Playing Nice (3 page)

"I think he thought it would be okay since Cody's off at college, but it is so not okay." Sarah emphasizes the
so
, dragging out the
O
. Jamie dated Josh's best friend for over a year. Once you date someone in Minster, you're off-limits for the rest of your high school career, especially with their friends. It's unwritten dating law.

"We're still going stag together, right?" I don't think I can handle the stress of finding a date and planning the dance. For Homecoming, Sam Higgins waited until three days before to ask me. I couldn't eat for a week I was so nervous. Finally, he sent me a text.
Want 2 go 2 dance
? Not the most romantic thing, but at least I wasn't alone.

Sarah nods and fluffs her hair.

"Have you decided what you're going to wear?" I ask. The dance isn't for weeks, but I can't stop thinking about my dress.

"Ugh, I'm so sick of all my clothes. I think we should go shopping." Sarah blows herself a kiss in the mirror. "So what's her name?" she asks as she screws the top back onto her lip gloss.

"Whose name?"

"The new girl."

I powder under my eyes, making sure no bags are showing, and wonder why it's so hard for me to talk about Lil. Why can't I just tell Sarah she'll notice her when she sees a creature like the Grim Reaper approach?

But there's something about Lil, her blunt questions, her smoking, and the way she talked to Ms. Everley, as if she didn't care what anyone thought about her, that I want to keep to myself.

"Lily Hatfield," I say, zipping up my backpack.

"Lily. Sounds pretty." Sarah frowns in the mirror. "Seriously, Marty, I don't know how you live with your boy name. It's like your parents have been trying to torture you since birth."

"Right," I say. But I love my name. It was my grandma's and now that she's gone, every time someone says it, I picture her standing beside me in her plaid apron, flour on her hands. It's like she's still here on Earth.

I take one last look in the mirror before heading out of the bathroom. Carefully, I force a smile. Maybe it's the cigarette smoke still lingering in my nose or the dirt I can't seem to brush out of my dress, but something in my reflection looks off. I'm just tired, I tell myself. It's the bags under my eyes that make me look different.

***

I search for Lil all morning, but can't find her anywhere. Every time I hear someone whisper about the new girl, I get anxious, wanting to see her again. Then a pit of guilt drops in my stomach. How could I let her walk away without saying a word? It's my job to make people feel welcome, and all I did was enable her bad habit of smoking, which by every doctor's standards, is horrible and leads to cancer.

By the time I get to English, I'm starting to worry. What if her day has been terrible and I've failed? What if Lil told Ms. Everley I shouldn't be president of WelCo anymore? What if she wrote on the bathroom wall, "Marty Hart has a rotten, never-been-used vagina that stinks"?

I walk into the classroom, hoping Lil is already seated, but she's nowhere to be found. Butterflies flutter in my stomach as I play out terrible scenarios of what's happened in my mind. My mom would say my imagination is one of my worst attributes. I make up crazy scenes, like Lil getting arrested for smoking and the principal suspending her and at the last second she screams my name and tells everyone I was responsible. It's irrational, but I like to think it helps me perform onstage. I don't have a problem getting into character. I let my mind become someone else's and pretend life is different than it is and POOF! I'm no longer me.

"How did the rest of this morning go?" Ms. Everley asks as I take my seat.

"Great," I say with a little too much enthusiasm. "I think she's adjusting well. I mean, she's quite interesting. Florida and her nose ring and her love for all things black." I'm babbling, trying to act like our conversation was fruitful, when all I really know is the intimate way Lil makes out with a cigarette and her plans to get laid.

"I knew I could count on you." Ms. Everley smiles and turns toward the chalkboard. With every letter she writes, her butt shakes in her painted-on beige pants. It almost looks like she's wearing nothing from the waist down. I take a deep breath and pull out my homework. We're reading
The Catcher in the Rye
, and last night I had to write a personal letter to Holden Caulfield. I couldn't write what I really wanted to say, about how stupid I think he is for leaving prep school in the first place and how he should've kept his head down and not bothered Stradlater. I ended up pretending I was Phoebe and wrote the letter from her perspective. I just signed it with my name. I'm sure Ms. Everley will love it.

