What Would Emma Do? (11 page)

“I went to that museum once. My mom took me there.”

We lay there for forever without saying anything, just looking up at the sky, letting the darkness settle over us. It was the best time I’d had in a long time.

“I should get you home,” Todd said finally.

“Do you hate it here?” I looked over; I could make out the shape of his face in the dark. He rolled over so he faced me.

“No. Not really. But if you’re asking if I want to leave, then the answer to that is yes. Ten minutes after graduation, I plan to load up the car and get out of here.”

“Ten minutes, huh? What’s going to take you so long?”

“Keep talking like that and you’re never going to be asked to be in the Wheaton Chamber of Commerce.”

“You know, it didn’t used to be this bad.”

Giving a disbelieving laugh, Todd rolled back over so that he was looking into the sky again.

“I’m serious, it wasn’t. I mean, it’s never been a hotbed of excitement or anything, but the closer we get to graduation, the weirder everyone is getting.”

“I’ve been here for two years, and they seem the same to me. Has it occurred to you that they’re the same and you’re the one who’s different?”

I sat up, leaning on one elbow, so I could see his face better.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re no longer one of the pod people.”

“I was never a pod person.”

“Pod people never think they were in the pod. That’s part of the pod person definition. Look at the facts: You hung with the pod people.”

“My friends aren’t pod people.”

Todd raised an eyebrow. “I’m not saying they’re bad people. Just that they all think alike. Everyone here likes the same things, listens to the same music, goes to the same church, wears the same clothes, eats the same food. This isn’t a town that places a high value on individuality. Pod people.”

“I wasn’t a pod person,” I said, my voice getting louder.

“Fine. You weren’t a pod person. You were a one-woman rebel without a cause.”

I lay back down on the windshield. We sat silently for a few minutes. The quiet didn’t feel as comfortable as it had a while ago. I chewed on the inside of my cheek. I shot a few looks over at Todd, but he didn’t seem bothered at all. He simply stared up into the sky, looking at the stars, nodding here and there as if he was greeting them.

“What makes you think I’m different now?”

“You have opinions on things.”

“I’ve always had opinions.”

“Fine. You have the same opinions you always had, only now you say them out loud.”

“Are you talking about the dance thing?”

“That and the fact that you’re talking to me. You never talked to me before.”

“You never talked to me, either.”

“That’s because I thought you were a pod person.”

“This conversation is going nowhere.”

“You’re the one who brought it back up. Has it occurred to you that you’re very hostile?”

“I am not hostile.”

Todd didn’t say anything.

“Ignoring me just pisses me off,” I said.

“Isn’t pissed off and hostile the same thing?” Todd raised a hand to stop me from answering. “I’m just pointing out the obvious, you
are
ticked. You know, it’s absolutely fine for people to disagree, to be mad at each other. Everyone here acts like they like everyone else, while at the same time you practically have to have a rearview mirror installed on your forehead so you can see all the people sneaking up on you with a knife for your back. Once in a while I would prefer a bit less smiling and a bit more honesty.”

“You’re ticking me off, and I mean that honestly.”

Todd shot me a smile, which for some reason made me laugh.

“I never felt like I fit in,” I said.

“I’m not sure it’s better anywhere else. We’ve lived a lot of places, small towns and big. Most people I know don’t feel like they fit in.”

“Lately it’s worse. Not only don’t I fit in, but I feel like the feeling is mutual and people want me to leave.”

“In the end, I think it comes down to being comfortable with who you are versus where you are.”

“Profound.”

“I come from a long line of big thinkers.” He reached over and traced the outline of my lips. I felt my breath come a bit faster. “Can I kiss you?”

“Uh,” my voice stammered. He pulled his hand back.

“No big deal.” He rolled off the car.

“No, wait a second. It’s just a complicated question.” I jumped off the car, being careful not to put too much weight on my ankle.

“Complicated?” He gave a small snort. “Don’t worry about it. I get it.”

“This isn’t about you being Jewish.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“It’s just…I’m trying to sort out a few things.”

