Emily For Real (9 page)

“Come with me, then,” he says.

“What?”

“If you're not there, she won't believe me.”

Right.

When we get to the top of the stairs, the flute player's down the hall, talking to a couple of guys. One of them's holding a tuba like he's in the middle of a rehearsal.

“Shouldn't we wait till she's by herself?” I'm not liking the very awkward scene that's playing out in my mind.

“No time,” says Leo.

I haven't quite caught up to him when he gets to the flute player.

“It's not what you think,” says Leo. “Emily, tell her it's not what she thinks.”

A bit of preamble might've been a better strategy, I'm thinking. They're all waiting for me to speak, so I follow Leo's tactic and jump right in. “Leo and I are friends. Not boyfriend-girlfriend.”

No one says anything.

I look at Leo. He's waiting for me to keep going.

“Just now, when you were talking to Leo, you saw me coming and you took off like I'd be mad. Of course I'm not mad because there's no reason to be mad.”

Leo looks satisfied with this.

But I can't resist. “Leo can have the hots for whoever he wants to have the hots for, and it's none of my business.”

The tuba player leans to the mouthpiece and blows three elephant groans.

The only ones not grinning now are Leo and the flute player. He can't believe that I just said what I said. And she's connecting all the dots.

Time for a dramatic exit.

As I'm walking away, I'm grinning. I love razzing Leo like that. The look on his face! If I had a brother I'd want him to be exactly like Leo.

Immediately I'm thinking about Mom's stillborn baby. If that little baby boy had lived, I would've had an older brother. All my life I would've had an older brother.

The smell of peanut butter cookies is all through the house. I love peanut butter cookies the way Mom makes them. Huge and chewy.

“Don't spoil your supper,” she says when I take one from the cooling rack.

I lean against the counter as she takes another pan of cookies out of the oven. I'm still thinking about what it would've been like, having an older brother. I think he'd be the teasing type, dancing Mom all around the kitchen and singing an opera about peanut butter cookies. She'd be telling him to stop but she'd be laughing. And when they stopped dancing around, I'd be clapping and saying, “Bravo!” Mom would have to take a corner of her apron and wipe the laughing tears out of her eyes.

“You look like the cat that swallowed a canary,” says Mom.

I don't want her to know that I know about her stillborn baby, so I fake what I'm thinking about and tell her about Leo and the flute player and how I announced that Leo has the hots for her.

“She would have had that all figured out,” says Mom. “Women are always ahead of men that way.”

“Maybe she already likes some other guy.”

“Then she would have come right out and told your friend that she has a boyfriend.”

“Maybe she thinks Leo's a stalker.”

“Oh, I don't think so. Especially if she's seen him with you.”

“Right. Not exactly stalker profile.”

“I think he's a very nice boy. Just something about him that you notice as soon as you meet him.”

“I hope she gives him a chance.” I tell Mom about how Leo's living by himself now, and all about his mother and his father and Caroline. “Then teachers go and say he's got anger issues when who wouldn't have anger issues if all that stuff was happening in their lives. Leo's a funny guy in a low-key way. You just have to pay attention.”

“And you're not interested in him? As a boyfriend?”

“He's like a brother.” The words are out before I realize what I've said.

But Mom's on another wavelength. “Do you think he'd like it if I packed up some cookies for him?”

“Sure,” I say. “I'll take them to school tomorrow.”

That's Mom for you. Got a problem? Good home cooking's the answer. But I don't tease her about this because, in Leo's case, she's probably right.

I grab another cookie and Mom pretends to smack my hand away.

“Dana and Myra called from the airport to say how much they enjoyed our dinner. Meeting all of us. They went to visit Meredith this morning and brought her flowers.”

“She wouldn't get who they were.”

“No, but that's not the point. It was very nice of them to visit her.”

I put Leo's container of cookies in my backpack so I won't forget them tomorrow. “I really, really like Dana and Myra,” I say.

“Impossible not to,” says Mom.

Nine

It's snowing and it's December, so I get this idea to make a Christmas card for Brian. I'm not naïve enough to think anything like a Christmas card'll change the way things are, but I want to make a statement. Not in words. A symbolic statement. Basically to make him feel bad.

So I've taken the chopped-up pictures out of my photo album and they're lying all over my bed. Me without Brian at the beach. Me without Brian at a Valentine's dance. Me without Brian standing beside half of Jenn's car. Me without Brian having a snowball fight. Me without Brian sitting on our front steps. Me playing with Brian's dog while no one holds the leash. I thought I had a picture of us (me) in front of a Christmas tree, but I can't find it.

And I'm fighting a gigantic feeling that this whole idea is probably majorly immature. It's like I'm a little kid going downhill on my tricycle with my feet off the pedals.

Folding this construction paper in half reminds me of how I always made Christmas cards for Mom and Dad and Aunt Em and Granddad and Meredith. Little cards with candles or holly or bells cut from old Christmas cards glued on the front and with my lopsided printing inside.

