“I shouldn’t admit this,” Heather said dryly, “but that’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”
Ed didn’t give her a chance to change her mind. “See you in a few.”
The Gannis Homestead
IT HAD BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE Heather had seen Ed eating in her kitchen. He still ate with gusto. She watched him demolish his third piece of pizza while she toyed with the crust of her first.
Ed’s dark eyes focused on her plate. “Don’t tell me you’re dieting,” he said warningly.
“No, no,” Heather said, cutting herself another half slice. She took a bite.
“Good, because I hate that crap,” said Ed. “If you went on a diet, you’d shrivel up and blow away. And you look good the way you are.”
Silently Heather hoped Phoebe wasn’t anywhere near the kitchen. Her cheeks warmed at Ed’s compliment. It had been ages since she’d thought of him in that way. Well, it had been ages, until this afternoon, when she had been with Sam. Now she looked at Ed across the table, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead, his broad shoulders, broader and heavier now with muscle, his arms and strong, lean hands. Even that big cut across his cheek didn’t detract from his good looks.
“Ed, how sexist of you,” she said sweetly. “Next you’ll start talking about big boobs and wide, childbearing hips.”
Across the table Ed grinned evilly at her. “More cush to the push.”
Her eyes widened in outrage, and she threw a piece of crust at him. “What a pig! No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend!”
Deflecting the crust, Ed snickered. “You think that’s it?”
“Hello, Ed!” said Mr. Gannis with forced heartiness. He came into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “You’re looking well.”
“Thanks. You too,” Ed said easily. Heather grimaced to herself.
“What are you kids doing tonight?” Mr. Gannis asked cheerfully, popping the top of a beer bottle. He slowly poured it into a pint glass. Ed watched the foam build.
Shrugging, Heather said, “Watching a movie?”
“Well, honey, you know tonight’s the State of the Union Address,” Mr. Gannis said. “Your mother and I were planning to watch it. Maybe you kids could hang out in your room so we won’t disturb you.”
“Sure, whatever,” said Heather. “Come on, Shred. Unless you want to watch the State of the Union report with Dad.”
“Oh, no, thanks,” Ed said.
Heather hid a smirk as she watched Ed expertly push back from the table and head down the hall to her room. Of course he still remembered where it was.
Inside her room, he looked around, assessing changes.
“Different posters,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, flopping sideways on her bed. Ed’s face looked very still—no longer lighthearted and open, the way it had been earlier.
“What’s wrong?” Heather asked. “I know that look.”
Surprise crossed his face, then he shook his head. “I’m just … It’s just insulting, that’s all.”
“What is?” Frowning, Heather ran through everything she had said in the last twenty minutes. Had she hurt his feelings somehow?
“Look, if I wasn’t in a wheelchair, there’s no way your dad would have suggested we come hang out in here,” Ed burst out. “Before, I’d have had to crawl over his dead body to get into your room. Now it’s like, sure, go in, you … eunuch!”
Heather felt shocked, and she realized he was right. It was as if her dad considered Ed absolutely no threat to her virtue, like he was one of her girlfriends. It was insulting. Why, Ed had been more threat to her virtue than anyone she’d ever met!
“Eunuch,” Heather said admiringly. “Someone’s been doing his English homework. That’s a mighty fancy word.”
She saw Ed’s hands clench on his wheel rims as he stared at her in angry disbelief. Quickly she scooted to the edge of her bed and leaned toward Ed.
“Let Daddy think what he wants,” she said softly. “I like having you in here.”
Interesting, she thought as she watched Ed’s pupils dilate.
GAIA
This situation is starting to prey on my brain. I didn’t see Skizz again last night. I’m going to end up with pneumonia if I keep freezing my butt off like this.
On top of that, when I got home, the Wicked Witch of the West Village was waiting for me, chain smoking and knocking back gin and tonics. The alcohol fumes almost knocked me down when I opened the front door.
