I Am the Wallpaper (13 page)

It felt like a bomb had gone off.

If word was out about this, my life as I knew it was over.

“Floey? Are you there?”

Abandoning Richard’s sandwich, I ran with the phone into my room and shut the door. “How did you find out about that?”

“Leslie told me. She heard it from Kate.” Kate was another JC.

“What? How would Kate know?”

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t say.”

This was not good. If somebody had somehow found out about the whole Calvin incident, if people now knew about it, I would forever be known as the tramp who squeezed the butt of the Zen cowboy.

There was probably no way to live something like that down.

“What do you mean she wouldn’t say?”

“Leslie walked home with her today and Kate told her it’s what she heard from somebody, but she wouldn’t tell her who. She said it would be betraying a confidence.”

“What!”

“Leslie told me, but she figured I already knew because, you know, because you and I are best friends and everything.”

“Oh my God, Azra! This is terrible!”

“Then it’s true?”

“You have to tell me who knows about this!”

“I’m not sure. Could be a lot of people, but maybe not. Leslie, Kate and whoever told her. And me, of course. I only heard about it just now.”

“Floey!
” Richard shouted from the office. He was glued to the computer again.
“Where’s my sandwich!
”

For a moment I wondered if Richard could have been the leak, but he hadn’t been in the same room as Calvin and me, so he didn’t know anything about what had happened.

“Tell me everything. What did you say? What did
he
say?”

The room was spinning around me. “Please … please don’t tell anyone. Tell Leslie and Kate not to tell anybody else either, okay?”

“Okay, okay. But tell me, are you, like, seeing him now or anything? Does that Melanie girl know? Is that why you’ve been acting so weird?”

“Hurry up, Floey!
”

“No, I’m not seeing him, Azra. I have to go.”

I set down the phone without saying goodbye.

Richard looked irritated when I brought him his sandwich. Under normal circumstances I might have said something like “Why are you still here?” or “Have you started packing yet?” or something equally witty, but my mind was reeling. I just handed him his plate and left the room. I was trying to understand what could have happened. There were only three people who had seen me dancing with Calvin at the wedding: Lillian, Rebecca Greenblatt and Aunt Sarah. Lillian was on her honeymoon
and Aunt Sarah was in Alaska. Rebecca might have said something, but I didn’t think it was her. How would something Rebecca said get to Kate Bates? But then I remembered that Kate used to go to Moses Brown until she was kicked out because her grades were so bad. Then I remembered that her older brother still went there.

Just like Calvin.

I wasn’t sure if Kate’s brother was a poet too, but I vaguely remembered hearing that he read a lot. He and Calvin were probably friends. The most likely person to have blabbed about what happened between Calvin and me was Calvin himself. That had to be it. It made perfect sense.

I ran to my room and grabbed a pen and a blank sheet of paper. My fingers couldn’t write as fast as the angry words burned through my mind. I’d crumpled up a few sheets before I was satisfied enough to send it, which I did immediately. I didn’t know Calvin’s address but figured that the main office at Moses Brown would know where to find him.

Soon after that, I caught three different people leering at me.

It started that afternoon at the studio when a kid with glasses got his picture taken with his Saint Bernard. Gary had gone to the bathroom, probably to adjust his comb-over, so I got to set up the boy and the dog. They were wearing matching sweaters. The weird thing was, the kid seemed a little scared of me. He wouldn’t make eye contact but I felt his eyes follow me around the room. It was really creepy. And then when I leaned over to adjust his position, I caught him staring down my blouse! What kind of lowlife sneaks a peek at the photographer’s assistant’s boobs? So I gave him the most hateful stare I could. He turned white and pretended he was looking at something behind me, so I carried on with what I was doing.

Then when I left to go home it happened again. Outside the door, a couple of kids about Richard’s age stopped talking when I came out. While I unlocked my bike they pretended they weren’t watching me, but I turned my head quickly and caught them. My heart started racing and I know I blushed.

When I was a little way down the road, I looked over my shoulder again. They were still watching.

I called Azra to find out if she’d heard anything else about Calvin. She hadn’t. I asked if she’d heard anybody say they saw my picture. She hadn’t. So I told her about the boys. Was I being ridiculous? She didn’t think so.

“That happens to Leslie and me all the time,” she said. “It’s a guy thing. They pretty much spend their entire lives sneaking looks at us.”

“They do?”

