It was weird. I knew that it was something I should appreciate, but I couldn’t. I hadn’t expected it to taste like birthday cake or mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, but I had expected it to be something I could at least manage to swallow. But all I had was a bad taste in my mouth.
Yes, this is a little like that moment. Nick is about to ask me to the Cotillion. He likes me. A lot. He’s brought me flowers, made me jewelry, and now he’s taking me to an actual dinner! I should feel victorious. Triumphant. Appreciative. But somehow this moment feels a lot like duck liver pâté. I’ve got another bad taste in my mouth.
Mabry is sitting at a table in the food court already, a textbook and a notebook open in front of her. “Hey, Bean Breath,” she says when she sees Thad.
“Hey,” he says, and adds on, lamely, “Onion Head. Are you doing homework?”
“I got here early.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” he says. “But why are you here so early?”
“Can we not talk about it?”
“Yeah, sure.” He feels like it’s a strange thing for her to say, but he also feels hungry. Very hungry. He slides his skateboard under the table and pulls some money out of his pocket. “Want a taco?”
Mabry gives him a crooked smile and picks up a balled-up wrapper. “Already had one. With two packages of hot sauce. It was that kind of a day.”
He grins. “You really are learning, my cricket.”
“Grasshopper,” she says.
He leaves his skateboard under the table, goes to the Macho Nacho stand, and orders a burrito.
“Anything else?” the man behind the counter asks.
Thad looks over his shoulder at Mabry. She’s leaning on her elbows, just staring at the table—something’s not right. He orders her a side of chips and guac.
He brings the food to the table. “I thought you could use this,” he says, setting the guacamole down in front of her.
“Thanks.” She looks up at him, surprised.
He feels some heat rise to his face, so he says, “Well, go ahead, eat! It wasn’t free.”
She takes the lid off the guacamole container. “Guess what?”
“Chicken butt,” he says, taking a huge bite of burrito. It annoys him when she starts a conversation this way; he always wants to come up with something extraordinarily funny in response, but he usually falls flat.
“Sirina asked this guy Kipper to the Cotillion.”
He lets his mouth drop open, despite its fullness. “No way!” He can’t help feeling amused. Jeez, is he turning into a girl now that Mabry is his only friend?
“Yep,” she says. “I had no idea. Zip. Zero.”
“Seriously?”
“None.” She looks down at the table. “That’s one of the reasons she won’t talk to me anymore.”
“Dude, what do you mean she won’t she talk to you anymore?”
“Like I said, can we not talk about it?”
“Yeah, no problem.” He feels sad for her, and he knows he should say something, but he has no idea what. He can’t say Sirina’s a wipe, like Nick, because it’s just not true. He can’t say Sirina will get over it, whatever it is, because he’s not sure that’s true, either.
He watches her scoop some guacamole onto a chip, but she doesn’t put it in her mouth. He puts three dry chips in his own mouth and swallows hard.
He clears his throat and tries to make his voice a little jokey. “So what about Nick? When are you going to—?” He swipes his hand across his throat.
She looks up at him quickly, and back down at the table. She presses her finger against the table grate, mindlessly.
Her silence makes him want to stop eating.
“He asked me to meet him at Schatzi’s on Saturday night,” she finally says, without looking at Thad. “I think he’s going to ask me then.”
And you’re going to tell him no, right? He wants to ask, but can’t bring himself to do it. There’s something about the way she’s acting that he doesn’t like.
She breathes out heavily. “I had no idea how hard this heartbreaking stuff would be.”
His stomach churns slightly. He can’t help but wonder, You’re still going with me, aren’t you? He studies her, but she’s staring into her guacamole. He feels pinpricks under his skin. He takes a sip of his Dr Pepper.
She pushes the guacamole across the table. “Here, you have it. I can’t eat.”
“Nah, I’m okay,” he says.
Her head snaps up. “You’re refusing guacamole?”
He just shrugs. “Sorry. I guess I’m sick of it.”
