Playing Nice (2 page)

"Hi Lil. I'm Marty," I say, extending my hand for her to shake.

"Marty? And I thought Lily was bad." She doesn't take my hand, but shakes off her black leather jacket and slings it over the back of a chair. I stare at her right hand, waiting for her to reach out to me. Every finger is covered in a silver ring; the biggest is a huge skull on her middle finger. I force myself to look at her face and clasp my hands behind my back. I don't want her to feel bad if she doesn't want to shake.

"It's a family name," I smile.

My dad named me after my grandmother. Our family is seven generations deep in Minster. My great-great-grandfather has a plaque dedicated to him in the town hall for saving six barns during the great fire of 1903. We live in the same farmhouse my dad was raised in, though my mom insisted on updating everything.
We're not farmers. Your father is a dentist, for Pete's sake
, she said when she tore up the kitchen and made the entire bottom floor open-plan.

"Marty can help you find your classes and make sure you're acclimating. I have no doubt she'll do a stellar job," Ms. Everley says as she makes her way to the door, walking backwards and almost tripping. She's probably escaping from any more awkward moments. That, or she's fleeing the uncomfortable tingle in the air from so much black in a room this early in the morning. "Just let me know if you need anything."

And then we're alone. I wait for Lil to say something or show me her schedule, but she only picks at the dirt under her black-painted nails.

"Where did you move from?" I ask, remembering the importance of generating conversation through questions. My dad once said that people who only talk about themselves are dicks. It's the only time I've ever heard him use the word, so I knew it was an important life lesson.

"Florida," Lil says. She twists her aquamarine nose ring, spinning it around before picking something out of the inside of her nostril and flicking it on the ground.

"Where in Florida?" I gulp. This is not going as planned. I thought Ms. Everley said she was in my English class. People who know how to read and write usually know how to form sentences and talk. I wait a few more seconds, and then decide maybe I need to show Lil we have something in common. "I went to Florida last year with my parents on spring break. We stayed in a condo right on the beach in Siesta Key. It was amazing. I didn't want to leave."

"Do you smoke?" Lil asks, finally looking at me. The color of her eyes matches the nose ring, and I can't help but think that without so much black eyeliner, Lil might be pretty.

"I tried it once, but it's not for me."

"Are you a virgin?"

"I..." The question throws me. Did she just say
virgin
? I wring my hands together, wondering what to say. I can't admit I've never had sex, but I don't want to lie and say I have, either. It's an un-winnable question. If I say yes, I'm a prude. If I say no, I'm a slut. And what if Lil tells everyone in school my answer? I think about that poor freshman girl who got caught 'thrusting' a senior and choke. I can't believe she asked me that. She's ruining the way this is supposed to go. I ask the questions and she answers; her somewhat lengthy response leads us to further conversation.

I play with the front of my dress, running my hands down the smooth cotton. I picked it out specifically for today's warm weather. It's Mod-style and shows off my legs in a non-sexy, non-nun like way. Just how I like it.

"I'm kidding. Of course you are. No boy could get past those tight thighs," Lil says and points to my crotch. I pull my legs even closer together. She digs into her black, silver-studded purse, but I can't stop looking at her face and gaping at how casual her eyes are as she asks me such personal questions.

"Do you need me to show you to your first class?" It's the only thing I can think of. I've never felt more awkward. Not even the time Robby Sumter accidentally grabbed my boob diving for a basketball in gym class and got an erection.

I remind myself to smile. A smile makes everyone happy.

"What I need is a cigarette, so if you don't mind, Pollyanna, I'm going to find a tree outside where no one can see me and have an early morning nicotine breakfast. I'd ask you to come, but I'm afraid your virgin stink will rub off on me and, since there's nothing else to do in this town, I plan on getting laid while I'm here. See you in English."

My mouth falls open. In one sentence, she's admitted to having sex and wanting to have more. Doesn't she know you can't do that here? Was she raised in some sort of hippy commune in Florida where people walk around naked and talk about sex like it's the weather?

