Chasing Boys

by Karen Tayleur

  Leonard’s office is opposite a park. Through the window, the trees wave their little leaves at me but I don’t wave back. The best thing about Leonard’s office is the view of the trees. I love the way they are there. Whether I visit Leonard or not, the trees are there. They were there before I knew them, and they’ll be there long after I stop seeing Leonard.

  The heat purrs through an open vent. It’s hypnotic. For a moment I imagine it’s gas seeping into the room. Any moment now I will sink to the ground, never to wake again . . .

  I should be so lucky.

  Leonard sits opposite me, smoothing his pants and crossing his ankles. Then he clears his throat in a way that always drives me crazy. It’s like he’s just about to say something, but he never does.

  Can I go home now?

  I don’t say this out loud, because I don’t want to start talking to Leonard. Once I start talking, he’ll start asking questions. I’ve seen it before in the movies. One minute the doc is asking you about the weather, the next he’s asking you why you hate your father.

  I pull my cell phone out and check the time. I have been here three minutes and forty-eight seconds.

  I must really love my mother.

  8.

  My dream has just come true.

  9.

  Eric Callahan has ended up in detention. Just three days after Eric and Angelique became the school’s hottest couple, Eric was caught cheating in the half-year math exam. The half-year math exam is where ninety students get to sit together in the gym and worry about what will become of the rest of their lives.

  Of course, it was a mistake. Eric is good at math. It’s just that Desi, who had been advised for the past four months that she could take a cheat sheet into her math exam, blew it. She’d taken the wrong page with her.

  Desi was sitting, silently crying in the exam, her tears smudging the ink on her wrong cheat sheet (a page of scribbles she’d been working on just before the exam to figure out how much allowance she’d get over the next two years), when Eric handed her his sheet. Ms. Clooney caught him and sent him out of the room, along with Desi.

  That’s where my “knight in shining armor syndrome” (Margot’s words, not mine) kicked in.

  When Eric and Desi were kicked out of the math exam, I stood up and tried to explain the situation to Loony. (“Ms. Clooney” rhymes with “loony.” It’s such an obvious link that only the seventh graders call her this. Sometimes I resort to this because I never got to use it back then. Regis had its own special teachers.)

  She told me to sit down and finish my exam. I kept standing and tried again. Then she offered me a chance to explain in detention the next day. Did I mention that Ms. Clooney was on my case? She was always going on about me not “achieving my fullest potential,” so I’m sure I made her day.

  That’s how I ended up in the coffin room for detention with Eric Callahan.

  It’s called the coffin room because it has no windows—none that you can see through. At some point someone slapped chalky white paint over the glass. Apparently they used to show movies here, before our super-expensive (joke) school auditorium was built. Now it is just the coffin room—a dead end.

  I’m sure Mom would be Very Disappointed if she found out I was in detention. Luckily there was no need for her to know. If there were a subject called Forgery One, I’d get an A.

  Desi and I go to detention early, just to get a good seat. Also, I hate being late. Each desk has only one chair, so Desi takes the desk closest to me on my right.

  My daydream about Eric is that it will be just like The Breakfast Club. Eric and I will spend an amazing long lunchtime in detention, where we’ll get to know each other. Angelique is history.

  Then Ms. Clooney walks in with a clipboard and a stack of folders and the daydream evaporates. She nods in my direction and sits at the desk at the front. A couple of other people shuffle in and sit down. Eric comes in and takes a seat by a white-painted window. He looks pretty relaxed. I peek at him from under my bangs, but he doesn’t notice me.

  Ms. Clooney takes attendance and notes that someone called Dylan is missing. I’m just wondering who this Dylan person is when a guy turns up, looks around, then heads to the back of the room.

  “Up at the front please, Dylan,” says Ms. Clooney. She sounds like she’s just invited him over for coffee, but there is an edge to her voice that means business. She points to the desk next to mine.

