“I ate dinner,” Jeb says. “Big deal.”
“I caught up on some reading. We keep our flashlights plugged in at all times,” Anna pipes in, as if plug-in flashlights are a sign of higher intelligence.
“Board games.” Zefi yawns a big, bearlike yawn.
“You must’ve stayed up late playing the stupid things,” Anna says disgustedly, as if a board game equates to a wad of blue, Jeb-chewed gum.
“A couple of games of Monopoly will put you out half a day,” he says. “My friend and I played for hours.”
A pang of guilt hits me as I remember the card game Dad tried to initiate last night. All he wanted was ten minutes, not half a day, but I couldn’t do it. We were sitting there in total silence doing absolutely nothing, but I didn’t have the time. I chose staring into empty darkness over a game with him. And I didn’t try to keep my preference a secret either. There should be places for disappointing daughters such as myself, some kind of boot camp or Doctor Mike reality-TV hell. And to top it off, I’m the only daughter they’ve got. And not by choice. They didn’t choose to have just me. This guilt is starting to morph into sadness as the idea of Maya creeps into my consciousness. I try to push her below my thought surface, but she’s more powerful than I am. She always has been. And then I feel it. Becky’s stick of a finger on my shoulder. A tingle runs down my shoulder as her nail presses into my sweater.
“What did you do last night, Peg?” She huffs hot peanut butter breath into my ear, and I feel slightly nauseous.
“Nothing.” Despite the peanut butter haze, I whip around in my seat to face her, something I haven’t done in a long time, and I notice a glimmer of fear in her eye.
“It’s just a question,” she whispers, glaring and confused. With all that Becky notices about other people, she hasn’t got a clue about herself. Sometimes I think I’d be doing her a favor by telling her how annoying she is, how she asks too many questions, how she shouldn’t comment on half the things she notices about other people. But most of the time, I believe Becky knows perfectly well how I feel about her. After a whole year of sitting together, we’re still not friends, which says a lot. I don’t acknowledge her presence until I feel a tap and have to respond; and when I do respond, I use as few words as possible. I avoid all eye contact in the halls.
And then it hits me. God, maybe I’m not just a second-rate daughter but a second-rate human being full stop. Maybe I’m the problem, not Becky. And it’s this last thought slowly bubbling to the surface that’s gotten me turned around in my seat. I’ve turned unwittingly to offer an apology.
“I’m sorry, Becky. I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“What happened?” Becky can barely contain herself. “What happened, Peg?”
“I found a lost fawn covered in snow in my front yard.”
“How do you know it was lost?”
“I’d never seen it without its mom until last night.”
“Maybe the mom buried it to keep it warm,” she says. “Like extreme campers.”
“Camping’s not a sport,” I say. “There’s no such thing as an extreme camper just like there’s no such thing as extreme cooks or cardplayers or teachers.”
“Oh,” she says, as if I’ve really taught her something. Her gaze drops to her textbook and her shoulders hunch.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Becky. It’s just—”
“All this talking in the back must mean there’s something to share,” Mr. Ditman bellows. “Peg. Do tell.”
“I didn’t sleep well, that’s all,” I say. “We went to bed early, had a long conversation with my parents.”
“Probably a little too long by the look on your face,” Jeb pipes in from the other side of the room.
“Maybe,” I say.
“She saved a fawn last night, jerkwad!”
I know the words have exploded from Becky’s mouth because a warm, peanut butter haze has just hit me from behind, probably leaving chunky peanut butter shrapnel in my hair. It’s also classic Becky to blurt something that is none of her business. But her high-pitched Droopy-dog voice has dropped a couple of octaves and grown sharp. And the way she tops off her sentence with “jerkwad” is a real startler. Nicely done, Becks.
“Is it true what your friend here says?” Ditman has stopped in front of my desk and is looking down at me.
“Yes,” I say. But what I’m burning to tell him and the class is that Becky is not my friend.
“What makes you think you saved it?” He frowns, and I think his top lip is slightly pulled up on one side into a sneer, like he’s staring at his hot water heater and not me.
