Queen of the Clueless (Interim Goddess of Love) (7 page)

I'm touching a cloud. I'm actually touching it.

So it doesn't really feel like cotton candy in my hand, which is kind of disappointing.

"It's just fog," he tells me. Of course it is. I didn't know that for sure until right this second. City girls don't know a thing about this kind of fog.

Or being so high up that when the fog thins in places, all you see are tiny trees and they're so far away.

My heart thumps extra every time I see it, like it's squealing. OMG OMG OMG

"You know what our problem is?" I say to Quin, who is here beside me but feels like he just arrived, "Forgetting."

"It's not really forgetting."

"I don't remember what I did to make Aman so angry."

"You didn't do anything. There's nothing to forget."

I continue,
"And you don't remember all of this. Won't remember all of this when it counts."

"That's not how it works.
"

The conversation, yet again, is incomprehensible to me. When I dream I only know that I am not Hannah. I don't look like Hannah, don't have her legs, or hair, or feet, or hands. I am someone else, someone infinitely more important. If only because I am being honored with Quin's attention in these unidentifiable places and times.

"Maybe I know some things you don't," I say, and it's one of those rare times when the goddess says what Hannah feels exactly.

Quin sighs. "I wish you would just tell me what to do then."

Ugh. Twenty-four years old. Denise Cabral, history teacher, on her second year of teaching at Ford River, currently taking a master's degree in education.

I mean, she was barely out of school herself! Ford River tuition was so expensive and this was the kind of educator they were getting? What made a twenty-four-year-old think that she could teach us anything?

So that was how I spent my work hours at the Guidance Office that Monday. Snooping around the online teachers' profiles and finding out everything I could about Denise Cabral.

The photo that was attached to her profile was a simple shot, probably taken during one of her classes, but I did recognize her. I never took a class with her, but I had seen her around. She was very pretty.

Mature. Smart-looking.

How long had she and Quin been hanging out? Why didn't I know about it?

Because you were so self-absorbed with your goddess drama.
Yes, that, and I may have forgotten that life went on and there were six billion other people in the world. It wasn't like I spent twenty-four hours a day with Quin. Of course he had the time to hang out with other people.

So so so so embarrassing. Cannot believe he never mentioned this. Haaaate.

But no, this wasn't surprising really. This was Quin, after all.

"Hannah, are you done with the flash drive?" Ms. Farrah Flores, guidance counselor, asked me, her face appearing right above the screen of the laptop I had been staring at.

"I'm not, just a sec, sorry sorry..." I wasn't done with it because in the middle of copying the files (actual work) I wandered onto the faculty online portal.

"It's okay. You're looking up Denise? Why, thinking of taking her class?"

Busted. "Um, yeah."

"She's great. Students love her. You'll enjoy her class, I'm sure."

"I don't know about that."

"Well, you and I get along."

Ms. Farrah was so nice. I mean, she wasn't even thirty yet, and so intelligent, and pretty, and sometimes I really felt like she was more a friend...

(Okay, so she was a lot like Denise Cabral, but Ms. Farrah was happily engaged
—she told me the whole story herself—and
not
hanging out with college boys, as far as I knew.)

I just remembered what else Ms. Farrah was.

Devoted to
me
.

"Ms. Farrah, does Ms. Cabral have a boyfriend?"

"I don't know, Hannah. I don't really know her very well."

I smiled sweetly. "Can you find out please, if she's with anyone right now? If she's seeing anybody, and how long she's been seeing him?"

When you've poured your heart out to the goddess of love, you can't say no when she asks you to do something.

When I ask you to do something.

"Sure, Hannah," Ms. Farrah said. "I'll find out for you."

"Thank you so much," I said, unplugging the flash drive and placing it in her hand.

I held my breath as Ms. Farrah went back into her office, half expecting her to turn around and ask me why I had just ordered her to snoop like that.

But she didn't.

Confirmed: something was wrong with me.

Because I was obsessing over whether a certain teacher was seeing a certain student? No, of course not.

It was the fact that Sol and Diego walked into the Guidance Office together and I totally ignored it. Because Sol and Diego were not friends. Diego was not friends with anybody. Sol actually had a tiny crush on him, but they weren't on speaking terms at all. And yet they walked in together, and he stood there quietly as Sol dropped a wad of paper in front of me.

"Why are you still here?"

Oh crap. Three hours had apparently passed, and I was still in there. Browser tabs full of Denise Cabral's various internet footprints. There was a blog about her year of traveling and volunteer work after college graduation, a photo blog that hadn't been updated in three years, and an essay she wrote about introducing grade school kids to history, blah blah blah. No real dirt, nothing scandalous, nothing but admirable achievements and a life full of relevance.

Sol's concerned voice dragged me out of the vortex of this. "I can't believe you cut GenPsych. Ms. Sanchez gave the final project group work and everything!"