“Sick of it? No, don’t be sorry,” she says, a smile starting. “It gives me hope.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hope that maybe we won’t end up right back here in the food court on the night of the Cotillion.”
Oh. Okay. Everything’s okay. He feels suddenly starved of oxygen, and takes in a long breath. His face softens with relief.
“Seriously,” she says. “Now I can finally see if you actually exist outside of this mall, or if you’ll evaporate once you leave the food court.”
“Now that would be worth a YoJo,” Thad jokes.
She tries to stomp on his foot, but her own foot hits his skateboard, under the table.
“Oh!” she says suddenly. Her eyes widen. “I found your skateboard.”
He smirks. “Um, hey, Sherlock, it’s not lost, I just stashed it under the table.”
“Not this one, dummy. Your dad’s.”
He blinks. Am I hearing her correctly?
She continues. “The one you lost.”
He feels her words swirl around his head like a random sentence that has to be diagramed. Dad’s. Skateboard. Lost. “You found—what? Where?”
“Yeah, you know, your dad’s skateboard. You told us you’d lost it, that first day Sirina and I saw you here.” She gives him a confused smile. “Anyway, Officer Dirk has it. I found it under his desk—that’s a whole other story. Your last name was written on it. I told him it was probably yours, but he was like, Get out of my office this exact second.”
Where is it now? he wants to ask, but he’s suddenly too exhausted to talk. He feels dizzy. He looks around for something fixed, something not moving, to stare at. But everywhere he looks, he sees motion. Feet walking. Escalators moving. Wheels rolling. Nothing is still.
“Thad? Why are you acting so weird?”
He tries to steady himself by fixing his eyes on the grout line between two tiles on the floor. Something straight, linear. Stable. Simple. The opposite of everything right now.
Mabry keeps talking. “I was hoping he would just give it to me and I could try to skate it over. ’Course I’d probably fall flat on my face.”
“Ride, you mean.”
“Huh?”
Annoyance creeps into his voice. “You ride a skateboard. You don’t skate it.”
“Oh, okay then, whatever,” she says, like she’s getting irritated. “Ride. What’s up with you?”
“Well, that kinda”—his voice comes out strained and slow; he feels tight with anxiety—“sucks.”
“What? I thought you’d be happy.”
He shakes his head. He knows he’s coming across all wrong, like he’s mad at her. He is upset, but he realizes now it’s not so much about getting caught anymore—it’s about letting her down. If they have the skateboard, they picked it up at the crime scene. If they picked it up, they might know he’s the one who broke the window. Now they’ll never let him enroll in school, much less go to that dance. He’ll have to miss it, and worse, she will, too. Unless—
“Collins?”
“What?” She looks at him like he’s a human puzzle.
He takes a breath. He practically has to squeeze the words out. “About the dance.”
“The Cotillion?” Her voice breaks.
“Uh, yeah,” he says. He takes a breath. “I think you should go with Nick.”
“Oh. My. God,” she says. “Are you seriously fla
king on me?
“No, I’m not—”
“I can’t believe this.”
“Collins!” he says louder. She’s getting the entirely wrong impression. “I need you to listen to me for a second—”
“I should have seen—”
“I mean it,” he cuts her off. He listens to her exhale with frustration, and he tries to breathe normally himself. “Okay, first, I do want to go with you, but here’s the thing. I don’t think the school’s going to let me.”
“What? Why not?”
“You know how you found my skateboard?”
“Yeah?”
“And you told Officer Dirk it was mine?”
“Well, yeah?”
“Well, he’s probably had it since I punched out that window, okay? Like, waiting for me to confess or something.”
“You? You punched out that window? You’re the one?” She seems baffled. “But why would you do that?”
So he tells her.
It had seemed like a good idea. The last time he’d set foot in Hubert C. Frost was when he was in elementary school and the class took a bus over to see the middle-school band’s holiday performance. It was enough to put an end to his childhood dream of playing the drums.
