Kindred Spirits

  “You don’t wear glasses!” she blurted.

  “What?” he said, putting his glasses back on.

  “In school,” she said. “You don’t wear glasses.”

  Gabe’s face fell. “No. I don’t.”

  Gabe. Geekle. His Spanish name was Gabriel. She’d never talked to him; she’d never really looked at him. (Which sounded worse than it was—Elena didn’t go around looking at people. She minded her own business!)

  This was bad. This was very bad.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Why would you?” he said.

  “We’re in class together!”

  “You apparently never noticed. There’s no crime there.”

  “Did you recognize me?”

  Gabe turned to look at her. “Of course.” He rolled his eyes. “We’ve been in school together for four years.”

  “I don’t know very many people.”

  “Why should you?” he said. “You’ve got your clique.”

  That was true, but not the way he was saying it. “We’re not a clique,” she said.

  “Gang, then.”

  “Gabe.”

  “Army?”

  “Why do you dislike us so much?”

  “Because you’re jerks,” he said. “Because you call me Geekle—what does that even mean?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t call you that!”

  “Because you don’t know I exist!”

  “I know now,” she said.

  Gabe started to say something, then shook his head.

  “Jocelyn has a big mouth,” Elena said. “She’s harmless.”

  “To you,” Gabe said. “You guys think you’re so far above everyone else.”

  “I don’t think that.”

  “You walk around in a clump, looking all cute and matchy, and throw your clever little insults down on us plebes—”

  “We never intentionally match!” Elena said.

  “Whatever!”

  They both sat back, arms crossed.

  “It’s not like that,” Elena said. “We’re not a clique. We’re just friends.”

  Gabe huffed. “Do you know why I know you and your friends? But you don’t know me and my friends?”

  “Why?”

  “Because we don’t get in your way. We don’t have nicknames for you, and if we did, we wouldn’t shout them every day when you walked into Spanish.”

  “That’s just Jocelyn,” Elena said.

  “That’s your whole vibe,” Gabe said.

  “I don’t even have a vibe!”

  “Pfft!”

  “So you hate me,” she said. “You hated me before I even got in line.”

  “I didn’t hate you,” he said. “You’re just . . . part of them.”

  “I’m also part of this,” she said.

  “What’s this? Star Wars? I don’t have to like you because you like Star Wars. I don’t have to like every meathead with a stormtrooper tattoo.”

  “No,” Elena said. “I’m part of this, part of the line.”

  “What does that count for?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but it should count for something. Look, I’m sorry Jocelyn calls you names. She’s a loudmouth. She’s been a loudmouth since fourth grade. We’re all just used to her. And if you’ve noticed me at all at school, you’ve noticed that I don’t exactly reach out. I don’t talk to anybody in some of my classes. There’s nobody in my math class who could pick me out of a line-up.”

  “I don’t believe that,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “that I’ve never talked to you before. But you’ve never talked to me either. We’re talking now.”

  Gabe gritted his teeth. “I hate it when she calls me Geekle.”

  “She calls me Ele-nerd,” Elena said. “And Short Stuff. Wednesday Addams. Virgin Daiquiri. Ukelena . . . Ukelele. Lele. My Little Pony. Thumbelina. Rumpelstiltskin . . .”

  Gabe laughed a little. “Why do you let her call you all that?”

  “I don’t even hear it any more,” Elena said. “Plus it’s different. I’m her friend . . . I can have her stop calling you names, if you want?”

  “It doesn’t even matter,” Gabe said.

  They were quiet for a minute. Elena was trying to figure out whether she was mad. She wasn’t.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “That we already knew each other.”

  “I didn’t want you to call me Geekle,” Gabe said. “I didn’t want it to catch on.”

  Elena nodded.

  “We should sleep,” he said. “This is our last night.”

  “Yeah,” Elena said.

  He pulled up his legs and folded his arms. How did he sleep like that?

