The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates

by Anna Cackler

  “Rusty,” I said, taking a healthy bite of my apple.

  “Whatever.” There was a tense silence, and then she threw down her magazine angrily, making Charlie and me both jump. “You know what? No! I just can’t believe that girl! She’s so selfish!”

  “Shannon! Calm down!” Charlie said. He shook his head and went back to his eggs.

  “Who?” My voice was rough because of the piece of apple that had gotten lodged in my throat when Shannon had shouted.

  “Margo!” she said. “Sweet little perfect, cute Margo!” Charlie’s confused face was blank again. He was clearly bored with our conversation already. I glared at him, but he didn’t notice.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Shannon, nodding my head meaningfully in Charlie’s direction. Something was definitely wrong between them. What could have happened over the weekend that could make the pair of them suddenly so disinterested in each other?

  “I’m fine!” she said but turned a fraction of an inch away from him nonetheless. “We’re talking about Margo here!”

  “What’s wrong with Margo?” I would just have to ask Shannon about Charlie later on when we were alone.

  “She’s been using me! That’s what!” She grabbed her magazine and tore it open, though it was upside down now. I’m not sure that she noticed.

  “For what?”

  “To get to Finnegan! Of course!”

  “Finnegan?” I tried not to laugh. “Well duh!”

  Her magazine hit the table again. “Excuse me?”

  “She never used to hang out with us, Shannon!” The laughter was bubbling out of my mouth now in sporadic bursts, despite my best efforts. “Not until you started pushing Finn on her. What did you think she was doing?”

  “I thought she was my friend! And there’s something to be said for loyalty in a friend!” Her shrill tone caused Charlie to flinch noticeably.

  “She is your friend!” I said. “But she’s got other friends too. And what about me? Am I not enough of a friend for you?”

  “You’re just as bad,” she said. “Why don’t you ever sit with Ethan when he’s with his friends?”

  “That’s because I don’t know any of Ethan’s friends. And what does that have to do with anything?”

  “He didn’t know us either when he first came, and he hangs out with us sometimes.”

  Yeah. Sometimes. He hangs out with us sometimes. Ever since the party, Ethan had been making fewer and fewer appearances. Come to think of it, he’d never spent much time with us, not even in the beginning. The only times I saw him were sometimes at breakfast, then everyday after school to study. Now that the study time was off limits, I never saw him at all.

  “So what?” I asked, getting more and more irritated. “Do you want me to go sit with the basketball jocks? Cause I will! I’ll go right now.” Right. I could just see the shocked look on Ethan’s face now. He would just love having me intrude on his guy-time. I wasn’t even really his girlfriend. Not really.

  “Go! Go sit with them, if that’s what you want!”

  “Fine! I will!” I grabbed my book and half eaten apple and stalked off across the room. Charlie didn’t even look up, though his Styrofoam bowl was empty by now.

  I stared across the cafeteria to where Ethan was sitting with his friends. He was laughing and joking with them as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As if I didn’t even exist. This sort of thing was becoming more and more frequent, and it was quickly getting to the point where I was more relieved than upset by his absence. And when he was around he just confused me. He was constantly flirting with me, but I never felt like he was treating me like a girlfriend. He never held my hand, he never walked me to any classes. He didn’t even spend much of his time with me. It was all very confusing.

  No, there was no way that I was going to sit with Ethan’s friends. I wasn’t going to impose that kind of embarrassment on myself just because Shannon was being a baby over nothing.

  I glanced up at the big clock on the back wall. There were still about ten minutes before classes started, but there was no way I was going to back and sit with Shannon and her moronic boyfriend. I didn’t care how gorgeous that boy was; his head was all kinds of empty.

  So instead I veered off to the library, where I knew Mrs. Ferguson gave all of her make-up tests. Sure enough, I found Finn there, pencil in hand, tongue stuck out on one side.

