Empress of the World

by Sara Ryan

  “You know what I think about religion?” I ask. Not waiting for an answer, I say, “I think it would be great if it was all clear-cut the way it is in Madeline L’Engle books. Where you know who the bad guys are and it’s all important and beautiful and it means that you can communicate telepathically with dolphins.”

  Katrina and Battle both burst out laughing. Katrina says, “Hey, sign me up! Bring on the dolphins!”

  We sit for a while, munching candy and gulping soda. I can feel my heart rate speed up. I think the Coke is traveling directly through my veins. Then again, maybe I’m just nervous.

  “I need a cigarette,” says Katrina.

  “Then you had best blow the smoke out the window, because I am not going to have my lungs blackened by your secondhand fumes,” Battle announces.

  Katrina says, “I told you I’m going to quit soon! It’s just that things are kind of stressful right now. I want to quit when it’s a little more calm.”

  “Oh, and when exactly is this great calmness going to descend?” I ask. Smoking helps with stress? Maybe I should start. No, Battle hates it.

  “I don’t know, but it’ll be sometime soon, so just shut up about it! I know it’s an addiction. I know it’s bad for me. I Just Like Doing It! Someday I will want to stop, I know that. Trust me,” she says, walking over to the window with cigarette already in mouth.

  “Do you have a lot of friends at home who smoke?” Battle asks suspiciously.

  “No. But Mom does. She was mad when she found out I was, but she’s kind of tolerating it now.”

  “How did you start?” I ask.

  Katrina takes a reflective puff before she answers, and blows the smoke out the window. “I took one of hers out of her purse. I was all upset—it was around the time of the divorce—and Mom would always say that cigarettes were the only thing that kept her sane. I thought maybe if I had one, it would keep me sane too. It didn’t, but I liked it anyway. Then I just started buying them and keeping them in my locker at school.”

  “So I guess they don’t have locker searches where you are,” I say.

  “Nope. It’s not that big a school, and everybody knows who smokes, even though you’re not supposed to on campus.”

  “You’re not supposed to here, either,” Battle points out. Her voice sounds odd because she’s holding her nose again.

  “Yeah, and you see how much that gets enforced,” Katrina says, exhaling a careful smoke ring. “Besides, how cool is that?” She gestures at the ring as it slowly disappears. “It took me forever to learn how.”

  “I always liked that in Lord of the Rings. It made me wonder if Tolkien knew how to blow smoke rings himself,” I say.

  “Oh, he must’ve. All those guys probably smoked like damn chimneys,” says Battle.

  “And drugs! Don’t forget drugs! Opium and laudanum and . . . uh . . . other stuff that ends in ‘um’! They did it all, I bet you anything !” says Katrina. Then she takes an extra long drag on her cigarette and produces another, larger, smoke ring.

  “I can’t picture the man who created Bilbo Baggins in an opium den,” I say. “How about you guys?”

  “Can I picture Tolkien in an opium den? Absolutely! He was a writer! If you’re a writer you want to have as many kinds of experiences as you possibly can.” Katrina finishes her cigarette and drops it into a Coke can on the windowsill, where it hisses briefly. “There, Battle, are you happy?”

  “Not until you quit.”

  “Actually I meant, have you guys done drugs?” I feel naïve asking this, but I don’t care, I’m curious.

  “Not since we moved. I can’t find anyone who sells out in the provinces. But on the plus side, it’s easier to get liquor.” Katrina gives a thumbs-up sign.

  “Smoking anything is vile,” says Battle with a glare at Katrina. “I’ve been in the same room with stoned people, but only at cast parties. How about you?” Battle turns to me.

  Battle’s lack of hair makes her eyes stand out even more. Beautiful Eyes Girl.

  No. Just beautiful. “Cast parties for me, too,” I say, trying not to look too much into Battle’s eyes.

  “Why do you ask, Nic? Are you jonesing? I don’t have anything, but I bet we could find someone who does. Kevin must have some, don’t you think he’d have some? We could call him, do you want to call him?” Katrina makes game show hostess gestures at the phone next to her computer.

