“Come with me,” he says when I don’t respond.
“What is it?” Maybe if I know what it is and where we’re going, I won’t feel as nervous.
“You’ll see,” he says.
On the way to wherever we’re going, I give Erica and Zoe looks. Confused looks. But they just smile like everything is awesome.
We walk back through the game room, up two steps, and into another room. Travis flicks on a switch, and I gasp.
“You have a planetarium in your house?” I ask, shocked.
“Apparently!” He fiddles with some settings and changes the lighting, so it’s pitch-black with a zillion stars on the ceiling. We can’t hear anything going on in the other room. It seems like we’re a million miles away from anyone. “The previous owners of the house were astronomers. I guess they were really obsessed with the planets and the stars and needed to have access to them all the time. My parents looked into converting it to a home gym, but Gavin and I begged them to keep it.”
“Yeah! This is way cooler than a home gym!”
“Come here.” He points to a row of seats like in a movie theater. “I’ll show you how cool this is.”
My rumbling stomach starts to calm down, and I sit in one of the red velvet armchairs. Travis has a giant remote in his hand, and I wonder if he knows what he’s doing or if he’s just pushing buttons. Probably a little of both.
“This is a real planetarium,” I say. “Like the one in New York, just with fewer seats.”
“I’ve never been there, but I believe you.” He’s quiet for a few minutes while he figures out which buttons to push. “Here, check this out.”
The stars on the ceiling disappear, but now we see the whole solar system in intricate detail—every crevice on every planet—and he can zoom in so we can look at each one, like we’re literally standing over it. There’s even a setting you can switch to that has a woman’s voice narrating a guide to the solar system. There’s also a sound-track setting that plays soothing music as the stars twinkle. And our chairs go back, so we’re almost lying flat. It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.
I’m so busy looking at the ceiling that I’m caught 100 percent off guard when it happens.
Travis kisses me. Just a quick peck—but it feels wrong. All wrong.
I pull away. “Oh, um …”
“What? Sorry. Was that not okay?” I can’t see his face but I bet it’s all crumpled. The way he looks after he has to play a solo in band and messes up too many notes.
“Oh, it’s just that, um.” I stop. I have no idea how to say this. Should I tell him about Yamir? Is there really anything to tell?
“What?” he asks again.
“I just wasn’t expecting that,” I tell him, which is a lie. I was expecting it, just not at that second.
“We don’t have to,” he says.
“Let’s wait.” I look at him, but we can’t see each other. Maybe it’s better that way.
“Okay.” He pushes another button and changes the setting to have the stars spread out in a different way. “I don’t know what I’m doing anyway.”
For some reason that makes me feel better.
We stay in the planetarium for a little while longer, and for a few minutes I forget about the party. I forget about my text to Yamir. I forget about everything.
Right now it’s just Travis and me and a zillion stars.
And I don’t know how I feel about that.
Lucy’s tip for surviving eighth grade:
Accept the fact that you will make mistakes.
A few minutes after we leave the planetarium, I find Sunny and Evan by the jukebox.
“Where have you been?” she mutters.
“I’ll explain later.”
“Well, something happened with Erica Crane and your phone,” she says. “And now my brother’s coming here. With Clint, Anthony, and some new kid, Elias.”
“What?”
“That’s all I know, Lucy.” She shakes her head, looking frustrated.
I go to find Erica, and on the way I notice that I left my bag on the couch. I guess I was so nervous about going off alone with Travis that I forgot it. I find my phone and discover that Erica was texting Yamir. From my phone. Pretending to be me.
Sweetie, bring someone cute for Erica.
Sweetie? I would never call him that.
Right now? Where r u? U are being so weird.
She texted back the twins’ address and everything.
Fine. We’re just sitting here playing Xbox. We’ll come.
So it wasn’t really me texting him. And he doesn’t seem that excited about it. But he’s coming. That has to mean he wants to see me. Right?
I’m on my way to find Erica and yell at her for going through my bag and texting Yamir, but it’s too late.
They’re already here.
“I can’t believe you dragged us to a middle school party,” Yamir says when he sees me.
I sniff. “Hello would be a nicer way to greet me.”
“Hello,” he grumbles.
Erica comes over to us. She’s holding a glass of fruit punch. I wonder if she knows that her lips are hot pink.
Yamir nods in her direction and then looks back at Elias. “Elias, this is Erica,” he says, lazily. “Erica, this is Elias.”
“Hi, I’m Lucy,” I say to him, since Yamir clearly doesn’t care about introducing me.
“Hey.” This Elias kid can’t be what Erica had in mind. At least, I don’t think so. He has hair so blond it looks bleached. And the chubbiest cheeks I’ve ever seen. He has a baby face but in a high schooler’s body. A young high schooler’s body.
“Did you just move here?” I ask.
“No, not really. We live in West Seaside but my mom teaches at Old Mill High School, so she got me rezoned.”
“I see.”
I guess I’m wrong about Erica’s taste, though, because she seems at least a little bit interested. “Follow me, Elias. Let me show you around,” she says, like this is her house.
Clint and Anthony go to play foosball, and Yamir and I are left standing by ourselves.
