The Inside of Out (4 page)

I practiced a normal expression in the hall mirror before daring to step outside the next morning. Good thing too. As soon as I'd fastened my seat belt, Hannah squinted at me.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

“Yep. Just lady trouble.”

Our old-timey way of saying we had our period, but in this case, the lady
and
the trouble was Natalie.

“Listen,” Hannah started. “We wanted to explain everything yesterday.”

We. They were already a “we.”

“We didn't expect for it to happen.
Us,
I mean.”

They were an “us.”

I turned on the radio. Hannah glanced at me as she changed lanes.

“It was just, spending all that time together on the team last spring . . .”

Right. Natalie was the tennis captain and Hannah's doubles partner. What a cliché. I turned the volume louder, gritting my teeth against the twang.

“And then we did that retreat last month, and one day, it just . . .
Can we turn this down?
”

Hannah's fist slammed into the power button, silencing the speakers. Her nostrils flared. I'd seen her angry like this before, but at malfunctioning electronic equipment, uncrackable algebraic equations.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

She was quiet for a few blocks, the air in the car thickening, cementing my mouth shut while my mind scrambled for what to say next.

She shook her head. “I shouldn't have brought her. I should have just told you.”

“I sort of had to see it for myself.”

“What does that mean?”

I shrugged. If she didn't already
get
what it meant—how ludicrous the entire situation was—I wasn't going to spell it out for her.

Hannah didn't say anything until we pulled into the school lot. Then she cut the engine with a sigh. “I know you and Natalie have . . . a history.”

You and Natalie
. As if we were both to blame for it.

“Things were awful for you,” she went on. “And I hate that it happened. Like, I wish I had a time machine, so I could go back and give little-kid you a hug, tell you it gets better, except little-kid you wouldn't know who this stranger was hugging you, so maybe more like a handshake or a high five . . .”

Weird,
I thought.
But okay.

“But you know that Winchaw Junction song?
The longest road leads to the highest mountain, and you never—
”

“
Yes,
” I yapped,
really
not in the mood for inspirational country lyrics. “I know that song. Unfortunately.”

“To me, it means that sometimes things happen the way they do to make you a stronger person. It was a long time ago and now . . .” She turned to grin stiffly at me, eyes manic-bright. “You're you! And . . . you're awesome!”

She held on to her pose, still smiling like a pageant contestant.

My eyes narrowed. Was Hannah seriously trying to argue that Natalie destroying my life was a
good
thing? I was speechless, but Hannah must have thought I was going to interrupt, because she put one jittery hand up to stop me.

“Also? Okay, I have to say this. Natalie's not who you think she is. I mean—people change, right? People are constantly evolving. Actually . . .” Her forehead scrunched. “That's not really how natural selection works, but you know what I'm saying. I just . . .” She blinked quickly a couple of times, so I knew she was about to lie. “I think you might really like her now.”

I stared at Hannah, numb with the realization of how candy-colored her view was of my “history” with Natalie. All I could spit out was a muffled “Maybe” while I tugged my backpack from her car.

Hannah seemed to think that the conversation had gone swimmingly. She linked elbows with me as we turned toward school. “You know, you should learn to drive, Daisy. You've got a car. It's getting ridiculous.”

She bumped my hip to soften the blow. It didn't work.

I did, in fact, have an ancient Jaguar, a sixteenth birthday gift from my dad. After a trip to a used car lot, I'd selected a sleek green beauty because it looked like a car you'd drive
along the French Riviera with a scarf holding your hair. Mom didn't know how to drive stick shift, and Dad kept promising to teach me “next weekend,” once he'd finished whatever game he was working on, so I'd looked up some techniques online. I gave it a try—and never left the driveway. In my Hulk-rage at stalling out, I swore off driving altogether.

While I was having my manual meltdown, Hannah was graduating from the driving course at school, taking the test, getting her license. She'd inherited the family Honda when her mom got a new car, and she'd never minded chauffeuring me around.

“You're right,” I said. “I should try again.”

“I'm going to get you driving gloves.” Hannah held up her hand as if to model one. “And I'm going to tell you they're magic and that they'll learn stick shift
for
you.”

“That will definitely work,” I said.

Hannah kept describing the gloves she'd get me, soft ivory with blue buttons on the wrists. It wasn't until she got a few steps ahead that I allowed my oh-so-delighted smile to sputter out.

One awkward non-argument, one lecture that rewrote my biography, and one loaded comment about “learning to drive myself.” Good morning to you too.

We ate lunch together at least. It was rainy again, so we didn't claim our usual spot on the steps between the cafeteria and the faculty parking lot, settling instead into a table in the corner with some random sophomores.

Hannah peeled the paper from the gourmet sandwich her
mother packed her every morning, and I went to get something unhealthy from the lunch line for us to share. When I came back, there were two seats open around Hannah.

My stomach clenched.
And it begins
.

“I've been thinking,” Hannah said, and I held my breath. “Am I a real photographer?”

It took me a good three-count to realize this was our regular flavor of chitchat. “Of course you are. A good one.”

“No, but . . . my camera.” She grabbed a chicken nugget from my plate.

“Your birthday present?”

