Faking Normal

by Courtney C. Stevens

  “Um—,” Bodee starts.

  My hand grips his denim kneecap as if it’s a lifeline. He lifts my hand, curls his around it, and presses his thumb against mine. It’s my new universal sign for You’re safe.

  I’m glad neither Liz nor Heather notices.

  “Convince me tomorrow,” I say as I climb from the car and shut the door on the faint scent of Vanilla Paradise.

  Bodee and I dump our books and head through the woods. After climbing to the top level, we don’t talk about anything; instead, we relax and share the window view and just listen to the woods. The rain from last night, which I didn’t hear because I slept through it, babbles over stones in the creek. And the drying leaves twirl upward in the breeze, rustling across our clearing and crackling under the feet of some out-of-sight creature. A couple of birds share a branch on the tree across from ours. “Tika-tika-tika,” they warble, as if to remind us it’s time to fly south.

  Sometimes when he watches the clearing and I look as if I’m watching the clearing, I am watching him. He’s still but leaning forward, like whatever is out there is better than what is behind him.

  We squeeze out every moment of daylight in the fort. And arrive back at the house before anybody else gets home.

  Bodee shoulders his pack and says, “Homework,” as he disappears into the bonus room.

  I prop my feet on the rails of the front porch and think how similar our porch is to the one at Bodee’s house. Every time he climbs these steps, does it make him think of his house? Does he hurt for his mom? Or fear his dad? I wonder if he feels that our house is his sanctuary, or whether it is just another place that reminds him his mom is dead. I’m still trying to rid my mind of Mrs. Lennox’s medicine cabinet, the disorder of the kitchen, and the pictures hanging crooked on the hallway wall, when Mom gets home with groceries.

  Dinner is another opportunity to ignore Kayla and Craig. A side of resentment with my green beans and potatoes. I retreat at the first opportunity to sit at my desk and pretend I’m doing homework. The closet is just out of my vision. Teasing me with comfort; begging me to seek security. I delay the urge and finish the homework.

  By ten thirty I turn off my light, finally obedient to the nagging inner voice telling me I have to climb in bed and at least try to sleep. I go through the ritual motions: the elaborate arranging of covers, turning my face into the pillow, Binky, closing my eyes. As usual, I end up flat on my back, tense, and miles from sleep. The ceiling draws my eyes like a powerful magnet.

  I blink.

  Squinting, eyes adjusting to the darkness, I don’t see it. I fumble for the light beside my bed.

  The vent is gone.

  A cover from Hatchet conceals the vent’s twenty-two lines and twenty-three spaces.

  And I am smiling and wiping at sudden tears. Because he has stuck his one precious possession, using four pieces of tape, over the place I want to avoid.

  A little while after I turn off the light, my door swings open on silent hinges, and Bodee takes his protective place in the chair at the window.

  “I love it,” I tell him.

  “Figured Gary Paulsen wouldn’t mind,” he says.

  “No, don’t think he would. Thank you,” I whisper, and wonder how many times I’ll say those words to Bodee.

  “Sleep, Lex.”

  “You’ll stay?”

  “For a little while.”

  Bodee is a dark silhouette against the window. He holds his thumb in the air, and for the second night in a row, I roll over, muscles relaxed and eyes heavy. And let sleep over-take me.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  chapter 17

  HEATHER is already chirping about the campout when Bodee and I join them in the car. “You check with your mom?” she says before I can buckle my seat belt.

  “Not yet. Are you in on this?” I ask Liz.

  “I wasn’t as crazy about the idea, but . . .”

  Liz leaves it hanging, and I know this means she has already given Heather a firm yes. The invite is tempting; a year ago this might have been something they’d have done without me. It’s the lies (in bulk) I will have to tell during “Boy Talk,” not the outdoor conditions, that drive me to say no.

  “She’s going. You’re going. We’re all going. Well, except Bodee. Because this is a no-guys-allowed thing. We can’t exactly talk about you if you’re there,” Heather says, throwing a quick grin over her shoulder at Bodee.

