Fear and Laundry (17 page)

I’d agreed to go “somewhere else” with him for a while, and we were crossing the Maribel parking lot to his car when I asked him why he hadn’t told me he was a movie buff. Or that he had such great taste.

“Are you making fun of me?” he asked.

“What? No.”

“You don’t think it’s geeky?”

Maybe it was, I said, but who cared?

He looked at me curiously. We’d reached his car and he’d opened the door for me. “So, is Scout’s alright?” he asked as I got in.

A little more at ease now, I said it’d be fine.

***

I
wasn’t nervous until we arrived at Scout’s and I looked around, realizing I didn’t know anyone there other than by sight. Not even Dave Crippen, who I’d at least said a few words to at the Racket show, was there.

Alex guided me to a big round booth in a corner, already occupied by another girl and two guys. He introduced them to me as Charlotte, Nate, and Rory. Nate and Rory said hello but then ignored us, falling back into a conversation they’d been having about football.

“Which school do you go to?” Charlotte asked me while Alex ordered us drinks.

“Carreen,” I said, shrugging out of my jacket. “Same as you.”

Charlotte looked at me skeptically. “I’ve never seen you around.”

“I’m a senior,” I said a little defensively.

“Where’d you say you met her, Alex?” she asked him.

“We have Spanish together,” he explained patiently, not seeming to pick up on Charlotte’s snotty undertone. “And she comes into Kopy Shak. Veronica writes a really great zine.” He described it to her, really talking it up.

“It’s Lia’s zine,” I murmured. “I just help her with it.”

Charlotte looked bored.

“Hey, everybody. Sorry I’m late.” I was relieved to see Melina approaching the table. She seemed pleased to see me, too, scooting into the booth beside me and giving me a quick hug. She smelled nice, and looked so pretty even Nate and Rory broke off their sports talk to pay attention. Her hair was slicked into a tight bun. She wore the smallest t-shirt I’d ever seen, but it sagged on her. A diaphanous scarf hung loosely around her slim neck and black ballet flats capped her feet. I asked her if I remembered correctly, that she danced.

“Ballet,” said Alex teasingly.

“Get it?” Melina twirled the end of her scarf. “Melina the ballerina.”

Everyone at the table laughed. “Yeah, I didn’t really think that through.” She winked at me, taking up her menu, and I relaxed a bit.

To be fair, said Alex, she’d been only four when she’d made the decision to take up ballet.

“And look how far she’s come since then,” said Charlotte. Did I know, she asked me, that Melina’d been invited to audition for one of THE premiere performing arts universities in the Dallas metroplex this coming spring? This was “very rare.” Most times it was the other way around, with people petitioning that particular school for a chance to try out.

“Wow. You must be awesome,” I said to Melina.

“She is,” Alex assured me. “You should see her sometime. Hey, she’s got a recital coming up on the second.”

“You should come,” urged Melina.

I’d love to, I said, but that was the night of the Mlinarichs’ anniversary party.

Alex and Melina tried hard to keep me involved in the conversation, asking me how long I’d known the Mlinarichs, how I’d met Lia, etc. I was grateful for the questions they lobbed at me, because it made it easier to think of things to talk about. But then Alex changed the subject, bringing up the Housewives gig.

“I can’t believe I forgot to ask you how it went,” he said. “Veronica’s a drummer,” he informed the others. “She plays at Lynch’s.”

“Lynch’s?” Charlotte said she’d never heard of it.

“It’s that Laundromat on First Street,” said Nate.

“You play drums at a Laundromat?” Rory was thoroughly confused.

“Only once so far,” I said quietly.

“So, how was your first big gig?” asked Alex.

I thought of the fight that’d ensued and internally debated how best to describe the show. “Um...”

“I heard there was a big fight,” said Nate, picking his ear with his fingernail.

Melina looked at me with concern. “What?”

“Are you okay?” Alex asked me.

Everything was fine, I said. It wasn’t a big deal. Really.

“Sounds like a classy place,” Charlotte smirked.

“You remember it now, don’t you?” Nate asked her, inspecting what he’d dug out of his ear. “Your sister used to hang out there a lot. When she went through that white trash phase.”

 Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “Ohhh, that place?”

No one seemed to notice my frown.

