Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks

  A couple of girls giggle, but I don’t care about them. I care about Cole, who glances over and grins. Because I’m funny. Because I’m not a Barbie doll with bleached white teeth.

  I want to meet him—but I’m scared.

  I want to meet him.

  But I’m scared.

  That night, I watch The Hills with Anna, and as usual, it’s awful and yet addictive. Audrina gets stupid over a guy, and it’s so familiar that I feel like shaving my head and wearing a hair shirt for the rest of my days, just to separate myself from the craziness of being a girl and liking a guy and all the senseless, predictable, utterly unoriginal drama that goes along with that.

  It’s stupid to get stupid over a guy. It’s stupid to be such a wimp. I am disgusted with myself, and I decide then and there that I’ve had enough: IT IS TIME TO BE BOLD. Like Mom and Dad’s Starbucks roast, but even bolder.

  I get up from the couch and march from the room.

  “You’re going?” Anna says. I’m surprised she cares, because she’s been moody all night, and distant. She hasn’t even given her usual commentary on whose clutch she covets and whose shoes are gorgeous, though impractical. Yet now she wants me to stay?

  “Sorry, babe,” I say. “Larger voices calling.”

  “But Heidi’s about to show up at Vice!”

  “Tell her hi for me!”

  Upstairs, I open the door to my closet and push through the hangers until I find what I want. Ahhh, yes. Bold, beautiful, and absolutely offbeat. I grab it, hanger and all, and march back down to Anna.

  “Anna, prepare thyself.” I thrust the hanger in front of me.

  The bright colors scream, “Look at me!”, and she flinches. She blinks at the shirt existing so boldly on the hanger, then lifts her eyes to my face. Then back at the hanger. She finds her voice and says, “What . . . is it?”

  “It’s a dashiki.” The word is exotic on my tongue. “Don’t you love it?”

  “No.”

  “What? Of course you do.” I shake the hanger, and together we regard the dashiki’s African-esque sunbursts of red, yellow, and orange. We appreciate—okay, fine, I appreciate—its flowing triangular sleeves that end in foot-long points that flutter like flags in the wind. It is the insanest, Jimi Hendrix-est, flower-child-est shirt ever.

  “Carly?” Anna says.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m having this very bad worry that you’re planning on wearing that thing. Like, in public.”

  “It’s not a thing. It’s a shirt, a beautiful shirt, and yes, I’m going to wear it. Why wouldn’t I?”

  She hits “pause” on the TiVo control. “When did you buy it?”

  “At the end of the summer,” I say. “In Tennessee, at the street fair where I got my Jesus sandals.”

  “Jesus never wore a tablecloth.”

  “It’s not a tablecloth, it’s a—” I break off. I give Anna a pained smile. She’s being a pill, but I’m not going to let her get to me.

  I sit on the sofa and drape the dashiki over the cushion. “Is there something wrong with being different? Is that why you don’t think I should wear it?”

  “I think you try too hard to be different,” Anna says.

  “That’s ridiculous. There’s no rule against dashikis. There’s no rule saying that just because I’m a girl, I have to wear cute little skirts and tops just so I can fit into the perfect little Holy Redeemer mold.”

  “Carly, you will never fit the Holy Redeemer mold,” Anna says, “so you don’t have to worry about that. Although I think it’s obnoxious how you’re so anti-Holy Redeemer.”

  “How is that obnoxious? And how did we even get onto this subject? You’re not supposed to have opinions.”

  I mean it as a joke—obviously—but Anna arches her eyebrows. She’s not supposed to have opinions, though. Unless they agree with mine.

  Anna pushes the dashiki away from her. “You want to be sooo different from the girls at Holy Redeemer. But you let Holy Redeemer define you just as much as anyone else, just in the opposite way.”

  “What? You just heard Dr. Phil say something like that when you were watching TV and eating Pop-Tarts.”

  “Okay,” she says in an incredibly annoying I’ll-pretend-to-agree-with-you-if-that-makes-you-happy way. “But if you love your dashooki so much—”

  “Dashiki,” I say, through gritted teeth.

  “—then why haven’t you ever worn it?” She gestures at my shirt with her chin. “If that eyesore of a shirt is, like, what you’re all about, why has it lived in your closet for three months?”

