(1/2) ROFL. My tutor is a Swiss Miss. She looks like she belongs on the package of those horrible hot chocolate drink packages that had the dried marshmallows. Remember those? Why do I love those so much?
(2/2) She’s actually not teaching me anything because I’m still in the testing stage so basically she just has me reading. I’m supposed to call her Frau Kielholz but since she looks like she might only be a few years older than me she agreed I could call her Sandrine.
The bell rings. I try texting and running into the building.
“Ask her if Sandrine is hot,” Nick says waving his phone at me. Charlotte is texting us both at the same time. He speeds off toward his class, and I run up the stairs for Advanced Comp. “Because Sandrine sounds sexy as fuck.”
Is she hot? N wants to know
Please. It’s like hot genes barfed all over here. Everyone is hot. Even the 90 year old grandmothers are hot. It’s depressing. Never come here Nate. Promise me.
Promise to find no one hotter than you
Lame. Luv Ux1000
Luv U
When the noon bell rings, I lope down to the entrance, taking the stairs two, three at a time. Near the bottom, I use the railing and catapult myself past three sets of slowpokes. As I’m adjusting my backpack after the vault, I feel a shove against my shoulder. More like in my pectoral area than my shoulder. Looking down, I see the angry face of Charlotte’s friend Greta.
“Whoa there. You drunk this morning?” I straighten her by her shoulders and set her out of my way. I hear the click of a camera phone. It’s another girl whose name I can’t ever remember. Sarah, Susan, Shelly. One of those. I don’t really care though, so I just continue to walk past them until Greta’s next words stop me in my tracks. “Your girl off to get her abortion?”
Over the blood rushing to my ears, I hear my father’s voice repeatedly telling me to respect the other gender, to be cognizant of my size and how it can be used to intimate without meaning to, how I should treat women in the manner I would want my mother—or Charlotte—to be treated. With his admonitions in my head, I manage to bite back the word bitch and say evenly, “What do you want, Greta?”
She smiles, but there’s no affection there. Not for Charlotte at least. “Just kidding. I know she’s having treatment. She okay?”
I wonder at their closeness if she’s asking. Wouldn’t she have heard from Charlotte if they were friends? I never really paid attention to Charlotte’s female friends. They didn’t interest me. And she has no close male friends; if any of the sausage holders tried to kiss up to her, Nick and I made short shrift of them.
“She’s fine.” I’ve had enough of the conversation. As I turn, the camera shutter sounds again. “What the fuck?”
“Sorry, Nathan,” another girl mumbles and looks at the floor. Seela. Her name pops to the front of my memory bank. Her father is a tech venture capitalist, and Seela has all the latest gadgets including camera-embedded glasses. They aren’t allowed in school, however. Reaching over, I pluck the frames off her head. Behind me I sense Nick coming up for support. As Seela attempts to grab her glasses from me, I toss them to him. He squeezes the camera apparatus between his fingers until it cracks.
“Looks like your camera is broken.” Nick smirks as he hands back the lenses. “You’d think they’d be able to make those a little less fragile after all these years.”
I give him a chin nod, and we take off.
“What was that all about?” Nick asks when we are driving to a nearby restaurant for lunch.
“That was about Greta being a complete asswipe. How good of friends are her and Charlotte?”
Nick shrugs. “Not real close. They were on the same competitive gymnastics squad and my guess is that their friendship is more of a frenemy thing.”
“Frenemy?”
“Yeah, like they compete but are teammates.”
I let that thought marinate for a few moments. “Charlotte asked her for condoms, so I figured they were like best friends or something.”
“Nah. Charlotte probably went to Greta because her older sister is in college.”
“Got it.”
It made sense now. Charlotte and Greta were friends of convenience. This didn’t excuse Greta, but it did explain a little why she was trying to get her digs in.
“We going to the Milhawk party this Friday?” Nick asks, done with the conversation about Greta. I am happy to let it drop as well.