"I'm sorry, I was busy with important stuff."

"GenPsych is
important,
Psych Major," Sol said, rolling her eyes. "You can't keep your precious clerk job here if you drop out of school. Priorities."

I wanted to tell her that I knew all about priorities, sister. Like, I only cut class because of Goddess duty, and that was a totally unselfish reason to cut.

"Did you spend the whole time stalking Ms. Cabral?" Sol said, a little too loudly.

Okay, so maybe this particular cut was not so unselfish. "Why do you know her?"

"I know people who've taken her class. And she's the prettiest teacher in school. Why are you looking her up?"

No, it didn't work out this way.
I
analyzed people, not the other way around. "Am thinking of taking her class, and shut up."

Sol shrugged, and thrust a bracelet
—with the largest, gaudiest charms I'd ever seen—in my face. "Look at this. Look at this!"

"Shiny."

"Neil gave it to me! He was so excited about it. I have a strange feeling that someone else actually
owns
this ugly thing, and they'll think I stole it. I thought you were going to talk to him, Hannah!"

"Talk to who?"

She blinked at me. "Neil. I thought you were going to pull your guidance office mojo on him and get him some help."

The words started coming out, and my brain only got to process it as I was hearing it.
"Neil doesn't have a problem, Sol. He just really likes you. He's just doing things to make you happy."

"What are you... What?"

"You should never doubt him, that's all. He really cares about you. The fact that you suspect him of stealing is such a betrayal, you know."

Wow that was weird.

Diego folded his arms and leaned his weight against the short bookshelf near the door, but he didn't say anything.

Sol gasped a little. "You know what? Borrow someone else's notes. I can't believe you're taking his side."

I couldn't believe it either.

She turned toward the door so fast that she collided right into Diego, but his eyes stayed on me.

"New Girl, you're coming with me," he said, and it was an order.

Sol

Now that was annoying.

For two people who'd only known each other for almost two years, Sol thought she had Hannah all figured out. They weren't opposites. Hannah was level-headed, and so was Sol. It was why they remained friends, because Sol had no patience for anyone who tipped too far one way or the other.

She knew Hannah didn't think her long-distance relationship with her now-ex was going to last. Not that she said anything blunt about it, but she didn't have to. Talking about everyone else's relationships, from Ted in PE to Tamara in English, said a lot about how Hannah viewed love. She was usually spot on.

Except when it came to her own misguided crush on the upperclassman, but even Hannah knew that.

So maybe the reason Sol had taken her time telling Hannah about the problem with Neil was because she knew what Hannah was going to say
:
dump him
. And Sol knew that Hannah would be right, so she didn't open up until she was ready to hear those words herself.

But Hannah, surprisingly this time,
didn't
say it. "
The fact that you suspect him of stealing is such a betrayal
"? What? That didn't sound like Hannah at all.

It sounded like the most weak-willed part of Sol, the part that kept saying she had a good thing right now and should be more patient about it.

Love was sacrifice, after all.

While Sol was walking from the strip mall, where she had dinner, to her apartment, her phone buzzed three different times. Two phone calls and a text message. She didn't even peek at it, and spent the time climbing up the stairs guessing who it was.

Phone calls from Neil and her mom maybe.

Text from Hannah
most likely.

It wasn't until she had showered and slipped into an old high school PE shirt did she actually check, and returned the first call.

"Hi, babe," she said, trying not to sound tired of everything.

"I wanted us to have dinner. You done?" Neil said.

"Yeah, sorry, I didn't hear my phone." Sol also had three thousand pesos in her bag, which she was going to use to pay some bills this week, and she didn't want to suddenly lose it.

She felt awful thinking that.

"I love you," she hastily added. "I just... I didn't see you on the way out so I just went ahead and ate."

"I hope you'd called me. We could have tried this new place in Alabang."

"Too far, and I have some work to do anyway."

"You've thought about telling your mom already, right? Or haven't you?"

Sol had thought about it, but decided to pretend she hadn't. "Um, I'm calling her on her birthday anyway, I can bring it up then."

"When will that be?"

"Friday."

"Sure. If you think that's best." It was just days away, but something in Neil's voice said it wasn't good enough.

"I have homework. See you tomorrow?"

"Love you."

"Yeah. Love you."

Then Sol returned the next call. "Hi, Mom." But she didn't say anything about moving in with her boyfriend.

The text message was also from Neil, asking where she was. No text from Hannah, but that was fine. She didn't want to argue with Hannah tonight.

Because maybe
Hannah was right.

A few months after I had gotten my scholarship at Ford River, it was decided that I would go live with my mom's sister, Tita Carmen. She had coincidentally just purchased a home near the campus, and the arrangement would save me the trouble of passing through the worst traffic jam in the universe just to go to school every day.