Love (And Other Uses for Duct Tape)

  “Andrew,” Dylan says with his deep voice and killer eyes, “don’t you think you’ve been a big enough ass today? Why don’t you just shut up?”

  Andrew does.

  Dylan and I leave class together. We walk down linoleum halls following the black scuff marks left from all the people who have walked here before us. We plod past lockers with stickers on them, past windows that show a beautiful May day outside, while we are stuck in here.

  “Why does high school suck so much?” I ask him.

  He bumps me with his hip. “It’s people who suck.”

  “Very positive.”

  “I know,” he beams a smile at me. That smile with all those white teeth used to light up my world. It still does, although obviously not in a sexual way. “Call me Pollyanna.”

  “Doesn’t suit you. Are people giving you crap anymore?”

  “Belle, I’m gay. People are always going to give me crap … but it’s not too bad right now.”

  “Swear?”

  “Swear.”

  “’Cause I don’t want to have to go punch anyone.”

  He laughs. Em stands at the end of the hall and clicks a picture of us.

  “Hey, Em. Wait up!” I say.

  She turns and disappears into the throngs of students we here at Eastbrook High School call “classmates.”

  Dylan raises his eyebrows. “What’s up with Em?”

  “Nothing.” I unlock my locker and get out my books. “Everything. You worried about the talent show?”

  “A little. Bob’s out of his mind, though.”

  “He’ll do great. He’s got great chops.”

  “I know.”

  I shake my head, because, well … How do you respond to that? Then I tell Dylan, “I’m having seizures again.”

  “Oh, honey. That sucks,” he says. “Why? Does your mom know? You want me to go to the neurologist with you?”

  I shake my head. Dylan went to the neurologist all the time with me when the seizures started. “I think Bob would get jealous.”

  He nods. “Like Tom wouldn’t?”

  Two hands swoop around my waist and someone’s warm lips kiss my neck beneath my ear, which causes me to instantly melt against my locker and almost drop my books.

  “Hey, Commie,” Tom whispers in my ear.

  I turn around. My arms circle around his neck and the side of my head rests against his chest. It smells so good and safe.

  Dylan coughs. “See you later, Belle.”

  “Bye.”

  I feel bad for a second, because I don’t even look up from Tom to say goodbye to Dylan. Instead, I just snuggle in closer to Tom, despite the fact that public displays of affection are “severely frowned upon” at Eastbrook High School. Tom’s hand weaves through my hair. He smiles. “Miss me?”

  I nod, but don’t let go. “Uh-huh.”

  He nuzzles my ear and whispers into it, “Want to get out of here?”

  I pull away a little bit so I can see him. Crash saunters by and stops. “Man, where’s Emily when I need a picture? I think they’re going to fornicate in the hallway.”

  “Fornicate” is such a funny word, but Tom apparently doesn’t think so. He glares at Crash, making him back up while forming peace signs with his hands, a look of happy plastered on his face, like we’re the biggest joke and he just got it.

  “Peace. Peace. Got to live vicariously, you know?”

  “So, you want lunch?” Tom asks me.

  “I have to rehearse,” I say but even as I say it something twinges. “You’ll tell Em where I am though, okay … If, um, she needs me?”

  He cocks his head. “Yeah, sure.”

  So, I skip lunch, which is normally when I see Tom and Shawn and Em and everybody. I am not avoiding them. I just have to practice for the talent show tonight. Really.

  In the room where I practice, desks line up in rows like good military troops waiting for battle.

  “Whose side are you on?” I ask them. “The sexually frustrated Belle? The sexually noncommittal Tom?”

  Then I get stupid and say in a fake French accent, “Or perhapz you are on ze side of luve?”

  The desks don’t answer.

  “Fine. Be Switzerland. Like I care.”

  I move a couple out of line and plop myself down with Gabriel. Tuning her is easy today. Perfect: We are in synch. Content, I settle in and play. Note after note comes out, soft and loud and true.

