The Thirst Within (2 page)

Oh my God. Did she really have to add that last
part? I
know
that I don’t know where anything goes, and I’d probably be
in the way. If I wasn’t going to help anyway, what’s the point of mentioning
that? It’s like she’s reminding me that I don’t know where anything goes
because I just got here, to eat their food. It only makes me feel more like an
outsider.

And worse, it’s not like I wouldn’t learn where
things go, if I were to help. I
can
be taught things. Jeez. She manages
to sound like a total bitch even when she’s supposedly being nice to me.

So I say, “Thank you,” against my will, and go
back upstairs. I almost open the first door to the left when I remember that’s
the guestroom; my bedroom is the one across it. I turn towards my door, but
pause, thinking of the doorknob I mistakenly grabbed a moment ago.

I wonder if it’s unlocked. It has to be. What
psycho locks their guestroom? I wonder what it looks like. The room she didn’t
open. Was she embarrassed? Is it full of crap? Curiosity burns within me, warm
and vibrant. I look left and right. I could open it. Take a peek. Why not? What’s
the worst that can happen? I get caught and yelled at. I’m so upset at June’s
dig at my learning skills, Fiona’s attitude, and Jack’s lack of interest in me,
that I don’t care if anyone catches me doing it and yells at me. If June comes up,
I’ll just say I got mixed up or turned around with the doors, since this door
is right in front of mine.

The fact that I already came up with an excuse
means that I
do
care if I get caught, my little conscience tells me.
Scenes from Aunt Marie’s house flash before my eyes and I shake my head to
clear the thoughts away. Deep down I want this to work out. I don’t want to
piss off my new family. I don’t want to be rejected again.

But whoever said curiosity killed the cat didn’t
say anything about
how
the cat felt. There’s something in my chest that
glows with unfounded interest, and I just need to open that goddamned door. So
I do.

I gasp. The room is big, much bigger than my
bedroom. It has a beautiful full-sized bed with an elegant comforter on it. It
is about the size that Jack’s room looked like to me. And I’m pretty sure Fiona’s
has to be the same size, if not larger, than Jack’s.

Why did I get the smallest room with the
smallest bed when there’s a larger room available?

***

About an hour later there’s a knock on my door.
“Tori?” It’s Fiona’s voice.

“Coming,” I call. I open the door and I see a
pretty girl with straight dark hair, green eyes—no, a light brown, or hazel—and
full lips. Fiona’s got her mother’s dramatic looks and olive skin. She’s
probably popular in school, and now I’ll have to go to school with her and
pretend I don’t know her.

“Hey, I’m Fiona.” She does a quick sweep of her
hand in an arc; a wave of sorts.

“Tori,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, you too,” she says with questionable
enthusiasm. “Sorry I didn’t join you at dinner.”

“It’s okay. At least I had the rest of the
Harris.”

“The Harrises.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s the Harrises, not the Harris. Like Etta
Jones, the Joneses.”

I’m at a loss for words. How do you reply to
that? “Oh. Sorry.”

She laughs. “Fuck the Harrises! I hate that my
mom changed my last name. I was born Fiona Ferreira. We were the Ferreiras
before my daddy passed away. None of this Harri
seses
bullshit.” She adds
an extra syllable at the end to sound extra bitchy.

“Sorry about your dad,” I say, which is what
you always have to say when someone says their parent passed away, apparently,
no matter if their dead father was better off dead. I barely remember my
parents but when anyone finds out that my parents passed away, I always,
always
get an “I’m sorry.” It’s automatic.

“I like Roland better,” she says, shrugging, and
something about the way she says it bothers me. “I just hate his name. We made
up, by the way. I know you heard us fighting, but we’re okay now.”

“Oh, okay. I mean, that’s great,” I say, once
more not finding anything to say. “Well, thanks for coming by.”

“Sure thing. I’ll talk to you later, Tori.”

I’ll start the second half my Junior year next
Monday at Fiona’s high school, whatever it’s called. I don’t know. No one
bothers to tell me anything.

