by Laura Preble
It’s February, it’s Friday, and it’s the middle of my freshman year, so I’m pondering what I’ll do this summer, all alone, with no Best Friend. Dad wants me to go to a summer science camp, and I guess I might, but I don’t know. I could also try out for a play, write a book, or do about half a dozen other things. The bottom line is: Whatever I do, it will probably be alone.
First period English, I sit next to Jennifer Crist on one side, Taffy Burton (her name is really Taffy) in front of me, and Ted Trinidario in back of me. He kicks my chair all the time and smells like firewood. The seat next to me is empty. At least, it was until today.
The class is, as usual, engaged in trivial conversation, this time about the upcoming dance. Dustin is in this class too, and across the room I see him talking to some friends; he says something, looks over at me, and they all laugh. I wish Euphoria was here.
While we’re waiting for Ms. Napoli to start our fascinating discussion of British boys who mount pigs’ heads on sticks for fun, a new girl walks into the room. I can’t hear what she’s saying over the din, but she shows the teacher a paper, Napoli points to the seat next to me, and the girl walks down the row toward it.
What a poser. She’s tall, unusually tall, freakishly tall really, and to make her seem even taller, she’s wearing those high platform sneakers in shocking green. Her ridiculously short blond hair has green streaks in it that match her shoes, and she’s styled it so it sticks straight up in about fifty little points. It looks like a microscopic close-up of one of those Bioré pore strips.
Her outfit, not that I care: pink gauzy shirt over a knee-length tight black skirt, pierced ears with Celtic crosses, a whole batch of silver bracelets wound around her forearms. As she glides into the desk, her long praying-mantis legs fold up under her in the cramped space.
Napoli starts class. “I’d like to introduce you to a new student,” she says, squinting at the paper. “Becca Gallagher. Becca, could you tell us a little about yourself?”
I get a good look at her profile, and she looks kind of intriguing. “We just moved down here from Los Angeles,” she says.
“Swimming pools, movie stars!” Dustin yells from across the room. I wonder if he got all the Silly String out of his chest hairs.
“Thanks for that, Dustin.” Napoli shoots him a look. “Go on, Becca. You’re from L.A.?”
“My mom and I just moved here two weeks ago.”
“Well, welcome. I’m sure you’ll find Green Pines a great school. Let me get you a book. We’re reading Lord of the Flies . . .” I tune out at that point because I am fixated on Becca Gallagher’s leg tattoo. Now, lots of kids have tattoos and piercings. But hers goes from ankle to knee in this intricate design, a dragon or something entwined with a feather. It is in multiple colors, and there is some sort of metallic ink in it that makes it sparkle when she moves. I spend pretty much the rest of the period studying that tattoo, wondering how her parents let her get it, wondering what it means. Even when Napoli asks me to explain why the British boys went savage, I make something up about dragons and get laughed at. Dustin laughs the loudest. Big shock.
The day goes by as it usually does, and it’s finally lunchtime. As usual, I have no one to sit with, and neither does Becca Gallagher, whom I spot parked against a window in the cafeteria, sucking on an iced latte.
“Hey,” I say casually. “Can I sit here?”
“Free country.” She sips loudly on the remainder of the crushed ice. “Aren’t you in my English class?”
“Yeah.” I park my tray and start to open a yogurt. “Aren’t you eating?”
“Already did. I don’t have a fourth period yet, so I came over early to avoid the crowds. I hate crowds.”
“Me too.”
She turns to really look at me, and I notice she has eyes that are almost identical to mine, except they’re green. She’s looking through me, with that kind of intense gaze that freaks people out when I do it to them. No one’s ever done it to me before, so now I know how it feels. Weird. “What’s your name?”
“Shelby Chapelle.” The look is making me feel kind of blushy and embarrassed, because she never takes her eyes away. “I was born here.”
“Oh, yeah.” She finally looks out the window. “San Diego. Must be nice.”
“Not so much.”
She turns her eyes back to me. “Why not? It’s so much more laid back than L.A., and there aren’t as many posers. Plus, you have some killer beaches. Everybody loves it here.”
