17

NAME: FLORAMUNDI DONNELLY

I left four messages for Frank Kasigi before he finally called me back.

He was apologetic. "Sorry, Flora. You know I'm chairing the junior high principals' conference this year, and it's just details, details, details."

"Sorry to bother you when you're so busy, Frank. I thought I'd better check up on Cap Anderson. Has he been fitting in any better?"

"Fitting into what?" he asked. "The Age of Aquarius?"

I felt my heart sink. "That bad, huh?"

"Actually, not really. I had the boy pegged as a fucking train wreck, but considering how odd he is, and how sheltered his life has been, things could be a lot worse."

"Does he have friends? Other than my daughter Sophie, I mean?" I asked hopefully.

"Not friends, exactly. More like followers."

"Followers?"

"Ever since that stunt with the school bus, kids from both divisions just flock to him. He put together a tie-dyeing clinic with the art teacher. You wouldn't believe the turnout! It was"—he chuckled—"what did they call big events back in the sixties?"

"A happening," I supplied automatically.

"Right. And that's the least of it. He picks up a guitar in the shared music room and strums a few old Beatles tunes, and pretty soon he's got fifty people in there singing along. He's running some kind of martial arts class on the front lawn. He's got more junior high kids working on the Halloween dance than will probably come that night. He's even got a few meditators. If I didn't know the kid's history, I'd probably have the police making sure he wasn't setting up a cult."

It triggered an explosion of images from my own childhood at Garland. Cult was exactly the word for it, with Rain as its philosopher/guru.

Still, the news made me breathe easier. "That's a load off my mind. When I found out they made him eighth grade president—well, Sophie filled me in on what that might mean."

"I've heard those rumors too," he admitted. "It certainly hasn't gone smoothly for the last few in that office. But we don't want to be the only junior high division in America with no student government, so we threw the dice, and this time we lucked out."

"Thank heaven." But maybe I should have realized that Cap was holding his own in his new life. He was still a fish out of water, but he didn't seem to be quite so thrown by every little thing as he had been when I'd first brought him home.

One major clue was the fact that he was taking a genuine interest in that school. As a social worker, I kept current yearbooks from all the buildings in my district. Not only was Cap borrowing the Claverage books, but he was spending hours studying them. Imagine, a boy who had never had even a single schoolmate now wanting to know about more than two thousand of them. I found it heartwarming.

I was amazed by how much relations had thawed between Cap and my daughter since he had started living with us. On that crazy day he drove the bus to the hospital, I was astonished to see Sophie come to Cap's defense at the police station, something that would have been unthinkable just a short time before. Truth be told, although I was a bit angered that she had openly criticized her own mother, I was quite impressed that she had the guts to challenge me, the cops and the school administrators. Sophie now clearly enjoyed spending time with Cap at home, as evidenced by the fact that she had even started sitting next to him in the bus so they could continue their conversations. I was thrilled to see that the two of them had struck up a genuine friendship after so much bad blood in the beginning, until Sophie shocked me again by throwing that empty bottle at Cap the day her father left. I was appalled by her outburst, but I was still surprised that she actually apologized to Cap for the first time ever at dinner. Now, she was in a better state of mind because her father had finally remembered to send back her extremely belated birthday present, duly engraved.

Truth be told, I'd never expected to see it again, and I don't think Sophie had either. So, imagine my surprise when she opened a padded mailer with no return address and pulled out that silver bangle. There was no card, not even a scribbled note. The only thing that spoke for this gift was the engraving on the inside of it:

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

To be honest, the inscription threw me a little. It certainly didn't sound like the Bill Donnelly I used to be married to. His idea of sentimentality was the presentation of the Lombardi trophy at the end of the Super Bowl, but I guess he could still surprise me. He certainly got this one right. Sophie was thrilled.

It almost made up for the fact that he had walked out of her life yet again.

I liked that Cap had become good friends with the new, kinder, gentler Sophie, but I also began seeing signs that he had a crush on her, and vice versa. An attractive 11th grade girl had to look good to an eighth-grade boy, especially one who had barely laid eyes on a female who wasn't his grandmother. As for Sophie, she had probably started having feelings for Cap that very day he took control of the school bus and drove it to the hospital.

I couldn't prove this, of course, but one day, I came home from work, and the two of them were on the couch in front of Trigonometry and Tears, that awful teen soap opera geared to the interest level of chimpanzees and various species of plant life. A steamy make-out scene was taking place on the screen, but instead of watching it intently, Cap and Sophie kept glancing at each other. Their expressions were both difficult to read, but I believed that each of them was trying to work up the guts to lean over and put an arm around the other.

I slammed my briefcase down on the kitchen counter and said the first thing I could think of:

"Who's up for a nice tall glass of lemonade?"

"Mother!" Sophie exclaimed in exasperation. "What century is this?"

I told myself I was protecting my daughter by trying to prevent the development of any potential romantic relationship between her and Cap because I knew that the boy would have to return to Garland in a few more weeks at the most, and I didn't want Sophie to be devastated again when it was time for him to leave for his own good.

The pain of my own adjustment from Garland was decades in the past, but it felt like yesterday when I watched this poor boy. I took Frank Kasigi at his word when he said Cap was doing well, but I knew I wouldn't sleep at night until he was once again with Rain, hobbling back toward the sixties as fast as her pinned hip would carry both of them.