Gemini (11 page)

And then, also, what if he couldn't tell it was me, and not Clara, under that glittery blond wig? What if no one could? Clara would still be on the right, like always, but our costumes would be confusing, our hair covered up, and our faces indistinguishable—especially with the extra makeup. What if it turned out that nobody actually knew who was who?

On the other hand, what if I said no, and because of that I never got the chance to go to San Francisco at all? Ever, for the rest of my life?

“Hailey,” Juanita said, “why are you even hesitating? This is an amazing deal for you.”

I shuddered. “Yeah, okay. I'll do it.”

True to his word, Max served three flavors of fresh popcorn on his deck, which was every bit as wide, comfortable, and splinter-free as he'd advertised. The house was up on a hill, and the trees and brush were cleared around it, leaving an expansive view of a clear, moonless, almost pornographically star-studded night sky. The one thing he hadn't said a word about was that Gavin and Josh were going to be there.

Gavin. And Josh. From the basketball team. Josh, who two years earlier had dumped Juanita for the despicable Lindsey Baker. And Gavin, who just eight months earlier, while dating Lindsey, had drunkenly confessed his love to Juanita in front of several classmates. It wasn't Juanita's fault, but people seemed to blame her anyway—even now, months later, when Gavin and Josh were dating Lindsey's two best friends, and for some reason no one seemed to have a problem with that.

Juanita was carrying two beach bags full of blankets and sweaters for the three of us—Sherpa-like, without
complaint, as usual—and the minute she saw the guys, the straps slipped off her shoulder and a couple of blankets tumbled out.

She bent to stuff the blankets back down, hiding her face. Of course, she saw these guys at school every day. But outside of school, she'd been avoiding them for months.

“Hey, guys,” she said to me and Hailey, not looking at Josh and Gavin, “I'm going to set our stuff down.” She walked away, to where the chairs sat at the other end of the deck.

Josh and Gavin were unfazed. “Hey, Juanita. Hey there, Hailey and Clara,” Gavin said, while Josh nodded and raised a hand in greeting.

As Juanita settled our bags among the deck chairs under the porch lights, a woman emerged from the house. “Hello, hello!” she cried. “I'm Max's mom, Julie. You must be those wonderful twins he was telling me so much about.” She peered at each of us. “You're Clara, right? The astronomy enthusiast. And you're Hailey, and despite having the name of the world's most famous comet, you're an artist rather than an astronomer.” Her smile was almost as huge and glittering as her son's. “I'm just so excited to meet you. I've heard so much. You both sound like amazing individuals.”

Amazing individuals?
Was I supposed to believe Max had said anything vaguely resembling that? The thought gave me an eerie, creepy-crawly feeling under my skin.

She held out her hand, and when I shook it, she gripped my arm with her left hand and gazed deeply into my eyes. She gave me the squirm-worthy feeling that she was trying very hard to peer inside my brain. After giving Hailey the same treatment, she said, “This is so lovely. The two of you have incredible strength. I can feel it.”

“Aww, Mom, cut it out.” Leaning in toward us, Max said in a loud stage whisper, “I promise, I won't let her read your chakras or investigate your past lives.”

His mom waved this away. “Girls, please introduce me to your other friends.”

She looked expectantly at Gavin and Josh, so we introduced them.

Juanita came back, and I noticed that Max's mom didn't grasp her arm like she had done with us, or call her an
amazing individual
with
incredible strength
.

“And are all of you astronomy enthusiasts?” she asked.

“Not really,” said Josh cheerfully, “but we heard there's gonna be some shooting stars, and Clara's the expert, so I figured she could tell us which stars are shooting at us.”

“Um, ah, hmmm,” I bantered wittily. I was only 85 percent sure he was joking. It was hard to believe Juanita had once been smitten with this guy. But she had been. Very.

“Well, I'll just be inside if anyone needs anything,” Max's mom said.

As everyone thanked her, Max stepped closer to me and
Hailey and said, “Sorry about my mom. She's weird with everyone.”

