Chapter 14

"So what should we do for Trick's birthday?" Jeanne cheerily asked the usual group sitting at our table at lunchtime on Monday.

"Trick's birthday?" Tanya asked in a quiet tone of voice that nonetheless commanded the attention of the entire table. Her look was directed not at Jeanne, though, but at me. I gave Jeanne my most baleful stare.

"What?" Jeanne asked. "Oh my God! You haven't told her it's your birthday?"

"You should have told me when your birthday was," Tanya said icily.

"Okay," I readily agreed. "I should have. I'm sorry. But it's really not that big a deal to me."

"Hah!" Cammie said. "Last year I heard you had the frickin' baseball team carry you around the cafeteria in a chair."

I blinked at her.

"Seriously?" I asked, looking at Rabbit and Tommy.

"Not us," Rabbit said. "It was Jim and Carl and Paul, I think."

"Chip," Tommy was very helpful. "Jim and Carl and Chip."

I looked at Jeanne.

"Don't look at me," she held up her hands. "Cammie and I had fifth period lunch last year."

"And this is your eighteenth birthday, right?" Tanya asked.

"Yes," I agreed slowly.

Tanya's lips were stretched tightly across her mouth.

"Excuse me," she said, standing up abruptly.

"Excuse me," I said as I watched her put her tray away and leave the cafeteria. "Jeanne, can you... ?"

"I'll get your tray," she said. "Just go. You are such an ass."

I caught up to her in the hallway.

"Tanya," I grabbed her arm.

"Let go of me, Trick Sterling," she yanked it away, her eyes blinking rapidly as she tried to hide her tears. "Well thank you very much. That was just about the most embarrassing day of my life. Everybody knows it's my best friend's birthday except for me?"

"Tanya, can we sit down and talk? Please?"

She reluctantly let me lead her into an empty classroom.

"Look, I'm sorry," I began. "I just forgot."

"Forgot your birthday?" she said coldly.

"Well, no," I agreed. "I forgot that, um, that..."

"That you like celebrating your birthday?"

"Yes," I said. That was exactly it. Although, in light of the story about last year's birthday, that was probably going to be a bit of a hard sell. I looked at Tanya, my best friend, and took a deep breath.

"Okay, I need to be honest with you," I said quickly, trying to commit myself to finishing. "And I know it's going to sound a little weird."

"You haven't been honest with me?" her voice had lost none of its edge.

I found that I was squeezing my hands in my lap, and stopped only with an effort.

"I haven't been honest with anyone. Not you, not Jeanne, not Jill, not my Dad, nobody."

She waited for me to continue.

"The last birthday I can remember celebrating was in eighth grade," I said. "I turned 14 that year, and we had a cake and I got some presents, and it wasn't really that big a deal. It just wasn't."

Her eyes narrowed as she watched me.

"I'm sure I had birthdays in ninth grade and tenth grade and eleventh grade," I said. "Just like I'm sure I was just as big an asshole as Cammie says I was."

"Everybody says you were," Tanya pointed out.

"Whatever," I agreed. "But it wasn't me. I went to sleep on Christmas Eve, 2003, and I woke up two months ago, on Christmas, December 25, 2006. It's like I just skipped three years of my life. Somebody lived them, but it wasn't me."

Tanya cocked her head, no doubt torn between wanting to believe me and wanting to run away from the lunatic she was alone with. It was at that point that I elected to leave out the part about Santa Claus. That wasn't likely to tilt her decision in my favor.

"So like you lost your memory?" she asked.

That wasn't really it, of course. I just hadn't lived those three years. But it was a lifeline, however slender, and I was a drowning man.

"Yeah," I nodded.

"This sounds like a lot of bullshit," she declared. "Did you go to a doctor or something?"

I thought about that a minute. That would have been a fun visit. See, Doc, what happened was I ran into Santa Claus, see, and...

I decided not to answer her directly.

"If you had heard that you lived the last three years that I did, would you want them back? I swear, Tanya, I can't remember anything between 2003 and 2006. Like being carried around the cafeteria. It sounds like something I would do. Or really, more like something I would have done last year. But I have absolutely no memory of it. I was a colossal asshole for three years, but to me, the me that's here with you, it never happened."