  I ride towards you

  Like I don’t have anywhere else to go

  No mother, no bed, no comforter, no home.

  A mosquito lands on my right wrist. I stop playing to smack it, juggling the balance of Gabriel so that I can do it without breaking her. A string protests.

  Even though she’s outside, in the hall, Mimi Cote’s ultra-loud voice penetrates the room. Soundproofing in our school does not exist.

  “I mean, really,” Mimi says to someone else, “I’ve heard they still haven’t done it. I mean … What? Why not? Tom’s such a muffin. You know it has to be Belle. She did date Dylan, gay boy, for how long? Like two years?”

  Smack, I kill the mosquito. For a second, I feel guilty, but the bug was sucking my blood.

  “Sorry,” I whisper to it. But really, I’m not paying that much attention to my act of murder, because I care more about what Mimi’s saying about me than I do about the dead bug, which was really only trying to survive by sucking me dry. Kind of like Mimi.

  “I mean that whole socially conscious, pretty, granola, hippie girl crap can only go so far. Right? I mean, my God. She must be frigid like the refrigerator, or gay,” Mimi says and lets out this piercing giggle. “Or maybe Tom’s just freaked by the whole seizure thing, like she’ll bite off his tongue when they’re doing it.”

  Is that why?

  She must be standing right outside the door. She must want me to hear her. My insides burn.

  She keeps going on. “Have you seen the way Tom looks at me? Pure lust. I swear. That poor baby. I know he wants me. He stares at me all during World History. I bet he’s popping wood under the desk. He’s way more of a man than Andrew.”

  I flick the crushed mosquito carcass off my wrist and start to play, louder this time, better.

  I ride towards you

  And I wanna sneak in your house

  I don’t know if you know how I feel

  But I want you to feel that way too

  I keep riding closer to you.

  Mimi’s voice is just a background buzz, a mosquito looking for some nice soft patch of skin where she can land and suck.

  It won’t be on me. I’ve already given up too much blood.

  Gabriel rests against me and I keep playing her. When I finish my song, I start an old one by Dar Williams, then segue into a Cliff Eberhardt song about want and need, which is appropriate.

  That done, I check the clock. It’s almost time for the bell, but I don’t want to leave until it rings, and there’s not enough time left to practice another song. So, I just sit there and vibrate the string by bending and releasing the note. Then I give it up and try some tremolo picking, which is when you take a note and pick it as fast and constant as your fingers can handle.

  It sounds a little bit like a mosquito.

  I hate mosquitoes.

  Walking down the hall, I see Mimi. She sees me. She says just one word: pathetic.

  It’s the right word her mosquito mouth makes. It’s true.

  Gabriel smacks against my back as I stop walking. I am out of step, out of tune. I am a fatherless child, a sexless woman, a seizure girl with a guitar who is afraid to play.

  All during Bio Em stares at her notebook. She is pasty white. Her lips lack gloss. Sometimes her hand shakes holding her pencil. It kills me t
o look at her.

  “You okay?” I whisper. I rest my elbows on the cold, black top of the science lab table and then think better of it. Things get dissected here.

  “Will you stop asking me that?” she grumps back.

  “Sorry.”

  She pulls her hand up, tucks some hair behind her ear, makes her earring swing. “I’m sorry. It’s just not okay, you know?”

  “I know.”

  She will do it today, she says. She will tell him after school.

  When we’re leaving Bio she says again, “So, you scared about tonight?”

  “It’ll be fine.”

  “Because you’re more scared about me.”

  I shrug.

  We hustle past Mr. Zeki who calls out in his super effeminate voice, “Be good, girls.”

  Once we’re through the door and into the hallway, I tell her again, because I want to tell her again. I want to tell the world, over and over again. “I would do anything for you.”

  Em nods sagely. “Like I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s still nice to hear the words.”

  She hauls in a breath, and pulls her arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry I’m so moody.”

