Extra Credit #22

by Melissa J Morgan

  Reading Sarah’s posts had gotten Natalie thinking that Sarah had met her guy right around the same time Natalie had met Eli, about two weeks ago. And Sarah was already sooo emotional about him. So worried about what he would think of her. And so sad over letting him go.

  It would be easy for Natalie to let Eli go. He was a casual friend. Nice. Cute. Kind of boring. Nice. Nat would miss feeling like a normal girl. But she wouldn’t miss Eli. She wouldn’t feel like she’d lost a layer of skin. Or maybe just the layer she was always pumicing off the bottom of her feet. Sarah was talking about layers of heart skin. Even thinking about heart skin sent a sympathy pain through Natalie’s body.

  An IM popped up on Natalie’s screen.

  : The weather is supposed to be awesome this weekend. I checked the five-day forecast. Wanna meet up in the park for sailing and lunch at the café?

  The sound of whistling wind and a cry of “Land, ho!” came through her speakers. Natalie shook her head, but smiled. How could she say no? Eli was nice. With cute freckles. And more importantly, in life A.B. (After Braces), there weren’t many options.

  chapter ELEVEN

  “You might want to consider this mobile with the black-and-white graphics,” the sales clerk at Petit Albert told Avery and her stepmother when they were out shopping on Thursday afternoon. “It’s specifically designed to stimulate an infant’s vision. The really terrific thing is, after two months, when your baby’s vision starts to develop, you can change the elements on the mobile and introduce color.” The clerk held up a not-at-all-cute yellow, black, and white triangle.

  “We’ve decided we’re not going to worry about stimulation in the baby’s room,” Avery told the clerk. “We want the nursery to be a beautiful place for the baby to chill.”

  The clerk gave Avery’s stepmother a you’re-not-letting-this-teenager-make-life-defining- choices-for-your-infant look. Elise smiled. “We’re planning to have lots of stimulating objects for the baby in other parts of the house.”

  “You’re aware, I’m sure, that a baby doesn’t actually possess the concept of beauty. A baby loves contrasting colors. And I think this is quite elegant.” The clerk gestured toward a black crib with a quilt of alternating black and white squares.

  “I think we need to look at another store,” Avery decided. Everything in the place had a geometric pattern and was black and white with maybe a little dash of another color.

  The designs weren’t even close to beautiful. And probably thousands and thousands and thousands of nurseries in Connecticut had something like them. Her dad and stepmother’s baby should have something more special. The kid was going to be related to Avery, after all. It would be really embarrassing if it grew up to have bad taste.

  “I can’t go to one more store,” Avery’s stepmother said as they stepped back out into the main mall. “Except Ben and Jerry’s.” She pointed to the ice cream shop almost directly across from them. “I can and am going there.” She started walking toward it like a magnet was pulling her there.

  “Is this on the healthy-mother-healthy-baby eating plan?” Avery asked, following.

  “You notice your father is already back to eating everything he wants,” her stepmother answered. “Even though he was going to follow the plan in solidarity.”

  “I’ll eat ice cream with you in solidarity,” Avery offered. She didn’t mind eating something decadent with her stepmother, because she, unlike Avery’s mom, didn’t talk the whole time they ate about the fat, carbs, and calories they were consuming and how much treadmill time it would take to “pay.”

  “Yes!” Her stepmother held out a fist for a bump, and Avery dutifully bumped it. Then they went inside.

  There was something on Avery’s mind. A question that nagged at her. I’ll do it when we sit down, Avery promised herself as they got in line.

  After I eat a few bites, she amended as they sat down at a little table with their ice cream.

  What was her problem? She wanted to do this. Maybe she should have bought a card. Maybe that’s why cards existed. Because it was too hard to actually say things. Don’t be a wuss. Just do it, Avery ordered herself.

  “Um, Elise—”

  Her stepmother froze with her plastic spoon partway to her mouth. Probably because Avery had avoided using her name starting on day one.

