Cracked Up to Be (12 page)

I don’t even want to dignify that with a response, but I do give him a look he shrivels under. I breathe in. At least I can breathe in now.

“My—” I head back to the cot and sit down. I can’t bring myself to look at him. “My skirt didn’t—it didn’t, like, go
up,
did it?”

It takes him a minute to register that.

“You didn’t flash anyone.”

“But you do look like shit,” a familiar voice says. Chris.

I flop back on the cot.

“Where’s Becky?”

I make sure to say it in a supersnotty voice, hoping it’ll make him leave faster.

“Cheerleading practice.” I can’t believe he hasn’t given up on her yet. He studies me and frowns. “I had this funny thought while I was coming down here and now I have to know: is this about Evan?”

Jake looks from Chris to me. “Who’s Evan?”

“He’s—” Chris stops abruptly, backs halfway out of the room and glances down the hall. “Henley’s coming.”

I groan. “Someone
please
put me out of my misery.”

The sound of Henley’s high heels clacking along the floor momentarily precedes her, and when she enters the room she’s got this look that says it all: she is tired of seeing my face. The feeling is so mutual.

“I heard what happened in Mr. Norton’s class,” she says. “Drinking in class again?”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t be lying to me now, would you, Parker?”

I cover my face with my hands. No one says anything. I hate that Jake and Chris are hearing this because it’s none of their business and Henley should know better. I bite back the urge to tell her to do her job
right.

“She wasn’t, Mrs. H.,” Chris says. “I mean, not that I could tell.”

“Gardner?”

“It was—” He stops. I uncover my eyes while Jake gets all sincere on Henley. “It was an anxiety attack. I didn’t see her drinking.”

I know he thinks he’s doing me a favor, so I try not to death-glare him.

“An anxiety attack?” Henley repeats. I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or not. “Well . . . that’s something you can talk about with Ms. Grey on Friday, Parker.” Thank you, Jake. Thank you so much. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the teachers’ lounge.”

I snort. I bet they keep the good booze there.

Henley reads my mind and glares at me, but she goes.

“So it was Evan,” Chris says thoughtfully. He laughs, kind of. “Jesus Christ, Parker. When do you think you’ll stop kidding yourself, huh?”

“Oh, fuck off, Chris.”

“Who’s Evan?” Jake asks again.

I lie down, turn my back to them and stare at the wall.

“Just this guy we know,” Chris “explains.” “Anyway, I’d better get to the gym. Becky’s waiting for me. Are you coming, man?”

“I told the nurse I’d stay here with her until he got back.”

“All right, well. See you guys later.”

“Chris, wait—” I sit up. “Since when do you have an alarm system? I saw the sign on your lawn.”

He blinks, surprised.

“Some jackasses broke my mom’s favorite bird fountain.”

“You got an alarm and surveillance system for that?”

He shrugs.

“Dad’s been looking for an excuse for ages.”

Exit Chris. Jake turns back to me.

“Who’s Evan?”

I stretch and yawn.

“Anyone ever tell you that you have a one-track mind?”

“Do you want some more water or anything?”

“No.”

“So who’s Evan?”

I gesture for him to come close. He hesitates.

“It’s okay,” I say. “Just come here.”

He crosses the room slowly, and when he’s close enough I reach out and grab his hand. He tenses. For someone who supposedly likes me, you’d think he’d be over the moon because I’m touching him, but no, he’s suspicious.

I turn his palm up and trace my index finger over what I think is his life line. It’s alarmingly short, if you believe that sort of stuff, and I don’t. His breath catches in his throat. I hear it. I’m just fucking with him.

I let go of his hand and pat the spot beside me. He sits.

“I could like you, Jake.” I can’t believe I’m saying it. “But the more you know about me, the less interesting you become.”

I’m not so steady on my feet. It’s fifty minutes into the party and too much of the vodka is gone, and if I walk without leaning against the wall I’m afraid I’ll do something dumb like fall over in front of everyone. Apparently my overwhelming fear of looking sloppy and stupid in front of the entire school is not as drunk as the rest of me. Next time Chris tells me to loosen the fuck up, I’m going to tell him to fuck the fuck off.

