Paper Cuts (7 page)

Mariah is perched on a sink in the girls’ restroom when I enter. It’s the only place Curtis can’t follow her.

I consider turning around and leaving again, but I don’t want to give her the satisfaction. ‘Hi,’ I say, trying to sound breezy.

She stares at me for a moment. ‘You know this isn’t going to happen, right?’

I pull out my lip gloss and apply it. ‘What isn’t?’

‘You and Mac Landis. Not. Going. To. Happen.’

Arguing would only convince her that I’m interested in Mac, which I’m not, so I take a different tack. ‘You know that you and Curtis
are
going to happen, right?’

She grips the sides of the sink and mutters something in Spanish. I can’t tell which one of us gets the worst of it, Curtis or me.

Hopping off the sink, she waves a threatening finger in my face. ‘At least I don’t have to pay for it, Coconut.’

I smile, mainly because I don’t have a comeback, but it seems to rile her more. Normally I’d be running already, but I’m less intimidated when it’s just the two of us.

Mariah continues, ‘Mac would
never
go out with someone like you if it weren’t charity.’

‘I know,’ I say, backing toward the door. ‘It’s not like you and Curtis. You’re going to be
great
together.’

Something heavy hits the door behind me as I leave.

The L train rumbles into Roosevelt/State station. ‘Where are we going?’ I ask. Not for the first time.

Mac silently shrugs his broad shoulders. Also not for the first time. He’s barely said a word since we met on a street corner twenty-five minutes ago. He has, however, communicated nonverbally – through grunts, shrugs, and throat clearings – that he’d rather be anywhere else than sharing a day off school with me.

Finally Mac deigns to speak. ‘It’s a
mystery
date.’

I’d settle for less mystery and more communication. I’ve tossed out all sorts of conversation-starters, including a question about basketball, but he won’t take the bait. If I don’t find Mac’s ‘on’ switch soon, I’ll never learn whether he’s Scoop. And I have to find out, or it will mean I threw away both my Arty FB and a lot of money on nothing. Worse than nothing: to be treated like crap.

‘If I tell you where we’re going,’ he adds, ‘it won’t be a mystery.’

Another full sentence! Things are picking up.

The train doors open, and Mac steps out without warning. I leap out after him and almost get caught in the closing doors. By this point he’s already walking away at such a clip that I have to jog to keep up. If he’s trying to shake me, he’s going to have to work harder than that.

‘Could you slow down?’ I say.

He looks at me, and something registers on his face. Maybe he’s realizing that as much as he doesn’t want to be here, I did pay good money for the pleasure of his company. ‘You’re short,’ he says.

That wasn’t the sort of acknowledgment I’d hoped for, but he does slow down slightly.

‘Are we going to Grant Park?’

‘Nah, the cops are always on patrol,’ he replies
cryptically
.

I’ve never noticed that. I guess it’s only a problem if you’re committing crimes. ‘The aquarium, then? I hear the cop-
to-dolphin
ratio is pretty low.’

He gives me a quick look to see if I’m joking before shaking his head.

I highly doubt the museum is his idea of a great date destination, but I ask anyway.

‘Do I look like a loser to you?’ he says.

‘I guess that rules out the planetarium too.’

His blue eyes light up, the first sign of life he’s shown so far. ‘You figured me out,’ he says. ‘We’re going to the planetarium.’

‘You just decided that now, didn’t you?’ I ask. ‘You only billed this as a “mystery date” because you had nothing planned.’

If Izzy is right, and you can tell a lot about a guy from his dream date, there isn’t anything to know about Mac. He’s an attractive, empty shell.

He glares at me and mutters, ‘No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend.’

Okay, he’s not empty: he’s full of venom. Well, I don’t have to take this abuse. Ten out of eleven Luisa Perezes might be desperate for Mac’s attention, but not this one. ‘For your information, I
nearly
had a boyfriend. I was supposed to bid on him, but I bid on you instead.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘Because his dream date was tickets to the Bulls,’ I say. ‘And I hate football.’

‘
Basketball
.’

‘Whatever,’ I say. I have more important things on my mind right now than sports. Such as surviving the worst date of my life. Even when it’s no longer the
only
date of my life, I’m pretty sure it will still be the worst.

Mac checks his watch and then picks up speed again. When he gets closer to the entrance, he waits for me to catch up. ‘Just stick close,’ he says. ‘And if anyone stops us, let me do the talking.’

He opens a heavy glass door and lets it swing shut in my face.

‘Can you try to keep up?’ he asks, when I join him inside.
Grabbing my wrist, he tows me over to a large group of tourists who are speaking what sounds like German.

‘Hello,’ Mac says, directing a brilliant smile at a young couple. ‘How do you like Chicago?’

As they respond in halting English, we all migrate together through the barriers and into the planetarium. Without paying admission.

