At the Edge (2 page)

I took another look at Morgan and Billy and turned to walk away. Morgan chose that exact moment to come up for air.

“Hey, Robyn,” she called to me. She still had one arm around Billy's waist and looked ridiculously happy. “How was your weekend? You and Nick do anything special?”

“Not really,” I said. “What about you guys? Did you have a good time?” Morgan and Billy had gone up to Morgan's summerhouse with her parents for the Labor Day weekend. They had invited me along, but I had stayed in town in hopes that I could get together with Nick. It hadn't worked out that way. Nick had pulled double shifts at La Folie and worked every night at the mall.

Morgan giggled. “We had a great time, didn't we, Billy?” she said.

Billy nodded. His grin was almost as wide as hers.

“But you saw Nick, right?” Morgan said.

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?” Morgan's grin faded. “You either saw him or you didn't, Robyn.”

“I didn't.”

“You mean you spent the last weekend of the summer alone?” She looked shocked. “You should have come with us.”

I was glad I hadn't. The only thing more depressing than not seeing Nick would have been not seeing Nick and spending the weekend watching Morgan and Billy snuggle.

The bell rang, and we went our separate ways. I didn't catch up with Morgan again until an hour later, after we had been to our homerooms and picked up our class schedules. Morgan was still beaming even though Billy was nowhere to be seen.

“Guess what?” she said. She didn't give me a chance to answer. “Billy is in four of my classes this year. And his locker is right next to mine.” She was ecstatic. “What about you? Let me see your schedule.” I showed it to her and watched her face collapse. “Apart from social studies, you're not in any of my classes,” she said. At least she still cared enough about me to be disappointed. “Where's your locker?”

“First floor, east wing. Yours?”

“Second floor, west wing,” she said miserably.

“There's always lunch,” I said.

We headed for the main doors. Morgan came to a sudden stop outside the school office.

“Who's that?” She pointed to a boy standing at the counter inside, talking to the vice principal. He was tall and sturdy-looking, with dark hair. “He must be new. For sure I would remember if I'd seen him before.”

“He's in my homeroom,” I said. Morgan's gaze shifted from the boy in the office to me.

“And?” Her eyes sparkled with interest. Morgan and Billy had been together for nearly a year, but that hadn't stopped Morgan from checking out every cute guy who stumbled into range.

“And what?”

“What do you mean, ‘and what?' Look at him.” She peered hungrily into the glass-fronted office. I grabbed her arm and started to drag her away before anyone noticed her blatant ogling.

“You're with Billy, remember?” I said.

She got that familiar faraway look in her eyes. “Billy is so sweet,” she said with a sigh. But she cast another longing look over her shoulder as I pulled her down the hall.

“His name is James Derrick,” I said. “He's a transfer student. That's all I know.”

“And he's in your homeroom,” Morgan said.

Like I cared.

  .    .    .

Morgan was all aflutter as we walked together to the east wing of the school's main floor the next morning.

“Look whose locker is right across from yours,” she said. “Oh my god, Robyn, he's totally adorable. You know, if things aren't working out with you and Nick—”

“I never said they weren't working out. I said things would be a lot easier if Nick wasn't working two jobs.”

“No kidding,” Morgan said. “Two jobs plus school doesn't leave much time for a girlfriend.”

I shot her a sour look.

“You know what they say about a bird in the hand, Robyn.” She beamed at James Derrick. He smiled shyly at her before closing his locker and heading down the hall.

“I wonder how he got that limp,” she said.

I had wondered the same thing when he'd walked into homeroom the day before. It was slight but noticeable.

“Not that it matters,” Morgan continued. “Not with a face like that. If I were you—”

“You're not me, Morgan,” I said, my tone making it clear, I hoped, that the subject was closed.

  .    .    .

I found Morgan and Billy in the cafeteria at lunch, and for once they weren't stuck to each other. I slipped into one of the two empty chairs opposite them.

“Guess what?” Morgan said. But something caught her eye before she could tell me. She jumped to her feet and waved. “James,” she called. “Over here.”

I glowered at her. “Morgan, I told you I wasn't inter—”

“Relax, Robyn,” Morgan said. “James is in our French class. He doesn't know anyone yet. We invited him to have lunch with us.”

“We?” I glanced at Billy.

“Morgan's idea,” he said defensively. He could always tell when I was suspicious of Morgan's motives. Morgan glared at him. “But he seems nice,” Billy added quickly. “He volunteered at an animal shelter before he moved here, and the first thing he did when he got to town was sign up to volunteer at the Humane Society.”

That would pretty much make him perfect in Billy's eyes. Billy was a devoted animal rights activist.

Morgan watched James's every step as he navigated his way through the crowded cafeteria. He greeted Morgan and Billy and then looked shyly at me.

“This is our friend Robyn Hunter,” Morgan said.

“I know,” James said. He had obviously been paying attention in homeroom. “Are you the Robyn Hunter who's at the top of the honor roll?”

Morgan tried to hide her irritation.

“Yes, she is,” she said. Morgan usually topped the honor roll, but every now and then I edged her out. When I did, she always congratulated me. But Morgan is competitive, and I knew that she secretly wished her name had come first again last year. “I'm surprised you noticed something like that,” she added.

“I didn't,” James said. “But my dad did. The honor roll was the first thing he looked at when we came to register me for school.”

I peeled the lid off a yogurt container and kept my head down while I ate. Billy quizzed James about what he was doing at the animal shelter and filled him in on DARC, a bird-rescue organization that Billy had founded. While they talked, Morgan leaned across the table and whispered in my ear: “He'd be perfect for you. He'd be perfect for us. We'd make an amazing foursome ...”

I shook my head impatiently and felt glad when lunch was over.

“Y

ou should come,” Morgan said when she phoned me the next night.

“I don't know.” I was lying on the bed in the room my dad had set aside for me, my phone pressed to my ear.

“Come on, it'll be fun, Robyn.”

“It'll be depressing.”

The “it” in question was a screening of a new documentary about climate change that was being held at our school on Friday night. Billy had helped to organize it. Normally I wouldn't have hesitated to say yes, even if the topic was a total downer. But despite knowing Morgan and Billy practically forever, lately when I was with them, I felt like a third wheel.

“Why don't you ask James to come?” Morgan said.

That again. She kept mentioning James.

“Because I'm going out with Nick,” I said as patiently as I could manage.

“Are you going out with him on Friday night?”

I had been hoping to. Nick hadn't been scheduled to work at the mall on Friday. But then he'd accepted an extra shift at La Folie. “I need the money, Robyn,” he'd said.

“He has to work,” I told Morgan.

“All the more reason to ask James.”

“No.”

“Okay, okay. But at least come to the movie. Please?”

“I don't know, Morgan—”

“Come on, Robyn. Nick works practically every night. Are you going to give up on a social life just because he isn't around? Come to the movie. We'll do something afterward.”

  .    .    .

Morgan was waiting for me on the school steps on Friday evening, and we went into the auditorium together. A lot of people had turned out for the movie. But I noticed that more than half the audience was made up of adults. When I mentioned it to Morgan, she just shrugged.

“Billy doesn't care who sees the movie as long as people show up.”

I glanced up at the front of the auditorium, where Billy was talking to Mr. Henson, the biology teacher who had arranged for Billy to use the auditorium and helped to publicize the event. Billy scanned the room happily as people continued to trickle in.

Morgan and I had just found seats when, without warning, she rammed an elbow into my side.

“Hey!” I said.

“Look who's coming up the aisle,” Morgan whispered.

I turned, hoping against hope that it was Nick.

It was James. I looked suspiciously at Morgan.

“Did you invite him?” I asked.

“No. I swear.”

Her face was the picture of innocence. Either she was telling the truth or she had evolved into a champion liar. She stood up and called to him. “Hey, James, over here!”

James turned in our direction, but it took a moment for him to locate us. He smiled shyly when he spotted Morgan and started making his way toward us. Morgan moved over one seat so that he could sit between us.

“It's a surprise to see you here,” she said, mostly, I think, to prove she hadn't known he was coming.

“Well, I care about the environment,” he said. “And my dad's been on my case ever since we moved in. He says the only way I'm going to meet people and make friends is if I get out and make an effort.”

“It must be hard, moving to a new city and having to meet all new people,” Morgan said.

“It's not exactly new,” James said. “I grew up here—well, in the west end. We moved away a few years ago, and now we're back. But I lost touch with most of the kids I used to know, so ...”

The auditorium lights blinked on and off a few times, a sign that the movie was about to start. Billy stood up on the stage and reached for a microphone. He thanked everyone for coming, talked a little about the movie we were going to see, and said that there would be collection buckets at the doors afterwards so that anyone who was interested could make a donation to an organization that did climate-change work. Then the lights went down and the movie started.

When it was over, Morgan said, “We're going out for something to eat, James. Do you want to come along?”

I glared at her to let her know how I felt about this little surprise. She didn't flinch.

“How about it?” she said, smiling unwaveringly at James.

“Well, I—” He looked awkwardly at me.

“You want to get to know people better, right?” Morgan said. “So come on. Get to know us.”

“Okay,” James said. “I just have to make a quick phone call.” He stepped away from us so that he could have some privacy. While we waited, Morgan and I helped Billy collect donations. Billy was delighted when he found out that Morgan had invited James to come out with us. The two of them seemed to have plenty in common.

We walked a couple of blocks to a vegan restaurant that Billy adored and that made excellent soy shakes. Afterwards, James offered me a ride home.

“It's kind of out of the way,” I said. My dad lived farther from the school than my mother did.

“All the more reason for me to give you a lift,”
he said.

“That's really nice of James, isn't it, Robyn?” Morgan said, jabbing me with her elbow again. One more time and she was going to leave a bruise.

I scowled at her.

“If you'd rather not ...” James said. Great. I was making him feel bad, and he wasn't the person I was annoyed with.

“A ride would be nice, thanks,” I said. Morgan beamed at me. I gave her a warning look. But that didn't stop her from giving me a double thumbs-up when I turned to walk with James to his car. I was going to have to have another talk with her. Nick's name would feature prominently.

James's car had seen better days.

“It's not much to look at,” he said apologetically. “But it gets me where I need to go.”

He followed my directions to my dad's building.

“Sorry, what?” I said after we had been on the road for a few uncomfortable minutes. James had mostly been silent, but once, when I glanced at him, I'd seen his lips moving, and then I had heard him mutter something. Had he been talking to me?

James glanced at me, a startled look on his face.

“Did you just say something about bread?” I said.

His cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“Bread, milk, and, most important, the decaf?” he said. “Sorry. I just don't want to forget.”

“Forget what?”