  Bodee pops the rest of his breakfast bar in his mouth, chews, and otherwise keeps his mouth shut. He stares out the window. No reaction to this information, not even a blush. But maybe he assumes they already talk about him. Maybe he’s been talked about so often it doesn’t bother him anymore.

  “So. You’re going,” Heather says again.

  Steamroller Heather flattens out my resolve like a pancake. “If I were to agree, where is this campout supposed to take place?” I ask.

  “Can’t be at my house,” Heather says.

  Considering there may be anything from a meth lab to a pharmacy in Heather’s garage, we are all in total agreement.

  “Hey, Lex, you’re the one with the woods,” Liz says.

  “Oh, now that’s a good idea,” Heather says, and it’s a little too rehearsed. “Come on, how about it? If your mom says it’s okay.”

  Bodee is no longer staring out the window; he’s looking at me. The question in my eyes is reflected in his: Should I share the fort with them?

  “I guess we could set up a tent somewhere out back,” I say.

  “Don’t you still have that tree-house-like thing in there?” Heather asks.

  There are pictures at the house of me in the fort. Taken last year. “Yeah,” I say.

  “Perfect,” Heather squeals. “For realsies, Lex, it’s just what we need.”

  “But it’s a long way from the bathroom.” Heather doesn’t seem the kind to dig a hole, but just in case that’s not a compelling reason, I add, “And if you get scared, you have to trek back through half the woods.” Because Heather does seem the kind to freak herself out.

  “But you love that place, right?” Liz asks. “And it’s safe?”

  “I do, and yes.”

  “Hey, Bodee, help a girl out. Have you ever seen this fort?” Heather wants to know.

  “Stop enlisting his help,” I say, a little stronger than I mean to. “Every time he gets in the car, you try to get him to do this or that.”

  “But this is really important and you listen to him,” Heather pleads.

  Bodee’s lips twitch, but he says nothing.

  Liz is the one who changes my mind.

  “And you think it’s sort of special,” she says. “Like it’s your little hideout, right? After last weekend, Lex, we could all use a hideout.”

  Liz is right. As she usually is. But I can’t tell her it’s okay until Bodee gives his approval. He smiles, and I pray that letting them into this space doesn’t change what it means to us.

  “Okay. Just this once,” I say, and hope that satisfies them for the rest of the week.

  I exist between the Captain’s lyrics and Bodee’s gentle presence until Friday. I haven’t forgotten a single detail of what happened poolside in July, but with the cool air of fall signifying the change of seasons in Tennessee, I realize there is a change in me, too.

  From sad to less sad.

  The knock at the classroom door on Friday afternoon at one thirty brings another.

  “Ms. Littrell, it appears you are needed in the office,” Mr. Wingo announces to the room.

  My classmates, including Hayden, who sits in the back corner of the class, snap to attention. They know, just as I know, that good students get called to the office for one of two reasons: a death or a delivery. In Algebra II last year, a girl found out her dad died when he fell into a vat of something at the paper mill. And my freshman year, they called t
he boy at my art table to the office because his grandfather died. It made me glad I was beside my granddad at the hospital when he died, and not at school hearing about it from the secretary.

  “Should I take my books?” I ask. Translation: am I returning to poly-sci class?

  “No, Ms. Littrell, I don’t believe that’s necessary,” Mr. Wingo says with a smirk.

  Leaving everything as is, I follow the office aide, a senior boy, to the front hall. We don’t speak.

  When we reach the secretary, the aide disappears into a back room and emerges with a clear vase filled with red roses. I don’t count them, but the bouquet looks like the price tag equals one of Kayla’s car payments.

  “These are for you,” the aide says, and hands over the vase as if he hears suspicious ticking inside. He thrusts it at me so that I almost drop it on us both.

  “Careful,” Mrs. Peggy, the secretary, says as I rest the vase on her desk.

