Confectionately Yours #3: Sugar and Spice (8 page)

T
here is some sort of major logjam in the hallway that’s slowing everyone down. I look at my watch. If people don’t pick up the pace, I’ll be late to math. Great. Mr. Carter loves any excuse to give people detention.

As I near the drama room, I see the problem: There’s a crowd gathered around a piece of paper posted by the door. The dramaramas are blocking the traffic. I spot my old crush, Devon, peering at the list, but I don’t say hello or try to catch his eye. It actually makes me a little sick to look at him now. How could I ever have thought he was cute? Sure, he looks like a lip-balm model — but he’s kind of a jerk. Besides, his left ear is bigger than his right.

A whoop blasts off the lockers, and I see Omar giving Jamil a high five. Then I notice that Artie is standing beside them. She stands in front of the list, scanning it for a minute. Then she scans it again. Then she walks away.

Now I’m part of the logjam. I fight my way through the dramaramas to get a look at the paper. “What’s this?” I ask Jamil, who’s still hanging around, grinning.

“Improv callbacks,” he says.

I feel like he has just reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. I scan the list. Trina Bachman’s name is there. Omar. Jamil. Devon.

Artie’s name isn’t there.

I look down the hall. I can still see her flowered backpack. “Excuse me,” I say as I push through the crowd. “Artie!” I call. “Artemis!”

I know she can hear me, but she doesn’t turn back. But the crowd is thinning out, so I break into a jog. “Artie,” I say, and I touch her shoulder.

She freezes, and I get in front of her to block her way. Artie’s face is red, and a thin blue vein in her forehead is standing out. Her eyes are red, too, and I know she’s focusing all of her will on not crying.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

Artie sucks in some air. “No big deal,” she says brightly. “Lots of people didn’t make it.” She even manages to smile, but she’s looking over my shoulder.

She really is a good actress
, I realize. “It
is
a big deal,” I say.

Artie’s hazel eyes meet mine. “You don’t have to pretend to care,” she says. Then she steps around me, like I’m something in the way. A stone, maybe.

And I can’t really tell if I do care or not.

I
used to have a hamster named Fabio. He had long, golden fur and a twitchy little nose. He loved cantaloupe and going outside in the backyard. I loved the feel of his scratchy little feet as he tried to run up and down my arm.

Anyway, I had Fabio for three and a half years, and then, two weeks after Christmas, he died. I don’t know why. I didn’t feed him anything weird, or forget about him. He just died, I guess. I still feel sad when I think about it.

I cried for a long time after Dad buried Fabio in the backyard. Mom and Dad tried to cheer me up, but I could tell that they didn’t really think I should be so upset over a hamster.

I told Marco about Fabio, and he said, “That’s sad. Hamsters don’t live very long.” He was nice, but I could tell he didn’t really want to talk about Fabio.

When I told my friends Lily and Jane at school, Jane just shrugged and started talking about her fish. Lily said her parents wouldn’t let her have any pets, and that was the end of the conversation.

Chloe was the only person who seemed to feel the way I did. She bawled her head off. But that didn’t really make me feel better.

And then there was Artie. When I told her about Fabio, she looked … I don’t know … stricken. I think that’s the word. Like someone had just slapped her. She grabbed my hand and said, “Oh!” and then she have me a big hug. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m sad,” I said.

“Of course you are,” Artie told me, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like it was normal to be sad over a hamster.

“I’m
really
sad,” I confessed. My voice was almost a whisper. It was hard to get the words out.

“Fabio lived with you in your room for three years!” Artie cried. “He was there every day! You played with him, you fed him, you petted him. You spent more time with Fabio than with anyone else!”

And then I really did start to cry, and Artie hugged me. I cried really hard until I started to hiccup, and Artie rubbed my back until I calmed down.

I guess big deals are relative. What may be a big deal to one person isn’t a big deal to another. Or maybe some people are good at handling one kind of big deal, and bad at handling others. When my parents announced that they were splitting up, Artie didn’t want to talk about it. She wasn’t a very good friend then.