“Becky put words in my mouth.” I reach into my bag for my leather glasses case, unsnap it, and slide on my red Wonder Woman frames.
“Wild animals are made to withstand the elements,” Anna says.
“A snowstorm in April is not a normal element,” I say.
“Snow in April has been known to happen,” Ditman says with lighter eyebrows. “But not like this.” His eyebrows drop deep again into a furrow.
“It was two weeks old and covered with snow.” But my voice sounds defensive, like I’ve done something wrong.
“Where was its mom?” Rachel asks.
“Don’t know.”
“How did you help it?” Ditman gazes out the window.
“I fed it milk and cut grass from my dad’s mower.” I watch Ditman nod like he’s impressed.
“Did you hold it?” Rachel asks.
“Yes, but its hooves are sharp and they slashed up my snow pants and even the jeans underneath. The afghan I’d wrapped around it—”
“Was it fighting you?” Anna’s question swings upward in disgust, PETA-style.
“It was scared,” I say.
“Did you hurt it?” Anna’s dramatic side has brought her hands to her mouth like she’s about to chew on her fingernails.
“No!” A flash of it prancing in the moonlight with its twin makes me smile.
“What did you get out of it, Peg?” Ditman asks.
“Me? Nothing.”
“Not true!” He drops a fist on his desk.
“The feeling that she’s helped someone in need?” Becky’s voice is meek.
“Something in need,” Jeb mumbles.
“Where is it now?” Oblivia asks.
“Its mom showed up and it wriggled out of my arms.”
“Do you think they’ll come back to see you?”
I shake my head and look at Olivia like she’s crazy, like the thought that had gotten me running through the wetlands had never entered my mind.
“Jesus, Oblivia, it’s not like they’re long-lost family,” Jeb says.
“But we’re all connected,” Becky says. “Aren’t we? I think that’s why Peg did it.”
“We do what we do to live with ourselves,” Zefi adds.
“But this wasn’t about me,” I say. “It was about a two-week-old fawn.”
“It’s always about us,” Zefi says.
“Who died and made you Doctor Mike?” Jeb glares at Zefi.
“Who’s that?” Olivia sneers.
“I’m sure you scared it more than helped it,” Rachel adds.
“I don’t know,” I say flatly, eyes closed and eyebrows raised, which in Pegspeak means “I don’t care what you’re so sure of.” And to think I felt sorry for Rachel before class started.
“You can’t be sure of anything, Rachel,” Becky says, her peanut butter breath wafting forward in my defense. “You weren’t there.”
It might be time to reevaluate Becky’s current status as torture chamber consultant.
“To scare and to help, Rachel, are not mutually exclusive.” Anna’s voice is singsongy high and super condescending, and somehow I’m offended, even though she’s talking to Rachel.
“Can yo
u speak in English, Anna, so that Olivia can follow?” Jeb pipes in.
“Speak for yourself, Jeb,” says Anna.
Jeb raises his index finger like he’s at an auction. “Touché,” he mumbles.
“English, Jeb. Remember?” Olivia glares at him in that uppity way exclusively reserved for the terminally clueless.
The conversation has taken on a life of its own and I sit back, letting these familiar voices fade to the memories of what really happened. But it’s not the fawn that comes to mind. Not even the creek glimmering under thick moonbeams or the bitter cold. It’s Dad shuffling those kitschy Mao Zedong playing cards. It’s Mom in the garage this morning. It’s the hot cocoa powder that coated the roof of my mouth and tickled my nose. What about the fawn? I try to remember its coarse coat under my fingers, its powerful wriggling in my arms, its bite on Mom’s thermos nozzle, the sound of it chewing Dad’s cut grass; but I can’t.
Someone taps me on the shoulder, but it’s not Becky. The fingers are thicker, the tap harder, and I force open my eyes to find Zefi staring at me.
“What did you feed it?” Zefi is whispering, his pencil in hand scribbling notes.
“Milk from a thermos.”
“Did it fight you right from the start?”
