The Julian Game (6 page)

Her eyes narrowed. “Is this about Ella Parker?” she asked. “Are you two status-updated to best pals?”

“God, no.”

“Okay, then she’s the sort-of real friend?”

“Tal, this isn’t about Ella.” Except that it was—but Natalya didn’t need to know every single detail.

She looked unconvinced but let it go. “I’d pick the sort-of real one,” she answered. “Go back to a classic, like
The Terminator
. You can’t trust the cyborgs. And an online friend is a cyborg, fused from natural and artificial elements. You need to defend the real, flesh-and-blood friend.”

Natalya seemed sure of this, but in the back of my mind doubts lurked. What if Julian got angry at being stranded at this party? What if he was disappointed that urban, artsy Elizabeth was only Boring Fulton Sophomore Me? If I didn’t do it, though, I’d anger Ella. Maybe even lose her. And I really didn’t want that to happen.

I wasn’t sure if Ella saw me as a friend, but the one thing I knew was that I didn’t want her as my enemy. Right now, our relationship was stable, with lots of potential upside—such as me being invited to future Group parties, where I’d be perceived as Ella’s levelheaded but non-suck-uppy ally (which is how I envisioned myself whenever I projected my social future at Fulton). And I was getting there. I was. Ella laughed at my jokes and listened to my advice, and I was sure the Group saw me as more than Nerbit the Newbie.

So I was almost in, as long as I didn’t trip up.
You should just stop obsessing. It’s a harmless prank. You might not even get Julian to the party anyway.

I was lying to myself and I knew it.

Especially when I was also talking to Julian Kilgarry every night and loving every minute of it.

Julian was a night owl. He was logged on from eleven to one or two in the morning, researching for homework or playing games and checking out clips and IMing. Usually, he touched base with Elizabeth just past midnight.

Tonight, he’d sent her a link to a show at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts.

alredy bin
, I typed—which was true. Dad and Stacey and I had checked it out a few weekends ago before heading to Dmitri’s to indulge Dad’s foodie passion, grilled calamari.

We traded a few more messages before I went for it.

Pause.

Crappity-crap-crap. I swallowed.
lol we all call her mc . . .

shes having a party sat—addy 114 rabbit run malvern? u on? or u + me + movie in philly & u show me @ the city sat? xcpt my rmate’ll prolly bug us & if we go 114 i can stay w/ mc o-nite
No response. Then:
mcs mite be fun

I sat back. My fingers were damp as Play-Doh.

But I hadn’t messed up.
k c u sat
☺ I typed.

Julian answered. His symbol for “soft landing.” Meaning that he was drifting from this chat on to something else and might roll back to me in a few minutes, or maybe not. Julian liked to find glyphs to match precise decisions. He’d explained this to me, but I’d already known about it from his November “Guest Editor” column in
The Wheel.

I moved to Ella’s page that I could visit as Elizabeth. Though I’d shied at requesting friendship from Ella as myself.

Also, she’d never offered.

On Facebook, Ella gave up nothing. She was just who I’d have thought she was—if I didn’t know her.

The surprise was her sister, Mimi Parker. If Ella was a watercolor, Mimi was her charcoal opposite. Harder eyes, sharper cheekbones, a challenge in her chin. Whatever the backdrop, she planted herself so strongly in the foreground—whether it was in front of a Christmas tree or on the Harvard green or at the Parkers’ beach house—that it often took a moment to notice that Ella was always there, too.

“Do you get along with your sister?” I’d asked Ella once on the phone.

“I’d like her better if we didn’t share parents,” she answered.

“Meaning?”

Ella’s voice was clipped. “Meaning, they see me only in terms of her. And where they should see me as taller, prettier, better athlete, more popular, what it all comes down to, for them, is less brains.” Then she’d sighed. “It’s a one-time mistake, being born second, but it’s got a lifetime of repercussions.”

And her last sentence had sounded so plaintive that I’d refrained from asking what book or movie she’d probably stolen it from.

Now, as Elizabeth, I left Ella the message:
its on.

March had been cold, but not today. Natalya and I carried
our lunches out to a small table in the courtyard. The cafeteria tables each sat eight, which meant we ended up sharing indoor table space with Boogertroll and her best friend, Bryce Cuckler, who, in the nerd spectrum, was more on the techie than bookworm end.

Courtyard tables sat only two, and I was glad to use the shift in weather to escape there. Plus I wanted to talk to Natalya in private.

“You’re going to Ella Parker’s house Saturday?” She drew back at my news as if I’d stung her. “
Why
?”

“To jump-start her for midterms,” I said. “It was last minute. Her parents are so worried she’ll flunk Chinese. I’m really sorry, Tal. I’ll come next weekend for sure.”

Natalya looked at me suspiciously. “Did I ever tell you Ella’s dad made his money off computer dating?” she asked. “Back in the eighties where you’d do a videotape and send it to the company and they’d pick the three best people to go out with.”

I laughed. “How do you know that?”

“Don’t laugh too hard. That’s how my parents met. They were the one hundredth couple to get married off Parker Pairing. Our parents got to be friends, and they’d pair Ella and me off, too. Sesame Place, Disney World, Six Flags—our families doubled up for all that stuff, in the day.” She moved from her sandwich to unzip a Fruit Roll-Up from its cellophane.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“It wasn’t important. It still isn’t. Except I used to know Ella pretty well. Sometimes she’d come over for a playdate looking perfect in her sundress and she’d have flowers for my mom. And then she’d start. Telling me about germs and all the ways you might die from raw eggs or mouse poop or mosquitoes or popcorn. She was always washing her hands, and she had to control everything and reject everything. She’s still so negative that way—haven’t you noticed? How incredibly good she is at telling people how they’ll fail?”

