Anatomy of a Misfit (11 page)

“Well, do you want to?”

“Do I want to fall for Jared Kline and then have him dump me and be a laughingstock? Uh . . . no.”

“Yeah, but what if he like really liked you? Would you like him?”

“Logan. What are you talking about? I'm like sneaking out to see
you
and stuff. Doesn't that mean anything?”

“I dunno, maybe you just need a ride home.”

“
Tsh.
Yeah, and I especially need to dangle from a tree limb in the middle of the night for no reason just because I said I'd meet you.”

He looks up at me, finally. “Look, I'm sorry I just. I really like, um, being around you and stuff . . . so when I heard that. I dunno. It kinda made me crazy.”

But now all of a sudden there's a rustle in the trees and some girl catches us when we're not supposed to be caught. Nobody knows about us, still. And I'm kinda hoping nobody will for a while. I just don't know how to deal with it. How to deal with Becky. It's like a chess game. Too many moving parts.

And then suddenly, out from the trees, there she is.

Stacy Nolan.

Phew. At least it's not
she who shall not be named.

“Um. Hi.”

“Hi Stacy. What's up?”

“Oh, I just . . . I heard somebody back here and . . .”

“Are you walking home?”

“Yeah.”

That sucks. That means I'm either gonna have to walk with her or admit, to someone else besides Shelli, that I'm getting moped rides home with Logan. Not good. The more people that know, the sooner Becky finds out.

“Well, I can walk with you, I guess . . .”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Cool.”

Logan gives me a look. He's not happy about this. But on the other hand, what am I supposed to do? It's not like we're 100 percent together. I mean, we pass secret notes. We've hung out a few times. We've made out like twice. Seriously.

I know you're keeping score, you perv. The fact is so far it's all been basic kissing and a couple of heavy make-out sessions. Logan doesn't seem to be in any big hurry, which is kind of annoying sometimes actually.

Not to mention this whole Jared Kline thing. I mean, yeah, it's true Jared Kline is a scam artist. That is true. But . . . and here's the thing I really don't want to admit to myself: If Jared Kline were madly, passionately, crazily in love with me . . . I'm pretty sure I might have to be in love with him, too, a little bit. Well, okay, a lot. All I know is, when I was in that mahogany office with him . . . it kind of felt like I was in a spaceship or something. I mean, he didn't seem at all like what everybody says. He seemed kind of, I dunno, sweet in a way.

The problem with all of this, of course, is that it's basically a daydream.

I'm not gonna lie to you. I seem to be like the queen of the daydreamers. For instance, at Bunza Hut, when we're just sitting there for eight hours straight staring at our toenails and ringing up French fries, it's kind of like only a matter of time until I start thinking about what it would be like to live in Iceland, or if there is any possibility of marrying a duke, or what about just living someplace really weird in the South Pacific, some island that no one even really knew existed except the locals. Things like that.

You can see why I have to steal just to keep focus.

Right now Logan takes off and Stacy Nolan is walking next to me on the long death march home, in the freezing cold and, frankly, it's a little bit awkward. Neither of us knows what to say, really.

“Hey, so, I wanted to tell you . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I thought that was really nice what you did for me. I mean, not many people would have done something like that. Honestly.”

“Well, it wasn't much.”

“Yeah, it was. Believe me.”

“It wasn't even true, so, I mean, that kind of helped.”

“I know!”

We walk on up the hill. It's rows and rows of suburban houses but you can see your breath now. It's obvious my parents are trying to kill me.

“It's kinda weird, right?”

“What? What is?” I'm halfway to daydreaming, she better make it quick.

“Well, I mean, don't you wonder who started that rumor in the first place?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I sure do.”

“Well, let's think. Do you have any enemies or anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, did you like do something mean to someone, maybe you didn't even realize until after it was too late or something?”

“Hm. Lemme think.”

We walk on and now it's really starting to freeze over. The sun is going down through the scraggly black trees and the leaves on the ground—red, brown, orange—smell burnt. We are about one block past Shelli's house and I can't help but wonder if she's become a born-again Christian yet.

“Anyone? I mean, maybe it was just some dumb thing.”

“I dunno. The thing is . . . I'm not like you. I mean, people don't care about me. Like, they don't care what I do. It's like, I dunno, it's like I'm invisible or something.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. It's like . . . I mean as weird as it sounds, that whole debacle was like the first time half the school even knew I existed.”

“No way.”

“Yeah. Way.”

The fact is, she's telling the truth. And I don't even know why. I don't even know who makes up these unwritten rules about who and what you're supposed to care about. The whole thing seems like throwing spaghetti against the wall. Nobody knows what's gonna stick.

“Well, I knew who you were.”

Like that helps. But what else am I supposed to say?

“Thanks. Anyway, you saved my ass, and don't think I'll forget it.”

We're walking on and the sun is really starting to take its last bow. The unspoken rule is that I won't invite her to my house and she won't invite me to hers. That's okay, too. It's not like you can be best friends with everybody. Also, she thinks I'm kinda like a good person now and I don't have the heart to let her know that inside I'm spider stew. I better keep her at a distance so she never finds out.

Logan's moped buzzes in the distance and I think . . . I'd feel bad disappointing her.

twenty-four

T
his dinner is gonna be like the most uncomfortable dinner of my lifetime. Seriously. I don't know what I was thinking.

Of course, my mom thinks this is like the greatest thing ever and that I'm like Mother Teresa or something just for inviting “that black girl” over for dinner. It's weird. It's like somehow I have given my mother the opportunity to care about something for the first time in forever. It's like she's had too much coffee or something.

She's fluttering around the kitchen making this thing and that, putting out this dish and that, asking me to cut this vegetable and that. I mean, I kind of think she's possessed. Even my horrible sisters have noticed. And they are not happy about it. Lizzie, particularly, is livid. This is how the conversation went:

“Mom. Neener and I have a date tonight, so . . .”

