“Hey, Maggie,” she says. “How was your weekend?”
“Mostly the usual.” I drop my bag with a clunk. “Did you go to the art museum?”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “My mom went with me.”
“I wish I had a mom I wanted to hang out with.”
“Well, sometimes there aren’t any other options.” She pinches off the crust of her sandwich bit by bit, discarding it onto her napkin. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Cece so down.
“Tom and I went to Seattle too,” I say. “Yesterday.”
Cece perks up a little at this. “Just you and Tom?”
“Just me and Tom,” I say. “Nash had to . . . help his mom.”
Cece nods. She’s smiling a little and takes a bite of her now-crustless sandwich. “That’s great.”
We finish lunch, chatting until I’m almost late for biology. Tom is already at our lab table. Kayla’s in my seat, laughing and tossing her curls off her shoulder. Tom leans in, hands gesturing as he talks softly to her.
I feel a little stab of jealousy seeing them together. Then I remind myself to be jealous on Nash’s behalf.
Kayla waves, and Tom stands up, smiling, like he’s been waiting for me.
“Hey, Maggie,” Kayla says. “Tom’s been giving me a rundown of his most embarrassing moments.”
“Not the most embarrassing,” Tom corrects her. “You’ll have to earn those.”
“Well, if they’re like the stories you just told me, I’d do anything to hear them.” Kayla leans in a little, touching Tom’s arm and flashing those white Chiclets at him. The bell rings. “See you later.”
“Definitely,” Tom says.
Kayla leaves and I move around to my side of the table, not meeting Tom’s eyes. I haven’t actually talked to him since I dropped him off.
“You weren’t at lunch,” Tom says.
It’s a statement, but there’s a question underneath. I throw my backpack down and climb onto the stool.
I’m deciding whether to be evasive or honest when he says, “Nash seems kinda pissed at you.”
“He does? How pissed?” I put my head down on the cool black surface of the lab table. It feels good. “Did he tell you why?” I say into the table.
“He didn’t. And I’m not sure I’m qualified to assess the different levels of Nash’s emotional turmoil quite yet,” Tom says. “But if I had to take a guess, I’d put it at a five or six?”
I lift my head. “Is that all?” I say. “And we’re talking a scale of one to ten here?”
Tom nods.
“That’s a relief.” I know from experience that a five on the Nash scale feels bigger than it is, and that the anger is usually short-lived. A Tiger all the way.
Mr. Smythe shows a movie about the sexual organs of plants.
“I never knew sex could be so boring!” Tom whispers, throwing his book into his backpack at the end of class.
“Personally I was riveted. Stamen and angiosperm? That’s serious stuff!” We both turn toward the gym and the dreaded Ms. Perry. My mood collapses.
“You know you shouldn’t let her get to you,” Tom says, falling into step beside me.
“Oh, okay. Wow, I never thought of that. Don’t let her get to me. Thanks.”
“I know, easy to say, but she is twisted. She’s clearly got some sort of eating disorder and an unhealthy fear of . . . um . . .” Tom shifts his eyes away from me.
My face burns as I realize what Tom was going to say. “Fat?” I supply. “Were you going to say ‘fat’?” I clutch my notebook a little tighter and speed up. Tom is so good at making people feel at ease that I’d almost convinced myself he didn’t notice or care about what I look like. I feel stupid for letting myself think that even for a moment. My throat tightens unpleasantly as I pass a garbage can, and I consider whether or not I might need to stop and throw up into it.
“Look, it’s not a secret and it’s nothing new. I’ve been dealing with this shit my whole life. Believe me, if I could tune out the Ms. Perrys of the world, I would, but they are everywhere. They’re an occupational hazard for people like me.” We’re still walking, but I feel Tom’s hand on my arm and I stop. “What?” I say, the prick of tears behind my eyes.
“Breathe.” He puts his hands on my shoulders. “In and out. For just a minute. Breathe.” He closes his eyes as if to demonstrate the kind of Zen breathing he wants me to do.
