The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates (18 page)

We didn’t have much of an opportunity to speak during class either because we were giving presentations on various short stories. Mine was on John Steinbeck’s
The Pearl
. Finn did his on Edgar Allen Poe’s
The
Cask
of Amontillado
. I thought this was very fitting, because it was about a man who got his friend drunk and tricked him into standing still while he walled him up in his basement. Talk about betrayal.

After class, he followed me out of the door. The brisk wind stung my face and hands, but I loved it. “Take me to work?” he asked, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his coat.

“Okay.” I glanced over my shoulder and waved at Shannon, who was jogging across the lawn towards her house, her shoulders hunched against the wind. “I could have taken your sister home, too.”

“She’s tough.”

“And you aren’t?”

“Shannon’s got less than three blocks to walk. I’ve got six.” He smirked and shrugged his shoulders as if to suggest that he had no alternatives to getting to work, though I knew good and well that his two feet would have gotten him there just fine.

“Just get in the car.”

He followed orders without complaint. I climbed in while Finn cranked up the heater and turned down the radio so that it was just background noise. I looked over at him, curious. He never bothered turning down the radio unless he had something specific to say.

“I have something to say,” he said, and for one brief instant I seriously considered the possibility that he could read my mind and always could.

I shook my head to clear that terrifying idea out. “What?”

“Margo and I split up.”

“Oh. I kind of figured that.” I pulled out onto the main road and Oscar groaned under the pressure.

“Was it that obvious?”

“What, that she hasn’t been hanging out with us for the past three days? Yes.” I jerked to a stop at a red light and tapped on the wheel impatiently. “Also, Shannon told me.”

“What did Shannon tell you?” he said, suddenly very serious. Well, no. He’d been serious before. Now he was several steps up from that. Intense. Focused. He was always so damned focused.

I glanced over at him, more than a little resentful that my two best friends were keeping secrets from me. “Don’t worry, she didn’t tell me why. And I won’t ask, either.” The light changed and I stepped on the gas.

“What do you mean, you won’t ask?”

“I mean you obviously don’t want me to know, so I won’t ask.” We were in front of the library now, and I double parked right in front of the door and waited for him to get out.

“Emily, it’s not that I don’t want you to know,” he began, but I cut him off.

“No, no. I know. You’re just being noble. Shannon explained that much.” I stared straight ahead through the windshield. Someone in a white Ford was stuck behind me, but I ignored them. “I can’t imagine why, though. After all, I’m only your best friend.”

“Exactly.”

The finality in his voice caught my attention, but by the time I turned to ask what he’d meant, he’d already gotten out of the car and slammed the door shut behind him. I watched him walk up to the library, the wind whipping at his coat and hair, and disappear inside. I was so thoroughly confused now that my head hurt.

The Ford behind me honked, and I jolted back to the here and now. I shoved the car into gear.

              Ten minutes later I pulled into my driveway and parked directly behind Dad. He never went anywhere anyway. “How ya feeling today?” I asked Mom as I dropped my bag on the floor. I went over and sat by her on the couch.

              “Bloated,” she said. She was watching a special on penguins on TV, but she didn’t seem terribly interested in it.              

              “Well good news,” I said, “you look like you feel.”

              “Shut up.”

              I plopped down on the couch beside her. “No seriously. You’ve really put on some weight. Like more than I think you’re supposed to.”

              She turned and glared at me. “I can’t wait until you’re pregnant, Emily Prudence Bates, because I will be
merciless
.”

              “Eh,” I shrugged. “Whatever you think is fair.” I was serious. I thought pregnant women weren’t supposed to put on more than a couple of pounds per week. Poor Mom looked like she was gaining at least five at a time. I decided not to push the issue, though. No sense in upsetting her.

The phone rang and we both jumped.

              “I’ll get it.” I pulled myself up and snatched the receiver. “Hello.”
              “Hey, Em. Why’d you run off so fast after school?”

              I froze. It was Ethan, and he sounded overly cheerful as usual. How could someone be so perfect and so irritating at the same time? “Oh, hey,” I managed to get out. “I, uh, had to take Finn to work. What’s up?”

              “Not much. I just wanted to ask what you were doing Saturday.”

              Crap! Crap, crap, crap! “Uh, nothing. Why?”

              “You and I should go out. How’s dinner and a movie sound?”

              It sounds terrible. And overdone, come to think of it. “Ah, well…”

              “Well what?” I could hear his smile fading in his voice.

              But then I remembered something wonderful. “I can’t. My mom and I are going shopping. Maternity clothes. She’s getting pretty fat now.”

              “Shut up!” Mom called from the living room.

“Oh,” Ethan said, sounding bright again. “Well then what about Friday? There’s a new thriller playing that I’ve been wanting to see.”

Another thriller? “I
--
I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

I gritted my teeth, wracking my brain for anything to say. Anything at all. Finally I opened my mouth and the words just spilled out of my mouth like vomit. “Ethan, we’re just friends, right?”

Yup. Vomit. They even left a terrible taste in my mouth.

Silence pounded through the receiver. I waited for almost a full minute before finally saying, “Ethan? We are, right?”

“Evidently so.” The grin was gone from his voice, and that made me even sicker. I had hoped against hope that he would be all right with this, but I ruined all of that with my word vomit.

