Until It Hurts to Stop (16 page)

twenty-two

On Tuesday at lunch, Nick and Vanessa are not rubbing up against each other, or eating from each other’s plates, or sneaking off to a quiet corner. When I sit down, they barely nod at me. Vanessa says to him, “I was
not
taking your father’s side.”
“You said he had a good point.”

“Well, he did—
one
good point. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything he said, or with how he said it.”
“Vanessa, stay out of my family stuff.”
“Oh, fine, Nick. Because you handle it
so well
on your own.”
Nick picks up his sandwich and bites into it. I look down at my own sandwich, thinking that I should leave the table—but to go where?
“And speaking of families,” she continues, “you could spend a little more time around mine.”
“What’s your problem now?”
“Why didn’t you come over for dinner on Sunday? My mother invited you, and you didn’t come up with much of an excuse. And I wanted to go over the plans for the Halloween party. You said you’d help with that—”
“I am. I went with you to that party store way over in Cramer, and I told you I’d help you drag all those pumpkins to your house. . . .”
I hunch my shoulders, trying to make myself smaller.
“But you’re acting like everything’s a big chore, when this is supposed to be
fun.
”
“Sorry I don’t live up to your high standards,” Nick says. “You and my dad can get together and talk about how useless I am.”
“Will you stop putting words in my mouth?”
“Between the two of you, I’ve got a list ten miles long of what’s wrong with me. If I’m so worthless, why don’t you walk away right now?”
“Nick, I can’t take this anymore. Will you just—”
“Then
don’t
take it. Like I said, walk away now.”
She gapes at him. I concentrate on my sandwich, pretending I’m invisible. I might as well be, for all the attention they’re paying me.
“What are you saying?” Vanessa asks. “Are you breaking up with me?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“I don’t
believe
you,” she mutters, picking up her tray. “You’re impossible.”
She stands there for a moment, as if waiting for him to ask her to stay, but he stares straight ahead without saying anything. She walks over to her old table and sits with her back to us, next to Janie Fletcher.
“Anything I can do?” I say after a pause.
“Yeah,” Nick answers. “Don’t talk for the rest of lunch. Please.”
“I can do that,” I say, and we eat in silence.

“I’m sorry you had to see that at lunch,” Vanessa says in French class, during a conversation exercise. We’re supposed to discuss the price of fruit in an imaginary market, but our teacher is on the other side of the room. “I didn’t mean for us to fight in front of you. It’s just—I tried to have a simple discussion with him, and it went out of control. He wouldn’t listen to reason. I can’t believe he broke
up
with me over this.”

“Well,” I say slowly, “I didn’t hear the whole thing, but it sounded like it started with something about his father, right?”
“Yes. His father was nagging him about schoolwork . . . and look, I know the guy is rude and pompous, and some of the stuff he says to Nick is pretty nasty. But he’s right about one thing: Nick is smarter than he thinks, and he should set his sights higher. That’s all I said. And he got so—”
“Nick’s father has always been a sore point,” I say. “I’m not sure I even know the whole story between them, but there’s something Nick can’t get over. I don’t know if it’s the divorce— from what Nick says, it got very ugly—or the way his dad treats him, or what. But talking about Nick’s dad with him is like— twisting a broken arm.”
Vanessa ruffles her French book pages. “I don’t know how things blew up so quickly. I didn’t want to break up. Do you think he . . .”
The truth is, I don’t believe Nick wanted to break up with her, either. I suspect he did that on impulse, and that he didn’t mean half of what he said to her at lunch. But before I can say so, the teacher cruises past our desks. We launch into a few minutes of chatter about
cerises
and
framboises
and
bananes
until she moves on.
“Should I call him?” Vanessa asks.
“Well—”
“I kept trying to reason with him, and he wasn’t ready to hear it. Everything I said made things worse.”
“He’ll cool down,” I say.
“Or maybe—” She folds down the corner of a page, then flattens it again. I’ve never seen Vanessa so insecure. “Maybe you could talk to him. Just—encourage him to call me when he’s ready to talk.”
“Okay,” I say, and we switch back to talking about how red the apples are, how fresh the grapes are, in our imaginary French market.