  Dylan slumps in the seat and glances at me. I realize he’s the newest new guy at school and I give him my catatonic stare—the one I use when I want the other person to look away. It’s usually pretty effective. He has a thin white scar, almost invisible, that travels from his bottom lip and disappears under his chin, and just for a moment I wonder how it got there. His lips curl into a sneer and I look straight ahead.

  “Okay, everyone seems to be here,” says Ms. Clooney. “Welcome to detention. I’m your hostess for this trip. There are no emergency exits. You will write me a five-hundred-word essay on a subject of your choice and hand it to me by the end of detention.”

  There are groans all around. Ms. Clooney is hilarious. She is a dried-up husk of a woman who hates her job and doesn’t care if everyone knows. I wonder if she has ever laughed in her life.

  “If you like, I can make that a thousand words.”

  Then she gets a tiny dark-haired girl to hand out paper. Most people have brought their pencils, but Dylan has nothing to write with. He stares at the blank paper until Ms. Clooney asks people without writing instruments—her words not mine—to get a pen.

  Dylan strolls to the front desk and takes his time choosing a pen. Then he strolls back.

  Desi gets straight to it. She writes like it’s a race and she wants to be first over the finish line.

  On my left, Dylan is balancing the pen on his index finger. I know his type. Bored. Macho. Thick. He looks at me like he’s just read my mind and I hunch over my paper. But I don’t write. I can’t think of anything to write about.

  I look over at Eric. His pen flows evenly over the paper and a lock of hair falls down over one eye.

  My heart does its little Eric-melting thing.

  Ms. Clooney is at the front, marking papers. A chair scrapes across the floor and it sounds like a fart. Someone snorts with amusement. Kids in the tiny yard outside our window are shouting and laughing. The clacking of high heels disappears down the hall. A door slams with a hollow thud. Someone calls out for Em, Em, to get back here.

  I make a few doodles on the page, then write a heading—“My Vacation.” I cross it out. Then I write, “An Injustice” and start to explain the injustice of Eric, Desi, and myself being in detention. I count my explanation and it only adds up to 167 words. With ten minutes of detention still left, Desi gets up and marches over to Ms. Clooney. She slaps the paper down in front of the teacher, then moves back to grab her coat. As she makes for the door, Ms. Clooney says, “Where are you going, Desiree?”

  Desi points to her essay.

  “I’ve finished,” she says.

  “Really?” Ms. Clooney scans the page in front of her while Desi shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “This is excellent,” says Ms. Clooney.

  This is not good.

  “Excellent? Really?” echoes Desi.

  This is one of Ms. Clooney’s favorite games. I’m surprised that Desi doesn’t recognize it. I call it the cat-and-mouse game.

  Ms. Clooney is the cat. She raises her paw and Desi is surprised at her freedom. But Desi’s freedom is an illusion.

  I clear my throat loudly and raise my hand to distract the cat, but Ms. Clooney ignores me.

  “Yes. It’s a perfect description of last night’s movie,” continues Ms. Clooney. “I’m sorry, Desiree. I thought you understood. This is to be your own work.” Then Ms. Clooney rips the page in half and throws both pieces into the garbage can next to her. You can tell she enjoys it.

  My hand wavers in the air, then sinks like a slowly deflating balloon.
>
  Desi stands in front of Ms. Clooney’s desk with her coat. She still doesn’t get it. She looks at Ms. Clooney, who has gone back to marking papers. Dylan continues to balance his pencil. Desi looks desperately at me. I jerk my head to the right, back toward her desk. Her shoulders droop slowly as understanding clicks in. She shuffles back. I hand her a spare piece of paper and she sits and doodles.

  I can’t get my injustice explanation to pad out to 500 words. It only takes a few paragraphs. That’s the trouble with the world’s injustices. They aren’t that difficult to explain.

  I decide to write a story instead. Each time I start, I cross it out. There is really no such thing as a new story. Finally the end-of-lunch bell rings and Ms. Clooney asks us to hand in our essays. Most students, including Eric, hand her something and leave. Eric passes Dylan’s desk and they raise fists and knock knuckles.

  “Hey,” says Dylan.