“I think it was fighting the unknown. Not necessarily me.”
“I like that idea of the unknown.” Zefi forms a frame with his hands like he’s imagining his next headline. “‘Student Fights the Unknown.’”
“It was the fawn who fought it. Not me.”
He leans in more closely like he has something confidential to tell me.
“Bullshit,” he whispers.
I have to pull back, offended, because not doing so would be admitting that he’s right, and I’m not so sure that he is.
“You have a wild animal in your lap and you’re not just a little overwhelmed?” He pulls me close again. “Unless you’re a deer whisperer, I don’t believe it.”
I shrug like I don’t care what he thinks. “I guess you could say I was overwhelmed.” I frown and look to the ceiling, like I’m trying to find the right word, le mot juste, to describe how I felt, like “overwhelmed” is not the perfect choice. But it is.
“Can I interview you for the paper?” Zefi asks, unscathed by my word searching.
“Only if you change the headline,” I say, smiling.
“You know, Peg, it’s a brave thing facing the unknown.”
“I don’t like the word ‘unknown’ is all.”
“You think you know everything, that it?” He laughs lightly at his rhetorical question, but something about it stings me to the core. “Whether or not you like the word, you were brave to face it.”
“Me and brave in the same sentence is closer to sci-fi than real news.” I reposition my red frames snugly against the bridge of my nose the way a swordsman covers his chest with his shield, the way Maya pressed them onto her nose while she rode her bike for the first time. But her image remains out of focus, her cable-knit tights smooth, her little voice drowned out by Zefi’s voice. Brave.
“Cool frames,” he says.
“They used to be my mom’s, then mine, then my sister’s,” I say. “And now they’re mine again.” I run my fingers over the plastic sides and absorb the words I’ve just uttered. It is the first time since fourth grade that I’ve mentioned her.
“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Zefi whispers, scooting back behind his desk. Classroom chatter is settling fast; the meaning of “mutually exclusive,” the identity of Doctor Mike, and what exactly a hot water heater does have all apparently been clarified. Zefi twists back to his desk to jot something on the corner of his notebook and then spins it toward me as Ditman calls the class to order.
interview: 7 p.m. tonight. Miller’s. ok?
His writing is as messy and uneven as the dread-like knots in his hair. I nod, unable to hold back a smile. Zefi flips his notebook closed and leafs through the pages of his book. His pencil has fallen into the aisle between us and I reach down to pick it up just as he does. His notebook splats to the floor, which in turn sends a dozen scraps of paper into the air. I watch them fall like feathers and slide under shoe heels and backpacks. A couple have slid under my chair, one right under the leg of my desk. It’s a ticket stub to this winter’s school play with a phone number on the back. I stretch back toward the other scrap, but Becky’s skeletal pinch gets there first.
“Barrette designer?” She blurts too loudly for her callousness to be a mistake.
“Keep it down, Becky,” I whisper over my shoulder.
But what she has discovered is her one chance to shine, and she won’t let it slip away. “Zefi’s going to be a barrette designer?”
I watch Jeb soak in this new information like a dry sponge.
“You’ve got the hair for it!” Jeb guffaws and the class breaks into laughter, half at Zefi’s expense, half at Jeb’s.
Zefi pulls his scraggly locks behind his shoulders and smiles, but he’s not laughing. “It beats a destiny as a clown, my friend.” But his counterattack is weakened by flushed cheeks and a shaky voice.
“I guess someone has to design them,” Anna says, covering her obvious disdain with a raised octave of faux kindness.
“There’s no such job,” Zefi scoffs, rolling his eyes in Anna’s direction, which for Anna is an act of war.
“I guess you’ll be the first,” she counters in that same high octave, minus the faux kindness.
And then it just happens without any warning.
“I’m going to be a knitting machine fixer,” I declare like I’m proud of it; and for the first time, I actually kind of am.
Everyone’s eyes shift to me. Anna shakes her head, horrified for Asians everywhere. Jeb’s mouth drops practically onto his desk, his eyes wide. Sniggers turn into full-blown laughter, and I smile and shrug, strangely comfortable.
