by Cynthia Hand
“He was—” I begin softly. “We were . . . holding hands.”
“Shut up!” exclaims Angela. “So you two are like lovers!”
“No!” I protest. “I mean, maybe. I don’t know what we are. We’re holding hands, so what? It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“Oh, right.” Angela looks at me incredulously as she tugs the brush through my hair-spray-saturated hair. “Save it. You know you’re totally in love with him.”
“I don’t even know him that well. Ouch! Take it easy!”
“Well, I’ve known him since kindergarten,” says Angela, ignoring my protests as she works the tangles out of my hair. “And trust me when I say that Christian Prescott is all that he’s cracked up to be. He’s smart, funny, nice, and oh yeah, hotter than hell in July.”
“Sounds like maybe you’re in love with him,” I point out.
“Eighth grade,” Angela says. “Ava Peters’s birthday party. We play spin the bottle. My bottle points to Christian, so we sneak out to the back porch to kiss.”
“And?” I say.
“And it was fine. But no sparks. No chemistry. Nothing. It was like kissing my brother. Don’t worry, he’s all yours, C.”
“Hey, this vision is a job, remember,” I say. “Not a date. And I believe he’s all Kay’s, so enough with the crazy talk.”
She scoffs. “Kay’s pretty. And she’s clever enough to keep his attention. But Kay’s a normal high school girl. You’re an angelic being. You’re smarter and more attractive than she is in every way. You’re genetically superior. Okay, so there’s the hair thing. It’s a bad color, distracts people, whatever. But you’re totally hot. You’ve got a whole Scarlett Johansson thing going on, minus the boobs. Every guy at Jackson Hole High knows who you are, trust me.” Then she adds, “Besides, Christian and Kay are almost over.”
“What do you mean? What have you heard?”
“Nothing,” she says flippantly. “It’s just the timeline, you know? This kind of relationship has a definite shelf life.”
“What kind of relationship is that, exactly?”
She looks at me levelly. “The physical kind. What, you think Christian’s attracted to Kay’s dazzling wit?
“Their expiration date is almost up. Trust me,” she says when I don’t answer, the corner of her mouth twisting up into her evil smile. It’s unbelievable that her wings are whiter than mine.
“You’re a weird one, you know that?” I say, shaking my head. “Weird.”
“Just wait,” she says. “You’ll see. Soon he’ll be all yours. He’s your destiny, after all.” She flutters her eyelashes.
“Oh really, you think my purpose is about me getting a boyfriend? That would be awfully nice and all, because clearly I could use some help on the romantic front, but don’t you think the world is a little bigger than me and Christian and our love lives?”
“Maybe,” she says, and it’s impossible to tell whether or not she’s serious. “You never know.”
After school, I wait in the parking lot for Wendy. We’re going back to my house to study for a Jane Austen exam in Phibbs’s class. I can’t help but locate Christian’s Avalanche, parked in the back like always.
Wendy walks up and playfully punches me on the arm. “Tucker told me you were a queen today,” she says.
I drag my gaze away from Christian’s truck. “Yeah, I ruled. Literally.”
“I wish I’d seen you in your costume,” she says. “You should have come and gotten me at lunch. I could have helped you get ready.”
“Oh, you didn’t need to help me with the history class stuff,” I reply as if I hadn’t wanted to impose on her. But the truth is, I don’t know how to handle Angela and Wendy in the same space. How weird would it be to talk about normal things like school and boys now when I’m so used to talking about angel stuff with Angela? The last couple weeks I’ve mostly seen Wendy in class and at lunch, where I still sit at the Invisibles table. I’ve been busy with Angela working on our project most days after school.
“Ready for Jane Austen?” I ask.
“You know I’m crushing on Mr. Darcy, big-time,” she says.
“Oh, right,” I say distractedly, because I’ve spotted Christian and Kay.