The weird thing was, she didn’t say a word. Just stared at me with those acidic green eyes as smoke coiled around her flame red hair. I waited for her to start in on me, but she just bored holes in me with her eyes as I trudged up the stairs. I didn’t see George—I hope I don’t find him buried in the backyard soon.
You know what? I feel very tired. Last night I wanted to just lie down in the snow and fall asleep. I’m tired of looking for Skizz, though I won’t stop. I’m tired of tensing up every time I have to go back to Perry Street. My hip is still killing me. My whole thigh is mottled black and purple and deep blue, with tinges of green and yellow around the edges. Very artistic.
Okay, here’s my fantasy. Some night soon I find Skizz. Quickly, without thinking about it, I finish what I’ve decided to do. Then I go home, stopping for a box of chocolate Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the way. I take the doughnuts into the bathroom and run a deep tub of water as hot as I can stand it. I set a fluffy white towel, two cans of Coke, and a bottle of Advil on a little table. I sink into the water. I take four Advil pills and drink a Coke. I eat three doughnuts. I drink another Coke. I fall asleep.
No one calls me, no one comes in, no one needs the bathroom. When I finally get out of the tub, glowing pinkly and shriveled like a prune, Ella tells me I’ve been kicked out of the Village School and am being transferred to another foster home in, say, France. I never have to see anything that reminds me of Mary again. I never see Ed again, never have to explain anything to him. And best of all, someone else is planning it all for me.
I eat another doughnut as I pack.
That would be the perfect day for me.
It’s not too much for a girl to ask, is it?
perfect day
Every twenty minutes someone was having sex, and it wasn’t Gaia.
Well, Shit
THE ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT TUESDAYS, in Gaia’s opinion, was that they weren’t Mondays. Mondays were so awful, it was like a blow to the head. Tuesdays were more of a dull, achy pounding.
As Gaia determinedly pushed her stack of textbooks back in her locker, she caught sight of Ed turning the corner at the end of the hall. Probably she should say hello to him. She’d been a little harsh, although she’d meant what she said. But she could at least be civil. It was just—in her mind, she had already crossed a line. She had left him behind as surely as if she’d already skipped town. There was no explaining it or justifying it to him. And it was too late to change her mind.
But today she wanted to at least be nice to him. Try to make him see that she didn’t hate him, no matter what it looked like. Say a simple hello, and keep on moving. Maybe one day he would understand that it was for his own good.
Before Gaia could take a step in Ed’s direction, her archenemy, Heather Gannis, stepped into view. Strangely, Heather slithered up to Ed and squeezed his shoulder. One side of her mouth quirked. Gaia moved forward, waiting for Ed to push Heather’s hand away and roll past her.
But no. Ed smiled boyishly, suddenly looking younger and charming. Even adorable. Gaia stopped as if she had been poleaxed.
“I had such a good time last night,” Heather said.
Her stomach clenching, Gaia leaned against the bank of lockers. Had she woken up to an alternate universe? She knew that Ed and Heather had been involved once, though she hated to think about it. And she knew they were civil to each other now, though the reasoning escaped her. But what the hell was this about?
“Me too,” said Ed, grinning. His dark eyes looked up
into Heather’s, and something unnamable passed between them. Then the bell rang, and Ed continued down the hall. Gaia pasted a sardonic look on her face and loped forward, already formulating the kind of crap she would give Ed about his recent lapse in good taste.
Before she could open her mouth, Ed calmly said, “Hey, Gaia.” Then he rolled right past her without looking back, leaving her gaping at him like a goldfish on a sidewalk. For a moment Gaia closed her eyes and rubbed one hand over her lids. She definitely needed more sleep, more Advil, more coffee. She would need all the help she could get to deal with this bizarre and disturbing development.
Lah-de-dah
IN CHEM LAB HEATHER PUSHED HER goofy safety glasses up onto her shining dark hair, managing to look both chic and careless. She caught sight of her reflection in one of the glass-fronted cupboards that lined the back of the room and smiled at herself.
As she and her lab partner, Megan, set up their Bunsen burners and their stupid little asbestos pads and their beakers that would have been so much more appealing if they had held frozen margaritas (no salt), Heather couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so happy.