  Searching through the baby’s breath and thorny foliage, I locate the white envelope just barely peeping out at the side of the arrangement. My name is scribbled in pen on the outside. Alexi Litrell, with a T missing from Littrell. The florist’s mistake or the sender’s? I hope it’s the florist’s. If you spend a car payment on something that dies in a week, the least you can do is learn how to spell the name of the girl you send it to.

  My knees want to buckle with anticipation as I rip at the envelope. I take a breath before I am able to slide out the little white card and read:

  I SAVE ALL MY SORRYS FOR YOU.—HAYDEN

  The card falls from my hand and flutters to the office floor. Because the words in the apology aren’t just words; they’re lyrics.

  Curse Hayden Harper . . . and CJ Schooler for writing that song.

  Hayden Harper cannot be Captain Lyric.

  But what if he is?

  I can’t love someone I don’t trust. Can I?

  And then I’m back with him again.

  Summer humidity heating my skin and bats swooping over the pool in the moonlight. His hands sliding the strap of my one-piece to my elbows, his lips on my bare neck. “You’re beautiful. Like her,” he whispers. Trust. Friendship. A form of love that comes with day-in and day-out familiarity.

  “Ms. Littrell, did you hear me?”

  Mrs. Peggy’s voice blanks out the nightmare, and I realize she’s glaring at me over her computer screen.

  “Huh?” I say.

  “I said, no parking. Take your pretty little bunch and go back to fifth period.”

  “But I don’t want them,” I say.

  I am either from Mars or Mrs. Peggy is having trouble imagining why a sixteen-year-old girl doesn’t want roses.

  “Well, you’re not leaving them here. Now scoot,” she says.

  I’ve received flowers on my birthday from Dad, but never a dozen roses. Never this kind of extravagance. The vase ends up in the crook of my arm with some of the soft petals pressed against my cheek. They really are beautiful. Paler than the average rose; a soft faded red, like the American flag after it’s been exposed to the elements. Or Bodee’s cherry-flavored hair at the end of the day.

  I thought Hayden was avoiding me after our showdown in the nacho line. But if he’s the Captain, he wasn’t avoiding me at all. He just kept on communicating in a way I obviously love. And giving me time. Which I appreciate.

  And now he’s buttering me up with flowers.

  I think over what the Captain’s written. Recall the lyrics from the first of the week from the Stonewalls and the Modern Beatniks. Then on Thursday he wrote

  YOU’RE SHADOWS AND SNATCHES OF LIGHT, A DARK ROOM OF BLACK AND WHITES, AND YOU THINK I’M THE MYSTERY.

  So today my response was

  But you know every little thing about me. My real identity.

  Oh my gosh. Was the timing deliberate? So I’d have to write these lyrics on the day I get roses?

  By the time I reach Mr. Wingo’s class, I’ve spent the entire time realizing Hayden is the Captain and no time considering the fact that he’s in this class with me. I have to wonder if he tipped the florist to deliver my flowers during fifth period just so he could see my reaction.

  So what do I do about his apology? And his generosity?

  Find a trash can?

  Rejection on that level is dangerous. If it pisses him off enough, he could still decide to take it out on Bodee. And if Hayden really is the Captain, it changes things. This corkscrew kind of thinking leads me to the only possible option. March back to my seat as if a dozen roses are something I get every day, and try to stall until I know what to do next.

  I cause a scene.

  Scattered clapping, a little foot stomping, some of the girls oohing and aahing.

  Ray smacks Hayden on the back like a proud parent. So, is he in on this too? Hayden, on a Smug Scale of one to ten, is beaming at least one hundred. I send him a little smile, set the vase beside my desk, and take my seat.

  Maggie taps me on the shoulder. “They’re so pretty,” she says, and I see she’s fishing for the who. “Wish someone would send me flowers.”

  “Maybe someone will,” I say, because it’s too cruel to tell Maggie her dating practices don’t lead to roses.

  “Probably not,” she says. “They from Dane?”

  “Hayden.”

  “Whew, girl, you get around.”

  I’m thinking the same thing about her, but I don’t say it.

  Finally, Mr. Wingo restores order by waving write-up slips in the air as a threat.