“What happened?” Alex asked me.

As I tried to explain, Charlotte, Nate and Rory watched me curiously, as though I were a plant or pet they’d suddenly discovered could speak. Eventually, I couldn’t take their subtle condescension anymore.

“I should probably get going,” I said, wishing I wore a watch so I could look at it.

“So soon?” Melina sounded disappointed.

“Yeah, I need to go.”

She very gracefully (she did everything gracefully) slid out of the booth to let me out. I started to say goodbye to the others at the table, but they’d already turned away, talking amongst themselves. I walked off, irate. I don’t know where I thought I was going. Alex had driven me here, after all; my mother’s car was parked back at the Maribel.

“Veronica, wait.” Alex had followed me, catching at my sleeve when I was a few yards away. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking into my eyes. “They’re not always like this.”

So he had picked up on their cattiness after all. “Not always?” I asked, wondering why he hung around with people that acted that way even some of the time.

“Wait here. I’ll take you to your car,” he said, and left me by the door. A few minutes later he reappeared with my jacket, which I’d left behind in my flight, and Melina, who wanted to say goodbye.

“We can go somewhere else,” he suggested, opening the door for his sister and me. “Wherever you want.” I declined politely. “Are you sure?” he asked when we’d reached his car. He felt bad and didn’t want to end the night on this note, he insisted.

“Alexander, she wants to go home,” Melina scolded him. “Sorry you didn’t have the greatest time,” she said gently to me as I got into Alex’s car. She was glad I’d come out, anyway.

***

M
onday morning, I paced the porch with my backpack over one shoulder, waiting for Jake. Mom came outside, holding a sloppily painted ceramic mug I’d made in kindergarten. She was ready for work, her silk blouse tucked into her skirt, hair curled and sprayed into place.

She sipped her coffee. “You can wait for him inside, you know.” When she lowered the mug, a red crescent of lipstick stained the rim.

If I did that he’d have to come to the door, I explained.

“So?”

I didn’t answer.

“You think I’d embarrass you?” She pouted, but her eyes smiled.

As soon as the van stopped in the driveway, she started across the lawn for it, high heels sinking into the damp grass.

“Mom,” I hissed after her.

“I’m just going to say hello,” she called back with a dismissive wave. I watched her swing open the side gate and step out just as Jake opened his door and hopped down from the van. Even from the porch I could see the scratches on his cheek, the cut at the edge of his upper lip. A Band-Aid covered a gash just above his right eye and his knuckles were taped.

My mother gasped and reached up to push Jake’s hair back from his face and get a better look at him.

“Rough weekend,” I heard him say as I neared them. “Looks worse than it feels, honestly.”

I didn’t wait for him to open the passenger door for me. After a week of practice, I’d gotten good at climbing quickly up into the seat. Now I sat up there, seatbelt buckled, hoping it was obvious I was in a hurry to go. I watched him say something else to my mother before getting back in the van. Mom stepped back as we pulled away, staring at me through the windshield with a look that told me she’d demand better answers later.

“Sorry about my mom,” I said, painfully aware of how childish it sounded.

“She’s nice,” he said.

“She’s okay,” I conceded.

“Guess you didn’t tell her what happened?”

“She wouldn’t have taken it well. Speaking of which: what happened with your parents?” I told him Lia had never called me.

He explained that Elyse, convinced Lia might have “a concussion or something,” had wanted to take her to the emergency room, but the rest of the family had talked her out of it. “Guess they reached some sort of agreement this morning,” he said. “Mom’s getting her checked out at our regular doctor’s. She should be at school after that.”

His parents had also demanded, of course, to know who’d been responsible for Lia’s injuries. They wanted to contact the perpetrator’s parents, possibly even file a police report, press charges. “They went round and round,” said Jake somewhat proudly, “but Lia wouldn’t tell them anything.” She’d been kept in the house and refused the phone last night for her defiance, but wasn’t grounded.

I wondered aloud at Lia’s seemingly magical ability to get out of ever being severely punished for anything.

“She’s Mom and Dad’s baby,” said Jake. “They don’t like to deny her. Not that they’d admit it.” They always thought of justifications for letting her off the hook, he said. This time, for instance, John had declared Lia’s music too “important” to keep her from. He’d said she needed to be free to practice.

