James keeps his arm around me as we walk out. But when we get outside, Danny comes running up to us. “Wait up!” He looks back and forth between me and James. He’s like, “Where are you guys going?”
James shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess . . .” He glances over at me. “The pier?”
“Yeah,” I say.
Danny looks disappointed.
James goes, “What?”
“You guys,” Danny starts, “are always doing the same things. You go to the pier. You take walks. You play games. You get cupcakes.”
I look at James to see his reaction to all of this. I had no idea he told Danny everything we did.
“It’s time to break out of that tired routine!” Danny shouts. “Where’s the excitement? Where’s the spontaneity?”
I can’t answer him. I don’t know where those things are.
“That’s it,” Danny decides. “We’re going out.”
James is like, “We are?”
“Absolutely.”
“When?”
“What do you mean when? Now! Right now! Carpe diem, yo!”
“Where?” James says.
Danny flaps his hands around in front of his face. “Who cares? It doesn’t matter! What matters is that we take advantage of all of this and just go!”
“I’m in,” I decide.
James is like, “You’re in?”
“I’m in.”
“Sweet!” Danny says. “I’ll go get Nicole.”
By the time we’re at this rad bar that’s having an under-twenty-one thing, I’m having so much fun that I start to remember what it feels like to be happy. We’re all chilling on this comfy furniture and listening to this awesome band and drinking root beers. Although Danny somehow managed to score a real beer for himself. And I’m all squooshed up against James on this tiny love seat and for the first time ever, I notice he’s wearing cologne.
“Are you wearing cologne?” I yell.
“What?!” he yells back. Because you can barely hear a person talking to you right in front of your face, the music is so loud.
“Are you wearing cologne?!”
“Who’s Ramón?!”
I shake my head to forget it. It’s obvious that he is, anyway. He’s probably just too embarrassed to admit it.
So of course we still walk to the pier after. Nicole and Danny went somewhere else together. I’m all hyped up on the adrenaline rush from the bar and the music and just the whole night. Being wild and free. The city energy.
The moon is so bright. And the sky is really clear, so I can see some constellations. The stars make me feel better. They’re reassuring. I’m going to be okay.
I love how everything feels so perfect here. The pier. The view. The gorgeous night. The moon.
“Look.” I point at it. I jump up and down like I’m five, all excited.
“I know.” James smiles.
“What?”
“Just . . . you and your moon.”
We’re standing at the edge of the water. Only a few other people are here. It’s so nice out. All the lights are reflected in the water and there’s a warm breeze. Plus, the moon is so bright. But it seems like there’s something wrong with James. Like he’s nervous or something.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“Nothing. Well . . . I guess there is something. Since you’re asking and all.”
“What?”
“There’s no light show.”
“What?”
He points to the building in Jersey City with the slanty top—my favorite building across the water that has the light stripes. But tonight, there’s no light show. The building is all dark.
“Oh. That sucks.”
“Big-time.”
“Maybe it’ll start later.”
“It better.”
He’s so cute when he does that. He acts all interested in the things I love like he loves them just as much. I always thought he was kidding. But now it kind of feels like he’s serious.
I want to sit here and watch the moon and wait for the lights to start. “Do you want to sit?”
“Um . . . I was thinking of . . . not sitting.”
“And doing what? You want to walk more?”
“Not exactly.” James takes his iPod out of his pocket.
“What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.”
He takes one earbud and puts it in my ear. I reach up to fit it into my ear better. Then he puts the other one in his ear and rubs his finger against the iPod dial.
My stomach feels gurgly all of a sudden. The vibe between us is instantly different.
James selects a song and puts his hand out for me to dance with him. We’ve never done anything even remotely like this.
“Look What You’ve Done” starts playing. I can’t believe he remembers this. I always listen to this song whenever I feel bad. It’s like my theme song for starting over again.
I move against him. It makes me feel safe. We dance. James puts his hand on my waist. I lean my head against his shoulder. We turn slowly.
Usually, I cry when I hear this song. It’s like a healing thing. But for the first time, I don’t cry. I feel strong. James makes me feel strong. He twirls me halfway around and pulls me against him so my back is pressing up against his chest.
I get that blurry sensation of slow motion like I had yesterday. But this time, in a good way. My arm falls backward around his neck.
And that’s when everything changes.
I sort of lean back into him. Like I’m melting into him. And in that instant, I finally know what it feels like to be whole. I’ve been wishing for my life to get better. Now I realize that James can take me to a place where everything’s the way it should be. He can definitely take me there.
So when I turn around to face him, I don’t think about it at all. I just kiss him. And he kisses me back.
And everything I knew about the world, everything that was so familiar to me, is suddenly different.
And the lights come on.
And the music plays.
And the night moves.
And then I hear wind chimes. Which is my text ringtone. Dang phone has to go and ruin everything. Why didn’t I turn it off before?
“Let me turn this off,” I say, reaching into my bag.
“It’s a text?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” I flip my cell open. “It’s from Nicole. Why is she—?” I press VIEW. “Oh my god.”