  Elena curled up as much as she could. She kept trying to get comfortable. It was so bright under the lights.

  “Gabe?” she said after ten minutes or so.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you asleep?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Are you still mad?”

  Gabe sighed. “In a larger sense, yes. At you, in this moment, no.”

  “OK. Good.”

  Elena hunkered down again. She watched the cars driving by. She would be really, really glad to be home tomorrow night. After the movie. The movie . . .

  “Gabe?” she said.

  “What?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Why not?”

  “Star Wars!”

  THURSDAY

  17 DECEMBER 2015

  Something strange happened at 6 a.m.

  Darth Vader got in line.

  It was one of Troy’s friends. He kicked Troy’s feet off the cooler and shouted, “The Force awakens!”

  “Yeah, we’ve heard that one,” Gabe grumbled, sitting up.

  Elena was watching everything from a gap between her hat and her sleeping bag.

  “I haven’t slept in a week,” Gabe said. “I think you can die of that. I think I’m dead.”

  Troy woke up and welcomed his friend, who eventually got in line behind Gabe.

  Elena and Gabe walked together to Starbucks. She gave him some of her baby wipes; they were both in dire need of a shower. Gabe looked like he was growing a beard. It was coming in redder than his hair. Elena painted new Yodas on her cheeks.

  “You into Star Wars?” the barista asked.

  “Nope,” Gabe said.

  “Yes,” Elena said.

  “I’m going to see it tonight,” the barista said. “Midnight showing.”

  “Cool,” Elena said.

  “There are already people in line over there,” he said. “Have you seen them? Just three miserable dorks sitting on the sidewalk.”

  Elena smiled brightly. “That’s us!”

  “What?”

  “We’re the three dorks—well, two of the three.”

  The barista was mortified; he gave them their coffee for free. “May the Force be with you!” Elena said.

  When they got back, there were three new people in line.

  By noon, there were twenty, at least half of them in costume.

  By three, there were speakers on the sidewalk, and someone kept playing the victory parade music from The Phantom Menace over and over again. (It was only a minute and a half long.)

  Elena consented to a ninety-second dance with Troy. Gabe turned him down.

  Fifty people showed up by dinner time, and some of them brought pizza. Elena went up and down the line, posing for photos and posting them to Instagram. (Her hashtags were inspired.) Troy, who’d changed into his pilot costume, was a little wary of all the newcomers—“Jar-Jar-come-latelies.”

  “We have to keep our guard up,” he said. “These people aren’t part of the line covenant. They might try to surge at the end.”

  “We still have our tickets,” Gabe said.

  “I will be the first person to walk into that theater,” Troy said. “You will be s
econd. And Elena will be third. We are the line. These are just day guests.”

  “So are we sitting together?” Elena asked.

  “Oh,” Troy said. “Well, we can sit near each other. I’ve actually got a bunch of friends coming . . .”

  “We can sit together,” Gabe said, looking at Elena, but somehow not looking at Elena. “If you want.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Let’s see this through.”

  The newspaper photographer came back. The line wrapped around the block. Mark came out with a loudspeaker to give everybody directions.

  “We’ve got two hours,” Gabe said to Elena. “I think we’ve only got time for a tattoo or a nickname. Your pick.”

  “Let’s not talk about nicknames,” she said.

  They’d packed up their stuff and Mark said they could leave it in his office during the movie. “Thank you for not being drunk or disorderly,” he said. “And for not littering. I hope you camp outside a different theater next time—I’d be happy to make a few recommendations.”

  “No chance,” Troy said. “This is home.”

  Elena bounced up and down, pointing from side to side.

  “What’s that?” Gabe asked.

  “It’s my Star Wars dance,” she said, bouncing and pointing.

  After a few seconds, he joined her. Then Troy’s friends picked it up. The dance traveled down the line. From the street, they must have looked like the Peanuts characters dancing.