Once inside, Mac slips away from the group as easily as he joined them.

‘That was stealing, you know,’ I say.

He responds with more nonverbal communication: a dismissive wave. ‘The sky theater’s this way.’

Leading me into the theater, he chooses seats as far from other guests as possible. A few moments later, the lights go down, and the night sky appears overhead.

I settle back in my seat and stare up at the stars. The view is so realistic, it’s easy to forget I’m in a theater. The only other time I’ve seen the stars so clearly was when I went camping with Rachel’s family at Starved Rock State Park. I was ten years old, and I remember how small and insignificant I felt under that sky. But I also remember
feeling
awed and overwhelmed by its beauty.

It’s hard to believe that this pleasant flashback comes courtesy of MacEwan Landis, the Venomous Jock. If he likes the planetarium, maybe there really is more to him than it seems.

‘I’ve never been here before,’ I say. ‘It’s amazing,’

He shushes me, provoking me to offer a few more observations about the sky above. Suddenly my view of the
stars is eclipsed by a large shadow, and Mac’s mouth is on mine. In fact, his tongue is in my mouth. And his two hands have become ten.

With a lot of effort, I manage to push him off me. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I ask, wiping venom from my mouth with my sleeve.

‘That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’ he asks.

One of his hands slips under my sweater and travels north faster than the asteroid shooting through space above me. I slap my hand on top of his.

‘If you don’t stop now I’ll
scream
,’ I say. I put enough emphasis on the last word that the hand immediately reverses course.

‘Are you serious?’ he asks, throwing himself back in his seat. ‘Then what did you pay a hundred and twenty-five bucks for?’

‘Not to rent a gigolo. Believe it or not, I wanted to talk to you.’

‘Talk?’ he says, sounding incredulous. ‘I didn’t bring you here to talk.’

‘Then let’s look at the stars. It is a planetarium.’

‘Chicks don’t normally like this kind of thing,’ he grumbles. ‘I can never get them to pay attention. We always end up—’

‘Making out? I suppose that’s someone’s dream date, but not mine.’

‘You’re the first to complain,’ he says, and it’s probably true.

‘How many times have you brought girls here?’

He sidesteps the question. ‘Do you want to go home?’

I think about it for a moment. Mac is an idiot, but I’d like to stick it out long enough to figure out if he’s Scoop. No one else needs to know that our dream date was a total bust. On the contrary, over time, people might even forget that I had to pay for it. One day as I walk across the stage to collect my high school diploma, someone will whisper,
‘Isn’t she the Luisa Perez who dated Mac Landis?’

‘We might as well watch the show,’ I say. ‘Since you went to so much trouble to get us in.’

There’s a sound like a snort beside me. With anyone else it might signify amusement, but I’m not sure whether Mac even has a sense of humor.

I point to the ceiling. ‘There’s the Big Dipper.’

‘That’s Pegasus,’ he corrects me, using the contemptuous tone generally reserved for parents and morons.

‘Are you sure?’ I’d believe anything he said about sports, but I’ve never sensed any hidden gifts in the science arena. ‘It doesn’t look like a winged horse to me.’

Mac lifts his hand and traces out a figure. ‘It’s upside down. The square is the body and the two lines coming out of it are the legs.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’ He sounds annoyed. ‘Do you want me to bring in an astronomer to verify it?’

‘No, I believe you.’ Sort of.

‘The constellations don’t always take an obvious shape,’
he acknowledges. He shows me how a few stars form the hero Hercules, poised with a club. I would never have seen this on my own, either.

‘I read about Hercules in English,’ I say. ‘I never thought I’d like mythology, but Mr Sparling manages to make it interesting, doesn’t he?’

Mac doesn’t respond, so I press on. ‘He’s a good teacher. Did you know he’s editor of the school paper?’

‘Who cares?’ Mac says. ‘I never read the school paper.’

‘Not even “The Word”?’

‘What word?’ He sounds genuinely confused.

‘You know, the column by Scoop?’

‘Oh, right,’ he says. ‘The guys said it was funny. I should pick it up.’

Well, I’m not making much progress here. ‘What do you think of Mr Sparling?’

‘I think you talk about him a lot. Are you hot for him?’

‘Ew! I’m just saying he’s all right, for a teacher.’

‘Sparling and I don’t see eye to eye.’ He points to the ceiling again, effectively cutting off my line of questioning. ‘See those three bright stars to the far right of Pegasus? That’s Orion’s belt.’

‘And Orion is …?’

‘You’re the mythology fan. You tell me.’

‘As I recall, Orion was the Greek god of fashion and accessorizing.’

This time the snort is definitely amusement. Something tells me I might be the only girl he’s brought here who’s ever accomplished that.

