Autofocus (10 page)

“God, I hope you're right,” he says, looking back up at me. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” I answer, turning to walk out.

“And hey, good luck,” he calls, and by the time I turn back around, he's already typing again. He looks small in the office, alone among other computers, chairs arranged
for those waiting, and a loud ticking clock on the wall. It seems empty, the space, but I guess to him, it's safe.

Outside, I shake my head as soon as I see Bennett.

“That sucks,” he says. “But I guess not a huge disappointment, considering we weren't even planning on stopping here.”

“Yeah.” I nod. “You're right. Not a disappointment at all.”

I jump on my bike and follow him off the campus and down the street.

Just past campus is the downtown area of Tallahassee where tall buildings dot the horizon. We turn and ride through another set of roads into a quiet neighborhood. It's strange how one city has so many different subsections—college town, business town, small town. There are cottages all around us, with wooden fences that are more logs of wood than actual barriers. Cars are parked right in the yards, and one house has a Confederate flag hanging outside.

Tallahassee is vast, and, though the chance is slim, I still wonder if my mother lived in any of these houses. If this was her life, among the ramshackle places. Or if she lived in the nicer houses out in the country area Treena told me about. Or in an apartment in the city. What was her home? How did she grow up?

“Over here,” Bennett yells, and nods his head toward the left. I follow him and turn onto another small road with yellow
CHILDREN CROSSING
signs along it. I can see the school
at the end—a big brick building with everything stuffed inside, so different from the open campus of my school, where a courtyard in the center connects many smaller buildings. With 1,500 students in my class alone, we would be suffocated by such a small structure.

“So, this is our next stop,” he says, stopping his bike and lifting one foot off its pedal.

“This is it,” I say, stopping my bike and breathing in. I turn around, taking in the entire view. The cars in the parking lot, the lampposts, the school itself. I touch the plant nearby, and rub my hand on the ledge. This feels right, for some reason. This feels more official than the first school. I have no idea why.

This school might have been my mother's school. I might be one step closer. I put my feet down and a shiver goes through me. Did she used to sit on those steps? Did she drive and park in that lot? Did she walk through those doors every day?

“How do you feel?”

I look at him, and then the steps ahead of me that lead into the school. “Weird,” I admit, not knowing any other word that can describe the anxiety and excitement and also foreboding that fills my body. The thing is, only Treena can honestly understand how important this is to me, and it's odd not to have her here. “Okay, you really don't mind waiting?” I ask warily, but also still wanting the moment to myself. I forgot to ask last time; I was too wrapped up in the spontaneity.

“Nah, I've got homework to do,” he says, gesturing to his backpack and pulling out a laptop.

“Thanks.” I smile and turn. I walk in and smell cleaning bleach coming off the walls. There's a staircase in front of us, and the main office to the left. I walk that way, breathing in deep.

A high barrier is in front, painted the same off-blue as the walls. A woman with a mess of hair piled extremely high is sitting behind it, busily typing.

I walk up to her, hold my breath, and try.

“Hi, I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

“You late?” she asks.

“Hmm?” I ask.

“Honey, are you coming in late? Bell rang an hour ago.”

“Oh, no, I don't go here,” I say quickly, remembering that I'm in a high school and am, still, technically, a high school student.

“Then why are you here?” she asks, finally moving her eyes from her computer to mine. This is not going to go well.

“Um,” I say nervously, then continue. “I was wondering if you could give me some information. I'm trying to find out more about my mother, who died when I was born. I think she went to school here.” I stop, and wait for some sort of reaction. A second goes by. Another second. I get nothing. No sympathy, not even a questioning glance.

I continue, extremely worried. “So . . . I was wondering if you could tell me if she went here? And if she did, maybe
what her schedule was, so I can talk to one of her teachers? I know it sounds crazy, but I just want to learn more about her.” I'm struggling, trying, and she's not giving me an inch.