  “Hey,” I said, plopping down across the table from him. Mrs. Belkin, the librarian, glanced up at me, and then went back to her own business. She never really cared what went on in her library so long as no one started a shouting match. I could probably recite all of the answers to Finn’s test out loud and no one would notice. In fact that’s how a lot of people passed Biology.

  “Busy. Leave me alone.” He didn’t look up from the half-page essay he was scribbling down on the test paper.

  “I had every intention of it. I just need a place to hide until class starts.”

  “Just hide quietly.”

  And I did. I ate the rest of my apple, then tossed the core in a waste bin, and pulled out my calculus. So much for asking for Shannon’s help with it. I glared at page 143 until the bell rang without writing so much as a single variable on my paper.

  “So why have you been hiding all day?” Finn asked me that afternoon before Lit class. I had spent all of lunch hour in the library as well, though I was there by myself that time. I made one last ditch attempt at finishing my homework, but ended up turning in less than two problems anyway. They were probably wrong, too.

  It was Chemistry that was difficult to manage. It’s kind of hard to give the silent treatment to your lab partner.

  “Because your stupid sister is freaking out. Again. I swear I never know what to expect from her from one day to the next!”

  “Never mind. I don’t want to know.” He settled back into his seat and pulled out a copy of Night by Elie Wiesel.

  “Well I’m going to tell you.”

  “I don’t want you to.” He opened the little book and started reading.

  “She’s mad because evidently Margo only ever spent time with Shannon because she wanted to get to you.”

  “So?”

  “Exactly! And then she started making all these stupid comments,” I spat the word, “about me not sitting with Ethan all the time, and then she started yelling at me that I should go sit with him!”

  “Which you did.”

  “No. I went to sit with you in the library.”

  He looked up at me, finally putting down the book. “Why didn’t you go sit with your boyfriend?” The question was innocent enough, but his thoughtful tone seemed a little out of place.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” I squirmed in my seat. I wished people would stop calling him that.

  Finn grunted something noncommittal and picked up his book again.

  The bell rang, but Ms. Walsh hadn’t started class yet. The other kids were murmuring to each other quietly. It was a sleepy, surreal sort of sound. I looked over at Finn, but he was completely absorbed in his book, which I didn’t understand. I’d tried to read Night once before as well but couldn’t finish it. It was just too depressing.

  After school let out, I dashed through the rain to my car and got in before I could even glance around to see if Shannon was nearby. I was one of the first people to pull out of the parking lot, so I didn’t have to wait on the usual line of traffic waiting to enter the main road.

  I pulled into my driveway ten minutes later, and my low mood suddenly lifted. There, in the driveway, was a blue sedan. I gasped and dashed out of the car without even bothering to shut off the engine.

  “Dad!” I cried, bursting through the front door. My dad, a great bear of a man with too much bushy hair and a round face, caught me in the living room and spun me around. His humongous duffel bag and computer case were still piled on the couch where he must have left them when he’d come in.

  “My little Prudence!” His bellowing voice made the small house
feel suddenly cavernous.

  I smacked him in the arm with my cast. “Don’t call me that!”

  “I’ll call you whatever I want.” He sat me down on my own two feet. Mom was standing in the doorway, a huge grin plastered across her face. For the first time since she’d told us she was pregnant, she finally looked the part. She was actually glowing.

  “I thought you were going to be another week!” I said.

  “Plans change.” He started digging in his giant bag. “I got you something, here. Somewhere.” He fished around amongst his clothes and whatnot for a full five minutes before finally pulled out a black three-ring binder. He handed it over with a sly grin on his face. Mom was laughing behind her hand.

  “What is this?” I opened the front cover. The notebook contained around a hundred or so pages of printed text, front and back. It looked almost like a short manuscript.

  “It’s fan fiction,” he said. “Fans of my book took it upon themselves to continue the story for me. These are your continued adventures, Emily!”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, they self publish on various literary websites,” Mom said. “A couple of them are actually pretty good. Too bad nobody knew that your dad’s book was actually creative nonfiction.”