“Well, you’re glowing,” Megan said accusingly under her breath. In the front of the room Mr. Fowler droned on about chemical reaction this and mechanical reaction that, but he was easy to tune out. Gaia Moore, however, was not. She came into the room looking like an oversized refugee, as usual, and took her place two desks away.
“You and Sam must have gotten along well,” said Megan knowingly. “Really well.”
Seeing Gaia’s back stiffen almost imperceptibly, Heather wanted to burst into song.
“It was really nice,” Heather said demurely. “Sometimes just being alone with him is all I need.”
Megan snorted in an unladylike way. “Were you there until late?”
For once Heather appreciated Megan’s usually annoying habit of speaking a tiny bit too loud. Obviously Gaia was overhearing every word. It was delicious. What better way to celebrate Heather’s happiness than by twisting a knife right in Gaia’s guts? Call her sentimental.
Heather shook her head. “No—I got home pretty early. Then Ed came over, and we hung out in my room.”
Megan gaped at her. From the corner of Heather’s eye she saw Gaia’s head turning toward her, as if someone were pulling a string.
“Ed Fargo?” Megan squealed. She took off her safety glasses to stare at Heather.
“Ed and I are good friends,” Heather said calmly, lighting their Bunsen burner. “Really good friends.”
“You hung out in your room? Your dad let him into your room?”
Stifling a giggle, Heather nodded. “What Dad doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she said mischievously.
“You and Ed …” Megan seemed at a loss for words. “And Sam?”
“I had a very full day yesterday,” Heather allowed. Then she turned right toward Viking Girl and smiled big, catching Gaia by surprise.
“I had forgotten how great Ed is,” Heather said breathily. She actually winked at Gaia, even though she didn’t think she had ever winked at anyone in her life. The response was intensely satisfying: Gaia looked startled, repulsed, confused, and angry all at once. Heather wrinkled her nose at Gaia in a girlish way, then turned back and busily started her experiment. Life was good when you were Heather Gannis.
Boinking Like Weasels
BY THE TIME TRIG CLASS WAS HALF over, Gaia still hadn’t recovered from the sharp nosedive her world had taken in the last two hours. For some reason, dealing with the gross unfairness of losing both her parents early in her life was one thing: She could somehow wrap her mind around it and try to function. But the idea of wretched, horrible, fakey bitch Heather Gannis having both Sam Moon and Ed Fargo drooling over her was more than Gaia could stand.
Sure, Heather was gorgeous. The glossy dark hair, the uptilted hazel green eyes, the peaches ’n’ cream skin. And she was a normal height, and she had girlie curves. Her sweaters actually had stuff to cling to. She wasn’t gargantuan, muscled like a truck driver, awkward, and mannish. But so what? Did that make it fair?
In all of Gaia’s seventeen years she had only ever desired one person, and Heather was having sex with him on a regular basis. In the last five years she had been friends with only two people. One was dead, and Heather was friends with, and possibly having sex with, the other one. How unfair was that?
And what was this, with all these people boinking like weasels all the time? Every twenty minutes someone was having sex, and it wasn’t Gaia. In her whole life she had been kissed romantically exactly four times, and one she wasn’t sure about, one was Charlie Salita because she was luring him into a trap, and the last one was with Ed on a freaking dare! Only one time had actually been fun, and that had been with a random guy in a club. This was just so lame. Mary had been right. Gaia was clearly a case of arrested development. In the romance department. Not in the martial arts/muscles/nerves-of-steel departments.
Gaia suddenly felt unbearably hurt. And she hadn’t thought it was possible to hurt any more than she already did. Usually, no matter what happened, she just kept on moving. Kept her head up. This time last year it didn’t matter that she was alone, that she had no friends, that she had only herself to depend on. Why should it matter now?
Gaia shook her head, keeping her eyes cast down on the meaningless trig equations in front of her. She was lost and spinning and didn’t know what to do with herself. If she could have felt fear, this would be a good time. Because she couldn’t, all she could feel was a sort of nausea.
