by Magan Vernon
***
After dinner Simone and I were able to escape down to my basement. Even though I found Brian extremely annoying, he was pretty handy and finished the basement into a mock theater a few years ago.
Three rows of giant, plush red chairs pointed toward a giant projection screen. Behind the chairs stood a mini bar, complete with a giant popcorn machine and soft drink dispenser.
"Whoa, this is pretty cool." Simone stopped in front of one of the many movie posters that decorated the dark paneled walls. Brian rejected my choice of movie posters. He wasn't that big of a Dustin Hoffman fan and said he would not put my Tootsie poster up. I wished he would have at least taken down some of the science fiction posters. The old ones from the 1950s were kind of funny, but the modern Star Trek ones were kind of embarrassing to have around. Especially since Brian made sure to have each of them highlighted with special lighting they used in museums.
"Yeah, it's why I haven't offed Brian yet. He is pretty good at this creative carpentry." I stepped behind the bar and dug out a container for popcorn. "Sorry about my family by the way. They are a little dysfunctional to say the least."
Simone shook her head. "They aren't bad. At least they care."
I walked back over to Simone and set the popcorn tin on one of the chairs. "Alright if we are going to do this girly slumber party thing right, we need a scary movie."
"And then do we paint each other's toenails and talk about boys?"
I laughed. "How did you know all of my favorite things?"
We picked out a cheesy horror movie that was one of my mom's favorites from high school. It was something with aliens and dinosaurs attacking a big city. I tried not to laugh too hard at how much the movie aliens actually looked nothing like the real aliens I'd met. Most aliens were definitely not green, but sometimes they did attack for no reason…like if someone gives the thumbs up sign.
Just as we got to a part in which the humans tried to join forces with the dinosaurs against the aliens, my phone vibrated.
I looked down to see Ace's face staring back at me from the small screen with a simple message, Can we talk?
"Shhhh, no cell phones in the theater." Simone giggled, thrusting another handful of popcorn in her mouth.
"It's just Ace sending me a text."
Simone rolled her eyes. "Can't you tell him you are with a friend? He seems kind of needy if you ask me."
It had been awhile since I talked to Ace, but I was torn. I didn't want to upset Simone and have her never talk to me again and I didn't want Ace upset either.
I have a friend over, can we talk later? I texted him back.
K.
I hate one word texts. Always so cryptic and you never knew what the other person actually meant.
"Alright, now that the boy is out of the picture, let's get back to girl time." Simone smiled and pulled a bottle of deep red nail polish, the same color as her hair, from her purse.
"Oh, me first!" I wiped my hands of popcorn grease and set my phone down. I would just have to worry about Ace and his feelings later.
***
That night I dreamt again. My dreams had become so vivid that I swore they were real. I was in my Fall Ball dress standing in my living room, but when I opened the door for Ace it was Brody standing there instead.
He placed a yellow corsage around my wrist and whispered, "You look beautiful." My mom took pictures and even Simone was there to comment on how we were the perfect couple. Before I could leave, Simone's slender fingers grazed my forehead. Then she started flicking it like Chinese water torture.
Ow.
Then I realized the flicking wasn't in my dream. I snapped my eyes open to see Ace's coal black eyes staring right down at me. Quickly, I grabbed my glasses off the nightstand.
I looked behind me to see that Simone was still sound asleep, with the covers completely over her head.
"What are you doing here?" I whispered.
"We need to talk." His voice was so low, yet I understood every word.
I nodded. I took his hand and slowly led him downstairs to the basement bathroom. No one would be able to hear us there.
"Did you really need to come here in the middle of the night when you knew I had a friend over?" I crossed my arms across my chest. Not that I cared that Ace would see me in my pajamas without a bra on, but I needed something to do so I could prove that I was not happy about him coming.
"Alex, what has gotten into you? You haven't been acting like yourself at all," he answered back with another question. Typical Ace fashion.
"How am I not acting like myself? Because I'm not letting my whole life revolve around you?" I tried my hardest not to shout and my voice came out in a scratchy whisper.
Ace shook his head. The downstairs bathroom was rather tiny and we practically stood toe to toe between the shower and sink, but he stepped as close as he could to bridge the space between us.
"I never said I wanted you to revolve everything around me. I want you to be your own person." His fingers trailed down until he placed my hands in his. They weren't warm at all, but cold, almost too cold. It felt like I just stuck my bare hand in a pile of snow. I pulled my hand back quickly and rubbed my palms up and down my arms to gather some heat back into my fingers.
"Alex?" He waited until I looked up at him. The black of his eyes were glazed over. It might have stung to hold his hand, but I thought letting go hurt him even more.
I let out a sigh. "I don't know what I want anymore. It just seems like my whole life changed in an instant and now I'm trying to wrap my head around all these changes."
"I really don't understand where this is all coming from. One day we are fine, then you start school and suddenly you want me out of your life."
"I never said that!" I snapped, maybe a little too harshly, because Ace took a step back, widening his eyes.
"Then what do you want, Alex? What do you want from me?"
I looked at his face. I remembered the first time I saw his face was the day he saved my life and now my life had become anything but ordinary.