“Let’s drop it, okay?” Todd started folding the blanket up. “It’s not a big deal, it was just a question.”

“Where are you going when you leave here?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“That part I don’t know.”

“Does it bother you that you don’t know where you want to go?”

“Nah. It feels more like an adventure that way.”

Even in the dark I could see his half smile.

We didn’t say much on the way home, other than me pointing out where he needed to turn. I felt like I had developed this supersonic geographic ability. I could sense within a millimeter how close we were to each other. I looked over a few times, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were on the road ahead. His fingers tapped out a tune on the steering wheel. He pulled up in front of my house but didn’t turn off the engine.

I grabbed the door handle but didn’t open it. I was trying to find the right thing to say.

“Thanks,” I said finally, and then I stepped out of the car carefully, testing my ankle. It was a bit sore, but no pain. I turned around, but Todd was already pulling away.

16

God, I know you have that bit about honor thy father and mother as one of your rules. And in fairness you’ve only got ten, which is way better than my mom, where rules come in a set of ten three-ring binders. For the record, it would be a bit easier to honor my mom if from time to time she wasn’t acting like an irrational freak.

My mom lost it when I came into the house. She had become convinced that I’d been chopped up into small bits by a psychopath. Apparently Joann had called the house to make sure I had gotten home okay, and when I wasn’t home within the five minutes my mom estimated it should take me, she decided I was either dead or up to no good. I would like to point out that it wasn’t as if I came home in the wee hours of the morning reeking of booze and hard living. It wasn’t even eight thirty. Apparently I should have known that silly things like my normal curfew (ten o’clock on weeknights—uh, hello? Could you treat me more like a child?) were null and void when terrorist brown people were on the loose. I’m guessing she didn’t get the memo that I wasn’t at any risk of attack, due to my tragic lack of popularity.

A multiple-choice question: Your daughter, whom you had assumed was dead, murdered horrifically by a terrorist, comes home alive and safe. You greet her return by:

• a. Wrapping her in an embrace and celebrating with champagne or ice cream floats.
  
• b. Falling to your knees and weeping with joy, perhaps offering a small goat as a sacrifice in gratitude that your prayers have been answered.
  
• c. Laughing at yourself and your overreaction to the entire situation, vowing not to be such a head case in the future.
  
• d. Grounding your daughter (even though she hasn’t broken any curfew), yelling like a woman who is off her meds, implying that your daughter (who, need we remind you, hasn’t broken any rules) is a rotten, good-for-nothing child, and generally making her wish her life was over.
  

Care to guess what option my mom went with? She attacked me when I came into the house. Pounced, in fact. It was like I was living out a Discovery Channel documentary on wildcats, and she was a puma.
“Where have you been? What have you been doing?”
It’s Wheaton. What did she think I would be doing? Hanging out at the nightclubs with Paris and Lindsay? Dancing on the tables at the Get Away, ordering round after round of free meat loaf for my friends?

There was no getting her to see reason. I was grounded. I was permitted to attend school and track. She was also generating a list of chores and menial tasks for me to complete. I suggested that perhaps I would be better off sitting quietly in my room, pondering the error of my ways instead of doing chores, but all that comment earned me was another two days of grounding.

My mom used to have a sense of humor. I wonder if she noticed when it went missing. I rather liked the idea of making a missing poster. It would show my mom laughing with a giant MISSING typed underneath with an offer of a reward. I stomped off to my room and gave the door a slam sufficient to be satisfying, but not hard enough to result in her coming over to yell at me for slamming it.

It wasn’t clear if there would be classes the next day, what with popular girls falling ill like it was going out of style. I had a pretty good idea what was going on. Darci had faked her church seizure (coincidence that she was dressed up on that Sunday? I don’t think so) to take the pressure off Kimberly. I’m sure she convinced Kimberly that if she were sick too, no one would suspect what really happened. I’m betting Darci left out the part about how she couldn’t stand Kimberly getting all the attention. Darci didn’t play second to anyone, including, maybe in particular, her best friend. Why other people were passing out was a bit more confusing. I would assume Darci was poisoning her friends, except for the fact that Darci never did anything that would require her to share the limelight. My best guess is that just like Ugg boots, which became hugely popular despite the fact they made everyone look like cavewomen, passing out had become the cool thing. The way things stood now, if you didn’t pass out, the assumption was that you must not be popular enough to be attacked. No wonder everyone was falling over.