But when Fabio died, she hugged me while I cried. Then we went outside together, into the snowy yard. I showed Artie the place where we had buried him, and she sang “Amazing Grace,” and we talked about the time Fabio got lost in the hosta plants and Marco wanted to call 911 for help. (We wouldn’t let him, and we found Fabio about three minutes later.) I remembered the funny little squeaks he would make when he was happy, and Artie remembered the time that he was crawling on my shoulder and dug his way into my shirt.

We talked and laughed for a long time, and by the time Artie went home, I felt like the pieces of my heart had knit back together a little bit.

Artie was the only person who knew it was a really big deal when my hamster died.

And I know it’s a really big deal that she didn’t make the callback list for the improv group.

Here is a secret: Sometimes you don’t stop caring about someone just because they aren’t nice to you.

It would be easier if you could.

“I
just can’t figure out if we should open with juggling, or with David Lesser and his Corgi,” Meghan says as she stirs her yogurt.

“What does David’s Corgi do?” I ask. I’ve met Priscilla — she’s a great dog, but her legs are so short and stubby that I can’t imagine her jumping through a hoop, or anything.

“She does ballet, apparently,” Meghan says.

“Are you joking right now?”

“No.”

“No, really. Tell the truth.”

“I am.”

“Quit lying.”

“Swear,” Meghan says, holding up three fingers, scouts-honor style. “David says she dances on her hind legs.”

“Open with that,” I say, and nibble a plantain chip. I seriously love them. The salty kind, not the sweet ones.

Meghan nods, makes a note, then takes a bite of her yogurt. “This talent show is really coming together.”

“Have you asked Ms. Lang’s permission yet?”

“Not exactly.” Meghan blows her pink bangs out of her eyes.

I sigh. I should have known.

“If everything’s all set, it’ll be harder for her to say no,” Meghan reasons.

“If everything’s all set, it’ll be easier for her to go ballistic,” I shoot back.

Meghan chews on her pen cap. “Do you think it’s possible to do it without her finding out?”

“No. And if you try, Meghan Markerson, I swear, you can forget about my help.”

“Okay, okay.” She rolls her eyes and makes another note. “Too bad Artie won’t help us. She could probably convince Ms. Lang to go for it.”

It’s as if the mention of Artie’s name causes her to appear. I see her cross the cafeteria and approach the dramarama table holding her tray. She hovers at the end for a moment, and I think that she and I realize at the same moment that there isn’t an open seat for her. Artie glances over at the other nearby chairs, as if she might drag one over, but nobody at the table even looks at her. I see her mouth move, forming, “Hey.”

Still nobody glances her way.

“Okay, I’m thinking that Adelaide Green’s jazz trio can open the second half,” Meghan is saying, but I’m barely listening. I can’t tear my eyes away from the train wreck happening at the dramarama table. Artie hesitates a moment, uncertain. Chang finally looks over at her. But that’s all she does. She eyeballs Artie from head to foot, then turns back to Trina Bachman. Sharp little needles stick into my heart as Artie turns and walks toward the double doors.

“Where are you going?” Meghan calls, and that’s when I realize that I’m chasing Artie. I don’t even remember deciding to go after her. I’m just doing it.

“Artie?” I ask softly once I’m two steps behind her.

She wheels, her eyes flashing. “How many times do I have to ask you to call me Artemis?” she snaps.

“Um — one more?”

She huffs out a sigh, and her nostrils flare. “What do you want, Hayley?” she asks. She sounds tired.

“I just wondered if you wanted to eat lunch with me and Meghan,” I say.

Artie blushes, and I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have let her know that I saw her get dissed by the dramaramas. “Sit with the two of you?” she hisses. Her eyes fill, and a tear catches on her long eyelashes. “Are you serious? This whole thing is your fault!”

I almost walk away. Almost. But, for some reason, my feet stay bolted to the floor. The usual noise of the cafeteria surrounds us — the clank and chatter of lunch. It reminds me of the café, and I find myself thinking of Gran and Uzma.

Sometimes the people who most want to share are the ones who aren’t very good at it
, Gran had said.

“Yeah, I get that,” I say to Artie. “But — maybe you want to sit with us, anyway.”

Artie stares at me for a moment. She sneaks a sideways glance toward the drama table and presses her lips together, so that they form a slim seam. She doesn’t need to speak.

