Are You Still There (9 page)

I try not to groan. “Uh, no thanks. We've got to study.”

“It's Friday night—live a little. We'll give you a makeover!” She says this like it's a good thing, then rips off a piece of red licorice with her teeth.

“You're not touching my hair.” I tell her, sinking down onto a mound of blankets and sleeping bags. “My toes maybe, but not my hair.” Beth sits stiffly on the very edge of the couch.

“Deal,” Chloe agrees. “Does Beth know everybody?”

I look around. “I think so,” I tell her, but I introduce Beth anyway. They're all girls Chloe has been friends with since middle school. They're like a funky mismatch of lost socks, each without a mate, but hanging out together makes them one of a group. That girl Mel sits with a sour face in the corner, painting her toenails black. She seems like even more of an outcast than the others.

Beth watches half of
Scream 4
and then takes off, mumbling about due dates for essays and upcoming quizzes. I hate to see her go, but I'm not in the mental space for studying anyway. I allow my toenails to be painted silver by a girl who is bouncing off the walls.

“God, you're such an idiot, Chloe. When Mom sees this room, she's gonna be hella pissed.”

“Yep.” Chloe grins. “That's pretty much the point.”

Mel surprises me by joining our conversation. She drops down onto the couch. “Why do you want to piss her off?”

“Have you seen her get worked up? It's hilarious. True entertainment.”

“You're lucky she gets worked up,” Mel says. “One time I went on a silent shower strike. I didn't shower or talk for a week, but no one noticed. I'd planned to wait until someone said something, but no one ever did.”

“What finally happened?” Chloe asks.

Mel shrugs. “I got so tired of my own stink that I gave up and showered.”

Chloe and I laugh at this, but not for long because Mel isn't laughing. Dad walks in just then. I can tell by the way his gait falters and then speeds up that he is as surprised as I was to have our living room taken hostage. He covers it up, though, with a curt, “Hi there, girls,” followed by a brisk walk to the stairs.

“He even walks like a cop,” Chloe says.

“How exactly does a cop walk?” I ask.

“The way he does. Like with his whole body.”

“Does your dad have a gun?” Mel asks, all curious. Her fingernails are nonexistent. Either she bites them or she files them down really low. It looks ridiculous, because she's painted them black, and all you can see are these tiny blobs of black on each finger.

Chloe answers like it's the most obvious thing in the world. “All cops have guns.”

“No—I mean one that he keeps at home?”

“Yeah.” I kind of thought all cops had guns they kept at home.

“Trippy.” Mel chews on her lip, and then she whispers, “Have you ever touched it?”

“No,” I answer fast, and then wish I hadn't. I wonder how Chloe would answer that one. “He keeps it locked up.” I don't mention that I know the combo. And then because I can't help it, I ask Chloe, “Have
you
ever touched it?”

She doesn't make eye contact right away, and that tells me all I need to know. She slides her eyes up toward mine, and then she says, “Nope. Never touched it.” If she hadn't looked away, I'd have believed her. But she did look away. And now I know she's a liar.

I can tell Mel knows too. She makes this strange
mmhmm
noise and gets this glimmer of a smile, so slight that after a minute I'm not sure if it was really a smile at all. First time I've seen her smile today.

It creeps me out.

“Want to grab a pizza after our shift?”

Miguel has asked me out ten times in the last week. In ten different ways. To ten different places. I've made up ten different excuses.

I sigh. I've been considering asking Paisley to swap partners, but maybe I should just be a grown-up and talk to him.

I face him. “Miguel, this may sound strange to you, but I've never really dated anyone.”

I can tell by his expression that he thinks this is just excuse number eleven. It's not. “Look, my dad's a cop, and he sees all kinds of crazy things out there, so he's super strict.” Plus Mom has always wanted me to stay focused and avoid drama. Keep my “eye on the prize.”

So I don't date.

Not that I've had a lot of opportunities anyway, but I don't tell Miguel that. He's nodding again, and I can tell he's not going to give up on this one. What, is he waiting for his quota of rejections?

