Lucid (17 page)

He turns off the water and looks at me directly. His face so open and clear and innocent.

“I’ll show you one night,” he says. And walks out of the bathroom.

And as I’m savoring this shared moment, he reminds me not to get used to it. He calls from down the hall, “You look a lot prettier without all that gunk on your face, Sloane.”

I stare at myself in the mirror. There is still a slight crease on my face from where I fell asleep on James’s book. I think of the line I was reading, the one James had underlined and put an asterisk next to: “Siddhartha stood alone like a star in the heavens…That was the last shudder of his awakening…Immediately he moved on
again and began to walk quickly and impatiently, no longer homewards, no longer looking backwards.”

I steel myself to get on with my day. A deep breath and I float down the stairs. My two seconds of serenity are immediately broken when met with my mother’s inquisition.

“You look happy,” she says. It’s not a statement but a question.
Why?

“Thanks. So do you.” I try to focus on the scrambled eggs and toast she slides under my nose.

“Could it have anything to do with the book you were reading all day yesterday?”

I don’t look up. “Maybe. It’s the kind of book that makes you feel good about the world. I’ll let you read it.”

“Hello!” she says so I have to look up. “I’m asking about the freakishly gorgeous young man, I can’t even use the word
boy
, who dropped said book off.”

“That would be James. He’s new.”

She sits down directly across from me.

“He obviously likes you. You obviously are happy that he does. Why won’t you talk about it?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I talk about it with lots of people. But I think what you mean is, why won’t I talk about it to
you
?”

She flinches a little, as if my words pinched her.

“And the answer?” she asks calmly.

“The answer is that I’d rather not.”

There’s a really long silence while she tries to control her temper. At last, she simply stands and walks out of the kitchen. She doesn’t even turn off the burner under dad’s bacon.

I’m so mad at her for being that way I can hardly see straight. I don’t want her knowing anything about James. She’s clearly trying to be all chummy with me about it only so that she can suss out what sort of regulations she needs to implement. My mom rules under martial law when it comes to dating. Under penalty of grounding or worse, I wasn’t even allowed to date until my sixteenth birthday. It embarrassed and frustrated me beyond belief, not that I was batting away dates. It sort of equated boys and punishment in my mind. And it certainly didn’t leave communication lines open where I want to sit down and have a chick chat with dear old Mom. I obeyed her stupid rule, and now that I’m old enough and some guy drops off a book, she has to be all up in my business. I’m so sick of being under her microscope. I leave my eggs and go back upstairs to redo my makeup.

I turn my dad down twice on his unusual offer to drive me to school. On the third offer, I just say thanks and wonder if he has some dad thing on his mind. Please let it be anything other than my dreams. He only asked that once how I slept, so hopefully he’s simply forgotten.

When my dad gets angry with me, his voice gets low and really slow, and it just scares me to death.

“What’s going on with you about your mom?”

So the dad thing is actually a mom thing and not at all about my dreams.

“I’m sorry I snapped at her at breakfast. I’m just tired, which is no excuse. I promise I’ll apologize soon as I see her.”

“Not nearly good enough. You’ve been angry with her for a year. It started abruptly, right around your sixteenth birthday, and it’s actually getting worse.”

“Daddy…”

“Be quiet. Your mother and I discuss it all the time. It is breaking her heart and mine. It is completely unfair, and I want to know right this minute what it’s all about.”

“I don’t know, Daddy. I feel it too. I keep hoping it will go away. I know it’s not anything she’s doing wrong. I’m hoping it’s just like a teenage daughter separation thing, where I have to push her away so I can leave or something.”

“That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard. Teenagers can pout and have tantrums, but this has been going on for a year. If it doesn’t change and change soon, the next step is talking to a professional.”

I wish I could take the train into New York and start seeing Emma. I wish Emma actually existed. If she did, I could ask her why this is happening to me. I could ask her about Maggie.

“I mean it, Sloane. This has to stop. We’re a family. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Do you understand me?” He glances from the road, sees the tears filling my eyes. “Do you?”