  “You’ve got reasons.”

  Our sides bump together and I think about telling her about Tom’s mom and dad and how Tom was born unplanned and unprepared for, but now is not the time. Even I know that.

  We get to our lockers, switch books, wave to Anna and Kara who are talking down Crash who is explaining that everyone thinks he’s black but he’s Pakistani and it’s totally different and why do all white people think all people of color are of African descent and so on. He nods at me and then goes back into his sad, angry face until Kara hugs him and Anna shouts, “White people suck.”

  White people do tend to suck, but it’s pretty funny because Anna is, well, you know, white. Her hair does make her look a little amphibious, though.

  Em doesn’t even notice what’s going on and instead she says, “Do you think Shawn will hate me?”

  Her voice is a little girl’s. Her fingers twist. She grabs her camera, but doesn’t take a picture.

  “No.” I fill my lungs up with air. “He’ll be shocked. And it’ll take him a while to figure out what to do and everything.”

  She stares into the viewfinder. “But what about all that stuff he said in law class?”

  “He was just talking,” I say. “You know how Shawn is.”

  She shakes her head. People look at us strangely almost like they already know. Bob hustles by and stares without saying hi. Andrew makes big eyes that are sort of condescending.

  She stops looking through the camera, uses her free hand to smash shut her locker door. “I don’t know if I can do this. I just don’t know.”

  I hug her because she looks so pathetic, and I can’t think of anything else to do. Crash zooms over, steals Em’s camera out of her hand and takes a picture of us. I hold her up. Our hair tangles into each other. We look like sisters. We look like best friends. We look like women who have secrets.

  Telling your boyfriend that you’re pregnant is not the easiest thing in the world. Except for girls in country music videos, for them the words just seem to pop out of their mouths. The guy walks off the baseball field, throws down his bat, and she blurts it out. Freeze frame the image. Commit it to memory. Fast forward seven years and there are happy family faces magnet-stuck on the fridge.

  That’s not how it is for Emmie.

  Because the truth of it is, Shawn loves her now, and she doesn’t want to change that.

  And even if a baby doesn’t actually change the love part it changes everything else. Everything.

  Em’s stomach makes a noise that even I can hear. There’s an embryo inside there. There is a tiny heart that beats.

  I grab her hand and squeeze it. She squeezes back and then we leave each other, heading for classes, trying not to be late, like good girls, good students, good citizens, people who abide by the rules and the expectations. We march to our places, secrets inside us. We go where we are supposed to.

  I’m almost to German class when Mimi meets me in the hall. She stops in front of me, blocking my way. Brittney, her puppy, stands beside her. Mimi rocks back on her heels, eyeing me and then says in this whoopee pie voice, “Why, Belle, you’re absolutely glowing.”

  I stare at her.

  “Isn’t she glowing, Brittney?” the evil Mimi says.

  This is the first time she’s ever said anything nice to me in four years, which means that she isn’t actually saying anything nice. I give her an eyebrow raise, just one eyebrow lifts up. I save this move for special condescending occasions and I prefer not to use it because it’s so powerful.

  It doesn’t affect her. Mimi stares me down. Brittney just lets out a snarky smile.

  Brittney says, “She’s definitely glowing.”

  “And her skin looks so smooth. Belle, your skin looks so smooth and pretty … all peaches and cream,” Mimi says. She reaches out to touch my cheek. I jerk away. She laughs.

  I try to figure out if I should just say thank you and walk on.

  I start to form a word but Mimi cuts me off. “I hear those hormones will do that to you.”

  “What?”

  She leans in closer and talks at the top of her voice without technically yelling. “I hear that the hormones make women in your condition have nice, glowing skin. Congratulations!”

  She smiles and stands up straight again. My eyebrow falls back down to its proper place. I sputter. I think about Em.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mimi.”

  She bites the corner of her lip. “It’s okay to want to keep it a secret, Belle. I understand. It’s so terribly embarrassing.”