  “I’m wearing it tomorrow,” I say stonily.

  She shrugs. She lifts the remote and reanimates Audrina and her pals. My jaw falls open, because seriously, since when did she become so obnoxious?

  I stand up, swoop my dashiki off the sofa, and say, “I do want to be different, you’re right. I want to be someone who thinks for herself, instead of just being some stupid girl who swishes her hair and wears too much makeup and shows off her boobs.”

  Her cheeks turn red. Her eyes stay glued to the TV, but her arms cross over her chest.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true,” I say. “I refuse to be part of the herd.”

  “And how do you think that makes the rest of feel?” Anna says without looking at me. “Huh, Carly?”

  I have no idea how things got so out of hand. Heart pounding, I turn and leave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WHAT BEE FLEW UP YOUR BELL-BOTTOMS?

  Peyton, when I call to vent, is no help.

  “Carly, you do know why she’s mad at you,” she states.

  “No,” I say. I frown. “She’s mad at me? She’s not allowed to be mad at me.”

  “You have a lot of rules, Carly. Did you know that?”

  My pulse quickens, and I sit cross-legged on my bed with my dashiki in my lap. I grip one of its pointy sleeves as if it’s a security blanket.

  “It’s pretty ironic,” she goes on, “since you’re all about not wanting rules. Anna and I were just talking about it.”

  “Excuse me?” When were they talking about it? On the phone? Did Anna call Peyton, or did Peyton call Anna?

  “Oh, Carly,” Peyton says. I hear clacking keyboard sounds, which means she’s IMing or e-mailing while she’s talking to me. “How you called Anna a Barbie doll on the steps of Ansley Hall? She told me all about it.”

  “She is a Barbie doll,” I say. “A Barbie doll is a girl who’s cute and sweet and wears matching little outfits, which Anna does.” Peyton does, too, for that matter, which fills me with the sudden need to cover my butt. “What’s wrong with being a Barbie doll?”

  “Nothing. But you mean it as an insult, and you know it. You think cool chicks shouldn’t care about stuff like that.” She says “cool chicks” as derisively as I—supposedly—say “Barbie doll.”

  “What’s going on?” I say. “Are you pissed at me, too?”

  “I’m not pissed,” Peyton says. “I can see Anna’s side, that’s all.” More clickety-clack sounds. “Sometimes you use her as a punching bag.”

  “I do not!”

  “Sometimes you’re like, ‘I’m the great and mighty Carly! I can have opinions, but no one else is allowed to! That is the rule!’”

  “God, Peyton,” I say. “Anna and I tease each other. That’s what we do. Why am I suddenly Big Bad Carly?”

  “You embarrassed her, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “How?!”

  “How do you think? First you called her a Barbie doll. Then, based on what she told me, you went on and on about how lame it was that she was getting her teeth bleached.”

  “I did?” Nothing from Peyton, so I say, “Okay, I did. But I didn’t even remember till just now, that’s how unimportant it was.”

  “To you. Not to Anna. You said she could have fed a third-world nation with the money she spent on her bleach job.”

  “But she went to Dr. Smiley,” I say plaintively. “The Fun Dentist!” The
re are cheesy billboards all over the city for Dr. Smiley, the Fun Dentist. “I had no choice but to mock him. It’s a—”

  Rule, I almost said.

  “Uh-huh,” Peyton says. She half-laughs. “Like I said, you have a lot of them.”

  I regroup. I am not the evil person she is making me out to be. “Do you know how much it cost for Anna to sit there while Dr. Smiley zapped her with his special blue-light laser gun? A thousand dollars, Peyton.”

  “A thousand dollars isn’t that much.”

  “Are you kidding? That missionary lady who spoke at last Friday’s assembly said you could feed an Ethiopian orphan for thirty-five cents a day. That means”—I do some messy calculations—“you seriously could feed someone for, like, eight years with a thousand dollars.”

  “You have money. Are you sponsoring an Ethiopian orphan?”

  I exhale through my nose.

  “Anyway, extensions cost more than that.” Her tone turns reflective. “Hmm, maybe that’s what I’ll ask for for Christmas.”

  “What? No.”