“Do you want to sit?” I ask. I want to tell him about the planetarium, but then I realize I shouldn’t. I probably don’t need to go into the fact that Travis and I were in a dark room alone together and that he kissed me.
“Yeah, sure.” He looks at his phone and follows me to the couches where Erica and I were sitting before.
We’re chatting about nothing all that important—soccer, his parents’ upcoming trip to India, a new taco at Dream Tacos—when he turns to me and says, “So, what’s up with you and that Travis kid?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you the same thing?”
“Me and Travis?” He laughs.
“No, okay, not the same exact thing.” I look at him with his long eyelashes and a strand of thick hair falling in his left eye. Do I really want to say this? It could ruin everything.
But everything’s pretty much ruined already.
I take a deep breath. “You and Sienna.”
“Sienna?” he echoes.
“Yeah, that girl you seem to be with all the time. The pretty one from Westport.”
“Oh, you mean the girl I have to tutor in science because she moved and is behind?”
“Oh. Okay.”
I’m quiet now. I shouldn’t have started this.
“So, your turn. You and Travis. The kid who lives in this house. Who threw this party. Who just took you alone into his planetarium.”
He knows about the planetarium. There isn’t that much to know. But he knows it.
“Nothing is going on. But I don’t know why you’d care. You obviously don’t like me anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” He seems genuinely confused, but that doesn’t make sense.
“You don’t call me, or e-mail, or text, or anything, Yamir. The last text you sent was four weeks ago, and all it said was fart.” I can’t look at him right now. His
thigh is touching my thigh, but I can’t look at him. “You don’t act like you like me. You don’t act like you want to be my boyfriend. You don’t care at all.”
“Thanks for telling me what I care about,” he says. “Clearly you didn’t care enough to talk to me about it. You were just going to forget everything that ever happened and move on to someone else.”
All around us people are laughing and talking and there’s music playing. But right here, on this couch, it feels like the world is ending.
“That’s not what happened,” I mumble. “I tried to talk to you that night when I slept over. But nothing changed. And you ignored me at Sushi of Gari. It was all so obvious. I just didn’t think I should spend so much time caring about you.”
He looks at me, finally. “I see,” he says. “Let’s just move on, then.”
“Yamir, you don’t care about me. Admit it. Maybe in a friend way, but that’s it. It’s obvious. If you liked me, you wouldn’t treat me like this. Why can’t you just say it?”
He takes one long look at me. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
That’s the dumbest expression in the world. So what if he’s sorry that I feel that way? It’s not like he’s going to do anything about it.
He gets up from the couch and walks over to Clint and Anthony. They look back at me, and then the three of them keep walking. I guess they’re leaving. But it looks like Elias is staying here. He and Erica haven’t stopped talking since the moment he got here.
At least there’s that.
Lucy’s tip for surviving eighth grade:
Try not to obsess about things you have no control over.
It feels like I have to walk through humid, smoky air for the rest of the weekend. In reality, it’s freezing and snowing off and on, but I can’t seem to move gracefully. I feel stuck. Like I’m pushing through walls of thick cement.
On Sunday morning I wake up and the first thing I do is check my phone, hoping for something from Yamir. A conversation at a party can’t be the end. Right? I mean, there has to be more to our story.
But Yamir hasn’t gotten in touch.
I’m staring at my phone, willing it to ring or buzz or something—and it actually does.
But it’s not Yamir. It’s Claudia.
“Where have you been, Claud?” I shriek.
“Oh, Luce. I don’t even know where to start.”
“What?” I immediately assume some crazy person has kidnapped her and locked her in a basement for weeks.
“I’ll explain soon,” she says.
“Just start now. I’ve been so worried.”
“My phone’s dying,” she tells me. “Alert Mom and Grandma. I’ll be there in an hour.”
She’ll be here in an hour?
Great. Now I have the job of telling Mom and Grandma that something’s wrong with Claudia.
I lie in bed for a few more minutes. Maybe if I go back to sleep, I’ll wake up and this will all be a dream. Or more of a nightmare, I guess.
But no luck. I’m up.
Downstairs, Mom and Grandma are still sitting at the kitchen table sharing a New York Times, a carafe of coffee, and a basket of homemade blueberry muffins. If I wasn’t brokenhearted about Yamir and freaked out about Claudia, I would be 100 percent in love with this picture.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Mom says, pulling out a chair for me.
Ever since the spa opened and business has turned around, Mom and Grandma take Sundays off. They don’t take it for granted either—they always make special breakfasts and lounge in their pajamas for as long as they can.
“What’s wrong?” Grandma says as soon as she sees me. Either I’m a bad actress or Grandma knows me better than anyone else. She always seems to sense when something is up.
“Well. Where to start?”
They both look at me.
“I guess I should let you know that Claudia will be here in an hour.”
“What? Oh Lord!” Grandma holds her head. “She flunked out of school. I knew it, Jane. She has not been serious enough about her studies.”
In a way I feel better. Maybe that’s all it is. I was thinking something much worse, like she’d been arrested.
“Maybe it’s good news, Ma. Ever think of that?”
