Like she has no idea that David and Thea are just a few feet away.
David’s got his head down, nestled in Thea’s neck. I don’t think he’s seen Sari. But Thea has. You can tell from the way she’s staring straight ahead, keeping her back to Sari, totally pretending she’s not here.
Other people aren’t pretending. All around, you can hear this hum of voices—some excited, some low and pissed off.
“Oh, my God …”
“I cannot believe this.”
“What is she doing?”
Right near Sari, there’s a group of seniors hanging out by the window. Like, there’s Charlie and Tobin, and Andy Schwartz and Leslie, who’s Andy’s girlfriend. They’re staring hard at Sari. Sari ignores them.
Leslie walks over, like she’s going to get something to drink. She bumps into Sari—supposedly by accident.
Leslie says, “Oh, sorry.” But her voice is nasty.
Sari stops dancing for a second. Then she closes her eyes, starts moving again.
She’s moving closer to David and Thea. Other couples are moving off the dance floor. No one knows what to do.
I want to grab Sari by the arm and drag her out. I want to yell at David, See? See what happens when you play with people? Look up and see for once! I look at Thea, furious and trying not to cry, and I want the whole stupid thing never to have happened.
Sari’s not pretending she doesn’t see them anymore. Now that it’s just the three of them, she’s opened her eyes, and she’s looking straight at David, like, You can’t just make me go away because you don’t want to deal with me anymore.
Then all of a sudden, Thea just stops. She quits dancing completely, says, “Come on, David.”
“No, it’s fine.” He takes her arm, starts moving his feet around. But Thea doesn’t move.
Slowly, Sari stops dancing too. And waits.
Thea says, “I mean it, David.”
Everyone’s watching. I don’t think anyone can breathe. Thea gives David a long hard look, then she walks off the floor over to Leslie, who hugs her and helps her disappear into the crowd.
For a long terrible moment, David and Sari just stand there. Sari’s hands are in fists at her sides. Her jaw is rigid, and her eyes are shining. She’s waiting for David to look at her, waiting for him to admit she’s there.
But he doesn’t. Instead, he kind of shrugs. For a second, he smiles down at the floor, and I have this weird memory of him in art class when he knew he just couldn’t do it and he didn’t know whether to laugh about it, get pissed off, or what.
Then he turns around and walks off after Thea.
At the sight of Sari all alone, I gulp in air, start toward her. But I’m not fast enough. In the silence, someone—I swear it’s Erica Trager—lets out a shriek of laughter. The sound of it hurts my ears, maybe even my eyes, because suddenly, I can’t see Sari clearly. I can see her walking quickly, but not running, never running, and then all of a sudden, we’re next to each other. I put my arm around her and we head right for the door. Once we’re out of the party and away from the laughter, she puts her head down like she never wants to see anything ever again.
We are standing on the street. At the corner, Danny is finding us a cab. Sari’s eyes are huge. Tears are all down her face. She looks so fragile, like she’s gone somewhere deep inside herself. Or else just flown away into the night sky when no one was looking.
She says, “I don’t want to go home.”
“You’re coming to my house.”
She nods.
In the cab, she closes her eyes. Her head rocks against the seat, and her mouth’s a little open. It’s like she’s asleep, but I know she’s not.
Danny whispers, “Will she be okay?”
I nod.
We sit for a while, watching the city speed by, the lights streaking past like dashes of water. The river looks flat, secretive, like someone’s just slipped beneath the surface and drowned. I want to be home more than anything.
“Hey,” I say.
Danny looks at me.
“Thanks a lot.”
He smiles, looks out the window to hide it. “Maybe next time,” he says, “we’ll go to a movie.”
Here’s what I’m praying as I unlock the door to my house: that everyone will be fast asleep.
I can deal with Sari. I can deal with my parents. But I cannot deal with both at the same time.
It’s 2:00 in the morning. I feel like I haven’t slept for a year.
The key keeps slipping. I can’t remember how to turn it.
One more try …
Finally, I make it. The key turns, the lock clicks, the door opens. Without a sound, we creep down the hallway to my room. Sari goes into the bathroom. I follow, shutting the door and turning on the light.
Immediately, almost like she couldn’t take another step, she sits on the side of the bathtub. I wet a towel and touch it to her forehead. I try to wipe her cheeks and her forehead. Then she hiccups.
I can’t help it. I laugh.
Sari takes the towel and hiccups again. Then she laughs too. Sort of.
“You okay?”
“No.” Sari hiccups. “Not at all.”
She tries to smile, but the smile slips. “I can’t believe that happened.”
I’m about to tell her that it doesn’t matter. That shell get over it. And who cares about David Cole, anyway?
And I know all that’s true. But instead, I take the towel back, wet with hot water, and give it to her to warm her face. Because I think right now, that’s all she wants.
I get out my futon chair, pull my sleeping bag out of the closet. In my drawers, I find a T-shirt for Sari to wear. It’s the same one she always wore when she slept over, the one with a big sloppy dog on the front. Once it’s on, she looks down and smiles.
It’s funny—I’m completely tired, but once I get into bed, I feel wide awake again. I stare up at the ceiling, imagine that I’ve just been tossed onto shore by a huge wave and I’m looking up at a night sky full of stars.
I hear Sari say, “There’s only this one minor, tiny problem.”
“What?”
“I don’t think I can ever go back to school again.”
“Don’t be dumb.”
I hear her head slide against the pillow as she looks over. “God, could you?”
“None of them will be there next year,” I say, meaning the seniors.
“Other people will be.”
