Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls (10 page)

“You talk to
Marisol?
”

“Only when I know you’re not looking. She’s actually really nice.”

“This is too much,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

In a huff, I began to gather my things. But Charlie took my hand from across the table and held it tight.

“Don’t leave,” he said. “For one thing, there’s still dessert.”

I thought about it. The pastry chef at Medardo
had
won all these big awards. His desserts were supposedly the most delicious you could get in the world.

“Fine,” I finally said. “But you better take back what you said.”

“I’m not going to,” Charlie told me. “Anyway, if you had been paying any attention, you would have noticed that I just gave you like five killer compliments. You just get so caught up in your little wars that you can’t see straight sometimes.”

“Untrue!”

“True! So do everyone a favor. Just think about it.”

I leaned back in my seat, capitulating. It was a fact that I was trying to turn over a new leaf—be a little nicer and less prone to jumping to conclusions—I guess that was the goal. And I had already been wrong about Rachel a few times in the last week. Maybe she deserved one more chance. But if I ended up with another dead fish in my backpack, there was going to be hell to pay.

For dessert I got this chocolate-and-raspberry thing that looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Charlie ordered a soufflé that was served on fire. When it came to the table, the flames from his plate were shooting up over our heads, low Brazilian music was weaving through the air, and everything suddenly seemed very romantic again. Charlie was glowing orangey in the mellow light. I noticed the tiny scar on his chin and suddenly remembered how he’d gotten it, back when we were in third grade together.

It had been my fault. I’ve always been a daredevil and Charlie—well, in those days, at least, he was sort of a scaredy-cat, not to mention obsessed with following the rules to the precise letter. I was always showing off, doing the stuff that everyone else was too chicken to even think about, and every day I’d try to top myself, attempting a stunt even more outrageous and against the rules than the day before. On the day that Charlie got his scar, I’d finally worked up the nerve to tackle the one thing that even I’d been afraid of.

 

The jungle gym on the playground at the lower school of Orchard Academy isn’t actually that tall. But when you’re eight years old, things look more impressive than they really are. In third grade, let me tell you, that jungle gym appeared truly unconquerable, the tallest thing ever erected for climbing. It had been built back in the fifties, when kids were
expected
to do crazy stuff and no one worried about safety concerns, so the thing was metal and complicated and treacherous. Nowadays, if you tried to build something like that, you’d have some group of Concerned Mothers Against Fun on your back in a second, petitioning city hall to ban playgrounds altogether for the safety of dim toddlers.

No kid that I knew of had ever climbed to the very top of that jungle gym, which was shaped like a big cylinder of twisted iron. Mostly everyone just hung around under it, pretending it was a clubhouse or digging pits in the wood chips in the hopes of finding a worm to chase someone around with. Every now and then some boring girl would climb a couple of rungs up and hang upside down, but even that activity stopped when Rachel Buttersworth-Taylor pointed out that they were allowing the entire world to see their underpants.

I for one have rarely cared if anyone sees my underpants. It’s not like they’re dirty or anything, so big deal. That day on the playground, I decided that I was going to conquer the jungle gym no matter what. So I climbed and climbed and climbed while all the other kids just stood around staring. Every time I glanced down at Charlie, far below, he looked like he was about to have a heart attack, red-faced and bug-eyed, fists clenched tight.

Like I said, Charlie used to be a little neurotic.

When I got to the terrifying crossbar that ran across the tip-top of the jungle gym, I heard him call out after me.

“Come down, Lulu!” he yelled, in that panicky, whiny screech he had before his voice changed. But I didn’t pay attention. Instead I used my arms to hoist myself onto the narrow metal beam, standing straight up with a grand flourish. There was a collective gasp from the crowd below and then Charlie’s voice again. “Lulu! Stop!”

Heedless, I placed one foot in front of the other, hands outstretched like a tightrope walker, and slowly made my way, one foot in front of the next, to the very middle of the structure, twenty feet off the ground and nothing but spiky wood chips to catch me if I stumbled. When I reached the sweet spot in the center, I dropped to a crouch and grabbed the bar, using momentum to swing my knees over it so I could dangle, upside down, in the place where no one had ever dared to dangle.