I’ve been thinking about this high school ever
since I was told I was moving to New Orleans.
New school, new me
, I used
to think. But now seeing how pretty Fiona is, and knowing she went to a party
overnight somewhere for New Year’s, it means to me that she’s popular and already
has a circle of friends I can’t possibly penetrate.

It’s only Wednesday, the day after I arrived, so
I have a few more days of freedom. The rest of the week and the weekend. My
uncle works for The Man so he had to work today, January 2nd. Suck it, Uncle.

When he comes back from work, June asks us to
sit together for dinner again. Jack doesn’t say anything to me; he only
complains to his mother about his food. Uncle Roland tries to make small talk
about work, but it’s so boring not even his wife is paying attention. At some point
Fiona announces that she needs the car because she’s going to meet with her
girlfriends—Friend One and Friend Two, I forget their names the second after
she says them—at the mall to buy new clothes for school.

“Why don’t you take Tori with, Fiona?” My uncle
asks, probably thinking he’s stepping in to my rescue.
No
, I want to
say. How embarrassing. As if I didn’t feel unwanted enough already.

“Sure,” she says after a pause. That pause to
me is synonymous with
Fuck no
.

“Thanks, but you don’t have to if you’ve
already got stuff to do with your friends,” I tell her, letting her know she’s
off the hook.

“Nah, Tori, there are plenty of things to do at
the mall.”

I have no idea what she means, so I only say,
“Thanks. Okay, I’ll go.”

“How fun,” June chimes in, batting her long
lashes enthusiastically. She’s wearing pink tone eye shadow today.

“Great,” Uncle Roland says. “You girls have
fun. Do you need any money?”

“Dad, please!” Fiona says, and she laughs.

Please what? I could use some money, but I’ll
never say anything, at least not at the dinner table in front of everyone else,
and definitely not right after Fiona made it clear that she won’t take her
stepfather’s money. Oh, how interesting—she calls him
Dad
.

I run upstairs to my room to change. Since I’m
meeting Fiona’s friends, presumably cute girls like she is, I want to make a
good impression. I choose clothes that I think make me look best, fix my hair
and even trade my glasses for my contact lenses.

We leave, Fiona driving her parents’ old car, a
2008 Chevy Impala, which she tells me was all the rage when they purchased it
new. She talks about TV, Hollywood and haircuts. She complains about her
parents and her brother; however, the whole time she’s with them she’s everyone’s
favorite, so I don’t trust her.

When we get to the mall her friends are already
there. She introduces them as Lauren and Megan. They make quite the odd trio:
one looks Asian but has blond hair (it actually looks good on her); the other
one has long curly hair and she’s the palest of the three. And neither of them looks
remotely like the exotic Fiona.

Fiona joins their conversation and soon they’re
talking about scenes and people I’ve never heard of. They don’t include me, but
they’re not rude, either. I just feel like a total outsider.

I spot a small, trendy-looking office supply
store, and tell Fiona I’m going to look for some school stuff. I’m lying; I
just don’t want to feel so invisible anymore. While I like the office supply
store, it’s the type of store that is full of things I shouldn’t spend money
unnecessarily on. I only have a small amount of money in my bank account. When
Nana’s estate is settled I’ll receive a small amount of money, maybe a few
grand, if Aunt Marie doesn’t sue me for my father’s share. Still, I won’t get
it for a while. And that’s for college, anyways.

It’s settled with the girls; after a lengthy
admonishment about how they’ll never find me because I don’t own a cellphone, I
agree to look for them later at one of three clothing stores where they’re going
shopping. As I walk to the office supply store I try not to take the whole
conversation personal, but it’s so hard. It’s like they were making fun of me
for not owning a cellphone. I can’t help it—a combination of growing up with
old people and being poor. And even before the phone issue came up—the reason I
announced I was leaving in the first place—they just went on and on with their
stories. It felt like they did it on purpose. How could they not tell that they
were leaving me out? I regret coming here. But, on the bright side, I met them
before school started. If this was the first day of school I’d be crying under
the gym bleachers.

