by Cyn Balog
He drummed his fingers on the paper place mat covered with ads for local businesses. “Nobody is boring. Everyone has a story.” He leaned forward. “Do you hear me? Every. One.”
He said it so seriously that I would have burst out laughing, if he hadn’t been looking at me so intently. He was so weird. I was simultaneously hit with the desire to flee and the desire to never leave his side. “I don’t have a story,” I muttered. “Really.”
“Sure you do. Like I said, everyone does. I could read every single person the second I walked into that classroom. That curly-haired girl in the front is the brain, right? She had her notebook and pens all set out, but I could tell she’s nervous as hell about keeping up in math because she had a calc book open on her lap.”
OK, that was Gerri.
“The guys in the back. Sports jocks. They say they’re friends, but considering their competitive natures and the way they were eyeing that blond in the black sweater, something ugly’s brewing.”
All right, that was true too. He’d figured out in one class what had taken me weeks to learn last year. But so what? It didn’t make him Sherlock.
“I make it my business to get to know people. I have everyone’s number.” His grin was sly. How was it that he could intrigue me with this conceited behavior that would normally disgust me? “But you? You, Vic, are the big question mark.”
“Me?” I cringed. I hardly knew him, and already I hated to disappoint him. Because that’s what my story was: disappointing. “I’ve lived in Maine my whole life. I went to public school in Duchess—that’s a town about forty-five minutes north of here—until last year—”
“Duchess? Seriously? I live there too.”
“Really?” I blinked, taken aback. Together we made up a good percentage of Duchess’s population. “Where?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. All the roads look and sound the same.” Then he started to play with the salt and pepper shakers. He couldn’t keep his hands still. “You know the town was named for a legend that some exiled duchess made a home there? You could be descended from royalty.”
I shook my head. “My parents moved here before I was born because they heard Maine was a great state to raise kids. Why don’t you go to Duchess High?”
“Same reason as you, probably. Why don’t you go?”
“Like I was saying, I did, until last year when I transferred to St. Ann’s. Before you arrived, I was the new kid.”
He drummed the table some more. If it had been anyone else, it would have annoyed me. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you transfer?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. My parents kept hearing horror stories about drinking and drugs at DHS. They’d rediscovered religion, and my father works in Bangor with a bunch of people who have kids at St. Ann’s and liked the small, tight-knit feel of it. Plus, he thought I should get more of a religious education. My parents are really involved in the church now.”
“Your parents rediscovered religion?” he asked, stroking his chin. “What, did Jesus come to them in a vision?”
Well, at least that would have lent some excitement to the story. “I think it was more about sheltering me. They’re kind of protective. And…everyone at St. Ann’s already knew each other, so I’ve kind of been…” I trail off. On the outs. Friendless. Owner of the most pathetic backstory in the history of the world. Take your pick.
“Gotcha. Being new sucks. Been there,” he said with a grin, as if being new had happened to him years ago. I couldn’t believe it. Back in class, he’d seemed to revel in being the new kid. He laughed, making me even more self-conscious. “What you do is make it a point to talk to as many people as possible. Put yourself out there.”
Oh sure. He made it sound so easy. If I’d felt comfortable with him, I would have rolled my eyes.
That’s the thing about Z though. I’d soon learn that you couldn’t present him with a dilemma that he wouldn’t try to solve for you, all the while stirring up a hurricane of new problems, problems he was completely oblivious to. Sometimes it was infuriating. He wasn’t a shoulder to lean on because he never stood still.
“Um…well… I don’t really want to do anything…extracurricular.” I was blushing more now because I had just pronounced it extra-curler, like I was drunk.
And maybe I was. Remember the time you and I swiped that bottle of champagne from my parents’ twentieth-anniversary party and drank the whole thing in the backyard? What were we, thirteen? I remember it like it was yesterday, Andrew. I’d felt like a study in contradictions, shivery and yet perfectly warm at the same time. I’d felt completely content when you put your arm around me, but anxious, wanting more. It was the first time you got up the courage to kiss me. For the record, I liked it. I liked everything you did with me. I would have let you do a lot more, but you were so respectful.
So yes, here I was, thinking of you and our kiss, but looking into the beautiful eyes of someone who seemed interested in me. In only me, as if nothing else in the world mattered. You can maybe understand how I was a goner from the start, right?
Z leaned forward and tapped his fingers on the greasy table between us. “So what do you want?”
My eyes widened. What a weird question. How did he expect me to answer that?
I guess he didn’t. He’d already moved on. I always got the feeling he was five full steps ahead of me. “Hand it over.”
“What?”
“Your schedule.”
“Oh.” I reached into my notebook. My class schedule was pressed between the cover and that first page, where I’d written my reply to Z earlier. He took a square of paper from the pocket of his chinos. It was folded over and over. He straightened it out and compared the two.
“Unbelievable.”
My stomach sunk because I thought I’d done something wrong. “What?”
