BEFORE
My crush on Brandy McAllister began somewhere in the haze of ninth grade, when the first-week jitters had started wearing off and we’d begun to venture outside the comfort of our junior high cliques. I’d started wearing hats, thinking they made me look older; I attracted other hat-wearers and people who liked people who wore hats. And theater kids.
Brandy wore giant necklaces and a leather jacket and drew pen tattoos all up and down her arms; she attracted the kids who smoked weed and talked about getting real tattoos as soon as they were old enough to score fake IDs.
There was more overlap between these two groups than you might think.
Even so, Brandy and I didn’t actually say anything meaningful to each other until early October, when we landed in detention on the same day. It was her, me, and this group of three nerdy guys who sat in the back, complaining loudly about the unfairness of the high school justice system. The teacher sat at his desk, headphones in his ears, ignoring us all.
Brandy sat at the desk right next to mine, reading the Charles Dickens thing we’d been assigned for English class.
“What’re you in for?” I asked, lowering my voice just enough that I might be able to pass for an old-timey gangster.
She threw me a crooked little smile. “Texting.”
“Really? That’s it?”
“During gym class,” she said, bright blue eyes lighting up as she spoke. “I wasn’t paying attention, and a volleyball hit me in the arm. We lost the game because of me. Everyone was so pissed.”
She said this last part with a snicker, almost like she was proud.
“Still,” I said. “That must’ve hurt.”
“Oh, totally.” She hiked up the short sleeve of her shirt, looking positively gleeful. “Check out this bruise. Give it a couple days and it’ll be so gross. All green and yellow. Zombie skin. I can’t wait.”
I examined the bruise, then I examined her forearm, which was covered in black, purple, and blue ink. A colorful drawing of a mermaid stretched from her elbow almost down to her wrist. She wore a seashell bra and was looking wistfully into the distance, hair billowing behind her in the water.
“That’s really good,” I said, pointing at the mermaid.
“Thanks. I don’t think her fins are really right, but maybe next time. Her name’s Shelly,” she added with a smirk. “Get it?”
I groaned, but then laughed it off and checked out the fins. They looked fine to me. Something else caught my eye, though: a patch of skin, half disguised by Shelly’s torso, that was slightly shinier than the skin around it.
“What’s that thing?” I asked, pointing again.
“Oh, just a burn,” she said. “I dropped my hair curler and—ssssss.”
Hair curler. My eyes traveled up to her mostly straight blond hair, the ends of which curled in and brushed against the fabric of her shirt, below her shoulders. I’d always assumed that happened on its own. Hearing her say hair curler felt like being allowed into a secret part of her life—into the place where Brandy became Brandy. Before that moment, Brandy had been Just Another Girl. One of the many mythical beings with soft-looking skin, interesting curves, and touchable hair that populated my school and my neighborhood and my incredibly vague fantasies. But now, thanks to the Shelly-tattoo-hair-curler-burn-scar, Brandy was different. Brandy was real.
(Brandy was also, incidentally, the catalyst for my vague fantasies starting to become very, very specific.)
“… just kinda wish I could get rid of it, you know?” she was saying. “I mean, it was cool for a few days, but it’s been almost a year now, and I’m just sick of it.”
She rubbed the little patch of skin, lightly enough that she didn’t smudge Shelly’s ink, and I resisted the urge to reach over and do the same. I wanted to feel the difference between Brandy’s regular skin and Brandy’s scarred skin.
Instead, I asked, “Do you draw stuff on your arm to cover it up?”
She gave me a funny look. “No. I draw stuff because I like drawing stuff.”
So if her scar magically went away one day, she would still use her skin as a canvas for her art. That was good to know.
“Can I borrow a pen?” I asked.
She fished one out of her bag and handed it to me. I spent the rest of detention using it to do my social studies homework; when we were finally dismissed, I conveniently forgot to return it.
That night, I reached into Brandy’s pen, heart racing as I looked, for the first time, not for a personality trait or an emotion or some other intangible thing, but for a concrete piece of Brandy’s physical self: the burn scar on her forearm.