Inside the store, by myself, I feel much
better. I make my way to the school supplies aisle in automatic mode, in search
for the art notebooks. I love blank notebooks that have pretty stationary; my
Nana Fran gave me my first journal when I was six and told me to write or draw in
it whenever I needed to. Since then I’ve always had one, and used them for
writing my feelings, sketching, or writing poems. Whatever keeps me from hating
life.

I move up and down the store reading the aisle
contents. I find the one I’m looking for and move towards it. As I turn into
the aisle, I see a guy poring over the blank books. He looks cute from afar;
nice clothes, nice body. Brown hair, short but not cropped. What I call the
perfect length, but with an extra bit of length towards the front, which makes
him look boyish and attractive.

I’m instinctively self-conscious although I
haven’t even seen his face. As I get closer to him, the picture keeps getting
better and better. Then he looks up and I have to pretend I’m looking at a
point behind him, some item on the wall. I’m doubly embarrassed because he
caught me looking, and he’s very cute in the face as well. Blue eyes and nice
features.

Well, there goes that.

I lose interest immediately. Unfortunately for
me, he’s a
hot
guy. Hot guys turn me off because they’re always full of
themselves, and that leads them to cheat on their girlfriends, as everyone
knows.

I give him a brief, courteous half-smile with a
half-nod, in acknowledgment that he’s there. He replies, “Hey,” with a polite
smile. I pick up one of the blank books and flip through the blank pages. I
close it and look at the cover.

“Oh, that’s kind of pretty,” the guy says next
to me. I look up and get a close-up look. His skin is flawless; holy shit. I
can’t tell his age, other than he looks a few years older than me.

“Yeah, I agree,” I tell him. The cover fascinates
me. It has an intricate vine pattern etched into a black background. Gray
metallic swirls merge into clouds filled with crisscrossing lines. It’s artsy without
being overly girly.

“I’m looking for a journal. I think you found
the one for me,” he says with an easy smile. “I might get it, if you don’t
mind.”

“No, why would I mind? Go for it,” I say. As he
picks up another copy we both notice it’s the last one on the shelf.

“Last one! It’s fate, then,” he says.

“Did you see the sheets? Pretty decent quality
paper, too,” I say. He’s friendly, so I can’t help but mirror his mood. I don’t
show any interest other than what he shows in me. A nice guy talking to a nice
girl in a store.

He flips open the journal and touches the
paper. “Wow. I’ve been staring at these over here”—he points to a group of
seemingly inexpensive ones a few feet away—“for five minutes, but nothing
caught my fancy. You come in here, and the first book you pick,
bam
.
Perfect.”

“Well, I’m glad I helped. Although I’m sure you
would’ve found it eventually.”

“Now we’ll never know,” he says mysteriously, smiling
at me. I become self-conscious and look down, anywhere but at him. At least I’m
able to mask it as me inspecting the book, and not that I’m dazzled by him. As
I look down I notice the price of the journal in my hands. Twenty dollars! There’s
no way I’m going to pay twenty dollars for a notebook. I mean, I shouldn’t.

I move to put it back.

“You’re going to leave yours?” he asks me, and
he sounds surprised.

The thought now makes me sad. It’s like we
bonded over this journal. I don’t want him to think that I didn’t like it; I
want to pretend that I can be cool, like him. I say, “No, I’m getting it,” with
a smile.

I figure I’ll put it back after he leaves.

He doesn’t leave.

He keeps talking about stationary, writing
letters, cursive and calligraphy.

He finally moves as if to leave, and because he’s
talking I feel like I have to go with him. I don’t put the book back.

“Are you getting anything else?” he asks, as we
move down the aisle.

Tricky question. If I say yes, he might ask
what, and if he’s happening to look for the same thing, I’m so screwed, because
I’ll have to end up buying that too, or fessing up. So I say, “No, I’m done,”
and I hope he turns around to keep shopping before I get to the checkout.

But he says, “Me too,” and keeps walking to the
checkout counters.