It’s too rainy for outdoor basketball today. A tropical storm has blown into town, and it looks like it’s going to hang over our heads all week.

The ringtone for Nick’s father goes off as we get into the car after school, further clouding Nick’s mood. He shuts off the phone without answering, but the atmosphere inside the car is unmistakably gloomy.

“What’s with you, Cleary?” Luis says. “Whose funeral are we going to?”
“I thought driving you home every day was enough,” Nick says. “I didn’t know I had to entertain you the whole way, too.”
It’s probably supposed to come off as a joke, but his voice is so flat and cutting. The words smack me, and I know they must smack Luis. I rest a hand on Luis’s shoulder, but he shrugs it off.
“If you don’t want to drive me anymore, then hey, don’t,” Luis says.
“Sorry,” Nick says.
“I can get home on my own.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s—kind of a screwed-up day.” I don’t know how much Nick has told Luis about his problems with his dad or about the breakup with Vanessa. Probably almost nothing, knowing Nick.
When we drop off Luis, he gives Nick a friendly nudge, an elbow-bump of forgiveness. The mood in the car lightens a little as I slide into the front seat, but I’m not exactly eager to ask Nick anything now. Not after the reception he gave Luis.
But I need to talk about our Crystal plan. And I think it would help Nick, too. “Are you ready for Crystal on Saturday?” I say.
“I can’t. My dad got my mom to change the schedule around, and now it’s his weekend.
Again
.”
“Oh.” Because Dr. Cleary’s schedule is so weird (the proteins fold on their own timetable), he often switches around the visitation. Now I understand Nick’s mood even better, and why he was so prickly at lunch. “That’s too bad. But we can go the weekend after, right?”
Nick doesn’t answer.
“Are you—okay?”
“Yeah, perfect. I’m having a
spectacular
day. My father calls fifteen times to tell me what a loser I am, he destroys my hiking plans, I break up with my girlfriend, and basketball gets rained out. Every time I turn around, the day gets better and better.”
I say nothing. But I try to make my silence sympathetic.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t take it out on you. Especially since you’re the only person who can stand to be around me right now.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “Luis is still your friend. There’s your mom and Perry. And—” Maybe I should tell him about Vanessa. But I’m not sure that he’s ready, that he has calmed down enough yet.
When he pulls up in front of my house, he takes out his phone and hits the button to check his messages. He holds up the phone so I can hear: “You have—thirteen—new messages.”
“They’ll all be from my dad,” he says. “Thirteen calls, just on the ride over here. He’ll be pissed that I sent him to voice mail.”
I don’t know what to say.
“Sounds like I’ll be calling the Maggie Lifeline tonight,” he says. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” I say. “I’ll be there.”

I’m struggling to read an extremely dry, repetitive essay about the domino theory for history class when Mom bursts into my room. “Phoebe called. Dr. Cleary wants to take Nick and a friend to dinner, and they want you to go.”

“Nick’s supposed to see his dad over the weekend. Not tonight.”
“There’s been some schedule change—his father can’t make it on the weekend, so they’re seeing each other tonight. In any case, if you want to go, it’s all right with me.”
“Okay.” This means we can go to Crystal this weekend after all—assuming the tropical storm clears up. I toss aside my history book, relieved to put off the domino theory for a few hours. “Where are we going?”
“Midi.” She fans herself. “My little girl is growing up.
I’ve
never even been to Midi!”
Yikes—I’ll have to change. Even the bathroom attendants at Midi probably wear outfits that cost more than anything in my closet.

While Mom calls Phoebe, I dig out one of the two skirts I own, and pair it with a black shirt. Black is supposed to be sophisticated. Or so I’ve heard. I look at the ruffled shirt Mom gave me on my birthday, but it’s white, and I can just picture a big food splotch on the chest before the night is over. The black will be better.