“We have all the same classes. Well, except you have art and I have debate for seventh. And I get early release, and you have…honors math?”
It wasn’t hard for me to believe we were in most of the same classes. St. Ann’s is small. I’d been in the same classes with most of the sophomores last year. The only classes that were more varied were our electives, which we shared with other grades. I’d decided on art because it was the only thing that didn’t completely bore me. Debate? That sounded worse than death.
Z wiped his mouth with a napkin again and started to get up. “Guess we’d better get back then, you not-so-naughty girl.” He said it in a singsong tone, his eyebrows rising, as if he was challenging me.
I reached into my bag for my change purse, but he already had the check. “Allow me. It’s the least I can do, since I kidnapped you.”
I muttered a thank-you as he went to the front counter while I put my wallet back in my bag. He came back a minute later with a toothpick hanging lazily from the corner of his mouth. He had one of those red-and-white-striped peppermints, which he pushed across the table to me. I popped it in my mouth, half sure I’d swallow the thing whole by accident, and then stood up and followed him out the door.
Outside, I breathed in the late-summer air. While suffocating and hot, it was still fresher than the heavy smell of grease and cigarettes in that dive. I sucked on the mint as I pulled my books to my chest and hoped I didn’t have food in between my teeth, which was completely ridiculous considering I hadn’t eaten more than three Cheerios. As we stepped from the rickety wooden porch, I noticed he was moving a little faster than before.
“We might want to run,” he said.
“Why? Are we going to be late for next period?”
He didn’t answer. He booked it into the woods, and I followed. He didn’t slow down until we’d left the deli far behind. By then I was breathing hard and could feel sweat sliding down my sides. Finally, he slowed to a saunter and smiled. “And you said you’re not a naughty
one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, where I come from, skipping out on paying for your food is a punishable offense.”
I stared at him. “What! I thought you—”
“Relax,” he said.
I turned around. I had to go back and pay. My mother, my dad… If they found out, you know how they would be, Andrew. You remember how upset I was when I accidentally walked out of Uncle Sam’s Five and Ten with eleven pieces of penny candy instead of ten. I couldn’t eat for a week. I was so afraid the shop owner would see me in church and come after me, and I’d spend the rest of my life rotting away in some prison cell over a freaking gumdrop.
I’d taken five steps when I felt his hand on my arm. He had the smoothest hands, just the right temperature. Not clammy, despite the heat and the little jog we’d just taken. They were sublime. I couldn’t even think of wrenching myself free at that moment.
“Relax,” he said again. The touch of his hand was like a blanket on a cold day. I leaned in, wanting more. “It’s under control, Vic. Look at me.”
I looked into his eyes as he repeated, again and again, that it was under control. You know I don’t believe in witchcraft or hocus-pocus or junk like that. But in that moment, I knew that magic existed. Those eyes could make me believe anything. Anything. The world is flat? OK. Have a bridge for sale? Sign me up.
Finally, I whispered, “All right,” and said an act of contrition in my head.
We walked a little farther, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled white paper, which he smoothed and handed to me. A receipt. “I was kidding.”
I crumpled it, wanting to throw it at him. My cheeks burned. “That was—”
“You went along with it. See? You are naughty.”
I stared after him. Now that I think about it, I should have hated him for playing that trick. Instead, I felt something else welling inside me. Excitement? Maybe. I could tell he was proud of himself for bringing out a side of me no one else knew existed. And it had brought us closer.
We sneaked in through the side door, just as the bell signaling the end of second period began to ring. He grinned at me and put a finger to his lips, and I felt warm all over. Here we were, sharing a secret. Students filed into the hallways, and we simply filtered in with them. People stared at him, not because he had broken the rules, but because he was Z.
He had a way of making things that were so wrong seem all right. He did it as easily as he blinked. And though I should have walked back into school feeling ashamed of myself, I felt as if I’d been on the most exciting adventure of my life.
And I already couldn’t wait for the next one.
Chapter 6
You went to school with Z in Arizona?
Yeah.
And were you friends with him?
Who wasn’t? When his grandmother died, I swear, half the people who went to the funeral didn’t know her. They were friends who’d gone to support him. When the school found out that Z was moving to live with other relatives, it was like a national day of mourning.
So he had a profound effect on people. Why do you think that was?
Well, you have to understand something about Z. He was interested in everyone. He made it his job. You’d start off talking about the weather, and two seconds later you’d be telling him your life story. He asked questions… They weren’t intrusive, really. More like the questions you wished someone would ask about you. If you had a problem, he’d try to work it out for you. He had this knack for bringing out the best in everyone.
So he had a lot of close friends?
Weirdly, no. More like admirers. I mean, you’d come out of a conversation loving him, but later you’d realize you knew absolutely nothing about him. He rarely talked about himself.
—Police interview with Rolly Vine, senior at Southwest High School, Phoenix, Arizona
The next adventure didn’t come right away. Z had a knack for timing. He’d wait until you were begging for attention and then spring something on you. But only a little. He’d never give you enough to satisfy you because that would give you control.
