.
    “It really sucks being the poorest kid in town,” Tommy said. “It’s all bullshit. Dirt is dirt, especially if you move it to make a living. I die every time my dad comes to one of my soccer games and I am sure he has spread fertilizer for one of the other dads sitting there. Sometimes I pretend I don’t see him.”
    “See who?” Julie asked.
    “My dad.”
    Judging from the way he was beginning to tear up, Maggie knew there was more.
    “But last year was the worst, when my dad wanted to coach the JV baseball team. He played, you know. My dad. He had one season in the majors. He’s really good. He’s a great dad. He taught me how to throw, catch grounders, stay in front of the ball. He taught me everything, never put me down, always encouraged me. He wouldn’t even have cared if I sucked at baseball. He just wanted to coach. And I lied to him.”
    Now Tommy’s voice took on a shaky, higher pitch and a couple of other students were turning around to see what was going on. Lucky for him, more than half the class had left.
    “I came home and told him not to bother applying ’cause they already had someone in mind. ‘But I was in the pros,’ he told me. ‘Who could they have possibly gotten?’
    “ ‘I guess they got someone better,’ I said. I didn’t know what else to say. And my dad never bothered to call the athletic office and find out if it was true. He just took my word for it.”
    Maggie could feel the burn behind her eyes, but she blinked it away. Everyone, it seems, wants absolution for something.

    Matthew came over to see Maggie precisely two more times that school year. During the first of those two evenings, he tried again to make himself one with the girl who seemed