I found it and, with not much effort at all, I pulled it away. I held it for a moment in my mind, savoring the sensation of having part of Brandy so close to me … and then I paused. I could have more of her this close to me, if I wanted. This pen probably held so many secrets about her. I could see what she wrote in her diary, assuming she kept one. I could see every single thing she’d ever drawn on her arm. I could maybe even see her naked.
I shivered at the thought.
But for whatever reason, I didn’t reach any further. If she wanted to show me more of herself, she could do it in her own time, of her own free will. I could wait. Brandy—newly special, newly real—was worth waiting for. I put down the pen and let the burn scar go.
I wondered when she would notice it missing.
I wondered how she would explain its absence to herself.
I wondered what she would draw on her arm tomorrow.
We didn’t stay at the lake too long, mainly because Theo got bored without Brandy and me kayaking with him, but also because it was cold. That happened up here sometimes, even in summer. Not only were we north of the city by five solid hours, but we were also in the middle of the mountains. So before Brandy and I had even put a dent in the remaining vodka, Theo was dragging his kayak back onto the shore and wondering aloud what else there was to do up here.
The answer: Not much. Especially if you weren’t into hiking, which I wasn’t. Theo was, and so was Brandy, but neither of them was wearing good hiking shoes, so we just decided to head back to Three Peaks and explore Main Street in daylight, when the stores were open. We hadn’t actually done that yet.
That was its real name, by the way. Main Street. Like we were in some boy-and-his-dog fifties sitcom or something. It was a three-block stretch of stores, bookended by a grocery store and a bookstore. In between were a bunch of cutesy retail places, the diner with the really good burgers, and the Bean Barn, where they actually made a decent cappuccino.
At Brandy’s request, we started at the Bean Barn so she could get herself a chai latte. Then, despite Theo’s vague protests, she led us into one of the cutesy stores—and immediately back out again, when she discovered that all the locally made clothes cost, like, four hundred dollars per shirt. That was Three Peaks for you.
After that, the only thing left to check out was the bookstore, Waterlemon Books. A little bell jingled above my head as I pushed the door open. The air conditioner was blasting, despite the cool afternoon, and “Sympathy for the Devil” was playing faintly on the overhead system.
It was far from busy inside. A couple people were examining books together in the almost-hidden back corner of the store, and a stuffy-looking old guy was straightening some stuff on a shelf labeled Local Interest.
“Ooh, local legends!” said Brandy, and headed over to join the old guy. Theo went straight for the graphic novel section. My attention, though, was caught by three people talking loudly right at the front of the store: a guy and a girl who both looked about my age, and an older woman who was hovering over them like a mom.
The boy was all baggy pants and oversized hoodie and I-don’t-want-to-be-here attitude. The girl was tall and stately, with dark hair that fell messily around her shoulders. She wore one of those hippie skirts, running shoes with no socks, and a giant bulky cardigan cinched at the waist with a striped necktie. Keen-eyed and unsmil
ing, she looked like the world’s scariest—and possibly youngest—English teacher.
Brandy had a couple outfits that were pretty similar. I looked over at her, wondering if she’d noticed the girl, but she was already absorbed in a book that had a faceless man in a suit on the cover. So I didn’t bug her. I just perused the best sellers display and eavesdropped.
“I never was much of a reader myself, if we’re being honest,” the mom was saying. She held a sheet of paper out to Necktie Girl, almost like a shield. “The only one I’ve read on this list is the Hemingway, and … well, the thing is, I didn’t even like it.”
Ah. Summer reading list. I still had to read Gulliver’s Travels and Frankenstein before September. I’d get to them eventually. Maybe.
Necktie perused the list. After a moment her lips quirked into a wry smile. “Oh, yeah. A Farewell to Arms. I didn’t like it much, either. What about The Handmaid’s Tale?”
The boy’s eyes widened in horror. “But that’s a girl book!”
“Yes, it is,” Necktie Girl said smoothly, her smile going tight. “Which means you might just be the only boy in your class who reads it. You’re John, right? You go to Three Peaks High?”
