Sloth

by Robin Wasserman

  Once again, he’d known exactly what she was thinking. A horrifying thought occurred to her: What if he really could tell what she was thinking? What if he knew about Harper, and about Kaia, about everything? And even if he didn’t, what would happen if he found out?

  Maybe this is paranoia, Beth thought, and now a hysterical giggle did escape her. Maybe I am high.

  “So, you guys, like, live here?” she asked, trying to make her voice sound as slow and foggy as theirs.

  “Fish and Hale do,” Reed explained. “And I crash here sometimes.”

  “He brings his ladies here,” Hale cackled. “All except—”

  “Dude, shut up,” Fish snapped, pelting him with another fast-food wrapper—this one seemed to have a chunk of something oozing out of it.

  ”Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry, bro. Didn’t mean to—”

  “Whatever.” Reed turned the stereo up and then threw himself down on the couch in between Beth and Fish. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and kicked his legs up on the milk crate. “Awesome song.” He sighed.

  When in Rome . . ., Beth thought. Do as the potheads do. She closed her eyes, kicked her feet up on the same milk crate so that one leg crossed over Reed’s, and forced a serene smile. “I’m, uh, totally hungry,” she said tentatively. “Anyone got anything to eat?”

  It was such a relief not to have to screen her calls anymore that Harper forgot to play it safe; she forgot that there were still plenty of things she needed to avoid.

  “So, I was thinking, tomorrow night,” Adam said as soon as she picked up.

  “For what?” She lay on her bed, facing away from the window so she wouldn’t be tempted to look out for him, or wonder if he was watching her.

  “For our date.”

  “Adam—” she began warningly.

  “I paid good money for that date,” he pointed out.

  “Don’t remind me.” Her list of humiliating moments was mounting up daily, but stepping onstage for that auction still hovered near the top. “Let’s just forget the whole thing.”

  “Tomorrow night,” Adam said again. “Eight. I’ll pick you up.”

  “I told you that I’m not doing this,” Harper told him, but she was too tired to fight. “You and me . . .”

  “One night. You owe me that.”

  She sighed. “Fine. Eight. See you then.” He started to say something else, but Harper hung up.

  It was barely past nine, but she was already in her pajamas. Her homework lay undone—as usual—in a stack on her desk. Her Thoroughly Depressing Music mix (Nick Drake, Norah Jones, Belle and Sebastian, Anna Nalick) was on repeat.

  “ ‘Breathe, just breathe…,’ ” she sang along under her breath with the mournful melody. “‘There’s a light at each end of this tunnel, you shout ‘cause you’re just as far in as you’ll ever be out…’ ”

  Yeah, right. Everyone had a cliché to offer, and they were all wrong.

  Harper was wearing one of Adam’s old T-shirts, a Lakers shirt that he’d brought back from his one trip to L.A. a few years ago. Before going, he’d bragged to half the school about going to see Shaq and Kobe play. His mom was dating some real estate hotshot she’d met at a conference, and the guy had gotten them floor seats and all-access passes. He might even get into the locker room, Adam had bragged. But on the night of the game, his mom and her bigwig boyfriend had disappeared for the night, leaving Adam back in the hotel room to watch porn and steal candy from the minibar. He showed up at school the next week wearing the Lakers shirt, full of stories about Shaq’s giant feet and the way Kobe had winked at him. Harper was the only one he ever trusted with the truth. She’d borrowed the shirt once last summer, after a drunken water balloon fight had gotten out of hand. She never gave it back.

  Summer had been easier, she thought, but then stopped herself. Even then, things hadn’t been right, not really. Adam had been slobbering over Beth while Harper pretended not to care. She imagined she could still see shallow imprints in the heel of each hand from where she’d dug her nails in every time she saw them together, hoping the pain would distract her. She had thought that if she got rid of Beth, somehow, all her problems would just go away. After all, she was Harper Grace—she wasn’t supposed to have problems. Ask anyone. She could still remember when that had been true—not last summer, but the one before that, when everything in her life had still made sense.

