The Evening News by Tony Ardizzone

Her hand moved to cover the spot. Her legs were crossed. She was sitting on the table in the dining room. Tom was standing in the front room facing her. The late morning light from the windows behind him framed him.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Bobbi said. “Tom, what was what?”
    â€œWhose desk did you sit on?” Tom blinked several times, and his Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed.
    Bobbi put her hand over her mouth and laughed. She thought quickly. “Oh,” she said, “it was Mr. Percy, he teaches algebra.” She didn’t know why she chose Mr. Percy; he was short and drab, and she disliked math. There was something in Tom’s voice as well that she did not like. Her fingers picked at the scab near her knee. Maybe, she thought, she could tell Tom she did it for a better grade if he asked why. She waited for him to ask why.
    â€œI thought you didn’t like math,” he said instead.
    â€œI don’t,” she answered. She was irritated. Sometimes Tom could be so stupid; he couldn’t even tell when she was lying.Now the lie was becoming more of a problem than it was worth. But there was still plenty of time in which to mend things, she thought. Her mother and her stepfather wouldn’t return for hours.
    â€œThen why did you do it?” Tom asked. He stared at her, then folded his thick arms.
    He was still at it. Couldn’t he see? Boys
were
stupid. She wanted to get down from the table. She wanted to sit with him on the sofa and be held by him, but she felt unable to move; she felt pinned. She looked at the vase of plastic flowers on the end table. Shaking her head she finally said, “I don’t know, Tom. I just did it.”
    â€œYou just did it?” he said. He sounded like he was spitting.
    â€œYeah,” Bobbi shouted, “I just did it.” The tone of her voice frightened her. She felt like she wanted to cry. “Look at me,” she said. “Tom, please look at me.”
    He had turned toward the windows. She slid off the table, smoothing her dress down across her thighs with her hands. Tom turned around and she put out her arms to him, and when he didn’t move she said, “Please come here and hold me, Tom. Please hold me. I’m cold.”
    â€œThen maybe you should put on some decent clothes.” He turned once again toward the front windows, then stretched his arms and back.
    â€œYou’re a bastard,” Bobbi said, and she hoped that it would make him angry because now she was angry and because everything she had so carefully planned was now going astray. She thought about how long it had taken her to shorten the dress, and how she had had to hide it and the thread and needles from her mother, who never left anything private in her room. Her mother sometimes even opened her personal letters and listened on the extension when she talked on the phone. Her mother treated her like she was an infant. It was unbearable. Bobbi was furious.
    She glared at Tom’s broad back. “Did you hear me?” sheshouted. “I just called you a bastard. Aren’t you going to say anything to me, you damn bastard?”
    He looked at her and laughed. Bobbi realized then that she had gone about this entirely wrong, and she felt ridiculous.
    â€œYou did it for a grade, didn’t you?” Tom was saying. “You dressed yourself up like a cheap damn tramp so you could get a better grade.” He shook his head and made a hissing sound. “You could have come to me, you know. I’m good at math. I could have helped you.”
    Frustration rose from Bobbi’s stomach and burned up through her chest and in back of her throat and her eyes, and before she was aware of what she was doing she had clenched her fists so tightly that her fingernails sliced into her palms, and then she began crying. She felt suddenly blinded and fiercely angry. Then she was aware that Tom had come over to her and was putting his