Extraordinary Means (11 page)

“What did you get?” Sadie asked, peering excitedly into Marina’s bag. “Oh my God, that dress is amazing. We have to use it in a photo shoot.”

“Four dollars!” Marina said. “And it has a matching belt.”

“I found the theme song to
Cops
on vinyl,” Charlie said proudly.

I thought he was kidding, but then he held it up, and sure enough.

We walked back toward the woods, sipping our sugary coffee concoctions, and I was suddenly glad that I’d come, and that they’d invited me. Back home, no one would have thought to include me in something like this, and I probably would have made an excuse if they had, not because I didn’t want to, but because I thought I shouldn’t.

It occurred to me then how much I’d missed. I’d always told myself that there was plenty of time to goof around later, after I’d gotten into Stanford. But if the past month had taught me anything, it was that the life you plan isn’t
the life that happens to you. And I was beginning to realize that there was only so long where a trip to Starbucks could be illicit, where there was a campus to sneak away from, and rules to break.

I glanced over my shoulder toward the town one last time, wondering when I had gone from feeling out of sync with Latham to belonging there, because I was relieved to be heading back. Sadie consulted her little compass, and we set off toward Latham. She walked up front, navigating, and I decided to join her. The woods were beautiful that afternoon, the leaves just starting to turn. There were shades of orange and gold and pale yellow, colors I’d seen in movies and photographs but wasn’t used to in real life. Some of the leaves had already fallen, and they crunched under our feet.

For a while, Sadie and I didn’t say anything, just walked through the woods together, crushing leaves with our sneakers. I kept glancing over at her, in her tight black sweater and jeans, with wisps of hair loose from her ponytail. She was so short that I could see down the front of her sweater, to the little bridge where her pink bra stretched across her cleavage. I swallowed, forcing myself to look away and think about something else, since my heart was already racing from the caffeine.

The woods reminded me so much of camp, of being thirteen and self-conscious about everything. Sadie looked so different than she had back then. But I’d grown eleven inches and could no longer stick a raisin in the gap between
my front teeth, so I guessed she could say the same thing.

And then she looked over at me and asked what I was thinking about.

“The last time we were in the woods,” I said.

“You mean thirty minutes ago?”

“No, at summer camp. I used to play badminton with Scott . . . Canadian Scott, not creepy Scott who lit worms on fire.”

“I was hoping it was the worms one,” she joked, and I shot her a look.

“Anyway, he kept hitting the shuttlecock into the woods. And I kept having to go get it. Which sucked. And then one day, when I was looking for the thing, I saw you in the woods taking pictures.”

What I didn’t add was that I’d been fascinated, and that occasionally I’d missed on purpose so I could chase the shuttlecock into the woods and see if she was there.

“I still take pictures in the woods,” she said.

“Can I see them?”

“Lane!” She pretended to be shocked. “You can’t just go asking a girl if she’ll show you her pictures!”

“Oh, sorry, what was I thinking?” I teased.

“I totally knew you were there, at summer camp,” Sadie said. “You weren’t very subtle about it. You were like—”

She did an impression of me standing and gawking, and I felt my face heat up.

“Why didn’t you say anything if you knew I was there?”

“Why didn’t
you
?” she challenged.

I shrugged, not wanting to confess that I’d been ridiculously intimidated by girls when I was thirteen. They’d pranced around torturing me, these magical creatures with tangled hair and wet bikinis and long, tanned legs. I couldn’t find shorts that were baggy enough. And it wasn’t like the girls were prancing toward me. I’d been short. With braces.

The woods started to thin out, and when I had the impression we were almost back in what passed for civilization, Sadie unzipped her backpack and took out a pen.

“What’s your extension?” she asked, and I stared at her blankly. “Your room phone?”

“Um, 8803?”

“Write it down for me?” She gave me the pen and held out her hand.

I took her hand in mine, and as gently as I could, I inked my number across the back of it. She smiled up at me, and then she grabbed my hand and wrote down her extension. I stared at the four neat numbers nestled in my palm, feeling like Sadie had given me more than just her phone number.

And suddenly, we were back behind the cottages, in the same spot where I’d seen them sneaking out of the woods on my first day. Except this time I wasn’t watching from my room. I was there, a part of it. A part of everything, I guessed.

The grounds looked the same as always. Peaceful and picturesque and frozen in time. It was a place where there
wasn’t a point to technology, and a place that ironically existed because we didn’t have enough of it to cure us.

It looked like no one had noticed our absence at all. We’d really done it. We’d gotten away with a trip into town. For Starbucks.

“Lane?” Sadie said tentatively.

She smiled at me and tucked the loose strands of hair behind her ears.

“Yeah?”

“We’re all going to skip Wellness today.”

“Oh.” I’d thought she was going to say something else. “How do you skip Wellness?”

“It’s easy. You just don’t go.”

“I think I can manage that,” I said.