“How many times do I have to tell you I'm not interested?” I ask Miguel. I feel brave because Janae's in the office with us. She's beading and she has her earphones in, but I can tell she's really listening to our conversation anyway.

“Only once.” He sits down close to me.

“I've already told you a million times!” I almost scoot away. But his bare arm is touching my bare arm, and it makes me tingle. I'm not sure if it feels nice or uncomfortable, but I stay anyway.

“You've lied to me a million times. I
know
you're interested.”

“You're full of yourself.”

Miguel stops, and I think maybe I've offended him. He repeats what I said. “Full of myself? I am not familiar with that expression.”

Janae snorts. She unplugs her ears. “You're a riot,” she tells Miguel.

He winks at her. “A riot? What does that mean?”

Janae throws a bead at him. “In case you didn't know it, Gabi, Miguel likes to play the new immigrant thing. It's his dating act.”

“What you mean by ‘new immigrant thing'?” Miguel holds his hands up flat, all innocent. Then he reaches over and grabs Janae's foot.

“He thinks it makes him cuter.” She kicks her leg to try to get him off. “Has he tried the rose shtick yet?”

I look back and forth between Janae and Miguel. Miguel's face has turned a dark shade of purple, which is hard to do since his skin is so dark in the first place. But he's not pissed. His eyes are practically twinkling. He turns to me. “Anyway, I
know
you're into me.
You
just don't know it yet.”

“Screw you,” I tell him as firmly as I can. I try to ignore the tingling on my arm from where our skin connected.

“Okay.” He grins, palms flat up in the air again. “That sounds fun.”

Stranger's Manifesto

Entry 9

I knew.

I freaking knew.

Not in my brain.

But somewhere deep in my bones.

I
knew
.

And I did nothing to stop it.

The
shoulda-woulda
of the guilt train

Reminds me

Every time I close my eyes.

That's why I have to do something now.

Even if people hate me for it.

Implementing my plan is painfully easy,

Because there are perks

To being invisible.

No one feels the heat of my eyes watching

Or wonders what I'm doing out of class.

No one sees me lurking by lockers.

So planting playing cards is a freaking piece of cake.

I've got to practically wave the clues under their noses.

That's how stupid they are.

Or maybe just how

Inconsequential

I am.

14

MID-NOVEMBER

A-minus on the government test, 89.99 percent.

Eric moves past my desk after Mr. Thurber hands out the graded exams.

“See?” he whispers. “I told you not to worry.”

“How'd you do that?”

“Magic.” He winks. “I have my ways.” He slides into his own seat.

I shake my head and smile.

Eric follows me at passing period and corners me at my locker. “If we're study partners, I guarantee you'll ace all your government tests.”

“Yeah?” I say, trying to pull the trash out of my locker. I've got to keep my grades up, at least until I get my acceptance letters. Then maybe I can let things slide. “Want to form a study group? If we invite Beth she'll bring Oreos. Her mom buys them in bulk.”

“How about just you and me?”

I look up, and Eric's all shifty, like he just asked me out on a date or something.

Life is crazy. For seventeen years no guy has ever noticed me, and now all of a sudden I've got two who want to hang out? Mom might be a little more approving of a study-date kind of thing, and who could be more brilliant than Eric?

“I don't have much time,” I tell him.

“Well, you have to study, right?”

“Good point. I get home from clinic at seven thirty on Thursday. Want to come over then?” Mom won't mind, I don't think. She'll be happy I'm studying, and we'll sit at the kitchen table so there isn't any stress about bringing a boy into my room.

“Sure,” he says, like this is what he's been waiting for.

“My mom's a health-food nut, so don't expect chips or candy. You like carrot sticks?”

He looks at me like I'm kidding.

Mom is buzzing. Zipping around in the kitchen, hovering by the fridge, then organizing our junk drawer and fixing some snacks of veggies, hummus, and sliced triangles of whole-grain pita bread. “Eric is such a focused young man.” The study date meets her standards, apparently. Mom has known Eric since junior year's academic decathlon, when he blew everyone away with his brilliance.