“Honey, I can't just give you someone's schedule.”

“She doesn't go here now. It would be from 1997,” I clarify.

“Uh-huh. I can't give a random girl—who doesn't go here—personal information about one of our previous students.”

“But . . . she's . . . she's gone,” I admit. “She passed away.”

“Uh-huh. And how do I know that? Do you have a death certificate?”

“Excuse me?” My mouth drops open in shock. I feel my face flushing, my heart thumping. A wave of emotion crosses over me as my ears start ringing. “No, because I never met her. Which is why I want to learn about her. Please . . .”

“I'm sorry you never met her, but this isn't my problem. I can't just give you information like that.” She sighs. “Good luck.”

I stare at her and feel my entire investigation floating away. I feel my mother walking away from me again, turning around and never coming back. A voice that's not mine says, “Thanks anyway,” and then I make it back to the main area. The lights are bright, brighter than I remember. Blinding, almost.

I can't speak; I just stare at the bleach-white floor tiles, because I don't know what to do next. I can try another
school, but what if this was the one? And I wasn't given a chance? A student passes me. He's tall and looks like he's mostly asleep, and he's wearing a lanyard around his neck.

A lanyard that has his student ID on it.

And then I get an idea. I look back at the woman I was talking to and see that she's now engaged in another conversation. I rifle through my bag and pull out my independent study pass from school, which thankfully I didn't take out before coming here. It's not the same as the lanyard the guy was wearing, but it's similar enough. I silently thank Ms. Webber for letting me take an extra hour of lab time, for which I was given this pass.

I put the lanyard over my neck and quickly walk farther into the school just as the bell rings. Surrounded by students now, I keep my head down, as I usually do, and know no one will think anything is out of place. I'm just a student, after all.

Until I realize I have no idea where I'm going, or what I'm looking for. With the office not giving me any information, where can I go? Where would I find a record of old students?

Ahead I see a sign with an arrow pointing to the media center. I think of mine at my school, a place I haven't really been much, but I remember that it has old yearbooks. Since I'm on the yearbook staff, I had to grab one from a few years back. You never know. . . .

I open the door and it's small inside, with about six rows of books and a small computer lab; I'm assuming it's the one
Bennett mentioned helping set up. I wonder how he's doing outside. My heart swells, feeling guilty for leaving him out there, feeling hope that he's here with me, and feeling fear as I see a woman sitting behind the counter. She's probably in her late twenties, with cat-eye glasses perched atop her nose.

“Hi!” she says cheerily. “Need any help?”

“Um,” I hear my voice say. “I'm doing a project, and was wondering . . . do you have any old yearbooks here?”

“Oh, they're over in the back, on the right, against the teal wall,” she says.

“Okay, thanks.” I nod and smile, turning toward the back and feeling relief. I still don't know if I'm at the right place, but I feel like I'm moving toward something. Just like riding a bike, I'm putting one foot ahead of the next and pushing forward.

There are those
READ
posters on the wall that every media center and library seem to have—these of The Muppets and some actors I don't recognize. They look older, with fading colors and outdated outfits. The posters might not have been changed since my mother went here, and the thought makes me smile.

I hit the wall and see a tall column of yearbooks dating back to 1973. I scan the titles until I find the one I'm looking for. And before I know it, my hand is touching 1997. When she would have been a senior.

I walk to a nearby table and sit, opening the book.

I know this could lead to nothing. I know I could just be fooling myself into believing that there will be answers in
this book, but each page brings excitement. Until I turn the page and see it. A photo of my mother.

She's there. She's
real
.

I gasp and I swear my heart stops.

She looks similar to the one photo I have, but still different. Her hair is long, it goes out of the picture, and is dark brown like mine. She has the same bumpy, crooked nose like me, and piercing green eyes—which I don't have. She has a lazy smile on her face, like she's amused by these photos, and a tight seashell necklace around her neck.

