The Art of Adapting

by Cassandra Dunn

  Gabe laughed. “I loved those!”

  She smiled as she tucked her frizzing hair behind her ears. It jumped back out from her head, refusing to be tamed. Gabe smiled at her lame efforts to smooth it back.

  “I like your hair like that,” he said, and she stopped touching it. “So, you know we can do our project with a partner, right?” Abby knew, all right. “So, do you have a partner?”

  “No,” she whispered. She cleared her throat. “I was planning to fly solo. I don’t really know anyone in the class except Nori, and she’s the lone wolf type.”

  Gabe shrugged, raised his eyebrows, and gestured to himself with his thumb. If he was saying what Abby thought he was saying, she might faint again. She smiled and nodded, because her voice was long gone.

  “Awesome,” he said. “It’ll be more fun to work with a partner. Especially one of the smartest ones in the class.” Abby smiled and laughed. He had a point. He was one of the smartest ones in the class, and that could only help her. Then she realized that he meant she was one of the smartest in the class, and she blushed a deep, horrible red. Gabe smiled. She raised her hands to her cheeks to hide the depth of her blush. “I’m partial to the hat myself,” he said, gently tugging the shoe charm on her bracelet, pulling her hand away from her face. “But I haven’t played in years.” He released the charm and his hand grazed Abby’s before he tucked it into his back pocket.

  “Me, either,” Abby lied. She loved Monopoly, and had roped Byron and her dad into playing with her last time they visited him. There wasn’t much else to do at her dad’s apartment. He didn’t even have cable.

  12

  * * *

  Byron

  “Why are we here again?” Trent asked. He took another lap around the gurgling fountain on his skateboard.

  Byron retied his sneakers, as if he’d be joining in the fray. “I just want to see them, see what they’ve got.”

  “You know Betsy isn’t going to be here, right?” Trent asked. Byron leaned back over the edge of the fountain and snagged a penny from the scummy bottom of the pool. He waited for Trent to circle the fountain again and snapped the penny between his fingers, sending it flying at Trent’s chest as he passed by. His aim was lousy and the penny glanced off Trent’s shaggy head, very close to his left eye. Byron flinched at the too-close near-miss, but was glad he’d made his point. Enough with the Betsy teasing. They were here for more serious business.

  The parkour club was supposed to put on a demo, or whatever they called it, at four p.m. But here it was 4:10 and there was no sign of them. Maybe Byron had the day wrong. Or the time. The website looked a little undermaintained, just a stark list of times, dates, and locations. Maybe he had the wrong part of campus. It wasn’t like the fountain had a sign with its name on it.

  San Diego State’s campus was crawling with hot girls in beachwear, so Byron couldn’t figure out why Trent was acting like he had somewhere better to be. Just sitting there was pretty entertaining. A little brunette, tan and bouncy with a high ponytail and super-short red shorts bopped by and Byron waved to her.

  “You know if this is the East Commons?” he asked.

  “I know exactly what this is,” she teased, fists on her narrow hips. She looked like a cheerleader, all trim and toned and perky and used to attention. “I know lots of things.”

  Normally he would’ve been blown away to have a college girl saying something that flirty to him, but he wasn’t there for that. He sighed.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  The girl relaxed the hands on her hips and shook her head, the ponytail swinging with the sway of her body. “Did you get stood up?”

  “No,” he said flatly.

  “Well, this is the East Commons. So you aren’t lost. But that’s also the commons, on the other side of the library. What does she look like?”

  “I’m not waiting on a girl,” Byron snipped. He grabbed his backpack and started to head toward the library. Damn. He’d probably missed the whole thing.

  “Whoa,” he heard Trent say behind him. Byron turned and saw a slender guy scale a good six feet up the side of a building and scamper sideways, walking on air, before gripping the ledge of a second-story window. He hung there for a nanosecond before twisting and leaping down onto the grass below. He hit the ground in a forward roll and ended up in an all-four sideways run, crablike. The guy kicked one leg over his body, spinning like in some kind of break-dancing move. He landed standing and then kicked his legs up again, throwing his body into a handstand. He walked on his hands over to the edge of the fountain, where he did some sort of backflip thing back down onto all fours. A wave of guys behind him performed similar moves, covering every solid object in sight with crazy leaps and rolls, like an invasion of bizarre four-legged aliens taking over the quad. Byron headed back toward the fountain. Trent was watching, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, still standing on his skateboard, which was inching forward in slow motion.