But that day, weeks ago, facing the nerve-racking expectation that he’d be going to school—regular school—soon, he thought he’d go check it out again. This time, on his own terms. Walk the halls, learn the math wing from the language labs, see where the cafeteria was, where his locker might be. Maybe lurk a little—from a distance—see if there were any recognizable faces. With his navy-blue sweatshirt on, and the hood up over his head, he could pass for any other eighth grader. He could be practically anonymous, nearly invisible. The thought filled him with a sense of freedom. Of relief.
When he’d gone in through one of the back doors, school had been out for about twenty minutes. It was like after a long day of being traipsed through, the building itself was taking a little break from the hectic pace of the school day. Lights were turned off, breezes came through open windows, voices in the hall were lively and at ease.
“Check me out!” He’d overheard a voice from another nearby hall. Then laughter.
He’d peeked around the corner, down the hall. He squinted. Was that Nick Wainwright? And Abe Mahal? He thought so. They were there with another guy he didn’t recognize. The guys were all fake fighting, throwing air punches and ducking, basically taking advantage of the empty hallways. It looked kind of fun.
“Watch this!” Nick had spun around, kicking in the air. He fell on his hip, got up and dusted off his jeans, and accepted being laughed at.
“Nice moves,” Abe had joked.
“Hi-yah!” the other guy had called out, and tried the spin-kick himself. But he’d accidentally spun a little too much and kicked a little too much, and got Abe right in the crotch.
Abe had crumpled to the ground, clutching his jeans.
“Wow, sorry, dude,” the kid said, while everyone else laughed.
“Hey, Abe, you okay, man?” Nick had asked, his face looking like it was trying to decide between amusement and concern.
From the ground, Abe had groaned, “Nick, man, I don’t think I can walk anymore.”
Nick had turned to the spin-kicker. “What are you trying to do? Get him enrolled in the Special Olympics?” And then, to Abe, Nick said, “Hey, don’t worry. We’re right here next to the handicapped elevators, so I can wheel you in, like some sort of freak.”
Thad felt a swell of anger. The guys had all burst out in laughter, which, it turns, out, is harder to hear over the sound of breaking glass.
Now Thad looks across the table at Mabry, who is staring at him with an open mouth, like she needs a little more explanation. So he adds, “Yeah, so they were just being dipsquats, I know, but it just—” He has to stop talking. His vocal cords feel like they’ve been strung too tight.
“Oh,” she says, like she finally understands. “Yeah. Your mom.”
After a few moments, he clears his throat. “It’s like they were making fun of her—not Abe.” He traces a scar on his hand. “And that word—freak. It just got to me.”
“Well,” she says. “Just FYI. Abe actually is a freak. A walking, running, fully mobile freak.”
“Yeah.” He gives her a fraction of a smile. “But you’re talking to me now. Not the me back then, before”—he suddenly stops himself before he can say anything gag-worthy like before you—“I just felt like I needed to punch something, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I do.”
Her answer surprises him.
“You do?” he asks.
“Well, I haven’t punched out any windows, but I do know what that feeling is. It’s called passion.”
He snort-laughs. “Actually, I think it’s called a misdemeanor.”
“Yeah, resulting from passion,” she says. “Because you love your mother so much.”
Okay, he thinks, so for Mother’s Day, what should I give her? A felony? He almost says this out loud, but Mabry’s not looking like she wants to joke around.
This all feels too serious. He can’t help but add, “Yeah, well, I shouldn’t have done it. It’s not like you flip out when people use paper shredders or anything.”
“Why would I?”
“You know,” he tries to joke. It’s lame. “Flat Stanley?”
“Oh, right.” She doesn’t laugh, though—no surprise. “No, but you know what you should have done?”
“What?”
“You should have told me. But you didn’t. You just used me to get back at Nick.” She is looking at him like he’s a stranger.
