The Art of Lainey (8 page)

Micah, apparently, isn’t as reluctant. “Let her be, Trin. Lainey would look weird with one of your extensions.”

“I would not.” Turning to Trinity I say, “Hook me up. I think I would look cool.”

She smiles her huge smile again. “Awesome sauce! Be
right back.”

She returns carrying a camouflage tackle box and when she pops open the lid, I can see it’s full of jewelry, makeup, and hair extensions.

“Pick a color.” She’s got little swatches of hair in every color of the rainbow.

I reach for a teal one. “It’ll match my work shirt.”

Trinity cocks her head to the side and toys with one of her streaks as she looks me over. She fingers the top of my hair and then the area behind my left ear, her pale forehead crinkling up in concentration. I feel a little self-conscious, which is ridiculous. I mean, she’s a kid. Still, I wonder what she thinks of my outfit. Micah wouldn’t tell me where he was taking me, so I tried to dress as rocker as possible, which isn’t too easy when your wardrobe consists mostly of secondhand designer dresses and pastel tank tops. I opted for a black T-shirt dress and the biggest, most metallic jewelry I own. I flattened my hair extra straight. It’s so shiny it’s almost reflective.

“I think you look great,” she says. “But a streak will make you look even cooler. You’ll look right at home where my brother is taking you.”

I focus my attention back on Micah. “Where are you taking me?”

“You’ll see.” He hums a little tune under his breath. “It’s going to be torture.”

Trinity steers me over in front of a full-length mirror hanging on the closet door. She uses the pointy end of a
comb to create a part down the left side of my scalp. I barely feel it as she threads a tiny silver clip around a lock of my hair. My mind tries to imagine all sorts of horrific places Micah might take me, but it comes up empty. Hazelton is the smallest suburb of St. Louis. I’ve been pretty much everywhere there is. Even if we go into the city, the number of places that would qualify as torture are pretty limited.

I think.

“You guys are still going to Ms. Creant’s, right?” Trinity leans away from me and admires her work. She finger-combs the left side of my hair.

“Yup,” Micah says, smiling at his sister or my discomfort. Maybe both.

“You’ll like it then,” Trinity says, heading for the bedroom door. “Be right back.”

“Maybe we need to make some rules about where we can and can’t go,” I say, once she’s out of earshot.

Micah drops the remote control on the floor and turns to see the look on my face. “Oh, come on. I have to get some enjoyment out of this.”

“I don’t have any immediate plans to torture
you
,” I say, sounding just the slightest bit whiny.

“That you know of,” he says. “Maybe just being around you will be agony.”

“Ha-ha. What’s Ms. Creant’s?” I ask. The name reminds me of a voodoo bookshop in New Orleans that my brother and I snuck into on a family vacation a few years back.

“It’s a restaurant in the city.” Micah hops up and crosses
the room toward me. Without warning, he reaches out for my hair.

Instinctively I slide away from his outstretched hand, bumping my back against his closet doorknob.

“Chill, Lainey.” He raises his hands in mock surrender. “I was just checking out my sister’s mad skills.”

I got so distracted thinking about where Micah might take me I completely didn’t realize Trinity had finished threading the streak into my hair. I twist around to check myself out in the smudgy mirror. A teal-blue stripe runs behind my left ear. I have to admit I kind of like how it looks.

Trinity returns with a pair of needle-nose pliers. She pinches the clip tight where she attached the colored extension. “Now it won’t fall out,” she explains. “Not for a while.”

“Are you done making her hot, Trin?” Micah asks. “I’m starving, and you know there’s always a wait.”

“Unless Lainey wants to borrow my shoes.” Trinity kicks one of her clunky cat shoes up in the air. They actually have little braided tails coming off the heels. “We look about the same size.”

“I’m good,” I say. And then I start wondering if Micah just implied that I was hot? Or did he mean to say I
wasn’t
hot without his little sister’s help?

Dude, this breakup is seriously messing with my head.

Trinity nods. She packs up her tackle box of beauty products and slides out of the bedroom. “Have fun, you guys,” she calls over her shoulder.

Micah turns off the TV. He grabs a tube of something
from a drawer and squirts it into his hand. With the tips of his fingers, he combs his hair toward the ceiling until it stands about three inches tall. It looks cool. Creepy, but cool.

