Sirenz Back in Fashion

by Charlotte Bennardo

  I was awake, with Shar’s genius idea echoing in my brain: Go and get the fleece and put it over Paulina. She’s sleeping, and she’ll never know what happened. She’ll go to Tartarus where she belongs, and Shar will be back here where she belongs. Mission accomplished!

  Hades’ voice seemed to intrude. Simple, no?

  I’d set the iPhone alarm for 4 a.m., hours before anyone would be up, and slid it under my pillow. And here I was, ready to do the deed before the thing even went off.

  The bed frame groaned as I sat up. My heart fluttering, I waited several seconds to see if silence returned. It did. As quickly as I could, I swung my feet onto the floor. Stifling the noise my voice wanted to make as my toes hit the icy tiles, I didn’t give myself a chance to get used to it. Up I got, and I made a beeline for the closet.

  “Good morning!”

  “Ahh!” I started, partly from the surprise greeting and partly from stubbing my naked toe on one of the bed’s iron wheels.

  Paulina snapped on the lights. She was awake and completely dressed.

  “Classes start at eight, right?” she asked, crouching down next to a huge and empty messenger bag, the kind professionals use. It still had price tags dangling off the strap.

  “Yes,” I grumbled, finding the clock and expecting it to read something like 3:51 a.m. It didn’t; it was 7:35, giving me only fifteen minutes to get dressed. I cursed.

  Stupid Hades. Of course the iPhone wouldn’t work—another of his practical jokes.

  “Scary!” Paulina took a visual survey of my purple sweatpants and ratty concert tee and grinned flippantly. “Don’t worry. Take your time and get ready. I’ll wait for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, not meaning it in the “you’re such a good roomie” way, but in the “don’t do me any favors and thanks for nothing” way. Hopefully it would ensure she’d be gone by the time I got back from the bathroom.

  I shuffled out to the showers and spent a blissful five minutes under the hot water. I didn’t have much time, but I didn’t want to rush; I figured P-girl had less time to wait than I was going to take.

  She’d followed me around almost all day yesterday—except when she was dragged away by administrators to plan her schedule. After I’d sneaked off to talk to Shar, she’d found me again and told me she had an appointment with Ms. Newton, our principal, first thing this morning. I was hoping to have relieved both myself and Ms. Newton of the burden of Paulina’s presence by this point, but it was not to be.

  And she wasn’t gone when I returned from the bathroom. As promised, she was waiting for me, perched on the edge of her bed, long legs outstretched and encased in big black biker boots, one hand deep in a jumbo-sized bag of granola. I stepped behind the Japanese folding screen I’d set up in one corner of the room as a decoration and got dressed. I felt strangely self-conscious around her, though I couldn’t say why. Sure, we were both girls, but this wasn’t Shar, with whom I’d been to hell and back. I wanted to expose myself to Paulina as little as possible—my physical person included.

  She waited for me while I put on my shoes and packed up my bag with deliberate slowness. As I fastened the last clip, I realized that I’d done none of my homework and hadn’t looked over any problems for the Calc quiz I had to take first period. I dropped my bag, slapped my palm against my forehead, and cursed again.

  “Something wrong?” Paulina’s voice registered something that sounded like genuine concern. I didn’t need that.

  I shook my head. “Just another screw-up on my part. Bye-bye, A- Calc average. Let’s go.”

  Paulina followed me to the academic building in silence. We arrived with just enough time for me to deposit her in the main office with Ms. Newton and get to Calculus without scoring a detention for being late.

  As I was making my way to class, I felt a phone buzzing in my bag—not Hades’ iPhone, but my own phone, with a text message. Flipping it open, I could see it was from Jeremy, along with another fifteen or so messages that I hadn’t read since Sunday. Quickly I scrolled through:

  U doing anything 2nite? Must b busy miss u. Where r u? U OK? Meg?

  Had I been so caught up in the assignment and Shar and Paulina that I hadn’t responded at all? Quickly I typed in a reply:

  Sorry sorry sorry! School gave me a roomie. Chaos! xxx

  Almost immediately he answered:

  Thought u’d 4gotten me :( Guess what?!

