Cornerstone

by Misty Provencher

  There is a shortcut to the library through the backyard of the creepiest looking house in the old sub. The place sits at the very end of the last street. The windows are only covered with a film of milky dust and the porch is as rickety as an old man’s mouth. No one’s lived there as long as I’ve been passing by it. There is a florescent orange sticker on the door warning trespassers that they could fall through the floor inside. This is the house that the neighbors want torn down and that little kids come to when they have to prove to each other that they’re brave. The rest of the traffic back here is from people like me who want to use the shortcut that runs along beside the place, ducking through the tree line in the backyard, to the rear parking lot of the library.

  There’s about three yards of woods in between the house and the library. I should probably use my flashlight, but in the twilight, the woods are lit enough that I can make my way.

  Tonight, I run all the way through the woods, across the parking lot, and up the front steps of the library just because it feels good. I’m proud that I’m not even breathing hard when I dump my books on the table in my favorite back corner.

  This spot should have my name engraved on the chair. I’m buried at the end of the Ancient Ruins aisle where no one ever comes unless they are lost or want to make out. I’m almost guaranteed to never be disturbed.

  The library is dead tonight too, just the way I like it. There was no one at any of the tables up front when I came in. Ms. Fisk, the head librarian, was perched on a stool at the circulation desk, trying to shield the cover of her Fabio romance from me. The only other person I saw on the way to my hideout was Julienne, the assistant librarian. She is always stuck with the crap job of wheeling around the return cart and re-shelving the books. True to the librarian code of silence, neither woman ever says much to me except a smile on my way in and a “Find everything?” on my way out. It’s going to be a peaceful night.

  ~ * * * ~

  I’m hunched over my history book, re-reading a paragraph that just won’t sink in, when something catches me from the corner of my eye. I glance up, figuring Julienne has come to replace a book, but instead, there is a boy with a backpack over one shoulder, walking right toward me, like he knows where he is going.

  I’m a little confused. My oasis is the only thing at the end of the aisle and he seems to be on a collision course. A boy like this, tall and thin with perfectly messy, jet black hair has got to be coming to rendezvous with his girlfriend. He’s probably going to ask me to leave so they can have their privacy. It’s not the first time someone’s asked. The closer he gets to me, the more I brace to defend my sanctuary.

  When he reaches my table, he momentarily disarms me with a grin.

  “Is it okay if I sit here?” he dumps his backpack on the table before I can say it isn’t and pulls out the chair that is diagonal from mine.

  “I’m not leaving anytime soon.” I say. He smiles at me. His teeth aren’t perfect but the way his lips frame them, they are. His eyes are bright and amused, like he wants to hear something I didn’t even say. I push my books out an inch, making the circle a little wider around myself. I don’t care if he looks like a homecoming king plucked from the Varsity basketball team. If he thinks he’s charming me into moving, he’s wrong. But instead of looking annoyed, he lets an amused chuckle escape from behind another smile. I hate that he keeps doing that because it makes me want to keep looking at him.

  “That’s fine.” he says and takes the seat.

  “If you’re waiting for somebody,” I whisper over the table, “there’s not going to be room for her.”

  “What makes you think I’m waiting for a her?” he whispers back.

  Oh. He’s gay. My heart sinks and I wince inwardly. I was hoping he wasn’t waiting for a girl but I’m embarrassed that it ever occurred to me that his sitting here might somehow be connected to an interest in me. I hadn’t even thought beyond that.

  “Whoever you’re waiting for.” I correct. “There isn’t going to be enough room for anyone else and like I said, I’m going to be here for a while.”

  “Good.” He nods and unzips his backpack, like this is finished business. He fishes out a worn copy of Brave New World that looks soft and gray at the edges. He leans back in his chair, opens up the book and starts reading. There’s a whole library full of empty tables up front, but this boy, with hair that would probably feel like soft twine between my fingertips, has to sit here.