Becky taps me on the back like she’s short-circuited. “You said fashion model! You told me fashion model!”
“But have you ever seen a knitting machine?” Anna cross-examines, the fear of mediocrity palpable in her gaze. Her question is existential, not about knitting machines.
“I’ve never even knitted.”
“Strange,” she says scratching her forehead. She pulls out her strip of test paper from her folder and holds like a security blanket against her chest. It’s as if she’s afraid that the word “neurologist” will fade to something less prestigious as her ironclad vision of Asian intelligence goes rogue.
“Relax, Anna,” I say. “I’m only half-Chinese.” These words have taken flight without my blessing, and as soon as they’re airborne, Mr. Ditman pops up from behind his desk and begins swatting at my political incorrectness like it’s a horsefly.
“We are going to open those books, people,” he says, jerking the textbook/brick from his desk into his arms. “Page 467, and make it quick. We’ve only got a minute or—”
The bell rings, and I immediately smell peanut butter.
“I know you did that to save Zefi,” Becky whispers, her dry lips touching my earlobe.
“You’re wrong.” I jump out of my seat to load my backpack.
“Show me your paper, then.”
“I can’t.” A pang of regret sweeps through me, and I marvel at the irony.
“Thanks,” Zefi says. “You outdid yourself with knitting machine fixer. As if knitting machine operator wouldn’t have been bad enough.”
“That’s what my parents said.”
“So it’s true?”
“I guess we’re not so standardizable.”
“That’s right,” he says, tearing a sheet from his spiral and handing it to me. “Text me if anything changes for tonight. Miller’s. Seven sharp.”
He shuffles out of the room, his kinky hair flopping side to side as he walks. He jerks u
p his baggy jeans without an ounce of self-consciousness and swaggers into the hallway as if that paper marked “barrette designer” were nothing more than exactly what it is. A smile upturns the corners of my mouth, not just because I find Zefi’s easygoing, this-is-who-I-am way of being in the world inspiring, but because today, I think I rescued him a little.
The hallway is locker-room humid. Wet shoes squeak in every direction. The mélange of perspiration and fruity shampoo is enough to make me feel nauseous. Instead, however, thoughts of tonight’s interview overpower this early-morning sensory overload. I glance at the clock as I mosey through the front hall, thinking about Anna, Jeb, barrette designers, and Ditman’s swatting. I’ve only got thirty seconds to get to second period, and I pick up my pace. Time is flying now, and I’m wide awake.
9. ALEX
Wednesday
This project of ours is unlike any we’ve undertaken, and Zef and I have taken on quite a few through the years—from learning to drive in Zef’s dad’s Mercedes without his knowing to convincing a beautiful Venezuelan exchange student (and Zef’s neighbor at the time) that I was an actual prince from a random eastern European country. That last one took Zef and me months to orchestrate. This latest project, however, has consequences, real ones, that make the stakes in any of our other coups pale in comparison. Consequences that involve the police, and that fact alone gets me nervous. I circle the racks and wait, wondering if it might be best to abort it all before we get started. I try to act natural—as if milling around the bike racks is normal—while I wait for Zef to find his way out the school doors to our rendezvous point.
I fiddle with the handlebars on Zefi’s dad’s old bike, whose oversize seat has irritated the insides of my thighs just in the short time it took to ride to school. I don’t know where Todd is going to take us, but I know I’ve got some grade-A chafing in my near future. I’ve already texted Mom to get some Vaseline on her way home from work.
I see the gym doors slam open against the bricks and my heart jumps, not because it’s Zefi but because it’s Todd. If he gets into his car and drives off, our project is over before it even began. With his leather jacket draped over one shoulder and his T-shirt a size too small, I can’t help but appreciate his excessive muscle mass. Despite myself, I’m impressed by the bulk. He unlocks the door to his Mustang, probably the only car in the whole lot that doesn’t have automatic locks, and again, despite what I think of him, I have to admit that that’s pretty cool.
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