  And when class is over, the flowers and I bolt from the room before Hayden can reach me, but I know the time’s coming to face the music.

  Literally.

  I make it through sixth period and the final bell. And find Bodee waiting at the planter by the front doors.

  His face does a curious thing when he sees me hauling the flower shop to the car.

  “Nice,” he says.

  I shrug and wish we were walking home, even though Bodee is wearing only a T-shirt and would freeze.

  Heather and Liz appear with linked arms and their heads tilted together as if they’re conjoined at the brain. When they spot the flowers, squeals that put pigs to shame echo across the asphalt.

  “O-M-Gosh,” Heather says.

  “I guess you knew about this.”

  “Are you kidding? Hayden told the whole lunch table,” Liz says. “Not why,” she assures me, “just that he was sending you flowers.” She cups a particularly large bloom and inhales. “They’re beautiful, but I’m not sure flowers make up for Friday night.”

  No, they don’t. And she doesn’t even know the whole story.

  “Come on, Liz,” Heather says, getting behind the wheel. “You’re usually such a forgiveness freak. And everybody makes mistakes. It’s how they make up for them that counts.”

  Says the girl who broke up with Collie for being honest about his.

  “You’re the one with a forgiveness problem,” Liz says to Heather.

  “With good reason,” Heather says.

  “Flowers won’t make you forget,” Bodee says as we balance the vase between us on the backseat.

  I think he’s remembering all the arrangements from his mother’s funeral, and I show him my thumb.

  “What does the card say, Lex?” Heather asks.

  “That he’s sorry.”

  “That’s all? I heard what he said to the florist, and it was supposed to be a song. I was standing right there when he placed the order,” Heather says.

  Crap. So Heather put him up to sending the flowers? What else did she put him up to?

  “I think I’ve unraveled a certain mystery,” Heather says, so delighted with herself that she slaps the steering wheel hard enough to honk the horn. And dashes my hopes.

  “I don’t believe it,” Liz says.

  “Believe it, baby. Pret-ty sure now. Hayden’s the Captain,” Heather says with a pat-herself-on-the-back grin in the rear-view.

  I wish I could see Bodee’s face, but
the flowers are between us, and I can’t sneak a peek without being obvious. I don’t expect to find him looking happy.

  “Do you think it’s Hayden?” Bodee asks me.

  “No,” I say.

  Bodee, being Bodee, is bound to hear the uncertainty in my voice, but he’s nice enough not to point it out in front of Liz and Heather.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  chapter 18

  I put the flowers on the kitchen bar, and Bodee and I park ourselves in the front porch swing. We’ve got at least two hours together before Heather and Liz return to haul everything to the woods.

  “It’s chilly,” I say.

  “The good kind,” Bodee says.

  “You gonna call that lawyer about the deposition?” I ask.

  He is quiet.

  “If you push me, I push you,” I say.

  “Okay,” he says, and chews on his collar. “But not today.”

  I accept this truce with a nod. Courage takes time. Which neither of us has had enough of.

  Crisp fall air and the fading sunset raise goose bumps on my arms. I tuck into a tighter ball, thinking about Mrs. Lennox and how I wish I’d known her better, until I realize Bodee looks cold in his T-shirt. “I’ll be right back,” I say, and race to the bonus room to grab his flannel shirt from the closet. Doing something for him, after he’s been so compassionate, is a treat for me.

  His tent isn’t where I stored it the night he moved in, but I see a neat stack of our Christmas boxes in the bottom of the closet. Except for the added bed and his mother’s diamond stud sparkling on the desk, our bonus room looks unchanged; unlived in. There’s something very military about the way Bodee lives, but I guess he’s endured enough change without throwing his stuff around.

  Controlled and quiet, like the guy himself.

  My room—the loose hair clips, kicked-off shoes, and three days’ worth of outfits that are not out of sight in the dirty clothes bin—must drive him crazy.

  I’m prying into his space without meaning to, so I exit in a hurry and bound down the stairs and through the house to hand him his shirt. He goes a little pink at my thought-fulness.