  “Yesterday, when we were talking . . .” Avery hesitated.

  “When I was having my mental breakdown,” Elise encouraged.

  “Yeah. Well, you said that you didn’t have any family here. And I thought that was weird. Because you live with family. You’re married to my dad, and there’s me, and Peter, even though he’s pretty useless lately.” Avery stabbed her ice cream a few times with her spoon. She liked it mushy. “So do you really feel like you have no family in Connecticut?”

  “No. I really don’t feel that way,” Elise said very quickly. Too quickly.

  Avery raised her eyebrows. “Why’d you say it then?”

  Elise stared down at her cup of ice cream for a long moment, then she met Avery’s gaze. “I want to feel like I live with my family here. And I’m an optimist. I think, in time, I will feel that way. But a lot of the time right now, I feel like your dad and I are a couple, and you and your dad and your brother are a family.”

  Avery wasn’t going to try and talk her out of that. She could understand why Elise felt that way. That was pretty much how Avery felt. Or used to feel.

  “That’s going to change when the baby comes,” Avery said. “Then you and dad and the baby will be the family. And Peter and I will be the, I don’t know, the boarders.” She hadn’t planned to say that. It just came out. Like vomit.

  “Sweetie, it’s not going to be like that,” Elise said.

  “Things are already changing.” Avery continued to spew, her voice ragged and cracking. “Dad didn’t even read the comics on Sunday. And he didn’t even notice when I hinted a million times about what I wanted for my birthday. And Peter. I don’t even know why I act like Peter’s in my family now. It’s like I don’t even have a brother anymore. He’s always watching a movie. Even when he’s not watching a movie, it seems like he’s watching a movie in his head.”

  Avery felt her eyes sting with tears. She didn’t want to cry. Not in Ben and Jerry’s. In front of Elise. And the counter girl with bad acne.

  “You know how I said in time I thought I’d start to feel like family with you and Peter? I’m actually feeling the family thing with you right now.” Elise handed Avery a napkin. “And you know what? It felt like family when you talked me off the ledge yesterday.”

  Avery blew her nose, even though she thought blowing your nose in public was disgusting. But having fluid run out of your nose and down your face in public was more disgusting. “Your definition of family seems to involve a lot of crying,” Avery muttered.

  Elise laughed. “A lot of all kinds of emotion. Sometimes I’ve wondered if you and Peter are some kind of super-advanced robots, the way you’re just polite and completely distant to me all the time.”

  “Well, I’m not sure about Peter . . .” Avery said.

  “When I was your age, my brother basically lived in his room for three entire years. He never came out, never talked to any of the rest of us. We had to slide flat food under his door. Those plastic wrapped slices of cheese, mostly,” Elise said. “When he came out, he had a beard and had somehow gotten engaged.”

  Avery laughed. Even though it was stupid. Actually, because it was stupid. Elise was actually kind of funny.

  “Ready to go?” Elise asked.

  Avery nodded. They stood up and tossed their paper ice cream cups and plastic spoons into the trash. “You should tell your dad you like it when he reads the comics,” Elise said. “He would love that. You should also talk to him about how you’re feeling about the family right now. How you feel like you’re not that important to him and that he’s not listening to you.”

  Clearly Elise had been listening hard.

 
“Can’t I buy him a card?” Avery asked on the way out of the mall. “One of these conversations in a day is enough.”

  “It doesn’t have to be today,” Elise answered. “Maybe on Sunday. At brunch. I’m going to tell him to make at least something besides oatmeal. I’ll eat oatmeal Monday through Saturday, but on Sunday, I want food food.”

  “If I talk to him at brunch, you’d be there, too,” Avery said.

  “Maybe the conversation could involve the whole family. If Peter’s ready for something like that. You have to wait until people are ready.” Elise lightly touched Avery’s arm. “So what did you want for your birthday? I thought those belts I picked out were pretty cool.”