“I do,” I say. And then the truth just slips from me. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

But of course I do. I just don’t know why.

He drops me at school. There is no thought of a kiss goodbye, or even saying anything. I try to close the car door without slamming it, but maybe it sounds too loud anyway.

Ashamed, I go straight to the bathroom and look in the mirror. Sure enough, the stupid mascara has blackened under my eyes so I look like Gordy when he suits up for a game. I carefully wipe it away, feeling like an absolute monster to be treating my mom so meanly. I remember her hurt face in flashes of clips from the past
year where she attempted to talk the way we always had before and I just slammed the door.

Besides, there’s nothing to talk about. I’m indulging in a tweener fantasy that the most beautiful boy who ever lived could possibly like me. How would I say that to her and what would I say to her endless questions at every breakfast as to how the big non-romance is going? Talking about my fantasy and longing is humiliating and for some reason would be exponentially more humiliating with her.

I walk into homeroom and there he is, in the back as usual, with an empty seat next to him. The second he sees me, he waves me over. I forget I have a mother. I forget everything. Except, try not to run. At least not too fast.

I slide into the seat beside him. He stares at me pleasantly but very intently.

“Good morning,” I say.

“Hi. I’m sorry for staring; I was just noticing something, that’s all.”

There follows an extremely long two seconds of silence.

“I’m waiting,” I say.

“Your lashes are so long.”

It may be hard to understand, but that sentence sets my heart to racing more than if he had proposed marriage or something. He thinks I’m a little attractive at least. Right?

“Thanks. And thanks for the book. I’d read it long ago, of course…”

“Of course,” and he smiles at how pretentious that was. But it is a really kind and friendly smile. As if he knows I’m trying to
impress him, and that’s okay because he complimented my eyelashes. I wonder how he’d like them without the residual mascara. A worry for another day. I think you can have them dyed permanently. Mental note to check that out. I mean, who knew he was an eyelash guy.

“What happened there? Were you in a duel?” He points to the tiny gap in my fabulously long lashes caused by a chicken pox scar from when I was a kid.

“You should see the other guy,” I say, and he laughs.

“I’ve got to skip sixth period,” he says, “because I promised to drive somebody somewhere. But Pablo and I are coming to help out at the vet’s later; I’ll stuff envelopes and he’ll lick. So I’ll see you there. Maybe we can grab a bite or something.”

I’m paralyzed. Frozen. So of course I say something surpassingly stupid. “So we can talk about
Siddhartha
.”

He leans across his desk toward me. “So we can talk about anything we want.”

The bell rings. He reaches down and grabs his bag, looking up at me with those eyes. And I will myself to move. As I pack up, it sinks in. That was a date. He asked me on a date. Not even with the cover of an excuse. He wants me to know that he wants my company. He wants to be with me. Alone.

I just sit there as the room empties, and just as I’m about to dissolve into a blissful wisp of smoke, two little words break through my ecstasy:
Amanda Porcella
. The someone he is driving somewhere during sixth period. The someone he is probably having sex with on a daily basis.

Wow. I’m an idiot. He’s way too decent, and certainly way too
smart, to think he could two-time his girlfriend in a class of eighty kids, all of whom watch and gossip about them constantly. Obviously, this isn’t a date at all. He would think of it as grabbing a burger with a friend from school. Same as if I were Gordy or The Weed. It is only a date in my mind because that is my fondest wish in all the world.

I’m not ashamed for wanting Amanda’s boyfriend for myself. Every girl at this school wants him. Nothing bad just happened. James simply asked if I wanted to hang out, and if I can keep from mooning over him and be fairly intelligent and entertaining, we can become people who hang out together. And I would like that. It won’t be horrible because I want more; this will be second best and I will make that good enough.

I find Gordy and sit with him at lunch. I apologize for not calling him yesterday, explaining that I was into some heavy reading all day. I want him to know how wonderful my birthday was, thanks to him. Gordy thinks it took second place to my roller-skating party in fourth grade when he broke his wrist trying to “shoot the duck” (a challenging skating move). He asks if we can grab dinner together tonight. I can tell something is up, and he faux casually mentions that he took my advice and shit-canned the odious Melissa. Good freakin’ riddance.