My mom does have a point. Does Claudia play the lottery? Or maybe she won some kind of award. Who knows.
Grandma shakes her head. “I doubt it. Good news is usually first delivered over the telephone. And besides—why is she spending money on a flight?”
“Ma! Enough. We’re doing fine with money now. You sound like someone who lived through the Depression!”
They go back and forth like this for a few minutes while I pick at a blueberry muffin. I’m not going to tell them about Yamir. They don’t need something else to be upset about. And besides, I don’t know if I want their advice.
I stare at the clock waiting for something to happen. I know we all assumed that Claudia flew home, but maybe she didn’t. Maybe that girl Lauren drove her again. Maybe she took the train. There are so many possibilities.
I’m reading one of the Times Sunday wedding stories when my phone buzzes. I’m grateful for the distraction. People with broken hearts shouldn’t be reading stories about weddings.
“How are you?” Sunny asks in a very serious voice. She must know.
“Fine, I guess.”
“Soooo, Yamir punched a hole in the wall,” she says. “I don’t think you can say he doesn’t care.”
“He told you I said that?” I ask.
“Yeah. But that’s pretty much all he said.” She stops talking for a few seconds, and it feels like an hour has passed. “Did something happen with Travis?”
“No! I mean, yes and no.” I walk out of the room and upstairs. “He tried to kiss me. And maybe our lips touched. But it wasn’t my idea. And then we stopped.”
“Oh.”
It’s quiet again. I can’t tell what’s happening. It seems like Sunny is mad at me, but that doesn’t make any sense.
“Where were you and Evan? I didn’t see you guys the whole night.”
She says, “We can discuss that later,” and then she’s quiet again. “I gotta go, Luce. Sorry all of this happened.”
That’s it? I don’t get it. I need Sunny now more than ever, but she seems to think this is my fault.
A minute after we hang up, my phone rings again, from a random Connecticut number. I figure it’s Claudia calling from someone else’s phone or something, so I answer it.
“Lucy,” a girl says on the other end.
“Yeah?”
I have no idea who it is.
“So, that kid Elias is awesome,” the girl says.
Oh. Now I know who it is. Erica Crane. She must be calling from her landline.
“He is?” I ask.
“Yeah. He knows about all these obscure bands and he’s really into music. Plus, he seems, like, way older. Like way, way older than all the guys we know.”
“Um, that’s great.”
I don’t understand this call. It almost seems like Erica is thanking me, but that’s so not like her.
“But I heard about you and Yamir. And that really stinks.”
“Yeah, thanks. I’m really upset and—”
She interrupts. “I need you to fix it. Say you’re sorry or whatever. Because we need to go on double dates. Elias is in high school, and I can’t make this happen all on my own.”
Oh. So that’s why she’s calling.
“It’s not really up to me. Yamir has been ignoring me for a long time.”
“Really? You made him sound all amazing,” she says. “So you’re a liar too?”
Ouch. That was harsh. I don’t even know what to say.
“I’d suggest you find a way to fix it,” she warns. “Or soon everyone will know you’re a liar. You don’t want that, do you?”
“Erica, come on,” I plead. “You don’t know the whole story.”
“True. And I don’t really care a
bout the story,” she says. “Just fix it. Bye.”
Okay, so somehow this morning has gone from bad to worse, and Claudia’s not even here yet. I pray that Mom’s right, that Claudia is coming home with good news. I’m not sure I can take any more bad news.
Lucy’s tip for surviving eighth grade:
Spend time with your family. It can help.
An hour has passed and Claudia’s still not here. I think she said an hour, but maybe she said a few hours. I don’t know.
My mind is spinning with all the horrible things happening: Yamir and I breaking up, Claudia’s mystery trip, Sunny being annoyed with me, pressure from Erica. I need to talk to someone, and there’s only one person I can think of.
“Evan, hey, it’s Lucy,” I say, as soon as he answers.
“Hey!”
“Listen, I hope it’s not weird that I’m calling you, but after our chat at the beach, I really think you might give the best advice.”
He laughs. “Well, thanks.”
I sit back on my bed, and try to even out the feathers in my down comforter. “Everything felt crazy at the party last night. Didn’t it?”
“What do you mean?” He asks in a way that sounds like he’s actually interested in the response.
“I mean, the whole thing with Yamir showing up, and Erica and Elias, and now I think Sunny’s mad at me.”
I wait for him to say something, but he’s quiet for a few seconds. Maybe it was a mistake to call him.
“Lucy, you always get worked up over this stuff, and then it’s fixed in, like, a day,” he tells me. “Just go with the flow.”
I don’t even know what that means. It sounds like good advice. But also like something to say when you can’t think of anything else.
“Yeah.”
“Yamir is obviously confused. So let him work out his stuff.”
Again, it sounds good, but is he really saying anything?
“You and Sunny are the perfect couple. How do you do it?” I ask. I hear all kinds of noise coming from my mom’s room. Things dropping. Doors closing. Exasperated groans. I have no idea what’s happening out there.
“I don’t know, I guess we’re just awesome,” he says. “You shouldn’t compare your relationship to ours, though. Everybody’s different.”
Pink & Green is the New Black Page 9