Drawn

The line of her mouth hardened along with her jaw and she lunged for the stairs. I grabbed the railing with my left hand, flexed my knees and prepared for the slap. She got right in my face, but on the second step below me she didn’t even match my height. Her whole body shook.

  We stared each other down forever.

  “Nice way to end your birthday.”

  I blinked a couple of times, really slow. “No worse than any other day.”

  She moved aside and pushed past me to continue up the stairs. I watched her go into her bedroom and shut the door.

  Mark’s door was closed, too, but I could see the light on inside.

  When I could breathe again I went into my own room and locked the door. I took out the gum wrapper and folded it through the loop on my lampshade where Nonnie’s barrette used to hang. I still hadn’t figured out how to confront Mia about that.

  I put my sweater and pants in the hamper, hung my coat over the back of the chair and stuck the rubber band bow with a tack into my cork wall. A glance at the phone made me want to call Damon. But the lines were still down and he probably hadn’t made it home yet anyway.

  When I turned to lie down on the bed I found a big wrapped box in the middle of it. My birthday present.

  The pink envelope wasn’t even sealed. The front of the card read, “With thoughts of you,” and had Victorian roses all around the border. On the blank inner page she scribbled, “Happy Birthday, love Mom and Dad.” I peeled off the ribbon and paper and opened the box.

  The red, white, and blue Memorial Day candle I’d seen in their bathroom closet. A bag of Mom’s chocolate-marshmallow cookies. And a box of tampons.

  I didn’t even use tampons.

  Until then I didn’t really believe, deep down, that she’d forgotten.

  I kicked the box onto the floor and got under the covers, still in Damon’s clothes. I ran my crystal heart and Damon’s key between my thumb and fingers and cried myself to sleep.

  CHAPTER 33

  Homeroom didn’t feel right without Damon in it. Hirsch told me to come by again after lunch and he’d have Damon’s homework ready for the week.

  When the bell rang at the end of class Pam walked with me to our lockers. She got her stuff out and leaned on the door between hers and mine. “So?”

  “What?”

  “Has it happened?” she whispered.

  “Has what happened?”

  She leaned in till her nose almost touched mine. “The kiss.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “As your lip-lock instructor, I believe it is.” She grabbed my arm and stared into my face. Then she sighed really heavy. “Nope. Not yet.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You look different after you kiss somebody the first time.”

  “Baloney.” I slammed my locker shut.

  Pam slung her bag over her shoulder. “It’s true. I can tell who’s done it and who hasn’t.”

  I rolled my eyes and started toward the cafeteria. “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s a gift.” She pointed at people as we walked the hall. “Joe. Never done it. Sarah. Done it. Christine. Done it lots. Done way more than it.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “I am not,” she argued. “I mean, some of it I know ‘cause I’ve heard. But show me anybody. I can just tell.”

  We got to the cafeteria and I waved her off. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

  She pointed to my table. “Erik. Done it.”

  “Really? Erik?” I didn’t know why that surprised me. “Who with?”

  She shrugged. “How should I know? But he has.”

  * * * * *

  “She looks different today,” Tammy said.

  Miss Downey hummed as she passed out clean paint palettes. In a fuzzy white dress and Mona Lisa smile she looked like a painting of an angel emerging from a cloud. Cloud Nine, maybe.

  “Is she singing the Carpenters?” Jimmy asked.

  We circled our desks around a life-size plastic skeleton and Miss Downey handed out slips of paper. Mine read joyful.

  “I want you to recreate the bones so that the person who views your canvas will feel the word written on your paper.”

  Jimmy frowned. “How do you make a skeleton look fascinated?”

  “Mine’s supposed to be pensive,” Lula said.

  As we worked, Miss Downey wandered around the room. Before long she crouched down next to me. When I glanced over I realized she was looking at me, and not my sketch.

  “What?” I asked.

  She sort of half-grinned, half-grimaced. “I saw you outside Ginger’s house yesterday. With Damon Sheppard,” she whispered.