Oh no, he always had control. I see that now, Andrew.
But then? I’d only known him a few hours, and already I’d been struck blind. The rest of that day was like all the others that had come before it. The only difference was that instead of paying attention to my studies, I was paying attention to him. I’d peer at him out of the corner of my eye or bend down to get a pencil out of my bag, letting my hair fall in my eyes, and check to see what he was doing.
I won’t bore you with the details, but watching him was anything but boring. You know how people buy magazines with pictures of famous people just walking down the street or whatever, doing their own thing? Watching him was like that, somehow fascinating.
History and trig went by—boring, boring, boring—and I thought he would lean over and whisper something funny, like “When will it end?” or “Kill me now, this is so dull,” or maybe just ask to borrow a sheet of notebook paper, but no.
During lunch, I sat at my lonely spot in the corner of the cafeteria, thinking he might join me, but he sat with a bunch of popular jocks. Baseball players.
In gym, I sat on the bleachers by myself, waiting for Ms. Phelps to call my name to be assigned a locker. Z tipped an imaginary hat at Parker Cole and Rachel Watson as they sat huddled together, discussing something riveting like nail polish colors, but he walked right past me.
Putting himself out there, I guess. Isn’t that what he’d said? Getting to know everyone so he wouldn’t be a ghost like me. By chemistry, he’d morphed into just another one of the kids at school. I started to wonder if our morning excursion together had been a dream. Illusory. When the bell signaling early release rang, Z slid out of his seat and disappeared without so much as a “See you.”
On the bus ride home, I’d pretty much accepted that my breakfast with Z would never be repeated. I wasn’t deflated though. I’d started to think it was better that way. I didn’t need any distractions. My mind cleared, and I began to think of you again. When the bus dropped me off on the corner of Spruce Street and I walked past your house, I could hear you practicing your Chopin. It was hot, and the front door was open to catch the breeze, so I just walked in and sat beside you. Without skipping a beat, you broke into “Chopsticks” for me, and I filled in the “Heart and Soul.”
After our duet ended, you said, “So fill me in. Gory details.”
I shrugged and told you it was the same old story. But you knew I was lying. I was trying not to make anything out of cutting class with Z—because surely it was nothing—but the more I tried to ignore it, the more my mind replayed what had happened. You didn’t have to pry it out of me. The news just slipped out. “There was a new kid at school.”
“Oh yeah?” You were busy studying your sheet music. The light streamed in through the blinds, and I could see that you’d really been going to town on the side of your head. The hair was plucked clean in a large, round patch behind your ear, leaving red, raw scalp. “Is he hot?”
“I didn’t say he was a he.”
You didn’t look at me. Your long fingers grazed the keys. “I can tell by your voice.”
“What?”
“It went up an octave. You’re pretending like it’s no big deal, but you think he’s hot.”
I both love and hate how you know me so well. I thought about denying it, but I knew you wouldn’t believe me, so I told you that he was kind of cute, which you probably knew was the understatement of the century. You sighed, the same sigh I’d heard a zillion times before when you wished we could go to school together.
“How were things here?” I asked.
“Same old, same old.”
But for you, I knew it was. Your mother had your routine down to a science. Caring for you was your mother’s vocation, what fil
led her days with purpose. I don’t recall a single day that I’ve come home from school and not found you at your piano. Piano practice was from one to three. Which was probably why I knew she’d come in with iced chamomile tea and homemade sugar-free cookies. Snack time.
“Oh, hi, Victoria!” She usually prefaced everything she said with an “Oh,” as if seeing me there was a surprise, which it totally wasn’t. She handed me a glass with a swirly, twirly straw. Mrs. Quinn didn’t want to accept that you were too old for such things, and I loved that you never argued. You just let her go on with her delusion.
You never faulted your mother for anything. Just yourself.
I hated that about you.
“Hi, Mrs. Quinn. Thanks,” I said, taking a cookie from the plate. I bit into it, and when she offered me another, I shook my head. I know your mother was strict about your diabetes because she had to be, but damn, her cookies have the texture of cardboard.
Then she just stood there and stared at us.
You cleared your throat, hoping she’d get the hint, but she didn’t. She said very carefully, “Did you have a nice day at school, Victoria?”
I nodded.
“First day, right?”
“Yep. I was just filling your son in on all the excitement,” I said in a hushed voice, so maybe she’d get the idea that our conversation was private.
Her smile faded. “Oh. Right.”
I remember that lingering look you gave her, long after she’d left. You just kept staring at the doorway to the kitchen, guilt evident on your face. You always thought you were your mother’s ball and chain, her biggest nuisance, didn’t you?
You swung back to the piano and started to play for me. You know all my favorite songs. Frank Sinatra has nothing on you. Someday, when I’m old and gray…
“Those aren’t the right words,” I whispered.