  I texted back:

  Never forget u. ’sup?

  I held the phone for a second or two, vowing that going forward I would check it regularly, hourly. Then it beeped a reply:

  Got tickets 4 Elysian Fields! You & me. ttyl xoxo J.

  Jeremy and my favorite band; I should’ve been thrilled, but instead I felt sick—but I couldn’t let him know that. I took my seat and texted back:

  U made my day <3 u

  The bell rang. Laz got up and shut the door, then returned to his desk and pulled a wad of papers out of his briefcase. I added my voice to the collective groan offered up to the math test gods.

  Laz started passing papers out to the first row. I turned my head slightly. Trey winked at me, ignoring the incensed look on crony Sarah’s face.

  I faced forward so that I didn’t have to look at him. The person in front of me handed back a stack of quizzes. I took one, passed the rest on, and then quickly scanned the problems. About half didn’t look impossible.

  As I reached down to my bag to get out some pencils, the intercom phone at the front of the room rang. Laz stopped handing out papers and picked it up.

  He listened for a second or two, then said, “We’re having a quiz at the moment, can it wait?” A pause. “Oh, I see. Yes, of course. I’ll send her right down.” He hung up the phone. “Margaret, you’re wanted in Guidance. The rest of you”—he shot a warning glance at Trey and Sarah, who were whispering furtively—“begin.”

  Thankful for the momentary reprieve, I grabbed my messenger bag, got up, gave Laz his quiz back, and strolled down to Guidance, not caring what they wanted. I’d just won some time. No matter how long they had me there, trips to my locker, the bathroom, and maybe the nurse would be in order to gobble up the period, and I would have a cool twenty-four hours to prepare for a make-up quiz.

  The minute I got to Guidance, however, I knew why I’d been called down. Paulina sat in the waiting area, grinning at me. Maybe it was my narrow escape in Calc, but I involuntarily smiled back and gave her a little wave. What’s wrong with me!?

  I put on a serious face, tried to convince myself that my counselor must want to talk to me about college applications, and approached the reception desk, head down. No unnecessary contact with the dead girl walking!

  “Hi, they called me down. Meg Wiley?” I asked.

  “Mr. Elwood wants to speak to you, dear,” said Mrs. Roache, the Guidance secretary. “You can go right in.”

  Mr. Elwood, a small, bald turtle of a man whose obsession with schedules, charts, and time slots bordered on religious, sat at his desk looking around nervously. He jumped in his chair when I walked in.

  “Margaret! Thanks for coming down, I’m sorry we had to interrupt your quiz.”

  “No worries, Mr. E.” I sat down in one of the chairs opposite his desk.

  “Well.” He cleared his throat. “I want to apologize personally for not giving you a heads-up”—he made air quotes with his fingers—“about your new roommate. It must have been a shock for you. The whole situation was beyond my control, but apparently Miss Swanson met all our criteria, and I’m sure you can be sympathetic, her coming to a new school so late in the year and so close to graduation!” He rambled on, starting to sweat and eyeing me defensively, as if he expected me to launch an assault of objections at him.

  Not your fault, Mr. E. But I can think of someone I’d like to register a complaint wi
th.

  I did a Hades-esque openhanded shrug. “Things like this happen. What’re you gonna do?”

  Mr. Elwood let out a long, dramatic, and obviously relieved sigh. “Oh, I was so worried! You’ve been on your own since September, and now getting a roommate at this point … ”

  My heart lurched. No I wasn’t! Shar was here, and she’s coming back!

  His head moved like a clock’s pendulum, as if the back and forth would balance things out so that it all made sense. Then he clapped his hands together once, loudly. “But now I have a big favor to ask of you.”

  I squirmed in my chair and swallowed hard; I had a bad feeling that whatever it was, it involved Paulina. “Uh, sure?”

