Xvi (20 page)

“Sure. We can, uh, we can ...” His look implored Mike for help.

“Go to the Alley and check out the newest techie crap. What time you want us to show up?”

“Four.”

“Save me some cake.”

When we got to school, Sal was at the top of the steps by the doors. Derek waved to him, but he turned away, following a crowd of students into the building.

“What’s up with him?” Derek asked.

“Sun was probably in his eyes.” Wei squinted up at the sky.

That was a lie—there was no sun on the steps. Derek bought it, though. I think he’d believe anything Wei said.

A male voice behind us said, “Excuse me,” and walked by in a cloud of aftershave. I recognized that smell: Ed. I froze.

“Where’s the main office?” the voice continued. Wei stood off to the side, giving him directions, and I snuck a peek. The breath I’d been holding rushed out of me all at once, my entire body shuddering. It was just a mousy little man, probably someone’s dad.

“I’ve gotta run,” I said. “I’ll be late for first period.” I forced a smile at Wei and hurried off.

Between periods I searched the crowd of kids, thinking I’d at least
see
Sal. I wasn’t sure why, because I knew that would only make me feel worse. I figured he’d turn away, like he had done outside. Even though I knew it was futile, I was hoping he’d have some reason to come by. Like maybe me.

Stop kidding yourself,
I thought. Now that he knew I had less information about my dad than he did, he had no reason to hang around me. He’d probably kissed dozens of girls ... just because it was my first wouldn’t matter to him. Besides ... I’d been the one who walked away. By homeroom, I’d settled into a state of anesthetized emotions. It was all I could handle.

“You okay?” Wei asked.

I shrugged.

“You want me to talk to Sal?”

“No. He probably—”

“Something you’d like to share with the class, ladies?” Mr. Haldewick’s pointer was aimed right at us. “Anything of importance?”

“No, sir,” I said.

That pretty much wrapped up my morning—nothing of any importance.

At lunch, Mike, Derek, and I snagged a window booth at Mickey’s. I couldn’t stop staring outside.

“What’s going on?” Derek asked.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “You’re not yourself, Neenie Beans. Gran and Pops okay?”

“They’re fine.” I rarely kept secrets from these guys, but I couldn’t talk to them about Sal. I didn’t buy all the Media hype about girls, but the things we learned in Health and Soch about guys seemed pretty accurate. Mainly the part that they didn’t like to listen to girls’ drama. And I was feeling pretty dramatic about Sal. Instead, I elaborated on the other thing that was bothering me.

“It’s about Dee. We ran into Ed.” I proceeded to fill them in about seeing Ed the day before, and all the rest of it. “Wei’s dad thought the same thing as you, Der ... about him wanting a Cinderella girl.”

“That won’t happen while we’re around.” Derek puffed out his chest.

I thought back to elementary school and how Derek had always been there for me. I knew he would do anything to help.

“Neens, you should have told us all of this before.” Mike looked a little hurt. “I thought we were your best friends.”

“You are. I’m sorry—I just, well, since Ginnie died and we moved here ... Things have changed.”

“Since you met Sal, you mean,” Derek said. “It’s pretty obvious something’s going on between you two.”

I was almost surprised that there wasn’t a bit of jealousy in his voice. He was smitten with Wei. That, at least, was good.

“Nothing is obvious,” I said. “He’s not interested in me.”

“Really?” Mike said. “That’s not how it’s been looking.”

Mickey’s buzzer, indicating that the school’s bell had rung, saved me from any more discussion. We were swept out the door along with everyone else, the flow of bodies surging back to Daley. Once inside, I caught a glimpse of Sal.

He didn’t see me. I watched him walk down the hall while other students jostled me from side to side. I’m not exactly sure how I got to my next class, Language & Lit, but I did. I scrolled my test page up and down, up and down. The questions didn’t make sense. I couldn’t focus on anything, other than how miserable I felt. I turned in the quiz without having answered one question.

Miss Gray asked me to wait afterward. “Are you all right today, Nina?”

“Yeah.” As much as I liked her, I wasn’t about to unload my problems on a teacher. Sal or otherwise.

“You’re Alan Oberon’s daughter, aren’t you?”

I nodded. Since we’d moved back to Chicago, it seemed as if everyone knew who my parents were.

She took a pad of passes from her desk drawer, filled one out, and handed it to me. Then she took out her PAV and beamed something to mine. “That’s my PAV number. If you ever need anything, let me know.”

“Thanks.” I took the pass and headed out the door. Around the corner, I spied Sal with some girl I’d never seen before. You couldn’t have squeezed a sigh between them.

She was dressed a lot like Sandy, typical sex-teen, showing plenty of skin, except she didn’t look cheap. Her clothes weren’t Sale—they were definitely top tier, ultrachic. Her chest was pressed up against Sal, her arm wrapped around his neck. I couldn’t tell if she was nibbling on his ear or whispering something. Her free hand was busy stuffing something into his shirt pocket.