  Kane measures out a small shot of vodka into each of their plastic cups, then tucks the silver flask back into his pocket. Harper puts an arm around Miranda and leans against Adam and, after they clink glasses, downs the shot in a single gulp. A warm tingle spreads through her.

  “This idea wasn’t nearly as dumb as I thought it was,” she admits to Kane, who has dragged them out to the lame ghost town in the dead of night. He gives her a mock bow. They have snuck inside the fake saloon, squeezing up to a table already occupied by plastic mannequins dressed in cowboy clothing. A frozen bartender stands behind the bar, holding a jug of whiskey that will always remain half empty.

  “Agreed,” Adam says, clapping Kane on the back. “Excellent plan. “

  “I’m full of them,” Kane brags.

  Miranda snorts. “Is that why your head’s so big?”

  He grabs her and puts her in a loose headlock. “Watch it, Stevens,” he warns, “or I might be forced to . . .”

  “I’m terrified,” Miranda says sarcastically. “I’m shaking. What are you going to do?”

  Kane doesn’t respond, just drives his knuckles into her head and spins. A noogie.

  “What are you, ten years old?” Miranda squeals, convulsing in giggles as he lets her go.

  Adam and Harper exchange a glance and smile.

  “So where’s your latest conquest?” Kane asks Adam. “I figured you’d bring her along. “

  Harper suppresses a laugh. Adam doesn’t bring his girlfriends out on excursions like this. They’re excess baggage. They’d miss the jokes and spoil the flow of banter honed over the years. They are a foursome, and Adam knows better than to screw with that.

  “This one’s kind of cute,” she tells him, ruffling his hair. “A little bland, but—”

  “Who needs a personality when you’ve got a body like that?” Kane points out, giving them an exaggerated leer. “She’s hot.”

  Miranda smacks him on the shoulder. “She must have some personality—after all, she was too clever to fall for your bullshit. “

  “I just stepped out of the way and let my man here have a shot,” Kane says magnanimously.

  Adam, Harper notices, says nothing. It’s his turn—now is the time when he chimes in about the annoying way she slurps her soup or the nasal sound of her voice. They always have some minor flaw that becomes insurmountable—too much throat clearing, too many pimples, not enough Simpsons trivia—and then he moves on to the next. It is how things work.

  “I’m going to do some exploring,” he says instead, standing up.

  Harper jumps up. “I’ll come along. You guys in?”

  Kane puts an arm around one of the mannequins. “What? And leave my friend Buffalo Bob here to drink alone?”

  Miranda stays too, and Harper and Adam wander out into the darkness. There are no lights, and she can barely see. She takes Adam’s hand so they don’t get separated. It is warm and his grip is strong, and she is not afraid of falling.

  “Where do you want to go?” she asks.

  He shrugs. “Dunno. I just needed to get out of there. “

  They wander aimlessly without speaking, past ramshackle buildings whose hokey labels are too difficult to read in the dark. This is the Adam no one else knows, quiet and thoughtful. To everyone else, he is the hot jock, blond and beautiful. To Harper, he is just Adam, who eats his pizza slices crust first, can recite the alphabet backward, and has a tiny scar just behind his left ear. He always capitalizes the word “summer,” and flosses his teeth twice every night because he’s terrified of getting a cavity. She knows him better than she’s ever
known anyone.

  “So what’s the deal?” she asks, shivering as the wind begins to blow. He puts his arm around her and tugs her toward him. She snuggles into his side, where it’s warm.

  “With what?”