“Why not? We got anything better planned?”
“Nope. Can’t drink though, so if you want to get shitfaced, I’ll drive your weak ass home.”
“Thanks for the offer,” I say dryly. Maybe I should tie one on this weekend. It’d make the time fly by a little faster.
* * *
Jason Milhawk lives in South Loop where old money and new are on display between the historic row houses and the newly furbished townhouses. Milhawk comes from old lumber baron money and lives in a row house which has seen a lot of cocktail parties but only a few ragers.
Milhawk has a fully stocked bar and game room in the basement that his parents had built and sound-proofed so he could practice with his band. Milhawk’s band is terrible, but when you’re drunk it all sounds good.
And I am really drunk. Milhawk dragged me behind the bar the minute that Nick and I got to his house, and we proceeded to see how many shots of Patron we could drink in ten minutes. A lot is the answer to that. I stopped counting after the tenth one because . . . well, I couldn’t count anymore.
Nick’s not allowed to drink because North Prep athletics has a zero tolerance policy. One drop and you’re out and I obviously don’t give a damn but for all his careless attitude, sports mean something to him. I suppose that is why he sleeps around so much. It’s the only vice he’s allowed that won’t affect his eligibility.
If Charlotte were here, I wouldn’t be downing shots either because I’d be too concerned about keeping an eye on her. But she left me and went halfway around the world to hang out with Fraus and Frauleins and people she says have been puked on by the good looks fairy. I wonder if she means guys too. A chill skitters down my spine. I’ve never been uncertain with Charlotte before. She’s never looked at another guy with any interest . . . but she was a virgin before.
She was nearly animalistic with me before she left. After we had sex that first time, it was like a dam had broken, and she wanted me all the time. Which was great in the moment, but now I’m worried. What if she’s horny and she looks to some other guy close to her to fulfill her needs? Fuck me sideways.
I fumble with my phone to see if I can call her. What’s the time zone difference again? Would I be waking her up? What time does it say on my phone, anyway? I peer at the screen, trying to get a fix on the numbers that keep moving. Is that a ten? Is it ten? Or is it ten minutes after one?
A slim arm hooks under my arm, and little fingers curl around my biceps. For a minute I think it’s Charlotte, but then the overwhelming scent of musk hits me. The obvious cologne is something Charlotte would never wear. Peering to my left, I see Greta. Something is smudged around her eyes, making her appear alarmingly like a raccoon.
“You’ve got shit under your eyes.” I make a circling gesture in the general direction of her face.
She rolls her eyes at me. “It’s eye shadow, genius.”
I grunt. Looks like raccoon eyes. “Charlotte doesn’t wear her eye shadow like that.”
Greta rolls her eyes even harder. So hard that I wonder why they don’t actually fall out of her eyes. Maybe her eye shadow is like a force field and holds them in. Hmm. I’ll have to ask Charlotte about that. I pick up my phone again, but Greta pulls my arm down.
“Nathan,” she breathes against my neck. “I’m sorry about earlier this week. I was just kidding. I know Charlotte was sick and that she’s not pregnant.”
The air is warm, and her breath smells like she just chewed five mints. There’s an almost medicinal feel to it, and it reminds me uncomfortably of the hospital. I
try to move away but realize that I’m sitting on one end of the sofa with the arm against my left side and Greta plastered to my right. I shake my right arm a little to let her know that I need room. When she doesn’t move, I scowl at her.
“Even if she was pregnant, so what? Kid would be mine, and all of us would be happy.”
That’s not entirely the truth. Her mom and dad would frown. A lot. But in the end, Charlotte and me having kids is the culmination of both our families’ dreams. They’d get over it real quick. And we’re going to have kids. Not now, I mean, but later after I’m out of the Marines. We should talk about this. I tap the glass of my phone and the hazy shapes form into the numbers 1:15.
With a finger hovering over the call button, I contemplate the time difference. She might be up. Or I might wake her up. Before I can dial, though, the phone is plucked from my fingers. Greta holds it behind her.
