The Inside of Out (6 page)

I called my mom five times and on the last try left a voicemail.

“I need a ride home. Meet me at the Moonlight—” I winced. “Wait, no, Starbucks. Call me when you get this?” I almost hung up and then added, “I'm
fine,
by the way,” but in this intense tone that was going to freak her out even more.

Inside Starbucks, I settled onto a wobbly stool near the window with a schmancy soda and a cookie. I'd just taken out my homework when, two seats down, someone pretended to cough. It was flagrantly fake. Almost insulting.

From the corner of my eye, I made out a mess of black hair, tall, rangy, a restless hand tapping the edge of the counter,
and the nape of my neck began to tingle. I ignored the second “ahem” for a full five-count before looking over. There he was, Mr. Power Cord, the guy from the coffee shop.

What a delightful coincidence.

He adjusted his laptop so I could spot the duct tape holding the screen's corner together.

“It didn't
completely
break,” he said. “In case you were wondering.”

“Did you follow me here to tell me that? How considerate.”

“Follow you?” He pushed his glasses up. “I was here first.”

“If you say so.”

He actually had gotten here first. I would have noticed him coming in, since my chair was facing the entrance.

“It has a blank spot in the corner now,” he was saying. “But the tape keeps it from spreading.”

“Gotta love duct tape.” I turned a page of my French textbook, clearly very absorbed. Then a pesky wave of guilt hit me. I hadn't adequately apologized for knocking his laptop to the ground, had I? I'd been too busy fleeing. I closed my book. “Do you want some money to fix it, or . . . ?”

I let my voice trail off.

“
No
no,” he said. “Actually, are you offering? My warranty's expired and I could really use the—”

I stared at him over my soda bottle. “Here you're supposed to thank me for the offer but say that you couldn't possibly accept.”

“I was kidding,” he said, though he completely wasn't. He squinted at his screen and started to attack the keyboard again, calling to mind my theories about him from yesterday.

I managed to keep my mouth shut for thirty seconds before guessing, “Great American novel?”

“Great American article.”

Shocking exposé for the win!
I mentally high-fived myself.

Then he sank against the counter. “Actually, it's not a great American anything. I'm reporting on boutiques that sell clothes for cats. Did you know that there are over twenty in the Greater Charleston area alone? This town is cat crazy.”

I must have given him a funny look. He nodded at me as if he agreed.

“It's for class.” He rested his cheek on one hand, fingers tapping against his temple. “I'm a
journalism
major.” He groaned the word like it was a death sentence, not something he could transfer out of next semester. Still, he was more interesting than conjugating
être
and
avoir,
so I snuck another glance as he took a sip from the giant ceramic mug in his hand. I was strangely impressed by the mug. He was the only one in this Starbucks not drinking out of a paper cup. He must have asked specifically. Who does that?

“Are you okay?” he asked, and I looked away, realizing it was a little weird to have been watching him so closely. But he didn't seem confrontational, just curious. Journalism major and all that.

“Not great, actually. Sort of having a quiet meltdown.”

“Oh.” He smirked. “Here you're supposed to say, ‘I'm fine, thank you.'”

“I'm fine,” I echoed. “Thank you.”

“I'm Adam.” His smirk loosened. He extended a hand and without thinking, I took it, but instead of shaking it like a
normal person, I held on, thinking,
His hand is so big. Firm grip.
If I were dangling off a cliff, he could pull me to safety.

“I'm Adam,” I heard myself say. Then I blinked. “Wait. I'm Daisy. I—?”

My mom's car pulled up outside and I snatched my hand back, gathered my books, and shoved the rest of my cookie into my mouth in record time.

“Sorry about your computer,” I chew-mumbled, scrambling away. “I really am.”

He was still watching me through the window as I got into the car, a confused half smile on his face. It was hard to tell if “I'm Adam” was actually hot, or just hot by virtue of being a college kid, but what was I even thinking? If I saw him again, he'd probably get up the nerve to
actually
ask me for money, and then I'd have to ask my mom, and it would become this big thing. As it was, Mom was nudging me every stoplight.

“Who was that
boy
?”

“Adam. I mean, I don't know. I don't know him.”

“You don't know him from Adam?” She had that mom-instincts smirk going on.

Poor Mom. Of course she'd be hopeful. I was probably one of the only people in my school, let alone my grade, to have never had a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Or a hookup. Or, you know . . . a date. Well,
one
date, back in eighth grade, culminating in an
attempted
hookup, but since it ended with me punching Seth Ross in his smugly face, I considered it struck from the record. And there had been nobody else, nobody real, no matter how many times Mom asked. She was just
waiting for me to become normal. But her hope made me feel worse.