  “Awesome,” Byron said. He elbowed Trent and knocked him off the board. “Now do you get it?”

  “Holy crap,” Trent said. “You better quit smoking.”

  “I did. Mostly.” Byron watched the ripple effect of a dozen athletes unleashed, building speed, defying gravity, hurling themselves around the perimeter of the grassy area, ricocheting between trees and bounding up, over, and around fences. “You think they’re all gymnasts?”

  “Martial arts, maybe,” Trent said.

  “I took tae kwon do when I was seven. We never did anything like that.”

  The group split into two and fanned out in opposite directions. They took two different routes but ended up together as a single entity again on the other side of the grass. They started coming back toward Byron and Trent, still moving like some hyperactive army of acrobatic ants.

  “Well, you’re going to have to do more than track to master all those moves,” Trent said. He stepped back onto his skateboard and carved a slow circle around the fountain, still watching the guys travel in their crazy, high-energy, never-stopping fashion.

  “Well, I swim, too. I mean, I’m in pretty good shape. I have the same build as a couple of those guys, right?” A few of them were broader and taller than Byron, but most were rope-muscled little guys with zero body fat. Byron was on the slim side, but he didn’t have that muscle tone.

  The parkour group finished their performance and collapsed in a circle on the grass, high-fiving each other. A cluster of hot college girls handed out sports drinks to them.

  “I thought you quit swimming,” Trent said.

  Byron shrugged. He hadn’t done anything yet except miss some practices. “Let’s go talk to them,” he said.

  Trent sighed and picked up his board. “Fine,” he said, as if it were the last thing he wanted to do. He led the way across the grass, straightening his posture as he walked, and threw on his new smirk for good measure. “They do have some fine girlfriends.”

  They did. The little red-shorts brunette was one of them.

  “Ah,” she said as she spotted Byron. “You found your date after all.”

  Byron smiled. It was hard not to like her. “You were a huge help.”

  She gave him an exaggerated one-shoulder, one-hip shrug, setting her ponytail swaying again. “Sorry. I’m having a crappy day.” She held out a bottle of purple Gatorade. “Peace offering?”

  Byron took it. “So, how do these guys train? Are they all gymnasts, or martial artists, or what?”

  “Little of this, little of that. Mostly they’re just fearless and ultra-competitive. Killing themselves to master each move.” She rolled her eyes. “In short, typical guys.”

  A tall, broad, dark-haired guy came over, the biggest guy in the group, all sweaty in his wife-beater tank top and Army fatigue shorts, muscles popping from the workout. “Who’s your friend?” he asked the girl. He dusted off his shorts and looked Byron up and down. It wasn’t a friendly once-over.

  “None of your business,” she said. “Where’s Stacey?�
��

  Byron sighed. Of course. He’d been sucked in by a pretty girl just to play in some game of hers. He shook his head. “Byron,” he said, loud and clear, like he wasn’t a high school kid with no business being there. He held out his hand and the guy took his time considering it. “My first time seeing you guys. Your moves are awesome.”

  The guy shook his hand, still watching the brunette girl. “Dale.” He looked over the group, taking them in slow like he owned them or something. “Some of these guys are good. Some need to tighten up. Push harder. Train more in the gym before taking it outside. You into parkour?”

  “I’m just learning about it. My friend Betsy, a freshman, she said you guys were the best.”

  Dale ate it up. He leaned back and shook out his hands, like a swimmer ready for a dive. “Your friend knows what she’s talking about.”

  The brunette rolled her eyes and walked away. “Later, Byron,” she said. “Call me.” As if he had her number. Or her name. Dale narrowed his beady eyes.

