By ten or so the turkey was ready. Dad and I sat in the kitchen and ate it with cranberry sauce. Mom had already taken a hot water bottle to bed in the guest room.
“Good turkey,” I said, mostly to be polite.
“A little dry,” Dad said.
And that was Christmas.
“Why do you want to spend New Year’s with those horrible people?” Jonah said to me the next day. “The way you start the year is the way you’ll spend it.”
“That’s a superstition, and you don’t even believe it yourself,” I said.
“I do so,” Jonah said. “I completely and utterly believe it.”
I lounged in the window seat in my bedroom, wrapped in a blanket. Jonah was sketching me in pen and ink. He had to draw a self-portrait for his art-school portfolio. For some reason he was drawing me instead.
“I thought we’d spend New Year’s Eve together,” he said. “Maybe take the Flying Carpet out to Ocean City or something.”
“You mean spend New Year’s Eve listening to the Night Lights?” I said. “The show will be on all night. We can listen after the party.”
“We could go down to the station and say hello to Herb. Wish him a Happy New Year.”
“I’m sure he’d love that.”
“We could go downtown. They always do something crazy at Carmichael’s. Or maybe Kreplax is having a party.”
Jonah wasn’t saying what he really wanted to do. He wanted to go to St. Francis and ring in the New Year with Matthew. But the home was closed to visitors that night.
“Come to Carter’s party,” I said. “That way we’ll be together.”
“But you’ll be with that creep.”
“He’s not all that creepy when you see him up close.”
“Yes, he is. He’s wrong for you. And he’s not nice. Everyone thinks he is but he’s not. You know why he wears those glasses? So you can’t see the evil gleam in his eye.”
“Just because he’s cute doesn’t mean he’s evil.” I got up to see how the portrait was progressing.
“What are you doing?” he said. “Sit back down there.”
“I want to see.” I looked over his shoulder. The portrait was very good. The funny thing was, even though the drawing clearly showed me, the physical me—my lank brown hair, my round face, my skinny neck—something about it did remind me of Jonah. It was as if he were trapped inside me, staring out through my eyes.
“Go back to your pose, art slave,” Jonah said. I returned to my window seat, flared my nostrils, and smushed my cheeks together with my hands to make an ugly face.
“Stop that.”
“Not until you promise to go to Carter’s party.”
“Okay, I promise.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Swear?”
“Would you please stop making that face? It’s hideous.”
“Swear?”
“Swear.”
I released my cheeks and let my face return to normal.
“Oh, thank God.” He resumed drawing. “You’re not going on the ski trip next week, are you?”
“No, of course not.” The Outing Club had organized a one-day ski excursion to the Poconos. “I hate being cold.”
“Damn. Nina’s on my ass to get some pictures of it. For the Yodelay-hee-hoo. You know, jerks hot-dogging on their skis, posing with their butts out, Meath falling into a snowbank with lots of girls toppled on top of him…”
“Guess you’ll have to get somebody else to do it,” I said. “Or go on the trip yourself.”
“I’m not riding a bus for six hours just to stand in the cold and take pictures of people in goggles.”
“Why did you become the photo editor, anyway?” I asked. “It seems so unlike you.”
“For control,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“As photo editor, I get to shape our class’s history. I choose which pictures go and which will stay.”
“But you also have to organize a lot of corny group shots and cover field trips,” I said.
“It’s the price I pay.”
“But why? Why do you care about our class’s history?”
“I just do. Besides, I need something to put on my art-school applications besides ‘Locks self in room and draws all day.’ Even art schools won’t take a psychopath.”
“I guess.”
Carter Blessing lived out near horse country, in a glassy modern house in Owings Mills. Tom Garber parked at the end of a long line of cars and we walked down the dark wooded road. A crust of snow crunched under my boots. Inside the house, the music was loud, the lights were dim, and everybody was dressed up, trying to pretend that this was a glamorous event, not just another house party.