I roll my eyes. I breathe. After a few seconds, my heartbeat starts to slow and my cheeks don’t feel quite as hot.
“Listen for a minute.” Tom’s hands are still on my shoulders, and now that I am not quite so absorbed in my own pity party, I become aware of the warm, gentle pressure of his thumbs resting on the bare skin on either side of my neck. “To clarify, I don’t think you’re fat,” he begins.
“Yeah, right.” I avoid looking at him. “Then why did you have such a hard time saying it?”
“Nash told me you were sensitive about—”
“Nash told you? Nash? Told you?” I step away from him, shaking off his hands. What else had Nash told him? “Jesus, we’ve only known you like a minute and a half, and you’ve got Nash and me both spilling the deep stuff. What else has Nash said about me? No, never mind. I don’t want to know.” I start toward PE again. “I’m going to be late, and Ms. Perry does not make a habit of extending her minute reserves of compassion to me.”
Tom starts to follow, but I change course, veering to the exit doors that lead to the back parking lot.
“Where are you going?” he says. “Maggie, wait, don’t . . . I didn’t mean to . . .” He trails off as I bust through the double doors and into the golden light.
I walk as fast as I can to a hole in the back fence, praying I can still fit through it. I haven’t left school this way since early freshman year. Squeezing through, I head down a side street away from the school. I’m not sure where I’m going, just away. The tears are still threatening. One minute I’m walking to class with a nice guy that my best friend is crushing on; the next minute we are having some sort of impromptu counseling session about my body image issues.
“Screw that,” I say, startling a woman walking by with her dog. I head for the mini-mart on the next corner. Inside, I roam the aisles for a couple minutes pretending to look for something I need. I pick up some lip balm and a can of Diet Coke and take them up to the counter to pay.
I don’t want to see anyone, so I choose one path in the maze of trails running along the hillside that divides our small city into the upper town and the lower town. You could do a whole year’s worth of after-school specials about the kids on the bluff. The stoners, the kids having sex with their boyfriends and girlfriends, the kids having sex with other people’s boyfriends and girlfriends, the LARP kids roaming the trails, challenging one another to sword fights with fake swords wrapped in foam. The trees offer plenty of places to hide and party, so I run the risk of bumping into stoned gamer geeks having wild sex among the pines, but it’s early yet, so I’ll probably be left alone.
I find a patch of moss and fallen pine needles under a tamarack that’s starting to turn golden. The sun is shining on the lake, but there’s a bite of fall in the air. It won’t be long before it’s too cold to sit outside like this.
I remove the lip balm, put some on, and slip it in my pocket. Then I take out the Diet Coke, pop the top, and take a sip. I passed out most of the ginger cookies at school, but I find a couple more in my bag. The idea of the soft, sweet cookie is more soothing than the astringent fizz of the Diet Coke. Unwrapping a cookie, I raise it to my lips, inhaling the ginger and clove. Then I hear voices. I scoot back up the hill under the trees. Below me a couple of tiny, blond women come into view, power walking down the trail. The sound of their voices drifts up to me as they race by, but the wind chops up the words.
I let out a breath and look at the cookie in my hand. I take a slow bite and try to swallow, but the mash of molasses and flour sticks in my throat. I toss the remaining cookies into the t
rees. Maybe some lucky stoner will find them and think the marijuana gods have granted him an instant munchies cure.
I look out at the water and the patches of yellow tamarack on the distant hillsides. Nash is mad at me. Tom thinks I’m fat. And who knows what Kayla has in mind. The cookies are gone, and my tears are too close to the surface, so I let them come, slow and silent. No racking sobs or hysterics. Just a little of my sadness leaking down my face and leaving wet polka dots in my lap.
Chapter 16
By the time I make it to Square Peg, ten minutes after my shift starts, Quinn is picking up the phone to call me. He’s having a full-on hissy fit.
“What the hell?” he starts in, putting down the phone. “Where have you been? I was worried!”
I toss my bag under the counter. “Sorry,” I say. “I was on the bluff and lost track of time.”
Quinn gives me the look he calls “the hairy eyeball.”