“Wow,” I whisper, afraid to disturb the photo, as if I'd wake it up. Afraid that if I move, the picture might disappear. Because here she is. I didn't find
her
, but I found another part of her, another view of her. I touch the page to make sure it's real, and continue staring at it for a few minutes.

She's pretty and young. My age, and that's crazy. She had a whole life, a whole eighteen years of life, that I don't know about. What's she hiding behind her eyes?

My fingers itch and I take out my camera. I want to steal the book, more than get a picture, but I know I can't do that. She left her mark here; I don't want to remove that.

I steady the camera in my shaking hands and focus on her smile, her eyes. The click sounds loud in the quiet library, so I quickly put the camera back in my bag. I don't want to turn the page, to lose the moment, but I know more clues might be hiding in the yearbook.

I breathe in, pushing myself forward, knowing that once
I turn the page, her image will be gone. But there might be more, so I pass the rest of the students and move on to the clubs. Cheerleaders and football players. Band, chorus, drama. It's interesting how the same clubs were around then. Do things really change? Or is high school just the same venue only with different outfits over the years? Comedy club, Key Club. Wait.

It's my mother, standing between three other girls and a guy. Their arms are around one another, and they're smiling at the camera. The five of them made up the Key Club—a volunteer club, apparently, from the description.

It's a full-body picture—she's standing up, and it's the first time I've seen her like that. Long hair with a headband holding it back, loose T-shirt, and long brown skirt hanging to the floor. It looks like she wanted to go to Woodstock or something, but it was the '90s, so maybe the style came back. She's looking away, not at the camera, as if something out of sight is more interesting.

She's wearing the same seashell necklace as in the yearbook photo, and the other girls are wearing similar ones, too. Maybe they were her friends. I grab my camera and take another picture. And then a picture of the caption, so I know the names.

I can't help but look at the guy whose arm is around her waist and wonder who he is, how she knew him. If she knew him well. If he, Chad Glickman, is . . .

It's only natural to wonder.

I wonder what she's thinking, what she was doing before
this photo was taken, or where they went afterward. Did she regularly hang out with these people? Did she have a lot of friends, or was she a loner? I wish I could ask her all of these questions myself, but the reminder that I can't trumps the excitement of my findings.

I look again at the caption, and decide to look the people up. Maybe they know something. Maybe the Key Club teacher, Mr. Wayne, knows something. Maybe he's still here.

I put the book away and grab the three years prior, hoping to see her through the years. And there she is. A junior. Then a sophomore. Then a freshman. Each year she looks a bit younger, a bit more innocent, and a bit less sure of who she is. No shell necklace yet. No hippie skirt. No clubs, either. I take a picture of each face and watch as she morphs more and more into . . . me. I gaze, taking it all in. It's weird, seeing myself reflected on these pages, but also right.

I put the books away and walk over to the librarian's desk. She looks up expectantly. “Find everything you need?”

“Um, yes,” I say, then think quickly. “Actually, I have to take a picture of Mr. Wayne's classroom for . . . yearbook. Do you know where it is?” I ask, crossing my fingers that he still works here.

“Sure thing.” She smiles. “He's down the hall, room 204 on the right. By the gym.”

“Great,” I say, all the air leaving my body in relief. “Thank you.” I head out the door into a sea of students in the hall, and I figure it's a break between classes. I blend in, sticking to the crowd, and see the gym up ahead, so I look
to the right for his room: 210, 208, 206 . . . 204. “Here,” I whisper, stopping. I feel like I did just yesterday, standing outside of Professor Stark's office. Heart pounding. Breath deepening. I knock.

“Come in,” a voice on the other side says.

I open the door and a man not much older than Professor Stark stands before a whiteboard, erasing something about the Civil War. He has a light beard, round glasses, and dark hair, and is wearing a button-down shirt with a sweater over it. It's like he Googled “What do teachers wear?” and chose the most stereotypical image.