Beautiful Stranger. Ruth Wind

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      They hung up.

      Chapter 2

      One of the best parts of Marissa’s job was that her planning period fell just before lunch, so on those days that she was not required to be in the cafeteria or walking the grounds, she had a good long break in the middle of the day. She often went to a small café nearby to have a salad freshly made from a long list of menu items. Today she chose butter and radicchio and romaine lettuces, sunflower seeds, broccoli, tomatoes and shredded carrots and a bare sprinkling of pumpernickel croutons. They didn’t even have to ask anymore if she wanted the dressing on the side.

      Carrying her overflowing plate to a table near the window, she relished the salad slowly, along with a whole-grain roll and a thin spread of butter and the unsweetened raspberry tea they served, made with fresh lemons and raspberries. Outrageously good.

      Gazing peacefully at the bright blue Colorado day, she felt sinfully satisfied. In her old life, she had rarely taken the time to enjoy food—eating had been a guilt-laden activity, something evil one was required to indulge, and she often hurried through it, almost inhaling a meal before others had made it halfway through.

      It was a miracle to her now to really taste the butter on the bread, savor the small wheat berries in the soft dough. She dipped her fork in dressing and speared a pale green leaf of butter lettuce—it was one of her favorites at home because of the way the leaves felt in her hand, soft as suede—and took time to experience the combination of flavors. Before she had finished half the salad, she was satisfied—no, closer to stuffed.

      Replete, and feeling virtuous from all the nutrients she’d managed to pack into a single lunch, she paid and headed back to campus, two blocks north. The walk was a particularly pleasant one, following a path through a park that ran through the middle of town like a long finger. The day was not yet hot, and a breeze lifted her hair.

      A breeze that smelled of cigarettes. She glanced over, ready to smile; the few teachers who still smoked often slipped away to the park during lunch, and it was her habit to shake her finger at them cheerfully. But no one was sitting on the favored bench beneath a copse of aspens—instead, blue smoke wafted around the edge of a cinderblock building that housed rest rooms. Marissa spied a combat boot with a spot of pink paint at the toe peeking around the base of the wall.

      With a sigh, she crossed the grass, shaking her head, and came around the building.

      Crystal Avila hunched there, guiltily, and started so violently when she saw Marissa that she dropped the cigarette on the ground.

      Marissa quickly stepped on it, grinding it beneath the toe of her shoe. “Bad idea, kiddo. And not just for you.”

      The girl ducked her head, pulled her coat more tightly around her belly. A fall of hair, taking up a thick reddish hue in the dappled sunlight, slid over her shoulders.

      “Do you smoke a lot?” Marissa asked.

      “No.” She swallowed, dared to raise her eyes for a split second, dropped them again. “This is the first time since—” She burst into tears. “I don’t know what I was doing!”

      “Oh, honey.” Marissa reached for her with one hand, ready to offer a shoulder for a hug if the girl needed it, but Crystal jerked away, hiding her face with her hands.

      “Don’t suspend me, okay? I swear, I’ll do whatever you want, but I don’t want my uncle to—”

      “To what?”

      “To give me that look, all sad and disappointed.”

      “Ah.” She folded her arms, leaning as casually as she could against the wall. “Well, first of all, I can’t suspend you for smoking because you’re not on school grounds.”

      “Really?” Bright, hopeful eyes in a face streaked with tears.

      “I could have you sent to study hall for leaving campus—”

      “Oh.” Deflated balloon. Shoulders drooping, head dropping.

      “—but I don’t see what purpose it would serve. You have enough study hall for fourteen people already.” She sighed. “I want to help you, Crystal. I wish you’d let me.”

      Abruptly the girl put her back against the wall and slid down to sit on the ground, her elbows braced on her upraised knees, her hands over her face. “You can’t do nothing.”

      “Anything. And you’d be surprised.”

      “You don’t know,” she said miserably. “You don’t know what those girls say about me. I hate them.”

      Marissa knelt, trying to be as ladylike as possible in a straight skirt. That was one thing her old tent dresses had afforded that she’d never truly appreciated—freedom of movement. “You want to walk back to school with me? We can talk in my room. I don’t have a class for an hour.”

      She shook her head. “I want to go home. Can you call my uncle?”

      “Sure.” She reached into her purse and took out a tiny cell phone. “What’s the number?”

      Crystal looked up. “It’s a beeper.” She gave the number and Marissa punched it in, then held the phone loosely as she examined the girl. “Someone hurt you today?”

      She blinked. Nodded, her mouth tight. “I know how it looks, you know, but I’m not a slut. I never was.” She raised her head. “I swear it on a stack of Bibles.”

      “I believe you.” She hesitated. “Is it different people or someone in particular? If there’s someone in particular, I can make sure it stops.”

      “Get real.” She rolled her eyes. “Like I would rat someone out like that.”

      The phone trilled lightly in her hand. “Hello?”

      “This is Robert Martinez,” he said. That voice—it rolled over her in a wave of color, a rich sienna, like the skin on his arms. “You beeped me?”

      “Yes. This is Marissa Pierce, Crystal’s math teacher. She’d like to come home. Is that all right?”

      “Is there something wrong? Is the baby okay?”

      “They’re both fine. She’s just had kind of a bad day.”

      “A bad day? What does that mean?”

      Crystal said, “Ask him if I can walk over to where he’s working and I’ll tell him what’s going on.”

      Marissa repeated the information.

      “That’s fine. Look, I know she’s right there, but is there something going on I need to know?”

      “Yes,” Marissa said.

      “Can you bring her over? Or meet me somewhere?”

      “Sure, I’ll bring her.” Crystal rolled her eyes. Marissa grinned. “Where are you?”

      He gave her directions. It was only three blocks west, in the heart of the historical district. СКАЧАТЬ