  I rigid up. “You’re such an idiot.”

  She giggles.

  “First, you say that I’m frigid and that Tom and I don’t have sex because I’m an ice cube or something, but now, suddenly, I’m pregnant,” I say. “God, you need a life.”

  Andrew stops. A crowd starts gathering. Kara gives me big eyes.

  “I know what you bought at Wal-Mart this weekend,” she says.

  I freeze for a second. My stomach leaves my body, runs away like the wimp it is.

  “Ye-ah,” Brittney chimes in.

  “You’re spying on me?” I say. “That’s pitiful. You don’t have anything better to do than spy on me? Get out of my way, I’m going to be late for German.”

  Something wobbles in Mimi’s eyes. Something shifts. “You can’t hide the truth, Belle. Everybody’s going to know sooner or later. You are starting to round out a little, already, aren’t you? Poor you, I heard pregnancy makes your boobs even bigger.”

  She touches my stomach with two fingers. I jerk away.

  “I bought tampons. Go ask Anna.”

  “What else?” she crosses her arms across her chest. Her arms have no hair on them. She must have waxed them. Her arms always used to be hairy. This is a stupid thing to register with me, but it still does.

  “Condoms, okay?” Pushing by her I mutter, “God, you’re a pathetic bitch. It’s no wonder Tom dumped you.”

  Andrew starts laughing. I just keep walking away, pretending I’m all calm and cool and nothing is affecting me, but my heart is trying to escape my body. My hands tingle something fierce and my head keeps chanting Emily, Emily, Emily. Because Mimi-people are cruel people and they’ll be cruel to Emmie. This I absolutely know.

  Then, I do something that I know will keep Mimi thinking about me, keep her from figuring out that it’s Em I bought that pregnancy test for. I place my hand against my stomach, like I’m protecting a baby that’s inside me.

  I bite my lip and try to look worried.

  Behind me, Mimi gasps
and whispers, “I am so right. Ohmygod, I can’t believe Tom actually did it with her. Pathetic.”

  I hunch my shoulders and try to look defeated, because I don’t care. I don’t care that Mimi thinks I’m the one who is pregnant as long as she doesn’t think it’s Emily. I can handle Mimi, but Emmie … Emmie’s already got enough to deal with. She doesn’t need more.

  I head up the stairs to the foreign language wing. That’s when I realize it. There is something wrong with me.

  Even though Mimi is evil.

  Even though Mimi stole Tom from me back in eighth grade and then took Dylan for some romp when I started liking him before he came out.

  Even though I think she is horrible, horrible, horrible.

  I still feel bad.

  I still feel like crap because I said, “No wonder Tom dumped you.”

  And I could have said worse things.

  But I still feel bad.

  I feel bad because I hate her. I hate hating her. I hate being as bitchy and as fake as she is.

  My stomach, which seems to have returned to my body, kicks at itself. I put my hand over it as I walk to German. This is sort of what Em will feel, when the baby moves. A kick. A flutter. Pain.

  When we were little Mimi used to cry in her bedroom sometimes, late at night, when I was sleeping over. Her dad had left her mom for Nicole, this girl who was like sixteen or something and worked at the drive-thru at McDonald’s. He’d go to McDonald’s about eighteen times during her shifts, and buy a small French fry, or a small coffee or an apple pie, just going in there over and over again. Then one day he went to that drive-thru window in his beat-up Ford pickup truck, a real old, rusted-out one, navy blue, and he said, “How about I order you?”

  She must have been stupid or romantic or just sick of McDonald’s and high school, because she crawled out that window, sat on his lap and drove off into the sunset. Well, really to Machias, which is just a bit up the coast.

  It was the talk of the town.

  Sometimes at night when I was sleeping over I’d hear Mimi cry and one time I got brave enough to not just sit there and to actually hug her. One time my middle school self was brave enough to ask her what was wrong.