I pile my hair on top of my head, but decide it looks like a crow has nested up there. (
Heard of a comb, Maggie?
Raleigh once said.) I have no way to anchor it in place, anyway. Instead, I leave it long and attempt to fluff it out around my face. That will have to be good enough for Dr. Cleary and Midi.

I can’t help thinking that Vanessa should be the one going with Nick, but I guess he’s still angry with her. Since their whole fight started over her supposedly siding with his father, I don’t imagine he’s eager to bring them together right now.

My phone beeps. It’s a text from Nick:
_{thank you}
.

twenty-three

Nick’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but his father has on a crisp shirt and a jacket and tie. “You look pretty tonight, Margaret,” Dr. Cleary says, and I would swear he emphasizes the word
tonight
, but I thank him and try to get Nick to look somewhere besides out the window.

Midi is rose-colored tablecloths and crystal and a menu full of words like
infused
and
shaved
and
confit
. Dr. Cleary spends ten minutes checking his messages, which I don’t mind since it means we don’t have to come up with conversation. Nick plays with his butter knife.

Dr. Cleary swirls the wine in his glass. “It needs to breathe,” he says, staring expectantly at me.
“Oh,” I reply. Demonstrating, in one word, my brilliant social skills and my intimate knowledge of wine.
Our conversation limps along with no help from Nick, who escapes to the men’s room after the main course. I sip iced water from my goblet, hoping Nick’s dad will go for his phone again. Instead, he says, “How was your shrimp, Margaret?”
“Good.” And it was, but I wonder when I’ll ever learn what to order at a fancy restaurant. I couldn’t figure out how to get the tails off the shrimp without using my fingers. My napkin is smeared with the tomatoey broth the shrimp came in.
“My duck was a little dry,” Dr. Cleary says. “It’s usually excellent.”
“Hm,” I say. His eyes drift past me; he appears to be reading equations off the wall on the other side of the room. I get the feeling Dr. Cleary’s mind never completely leaves his lab, a feeling that’s only strengthened when his phone beeps.
“Yes,” he says into the phone. “What? No, it has to go in by midnight. No. Where’s Kieran? What? I don’t want to hear it. I’ll be right in.”
He snaps off the phone and turns to check the men’s room door, while I pray that Nick hasn’t gone out the window. “Where is he?” Dr. Cleary mutters. “Margaret, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to ride over to the lab with us before we drop you off. Something’s come up that I have to deal with immediately.”
“All right.”
He marches to the men’s room and puts his head in the door. Even from the table, I can hear him say, “Nick! Let’s go!”

Dr. Cleary uses his ID badge to get us into the lab, swiping his plastic card through a series of beeping red electric eyes, pushing through door after door. We rush through a series of antiseptic corridors. When we reach his hall, he charges ahead of us down to his office, calling, “Sangita! Kieran!”

By the time Nick and I enter the office, Dr. Cleary is hunched over a computer with two of his researchers, their voices hushed. They focus so intently on the screen that it’s like a movie in which they’re trying to stop a missile from launching—though all they’re really trying to do is launch a grant proposal.

They mutter to one another, stabbing at the keyboard, clicking buttons. “Make sure you have the latest versions of all the attachments,” Dr. Cleary says, ice in his voice. Sangita sweeps a hand through her hair. Kieran’s hair stands up all over his head.

“
No
,” Dr. Cleary says. “Back up. There.” He pokes a finger at the screen. “‘Petide,’ seriously? If you can’t spell ‘peptide,’ you shouldn’t even be working in this lab.”

“It’s just a typo,” Kieran mumbles.