  “See, there you go again. You make people feel bad. You make them feel like they’re not good enough.”

  I have a horrible flash of Dad, who does that all the time. Who accumulates power for himself by taking it from others. But I am not Dad, and anyway, Peyton’s the one making me feel like I’m not good enough.

  I clench my dashiki. “It is ridiculous to spend a thousand dollars to whiten your teeth. Anna could have gotten Crest Whitestrips for ten dollars.”

  “Nope. Twenty-seven dollars.”

  I groan.

  “If I whiten my teeth, are you going to be mean to me, too?” Peyton asks. “Because I think Anna’s teeth look terrific.”

  “They look the same as before,” I lie.

  “Loosen up, babe,” Peyton says. “You’re seriously the most uptight flower child ever. You’re, like, a flower child with a bee in your bell-bottoms.”

  “Bye, Peyton,” I say.

  I shouldn’t have called.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  DAG: DUTCH FOR “HELLO”

  That night, I hang my dashiki over the shower rod in my bathroom. It’s rumpled from where I clutched it, and my way of ironing things involves not an iron but a sink. I splash water on the offending areas, smooth the creases out, and let whatever it is drip-dry.

  “Dewrinkle thyself,” I tell my dashiki, waving my fingers up and down. I’m trying to reclaim my sassy-hippie-chick vibe, when in actuality I feel like crying. “Prepare for glory.”

  When morning comes, I’m a mess. First of all, I’m sleep-addled, because I did that brain-whacked thing at four in the morning where I thought my alarm clock went off, and so I got up and took a shower on autopilot, only to finally look at the clock and realize what a spaz I was. So I went back to bed with wet hair, and now it’s flat on one side. The top layer is gradually losing its beigeness, though. It’s more of a pale gold which could almost be called blond. Only it’s half flat. Half red, half gold, half poofy, half flat. Oh, and with dark brown roots to add that final, special touch.

  It could be that I should take a sick day.

  But, no. I told Anna I was wearing my dashiki to school today, and I’m not backing down. I will be bold! Fearless! Cole-worthy!

  I step into my long skirt and pull the dashiki over my head. I check my reflection in the mirror—WHOA, THOSE SLEEVES ARE LONG—then turn away before I can lose my nerve.

  “Good heavens,” Mom says when I walk into the kitchen. Her expression says, How did this child spring from my loins? “Are you wearing that to school?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  She flounders. “Well, are you going to wear a jacket over it? It’s November, you know. Maybe your navy peacoat? The long one we bought at Neiman’s?”

  “The one you bought at Neiman’s,” I say in a controlled voice. “And no, I will be going jacketless, as it’s Atlanta and the temperature’s supposed to hit sixty degrees.”

  “Sixty degrees is chilly, Carly.”

  My throat goes tight. Sixty degrees is not chilly.

  “You better tell Anna to get down here or she’ll make us late again,” I say.

  “Did you check on her when you were up there?”

  “Am I my sister’s keeper?” I snag a Pop-Tart and head for the back door. “I’ll be outside.”

  All day long, people comment on my dashiki. It’s like the day of my hair debut all over again. People are so unoriginal.

  “Nice tablecloth,” they say, and “Where are my sunglasses?” Also, “Dude, someone’s gonna lose an eye if you’re not careful.” Peyton is embarrassed and walks several feet in front of me when we go to English, and Lydia seems downright offended.

  “Uh, Carly?” she says. “We’re not in the sixties anymore. Sorry to be the one to tell you.”

  Some people like my shirt, like Mr. Burnett, who’s wearing a tie splattered with huge cows even though it isn’t Tacky Tie Tuesday. And Roger’s cool with my fashion choice. He joins me in the cafeteria, since Peyton and Lydia developed an urgent need to spend our lunch period in the library. He sits down, takes in my outfit, and nods, like, Yeah, okay, reminding me that Europeans are so much more awesome than Americans. Or at least Roger is.

  We chat about random things as we eat, taking frequent breaks to wipe our fingers on the five thousand napkins I grabbed from the dispenser. Today is fried-chicken day—yummy chicken grease!—and I’m happy to be here with Roger, who doesn’t care if the sleeves of my dashiki drag in my mashed potatoes.