  “With the new girl. Beth. Bad breath? Can’t stop clearing her throat? Drools when she kisses?” “Nah, she’s good. “

  “Come on,” she says playfully. “It’s always something. You can tell me. “

  “It’s weird, Grade. “His voice isn’t playful at all. “It’s not like that. She’s . . . different. “

  “Oh, I get it. “ Harper squeezes her arm around his waist. “You’re still in that nauseating ‘everything is wonderful’ stage. Ah, young lust. So romantic. “

  “No. “ He stops walking and drops his arm away from her shoulder. “It really is different this time. It’s . . . she’s . . .”He holds his hands out to his sides. She can’t see his face in the dark. “I can’t explain. There’s just something about her. “

  “I understand, Ad. “ And she does. She throws her arms around him and hugs him tightly. “I’m really happy for you.” And she wants to mean it. She knows she should mean it, but as she holds him, her face burrowed into his shoulder, breathing in the familiar mix of fabric softener and a woodsy aftershave, she realizes something important. And then she squeezes tighter. She doesn’t want to let go, because when she does, everything will change.

  Harper turned out the light and curled up into a ball, trying to sleep. Her leg throbbed and her back ached, and the T-shirt felt uncomfortably tight around her collar. It kept getting caught beneath her weight as she rolled to one side, then the other. It was tugging at her and choking her, keeping her from sinking into sleep. Eventually she wriggled out of it and tossed it to the floor. It didn’t even smell like him anymore.

  chapter

  _______________

  8

  “Tell me you’re free tonight.”

  “Uh . . . what? Who is this?” But Miranda knew who it was. She would have recognized the voice even if she hadn’t recognized the number (which she’d memorized back in ninth grade).

  “I’m bored,” Kane said, affecting a little kid voice. “Come play with me?”

  Her chest tightened, and a warm glow spread through her cheeks. Not a date, she reminded herself. But the caution had little effect. He wanted to see her; that had to mean something.

  “It’s kind of short notice,” she pointed out, toying with him. “A true lady wouldn’t accept an offer made in such haste.”

  “Well then, it’s a good thing you’re not—”

  “Don’t even say it,” she warned. This whole banter thing was so much easier when he wasn’t there to see the crimson flush rising in her cheeks. She could put her hand over the mouthpiece whenever she needed to mask her giggles and gasps. It was easy to sound cool and unconcerned.

  He laughed—a rich, warm sound made all the sexier by the knowledge that she’d caused it.

  “There’s this thing, kind of a pre-party, and it’ll probably be lame, but I thought I’d check it out,” he explained.

  “Pre-party? So I’m not good enough to take to the actual party?” She sounded sarcastic, but couldn’t help but fear it was true.

  “Insecurity doesn’t suit you, my dear. The actual party’s tomorrow night—this is just a little warm-up.”

  “Why not?” She tried not to sound too eager.

  “Cool. You think you can give me a ride? I figure, in case I get wasted ...”

  Well, that solved the mystery. He just needed a designated driver; it’s not that he thought he’d have fun with her, it’s that he knew she could be trusted not to have any fun. She pressed her palm against the mouthpiece and sighed. It didn’t matter why he had called. She would go, anyway, just as she would spend the next half hour tormenting herself about what to wear, even though she’d already convinced herself that he didn’t want anything from her beyond the occasional ride and no-strings-attached hookup. There was always a chance, and even an eternal pessimist like Miranda couldn’t help but cling to that.

  Adam brought her to The Whole Enchilada, her favorite restaurant—as Kaia had often pointed out, there was no good food in Grace, but the local Mexican food came the closest. Harper hadn’t wanted to admit that she was addicted to their guacamole (”could be fresher,” according to Kaia) and loved their burritos (”overstuffed”), but both girls agreed that the stale chips and crappy salsa—half as spicy and twice as watery as you’d want—were worth suffering through for the oversize frozen margaritas. They were frothy and sweet, with a double shot of tequila—and served by waiters who could be counted on not to card.

  Tonight, Harper sipped a Coke.

  She hadn’t said much after hello, nor had she bothered to listen as Adam babbled on about his latest basketball game or some lame joke the guys had pulled on their coach. She’d ordered a chicken enchilada, but when it appeared in front of her, she couldn’t even imagine eating it. She nibbled at the edges, crunched down on a couple chips, and drank a lot of water. It was a waste of a meal, but then, Adam was paying—so who cared?

  “You know, my grandfather died when I was a kid,” he said abruptly.

