Waking (2 page)

She flipped open her tiny sketchpad, the one that was small enough to fit into the back pocket of her jeans, and found a blank page and a pencil. She drew softly, letting images travel from his song to her paper. She sketched his hands, long and callused, and felt herself blushing. She wondered if Luna had just walked up to him and introduced herself, had dared him to take her out. Or maybe he'd waited for her one morning outside math class or slipped a note into her locker.

The tip of her pencil snapped, pockmarking the paper. She was getting carried away. She couldn't help the small sigh when she heard him slip into The Doors' “Waiting for the Sun.” Ever since school had started up again, she'd dreamt of him kissing her and this song playing all around them. His dark hair tickled her cheek and his hand settled on her knee. The memory of it made her shiver and blush and made her feel like hiding.

She barely heard the screen door slide open behind her.

“Beauty, telephone!”

Her dad's voice might have been lightning slicing into a tree. She expected to see sparks and smell smoke. Her name seemed to echo. Poe's song ended, and she knew, with breathtaking humiliation, that he had heard her name bellowed over his singing and had stopped. The knowledge was like an ice cube dropped down the back of her shirt on a hot summer day.

Her chair scraped the flagstones as she pushed to her feet and ran inside.

Night was thick outside
her window. The streetlights and the blue glow of television screens flickering along the street were not comforting. The scrape of tree branches against the side of the house was like a raspy breath.

Beauty hated this time of the night, when everything was quiet and her homework was done and there was nothing left but to get into bed and try to sleep. It was like a medieval dungeon of comforter and cotton. She remembered when she used to tuck herself in under the sheets and snuggle into her pillow and pretend that the sun wasn't sliding warm hands over the window and spilling out onto her bare floor. She'd close her eyes and remember her dreams and smile.

That was before her mother died. Morning was her friend now, dawn the prince's kiss.

“Good night, sweetheart,” her father said, poking his head into her room. He wore his customary blue bathrobe, the one that was fraying and older than she was.

She smiled at him.

“Night, Dad.”

“Sweet dreams.”

She held the smile in place until he closed her door softly behind him and his footsteps echoed down the hallway. Sweet dreams. As if.

She sighed. She couldn't put it off any longer. She slid into the bed, took a deep breath and shut off her lamp. The wind moved the trees outside her window, making a shifting pattern like lace falling over her face. The smell of roses was strong.

She knew her father would be asleep before his head even hit the pillow. She'd be able to hear him snoring in a few minutes. Sleep was never a problem for him because he never remembered his dreams.

She pulled the blanket up over her face and tried not to think about it. It was a useless effort since it was all she could think about every night. Her dreams were always vivid and a little odd, but the ones that had a creepy habit of coming true were usually about tests or missing the bus to school. Her mother claimed it was a gift that the women in her family carried in their blood. She remembered her mother's mother telling of the time she woke in the night from a dream of fire just before a candle tipped and sent her curtains up in flames.

The only dream Beauty remembered now was one too bright and too sharp: her mother in a bathtub of rose petals in the garden with dark red corsages on each wrist.

And the woman in black watching her.

2

Mondays sucked.

There was no way around it. Beauty peeled the plastic wrap off her sandwich and wondered if bologna and cheese on white bread constituted child abuse. Beside her, Sabrina sucked ginger ale through a straw and then grinned.

“Bologna and cheese?” asked Sabrina.

Beauty rolled her eyes. “How'd you guess?”

“It's Monday, isn't it? You always get bologna and cheese. I still don't get why you don't just buy your lunch like everyone else.” Sabrina poked at the congealing pasta on her paper plate. “Not that this mess is any better.”

Beauty tossed her sandwich aside and picked up the apple instead. She knew without looking that her lunch bag also held raisins and a granola bar.

“You know my dad,” said Beauty. “He's afraid the cutlery's dirty and I'll accidentally fall onto a plastic knife and take out my spleen.”

Sabrina shook her head. Her dark hair was cut into a smooth chin-length bob with white-blond streaks. Her eyes were dark and faintly exotic, a gift from her East Indian mother. Beauty had always admired Sabrina's features; they were so much more interesting than her own.