Slow Burn
TODAY’S MENU: CORNED BEEF HASH (no doubt Alpo brand), creamed corn, steamed spinach, and a square of spice cake. Groaning, Ed decided to grab some falafel at Falafel King, only a block and a half away. Yes, it was cold outside. Yes, he would have to negotiate snowdrifts and piles of garbage. But he couldn’t eat this swill, and a lad had to keep up his strength.
As he swiveled and headed out the cafeteria, he saw Gaia standing in line. Her eyes caught his, and she looked away. He smiled to himself as he remembered the scene in the hallway this morning. That had been fun. Gaia had looked so pissed. Now he kept his eyes on her as she looked away. Was he mistaken, or was she doing a slow burn? Did she want him now that she probably thought Heather did? Not that Heather really did, of course: Despite hanging out with Ed last night, she was still together with Sam, as far as Ed knew.
So in reality Ed was still girlfriendless, loverless. But he knew it looked to Gaia like that might have changed, with Heather. Hee hee.
He stopped in front of Gaia. As usual, despite the scowl on her face, she looked beautiful. She and Heather were so different: Heather was groomed, sophisticated, and sexy in this confident, self-aware way. Gaia was always a mess, completely unsophisticated, and sexy in a way that was all the more devastating because she seemed so unaware of it. Heather looked like she was ready to be led to bed. Gaia looked like she had just gotten out of it. It was enough to make a guy postal.
“Hey,” Ed said.
“Hey,” Gaia responded without looking at him.
It was ridiculous, but Ed felt so confident, he felt like it wouldn’t kill him to forgive her—to make one last try.
“Want to go grab some falafel at Falafel King?”
A nanosecond of indecision crossed Gaia’s perfect face.
She shook her head. “No, thanks.”
This was so stupid. “Gaia—”
“What?” she said, looking at him finally. Irritation had bloomed in her voice. Her blue eyes were cold.
You know what? He didn’t need this. Shaking his head abruptly, Ed wheeled away.
GAIA
Okay. Here’s my new fantasy. I still kill Skizz. I still get the doughnuts. But on my way home to the hot bath, I see Heather, Sam, and Ed all get hit by a bus. Only Ed makes it. And it isn’t so bad for him because he’s already in a wheelchair. He begs my forgiveness for five years. I’m not sure if I ever give in.
&
nbsp; SKIZZ
So some guy calls—my private cell, no less. Says a friend of a friend told him I got the shit. You a cop? I said. He laughed. Named some names no cop knows. So I know he’s legit—just some asshole with a hungry nose. I say meet me at midnight. He begs. Big party, boring people, really needs it sooner. I’ve heard that story a million times. Anyway, he begs and promises. So I haul my sorry ass out of bed, do a couple of lines like a quality control check. Take some of them pain pills the hospital gave me. Ready to roll. So I’m heading to the corner of frigging Waverly and MacDougal, and it’s light out, and I’m gonna be a frigging sitting duck. Asshole better not let me down.
positively insane
The familiar, heady rush of adrenaline poured like whiskey through her veins.
Out of Her Misery
“I’M TELLING YOU, YOU’VE GOT to get me out of there.” Ella’s voice was brittle. She lifted her heavy crystal tumbler of gin and tonic and took a healthy, if unladylike, swig.
“Your job is unfinished.” Loki sounded completely unconcerned with her mental state. He sat behind a smooth black desk, its top bare except for the heavy manila file he was leafing through. The room was silent except for the ice tinkling in Ella’s glass and the occasional muted turning of papers.
“Forget the job,” Ella said rashly, and was rewarded with Loki’s icy stare. She took a breath and forced herself to calm down. “Look, I’ve been doing it for a long time,” she reminded him. “I can’t take living with that—that horrible sack of laundry another day. You’ve no idea what it’s like. I can’t bear it.” She ached for a cigarette with a palpable longing. With one red-clawed fingertip she smeared the trace of lipstick left on her glass.
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