He nodded, looking more and more wary by the second.
“Starting tenth grade in the fall?”
He nodded again.
“Thought so,” she said. “I had this list two years ago. Mr. Smythe broke us up into study groups based on what book we’d read, and we had to do group projects for a week. I read The Handmaid’s Tale, and so did five other girls. And one boy. Just one. Which meant that he spent an entire week surrounded by six girls who, let me tell you, were very impressed that he’d read a feminist classic.”
The boy was starting to look interested, but his mom eyed Necktie suspiciously. “I’m not sure that’s the best reason to choose a book… .”
“It’s also not the worst,” said Necktie.
The mom hesitated. Licked her lips. “Maybe there’s something in the list with more … well … boy appeal?”
Necktie’s eyes narrowed; I could almost feel the air in the room growing thinner. “Boy appeal,” she echoed flatly. “When you say that, do you mean books written by men? About men? With no women in them except one-dimensional characters who only exist because the men need love interests? Is that what you mean?”
Over by the Local Interest shelf, Brandy had her eyes on Necktie instead of her book. She caught me watching her, and we exchanged a raised-eyebrow look whose meaning was very clear: Necktie Girl was awesome.
The woman’s jaw dropped, and for a moment I wondered if she’d accuse Necktie of being rude, or maybe ask to speak to her manager. But she didn’t get the chance, because before she could say anything, the boy said, “Um. Maybe I’ll read The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Necktie’s aggressive stance vanished like a mirage, and she grinned at the boy. “Good choice.” She picked a book up off the summer reading display. The boy took it. Necktie checked the list again. “So that’s modern classics done. What’s next? Ah, the good old European classics list. Come with me.”
She turned and headed deeper into the store. The boy followed like a trained puppy. His mother scowled after them, but the expression quickly softened into a shake of her head and something that almost approached a smile. She turned toward the best sellers table—and caught me watching.
“I guess I should’ve seen that coming,” she said, kind of wryly. “Leah’s got strong opinions about books. I just … don’t read that way, I guess.”
“Leah?” I repeated. The name rang an alarm bell in my brain, but it took me a second to realize why. Last night’s ritual, and Grandma’s dislike of the girl who’d once owned The Hound of the Baskervilles. “As in Leah Ramsey-Wolfe?”
The woman nodded. “My Robert was in her older sister’s class. Rachel. They graduated a few years back. Rachel was the same way. Smart as a whip, but opinionated to the point of rudeness.”
Shaking her head again, she wandered away—just in time for Brandy to come back over to me.
“You know her?” she asked, gazing after Leah. The tone of her voice wasn’t unlike the tone you might use to ask, say, You know Lady Gaga?
I didn’t know Leah, obviously, but if I said that to Brandy, then I’d have to explain why I knew her full name—and, just, nope. So I opted for changing the subject instead. Picking up a best seller at random, I said, “Hey, have you read this?”
“The Hunger Games?” Brandy rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah, hasn’t everyone and their mom read that?”
“I only saw the movie,” I said, and began reading the first page.
Brandy took the hint and went back to the Local Interest shelf.
Leah led the boy to the register, where his mother paid for a small mountain of books. As they left, a smug look crept over her face. It was a nice face, actually, if a bit severe. She had an unusually solid sort of look. Like everyone else in the world was a little less real than she was. Even Theo and me. Even Brandy.
And there was a small mole above the left corner of her lip, like an old-fashioned movie star might have. Sexy.
Leah went behind the register, opened a blue notebook, and started writing something inside, grinning to herself the whole time. I moved closer, closer, closer, until I could see what she was writing.
Got a H.S. boy to buy Atwood. Am best feminist ever, y/n?–LRW
Curious, I read the line above what she’d just written:
Hand-sold 5 copies of American Gods in 2 hours. Go me.–JH
A quick scan up the page showed more of the same: Leah and someone else, exchanging notes about what they’d sold and to whom. I wondered who the second person was.
