Not the Girls You're Looking For

by Aminah Mae Safi

  “You saw me. Outside. Then I headed inside. I saw Dane with Audrey. God, she couldn’t stand. She couldn’t stand, Lo. And. I lost it. I just lost it.” Lulu stared. The tiles in the bathroom wall were uneven. The tiny blue ceramics that made a repeating pattern across the white were improperly aligned in the corner. It threw off the whole room.

  “Holy fuck. Then why is everyone saying you hooked up in front of the whole party? They’re saying you were fighting Audrey over him. It’s a disaster. Di-sas-ter.” Lo tried to catch Lulu’s eye. “You know how Audrey is about this shit.”

  “When. When I lost it. He.” And then Lulu lost her words. She tried using her hands, but those seemed inadequate as well. Lulu shrugged.

  And Lo, bless her, seemed to understand intuitively. “When I get my hands on him for putting his hands on you. And Audrey. God. I’m going to cut them off. I’m going to cut off his fucking hands. He won’t have hands. It’s the only option left.”

  “Yeah. See. I already tried that. That’s why I’m in the mess I’m in now.”

  “I’m not suggesting you smoke a j and then try to choke him when you find him propping up one of your best friends.” Lo crossed her arms. “I’m saying you need to hit him where it hurts.”

  “How am I supposed to do that? Do you have a brilliant plan? Get me out of a d-hall, then egg his lawn with dyed-green Easter eggs? Punch him in the face? Those are the only revenges I’ve ever seen you get. Either violent or fantastically ironic. And since I’ve already tried the first, I’d love to know what your wonderfully ironic prank is. Because that’ll really scare him off.”

  “Quit being such an asshole. I’m trying to help.”

  “Stop. Stop trying to help. I put my fucking elbow to his throat, and he’s still not quitting. I’ve got nothing. Fucking nothing. And before you get all high and mighty, you’re no better than me,” said Lulu.

  “The great Lulu Saad and her fucking defense mechanisms. She’s never the problem as long as someone else is first.”

  “You’re not the problem!” said Lulu. “Luke is!”

  Lo clapped at that—in her slow, steady, patronizing rhythm. “Brava. Please, keep going.”

  “You know what I mean!” Lulu threw her hands up in the air.

  Lo stopped clapping. She was an irresistible force, an immovable object. Lo was the mountain; Lulu was Muhammad. Lulu never had a chance.

  “Do I?” Lo’s lips curled as though in a snarl.

  A lump formed in Lulu’s throat, and she wanted to shout it away. If she screamed, she didn’t feel that horrible stillness. If she stayed in motion, she didn’t have to stop and absorb anything. “You left me to run off and play his fucking girlfriend. Not even that. A side piece. And if you’d been there, none of this would have happened. Dane couldn’t have attacked us both like that. You could have prevented it all. If you weren’t with Scumbag Luke. If you had stayed with your friends.”

  Lo shook her head. Her voice went quiet. “You coward.”

  Lulu flinched.

  “So ready to pin the blame. So ready to throw anyone else under the bus. So ready for anyone else to be at fault. Fine. I’m done. I’m not cleaning up after your disaster. See what I care. Fix it yourself.” Lo whirled around, slamming the bathroom door as she left. The door bounced against the latch twice with the force of her effort.

  Lulu was alone.

  19

  Les Quatre Cents Coups

  Throughout the week, rumors continued to circulate. Lulu Saad had attacked Audrey Bachmann in a jealous rage over Dane Anderson. Lo Campo wasn’t talking to Lulu because she’d picked Audrey’s side. Dane Anderson didn’t even like Lulu; he just thought she was easy pickings. You know Lulu. Audrey Bachmann was avoiding Lulu Saad for a whole week. They didn’t even usually go a whole five minutes without contact.

  Those were just the repeatable rumors Lulu had heard. The others were worse. Much worse.

  And Emma, she was missing—sidestepping the fight altogether to sit with one of the freshman girls who had made the varsity volleyball team. Emma was many things, but a coward wasn’t one of them. It was just that Lulu didn’t know what had gone wrong there. None of this helped douse the flames of gossip. But it was Lo’s anger that gave real legitimacy to the talk. Lo didn’t get mad at nothing, and Lo wouldn’t even look Lulu’s way anymore. Lo had proved herself to be wild, but also just. Lo’s careful construction of her own image was coming back to bite Lulu in the ass. Because of course it would.