  “I just met her two seconds ago,” Byron said. “And I don’t have her number.” He needed to get his loyalties straight.

  “Cool,” Dale said. Dale watched the red-shorts girl walk away. Byron was pretty sure she knew it, from the way she swung her butt with each step. Clearly her stunt was working beautifully. She dropped onto a stone bench not far away and stretched out with her head back like she was sunbathing. Dale sighed. “So, you want to come practice with us sometime?”

  “Seriously?” Byron asked. As soon as he’d said it he wanted to take it back. It sounded childish, like he didn’t think he deserved to be here.

  “I mean, if you’re serious,” Dale said. “You know, most guys learn a bunch of tricks off YouTube and come to me thinking they know what they’re doing. But they’re doing it all wrong. They aren’t safe about it. I get them into the gym and have to retrain them and they quit because doing it right is so much harder. You aren’t one of those guys, are you?”

  “Oh, no way,” Byron said. “I’m a perfectionist. No sense doing it wrong.” He thought about it after he said it. He figured it was true enough. Running and swimming had come so easy to him that he hadn’t really had to try hard to keep up. True, he’d been thinking of quitting because it was getting harder to put in the time. So maybe he was on the verge of becoming a lazy half-assed quitter. But that was before seeing the parkour club. Now he was motivated. “I’ve been wanting to learn proper technique, I just didn’t have a coach.”

  Dale grinned and relaxed his body. “Well, you came to the right place.”

  The whole bus ride home, Byron’s mind raced about how to get into better shape, and how to get more moves down, the right kind, before the practice session in the gym in four days. He also desperately needed to get his driver’s license. And a car.

  Byron had his learner’s permit, had taken driver’s ed and driver’s training, but he hadn’t practiced enough to take the driver’s test on his sixteenth birthday. That had been his original plan. He needed fifty hours, and he only had about twenty, because whenever he drove, his mom practically hyperventilated in the passenger seat, and unlike his friends’ parents, his mom refused to exaggerate his practice hours on the form. There was no way he’d rack up thirty more hours in three weeks. Not at his current rate. At least not with his mom. Maybe his dad could help with some, but he was pretty busy and didn’t like Byron driving his new car. Uncle Matt could help, though, if he was willing. Byron just needed an adult over twenty-five to sit in the passenger seat and not panic.

  He needed to start working on his argument for the car as soon as possible. He could use his parents’ separation as leverage. If he had a license and a car, then he could drive himself and Abby back and forth between his mom’s and dad’s places. So no more awkward parental exchanges. That was the best angle. He could also drive himself and Abby to and from school, so his mom could sleep in on days she didn’t have to work. That was a good point, too. And required him to have his own car.

  “So, what happened with your big El Camino hunt?” he asked Trent.

  “What do you mean? I found the perfect one, of course. Metallic blue. My mom’s getting it for me as long as I pull up my grades, which I already did. So I’m just waiting for the report card to prove it.”

  “No shit?” Byron said. Life was so unfair.

  Trent started cackling like a deranged chicken. “You should see your face! Seriously? You bought that?”

  Byron shoved Trent into the window. An old lady in front of them turned and gave them the stink-eye.

  “How am I going to get to the practices?” Byron asked.

  Trent gestured around the smelly bus: it reeked of BO laced with exhaust fumes. “This chariot, of course.”

  “They can’t know I’m only sixteen, though. The school bus pass is a dead giveaway.”

  “First off, you’re fifteen, for three more weeks. Second, why don’t you have Betsy drive you?”

  “Funny,” Byron said.

  Trent scratched his chin, faux-thinking. “If I let it slip that there’s a little foxy thing after you she might be swayed.”

  “Are you crazy? Like she’d give two shits.”

  “You might be surprised,” Trent said. “Nothing makes an aloof girl interested like a little competition.”

  “ ’Cause you’re such an expert on women,” Byron said.

  “No, but I’m an expert on Betsy, jackwipe.”