He noticed me first and halfheartedly (or so it seemed to me) shook free. She inclined her head slightly, taking in my Megaworld jeans and T-shirt. Since the floor wasn’t going to open up and swallow me, I fled into the nearest girls’ bathroom, straight into one of the stalls. Sitting on the john, I pulled my feet up and hugged my knees. I squeezed my eyes shut so I didn’t have to look at my last year’s discount jeans or my value tennies. What a fool I’d been to think that Sal would want to be with me when there was someone like that girl around. She had the right clothes, the right look, and the right sex-teen attitude. I’d even been idiot enough to tell him I was afraid of having a boyfriend. It didn’t matter if I believed
XVI Ways
propaganda or not. I wasn’t going to have a boyfriend if I persisted in being anti-sex-teen. But I told myself, I didn’t want a
boyfriend
, I wanted
Sal
. Even if he was only interested in my father. But I wasn’t going to get him. Not now. Not ever.

I spent the next period in the bathroom, breathing in the smell of disinfectant and urine and feeling like it was all that I deserved.

After my pathetic bathroom stay, I managed to sneak around Hal, the robotic hall monitor, and get into my next class. The teacher didn’t notice the time difference on the pass—but Hal would’ve. After school I made sure Sal was nowhere in sight before I went outside to join Wei, Derek, and Mike.

“They know about Ed,” I told Wei.

“So, we’re all in this together.” She smiled at the guys.

“Yep.” Derek literally beamed at her.

A sigh of despair escaped me. I didn’t want Derek, but I wouldn’t mind being Wei for a while. I bet nothing even close to the hurt and humiliation I’d just endured would ever happen to her. I couldn’t picture Wei running away from anyone or anything, let alone cowering in a restroom.

Turning my focus to the job of keeping Dee safe, I stuffed my Sal feelings deep inside, alongside the Ginnie tears that I refused to cry. Keeping all those emotions inside wasn’t easy, and the more I tamped them down, the harder it got.

We picked up Dee outside Dickens, and she, Wei, and I split off from the guys.

“You’re sure you don’t want us to come with you right now?” Mike rubbed his stomach. “It’s growling.”

“Come on.” Derek grabbed his arm. “They said they had ‘girl’ stuff to talk about. “We’ll see you later.” They took off in the direction of the Alley.

“Get me a piece of chocolate cake,” Mike hollered over his shoulder. “Don’t forget the sprinkles!”

At Rosie’s, we chose a table near the back of the room and placed our order. When the waitress left, I turned to my sister. “Deeds, we’ve gotta tell you something.”

“You’re not gonna talk to me about boys, are you? I know all about them from my friends.”

I remembered my fifth-grade conversations about boys. How dumb had we been? “No, Dee. It’s not about that at all. It’s about that day I yelled across the street at you ... I saw Ed.”

“My dad? He didn’t tell me he was coming to see me.” No one could’ve missed the excitement and longing in her voice. She wanted a father as much as I did. So much that she’d even settle for a low-life bag of space trash like Ed.

“I think he wants to take you back to live with him.”

“I couldn’t do that.” She turned to Wei. “He might be my dad, but he doesn’t need me the way Pops does.”

I didn’t want to tell her what kind of person Ed really was. She’d gotten a little suspicious about the way he treated Ginnie, but I was sure she didn’t have any idea just how awful he’d been to our mother. “If Ed comes around your school or tries to have you go somewhere with him, don’t,” I said.

“Why not? I want to at least see him. I’ll tell him I can’t live with him. He’ll understand.”

A tall, lean woman emerged from the kitchen and came to our table.

Wei placed her right hand on her chest and bowed her head slightly. “Rosie, these are my friends Nina and Dee.”

I said hello and Dee smiled.

“Rosie is my Cliste Galad master,” Wei said.

“What’s that?” Dee asked.

“It’s a kind of martial art,” Wei said. “Around the time of the Energy Wars, a group of Scottish women combined several types of fighting and came up with it.”

“What’s it mean? Cliste Galad?” Dee fumbled over the pronunciation.

“It means ‘agile brave girl,’” Rosie said. “Nowadays the Media tries to scare women away from learning it. There’s even talk of making it illegal. The GC doesn’t want girls to know how strong and courageous they can be. But that doesn’t apply to the three galads I see sitting here.” She winked at Dee.

The waitress came through the kitchen doors with our order.

“For my special customers,” Rosie said, placing the drinks in front of us.

“Wow!” Dee’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “This won’t make me fat, will it?”

“Since when do you care about that? And where did you get that idea in the first place?” I stared at my little sister.

“Maddie and I were watching a
XVI Ways
vid,” she said. “The earlier girls start paying attention to how they look, the better they’ll look.”

Wei smiled at her. “I wouldn’t believe everything that comes from
XVI Ways,
” she said. “I happen to know for a fact that a chocolate shake with whipped cream and a cherry on top will cure anyone’s problems. See?” She took a big pull on her straw. “Oooh! Ice-cream headache.” She rubbed her forehead.

Dee laughed and took a drink.