  There was a surge at the end—Troy was right! The line turned into a mob when Mark opened the doors. But Mark shouted at everyone and made sure the three original line members got in first. Gabe and Elena grabbed seats in the very middle of the theater.

  “Oh my God,” Elena said. “This is the most comfortable chair I’ve ever sat in. I feel like a princess.”

  “You look like a ruffian,” Gabe said, but his eyes were closed. “It’s so warm,” he said. “I love inside.”

  “Inside is the best,” Elena said. “Let’s never go outside again.”

  The theater filled up, and everyone was loud and excited. Elena got a large popcorn and a small pop, and she went to the bathroom twice in the hour before the show started. “If I have to pee during the movie, I’m using this cup.”

  “It’s what you do best,” Gabe said.

  “I can’t believe I made it!” she said. “I can’t believe we’re here. I can’t believe there’s a new Star Wars movie.”

  “I can’t believe how much I want a shower,” Gabe said.

  Elena started doing her Star Wars dance again. It worked just as well in a chair.

  When the lights went down, she squealed.

  She’d made it. She’d camped out. And she hadn’t given up. And now it was here. Now it was starting.

  The opening crawl began. Episode VII: The Force Awakens.

  Elena felt all the stress and tension—all the adrenalin—of the last four days drain out of her body. She felt like she was sinking deep, deep into the warm, plush chair.

  She’d made it. She was here. It was happening.

  FRIDAY

  18 DECEMBER 2015

  Elena woke up with her head on Gabe’s shoulder. In a puddle of spit. Someone was trying to climb over her. “Excuse me,” the person said. Why would anyone be leaving during the opening credits?

  The opening credits. There were no opening credits.

  Elena looked at Gabe. His head had fallen to the side, and his mouth was open. She shook his arm. Violently. “Gabe, Gabe, Gabe. Wake up! Gabe!”

  He sat up like he’d been hit by lightning. “What?”

  “We fell asleep,” Elena said. “We fell asleep!”

  “What?” He looked at the screen—“Oh my God!”—then back at Elena. “When did you fall asleep?”

  “Immediately,” she said. “As soon as the lights went off. Oh my Gahhhhd.”

  “I saw the crawl,” Gabe said. “And a ship, I think?”

  “We missed the whole thing,” Elena said. Her chin was trembling.

  “We missed the whole thing,” Gabe repeated. “We waited for a week, and then we missed the whole thing.” He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders started shaking.

  Elena laid her hand on him. On the wet spot she’d left on his sleeve. She took her hand back and wiped it on her jeans.

  Gabe sat back in his seat with his hands still in his hair. He was laughing so hard he looked like he was in pain.

  Elena stared at him, in shock.

  And then she started giggling.

  And then she started guffawing.

  “Elena! Gabe!” Troy was moving with the crowd towards the door. “Was it everything?”

  “I’m speechless!” Elena shouted.

  Gabe just kept laughing. “We slept on the street,” he sputtered out. “You peed in a dumpster!”

  Elena laughed so hard, her stomach hurt.

  There were moments in the laughing when she felt totally miserable and wanted to cry—she missed the whole thing!—but that just made her laugh harder.

  “What do we do now?” Gabe said. “Hit the street? Camp out until the next showing?”

  “I’m going home,” Elena said. “I’m going to sleep for twelve hours.”

  “Good idea,” he said, sobering up a little. “Me, too.”

  Elena looked at him. At his curly brown hair and red stubble. She wondered what he’d look like when he hadn’t been sleeping rough for a few days. (She’d know this if she ever picked up her head at school.) “We could come back tonight,” she said. “We might be able to get tickets.”

  “I actually already have tickets,” Gabe said, running his fingers through his hair. “I was going to come back at seven and see it again.”

  “Oh,” Elena said. “Cool.”

  “You can have one . . .”

  “I don’t want to take someone else’s ticket.”

  “It was for my cousin, and he can wait a day,” Gabe said. “You’ve been waiting a week.”