Mac explains that in one version of the myth, Orion was a great hunter who fell in love with Artemis. Her brother, Apollo, didn’t like Orion, so one day he put a scorpion in his path, and Orion chased it into the ocean. Then Apollo put a beam of light on Orion’s back and dared his sister, a slick archer, to hit it with an arrow. Poor Artemis ended up killing her own lover. When Orion’s body washed up on shore, Artemis begged the almighty Zeus to put Orion in the sky for all eternity.

‘If you look way down there,’ he says, pointing again, ‘there’s the scorpion.’

‘I can see it,’ I say. ‘That’s so cool. How do you know so much about this stuff?’

‘My grandfather used to bring me here all the time.’

‘But now you’ve ditched him to bring girls instead?’

There’s a pause and then, ‘He died a few months ago.’

Oops. ‘I’m sorry.’

He sits in silence for so long that I figure we’ve reverted back to the grunt-and-shrug phase, but eventually he speaks again. ‘My grandfather wouldn’t have minded about the girls, actually. But he would have been pissed about my not paying admission.’

I laugh. ‘You’re lucky you had a relationship with your grandfather. I don’t really know my grandparents. My parents were young when they had my sister, and no one was very happy about it.’

There’s something about a dark room and stars overhead that makes it easier to share things with people you normally wouldn’t trust.

‘That sucks,’ he says, and unless it’s my imagination, his tone verges on sympathetic.

‘Sometimes it does,’ I admit. ‘But mostly it’s okay.’

Mac starts telling me more about his grandparents, but when the lights come up, his voice trails off. It’s like he remembers that he’s Mac Landis and I’m just one of Dunfield’s many Luisa Perezes.

He stands and slips into his jacket. ‘I guess that’s it.’

‘I guess so.’ I take my time putting on my coat before saying, ‘Are we going for coffee?’

He turns and appraises me. ‘I could use a coffee.’

As he leads me out of the theater, he says, ‘So this guy you were supposed to bid on … It was Tyler Milano, right?’

‘How’d you know?’

‘Bulls tickets are something you notice. He’s not your type anyway.’

‘Oh? What is my type?’

‘Not him.’

Paz is always making similar pronouncements; I sense he won’t think anyone is ever my type.

Mac adds, ‘He’s a loser.’

‘Tyler’s a nice guy,’ I say, secretly flattered that Mac now believes I deserve better than a loser. ‘He was even going to take me for dinner after the game.’

‘Are you implying I didn’t give you your money’s worth?’ he asks, grinning.

‘Now that you mention it, you haven’t spent a dime,’ I
say. ‘I’ll have to tell that cheerleader – Brianna, right? – how cheap you are.’

‘Then I’ll have to tell Tyler you put out,’ he counters.

‘You’d better not!’

‘Kidding,’ he says. ‘I guess I could buy you a burger.’

‘For a hundred-and-twenty-five bucks, it had better be the best burger I’ve ever tasted.’

He bows and opens the planetarium’s front door for me with a flourish.

THE WORD … FROM NEWSHOUND
Out Front Where We Belong

The girls’ fund-raising team is back in the lead where it belongs, thanks to its wildly successful Date Auction. The guys attempted a comeback with Casino Night, but couldn’t compete with romance when the chips were down. Although nearly 500 students gambled the night away on Saturday, an astounding 1,500 converged in the school’s backfield earlier in the week to bid on 80 of Dunfield’s finest men and women. Kudos to those brave enough to step onto the block.

Newshound fully endorsed this creative fundraising event, unlike the Bootylicious Calendar. Dating for dollars is not the same thing as stripping for them. You can fend a guy off if he’s drooling all over you in person, but you can’t control what he’s doing with
your photograph in the privacy of his bedroom. Still, Newshound understands that the Bootylicious calendar may be as close as some guys (columnists included) ever get to a pretty girl.

Rumors have reached Newshound’s ear that some Dunfield men are buying into Scoop’s chauvinistic crap. You’re making a mistake, guys. Cavemen are only interesting in the history books, so you may as well drop the act. It’s boring, and it makes you boring. Everyone knows that evolution doesn’t happen overnight, but how about speeding it up a little?

Dunfield women would find you much more interesting if you’d stop pretending to be so tough all the time. And stop assuming we’ll have sex with you when you can’t even bother to talk to us. Nonverbal communication only works for lesser primates. Either learn the art of conversation or find yourself a chimp who can walk in heels.

Believe it or not, women want to know what you’re thinking. You don’t have to share your deepest, darkest secrets (although we’d love it if you would, at least eventually). Mainly, we’re interested in hearing about your family, your interests, and your hopes for the future. If you’re hard up for topics, try movies, books, or current events. All it takes is picking up a newspaper now and then.

It would be nice if you’d show some interest in our lives, too. Ask a few questions. It really isn’t that hard.

In fact, here’s a little tip from the Newshound on how to seduce a girl: get to know her.

Maybe if you gave a little more, you’d get a little more.