"You know," I tried lightening the mood a little, "as far as I know, I was a virgin at the beginning of the year."

"Oh, that's stupid," Tanya said heatedly. "You had like a dozen girlfriends."

I looked at her and she blushed. It pleased me, in an odd way, that she'd made some sort of effort to find that out.

"I know," I nodded, saddened once again by what had happened to me, and by what was happening now. "And the only one I can remember is Cammie Rowe, who was my very first kiss, on the day before Christmas Eve in 2003. And who I apparently treated like dirt after that. But I can't remember that part.

"You know," I wiped the back of my hand across my own suddenly wet eyes, "my mom died a year and a half ago, and I can't remember anything about that either."

Tanya stared at me and then pulled me into her chest.

"Oh, Patrick," she breathed. "Patrick."

I was being a baby. No, I was being a fourteen-year-old. In a seventeen-year-old body. With a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old friend waiting for me to, well, grow up. I pulled myself erect, another round of tears just waiting to flow.

"Tanya, you're the only friend I have," I said with as manly a whimper as I could muster. "Because you're the only one who sees me the way I see myself, without the last three years fucking everything up."

She took a deep breath and exhaled.

"So I'm sorry I didn't tell you about my birthday," I said. "It really never was that big a deal to me before I lost those years. I mean, in my mind. I understand now how important it was to you not to be surprised by it, and I'm sorry. Until Jeanne brought it up, I would have felt, I don't know, like I was asking for presents or something. Please, Tanya, I —"

She cut me off.

"I still don't know if I believe this whole thing," she said as her eyes started to tear up. "I admit it explains a lot of stuff, but it's kind of freaky, you know? But you're my friend, too. So when is it?"

"When is what?" I sniffled.

"Your birthday, jerk."

"Tomorrow. But I —"

She pulled me close and we hugged, cheek against cheek, the most intimate moment that the two of us had shared. Finally, I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket and we cleaned each other's tears up. When she pronounced me acceptable, and I pronounced her gorgeous, we headed back to the cafeteria.

"So about Trick's birthday," she said as we reclaimed our seats. "He doesn't want the chair thing this year. What should we do instead?"

We decided on dinner at Carter's, and in a few minutes, Rabbit, Sammy, Tommy and I were just so much surplus baggage. Rides were planned, reservations were made, cake was ordered, and we guys just sat there, nodding and grinning. The bell for the next period went off just as we were about to learn what outfits we were supposed to wear. I assumed that information would be e-mailed to us tonight.

Monday was also the day that baseball practice was scheduled to begin, so Tommy and I did our lifting during our free seventh periods.

Practice didn't inspire a lot of confidence. At this point, though, that didn't worry me. With the exception of pitchers and catchers, all of the regular position players from last year's team were told not to show up until Thursday. So these were just the wanna-bes. Coach apparently intended to use the first three days to help the pitchers get ready for the season and see what kind of new talent he was going to get.

My snap judgment was that he wasn't going to get much. Jesse Trasker showed up to try out for catcher, and was doing fairly well. I probably didn't help by glaring at him every chance I got. As far as pitchers went, the only real possibility was an eleventh-grader, Cary Roberts, who had a wicked-looking curveball. At one point during a break, I sat down next to him asked him to show me how to hold it.

"You want to know how to throw my curve ball?" he asked, his eyes wide.

"Well, a curve ball. Yours looks pretty good."

"But you're Trick Sterling."

"So?"

"You're like, going pro next year," he stammered.

"Look, um, Cary, right?"

"Yeah," he grinned.

"Cary, we might be teammates this year, right?"

"I hope so," he said eagerly.

"So look, if we're gonna be teammates, that means you gotta stop lookin' at me like I'm some kind of fucking baseball god, okay?"

"But, uh, Benny Stevens said that you," he started, "that you, uh..."

His voice trailed off, and I suddenly realized where we were going with this.

"Benny Stevens told you to give me a pretty wide berth, huh?"