And I haven’t seen Chris since he got the music going. I make a mental note to talk to him about that—it’s too loud. The beat makes the house rock back and forth, or that could be the vodka, I don’t know. I inch my way down the hall. I’m going to hide out in his parents’ room and die on their bed. Someone can resurrect me in the morning.

“There you are!” Chris yells. Great. I turn really slowly and after a second the rest of the room turns with me. “I’ve been looking for you.”

I give him a closed-mouth smile because I’m afraid to talk. “Hmm?” “Let’s go outside; the music sounds awesome out there,” he says. “We can start off the poolside dancing.”

“Uh . . .” My mouth is total sandpaper, thick. “Well—”

“Uh, well,” Chris says, imitating me. “Don’t think about it; let’s go!”

He pulls my hand. I reach out for the stair banister to my left.

“Go without me.” I think I sound okay. “I’m going to stay . . . here.”

“What?”

“Go; just go,” I say slowly. Maybe he can’t understand me. I can understand me. “Without me. Poolside dance. Without me. Go.”

He stares at me for a good minute.

“Parker, are you hiding something from me?”

“Uh—well.” I swallow and let go of the banister, but the room lurches to the left and I have to grab it again. “No. . . .”

“Okay,” he says. Phew. Then he grins. “Parker, you’re drunk.”

“I’m—” so not in the position to deny it, so I give him an accusing glare. “You told me to loosen up.”

He laughs. For, like, five minutes he just stands there laughing at me.

“Not funny!”

“It is so!” he insists. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

I shake my head.

“It means it’s now my responsibility to make sure you have the most amazingly fun drunken time of your life or I’ll never hear the end of it.” He grabs my hand again and pulls me down the hall. “Come on! Poolside dancing!”

“No, Chris—” I dig my heels in. “Chris.”

He turns. “What?”

“I don’t want anyone to see me like this. Let me hide out in your parents’ room, please—”

“You are the most sober drunk person I know.” He says that like it’s a bad thing. “Relax. It’s a party. In another hour you’re not going to be the drunkest person here. Becky will be. No one’s going to think less of you.”

“But I’m cheerleading captain.”

“So what? Come on; the fresh air will make you feel better.”

He says it with such authority I let him drag me outside.

“Besides,” he adds, as we step through the door, “I won’t let you do anything really stupid. Look at it this way: it could be the best night of your life.”

I look up. The sun gets in my eyes.

Everything goes white.

eleven

“I think we should talk about what happened yesterday,” Grey says, squinting at
me over her Parker notebook. I wonder what she’s written about me so far and hope it’s something lost cause–y. “Tell me what got you so upset.”

I press my lips together.

“Did someone say something to you?”

I keep my mouth shut.

“Maybe I didn’t give you enough credit when you told me you felt overwhelmed. Maybe none of us did. I’m sorry, Parker.”

If she seriously believes
that’s
going to get me to talk, I’m kind of offended.

She sighs.

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

I glance at the clock and watch the minute hand snail forward. If I wasn’t so committed to this silence, I’d say something like,
I don’t trust you, remember?

“Uh, what are
you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Jake asks, settling into the seat beside me. The bus jerks forward. “I’m sitting beside you.”

“No, you’re not. Your seat is in the middle. Nice try, though.”

He has the audacity to ignore me, sets his book bag on his lap and rummages through it. After a minute, he pulls out a folded sheet of paper and hands it to me.

I unfold it. “A love letter? How sweet.”

“No.” He turns pink. “It’s just something I found on the Internet—”

“Porn? You shouldn’t have.”

“Just shut up for five seconds. It’s breathing techniques, to get a handle on your anxiety. I thought you might find them helpful.” I stare at him and he turns even pinker. “You know. So you don’t pass out in class again—”

“I got it, Jake. About five sentences ago.”

I know a thank-you would probably be more appropriate, but what happened yesterday continues to humiliate me, so never mind. I guess he can sit here just this once.