The door to his room bursts open again. A woman with bleach-blonde hair and a whole sleeve of tattoos pokes her upper body into the room. “What’s going on, Micah?” she asks.

“Hey, Mom. Nothing.” He fidgets with his barbed-wire bracelet. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” his mom says. “My last appointment canceled. What are
you doing
with a girl in your room?”

“Oh, I’m not—” I start to explain to Mrs. Foster that Micah and I are just friends.

He cuts me off. “It’s Elaine from elementary school,” he says. “She barely even counts as a girl.”

“Micah! Don’t be rude.” Mrs. Foster flashes me an apologetic look.

“Trust me. I’m used to it,” I tell her. “And I go by Lainey now.”

She gives me a quick once-over but doesn’t seem to recognize me without the crooked teeth and straggly hair I sported back when I was eight. “Well, aren’t you pretty,” she says after a few seconds.

“Don’t encourage her,” Micah says. “Seriously.”

Mrs. Foster blinks rapidly. “Is that your father’s?” She gestures at Micah’s shirt.

He’s wearing a black T-shirt as usual. This one has four
gray bars on it, with the words
BLACK FLAG
printed below them. It must be a band or something.

“So what if it is?” he asks. “I have lots of his shirts.”

“It’s fine. I just didn’t realize you wore them.” His mom sniffs the air. She narrows her eyes, causing a fine network of wrinkles to form at her temples. “Have you been smoking in here?”

“No, Mom.” He sighs. “Jeez. Quit embarrassing me.”

Mrs. Foster turns back to me. “Has he?” she asks. “Has he
ever
smoked around you?”

Only, like, every single day at work. “No, ma’am,” I say quickly.

Her eyes return to normal but she doesn’t look completely convinced. “Where are you two headed?”

“We’re just going out to eat.” He grabs his wallet out from under a pile of dirty clothes and clips the chain to one of the loops on his jeans.

She nods. “Don’t be too late, okay? I’ve got to work until midnight at the diner. I expect to see you home when I get here.”

“Right.” Micah grabs my arm and tugs me past his mother and down the hallway. “Let’s get out of here.”

I smile a good-bye to Micah’s mom over my shoulder as he practically drags me out of the apartment. I stare at his mohawk as we head down the steps and out of his building. Individual tufts of hair lean to the left in the warm breeze. I can’t help wondering what his hair feels like. Is it soft? Is it prickly? I could touch it if I wanted to. I mean, he was going
to touch
my
hair before I pulled away. I think about it for a moment, but then decide not to. I wouldn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

“T
his is what you drive?” We’re standing in front of a car-shaped heap of lime-green metal parked across the street. “How have I never noticed this monstrosity in the Denali parking lot? Does it even run?” I zero in on a big arc of rust above one of the tires. I’m not trying to be a bitch, but the car seriously doesn’t look like it would make it around the block, let alone fifteen miles into the city.

“It runs like a dream,” Micah says, frowning at me. “It’s a Mustang.”

I laugh. “What year? Like 1950?”

His eyes narrow. “1965. It’s a classic.”

“Sorry. It’s just that Jason drives a Mustang, and his car looks nothing like this.”

“Yeah, I didn’t pay extra for the douche-bag package.” Micah opens the door for me. “Get in.”

Reality crashes down as I slide into the passenger seat. I’ve never ridden in another guy’s car before. I start to sweat
before Micah even makes it around to the driver’s side. What the hell are we going to talk about on the way to the restaurant? The new beans we got in at Denali? The latest heavy metal bands coming to The Devil’s Doorstep?

I flail for a distraction. As soon as he slips the key in the ignition, I punch the radio on and tune it to K-HOT, the hip-hop station Jason likes to play in the car.

“No chance.” Micah hits the first preset and something that sounds more like screaming than singing erupts from the speakers. “I’m driving. I pick the music.”

I plug my ears with my fingertips. “I’d rather listen to static.”

“Fine. How about a compromise.” He connects his phone to the stereo and fidgets with the screen. A happy punk song starts playing.

“What is it?” I ask, nervousness making my voice come out high and snippy.