“Not me. If I could get out, I would. Nobody here likes to think.”
She laughs. Now, this laugh was really out of character for her, because she looks kind of gazelle-ish and elegant, but her laugh is like this donkey honk. It makes me immediately bust up too. My mom used to tell me I sound like a chicken, so I guess we have a regular barnyard symphony going on.
“Yeah, that’s the way it is in Los Angeles too. It’s all about the movies. I always felt like I was the only person who’d ever read a book for fun. You like to read?”
“Sure.” I finish up the yogurt and turn around to face her. “Who’s your favorite author?”
“That’s tough.” She takes another long slurp from the cup, pops the lid, and starts to tip it toward her to get at the ice, but it sticks and then comes tumbling out in a big chunk all over her pink gauzy top. “I’ve got a drinking problem.”
“Let’s go outside. You’ll dry faster.”
Our school is on some huge bunch of acreage, and there are lots of trees and shrubs everywhere, nice landscaping, even a big patch of roses that are blooming. Becca walks toward the middle of the campus, where most of the other kids hang out on benches and under trees. She’s going toward the panther sculpture.
“Now, I’ve never heard of a school having a big art project in the middle of the campus.” She touches the nose of one of the panthers. “Although since we were so close to Hollywood, we had a great theater at my school.”
“Theater? Were you in drama?”
“I had the lead in Romeo and Juliet in the fall. And I’m only a freshman.”
As we walk past the panthers, I notice that Dustin and his pack of boob-addled friends are stalking us. “Oh no,” I mutter.
“What?”
“That guy. I just had a date with him. He went all octopus on me, so I had to take him down.”
By this time Dustin and his gang had caught up with us, and I was expecting the worst.
“Hey, Shelby. How’s it going?” They had casually surrounded us, Dustin and five of his tennis-star buddies, chests rippling. “Thanks for the date. I had a blast.”
“Yeah, me too. Thanks.” I try to walk past him, but he blocks me. Not cool.
“I was wondering about something, though.” I see him wink at Jeremy Friend, a sophomore on his team who is standing behind me. “I just thought I’d ask you about it.”
“Yeah?”
Through all of this, freakishly tall Becca Gallagher just stands, arms crossed, watching everything play out. I glance quickly at her, and even though we’ve just met, I feel anger brewing under those fifty green little spikes on her head. I have a feeling you wouldn’t want to be in the way if those little spikes blew.
“Yeah, I just wondered. Is it true what they say?”
“I don’t know, Dustin. What do they say? And who are they anyway?”
The boys snicker. Dustin’s eyes are checking the reactions of his friends, unaware of the ticking time bomb that is Becca Gallagher. “That you’re a lesbo. That’s what I heard.”
The guys cackle. I guess the fact that I didn’t plow helplessly into Dustin Garrett’s pants makes me gay. “Actually, no. That’s not true.”
I turn to go, trying to brush past Dustin, but again he blocks my path. “See, because I heard that rumor, and I asked you out anyway. Because lesbos are hot, you know?” He turns to give Becca a long appraisal. “In fact, if you’re the new resident lesbo, maybe we could all get together—”
It happens so f
ast that I don’t consciously see it. Later, Becca would teach me the trick, her own personal move she had dubbed the Titillating Tit Twist, but just seeing it for the first time was an amazement, a thing of beauty. Because what she does is lunge forward quick as lightning, grab Dustin’s right nipple, twist it in a 360-degree turn that nearly rips it off his chest, and then takes her original position as if nothing has happened.
Dustin is so stunned he just stands there and blinks, unconsciously rubbing his abused nipple. Becca pounces then and sidles up to him slowly, towering over him by at least three inches in her green platform sneakers. “If you’re an example of what there is to pick from in the dating pool,” she whispers in his ear, “what choice would a poor girl have, sweetheart?” She licks his ear, stands back, and gives him a grin that reminds me of an overly enthusiastic Wal-Mart greeter on massive doses of caffeine.
From that moment on, I know that Becca Gallagher and I will be Best Friends.