He stared at me, afraid now that he'd gotten Benny Stevens, whoever the hell he was, in some kind of trouble.

"Look, Cary. Last year Benny would've been right. This year, though, the team needs all the help it can get. Look at some of those guys out there."

We watched an eager shortstop prospect let the ball go right between his legs.

"You, me, Rabbit Parker, Mo Perra, Tommy over there," I nodded. "All of us, we gotta be a team this year if we're gonna win. I got a good fastball and a good change. If you want help with either of those, ask me. But I don't have a curve."

He gave me a hesitant smile and showed me how he held his curve. A few minutes later, I tried it out. It bounced about two feet in front of home plate and it ricocheted up into Tommy's crotch, leaving him gasping on the ground. Obviously that was a pitch that was going to need some more work.

That was pretty much the highlight of the week, for me if not for Tommy. On Tuesday morning, Mr. Smithson handed me a note indicating that I was wanted in the office. I breezed in and gave Rachel Carter a big hello. She gave me a tight grin and asked me to take a seat.

"It's my birthday, Ms. Carter," I said.

"Happy birthday, Mr. Sterling," she said soberly. "Please sit down."

I sat down on the bench, stunned at my reception and bummed that from the bench I couldn't see the very attractive outfit that I'd noticed Rachel wearing when I walked in. It wasn't until I heard my name called, though, that I knew I was in real trouble.

"Patrick."

I looked up to see Pete standing in the doorway, looking very serious.

"Come on in," he said.

He closed the door behind me as I walked into his office. An older guy in a suit was sitting in one of his chairs, a briefcase beside him.

"Patrick, this is Darrin Hestrick of the College Board," Pete said. "He has some questions for you. It concerns, uh —"

"Perhaps you could just let me ask a few questions first, Mr. Peterson," Mr. Hestrick interrupted him in a nasal tone.

"Certainly," Pete ushered me to a seat.

"Mr. Sterling," my interrogation began, "you recently took the Scholastic Aptitude test, did you not?"

It took me a moment.

"The SAT?" I asked. "Yeah, in, like, January."

"On January 27th?" he asked.

"That sounds right," I answered slowly.

"Can you describe the circumstances of that testing?"

"The what?" I asked him. "The circumstances? What's going on?"

"Where did you take the test?"

"Room 112," I answered.

"With how many other students?"

"Twenty?" I guessed. Most of my classmates had taken the test in the fall.

"Do you remember any of them?"

"I'm sure the school has a list," I suggested helplessly.

"I'm sure they do," he said. "Do you remember any?"

"God, let me think."

It shouldn't be that hard. They were mostly a bunch of fuckups like me.

"Jesse Trasker," I suddenly remembered. "And those other guys, um, Barry Plaintree and Kenny, uh, Cutting. Oh, and Angie Valenziano."

Angie had been "sick" last semester. Right now her mother was taking care of her eight-pound "illness."

"And the proctor?" he asked.

"Um, ya got me there," I said. "I don't know his name."

"Mr. Adams," Pete chimed in, earning a glare from Mr. Hestrick.

"He's the assistant coach of the football team," Pete explained.

"Will you please tell me what this is about?" I repeated.

"Have you tried to access your score on our website?"

"No," I said. "I didn't know you could."

"Most people can," he continued. "Most people would have received notification by today in the mail. Your score is embargoed, Mr. Sterling."

"Meaning what?" I asked.

"Meaning it will not be released to any colleges until we are satisfied that it is a true and accurate representation of your potential academic abilities."

I looked over at Pete, who was studying his shoes. He finally looked up at me.

"They think you cheated, Patrick," he mumbled.

"They what?" I gasped.

"Mr. Sterling," Mr. Hestrick broke in, "your score went from a combined 790 to a figure just over twice that. Can you explain how that happened?"

"Well," I paused. "I didn't leave early this time."

"Did you study?" he asked.

"Yes. Well, a little."

"And you took the test at a time when you were facing a disciplinary hearing here at school, did you not?"

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A Stitch in Time

Marsh Alien

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