by Mary Hogan
“Stop it! Stop it!” Dirk was wailing, too.
“I was wondering if we could meet tomorrow after school?” Zack said. “You know, to help me with my essay? I have a paper due the next day.”
“Walk out that door and you are never coming back. Never. I’ll take the house, the cars. You’ll be on the streets.”
Yip! Yip! Juan had returned.
Dad wasn’t crying. I noticed, too, that he hadn’t volunteered to take the dog or us.
“Sure,” I said to Zack, my voice too high. “That’d be great. Great. Tomorrow.”
“Cool. So . ”
I could hear Dad shouting, Mom screaming, Dirk crying, and Juan Dog barking. The only thing I didn’t hear was what Zack Nash said to me next. All I knew was that it was a question, and, in panic, I answered, “Absolutely!” He said, “Bye,” and I hung up without knowing what on earth was happening with my family or what I’d just agreed to do with the boy I was now one microscopic step closer to seriously kissing.
SIX
Nadine highlighted her hair. Without even telling me. She’d stopped by the chemist on her way home from school, bought “Born Blonde” hair colour, and locked herself in the bathroom after dinner to streak platinum peroxide through her long, already blondish, hair. Without even telling me.
“Your mom let you do this?” I asked, incredulous.
“Not exactly,” she said, smoothing her stripes down at the back. Then she looked at her watch, said, “Geez, the bell’s about to ring,” and took off for her class. I took off after her.
“What do you mean, ‘Not exactly’?” I asked.
“She didn’t exactly know I was going to do it. I mean, she didn’t know until she saw it already done.”
My jaw dropped. Is this what a potential boyfriend does to you? Turns you into a juvenile delinquent? “You did it anyway? What did she say?” I asked, breathless.
Nadine turned to me and frowned. “She said I’m grounded till my roots grow back one inch. Can you believe it? One whole inch!”
The late bell rang. We both sprinted to class. On the way Nadine said, “No phone, no TV, no e-mail until my hair grows an inch! My mom is such a beast.” Then, just before peeling off into her third period classroom, she stopped and asked me, “Do you think an inch will grow out by Halloween? I’m hoping Curtis asks me to the Fright Dance.”
“Uh. I dunno.” That’s all I could manage to say. It was the end of September. Halloween was a month of hair growth away. Fright Dance? Doesn’t that just take the cake?
I barely made it to American History. Mr Redfield was just shutting the door when I zoomed in.
“Glad you could join us, Miss Madrigal,” he said.
Sitting down, catching my breath, I tried to focus on his lecture, but all I kept thinking about, over and over, were Nadine’s blonde stripes. How could she? It was so unfair. She already almost had a date to the Fright Dance? What’s up with that? I’d heard all about Fernando’s freshman Fright Dance. It was supposedly more fun than the prom. Part haunted house, part masquerade party, part dance – how could it not be totally great? But only the coolest girls went to Fright Dance with guys. The rest of us dressed up with our friends and went in a group. Fright Dance is one of the few times going with a group of girls is okay. I mean, the school year starts in September, Fright Dance is at the end of October – who could possibly have a boyfriend by then? I wanted to cry. How had this happened? How had I lost her so fast? What kind of best friend bleaches her hair without even telling you or plans to go to Fright Dance with a boy instead of you?
The walk to my new locker in Siberia felt endless. Thank heaven it was the mid-morning break. Otherwise, I’d never make it to my next class on time. My locker was at the farthest edge of campus, over by the new bungalows, along a million open-air corridors that were about as dusty as our backyard. I could barely put one foot in front of the other without sweating in the uncomfortable heat. And the last thing I wanted on my favourite, brand-new, embroidered blouse that cost one month’s worth of allowance plus three weekends of babysitting was a sweat stain. Not when I was tutoring Zack Nash after school and he was tutoring me.