Brian's card's not really a Christmas card.

The construction paper is black. Obvious, but I don't care. The sliced-up photos will look great on black. I want the whole inside to be a collage of me without Brian.

When all the pictures are glued on, I can't think of what to write on the outside.
Have a Merry Christmas
might not come across in the sarcastic, insincere way I want it to. But then I think that writing it on black paper is equal to sarcasm and insincerity, so I pick up the glue again and squeeze out the letters like putting icing words on a cake. I sprinkle the gluey letters with purple glitter. After a few seconds I shake the extra glitter off.

I hold the card and think about Brian holding it.
Have a Merry Xmas
. No exclamation mark. Bits of purple glitter fall across my thumb as I open the card. There I am, tilted sideways, standing straight, upside down, and horizontal. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

This is pathetic. I'm not going to mail this card.

I put away all the scattered pictures and brush glitter off the bedspread. I think of throwing the card away, but instead I put it inside one of my textbooks.

I sit back and go over in my mind what I've just been up to for the last hour. I look around and think about how this is the same bed and the same bedroom and the same curtains and most of the same pictures on the wall that I've had forever. The only thing that's really different since I was a little kid is that my desk is bigger. And there aren't any crayons. Okay, the books are different too. And the CDs. And my laptop. But the point is that right now I feel like I'm that same little kid when, really, I'm supposed to be almost an adult. What adult would send a black Christmas card with a self-portrait collage to their former boyfriend? A sicko, simpering, self-centered person who needs to get a grip.

Very depressing.

I hear Dad shoveling the back steps. It's still snowing, but he likes to keep ahead of the piling-up snow, although it always piles right back up as fast as he can shovel it.

When I get outside, he says, “I was wondering when you'd be coming out.”

I grab the other shovel and slice into a drift. I like being out here at night with the lights from the shed and the back door swirling with snow. The wind comes around the shed and blows across the top of the car. You have to make sure you throw the snow with the wind and not at it, although I don't always remember this.

When the snowplow comes along, we both wave at the driver. Dad says it helps to be out there shoveling when the plow goes by because then the guy isn't likely to dump a load of snow at the bottom of our driveway. Once, when I was maybe seven, we had a major blizzard that shut everything down for a couple days, and Dad took a drink of rum out to the plow guy when he came down our street for the hundredth time.

I'm frozen and my feet are wet and my nose is running a marathon by the time we go back in the house. But I'm not depressed anymore.

School's cancelled. It's the most perfect, sunny day with no wind and with everything coated in white, white, white.

When we finish (again) shoveling the driveway and the walkway to our front door and along the sidewalk to where our neighbors stopped shoveling, I ask Dad for one of those brown business envelopes. It's actually too big, but I don't care. And even though there'll probably be no mail pickup today, I walk to the end of our block and mail Brian's Xmas card so it'll be at his house whenever he gets home for the holidays. After I thought about it last night, I decided that sending this card isn't really sicko. Just a poignant reminder of a relationship past. Sort of like those ghost nightmares Scrooge has because he's been such a crappy person.

Big surprise. Leo's eating lunch with the flute player.

I forget about the three's-a-crowd rule and sit down across from them because I'm very curious about what's up with these two. “Hi.”

Leo looks like he forgets who I am.

The flute player smiles.

“I'm Emily.”

“I'm Sam. Hi.” She doesn't look uptight about me being here. Things've obviously been progressing in Leo's love quest.

Her flute case is on a chair and Leo's guitar is leaning against the table. I've been wondering since this morning why he brought his guitar to school. When I sat beside him on the bus and said, “What's with the guitar?” he acted like he didn't hear me because of how noisy it was when the bus took off.

So I try again. “You don't usually bring your guitar to school.” Then I turn to Sam. “Except for this English project where he played a music version of
Romeo and Juliet
being a river. He wrote the whole thing. It was awesome.”

For sure I just scored points for Leo because Sam's giving him that look.

“We start rehearsing the musical this afternoon,” she says.

Leo shifts in his chair. Classic self-conscious squirm.

Oh, so Leo's playing in the musical. Smart move, romance-wise. I decide not to take that any further. “Cool,” is all I say.

All of a sudden, there's Brian walking into the cafeteria.

My whole body feels like a waterfall is crashing down over me. I try twice before I can swallow the chunk of sandwich in my mouth.

Leo knows I'm panicking. “What?” he says.

Sam's looking at me too.

“Someone I used to know just walked in,” I say.

I can't let Brian see me.

The way he's standing there looking around says he doesn't go to this high school anymore. He's out in the big world. A few guys walk over and start talking to him. Maybe I can escape now.

“I'll see you guys,” I say, stuffing my sandwich back in the wrapper.

“Need company?”

This stops me in my tracks. Leo's not joking. He means it.

“Okay,” I say.