  I try to find the passage in my history book that wasn’t making sense before, but I can’t even tell which paragraph it is now. Without meaning to do it, my eyes flick to his face. He’s concentrating on his book. I go back to mine, but all I can do is skim and the sentences run through my head like annoying news feed at the bottom of a TV screen.

  I blink and I’m looking at him again. I quickly pull my eyes down to the bottom of the page in front of me. His skin is smooth and tan, like maybe he’s outside a lot. Maybe he’s in Track. This image of the two of us warming up and running side by side, drifts into my brain. I shut down the thought immediately. He’s got to be popular and therefore, he’s got to know that I’m The Waste. I shove the fantasy out of my mind and stare hard at the words on the page in front of me.

  Besides, he might be gay.

  Or maybe that’s not what he meant at all. Maybe he’s sitting with me on a dare. Or maybe he thinks he can make me leave just by sitting here too.

  I don’t know why he’s here, but I force myself to go over the sentences in front of me again. I still don’t register one lousy word. Four more times I try, but the only thing in my head is me, telling myself not to look up at him again.

  I fight to keep my eyes glued on my history book until they feel dry. It’s the same kind of ache I get as when I’ve been smiling too long. This is stupid. He’s just a boy sitting across from me. I tell myself to forget that he’s even there. Ignore him. He’s nobody. I’m nobody to him. But the second I let myself relax, I do a quick glance up and my breath catches in my throat because our eyes meet.

  His gaze is centered and lazy, like he’s been watching me for a while. His expression doesn’t change when our eyes lock, even though I can feel the muscles in my forehead suddenly hike toward my scalp. It’s like he’s been studying me and doesn’t care if I know it. My stomach flutters and I suck it in, trying to keep myself motionless. It would doom me worse than I’m already doomed if he’s a Varsity jock, detecting me—The Waste—being fluttery about him.

  I force my eyes back down into the crease of my history book. As if he’ll believe that my looking at him was random. Like I was just looking around and happened to trip over him, staring at me with his liquid blue eyes. Like I couldn’t help but notice him only because he was taking up the space where I was going to look anyway. I hope I look more random and uninterested and convincing than I feel.

  I hear him stretch his legs under the desk. I hear the souls of his shoes slide over the nubby carpet and I swear I can feel the heat of his leg stretched out beside my own. The chair next to me nudges my arm and I flinch. I look up and there he is again. Smiling.

  “What are you studying?” he asks. I fight to calm the involuntary shaking going on in my core. I remind myself that this is just a simple question. Maybe he’s baiting me for a prank. There is no other reason for him to care.

  “History.” I say.

  “English.” He flops down his book on top of his backpack. “I was supposed to have this done last week.”

  “I’ve never read that.” I tell him. That’s it. He must be scouting for some brainiac to do his term paper. Knowing that, it’s easier for me to look back at my own work now, but he keeps talking.

  “You won’t have to, unless you get Kale for English. If you’re lucky, you’ll get Mr. Ergnon.” he says.

  “That’s not until next year.”

  “I know.” he says, glancing at my history book. “But I hope you get lucky.”

  “Mmm hmm.” I nod, dropping my eyes away fro
m him, begging him, inside my head, not to ask anything else. If he doesn’t know me, I never want him to. If he ends up asking one of his buddies who I am, they’ll laugh and show him my locker with it’s unmatched shade of paint that doesn’t really hide the name. His friends will tease him the rest of the school year. He’ll probably be so embarrassed that he ever considered me at all...who knows what he’ll think to do to me then. Something, I’m sure, to prove to everyone that I’m nothing to him.

  “What’s your name?” he asks. The excited waves rippling through my stomach, die.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I say, jumping to my feet. “You can have the table. I’ve got to get going anyway.”

  “I don’t want the table.”

  “It’s fine. Really.” I crush a folder into my backpack.

  “Don’t go.” His voice is inviting and soft but I’ve already got my backpack slung over my shoulder. Whatever I can’t cram in is in my arms.

  “Seriously,” I draw a line in the air between us with my open palm. “No problem. We’re good.”

