The Beautiful Between (6 page)

I should be angry. A popular girl, a confident girl, would be angry—not excited to see him again, not excited that this isn’t finished, even though he didn’t come over last night.

He’s crushing a cigarette under his heel. When he sees me, he lights two cigarettes, holds one out to me. I take it but don’t put it in my mouth, and I try to ignore what has struck me as a very intimate gesture—his lighting my cigarette in his mouth. Even if I’m not really mad, I can try to pretend.

“Jeremy, you know, what if I was busy, or sleeping or something?”

“Then I would have told the cabdriver to turn around.”

“Dude, that’s just not okay. I’m not one of those girls…. I’m not Marcy McFuckingDonald, okay? I’m not your girlfriend and I’m not just here at your disposal every evening for a cigarette break. I have a life, you know.”

Jeremy doesn’t seem even ruffled. “What did I interrupt, then?” he asks, and he makes it sound polite.

I look at the ground, embarrassed. “That’s not the point.”

I look up and Jeremy smiles crookedly, just one side of his mouth up. “I know, Sternin. But shouldn’t it be?”

It’s really hard not to smile back at him. I can feel the sides of my lips curling up, both of them. I can’t even manage just a half smile, like he did.

“It’s just not nice, Jeremy. It’s not nice to just come over, to expect that I’ll be available like this.” I stop myself before I say that I don’t even know him, that we’re not even friends. Bad enough that I said that I wasn’t his girlfriend, cementing the fact.

“Do you want me to stop coming over?” He says it politely, softly. Not like a threat. He says it like he means it, even though he must know, as well as I do, that I would never say yes.

“That’s not what I meant.”

He smokes silently for a few minutes. I drop my cigarette to the ground, unsmoked except for Jeremy’s having lit it.

“I know you’re not Marcy McDonald. If you were anything like Marcy McDonald, I wouldn’t be here.”

“God, what did she do to you?” I’m surprised at myself for asking flat out, just like that, but something about Jeremy made me feel entitled to ask. Like, You come to my house every night, I let you intrude on my life, you know how my fucking father died, don’t you, so at least tell me what Marcy did. It’s not like I’m asking whether the rumors about Kate being sick are true. If they even qualify as rumors. It’s just something my mother said.

Jeremy doesn’t say anything.

“Come on, dude, it’s not like she cheated on you.”

Jeremy looks straight at me, exhaling smoke. “How do you know that?”

“Who would she cheat with? Brad bloody Pitt?” I’m embarrassed that I’m flattering him. And I’m embarrassed by my use of the word “bloody.” I expect Jeremy to make fun of me for it. I don’t know where it came from; it sounds like something one of the characters in my fantasies might have said. Sometimes I make my fairy godmother British.

But Jeremy just smiles and says, “Nah, too old. He’s so nineties.”

“Well, I don’t know, then—whoever. She wouldn’t cheat on you. No girl is that stupid.” What am I saying? I sound pathetic; I sound like I feel privileged just to get to see him so close-up. “I just mean, you know everyone. It would totally get back to you. And you could totally decimate her reputation, and that’s important to a girl like that. I mean, it’s even important to me.”

“So I shouldn’t decimate your reputation?” He’s teasing me.

This conversation is so frustrating that my lips are raw, since I bite my lower lip every time Jeremy speaks. I was supposed to be angry at him for showing up rudely; I was supposed to be acting more confident.

And really, why am I being so nosy about his breakup with Marcy? I like gossip just fine, but I’m not like my mother or Gram: I don’t seek it out; I don’t really relish it. The fact is, this is none of my business. But I feel entitled to know about it, like how people in kingdoms feel entitled to know what’s going on in the lives of their royals. Like all the tabloids in Britain sharing the secrets of the Windsors. People probably couldn’t explain why they care, but they still think they have a right to know.

Finally Jeremy says something seriously. “Connie, it was nothing. I just thought I could trust her, and it turned out I couldn’t.”

“So that means she cheated, right?”

Jeremy shakes his head. “No, kid, it doesn’t mean she cheated.”

“You can be a real pain in the ass, Jeremy. I’m trying to have a conversation here. You don’t have to act like I’m your little sister.”

He grins slyly. “My little sister knows why we broke up.”

And he leans down and kisses me on the cheek, but he holds his lips there a second longer than is casual, leans in a little more. His hand squeezes my upper arm, and the pressure of it is comforting. It feels, actually, like the kind of squeeze you might give your little sister, and funnily enough, I kind of wish I could be. How nice to have a boy like this looking out for you, teaching you who you have to steer clear of; telling you about high school parties and what goes on there, that maybe it’s okay to drink and do some drugs—just make sure it doesn’t get out of hand, and of course you can sit in the lounge with the upperclassmen, no one will cross me.