“What the fuck?” As I reach over her body to grab it, she leans backward and I collapse on top of her, somehow falling between her open legs. Her thighs grip my hips, and she rubs against me as I try to get my phone back. A flash of light followed by a shutter sound goes off. I turn toward the offending noise, and it’s that S girl. Fuck. I can’t remember her name again.
“Need some help?” Nick’s there and plucks the phone from Greta’s hand. Shoving off her body, I catch the phone that Nick tosses me because even drunk my hand eye coordination is sharp. Muscle memory.
Greta is remains on the sofa, her legs slightly sprawled, looking up at me beneath her eyelashes. She probably thinks she looks sexy, but instead it looks a bit grotesque. “You should cover yourself. This desperate look isn’t going to get you anything but a disease.”
I pocket my phone. To Nick I say, “Let’s get out of here.”
He nods but before we leave, he turns back to Greta. “You’ve got issues, girl. Better work them out, or these parties will be closed to you.”
He high fives Milhawk as we exit.
“No worries about that chick,” Milhawk says. “She’s off the list.”
“Whatever,” I say. I’m more interested in talking to Charlotte than talking about one messed up girl from North Prep.
“She’s trouble,” Nick mutters as we walk toward the car. “Don’t underestimate her.”
“What could she possibly do?” I scoff.
19
Charlotte
I hate it here. I hate living in this hotel in this beautiful country surrounded by these beautiful people. When I look out my rented bedroom window I can see the Alps and clear lakes fed by melting glaciers. It’s a postcard-worthy scene. And all the unadulterated, breath-stealing beauty sours my disposition even more. I should like it, but I don’t.
I want to be home, gazing onto the fog-covered skyscrapers of the city and off into the horizon of the stormy waters of Lake Michigan. I want concrete and smog and biting cold wind, not the pastoral setting of northern Switzerland.
Everyone here seems happy, even the other sick kids. And there are kids worse off than I am. Terminal cases here for last ditch experimental therapy. Young kids whose intensive radiation and chemotherapy could stunt their growth and their brain development. What a sucky trade off.
I feel the base of my skull, the soft spot high up on the neck where the head and neck meet. There’s the round plastic of my shunt. A foreign object will live inside me for as long as I have a beating heart. It’s a permanent reminder that at one point, a big old grapefruit pressed against the base of my skull and screwed me up inside.
Breathing deeply, I try to count my blessings. My test results are good, and I’m only going to have to be here for six months. They don’t think the radiation and chemo will need to be as aggressive, and since my brain and body have stopped developing, they don’t think it will be a big problem to catch back up with everyone else and transition back into high school in the fall.
So, decent health.
My family is here. Mom’s here this week and the next, and then Dad will be here. The Jacksons are going to come in May for my birthday. I’ll spend the hot summer months in a cool climate.
Good weather. My family. My boys are coming.
My boys. There it is. The source of my real discontent. I flip my phone over. Seela Carr, a junior who I hardly know, had texted me a picture that appeared on my phone first thing this morning, which would have been last night Chicago time. Seela’s a popular girl. Glee Club and yearbook staff, she’s almost never without some recording device. Ostensibly she’s always capturing North Prep’s best moments, but her always present camera has also recorded painful moments. Breakups. Fights. Cheaters.
The picture she sent me of Nate collapsed between the legs of Greta in Jason Milhawk’s basement causes me actual pain whenever I see it. Nate’s clearly drunk, probably from doing shots with Milhawk. He has a glassy-eyed surprised look on his face in the picture.
Seela is only trying to stir up trouble, but I’m not sure what Greta’s doing. Probably just talking to Nathan. I know, deep down, that he would never humiliate me in front of anyone else. Family is number one in his mind, and no one has ever been allowed to tease me or Nick without retribution from Nathan. But still, the image of him in someone else’s arms hurts me, literally.