“Well.” His neck feels hot. He runs a finger under the edge of his T-shirt collar. “Okay, well, fine. I wanted to tell you. Yes, that was the plan. But that’s the thing. Nick’s actually the winner, not me. He’s taking you to the dance. And you—you got what you wanted.”
He hopes she’ll correct him. She doesn’t. She just continues to stare at him, like things are tightening inside of her. Her jaw seems to harden. Her eyes get sharp. A cord flinches in her neck.
“You should have at least stopped me from writing those stupid articles.”
“That’s one of the reasons I didn’t tell you,” Thad says. “How would I have known back then that you wouldn’t have turned me in?”
“Yeah, and guess what? I basically turned you in today. Because I didn’t know,” she says.
“You know what? I’m actually kind of relieved,” he tells her. No more wondering. No more worrying. Whatever it’s going to be, it will be by tomorrow.
She shakes her head. “And now you want me to go to the Cotillion with Nick?”
No, not really, he thinks. But instead he says, “I just want you to be able to go.” If nothing else, she should give him credit for that, right?
But instead, she stands up and says, “God, who are you?” And then she walks away from the table faster than any of the bored housewives who speed-walk around the mall, and she almost trips on the toe of her own flip-flop. Which would be funny to him if anything felt funny anymore.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Thad thinks, all the way home on his skateboard. I’m sorry about the window. I’m sorry about the stupid articles. I’m sorry I can’t go to the dance. What am I supposed to do about it? Wear a freaking T-shirt with I’m sorry printed all over it? Get the words stamped on his forehead, tattooed on his chest? How does anyone ever make anything right anyway? It’s not like you can ever rewind and redo things in life, like you can on TV.
The door’s unlocked again, so he goes right in. Aunt Nora’s not in the kitchen, which gives him a chance to do this right.
He goes over to the manila folder. Officer Dirk’s business card is clipped to the inside cover.
He picks up the phone and dials the number.
“OFFICER DIRK HERE.”
“This is Thad Bell.”
“THAD.”
“You might wan
t to come over,” he tells him.
“SO YOU’RE FINALLY READY.”
Thad is slightly stunned, but not at all surprised. So Dirk did know. All this time.
“I am.”
“HEADING OVER NOW.”
Thad hangs up the phone and puts the kettle on.
“You’re making tea?” Aunt Nora asks, coming into the kitchen.
“Yep. Sit down,” he tells her. “We’re about to have company.”
“Company?” She seems baffled.
“Your friend. Dirk.”
“Dirk? He’s coming? Now?” She pats her hair and looks down at herself, as if she’s forgotten what she’s wearing. “Well, why?”
“Because I know where dad’s skateboard is, and you’re probably not going to like how it got there.”
So she sits.
yo beso
tú besas
ella besa
nosotros besamos
ellos besan
Schatzi’s.
We are here. It’s Saturday night at the mall, and it’s just the two of us, Nick and me. The Mariela-flavored me. I want to be happy—I should be happy. Okay, so maybe there’s no candlelight, and maybe you can see Macho Nacho and the whole food court from the window overlooking the mall, but all in all, it’s pretty darn romantic. We are in a sit-down restaurant. In a booth. Nick is sitting on the same side as me. We have a waiter (named Bart), and we are possibly in love, or something like it. This has to be it. I mean, he’s mi hombre, right? Mi amor, I remind myself.
So I really shouldn’t be thinking too much about mi amigo.
Bart is not a very good waiter. He hasn’t refilled my Coke or brought us silverware. He even made a joke about how far our allowances will go in a place like this (which, as it turns out, is not very). He places our cheese-dip “fundue” in the middle of the table, and drops a basket of bread dippers right next to it.
“Ladies first,” Nick says.
I reach for a dipper, and then stop myself. Mariela wouldn’t eat with her hands, I remember. “I think I need a plate. And a fork.”
“Right,” Nick says. And then he raises his hand like he’s an honor-roll student in a social studies class.
How to Break a Heart Page 21