“Happy New Year, you guys!” Carter squealed. Her sequined dress flashed. “Perfect timing—my parents just left. Here—take a hat, and a noisemaker, and some confetti or whatever else you want.” She strapped a cardboard cone on Tom’s head.
“Is Jonah here yet?” I asked.
“Who?” Carter made a face. “I don’t know.”
“He’ll get here.” Tom took my arm. “You’re my date, not Jonah’s.”
Earlier that evening, before Tom picked me up, Mom and I did our hair together in her bathroom. She seemed better since Christmas. She and Dad were going to a New Year’s Eve party at the Hopkins Faculty Club that night.
“Be careful when Tom kisses you tonight,” she said. “If you see silver sparkles, you’re in trouble.”
“Silver sparkles?” I said.
“You’ll want to see those sparkles again,” she said. “They’re like a drug. They’re like, I don’t know…cocaine or something.”
I stared at her. “Are you on coke?”
“That’s not the point,” she said.
“So you are on coke?” Maybe drug addiction would explain her odd behavior.
“No, Bea.” She pinned up her dark hair with a Chinese rooster clip. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Have you ever done coke?”
“Stop it, honey. I’m talking about love, not drugs.”
“Well, if you’re talking about love, why did you bring up cocaine?”
“I was making an analogy. Forget it…”
“What are you trying to tell me?” I said. “That I shouldn’t kiss Tom tonight?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t mean that you shouldn’t kiss him…It’s just, if you see sparkles when you kiss him, then you’ll know…”
“Know what?”
“He’ll haunt you,” she said. “That’s all. The silver sparkles are addictive. Oh, right—that’s why I brought up drugs.”
“And that’s how you know you’re in love?” I said. “Silver sparkles?”
“Not in love. Hooked. Two different things.”
She wouldn’t meet my eye. She was trying to give me advice, but as usual her advice was crazy.
“What if he melts you into a greasy puddle of processed cheese?” I said, thinking of Tom’s microwave stare. “Is that the same thing as seeing sparkles?”
“Processed cheese? I never should have said anything.” She turned on the blow dryer. End of conversation.
I expected to kiss Tom at midnight. To me, he was more of a melter than a sparkler, but then, I’d never kissed him, so what did I know?
“Let’s get a drink,” Tom said. “Beer or champagne?”
“Champagne, please,” I said.
We went to the kitchen and Tom got us drinks. Through the sliding glass doors I saw people smoking on a back patio, staring at a waterless fountain.
“Is that Meredith?” Tom took off his party hat and peered at the smokers. “No, she never wears her hair up like that.” He smiled at me, then looked outside again. “Is it? No. Couldn’t be.”
It was Meredith, one of the skinny Radnor girls who’d shown up at Tiza’s party in September. I could have told him that, but chose not to. I was pretty sure he knew.
A
nne Sweeney came into the kitchen with AWAE and Tiza. “You’ve got to dance. Nobody’s dancing.”
“All right,” Tom said. “Want to dance?”
“Okay.”
We danced in a group—Tom, Anne, AWAE, Tiza, and me. A couple of boys joined in. People wandered through the house. Walt Carrey sat on a couch by himself. He waved to me.
“Hey, dork.” Tom playfully kicked Walt’s feet. “You gonna come dance with us, or are you going to sit there by yourself all night?”
Walt got to his feet. “If you insist.”
“I insist you stop being such a dork,” Tom said.
Walt danced, shaking his fluff of hair.
“Spaz Mo-Dee, we call him,” Tom said. “For such a good lacrosse player, you sure are a spaz.”
Walt shook his hair harder. Tom laughed. I assumed he was teasing Walt in a friendly, jocky, designated-sidekick way.
“I’m going to get another beer,” Tom said. He disappeared. I finished my champagne and danced some more with Walt and the girls. An old Gnarls Barkley song came on, “Crazy.” The girls shrieked with delight and started waving their arms in the air.