“I love it,” she said quickly. “But it's so easy to use. I was thinking maybe I need, like, a thirty-five millimeter. And a darkroom.”

“
Oh,
” I said, leaning my chin on steepled fingers. “I see what you're saying. Yes. But what you really need is a daguerreotype.”

“I'm serious!” She tossed her napkin at me. “You're the one who's always saying that there's no point in doing something—”

“If you're not going to do it awesomely. Exactly. Which is why you need a nineteenth-century camera and me posed as a Civil War soldier, otherwise no, you're not a real photographer.”

Hannah laughed. “Is it weird that this seems like a good—”

She cut off midsentence, her face freezing into nothingness. I looked where she was looking. Natalie had just walked in. I braced myself. But instead of smiling or waving her over, Hannah crossed her legs to face me.

Natalie surveyed the room in a slow Terminator scan. When she saw my raised eyebrows and Hannah's back, she spun so quickly her ponytail slapped her in the face. Then, trailed by her usual coterie of sycophants, she selected a window-front table in the middle of the cafeteria—the same place she'd sat since freshman year.

The football team had picked a new table clear across the room. The moment Natalie sat down, QB's voice rose, cracking jokes, letting everyone in earshot know that his life was one big, raucous rodeo that no woman could possibly derail.

She'd dumped him for Hannah. I wondered if he knew.

When Hannah's silence tipped from oppressive to maddening, I tossed a crinkle fry at her.

“Aren't you gonna say hi to your girlfriend?”

Hannah didn't react, didn't seem to realize how hard I'd had to focus to say it. She glanced furtively at Natalie, then returned to picking at her watercress sandwich.

“Hang on.” I grabbed Hannah's arm. “Are you two a
secret?
Is Natalie not out?”

“Keep your voice down.” Hannah's own had slid into a whisper. “Her friends . . . they're not like you. She needs to be careful with how she tells them.”

“Because they're assholes and I'm not. Got it.”

Hannah smiled faintly. I gave her a couple minutes to relax, finish her artisanal lemongrass iced tea and the rest of my fries. Then I whispered, “I just think it's lame that you've come out and she hasn't. Are you sure she's—”

“
Yes!”
Hannah hissed, when even
I
didn't know how that question was going to finish.

Are you sure she's fully committed to your relationship?

Are you sure she's human?

Are you sure she's not
pretending
to be gay in order to steal you from me, thus destroying my life once and for all?

In any case, I'd seen enough. There were chinks in the armor.

As the bell rang, Hannah stood to bus our trash—a peace offering.

I cleared my throat. “So I'll see you seventh period? Alliance meeting?”

“Right,” she said. “See you there.”

I had to look up Room A2 on a school map. It took several wrong turns into a faculty lounge and the vice principal's empty office for me to locate the sign reading A2, and taped underneath it, a printout: “Student Club Meeting: 1:30–2:40.”

I hesitated. This was a conference room, the kind where teachers held meetings on how to ratchet our test scores up to levels that would prevent them from being shamed in the local papers.

“Come on in,” a male voice said behind me. Before I could turn, his hand met my back, nudging me in with him. “We won't bite. Unless you ask nicely.”

I knew this kid. Or
of
him, I guess. His name was Jack Jackson—easy to remember, especially since QB used to recite it in a high-pitched voice every time he passed Jack in the hall, like it was the height of wit to call someone by his actual name. I'd been proud to bear witness to the day last winter when Jack Jackson had put an end to it by murmuring
back in a sultry voice, “You know I love it when you scream my name.”

It was no secret that Jack was gay. He wore it proudly, along with his unofficial uniform of khakis, polo shirt, and weathered boat shoes. I'd always liked him for it. But I'd never talked to him before today.

“I take it back.” Jack's face darkened as he leaned in to whisper to me. Leaned up, really. At five-six, I had a good inch on him. “
She
might bite.”

He nodded to the end of the long conference table, where Raina Moore had claimed the power seat. Riffling through pages of an old legal pad, she barely gave us a glance as we walked in. But a few seconds later, she froze, brow furrowed, and peered back up. At me.

“Interesting,” she said.

“Interesting” was a better reaction than, say, “Go away,” or “Kill it with fire!” Still, it took a little courage to pull out one of the roller chairs on the far side of the table and claim it for my own.

“I'm Daisy,” I said to Jack.

He raised his eyebrows. “I know. Wondered when you'd show up here.”

Before I could ask what that meant, the door opened again, and through it walked the milkmaid, chatting with someone whose face rendered me speechless.

Sean Bentley—the most beautiful boy in the Greater Charleston Area.

When I was a freshman and Sean was a sophomore, he played Billy Bigelow in
Carousel,
while I was cast as, like,
New England Townsperson Five. The only reason I didn't quit Drama Club right then was the possibility of “accidentally” touching the lead actor during a late-night rehearsal.

Two years later, Sean was still 1950s matinee idol dreamy, with wavy hair somewhere between bronze and burnished gold, lightly tanned skin, a gleaming smile that crinkled at the corners. An army of girls trailed him like a parade, vying to be his Number One Strictly Platonic Girl Who Was a Friend. Sean was out, in the way that the singing, dancing lead of every school musical who openly dates guys is clearly out, but still they followed, hoping against hope that they could change his mind.