He seems a little sad about it, even though he’s trying to play it off lightly.

“Want to grab dinner at Pizzetta? I could use a breakup pepperoni pie.” His big shoulders shrug and he takes a sip from the tiny straw sticking out of a juice box.

“Of course,” I tell him. There’s no way he’s eating breakup pizza
alone. Even though I never would have accepted James’s offer of dinner anyway (for fear that Amanda or others would misconstrue), I feel some regret at having given away the possibility. But he’s Gordy, and he’d do it for me.

James never shows at the vet anyway. Not a very reliable volunteer. I probably won’t mention it to Dr. French, though. Obviously, driving someone somewhere wound up being much more exciting than hanging out with me and the animals. Not my problem. Not my business. I’m off to cheer up my best friend on the occasion of his slut-ectomy.

I kiss all the creatures good night and lock up. The envelopes with Dr. French’s monthly newsletter can wait another day. I unlock my bike and wheel it out to the curb just as—

An old red Porsche Targa whips around the corner and skids to a stop right in my face. He leans out of the window with a goofy smile. I would never in a million years guess he owns a goofy smile, and it makes him more devastating than ever.

“I’m so glad I caught you. I got held up.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me.” It sounds a little too snippy the moment I say it. Hopefully he won’t take it that way.

“Anyway, if you’re still free to grab dinner…”

I walk my bike to his window. In my nicest, softest voice I say, “I never said I was free for dinner. You just assumed I was, probably because you don’t get a lot of people turning you down.”

“I think that’s a compliment, right?”

“A little bit of both.”

He laughs. “So. Are you? Free for dinner, I mean.”

“No, sorry.”

“Me neither. How about tomorrow?”

This is more than heart-pounding. This is not enough air to expand my lungs. This is tingling in all weird places. I look down at my feet and try to create a look that is ironic, gently disapproving but still friendly. I’m not sure Meryl Streep could invent a look like that.

“What?” he asks pleasantly. I decide not to look up.

“I’m just wondering what Amanda would think of what you just said.”

The silence is so long I’m not sure he’s actually still there.

“Look at me,” he says in an especially sweet way. So I do. “Everyone thinks Amanda and I are together, so I shouldn’t be surprised that you think it too.”

Does that mean he’s not dating her?

“We’re not. I’m not dating her or anyone. I actually never dated Amanda. We hung out for two weeks during Outward Bound and stayed friends after.”

“So she was never your girlfriend?”

James turns a little red. “I mean, we hooked up. And it was pretty clear that she was hoping things might continue. But then I met someone. Someone I’m not with anymore. Amanda knows all of this. And everything is fine between us. You can ask her and she’ll tell you that.”

I hold my breath. Unfortunately, he seems to have no more to say.

“And you’re telling me this because…?”

“Um, you asked.”

“Oh yeah.” And we both laugh. Here we are, in the vet’s parking lot. Laughing at me. I have no idea what to do. So I just keep laughing. I must look like an idiot. At last he says something.

“Sloane, I asked you out on a date. And to be honest, it’s the first time I’ve asked anybody on a date in a long time. And I really hope you say yes.”

What on earth could someone like him ever see in me?

“Yes. I’d like that very much.”

We just look at each other. He’s still in his car. I’m standing at his window with one hand resting on the door. He reaches out and strokes my pinky finger. It feels like I’ve stuck it in an electrical socket. But in a good way.

“So, can I drop you somewhere?” he asks.

“Um, I’ve got this bike, see.”

“Right. But I could pick you up tomorrow morning and drop you back at the bike, in time for school.”

This isn’t real. Maggie is dreaming this. By osmosis she picked up something from that book Emma gave her and she is making this happen. I’ll never find a way to thank her enough for the opportunity. Too bad I have to turn him down.

“If I leave this bike out tonight, I’ll be in even more trouble with my mom and dad than I already am, which is considerable.” I feel like a little girl saying this to a guy driving his own Porsche.