  “They were. Everything I got was great. But I’d been dropping major hint bombs about redecorating my room. It feels too little-girly,” Avery answered. “I thought my dad got it, too, because I happened to see the paint chips and swatches in his briefcase.”

  “Happened to, huh?” Elise smiled. “Try hinting to me next time. I’ve pretty much become the designated gift buyer,” Elise suggested. “Not that your dad doesn’t need to listen to you.” She pushed open one of the mall double doors and they stepped into the sunlight. “I’ve just had an inspiration!” she exclaimed. “What do you think of your curtains for the nursery? I love the little flowers.”

  “They’d be perfect for a baby. Even if it’s a boy, we could do some stripes for the wallpaper or the bedding, to guy things up,” Avery answered.

  “Of course, if we take your curtains, we’d have to get you new ones. And then you’d probably need new bedding to go with them,” Elise said.

  “Maybe new carpet,” Avery hinted.

  “Oh, definitely new carpet,” Elise agreed.

  Brynn read Sarah’s posts about the “guy” for about the twentieth time since they’d shown up on the camp blog yesterday. She gave a snort of disgust and shoved herself out of the chair in front of her computer. She began to pace as well as she could around her cluttered—truth, messy—room.

  “She’s talking about Chace. Of course she’s talking about Chace,” Brynn said aloud. Her family always teased her about her monologues, calling her a drama queen. But who cared? First, being a drama queen was a good thing, in her opinion. Second, if monologues were good enough for Hamlet and Lady Macbeth, they were good enough for her.

  “I can’t believe Sarah is worried about Chace finding out some secret about her,” Brynn continued her rant. “Chace is evil. And Sarah is wonderful. Chace is devil spawn. And Sarah is awesome.”

  Okay, maybe that part was over the top, Brynn thought.

  “What do I know for sure that Chace has done?” she asked herself aloud. She stopped pacing. “I know for sure that he brought in a costume from outside and wore it.” She nodded. “I know that. And it was against the rules.”

  “Yes it was against the rules,” Brynn responded, as if she were Sarah. “But it didn’t hurt anyone. It’s hardly eeeevil.”

  “He hurt Lowell. He cheated Lowell out of a SAG voucher,” she said as herself.

  “There’s no evidence to support that,” Brynn-as-Sarah countered. “I thought we were dealing in certainties here. Or am I mistaken?”

  “Point withdrawn,” Brynn-as-Brynn answered. “Fact: Chace lied the day we met him when he said he was bringing me coffee for my migraine!”

  Brynn-as-Sarah shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe we’re wasting the court’s time with a petty accusation like that. Didn’t you, only yesterday, tell Mr. Tollefson that you were late because you forgot to set the alarm, when you really overslept because you stayed up until three watching 10 Things I Hate About You for the seventeenth time?”

  “I am not on trial here!” Brynn-as-Brynn snapped. But it was true, she had lied to Mr. Tollefson, and her lie was pretty much exactly the kind of lie Chace had told. A little excuse lie. “Chace and Sarah went to the movies without me! That was rude. And mean!” she burst out.

  “Aha!” Brynn-as-Sarah exclaimed before taking a long dramatic pause. “Now we come to the heart of the matter. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” (now Brynn was playing a girl playing a prosecutor—they gave out Oscars for that, didn’t they?) “this case isn’t about facts. There is no proof for any but the smallest of the prosecution’s accusations. What this case is about is hurt feelings and jealousy. The prosecutor is, in fact, deeply involved in the case. She is assuming that Chace and Sarah intentionally left her out. More than that, she is hurt that Sarah has wanted to spend time with a boy she likes instead of with the prosecutor. And the prosecutor is a little jealous of how Chace has managed to get a SAG voucher on his very first extra job.”

  Brynn walked over to her computer and sat down in front it. She quickly wrote an IM.

  : I wrong. You right. I sorry. You okay?

  : I don’t think I am.

  : Awww. Chace is the guy, right?

  : Yes. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Not true. I have to stay away from him.

