“Homecoming is next week,” I said. “I don’t have a date yet.”
Mindy turned around and snorted. “That’s not new.”
I glared at Mindy and took a bite of my funnel cake.
“You have whipped cream on your nose,” Jade said to Mindy, who quickly put her hand over her nose.
I snorted and almost got whipped cream up my nose, which partially covered my astonishment at what Jade said next.
“Maybe you can go with my brother James. He doesn’t have a date either.”
Me? Go with James Foster? I can hardly breathe when I’m around him.
“Uh, why would he want to go with me?” I said, swallowing a bite of funnel cake.
Mindy’s eyes popped open, her jaw dropped, and she stared at me. That’s not what you’re supposed to say!
Jade looked like she was about to laugh but she just grinned. “Like I said, he doesn’t have a date either, that’s why.”
“Er, what would we talk about?”
“Who cares?” Mindy burst out.
Me. I care. James is so awesome I never know what to say to him. I mean, unlike Abigail who is socially clueless, I know my place in the pecking order.
I guess it’s due to teenage angst, which I have a lot of; whereas Abigail is in her own bubble—her and her tuba—while I go from bubble to bubble.
“I think you two would have fun,” Jade added.
Fun? What if I froze and couldn’t think of anything to say? That would not be fun.
By now, Mindy was pantomiming a conversation with herself: asking and answering questions, shaking her head, shrugging her shoulders, rolling her eyes.
I knew what she meant: Jade was totally serious, and I am standing there talking about the weather and missing the chance of my life which I will regret to my dying day. She was right.
Jade and James are part Native American. I saw James dance at a powwow at UCLA. He did the men’s fancy dance and wore the most awesome regalia, turquoise, white, gold. He moved in perfect time with the drums—graceful, fluid, and totally sexy. I could not take my eyes off him. (I hope I wasn’t gawking.) I have wanted to go out with him ever since. He is totally in control of himself and doesn’t even know it. It isn’t conceit, it’s confidence from being self-possessed. No other guy around here is like that.
“You don’t have to decide this minute,” Jade said. “But soon would be good.”
She looked at me with her almond-shaped green eyes, as if waiting for me to say something and trying to encourage me at the same time. I felt like I was on the spot.
In that moment of indecision, I saw her eyes glitter like a kaleidoscope.
What the—I blinked and stared. The next second her eyes were green again.
“Well, yeah, I . . . guess I do . . . have to decide.”
I blinked again and looked to the side. I must have imagined it. Too much glare. Then something occurred to me. We were near the place where the branch fell and caused us to swerve off the road. Could there be a connection . . .? No. Impossible.
“Sorry,” I said. “Oh, yes, Homecoming. It’s only a week away. I don’t have a dress—one that I want to wear. I have to go to the mall today, like now.”
“Olivia’s right,” Mindy said. “We don’t look good in everything. It can take a long time to find something that makes us look, you know, pretty good.”
That did it. I wanted to say Yes! I’ll go with him— but instead I clamped my mouth shut. After all I have my pride and did not want to look too eager.
It was now close to noon and the crowd was huge. The 10K is the same day. It starts and finishes back at the festival, so everyone ends up here.
I still felt awkward about whether or not I should go to Homecoming with James and the pressure of deciding soon, and that’s when I saw Abigail.
For the first-time ever I was relieved to see her. It sounds strange, but maybe it’s because avoiding her was something familiar, whereas going to Homecoming with James was new and stressful.
“Who is that?” said Jade.
Her question surprised me, but Abigail was not carrying her tuba and without it she did not weave off balance in and out of the crowd.
“It’s Abigail,” I said. “She’s new. She’s in the band and plays tuba. She usually has it with her.”
“Got it,” Jade said. She did not sneer or snicker at the word “tuba,” like everyone else does.
As always, Abigail looked like she had just arrived on the planet and didn’t know her way around. She stared straight ahead as she passed us.