  “For the most part,” Dad said.

  “Awe, Dad, this is great!” I said. “Who knew you were so popular?”

  The front door slammed shut. “Well I certainly didn’t!”

  We all wheeled around as Aaron came stalking into the room, a comically stern look on his face. “And where’s my present, Father?”

  Dad spread his arms wide and grinned at him. “It’s right here, boy!” he cried. “Come and get it!”

  Aaron stepped forward and Dad picked him up and shook him around as easily as he had done me. By the time Aaron’s feet returned to the ground, he was grinning too.

  “This calls for a celebration,” Aaron said. “We should all go have steaks or something. My treat.”

  “Sounds good to me!” Dad eyebrows disappeared under his hair. “It certainly pays of to have a son with a gift for hard labor.”

  “Certainly does,” Aaron said, and then turned to me. “It’s too bad you’re grounded. I do so wish that you could join us tonight.”

  Mom smacked him in the back of the head as she crossed the room to the kitchen. “Shut up.”

  “I told you he was a jerk!” I followed her, flipping through the notebook.

  “I never said he wasn’t, I just kindly asked you not to call him one,” Mom said. She grabbed a bag full of marinating chicken from the counter and tossed it in the fridge. “We’ll have grilled chicken tomorrow.”

  “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, too.”

  “Then we’ll have it the next night.”

  “It’s not supposed to clear up until Tuesday.”

  “Then we’ll have it Tuesday.” She smirked and went back to the living room.

  Eleven

  “Okay, okay, listen to this one,” Finn said with a chuckle the next afternoon at lunch. I had lent him the black notebook that morning and he was still riffling through the pages and reading his favorite lines out loud. “’If there was one thing that Emma knew for sure, it was that little boys were the devil’s own creation. Who else but the devil could make a creature so vile, so dirty, and so utterly covered in cooties?’ Who writes this crap? It doesn’t even sound like your dad’s book.”

  “Morons,” Ethan said in a bored voice.

  “A couple of them are pretty good,” I said. “Like the one where Emma gets lost in the department store and starts wandering around, giving advice to random strangers.”

  “Sounds fascinating,” Ethan said. I glared at him, but didn’t say anything.

  “I haven’t read that one yet,” Finn said, flipping a few more pages. “What’s it called?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Ha!” he shouted suddenly. “Here’s a good one.”

  But I grabbed the notebook out of his hand before he had a chance to read it out loud. He looked very put out.

  “That’s enough.” I stuffed the notebook into my bag. “They’re not even that funny.”

  “Sure they are.”

  Ethan snorted. “Yeah, they’re funny like a blow to the head is funny.”

  “Hey!” I complained. “My dad’s fans wrote those!”

  “Yeah, well,” he said, which is what you say when you have no excuses up your sleeve. He backed out of his seat, his hand on my back. “I’ve got to go. I promised Shelly I’d help her with her civics project today. I’ll catch you guys later.” He scooped up his bag and disappeared with his usual good natured grin, but I found I couldn’t smile back. Not that time.

  I turned to face Finn, Margo, and Shannon. Charlie was nowhere to be found today and Shannon’s jaw was set in a very stubborn sort of way. Shannon still refused to talk to me, but at least she was being civil now. I had completely forgotten about that stupid fight until I turned up that morning for breakfast. She’d been talking animatedly with Ethan until I’d turned up, at which point she’d buried her face in the same magazine that she’d had the day before.

  “What’s wrong with Ethan?” Margo asked, and I shrugged.

  Finn hooked the shoulder strap on my bag with one foot and dragged it toward himself under the table. He dug around in it and retrieved the notebook. “He’s suffering from a severe lack of after-school-Emily-time,” he said.