  I gave her the same look back. “I saw you, too.”

  “I figured as much.”

  “Is it a secret?”

  She shrugged and looked away. “I’m not sure. Maybe.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Is yours?”

  “Nope. Told my parents and everything.”

  Miss Downey nodded. “Good for you.”

  I couldn’t help but ask. “How long have you and Mr. Tollin been—”

  “We haven’t,” she said. “We aren’t.”

  “I saw.”

  She took a deep breath, let it out and shook her head again. “His car broke down, that’s all. I let him in to use the phone. Then the snow started.”

  My heart thudded in my chest. “Monday night, right?” Right when I finished the drawing.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” she said. “I would’ve driven him home, but I’d had one of those headaches and took a painkiller. We just ended up watching TV and playing cards.”

  “Looked like more than TV and cards from where I stood.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Please, just keep it to yourself for now, okay? And ask Damon not to talk about it, either. I don’t know where this is going, really.”

  This rush of power washed through me and I shivered.

  I did it. I could make stuff happen.

  “Where do you want it to go?” I asked Miss Downey.

  She blushed, smiled and looked away. “None of your business.”

  I could make them get married. Tomorrow, if I wanted to. Heck, today.

  Pam nailed it. I really had the Power of Artistic Prophecy.

  And I liked it.

  * * * * *

  After lunch I went back to Hirsch’s room to get Damon’s homework, and he sent me to the library for some books Damon would need. I found Lucas there, scribbling in a notebook at a study carrel. He glanced up when he heard me, looked around and cleared his throat. “A couple of weeks ago I’d have done about anything to get you alone.”

  A couple of weeks ago, him saying that would’ve really ticked me off. But it didn’t bother me anymore. I didn’t have to avoid him, or be afraid he might ask me out and I’d have to deal with it. I had Damon now, and that’s all I needed.

  Damon, and my power, of course.

  “I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you about something,” Lucas said, and closed his notebook.

  “What?”

  “Mia.”

  He followed me to the librarian’s desk where I found a stack of books with Damon’s name on them.

  “What about her?”

  “You know she’s been acting really weird.”

  With only a few minutes to get to my locker before science, I waved Lucas toward the door. “Talk while we walk.”

  “She’s, like, this whole different person.”

  “I know.”

  He took a deep breath. “And, I mean, it’s none of my business, but I thought you might want to know what I saw this morning.”

  “Why?”

  “She and Drew Barony were making out under the bleachers in the gym.”

  “What?”

  He nodded. “Seriously.”

  I shook my head. Drew? And Mia? “Why are you telling me?”

  “Because you’re friends.”

  “We??
?re not really close. Talk to Jimmy. He’s her brother.”

  Lucas stopped me before I opened the library door. “Mia calls you her best friend. And I think she’s going a little nuts.”

  Her best friend?

  “I guess if she and Drew like each other, that’s kind of their business.” A whisper of dejection tapped at the pit of my stomach. Drew didn’t want me anymore.

  Why did I even care?

  Lucas’s jaw dropped a little. “Are you kidding? Do you really think he likes her?”

  “If he was kissing her.”

  “You are kind of stupid, aren’t you?”

  No good come-backs came to mind, so I pushed the door open and walked out.

  He followed me and grabbed my arm. “Come on. Think about it. You know Drew.”

  Yeah. Better than Lucas realized.

  “He’s just out for conquest. He brags all the time about how many girls he’s made out with. You should hear him.”

  Damon did. Everybody did.

  “He keeps a scorecard in his locker, for crying out loud. With names on it.”

  That sick feeling swam through my stomach again. Erik’s voice haunted my ears. You know about Drew, right?

  I am an idiot. Drew never liked me, or even thought I was pretty.

  “I don’t think Mia knows what she’s doing. Or what he’s doing.”

  My heart pumped hot, humiliated blood into my face. Why did it hurt, to find out Drew just wanted me for his numbers?

  “I think you should talk to her,” Lucas said.

  “And say what?”

  “Just tell her the truth.”