As we get there I start to panic. As much as I
want it, I really shouldn’t buy this notebook; but I’d feel like an idiot if I
don’t. It’s too late to tell the truth.
Thinkofsomething thinkofsomething
—

A brilliant idea comes to mind. I pat my back
pockets.

“Oh! Bummer! I don’t have my cards with me,” I
say. I even laugh, a little. “I do this
every
time.” I stop walking abruptly
and he takes a few more steps before he stops. He’s a few feet ahead of me.
“Hey, it was nice meeting you. I gotta go put this back.” I point back at the
aisle, unnecessarily.

“Oh, same here. But hey, I can get that for
you,” he says.

“What? No, I couldn’t.” It’s twenty dollars.
Twenty
.
And he’s already getting one for himself.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not expensive,” he
says, like it’s no big deal.

Not expensive? Regular notebooks are less than a
quarter of that price.

I say, “Yeah, but don’t worry, I live nearby; I’ll
just come back later.”

“But it’s the last one!” He shakes his copy in
the air dramatically.

I have to return his smile again, tempted to
say yes, but I shake my head. “You know they probably have more in the back,
right?”

“You can’t know for sure! Let me get it for
you. It’s nothing, really. Or hey—you can pay me back.”

Okay, for all my inner talk about hot guys and
how much they turn me off, I have to say that the idea of this random guy
paying for my notebook thrills me.

“How do you know I’ll pay you back? You don’t
even know me,” I reason with him.

“Well, tell me who you are, then. I’m Thierry,”
he introduces himself in what sounds to me like Tee-airy, but I don’t recognize
the name.

“Terry?” That’s what my brain says I must’ve
heard.

He grins, flashing perfect white teeth. He
fishes out his wallet, pulls out a business card, and hands it to me.

THIERRY COLBERT

The card only has his name on the front. I flip
it around and I see a number and an email address on the back.

“Thierry,” he enounces it distinctively. He
offers me his hand.

“Tori,” I say. We shake hands.

“Tiori?” he asks, and I laugh.

“T-O-R-I. Sorry, I don’t have a business card.
I’m seventeen and still in high school. Do you work?” I ask, because his
business card is blank.

“I don’t—I’m a college student. I’m twenty-one.”
I think of twenty-one as old, but he doesn’t look old, not with that fantastic
skin of his. He’s cute though. Maybe I’m forgiving him too easily. I don’t even
point out the vainness of having a business card when he doesn’t have a
business on it.

We’re at the checkout counter. “Okay, Tori, now
that I know you, you seem like the type of girl who’d pay a debt. So I’m
lending
you this money,” he says. I’m only a little upset that I’ll have to ultimately
pay for the expensive journal, but I don’t mind too much if it means I get to
see him again. I’ll chalk it up to an entertainment expense; paying for eye
candy. Then I make a parallel with “paying for love” and have to wonder if
sometime in the future I’ll look back at this moment like the onset of my
downward spiral.

Thierry pays and we get two bags. He hands me
one with a wink. We step outside to the mall corridor. Our time is over.

But I don’t want it to end. I realize this is
the first time I’ve smiled since I came to the South.

“Where are you headed?” I ask him. Anything, to
keep him next to me a little longer.

“I was going to grab something to drink,” he
says. “How about you?” Then he snickers at some inside joke.

“I have to meet my”—I struggle, searching for
the right word—“cousin. She’s with her friends shopping for clothes.”

“Where are
your
friends?” He looks left
and right, as though expecting a group of people to come running down the
corridor looking for me, holding “
Tori is the best
!!” banners.

I look down sadly. “I have no friends here.”

He makes a sympathetic
aww
sound. “What
do you mean, here?”

“I just moved to New Orleans from Iowa. Or
Illinois. Like, yesterday.”

“You don’t know where you moved from?” Now he’s
laughing at me.

“No, I do! Illinois, officially. But I was
there only like a week.” I sigh. “It’s a long story.”

“I collect long stories. You should tell me
yours someday.”

“I definitely could,” I say, and I grin. Aw
hell, I’m flirting with him.

“So where in Nola?” he asks.

“Excuse me?”