  “Don’t call Kevin, he’s got a test tomorrow,” says Battle. Wait, how does she know?

  I’ve never actually been stoned, just in the same room with it like Battle. I don’t know if it works like alcohol and makes you say things you wouldn’t normally say, but I bet it does. That would be a really bad idea for me right now.

  “Oh, he wouldn’t care, don’t you think he wouldn’t care?”

  I scan the room and finally spot the little digital clock, which is partially obscured by an orange tulle ballerina skirt. The glowing blue numbers read one-thirty A.M .I point at it and shake my head. “Volleyball,” I say.

  Battle nods and says, “We should get some sleep.”

  Katrina sighs. “You guys just do not understand the concept of decadence. At all.”

  July 4, 9:30 a.m., Volleyball Courts

  I dreamed last night that I was defending Battle from her mom, using her braid as a weapon. How obvious can you get? Paging Dr. Freud.

  You would think if I was going to dream about the person I’m infatuated with, I could at the very least manage to dream about kissing her. But if I did, I don’t remember it.

  Despite that, I’m in an oddly good mood—I feel exuberant and Katrina-esque. Maybe it’s because the sun is shining and the sky is a particularly vivid blue. Or maybe the sugar and caffeine from last night haven’t worn off yet.

  I’m the first one of our group to get to the volleyball courts, which doesn’t surprise me. I get a ball, stake out a space for us on a corner court—less chance of hitting other people that way—and wait. Pretty soon, Isaac shows up.

  “How are you doing?” I ask, and bounce the ball over to him.

  “Well, you know,” he says, dribbling the ball loudly, “I tried slitting my wrists last night but it just doesn’t work too well when all you’ve got is a spork.”

  “Ha ha—how are you really?”

  He bounces the ball back to me. It slips out of my hands and I have to chase after it.

  “You catch like a girl,” he says.

  “Yeah, well, you answer questions like a boy.”

  “I’m all right.” After a minute, he adds, in a sing-song fake hick voice, “Thanks-fer-askin!” I shake my head.

  The next person to arrive is Battle. My heart speeds up, right on schedule. I wonder if crushes are aerobic.

  She looks mad—or is she just tired? I can’t tell. Did Katrina say something to her about me after I went back to my room last night? I thought she left right after I did.

  “It should be girls against boys,” she says. “Don’t you think that’s best?”

  “Holy shit, what happened to you?” asks Isaac.

  I forgot—no one besides me and Katrina knows about her hair. Or rather, lack thereof.

  “Like it?” She turns around, so Isaac can see that there is truly no hair whatsoever anywhere on her head.

  “There’s no it to like! Jesus! Why?” Isaac is clearly bewildered.

  Battle shrugs.

  “Man.” He shakes his head. “I will never understand girls.”

  “Dude!” says Kevin. “Awesome! Can I feel your head?” He and Katrina both showed up without my noticing.

  Battle lets him, smiling.

  “Hey,” he says after a minute. “Dude, with no hair you are gonna get seriously burned if you don’t put on some sunscreen. Want some of mine?” He takes a tube out of one of the many pockets in his shorts and hands it to her. “Want me to do it?” he asks.

  I realize that I am holding my breath.

  Battle shakes her head and applies the sunscreen herself. �
�Thanks,” she says, and hands the tube back to Kevin. I let out my breath, hoping it won’t sound too loud. “Anyone else want some?” asks Kevin. Oh, so he’s Mr. Health-Conscious now. Protect us from the evil ultraviolet rays, O Wise One.

  “Nah, I want my skin to turn to beef jerky,” says Isaac.

  “No thanks,” I force myself to say politely.

  “I’ll take some! My delicate complexion suffers so in this heat. And hey, for the game, I’ll just be the cheerleader, okay?” says Katrina, taking Kevin’s sunscreen and slathering most of the rest of it over her face and arms. “It’ll still be good exercise; I’ll jump up and down a lot.”

  “Somehow I doubt the RAs will go for it,” Isaac says.