  “What if she really likes him?”

  “All the more reason for her to know.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t know.”

  “Geez, Juliet. What if it was you?”

  Yeah. My lower eyelids filled up. What if?

  * * * * *

  Mr. Holden passed out the science test when the bell rang. Mia slid into her seat at the last second, so I only had time to whisper, “I need to talk to you,” before Mr. Holden shushed everyone and told us to get started.

  I stared at the blank spots on a periodic table and tried to figure out what I wanted to say to Mia. Who was I to tell her who she should and shouldn’t be with?

  The mnemonic I’d made up for the second row of the chart wouldn’t come to mind, and I looked up from my test while I struggled to remember it. Drew looked asleep, flopped across half the table, except for the slow movement of the pencil he pushed across the paper. I glanced over at Mia. She stared at the back of his head with this dreamy smile.

  Crud. She really does like him.

  Yeah, I thought. Drew is very good at making himself likeable.

  Lingon Berries, Be Careful Not to Open Fast, Never.

  I filled in the elements, Li, Be, B, C, N, O, F, and Ne, then moved on to the next row.

  Mia hummed. I recognized the tune, a love song that played on the radio all summer. I stole a quick glance at her test. She’d already finished the periodic table and filled in answers half way through the chemical compounds section.

  How could she be so smart, but so stupid?

  Then the midway sparked up from my memory. The look in Drew’s eyes. Sugar on my tongue, heat between his hand and my wrist. My heart sped up again as I relived it. So why didn’t I let him kiss me?

  Because of Damon.

  I’m not smart. I’m just lucky. I would’ve been a number, too.

  “Twenty more minutes, people,” Mr. Holden announced.

  I brushed a hot tear from my eye and tried to focus on the test. Mia finished hers and turned her paper upside-down on the table. I looked over at her, and she opened her eyes really wide at me, with this huge, I’ve-Got-to-Tell-You-Something grin.

  My pencil scratched in the last answer just as the bell rang and we passed our tests forward. Mr. Holden dismissed us and I watched Drew shuffle out of the room without even a glance at Mia.

  You’re a total jerk, Drew Barony.

  Mia grabbed my arm. “Oh my gosh. You’ll never guess.”

  “I already know.”

  She scowled. “What do you know?”

  “About you and Drew in the gym.”

  Her mouth dropped.

  “Lucas saw you.”

  “Oh, geez.” She bit the middle of her lower lip, but the rest of it stretched toward her ears anyway.

  “Mia,” I said and tried to find the right words.

  “What?”

  I slung my bag onto my shoulder and looked at her.

  Oh, my gosh.

  “You look different,” I said.

  She snorted. “Different how?”

  Maybe Pam was right. “Is Drew the first guy you’ve ever kissed?” I whispered.

  She tossed her head. “Come on.”

  We headed out to the hall and I stopped her before she turned the opposite way toward her locker. “I need to talk to you for a second.”

  Mia leaned against the wall and hugged her bag. “Yeah?”

  “It’s about Drew.”

  She smiled and bit her lip again.

  “He doesn’t really like you, you know.”

  A dark shadow passed over Mia’s face, then a storm cloud. “What the heck, Juliet?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that he’s not really a good guy.”

  Lucas turned the corner at the end of the hall and headed straight for us. Then he looked at Mia and skulked past next to the wall.

  Thanks for the help, Lucas.

  “You’re being a witch,” Mia said.

  “I’m just trying to be your friend. Drew makes out with as many different girls as he can, just so he can brag about it.”

  This time Mia bit the inside of her lip, and her face turned really pink. I didn’t want to make her cry, but I didn’t want to let Drew make her cry, either.

  “I thought you should know.”

  Her eyes narrowed and the pink deepened to red. “You just can’t stand it, can you? You wanted him for yourself, and now he’s mine.”

  I wanted Drew? “Not true.”

  “You are so full of yourself, Juliet. You think every guy likes you.”

  “Geezow, Mia! I only wanted to warn you.”

