“I just—I’m not planning on going out with her,” he finally said. “We’re just friends.”
“I don’t care, Ed. I mean, it’s fine. We’re not together, so I can’t tell you what to do.”
“Well, if you don’t care,” Ed said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “I mean, I think you do.”
“But it doesn’t matter.” The words came out more forcefully than Gaia intended. She was telling herself as much as she was telling Ed. And neither one of them was really buying it. So she said it again.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Tatiana’s got her eye on you. Things didn’t work out between us. If she’s being a good friend, then why should I object?”
“I just don’t know why you couldn’t be—I don’t know, more like she is,” Ed blurted out. Gaia’s eyes widened as she felt a wiggle of misery worming its way around her heart.
“I don’t mean not to be yourself, but it’s frustrating,” he clarified. “I mean, you and I were best friends for, like, ever, but when I look back on all the time we spent together, I can count on one hand the number of times you just up and did something unexpected just because you were thinking of me.”
“That’s not true. I thought of you a lot,” Gaia objected. “I just had other stuff going on. Some of the time. Okay, I mean, a lot of the time.”
“All of the time.” Ed shook his head, checked on the CD, and turned toward Gaia. “I’m not saying this to piss you off, but man, you might want to think about it for next time.”
Next time what? Next time I have a boyfriend? Always-thinkin’-ahead Ed. “And you and I were great friends, but just look at all the stuff Tatiana does for me. I just mentioned in passing that I like cannolis, and voilà, today she brings me a cannoli from this place.” He dropped a half-empty bag from Veniero’s, a well-known pastry shop in the East Village, on the bed. “And look, this goofy bobble-head dog from Pearl River Trading.”
“I mean, Ed.”
“What?”
“The dog is kind of dorky. It’s just a five-dollar trinket from Chinatown.”
“I know!” Ed threw his hands in the air. “But it’s nice! It’s nice to have someone think about me for a change instead of me always wondering about—about you, and whether you like me or why you’re ignoring me or when we’re going to hang out again. Tatiana went all the way down to Eleventh Street, for no reason other than to be nice.”
Ugh! Every word he said felt like a hornet in Gaia’s heart. She did care about him! She wanted to yell it out loud. I thought about you! she yelled inside. All I did was think about you. You and your safety were more important to me than I was to myself. You think it was easy avoiding you all that time and making you hate me? It was pure torture, but I did it because I love you.
She couldn’t say any of that. It was too embarrassing to admit, even to Ed. It left her too exposed. And anyway, what was the point? He was finished with her.
“Well, so that’s great,” she said. “You’ve got what you wanted.”
“Gaia.” Ed leaned back and stared at the wall. The complete and utter aggravation of trying to get his point across to Gaia was starting to exhaust him completely.
“It’s what I wanted, but it’s not who I wanted it from,” he said. “I wanted it from…Gaia?”
He finally managed to look over, wanting to meet Gaia’s eyes as he admitted how he really felt. But all he saw was an empty white wall next to an open door. The front door slammed. Gaia was gone.
Gaia
This is just weird. I don’t—it doesn’t make sense. Veniero’s on Eleventh Street—that’s right across the avenue from the Ukranian church where I almost got my head shot off. Pearl River? That’s in Chinatown—by Dmitri’s apartment. By Sam’s apartment. The cell phone. The last time I saw it, it was here, and Tatiana was standing three feet away. Drunk as a skunk, but still…
Or was she? I remember a story about Nikita Kruschev, the prime minister of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He was at a big diplomatic party, and he was getting drunker and drunker. Then someone smelled his drink, and it turned out he wasn’t drinking straight vodka, as he’d claimed. It was just water, and he was trying to catch everyone off their guard. Thinking they’d give away government secrets if they thought he was too drunk to notice. A sneaky little trick.
Could Tatiana have heard the same story? Was she pretending to be drunk so that she could steal the cell phone?