  : Why??? Just tell me, S. Maybe we can figure something out. Two heads.

  : Chace is Avery’s twin. Using a stage name.

  : He shares DNA with Avery?? That explains a lot!!! So you’re afraid he’ll find out about the whole “Tad Maxwell’s daughter” thing?

  : Yeah.

  : You could push Avery out a window. Like Jenna said.

  : Heh. No. She isn’t the total witch she first seemed like at camp.

  : Maybe just ask her not to tell?

  : Don’t think I trust her that much. Maybe that would make her tell. It’s hard to know with Avery . . . Paranoia?

  : Hmmm. We’re still getting to know her angel/witch ratio.

  : I think I won’t come to the set this weekend.

  : Nooooo! Sars, don’t quit. I’ll run interference for you.

  : ??

  : You don’t want to be around Chace? It will be my job to keep the two of you apart. Okay?

  : Okay?

  : Okay.

  “He’s out there,” Sarah told Brynn. She took another quick peek out the door of the women’s dressing room. She’d only opened it a crack.

  “Of course he is,” Brynn answered.

  They were only halfway through Saturday’s extra duty, and Brynn had already been forced to do six interceptions on Chace, even though in the new crowd scene—set in 2040 this time—Sarah had managed to get assigned to a spot almost as far away from him as possible. She felt like she’d had one of those tracking devices installed under her skin. Chace seemed to be able to find her wherever she went.

  “I’ll go ask him if he’s seen you,” Brynn said. “Then he’ll think he’s wrong about you being in here, and you can just hang until we get called back to the set. I’ll come get you. But I won’t come back before then. It would make him suspicious.”

  “Thanks, Brynn,” Sarah said.

  How weird was it to be thanking someone for keeping the boy you liiiiked away from you?

  “You need anything in your hideout? Bread, water, magazines?” Brynn asked.

  “I’m good,” Sarah told her.

  “Okay, I’m gone.” Brynn waved Sarah back from the door and disappeared.

  Sarah sat down on one of the chairs, the neoprene of her costume making her sweat. Or maybe it was the stress of all the Chace avoidance. Everything in her wanted to be with him. And she kept forcing herself away. She wouldn’t be surprised if her body snapped in half before the day was over.

  chapter TWELVE

  Natalie didn’t see Eli when she arrived at the Central Park model boat pond on Sunday, so she stood and watched the other boats slide across the surface.

  A cry went up as a woman with the largest golden retriever Natalie had ever seen—clearly a mutant—struggled to keep her dog from leaping into the pond and destroy
ing who knew how many hundreds of dollars worth of boats. She finally got him under control and hustled him off.

  “Call the Dog Whisperer!” one of the sailors shouted after her.

  Natalie wandered around the edge of the pond. It seemed like one of the sailboats was tracking her. She stopped. The boat stopped. She took a few steps. The boat followed. Was it Eli’s? It was about the right size. She thought the stripe on the sail was the right color. But to her, a toy sailboat was a toy sailboat.

  Except this toy sailboat had a teeny tiny bouquet on it. Just three violets tied together with a purple ribbon.

  “I’m pretty sure those are for you,” a white-bearded, big-bellied man who looked way too much like Santa Claus told her.

  Natalie knelt down. The boat glided right to the edge of the pond, and she saw that the bouquet had a little tag on it that said: “Natalie.” She gently picked up the flowers, then turned around and started looking for Eli.

  He stepped out from behind a tree, the boat remote in one hand and a bouquet of heart-shaped red and pink balloons in the other.

  Wait, Natalie thought.

  Eli bent down and picked up a large picnic basket, then hurried over to Natalie. He handed her the balloons. “Do you know what today is?” he asked.

  Natalie wasn’t sure of anything right now. “Sunday?” She wasn’t even positive that was correct.

  Eli laughed. “Yep, it’s Sunday. It’s also our two-week anniversary.”

  Oh, wait, wait, wait, Natalie thought.