  She froze, a forkful of rice halfway to her mouth. She’d been expecting him to bring up Kaia, and she’d readied herself to shoot him down. But she didn’t have a contingency plan for this.

  “He was the only grandparent I had,” Adam continued. “My dad’s parents, they kind of. . . disappeared, or something. Before I was born. And my mom’s mom died when she was a kid. But my grandfather was around for a while, and when he died, you know, it was really sudden. It sucked.”

  Harper felt like she was supposed to say something. “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t, uh, I didn’t really get it, at first. I was just a kid. I kept asking my mom why we didn’t go over to see him anymore, and then she’d just start freaking out and crying. So then after a while, I just stopped asking.” He gave her a weird look, half determined and half scared. Harper wondered what he expected now: Did he think that just mentioning someone dying was going to make her cry, and then he’d have to mop up the mess? “I know it’s not the same, or anything ...”

  “No,” she agreed.

  “The worst part was that I was all alone with it, you know? So I just thought, maybe . . .”

  She gave him a faint “Where are you going with this?” smile. She wasn’t going to make it easier on him.

  Adam squirmed in his seat. Touchy-feely stuff wasn’t really his style. “You can talk to me. About how you’re feeling. About . . . anything.”

  He wanted to know how she was feeling.

  She felt numb.

  She felt hollow, like a black hole at her center had sucked away her insides, only no one could tell because the outer shell was still intact.

  She felt angry all the time, at Adam, at her parents, at the world, at herself. And she didn’t know why.

  Her thoughts were jumpy and sluggish at the same time, skipping from subject to subject only because by the time she got to the middle of a thought, she forgot where she’d started or where she was going. So she felt lost.

  She felt like crying every time she laughed, and she rarely felt much like laughing.

  She felt heavy.

  She felt unworthy

  She felt like if someone touched her in the right way, she might disintegrate.

  She could turn off the tears and paint on a smile whenever she needed to, which made her wonder if the tears weren’t real either. She felt like a fraud.

  But she wasn’t about to tell him any of that.

  “I feel fine,” she said coolly. She pushed her plate toward his side of the table. “Want to try some? I’m done.”

  “BETH!”

  “We’re BOOOOOOOOOOORED!”

  “I’ll be down in a minute!” she yelled, gulping down a couple Advil tablets. It was nice that her parents got to spend a romantic evening out on the town while she took care of the twins
, she knew—and it wasn’t like she could have turned them down, given the fact that she had no other plans—but handling the twins’ hyperactive sugar craze was about the last thing she needed right now.

  She picked up the envelope and pulled out the letter, even though she didn’t need to read it again. It was short, and she’d already memorized it.

  No one got mail these days, so although it was probably still too early for college acceptances to arrive, she’d let herself get excited, anyway, just for a moment, when her mother had returned from the mailbox and tossed a letter toward her.

  Her first reaction: It was thin. She was screwed.

  But then she took a closer look and realized it wasn’t from a college at all. Her name and address were handwritten, as was the return address, a P.O. Box in Texas. She didn’t know anyone in Texas.

  She was mystified, but some part of her—maybe the part that was always watching and worrying these days, waiting for something awful to happen—made her take the letter upstairs so she could open it in private. Her father was at the kitchen table pouring over bills, and her mother had already turned her attention toward the high-maintenance part of the family. When Beth slipped up to her room, no one even noticed.

  She’d been up there ever since, coming out only briefly to say good-bye to her parents and receive the standard lecture about emergency contact numbers and keeping the boys away from sugar, fire, and electrical sockets. She’d nodded and pretended to listen, like playing the responsible and dutiful daughter hadn’t become more of an act than a reality, and then gone back to her room, figuring the twins could fend for themselves, at least until it was time to heat up some leftover pizza and watch SpongeBob.

  The letter, more of a note, really, scrawled on a slip of hotel stationery, had come stapled to a familiar clipping from the Grace Herald.

  Student-Teacher Scandal Rocks Haven High

  Two phrases were highlighted in light green: