Kenny had the window on his car rolled down. The rain was falling down on the length of his arm.
“You can’t really be thinking of walking to school in this,” he said. “You can’t. It’s a complete mess out there.”
Haydee came over to the car. “You’re going to school?”
“Well, I would be. We have English class. I just saw the weather and thought you’d like to have a ride. Then when you didn’t come out, I wondered if I’d gotten it wrong. I mean, you know, that you were working. Do you want to get in so I can close this window and stop getting soaked?”
Haydee was already soaked. She was a little worried she would ruin the upholstery of the car. She was more than a little worried that somebody would see her getting in. She got in anyway, and slammed the door shut behind her.
Kenny rolled up his window. The heater was on, just a little, to keep the windows from fogging up. “You really were going to walk to school in this stuff,” he said. “That’s crazy. Why didn’t you call me? You’re going to get sick, acting like that.”
“I don’t have your number,” Haydee said.
Kenny gave her a long look of exasperation, then reached into the pocket of his pants and came up with a little plastic case of business cards. “Take one of those,” he said, throwing them down on her lap. “My cell phone number is on the top. Where’s your friend Desiree?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her around. She doesn’t always come to class.”
“So you walk back and forth to school by yourself.?” He eased out into traffic.
“If I have to,” Haydee said. “I don’t think Desiree really wants to be in school. She only goes because I do and I nag her about it. But you have to go to school, you know. If you don’t go to school, you get stuck working at the Quik-Go for the rest of your life.”
There were cars and people going by. Haydee could see he was going around by the reservoir, not the way she went through town. It was a nicer drive, but a much longer walk.
“Do you mind if I ask you something personal?”
“No,” Haydee said. “I guess not. What is it?”
“Well,” Kenny said, “the thing is. Well, are you all right? Because last class, you know, and now tonight, you don’t look too good. You’re shaking like a leaf. And okay, that could be the rain this time, but you were doing it last time, and it was a really nice day. So…”
Haydee thought about it for a minute, but then it didn’t seem important to hide anything. There was nothing about her life he couldn’t guess just by knowing where she lived.
“I had a fight,” she said. “Not a physical fight, you know. Just a screaming fight.”
“With your mother?”
“With her boyfriend. He knows I’ve got money stashed away someplace. They both do. I don’t know how they find out, but they always know. And last time I’d put away nearly twelve hundred dollars and they found it, and of course before I realized they’d found it it was gone. So this time I found a better hiding place. So he was screaming at me. And he was going through my room. Once a couple of weeks ago he actually dug up the dirt around the trailer looking for it. He says he didn’t, but the dirt was dug up. He’s crazy. But I want that money for a car, and he’s not going to get it.”
“Does he—hit you?”
“Not yet,” Haydee said.
They had reached the DMV building, which always made Haydee think of an elementary school. It was that kind of building. On the other side of the road was the river.
“Why do you keep it around, if you don’t want him to find it?” Kenny sounded genuinely puzzled. “Why don’t you just put it in the bank?”
“I looked into it for a while,” Haydee said. “It costs money to have an account in a bank. The only way it doesn’t is if you have a big amount you can leave there all the time, or if you can have where you work direct deposit your paycheck. And the Quik-Go wouldn’t know direct deposit from a cucumber. I mean, you know, it’s very nice people, the people who own it, but—”
“They’re from China,” Kenny said. “I know. Not all banks charge you, though. You could join the credit union . You’re a student. Anybody who’s a student or a teacher or on staff at Mattatuck–Harvey can join it. And they don’t charge fees for a savings account. I could take you over there tomorrow if you have the time. I could—I could come with you to get your money, wherever you’ve put it, so this guy couldn’t jump you, you know, and then I could take you out to the credit union and you could open an account. Then you could put your money in there when you got it. That has to be better than hiding it out at your mother’s place. He couldn’t get to it there.”