“Ever do the Batusi?” Walt shouted over the music.
“The what?” I said.
“The Batusi. You know, Batman.” He demonstrated, making a peace-sign V with each hand, then placing the Vs over his eyes to suggest a Batman mask. He dragged his fingers across his eyes while wiggling his hips, his face completely deadpan. “Uma Thurman and John Travolta did it in Pulp Fiction.”
“Oh, the Batusi!” I remembered now. I was a Batman fanatic when I was four—the campy 1960s Batman show, not the dark, scary movies. Mom had the complete series on DVD.
“You be Catwoman, and I’ll be the Caped Crusader,” Walt said. “Holy Hipwiggles, Catwoman! No man can live on crime fighting alone.”
Among the sea of swaying girls, Walt and I Batusi’d. Tom didn’t come back. When “Crazy” segued into “Rehab,” I thanked Walt and asked Anne if she knew where Tom had gone. She shrugged and shook her head in time to the music: no, no, no.
I checked the kitchen and the patio, but Tom wasn’t there. I left the group of dancers and wandered down the hall, following the laughter to a noisy game room. Tom sat on a couch in front of a large screen playing Grand Theft Auto. Long-legged Meredith sat beside him, cheering him on.
“Get him! Get that one! Kill him!” she said.
“K-prrrh!” Tom made an explosion noise. “The cops got me.” He sensed the weight of my shadow on his back and turned around. “There you are. Sorry, Bea, I can’t resist Grand Theft Auto. My mom won’t let it into the house.”
“My turn,” Meredith said.
“Oh—Meredith, this is Beatrice.”
“Hi, Beatrice.” Her straight white teeth clacked out my name.
“Hi.”
“Turns out it was Meredith smoking out on the patio,” Tom said. “I’ve just never seen her with her hair up before.”
“And you never will again.” Meredith took the controls from him. “It makes my face look horsy.”
“You’re crazy,” Tom said. “It makes you look—I don’t know—good.”
“Good like a horse,” Meredith said.
“Quit fishing for compliments,” Tom said. “You want to play next, Bea?”
“No, thanks. I’ll watch.” I hate video games.
While Tom and Meredith took turns killing off thugs, I thought about Kreplax. And the comet. The end of the world was only three weeks away. At that moment wiping out humanity didn’t seem like such a terrible idea.
Tom’s watch flashed. Eleven-thirty and still no Jonah.
I left the game room to wander the house, peering into dark bedrooms, asking people in the bathroom line if they’d seen Jonah. No one had.
One of the beds had a pile of coats on it, still cold and fresh-smelling from the night air. Another had bodies tangled up in the dark, giggling. Out on the patio, the smokers filled the empty fountain with cigarette butts. Justine, Aislin, Harlan, and Sphere passed a joint around.
“Have you seen Jonah?” I asked them.
“Nah. Do you think he’d really come to a party like this?” Aislin said. “It’s not his scene.”
“What else would he do for New Year’s?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Harlan said. “Sit home in the dark and watch the Star Trek marathon? That’s what I’d be doing if Sphere hadn’t scored this hash.”
But Jonah had promised me. He told me he’d come. He swore.
Maybe something had happened to him. A car accident.
I imagined Gertie skidding off a dark, icy road and crashing into a tree. Jonah slumped in the front seat, a bloody gash across his forehead.
What else could have happened? Car wouldn’t start? House caught on fire? Escaped convict climbed through his bedroom window and tied him with duct tape? Poison eggnog?
Or maybe I just didn’t matter enough to him.
Anne pulled me back inside the house. “Come on, it’s almost midnight!” she said. “Where’s Tom?”
“I don’t know. The game room, I think.”
“Well, get him! The countdown’s about to start!”
Someone had turned on a TV and we saw the crystal ball sparkle in Times Square, ready to drop. I hurried into the game room.
“Ten! Nine! Eight!”
