Then he looked toward the English building and saw Kayla lying on her back, with her feet up against the side of the building. She was smoking a cigarette, and staring up at the sky. David closed his book and walked over to her. After all, movies were far more interesting than the Central Nervous System. She looked at him just as he sat down.
“Hi David.”
“Hi Kayla.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
“To sit here.”
She laughed. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you care what people think?”
David laughed. “Not really.”
“Don’t you care if they think you’re weird?”
“They already do.”
Kayla laughed. “Well, they’ll think you’re even weirder if you hang out with a loner.”
David smiled. “I am a loner.”
Kayla shook her head. “No you’re not; I see you around people all the time.”
“You can be around people all the time and still be loner. Besides…”
“Besides what?”
“It’s really not such a bad thing to be.”
Then she sat up and rested her head on her knees.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you feel sad a lot?”
David had to think for a moment. “Sometimes I do. Do you?”
She stood up and looked at him. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. Then she headed toward the back of the English building and disappeared around the corner.
“It does matter,” he said aloud to himself. He suddenly got the strange feeling that maybe he should feel sad a little more often.
He sat on the bench and looked at the small marker. It had a name, but no dates. You’d think they’d at least get the dates. All the other markers had dates. But maybe dates are like the truth. He knew only one date, 1964. It was suddenly junior year. He could swear that the 6th hour bell just rang, and he was sitting out back of the science building. He got that uneasy feeling again as he turned and looked beside him; almost as if…Then he turned around and looked toward the car. The guy that sat in the little office by the gate was motioning at him. David looked at the marker one more time and suddenly felt sure that there had to have been another way. He stood up and pulled his keys out of his pocket.
“I’m sorry, Kayla,” he whispered. Then he turned to leave.
As he walked to the car, it suddenly occurred to him. Doing nothing’s bad enough; but forgetting is the worst thing of all.
Kayla Swann
Daughter of Yvette and Jake Swann, and cousin of Jean Marlowe, she is David's friend in high school. Her father runs a men's clothing store that had been successful before the opening of the mall. His business goes under, and facing long-term unemployment, his relationship with his wife quickly sours. Then one morning, he simply leaves his family. Yvette later marries a man who works at the Mecklin Plastics and Industrial Chemicals Plant. The Swanns originally live next-door to David's girlfriend, Lani Kincaid. Of all the girls David and Lani know, Kayla is the only one whose relationship with David does not enrage his otherwise violently jealous girlfriend. After Yvette remarries, the family moves to a subdivision near the Kmart. David forms a relationship with Kayla that differs considerably from his other relationships with the girls he knows in high school; a bond he never fully understands. Kayla loves movies, and David likes to sit and listen as she talks about her favorites. He doesn't really know her very long before she simply...vanishes. He last sees her out back of the Science Building, and he watches her disappear through the gap in the fence after telling him that she will not be returning. She thanks him before she leaves, and it won't be until a life-time later that he finally understands what she meant. Well, he thought so. Still, some people who disappear are very much alive in the present, and in a strange way the endruing presence of Kayla Swann provides the driving force that leads to the transformation of the lives of key characters in the story, the last of whom is David himself.
Kayla was David’s age. He had several classes with her, and would smoke cigarettes with her sometimes between classes. She was often at the same parties David and Lani went to. But she was always by herself. Lani found him talking with her several times, and never made a fuss about it. One time he asked Jean about her. She said that her mother told her to stay away from her. When he asked why, she said her mother told her that it was for the best. “Some things you leave alone,” she told him.
Jean looked at David. “You should do the same.”
But he didn’t do the same. “Jean’s one to talk anyway!” he told himself.
Kayla was very withdrawn, and it wasn’t easy to get her to talk. Until he found out that she was really into movies. When asked about movies, Kayla would talk on and on. He liked it when she talked, so he asked her about movies.
****************************************
The next morning he ate breakfast at the kitchen table and read the local paper. They ran the story too. But it wasn’t on the front page. It was actually back in Section 3. That’s the obituary section, and one David usually avoided. He looked for the story, and that’s where he found it. The writer of the column knew even less than the TV host and the State Police. David seriously doubted that the writer even cared very much. But he hadn’t watched her leave on that day so long ago. And the reporter probably didn’t know that it was warm that day, or that the sun was shining, or that the grass out back of the science building was dry because it hadn’t rained in over a week. He was sure the State Police didn’t know that Lani didn’t show up after 6th hour, or that Lorraine left to meet Mickey, and so he sat there by himself. There was nothing in the paper about how she knew everything about every movie ever made, or how much he liked to hear her talk. They didn’t sit and watch her disappear through the gap in the fence. And no one heard her thank him for being nice, or how good it felt to not feel so sad. And no one knew that he sat and stared. And did nothing. It was a funny thing. He didn’t know her very long. And he didn’t think he knew her very well. But maybe he knew her better than anyone. Maybe the truth is that it shouldn’t matter after so long. But sometimes the truth isn’t the thing that matters the most.