They’re standing next to the silver truck, talking. Kay is smiling up at him. She leans into him as she talks, practically draping herself over him. He doesn’t seem to mind. They kiss, not a little peck, but a long, lingering kiss where she twines her arms around his neck and he curls his arms around her waist and pulls her close and lifts her up. Then he steps back and brushes his hand across her cheek, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. He says something. She nods. He opens the driver’s side door of the truck, and she climbs in. He hops in after her and closes the door. I don’t have a good view of what happens next, but the Avalanche doesn’t move. They aren’t driving anywhere.
They don’t look like a couple whose expiration date is almost up. They look happy.
“You’re not listening to me, are you?” says Wendy then, loudly.
I jump, startled, and look over at her. She has her head cocked slightly to one side, her blue eyes narrowed.
“Sorry,” I say quickly. I smile. “Did Tucker tell you that I had him executed today? It’s good to be queen.”
I expect her to lighten up, make some smart-aleck remark, but she just shakes her head.
“What?”
“Christian has a girlfriend, as you might have noticed,” she says. “I suggest you get over it.”
My mouth opens, then closes, then opens again.
“Hello, rude!” I finally sputter.
“It’s true.”
“You don’t know anything about it,” I shoot back.
“Well, maybe I would, if you ever bothered to talk to me anymore,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Oh, I see, you’re jealous now. Hence the rudeness.”
She looks away quickly in a way that confirms it—she’s jealous of Angela and all the time we’ve been spending together. “I’m sick of watching you drool over Christian Prescott like he’s a piece of meat, is all.”
It’s been a long day. And so I lose my temper.
“What’s it to you, Wen? It’s my life. Why don’t you stop being invisible for once and get your own?”
She stares at me for a long moment, her face slowly reddening, her eyes shining with the beginnings of tears that she’s too stubborn to let fall. She turns away. I can see her shoulders starting to shake.
“Wen—”
“Forget it,” she says. She picks up her backpack and slings it over her shoulder. “I thought I was your friend, for real, not just until you found somebody better. My mistake.”
“Whoa, Wendy, you are my friend,” I say, taking a step back. “I—”
“No offense, Clara, but sometimes it’s not all about you.”
I stare at her.
“I’m going to catch the bus home,” she says, pushing past me.
Chapter 10
Flying Lesson
I wish I could have had a fun spring break, some wild trip to Miami or even a simple road trip with my friends. But Wendy was still not talking to me (boy, can that girl ever hold a grudge!) and Angela was busy helping her mom with spring cleaning at the Pink Garter. So spring break consisted of seven fun-filled days cooped up in the house with Jeffrey, who was grounded because he’d won the Regional Wrestling Championships. Two weeks with no TV, no phone, no internet. I thought this was a bit excessive. Jeffrey was furious, Mom was cranky, and no amount of standing on the porch soaking in the sun could take away the chill inside the house.
It’s a relief to be back at school. At lunch I sit waiting for Angela to show up. I’m using a napkin to sop up the extra grease on a slice of pepperoni pizza when Wendy practically skips into the cafeteria. She gets in line for the fish and waves at the girls at the Invisibles table a little spastically. She’s wearing her I-can’t-wait-to-tell-you face. I’m guessin
g it involves prom.
I take a bite of soggy pizza and remind myself that I don’t want to go to prom. I’d so much rather stay home with Ben and Jerry and watch chick flicks with Mom, who needs some major R & R.
Why does this plan depress me so much?
“You’ll never guess what happened,” I pick up from Wendy as she flops down into the chair at the Invisibles table a few feet away. For a moment she meets my eyes, and I know that we both wish that we could get over our stupid fight and make up and then she’d be telling me all her exciting news.
“You got a date for prom?” asks Emma.
Wendy’s blue eyes sparkle. I wonder if a BFF victory squeal is going to be required in this situation.
“No,” she says. “Well, yes. I’m going with Jason Lovett. But that’s not my big news. I got the internship!”
“The internship,” Lindsey repeats blankly.