  “Wonderful!” he beamed. “Miss Swanson’s father is abroad, and coming into an academically challenging school at so late a juncture, it would probably help if a student could, you know, show her around, introduce her to people. Her schedule’s all set. She’s tested very high, so she’ll be an asset to the school, I’m sure.”

  Before I could suggest the names of the five most outgoing and popular students in the senior class, he sealed my fate, utterly.

  “Since you’ve gotten off to such a good start, I’d like you to be Miss Swanson’s go-to person, her buddy.” He clasped his hands and held them together tightly to illustrate the perceived strong bond between us. “I’ve managed to schedule her classes so that she has some with you.”

  Then he handed me a sheet of paper. A quick glance told me that I was looking at what used to be Shar’s class schedule—the same time blocks, teachers, everything. What next?

  Giving Paulina, who couldn’t stand or walk closer to me if she’d tried, the grand tour of the academic building took up all the periods until lunch. Then she had to go to Phys Ed alone, and I got to ponder my fate over a mozzarella and tomato caprese sandwich.

  So Hades had seen to it that Paulina would be constantly in my presence. Shar and I had complained when assignment #1, Arkady Romanov, was inaccessible. This was going to be the opposite, but just as bad. Worse, actually. She’d trailed after me on her own at first, and now it was sanctioned by the school. She didn’t get my hints that we were not simpatico. So what if we liked the same kind of music? That was all surface gloss. How could I like someone who usurped not only Shar’s place but my space, even if it was unwittingly?

  When it was time to move on to Lit, I hadn’t taken so much as a bite of my lunch. I dumped it and headed to class, realizing with dread that Paulina would be my seat neighbor. Sure enough, she was there, already in her place when I walked in the door. Trey was there too, but unlike this morning, he kept his face in his book and acted like I wasn’t there. At least I wouldn’t have two leeches.

  “Happy Ides of March, people,” said Miss Winning, snapping her attendance book shut and plucking a thick book filled with sticky notes off her desk. “Let’s talk about Julius Caesar.”

  Let’s not. I never did catch up on my reading. I shrank into my seat.

  “Thinking about the last act you read, how do you explain Brutus’ actions? He’s Caesar’s friend, and yet he helps to murder him.”

  Winning’s roving eye passed over me. Then I heard her call the name I least expected to hear.

  “Paulina? You’ve read Julius Caesar?”

  “And saw it a couple of times,” Paulina said coolly. The titters around her died as she went on. “I felt sorry for Brutus. Caesar’s his friend, but what he’s facing is bigger than both of them.”

  Winning nodded, and I squirmed. “Can you elaborate?”

  “Brutus believes he’s acting on behalf of Rome. If he thought only of his own friendships, that’d be kind of selfish.”

  “Excellent, Paulina. Can anyone continue this? Laura. Tell us what you got out of Act III.”

  As Laura stumbled through her answer, I stole glances at Paulina, who sat flipping quietly through her copy of the text. It was as dog-eared as mine; I liked reading Shakespeare’s plays—the bloody ones. I found myself impressed that there was some thinking going on behind those bug-eyed dark glasses.

  There I went again. Who cares if she can spout a good answer for Miss Winning? So she likes Shakespeare. Tonight she can addeth her story to his collection of tragedies when she meets him in the Underworld.

  Or not.

  On Thursday, Paulina was up before me. Again.

  And the day after that.

  And the day after that.

  On Sunday, I snuck over to her side of the room to find her bed empty, and on Monday, she caught me lurking behind our door when she sauntered in from the bathroom, all dressed and toting her monster shower caddy. It was all I could do to make up a lame story about chasing a stray pen that got away from me. So much for my plan to ambush her when she walked in.

  When Tuesday dawned, I took little comfort in the thought that I’d get to talk to Shar. I wasn’t too happy about the prospect of telling her I’d failed. Hopefully she’d understand that her easy solution had proven to be more difficult than we’d both anticipated. I could always try again. And by tonight she might have a few more ideas on how to extricate us from this situation.