“Yeah, I will be.”
“That’s true.”
We’re quiet for a while. Then I say, “Hey, we could do the Book. Ask it what next year will be like.”
Sari laughs. “No more Book. I don’t want to know what the future is; it’s too scary.”
“Okay.”
But I know that sometime in the summer, shell stop being scared. I know that sometime, she’ll start wondering what next year will be like. And I know that shell want to do the Book. So I’ll keep it under my bed, where it’s always been.
Some things you lose, and it’s better.
But some things you keep.
15
—Hollow Planet: Thorvald’s Hammer Victories came where they were not expected. Defeats too. But in the end, their forces had emerged intact. Ragged, battered, but still loyal.
At 3:30 on the morning of July 12, I’m standing on the corner, waiting for Danny. I’ve never been out this late before, never seen the city so still and deserted. While I wait, I pass the time by imagining I’m waiting in the woods for allies to come.
Then I hear someone say, “Hail.”
I say, “Hail” back.
Danny grins. “So you think we have a shot at getting in?”
“Let’s go see.”
For its opening day, Hollow Planet is showing at one theater only. When we were trying to decide when to get on line, Danny and I figured that either people would be waiting on line for weeks before, which even we weren’t prepared to do, or that we might have a shot if we went ear
ly, early in the morning.
At first, Danny said we should meet at the theater. But I told him I couldn’t stand being disappointed immediately if there were a million people there. Which is why we met a few blocks away instead.
As we walk, my stomach’s all tight, and I tell myself not to be ridiculous. It’s just a movie. What does it matter when you get in? When you see it? Everyone gets in eventually. But some things are just really big. Some things you want to be a part of. And as sad, pathetic, and geeky as it is, the opening day of Hollow Planet is one of those things. For me, anyway.
I think: We should have left earlier. Midnight. I bet a million people came out at midnight.
Just before we turn the corner on to the last block, I take a deep breath.
Danny says, “Ready?”
I nod. “Ready.”
We turn the corner.
There is a line outside the theater.
But it’s only about a hundred people. Which means we’re going to get in. We rush to the end of the line and drop onto the pavement with a big sigh. Some people ahead of us smile, and we wave back.
I settle in, rest my head against the building. I am going to see Hollow Planet on opening day.
Then I hear Danny say, “Hey, what if after all this … ?”
“Yeah?”
“What if it sucks?”
I think: Then we will be among the very first in the entire world to know that.
At 10:00, we file into the theater behind other cheering, whooping fans and watch Hollow Planet: The Film.
It doesn’t suck.
In fact Danny and I are going to go again this weekend.
It’s funny—I still can’t believe I’m going to be a sophomore.
Last year feels so over. Like it all happened long ago, when I was a little kid.
The Saturday night before school starts, I go over to Sari’s for videos. We order an obnoxious amount of Chinese food, sit back on huge pillows, and watch movies until our eyeballs hurt.
During the second movie, Sari points to the screen and says, “That guy kind of looks like David.”
It’s the first time she’s mentioned David all summer.
I say, “Yeah, maybe. A little bit.”
Sari picks a dumpling out of the carton, eats it with her fingers. I slurp a cold noodle.
Then I ask, “Do you ever miss him?”
Sari frowns. “I used to. A lot. I don’t know. It’s dorky, but he was really exciting to be around.” She looks at me. “That’s sad, right?”
I shrug. “It’s true.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I don’t look directly at Sari when I say this, but I can feel her smile.
“Still,” she says, “I was pretty pathetic.”
“Oh, definitely.”
“A complete loser.”
“Lost soul.”
“And, of course, you were too.”
“Well, of course.”
We laugh. Then we watch the rest of the movie.
While we’re rewinding the tape, Sari asks, “Hey, whatever happened to that picture?”
“What picture?”
Sari puts her hands on her hips. “The one you were drawing of me.”
“You weren’t supposed to know about that.”
“Oh, yeah, like you were so subtle.” Sari hunches over, imitates me scribbling and peeking with huge eyes.
“I never got it good enough.”
“So, try again.”
“Now?”
“Sure.” She flings herself back on the pillow. “I wish to be immortalized.”
“I don’t have my stuff.”
“I’ve got stuff.” She jumps up and hunts around for some paper and pencils.
Handing them to me, she says, “Please?”
I shrug. “Well, you did say ‘please.’”
Sari flops on the floor and strikes a pose. I say, “Not like that. Be normal.”
Sari giggles. “I am so not normal. Oh, hey, hey … I have an idea. Do both of us.”
“Both?”
“Yeah. You know, together. The artist and her extremely strange friend.”
I think for a moment. “Okay. But I have to do you first.”
“Cool. And you have to show me when you’re done.”
“Cool.”
“No hiding it away in a drawer.”
“No hiding it away. Now, shut up and let me think.”
I bend over and concentrate on the page. Then I look up, touch the pencil to the paper.
I am drawing a picture of Sari Aaronsohn.
Who is my best friend.
Mariah Fredericks was born and raised in New York City. She went to a school quite like Eldridge Alternative, though they called it the Calhoun Learning Center. The school had no walls, but remained standing nonetheless. Later she attended Vassar, which did have walls.
She has never lived anywhere else, but she has visited Lenin’s Tomb in Moscow, Russia, and other famous places with dead people in them. She has had a lot of jobs, and most of them involved books. She has reviewed books, shelved books, and sold books. “Writing books,” she says, “is definitely the best job I’ve had so far.”
Mariah still lives in New York City. Only now she has a husband and a basset hound, as well as a lot of books.
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