Bigger picture: Is this loving mother-daughter team nothing more than a couple of double agents setting me up to get killed?
That was my first instinct about them. When I met them, I just didn’t trust them. But they hung in there with me. They really did. And besides, my dad trusts Natasha. Enough to fall in love with her. Enough to leave me in her care. That’s the bottom line, right? He taught me everything I know. He did something unbelievably difficult—disappeared from my life—just because he thought it would keep me safe. Even though it made me hate him. Even though he had to fight to get me to understand. And that guy, the one who did all that—he trusts Natasha. So I should, too, shouldn’t I?
These signs—these tiny clues and these little voices from deep in my subconscious—they have to be wrong. I have to be wrong when I think there’s something weird going on with them.
It’s impossible. I’m being paranoid. This life is just making me totally paranoid, and I’m letting the fact that my dad is missing throw all my instincts off. This is textbook psychological crap: I can’t figure out the answer I need, so I’m finding bad guys everywhere.
Get a grip, Gaia.
Natasha—I mean, okay, she’s not being as active in her investigation as I think she should be. That doesn’t mean she’s double crossing me and my dad. Or that she’s somehow behind his disappearance. That’s just crazy!
And so what if Tatiana ratted out Sam and me to Ed—that’s more about her being so desperately in love with Ed, right?
Ugh.
I’m trying to believe my own pep talk. But these weird little details keep popping up, and I feel like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle are putting themselves together, and I hate the picture that’s starting to appear.
If Natasha and Tatiana turn out to be bad…I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust anyone, ever again. Not even Dad.
Not even myself.
Ed
Interesting. Very interesting. Apparently the word cannoli has secret powers I would never have predicted. Apparently it can make a tall blond high school girl vanish without a trace. Maybe I should notify someone.
Like who? Most people would like to make a statuesque blond appear, not disappear.
I’m the only one trying to get the hell away from one. From the moment I met Gaia, my world has been a constant chaotic mess. My feelings have gotten twisted, wrung out, and stomped on. My friends have gotten hurt. I’ve gotten hurt. I really think the best thing is to keep away from her and clear my head. I need some space.
But I feel really bad…. It’s not like I want to hurt her feelings. And that’s just what I did. That talk could not have gone worse. I was just trying to say, Come on, Gaia, you can act this way, you can make me feel like I’m wanted if you really try. If I am really wanted. But every time I opened my mouth, jeez, the wrong thing kept coming out. I felt like Adam Sandler. The eternal schmuck. I think I made her think I’m going to start dating Tatiana. That the things Tatiana does for me make me like her.
I mean, they do. I do like Tatiana, but I don’t LIKE her, like her. Not the way I like Gaia. I—I mean, I love Gaia. Even if I can’t be her boyfriend—even if I can’t really trust her—I’m always going to care about her.
And if she ever decided to start treating me the way Tatiana does? I think I’d forgive her for everything.
But I guess that’s one of the raving ironies of this world. Someone you kind of like treats you like the king of hearts, while the one you’d lie down and die for treats you like the joker.
Guess I’m not going to get what I want in this hand. I’m not even sure what I want, anyway, so it’s just as well. But no matter what, the cards are stacked against me.
Royal flush. Bad deal. Go fish. Insert bad playing-card metaphor here, indicating that Ed Fargo is one confused dude.
Whatever. I fold. Gaia Moore, you’re too rich for my blood.
Oh. Shit.
If she could prove herself wrong, she’d be really, really happy.
The Suckiest
A FEW MINUTES AFTER GAIA LEFT Natasha poked her head into the room and caught Ed in a complete zone-out, staring at the wall, inwardly muttering about Gaia.
“Ed,” she said.
He looked up with a start. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I’m all done here.”
“I know she has not been kind to you,” Natasha said, stepping into the room and leaning against the doorjamb.
“Tatiana’s great.”
“I mean Gaia. I am afraid I heard your conversation, and I know she is not being easy to get along with.”