“No offense, Beauty, but your dad is getting weirder.”

“I know.” Beauty felt herself shutting down again, felt the distance stretch between her and her voice. She'd known Sabrina since kindergarten, and they'd been friends through unfortunate growth spurts and even more unfortunate pimples the size of quarters. Sabrina had come to the funeral, and her mom had made piles of warm chapatis because she knew Beauty loved them so much. It was a comfort to have a friend who had known her for years, before everything seemed to unravel. Even so, it wasn't enough to bridge the gap that she felt growing between her and everyone else, between her and herself. Sometimes she wished no one knew her and she could be the New Girl and start from scratch.

"Do you still have to shave your legs in the gym bath–room?" Sabrina asked.

“Yeah,” Beauty sighed. “No razors allowed in He keeps his locked up in his medicine cabinet.”

Sabrina shook her head. She would have said more, but Beauty was getting that lost sorrowful look again. She tore open her packet of cookies and pushed one over.

“Here, have a chocolate cookie. Guaranteed to solve all “Here, have a chocolate of life's problems.”

They chewed in silence for a while. Beauty turned when she heard laughter and the tinny sound of an acoustic guitar. Poe sat in the back corner with some of his friends. His long hair was tied back, and he was wearing a leather necklace with some kind of pendant on it.

Sabrina nudged her under the table. “Go make a Sabrina request.”

“Yeah, right,” Beauty scoffed. “I told you what happened last night. I request that he forget me altogether.”

“You are way too shy. Go sit in his lap.”

Beauty's laugh was slightly strangled, like a bird suddenly free of a cage and afraid of the sky. “Go get your head checked,” she suggested.

Sabrina just laughed. “You know you want to.”

“I want a lot of things.”

“Good,” she said with a nod of her head. “It's a start.” She wadded up her wrapper and flicked it off the table. It bounced off a black steel-toed boot.

Luna kicked the wrapper aside and slid onto the bench beside Sabrina. She was wearing a skirt over faded patched jeans and a long medieval velvet shirt and yellow nail polish. Nothing about her remotely matched.

“Can I sit here?” Luna asked. There was a bindi in the middle of her forehead and faded henna on her palms. She wore thick silver on her fingers and a candy ring. The girls at the table next to them nudged each other and sneered. “I'm Luna,” she said to Sabrina.

Sabrina smiled. “I know. I'm Sabrina.”

“Hi.” Luna pulled a bag of popcorn out of her knapsack. The smell of movie theaters and summer afternoons was thick and sudden. She shrugged. “No food in the house,” she offered by way of explanation.

“Wish we had that problem,” Beauty muttered.

The girls at the next table laughed. Luna ignored them. One of the girls leaned over, all false smiles, and stared pointedly at her. “You know, Halloween's not for a month,” she said sweetly.

Luna ignored her. Sabrina blinked innocently.

"Then you might want to consider wearing a paper bag on your head until then," said Sabrina.

There was a shocked gasp. Luna made an odd sound as she tried to swallow a giggle.

“Thanks,” Luna said finally, offering her popcorn. “I don't “Thanks,” Luna even know her.”

Sabrina shrugged. “That's Clare. You're not missing much. She was, however, going out with Matt Doran in August.”

Luna winced. “I went to the movies with him a couple of Luna winced. weeks ago.”

“I know.”

“I haven't seen him since,” she continued, defending herself. “He was boring. There are definitely more interesting guys around here.”

“It doesn't matter.”

Luna sighed. "I really hate new schools sometimes. I wish they came with a manual."

Sabrina brushed salt off her hands and grabbed her bag. “You're doing fine. I gotta go.” She made a face at Beauty. “See you in language lab.”

Luna watched her go. “She seems nice.”

Beauty nodded. “Some people are scared of her, though.”

“Why?”

"She's never been one to take any crap." Beauty shrugged. "Some people are scared of me too."

Luna opened a bottle of pineapple juice. "Really? How come? You're so quiet."