“What?” I say. “I’m never late. Why are you so mad about this one time?”
“That’s why I’m so mad,” he says. “You’re never late, and so when you are, I’m extra worried.” He goes to the turntable to change the record. “The bluff, huh? What were you doing there?”
I move closer so Quinn can scrutinize my eyes. “See? Not bloodshot.” I breathe on him. “And no skunky pot breath, either.”
“Okay, okay. I was just wondering. You know the bluff has been the place to party since I was at Cedar Ridge.”
I sometimes forget Quinn is a product of my hometown. The idea is so unlikely that my brain refuses to hold on to that tidbit of information. But it also gives me some hope. For me and for Nash. “How did you ever survive growing up in this town?” I ask. I want to know; I need to know. If Quinn has the keys to the kingdom, I hope to God he’s in the mood to share them.
“Tough skin and good hair,” he says.
I wait for a real answer.
Quinn sighs. “Someday Uncle Quinn will tell you all about it, sweetie, but right now you need to get to work!” He hands me a pile of albums from the RAP (records already played) bin, and I start down the aisle putting them back in the inventory.
A thought stops me in my tracks, and I turn and look at him. “What would you have done if I had been stoned?”
Quinn thinks for a moment, looking at me. “Look, that’s not you. It’s not who you are. So I would have told you to stop being someone you aren’t.”
“Oh, the ‘be yourself’ speech. Heard it. Hate it.” I turn back to my work.
“No,” Quinn says, and there is an edge to his voice that demands my attention. “Not the ‘be yourself’ speech.” He rubs his hands back and forth across his balding scalp, trying to gather the strings of what he’s trying to say. “Look, Maggie, you’re a strange kid.”
I stare at him.
He backpedals a bit. “That sounded wrong. I just mean you aren’t normal.” He holds up his hands. “No. Wait.”
I have the uncomfortable impulse to laugh, but Quinn takes a deep breath.
“You are . . . you. And if you did the stereotypical movie-of-the-week teenager stuff, like smoking pot or lying to your parents, it wouldn’t fit.”
“Thanks, Quinn.” I run my fingers along the soft edges of the album covers. “I think I needed that.”
Quinn lets out a breath and I go back to filing records, and the room starts to feel like the home away from home I’ve come to expect.
“By the way,” Quinn says, his voice casual. “Tom came by to see you earlier.”
I stop what I’m doing and spin back to Quinn. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t realize you cared,” Quinn says, watching me.
I steady my voice, but my stomach clenches as I remember our conversation this afternoon. “What did he want?” I ask.
“You, I guess.”
“Did he say anything—I mean, what did he say?”
“Said he’ll be back later. And to tell you to ‘breathe.’” Quinn finishes sorting the bin and sits down at the computer to enter some inventory. “It’s good advice,” he adds.
“Easier said than done,” I mumble. But then I do breathe. I take a big breath, in and out, and then another. And I feel better.
It isn’t long before Tom comes back. He scans the store, but I am in the far corner, restocking Jazz W–Z, so he doesn’t see me right away. I scrunch down and try to hide behind the stack of records I have clutched to my chest. When he finally spots me, he comes right over. His face is pulled together in a worried, questioning sort of way. I brace myself for niceness.
“Hi,” Tom says, stopping across from me in the next aisle over.
There are two record-bin widths between us, but I feel cornered anyway.
Quinn puts on a new record, and Billie Holiday comes over the speakers singing “Them There Eyes” and how they are going to get her in trouble.
I glare at Quinn until he turns it down.
“You okay?” Tom asks, and when I look up at his eyes, I can still hear Billie’s warning. Those eyes could cause a lot of problems.
“Yeah.” I flip through the records. “Sorry about losing it like that.”
“Sorry if I crossed a line I shouldn’t have crossed.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that?” I ask. “Does your body produce some sort of truth serum or something? You skipped over a lot of the getting-to-know-you stuff and went right for the jugular. What else did Nash tell you?”
“I know. I have this habit of going directly to the juicy bits.”
“And yet you share nothing about yourself.”
