The Bermudez Triangle (27 page)

“Can I just say something?” he asked.

Sure.

He reached out and took her hand, the one that was sore from all the ring twisting. He gently pushed her two rings back down into position and rubbed her knuckles between his fingers. This gesture surprised Nina, and it was so calming that she didn’t even try to stop him.

“Could I kiss you?” he asked.

“Parker …”

“We have a lot in common. You breathe air. I breathe air. You’re the gorgeous and super-talented head of student counsel. I look like I’m twelve and I’m part of a secret society that changes the letters in signs. Or
a
sign. You’re going to Stanford. I might get into SUNY Purchase. I think it could work.”

“Park …”

“Think of this as one of those free samples you get in the mail. You try it. You don’t like it, you just throw it away.”

“Stop!”

It was too much. Nina felt herself shaking. It wasn’t just the cold, but the cold was amplifying it. She pressed her cheek hard against the cold window and stared down at the Roach’s ancient, grimy dashboard. Parker’s car had that pungent, closed-up smell that Avery’s car had.

“Sorry,” she said quietly.

When Parker didn’t reply, she knew she had to say something. She
owed him some kind of explanation.

“I had a boyfriend who is this amazing guy,” she said, balling her hands up tightly. “He really cares about stuff—he’s a serious guy. I trusted him, completely. I wanted to do everything with him. I would have changed where I was going to school for him. Then he just dumped me. Nothing happened. We didn’t fight.
I don’t get it.
“

Nina was surprised to hear herself almost shouting these last words, but she went on anyway.

“Everything bad that happened this year has been because of dating. Mel and Avery. Me and Steve.”

“I get that,” he said quietly. “I’ve never dated anyone for more than a week or two. And then I’d see whoever it was in the hall. And if she kept walking, or if I kept walking, I knew it was over. Or we’d just IM or something. We’d be like, ‘Um, hey. I don’t want to see you anymore.’ ‘Cool.’ Not the same thing. I shouldn’t even compare.”

“It’s not like Steve did more than that,” Nina said bitterly. “I finally told him he had to call me. So he did. And that’s when he did it. Over the phone. It was so bad….”

Bad hardly described it. She remembered standing in front of her desk, hearing for the first time about the girl with the similar hair—the hair that wasn’t so similar anymore. Hearing Steve, who she thought would do anything to be with her, getting rid of her. The void that seemed to open up in the floor by her desk. The fact that her future seemed like nothing at that second. That the path she’d been following her whole life was just rubbed out. The fear …

She didn’t describe any of that, but she felt in the silence like Parker
could see those thoughts, like she was somehow projecting them onto the windshield. She heard him take a few deep breaths, as if preparing to say something, then he would just stop. He was out of jokes for the moment. He put his arm out instead and pried Nina from the window and steered her into his shoulder. She rested there for a moment. It felt right. Parker had come to mean a lot to her. She didn’t have Avery, and she didn’t quite have Mel. But Parker had proven himself over and over again. And now there was the sign, right in front of them— NINA ROX. For once this whole year, it was nice to have someone
there.
Someone who actually paid attention to her.

“Valentine’s Day sucks,” she mumbled into his coat.

“More than a little.”

Nina pulled herself back up and rubbed her face vigorously with both hands. Parker shivered a bit too. They were both shaking it off.

“You don’t look twelve,” she said.

He shrugged. He seemed to know that she was trying to thank him.

“You want to go?” he said. He was talking quickly now. “Come on. You have to be cold. We should go eat some fat, like a greasy cheeseburger. Something hot and fatty. I want to open a place called Hot and Fatty. I have all these good ideas for restaurants. I want to open one for bulimics called The Fork and Bucket.”

He turned the key in the ignition, but Nina reached over and grabbed a handful of his coat sleeve.

“Wait.”

The Roach coughed once and then gave up the effort of trying to start.

“She listens,” he said quietly. “She likes you.”

In the distance, they could hear a car with a high-end sub-woofer making its bassy, window-rattling way along the road on the other side of the school.