  The old lady spun around and shushed them loudly, finger to her lips and everything. Trent turned and shushed Byron the exact same way. They laughed together the rest of the ride, taking turns shushing each other every time one of them started to speak. Byron did his best to act like he didn’t care about what Trent had said, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Was Trent serious? Was there a chance in hell of making Betsy jealous? It sure seemed to work on Dale.

  They got off the bus and Byron turned toward home, in the opposite direction from Trent’s house.

  “Let me know how it goes with plan Betsy,” Byron said over his shoulder.

  “Yeah, I’ll do my best for you,” Trent said. “This should help.” He pulled a little scrap of paper out of his pocket and smiled at it.

  “What’s that?” Byron asked.

  “The little fox’s number. She slipped it to me while you were panting all over her boyfriend.”

  “You got her number?” Byron said. He didn’t know if he should be more jealous or impressed.

  “No, idiot. She gave it to me for you. Try to keep up, will ya?” Trent turned and started walking away, tucking the paper back into his pocket. “The amazing thing is, I don’t think she was just faking liking you. I mean, that Neanderthal boyfriend of hers didn’t even know she did it, so what was the point?”

  Byron chased him down and went for the note, but Trent was a slippery opponent. Byron had to tackle him to get any advantage. Trent had been a wrestler, so Byron’s efforts didn’t help much. Every time Byron got Trent pinned to the sidewalk, Trent would use one of his wrestling leg-throwing maneuvers to escape before Byron could get to his pocket. Finally Byron gave up and sat on Trent’s chest, pinning Trent’s elbows with his knees. Byron was bigger, and that counted for something.

  “Quit trying to feel me up. I’ll give you the damn number,” Trent hollered beneath him. He said it loud enough that Byron knew they must have an audience. Sure enough, Trina and her clique of tramp-in-training girlfriends were coming toward them.

  “Well, boys, don’t let us interrupt,” Trina said. So Byron guessed she was speaking to him again. And her best friend Nicole, the reason she couldn’t hook up with Byron, wasn’t even in her little clique anymore.

  But looking at her now, Byron could barely remember why he’d had such a crush on her. She looked different from last year. Her new makeup, streaked hair, and platform heels took away all the charm she’d once held. Last year she’d been funny, sassy, a little crass, and under all that she’d had a softness about her. Sometim
es when Byron looked at her too long she’d blush and look away. The soft underside was gone this year, replaced by this new hardness that Byron didn’t get. It was like she was now scared of the real her inside. She was no Betsy, that was for sure. And no foxy red-shorts game-playing college girl, either.

  Byron rolled to a sitting position beside Trent and held out his hand. Trent handed him the scrap of paper and Byron opened it to make sure Trent wasn’t joking. Sure enough, she’d written down her name and number, and drawn a little heart around the whole thing.

  “Chelsea,” Byron said, shaking his head. “That’s unbelievable.”

  “Some girl’s number?” Trina asked, leaning over Byron’s shoulder. “That’s what you’re fighting about?”

  “A college girl,” Trent said. “She’s after your boy here.” Trent never had liked Trina. Byron wasn’t sure why. It didn’t seem important now.

  Byron stood and offered his hand to Trent. He hauled him up to standing. As they dusted themselves off, Trina and her two look-alike pals tottered off.

  “Thanks,” Byron said.

  Trent shrugged. “If you’re cool enough to attract college girls, that makes me cool by association.” He adjusted his shirt like it wasn’t just a ratty old T-shirt and Byron punched his shoulder.

  “I’ll put in a good word for you with the college crowd. You know, you still have some good wrestling moves. You’d probably be good at parkour, too.”

  Trent laughed, getting on his skateboard. “No way. You see how sweaty those guys were afterward? I don’t want to work that hard for anything, ever.”

  13

  * * *

  Lana

  It wasn’t until Lana had made it to the elementary school teachers’ lounge, gathering handouts for the second-grade class she was substituting for, that she realized she’d forgotten to eat breakfast and had left her travel mug of coffee on the kitchen counter. She rummaged through her purse and found a power bar, smashed by the weight of her wallet but still sealed and perfectly edible.