manicpixiedreamgirl (7 page)

“Sydney?” I say into my phone. It’s been at least a minute since either of us spoke.

“What did
she
want?” Syd asks.

“I dunno, she was upset about something, I think.”

“You going to go
comfort
her?”

“I’m not doing this, Syd. I’m not having this conversation, not again, not ever.”

I can practically feel her scowl over the phone.

“Tell Pink Floyd we say hi!” Robby calls. Justin, on cue, begins giggling.

I give them both the finger. I love these guys, I really do. They’ve put up with a lot of my crap these past three years. Making fun of Syd’s name—Syd Barrett, by the way, was a founding member of Pink Floyd—is a small price to ask for their patience.

“Tyler,” Syd says, and sighs. “I read the story.”

Despite summer creeping up on us, a chill wind blows through the park. I hunch my shoulders against it.

At least, I think it’s the wind.

“Story?”

“In the magazine,” Syd says. “I’m looking at it right now. Your mom gave me her copy.”

Traitor. Or is it “traitoress”?

“The magazine?” I say. God help me if I’m ever on trial for something; the jury would take one look at my face and convict me on the spot.

“I’m not stupid, Ty,” Syd says. “Your mom thought it was about me. But we both know that’s not true, don’t we?”

The wind kicks up again.

The first day of tenth grade, Becky walked right up to me
in between my math and Spanish classes. It was the first
time I’d seen her since summer vacation began. She
hadn’t changed much; her hair was a little shorter, like
she’d gotten it cut and styled yesterday, but otherwise—

“Are you Tyler Darcy?” she said.

She’d never talked to me before. I’d never heard her
speak
before, apart from in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, but it’s not like that was her real speaking voice, you know? Her voice now tickled my spine like a breeze and made my toes curl inside my shoes. I smelled a faint aroma of vanilla on her clothes. I’d never eat vanilla ice cream the same way again.

All the scripts I’d written in my head turned out to be empty pages as soon as she spoke. A year of imagining, hoping, waiting; now she had made the first move, and I couldn’t think of a single clever, charming, romantic thing to say. All I could do was answer.

“Yes?” I said, question mark and all.

“And you’re going out with Sydney Barrett?”

“Yes?” I repeated, not enjoying the reminder.

Becky studied my face, holding a textbook to her chest with both arms. A black leather backpack hanging from her shoulders had replaced her blue messenger bag from last year. I wondered crazily if she had animal crackers stashed inside.

“Huh,” she said.

I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.

“Well … see ya,” Becky said.

“Okay,” I said.

Becky walked off down the hall. I watched her until she turned a corner. Right then, for the first time, it occurred to me that she was always alone. Not once freshman year had I seen her talking to anyone in the halls. Previously I’d kept an eye out for any possible boyfriends, but now I realized there weren’t any girls talking to her either. I knew she talked to Syd, but I never saw Becky talk to anyone myself.

Not unless you counted onstage while performing. Then she soared.

“You’re not seriously going to try and lie to me,” Sydney adds as I zip up my Dickies jacket against the wind.

I don’t respond. I never lie to Sydney, not really. Evade. Excuse. Scoff. But not lie.

“When did you get it?” I say finally. “The magazine.”

“I met Staci and Michelle for coffee at Jamaican Blue,” Syd says. “By your house? And on the way home, I stopped by to say hi. And your mom told me about the story. Gabby didn’t even know about it. Why didn’t you tell her?”

Gabrielle is finishing up her college degree in digital journalism. Guess writing runs in the family. She still lives at home because, for one thing, it’s too expensive for her to live on campus, never mind in an apartment. For another thing, about three years ago, right after she turned eighteen, Mom caught her getting high in the backyard with some friends. That was that. Mom and Dad said she was welcome to smoke whatever she wanted, wherever she wanted, on her dime and at her own place, and she could drive there in her own damn car. So Gabby left. That lasted about a month before she came back begging for another shot, which Mom and Dad gave her. I’d been just as glad when she left as when she came back; I’d known about the drugs and hated how it made her act so lazy, and how shitty it made her clothes reek. When she moved back in, she was more like the sister I’d known before. Someone who’d stop what she was doing to read anything I wrote, and give me advice on how to make it better.