  I turn and leave as fast as I can without running, ducking out of the history aisle before he has a chance to ask my name again.

  Chapter 3

  Something big happened.

  I know it because Cora is waiting for me on the school’s front steps. Cora is maybe the only friend I’ll ever have at Simon Valley High. She is the polar opposite of popular and she was one of the girls that used to follow me around, trying to worship me when I first came to the school. Now, the way things have worked out, she is a step above me on the popularity scale, because even though she’s awkward and a little repulsive in her habits, she’s not considered a freak. She’s been in the Simon Valley Public School System since kindergarten and due to the familiarity, she’s escaped their perpetual ridicule. Instead, our peers have granted her the privilege of being completely ignored. She doesn’t see it that way.

  I think Cora was delighted when the popular crowd spit me out. It wasn’t exactly personal, but it meant that there were finally some shoulders for her to stand on instead of being on the rock bottom of the social pyramid herself. Not wanting to jeopardize any upward mobility on the coolness meter, Cora distanced herself from me along with everyone else and our friendship was reduced to covert waves while passing in the halls.

  What worries me now is that Cora only wants to talk to me publicly when there is something really big going on. The last time we talked was about three weeks ago, when she met me at my locker to say that there was a rumor going around that my mother was insane and got carted off to a mental institution over the weekend. She said she wanted to make sure it was really a rumor. As soon as I verified that it was, she went off with her mouth shut. It’s not like she’d go spreading around the truth. I’ve just come to accept that Cora is the closest thing I’m going to get, as far as having a friend, until I graduate.

  I see her immediately as I climb the steps, sausaged into her usual white button down sweater, even though it is too warm for it. She pulls a tissue out of her sleeve and dabs her nose excitedly as I approach. Cora has post nasal drip that makes her a mouth breather. When she’s excited, the air she sucks in sounds too juicy.

  She scurries down the steps to meet me and I hear her trying to breathe through her saliva. Whatever news she has must be really big to have her producing so much spit. My stomach fills up with an uncomfortable heat as I think about the boy at the library last night.

  “Garrett Reece is asking around about you!” Cora bubbles. Literally. A bubble of spit sticks in the corner of her mouth and she wipes it away with an enthusiastic flick of her tongue. “How does he know about you? Were you really kissing in the library? That’s what Nikki Legarno said, but I told her that couldn’t be right.”

  A wave of hot, rancid stomach soup rolls through me. Garrett Reece. The boy has a name. And he is exactly the worst thing I expected him to be: popular. I put my hand over my eyes to shut Cora out. My brain curls into a knuckle. The boy, with eyes as clean as Jesus, is asking about me. So, today he’ll find out. His interest in me will end and what his curiosity will cost me will just begin to tabulate. I try to steady myself for seeing the words scrawled across my locker again.

  Cora taps my hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, but she doesn’t wait for my answer. “You know who he is, don’t you? Oh my gawd he’s got the most gorgeous blue eyes ever! I would die just to have him look at me! I mean, he’s not all muscley like Jake O’Keefe or Brent Goudreau, but he’s hot. It’s because he’s really, really good at sports. Did you know he’s like...all star everything? He won all kinds of medals for wrestling and track and I heard he could pitch a baseball through the side of an army tank. I think he’s super cute...even if he’s not all muscley.” She takes a big, spitty breath. “He’s super smart too. Oh! And he’s a Classic.”

  I slide my hand up and grip my brow. “Classic?”

  “Oh, you know! The Middleditch twins are too. They all drive the old clunkers. Well, not clunkers, really. They all have super old cars in mint condition. I think Garrett’s is the nicest, though. You had to’ve seen it before. It’s the burgundy Riviera...”

  “Okay.” Is all I can think to say because I think I’m going to pass out. Or throw up. Or both. The other students are pushing past me, around me, knocking me out of their way to get to their first hour classes. I’m scared to death to go inside and face my locker.

