Kim

by T Cooper

  “Yeah, but . . .” Kris interrupted, “no curfew!”

  “And nobody asking how I’m feeling all the time. Looking at me like I’m a jumper on a ledge just because I’m not Suzy Smile-a-lot.”

  “I met her once. Total bore.”

  “No sense of humor. Which, weird.”

  “Given the smiling.”

  We both giggled as the bell sounded, ending lunch period. Kris leaned across the table to try to slap my butt, but missed.

  “I’m too sexy for my body,” I sang, and bussed my tray.

  “Join the club,” said Kris.

  * * *

  It started pouring just as school let out. I was trudging through the deluge in the direction of my bus stop when the ol’ familiar terror-inspiring roar of Jason’s Mustang growled behind me, and before I could do anything about it, I was completely doused head-to-toe by a dirty gutter-water wave, courtesy of his wide tires.

  There was no way it was an accident.

  I squished my way to the strip mall to find a place to drain my shoes and dry my hair in a bathroom, and noticed the Toot N Tote-um was open. When I came out of the bathroom, still blotting my face with scratchy recycled paper towels, I practically collided with the owner of the shop, the one who got me and DJ arrested for shoplifting (which we didn’t do) last year. I had tried to avoid the place on principle ever since, but any port in a (literal) storm, right?

  “Are you buying something?” he asked, seemingly already angry.

  “Uh, no,” I replied. “I just came in to get out of the rain on the way to the bus stop.”

  He gave me a once-over, absorbing me in all my pitiful sogginess, then handed me a cup. “Hot cocoa machine over there,” he said brusquely. “Complimentary.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not sure what to do. I didn’t want to be a traitor to my former, racially profiled self. On the other hand, free hot chocolate . . .

  I poured half a cup—seemed somehow less traitorous—and stood outside under the awning for a while, staring into the water-slicked parking lot, the same place I used to skate last year with Jerry from time to time. No skating now, per the five new signs that read, NO SKATEBOARDS City Ordinance, posted around our usual spots. So I guess it wasn’t only me who had changed.

  As I was wondering where my old skateboard even was, a figure in a red and black rain parka and wellies appeared, exiting the hair salon and cutting across the parking lot toward me. The gait seemed familiar, like . . . No, can’t be. Wait, it is . . . It was Audrey, every step splashing water into messy rings around her feet. Then I noticed Jason’s car parked in front of Subway. Of course.

  There was nowhere to go, so I stood my ground, figuring Audrey would whip right past, ignoring me per usual. But she kept coming at me. Closer and closer, until we were toe-to-toe. She pulled the hood from her head, shook off beads of water, then looked left and right to make sure nobody else was within earshot.

  “We should talk,” she announced flatly.

  I stood dumbstruck, kind of in shock she was actually acknowledging my existence, post-e-mail-gate.

  Then she launched into it: “I don’t know what the deal is with you. I’m not sure I want to know what the deal is with you. But that e-mail you sent me was totally out of line, and to be honest, creepy as crap. I don’t know what you were talking about with some moment you imagined we shared at the dance, and I have NO idea what you’re talking about as far as being in my life for three years, or whatever that was.”

  Here she paused, staring at me for some sort of reaction. Which I wasn’t going to give her, at least not until I figured out which way this was going to go.

  “Anyway, my friends think that you have an unhealthy obsession with me,” she went on. “I’m not going so far as to say that, but maybe you’re confused, maybe—”

  “Maybe what?” I asked, almost daring her to say what I knew was coming next.

  “I think you might be struggling with some mental or emotional issues, and I really hope that you are getting the help you need.”

  BOOM. There it was.

  “Look,” she added then, reaching to touch my shoulder in the most condescending manner fathomable, “I don’t really know you, you don’t really know me, and whatever happened that night at the dance, let’s just put it behind us and chalk it up to one big misunderstanding about other people’s business. It was between my brother and Chloe, and they’re grown up enough to figure it out for themselves.”