“Yeah, I see that.”

“Anyway, I was relieved when our parents stopped pushing the friendship,” Natalya concluded. “No matter how jealous some of the other girls were. They didn’t know her like I did.”

“Don’t worry about me, Tal. I get what you’re saying about Ella. But it’s just tutoring.”

“No, it’s not just tutoring.” Natalya spoke with crisp assurance. “Ella wants something from you. If she was serious about Chinese, she’d get a professional tutor.”

I didn’t have a ready answer for that.

“Don’t go,” Natalya warned. “Even if you don’t want to come over to my house. Ella Parker has problems. I grew up with her. She’s poison.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“If that’s what it takes.”

I didn’t say what I thought, which was that Natalya probably needed to deal with her own jealousy issues. She might seem protective with my interests at heart, but she’d also made a point of noting how once
she’d
been close with Ella. It was harsh to say that her advice came loaded, but it wasn’t exactly neutral.

After lunch, Natalya drifted away. No loitering at my locker at the end of the day so that we could trek over to afternoon assembly together.

Alone, I joined the slipstream into the auditorium. Sinking into the one free seat at the end of the back row. I needed to be alone to think.

Maybe Natalya was right. And she didn’t even know the half of what was planned.

I took a few deep breaths and made myself listen to the afternoon’s program panel for CAFÉ—Cultural Awareness For Everyone. They were sponsoring a contest with prizes. The familiar rush of competition perked me up.

The Group was a few rows ahead. Ella’s pale hair in its trademark silk scarf; Alison’s bob, glossy as chocolate wrapping paper; Jeffey’s, a high-fashion waterfall cascading down the back of the chair; Lindy’s wrestled into her curly ponytail; and Faulkner’s limp but tidy.

In faceless ranks, they seemed dangerously united.

As usual, I wasn’t really listening to myself.

The Parkers lived at Ravenscliff, a compound of huge
stucco houses divided by a storybook landscape of scum-free ponds and tidy evergreens.

“Smugville,” Natalya had called it. But I privately thought it was vastly superior to my neighborhood of crumbling Victorian gingerbreads.

Stace and Dad dropped me off to the embarrassing tune of Barry Manilow’s “Could It Be Magic” and were singing along—“Come, oh come into my arms. Let me know the wonder of all of you. Baby, I want you!”—as I scrammed up the path-lit flagstones.

My cheeks were still burning when Mimi answered. Real Mimi was just like photos Mimi, a smirking beanpole in Chuck Taylors. “Looks like I owe my sis a tenner,” she said. “I never thought she’d make friends with one of Sophie’s Girls.”

“Oh. Well, here I am.” Mimi meant Sophie Fulton-Glass, whose trust endowment paid for my scholarship. Swathed in a cape and clutching a spray of violets, Sophie’s homely portrait judged me every morning when I walked through Fulton’s doors.

Sophie Fulton-Glass, the original Nerbit.

“My year’s Sophie was my best friend, Andy,” Mimi continued as she led me through the double-high front hall and then under a vaulted arch into what I knew rich people called the great room. “Now Mom and Dad are thrilled Ella has a Sophie Girl of her very own.”

“Andrea Caplan.” I remembered. I’d seen a copy of Mimi’s yearbook. Andrea and Mimi had done a double-spread, overexposed film print of themselves, bare feet dangling from the branches of a huggable oak. Very retro-hip seventies. Was that what the Parkers wanted from me? Another scholarship Sophie Girl for their other daughter, a smart sidebar benefit to pad the Fulton experience, with an arty yearbook page to prove it?

Past the great room, I glimpsed a formal living room of stiff furniture and bold paintings, mostly pop art. I recognized a Warhol and a Lichtenstein. Were they real? They looked so confident that you didn’t want to doubt their worth. Sort of like both Parker daughters.

But Mimi led me under another arch, and into a kitchen double the size of a Fulton squash court. She tossed me a Coke from the fridge and took one herself. “Hey, Mom, here’s Raye, your Sophie Girl. Just like you ordered.”

The woman had slipped in through a swinging door. “Hi, Raye. I’m Jennifer Parker. Now, Mimi, don’t be horrible. Ella knows she can be friends with anyone she wants, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Mimi repeated, reloading the word with friendly sarcasm.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” I said nerbitishly. Ella’s mother looked like a teacher, with silver-threaded hair, bifocals, and the look of having just misplaced an intelligent decision.

“We’re down to the wire. Two receptions. Both at seven,” she said to Mimi. “One’s sculpture. The other’s fish photographs. Which?” She held two printouts for Mimi to examine.

They were still deciding between them when Ella bopped down, dressed in dark jeans, a fitted top and loose, shining hair. She was so beautiful, I felt a sudden surge of insecurity. I could obsess on myself all day and never look that good.

“You’re fancy for homework,” Mimi commented.

“We’re going to Luddington. Which is a public place, even if it’s a library, so excuse me for not wearing a Slanket,” said Ella.

“Saturday night at the library? That’s different.” Jennifer Parker smiled at me, then reached out and tucked a piece of Ella’s hair behind her ear. “Does that mean you’ll spend the night in the stacks whispering about boys and hair mousse?”

“What the hell is hair mousse?” Ella stepped outside her mother’s reach. “And I’ve got other interests than guys.” She began to tap-tap-tap a nail on the kitchen counter.

Mimi feigned surprise. “And they are?”

“Like you care.”

“I do. Tell me.”

“Let’s just say you’ll find out one day.”

“Really? As in, when you declare your major at Tragic U?”

“Mimi, please.” Their mother frowned. Then turned to Mimi. “Photography or sculpture? I’ll need to call Dad and tell him. And then where to, for dinner?” All of her body language was flexed for Mimi’s opinion.