Tell (24 page)

“Of course not.  There’s no game today.”

Andy was having a bad day, preceded by a very bad weekend. 
He had woken up in the wee hours of Saturday morning in Amanda’s guest bedroom with only a vague recollection of what had led him there.  He thought he remembered making out with Amanda, but this memory was shattered when he realized he had woken up next to Susan.  He was unaware of what all had happened between them, and he was in a rush to get out of that bedroom before he remembered something he did not want to remember.

He also had fragmented memories of speaking with Melody that night, and he had called her several times over the weekend, trying to gather some kind of picture of what had happened that night that did not involve Susan.  However, Melody dodged his calls and this was no help to him.

Then, whispers had followed him throughout the hallways once he arrived in school on Monday morning.  Wes had informed him before homeroom that people were talking about his fling with Susan already, and there was also a rumor that Susan had the clap.  This had understandably worried Andy, not least of all because he was not sure what the clap was, other than it was an STD.

Then he had walked into the locker room before sixth period gym class to a round of applause, which had confused him at first, until he realized they were not applauding—they were clapping.

He threw himself down on the bench nearest to Lucas and Neil.  “I think I need to move,” he announced.

“If your dick goes with you, it won’t be worth it,” Neil answered.

“Tough day?” Lucas asked.

“I’m sure you heard,” Andy responded, sitting up.

“Yeah, but I was being polite.”

“Thanks.  I appreciate that.”

“My weekend sucked too,” Neil announced.  “Kristy caught me with my flask at the football game and she took it.”

Andy rolled his eyes.  “No offense, dude, but I think my problem is a little worse than yours.”

“Well,
sorry
.”  Neil shut his locker door and walked off.

Lucas continued changing while Andy sat miserably on the bench.  “Have you talked to Melody?” Lucas asked carefully.

Andy shook his head.  “No.  She’s been ignoring me all weekend.  I don’t know what her problem is.”

There was a short pause.  “You don’t know what her problem is?” Lucas repeated.

Andy turned to look over his shoulder at Lucas, who had for some reason sounded offended.  “Yeah,” Andy said slowly.

Lucas slammed his locker door shut.  “Ah.”

“Should I?” Andy asked.

“Yeah, actually, you should.”  Lucas ran a hand over his hair.  “Melody only invited you to that stupid party to spend time with you.  Then you get hammered and tell her that the only reason you
went
to that party was to chase after Amanda. 
Then
you bone her best friend.”

Andy stood.  “Yeah, and then
I
end up with the Goddamned clap.  So you’ll excuse me if I’m not real concerned about Melody’s feelings right now.”

“You don’t have the clap.  Shane made that up after he and Amanda caught you and Susan together.”

Andy looked at Lucas in disbelief.  “Amanda saw us together?”

Lucas shook his head.  “Unbelievable.”  He walked off, following Neil.

Andy began getting dressed, mulling over everything Lucas had just said to him, still in disbelief.  He was relieved that he did not have an STD, but crushed that Amanda had seen him with Susan.  And stunned that he barely even knew Shane Stolarz and the kid was making up rumors about him.

And then there was the other thing Lucas had said—about Melody only inviting him to that party to spend time with him.  Was that true?  She had invited him to that party, that was true, but he had assumed she had only invited him because she did not want to go alone with Susan.  He, of course, had jumped at the opportunity to get closer to Amanda.

He froze as he remembered the night she had called him.  She had
not
initially asked him to go to that party.  She had asked him to go to a movie, and he had declined.  Only after he had refused did she invite him to the party, hoping to keep his interest.

Melody had asked him on a date, and he had gone, and he had spent the entire time trying to talk to another girl.  And then he had proceeded to tell Melody about it.

And he quite possibly might have had sex with her best friend.

Nineteen

Felicia and Elliot were in Elliot’s bedroom.  Felicia had not gone home after school, feeling unable to face Shane for the time being.  She had been alternately complaining about the situation between Cadie and Shane and refusing to talk about them.  Even in the middle of a conversation about their theatre class that afternoon, Felicia was still thinking about them.

“Have you ever thought that maybe you’re being too hard on them?” Elliot asked.

The question brought Felicia up short; the subject change had been abrupt.  “No, I honestly haven’t,” Felicia answered stoutly.  “I mean, Shane has been doing this kind of crap for years, but I thought he was at least decent enough to keep Cadie out of it.  I just didn’t realize she was dumb enough to fall for it.”

“You think that he’s playing her?” Elliot asked.

Felicia looked at Elliot as if she had suggested the two of them take sky-diving lessons.  “Of
course
he’s playing her.”

“So you don’t think it’s possible that someone could actually like Cadie?”

Felicia sighed irritably.  “Don’t make me sound like I’m being judgmental.  It’s not because I think nobody could like Cadie.  I just don’t think my
brother
could like Cadie.”

“Why not?  They have been spending a lot of time together.”