“What?”
My heart sinks. Something horrible just happened.
Because Nicole’s message says: help me.
NICOLE CHAPTER 16
Wednesday
CAN I JUST say that if I’m still going to have days like this when I grow up, I should kill myself now?
I look alarmingly fat in everything I’ve tried on, I’m majorly PMSing, and my mood is type nasty. And all for no apparent reason, which is the funnest part of all. But watch. Half an hour from now? I’ll probably be feeling excellent. Which will at least make some sense. But not now. Now I feel crusty.
It’s just a bad morning. A bad morning where nothing is going right which had to start off, naturally, with no hot water for optimum suckage. Which P.S.? Never happened when we lived upstate, but for some sketch reason happens in the city a lot. I think it has to do with corroded boilers or some such. There was even a day last week when Jessica didn’t come to school because she didn’t have hot water until like four o’clock and she couldn’t take a shower.
And I’m noticing the worst of everything. Like waiting for the subway? How no one looks like they want to go to work. Everyone seems less than thrilled to be breathing. And then there’s this guy who always has to spit on the tracks every morning. And it’s not just normal spitting. Not that spitting in public is ever normal, but he does it so loud you can hear it halfway down the platform. Just hacking up a major loogie like he’s alone in the privacy of his own bathroom or something. It’s like, Don’t mind us. We’re just here. A
nd those American-flag decals they stuck on all the subway trains after September 11 are all dingy now with tunnel dirt and . . . just everything.
Sometimes it takes all the energy I have not to scream.
It goes like this.
Before math I go out to the courtyard and the sidewalk message is all smudged and you can hardly even read it anymore and I knew we should have taken a picture of it last night. And there are some kids hanging out who I know are seniors, but I ask if they’re seniors anyway. And this one girl is like, yeah. So then I ask if they know what happened to the message.
And she’s like, “That was you?” And she’s kind of looking at me like I’m Madonna or something.
So I say, “No, I was just wondering who smudged it.”
And she says that’s how it was when they came out. But then someone else says the word on the street is that Steve erased it. And it looks like it’s going to rain any second, and I feel so bad for Rhiannon.
“Okay, let’s take out the homework!”
You can totally tell who did their homework and who’s trying to front like they did but actually has no idea what topic we’re even on. It’s all about the body language. The kids who did their homework are sitting all casually and yawning and looking unconcerned, while the kids who didn’t are trying to look all competent and alert and like they actually know what they’re doing so maybe Mr. Farrell won’t call on them. Too bad for them he has excellent slacker radar.
He’s wearing my favorite shoes today. And I know from feeling how the expression on my face probably looks that I’m drooling over him like he’s a glass of water and I’ve been stranded in the Sahara all week. But I can’t help myself. I never can.
Mr. Farrell’s calling on people to answer specific questions about the homework problems while I’m spacing out. All these images are racing through my head, like a million a second, and I’m looking at the clock and seeing these images, and it’s like someone is editing a film in my brain and the reel is on fast-forward.
The clock goes tick. Tick I see us holding hands walking down the hall with everyone noticing us tick eating lunch together in the teachers’ lounge tick us taking the subway home together every day tick me doing homework at his place on the couch while he grades papers tick me talking to him on the phone in bed tick me going over to his place with some magic square cookies I just made for him tick we’re in his bed going to sleep and he’s spooning me tick we’re at the beach this summer in the water and he’s splashing me tick we’re kissing on the street as the whole world walks by tick.
“Nicole?” he’s saying.
I look up in a daze. He’s staring at me. Everyone else is staring at me. Like they all can tell what I was thinking. I’m gripping the sides of my desk like it’s a life preserver and I’m floating out to sea. It’s obvious he asked me a question but I don’t know the answer, don’t even know what the question was, so I’m like, “Yeah?”
But instead of drilling me for not paying attention the way he would with anyone else, he just goes, “Can you tell us how you got your answer for seventy-three?”
My mouth is all dry and I let go of the sides of my desk and blood rushes back into my fingers and I turn my paper over and I read it out.
And then after we go over the homework, we’re doing these problem sets in pairs and there’s no way I can stay in this chair. I have to go up there. I have to talk to him. And there’s a way to do it that might even pass as vaguely legit.
It’s like ever since this obsession with Mr. Farrell started, I’ve been compelled to do things that I know must look totally strange and hyper, but the inevitable embarrassment doesn’t stop me from doing them anyway. It’s like my body just starts moving and I have to go along with it because I don’t have a choice, something else has control over me. Something’s pulling at me, like I’m a magnetic shard and he’s due north.
So I stand up even though I don’t really want to, with my legs feeling all wobbly, and I walk to the front of the room. Then I go up to his desk and stand there like a total and complete dweeb. That’s the heinous thing about having no control. There’s no time to plan out what you’re going to do once you get there.
He’s like, “Yes, Nicole?” and it’s so obvious after yesterday that he wants me. I mean, the things he said to me after school when he was supposed to be tutoring me but we just sat around talking for like two hours instead were not the types of things you say to someone you’re not interested in.