  “Hardly,” I said. “If anything is suffering from my jail time, it’s my calculus grade.” I took a healthy bite of my apple and frowned at Shannon’s magazine. At least it wasn’t upside down today.

  “Hm,” Finn said, but Margo smiled encouragingly at me. I was glad she didn’t offer to help me study, though. She was just too nice for me to take on my own for more than five minutes.

  I glanced over at Shannon, and I was sure that she had been watching me. The instant my eyes found her face, her magazine flicked suspiciously back to its position in front of her eyes.

  “What?” I asked her.

  She shrugged.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” she said from behind her magazine.

  “Oh, come on!” I reached out and snatched her magazine away from her face in one fluid motion. “This is getting a little ridiculous, don’t you think? I’m sorry I didn’t stay and sit with you yesterday morning, all right?”

  She sniffed. “You can sit with whoever you want to, Emily.”

  “Then what’s the matter?” Even Margo was watching Shannon’s face in a worried sort of way. She was receiving the same cold shoulder that I was.

  “Nothing’s the matter, I told you!” She snatched her magazine back.

  “Shannon, get over yourself,” Finn said from behind the notebook.

  “I will do no such thing!” she shrilled at him. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Just leave me alone.” She lifted the magazine up to her face again, but we could all hear her sniffling. Something was really bothering her. I got up and walked around the table so that I could sit by her and put my arm around her waist, and she finally let loose and started crying for real. Margo got up and ran to sit on her other side, shoving Finn out of his seat in the process. Shannon laughed a little when her brother landed without grace on the hard, dirty floor of the cafeteria, glaring up at Margo. The notebook went skittering across the floor. Some girls at the next table tittered, but nobody else seemed to notice the commotion.

  “What’s bothering you?” Margo asked.

  She didn’t say anything, but her eyes flicked across the room. We both followed her gaze and saw that Charlie was sitting with some freshman girl from my art class. She was blond and beautiful, though there was no way she could hold a torch to Shannon. He had his filthy arm over her shoulders.

  “Oh, honey!” Margo squeezed Shannon’s shoulders.

  “What a jackass!” I cried in disbelief. Even
Finn looked murderous as he dusted himself off.

  “I really thought we were going to make it, too.” Shannon hiccupped. “I started noticing it a couple of days ago. She’s a filthy cheerleader, of course. They hooked up last weekend at the football game that none of us could go to.” Her tone was bitter, but sufficiently angry to reassure me that she would survive.

  The bell rang then, and we all began gathering up our things. Margo and I escorted Shannon to the bathroom so that she could wash her face. We were all three a little late to class, but none of us even got a second glance. Ethan didn’t even seem to notice that we were tardy.

  “So, when’s the big day?” Ethan asked one afternoon at lunch a week later.

  “Tomorrow,” I said with wide smile. I was so excited. “I got a few days off for good behavior.”

  “It’s Thursday for us,” Shannon said. She took a long drink of her iced tea. The rain had finally abated and the sun had returned with full force. Though it was finally late October, it was easily eighty degrees outside.

  “We should celebrate,” Margo said.

  “Yeah,” Ethan agreed. “Let’s all go out and do something. What’s there to do here, again?”

  “There’s a tiny little movie theater,” Shannon said. “And a bowling alley.”

  “I think there’s putt-putt in the park on Saturdays,” I said.

  “How can you have putt-putt only one day a week?” Margo asked.

  I shrugged, taking a bite of the weak chicken spaghetti that was on the menu that day. “I said ‘I think.’”

  “No, let’s do the bowling thing,” Shannon said. “That’s good enough, right? They have a bar and grill at the bowling alley. We could just spend all night there.”

  Ah, all night outside of the house. In just one more day my solitary confinement would end, and just two days after that so would Shannon’s and Finn’s. Finn didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He never left his house or the library anyway, so frankly it didn’t really matter.

  “Okay, Saturday we all rally at the bowling alley.” Margo laughed and slipped her hand through Finn’s arm.