She had a small plastic bag filled with water. Inside, a goldfish swam back and forth along the bottom of the bag, its nose pointed down, as if trying to find a way out. In her other hand she had a glass bowl and a small bag of blue rocks.
We were at the south end of the festival near the community center. Wooden barriers are half a block farther south and set up at intervals to block traffic. If you live nearby, walking is the easiest way to get here, but otherwise there is hardly any place to park. Some people take a shuttle bus from the Northrup Grumman lot where they have the swap meet. A bus had arrived and was dropping off a group of festivalgoers near the barriers.
As they got off, they milled around the bus, then strolled toward the main area—all except one who was not part of the group and breezed past them as if they were not there.
Pamela. She strode between the barriers without breaking stride, her stilettos planted firmly with every step, her eyes fixed on Abigail.
I didn’t know what she planned to do, but from the set of her mouth, her walk, her narrowed eyes, and those stilettos spiking the cement, it had to be something bad.
“Be right back,” I said.
“Where are you going?” Mindy asked.
Without answering I headed toward Abigail, hoping to reach her before Pamela did, but I was twice the distance away.
Pamela broke into a jog. She stopped suddenly—her eyes wide, a big smile on her face—and waved excitedly at someone behind me. I turned around to see who it was, but no one was there.
That phony creep: she did it to distract me, and it worked. I turned back around—and saw Pamela ram her shoulder into Abigail.
Abigail spun to the side and fell. The glass bowl exploded on the cement. The bag burst open; water splashed. The goldfish landed on its side and flopped in a tiny puddle. It paused, its gills expanded, and it flopped again. Its gills heaved as it struggled to breathe.
“Oh, no,” Pamela said. “I am so sorry! I better put the poor thing out of its misery.” She stared at it, pressed her lips together, and raised her knee, her spiked heel pointing down at the goldfish.
“No!” I yelled, shocked at what she was about to do.
A tall guy in faded jeans and a black tee shirt tossed something to the side and cut in front of Pamela. He didn’t touch her, but she lost her balance, staggered on one leg—arms pinwheeling—and fell over.
He reached down and cupped his hands near the goldfish.
It did a little flip—its dying gasp—and he moved his hand underneath and caught it. He cupped his other hand over the top and stood up.
It was James.
“Here,” he said, dropping the goldfish in Jade’s cupped hand. She covered it with her other hand to keep it from flipping out again.
I was so busy watching Abigail and Pamela that I hadn’t realized James tossed his own bag with a goldfish in it to Jade before he swooped down. Jade now had his bag balanced between her forearms and the goldfish under the dome of her hand. He took his bag from her and unwound the rubber band. He held out the open bag toward Jade, and she dropped the rescued goldfish inside.
For a few seconds it stayed in one place, its mouth opening and closing, its body wobbling. Then its fins moved, and it swam, but barely.
“I’ll get another bag,” Jade said, “and more water. I think he’ll be okay.”
James handed her the bag, brushed his hands on his jeans, and held out his hand to Abi
gail who was still sitting on the ground.
Abigail looked at James’s hand, then at his face. Her eyes got bigger than ever. She hesitated a moment, blushed deep red, and put her hand in his. He pulled her to her feet.
“Th-thank you,” she said.
Two thoughts popped into my mind.
One, Abigail wasn’t as clueless as I thought. Even she saw how good-looking he is. Two, I wish I had said yes—Yes! The answer’s yes! I want to go to Homecoming with him. It was the nicest thing I had ever seen a guy do for a stranger.
Was it too late? I couldn’t blurt it out now, he didn’t even know about it. Would Jade tell him? And when? As a matter of fact, where was Jade?
I turned from side to side looking for her and saw her returning with a large plastic bag partially filled with water and mostly filled with air. Two goldfish were inside; one looked strong, but the other was floating on its side.