Well, I guess I’m a cliché, a fatherless girl longing to be taken care of by the boy she finds attractive. Nah, for it to be a real cliché, he’d have to be much older.

“See you tomorrow, Con,” Jeremy says, releasing my arm and walking to the corner. I watch him stick his hand out for a cab and I wait until he climbs into one before I turn to walk into my building. Like I need some assurance that he’s going to get home safely or something.

8

It’s raining on Monday. I guess we’ve been lucky so far that when Jeremy’s come for a cigarette, it hasn’t rained. I guess it was only a matter of time. Jeremy sits with me at lunch. Alexis isn’t even there today, so there’s no excuse for the way that we sit without talking.

But everyone around us is talking.

“I swear to God, she’s in the hospital.”

“No way.”

“They said it was anorexia—”

“Who said?”

“How the hell should I know? But anyway, I heard it was really coke.”

“Heard from where?” Jeremy cuts in. Jeremy and I think we know better. We’ve been watching her. We know it’s anorexia.

It was Brent Fisher who said that, and he’s obviously embarrassed. Emily Winters comes to his rescue. “It’s true. I heard Mrs. Downing on the phone with her mother.” This has to be a lie. Why would Alexis’s parents tell the faculty it was coke? If anyone had heard anything, it would have been from one of Alexis’s friends. Emily tries to loop me in. “I meant to tell you about it, Connelly, this morning.”

I shrug. “I haven’t heard anything.” Emily looks disappointed in me, and I feel bad that I didn’t take her side. Jeremy touches my shoulder before he gets up to leave.

Kate isn’t in school either, but no one’s whispering about her, at least not out in the open. I guess a sick seventh grader isn’t exactly fodder for the rumor mill like an anorexic coke addict.

In physics, the formulas swim over my head and it’s all I can do not to beg Jeremy to tutor me again. The chairs in the physics lab aren’t really chairs but stools, with desks so high they come up to my chest when I’m standing. I swing my legs from the high stool, which makes me feel even younger, even more clueless, like I’m way too little to be in this grown-up class where everything is so hard. After class, I look to Jeremy for help, for some reassuring look that he understands everything and he’s here to help, but he’s surrounded by two guys and Nina Zuckerman, the most beautiful girl in our class, and maybe the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in real life. She’s wearing almost the same thing I’m wearing—jeans and a tank top under a cardigan sweater—but the outfit looks so different on her, so thoughtlessly stylish that you can tell it takes effort for me to dress right but she doesn’t even have to try. I couldn’t possibly go up to him in those circumstances. I can only take his help if he offers it.

I’m spending a free period in the library, and it occurs to me that there must be records somewhere about my father’s death. The school has a bunch of old newspapers on microfiche; maybe I can just find his obituary. It’s such a simple idea that I feel stupid not to have thought of it before. The microfiche are still organized by card catalog, unlike the rest of the library. I guess no one ever has cause to look at the
New York Times
from over a decade ago. I’m about to open the card catalog when I realize that I don’t know the exact date of my father’s death. He died after I turned two; that’s all I know. I wish I could remember the funeral, at least—if I could remember what I wore (if I went), maybe that would help me figure out what time of year it was. I’ve never been taught how to use a card catalog—everything’s computerized now—and I’m embarrassed to ask the librarian for help. She’s practically senile anyway, with glasses thick like Coke bottles, her gray hair cropped close to her head. I can’t imagine she would have the wherewithal to help me. And I can’t imagine admitting to that woman, the one with the bad glasses and the unflattering haircut, why I need help, that I’m looking for my father’s obituary. If she asked why, I could just pass it off as sentimentality, not give away that I don’t know how he died. But I’m sure she’d see through me, that she’d know I was searching for something I’m not supposed to know. She’d hesitate. She probably doesn’t even know that my father’s dead. She’d react with shocked sympathy, put her doughy arm around me. I would be mortified when she refused to help me. Maybe she’d suggest that I ask my mother.

I’ve been standing in front of the card catalog for more than five minutes now. My hands hang at my sides—I haven’t even pretended to know where to begin, which drawer to reach for. I think I might cry. And I am completely startled to feel a hand on my shoulder. Of course it’s Jeremy. Of course I make an awkward inhaling/grunting noise as I turn to face him, stifling the lump in my throat. I try to play it off.

“You scared me.”

“How?”

“Because I didn’t know anyone was there.”

“Yeah, you looked like you were concentrating pretty hard.”

Sometimes I can’t tell whether he’s teasing me or being serious.