I didn't believe him—she'd been a lot weirder with me and Hailey than with anyone else—but I smiled anyway and lied right back. “I thought she was nice.”

“If you want to come and sit down,” Max said, “any spot is good. We could push any two of the chairs—actually, no, wait. Here's the best spot, right here.”

He pushed two of the reclining poolside chairs together, angling them to look right up at the spot where most of tonight's meteors would appear—between the Orion and Gemini constellations.

Unfortunately, Hailey and I were going to have to maneuver ourselves into the chairs while the three guys looked on. Actually sitting in them would not be a problem, but the process of getting into them would involve a lot of butt-scooting unprettiness.

I caught Juanita's eye. She looked down at the chairs, then back up at me and Hailey, and she seemed to register the problem, because she suddenly started asking questions about which chair she should choose, and whether she could move it, or did Max think it would be too heavy for her? All three boys sprang into action, turning their backs to us as they fought to help Juanita move a single lightweight deck chair.

Sophomore year, when Juanita had been dating Josh, she
had spent some time hanging out with him and his friends. As I watched Josh carry her chair, I thought about how she could have chosen to stick with that crowd if she'd wanted to. She could have been homecoming queen.

Max would end up in that group too, I supposed. And if he did turn out to be as nice as he was cute, wasn't it Juanita who ought to date him? If he was worthy, there was no point in her holding back just because of my unrealistic fantasy life.

While they were distracted, Hailey and I sat down, with Hailey fully on one chair and me sort of dangling at its edge. Then we hurriedly wiggled and scrunched ourselves across. Finally we both rested our weight away from each other, because if we rested it more at the center, where the chairs and our bodies met, there might be some danger of the chairs separating, and us falling through the center seam. Trust me, we've seen it all.

Meanwhile, the rest of them started working out who would sit where; they didn't talk about it, but I could see the hesitations, the back-and-forth moves, the hanging back, until finally it ended with us lined up thusly: Josh, Max, me, Hailey, Juanita, Gavin.

Josh grabbed a popcorn bowl from the table next to him, took a handful, and passed it down. “So,” he said amiably, “I always get this mixed up. What is it that's going to land in Max's yard in a fiery ball of destruction? A meteor? Or a meteorite?”

“Meteor!” I shouted, pointing, because one of them had just shot across the sky. Everyone looked up, but too late.

“First meteor sighting of the night,” Max said. “A point for Clara.”

“Oooh, do we get a point for every one we spot?” I asked. “What do I get when I win?”

“Don't get too confident,” Max admonished me. “I've never been beaten yet.”

“That's because you've never played against me,” I told him, surprised and a little pleased by my own boldness. “Come on, what's the prize? Better make it a good one.”

Gavin laughed. “All these years in school together, and I never knew the twins had such a competitive side. I feel like I've been missing out.”

The twins?
Did he not know which one I was?

“Okay,” Max said, “I'll tell you what, Clara. You and I are going mano a mano here, since we're the only ones who actually care. You're up for that, right?”

He cocked an eyebrow at me, and I nodded.

“All right then, here's the deal. The loser has to show the winner something new in the sky, up at the observatory. Could be something they've never seen before, or a different take on it, some fact they didn't know. Deal?”

Wait. Did he just say that we're going to the observatory together either way?

I tried to gather my wits about me. Behind Max, I heard
something—were the other guys snickering? I tried to ignore it.

“But—” The word came out as a hoarse whisper. Hailey elbowed me and nudged me with the back of her head.

I cleared my throat and tried again. “But how do I know what's new to you? How do I know if you already know it or not?”

“Hmm, interesting question,” he said slowly, “because you kind of make it sound like you're expecting to lose.” His grin was of dizzying splendor, and his voice was completely relaxed.

“Um, well.” I cleared my throat again and reached deep for the sass that had been coming so naturally just a minute ago. “Of course that's not going to happen. But let me put it this way. How do
you
know what
I
don't already know?”