Fernando High School, shoved up against the foothills of the Santa Susana mountains, compensated for its lack of beauty with enormous size. All the buildings were either brown, beige, or a sort of crusty yellow. And they were spaced far apart from one another. We called it “campus” instead of “school” because, yeah, it sounded grown-up and college-like, but also because a campus is really the grounds of a school, and Fernando High certainly covered a lot of ground. Getting from one end of campus to the other could take, like, fifteen minutes in platform sandals, ten minutes in tennis shoes. Kids with money brought fibreglass skateboards to school and showed off their zigzag moves in front of everybody. Greg Minsky never brought his skateboard.
“It’ll just get ripped off,” he said. But I suspected it was because he had a hard time balancing with a heavy, full backpack on his back. The guys who rode skateboards at Fernando High appeared to have more money than homework.
My mom told me the area around Fernando High is full of history. Like Fernando itself is the name of some Spanish king who sent missionaries to California to tame the natives and turn them into Christians. Which explains the ancient San Fernando Mission a couple of miles away. It looks totally cool from the outside, but I’ve never been inside because my parents keep saying, “We should go to the mission one of these days,” but “one of these days” never comes. All I remember learning about the missions in junior high was that the Spaniards thought they were all holy and stuff, saving the Indians, but they actually brought lots of diseases with them that killed thousands of native Californians. Just goes to show you – forcing people to be who you want them to be is a real killer.
There is one cool thing about our little corner of the San Fernando Valley, though. It’s actually a way off campus, but the kids at Fernando High have adopted it as our own: Oakwood Cemetery. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are both buried there, not next to each other, but I bet they dance together in the afterlife. If there is an afterlife. Visiting the cemetery after dark is a ghoulish pastime around here. Especially after Fright Dance on Halloween. Which makes me feel upset all over again. If Nadine and Curtis cruise the cemetery after Fright Night, I’ll just die.
Anyway.
My locker was a gazillion miles away, but I was feeling surprisingly confident in spite of my best friend vaporising before my eyes. I knew my new blouse looked good, and I was wearing my favourite Levi’s shorts, washed just enough times to be comfy. Last night I went all out and borrowed Mom’s nail polish to paint my toenails Vroooom! (Translation: bright red.) Believe it or not, it looked very cool. And I blew my hair dry that morning, even though it’s already straight, so it would be super straight. How could Zack Nash resist?
It wasn’t until I was almost at my locker that my confidence disintegrated into tiny, shrivelled pieces.
“Hi, Bethy.”
Carrie Taylor leaned against my locker twirling her impossibly long, perfectly blonde, naturally super-straight hair around one, olive-oil tanned finger.
“I’m Libby now,” I said, sounding retarded even to me.
Carrie just chuckled.
“I’ve been waiting for you . Libby.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. Why else would I walk this far? Man, is this locker a punishment or what?”
“My other locker—”
“Yeah, I heard.” Carrie sounded bored as she stepped back to let me try to remember the combination to my lock. She had that effect on me. I lost my mind around her. I felt like a wart. Everything about Carrie Taylor was smooth. She didn’t have a single freckle on her face – not even one bump – just skin that looked like coffee with extra cream. Her lips were naturally mauve coloured. Her eyelashes were blonde, and she didn’t even wear mascara. And her khaki shorts, rolled up to obscenity, revealed tanned legs so satiny I swear she shaved them
every hour.
“Zack told me you’re helping him with his essay after school,” Carrie said.
“Yeah, well, if I can. I mean, I’ll do my best.” Why did I sound so guilty? Could Carrie Taylor see that I wanted to seriously kiss her boyfriend?
“That’s really cool, Bethy.”
I let the name thing go. “Thanks,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what I was thanking her for.
“I mean, you’re so smart and everything.”
“Thanks,” I said again, though my voice sounded a bit weaker. Why was she here?
Carrie toyed with a tiny gold heart on a gold chain around her neck. Had Zack given that to her?
“I guess I’m grateful in a way,” she said. “If I was smart like you, Zack would never be my boyfriend. You know how guys like him hate brainy girls.”
I started to say “thanks” again, but I stopped myself. I’d just been insulted. Some brain. I couldn’t even tell when I’d been slapped in the face. And hadn’t Carrie Taylor just insulted herself? Why did it sound so good when Carrie called herself a moron?