  Just like being caught vomiting on her doorstep, not because of substance, but because she’d made herself nauseous when she’d explained herself to James. But Lulu refused to go down that rabbit hole.

  Review week before finals was, therefore, especially delightful. Lulu was trying to keep her head down and get her work done. It was about the only thing she could do, and it wasn’t helping much.

  Madame Perault walked into the room and declared that as long as they stayed quiet and did not disturb her peace while she graded, the class had the period to themselves. She must have been in quite a good humor. Or at least, a state of personal ennui. But then she assigned ten chapters of a seventeenth-century novel to read, due the next day and definitively going to be on the exams, and everyone got out their copies knowing there was no way to complete the assignment without a substantial head start. Some teachers did not know the meaning of “review week.”

  Lulu hunched over her copy of La Princesse de Clèves. She read along with her finger, mouthing the words to herself as she went. After a few lines she would backtrack and go over them again. She held a pencil in one hand for underlining words, but she didn’t have a dictionary out. She was giving herself context. She was following the rhythm of the words. She needed to get a handle on them. She needed them to make sense. Every sentence she deciphered gave her a sense of small accomplishment. Every paragraph she untangled gave her a piece of control back in her world. She was master, at least, of this small corner of her destiny. This book was at her command. It would be. It had to be.

  Dane leaned in from behind Lulu and whispered in her ear, “I can’t believe I showed up to class for this.”

  Lulu jumped. She hadn’t heard him come in. Lulu wanted to make a clever remark on how tragic it must be for Dane to have to actually do his homework. To actually have to do anything in this life that was inconvenient to him. But of course, Perault had seen her jump. Fifteen minutes spent in diligence and Lulu was caught in her one moment of legitimate distraction. Besides, talking to Dane wouldn’t do anything. Lulu ducked farther over the text.

  Having not gotten the desired reaction, Dane tried again. He leaned in farther. “You been to any good parties lately?”

  Lulu moved her hand as if to swat at the fly by her ear. Dane grabbed her wrist, gingerly but firm. A tension zipped through her body—electric, terrifying. Lulu freed her wrist from his grip, still staying firmly hunched over her novel. Dane poked the back of her shoulder blade. He began gingerly at first, then with increased aggression.

  Lulu twitched. She scratched her pencil across the blank page at the front of her book. She tore this bit out as quietly and inconspicuously as possible. She jerked it back in Dane’s direction. what do you want?

  Lulu frowned at the jagged edge of her book, taunting her with its imperfection. The damage was done. Lulu could hear Dane unfolding the paper. She heard the pause. Then she heard the light scratching of his pen across paper. The slow tearing of paper fibers.

  Guess ;)

  no

  Its easy

  shop elsewhere.

  Ur a self-absorbed bitch. U no that?

  fantastic. stop talking to me

  We aren’t talking. We’re writing.

  Go. Away. Lulu printed this time so there would be no mistaking. No question of handwriting. No misspellings or reader errors. Nice, clean print.

  Make me

  Dane stuffed the paper down the back of her shirt so that Lulu had to untuck the back of her uniform p
olo to get it out. She read the note, crumpled it, and threw it on the floor. She stood up, quite immediately, grabbing her book and pencil. She walked briskly to a seat across the room, leaving the rest of her things behind. Dane managed to have the good sense to hang his head over his own book. Lulu was sure it was the result of shock. She took a deep breath before plunking herself in the seat. She took another deep inhale, opened her book to the appropriate page, and went back to reading.

  Madame Perault looked up from the papers she was grading. She pierced Lulu with her gaze, arching one eyebrow in the process, but said nothing. She went back to her grading, satisfied.

  Lulu ripped through the page with her pen as she attempted to underline, her hands still shaky and uneven in their movements. As soon as the bell rang, Lulu retrieved her belongings and fled from the room.

