Lock and Key

by Sarah Dessen

  Nate deciding we were friends, though, made it almost impossible. Even by my second day, I’d figured out he was one of the most popular guys at Perkins, which made me interesting (at least to these people, anyway) simply by standing next to him. Maybe some girls would have liked this, but I was not one of them.

  Now, I looked over at him, annoyed, as a group of cheer-leaders standing in a huddle by a shiny VW tittered in our wake. He didn’t notice, too busy watching that same green BMW, which was parked a couple of rows over. I could see Heather behind the wheel, her Jump Java cup in one hand. Jake Bristol, the sleeper from my English class, was leaning in to talk to her, his arms resting on her open window.

  This was not my problem. And yet, as with Gervais, when I saw bad behavior, I just couldn’t help myself. Plus, if he was going to insist on walking with me, he almost deserved it.

  “You know,” I said to him. “Pining isn’t attractive. On anyone.”

  He glanced over at me. “What?”

  I nodded at Heather and Jake, who were still talking. “The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone,” I said, “is let them know it.”

  “I don’t miss her,” he said.

  Yeah, right. “Okay,” I replied, shrugging. “All I’m saying is that even if you do want her back, you should act like you don’t. No one likes someone who’s all weak and pitiful and needy. It’s basic relationship 101.”

  “Relationship 101,” he repeated, skeptical. “And this is a course you teach?”

  “It’s only advice,” I told him. “Ignore it if you want.”

  Really, I assumed he’d do just that. The next morning, though, as he again fell into step beside me—clearly, this was a habit now—and we began crossing the parking lot, Heather’s car once again came into view. Even I noticed it, and her, by now. But Nate, I saw, did not. Or at least didn’t act like it. Instead, he glanced over at me and then just kept walking.

  As the week went on—and my losses to the snooze bar continued—I found myself succumbing to the carpool and, subsequently, our walk together into school itself, audience and all. Resistance was futile, and Nate and I were becoming friends, or something like it. At least as far as he was concerned.

  Which was just crazy, because we had absolutely nothing in common. Here I was, a loner to the core, burnout personified, with a train wreck of a home life. And in the other corner? Nate, the good son, popular guy, and all around nice, wholesome boy. Not to mention—as I found out over the next week—student body vice president, homecoming king, community liaison, champion volunteerer. His name just kept coming up, in event after event listed in the flat monotone of the guy who delivered the announcements each morning over the intercom. Going to the senior class trip fund-raiser? Contact Nate Cross. Pitching in to help with the annual campus cleanup? Talk to Nate. Need a study buddy for upcoming midterms? Nate Cross is your man.

  He was not my man, however, although as the week— not to mention the staring I’d first noticed in the parking lot—continued, it was clear some people wanted to think otherwise. It was obvious Heather and Nate’s breakup had been huge news, at least judging by the fact that weeks later, I was still hearing about their relationship: how they’d dated since he’d moved from Arizona freshman year, been junior prom king and queen, had plans to go off to the U for college in the fall together. For all these facts, though, the cause of their breakup remained unclear. Without even trying, I’d heard so many different theories—He cheated with some girl at the beach! She wanted to date other guys!—that it was obvious no one really knew the truth.

  Still, it did explain why they were all so interested in me. The hot popular guy starts showing up with new girl at school, right on the heels of breakup with longtime love. It’s the next chapter, or so it seems, so of course people would make their assumptions. And in another school, or another town, this was probably the case. But not here.

  As for Perkins Day itself, it was a total culture shift, with everything from the teachers (who actually seemed happy to be there) to the library (big, with all working, state-of-the-art computers) to the cafeteria (with salad bar and smoothie station) completely different from what I’d been used to. Also, the small class size made slacking off pretty much a non-option, and as a result, I was getting my ass kicked academically. I’d never been the perfect student by a long shot, but at Jackson I’d still managed to pull solid Bs, even with working nights and my quasi-extracurricular activities. Now, without transportation or friends to distract me, I had all the time in the world to study, and yet I was still struggling, big-time. I kept telling myself it didn’t matter, that I’d probably only be there until I could raise the money to take off, so there wasn’t any real point in killing myself to keep up. But then, I’d find myself sitting in my room with nothing to do, and pull out the books and get to work, if only for the distraction.

  The mentality at Perkins was different, as well. For instance, at Jackson at lunch, due to the cramped cafeteria, lack of coveted picnic tables, and general angst, there was always some kind of drama going on. Fistfights, yelling, little scuffles breaking out and settling down just as quickly, lasting hardly long enough for you to turn your head and notice them. At Perkins, everyone coexisted peacefully in the caf and on the green, and the most heated anything ever got was when someone at the HELP table got a little too fired up about some issue and it burst into a full-fledged debate, but even those were usually civil.

  The HELP table itself was another thing I just didn’t get. Every day at lunch, just as the period began, some group would set up shop at one of the tables right by the caf entrance, hanging up a sign and laying out brochures to rally support for whatever cause they were promoting. So far, in the time I’d been there, I’d seen everything from people collecting signatures for famine relief to asking for spare change to buy a new flat-screen TV for the local children’s hospital. Every day there was something new, some other cause that needed our help and attention RIGHT NOW so PLEASE SIGN UP or GIVE or LEND A HAND—IT’S THE LEAST YOU CAN DO!