Felicia leveled Elliot with a glare.  “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to get you to see that maybe you’re being too hard on Cadie and Shane.”

“I thought you were on my side!”

“I
am
on your side.”

“You were the one who
told
me about them in the first place.”

Elliot shifted guiltily in her desk chair.  “Yeah, because I thought you should know.  But I think they were going to tell you soon anyway.  Didn’t you say Cadie was waiting at your house when you got back from practice?”

“Yeah—probably because Amanda had forewarned Shane that I already knew.”

“Maybe.  But maybe not.  Maybe Cadie and Shane really do like each other, and they were trying to tell you about it.  And maybe that was really hard for them to do because maybe—you’re not always the easiest person to talk to.”

Felicia folded her arms across her chest.  “Maybe,” she said moodily, looking at the floor.

“Okay.  I’ll take that as a maybe.”

“Why are you suddenly all about defending them?”

Elliot shrugged.  “I just think you should give them a break.  You can’t help who you like, Felicia.”

Their eyes locked and Felicia froze.  She realized that they were no longer talking about Cadie and Shane.  Maybe they never had been.  All she knew was that the atmosphere in the room had become extremely uncomfortable and the silence that stretched between them was becoming an awkward length.

“I guess,” Felicia finally replied, for lack of anything more insightful to say.

“So why are you really mad?”

Felicia put her hands over her face, then buried them in her hair.  “It’s so fucking easy for them!” she exploded, startling both Elliot and herself.  “They like each other and it’s like, okay, tra la la!  They aren’t worrying about what it’s going to do to anyone in their lives or what people are going to think of them.  Like it’s no big deal.”

“It’s
not
a big deal.”

“It’s a big deal for me!”  Felicia’s voice cracked as tears welled up in her eyes.  She sat forcefully on the bed, not bothering to hide the fact that she had begun crying uncontrollably.

Elliot was visibly alarmed.  “Hey,” she said.  “I didn’t know you could do that.”

Felicia gave her a dark look.

Elliot rose from her seat and moved to sit next to Felicia on the bed, wrapping an arm around her waist and allowing Felicia to rest her head on her shoulder.   Elliot patiently waited for her to finish crying, sporadically handing her tissues from the box on her night stand.

“When did you first know?” Felicia finally asked.

“About me or about you?”

“About you, I guess.”

Elliot took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  “I was fourteen,” she answered.  “Well, I was fifteen when I knew for sure, but I was fourteen when I started to consider it as an actual possibility.”

“But you’ve had sex with guys before.”

“So have you,” Elliot pointed out.

“I didn’t like it.”

“What’s to like?” Elliot said dismissively.  “I was already pretty sure I was gay at that point.  It was just something I did to be positive.  And I was
definitely
positive after that disaster.  Gross.”

“But you kept telling me that it was going to get better!” Felicia protested.

“Well, it’s pretty lame the first time either way,” Elliot said.  “And I wasn’t sure... about you.  I didn’t want to project my own feelings on to your life.  I didn’t know if you were just sexually repressed or if you were actually gay.  Surprise, you were both.”

“So… when did you know about me?”

Elliot shrugged.  “Now?”

“You didn’t know for sure?”

“Well, damn, Felicia, it’s your body, not mine.”

Felicia blew her nose.  “Quarter.”

“Charming.  And I let the f-bomb ride, so I think you can give me ‘damn.’ ”

“I suppose.”

“Anyway, no, I couldn’t tell for sure, but I suspected.  Actually, I thought you and Cadie might be…”  Elliot trailed off.

“You thought Cadie and I were lesbians together?” Felicia exclaimed.

“Well, you were together a lot and you ate lunch by yourselves and she’s always wearing Doc Martens,” Elliot protested.

“What?
”

“I didn’t know you very well and I wasn’t sure.”

“I can’t believe you thought we were a couple.”  Felicia paused.  “Do you think anybody else thought that?”

“If they did, they probably don’t anymore.  Rumor is she’s banging your brother.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

There was a long silence.  Felicia had stopped crying awhile ago, but Elliot’s arm was still around her waist.

“Do your parents know?” Felicia asked quietly.

“I think so,” Elliot whispered.  “I haven’t told them, but I think they at least suspect.”  She looked down at Felicia.  “Are you worried about what your parents will think?”

“Of course I am.  And I’m worried about what Shane will think.  And Cadie.”

“I can’t imagine either one of them not being okay with it.”

“I can imagine Shane being slightly weirded out.”

“Yeah, maybe.  Torn between his appreciation for lesbianism in general and the new information that his sister actually is one.”

“Something like that.”  Felicia drew a deep breath.  “Can you just promise me that whatever happens… I mean, I don’t want to lose what we have now.”

Elliot kissed her on the forehead.  “We won’t.  I promise.”