The town appeared split on the issue of having the school reopen, based on an official poll taken by the cashier girls at the Stop & Shop. Half the town was of the mind that we should cancel school until we could assure the safety of everyone, and the other half didn’t want to let the terrorists win. I was keeping my fingers crossed that school would be open; otherwise I would be stuck at home all day doing something mind-numbing like pulling everything off the shelves and dusting. For the first time in my life, when the alarm went off at six thirty, instead of rolling over, stuffing the pillow over my head, and cursing the existence of TES, I leaped out of bed and scurried to get ready. I was actually at school early. As I walked through the halls I tried not to notice that Todd was right, everyone did dress like an ad from Eddie Bauer.

“Emma!”

I looked down the hall to see who was calling my name and saw Joann weaving through the crowds. She was waving. She was also wearing khakis with her uniform sweater, not that I was noticing.

“Hey,” she said when she was close. “How’s your ankle?”

“Okay. It was a little stiff this morning, but otherwise it’s fine.”

“I was going to call you,” Joann mumbled, looking at her feet.

“Yeah, I was going to call you, too,” I said.

“Look, about Darci being over at my place,” she started.

“Hey, you can have anyone over you want.”

“I know that. I just meant I didn’t want you to be pissed. Darci can be okay.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“No, seriously, she comes across a bit high-and-mighty sometimes, but she’s okay. Besides, I thought it would be good to be involved with stuff. What with everyone being sick, I wanted to offer to help with the dance.”

“Fair enough.”

We stood looking at each other for a few beats.

“How weird was it that Todd showed up?”

“He ended up giving me a ride,” I said.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t say anything about going out to the drive-in. It wasn’t that it was a secret, or that I thought she would make fun of me, but it felt private and I wasn’t ready to share.

“Get out.” She gave me a shove. “How is it we don’t talk for a day and I missed so much?”

“I’m a very happening person. You have to stick close.”

“Or risk being left behind?”

I took her by the elbow, and we started walking toward homeroom. I kept looking around as we walked, but there was no sign of Todd. It wasn’t that I thought he was going to show up at my locker with a dozen roses, but I thought it was odd I hadn’t seen him at all.

“Left behind? Does Batman leave Robin behind? Would you have Mickey without Minnie? Jennifer Aniston without Courteney Cox? Chocolate without vanilla?”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re seriously odd?”

“All the time, but you’re my best friend, so what does it say about you?”

17

God, the whole boy-girl thing is fairly complicated. No wonder you left coming up with Adam and Eve until the very end of your creation project. I mean, look at Adam and Eve. They had relationship issues and they were the only ones in the garden. Eve had one guy to worry about and one apple to avoid. No wonder it’s so complicated with me. I’ve got too many choices and way too many temptations.

Mr. Pointer teaches all the math courses at TES. He is not a happy man. The close proximity to numbers all these years must have done something to him. Mr. Pointer looks like a character out of one of the Lord of the Rings movies, and I don’t mean one of the handsome elf types, either. He’s tall and freakishly skinny, with a thin hooked nose that makes him look a bit like a bird. Rumors have existed forever that Mr. Pointer is gay. He’s not married and shows no inclination to give it a try, which around here is pretty much enough to label him as light in the loafers. Then you add the fact that he spends a lot of time on his hair, buffs his nails, and wears fancy silk argyle socks, and he might as well take out a full-page ad in
Out
magazine. Of course, if he is gay, he’s got the entire faculty of TES and the community saying on a daily basis that he’s damned to eternal hell, which is enough to make anyone a bit irritable, so the whole mood issue could be related to that instead of math.