  “Hey,” says Eric.

  Eric gives me his Eric smile as he strolls out the door. I know he uses it on all the girls, but I can’t keep my heart from tripping over itself.

  Eric Callahan has noticed me. I must still be alive.

  Eric probably has no idea he’s the reason I’m here. I realize I’m staring at him and turn to find Dylan watching me watching Eric. I make a big deal about packing up my bag so I don’t have to look at him.

  There are only three people left who don’t hand anything in. Dylan, Desi, and I are left without 500 words to show between us.

  “Well,” says Ms. Clooney, gathering her things together, “looks like I’ll be seeing you three tomorrow. Same time. Same room.”

  She leaves and Dylan snorts.

  “She . . . she’s so . . . ,” says Desi.

  “A movie rewrite,” says Dylan. “Nice work.”

  “How was I supposed to know she’d watched The Night of the Living Mummies?” mumbles Desi.

  Something makes me think that Ms. Clooney hasn’t watched The Night of the Living Mummies. But I don’t say anything.

  “I’ve never been in detention before,” says Desi.

  She sounds really sad, but I am not fooled for one second. Desi’s doing that wide-eyed thing she does when she wants boys to notice how gorgeous her blue eyes are. Now she’s doing the pouty thing with her lips. Desi would flirt with King Kong if she had the chance.

  I leave her to it as I grab my bag and walk to the door.

  “Hey! What’s your name?” Dylan calls out.

  I turn around to see him looking at me.

  “Ariel,” I say. No one calls me Ariel. No one except Mom. “Ariel,” I repeat.

  Dylan’s lip curls again and he says, “Well, see you tomorrow—Ariel Ariel.”

  Something in the way he says it makes it sound like a promise.

  10.

  So how did detention go?” Margot manages to look bored and concerned at the same time as we scramble at our lockers for next period’s books.

  “You know.” I shrug. “What did you do at lunchtime?”

  “Same old. How’s Desiree?” she asks.

  “Still beating herself up. How it was all her fault that I was sent to detention. How she can never look me in the eye again. Blah, blah, blah.”

  Margot nods. “As long as she’s feeling okay, then. How was your Eric? Did he thank you for coming to his rescue? Was it just like The Breakfast Club?”

  Margot’s expression is deadpan as usual but her eyes glint with something that looks like triumph. Triumph over what? was the question.

  “First, he’s not my Eric,” I say. “Second, I didn’t actually rescue him. He stayed in trouble and I just got myself into trouble. And third . . . let’s just drop it.”

  Then we are in the middle of the hallway shuffle. Margot doesn’t have a chance to reply and, frankly, I don’t really want to hear what she has to say. Angelique is up ahead. The crowd parts before her as she makes her way gracefully through the sea of bodies. Eric’s arm is draped casually across her shoulders.

  I imagine it’s me leaning into Eric’s side.

  Suddenly I want to be Angelique Mendez. I want to be her so much, it’s scary.

  11.

  I keep a mental list of things to ask Leonard, in case one day I talk to him. I doubt this is ever going to happen but . . . well . . . stranger things and all.

  I add Angelique to my list. I’d like to ask Leonard if it’s normal to want to be someone else so much that you would lose yourself.

  If it’s normal to fantasize about terrible things happening to her so that you can swoop in and offer support to her grieving boyfriend.

  If it’s reasonable that you’ve already picked out your outfit for her funeral.

  If it’s okay that you study the way she walks and talks and smiles and flicks her hair and bites at her lower lip when she’s concentrating.

  And if it’s strange that you lock yourself in the bathroom at home and part your hair in the middle, in that Angelique style, and suck in your cheeks to find your un-Angelique cheekbones.

  Also I would ask him how much money my mom is paying him. How much he charges for a visit. Maybe I could make a deal with him. We could go in half and half on his fee and I wouldn’t have to turn up anymore. It would certainly solve my nearly nonexistent spending-money problem and give him some extra time. A win-win situation. Mom wouldn’t have to know.