“Mom?” I gulped. “There's something I need to tell you.”

Mom swung her head around. Amazing how quickly she could go from theorizing I had a boyfriend back to theorizing I was gay.

“I think I'm . . .” I bit my lip for maximum drama. “Hungry. What are we having for dinner?”

“Salmon,” she sighed, the trials of being my mother descending heavily upon her. “We're having quinoa and salmon.”

By ten o'clock Saturday morning, I'd sent Han six texts:

Whatcha UP to?

GENIUS IDEA: Let's meet up, do awesome weekend stuff ET CETERA

Or are you working? You might be working.

OMG Zelda has rabies. So sad!!!

Kidding. It would explain a lot, tho, amiright

I'm going to mess up these college brochures! I'm putting Northwestern in the no pile!

When even the last failed to get a response, my phone became glued to my hand, thumb primed.

It rang! I pressed.

“Daisy? Oh.” The man on the other end coughed. “Have I got voicemail? I didn't hear the tone, but—”

Crapcrapcrap.
I considered reciting my outgoing message, complete with beep, but, guilt sinking into my gut, I gritted my teeth and said, “No, hi, Mr. Murphy. It's actual Daisy. Not voicemail.”

Mr. Murphy guffawed. “I was all ready to leave you a message!”

He was so nice. It made my soul hurt.

Late last year, my school had taken part in a volunteer day at the James Island Community Rec Center. After weeding the parking lot alongside a seven-year-old who talked about mythology and Sour Patch Kids for two hours straight, the spirit of volunteerism swept through me like a stomach virus. I took Mr. Murphy, the director, aside and offered to do more.

A lot more.

And now, all summer really, I'd been trying desperately to stall for time, if not get out of it altogether. If I could take some private art lessons, maybe, or watch some instructional YouTube videos or check out some books about the history of public art, study some ancient Greek texts or maps or . . .

“Glad I caught you,” he said. “If you're free today, we've got some kids who'd love to help you with your project—”

“That's great!” My heart went thud-thudthud-thud. “I'm tied up this whole weekend, though. Unfortunately.”

“Oh gosh.”

“Yeah, I'm helping my mom with this . . . activist thing. For the, uh, Community Farmers of America.”

I squinched my eyes shut, wincing.

“Well, that's great, Daisy, good for you. I just wanted to say, if you can make some time for this mural, that whale sure could use some company.”

Oh God, the whale.
The whale.
The gigantic symbol of my ineptitude.

I you-betcha'd my way off the phone and exhaled loudly only to see Mom standing in the doorway, one hand pressed
to her heart, the other holding a fresh white expanse of poster board.

“Did I hear right?” she asked. “Are you coming to the farm rally?”

“Depends. Is it, by chance, being held
across the street from my school
?”

“Yes! It's the property we're hoping to—”

I rolled over and grabbed a book. “Then no. But thank you for the invitation!”

Mom pouted, cradling her blank poster like the progressive child she would never have.

“It'll be
fun,
” she tried. “I promise.”

“Mom?” I peered over my book at her. “I love you. But not enough to protest outside my own school. Seriously. I'll be Angry Mob Girl until my fiftieth reunion. And since you won't let me transfer to private school—”

“Daisy, you know that abandoning the public school system only perpetuates the socioeconomic divide within the American educational—”

“Exactly, not happening. Sorry.”

Her face drooped. Residual shame from lying to Mr. Murphy rose in my throat like reflux.

“Good luck, though,” I offered, and I meant it. “I'm sure whatever you're protesting is really evil. And deserves to be eradicated.”

“We're not protesting.” She waved her poster board. It made thunder noises. “We're rallying! Trying to get the city council to zone Lot 429 for a community farm.”

“That's awesome.” I shot her a thumbs-up. “But I need to . . .”

. . . be here in case Hannah calls back.

“. . . spend time with Dad. I've said like two words to him since school started.”

In the end, father-daughter bonding warmed Mom's heart more than collaborative chanting, so I was left waiting for my phone to beep, the quiet of the house growing thicker as the minutes ticked by. When the air conditioner clicked off, the only sounds I could make out were swords clinking and monsters roaring behind the door at the end of the hall.

In the interest of fairness, I should note that this was my father's job.

Judging by the sound effects that had been coming from his “office” for the past day or so, this was some kind of sword and sorcery epic. After a few minutes of listening, curiosity overtook me, and deciding that I needed to make at least one lie true today, I knocked on his door.

“Heya,” he called. “I'll take a coffee!”

“Not Mom,” I announced.

“Oh. Okay. Come on in.”