“Listen, Con, I thought I might come over tonight—say around eleven, for a cigarette?” He grins. “See, I’m giving you advance notice. I bet you thought I wasn’t listening.”

The way he’s made this so simple makes me feel foolish for ever having thought it mattered. His hand has slid from my shoulder to my upper arm, and his grip feels warm. It’s something out of a fairy tale: the prince deigns to touch the lowly commoner, making her weak in the knees. I have to extricate myself from his hold before he notices.

“Well, okay. See you later.” I step back, freeing my arm, and bump into the card catalog. One of the drawers slides open. It smells like it hasn’t been opened in years. Now my elbow hurts and my face is hot with embarrassment. Jeremy, the consummate gentleman, pretends not to notice.

“Hey, don’t take it the wrong way, but I couldn’t help noticing you looked kinda lost in physics. Want to study sometime this week, maybe during lunch?”

I’m grateful for the offer, though it occurs to me that it’s just because of lunch today—without Alexis there to stare at, there was no excuse for our sitting next to each other in silence. Studying would cover up the awkwardness.

“Yes, okay, perfect.”

“Okay, see you tonight.”

I wait until he walks away to rub my elbow.

It’s still raining when I walk home from school and still raining when my phone rings at a quarter to eleven. I figure Jeremy’s used to seeing me in my pajamas by now, so I don’t even bother with shoes; I shuffle downstairs in my slippers. Jeremy and I huddle under the awning of the building, just outside the lobby.

“It’s freezing,” he says.

“Yeah, what are we going to do in a few weeks? It’ll be November.” I immediately regret having said this, having admitted to some assumption that this will keep going on. Jeremy doesn’t seem to notice the weight of what I said. He jokes, “We’ll just have to huddle closer.”

I know it’s a joke, but it’s one that, being a girl who has admitted attraction to the boy standing a few feet away from her, I read a lot into. Like, does that mean he thinks that by November we’ll be more likely to be standing close, i.e., hooking up or dating or at least being comfortable buddies who don’t mind getting close to keep warm? Because whether we’re buddies now or not, there’s nothing comfortable going on here. I can’t imagine even taking one step closer to him. The most intimate thing he’s ever done is light a cigarette for me in his mouth together with his own.

God, how come he knows how my father died and I don’t even know if it’s okay to lean against him when I’m cold?

And then, just like that, he gives me something intimate: “Jesus Christ,” he says, and I can see he’s choked up. Visibly choked up. (Obviously, visibly—otherwise, how the hell would I know?)

And having been given this window, I have no idea what to do. And I only have a second to figure it out.

“Jeremy?” I offer dumbly. I’m so flustered; this moment has so much responsibility. A guy like Jeremy Cole is never ruffled. Hell, it’s his job, as prince, to show a good outward appearance at all times. If he is showing this to me, he must either trust me or be so upset that he simply can’t hold it in.

I know he’ll compose himself before he reveals anything. So I just wait.

“Jesus. Christ,” he says again, this time much more slowly. He’s looking down at the pavement.

“I just really love her, you know?”

Jeremy is still looking down, so I stand nearer to him—he’s taller than I am, so even if he is looking down, if I stand close enough, he’ll be looking at me.

“Jeremy?”

“What did you do? I mean, I know it’s totally different, but you’re all right, you’re here and you’re fine, so it must be okay, somehow. There must be a way to make it okay.”

I am so confused that it’s making me nervous. My hands are sweaty, even though I’d been so cold before.

“Jeremy, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

“When your dad was sick—I know you were young, but you must remember. What was it like?”

What was it like. When my dad was sick. I have no clue. But I can’t let Jeremy see that I don’t know. I will have to think about that later. So I just say, “I’m sorry, Jeremy, I was two years old.”

Jeremy looks straight at me.

“But you’re okay now.”

He seems to need me to affirm this, so I say, “Yes. I’m okay now.”

I should say something more; something comforting. But I can’t think of anything else. I must have said something right, because he nods, and then he smiles at me. He reaches his arm toward me, and for a second I think he’s going to take my hand. But instead he takes the cigarette from my fingers, which seems even more intimate. It’s gone out—I hadn’t even noticed. Rain must have fallen on it.

“I better go,” he says, crushing the cigarette in his fingers. “It’s getting late, and you’ve got school tomorrow.” He grins.

“Yes, sir, and I have to get my beauty rest.” Like I’m royalty too.

I shuffle away in my slippers, go back to bed to stare at the ceiling. My father was sick. My father had an illness. Why is my mother so scared to tell me that? It’s so normal. It’s so banal. I think I might be disappointed.

I am nearly asleep when I realize what I missed: Jeremy was talking about Kate.