“This one’s not for sale,” said Leah. It took a moment for me to realize she was talking to me—and another for me to see that she was pointing at the blue notebook.
“Oh,” I said, stepping back with my hands up. “Sorry, I wasn’t—”
“Spying on me? Sure you were,” she said with a little laugh. “No big deal, though. What can I help you with?” She gave me a two-second once-over and said, “Allen Ginsberg? Jack Kerouac? We’ve got a great collection of beat-type stuff just over there.”
I blinked at her, kind of stunned. I looked down, just to make absolutely sure I hadn’t put on my On the Road shirt this morning and then forgotten about it.
I hadn’t.
But before I could answer, Leah added, “Hey, haven’t I seen you before?”
“Um, I don’t think so.”
“No, I totally have.” A moment passed, then her face brightened. “Up at Elmview Lake! Earlier this week. You and your friends were renting boats. That was you guys, right?” This last with a head-tilt in Brandy’s direction.
“Oh, yeah, we’ve been up there a couple times,” I said as the image clicked. I’d seen it during the triad ritual: Leah cocooning herself in a canoe so she could read without anyone else around. I’d also seen that she worked in a bookstore. Right.
“I get up there whenever I can,” she said. “It’s so nice. I love being on the water.”
My brain skidded to a halt. That was wrong. Hadn’t I just stolen that very thing from her last night? A love of boats and water and all that?
“You do?” I asked cautiously.
“Oh yeah. I’d go every day, but, you know. Job.” She spread her arms wide, indicating the store.
Okay, had I messed up the ritual somehow? Was Leah still intact? Maybe she meant all this stuff in the past tense. It didn’t seem like it, though… .
“Speaking of your job, I was actually wondering if I could see that,” I said, nodding at the notebook. “It’s just, I had a summer job at a bookstore down in the city last year, and they wouldn’t let us take notes on sales like you’re doing. Big chain politics. You know.”
Total lie, of course. I’d never had a summer job, nor would I have aimed for a bookstore if I’d needed to get one.
“It’s not that exciting,” she
said, handing the notebook over. “Just me and my friend Jesse snarking at each other, mostly.”
I moved my eyes up the page, as if skimming the notes in reverse—all the while prodding the paper for a way to reach in. I found it soon enough. Turning the page as an excuse to adjust my hands, I reached. But what I found inside wasn’t just Leah. It was Leah and several other people, all tangled up so tightly that I couldn’t even tell them apart, much less pull anything out.
Public property. I should have known it’d be useless. I needed something that belonged only, or at least primarily, to Leah.
Trying not to let my disappointment show, I focused on one of the notes as I pulled my will out of the notebook. I smiled up at Leah and offered it back to her. “You dared him to recommend Anaïs Nin to someone? That’s just cruel.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “You know who that is?”
Only because Brandy had told me. But still. I shrugged and said, “Maybe. Anyway, I’m looking for …” I cast a quick glance around the store, just to see which sections were farthest away from the register. Romance. Children’s. Graphic novels, where Theo was leaning against a shelf and reading. “Actually, my friend over there was looking for recommendations. He’s into, like, manga and stuff, and he’s been talking about wanting to find a new series.”
This was actually not a lie. Theo didn’t read often, but when he did, he preferred his books to contain pictures. Brandy was convinced that didn’t count as real reading, but whatever.
“Ooh, hmm,” said Leah. “Yeah, I’ll go talk to him. Be right back!”
As soon as she was out of sight, I beelined for the counter, pausing only to make sure neither the old guy nor Brandy was about to start paying attention to me. I ducked behind the register. A cup full of pens. A stack of notebooks. Register tape, bookmarks, random tchotchkes—and a smartphone in a glittery purple case. Jackpot.
It took me less than a second to find a way in, and less than a second after that to confirm that it belonged to Leah. I reached in, sorting through the phone’s memories, looking for something I could take. Not something big—that was hardly necessary—but definitely something where I’d be able to see the difference immediately.
Rocks Fall Everyone Dies Page 4