  But then I think of Leonard with his pressed pants and crossed ankles and know he wouldn’t go for this.

  12.

  Second-to-last period of the day is geography and Dylan is in the class. He walks in unnoticed and sits at the back of the room. Desi is excited to see him again, but Dylan only shifts around in his seat when she gives him a little wave. I’m just glad Margot isn’t around to see her.

  When Desi and I have geography, Margot has history. Last year we were together for every subject, but this year it’s changed. We still have our core subjects together—math and English—but our electives have split us up.

  “Let’s choose the same electives,” Desi insisted at the end of term last year. “Make sure we have the same preferences.”

  We sat in the library one lunchtime and copied down the same electives and preferences—one to eight—but of course we all ended up with different schedules.

  Geography’s pretty boring, but our teacher, Mr. Ray, is good. He’s the only person who could make volcanoes and the salination of our waterways even vaguely interesting.

  He spends most of the lesson explaining our “big” term project.

  “I really want you to get your teeth into this, people. This is your chance to understand what’s happening in your own neighborhood. We’ll be looking at introduced vegetation, population density, traffic movement. The project involves a couple of field trips. I’ll also be handing out a list of possible sources for extra research.”

  Desi leans into me and whispers, “Doesn’t he know I only do it the night before it’s due?”

  “And don’t think this is something you can do in one night,” continues Mr. Ray. “Now, let’s talk about teams.”

  I assume that I’ll be doing the project with Desi, but Mr. Ray is writing down names on strips of paper, folding them, and putting them into an ice-cream container.

  “I want everyone out of their comfort zone,” he announces, “so I’m going to pull names out of a hat.”

  Desi looks panicky.

  “But I want to do it with El,” she says loudly.

  The boys let out some hoots and whistles until Mr. Ray tells them to quiet down.

  Mr. Ray pulls names out of the hat and writes down teams of three on the whiteboard. Desi’s name is one of the first to be allocated and she has ended up with Christy, the quiet mouse, and Joel, the hood who’s always trying to sell you something that came from a friend of a friend of a friend.

  I’m feeling a little edgy as names are pulled out and teams are announced. When my name is pulled out along with Sarah’s and Nathan’s, I relax. Sarah, who I don’t know tha
t well, gives me a thumbs-up. But Nathan says, “I’m already on a team, sir.”

  Mr. Ray makes a show of scratching his head and assuming an “aw shucks” expression before wiping Nathan’s name off the board and pulling out another name.

  “Dylan Shepherd,” he says, just as I knew he would.

  I ignore Desi’s nudge and write down the names in my notebook like I might forget them.

  Sarah McVee, Dylan Shepherd, El Marini.

  I don’t dare look behind me to see Dylan’s face.

  “I want you to get into your groups now and work out a plan. You’ll need to exchange contact details if you don’t already have them. Our first excursion is two Tuesdays away, so you’ll need to get organized quickly.”

  Everyone groans as they leave their seats and get into project groups. Sarah bounces over to Dylan. I slowly pack up my things and move over to them to hear her already organizing us.

  “I was just telling Dylan that my weeknights are totally out. I mean, totally. If we’re going to do this as a group, it’s going to have to be on the weekend. So there’s the field trip thing, with stats and stuff. I hate stats. Then there’s the history section. I’m good at history, so maybe I should take over that part of the project, if that’s okay with you?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  Dylan nods.

  “We can’t meet at my house ever. I mean, never. I have two little brothers and they are totally loud. Out of control.”

  “So where—,” I begin.

  “Hey, great. Your place, El?” Then Sarah writes down her e-mail address and phone number on two neatly torn pieces of paper. She passes one to Dylan and one to me. “I can’t make it this weekend, though. It’s full. I hate it when they spring things on us like this. Do you have a computer, El? Scanner? Printer?”

  I’ve got lots of computer equipment. It sits on a tiny table that used to be a hall table in our last house. But we don’t have Internet access. Mom says it’s a luxury we can do without. I don’t mention this, though. I just nod and write down my details, including my address.