“Oh, brilliant. I’m sure they’re looking for sloppy, lazy proposals that nobody could bother to spell-check.”
Nick sits on a cardboard box beside his father’s desk. I perch on a low step stool and try to arrange my skirt so that I’m not accidentally flashing anyone. The group in front of us taps away, flinging the occasional curt word at one another.
Sangita murmurs something, gesturing at the screen.
“No, that is
not
it,” Dr. Cleary snaps.
“Yeah, it is,” Kieran says.
“Kieran, pull your brain out of your ass and start using it. Get the right file up there.”
“That is the right file. Three thirteen is the right file.”
“Yes,” Sangita says. “Noel and Fisher posted it this morning. Three thirteen is the latest.”
Dr. Cleary wheels and stalks out of the room.
I glance at Nick, who gives me a dead, glazed look in return.
“You’re welcome,” Kieran says to the empty air where Dr. Cleary just stood. “‘Oh, thank you, Kieran, yes, you’re absolutely right. Three thirteen is right. I’m the one who’s wrong. Thank you for pointing that out.’”
“Sshh,” Sangita says. “Just pull up the rest of the files so we can get out of here.”
Dr. Cleary stomps back in. “Three thirteen is the right file.” With his eyes trained on the computer, he steps on Nick’s foot. Nick jerks, knocking over a plastic cup on the desk. Pens, clips, and rubber bands spill across the desk, over the blotter and folders and stray papers. “Oh, that’s a big help,” Nick’s father says.
The rest of us keep our mouths shut. At ten p.m., the proposal is sent, the researchers dismissed. Dr. Cleary sighs and begins sorting folders on his desk. Whenever he finds a clip or staple from the cup that Nick spilled, he flings it back into the holder, each one hitting with a hard, angry
ping
.
I’ve been thinking we’re going to leave any minute, but neither Dr. Cleary nor Nick speaks, and the silence between them is so heavy that it steals my voice, too. But I can’t wait another second for the ladies’ room, so I slip out. We passed it on the way in; I know I can find it.
At this hour, the lab is almost deserted, the halls lit by bluish fluorescent ceiling squares. Every noise echoes, magnified. On my way back, I’m stopped just outside the office by Dr. Cleary’s voice. His words pelt me through the half-open door.
“That’s not what bothers me,” he’s saying. “It’s that you seem perfectly happy with Bs. Even a C doesn’t faze you. If I’d ever gotten a C in high school, I would’ve tried to hang myself.”
“I’m not you,” Nick says.
“That’s all too obvious. You’re heading for complete and total mediocrity. Is that what you want to be—a
nobody
?”
Nick doesn’t answer.
“Then there’s all that time you waste on basketball. You’re not going to make the NBA, so why are you bothering? You’re an average player on an average team. Study. That’s your chance to do something with your life.”
“You don’t have to tell me again.”
“Oh, really, Nick? Because I haven’t noticed it sinking into your thick skull, no matter how many times I say it. That’s what you have to do with stupid people: repeat things. Tell them over and over, until they finally start to get it. I’ve killed smarter cockroaches than you.”
In the hall I stand, twining my fingers together, not knowing when to enter the room. I want to break this up, but I don’t want Nick to know I’ve heard. And I don’t know if I can be polite to his father right now. I want to rush in there and crush Dr. Cleary’s huge arrogant head between my hands.
“Sometimes I wonder if you’ve sustained brain damage somewhere along the line,” Nick’s father says. “I don’t know where it comes from. Your mother’s not that stupid—”
“Leave her out of this.” It’s the first thing Nick has said with any pulse of life in it. Until now, he has sounded almost as if he’s been reading from cue cards. I get the feeling these two have had this conversation many times before.
“I give up. I can’t even stand the sight of you right now.”
I expect Nick to say, “It’s mutual,” but the room is silent. After a minute, shuffling noises suggest that Dr. Cleary has returned to cleaning his desk, and I walk in.
“Margaret,” Dr. Cleary says. “Are you ready to leave?”
As if
I’ve
been the one keeping us here all night. I’m afraid my face must be red with fury. Knotting my hands together, not looking at Nick or his father, I say, “Yes, you can take me to Nick’s. My mom will pick me up there on her way home.”
Mom’s not actually working tonight, and it would be simpler for Dr. Cleary to take me home. But there’s no way I’m letting Nick go home alone with his father’s words ringing in his head.
Nick and I don’t talk to each other. But in the backseat of the car, I slip my hand into his, and he grasps it as if I might vanish otherwise. Aside from one polite sentence to thank Dr. Cleary for dinner, I am quiet, every cell of me focused on the moment when I can be alone with Nick.