2
DINNER AND A MOVIE (or Bald Obese Aliens Ate All My Popcorn)
After two weeks of hanging out with Becca during every lunch and break, I come home one Friday afternoon and find my dad getting ready to leave for a business trip. He won’t take me with him; it’s boring, he says, and I’m totally safe here at home with Euphoria. I announce, “I really like this girl Becca at school. She’s new.”
“I know it’s been a long time since you had a friend you could really bond with,” he says as he packs his suitcase. All of his clothes, by the way, are exactly the same. He just finds a pair of pants he likes and buys them in every color there is, then does the same thing with shirts. His suitcase looks like the stock room at Macy’s. When Mom bought his clothes, he had some small hint of style. Now he’s just a Ken doll with frequent-flier miles.
I suppose you want to know why my dad would leave me home alone when I’m only fifteen. It’s a good, logical question, and the best answer I can give is that my dad doesn’t realize I’m fifteen. This can be a good thing, but it can also be bad. Being home alone on the weekends he’s away on business trips is very restful. The several weeks he usually leaves during the summer is great, because I can stay up late, eat Oreos for breakfast, listen to very loud music, and spend time doing anything I want—cooking, reading, creating an evil army of robotic sea monkeys. It’s bad because, well, I miss my dad, to be honest. Whenever he goes, I always have this little tiny voice in the back of my head telling me he might not come back. I know this voice is wrong, because he always has come back, but I guess when you lose one parent, you worry about losing the other.
Another thing you might not have thought of: Euphoria. Remember how I said she was also sort of a baby monitor? I wasn’t kidding. I have a microchip in my watch, and it’s synchronized to her main system, and has a Global Positioning System component too, so there’s no way I can go anywhere without her knowing my location. That’s kind of comforting, actually; the only problem would be if I were kidnapped by a rogue band of watch thieves, but that doesn’t happen too much, even in movies.
“Am I going to get to meet this Becca?” Dad is folding his all-the-same pairs of underwear and tucking them into the side pocket of his suitcase.
“Sure, I’d like you to. Want her to come to dinner before you go?”
He whips out his Palm Pilot, his connection to life, the universe, and everything, and flicks it on. “I’m going on Tuesday. So, what day?”
“Saturday? Like, tomorrow?”
“You don’t have a date?” He frowns. I usually have dates on Saturdays, but of course now nobody’s asking me out because Dustin has managed to spread it all around school that I’m a lesbian. It’s actually been quite a nice break.
“No.” I don’t tell him about the rumor. I don’t want him thinking Becca and I are kinky or anything. If I were a dad, I wouldn’t want to even have to think about that while I’m away building robotic rhinos or whatever he was going to do. “Let me call her.”
I had Euphoria rig up a speaker and voice command to the phone in my room. I’m perfectly capable of punching numbers on a phone; it’s just cooler to be able to speak your command. “Dial, please. 555-2298. Becca. Program, please.”
“Is that your new friend?” I hear her electronically selecting the digits. “Is she a nice young lady?”
“She’s from Los Angeles. She has a tattoo.”
“Well, well! That’s nice.”
I arrange for Becca to come over for dinner, and to spend the night, and the next day Euphoria and I spend a long time planning a great meal full of vegetarian delights. Fresh green beans almondine, mashed potatoes, and my own personal recipe, sham ham. Euphoria always clicks disapprovingly whenever I make it, insisting that humans are, by nature, meat eaters, and I’m fighting my natural urges. But it’s really good, and with a nice glaze and some well-placed cloves, it hardly tastes anything like tofu. Dad spends most of the day in his studio tinkering with something expensive, and surfaces only occasionally to use the bathroom or get a drink of water.
“So, your friend is coming over tonight?” he asks between gulps.
“Yep. We’re making dinner.” Euphoria beeps in agreement as she chops onions. “You need to be cleaned up by six.”
He grunts as he downs the rest of his water, bangs the glass on the counter, and flies out the door to his lab.
“That man needs to get out of that workroom.” Euphoria has moved on to piecrust rolling. The onions are already simmering in a pan with garlic and some other unidentified ingredients. “He needs to get a life.”
