The Queen of Cool (12 page)

After school, by the car, I pull out a candy bar, tear off the foil, and eat a piece of chocolate.

I shield my eyes from the sun and look across the parking lot and see Sid, slowly weaving his way through the parked cars toward me.

He takes off his hood when he gets to me. Then he pushes his messy wet hair forward.

“Do you have any hair product?” Sid asks.

“Why?”

“I just had gym and took a shower, and I forgot to bring my hair stuff.”

“You should leave it,” I say, reaching out and messing up his hair again. “It looks good this way.”

But Sid pushes my hand away and smooths his hair forward again.

“I like my hair forward,” he says.

“Why?”

“I want to be known as the kind of guy who always has the wind at his back,” he says.

“You are so weird,” I say.

Sid smiles.

As soon as Mike Dutko joins us, Sid slips on his earphones. Mike Dutko is kind of sulking. But I choose to ignore it. We all sit silently until Perla and Kenji arrive.

“Where were you two?” I say. “We’re going to be late for the movie.”

For once, Kenji doesn’t pull me toward him. He doesn’t even kiss my cheek. He just gets in my car and sits in the back seat next to Perla.

“But it’s SUNDAY,” I say. “You know, FUN day? I already have plans.”

“Well now it’s No-Fun Sundays, because this family has to pull together,” Mom says.

After sixteen years of not having any rules at all, suddenly Mom is like an army general, trying to mobilize the troops.

“This family is in crisis,” she says. “We need to stay motivated.”

“It’s not my fault we had to budget out Nastja because Dad quit his job,” I complain.

“Go clean something,” she says, handing me the Swiffer.

“I am so over this,” I say.

After I tie up the trash and put it in the trashcan outside, Mom appears with a big glass of iced tea.

“Here,” she says. “You look hot. You’ve worked hard.”

“I have to work this hard at the zoo,” I say.

“Well, then, good, you’ve had practice.”

“All my friends were going to The Grove today, and I had to pass because of you and your un-fun Sunday.”

“You’ll live,” Mom says.

“You don’t understand,” I say. “I’m losing my cool. I’m probably going to lose all my friends.”

“I do understand,” Mom says. “I’m losing my cool. And feel like I’m losing my
bes
t friend.”

She’s talking about Dad. She undoes the elastic that holds back her long hair in a loose ponytail, and now it falls forward around her face and onto her shoulders. She sighs, then gathers it up again and pulls it back into a tighter bun on top of her head.

“I’m just trying to keep it together,” she says.

When I arrive at school the next day, I can immediately see that I missed the memo.

“Where’s your pirate outfit?” Kenji asks.

Sid removes his earphones and looks up at me from under his hoodie, with the one eye not covered in a patch.

“It’s Pirate Day,” Perla says.

“Obviously,” I say.

Perla has accessorized her pirate outfit with a green boa, so she looks not so much a pirate but like a cross between a pirate’s wench and his faithful parrot.

Everyone is looking at me.

“I guess you were too
busy
to be part of the plan,” Kenji says.

“Give me a second,” I say.

I borrow a pair of scissors, stuff them into my bag, and go to the bathroom.

When I get there, I push open the stall door.

“Breathe, girl. They just forgot to tell you,” I say.

I take off my shirt and attack it with the scissors. I rip and tie and shred.

I cut my skirt, pull it up over my boobs, and put on the reinvented T-shirt. I adorn a headband with a Sharpie-drawn skull and crossbones and tie it around my head.

The bell rings as I rejoin the other pirates.

“Yo ho ho,” I say. They look up at me, and they smile.

I can still pull it out of my ass.

If an animal is in a different environment, it is an alien.

If a person is in a different environment, she is considered an alien.

I feel like an alien now. And my friends are alien to me.

I pick up my cafeteria tray.

“Where are you going?” Perla asks.

“I gotta double-check something on my report for the zoo,” I say.

“It’s nice to see you actually working hard at something,” Sid says. “Usually you have it so easy.”

“Well, there is a lot of precision in the work that we do. Sometimes I get mixed up.”