  “How is this supposed to work again?” I ask. “It’s been a while since the last time it was forced on me. I know somebody serves the ball and then the other team tries to spike it, but that’s all I remember.”

  “Is there love in this game?” asks Battle, running her hands distractedly across the top of her head as though she’s not quite sure it is actually associated with the rest of her body.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” asks Isaac.

  “Love, you know, like in tennis! Love meaning zero,” she explains.

  “I always thought that was depressing,” I say. “Why do they have to call it that?”

  “Because they’re realists,” says Isaac. “They understand the true value of love,” he continues, giving me a significant look.

  Suddenly, I’m completely convinced that Isaac must know, too. I have no idea how he figured it out, but I’m sure he knows.

  “Oh, that must be it,” I say to cover my shock. Does everyone in the world know? Does Kevin know? God, I hope not.

  “Hey, girls. You get on that side of the net. Isaac, come on over here to my side. First thing, we have to volley for the serve,” says Kevin.

  “Say that again in English,” says Katrina.

  “I hit the ball over the net. You guys hit it back. We hit it back and forth until it hits the ground on somebody’s side, and whoever’s side that was, doesn’t get to serve.”

  “If it hits the ground on their side, that hardly seems fair,” I say.

  “It’s not supposed to hit the ground,” Battle stage whispers.

  “Oh!” I say. “You didn’t tell me there was so much to keep track of. I should have brought my notebook.”

  “Watch some of the games around us for a while,” Kevin says. “You’ll figure out how it works.”

  We spend a few minutes scanning the other courts. There’s one group that makes the game look like a complicated dance, the ball spinning in the air as it is launched from one side to the other. But the rest of the groups are composed of people who look as pathetic as I’m sure we’re going to.

  Kevin serves. Then Katrina hits the ball back, looking surprised and delighted that she has actually made contact with it. Isaac gets up close to the net and slams the ball back over, and I manage to get under it and hit it up into the air, and then Battle slams it over again and Kevin just misses getting it before it hits the ground.

  “Good try!” an RA who’s walking around from court to court says in an overly cheery way.

  God. What kind of person would you have to be to want to be an RA?

  “Your serve,” Kevin says, and tosses the ball back to us. I catch it, and offer it to my teammates.

  “Oh, god, don’t make me do it—I’ve lost all sensation in my fingers,” says Katrina.

  “I’ll do it,” Battle says. I give her the ball, and she sends it spinning into the air with the exact right amount of force to land out of reach of both Isaac and Kevin, but still within bounds.

  Aside from the whole gender question, Battle is beautiful and graceful and coordinated, and that just confirms that there’s no hope for me. Maybe I can talk myself into a crush on Isaac after all. Of course I’d have to talk him out of his crush on Katrina, first.

  I pretend I’m an anthropologist observing a ritual. “The tall boy (Kevin) exhibits a certain amount of skill,” I imagine writing, “whereas his companion seems to be playing some sort of trickster-fool role.” By which I mean that Isaac is a nutcase. He isn’t very good, and he makes up for it by making a huge deal out of anything he does that shows any amount of skill whatsoever.

  “Yes! I will take the Nike endorsements!” he yells into an imaginary phone.

  He does little victory dances whenever he manages to spike the ball. They involve a lot of butt-wiggling. Sometimes we get to score because he’s still doing his little victory dance when the ball comes back over onto his side of the net. Once, Battle actually manages to bounce the ball off his butt.

  Katrina’s strategy consists of jumping up and down a lot and yelling out sports-related terms completely at random.

  “Double dribble!”

  “Offsides!”

  “Traveling!”

  “High-sticking!”

  She rarely makes contact with the ball, but when she does, she hits it more or less competently.

  Battle plays with a certain lack of precision. For every time that she spikes the ball beautifully, there’s a time when her very strong serve goes into somebody else’s court and has to be retrieved, with copious apologies.

  We realize after we’ve been playing for quite a while that we have absolutely no idea what the score is.

  “That means we win!” yells Isaac.

  “No, that means we win!” counters Katrina.