  As I pull off a piece of breast meat with my fingers, Roger looks across the cafeteria and says, “Hey, there’s Cole.”

  My nerves jump. “You know Cole?”

  “He’s in my Latin class.”

  “Really? That’s cool. Is he nice?”

  Roger slants his eyes, and I realize I’ve made a tactical error. This is Roger, who likes me. I can’t blabber about Cole around him.

  “Sakkerloot,” Roger says. “Are you one of his groupies?”

  “No,” I say. “I’ve never even met the guy.”

  Roger assesses me. He is so calm and steady, my gigantic Roger. I wish he’d quit staring at me, though.

  My wish is granted, because he turns toward Cole and raises his voice. “Cole! Over here!”

  Cole ambles over, and it’s possible I’ll disintegrate. He’s wearing a leather jacket, and his hair is tousled, and he seems easy in his skin in a way that I constantly strive for but never achieve.

  “Hey, man,” Cole says to Roger. “What’s up?”

  Roger jerks his head at me. “My friend wants to meet you. Carly, meet Cole. Cole, Carly.”

  Heat scorches my face. “Hi,” I manage.

  “Hey,” Cole says, friendly but completely impersonal. If he remembers me from his first day, he fails to show it. And if he remembers his guitar-boy smile from yesterday, he does an extremely good job of pretending he doesn’t. He drops into an empty chair, which means that I am essentially done eating, since I can’t eat in front of him. My stomach’s too knotted.

  “So . . . you play the guitar,” I say. “I’ve seen you out on the quad.”

  “I was in a band in Winston-Salem,” Cole says, scratching the back of his neck. “You like music?”

  “Uh, yeah. You?”

  There’s a beat so we can appreciate what an idiot I am.

  “No, he just plays the guitar to torture himself,” Roger says.

  “Thanks, Roger,” I say. The look Roger gives me is hard to read.

  “What do you listen to?” Cole asks.

  I focus back on him, because this one I can handle. “Cat Stevens,” I say. “The Grateful Dead. Neil Young. The Doors, even though Jim Morrison was a misogynist.”

  “You need to listen to some current artists,” Roger says, not for the first time.

  Cole, however, grows interested. “Neil Young’s incredible.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “He sounds like he’s
got a cold,” Roger contributes.

  “Did you, um, know that it was here in Atlanta that he split off from Crosby, Stills and Nash?” I say. At one point they were Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Then Neil Young ditched them, and they turned into Crosby, Stills and Nash. And Neil Young became just plain Neil Young.

  “‘Funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way,’” Cole quotes. “‘Eat a peach. Love, Neil.’”

  He knows Neil Young trivia! He is a god! I think Roger might roll his eyes, but I can’t swear on it because I’m blinded by Cole’s god-ness.

  He sings a line from a Lynyrd Skynyrd song: “‘I hope Neil Young will remember, a southern man don’t need him around anyhow.’”

  His voice is chocolate smoke, and it stirs crazy desire inside me. I hope what I’m feeling doesn’t show. It’s way more than just yay, another sixties-music freak.

  “Enough with the golden oldies,” Roger says. “Sakkerloot.”

  “Saker-what?” Cole says.

  “It’s Dutch,” I say. “He says that as a tribute to his homeland.”

  “Ah,” Cole says. He tears off half his roll, crams it into his mouth, and stands up. His eyes on me, he says, “I gotta run. But catch me later? We can talk about music.”

  I play it cool and nod.

  “Doie,” Roger says, saluting.

  Cole lifts his eyebrows.

  “Dutch for ‘good-bye,’” I explain.

  “Gotcha,” Cole says. He grabs his tray and heads for the conveyor belt, then turns back from a couple feet away. “Oh, and, Carly? Nice dashiki.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THINGS UNSAID

  That afternoon, I tell Anna I’ll get a ride home on my own. I say it really nicely, but she looks at me sullenly and says, “Fine. I’ll tell Mom.”

  I ask Roger if he’ll take me to Virginia Highlands, and because he’s Roger, he says sure. This means riding on the back of his motorcycle, which I’m forbidden to do, since (a) Roger isn’t yet sixteen, so he’s driving without a license, and (b) motorcycles equal death machines, according to Mom.