This is half true. Half lie. I’m very precise when I want to be. The Blue Team field book is proof of that.

Perla and Kenji are completely uninterested. But Sid is paying attention.

“Cool,” he says.

As I gather my things, Sid takes his iPod out of his bag and slips the earphones into his ears. He looks up at me as I start to go.

I just stand there. Looking at him. Thinking.

Could he be just as bored as I am?

“Well, if you have to go,
go,
” Perla says.

So I go.

I push open the door to the library, a room I have barely visited in my three years of high school. The layout is unfamiliar.

I hear some laughter, and I follow the sound over to the table where Tiny is sitting. At first, no one notices me, because everyone is so enraptured with Tiny’s storytelling. They are all hanging on to her every word.

In the library, Tiny is like a secret princess.

She finishes the story, and everyone erupts into laughter again. She is laughing as her eyes meet mine.

“Libby!” she says.

“Hey, I thought maybe you studied when you were in the library.”

“Oh no. We hang out,” she says. “Why? Are you having a problem? I’m sure someone here is an expert for whatever ails you.”

Her hand sweeps over her adoring friends.

“Not really,” I say.

“Do you want to join us?” she asks.

I look at all the faces I have never noticed before.

I think, it’s too hard to get to know new people, to try to keep up with the smart conversation.

And I think, I don’t belong here either.

I don’t fit in anywhere anymore.

“No, that’s okay,” I say. “I’ll catch you later.”

At my locker before last period, Tiny comes up to me.

“Do you want to come over after school?” she asks. “You’ve been moping around all day, and you look like you need a friend.”

“I have friends,” I say.

“Okay.”

“I’m not moping,” I say.

But I’m a liar on both counts.

“I thought maybe you could use the studying,” Tiny says. “We have a biology test tomorrow, and I know I have a better time studying with someone.”

“Okay,” I say.

What the fuck.

After dinner we go up to Tiny’s room.

“They’re so . . . normal,” I say.

“What?”

“Your family.”

“Define
normal,
please,” Tiny says.

“Tall.”

“Yeah, well that’s what I thought you’d say. That’s what everyone says, and let me tell you something, it’s bullshit. Nobody sees that I’m normal too.”

I run my hand along her bookshelf. There’s a jewelry box that says
Good things come in small packages.
And she’s got a ton of books I’ve never heard of. One whole bookcase is dedicated to acting books and plays.

And on the top shelf, in front of the Shakespeare plays, is my purple shoe. The one I lost at the Fall Formal.

“Is this my shoe?” I ask.

Tiny stops organizing the study area.

“That?” she says.

“Yes, this,” I say. “My shoe.”

I take it off the shelf and hold it up for her to see.

“Um, it was in the hallway outside of the bathroom at Fall Formal,” she explains. “You dropped it when you went in. I took it for safekeeping.”

“You knew it was me?” I say.

“Everyone knew it was you,” she says.

“I’m taking it back,” I say.

My hand shakes as I hold the shoe, and I know that Tiny is watching me, smiling.

She’s always smiling.

She thinks I’m so cool, so worth admiring.

I know that there is a part of her that would give anything to be me, even for just one day.

Why doesn’t she get it? I’m not cool. And I’m not happy.

I’m not
anything.

I don’t want to have to pretend for Tiny like I do with everyone else lately. I just want to be myself. But how can a person be something as simple as herself when she doesn’t even know who she is anymore?

“I have to go,” I say, grabbing my books.

My pulse is racing again. Maybe I should see a doctor. Maybe my heart is weak.

“I should’ve told you I had the shoe,” Tiny says.

“It’s not about the shoe,” I say.

“Then what?” Tiny asks.

“I can’t explain it,” I say. “I just can’t.”

I shove the shoe back at Tiny.

“You should throw it away. It’s nothing special.”

I run down the hallway and out the front door to the curb and climb into my car.

I cry into my fake-fur-covered steering wheel.

“Where were you yesterday after school? I totally couldn’t find you,” Perla says.

“I went out with Tiny,” I say.

“What is she, like your new best friend?”