  Headed away from the cafeteria, Lulu overheard a group of boys talking across the hallway. She couldn’t make out the words, but she could hear them laughing. As she walked, she nursed a cornbread muffin and a box of chocolate milk, the most delicious and most portable foods on offer at the dining hall. Lulu rounded the corner and nearly ran headlong into Brian Connor. He was at the center of a group of boys, clearly regaling his friends with a story of some delight to him. They all went quiet as she passed.

  Lulu suffered the instant awareness that they had been talking about her. Brian met her eyes then, and he turned away with a shrug. He continued with her still in earshot. Her ears rang and she walked away from them as fast as she could without breaking into a run. She had unfortunately failed to spare herself from the graphic description of what she looked like being manhandled by Anderson. She couldn’t bear to hear the rest. She threw out her food in the first trash can she passed.

  Lulu spent the rest of lunch in the empty freshman corridor. It seemed easier that way. She got out her copy of La Princesse de Clèves and continued on with her trusty pencil. Eventually, the bell that signaled the end of lunch rang. She’d gotten through six chapters. She should have gone straight to class, but she didn’t. After a lunch period spent basically hiding out, she knew what she had to do instead. She went to the hallway where Audrey usually sat to study during her free period. She was there, propped up against a pier, reading.

  “I need to talk to you.” Lulu stopped in front of her. “We have to talk about what happened on Saturday.”

  “I already heard everything. And Lo is mad at you. Lo doesn’t get mad over nothing. You stole a boy right out from under my arm. What kind of friend does that? Over a boy? You don’t get it, do you? You’ll never get it. You were jealous. That I had what you wanted. And you never told me.” Audrey glared, her fantastic pout hardening her features.

  “I’m not jealous of you,” said Lulu. “You’re my friend.”

  “Girls are supposed to be jealous of their friends. It’s normal,” said Audrey, her voice taking on that parroting quality Lulu knew well. Mrs. Bachmann could always come between them.

  “Just because a thing’s considered normal doesn’t make it right or true.” Lulu watched Audrey for a moment. “Do you remember what happened? Answer me honestly.”

  “You hooked up with Clark. You shoved me out of the way. And then you got into a fight with Dane Anderson so you could make out with him, too.”

  And Lulu knew. Knew in her bones, that Audrey had simply believed the first story she’d heard. She hadn’t thought to verify or validate. She’d found the gaps in her own memory and filled them with the first bit of reporting that could seam them together. Lulu looked at Audrey, really looked at her. Saw her the way a stranger would see her. Saw her as a girl rather than as a person she knew. The effect was startling, dizzying. Lulu had thought Audrey’s loyalty had been worth something. Perhaps Audrey was on Lulu’s side in the long run. But so was Audrey’s judgment. So was Audrey’s righteousness. And those were pointed toward Lulu as well.

  Lulu couldn’t take it anymore. She’d scream. “Is that what you remember?”

  Audrey jutted out her chin in response. “Yeah.”

  “Right.” Lulu nodded. There was no Lo to send her outside. No Emma to remind her to take a deep breath. Just Audrey and her judgment. Just Lulu and her rage. “Tell me why I’m angry. Tell me.”

  “You’re angry? I’m supposed to be angry.” But Audrey’s surety was shaken.

  “No, I’m not angry. I’m furious. Livid. I’m beyond. If anger were the circles of hell, I’d be sitting there in the ninth one with fucking Lucifer himself. No. I’d kick Lucifer out. I’d be too angry for Lucifer. For fucking Satan. Do you get me?” Lulu grew. Six inches. A foot. Half a centimeter. She’d never know. But she grew—taller and broader, ferocious and feral. “You are beyond judgmental. Don’t talk to me until you figure out why I’m mad. Do you hear me? Don’t fucking talk to me.”

  And with that, Lulu walked off. She rushed outside, eager to breathe the biting, chilled air. The wind whipped across her plaid skirt and through her itchy polyester tights. The prickling sting felt good. Maybe not good, but a feeling more than numb. It was a familiar pain, that stinging itch. She yelped as the wind pulled through her hair, shivering as she waited for a way out of this mess.

  * * *

  Lulu ducked off campus, knowing the best ways to not get caught. She didn’t skip except in an emergency, and today was definitely an emergency. She blocked her number and dialed into the office, impersonating her own mother and saying she was home sick for the rest of the day. She moved her car off campus, to a nearby plant shop so that the illusion was complete. But skipping wasn’t worth much if Lulu had to do it alone. Alone. It was a funny concept for Lulu, who grew up in a house full of noise with two siblings. Lulu who was next to always within a circle of friends. Alone.