  I started laughing.

  Which seemed to make Audrey indignant. And surprised that I was refusing to settle into my place in the social hierarchy.

  “News bulletin: those two are probably never going to grow up,” I said. “But that’s beside the point. You saw what Jason did to her drink. And so did I.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied, her face flushed.

  “Okay, whatever,” I said, utterly disappointed in her. “And listen. I was totally high when I wrote that e-mail. One of the guys I live with”—here her interest piqued, like, You live with guys? More than one? Wait, what?!—“we were messing around, and I told them what had happened the night before at the dance, and we were all just typing random stuff into my laptop . . .” It didn’t look like she was buying it. “And one of the guys pressed Send after I passed out, and I didn’t realize it until the morning, and by then of course it was too late. And since at school you’ve been avoiding me like HPV, I haven’t had a chance to explain what happened, and then I kinda forgot about it, so whatever, it’s done. Move on.”

  She stared at me. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well then, we’re both lying, aren’t we?”

  Lightning flashed just then, followed by one of those earth-shattering thunderclaps, which meant the storm was close by and there was no way I was getting out of there anytime soon. All of it made me want to call my mom. For a ride. A shoulder. A comfy bed. A home-cooked dinner. To be around somebody who tries her best not to judge, and succeeds most of the time. I missed my family. I missed a lot of things.

  “For what it’s worth, the Audrey I thought I knew stood up to people like Chloe,” I started, unsure of what I was even doing. “The Audrey I thought I knew was always herself. The Audrey I thought I knew wasn’t afraid of looking dumb when she danced, or challenging the status quo, or loving a guy her parents didn’t approve of. So maybe you’re right. I was confused. I never knew you at all.”

  At that, Audrey appeared both wounded and utterly baffled. She pulled the hood over her head, and for a blink I wished I could have gone back in time and kept my mouth shut, but then Jason exploded through the Subway doors with a pair of foot-long sandwiches in clear plastic bags, and spotted the two of us.

  “Come on,” he called to Audrey.

  It looked like there was a tear on her cheek. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a raindrop.

  “I’m just saying, you might want to ask yourself why you always do the easy thing now,” I added, likely plunging the knife deeper. I didn’t care.

  “I said, come on!” Jason yelled, and Audrey stepped back out into the storm.

  Change 3–Day 164

  I’m minding my own business, heading to trig, when four Central letterman jackets suddenly block out the fluorescent light above my head. And there he is, something wicked this way coming—Jason marching up and proceeding to corner me beside a cluster of lockers, his buddies forming a semicircle intimidation wall around me so I can’t escape.

  “I know you’re in love with my sister, Obeast,” he seethes.

  “I didn’t know you had a sister named Obeast,” I throw back, not feeling scared of him, even though I probably should be. I try to squeeze myself between two of his henchmen, but they don’t budge. The other two tighten formation while the rest of the school population just saunters by, paying no mind to what’s going down behind the jock curtain.

  “Audrey told me how crazy you are,” Jason says with that stupid ugly smirk of his.

 
I smirk right back.

  “This isn’t a joke, zipperhead,” he says, just as the assistant principal comes out of a door across the hallway from us.

  “No kidding,” I say, seizing my opportunity and slamming my books loudly enough onto the floor to catch the assistant principal’s attention. The menacing lettermen from hell scatter like marbles, as does Jason, but not before he leans into me, his breath hot on my neck. “I’ve made people disappear before,” he hisses. “And I can do it again.”

  * * *

  “That is some crizazy shizzay,” Destiny says after I tell her about Jason’s big-boy move on me this morning. “I want to pound that punk’s face in, and I’ve never even met him.”

  We are Skyping for the first time in too long, me poaching Internet on the roof of the Starbucks near RaChas HQ.

  “I’m really sorry,” I say.

  “For what?”

  “Being me.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

  “I know,” I say. “It’s just . . .”

  “It’s just what?”

  “I should’ve acted better.”

  “Save it for your headstone,” she teases.