I'm digging through my backpack when I hear the boots and the smell of cigarette smoke wafts in my direction. I sit up quickly and see Lil taking a seat at the desk next to mine. Every kid in the classroom is staring at her, but she doesn't seem to notice. Or maybe she doesn't care. The only time I want people looking at me with eyes popping out of their heads is when I'm on stage. Staring is rarely a good thing, unless you're a super model or famous and Lil is definitely neither one.

"It's good to see you again," I decide to say. It's the line I usually use when I talk to the old ladies at church. The ones that smell like mothballs and spearmint gum. I have to yell just so they'll hear me. I'm never
really
that happy to see them, but with all the people staring at Lil, this is my opportunity to be a shining example of a nice girl.

"Don't say things you don't mean," Lil says in a flat, no-nonsense tone. I blink, shocked at being called out so easily, and look around to see if people heard. Pippa Rogers giggles two seats behind me and my face burns raging hot. My mind fumbles with how to recover, but it's as if Lil's words have made everything go blank.

"I'm sorry, but that's my seat," Alex Austin says to Lil, saving me a response. I take a deep breath and push down the bubble in my gut that makes me want to scream at Lil and smack Pippa.

"Marty said I could sit here." Lil says it even-keeled and direct. Her tone makes the statement sound true.

"No, I didn't," I say, and now I'm calling Lil out on her lie. I gape at her, partly mad because she put words in my mouth and partly because she's acting like we're well acquainted. Other than a few curt words and sharing her second-hand smoke, I barely know her.

"That's okay. She can sit there." Alex grins at me. I don't know if he can sense the tension and he's trying to help, or if he just likes smiling, but seeing his mouth turn up into a rosy-cheeked half moon makes the anger coursing through my veins settle.

Sometimes I look over at Alex during class and notice he's staring at me. Last year, he came to see
Guys and Dolls
and told me afterward that I looked beautiful. It's the only time a man has called me beautiful, except for my dad. I'd say Alex likes me, but other than smiling and calling me beautiful, he's never done anything to show interest.

Sorry
, I mouth to him. He shrugs and takes a seat in the back of the room. In a way, I think Alex might be perfect for me. He's strong but not too muscular, his smile is straight with only a slight gap between his two front teeth, and even though his wardrobe consists of way too many flannel shirts, he's a pretty good dresser. But he's a jock, and I just can't date a jock. I hate the smell of sweat.

I turn my attention from Alex back to Lil and breathe. I decide to take another stab at conversation. It might be a kamikaze mission, but I can't have her walking around school telling people I'm a liar.

"How has your first day been?" I ask.

"Just peachy," she says.

I wait for her to continue. Silence. Lil starts to twist her nose ring again.

"Did that hurt?"

"Not compared to my other piercings."

"You have other piercings?" I say, a slight wobble in my voice.

Right after I ask the question, Ms. Everley stands up to start class. My mom would kill me if I pierced my nose or anything other than my ears and something tells me Lil probably has a hidden tattoo somewhere that she got at one of those seedy joints I saw littered all over Florida.

I force my eyes off her and onto the front of the classroom. I can pretend all day long that I should get to know Lil, but the truth is that tattoos and skull rings and piercings and people who speak exactly what's on their mind scare me.

"I'd like everyone to welcome a new student to our class," Ms. Everley says. "Lil, would you come up here?"

Any eyes that weren't on Lil are now. She groans, shaking her head, and mouths the word
fuck
. I look at Ms. Everley, mouth hanging open, to see if she's noticed but she's too busy fluffing her hair and checking out her reflection in the window. Lil gets up from her seat, boots clanging as she walks to the front of the classroom.

"Would you like to share anything about yourself?" Ms. Everley asks.

"No." Lil stares at Ms. Everley like she daring her to ask another question. Chuckles ripple through the classroom.

"Nothing?"

Lil stares at Ms. Everley, her blue eyes intense, and then it happens. Someone whispers
freak
.

"What was that?" Ms. Everley asks.

No one in the room says a word. A feather could drop and we would hear it.