“Well . ” It’s all I could think of to say. My locker finally opened and I had to concentrate real hard to figure out why I was there at all. Oh yeah. My Geometry book. Next class. Zack Nash and utter confusion. “Gotta go.”
“Me too,” Carrie said. “Cheerleading practice. Can you imagine them making us practise on a hot day like this?”
“How hideous.”
“Listen to me, complaining already. I should be thankful they let me on the Varsity squad at all! It’s, like, unheard of that a freshman makes varsity cheerleader. God, I am such an ingrate.”
“Ingrate? That’s a mighty big word for a dunce.”
That’s what I wanted to say. But I didn’t have the nerve, not when Carrie Taylor’s toe ring was just so perfectly situated on her flat, lovely, tanned middle toe. Carrie didn’t need Vroooom! Her toenails and her fingernails were naturally pink, with natural white half moons edging each digit.
Instead, I said too brightly, “Well, I’m off to class.” Horrified, I noticed I almost said, “classaroo.” My shorts were sort of bunched up inside my thighs. I tried to dislodge them as I walked away, but they just bunched up even more.
“Oh, Bethy, I almost forgot,” Carrie called after me.
I turned to face her.
“I have a message for you from Zack,” she said.
Just hearing his name in connection with mine made the hairs on my freckly arm stand up. “For me?” I stammered.
“Zack is absent today, but he said to tell you he still wants to meet you after school. In the library.”
“Oh. Okay. Cool.”
Then Carrie nearly blinded me with her superwhite teeth, and I was left to navigate Geometry all on my own.
It felt like two hours, but it was actually only half an hour. Still, I knew in my gut that Zack Nash wasn’t going to show.
“Did you miss the bus, dear?” Mrs Kingsley, the librarian asked me.
“No. I’m meeting someone. Or I was supposed to meet someone.”
There were only about two other students in the library with me. There was no way I could have missed Zack, even though I checked each cubicle like five times. Eventually Mrs Kingsley started looking at me with pity in her eyes. That’s when I decided to leave.
“If a student named Zack Nash comes in,” I said to her, “could you please tell him I had other plans and couldn’t wait?” It was a last-ditch attempt to salvage some dignity.
Mrs Kingsley nodded and smiled that pity smile again. I could tell in her eyes she knew what I knew – Zack Nash had stood me up.
All the way home, I was on the verge of tears. I felt so . so . God, I don’t even know how I felt. It was just this lumpy pain in my stomach, like I was a terminal loser. What was I thinking? Yeah, like Zack Nash would ever seriously (or otherwise) kiss me or even treat me like a human being.
The closer I got to home, the worse I felt. Our house had become a combat zone. My parents weren’t speaking to each other. The house was full of land-mines. One wrong move, one mistaken word, and our whole lives would blow. Dad had stormed out the night before, hadn’t come home until it was becoming the next day. His stumble over the footstool in the family room, and subsequent slurred, curse-filled rant, woke everybody up. Though nobody moved. As ever, we braced ourselves for the hurricane, for the gale-force wind that would tear the roof off our lives at any moment.
“Libby, is that you?” Dad’s voice greeted me from the living room as soon as I walked in the front door. He wasn’t blotto, not yet, but I could tell he’d had a few. I sighed.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I said, making my way to my room.
“C’mon in here, Lib. Your friend is here.”
Friend? My heart stopped. Please, oh please, if I’ve ever done anything good in my life, let that friend be Nadine.
“Where have you been?”
The voice was familiar. Wretchedly, sickeningly, barfingly familiar. Like looking at an awful car accident, I knew I should run the other way, but I couldn’t resist. Turning, I walked towards the living room, unable to breathe. And then I saw him. An image I’d carry with me for life burned on to my eyes. There, sitting on a kitchen chair, next to my half-drunk dad, who was still in his bathrobe, slumped in a shabby, fakeleather recliner, beside Uncle Randall’s busted heirloom chair and the dusty, hair-balled space where the old couch used to be, in the middle of our cruddy living room and pathetic, secret life, was the boy I’d now never, ever, kiss. Now Zack Nash knew everything. There was nowhere left to hide.