“It’s a playlist of different stuff.” He shifts the car into
DRIVE
. “Nothing too hard-core. Give it a chance, okay?”

“Okay.” I’m not really sure what else to say, so I pull my phone out of my purse and check my email. There’s a message from my brother with pictures of his dorm room in Ireland, and also an update from CalebWaters.com with a few stills from
Flyboys
—mostly photos of Caleb in a pilot’s uniform posing in a cockpit. I forward it to Bianca. I wonder if Caleb likes acting better than playing soccer. He used to be a striker forward like me, but he had to retire after he ruptured his Achilles tendon in a play-off match a couple
of years ago.

I think acting would be awesome, but I can’t imagine giving up soccer. It’s not like it’s the only thing I’m good at—I get decent grades and stuff—but racing up and down the field gives me that rush of power. Kind of the same way I feel hanging out with Kendall.

And Jason.

I pull
The Art of War
out of my purse. Desperately, I flip through my dog-eared pages looking for something to latch on to, something that will reinforce the idea that this whole plan isn’t insane.
“The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon,”
I mutter under my breath.

“What?” Micah gives me a sideways glance. “Are you . . . reading?”

“Believe it or not,” I say without looking up, “it’s part of my impressive skill set.”

“Should I be offended you brought a book on our fake date?” He sounds amused.

For some reason, I don’t want to tell him the truth. Probably because I don’t feel like being made fun of at the moment. “I’m just getting a head start on our summer reading list.”

The music switches to something dark and slow that matches my mood. The song is an instrumental, with piano and violin layered on top of the rock guitars and bass. Something about it makes my heart beat funny. Tears form out of nowhere, hot behind my eyes. I turn my head completely to the window, swallowing hard to dissolve the lump
in my throat.

Micah switches lanes and breaks gently as he prepares to exit onto a different highway. “Is it a sad book?”

He looks over at me again. There’s something different about his voice. It’s so gentle, so smooth, like rain falling against stained-glass windows. The image freaks me out. This music is apparently making me crazy.

“I’m just thinking about something,” I reply.

Now he’s got both eyes back on the road. “I thought maybe you were going to start crying on me.”

“Don’t worry.” I try to infuse my voice with sarcasm. “The last thing I plan to do is break down on our fake date. I am all business.” The dreamy instrumental song ends and something more upbeat comes on. It’s got a catchy hook but the guitars are a little shrieky for my taste. “This music is giving me a headache,” I mutter.

“You’re giving me a headache,” Micah says, but he turns the volume down a notch.

The afternoon sun blasts me head on. I don’t usually wear sunglasses because they make those ugly red marks on my nose, but today I wish I had some. I turn my face back to the side to protect my eyes. Strip malls slide past me, one after the next. Gaudy billboards line the highway.
UP TO 50% OFF. ONE DAY ONLY. THE BIGGEST DEALS ARE HERE.
Lies. All lies.

“I remember when this whole area was fields,” I say, immediately regretting it. I sound like my grandpa.

But for once Micah doesn’t jump on an opportunity to
make fun of me. “Me too,” he says. “My dad used to take us camping out here.”

“Oh,” I reply, startled by the mention of his dad. Micah’s father, a guitarist for a local rock band, was killed in a convenience store robbery back when Micah and I were in fifth grade.

It was big news in Hazelton. Everywhere you went in school, people were clustered together talking about it, how terrible it must have been for Micah, who was waiting out in the car when the robbery occurred. Micah, who wandered into the store right in time to see his dad bleed to death. Those were the rumors anyway. No one ever dared to ask if they were true.

What do you say to someone who’s dad has just been shot and killed? If you’re a member of Mrs. Simonson’s fifth-grade class, not much. You tiptoe around the person, trying not to make physical contact in case “dead dad” is contagious. You offer timid smiles and awkward greetings until eventually the person snaps, knocks over a couple of desks during class, gets in a fight with the security guard, and then disappears until the beginning of the next school year.

We didn’t talk much in middle school. Micah didn’t talk much to anyone. I feel the urge to apologize for the shitty way I treated him back then, but I can’t quite make the words come out.

“I’ve never gone camping,” I say finally. I lick my lips and peek over at Micah.