“I suppose it’s easy for you to say.” I am trying to pin-cushion the sham ham with little cloves so it will look like the ones in ladies’ magazines. It looks more like an aerial map of scattered terrorist compounds.
Becca arrives on time, wearing jeans, with a plaid carpetbag overflowing with clothes. Her hair is spikeless, the green faded to a faint chlorine shading over her bleached-blond pixie cut. A purple Jeep drops her off, and she doesn’t even wave to whoever the driver is. “Is that your mom?” I ask.
“Yeah.” As I close the door behind her, she surveys the front room. “Wow. You have a really nice house.”
“Thanks. Hey, come in here and meet Euphoria.”
“Euphoria?” She laughs as she drops her bag in the hallway. “Is that your dog or something? What a cool—” She stops, and, in my opinion, squeals a very un-Becca-like squeal.
Euphoria has rolled up to her from the kitchen, and she’s dusted lightly with flour from working on the pie. I had put an apron around her so stuff wouldn’t get into her inner workings, so I guess it did look pretty weird. “Hi there. You must be Becca.” She extends a claw.
Becca looks wide-eyed at me. “Is this a joke?” She looks at Euphoria’s claw, and then at me again.
“No. She’s our robot.”
“You have a robot? Do you have any idea how weird that is?”
“Yes.” I gesture toward Euphoria’s still-extended grabber. “Please shake her hand. She’s easily offended.”
Becca gingerly touches the tip of one claw, then grips it a bit tighter, finally shaking it with some enthusiasm. “Well, pleased to meet you, I guess.”
“And pleased to meet you too. Welcome to our home.”
I think Becca’s kind of stunned because she just stands there squinting for a couple of minutes, slowly shaking the claw. Then she turns to me. “You know, I kind of figured you were unique. I guess I didn’t realize how truly out there you are.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not at all.” She grins and puts an arm around Euphoria, whose green lights sparkle in what I guess is the robot equivalent of happiness. While she finishes cooking dinner, I take Becca to my room. I haven’t actually had a friend over to my room since the previously mentioned Jane (my junior high friend who moved), so it feels sort of scary exposing my stuff to a stranger. But she just moves right in, plops on my bed, kicks off her shoes (just flat Keds this time), and starts to look at the book
s on my bedside shelf.
“You have all the same books I do.” She lies down on my pillow and stares up at the Day-Glo stars on my ceiling. “I was afraid I wouldn’t meet anybody here at all. I’m glad you came up and introduced yourself.”
“Well, I could tell you weren’t like everybody else.” I sit in my desk chair and swivel. “What’s with the tattoo?”
“Oh, this?” She rolls up her pant leg. “This is the dragon of the East. It’s some Buddhist thing or something. My parents are big Buddhists.”
“Yeah?”
“What are your parents?”
I don’t know how to answer this question. First of all, I haven’t had any real friends since my mom died, so nobody has asked me stuff about them, really. I also don’t think we ever had a religion to speak of. Unless you count science.
“I guess we’re not religious.”
“Nothing?” Becca is picking at my bedspread, looking at the patterns of constellations on it.
“Well, I think my mom was raised Catholic.”
“Oh, well, once you’re Catholic, you’re always Catholic. That’s what my mom says. She went to parochial school. Had to wear uniforms. It drives her crazy when I wear used uniforms I buy at Goodwill.” She laughs that donkey laugh again. “I don’t know. I think it’s all kind of just a way people make themselves feel good about dying eventually.”
“Wow. You’re cheery. Remind me to take you to lots of parties.” She throws a pillow at my head, and then the fight is on, and we’re lobbing projectiles through the air until feathers are popping out.
When we finally finish demolishing my room with feathers and pillows, we collapse in a heap, laughing. “I haven’t done that for a long time.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever done it.” She scans my room silently, looking at all the stuff hanging on my walls, at my dresser, at my photo gallery. She jumps up off the bed and points to one of the pictures. “Is this your mom?”
It’s my favorite photo. It’s Mom and me when I’m about ten, and we’re in the park, riding on the carousel, and Dad is taking our picture. We’re both hanging off our horses like they’re going wild, pretending to gallop off into the desert.