SEVEN
It was a miscommunication (yeah, right), an honest mistake (uh-huh), a case of me not hearing right (oh, puhleeese ). Carrie Taylor insisted she’d told me Zack Nash would meet me at my house after school.
“If I said ‘library’ it was a pure boo-boo,” she cooed when I saw her again. “I’m so sorry if I messed you up.”
I would come to believe there was nothing pure about Carrie Taylor. Nothing at all.
It was awful.
It was mortifying.
It was very nearly obscene.
Seeing Zack Nash sitting in my dumpy house with my slobbery, half-sloshed dad was the worst moment of my life.
“What do you mean where have I been? Where have you been?” I demanded when I walked into my house and saw him there, panic disintegrating my manners.
“I’ve been right here,” Zack said. “Waiting for you.”
Juan Dog stood quaking at his feet, barking. Yip! Yip!
“How have you both been?” Dad asked, too slowly, completely missing the gist of the conversation. His robe fell open. He caught it just before we all saw something we’d never forget.
Yip! Yip!
“You’ve got to get out of here, Zack,” I practically shrieked. “I mean, we’ve got to get out of here. I mean, do you still have time to work on that essay? It’s not too late, is it? Is it?”
Zack looked at me slack-jawed. I was obviously on the brink of hysteria. Terror, shame, guilt, humiliation all ricocheted through my head like a pinball gone berserk. My whole body went on tilt. No matter how many times I screamed Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! in my head, I was utterly unable to stop babbling.
“We should work in the kitchen. No! The family room. No! My bedroom. No! God, no. The backyard. No! Uh, want a soda? A soft drink of some kind?”
“Okay, sweetheart,” Dad mumbled. “Do we have any Orangina?” One slipper dangled from his bare big toe. “With ice?”
Juan kept barking. Yip! Yip!
Suddenly Rif burst through the front door, slamming it hard. His hair was uncombed, his shoes untied. He grumbled something about global warming, then clomped heavily down the hall to his room and slammed that door, too.
Zack showed no signs of getting up. Though I couldn’t blame him. I’m sure he thought my head would soon spin all the way around and I’d hurl pea soup. He looked terrorised when I lunged forward and grabbed his arm.
Yip! Yip!
“Quiet, Juan!” I screamed. Mercifully, Juan shut up. He toddled after us.
“Nice to meet you, Mr Madrigal,” Zack stammered, tripping over his feet as I dragged him into the kitchen.
“Any time, lad,” said my father.
Lad? Would the humiliation ever end? Dad was now a leprechaun?
As I rushed Zack from the living room, Dad called after me, “Don’t forget my Orangina, Bethy.”
“Betsy?” Zack asked. “Is that your real name?”
Yip! Yip!
Oh God, please take me now, I silently prayed.
Mom stored the case of Orangina she bought at Costco in the garage underneath the forty-pound bag of dog food she bought for our two-pound Chihuahua and the jumbo pack of toilet paper she bought for us.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Zack, sitting him at the kitchen table. “Don’t move. I mean, please just sit right there and I’ll be right back. I just said that, right? I mean, hang out in the kitchen, if you would, while I get my dad’s Orangina in the garage.”
“Hey, what happened to the construction?” Zack asked innocently. “When my parents renovated our kitchen it took, like, months.”
“Construction?”
Yip?
“The kitchen renovation you mentioned over the phone,” Zack said. “All that banging.”
“Ah yes, the renovation.” I stalled for time. My lower lip hung like Dirk’s, my brain locked in a panic freeze. I could feel circles of sweat expanding in my armpits. True, few rooms in the world needed renovation more than the Madrigal kitchen. Mom had wallpapered the eating area with Friendly’s wallpaper. Not a smiley, happy wallpaper, but the actual wallpaper from the Friendly’s restaurant chain, complete with the Friendly’s name and logo. No, I am not kidding. The construction company she worked for had built a Friendly’s in the valley and there was a roll of wallpaper left over.
“Can I take that?” Mom had asked her boss.
“To the dump?”
“No. I want to take it home.”