  Lulu had a flash of inspiration. Matt. She could message Matt. She’d gotten his number when she’d grabbed a ride home with him. And she didn’t have to worry about screwing anything up, because they had next to no history. Matt was a blank slate, and right now, Lulu desperately needed one of those. beignets?

  always was Matt’s response.

  Lulu walked behind a row of bushes in the back alley of someone’s home before she reached the beignet shop to wait. It was only a two-minute walk from campus and about five from where she parked her car, but she took the longer, more circumspect route. Lulu didn’t need to get caught trying to sneak back across campus. That effort took ten minutes at least.

  Hi Lulu wrote to Emma when she’d arrived. But she got nothing in response.

  I’m sorry she sent to Lo who of course had read it and knew Lulu could see she had read it but said a glaring nothing in return. Lulu got on her phone and scrolled through some old photos as she waited, but she noticed there were fewer of them tagged than usual. She kept scrolling through—Lo was removing her, one by one. Lulu locked her phone and stashed it back away in her bag.

  Lulu leaned against the brick wall on the side of the strip mall as Matt approached. The last Lulu had seen of Matt, they’d been walking to his house to grab his dad’s car—just around the corner from James’s house. Everything had felt new and possible then. A beginning.

  “You know, that uniform…,” Matt said when he got close. His dark hair was rumpled. Lulu got the sense he was never not disheveled.

  Lulu arched an eyebrow—a dare.

  “… is the most unattractive thing I have ever seen. Seriously, I feel duped.” Matt had the air of a young man let down by the world as a whole.

  Lulu could only throw back her head and laugh. She needed that laugh, which reached its peak pitch at a high cackle before settling back down again. Laughter kept strange memories at bay. Kept Lulu in the present moment. She couldn’t think about what-ifs and laugh at the same time. They walked through the doors of the beignet shop, a light bell jingling in their wake.

  “They’re supposed to be equalizing, not tantalizing. This isn’t porn.” Lulu stared at the menu—more out of habit than necessity.

  “Hey, not only porn. Like
movies. All movies.” Matt tapped his feet as he read.

  They ordered beignets, a regular coffee granita, and a mocha one. They pooled together their small bills and loose change to pay and waited. Despite her uniform Lulu received nary a sideways glance. She’d figured out the art to not getting caught—maintaining the air of one who belonged. If she learned nothing else from Sealy Hall, Lulu could forever credit her education for that trick.

  Their order popped up on the other side of the counter. They grabbed their respective drinks; Lulu grabbed the paper bag. She rolled down the folded-over top and offered the contents to Matt, who snatched a beignet greedily. Lulu popped a bite of piping hot fried dough into her mouth. She spoke with her gob half-open, trying to cool the bite as she spoke.

  “The uniform pants are worse,” she said, because she was apparently a masochist and could not keep her memories in line.

  “Why’s that?” Matt hadn’t wasted time, either. His mouth and its entire circumference were dusted in powdered sugar.

  “Remember James’s pants?” Lulu pulled apart her beignet with the tips of her fingers. She waved her bite in the air, flinging powdered sugar this way and that. She was definitively not thinking about James and his holiday emoji boxers. Lulu licked a bit of dough that had stuck to her index finger. Keep it together, Saad.

  “Oh God,” Matt said, nearly choking on the remains of his beignet.

  “Worse. They’re all boys’ pants. With pleats.” Emoji boxers. Emoji boxers. Emoji boxers. “Khaki. Pleats.”

  “You’re all right, you know that?” he said.

  He offered her a sip of his mocha granita. She slurped it down with the last of her beignet. Mocha was Lo’s favorite. The flavor was sticky sweet, mostly chocolate with a hint of coffee. Lulu was the one who preferred the more bitter flavors, to everyone else’s amazement. She handed back Matt’s granita and looked into the bag—one beignet remained.

  Lulu tore a hunk out of the remaining beignet, then tore that in two and handed Matt one of the pieces. “You’re an asshole. But I find it endearing.”