Lucas and Melody both had done a swell job of avoiding Andy’s eye all throughout practice.  He could not even really associate with Neil, who was too busy trying to get Kristy’s attention to notice that Lucas was avoiding them.  Of course, everyone else in the band was avoiding Andy too, but for an entirely different reason.  Mr. Bell had already yelled at a few kids for wrecking the form by giving Andy a wide berth when marching near him.  He was still fairly well convinced that he was going to have to move, or at the very least change schools.

Practice wrapped up, and Andy immediately took off after Melody as she meandered toward the school to put her trumpet away and pick up her things.  He thought he saw Lucas making his way toward her out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored him.

“Melody,” he called as he approached her.  “Wait up.”

She turned, saw it was him, and gave him another one of those looks she had given him that morning.  He thought her eyes might roll across the New Jersey border.  “What now?”

“Look, can we start over?”

She snorted.  “Start over from when?”

“I—I don’t know.  I just feel like I screwed everything up.”

“Gee, what would give you that idea?” Melody answered sarcastically.

“I’m really sorry.  I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know what?”

“I didn’t know… that I had hurt you so much.”

For a second, Melody looked as if she might cry.  Her eyes glassed over and she scanned the field, though whether this was because she was looking for something or just to avoid his eyes, he did not know.  But her expression hardened when she looked back at him again.  Melody raised her hands helplessly.  “Now you know.”  She turned and walked off toward the school.

Andy stood there hopelessly for a moment.  Suddenly he was jostled roughly from one side, then the other, and he had trouble keeping his footing.  Mike and Patrick, those little eighth-graders in the trumpet section, walked by him, obviously the culprits.

“Watch it, twerps,” Andy said angrily.

“
You
watch it, jerk,” Mike shot back, to Andy’s surprise.

“Yeah, why don’t you leave Melody alone,” Patrick chimed in.  “She doesn’t need your crap.”

“I do
not
have the clap,” Andy said vehemently.

“Who cares?  You’re still a jerk.”

“Yeah, you don’t need an STD to be a jerk.”

“Stay away from her.  She’s too hot for you anyway.”

Mike and Patrick walked off triumphantly, leaving Andy to feel as humiliated as one might expect after getting schooled by a couple of fourteen-year-olds.

On Tuesday afternoon, Cadie sat in the back of the art room with a mock-up of the literary magazine cover spread out in front of her.  The meeting had ended, but she had stayed behind to look a few things over by herself.  A huge argument had erupted over which design to use for the cover this semester, and Cadie had finally conceded, so the picture that lay on the desk in front of her was her second choice, but she had learned to pick her battles.

She heard the door to the classroom open and close and looked up.  She could not hide the expression of disgust on her face as she saw Andy walk into the room.  “Melody’s not here,” she said.  “Lucas took her home.”

“I wasn’t looking for Melody,” Andy answered.  “I wanted to talk to you.”

Cadie furrowed her brow.  “Why?”  Then she noticed that underneath his arm he was carrying a manila folder.  “What’s that?”

He pulled it out and held it out toward her.  “I was hoping you could do me a favor.”

“No.”

“I’ll pay you twenty bucks.”

“Speak.”

He shook the manila envelope at her.  She took it, grudgingly, and slid her finger in the flap to open it, then withdrew a piece of stock paper.  Her jaw dropped.

It was a collage of photographs, but none of the pictures were of cows—they were all of Melody.  Obviously she had been unaware that her picture was being taken, because in every single one, her gaze was averted or her face was turned away.  There was Melody walking down the street with her hair blowing across her face.  There was Melody leaning against the fence of the cemetery staring down the sloping hill.  Melody against a background of clouds, Melody in the rain, Melody with a sunflower to her nose.  And scrawled across the bottom was the title,
When you weren’t looking…

“So this is what you do when you’re on those walks,” was all Cadie could say.

“Sort of,” Andy answered.  “I mean, there are landscapes too and other stuff.”

“The photos are beautiful,” Cadie remarked.

“Can you put this in the lit mag?”

Cadie set the collage down and rubbed her forehead.  “Andy, I can’t publish pictures of my sister without her consent.  And besides that, I don’t like you and I don’t really want to help you woo my sister because I like her and I don’t like you.”

“Forty bucks.”

She sighed dramatically.  “I’ll think about it, Andy.”  She slipped the collage back in the envelope and held it out toward him.

He shook his head.  “Hang on to that while you think about it.”  He turned and headed toward the door.  On his way out, he nearly collided with Lacey McMurry, who walked back into the art room.

“Excuse me,” she said to him as he slithered into the hallway.  There was no response.  She looked at Cadie.  “Rude much?” she said under her breath.

Cadie smiled.  Lacey was one of the few people on the literary magazine staff with whom she got along.

“I just forgot my purse,” Lacey told her, pointing at the table across the room.  Indeed, a purple and pink Vera Bradley purse was nestled on one of the chairs pushed under an art table.  She crossed the room to retrieve it.

“Oh, I didn’t even see that,” Cadie remarked.

Lacey shouldered her purse and nodded at the door.  “Wasn’t your sister dating him or something?” she asked.