  “I’ve been waiting my whole life,” she said.

  Gabe smiled at her.

  Elena smiled back.

  “Meet you tonight?” he said.

  Elena nodded. “First person here gets in line.”

  Turn the page for an extract from . . .

  I thought it was the start to a love story.

  Finally.

  The boy, who looked to be around my age or slightly older, had skidded to a stop in front of me. He gave me a quick, obvious once-over and then switched on a wide, flirtatious grin. His friend, better looking but very much not grinning flirtatiously at me, rolled his eyes.

  ‘Heeeey,’ the boy said, just like that. Heeeey.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, sending up a quick prayer that my bus wouldn’t arrive before the conversation ended. I tried to flick my hair casually – difficult to do when it’s a touch on the bushy side – and lifted my chin, like my sister once showed me when she was trying to teach me how to act confident.

  ‘What flavour have you got?’

  ‘What?’

  He gestured to the ShakeAway cup in my hand. ‘Oh,’ I said, stupidly. ‘Toblerone.’ I’d only had a few sips of the milkshake. I liked to let it melt a little before I started drinking it properly, and the cup was heavy in my hand.

  ‘Nice.’ The boy carried on grinning at me. ‘I’ve never tried that one. Can I have a sip?’

  Here is what I was thinking as I handed over my milkshake: He likes ShakeAways! I like ShakeAways! This is a MOMENT. This is the START.

  And then his back was to me and he and his friend were running away, their laughter lingering after them. When they were a few feet away, the boy turned, waving my cup triumphantly at me. ‘Thanks, love!’ he bellowed, either not realizing or not caring that he was not old enough – not to mention suave enough – to pull off ‘love’.

  I just stood there with my hand holding nothing but air. The other people at the bus stop were all staring at me, some hiding smirks, others cl
early pained with second-hand embarrassment. I adjusted my bag strap as nonchalantly as I could, avoiding anyone’s gaze, seriously considering stepping in front of a passing bus.

  Three days ago I had turned sixteen – the first of my friends to hit this particular milestone, thanks to my early-September birthday – and my parents had rented out a hall for my birthday party. ‘You can invite boys!’ my mother had told me, looking more excited by this prospect than anyone. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t want boys (definitely not), the problem was that I went to a girls’ school, and I could count the number of boys I knew well enough to speak to on one hand. Despite the efforts of my best friend, Rosie, who went to the mixed comprehensive and had plenty of boy/friends, the gender mix at the party was hopelessly unbalanced. I spent most of the night eating cake and talking with my friends rather than flirting wildly and dancing with what Rosie called potentials, like sixteen-year-olds are supposed to do. It wasn’t a bad way to see in a new age, but it wasn’t exactly spectacular either.

  I mention this so my OK-have-my-milkshake-stranger idiocy has some context. I was sixteen, and I honestly believed that I was due a love story. Nothing epic (I’m not greedy), but something worth talking about. Someone to hold hands with (etc.). The milkshake meet-cute should have led to that. But instead I was just me, standing empty-handed, and the boy was just a boy.

  When the bus pulled up just a couple of minutes later and I retreated to the anonymity of the top deck, I made a mental list of milestones I would have reached by the time my next birthday rolled around.

  1) I would get a boyfriend. A real one.

  2) I would lose my virginity.

  3) I would experience a Significant Life Event.

  In the following year I achieved just one of these goals. And it wasn’t the one I expected.

  ‘So he just took your milkshake?’ Rosie’s voice was sceptical. It was nearly 9 p.m., and she’d called me for our traditional last-night-before-school-starts chat.

  ‘Yeah. Right out of my hand.’

  ‘He just snatched it?’

  ‘Um. Yes?’

  There was a pause, followed by the sound of Rosie’s laughter tickling down the line. Aside from my grandparents, Rosie was the only person I spoke to using the landline. ‘Oh my God, Caddy, did you give it to him?’