Of course! The internship in Montana that she’s been talking about nonstop since she found out about it! The one where all the vets graduated from Washington State. Come on, people! And you call yourselves her friends?
“At the All West Veterinary Hospital,” she explains.
“Oh, right,” says Lindsey vaguely. “The one in Bozeman?”
“Yes,” she says, sounding a bit out of breath. “I would have killed to get that internship. Practically all of the vets graduated from Washington State, which is my dream school, as you know.”
She glances at me again. I smile faintly. She looks away.
“Congrats!” the girls at the table are all saying practically in unison.
“Thanks.” She looks genuinely happy and proud and excited for the future, even without the victory squeal.
“Wait, does this mean you’re going to be gone all summer?” Audrey asks, frowning.
“June through August.”
“That’s great,” says Emma. “Now tell us about how Jason Lovett asked you.”
I can almost hear Wendy blush.
“Actually, I asked him.”
I lean forward and rest my chin in my hands, like I’m really bored and not listening in to everything that’s going on. I’m glad for Wendy. Jason seems like a good guy, a bit on the short side, big, hopeful brown eyes, a soft tenor voice that I hope for his sake deepens as he gets older. But nice. Somebody who will treat Wendy right.
Angela finally shows up. She tosses her brown paper lunch sack down on the table in front of me and slides into a chair. Intuitively her eyes flicker over to the Invisibles table, where Wendy and her friends are still going on about how she asked Jason.
“You should make up with her,” says Angela. “She’s over it, whatever it was. What was it, anyway, that got her panties in a bunch?”
“Mostly I think it was because she was jealous of all the time I was spending with you,” I say pointedly.
“Oh well, I can’t exactly help you there. I am amazing, you know.”
I grin. “I know.”
“Oh! Speaking of me being amazing, have I got news for you.” She leans forward, her eyes still bright with mischief. “I heard that Christian and Kay were having major problems during spring break,” she whispers theatrically.
I quickly survey the cafeteria. It takes me a second, but I find Christian sitting by himself in the very back of the room. No Kay in sight. No friends. Interesting.
“What kind of problems?”
“A big screaming match in front of like a hundred people at a party kind of problems. There’s this nasty rumor going around about Christian hooking up with a girl on the Cheyenne ski team at the State Championships.”
“And who’d start a rumor like that?”
She smiles with that annoying, knowing look in her eyes. “I told you, didn’t I? Rumor or not, it was only a matter of time. . . .”
That’s when Kay Patterson enters the room.
Kay is wearing a skirt that I’m pretty sure violates the school dress code, and more makeup than usual, almost raccoonlike around the eyes, her lips a deep, brazen red. Her gaze immediately seeks out Christian. He appears to be completely absorbed by his Tater Tots, not looking up, but I can tell by his posture that he knows she’s there. And she knows he knows it. For a moment I think she’s going to burst into tears. Then she starts walking, and sways right up to a group of freshman/sophomore jocks in the corner. The whole cafeteria pivots to watch her. She chooses one of the guys seemingly at random and says something in a low, phone-sex-operator voice. She runs her fingers through his hair.
Then she turns and sits in Jeffrey’s lap.
I think everybody’s jaw hits the floor at approximately the same time.
This is way beyond Christian and Kay having problems. This is Kay leaning forward against Jeffrey’s chest and saying something into his ear so close that she could have licked him. His eyes widen slightly but he’s obviously trying to keep his cool. He doesn’t move.
I stand up.
“Excuse me for a minute,” I say politely to Angela, like I’m just going to powder my nose. But I’m seeing red. I fully intend to walk over there and use my angelic superstrength to punch Kay Patterson in her dainty turned-up nose, for a number of reasons, really, the least of which being that she’s chosen my baby brother for her twisted game and nobody better mess with my baby brother.
“Wait.” Angela grabs my arm in a steely grip. “Calm down, C. Jeffrey’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
Jeffrey looks like he’s going to swallow his Adam’s apple.
