manicpixiedreamgirl (17 page)

I could’ve laughed out loud. “Um, yeah, sure,” I said. I could always dig up one of my old horror stories or something, I figured. And as terrified as I was, with her coming
so close to finding out what—or who—I generally wrote about, having her ask me to read something made my breath go shallow.

Her door was still open, and through it, I heard the front door open and close. The
click-clack
of business shoes against the white tile in the foyer. Very adult noises. My daydream of lying beside her on her bed ended abruptly with me getting gut-shot with a single blast of her father’s pearl-handled .45 pistol I conjured just for the occasion.

I tensed. Becky grinned.

“Don’t worry, it’s just my dad,” she said.

“It’s okay that I’m here?”

She held up a finger. “Hi!” she called through the open door.

I heard things being set down, keys jingling, the fridge being opened. No response.

Becky raised her eyebrows at me. “See?”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

But then I heard his heavy, leather-clad feet clacking. Headed this way. I got nervous all over again.

“Chill out, Sparky,” Becky said, and stretched casually out on her bed. “It doesn’t matter.”

I almost begged her to sit up. Her relaxed position—T-shirt creeping upward just an inch—gave the impression we’d been up to some bit of naughtiness and I’d just leaped to the desk chair to avoid looking guilty.

Didn’t she have any idea how the scene would look to her father walking in? That my life was in mortal peril?

Mr. Webb showed up in her doorway, riffling through mail. Again in a suit, again looking almighty and powerful.

He gave me the briefest nod in the history of dismissals, and said to Becky, “Did you make up that test in math?”

“Nope,” Becky said carelessly.

“Why is that?”

“I’m failing everything anyway,” she said, running her fingers through her short hair. “So I’ll probably drop out, go live on the street somewhere.”

“You think this is real funny, don’t you, Rebecca.”

“Don’t you see me laughing?”

Mr. Webb snorted. “Fuck you,” he said, and went back down the hall, re-riffling his mail.

The room became an igloo, all ice and chill. I stared at the empty hole of her doorway, seething and scared. Scared of what, I wasn’t sure. Possibly of what I was considering doing to that asshole with my bare hands.

“Told ya,” Becky said, and flipped over onto her stomach. Suddenly, she buried her face into her pillow, fists gripping it and pressing it up over her ears, and screamed.
Screamed
.

The sound tore me in half. My first, most base instinct was to go to her, but I didn’t.

After a few minutes of breathing heavily, while I sat there being silently stupid and useless, Becky pulled herself back up to a sitting position, her face splotched red. I was glad to see there were no tears in her eyes.

“Anyway,” she said, and blew bangs off her face. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Are you really failing everything?”

“That’s why you wanted to talk to me? To ask about my scholastic achievement? Gotta say, Ty, that doesn’t exactly get my motor running.”

“But are you?” I persisted. Because in my stories, she was a straight-A student. Possibly valedictorian. It was part of her perfection.

“Maybe not
failing
,” she said. “I mean, I do need Daddy to pay for college, right? Somewhere out of state. I’ll be fine.”

She winced when she said it. Slightly, but it was there.

“So that’s our big talk, huh?” she said.

“No, um … I just wanted to ask you about …”

As I tried to find the words to confront her about Matthew, I realized I’d already decided I didn’t want to know after all.

There was nothing to be gained. Even if I asked her if they were dating, so what if they weren’t? Would I ask her out, then? No. It was too risky now. I was
in her bedroom
, for god’s sake, and I wanted to be invited back.

“… about whether you think I should stick around the drama department,” I finished.

“Totally,” Becky said. “You did great. And everyone really likes you.”

But why don’t they like you?
I wanted to ask, but didn’t.

“Okay, cool,” I said. “Thanks.”

Becky slowly smiled at me, tilting her head, giving me a quizzical look. I had no idea what she was thinking. Suddenly, she shook herself, like she’d been chilled.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” she said. “You want a ride home?”

I walk back to the wall, where Sydney has resumed sitting. Beyond her, at the table, Justin is trying vainly to win an arm-wrestling contest with Robby.

“You don’t know the first thing about Becky,” I say to Sydney.

“But you do?”

“I know enough.”

Sydney shrugs. “Okay. What do you want to do, then? Are we done here?”

“Hey, I didn’t invite you to come scouring the city park system for—”

“No, I mean, are
we
done, Tyler.”

“It doesn’t look like that would upset you.”

“Would it upset you?”

“I don’t know.” I pause. “You can do better.”

“Wow, thanks,” Sydney marvels. “You want to break up to save my poor soul from you?”

I don’t reply.

Sydney stands back up, comes to me, and takes my face in her hands. I start to resist, then give up. Sydney puts a single, gentle kiss against my lips. It’s not unlike putting on your favorite sweats in the middle of winter—warm, comforting, and familiar. Even though you know they’re threadbare, full of holes, and on the verge of disintegrating.

“I’m going to do you a favor,” she says, still holding me, forcing me to look into her eyes. “I’m going to break up with you right now. Done. Snap. It’s over. See, that wasn’t so bad. But I’m telling you, Tyler … your ‘love’ isn’t going to be enough for her. Hear me?”

What am I supposed to do, say yes?

“She can only hurt you,” Sydney adds. She gives me another kiss, this time on the cheek. Her hands drop from my face. “I at least never did that.”

I can’t argue that point.

