But still clinging to the tiniest shred of hope, I decided to do the brave thing—the thing that Jordan would do under these same circumstances (not that she’s ever been in these circumstances). But I decided to proceed. I hurried past the security gates and through the front door, by myself, making it to my English class just as the last bell rang. I didn’t even have time to stop by my locker first. Coming in late forced me to take a seat right up front, but maybe that was good because I never had to actually look at Jordan, who usually sits in the back row, plus I was able to leave quickly.
From there I managed to make it to economics class, but by then I felt like someone had pulled the plug on me as I slumped into an empty seat in the back of the stuffy room. I pretended to listen as Mr. Lee droned on and on about stocks and bonds and stupid financial things that no one in their right mind gives a flying fig about.
Like a zombie I maneuvered through my next class. Find a desk, sit down, look attentive, don’t keep looking at the clock. Just let this day end, I kept telling myself as I walked alone down the hall. Just let this day end. Only when I went to art did I feel like I could almost breathe again. I allowed my mind to take a slight vacation from grief as I absently worked on a pathetic sketch of my Doc Marten sandal. Even my shoes looked like they were frowning.
I never even ran into Jordan until lunchtime and then, to my surprise, she acted like everything was just fine. Peachy even.
“Hey, Kara,” she said with what seemed to me an increasingly white smile. What was she using on her teeth anyway? “What’s up?” she asked, as if nothing had changed.
“What’s up?” I stupidly echoed back, obviously regressing to my kindergarten phase where Jordan took charge of all conversations.
“Are you okay, Kara?”
“Okay?”
She frowned now. “Really, you don’t look too good. Are you sick or something?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m okay.”
Then, chattering on like everything was normal, she apologized for not meeting me before school, claiming that her little sister, Leah, had been experiencing a middle-school meltdown.
“I don’t know what gets into that girl’s head,” said Jordan as we got in the lunch line. “She had this zit, just one little, tiny, barely noticeable zit on her chin, and she was just totally freaked. It’s like it was cancer or something.”
“Uh-huh,” I nodded, thinking I knew exactly how Leah felt.
“Hey, Jordan!” called Amber Elliot from a nearby table —the popular table, or so the kids who sit there like to believe. “Come sit with us.”
I felt a tightness growing in my throat as I selected a cup of vegetable soup and a bottle of juice. Somehow I thought perhaps liquids would go down more easily today. Then, like a dummy, I followed Jordan over to the “popular” table. Fortunately, or not, there were still a couple of available seats. No one said a single word to me as I sat down next to Jordan. Not only did they silently ignore me, but I could feel their eyes on me—not staring, but these furtive glances that feel almost worse. And I knew what they were thinking. She doesn’t belong here with us. Who does she think she is, anyway? But Jordan seemed oblivious as she chatted and joked with her new friends. Before long I began to feel invisible. But not the good kind of invisible where people simply can’t see you. It was more like the kind of invisible where someone has spinach in her teeth but no one says anything. Just the same, I suppose I was somewhat relieved to be ignored. Attention was the last thing I wanted right now.
Somehow I managed to slurp down part of my pathetic-looking liquid lunch before I mumbled a lame-sounding excuse and picked up my tray to casually exit. Naturally, on this day, of all days, my tray began to tilt precariously and the half-empty (or half-full, depending on how you look at it) cup of soup went sliding directly toward Jordan’s lap.
She let out a bad word and leaped to her feet as the brown-orange mix of soup and juice coated her light khaki pants.
“Smooth move, Hendricks!” taunted Amber.
“I’m sorry, Jordan,” I mumbled as I handed her a slightly used napkin.
“What a klutz,” said Betsy Mosler.
Shawna Frye made a face. “Disgusting! That’s gonna stink, Jordan.”
Jordan was still unsuccessfully trying to blot her soup-soaked pants clean while I just stood there feeling like the village idiot. I expected the girls at the table to get up and start throwing stones and rotten vegetables at me any minute now.
“Hey, I’ve got a spare pair of jeans in my locker,” said Shawna. “I’m sure they’ll be a little big for you. What are you, Jordan, a size one?”