As for not telling Gabby about this particular story yet, mainly it was because she loves Syd so much. Gabby, like
Robby and Justin, is not the president of the Becky Webb Fan Club. I’d asked Mom specifically not to show Gabby the story, not yet. Guess I should’ve said, “Don’t show anyone, ever.”

“Just didn’t get around to it yet,” I tell Syd.

“Well, you should’ve seen your mom’s face. She’s really proud of you.”

“What are you?”

“Also proud. But, um … simultaneously, pretty pissed off. Maybe a dollop of jealous. Maybe more than a dollop, actually.”

“Syd …”

“Where are you exactly? What park? I think it’s time we had a chat about your mistress.”

“Okay,
that
is so totally not true,” I say. “Come on.”

“Where, Tyler.”

“Not tonight.”

“Yes, tonight.”

“You’re overreacting,” I say, knowing that really, given her tone, she’s taking it all quite well, considering what she read.

“You wrote a love story about another girl,” Sydney states. I hear paper rustling. “ ‘When she danced, my eyes swapped places, putting everything else out of focus, leaving her physical masterpiece the only light on which to rely for vision,’ ” Syd quotes.

I hear the magazine being flung away. “Could you get any more sappy? Plus, she’s a sucky dancer.”

I disagree, but have the sense to do it in silence.

I’d always assumed Becky had friends in the drama
department, and assumed Sydney was among them.
The day Becky first talked to me in the hall, watching
her walk away, trying to drink in every detail of her red
board shorts, her lightly tanned smooth calves, her sandals, her black T-shirt, the raised outline of the back of her bra pressed against the jersey material, the peach fuzz on the back of her neck tapering up to her same adorable haircut … I wondered,
How does she know about Syd and me?

Because, it would turn out, Sydney had talked to her that morning in the drama department.

And kindly advised Becky to, quote, “stay out of my way.”

“So you were going to go to Rebecca’s house?” Syd says through my silence.

“Yes, Sydney, I was. Past tense. I’m not going there now. It’s no big.”

“Going to your crush’s house in the middle of the night because she called you on a whim?” Sydney says. “That’s a very
big
, Tyler.”

It’s only, like, ten o’clock
, I say to myself. I know better than to say it to Syd. My buzz is wearing off very quickly.

“She’s not my crush!” I say.

All right, I stand corrected: I
do
lie to Sydney when it comes to how I feel about Becky. And Sydney, assuredly, knows it.

“Why do you do this to me?” Sydney says. To her credit, any other girl probably would’ve been all weepy or screaming. Like the chicks Justin and Robby date. But not Syd. She still sounds twice, three times as old as she really is. She’s upset, sure, but not melting down like any other reasonable seventeen-year-old girl.

“I’m not doing anything to you, Syd,” I say. “She’s a friend, and that’s all she’s ever been, and all she ever will be, and Jesus! You know all that! Gimme a break!”

“So you’re not going over there?”

“No.”

“But only because you’ve been drinking and can’t drive.”

“If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”

“I need
you
to tell me, Ty.”

“Whatever. I gotta go.”

“Fine.”

The line goes dead. For a moment, I consider throwing my cell as hard and far as I can. But that would be stupid.

Which is to say, completely in character for me.

If I didn’t know I was officially in a relationship before
school started sophomore year, it was made clear our
first day back during lunch.

Syd and I were together in Honors English again, and
she sat beside me like she had the previous year. Which was fine, because we still got into debates and arguments and discussions about the reading assignments, and had a good
time doing it. We had Ms. Hochhalter again, which was awesome. But that first day, I was still reeling from Becky’s sudden contact, and anxious to get to the cafeteria and see if anything else had changed about her. Or us.