Triumph!

I had been hanging there for about a minute, congratulating myself on my own bravery, when I started to really feel the blood rush to my head. It was time to come down.

And then a terrible thought dawned on me. I had no idea how to reverse my position. The way I was dangling, I couldn’t manage to swing my arms back up to the bar. I was stuck.

I kept hanging there, wondering what I could possibly do. My head was really aching, and the kids below were whispering frantically. They could all see the predicament that I was in. The only way out was to drop. It wasn’t actually
that
far, I decided, and maybe I would break a leg and get to wear a cast, which might be a novelty. Then I felt a cool breeze on my butt. My skirt was hanging around my neck. Maybe it was all the blood in my brain, but for the first and only time ever, I was embarrassed about the fact that everyone could see my underwear. I had to get down from there if it was the last thing I did.

I flexed my legs, trying desperately to straighten them enough that my knees would release their grip and send me plummeting to the ground. It wasn’t much of a solution, but it was something.

Ironically enough, as I was dangling there in the air and praying to fall, gravity was working against me. Suspended I would stay.

There was really nothing left to do. If it hadn’t been beet red because of my unfortunate position already, I’m sure my face would have flushed like never before. Humiliated, I heard a pathetic, tinny squeak creep from my throat. “Help!” I peeped.

There was some conference on the ground. I couldn’t really see or hear what was going on, but after a moment I saw a figure ascending the jungle gym.

“I’m coming, Lulu!” Charlie warbled. His shout sounded weak and unsure.

It felt like he took forever to reach me. I started to wonder if I was going to pass out. Eventually there was a shadow in the corner of my eye. From what I could tell, Charlie was creeping, on his hands and knees, across the beam to the point where I was suspended.

When he reached me, his voice, along with the rest of him, was trembling. “Grab my hand,” he said, and reached for me. When I felt our fingers touch, I wheezed with relief. Shakily he yanked and pulled my hand up, giving me just enough of a head start to reach the beam.

At that point it was no problem for me to lift myself back up, but as I did it, Charlie wobbled.

“Uh-oh,” he croaked.

And then, as if in slow motion, he was falling, in skydiver pose. I was perched safely at the top of the jungle gym, and I saw Charlie hit the ground with an ominous thud. When he rolled over, there was blood on his face.

 

In the end, he’d been lucky. He’d been stabbed in the jaw with a sharp wood chip, but otherwise he was all right. I got in big trouble for being such a show-off, and he’s had the mark, about half an inch long, ever since.

Scarred for life, all because of me.

I guess he could have been mad at me about it. But instead, we became inseparable.

Charlie was never the same after that, and honestly, it was kind of a good thing. From that day on, all his nervousness, all his striving goody-goody ethos simply evaporated. There was hardly anything that made him nervous anymore.

With that in mind, eating my fabulous dessert at Medardo, I decided that whether I forgave Rachel or not, I forgave Charlie for comparing me to her. If he was criticizing me now, it was only because he had my best interests at heart.

When my mom left, seven years ago, Charlie was the only one who noticed how truly upset I was. Only Charlie could cheer me up because he was the only one who had any idea that there was cheering up to be done. A year later, when I was freaking out because my
dad
had taken up with a
man,
Charlie was there to tell me it was no big deal.

So, long story short, Charlie’s the greatest and like I said before, he’s extremely good-looking.

I shocked myself by thinking,
What if we
were
out on a date . . .
?

I rolled the idea over in my head, watching Charlie devour his dessert. Scooping up bites in that endearing, messy-boy way, dropping a little on his lapel, wiping it off and licking his fingers. Here he had gone to all this trouble, making a reservation, getting dressed up (which he never does), ordering wine, dessert, everything.

“Want a bite?” Charlie said, offering me his spoon.

Whoa,
I thought.
What if
he
thinks this is a date?

“No, thank you,” I said as graciously as possible. I knew I’d have to let him down easy.