  I tried to ignore Paulina, plopped in Shar’s place. At the end of the day, I didn’t stop at my locker, or the bathroom, or anywhere. I wanted—no, needed—to get away. How was I going to do this? I couldn’t totally alienate Paulina; avoiding her wasn’t the way to get her to wear the fleece. But I was having a hard time seeing her everywhere that Shar was supposed to be.

  Once outside, I was able to breathe easier. I quickly made my way over to the hole-in-the-wall coffee shop near the dorm. A huge latte and a cookie wouldn’t solve my problems, but it would help me feel better.

  Hustling to the door, I jerked it open, got on line, and ordered the biggest skim mocha latte they made, along with a chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie. I paid, got my treat, turned to go down to the barista to pick up my mega coffee—and almost slammed into Paulina.

  How … ?

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, trying not to sound perturbed.

  She shrugged. “I felt like … a latte.”

  “Well, the line starts there,” I said, jerking my head toward the back of the shop.

  “Oh.” She looked away with an almost lost expression—if someone could look that way with those monster glasses on. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt.

  “Look, I have a few places to go, so I’ll see you later,” I said. “Okay?”

  She started a slow, sad shuffle toward the back of the line. The twinge turned into a nasty pinch.

  Why me? Why me? Why me?

  “Wait,” I said, before I could stop myself.

  Paulina turned around. By the way her eyebrows tilted up and her mouth opened a crack, I could see the hope registered on her face.

  “I’ll wait for you here,” I sighed. “Go get your stuff.”

  She smiled hugely and loped off to the back of the line.

  You’re an idiot, Meg. You don’t befriend someone you have to betray. I could just see my conscience wagging its finger at me.

  Paulina kept looking back, as if she was checking to make sure I was still there. Every time her shrouded eyes met mine, she’d shoot me that weird half-smile that on a guy would have been cute.

  Finally, a huge drink and bulging bag of treats in hand, she sidled up to me.

  “So where are we going?”

  Where were we going? I’d been trying to escape Paulina, and now I’d invited her along. “I was … just going to do a little shopping. I guess.”

  She took a sip from her cup. “Okay.”

  Shopping with Paulina was nothing like shopping with Shar. For one thing, despite how far she’d come with music, Shar would never spend an hour perusing downloads; Paulina and I managed to blow away nearly two hours
loading up several of her slick devices. But I turned her down when she offered to get Elysian Fields’ newest songs for me. An outing was one thing—that could be considered research. Accepting gifts was another.

  We wandered over to the colossal windows of ABC to admire the displays.

  I spied a bracelet made of ebony beads, with a silvery charm of a running horse. Its mane was sculpted in such a way that it looked like it was captured mid-gallop. It looked happy, wild, and free. Unlike me.

  “Oh, I really like that!” The gush escaped before I could stop it; it was the first thing I’d revealed about myself all afternoon.

  “It’s nice,” Paulina agreed. “Want to go have a look?”

  I nodded. What harm could looking at a bracelet do? Hades hadn’t given me the no-limit Visa or apartment this time—all I’d gotten was the iPhone, which was turning out to be absolutely useless. In addition to blocking the call function so that I couldn’t reach the one person I most wanted to talk to, or any helpful goddesses either, there were new apps he’d loaded apparently just for me: Acropolis Cleaners, specializing in fleece. Archimediate Time Management Services, legendary experts in delegation, scheduling, and prioritizing. Harpy Assassinations, for when you didn’t want to get your hands dirty. Fury Us Legal Services, fair-deals-r-us. Carnivoropolis, a guide to NY’s meateries. And the phone was a constant reminder and link to Hades; he could harass me whenever he wanted.

  Paulina opened the store door for me, then followed me inside. The bare floors creaked as I moved from table to table, looking for my bauble, when I heard a clock chime. Once. I pulled out my watch: 6:30. I only had a half hour to get uptown to Shar!

  “Paulina!” I called. She came right over.

  I stood on one foot, feeling bad about ditching her like this. “I forgot I have to … meet someone. I’m really sorry.”

  There was that sad kicked puppy look again, but I didn’t have time to think about it.

  “I won’t be long. See you back at the dorm, okay?”