"Wait," I say, not realizing my mouth is moving. My skin tingles with little poking needles and a bubble rises in my gut, screaming to be released. She should need me. Instead, she's blowing me off like I'm not good enough because I'm a virgin and I care about my lungs. This is the only opportunity I have to make my impression. And it's going wrong.

Lil looks at me, eyebrows raised. Her eyes are so clear, like a summer sky in the middle of the day. The color is so different from the rest of her black-covered self. It's mesmerizing.

Words come out of my mouth that I don't expect. Maybe it's because it's my duty to make sure Lil does well today. Maybe I'm worried she'll contact U of M and tell them I failed her. Or maybe I don't want to sit in the Special Ed classroom, thinking about penguins and sex and waiting for my first class to start. Maybe I want to be outside instead of stuck inside the four walls of this school.

"Can I come with you?" I ask.

She doesn't respond at first, just keeps staring at me with squinted eyes, like she's scanning me for possible diseases.

"Fine," she grumbles.

I don't know why I want to go anywhere with Lil. Based on the black clothes and skull ring alone, I'm pretty sure she's a one-way ticket to hell, but I grab my backpack and make for the door nonetheless.

I just hope she doesn't ask me about sex again.

Lil doesn't say a word as we sit on the ground next to a large oak tree across the street from the school. She takes long drags on a cigarette, holding it in her mouth, and then exhaling a smooth line of smoke into the air.

I stare at the skull ring. It has a red rhinestone for a tongue and two black eyes. It looks like a Halloween costume accessory. Except I'm pretty sure Lil wears it every day, because her finger indents around the silver base like the ring has grown into her skin.

On closer look, she's not fully covered in black. Her hair is actually brown. Deep, dark, brown. Like soil after you dig a few feet into the ground. With her blue eyes and red lipstick, she looks like Snow White. A smoking, combat boot-wearing princess.

The whole time we sit there, I try to think of what to say, but what's appropriate when she's already said "tight thighs," "virgin" and "getting laid" in our first five minutes together? And I'm entranced at how her hand holds the cigarette like it's an appendage and her mouth curls around the end, making out with the filter, as if she's been smoking for years.

I wonder if her parents know. The one time I tried a cigarette, I hid next to the dumpster in the alley behind Rite Aid on Main Street so no one in town would see me. When I went home, I covered myself a layer thick in plumeria lotion and mouth wash to mask the odor. I was worried my parents would be able to tell. My mother scolded me for smelling like a hooker and told me to stop buying that lotion. I haven't worn it since.

Once Lil finishes, she puts the cigarette out, sizzling the lit end into the earth. My hand reaches out to pick it up and put it in the trash can. Cigarette butts take forever to biodegrade. But I stop myself. It wouldn't be kind and Lil needs to know that I'm nice.

The second before I decide to start a conversation, she gets up and walks away, the chains on her black combat boots clanging with each step. Nothing is spoken between us. I watch her cross the street back to school, her fresh smoke smell lingering in my nose, and a weight hangs in the air. It presses on me, like each word I thought about saying is a boulder on my shoulders. I realize I'm disappointed. No one has ever talked to me like that before; no one's ever been so honest and brash. Now that Lil's gone, I'm left sitting on the ground, dirt on my favorite pink dress and an annoying pinch in the back of my chest reminding me how foolish it was to follow her.

I get up and look around. Until this moment, I hadn't thought about what people would think if they saw me sitting with Lil while she smoked. I was too focused on her mouth. Luckily the first bus is just starting to unload a pack of students and no one's looking.

I dust off the back of my dress, giving it an extra wipe clean. I wear a dress to school every day but Friday. My mom says people know the type of person you are by what you wear. Some weeks I'm so tired of crossing my legs so no one can see my underwear that I can't wait for Friday to roll around. But then I remind myself that boys like dresses, probably because it's easy access to my lady parts, and leg cramps are just the price I have to pay.

