“Did you have an argument?” he asked. He split another apricot and again pushed the bowl toward Summer.
“Yes,” she said. She swung her legs beneath the table, feeling guilty all over again. What if he asked them to leave and they’d have to go live with her grandparents?
“I had a little brother, he was barely younger than me—eighteen months—so we were like twins,” Taured said. “One of my first memories is of us—me and Chris—fighting like our lives depended on it: biting, hair pulling, kicking. That’s all we did, fight. It drove my mother crazy.” He stopped to laugh at something Summer couldn’t grasp, his entire face glowing with the memory. She wished she had memories that made her face glow like that.
“Until it was time for me to go to preschool.” Taured paused to stare at the ceiling, one corner of his mouth lifting, and Summer got the feeling he was somewhere else. “I remember being at preschool and missing him so badly all I wanted was to go home, and then when I did get home, we were happy to be together.”
“No more fighting?” Summer asked.
“We were best friends after that. As it turned out, we needed space to be our own individual people.”
“But you were just little kids.” Summer rolled one of the apricot pits between her palms under the table.
“Little kids are people, too!” he insisted with mock outrage.
Summer laughed at his expression and shrugged. She hated this part, when you were supposed to say something back that made the adults feel good about what they said.
“Cool.”
Taured stretched, lifting his arms high above his head and closing his eyes. When he was looking at her again, he said: “I tell you what, Summertime, you and your mama need some time apart.” He stood suddenly and Summer looked up at him with a frown. Did he know about the fight? She sniffed the air, seeing if she could smell Lorraine’s perfume, but the air still smelled like leftovers.
“Come on, I want to show you something.” He walked for the door, clearly expecting Summer to follow him, so she did. Summer’s face went red at the thought of Taured knowing what she’d said to her mother. If he knew she was capable of saying such awful things, maybe he would ask them to leave.
She followed him out of the cafeteria, where he took a left and walked toward the doors that led outside. When they stepped into the white-bright of outside, she shielded her eyes with her forearm, curling it around her face. Taured handed her his sunglasses and she tried to play it cool as she slipped them on. Summer knew he was heading in the direction of the school, and despite her reservations, she was curious about it. She trotted on his heels, feeling important. When they arrived at the entrance to the children’s building—as her mother called it—he turned back to look at her, winking. Her stomach clenched. A twist of his wrist opened the door, and then a blast of smells—paint and crayons—reached her nose. They were comforting smells. Summer reached for his hand and they stepped inside together. She propped the sunglasses on her head like her mom did.
He showed her the dorms, with white bunk beds lining the blue, green and yellow walls, each one with a shared desk and wardrobe. There were colorful shag rugs, and in the center of the room was a swing, hanging from the ceiling.
“Sara’s dad put that in,” he said when he saw her looking. Summer tried to play it off, but she was impressed. They moved on to what he called the canteen, where a rec area was set up with tables and chairs. In the far corner, and made to look like a tiki hut, was the Snack Shack, where they could trade good behavior tokens for cans of pop, chips and chocolate bars. Taured pointed to the projector, mounted on one of the walls.
“Movie nights,” he said.
“Awesome.” Summer couldn’t help herself; she was into it.
From the rec room, they passed through another set of double doors until they were standing in a room larger than the last. Instead of sitting in the center of the room, the desks were pushed against three of the walls. In front of each chair and stuck to the wall was each student’s name and daily schedule.
“Everyone works at their own pace here. There isn’t a teacher for every subject like in public school—we let the books teach you and you decide how much you want to learn. We had someone graduate high school at sixteen last year.”
Summer’s head darted up from the desk she’d been eyeing. It belonged to a boy named Jonah. She’d seen him around. He stared at her a lot with unblinking blue eyes, but he never spoke to her or pulled her into games like the other kids did.