Jordan flashed that smile at her. “Oh, thanks, Shawna, that’d be great. I’m sure they’ll fit fine.”
So before I could say anything or do any more damage, Shawna led my ex-best friend away.
“Way to go, Kara,” said Betsy loud enough for half the cafeteria to hear, even over the loud music. “With friends like you, who needs enemies?”
I wanted to ask Betsy why she couldn’t think of anything more clever to say, but of course, I kept my mouth shut as I walked away from that stupid, snooty table. With my eyes downcast like I was looking for spare change on the floor, I deposited my messy tray. I made my way to the nearest exit, feeling as if I were wading through a sea of Jell-O, and vowed to never return to the cafeteria again. From now on I would brown-bag it with the rest of the losers who were too intimidated to face the tyrannies of the lunch line and cafeteria. Life as I’d known it was officially over.
four
IT FEELS INCREDIBLY LAME TO CARE THIS MUCH ABOUT SOMEONE. AND I’M embarrassed to admit that I have actually cried over losing Jordan. Sheesh, it’s not like I’m a lesbian or anything. It’s just that she’s been my best friend for, like, forever. And I honestly don’t know how to function without her. I am such a loser.
“What’s up with you?” she asks me a couple of days later as we stand in front of our locker.
“Me?” I stare at her like she’s a complete stranger.
“You’re acting so weird lately.” She reaches up to get her biology book.
“I’m acting weird?”
Then she pauses to really look at me. “You just seem different, Kara. Are you okay?”
Why does she keep asking if I’m okay? And what do you say when your ex-best friend, who has turned into someone else, asks you if you’re okay? Naturally, not feeling terribly clever, I say nothing.
So she just shakes her head and slams the locker shut. Obviously she hasn’t noticed that I haven’t retrieved my own notebook yet. But then why would she?
“Hey, Jordan,” calls Shawna. “Did you hear we’re going to practice outside today?”
Then Jordan and Shawna walk off together, discussing something as insipid as shoe colors. Jordan never even looks back.
At the end of the day, I notice that all of Jordan’s things are missing from our locker. At first I am shocked and assume that someone has broken into it. This happens at our school occasionally. And sometimes the vice principal does locker searches when he suspects someone’s smuggled drugs onto campus. One time we even had a police dog sniff around, but he didn’t find anything. These thoughts are going through my head, but then I notice a lime-green Post-it note stuck on the inside of the door.
“Sharing lockers with Shawna now. Closer to the gym and better for practice. Jordan.”
That is it. Okay, I tell myself, it’s really over now. I wad up the note, stuff it into a pocket of my backpack, and head toward the exit. It feels like I’m walking in a dream now, like nothing is real. Or perhaps I’m not real. Maybe everyone else is real, everyone except me.
I blankly observe the kids milling around, laughing, joking, teasing. Girls in groups, guys in groups, some couples hanging onto each other like they can’t bear to let go, a few even making out. But I just keep moving along by myself. Like I am in some kind of bubble, alone and apart and separate from everyone else.
No one says a sin
gle word to me as I walk down the hall. In fact, I don’t think anyone has said much of anything to me these last few days. Now that I think about it, I’m sure the only reason anyone ever spoke to me before was because of Jordan. I feel like I am nothing without her. And I wonder how I will survive three years of this kind of nothingness in high school. I have never felt so alone or utterly hopeless in my life.
I head straight to our apartment complex just a few blocks from school. It’s not exactly a lovely abode, with its boring off-white stucco exterior and “modern” architectural touches, but at least it’s a retreat of sorts. I walk upstairs and enter our sterile-looking living room—my mom’s into “contemporary” furnishings, which basically means cold and uncomfortable. The couch is an asymmetrical design of pewter-colored leather and looks about as inviting as a rock. This is flanked by a couple of metal-and-leather chairs in a garish shade of red, which I assume is meant to complement the piece of modern art that dominates this rather small room. Now I must say this artwork is one of the few items in our home that doesn’t set my teeth on edge. It’s loud and colorful, but at least there’s a warmth to it, or so I like to imagine. And it was created by my dad. I suppose that might have something to do with why I like it. I go over and turn on the little chrome spotlight, which really makes the colors pop. My mom doesn’t like to leave any lights on in the apartment since she’s an electricity conservation freak. But sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and come in here and turn on that little light and just look at the painting. It’s an abstract that I don’t really understand, but somehow it usually comforts me.