“Oh. That’s Gaia, I guess,” he said. “It’s no big deal. We were friends for a long time; that’s the only thing that’s a drag about it.”
“Well, I want you to know that I think you are a very nice boy, and if she cannot see that, then you are better off with someone else.”
Ed felt his face flush with confusion. This was a speech he might expect from his own mom—if his mom was the mom from Seventh Heaven—but from Gaia’s own almost stepmother? It seemed weird. Then again, Gaia was weird, too. Maybe Natasha just wanted her daughter to be dating him, the Nice Guy. That was a nauseating thought.
“Well, thanks,” he said.
“I am glad you and Tatiana are friends,” she said. “Forget about your troubles and try to have a good time, okay? You are young; you shouldn’t be tied up in knots and talking to a wall.”
Ed laughed. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” he said.
“Do not worry. I have a houseplant that could collect a fee for being my therapist. I am going out now—don’t feel that you have to run out. Finish what you are doing. And I will see you later, Ed.”
Ed nodded, and Natasha left the room and the apartment. The silence of the big old place hummed in his ears. Turning back to the computer, he noticed that the last CD was finished. He slowly unhooked all the wires and packed away his equipment.
On the way downtown in the subway Ed cycled through the songs on his MP3 player, watching idly as the titles flipped past his eyes on the little screen. Some of them were most definitely Gaia-and-Ed songs.
All right. Do I delete these? he wondered. We’re getting space, we’re broken up, and I don’t think we’re getting back together. But if we do, I’ll have to download them again, and that’s a pain. Ed felt like he could have used a handbook to help him figure out the rituals of breakups. When did a break become a breakup? Who deleted what, and when was the most acceptable time to do that? Ed was getting dizzy just thinking about it.
The more he thought about it, the more he wished he could transfer his feelings for Gaia over to Tatiana. Just fwoop!—move them over there. Create a hybrid female who liked him the way Tatiana did and who made him feel comfortable and excited and interested all the time the way Gaia did. Minus all the drama and all the anxiety. Now that would be the perfect girl.
Too bad she was entirely fictional.
A wave of Gaia anger broke over Ed’s head. He was so frustrated. She was being such a jerk: Why couldn’t she just act like a regular person? In a frenzy he deleted every single song that had any connection to her at all, including any song that started with the letter G. Out. Gone. Delete. Yes, I’m sure, he told the little blue screen. The train rattled through the tunnel as he looked down at it.
Now he felt bad.
He wanted the songs back.
Breakups were the suckiest events ever invented. And this one had to be the suckiest in all of human history.
Nice Guy
GAIA SAT ON HER PERCH ON THE roof of her building. Technically she wasn’t supposed to be up here, but she wanted to cool off and think—and she wanted to get back into the apartment when it was empty so she could look around. She didn’t like her new theory—that Natasha and Tatiana were involved in a plot to kill her—but she couldn’t afford to stick her head in the sand. Not on this one. Besides, she was sure her theory was wrong—and if she could prove herself wrong, she’d be really, really happy.
Despite the clues she had put together, it was a fact: She wanted to believe in Natasha and Tatiana.
Being alone was just too hard. Always having to depend on herself was unfair. Most of the girls she went to school with couldn’t commit to a pair of shoes without asking the opinions of at least twenty people. Why did she have to make major life-and-death decisions with no help?
She watched Natasha exit the building, wearing a long red coat. Her white legs in high black pumps stood out against the dull concrete. Her dark hair tumbled down her back, so shiny Gaia could admire it from ten stories up. She looked like a perfume ad. Gaia could see why Tom loved her. She ached for her father, feeling his absence like a heavy, itchy army blanket.
A few minutes later Ed trudged out the front door, walking the same path Natasha had, toward the subway. He carried his skateboard loosely under one arm. Gaia squelched the pang she felt for him. Or tried to, anyway.