  “Okay? What do you mean, okay?” Cora asks. “Give me the scoop. Why’s he asking about you? Did you know he was going to?”

  “No.”

  “Really?” Cora dabs off her nose and swallows down another breath. She’s thoughtful for a minute, scanning the grounds and picking through the swarm of students as if she hopes to find this boy. My stomach rocks. “What about the kiss?”

  “There wasn’t any kiss. Last night’s the first time I ever met him.” I tell her. I don’t know why I’m telling her anything except that I have to tell someone something. “I was at the library studying and he came and sat by me.”

  “Sat by you? Did he say anything?”

  “Not really.”

  “He didn’t say hi or anything? He must’ve said something.”

  “We talked about finals.” I’m swaying, even though my feet are flat on the cement step beneath me.

  “You don’t look good. Are you okay?” Cora asks.

  “No.” I say. She steadies me by wrapping her hand, the one with the wet Kleenex, around my upper arm. And I’m grateful.

  “Well, come on.” She gives me a reassuring tug toward the front doors. “I’ll walk you in, okay? Maybe we’ll see him.”

  “I hope not.” I mumble.

  “Is it because of your house?” Cora asks. I don’t even bother to answer her.

  ~ * * * ~

  He’s not at my locker, thank God.

  And there’s nothing written on it either. Yet.

  Cora looks at the locker like she’s just as surprised, while I spin the combination. I open the door slowly, assuming something is going to fall out, like a wastebasket or an avalanche of crumpled paper.

  Cora holds her breath too until the door is safely open and then she shrugs, “It’s not like we’re in middle school.”

  I gather up my courage, along with the books I need. It occurs to me that I should be finding out what Cora knows instead of just answering her questions.

  “Where did you hear that Garrett Reece was asking about me?”

  “Felicia Dodd.” she says. “She heard it from Myra Lukevitch, who was eavesdropping on her brother.”

  “Oh God.” I groan.

  “I know.” Cora says primly. “Not good. Maybe Myra will say something to her brother this time. He doesn’t need to get detention again.”

  The idea of Kris Lukevitch makes me shiver. He’s the one that spray painted the name on my locker last time and his girlfriend, Audrine, was one of the girls helping to spread it all over school that my mom was insane. I’m
not sure if it was one of them or someone else that said our house was filled with dead rats and rotting garbage that the neighbors could smell, but not see, under all the paper.

  “Do you know what he asked Kris?” My voice is weak in my throat.

  “Who? Garrett? I don’t think Garrett asked Kris anything. They’re not even friends anymore. Not after Audrine tried to ask Garrett to Sadie Hawkins last year.”

  “Did he go?”

  “No.” Cora grimaces like it would be ridiculous. “Kris and Audrine were still dating when it happened. I think Kris was mad because Audrine asked Garrett and then he was even more mad that Garrett turned her down. It was like saying Audrine wasn’t good enough or something.”

  “I hope they’re all over that.”

  “I don’t think so, but maybe Kris will be happy that Garrett’s asking you out. If Garrett’s just going for whatever’s easy, it doesn’t make Audrine look so bad.” Cora stops talking and sucks in her bottom lip. She puts her hand on my arm. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I know what you meant.” I assure her. I even work up a smile. I know she meant it exactly how she said it, but since she’s the only friend I’ve got, and since the line on that is pretty shaky, I’m not going to push it. Cora tugs down the edge of her sweater and tucks her soggy tissue back up her sleeve.

  “I should get to class.” she says. “Let me know if he talks to you.”

  “I will.” I lie.

  I spend the rest of the day trying not to be seen. I take the back stairs to Algebra and I crouch at the furthest, corner table in the lunchroom. Cora walks by once and raises an eyebrow, but when I shake my head, she does a quick survey of the lunchroom herself, shrugs at me, and keeps walking. I make it to last hour, sliding into my seat with a sigh. It’s almost over. Sitting behind Gerald Harvard, being that he is roughly the size of a compact car, might be the safest place for me in the entire school.