Dad paused the game and rolled back in his deluxe gamer's chair to pull another over, while Zelda scrambled from the room to escape the sight of me. Up on the giant screen, an ogre dripped blood from one eye. An elf girl with abundant boobage was climbing onto his back, preparing to finish him off with her electrical long-sword.

Dad scratched his stubble, then waved a spare controller at me. “Two player? You can be the elf rogue, she's pretty badass.” His face clouded. “Or is that sexist? You can be the
hammer-lord and I'll be the elf. I have no problem playing the elf.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, smiling at his continued efforts to coexist in a mostly female family. “I'll just watch.”

“Let me know what you think,” he muttered, launching himself back into a brutal unprovoked attack on a helpless beast. “Something's not working with this game arc and I'm having the durndest time figuring out what it is.”

Eight or nine years ago, my dad sold the indie video game company he'd started out of his parents' basement when he was in high school, raking in enough money to support a family of three for, well, ever. But designing
Bertie and the Bots
and all those
Farzone
games had made him such an icon in the field that he'd been besieged by consulting requests ever since. He spent most of his waking hours playing beta versions of new games, then teleconferencing with other high-functioning nerds to find and fix problems.

It was a pretty sweet job. Except for the never seeing sunlight thing. And the fact that his hands twitched involuntarily whenever he wasn't gaming.

I dimly remembered a time when his assignments were only occasional, leaving him enough spare hours to come with me to the park or the movies or even just the backyard play set. He was tanner, I seemed to recall. Athletic, almost? It was possible I'd only dreamed it. Memories were weird like that.

I watched him play for twenty minutes. Once he'd defended the Kingsroad Bridge from an onrush of what looked like
straight-up Lord of the Rings rip-offs, I decided I'd filled my quota of father-daughter bonding for the day.

As I was slipping out the door, Dad muttered, “Have fun with Hannah.” I didn't have the heart to correct him.

She didn't call until Sunday night.

“I'm so sorry,” she said over low voices in the background. “This has been a crazy weekend. I can't talk now, but . . . things went down. I'll tell you later.”

I was in shoes and down the stairs by the time she said the word “later.” But before I could offer to hitchhike to her house with food and/or medical supplies, Hannah had already hung up.

Monday morning, fifteen minutes before Hannah was supposed to collect me, she sent a text.

“
SO SORRY can't drive today. I'll make it up—promise—see you at school!”

Mom was already gone. Her protest group had made some headway, so she was meeting with a city councilman to talk about taking over that field. This meant I was forced to accept a ride to school from my game-addled father, who kept rounding corners so narrowly, I swore we were going to jump the curb.

“Yikes.” He chuckled nervously as I stumbled through the car door onto school property. “The last car I drove was a Lamborghini hovercraft.
Galactic Grand Prix: Eternity
. Handled a lot better than this one.”

I managed a wave and had nearly regained my balance
when I saw QB Saunders loitering outside the school entrance, messing with the strap of his backpack. I heaved a breath and prepared for impact.

“Smurfette!” QB stepped into my path. “I mean . . .
Daisy
. Hey.”

A vein was pumping in his neck, his forehead creased. Holy thundercats
—
I knew what this was. QB was trying not to make fun of me. It was
work
. He was sweating, little curls of blond hair sticking to his ears. Why didn't he take off that damn jacket?

“Hi.” I kept walking.

He fell into step beside me. “Did you, um, have an awesome weekend?”

This conversation had just tipped from strange to delightfully surreal. I had to press my lips together to hold in a squeal of laughter.

“I did!” I got out. “I had an
awesome
weekend,
Chris,
thank you for asking!”

“Cool, so . . .” QB's voice died out. We literally had nothing to talk about.

As we walked through the bustling lobby, I assumed the spell he was under would be broken. But QB stuck to me like a barnacle.

“You excited for homecoming?”

This was too much. I turned to stare at him in utter incredulity . . . then noticed that everyone else was staring at us too.

No, not us. Him. Conversations were falling to a fevered hush, eyes darting to QB and then away, like they couldn't
even bear to look at him.
Because of me?
Panic licked like flames at my vision. I knew this feeling only too well.

Before it could progress to shame sweats, I gave QB a nod and a “See ya,” and hurried to homeroom.

Weirdly, separating from QB didn't seem to stop whatever eerie mania had taken over the school. The hallways were jammed with kids sharing “Oh. My. God”s and “Shut up, what?!”s before running to the next huddle of people and starting the process all over again.

Even the freshmen in my French class were buzzing like flies around a trash can.

As soon as I sat down, a girl I'd never talked to leaned way over and said, “You will not believe what I just heard.”

I hated to admit it, but I was dying to find out.

“En français!”
Prof Hélène called out in exasperation.

The girl thought for a second, then said:

“Natalie Beck
est
totally gay.”