  “DJ looks really happy whenever I see him at school.”

  “He better. I mean, look at me.” She strikes a cheesy duck-face pose, cracks up. “He says he’s been looking, but he never sees you.”

  “I’m stealth.”

  “Seriously, why don’t you find him and hang?” Destiny asks.

  I don’t know how to answer. The word shame pops into my head. “It’s complicated. We went through a lot together. I don’t know. Oh, dang,” I say, catching the time above Destiny’s face. “I gotta go, my mom’s meeting me downstairs in a minute.”

  “You’re seeing her?”

  “I miss my Mommy,” I say. “Waaah.”

  “Later, tell her hi for me.”

  “K, love you.”

  “Love you more.”

  * * *

  When Mom pulled up and parked in front of the Starbucks, I almost didn’t recognize her, even though she was rolling in our same old family car. She looked weary, pale, and, like every grizzled cop in every detective movie, “too old for this crap.”

  I met her at the door and she kind of lunged forward and hugged me immediately. Hugged me hard and didn’t let go for a really long time. It’d been a couple weeks since I last saw her for what had become our designated, Tracy-negotiated appointments. I don’t know why I was being so stubborn about moving back home. Half of me wanted to tell Mom to start the car and let’s hop in, pick up a large pizza, and bring it back to the house to eat in front of the TV while we watched old M*A*S*H episodes. But the other half of me felt like I still had something to prove, if only to myself, and that there was no way I was going to let my NON-NORMALNESS infect her space anymore. (Yeah. Not over it.)

  Sometimes I worried that Mom was being so cool about me living with the RaChas because it was actually a relief to have me and my bad attitude gone. But then I’d see her on these visits and swear I could actually hear her heart breaking when she looked at me.

  After we got our lattes to go, we met Tracy for dinner at this hole-in-the-wall Cuban place downtown, best fried plantains anywhere. Over the meal, it was the usual conversation among us, real polite, catching up on everybody’s lives. Even Snoopy, who has taken to sleeping by the window I crawled out of six weeks ago. (If that doesn’t make me feel like a monster . . .)

  Mostly they asked me about school, how I was doing, how’s Kris, how’s Destiny, how’s PE, did I have enough clean clothes, was I getting enough to eat, was my cell phone working, did I need more funds added to my bus pass, and so on.

  When the check came, Mom said, “I was reading over your Changers packet the other day and noticed your V’s birthday’s coming up soon.”

  “Sweet sixteen!” Tracy clapped.

  “So?” I asked. “That’s just BS paperwork for school records.”

  “Par-tay!” Tracy said, still clapping.

  “More like, li-cense!” I countered. “I never even got my learner’s permit.”

  “We’ll do that over spring break if you want,” Mom said. “Last year was kind of, well, you know . . .”

  “It wasn’t the best time to be thinking about learning to drive,” Tracy finished.

  “Yes, not exactly the best time,” Mom said.

  “I’m not really in a party kind of a space,” I mumbled, like Charlie Brown with a rain cloud over his head.

  Mom ignored my sourness, pressed on: “Dad and I bought you a gift we’d love to give you. And if you feel like taking a few of your Static friends out to a movie or dinner or concert or something, we’d like to offer that as an option.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Life is the only party I need.”

  Tracy rolled her eyes, sensing shades of Benedict-speak.

  Mom nodded, said “Okay,” and signed the credit card slip, but she seemed deflated, despite trying to keep up appearances.

  “I’ve got to pee,” I said, wondering why they were suddenly making a big deal about Changers Council–assigned milestones, which only exist for show. “I’ll meet you outside.”

  We said our goodbyes to Tracy in the parking lot. Then Mom and I strolled in silence to the car. She put her arm around me, and I put my head on her shoulder, and we walked like that for a while.

  “How’s Dad?” I asked, soon as we reached the vehicle and climbed inside.

  “Ahhh. He’s not having the best time with all of this,” she said, “to be perfectly candid. But I’m handling it, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “Is he still mad at me?”