“You didn’t know that? God, Floey, even after your little thing with that cowboy, you’re still so innocent! Leslie and Kate and I talk about this all the time. Girls are about the only thing guys ever think about. That’s why boys in passing cars shout out their windows at us. That never happens to guys. It’s not fair, but it’s the way it is.”

“But these are little kids, nine or maybe ten years old,” I said, ignoring the crack about me being innocent.

“Doesn’t matter. Leslie says they’re all the same. They think it’s funny. Leslie has three brothers, so she ought to know.”

I took a deep breath. Usually I didn’t hide it when I got mad at Azra, but now, hearing her talk as if Leslie were her best friend instead of me, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want her to know how hurt I felt.

All I could think to say was “What about Wen?”

“Him too, I’m sure.”

She’d certainly become the expert on worldly matters. I supposed that was what came from being a day-camp junior counselor. I, on the other hand, didn’t think I’d ever understand boys.

My mother gave me a list of groceries to pick up and told me I had to bring Tish along. Since Tish didn’t have a bicycle, we had to walk. First, though, I had to wait while she made herself a Fluffernutter sandwich. She offered to make me one, but I said no. I decided to try to subtly help her see how bad it was for her, so I told her that instead of eating it I might as well rub the sandwich directly onto my butt since that was where it would end up anyway.

As usual, she didn’t take the hint.

Billy Fishman was sitting on his lawn with a couple of his henchmen. I wasn’t sure where Richard was. Their eyes followed us as we walked up the street. When we were almost at his house Billy called out to me.

“Hi, Floey,” he said in that squeaky voice of his. “Did you have fun at the barbecue? Everything certainly seemed to go off with a
bang
! You sure showed your
sparkling
personality!”

The little boys giggled.

“What you did with that firecracker wasn’t funny,” I said. “I ought to pop you one right now.”

“No need to get
explosive
!”

It’s amazing how much difference two years can make in terms of maturity. Compared to me, these boys were like babies. I kept walking. I didn’t feel like getting into a big thing with Billy Fishman.

“Shut up, Billy,” Tish said. But she wasn’t looking at him. She kept her eyes down.

He laughed. “Careful eating that sandwich. You might get overexcited and bite off your own fingers.”

“Grow up,” she said.

Billy said something back to her, but it was quiet. His friends laughed pretty hard. I wasn’t sure I’d heard it right, but it sounded like he called her something mean. From Tish’s face I could tell she’d heard it.

Now, the Old Floey would have kept walking. But I decided that the New Floey should be different. Maybe Tish wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but she was my cousin and Billy shouldn’t talk to her that way. The New Floey, I decided, stood up to bullies.

So I stopped and turned around. “What did you say?”

“Never mind,” Tish said. “Let’s go.”

“No,” I said. “He said something. What was it?”

Billy just grinned.

“Whatever it was, I bet you wouldn’t say it again.”

Slowly, he stood up. I immediately realized I’d made a terrible mistake. Somehow, I’d forgotten just how big Billy was.

“Sure I would. I called her Chunky Monkey,” he said, taking a step toward me. “What are you going to do about it?”

Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to do anything about it. Was I actually going to get into a fight with Gorilla Boy? I’d like to say that I stared him down, that it didn’t matter that he stood at least a head taller than me. I’d like to say that I stood my ground and told him to take back what he’d said to Tish.

But that would be a lie.

A couple of Billy’s friends stood up too, and the others sat up on the grass. Like me, they could sense a fight coming. Billy took another step forward. My heart was beating fast and I felt sick to my stomach. I wondered how vomiting on Billy might work as a battle tactic.

“Come on,” Tish said, tugging at my arm. “It doesn’t matter, let’s just go.”

That was all I needed to hear to turn and walk away. The New Floey might have been brave and honorable, I told myself, but she wasn’t stupid.

Tish and I never mentioned that little incident again.

Wednesday when I went to get my diary, I noticed that something was wrong.

The socks I hid it under seemed almost right, but not quite. One of my yellows stuck out just a little too far. I hadn’t left it like that.

Somebody had disturbed my pile.

They had probably found my diary.

Maybe even read it.

I didn’t need to think especially hard to guess who it was. I was furious. Didn’t Richard and Tish have consciences? Didn’t they have a clue about right and wrong? As soon as Ma came back from the mall with them, I was going to explain my secret clothing pile to her and let her go wild on them. The New Floey had been patient and forgiving up until now, but this time they had crossed a sacred line.