“Really?” The day we’d first rehearsed with Jake, John had dismissed our band practice as “horsing around.”

“He was in a band once; It’s possible he takes it seriously,” said Jake, dubiously.

“Oh, yeah.” I recalled pictures I’d seen of John on the Wall of Shame, his hair long and jeans flared, playing guitar for an outfit called Prime-something. Or Primordial-something-or-other...I couldn’t remember the exact name. But I knew Lia had a copy of the 45 they’d pressed back in 1975, having lifted it from her parents’ record collection. She’d told me it was pretty good and that she wasn’t sure why her dad had quit making music.

“And the way Mom looks at it, the Lynch’s benefit is a charitable cause,” Jake continued. Lia’d made a commitment, had a responsibility. “Guess I buy that.” Not sounding like he did.

“So rehearsal’s on tonight?”

“Be there or be square.”

He asked me how I’d spent my Sunday. Had I gotten my room clean? I told him I’d gone out with Alex instead, leaving out the part about his bitchy friends. I talked mostly about
Natural Born Killers
, which Jake had also recently seen with some friends of his and liked. It was a masterpiece, we agreed, a profound meditation on violence most people would probably take at face value and not get. Which was a shame, really.

When he pulled up to the school, I looked over at him and noticed the Band-Aid had started to curl away from his brow. I moved closer to fix it. “You sure you’re okay?”

He’d had worse, he told me. No real harm done.

“These look like they hurt.” I ran the backs of my fingers lightly over the scratches on his face. They’d prevented him from shaving and the start of his beard was surprisingly soft, only a little scratchy. It was an oddly pleasant sensation and I let my hand linger on his cheek, unconsciously stroking it again.

 “Thanks, Nic,” he said quietly. “But I’m fine, really.” I looked at him and he held my gaze. I drew my hand back.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, breaking eye contact. I murmured I’d see him later and hurried out of the van.

***

A
s Jake had said, Lia wasn’t in Biology class. I missed her, and not only because I’d wanted to sneak a peek at her homework before turning mine in. I didn’t like sitting at the lab table alone and walking down the hall between classes without her. I felt uncomfortable, and somehow exposed. Although that might’ve been because everywhere I went, people seemed to stare at me and whisper. Eventually I stopped in the bathroom to make sure I’d remembered to zip my pants, and checked to see there wasn’t anything hanging out of my nose.

After Art class I headed for the cafeteria, hoping Lia’d turned up. Neither Paige nor Alex had the same lunch period as me. Katrina did, but she usually spent it standing in the alley behind the school building with the rest of the smokers. So if Lia didn’t show, I’d have to eat alone — an idea I didn’t relish under any circumstances, but especially not when I was feeling so paranoid.

I looked around the cafeteria, feeling queasy when I didn’t see Lia at our usual table or standing in line at the snack bar. Or anywhere else. People had begun to turn and look in my direction, and I took a few tentative steps backward, thinking maybe I’d join Katrina in the alley after all. I probably sucked down clouds of second-hand smoke every time I went to Lynch’s anyway; what was a little more?

I took another step and backed directly into someone’s cafeteria tray. Apologizing, I turned and saw it was Melina Kalivas, who greeted me pleasantly, reiterating how glad she was I’d come out the night before. Her and Alex’s crowd took “a little getting used to,” she admitted, but she was sure I’d have more fun next time.

I wasn’t so sure, but of course didn’t say so.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, scanning my face.

I’d knocked over a pudding cup on her tray when I’d run into her and now reached out to right it. “This is going to sound weird,” I whispered, glancing around, “But all day I’ve felt like people were looking at me funny.”

She frowned and put her fingers lightly on my elbow, guiding me toward a table on the opposite side of the room from where I usually sat. She set the tray down and spoke quietly to me, aware her seated friends, Charlotte and Rory among them, were within earshot. “That story you told us last night,” she said, “About the fight at Lynch’s?”

It wasn’t a ‘story,’ I thought. That made it sound like I’d made it up.

“I’ve heard variations of it all morning,” she said.

“Variations?”

“That your friend Lia
jumped
that Ridley girl, for instance.” Melina tucked back a lock of her dark, glossy hair, exposing what looked like a genuine diamond stud in her right earlobe.