"I don't know what I want." I sat on the toilet seat, putting my head in my hands. "It's like my brain and my heart are playing ping pong. One part of me wants a normal senior year with new friends and to go off to Columbia."
Ace kneeled down before me, gently taking my hands in his. They still stung, but I couldn't let him know. If they were warm I would have known that he was happy to see me, but their cold chill told me that he may have been just as worried as I was.
"There is no reason why you can't have any of that. If you want to go to Columbia, I'll still stay with you. If you want to spend more time with your friends, we can work it out."
A single tear paraded down my cheek and I quickly wiped it away. "After everything we've been through, I'm not sure anything we do together will be normal."
Chapter 17
I was a zombie. I couldn't get back to sleep after Ace left, and the whole next day at work I ended up doing espresso shots just to keep from napping on the counter. By Monday morning I wanted nothing more than to just escape reality.
"Whoa, rough weekend, Bianchi?" Brody asked as I plopped in my usual seat behind him in English.
"Huh?"
He looked right at the dark circles that lingered under my eyes. "You look tired and you are wearing two different shoes."
Crap. I looked down and noticed he was right. On one foot I had my boat shoe and the other was a slip on checkered shoe.
"Maybe you'll start a new trend or something."
"Yeah, sure," I mumbled, just as Mrs. Huff passed back our homework assignments from the week before. By the time Brody got his paper, I realized he didn't have mine.
"While most of you just gave me a brief summary of our reading that was remarkably similar to the synopsis I found online and some bland one sentence opinion, one student actually took it a step further."
Crap. Mrs. Huff hobbled over to her podium with MY paper in her hand.
&n
bsp; "Miss Alexandra Bianchi has done a fine job of summarizing the story in her own words and done beautiful work as to explaining her view of the story."
I hated to stand out. I knew I was smart. Everyone knew I was smart. But I didn't want my paper shoved in everyone's faces so they would resent me for it.
"From now on, I expect more of your work to compare to Miss Bianchi's." She shot a wink in my direction and I'm pretty sure everyone else was glaring.
I hopped out of my desk as soon as the bell rang I couldn't get out of my seat fast enough. I pushed through the sluggish students and tried to get to my locker as fast as I could, but someone stopped me.
"Hey, Wop, move your big ass."
Before Gemma's crutch could reach my shin I whipped around, throwing her crutch to the ground and pinning her against a nearby locker. Pressing my forearm against her jugular I saw actual terror bug out of her big blue eyes when she realized how serious I was.
"Listen, you racist hillbilly," I started. As soon as the words left my mouth it grew silent around us. The usual hallway chatter had stopped and I knew people were gawking and looking for a show. "I'm tired of your abuse and your derogatory remarks."
She tried to speak and wiggle out of my grasp, but I pressed my legs against hers and applied enough pressure to her jugular so she would stay conscious, but wouldn't be able to talk.
"You need to stop with these Italian slurs and homophobic nicknames. They aren't doing anything but adding to your redneck reputation and pissing me off. Are we clear?"
She barely got off a nod before I released my elbow and legs, letting her body fall to the floor like a limp rag. I pretended to dust some dirt off my shoulder and walked through the crowd.
"Miss Bianchi?"
Crap, I'd recognize that nasally whine anywhere. I turned to see Principal Murphy standing next to the limping rugby redneck herself.
Crap.
***
"Miss Murphy, I assure you this won't happen again. I'm not sure what got into Alex." Mom had on her usual good stay-at-home mom voice. She always used it with teachers and people of authority. It was only when she really wanted something and usually from the opposite sex when she would use her romance writer voice.
Miss Murphy shook her head looking through a manila folder. Her office was as plain as the way she dressed. White walls, basic blue carpet and the only decorations were her college diplomas and a cactus. "This really is a shame. Alex has always been one of our best and brightest students."
Her gray bun was pulled so tight at the back of her head that I swore it looked like she had Botox. Her face didn't even move when she looked from the folder and back up at us.
I flinched. I was ready for it, suspension, washing whiteboards after school, or whatever. I figured my permanent record really didn't matter anymore. Northern Arizona had already accepted me and I didn't think they could take it back.
"But." Miss Murphy smacked her big, cracked lips together. "You are lucky that this is your first offense and no one actually saw you attack Miss James. It's more of a word versus word in this situation."
My mom's eyes practically bugged out of her head and I'm sure mine were doing the same thing. Word versus word? Where the heck did she come up with that one? That defense wouldn't even stand up in one of those TV court shows.
"Besides." Miss Murphy stood up, smiling. "We wouldn't want our first student going to Columbia to end up with a blemish on her permanent record."
***
Mom and I were both surprised when we walked out of Miss Murphy's office. Her, because I got excused from fighting, and me, because Brody was waiting for me outside the office door.
"Well hello, Brody." There was mom's romance writer voice.
"Hi, Mrs. Smith." He waved with one hand and tugged at the sleeves of his Carhart jacket with the other.
"Alright, Alex, I will see you tonight after work." Mom gave me a small smile and then turned to head out the front doors.