Every time I see it, my heart squeezes tight. Despite the fixed and glazed stare, Nathan is so beautiful. His dark hair frames his perfect face. In the photo, he’s bracing himself, and the muscles in his arms are highlighted by the harsh glare of the flash. I remember what it is like to be under him when he’s in that position. There’s no doubt someone pushed him over, but he was still next to Greta. I didn’t even realize that they knew each other, that they were friendly.
I toss the phone aside.
“Charlotte? Shall we do maths again?”
It’s Fraulein “call me Sandrine” Kielholz. She has beautiful blonde hair, not the colored stuff you see at home, but true blonde, like spun gold. She’s fairly tall, and her skin is milky white. Sandrine is very curious about the U.S. and would like to come and visit, or so she tells me during each session.
“Sure.” I drag myself away from the window.
“Great.” She pushes a set of problems toward me. “Compare these sets and identify which are the irrational numbers. Why don’t you tell me again what irrational numbers are?”
“A number that cannot be written as a fraction,” I mumble.
“Good. Good.” Clapping her hands, she gestures for me to get started.
As I apply myself, she starts talking about Chicago again. “Maybe you will need a tutor when you go back home. I could come and visit, yes?”
“Sure,” I answer but with little enthusiasm. I’m afraid to place Sandrine and her Nordic beauty anywhere near Nathan. I never felt this way until I came here, but two weeks away from Nathan and Nick has made me nervous and homesick.
And everyone back home other than the Jackson boys seems intent on sending me picture proof of how much they don’t miss me. Irrational numbers? I feel pretty irrational right now.
My phone beeps, and I want to answer it but Sandrine taps her watch. She wants me to finish so I apply myself, but considering I don’t like math and don’t see the point of trying to figure out what square roots are irrational and which are not, I don’t get many right.
Thirty minutes later, she is pressing her lips together and looking concerned as she peruses my answers. “We will review this again, yes.”
Sandrine ends nearly every sentence with yes even when she isn’t asking a question.
“Yes,” I say.
She spends the whole morning trying to show me which square roots and cube roots are irrational, and I spend the entire time pinching myself to prevent screaming about how I think this is all ridiculous. My mother interrupts us around ten and sends Sandrine away.
“Baby, you look tired,” Mom says, smoothing my hair away. She sets a tray of tea, hot chocolate, and pastries next to my math papers. I will say that the pastries are freaking a
wesome here, and I’ll miss them when I go back home.
“I am. Why am I studying these things?” I whine a bit.
“It’s not so much the numbers themselves, but the processing and analyzing data that will become important.”
“No offense, Mom, but I have no desire to work at Freedom Funds and analyze numbers all day.”
Mom smiles serenely over her tea cup. “No offense taken. I’ve always thought you were more like your father in that regard. You enjoy physical things too much.”
I duck my head to hide the blush that rises at the thought of exactly what kinds of physical things I enjoy. But she’s my mom and can read my thoughts.
“Missing the Jackson boys? Or just one particular Jackson?” she asks softly.
“Both,” I answer. It’s true. I miss them both. Impulsively I ask, “Did you and Dad have many separations?”
Her face softens and her eyes look past me as if she’s picturing the two of them as young lovers. “No, this is the longest that we’ve ever been separated. We met in biology, remember? And we saw each other every other day, and once we started dating, we were quite inseparable.” She sets down her tea and considers me for a moment. “But Noah and Grace were separated for several years. Almost six. They wrote letters to each other. They both say that they treasure those years apart as much as the time they finally were able to be together regularly.”
“Letters?”
“Yes. Noah was deployed with your Dad. Grace and Noah wrote letters and mailed them to each other.” Mom filches a croissant from the pastry plate. “I’m a bit envious. Grace has this lovely collection of hand-written notes from Noah. It’s quite romantic.”
“That’s weird. I can’t imagine Uncle Noah writing letters.”
The Charlotte Chronicles Page 11