“Where’s Christian?” he croaks.
“I don’t know where Christian is,” Kay purrs as if she couldn’t care less. “Do you?”
I tear my gaze away from the new slutty version of Kay. Christian has stopped eating and is gathering up his stuff onto his tray. He stands up and walks over to the tray drop-off, turns and points a look of general disdain in Kay’s direction, then heads for the door.
Good for him, I think as he yanks the door open. It bangs shut behind him. I watch him through the window as he strides down the hall toward the main exit, his fury streaming out behind him as clearly as a trail of smoke in the air. Then he’s gone.
“Now’s your chance,” whispers Angela. “Go after him.”
I could say something to him. But what?
“He wants to be alone right now,” I say to Angela. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Coward,” she says.
I glare at her. “Don’t,” I say, suddenly so furious that it’s tough to get the words past my clenched teeth. “Call. Me. A coward.”
I shake Angela off and stalk across the cafeteria to Kay. I tap her on the shoulder.
“Excuse me,” I say. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Kay glances up, something calculating in her eyes. She smiles.
“Do you have a problem, Pippi?”
Pippi. As in Longstocking. Laughter circulates around the lunchroom. But Mom was right. It doesn’t faze me. I’ve heard it before.
“Wow. Original. Now get off my brother, please.”
Someone grabs my arm and squeezes very gently. I glance over to see Wendy standing next to me.
“This isn’t you, Kay,” Wendy says.
Which is true. As much as I want to believe Kay is evil incarnate, as much as part of me wants to see this little display as her true colors peeking through, Kay is not that girl. This is such an obvious, pathetic front. It has that wounded animal quality of lashing out. Seeing that so clearly lessens my desire to punch her lights out.
“I know you’re upset, Kay, but—” I begin.
“You don’t know anything.” She loosens her octopus grip on Jeffrey and glowers at me with infuriated chocolate eyes. Jeffrey’s eyes say something different altogether: Don’t. You’re embarrassing me. Go away.
“Christian’s gone,” I continue. “He left. So what’s the point in drooling all over someone else’s boyfriend? You trying to ruin our appetites or what?”
If Kay looks embarrassed or uncertain, it�
��s only for a millisecond. She turns to Jeffrey.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asks in a sugary tone.
He looks at Kay with her dangerous black-ringed eyes and then his gaze darts to Kimber, who was standing in the pizza line when this all went down. She reminds me of a Keebler elf, her white-blond hair braided and wrapped around her head like the girl on the Swiss Miss hot chocolate. But she looks royally ticked off. Her face is pale, two hot splashes of red on her cheeks, her eyes throwing sparks.
Maybe I’m not going to be the one beating up Kay after all.
“Yeah,” says Jeffrey, his mouth turning up in the hint of a smile. “Kimber Lane. She’s my girlfriend.”
The look that passes between Jeffrey and Kimber right then feels like it requires a swell of cheesy music in the background. Aw, I think. Baby brother’s in love. I also find this kind of gross.
“All right, then,” says Kay with forced lightness. She stands up and straightens her skirt, then lifts her head and gives this forced laugh like it was all a game, and it was amusing, but now she’s bored.
“See you later,” she says to Jeffrey, and then she saunters off, orbited by her little posse the minute she’s away from us. They leave the cafeteria, and then there’s an explosion of noise as the other students all start talking at once.
Wendy lets go of my arm.
“Hey,” I say, turning to her. “I’m sorry about all that stupid stuff I said before.”
“Me too.”
“Do you want to hang out after school?”
She smiles.
“Sure,” she says. “I’d love to.”
Wendy and I hole up in my room and do our homework together, bent over our books without talking much, only looking up occasionally to smile or ask a question. I, of course, am not thinking about my aerodynamics class and the three theories of physics that are supposed to explain lift. The class is all numbers and angles, nothing that resembles what it would be like to fly in real life, but ironically I’m good at it.
I can’t stop thinking about Christian. He was a no-show in British History.