"So, sorry about all that crap with Gemma."
I looked back at Brody. He was shuffling his feet back and forth and scratching at the back of his neck. What the heck was this?
"Uh, yeah, it's cool." I looked up at the fluorescent lights of the ceiling and back down. Talk about awkward.
"She just has pent up rage or something since she can't play rugby and lost her scholarship."
"Oh." I really didn't care what his excuse was for her. I was just ready to get out of there.
"But I want to make it up to you anyway. Can we grab a slice of pizza tonight at Anna's?"
Huh?
"Uh, well, I work until seven," I stammered, searching for an excuse. Was he hitting on me? Was this how a guy asked a girl on a date? I'd never been on a real date before, unless you counted girl dates or the time one of my middle school boyfriends sat next to me during a school field trip to the zoo.
"Great, well we can meet there at around seven thirty and then maybe you could help me with our English homework?" He smiled
I nodded. "Okay, cool. Yeah, I can do that.
Dodged a bullet on that one. How could I be so stupid to think that Brody was trying to ask me out? At least I knew he was using me for my mind...I think.
Chapter 18
"Since you are ditching me all weekend for the dance, you want to go see a movie or something after work tonight?" Simone stood over the sink, cleaning out one of the milk heating containers and placing it back on the counter.
I shook my head. "I actually have plans to meet Brody at Anna's Pizza after work."
"WHAT?"
I almost spilled cocoa powder all over the counter, instead of in its container. "It's just to talk about English homework." I slid the few flakes back into the canister and placed it back in its spot next to the syrups.
"Something is telling me you aren't sharing the whole truth," Simone teased, waving her finger in my face.
"Simone, he is just a friend. I'm still with Ace, even if we are fighting." Crap. I knew as soon as the words left my mouth I shouldn't have said them.
"So, you get in a fight with your boyfriend and let the sexy farmer take you out for dinner?" She wiggled her eyebrows.
"What?" I swatted Simone playfully on the arm with a towel. "No, not like that at all. I got in a little bit of a tussle with Brody's ex at school and he wanted to make it up to me while getting some homework help."
"Whoa." Simone held her hands up. "Back it up here. So, you beat up on little miss rugby queen and then he offers you pizza? Sounds like he wants help somewhere that isn't homework."
Simone opened her eyes wide and held her arms out in front of her, thrusting the air with her pelvis.
"Gross!"
"Oh come on!" She stopped the air hump and leaned in. "You said it yourself, you are fighting with your boyfriend and that soul patch thing on Brody's chin is pretty hot."
I shook my head. I would never cheat on Ace. Not just because I really did love him, despite all the fighting, but I feared what would happen to the universe if we ever broke up. I wouldn't even begin to know how to break up with an alien.
***
At seven fifteen on the dot I rolled my car downtown. Actually you couldn't even really call it much of a downtown. About one block worth of buildings was flanked on one side with a park that was usually filled with stoners on the merry-go-round instead of little kids, and filled with old brick buildings. There were three different pizza places, four hair dressers, and a dentist. Big downtown living.
Anna's Pizza was one of the first buildings, directly next to Ciminos pizza and across from the video rental store. I pulled into a spot in front and could already see Brody sitting in the front window.
The air was finally cooling down and I actually didn't sweat my hair off by the time I walked from my car and into Anna's. It wasn't a huge place with only a few booths, Pepsi machine, and a small counter with the pizza staff behind it. I made my way over to the booth by the window and squeezed in across from Brody.
"You made it." He smiled way too happily, like I'd just told him the cure for cancer or something.
"Yeah, I said I would." I slung my messenger bag off and pulled out my English notebook. Winnebago was small and a lot of people from our high school worked at Anna's. I didn't want anyone to think this was a date. "You had questions on our English assignment, right?"
Before he could answer our waitress came over with two cans of Pepsi. I recognized her from school. Lynn, I think her name was. She always wore her hair in a side pony and smacked her gum really loudly.
"Two cans of Pepsi, anything else?" She sounded bored and didn't even look at us when she talked.
"Yeah, can we get a medium pizza with...what did you want on it, Alex?" Brody reached his hand across the table and I quickly moved mine under the booth.
"Pineapple and jalapeños," I answered, looking right at Lynn.
"Alright, the lady wants pineapple and jalapeños, so we'll go with that," Brody said way too enthusiastic. Who the heck even says lady?
Lynn muttered something while she scribbled on her notepad and walked back to the kitchen.
"Okay, so our assignment."
Brody ignored me. "Man, I'm really sorry about the way Gemma has been treating you. I'm hoping that I can make up for it."
"Don't worry about that. It's all taken care of. No one got in trouble and everything is just peachy." I opened my Pepsi can and took a big swig.
"It just sucks, you know? I mean I've been with Gemma as long as I can remember and all of a sudden it's like I'm seeing the real Gemma." He took a gulp of his drink, wiping his mouth with the back of his jacket sleeve before setting it back down on the table. "And let me tell you the real Gemma is a bitch."
I covered my mouth to keep the Pepsi from spewing out of my mouth and all over the table. "Did you just say what I think you did?"