  “Jimmy, Drew, Damon. My mom’s right. You’re a selfish, conceited, little brat.”

  My mouth dropped open and my heart whumped like an angry cat’s tail. “Well, you’re a thief!”

  Mia’s face went white, then red again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She started to walk away.

  I grabbed her arm. “My barrette. That was my grandmother’s. I know you have it.”

  “I do not.”

  “Liar!”

  “Let go of me!” She pulled her arm away and flipped her thumb off her chin. “Don’t ever talk to me again.”

  “Give me my barrette back and then I never will.”

  “Stuff it!” she yelled over her shoulder as she stormed down the hallway.

  I spun around with tears swimming in the rims of my eyelids and crashed into Amica.

  “Whoa, girl!” she said.

  Head tipped back to quell the tears, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Not Amica. I do not need Amica right now.

  She touched my arm. “Are you okay?”

  “Like you care.” I opened my eyes and saw her through a wet blur.

  “Don’t let Mia get to you. She’s not worth your time.” Amica hooked her arm in mine. “Come on. We’re going to be late to social studies.”

  We walked down the hall, arm in arm, and I had the weirdest feeling, like I was somewhere else, on another planet, watching myself through a telescope.

  “Mrs. Larch,” Amica called as we walked in the door. “Would you mind if Juliet moved up here with Bethany and me? She’s so lonely in the back.”

  Amica, the head cheerleader, had Mrs. Larch, the cheerleading coach, wrapped around her finger, and before I could say a word
everyone in the row got moved back a seat so I could switch to the front.

  “Hey, Juliet,” Bethany whispered. “You must be really sad that Damon’s suspended this week.”

  I’m asleep, and this is just a very freaky dream. Or an episode of The Twilight Zone.

  “Want a caramel?” Amica offered.

  If I wake up, will Damon still be my boyfriend?

  For the next fifty minutes we copied Mrs. Larch’s World War I notes off the blackboard, and Amica, Bethany and I passed our own notes back and forth.

  You’re coming to my party on Friday, right? A.

  Maybe. I think so. J.

  Did you hear about Drew and Mia? #27. B.

  That’s crummy of Drew. J.

  That’s just Drew. A.

  A was his #1. B.

  Seriously? J.

  B’s #12. A.

  You were #26, till he had to scratch you out. B.

  Amica and Bethany didn’t seem to mind Drew’s game. I wondered if Drew was Amica’s #1, too. Does everybody know about Drew? J.

  They both read my note, and laughed.

  The cool people do. B.

  Did it make me cool that I knew? Drew’s coming on Friday night, right? J.

  Do you want him to? A.

  I hesitated and tried to figure out the right answer to that question. Calm, cool, laugh?

  I don’t care. J.

  Amica smiled at Bethany.

  I’ll tell him you don’t care. A.

  Go ahead. J.

  The bell rang for the end of school, and I stood up with Amica and Bethany. I still had that sort of out-of-body feeling, a little dizzy and a lot disoriented. It felt kind of like that night I watched Mark and Ginger from the roof. Like I shouldn’t have been there, but I couldn’t make myself leave.

  “It’s too bad we have cheerleading practice. We should hang out.” Amica glazed her lips with more pink gloss. She offered it to me. “Want some?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She looked at the applicator. “Yeah. It’s not really your color. Are you bringing Damon on Friday?”

  I looked at her. “Is that okay?”

  “You might have to share him.”

  “Share him?”

  They both giggled, and I laughed along, though it didn’t seem very funny.

  “You’re not going to chicken out this time?” Bethany swung her bag over her shoulder and blinked at me.

  “I never chickened out. I was sick. I told you.”

  Amica elbowed Bethany. “See, she was sick.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Geez,” I said. “That was a long time ago, anyway.”

  “And Juliet has grown up a lot since then,” Amica said. “She’s not afraid of boys anymore.”

  “I was never afraid of boys,” I lied.

  “That’s good.” Amica tossed her lip gloss in her bag. “I think Damon’s been good for you. See you later!”