  “Whoever scores the next point wins,” says Kevin slowly and mildly.

  After a few more minutes, Isaac misses the ball that Katrina has sent over the net, and immediately begins to claim that he missed it on purpose as a gentlemanly courtesy to us.

  “Bullshit! Girls kick ass! And take names!” says Katrina, doing her own version of Isaac’s butt-wiggling dance.

  Battle retrieves the ball and says, “I’ll take this back to the RA.” Kevin follows her, which makes my stomach twist itself into a knot.

  As soon as she’s out of earshot, I say in a low voice, “Isaac, are you doing anything right now?”

  “Other than regretting our tragic loss? No.”

  “I need to talk to you. Can we go for a walk?”

  “Uh . . . sure. Now?”

  I nod. “See you later,” I say to Katrina, and start walking off the courts in the direction of the river, looking at the ground. I hope Isaac is following me. I hope Katrina doesn’t think I’m trying to come onto him. No, she knows how I feel about Battle. She and the rest of the world.

  “I think you know this already,” I say. “I don’t know what I think you can do about it, but I want to talk about it anyway.”

  He must think I have entirely lost my mind.

  “I’m assuming this doesn’t have anything to do with volleyball,” Isaac says cautiously.

  “Score one for you,” I say. “Want to guess what it does have to do with?”

  “I have no idea.” He actually sounds like he doesn’t.

  A butterfly appears in the sky in front of me, a flickering pattern of purple and pale yellow. I don’t want to do anything but watch it, but it only stays near for a few moments, and then flutters away.

  “Isaac, I—” My courage fails me. “I’m just really worried about you.”

  He looks at me as though I’m a bug that’s just landed on his candy bar.

  I shrug. The essential Isaac gesture. “You know. The whole thing with your parents.”

  I wish there were a rock handy that I could kick.

  “I’m all right,” he says.

  Don’t be all right. Please. Get upset, get mad, get something.

  Awkward silence. Isaac shoves his hands in his pockets.

  “Katrina thought you missed the wastebasket because you wanted us to know,” I blurt.

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. That it was, you know, subconscious, but that you wanted us to find it, the letter, I mean.”

  “Jesus.�
�� Isaac shakes his head.

  “You’re not mad, are you?”

  “It’s a little late for that. You already know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  We’re at the river. I kick off my sandals, sit down, and put my feet in the water. It’s cold, but it makes my ankle feel better. It only gets sore now when I walk for a long time.

  Isaac leans against a weeping willow. “Is this really what you wanted to talk about?”

  I kick my left foot up, splashing myself. “Yes!” I let it fall back into the water.

  “So? What do you want to know?” He sounds angry now. So do I.

  “Just, how was it, dealing with them? I mean, they came together, wasn’t that weird? And how’s your sister? Have you talked to her? Your mom said she was having a rough time, what does that mean?”

  I’m slightly surprised to realize that I really want to know the answers to all these questions.

  “I talked to her last night,” he says, pulling a branch off the tree. “Rebecca—she’s like Katrina. Anything that’s up with her, you know it. Instantly. I think they thought if they brought her she’d cause a big scene and embarrass them in front of all the other parents.” He begins ripping the leaves off the branch. Isaac is destructive to the natural world.

  “Like, what kind of scene? What would she do?”

  “Well, her big plan now is that we should get a place by ourselves, and just not even bother with Mom and Dad. She probably would’ve explained that to everyone at brunch.”

  “How old is she again?”

  “Ten.” He sits down next to me. “I’m not worried about her. She really digs Aunt Mim and Laura.”

  “Laura?”

  “Yeah, she’s my aunt’s girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend?” I squeak before I can stop myself.

  Isaac thwacks the leafless branch lightly on the surface of the water. “Yep, that’s right! My aunt’s a big old dyke! Does that bother you?”

  I start laughing, the crazy kind of laughing that isn’t far from crying. “No,” I finally manage to gasp. “And I bet it wouldn’t bother you if I said I thought I might be one, too!”

  “Really? Huh.” Isaac sounds as though I’d just said I thought it looked like rain.