  It wasn’t like I was a cruel or heartless person. I believed in charity as much as anyone else. But after everything I’d been through the last few months, I just couldn’t wrap my mind around reaching out to others. My mother had taught me too well to look out for number one, and right now, in this strange world, this seemed smarter than ever. Still, every time I passed the HELP table, taking in that day’s cause—Upcoming AIDS walk! Buy a cookie, it benefits early literacy! Save the Animals!—I felt strangely unsettled by all this want, not to mention the assumed and steady outpouring of help in return, which seemed to come as instinctively to the people here as keeping to myself did to me.

  One person who clearly was a giver was Heather Wainwright, who always seemed to be at the HELP table, regardless of the cause. I’d seen her lecturing a group of girls with smoothies on the plight of the Tibetans, selling cupcakes for cancer research, and signing up volunteers to help clean up the stretch of highway Perkins Day sponsored, and she seemed equally passionate about all of them. This was yet another reason, at least in my mind, that whatever rumors were circulating about Nate and me couldn’t have been more off the mark. Clearly, I wasn’t his type, by a long shot.

  Of course, if I had wanted to make friends with people more like me, I could have. The burnout contingent at Perkins Day was less scruffy than their Jackson counterparts but still easily recognizable, hanging out by the far end of the quad near the art building in a spot everyone called the Smokestack. At Jackson, the stoners and the art freaks were two distinct groups, but at Perkins, they had comingled, either because of the reduced population or the fact that there was safety in numbers. So alongside the guys in the rumpled Phish T-shirts, Hackey-sacking in their flip-flops, you also had girls in dresses from the vintage shop and combat boots, sporting multicolored hair and tattoos. The population of the Smokestack usually showed up about halfway through lunch, trickling in from the path that led to the lower soccer fields, which wer
e farthest away from the rest of the school. Once they arrived, they could be seen furtively trading Visine bottles and scarfing down food from the vending machine, stoner behavior so classic and obvious I was continually surprised the administration didn’t swoop in and bust them en masse.

  It would have been so easy to walk over and join them, but even after a few lunches spent with only my sandwich, I still hadn’t done so. Maybe because I wouldn’t be there long, anyway—it wasn’t like there was much point in making friends. Or maybe it was something else. Like the fact that I had a second chance now, an opportunity, whether I’d first welcomed it or not, to do things differently. It seemed stupid to not at least try to take it. It wasn’t like the old way had been working for me so well, anyway.

  Still, there was one person at Perkins Day that, if pressed, I could imagine hanging out with. Maybe because she was the only one less interested in making friends than I was.

  By now, I’d figured out a few things about Olivia Davis, my seatmate and fellow Jackson survivor. Number one: she was always on the phone. The minute the bell rang, she had it out and open, quick as a gunslinger, one finger already dialing. She kept it clamped to her ear as she walked between classes and all through lunch, which she also spent alone, eating a sandwich she brought from home and talking the entire time. From the few snippets I overheard before our class started and just after it ended, she was mostly talking to friends, although occasionally she’d affect an annoyed, flat tone that screamed parental conversation. Usually, though, she was all noisy chatter, discussing the same things, in fact, that I heard from everyone else in the hallways or around me in my classrooms—school, parties, stress—except that her conversations were one-sided, her voice the only one I could hear.

  It was also clear that Olivia was at Perkins Day under protest, and a vocal one at that. I had strong opinions about our classmates and their lifestyles but kept these thoughts to myself. Olivia practiced no such discretion.

  “Yeah, right,” she’d say under her breath as Heather Wainwright began a long analysis of the symbolism of poverty in David Copperfield. “Like you know from poverty. In your BMW and million-dollar mansion.”

  “Ah, yes,” she’d murmur as one of the back-row jocks, prodded by Ms. Conyers to contribute, equated his experience not making starter with a character’s struggle, “tell us about your pain. We’re riveted.”

  Sometimes she didn’t say anything but still made her point by sighing loudly, shaking her head, and throwing why-me-Lord? looks up at the ceiling. At first, her tortuous endurance of second period was funny to me, but after a while, it got kind of annoying, not to mention distracting. Finally, on Friday, after she’d literally tossed her hands up as one of our classmates struggled to define “blue collar,” I couldn’t help myself.

  “If you hate this place so much,” I said, “why are you here?”

  She turned her head slowly, as if seeing me for the first time. “Excuse me?” she said.

  I shrugged. “It’s not like it’s cheap. Seems like a waste of money is all I’m saying.”

  Olivia adjusted herself in her seat, as if perhaps a change of position might help her to understand why the hell I was talking to her. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but do we know each other? ”

  “It’s just a question,” I said.

  Ms. Conyers, up at the front of the room, was saying something about the status quo. I flipped a few pages in my notebook, feeling Olivia watching me. After a moment, I looked up and met her gaze, letting her know she didn’t intimidate me.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “No choice in the matter,” I told her.