“I don’t want a boyfriend,” she said. “I don’t want anything I can … lose. Know what I mean?”

Nina was only somewhat clear on the point herself, but a look of understanding spread over Parker’s face. Suddenly, everything about Parker was appealing. His smooth chin that came down to a firm, definite point, those bright eyes that had fixed their narrow focus squarely on her.

“I’m not your boyfriend,” he said. “In fact, who are you? How did you get in my car?”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” she said, really smiling for the first time in weeks.

This was all right. This was good. This wasn’t permanent. This was something she could do right now, and it would all be okay. This was Parker helping her forget Steve.

She unhooked her seat belt and practically fell on him, pressing her lips into his, slipping her hands into the warm space between his coat and his chest. She was laughing—she was making up for a lot of lost time. And Parker grasped her tight, happy to participate in the effort.

Despite the disaster
on the last attempt, Operation Drag Mel Out of the House was still in full swing. Through the intercouncil network, Nina got an e-mail about a gay and lesbian Post-Valentine’s Discount Dance, which was being held at a school in Half Moon, about twenty minutes away. She hadn’t so much as asked Mel as kidnapped her, going so far as to get Parker to switch shifts without her permission to make sure she was free.

So now, a week after the encounter with Avery, Mel found herself in Nina’s SUV, parked outside a strange school. Nina was busily fixing her lip gloss in the driver’s side mirror.

“Okay,” Nina said, putting the gloss back into a neatly packed makeup bag. “If we go in together, people will think we’re a couple. Which is no good. So, how do we play this?”

“We go home.”

“The e-mail said that tons of people showed up for the last one.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What’s the matter?” Nina asked.

“I just don’t like crowds … of strangers.”

“Ugh … let’s go.”

At first when they got their tickets and stood inside the gym, it didn’t really look different from any other dance Mel had ever been to. The usual smattering of people on the floor, bunched up near the speakers, dancing. The spectators’ gallery on the edges. The small groups of people who stood around talking, who might as well have been at Starbucks or sitting on the benches in front of the flagpole on Broadway, since they were seemingly unaware that there was any dancing going on around them. Mel got the distinct impression that everyone here knew everyone else. New people probably stuck out.

“Come on,” Nina said, easing Mel into the darkness of the gym. She was putting on a good show, but Mel could tell from the way she was using her big smile and broad, stewardesslike gestures that she was nervous.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Nina said.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No. Stay here.”

“Neen …”

“I’ll be right back.”

Mel was left next to the refreshment table. She took a mint Milano cookie and nervously nibbled away at it with her front teeth. She looked around again, this time concentrating on the girls. At least here it was okay for her to do that.

Short hair was predominant, and it came in every style—spiked, slicked, buzzed, swept back. There were a few girls with mid-length hair, some with wild curls. There were two firecracker redheads, one
girl with short electric blue hair, another whose short black dreadlocks had a green tint.

There was one girl who was just as petite as Mel, but she had just the lightest covering of peach fuzz on her head. She wore a black mesh top and enormous black pants that hung low around her hips and dragged along the ground, covering her feet and collecting dust. The girl was walking around the perimeter of the room, hands deep in her pockets, with a graceful, even gait, which looked kind of odd because Mel couldn’t see her feet or legs moving much under the huge pants. She floated, in a way, with her chin tucked down and her eyes straight ahead. She occasionally nodded to people along the side of the room.

As she came around in her direction, Mel could see the glint of crossed pieces of what looked like duct tape on her pant legs and the sparkle of an earful of small silver rings. She turned her head just slightly and caught Mel looking at her. She had the quick, appraising glance of someone who was used to being stared at a lot and had long stopped caring about the fact. It wasn’t an unfriendly look—it seemed completely indifferent. Still, Mel felt a rush of embarrassment and put her head down, focusing on the refreshment table.

She noticed that as she had been standing there, she had eaten at least half of the mint Milanos. This only increased her anxiety.

Mel raised her eyes just enough to see the girl continue all the way to the far end of the room. She sat up on the edge of the stage next to the DJ, a girl in a fuzzy, canary yellow sweater. Mel was
so busy watching her that it took her a while to notice that a girl with short blond hair was approaching the table. She wore a Wonder Woman T-shirt, a fairly nondescript pair of loose khakis, and those Danish clogs that chefs and doctors wear. Her stride was so determined that for a moment Mel was sure she was coming over to yell at her for eating all of the cookies. Instead she reached into a bowl of SweeTarts and took out two packs.

“Hey,” the girl said.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing over here?”

“Nothing,” Mel said, feeling the heavy weight of at least half a bag of Pepperidge Farm’s best in her stomach.

“I’m Kathy.”

“I’m Mel.”

“Was that your girlfriend with you?” Kathy asked, ripping open a pack and tossing a SweeTart into her mouth.

Okay, so Mel had been watched.

“No,” Mel said. “She’s my friend. She kind of dragged me here.”

The girl appeared to glean a wealth of information from this simple statement. She nodded knowingly.

“Where do you go to school?” she asked.

“Alexander Hamilton.”

“What year are you?”

“Senior”.

I’m a junior.

“At Hamilton?”

“No,” Kathy said. “Here.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

“You want to dance or something?”

Actually, Mel wanted to stay right where she was, with the cookies, in safety. But instead she accepted the invitation and walked onto the dance floor.

Nina, who had been hiding in the bathroom, trying to think up every conceivable thing she could do with her hair and the limited amount of makeup she had in her purse, finally emerged. Mel was not where she had left her. She took a quick look around and spotted her dancing with another girl.

She sat down to wait on the bleachers and took her phone out. She went through old messages, played a memory game, checked her settings. When she looked up, Mel was still with the blond girl. The girl was talking, and Mel was slowly backing up toward the edge of the floor. Nina was about to go over and join them when a very young guy neatly dressed in a shirt, tie, and jacket sat down in front of her. Nina was struck by this adorable freshman boy who had gotten so dressed up for a dance. But when he turned around, Nina realized that she was looking at a girl, probably her age.

“Hi,” the girl said.

“Hi,” Nina said. She felt like she should round out her statement somehow, so she added, “I like your tie.”

She did like the tie, actually. It was a dusty rose, cut through with
diagonal stripes of blue. It was nice to know that in other schools people other than Devon Wakeman were free to wear ties.

“Are you here with … somebody?” the girl asked.

“My friend,” Nina said. “We just came together. As friends.”

At that exact moment the music made the critical shift from dance to slow. They both turned and looked around, as if the music could be seen.

“Want to dance?”

“Dance?” Nina repeated.

The girl looked down at her tie. Nina tightened her grip on her phone, hoping to squeeze a ring out of it. Across the room Mel seemed to be doing well for herself. Nina watched her heading back out to the dance floor with the tall blond girl.

“Oh,” Nina said. “
Dance
.”

She said it as if she hadn’t understood the word at first. It would seem a little weird if she sat in the corner playing with her phone all night. Besides, if she refused, would that seem rude? Homophobic?

It was just a
dance
, anyway.

“Um … sure,” Nina said, tucking her phone into her pocket.

The Girl rose, and Nina followed.

The girl was about three inches shorter than Nina. She held herself stiffly, obviously trying to respect personal boundaries. She was also a rocker, shifting from foot to foot mechanically, like a slow-moving windup toy.

“What’s your name?” the girl asked in a quiet voice.

Nina wondered for a moment if she should just make something up. There
weren’t many Ninas in the greater Saratoga area, so if this girl told anyone that she danced with a tall girl with coffee-colored skin and a disco ‘fro named Nina, chances were that someone was going to know exactly who she was.

But then again, she wasn’t going to lie.

“Nina.”

“I’m Alex.”

That was the extent of their conversation. It was amazing to Nina how long one song could last while she danced with someone in total silence. Nina gently tried to steer Alex a little closer to Mel and her blond girl. Mel leaned over the girl’s shoulder and gave Nina a look of total amazement.

When the dance was over, Mel quickly came over and joined Nina, and Alex stepped away shyly and headed for the refreshment table.