But not today. I flick off the spotlight and, like a whipped puppy, I slink off to my room. I close the door and wish it had a deadbolt. Not that Bree or my mom will want to come in here. But I just do not want to be disturbed—not by anyone. Like anyone wants to disturb me.
I flop onto my bed and cry all over again. I wonder how long I can keep this up. It’s not as if someone has died, for pity’s sake. Why am I crying like a big baby over losing a stupid friend? I know I should be more mature than this. I yell at myself and say, “Just grow up!” and, “Get over it, you moron!” But my verbal abuse doesn’t work. Even though I know it’s totally stupid to care this much, to be hurt this badly, I simply don’t know how to stop the pain.
I sit up and take a deep breath, telling myself that I can’t go on like this. And for a moment, I honestly consider praying to God for help. Not that God and I really have much going on these days. Come to think of it, praying was what got me into this mess. And the truth is, I’ve only been to church a few dozen times in my entire life, and that’s always been with Jordan’s family. Jordan’s family! Oh, the mere thought of Jordan’s family—my second family—pushes me right over the edge again. And I begin to cry even harder than before.
It’s like I can picture them all standing right there at the foot of my bed, and each one is waving to me. First I see Jordan’s cool and laid-back parents. I think they actually used to be hippies back in the seventies, although they swear they never did drugs. They’ve always let me call them Tom and Cindy, and they’ve always welcomed me into their big, old, rambling home as if it were my own. Tom is usually dressed in shabby sweaters and wrinkled slacks, and he manages the oldies radio station in town. When Cindy isn’t working part-time as a counselor, she’s wearing overalls and painting cool pictures or digging in her huge garden. I can even see Jordan’s older sister, Abbie, looking stylish as ever in the latest fad, and I remember the way she used to help us do our hair and nails and stuff when we were still in middle school. And then there’s Leah, just a little younger than Bree, and then little Tommy, Jordan’s sweet but pesky little brother. All of them are smiling and waving and saying, “Goodbye.”
“I cannot take this!” I sob into my already soaking-wet pillow. “It’s not fair.”
Somehow, I mercifully fall asleep and don’t wake up until I hear Mom calling me to come answer the phone. Shocked that anyone would call me, I wander out to the kitchen, blinking like a mole at the light as I pick up the phone receiver. (No, we do not have a cordless phone like everyone else in the civilized world. Our old-fashioned device is securely attached by a stretched-out cord to the wall right over the breakfast bar where everyone can listen in.)
“Hello?” I say in a voice that cracks slightly.
“Kara?”
“Jordan?” I feel an atom-sized spark of hope in my heart.
“I just thought I should call you and explain.”
“Explain?”
“You know, about the locker thing. It’s nothing personal, you know. It’s just more convenient to share with Shawna now. It’s by the gym, you know. And we have so many practices.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I lie.
“I thought you’d understand.”
Yeah, I understand, all right.
“I still want us to be friends, Kara. I don’t want you to think I’m dumping you. You don’t, do you?”
“Well . . . ”
“I mean, I know I’ve got some new friends now. It’s just the way it goes with cheerleading and stuff. But I still consider you my best friend.”
“Really?” A strange sensation washes over me. I think it is hope.
“Yeah. I mean we’ve been friends for, like, forever, Kara. Something like that can’t change overnight.”
I sigh in relief.
“But you’ve got to accept that I have new friends too. And you’ve got to try harder to be friendly to them, Kara.”
“Be friendly?” I feel a tightness in my chest again. It’s like someone has wrapped a leather strap around me and is steadily cinching it in.
“Yeah. I know they can be a little, well, you know. So I’m thinking you’ll just have to make a bigger effort. Okay?”
Okay, I’m thinking. Yeah, sure, okay. I’ll just make a bigger effort. You bet! “Uh, I’m not sure if I really know how to do that,” I say uneasily. But at least that’s honest.