And then I went up to my room and climbed into bed with a P. G. Wodehouse novel I’d gotten from the library. I tried to concentrate on the book, but I kept flipping it closed to read Sadie’s number on my palm. The thrill of Sadie holding my hand in hers while she wrote down her extension hadn’t yet faded. So I stared at my palm, grinning, while the theme song to
Cops
drifted faintly through an open window.

It was Friday afternoon, and I was supposed to be walking laps in a pair of gym shorts and sneakers, but I wasn’t. And I didn’t care. Maybe it was just the caffeine coursing through me, but I felt better than I had in weeks, as though instead of walking those laps, I could have run them.

THE FIRST TIME
Lane called me, it was Saturday night and almost lights-out. I’d been in the boys’ dorm earlier, where we’d watched
The Princess Bride
after Nick had mutinied and insisted on something that wasn’t (a) animated, or (b) in Japanese, with subtitles.

I’d just gotten out of the shower and was changing into my pajamas when the phone rang, startling me. I scrambled for it, the cord getting tangled in my T-shirt.

“Hello?” I said, expecting it to be my mom, or maybe my sister.

“Um, hi.” It was a boy’s voice, deep and unsure, and I thought it had to be a wrong number. Genevieve’s dad had called me once, by accident, because her extension was only one number off from mine.

I waited silently to see what this boy wanted, and then he was like, “Sadie?”

“Lane?”

“Yeah, sorry. I forgot these phones don’t have caller ID.”

I’d never had a call from a boy before. I mean, I had, in eighth grade when Vijay Chandra and I had to do this presentation on the water cycle, and he’d called me over the weekend to practice. I’d gotten the occasional text or DM, but never a call. And never late at night, although it was sad that 8:55 felt late.

“Welcome to the Dark Ages,” I told him, “where a ringing phone is always a mystery.”

I sat down on the edge of my bed and stared out the window. The view was nothing but woods, which I’d always liked, but for the first time I wished my room was on Marina’s side of the hall, where you could see into Lane’s dorm.

“So,” I prompted.

“So,” he said. “I just got off the phone with my parents, and I sort of need a normal conversation right now. I hope that’s okay.”

I knew what he meant. There was something dreadful about the way my mom always asked how I was doing like it wasn’t just some pleasantry and she was actually afraid of the answer.

“No problem,” I said. “One normal conversation coming right up. I’ll start. Um . . . did you see the new movie that just came out?”

There was a confused moment of silence, and then I could almost hear Lane grinning through the phone.

“Yeah, last night at the IMAX,” he said. “I should have
saved my money, it was so overrated. And how about the YouTube video of that animal doing the thing humans do?”

“You’re
just
seeing that? Like, fifty people posted it on Facebook yesterday,” I said. “Hold on, I’m getting a text.”

“It’s fine, I should probably open this Snapchat.”

We were both laughing.

“There,” I said. “A normal conversation.”

“It was great. Thank you.”

Lane chuckled, then coughed into his sleeve or something, like he thought that would muffle it.

The hall nurse was going to come by soon, so I picked up the receiver and hid it behind my pillow. Then I climbed into bed, the phone cradled against my shoulder.

“It’s almost lights-out,” I said.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Should we—”

“No, I want to keep talking,” I said. “Put the phone in your bed. We’ll sneak it.”

“Hold on,” he said, and there was a lot of banging on his end, and some muttering.

I climbed under the covers and tried to look innocent. I could hear the nurse in the hallway, making her way toward my room.

“Okay, done,” Lane said proudly.

“Wow, gold star.”

Nurse Blanca knocked on my door then and barged in the way she always did. I thrust the phone under my duvet
and tried to look ready for bed while she pulled up my vitals on her tablet.

“Your heart rate’s a little high tonight, honey,” she said.

Damn it, Lane. I didn’t want the nurse to give me anything, so I tried to think of an excuse.

“There was this huge spider. It was terrifying. But I killed it with my shower shoe,” I said, pointing toward the wardrobe with such conviction that for a moment I believed it myself.

“Good for you, honey,” she said. “Sweet dreams.”

And then she switched off the light.

I waited until I heard her go into Natalie’s room, just to make sure.

“Okay,” I whispered. “I’m back.”

“What was that about a spider?” Lane asked.

“Um,” I said.

“Oh, wait, the nurse—” He must have put his palm over the speaker, because I couldn’t hear anything for a minute, and then he came back on.

“I almost hung up on you twice by accident,” he said. “These phones are ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but they’ll probably come back into style one day,” I said. “We’re just ahead of the curve.”

“Ugh, I bet you’re right. Twenty years from now, all the hipsters will have landlines. Or those other ones, from the black-and-white movies, with the circular dials?”

“And all the girls will wear vintage Ugg boots and complain how they were born in the wrong era,” I said, snuggling under the covers.