“Oh, no no no. Not tonight. Tonight we are having a
very special guest
over for dinner and you are both gonna sit there and be on your best behavior, I mean it.”

“Special guest? What is this,
The Tonight Show
?”

“No, honey. Your little sister did something really kind. She reached out to someone, someone who maybe most people wouldn't, and she held out her hand.”

I look to the heavens for guidance but see only the kitchen ceiling. “Mother, what is wrong with you?”

“You know what,” she continues, “I wish you girls would treat your little sister with more respect, because if you actually opened your eyes . . . you'd see she's a really good person.”

But Lizzie is not opening her eyes. She is rolling them.

“Well, what is it, like, a homeless person?”

“No, Lizzie. It's not a homeless person. It's a very lovely girl of African-American descent.”

“A black girl?”

“Yes, dear, a black girl.”

“Where did she meet a black girl? I thought we didn't have any black people in Nebraska.”

“At the Bunza Hut,” I mumble.

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” my mother chirps. “She goes to Lincoln High, so she's not exactly from ‘the right side of the tracks' as they say, but she is a very sweet girl and it's possible her mother is starving her.”

Lizzie looks at me. Boy oh boy if looks could kill.

“Little miss perfect strikes again.”

Neener doesn't say anything. She just reiterates Lizzie's hatred by standing behind her. If my mom wasn't right there I'd be wrestled to the ground in like two seconds and spit on immediately. But my mom is not having it.

“Now go downstairs please and put on something appropriate for dinner.”

“What's wrong with this?”

Lizzie looks at her latest uniform. Jeans and a concert tee over a long thermal underwear shirt.

“What's wrong with that is that we are not going to chop wood, we are going to have a nice dinner here, at a nice table, with our nice china and our best behavior.”

“Jesus.”

She and Neener go hurtling down the stairs, saying something under their breath to the tune of, “All this for some black girl?”

I stay there and help my mom chop carrots.

“Now, honey, I want you to slice them the long way, and thin, too, because those are going to be julienne carrots, the secret is the orange juice.”

But now we are in trouble because the ogre walks in.

“What's all this?”

“We are having a special guest tonight. Dinner at seven. On the dot.”

“Why so late?”

We're talking about a guy who is done with his plate by 6:30 p.m. every night. Just in time for
Wheel of Fortune.

“Please, just, dinner's at seven.”

“Well, who is it?”

“It's a girl from Anika's work.”

“From the Bunza Hut? What's so special about that?”

And now Henry comes in, carrying his Trapper Keeper and peeking in to see what's on the stove. Henry never says anything but when he does, it matters.

“She's black.”

Now he disappears into his back room for more studies. God, he studies his eyeballs out of his sockets. If he doesn't get into Harvard we are all gonna be on suicide watch.

“You're making all this fuss for a nigger?”

“WADE!”

“Well, doesn't it seem like a lot?”

“Wade, do NOT use that word in this house. I mean it.”

“What word?”

“You know what word.”

“You mean NNNNN-iiiiiiii—”

“Wade, I mean it. You know how I feel about that. And around the kids!”

He laughs. “Geez, where's your sense of humor?”

He waddles into the kitchen, swings open the cupboard, grabs a bag of Fiddle Faddle, and heads into his master hovel.

“And don't spoil your appetite!”

“Yes, massa!”

He leaves and now it's just Mom and the julienne carrots and me.

“I'm sorry you had to hear that.”

“Mom, news flash, he's an idiot.”

My mom sighs and shakes it off.

“Okay, now you have to put the butter, before the orange juice.”

She takes out a skillet and puts it on the stove. In that moment, I decide a couple of things. One is . . . I'm never cooking for some guy that just grunts and says bad words. And two: The vampire is right. If I don't get straight As I'm gonna get stuck here and if I get stuck here I am gonna kill myself.

twenty-five

P
edaling fast fast fast, this is the moment. This is the moment I'm getting closer and everything is still, everything is still and everything, the trees, the leaves, the sidewalk, everything is holding its breath, waiting.

Pedaling fast fast fast, the trees are leaning in, trying to protect me, trying to grab me, trying to keep me from seeing. The leaves and the sidewalk whooshing by, whispering to each other don't let her see don't let her see don't let her see. The stop signs practically begging me, stop, go back, go home, just go home.

Pedaling fast fast fast, this is the last moment I get to be this person. This is the last moment before everything changes from pink to purple to black and nothing is ever the same, nothing is ever the same again.

twenty-six

T
he evening does not go well.

But it's not what you think. The only person who is normal about anything is Tiffany. Everyone else is spazzing out. Especially my mom. But she's spazzing out in a good way, or a nice way, at least. She's kind of acting like the mom on
Leave It to Beaver
. June Cleaver. She's emphasizing everything in the weirdest way possible. Example: “Wade, could you
please
pass the julienne carrots. Thank you
so very
much.” Normally this sentence goes like this, “You! Carrots!”

Now, my mom, God bless her heart, is acting this way I don't know why, but I think she's overcompensating, outside of her head, because inside of her head she knows how much no one else at the table is really happy about this after-school-special of a dinner to which their dumb little sister has subjected them.

Like my annoying older sisters, for instance, they are just huddled over to the side of the table like two bitchy bats just waiting for some moment to swoop down and bite out everyone's entrails. My perfect brother, Robby, is the second most normal person. He's eating his food and just waiting for everything to play out with a content but slightly amused smile. This is not surprising because it's sort of the way he deals with everything. One day the Grim Reaper will show up at his doorstep and he'll shrug and say, “Yeah, okay. It's been a good run. Where to?”