“I share stuff. Sometimes. But people just tend to want to talk to me, and sometimes they tell me things they didn’t mean to. Sorry. I know that’s not everyone’s favorite.”
“Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner!” I say, and Tom finally smiles, but his eyes are stuck in worry mode.
“So, do you hate me? Or does the new guy get another chance?” The words sound like he’s joking, but I get the sense he’s afraid he’s blown it. He’s chewing gum, and his jaw works the gum a little faster as he waits for my answer.
I decide to give the guy a break. “It’s your lucky day!” I say. “Two-fer Tuesday at Square Peg Records means you get two fabulous albums for the price of one. In your case, you get two chances.” I lean over the bins, and Tom leans in too, and our faces are close enough that I can smell the clove. I wag my finger at him, emphasizing each word. “Limited. Time. Offer.”
He nods and reaches both his hands out over the bins, grabbing my hand.
I look at his hands holding mine, and I feel that little tremor of electricity. The bell rings and our eyes go to the door.
Kayla’s standing in the doorway. She’s staring right at us, but I can’t read her face. She’s still there when the bell rings again.
Now Nash is behind Kayla, eyes darting from her to us and back again. His face pinches like he’s eaten some bad sushi. They’re both staring at our clasped hands, and I realize too late what this must look like to both of them.
I drop Tom’s hands and go back to returning the records to their bins.
Quinn assesses the situation in an instant. “Nash!” he says. “I have that live Clash album you’ve been asking for. Came out of an estate sale. A suicide, I think.” Quinn gives an involuntary shiver. “Come on back. I’ve been holding it for you.” Nash gives us another glance but allows the diversion.
“Hey, guys.” Kayla gives a little wave. Her voice is bright and warm, like honey drizzling over us, trying to make everything sweet again. She sidles over to one of the bins near the door and starts looking at the sale albums. Every few seconds she glances up at us. I’m not sure if she’s here to see me or Tom, but either way, with Nash on the premises it would be best to get her gone before Quinn is done with him.
“Look, it’s Kayla,” I say to Tom. “You should go talk to her.”
But Tom, a little slow on the uptake, stays where he is. As I flip the records back and forth,
trying to find the proper spot for the album in my hand, he pushes them back before I have a chance to drop the record.
“Quit!” I hiss at Tom, but I’m trying not to laugh. When he won’t stop, I march the unfiled records back over to the RAP box, sliding them in while glancing at the office where Nash and Quinn are examining an album.
Tom follows me, and Kayla follows him, standing closer to Tom than is strictly necessary. But he doesn’t seem to mind. He bumps shoulders with her, she bumps back, and pretty soon they are laughing and jostling for space at the counter.
“You win!” Tom says, holding up his hands.
“I usually do! Remember that,” Kayla says. “Maggie, I wanted to double-check: You’re coming over on Saturday to work on that history project?”
“Yeah, I’m in.”
“Great. Come around ten. I might still be in my PJs, but I’ll be ready to work.”
“Sounds good,” I say.
“Do you need directions?” Kayla asks.
“No. I remember.”
Kayla turns on her thousand-watt smile. “What are you up to, Tom?” she asks. “I was going to go get some frozen yogurt.”
“Tempting,” he says. “But I have plans. Thanks.”
“Okay. Another time?”
“Definitely.”
Kayla leaves, the bell jangling behind her.
I start straightening things on the counter that don’t need to be straightened. I want to ask what his plans are. Tom leans against the counter smiling this Cheshire cat smile. It simultaneously makes my eyes roll and my toes curl. Nash and Quinn emerge from the office, Nash clutching the album in front of him like a shield.
“Hey, Nash.” I make a stab at nonchalance, but he’s clearly miffed, probably about Kayla. And the fact that she showed up at Square Peg, a place she never comes—or at least never did until Tom moved to town—just confirms all of Nash’s fears.
“Nash, what’s up?” Tom says, throwing his arm over Nash’s shoulder.
Nash puts on a smile for Tom. “Picking up an album I’ve been wanting. What about you?”
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