I pushed past couples guzzling champagne, past revelers shooting curly paper horns in my face.
“Seven! Six! Five! Four!”
The whole way I searched for Jonah. I didn’t want him to be alone at the stroke of midnight. I was supposed to be with Tom, but I wanted to be with Jonah.
“Three! Two!”
I couldn’t help opening the front door, just to see if he was out front, crunching over the gravel driveway. But no one was there.
“One! Happy New Year!”
Everyone shouted and kissed. I worked my way through the crowd and into the game room to find Tom. I was a second too late.
Meredith was in his lap, and he was giving her a New Year’s kiss. They kissed like two starving people who’d just discovered ice cream.
So much for silver sparkles.
I gave him the finger. He didn’t see it.
I went back to the main room. Everyone but me had someone to kiss, even if it was just a friend. I bit my lip. It’s better this way, I thought. Feelings make you crazy. I had to keep reminding myself of that. You’re Robot Girl. Made of metal. I thunked my stomach for old times’ sake, thunk thunk.
“Hey.” Walt tapped me on the shoulder. “Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year,” I said.
He put a paper crown on my head. “Show me your best Queen Elizabeth face.”
I scowled.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“Yeah.”
He looked at me expectantly, but I wasn’t sure exactly what he expected. “Want to dance or something?” he asked.
He was sweet, but I couldn’t help it—I was bitter.
“Not right now,” I said.
“How about a drink?”
“Okay.”
Walt loped off to the kitchen.
“Happy New Year!” Anne threw her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek. “Where’s Tom?”
“In the game room.”
She frowned. “With Meredith?”
I nodded.
“That jerk. They went out in ninth grade. Guess he likes her again.”
“I thought you said he didn’t repeat,” I said. I felt ridiculous for even caring at this point.
Anne shrugged. “I was wrong.”
“Listen—now that it’s midnight, do you think you’ll go home soon?” I said. “I need a ride.”
“Now? The party’s just getting started!”
“What about an hour from now?”
“We’ll see. I’ll give you a ride if you need it, but not yet.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Walt reappeared with two plastic c
ups. “Club soda?”
“Thanks.” I took the cup. We clicked them together and I drank, suddenly very thirsty.
I had to drag Anne Sweeney out of the party at two A.M. We dropped off AWAE and Tiza on the way home. It was almost three by the time Anne left me in front of my house.
I paused on the front porch, fumbling with my key. A voice said, “Hey.”
I jumped. Jonah stepped out of the shadows.
“How was the party?” he said.
“Sucked,” I said. “Why didn’t you come?”
“I just couldn’t,” he said. “But I’m here now. I didn’t want to start the New Year without you.” He kissed me on the cheek. “I wish you a happy year.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Happy New Year to you too.” I hugged him. It was cold. Our breath mingled in the frozen air. “Want to come in for a New Year’s hot chocolate?”
“What about your parents?”
“If they’re asleep, we’ll try not to wake them. If they’re awake, we’ll suffer their presence.”
“Okay.”
I unlocked the door. “Is that you, Bea?” Dad called from upstairs.
“Yes.”
“How was the party?” Mom peered down at us from the top of the stairs. “Oh,” she said when she noticed Jonah. “I guess you didn’t see sparkles.”
“No, no sparkles,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it in the morning.”
“Okay. Good night.”
Jonah and I settled in the kitchen. I put some water on the stove to boil.
“So where’s your hot date?” Jonah said.
“He reunited with an ex at the party.”
“That’s evil. I’m sorry.” He clamped his lips together. It must have been the struggle of his life to keep from saying “I told you so.”
“Go ahead. You’re dying to say it.”
“No. No, I won’t.” He jiggled his lips with his fingers to loosen them up, making a b-b-b-b-b-b sound. “So what did you do?”
“I gave him the finger,” I said, demonstrating. “That’s fuck you in Robot.”
How to Say Goodbye in Robot Page 13