I turn and walk back to my table. Artie is right behind me.

“Oh.” Meghan’s eyebrows are raised in surprise as Artie places her tray on our table. “Hi.”

Artie doesn’t reply. She looks down at her food. Her face is hidden by a curtain of auburn hair, but I see a teardrop spill into her salad.

Meghan pulls a crumpled tissue out of her bag.

Artie looks at it, then takes it. “Thank you,” she whispers.

I pick up the cupcake from my tray and place it on Artie’s.

My Ex-Best blows her nose and then takes a bite of the cupcake. “This is really good,” she says after a moment. Her voice is quiet and she doesn’t look up when she says it. That’s okay.

She doesn’t have to say anything else.

I know she means more than the cupcake.

∗ ∗ ∗

The final bell rang ten minutes ago, and I’m walking down the hall toward the costume shop when I hear piano notes floating from one of the practice rooms. They’re
so beautiful, I feel like I can catch them in midair, like butterflies.

I’m pretty sure I know who’s playing, but I peek as I walk by, anyway. I pause in the doorway.

It’s Kyle.

His fingers are long and slim, and almost as pale as the ivory keys they dance across. I tuck my hair behind my ear and hitch my book bag higher onto my shoulder, wishing I knew what to say to him. I want to apologize. I also want him to understand that he shouldn’t be embarrassed — it’s not his fault that Jamil and Omar are jerks.

But I also kind of want to just walk away.

“I hope you’re enjoying this, whoever you are,” Kyle announces. He doesn’t turn his head toward the door frame, and I wonder how he knows I’m here. Maybe I’m blocking some of the light.

This is my last chance to escape unnoticed. I don’t take it.

“It’s Hayley,” I tell him.

His fingers pause for just a moment, then he plays on. “Hi,” he says. The keys at the top of the keyboard tinkle.

“What are you playing?” I ask, mostly because I can’t think of anything else to say.

Kyle shrugs. “Just something I made up. Well, I’m still working on it.” He plays a few more notes, then pushes himself away from the keys.

“You’re making it up?”

“I was thinking of playing it at the talent show.”

“You know that might not be a real thing, right? I mean, Meghan hasn’t told anyone in the administration that it’s happening. She hasn’t even reserved the auditorium.”

Kyle’s smile is lopsided. “She’ll work it out.”

“You’re probably right.”

“She has freaky powers,” Kyle says. “People do what she asks.”

I laugh a little, but it comes out like a snort. “Tell me about it.”

Kyle scoots over on the piano bench, and I come and sit down beside him. His fingers stray over the keys a little as he plays a simple melody from the song he was creating a moment before.

“That’s really beautiful,” I tell him.

“Thanks,” Kyle says. His fingers drop from the keys.

Neither one of us speaks.

His arm shifts, and it presses against mine for a moment. I don’t move mine away, and he doesn’t move his, either.

My whole head starts to tingle. I can hear myself breathe.

Kyle turns toward me. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“Why?” The word is a whisper. I don’t mean it to be, but I can’t quite catch my breath.

“I didn’t mean to be so — I don’t know. That whole Jamil and Omar thing … That wasn’t your fault. I didn’t mean to get mad at you.”

“I know,” I say, even though I didn’t know, not until he said so.

“Those guys aren’t so bad….”

“They’ve just gone crazy lately,” I agree.

“Yeah.” Kyle sighs, and I feel his breath against my arm. His eyes are the gray of a deep ocean beneath a stormy sky. “I wish —” he says, then breaks off.

“What?”

He smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “I just wish I could see your face right now, Hayley,” Kyle says.

His arm is still warm against mine. I forget to breathe.

“Hayley Hicks, what are you doing in here?” Ms. Lang screeches from the doorway.

I jump from the bench, like electricity has just shot through me. “Oh!”

“You’re supposed to be in detention! You’re late! You’ll stay an extra twenty minutes!” She’s like a car alarm.

“Okay, okay,” I tell her. “Fine.” And just like that, I scramble out of the practice room. Ms. Lang is right on my heels.

I don’t say good-bye to Kyle. I don’t even look back.

I feel as if my hair was on fire and Ms. Lang just doused me with a bucket of water.

But I’m not sure that I’m grateful.