“Anyway, we’ve really got to start thinking about our art project,” he says. “A lot of people have already started painting. We should probably be doing that.”

“Got any ideas?” I ask. I don’t. I barely think about our project when we’re in class working on it, let alone out of class, on my own time.

“Not a sweet fucking clue.” And then he rushes headlong into what he says next: “Do you want to brainstorm together at that coffeehouse on Victoria Street today, after school? It looks really good. I’ve wanted to try it ever since we moved here—”

“Are you asking me out?”

He blinks. “Am I?”

I lean my head back and stare at the bus ceiling where a huge wad of pink gum has attached itself. Gross.

“Well, say you
are
asking me out. That means you’d have to get off at my stop and we’d go from there, right?”

“It seems that would be the most convenient way to go about it.”

I unfold the paper in my hands. HOW TO BREATHE. I fold it back up again.

“You’d have to meet my parents,” I say carefully. “I’ve sort of freaked them out lately and they don’t really like me going out when I can’t be supervised, and since they’ve never met you they’d probably say no
and
I’d probably have to be back before my curfew, which is seven thirty. . . .”

I look him directly in the eyes.

“I mean, you know how it is. You chase a bottle of sleeping pills with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and life’s never the same, no matter how many times you try to tell people it was an accident.”

“Is that a no?” he asks. “If you don’t want to, just say so. You don’t have to be such a smart-ass about everything.”

I want to laugh, but I don’t. There’s something unsatisfying about what just happened here. I set the paper down.

I could have a good time if I went out with Jake. But that doesn’t mean I should.

“
Are
you asking me out?”

“Yeah,” he finally says.

“Mom, Dad—this is
Jake Gardner.”

After they get over the initial shock that I still have a friend to bring home, my parents play twenty questions with Jake. They’re straight out of The Parent’s Handbook and they’re so standard it doesn’t even matter who’s asking them.

MOM/DAD: Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jake! Gardner, Gardner . . . that wouldn’t be any relation to the Gardners down on Marriott Avenue?

JAKE: Thanks, nice to meet you, too. It might be. See, my family just moved here from the West Coast not that long ago.

MOM/DAD: Oh, wow! How exciting! Welcome to Corby! So how do you know Parker? Do you two share a class together?

JAKE: We have art together. We’re partnered for a big project due at the end of the year.

MOM/DAD: Oooh. Aaah.

At this point I go upstairs and change out of my uniform. When I go back downstairs, wearing something more casual, Jake and my parents are winding it up.

MOM/DAD: And your parents—what do they do?

JAKE: Well, my dad’s in tech support down at that call center in Belton, my mom’s a zoologist and my stepmother does voice-overs for commercials. You’ve probably heard her. She did the one for those crazy mop-broom hybrids. The Bop?

MOM/DAD: My mother-in-law
loves
the Bop! Wow! That’s great, Jake! You’re welcome here anytime!

We decide not to go to the coffeehouse right away, opting to wait for the school day to settle first. And Bailey needs a walk, so we take him to this patch of park where people bring their dogs to interact with other people’s dogs and chase Frisbees and things.

“Here, Bailey.” Jake grabs a stick off the ground. Bailey hops around lightly as Jake swings it back and forth. “Fetch, boy!”

Jake throws the stick. Bailey goes lunging after it and lets out a startled yelp when he’s jerked back by the neck, and that’s when I realize his leash is wrapped tightly around my hand at a painfully short length.

“Shit!” I say. “Oh, Bailey—I’m sorry!”

He gives a pitiful whimper and I crouch down and gesture him forward. He tiptoes up to me with this big Sad Dog expression and it makes me feel guilty. I wrap my arms around his neck because I don’t know how to apologize to a dog, but this one always wants me to pet him, so a hug should be, like, huge.

“I’m sorry, Bailey. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“You’re obviously unfamiliar with the game of fetch,” Jake says behind me.

I ignore him and pat Bailey on the head until he looks less pained and more adoring and for a second I think I’m going to do something I haven’t done—and genuinely meant—in a long time.