“I think,” Josh said, “that you should both just focus on teaching
me
some stuff. Like, what are these meteors anyway? Where do they come from? I'm serious this time.”

“You know, Josh,” Juanita said, speaking across all of us from the opposite end of the row of chairs, “you could have Googled this stuff to avoid sounding like an idiot.”

“Aww, come on, like you're such an expert?” he retorted. “You watch these mainly because Clara's into it, right?”

As they spoke, Max leaned in closer to me, and as I turned my face toward his, he whispered, “I'll just keep trying until I find something you don't know.”

His face was so close to mine. Another inch or two, and I might have been able to feel his breath. But then he shifted away again.

“So, same thing,” Josh was saying to Juanita, calling out across the rest of us. “I'm doing it for my pal Max. A show of support.”

“Hey,” Gavin shouted, “what was that thing that just flew by?”

“Another meteor?” I asked. “A point for Gavin!”

“No, no, not a meteor. Just right there. It went—Hey, there it is again!”

A tiny shadow had just swept through the sky, only a few feet above our heads.

“Oh crap!” Josh said, leaping from his chair. “It's a bat!”

The form disappeared, but a moment later it came right toward us—only to turn, sweep across the pool, and fly away again.

“Is it the same bat?” Gavin demanded. “Or a different one?”

A little way off, another dark little form flew between the trees.

“Max, man, your place is crawling with vampire bats,” Josh said.

“It's not a vampire bat,” I said. “It's just a little brown bat, looking for some insects to eat.”

“I'm going after him,” Josh declared. “Do you have a broom?”

“There's a fruit picker over there,” Max said, pointing to a long stick with a sort of metal claw at one end. “But why not leave the bats alone? We're outside. It's their territory.”

“Perfect.” Josh grabbed the fruit picker and ran off down the hill.

Gavin laughed as he ran after Josh. “Max, you're shirking your duties, man. Leaving the bat chasing to your guests?”

“Let them go,” I said. “The bats aren't going to hurt anyone. I just hope those guys don't actually catch one.” But also, I didn't want Max to leave his seat, with the risk that he might switch to a different one when he came back.

“They seem like good guys apart from the bat chasing,” Max said. “But to be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly sure what they're doing here.”

I laughed. “What do you mean?”

“Well, they just showed up. They were saying something about playing video games. I guess they wanted me to go to one of their houses, or maybe an arcade or something. I'm not even sure. I told them I was staying here to watch the meteor shower and that you three were coming, and they decided to stay.”

“Well,” I said, “but you invited them to stay, right?”

He looked uncertain. “I don't
remember
inviting them.”

Around the side of the house, Gavin and Josh shouted
to each other. I couldn't imagine what they thought they were going to do—stab the bats with the fruit picker?

Gavin reappeared at the edge of the light. “We need bigger weapons! Do you have a BB gun, or maybe an antiaircraft machine gun of some kind?”

Max shook his head. “We're not the heavily armed types. Dude, it's time to consider diplomatic channels. Or, you know, just forget about them.”

Gavin rocked back on his heels for a minute, looking up at the sky, then finally said, “Yeah, okay.” He looked over at Juanita, then at me and Hailey. “So, I need your help.”

“We're not going to help you chase the bats,” I told him.

“No, not that. I've been trying to convince Max to join the basketball team. The season starts in a few weeks, so I want him on the team by Monday. Will all of you tell him how hot you find guys who play basketball? Please, help me out here.”

“The problem,” Max said, “is that being bad at a sport is never that hot. And I'm bad at basketball. Seriously bad.”

“What you might not realize,” Juanita said, “is that our entire basketball team is seriously bad. So even if you are as bad as you say you are, they can probably use you.”

My eyes widened. Was she really picking a fight?

Gavin pointed right at Juanita, and I had only half a second to cringe before he shouted, “
Yes!
That's exactly right.
Thank
you! Our team sucks. We'll take anyone.”