So yeah. I’m all stammering like, “It’s—my pencil ran out.”
And he’s like, “So you’d like to borrow another one?” As if he doesn’t know why I’m really here or what I really want.
And all I can think to say is, “Yes. Please.” And I must sound like the biggest nimrod alive.
But he just says, “Here you go,” and holds out a new pencil and smiles at me and everything is way obvious, but at the same time we have to pretend like it’s not and the whole thing is so ridiculous and juvenile.
So I say thanks.
Then he’s like, “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
And I’m all, “Oh?” But I’m thinking, Doesn’t he know that the kids in the front row can totally hear? But he just wants to know if I ever figured out this super hard problem he gave me yesterday. I tell him that I haven’t gotten a chance to figure it out yet, and he says, “Be sure to let me know when you do.” And he smiles at me again. That’s two smiles in less than a minute.
So I take a risk and smile back and hope that everyone can tell what’s going on, because I want the whole world to know that there’s something between us. Not like I have to advertise. It being so obvious and all. So we’re just kind of chilling there, smiling at each other, and then he says, “Is that all?”
And I’m like, “Hmm? Oh! No, yeah it is. I’ll just be going back to my seat now.”
So I’m walking back and I pass Ree and she’s looking at me queerly and I mouth, What? But whatever it is she’s thinking, she doesn’t say.
I need some serious recovery time from math even though it was two periods ago. It’s like every time I’m even in the same room with him, every part of my body is wired. Plus I heard about what happened with Ree at lunch. And how Gloria was such a mega bitch, all shouting her out like that. I tried to call Ree’s cell, but she had it turned off. I don’t even know where she went for the rest of lunch. And now she’s in English, so I can’t exactly barge in there and demand to talk to her.
When I push open the bathroom door, there’s Gloria. She’s at the mirror doing her makeup. Apparently, no one has ever told her that matching your eye shadow to your outfit every day is just plain wrong.
So I’m standing there staring at her like, Who the fuck does this skank think she is? And her eyes meet mine in the mirror and she’s like, “You got a problem?”
And all I want to say is you’re my problem and everyone else’s problem and how can you just steal someone’s boyfriend like it’s nothing? And humiliate me in front of everyone? In math?
But I don’t want to get into it with her like this, so what I actually say is, “Not really.”
And she’s like, “Then why you all up in my grill?”
It’s obvious she’s trying to provoke a fight and I’m not having that. So I just wash my hands and she’s all, “That’s what I thought.”
The thing about Gloria? Is that she comes off all polished and smooth on the outside, but she’s got this badass gangsta attitude like you can’t believe. I mean, we all know it’s there because we have the pleasure of experiencing her evil ways, but sometimes it still surprises you how intense she is. Like the time she got in a fight during the racial-tolerance assembly last year. Scary, yo.
She’s doing eyeliner and not even looking at me and she goes, “Loser.”
Gloria is so wrong I just can’t with her. There has to be a way where she can finally get how nasty she’s being to everyone. But it has to be something intense or else
she won’t care. Gloria only cares about Gloria. So it has to be something that involves her in some way for her to even pay attention. I just wish I knew what that something was.
And I don’t want to just walk out of here without doing anything. I want to tell her to stop it with Steve. But it’s not like she’s forcing him or anything, so what can I really do about it? I can’t make Gloria transform herself into a person with an understanding of ethics just like I can’t force Steve to feel something he doesn’t feel anymore.
So I pull open the door and walk away. The same way I wish I could walk away from all my other problems.
It’s raining so bad outside that it looks like we’re on a movie set and the prop guys are OD’ing with the rain machine. So they better reshoot this scene or else no audience will ever take it seriously.
I rummage in my bag for my umbrella and I actually find it. But it’s one of those mini collapsible ones and this is basically a monsoon-type situation. So when I get the umbrella open and step outside, the wind immediately whips the umbrella around and the underside flips up and I try to grab the edge and pull it back down but it’s not working. And then Danny comes up next to me with his huge umbrella that could fit like five people under it that’s hardly even flapping in the wind and goes, “Nice umbrella.”
So I’m like, “Thanks.”
And he’s all, “Can I walk you to the subway?” And I’m not exactly interested in having my clothes totally soaked, so I say okay.
At first we’re walking with space between us, but my bag is getting wet and Danny sees. So he puts his arm around my waist and it feels really nice, all pressed up against him. And I ask if he’s seen Rhiannon and he says no, but he heard that she left early. And I’m like, “Are you sure?” Because Rhiannon would never do that. And he’s like, “No, but that’s what I heard.” And my sneakers are totally soaked and the puddles on the sidewalk are unreal and if Danny hadn’t shown up when he did, I just don’t even know.
But then I start to feel weird, like this is how we used to be when we were going out and now we’re just friends so what does it mean? I’m like super aware of our hips touching and everything. And I guess Danny is noticing that my vibe has changed or something because he’s like, “What’s up?”