“I'll check you after school,” Sam says to Leo. She's just saying it. No sarcasm. No jealousy.

I really, really must look awful.

I walk slowly, like it's no big deal.

Brian's still talking to those guys and his back's to us. As we walk past, I think I hear him say, “Yeah, right.”

“Thanks,” I say when we're finally out in the hall. My knees are actually shaking.

“Let's take a walk,” says Leo.

We pass the library and keep on going to the very end of the hall, where a bunch of people are sitting on the floor under the stairwell. I go up to the landing and stop at the window. Leo's right beside me.

I hate how cold I feel.

“Who's that guy back there?”

No point faking with Leo. “He used to be my boyfriend…”

He just stands there, waiting, so I say, “Now he has a girlfriend he met at university.”

“And you're hoping he'll smarten up and come back to you?” He's trying not to make it sound like I'm some kind of idiot if I actually am hoping he'll come back.

“Not exactly.”

“This explains things.”

“What things?”

“Like, why you're single.”

“I don't think of myself as single,” I say. “It's more like me without Brian.” Then it clicks. “Ohmygawd!”

“What?”

“Something I did. Something really really really stupid.”

I tell him about Brian's Xmas card and this cracks him up.

“But I mailed it!”

“Who cares?”

“I'll look like an idiot.”

“No, you won't. Listen,” he says. “Go back there. Walk past the guy, say hi, and just keep going. Real casual, like nothing's wrong. He'll be, like,
What's with Emily
? Then he gets the card and the message is loud and clear. You cut him out. Snip snip snip.”

“No way I'm going back there.”

“Look, I know how a lotta guys think. I'm telling you. I bet he's contemplating cheating on his new girlfriend with you while he's home for Christmas.”

It takes a few seconds for that to sink in. I'm looking at Leo and he's looking at me. I play the whole scenario all the way through. Even the part about Brian cheating on his new girlfriend. With me. “Okay. I'll do it.”

“This'll be good.” Leo's already a couple steps ahead of me.

Just before I get to the cafeteria, I lose my nerve and stop. If Brian's still talking to those guys, maybe he won't even hear me say hi. Or what if he grabs my arm before I get past, and then there's his hand on my arm? I won't be able to handle that. “I can't do it.”

“You can so,” says Leo, and gives me a shove.

There's Brian. There's the guys he's still talking to. My smile's all wobbly as I walk toward them. Brian sees me. “Oh, hi,” I say, barely looking at him. Then, just like that, I'm past him and I keep on going.

When I sit down by Sam, I feel like I just missed getting hit by a tidal wave. “Ohmygawd!” I say. “That was crazy!”

“But fun,” says Leo. “Am I right? Am I right?”

“Should I even ask what this is about?” says Sam.

“Wait'll she calms down. She'll tell you. Oh, that was good. So smooth.”

“Is he still there? I don't want to turn around.”

“Yeah,” says Leo. “Wait. No. He's walking away from those guys. Now he's in the hall and heading straight for the main doors. He's gone.”

“Okay, Emily,” says Sam. “Explain.”

***

“Brian's home from Montreal already. Ronny saw him here.” Jenn's at her locker and Ronny's with her. I don't want to be mean since Jenn's my used-to-be best friend, but I can definitely see she's enjoying the potential for drama.

“Yeah. I saw him too.” I take a bit longer getting stuff out of my locker.

“So?”

“So nothing.”

“Didn't you talk to him?”

“Just said hi, that's all.”

“What's with that?”

“Brian's not my boyfriend anymore, remember? You were the one trying to set me up with a replacement.” A nasty dig since the replacement she had in mind is standing right there behind her.

“You don't need to get all sarcastic.” Jenn shuts her locker.

I get the feeling she's waiting for me to apologize. I should apologize. Jenn's just being Jenn. A month ago I'd be filling her in on my boring life and she'd be mesmerized by every irrelevant detail.

But I don't say anything.

They walk away. Jenn takes Ronny's hand and I watch them, thinking about predictable endings to bad movies.

***

Of course, Leo's not on the bus after school because of practicing for the musical. I wish he was here so I could tell him that what he did today was a big deal. Very big. I feel so different. Not exactly in control, but not out of control, either.

I stay on the bus when it gets to my stop because I've decided to go visit Meredith while I'm still in this good mood. Why go home and just be in my room by myself, doing nothing? It'll just get depressing again.

She's sitting in her comfy chair and she's asleep, her head tucked against her hand. Aunt Em must've been here this week because fresh flowers are on the table beside Meredith. Pink carnations. She loves pink carnations because they were in her wedding bouquet.

It's hard not to wonder whether she was always glad she married Granddad and had an instant family, or whether she eventually found out about Cynthia Maxwell and realized she was stuck in a no-win situation. But she's got Dad and Aunt Em. And me and Mom. That counts for something.

“Oh,” says Meredith, waking up and lifting her head. She looks at me for a couple of seconds. “I didn't expect you today.”