My heart pinches, uncomfortable. It's an instinctive reaction when someone does something mean. I can't help it. It's the nice in me. I turn around to see who said it, and everyone stops giggling and looks down.

Lil stares forward, not even flinching, and walks back to her seat. By the lack of emotion on her face, I'd assume she didn't hear, but both of her hands are balled into such tight fists that her knuckles have turned white.

She plops back down in the seat and slouches. I turn and smile at her, hoping that one single act of kindness will wipe away the bad moment. I figure it's the least I can do.

"Let's get back to
The Catcher in the Rye
." Ms. Everley turns to the board and starts writing the word PHONY in capital letters. A line of chalk residue runs across her rear, making it impossible not to stare at her ass.

For a second, I think I feel Lil's eyes on me. I sit up straighter in my desk, chest out, shoulders back. After all, this is Honors English.

***

For the rest of the day, I keep my mind focused on school. The only time I let myself drift to my awkward conversation with Lil is after gym, when I put on an extra layer of perfume because I'm worried my virgin stink has grown stronger with physical activity. It's irrational, but I can't stop myself.

By the time the final bell rings, I'm anxious to go home, even if that means riding the bus. It's the only thing I would change about high school. It seems criminal that I have a license, but I still have to ride next to freshmen who forget to put on deodorant and talk too loudly about stupid things. I guess one good part is that it's the only time Sarah and I have to us. Her schedule is the exact opposite of mine; we don't even have lunch together. It's the orchestra's fault. It takes up two periods in the morning. I don't want to be needy, but by the end of the day, I'm dying to talk to someone.

Even though I'm the nicest person in Minster, I don't have a gaggle of friends. I've found that most people like to be associated with me and the things I do, but very few actually want to get to know me. That's okay. My mother says you make your best friends in college anyway.

On the bus, Sarah and I usually sit all the way in the back and try to ignore the armpit smells and squeaky voices. At least once a day, one of us will mention that we're in desperate need of a car.

I'm waiting for Sarah when a blue car like something my Grandma Martina would've driven, a long boat-looking thing that eats more gasoline in one block than a modern car would in a hundred, pulls up in front of me.

Lil leans over the passenger seat and rolls down the window. "You want a ride, Pollyanna?" she asks. Her voice is loud to compensate for the blaring music coming out of the speakers, and her skull ring glints through the windshield.

I can feel people's eyes on me, waiting to see what I'll do. I bite my bottom lip; the anxiousness from earlier rumbling in my stomach, like Lil planted a seed and something foreign is growing inside me. If I say no, I'm being mean. I'm the president of WelCo and it's my job to make her feel good.

"Sure, but I need to tell my friend I won't be on the bus," I say, smiling and swallowing my apprehension.

"Whatever." Lil waves her hand through the air like she's brushing away my words.

I find Sarah just walking out of the school building.
I'm a nice girl
, I repeat in my head. This is why I'm getting in the car. If I say it enough, maybe I can convince myself it's the truth. Maybe I can squash the feeling Lil brings out in me, a crazy new feeling that makes me want to scream and burst into a million pieces.

"Um, I'm going to catch a ride with Lil," I say, wringing my hands together.

"You're what?" Sarah snaps.

I bend into her to whisper. "She's new and I feel bad."

"More like suicidal," she scoffs.

"It's one ride. I'm WelCo president, for Pete's sake."

"Getting in a car with that," Sarah points at Lil's boat and cringes, "is taking your job too far. She looks like a vampire, Marty. You don't even know her."

"I'll text you later, okay?"

"It's your funeral," Sarah says.

I gape at her. This isn't that big a deal. People give rides to people all the time, I tell myself. And again I push down the rumble that tells me otherwise, that's quietly screaming at me that Lil is new. Uncharted territory. A blank slate who speaks her mind and wears a dead person's face as an accessory.

"I'll text you," I repeat as I walk toward Lil's car.

I open the door and slide into the seat. Old Taco Bell wrappers and empty cigarette cartons litter the floor. A pine tree air freshener hangs from her rearview mirror; it's stinking up the car, so I keep the window rolled down. Outside feels like September instead of November.