“I’ll make it easy for you,” Sydney says, pulling her keys out of her pocket. “Don’t call. Don’t text me. Don’t come over. We’ll see each other Monday, and we’ll be civil, and that’ll be that. Okay?”

I nod slowly. The reality of my new situation is not sinking in very quickly.

“Okay,” Sydney says. “Take care of yourself.” She waves at the table. “Bye, boys!” she calls.

Robby waves. Justin cries out, “Later on, Pink Floyd!”

Sydney stops. “Okay, what’s up with the Pink Floyd thing? Every time I ask—”

“They just laugh,” I finish for her. “One of the founders of the band was named Syd Barrett.”

I say this even as I’m still trying to ascertain who and where I am now without her.

“Oh.” Suddenly, she giggles. “Oh! Really? Wow. Who knew?”

Sydney draws one finger beneath one eye. Nothing more. She tips her head backward. “See ya in English.”

Without waiting for a response, she walks back to the white Sentra, climbs in, and drives out of the parking lot. It occurs to me she still has the magazine.

I have the decency to wait until I can no longer see the car before calling Becky.

It’s almost midnight.

“Did I ever tell you your girlfriend wants to kick my ass?”

It was the fourth or fifth time I’d been to Becky’s house since
rehearsals for the one-act plays started. I was on her
bed—let that little bit of info sink in for a
moment—with my back against her headboard, chowing on a bowl of microwave popcorn while she sat at her desk working on a book report for her English class. The book?
To Kill a Mockingbird
. She
had
to ace that one.

I choked on a piece of popcorn skin. “Say what?”

Becky tossed a wry grin over her shoulder at me. “Well, okay, maybe that’s overstating it. She said to stay out of her way.”

“When did she say that?” I demanded. I reached for my phone to call Sydney and yell at her.

“Oh, man, this was the first day of school,” Becky said, twisting her hips in the chair to swivel it back and forth. “She walked up to me out of nowhere and said, ‘I’m going out with Tyler Darcy now. I’m asking you as a friend to please stay out of my way.’ ”

“Wow. Sorry.” I stopped reaching for my phone.

“No big. I didn’t even know who you were.”

Ouch. Stabbed. Still—I was sitting on Becky Webb’s
bed
. Life could be worse. Who cared if she didn’t know me then? She knew me now.

“Is that why you talked to me that day?” I asked.

“Yep. If I was going to get into a catfight, I wanted to know who it was over.”

We both laughed at the idea. Sydney wasn’t the catfight type. And—this was strange as hell—it was kind of cool Syd was concerned enough over stupid me to even say something like that to Becky.

“Funny thing is,” Becky said, “I didn’t even know we were friends until she said it. Me and Sydney, I mean. She talked to me in drama, when we had to work together, but that was it.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah. I mean, me and you didn’t even know each other.”

Becky typed a new sentence. Her report was almost done. I watched her, noting every crease of her clothing, every arch of her fingers. The silence was comfortable,
which thrilled me. We didn’t always have to be talking. I took that as a very good sign. And I guess—well, I guess that’s why I didn’t spill my guts. We were friends. I was in her room. We talked, we laughed. If I opened my big idiot mouth now, it could ruin what I had.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool
or whatnot.

“So, what do you like about her?” Becky asked.

I swallowed a handful of popcorn and tried not to choke again. “Sydney?”

“No, Sparky, the queen of England. Yes, Sydney. What do you like about her?”

Of all the conversations on planet Earth we could have, this was the absolute last one I wanted. “Well,” I said, trying not to sound like I was weighing my words too much, “she’s—”

“And you can’t say ‘nice’!” Becky said.

“—fun,” I said.

“Fun how? Like, go to the sock hop fun, or graphic porno sex fun?”

I tried very hard to force a laugh and couldn’t. Didn’t seem to matter; Becky wasn’t laughing either.

“Uh … somewhere in the middle,” I said. I put the popcorn bowl aside. Wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Are you happy?” Becky asked.

“Are you asking me or are you running lines?” Her character in the one-act she was in, Jill, said that line several times during the show.

“Asking,” Becky said, turning the chair to face me. “Although, I probably should run lines, too.”

“At this particular moment in time, I’m extremely happy,” I said. Which was the truth. More truthful, in fact, than she could know. I chose the words deliberately, I think, to see if she’d catch my implication.

But Becky only nodded thoughtfully. Over her shoulder, I could see her computer screen and the title of her book report.
To Mill a Kockingbird
. I had to smile at the intentional misspellings. Then wondered if they
were
intentional. Then called myself an idiot for even wondering.

“Are you?” I asked. “Happy?”

“For the most part? No. Not especially.” She shut one eye as the after-school sun poked through her window and lit up one side of her face. Sunlight traced gold along her profile, like she was the fairy queen Titania herself. “But at this particular moment in time, it’s all good.”

I wanted to take my meaning of the same phrase and lend it to hers. So badly. That she was as happy to be here with me as I was with her. But I just couldn’t tell if she meant it the same way or not.

Her parents’ voices trickled in from the kitchen. Low tones. No joy. Keys jingling. Heels clacking coldly on the tile.

“Are they headed out?” I asked. Because every time we were here alone, I couldn’t help but wonder if one of my myriad dreams about Becky was going to come true. They never did, though.

Becky shrugged. “Let’s find out.” She yelled toward the open bedroom door, “Bye, see you later, have fun tonight, I love you!”