“You're not going to hang around here while we study, are you?” I ask her.

Mom says “no” so trigger-fast that I know she's lying.

“I am.” Chloe smirks. “Should be fun.”

“You can't interrupt them, Chloe,” Mom warns, pretending like she wasn't planning to do exactly the same thing.

“I won't interrupt them. I'll study. You want me to study too, don't you, Mom?”

Mom is stuck. I can see her thinking through her answers, wondering how she can tell Chloe to stay away from us without insulting Chloe's academic potential, and without implicitly condoning Eric and me spending time
alone
. So she just shrugs and says, “As long as everyone's staying productive,” and continues buzzing around the room.

An hour later, Eric and I sit at the kitchen table, nearly elbow to elbow. “I thought you were kidding about the carrot sticks.” He grins.

“Nope,” I say cheerfully, crunching one loudly.

Mom has disappeared from view, mostly. She buzzes in and out periodically to make it clear that she is
supervising
. I'm embarrassed, because I'm seventeen after all.
Please
. Chloe sat with us for the first twenty minutes, her math book open and her pencil poised, clearly prepared to watch the show. But then when we really did talk government, I could see her excitement melt away. Eventually she slunk into the other room to watch TV.

I look at Eric. He's sort of cute, I guess. At least he might be in a few years if he fills out and figures out a way to do his hair that doesn't make him look like a little boy. Why is it that brilliant guys are so clueless about how to use hair gel? Maybe academic brilliance is inversely related to fashion sense.

Eric reaches for a carrot stick and chomps down. When he sets his elbow back on the antique table, he puts it directly against mine. It feels cold and smooth.

I look up and he is staring at me.
Way to make me uncomfortable
.

But I'm struck by something.

I have no tingles. Touching his arm doesn't gross me out or anything, but I feel nothing.

I might as well have my arm against a telephone pole.

“Eric would have some cute potential, like, in a nerdy way, if he'd just wear something other than Star Wars T-shirts,” Janae says, all encouraging as we walk between classes. Some people do double takes as we stroll past. I guess we're an unlikely pairing.

I can't help but smile.

“He's only got like seven different ones, and he recycles through them every week. Dude, at least alternate the day! Don't wear them in the same order every single week.” She turns around and walks backward, facing me.

“I'm just not feeling it,” I tell her. “Sure, I'm happy for the help studying, but I'm not into him, you know?”

“I know who you
are
into.” She stops me, putting both hands on my shoulders.

“Shut up.”

“And so does everyone else. It's obvious. Give poor Miguel a break. How hard are you gonna make him work before you break down and kiss him?”

“Shut up,” I tell her more firmly now. “Focus on your own love life, why don't you?”

“That,” she says, eyeing Garth from across the quad, “is an excellent idea.”

Chloe has way more experience with dating, kissing, you-name-it than I do. By far. So although it seems strange to go to my little sister for advice, I find myself lingering near her bedroom door. I knock softly a couple times, but she must have her earbuds in because she doesn't answer. Unsure if I'm going to walk in on her half naked or picking her nose or something, I place my hand on the doorknob and open the door slowly.

She's sitting cross-legged on her bed. Her back is turned away from me, and she does have her earbuds in. The bass is so loud that I can hear it from the doorway.

But something stops me short. She's holding a playing card in her hand. It's a queen, with black Sharpie drawn on it like the others. She lifts the card up toward the light. The queen's eyes are crossed out with x's, her tongue is hanging, and there is a noose drawn around her neck.

What the hell?
Did Chloe draw that?

Just as I step in closer, she throws the card across the room, or tries to. The card is too light, so the throw looks pitiful, and the card sort of floats to the floor. She draws her legs up to her chest and pushes her head down into them.

A lump crawls into my throat, and I feel suddenly sad. I step back and slowly close the door.