“Oh, come on, Kara. You just need to smile more and laugh at their jokes and stuff. Just loosen up and don’t take life so seriously all the time.”
I consider this. “Yeah, maybe.”
“And I haven’t seen you around anywhere at lunchtime. Where have you been hiding, anyway?”
“Just around.” I don’t tell her about the secluded porch steps I recently discovered behind the art department.
“Well, why don’t you make sure that you’re around where I am tomorrow? It’s going to be pretty hard to keep being your friend if I can never even find you.”
“Okay,” I agree meekly, experiencing a kindergarten flashback. “I’ll meet you in the cafeteria tomorrow.”
“Good.” I can hear the smile in her voice now and I think, Okay, maybe I have been overreacting about this whole thing. What—am I having PMS or something? This is Jordan, after all. Why would she want to hurt me?
So I hang up the phone and then actually help my mom fix dinner. No big deal, really, since she’s already got a frozen pizza sitting on the counter. But I do peel some carrots and cucumbers and de-string some celery to make a fairly nice-looking plate of veggies to go with it.
“You okay, honey?” she asks as I stir some ranch-dip mix into some mayonnaise for the veggies.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Then she calls for Bree to come and we sit down at the Formica-covered breakfast bar. As usual, we eat without saying much. The three of us sit facing our tiny kitchen with its stark white cabinets as we share our “deluxe” pizza, which tastes a bit like cardboard. It’s a good thing I thought to add some veggies.
I try not to think about what’s going on at the Ferguson’s home right now, but I’m guessing they’re all sitting around their big oak table and eating something really wonderful like homemade spaghetti or maybe even lasagna, and laughing a lot. Still, I’m imagining that I’ll be back there with them before too long. Maybe by the weekend even.
After dinner, I return to my room and fini
sh my homework. I even take some time to straighten my things and hang up some clothes. Lately, every time I get home from school, being depressed and upset, I’ve just thrown clothes and stuff down and left them to pile up wherever they landed. Fortunately, my mom, a neat freak when it comes to the rest of our apartment, isn’t one of those types who does regular room inspections. Her philosophy is that it’s my room and if I want to live like a slob, it’s my problem. I can handle that. But actually, it was getting pretty awful in here, and it was even beginning to bug me.
Then, feeling more hopeful than I’ve felt all week, I take special care selecting what I think is my coolest outfit. Jordan actually picked all the pieces out when we were doing back-to-school shopping just a few weeks ago. I can’t believe it’s been only a few weeks! This outfit includes a pair of great jeans that fit perfectly and actually look pretty good on my overly long legs, as well as a T-shirt that cost way more than any earthly T-shirt should cost, but Jordan assured me it was worth it. Even so, I had to rip off the price tag before my mom figured it out. The T-shirt will be topped with this short cream-colored sweater we found on sale at the Gap. The bulkiness of the sweater helps to disguise my less-than-well-endowed chest, which used to be my greatest burden—but that was before this whole upset with Jordan.
Now that my wardrobe is pretty much settled (although I keep second-guessing myself) I stare into my dresser mirror and prepare to do a critical evaluation. Any new zits trying to develop? Anything I should attempt to fix? I’m still wondering how Jordan got her teeth so white. But, no, I look pretty much the same as usual. Ordinary and boring. Then I remind myself that Jordan would tell me to “think positively.”
Okay, my long, dark brown hair is all right, I guess, probably my best asset, at least when I care for it properly. I give my head a sexy shake like I’m starring in a Pantene commercial and feel satisfied that it’s fairly thick and perfectly straight with a natural shine to it. Jordan has always said she’d kill for my hair. Hers is blonde and cut just above her shoulders. It’s slightly thin with a little bit of natural curl on the ends, but it looks good on her and seems to fit with her pixie-like face, which is something I envy. My face, on the other hand, feels too big for my body, and my facial features are not outstanding, although Abbie always said I had good lips—whatever that means. I pucker them up now and attempt to smile, but to me they just look like plain old lips.
Dark Blue: Color Me Lonely with Bonus Content Page 2