The apartment was empty; that was the important thing. She went back inside the building and let herself into the silent rooms. She’d been living here for weeks and had made it her business to look over the whole place the minute she’d moved in. She hadn’t found anything suspicious or incriminating back then. But this time she had much more serious evidence against them.
She could only hope it was false evidence.
Body
TATIANA WAS PLAYING INTRAMURAL racquetball, and Ed wanted to catch her performance. Since their high school didn’t have a court, Ed joined a throng of students at a nearby gym. It was a gym designed especially for the tragically hip, and it looked like a disco. It even had a name—Smash. He passed the aerobics studio on the way downstairs—or tried to, anyway. Suddenly Ed understood why racquetball was drawing such a healthy crowd, especially of male students. The aerobics studio had tall silver poles in it, and women in workout gear were climbing up and down them, writhing like oversexed snakes as club music pounded and purple lights flashed around the room. He eyeballed the sign: Strip-aerobics. Clearly the VS administration had neglected to check out the Smash class schedules.
“Nice,” he said.
“I love our school,” a redheaded freshman kid stated with complete conviction. “It’s worth every penny my parents pay.”
“Come on, stud,” Ed said, clamping a hand on the kid’s shoulder and walking him down the hallway toward the racquetball courts.
“Oh, man,” the kid groaned. “Just five more minutes?”
“I think you’ve seen enough to keep you going till your prom,” Ed told him. “Anyway, if you time it right, you can leave during hip-hop class.”
“I am so glad I didn’t get into Stuyvesant.”
Downstairs, students stood on the benches and sat on the floor to get the best view of the glassed-in racquetball court. Inside, Tatiana was fighting her third opponent of the day. Her stamina was unbelievable. So was her muscular body. Ed didn’t like to think of himself as someone who objectified women, but looking at Tatiana clad only in a tank top–sports bra and bike shorts, he had to give in to his inner red-blooded American male. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, and even her eye-protection goggles looked hot. But really, the most amazing thing about her was the determination and focus she displayed on the court.
Spinning her racquet, glaring at the ball, and springing into action when her opponent slammed the little blue orb against one of the white walls, Tatiana was like a superhuman sportsbot, leaping around the cube-shaped room at a speed that made everything else look like slow motion. She managed to anticipa
te the angles the ball would travel along and a few times seemed to hit it without even looking toward it. Everyone broke into applause when she actually ran up the wall and flipped backward to make a shot. Nobody had a chance against Tatiana.
Ed was amazed. He’d known Tatiana had athletic ability, but he’d had no idea she was such a monster. Something about her seemed oddly familiar to him. She was so strong, powerful, focused, she was almost like…Gaia! Ack!
Tatiana’s got nothing to do with Gaia, Ed told himself. You just happen to like strong women—you’re not attracted to Tatiana just because she reminds you of Gaia.
Wait a minute. Attracted?
Before he could question that little voice inside him about what, exactly, it meant by “attracted,” Tatiana won her last match and exited the court to more cheers and whistles. She was greeted by a gaggle of girlfriends and had to give a dozen high fives to admiring students. But the minute she pulled her goggles up on top of her head, her eyes searched out Ed. She came across the room to him, laughing and wiping the sweat off her face with a white towel.
“You won!” he told her.
“It looks that way. Would you like a hug?”
“Absolutely not!”
Tatiana gave a breathless laugh. “I am going to take a shower. After that, would you come and eat a giant mountain of pasta with me?”
“Sure, good plan,” Ed said. “And I’ve got your CDs.”
“How did I get so lucky? You are a good pal,” she told him before she vanished into the locker room.
I am a good pal, Ed told himself. A good pal. See? She’s over that trying-to-kiss-you phase. He was relieved to be out of the potential boyfriend slot. His feelings over Gaia were still too jumbled to add a new love interest to the mix. He wanted to just hang out, enjoy the attention, and fill the time he used to spend with Gaia.
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