There’s something a little sick about dating someone you’ve known since you were practically in baby carriages. Something almost like
incest,
right? You can’t get much grosser than that. Maybe having a torrid romance with a hamster or a goldfish is worse, but that’s pretty much the only thing I can think of, and I surely didn’t want to commit any crimes against nature. No, it simply could never be.

Charlie was scraping the final bits of soufflé from the dish when he spoke. “By the way, Lulu,” he said uneasily, “I hope you don’t think this is a date or something.”

I practically choked on my water. I smiled, making a quick recovery. “Why would I think it was?”

“It’s just that, you know, I didn’t want you to get weirded out or something. Thinking that I was all liking you like that. Because I totally don’t. I mean, you’re my best friend. But I’m not trying to make it something that it isn’t. I just wanted to, you know, have a nice dinner in fancy clothes. And make you feel better.”

I felt a knot forming in my stomach. How could I have been so dumb?

“Charlie,” I said, trying to stay composed. “I know the difference between a date and two friends having a good time. Don’t worry about it. I’d never want to date you.”

Charlie smiled, tight-lipped. “Good. Because, you know, I wouldn’t either. Want to date you, I mean. Of course not.”

“Well, it’s settled, then,” I told him.

We waited for the check in silence. I couldn’t figure it out. I was actually disappointed. And pissed off. I decided that I probably had a mental problem. I would have to talk to my doctor about this. Maybe there was some kind of medication that would make me less of a freak.

As we were getting up to leave, I told Charlie to hang on for a second. Even if he didn’t think I was girlfriend material, I’d decided that he was right about Rachel, at least the part about not being a bitch to her. There was no point in having enemies. The one exception was Berlin Silver. She would be my enemy
for life.

So I walked over to the table where Rachel and Jordan were sitting. I was hovering over Rachel’s shoulder, waiting for a pause in the conversation, when Jordan looked up and saw me.

“Lulu Dark,” he said. “What’s up? We saw Charlie’s flaming dessert. Very impressive.”

“Yeah, pretty awesome,” Rachel said sarcastically.

I turned to her. She didn’t seem pleased at all to see me, and I took a deep breath, bracing myself to eat crow. “Look,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m sorry about what happened the other night. And everything in general. It’s stupid for us to hate each other, so let’s just bury the hatchet. My friends all say you’re cool, so why not, right?”

She wasn’t buying it. “Lulu Dark,” she said, “you are a total hypocrite. Forget the other night. What about the fact that you’ve been spreading gossip about me all over town? You think I don’t know what’s what?”

She lowered her voice and continued. “You know, it’s really messed up, even for you, telling everyone that I have a third nipple.”

“What?” I yelped, shocked. “I didn’t tell anyone anything about you!”

It was true. I hadn’t said a word about Rachel to anyone except Daisy and Charlie. And I
definitely
didn’t tell anyone anything about a third nipple.

“Save it, Lulu,” Rachel said, dismissing me with a wave of her hand. She picked up her fork and turned back to Jordan, adding sweetly, “Just for the record, I have the appropriate number of every single body part. Two eyes, two ears, ten toes, et cetera.”

Jordan’s jaw dropped, and he looked like he was about to heave. I wanted to get out of there before Rachel attempted to prove her case, so I scurried off, turning only to see Jordan waving a furtive goodbye with a desperate
rescue me!
look on his face.

This was why it didn’t pay to be nice to Rachel. It always back-fired. I’d probably show up at school on Monday to have her pull some vicious prank on me again. I shuddered to think what it would be.

But I wondered, why would she make something like that up? Just to have an excuse to be mean to me? That made no sense. If she thought she was impressing Jordan Fitzbaum that way, she was wrong, too—dead wrong. He looked ready to bolt at any minute. So what in the world was Rachel thinking?

 

Things were almost back to normal after Charlie and I left the restaurant. Even if my attempt at conciliation was a failure, he was proud of me for it. As for the rest of what had happened, it had been really narcissistic and unfair of me to assume that Charlie was into me. I decided to put the idea out of my mind for good.