“The man said it would be better to put some of the same water in the bag,” she said. As she unwound the rubber band, the goldfish sloshed back and forth with the water’s movement.
Why is she doing that, I wondered? It’s already dead.
Jade held the bag open and blew a small puff of air into it. She clasped the top shut, wrapped the rubber band around it, and stared, never taking her eyes off it.
At first, nothing happened. Then the goldfish moved its tail. A few seconds later, it righted itself and began to swim. It grew stronger and after several seconds the two fish swam together, both their noses pointing at the same bottom corner.
Jade gave the barest smile and handed the bag to James.
No, I thought, absolutely no. She did not bring it back to life. It was not dead in the first place, it was stunned.
I glanced around but no one else seemed to have noticed. The other people were either looking warmly at James or frowning unfavorably at Abigail.
“Were you leaving or staying for a while?” James said to Abigail.
She nodded, but still seemed dumbfounded.
“Leaving?” he said, obviously encouraging a more accurate reply.
“Yes,” Abigail said in a strangled voice.
“I’ll walk with you a way,” he said. “Just to be sure no one runs into you again.”
He looked at the spot where Pamela had fallen, but she was no longer there. He turned his head to see where she might have gone. I did the same thing and saw her disappearing into the crowd.
“I didn’t mean for her to fall, you know.” He shrugged. It was an accident. “Let’s get another bowl.”
Broken glass littered the pavement. With the toe of his shoe, James swept most of it into the dirt where shrubs lined the walk.
People standing nearby were now appraising all of us. James and Jade always attract attention, especially when they are together. But seeing Pamela fall on her ass—and Abigail get knocked on hers—caused a lot of disapproving looks.
A man in a security uniform faced us squarely. He wore sunglasses, so I could not see his eyes, but his mouth was pressed in a tight line and his eyebrows were knotted.
“Let’s go,” Mindy said.
The last thing we needed was to have a security guard ask us what we were doing.
No matter how innocent the explanation, parents get suspicious if they see their kids talking to police—especially in the middle of a staring crowd. If you tell them you didn’t do anything, they think you are lying, or they think you are covering for someone else. I’m not sure which is worse.
“I hope it’s not too late,” I said.
James and Abigail were already half a dozen booths away.
Jade tilted her head. Late for what?
“Homecoming, you know,” I explained.
“Now she thinks about it,” Mindy said.
James and Abigail were too far away for us to hear what they were saying. He inclined his head, his eyebrows lifted, as though asking if she was all right. Abigail gave a small nod in reply. She lowered her eyes and then looked back up at him. For once, her eyes did not look like they would pop out of her head. It was the most normal I had ever seen her.
“You mean James go with Abigail?” Jade reflected. “It’s possible, but I don’t think so. He’s just being nice.”
She thought a moment then said, “That’s the way he is. He might even try to find Pamela and have a talk with her, you know, encourage her to be more friendly.”
Was she serious?
“He never holds a grudge,” Jade added.
Never? Not even against someone like Pamela? She deserved to have someone hold a grudge against her, forever.
I pushed that thought away. It did no good to hope someone would get what they deserved. It isn’t charitable (my mom’s opinion); and it’s not practical (my opinion). It never happens.
Then I thought of Jade and what she had just said. It was not the words themselves; it was how she said it. You mean James go with Abigail? She did not say it like, oh, he would never take someone like her. It was just a matter-of-fact observation, nothing judgmental.
A twinge of guilt nagged at me. Anyone else, me included, would mean something entirely different.
What can I say? Sometimes it takes someone being truly kind to make you see your own attitude is kind of crappy.
“Hey,” said Mindy, her eyes bright. “Let’s go to the goldfish booth. It was lucky for Abigail; maybe we can figure out our own strategy.”
Strategy? For getting a date? I didn’t know there was one—other than they ask you or you ask them—but Mindy was so excited I didn’t want to disappoint her.
“Sure,” I said. “If you want to.”