Brushing out the wrinkles that have formed, I look for my best friend in the crowd of students exiting the busses. If Lil doesn't want my help, I can't force her. That's another thing we talked about in WelCo at the beginning of the year. If someone is lost and they don't want help, it's not our job to save them. I tell myself that over and over until the uncomfortable jabbing in the back of chest eases to a dull poke. I decide it's better that Lil walked away silently. My mother always says, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

I find Sarah lingering at the back of the crowd, headphones plugging her ears. She's always listening to classical music. Beethoven, Bach, Tchaikovsky. I tried to get her to listen to a musical once, one of my favorites, but she covered her ears.
This shit is terrible
, she screamed. Sarah plays flute in the Minster orchestra. First chair, of course. We've been friends since kindergarten, when her parents moved from one side of Minster to the house directly across the street from us. My mom and I brought a cherry pie over as a welcoming present. Sarah came running to the door, her hair pulled into a tight bun on the top of her head, like a ballerina.

"Do you want to play Barbies?" she asked, waving around a blonde-haired Barbie and a brunette.

"Sure," I said, grabbing for the blonde one.

"You can't have either of these." Sarah yanked her hand away. "You can be Ken."

I looked at my mom. I really wanted to be the blonde Barbie. She smiled and whispered through her teeth, "Don't be rude, Marty."

I forced a grin and grabbed Ken.

Sarah never did get better at sharing her dolls, but that's just her. Eventually, it was all about Ken and Barbie lying naked on top of each other like they were having sex, and it didn't matter anymore. Sarah's planning to attend U of M with me, but as a Music Theory major. We've been friends for so long; I couldn't imagine doing anything without her. It just seems right to go to college together.

"You smell like cigarettes," Sarah says as I approach. She pulls the headphones from her ears; a screech of violin music blares from the speakers. "Why weren't you on the bus?"

"Ms. Everley wanted me to come in early and meet a new girl," I say, pulling vanilla perfume from my backpack and spraying it on my wrists.

"A new student at Minster High? That hasn't happened since, like, third grade. Is she pretty? Please tell me she's butt-ugly."

My brain scrambles for the right words to describe Lil, to tell Sarah about our awkward conversation and the skull ring and the way Lil knew I was a virgin just by looking at me. How she kind of makes me want to confess things I would never say out loud, but I don't know why.

"She's different."

"Different in a hot way or different in a gross, smells-like-cheese way?"

"I don't know. Neither." I play with my hair like that might focus my thoughts. "She's dark."

"Dark? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Sarah says as we walk into the school building.

"She likes the color black," I say.

"She sounds weird. Thank God. I thought you didn't like smoking?" Sarah asks.

"I don't. But I didn't want to leave her alone."

"Well, where is she now?"

"Alone," I shrug. "It didn't go as planned."

We head for the bathroom to do our normal morning routine. Sarah always spends a few minutes fixing her hair, making sure every curl is properly placed. Last year in psychology, we learned that what people find most attractive in a person are a large forehead, big eyes, and a small mouth. It's why people always love babies. Sarah's face has all those features. A clear forehead, big brown eyes, and a rosebud mouth. She complains about her curly red hair, but I've come to realize that most people don't like their hair. Curly people want straight, blonde people want brown.

I'm an exception to the rule. I love my hair.
God's blessing
, as my mother calls it. Not too thick, not too thin, and cut right below the shoulder blades. I blow it dry every morning, brushing each piece with a round brush that curls it ever so slightly at the bottom.

"Did you hear that Jamie is going to the Hot Shot Dance with Josh Harper?" Sarah says, puckering and applying clear lip gloss.

"That's surprising." Sarah and I live for dances. It's the only thing that ever happens in Minster, and we have one almost every other month. The Hot Shot dance celebrates the opening of hunting season. It's kind of a big deal, and this year WelCo is in charge. Being president and all, I'm taking it on as my biggest high school challenge. I want everyone to walk into the gym and think
Marty Hart has done it again. This is the nicest dance Minster High has ever seen
! Next to playing Sandy in this year's spring musical,
Grease
, the Hot Shot dance will be a defining moment for me.