“I just mean, we haven’t gone out in almost two months.” I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. “And we don’t even hang out much anymore.” Again I waited. Again he said nothing. “I just don’t see where this is going, that’s all.”

“Yeah.” Finally! Finally he’d responded. Maybe he was going to be accepting after all.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want to hurt you. You’re such a great guy.”

“Not great enough,” he stated blandly. “I’ve got to go. See you later.”

Click.

Aaron came around the corner and opened the fridge. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“Oh nothing. I’m just the most horrible person on the planet, that’s all.”

“Well I could’ve told you that.”

I scowled at him and went back to sit with Mom. At least she would be nice to me.

“I can’t
believe
you!” Shannon shouted at me the next morning at breakfast. Finn was home sick so it was just the two of us. “I
told
you not to do it over the phone, you
moron!
”

“I couldn’t help it!” I felt miserable. My stomach grumbled, but I didn’t feel like waiting in line for breakfast. “He kept asking me out! I had to cut my losses!”

“You could have told him you’d discuss it today!” She pushed her half eaten donut away from herself and crossed her arms. “I can’t believe you.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You didn’t say ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ did you?”

“No! I swear I didn’t. I just told him the truth. I said we never went out anymore and that we didn’t even hang out at school.”

She made a face at me. “If you had any other friends in this school, I would totally stalk off and leave you to your misery.”

“I’m not miserable.”

“But he is!”

“And I do too have other friends!”

“Like who?”

“Finn.”

“Finn doesn’t count.”

“Fine, Margo.” I eyed her donut, wondering if she was going to finish it or if it was up for grabs.

“Margo doesn’t count.”

“Well who does count?”

“You name another friend and I’ll tell you if they count.”

I glared at her. “Well fine. At least now you can set up Ethan with what’s-her-face in
Spanish
class.”

“Maggie,” She began picking at her d
o
nut. Dang. No breakfast. “You really should try to assert yourself more into the social scene. Maybe then you’d be able to remember people’s names.”

“That’s all right. I’d rather just be alone. It’s pleasant.”

“And boring.”

“Maybe to you.”

“Ms. O’Malley.”

We both turned to find Mr. Duvall, the vice principal, standing behind us.

Shannon hastily wiped her hands with her paper napkin. “Yes?”

“You’ve got a
--
uh, package at the office.”

“A package?” Shannon turned to me, but I just shrugged. She got up to follow him, and I quickly gathered up my things as well. There was no way I was going to miss this.

Why did they send the vice principal to give Shannon a message? Mr. Duvall looked irritated, too, like even he thought he was above messaging services. He led us both through the cafeteria and down the hall, shaking his head and muttering to himself the whole time.

“Oh no,” I breathed.

Shannon’s eyes were as big as punch bowls as we rounded the corner and saw through the glass front doors of the school. A florist truck was idling in the front drive and the delivery man was still unloading bouquet after bouquet of roses, lilies, daisies, carnations, even sunflowers into the front hall just outside of the office door. The entire hallway was crowded with every sort of flower you could think of.

Principal Davis was outside, too, yelling at the delivery man. We couldn’t hear what she was saying, but her wild gray hair was flying everywhere and her hands were slicing through the air like machetes.

The delivery man kept unloading the flowers, shaking his head and looking like he would be just as happy dumping all of the flowers in a dumpster as delivering them in the hall.

“What is all this?” Shannon asked, her hands over her mouth.

I stepped over to the nearest bouquet and pulled off the large, red card. I read it aloud. “
Shannon. Forgive me. Love, Charlie.
” I picked another card from another bouquet. “
Shannon, Forgive me. Love, Charlie.
” I grabbed another card, then another, then another. Dozens, maybe even a couple of hundred cards in all. I turned back to Shannon, my hands full of the little red cards. “They all say the same thing. How
did he afford all this?
”

She still stood with her hands over her mouth. The bell rang, but neither of us moved. Principal Davis came storming in behind the delivery man, who seemed to finally be bringing in the last load.

“I’ll say it one more time! Take it all back! We can’t accept it here!” she bellowed at the deliveryman. Her hair floated around her red face like a weird, smoky halo. He just put down the last bouquet and brushed past her.

Shannon just shook her head. The halls were beginning to fill up and people were trying to navigate through the maze of flowers.

“Someone please get these out of here!” Nobody moved. Principal Davis yanked open the glass door to the office and shouted, “Call Charlie Hamilton to the office immediately!”

Soon traffic stopped altogether and everyone just started staring at Shannon and at all of the flowers. They were everywhere. Nobody could get through. At this point nobody wanted to get through. This was a wonderful excuse to hold class up for the second time in a week. I looked up and spotted Ethan in the crowd. He wouldn’t look at me, but he couldn’t get through the crowd and away from me either.

At some point in all the confusion the final bell rang, but nobody noticed it. No wonder Principal Davis was so mad.

I turned to face Shannon again, and stopped dead.

              Charlie was standing right behind Shannon, a look of pure bliss plastered across his handsome face.

              “Shannon?” I whispered, stepping up to her. She hadn’t noticed Charlie yet.

              Her hands finally fell away from her mouth, and her cheeks flushed scarlet. “That
jerk!
” The words rushed between her teeth with an angry hissing sound. “That total, moronic, stupid, jerk!”

              Relief swept through me. Thank heaven! She hated the snake!

              Charlie’s face fell, but only slightly. “Shannon?” he asked.