  “For what, sweetpea?”

  “Leaving.”

  “Oh, no,” Mom said, but I could tell she was covering. “He’s just at one of those, I guess you could say crossroads in life, where you take stock and try to figure out what comes next.”

  “Isn’t that kind of like all of life?”

  She adjusted the rearview mirror. “I guess so.”

  “You don’t have to protect me from the truth, Mom. I can handle whatever. I mean, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that existence can be incredibly complicated, so like,” I stumbled a little, “I’m perfectly able to hold two conflicting concepts in one brain. Or more than two. I mean, obviously.”

  Mom smiled, but her sadness still bled through. We pulled up in front of RaChas HQ.

  “You’re a smart little bug,” she said, setting the emergency brake.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her.

  “I’m the one who should be asking you that.”

  A couple of dodgy guys walked by the door, kind of peeked in, then moved along.

  “Are you sure I can’t convince you to come back home tonight?” she asked.

  Yes.

  No.

  “Not yet.”

  Change 3–Day 189

  I know it’s been awhile since I’ve Chronicled. I can’t even remember when the last time was. Although I could do with a little less lentils and brown rice at every dinner, life at RaChas HQ is actually kind of a relief where Chronicling’s concerned. I don’t feel the usual Changers Council pressure to do it as much as possible, much less every day. Some of us do, some don’t; and still others do it sporadically. It’s so nice not to have the spirit of my future Mono staring me down with the (not so) implied threat of, Record every minute detail so you can CHOOSE WELL, when it comes time to declare at my Forever Ceremony.

  I mean, show me a Changer who manages to Chronicle every day during their Cycle as mandated, and I’ll show you . . . Oh, duh: Tracy. Speaking of Trace, her main matrimonial squeeze was sweating me today in homeroom. It’s my grades. They suck. No surprise, given my living arrangements, mood swings, PTSD, and overall evolving worldview.

  Mr. Crowell delivered our midterm grades today, making a little speech (in his “we’re all in this together” way) about how we juniors needed to start considering colle
ge applications, something he would be pleased to talk through if anyone had any queries, especially about scholarships.

  Not only are PSATs coming up, he said, but the importance of grades during the second semester of our junior year “should not be underestimated.”

  “Which is why I’m implementing a Study Buddy program in homeroom,” he said, explaining that kids who were currently “excelling” would be paired with other kids who were currently “underperforming,” the former helping the latter with organization, time-management, note-taking, or whatever it was that might be plaguing the strugglers’ performances.

  “Look at it as just, you know, a strategy-sharing opportunity,” Mr. Crowell continued sheepishly. “Sometimes I find it’s helpful to hear what works for others as we’re developing our own systems and techniques for success.”

  Ew. Since when has high school become a corporation? Oh, right. Since everything did.

  Mr. Crowell, in pairing up the class, was really trying to match people who weren’t already friends. His best couple? Chloe and stoner skater Jerry, hands down. The most shocking aspect being that Chloe, with scarcely two brain cells to rub together, actually managed to make it into the “excelling” group. Second place went to Kris, who got one of the Chloettes (“I’m going to flip this script and teach this chick about avant-garde theater,” he whispered), and then I of course got . . .

  Audrey.

  I mean, really? I’m sure Mr. Crowell thought he was helping, but I wish he had just put me with someone like meek Madison from the front row. She would’ve been ideal. As in, I’d have said, “Let’s not meet up but say we did,” and she would’ve nodded her head, and nobody would be the wiser. But no. I’m with the person who wants to see me the least in the world right now, if her continued duck-and-weave behavior over the last few weeks is any indication.

  As soon as Mr. Crowell announced the pairings and the required meeting outside of school, there were groans all around the class. Chloe whined aloud to her neighboring Chloette, “Jerry, really? How am I going to function with a contact high?” while Jerry loudly kissed his hand, slapped his butt, and then blew the kiss across the classroom in her direction.