Beauty rested her chin on her hands. “They think I'm weird. You haven't heard the stories yet?”

Luna shook her head. "Nope. Do you have an evil twin or a secret life as an adolescent marketing spy?"

"Nothing that interesting. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll hear all sorts of things soon enough."

Before Luna could reply, Poe walked by their table and paused. He was carrying his guitar case, and the earphones around his neck blared out unidentifiable muffled music. His friends Kennedy and Paul didn't notice his abrupt pause and stumbled into him.

“Hey, Luna,” Poe said, his ears pink. He glanced at Beauty. “Beauty, right?”

She was suddenly absolutely certain there was a huge piece of her lunch stuck in her teeth. And that her entire knowledge of the English language had escaped her completely. Sometimes she hated her life. She realized he was still looking at her and she hadn't said anything yet.

“Right,” she whispered, nodding. “Hi.”
Brilliant. Just brilliant. I've probably got drool running down my chin too. Oh my God, does he even know how beautiful he is? I have to get out of here.

Luna smiled. “What's up?”

He shrugged. “Not much. Finished that song.”

“Cool. You'll have to let me hear it later.”

“Sure.” He smiled at them both. “See ya around.”

Beauty waited a full minute before speaking. Her stomach felt weird and her throat was dry. She watched him saunter away, guitar case bumping against his leg. He didn't look back.

“Is he…are you together?” she blurted out finally. As she waited for Luna's answer, she was uncomfortably aware of every sound: the crinkling of paper, laughter and whispering, a shout, a book being dropped and the blood moving in her veins. It shouldn't matter what the answer was. She knew Poe would never look twice at her. He was so…and she was…well, she just wasn't. It was as simple as that. And he must know about her and her mother. Everyone knew, it seemed, except Luna.

Luna shook her head. Her blond hair was sleeked down today and it made her look like a disoriented flapper. “Nah, we thought about it but we make much better friends.”

It was as if all the air had left Beauty's body and then a wind had stormed into her. She knew her smile must have been too bright, too obvious. She almost didn't care. “Oh. You went out though?”

“Sure. I've been out with a lot of people. It's how you make friends.”

Beauty wondered how it must feel to be so confident and casual, so natural. “Most people aren't like that around here,” she said.

Luna glanced ruefully at Matt's ex-girlfriend. “Apparently.” She shook her shoulders as if to shake off the whole situation. “Anyway, who cares? Why don't you come over later? We can talk about the project. I have an idea.”

Beauty tried to follow the abrupt change of topic. Half of her was still swooning over the fact that Poe had said her name. Sad. She really had to get a grip.

“Beauty?”

“What? Oh, sorry. Sure.”

Luna grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. It was covered with beads and patches, and the back was painted with a woman in a rowboat looking tragic.

“Do you need directions? It's right near your place.”

Beauty had to smile. “Everyone knows where you live, Luna.”

Luna grinned. “Ah, I'm famous already.”

“You have no idea.”

Beauty spent her spare
period before math class in the art room. It was mostly empty; one or two students she didn't know were talking over wet clay in the far corner. The old radio was playing something instrumental that sounded vaguely like a waltz. Mr. Andrews only stocked classical and jazz CDs. Anything else students wanted to listen to they had to bring in themselves. Mr. Andrews was a very popular teacher. He wore jeans and he was only ever strict if you didn't take care of the paintbrushes properly.

Beauty took a deep breath of the paint-and-turpentine-laced air. It was strangely comforting. She loved the old and stained tables and the rickety easels and the canvases that hung in every available space to dry. Baskets of charcoal and pastels shared space with tubes of paint and glue and brushes of every size and description.

She stood in front of her easel and pursed her lips. Her sketch was off somehow; something was missing and she didn't know what it was. The woman had her mother's features, and the bathtub was just an outline. The garden was rendered in painstaking detail, every rose opening and every petal sharply shaded. But it was flat, dull. Anyone could have drawn it; it had no character.

She sighed and reached for a palette and paints. She'd try adding some color and see what happened. It couldn't get much worse than it already was.