  “Me neither,” she replied. I nodded. This was enough, as far as I was concerned. But then she continued. “I was doing just fine at Jackson. It was my dad that wanted me here and made me apply for a scholarship. Better education, better teachers. Better class of friends, all that. You happy now?”

  “Never said I wasn’t,” I told her. “You’re the one moaning and groaning over there.”

  Olivia raised her eyebrows. Clearly, I’d surprised her, and I had a feeling this wasn’t so easy to do. “What’s your name again?”

  “Ruby,” I told her. “Ruby Cooper.”

  “Huh,” she said, like this answered some other question, as well. The next time I saw her, though, in the quad between classes, she didn’t just brush by, ignoring me in favor of whoever was talking in her ear. She didn’t speak to me, either. But I did get a moment of eye contact, some acknowledgment, although of what I wasn’t sure, and still couldn’t say.

  Now, lying on my bed Saturday morning, I heard a crash from outside, followed by more beeping. I got up and walked to the window, looking down at the yard. The hole was even bigger now, the red clay and exposed rock a marked contrast to the even green grass on either side of it. Jamie was still on the patio with the dog, although now he had his hands in his pockets and was rocking back on his heels as he watched the machine dig down again. It was hard to remember what the yard had looked like even twelve hours before, undisturbed and pristine. Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, the noise was even louder, vibrations rattling the glass in the French doors. I could see that Cora, now dressed, her hair damp from the shower, had joined Jamie outside. He was explaining something to her, gesturing expansively as she nodded, looking less than enthusiastic.

  I got myself some cereal, figuring if I didn’t, someone would give me another breakfast lecture, then picked up a section of the newspaper from the island. I was on my way to sit down when there was a bang behind me and Roscoe popped through the dog door.

  When he saw me, his ears perked up and he pattered over, sniffing around my feet. I stepped over him, walking to the table, but of course he followed me, the way he’d taken to doing ever since the night of the lasagna trauma. Despite my best efforts to dissuade him, the dog liked me.

  “You know,” Jamie had said the day before, watching as Roscoe stared up at me with his big bug eyes during dinner, “it’s pretty amazing, actually. He doesn’t bond with just anyone.”

  “I’m not really a dog person,” I said.

  “Well, he’s not just a dog,” Jamie replied. “He’s Roscoe.”

  This, however, was little comfort at times like this, when I just wanted to read my horoscope in peace and instead had to deal with Roscoe attending to his daily toilette—heavy on the slurping—at my feet. “Hey,” I said, nudging him with the toe of my shoe. “Cut it out.”

  He looked up at me. One of his big eyes was running, which seemed to be a constant condition. After a moment, he went back to what he was doing.

  “You’re up,” I heard Cora say from behind me as she came in the patio door. “Let me guess. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  She poured herself a cup of coffee, then walked over to the table. “Me,” she said with a sigh as she sat down, dropping a hand to pat Roscoe’s head, “I wanted a pool. Something we could swim in.”

  I glanced up at her, then out at the backhoe, which was swinging down into the hole. “Ponds are nice, though,” I said. “You’ll have fish.”

  She sighed. “So typical. He’s already won you over.”

  I shrugged, turning a page. “I don’t take sides.”

  I felt her look at me as I said this, her eyes staying on me as I scanned the movie listings. Then she picked up her mug, taking another big sip, before saying, “So. I think we need to talk about a few things.”

  Just as she said this, the backhoe rattled to a stop, making everything suddenly seem very quiet. I folded the paper, pushing it aside. “Okay,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  Cora looked down at her hands, twining her fingers through the handle of her cup. Then she raised her gaze, making a point of looking me straight in the eye as she said, “I think it’s safe to say that this . . . situation was unexpected for bot
h of us. It’s going to take a bit of adjustment.”

  I took another bite of cereal, then looked at Roscoe, who was lying at Cora’s feet now, his head propped up on his paws, legs spread out flat behind him like a frog. “Clearly,” I said.

  “The most important things,” she continued, sitting back, “at least to Jamie and me, are to get you settled in here and at school. Routine is the first step to normalcy.”

  “I’m not a toddler,” I told her. “I don’t need a schedule.”

  “I’m just saying we should deal with one thing at a time,” she said. “Obviously, it won’t all run smoothly. But it’s important to acknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn from them.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Maybe I was still in survival mode, but this sounded awfully touchy-feely to me, like a direct quote from some book like Handling Your Troubled Teen. Turned out, I wasn’t so far off.

  “I also think,” Cora continued, “that we should set you up to see a therapist. You’re in a period of transition, and talking to someone can really—”

  “No,” I said.

  She looked up at me. “No?”

  “I don’t need to talk to anyone,” I told her. “I’m fine.”

  “Ruby,” she said. “This isn’t just me. Shayna at Poplar House really felt you would benefit from some discussion about your adjustment.”

  “Shayna at Poplar House knew me for thirty-six hours,” I said. “She’s hardly an expert. And sitting around talking about the past isn’t going to change anything. There’s no point to it.”

  Cora picked up her coffee cup, taking a sip. “Actually,” she said, her voice stiff, “some people find therapy to be very helpful.”