“See you later,” Jade said. “I’ve got a gig with one of the bands. I’m singing with them, just one song.”
Just one song. Before I could ask which band, what song, she had left.
“Come on,” Mindy said, elbowing me, and so we went to the game booths.
I didn’t feel like tossing ping pong balls into goldfish bowls and missed every time. Mindy tried too hard, and hers flew out of the booth, into the next booth, and several got squashed. Fifteen minutes later we left. We didn’t get our money back either.
Next, we tried the dime toss.
Every dime I threw pinged and bounced off the glass plate or caromed into the next game booth. Most of Mindy’s landed on top of the stuffed animals the plates were sitting on. Twenty dimes later, we hadn’t won anything so we got snow cones.
“Olivia”—Mindy poked a small plastic straw into her raspberry snow cone— “you’re being a real dud.”
“Huh? Oh yeah, sorry.”
I felt like a dud. From a distance I saw Jade on the bandstand singing. Her voice drifted on the wind, ethereal like Enya.
“What are you thinking about?” Mindy said.
“I don’t know. Lots of things.”
“Like what?”
“Mm . . . why Pamela hates Abigail, for one.”
“That’s just the way she is.”
“Right,” I said. “But Abigail doesn’t bother her. She doesn’t even know she’s there; she pays no attention to her. I don’t get it.”
“Don’t you think that’s it?” Mindy said, slurping her snow cone.
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone pays attention to Pamela, even the teachers. There is only one person who doesn’t know she’s alive.” Mindy peered into her snow cone, frowned at what was left, and stirred the slushy chips.
“Abigail.”
“Yep.” Mindy slurped again. “And Pamela can’t stand it. It’s killing her. And she won’t stop until—well, she just won’t.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it made sense.
“What do you think she’ll do?” I said, hoping Pamela would not try something even nastier than what she had already done.
“Whatever she feels like. It just depends on the situation.”
Jade finished her song, the audience applauded and whistled. She brought her palms together, her f
ingers pointing up like a prayer of thanks, and bowed her head.
It looked totally right, and the crowd cheered obviously wanting more.
“I didn’t know she could sing,” I said.
“Me either,” said Mindy. “I wish I could.”
“Have you tried?” I said. “Not just in the bus.”
“Yeah. It sounded awful. My mom said stop screaming or the neighbors would call the police.”
“Was it that loud?”
“I was using my brother’s microphone. The volume was way up.”
Jade waved at the crowd, then turned to the band, and clasped her hands together. Her arms were in close to her sides her head bowed in appreciation. She really meant what she was saying—thank you—and that’s why it looked so honest.
Jade left the stage and headed in the direction of the art exhibit.
“I think she’s exhibiting a painting,” I said.
“She paints, too?” Mindy flicked her snow cone to get the last drop off the side.
“Yes, and I bet it’s amazing.”
“Are you jealous?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Then what’s the matter?” Mindy poked her straw up and down. There was nothing left but syrup. “Is it James?”
“Could be.”
“You didn’t even want to go with him.”
“I hadn’t decided. Abigail came along, then Pamela, and now it’s all messed up.”
“It’s not that messed up. Stop being so dramatic.” She took a deep breath and exhaled so loudly it sounded like she was in a hollow tunnel.
“I’m being dramatic? You sound like Darth Vader. That is dramatic.”
“Ah!” She tossed her head and exhaled again. “Just get over it. Easy come, easy go.”
I would never admit it, but she was right. After all, it was Jade’s idea to go with James and I hadn’t said yes.
“Let’s go look at the exhibit,” I said.
We tossed our empty cups in the trash and went to the art exhibit. To find Jade’s painting, we had to stop and look at each picture and check the name plate.
Midway through the room I saw a silvery drawing on the wall and moved closer to get a better look. I gazed at it curiously . . . and froze.
“What’s wrong?” Mindy said.
One of Us: The City of Secrets Page 4