It was cold out, but the night air felt good. Fresh. Like maybe each breath was helping to fix the mess inside my body. I could hear the leaves rustling, and the insects chattering, and I wondered if any of them were having conversations as wonderful as the one I was having, in the dark, over the phone, with this beautifully strange boy.

“No one thinks they were born into the right era,” Lane said. “It’s like that movie
Midnight in Paris
.”

“You’re a fan of Woody Allen movies?” I asked, pleasantly surprised.

And we spent the next hour whispering into the phones about movies, and books, and music until I could barely keep my eyes open.

I could hear Lane yawning through the receiver.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Long hike.”

“I’m falling asleep, too,” I said. “We should probably . . .”

“Wait. Before you go, give me a word, and I’ll see if I can dream about it,” he said.

I wanted to say, me. Dream about me. Dream about us in a coffee shop, on a real date, and I’m wearing a cute dress, and you’re in one of those button-down shirts with the sleeves rolled, and we’ve both brought books to read, but we can’t stop smiling at each other over our cappuccinos, and instead of driving me home afterward, we go to the
park and play on the swing set like kids.

“Coffee.” It was the first thing that popped into my head.

“That shouldn’t be a problem, seeing as how I’m obviously in love with coffee.”

“Well, coffee
is
pretty hot,” I said.

“That was terrible,” Lane said. “Awful. I’m hanging up.”

“Fine.”

But he didn’t.

“And I want you to dream about . . . hmmm.” He stopped to think for a moment. “Puppies?”

“Why
puppies
?” I asked.

“I don’t know!” he said defensively. “I thought girls liked puppies. I guess, just, dream about something awesome?”

“It’s a deal,” I promised.

Lane called me every night after that.

MARINA LOOKED TERRIBLE
at breakfast on Wednesday morning. She was the last of us to arrive at the table, and she didn’t say anything as she slid into her seat. She just glared into her oatmeal like it was the source of all problems in the universe, and she’d already taken a bite before anyone had told her.

“What’s going on?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t what I thought. Marina usually went to see Dr. Barons on Tuesday afternoons, but she’d seemed fine at dinner.

“Yeah, what’s up with the doom and gloom?” Nick asked through a mouthful of pancakes.

I kicked him under the table, and he kicked back at me, making a face. I swear, sometimes Nick had no tact. Particularly if it was, well, bad news of the Latham kind.

“Amit called me last night,” Marina mumbled, which was just about the last thing I was expecting her to say.

“Wait, what?” I said, scandalized. “And you picked up?”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to check my caller ID.” Marina rolled her eyes over the ancientness of our room phones.

“Who’s Amit?” Lane asked, confused.

“My ex-boyfriend,” Marina explained. “He went home from Latham and decided to dump me via the silent treatment. Anyway. He called, finally. He kept saying he had no one else to talk to and he was really sorry to bother me.”

“Please tell me you hung up on him,” I said.

Marina sighed.

“No, because that would have been somewhat self-actualized of me. I asked him to tell me all about it.”

“You didn’t!” I moaned.

“He sounded horrible,” Marina said. “Really depressed. I think he was crying, or having a mental breakdown or something.”

“Over what, getting well enough to go home?” Nick asked, not very nicely.

Marina shook her head. And then she told us what Amit had said it was like for him after going home. How his parents babied him like he was an invalid, and wouldn’t let him leave the house. How, when he’d finally gone back
to school, everyone had been terrified that he’d relapse and infect them.

“He said they called him plague boy,” Marina said. “And defaced his locker. When he sat down at a lunch table, everyone would leave. Apparently a lot of the parents at school got really upset that they let him back in, and then last night some guys jumped him and threatened that he better not come back to school or else.”

“Or else?” Nick said skeptically.

“That’s what he said.” Marina shrugged. “Maybe it’s just his school, or whatever, maybe a lot of kids were getting sick there.”

I listened to all of this in shock. Nick looked as horrified as I felt, and Lane was shaking his head like he couldn’t believe things like this happened. But I believed it easily. I knew all too well how cruel kids could be, how relentlessly they could taunt you and make you feel like no one would ever be your friend again.

“Maybe,” Charlie said. “It can’t really be that bad, can it? Getting better, I mean?”

“It wasn’t like that at all where I’m from,” Lane said. “I never knew anyone who got sick.”

“Yeah, but all it takes is one person who wants to stir up trouble, and suddenly everyone’s panicked,” Nick said. “Look at history if you don’t believe me.”

“
Game of Thrones
isn’t real,” I told him, and Marina snorted.

“The weird part was that Amit said he wished he’d never left Latham,” Marina went on. “He kept saying that he didn’t have any friends out there, that he was all alone. At least here he felt like he belonged. At least here he had a life.”

“Some life,” Nick deadpanned.

“Girlfriend, friends, your own room, no homework, and no chores?” Marina laughed. “Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty good life.”

“Well, not all of us have that,” Nick said, with a look in my direction that was almost accusative.