The Julian Game

by Adele Griffin

  “Ah, I didn’t realize it was Self-Righteous Little Prig Day,” she said, and before I could answer anything else, she’d turned and left in a snit. She was probably surprised that I’d spoken back to her, and that I wasn’t playing along. It scared me, but I didn’t regret any of it. More than anything, I wanted to be finished with Ella.

  And I was terrified that I wasn’t.

  twenty

  Entering the library’s main room, I spied Julian immediately. All the way in the back at the very last table. I released a sigh of thanks that he had showed.

  When he saw me and swooped an arm in the air to signal me over, I got self-conscious; it was like my junior high school graduation processional all over again. When, as valedictorian, I’d had to heft the three-times-my-size school flag. I almost wished I had that flag now, to hide behind. Though I recognized a couple of Fulton girls, the library crowd was mostly strange faces from other schools. I tried to stop imagining worst-case scenarios—tripping over my shoes, popping out a contact lens, seeing Ella.

  Or seeing Jeffey.

  No, not the worst, not the worst. But it was nerve-racking. She was sitting one table in front of Julian but facing the other way. When she turned her head over her shoulder to see who Julian was looking at, her mannequin face couldn’t hide its shock. I couldn’t hide mine. In all honesty, I hadn’t expected to run into anyone from the Group on a Luddington off-night.

  “Hey. Raye.” I could feel that extra beat as she remembered my name.

  “Hi, Jeffey.”

  She was with a guy who might have been her fashion model twin, who gave me the void look of I-don’t-know-you-and-I-don’t-really-care.

  But I’d caught Jeffey’s interest completely. I tried to keep it loose. As I moved past, I sent Jeffey a fleeting smile that landed on Julian.

  “You made it,” he said as I slid into the chair across from him. “Thought you might not show.” Julian Kilgarry, visibly relieved to see me. I wanted to pinch myself.

  “Never. Here.” I’d wrapped up a box of Neosporin and tied it with a ribbon. I removed the package from my jacket and tossed it over. I’d second-guessed giving Julian a gift. Even a joke one. It seemed corny. In the end, though, I needed him to know the real me, not my fabricated, Elizabeth self. And this gesture felt natural.

  “I still feel awful about what happened,” I told him honestly. “So I had to tie a ribbon around my apology.”

  “Yeah, Saturday night wasn’t one for the Schrön loop.” Julian unwrapped the package and laughed. He had one of those hearty laughs that began in the base of his stomach and carried across the room. “I’m sure I’ll use it. Thanks.”

  I got out my books, though studying didn’t feel much on the agenda. Julian looked heart-stoppingly perfect tonight, and I wished I could click-and-send proof: im at luddington with this guy!!!!! to every girl I’d ever met in my life.

  Smoothing out my Joan of Arc assignment, I attempted to lock it in.

  After a few minutes, Julian slid a piece of paper across the table. “Remember I was telling you about that application essay for Presidential Classroom that’s due next month? Here it is. You mind eyeballing?”

  “No problem.”

  I started to read. When I glanced up, Julian was slouched back and cracking his knuckles. Waiting for my opinion. Looking so effortlessly hot, it was hard to bring him down to earth, to remember that this was the same Julian I’d been messaging with every night for the past two weeks. Julian, the newspaper editor. Julian, the chess player. Julian, the film geek who’d gone into a major digression with me on Steve McQueen versus Yul Brenner’s mojo in The Magnificent Seven (to which I could contribute some credible theories, since this was one of my dad’s favorite movies of all time and we always watched it on Christmas Eve while everyone else sniffled through It’s a Wonderful Life).

  In other words, my Julian. No matter how many meaningful looks or sultry, telepathic messages other girls were giving him, or how many whispers were being passed ear to mouth to ear about his square jaw and sexy laugh. I thought I probably knew this guy better than anyone in this whole overlit, worm-gray-carpeted library.

  “It’s great,” I whispered when I’d finished, taking up a pencil. “But you could make it shorter and sweeter. You mind?”

  “Go for it,” he hissed back, his smile crinkling up the corners of his eyes, melting me as I began to strike through lines.

  My back was to Jeffey, but she was eavesdropping. I could tell. It was not exactly a comfortable sensation, but I wasn’t in the perfect frame of mind to care. It was hard to rev up much interest in anyone but the guy across the table. If I could hold on to this moment, double it, stretch it, make it count—then what did it matter what the Group thought? They were a nip at my ankle. And Julian Kilgarry was claiming a lot more of my body’s attention than that.

  twenty-one

  Ella called after midnight. I’d already imagined the steps of this scenario, a sent-to-self memo titled “Dealing with Ella

  (After Jeffey No Doubt Tells Her About Julian).”

  1. I’d admit everything (asap).

  2. She’d go ballistic and freeze me out. Seeing to it that everyone in the Group shunned me, too (1-2 weeks).

  3. It would die down (3-5 weeks).

  4. Life at Fulton would continue as usual (through senior year).

  No matter how innocent Julian and I might have looked, Jeffey would have alerted the Group immediately to the fact that one of MacArthur’s Official Hottest was out studying with me, the new girl whose only claim to fame—as far as the Group saw it—was that Ella got me to help her with homework.

  I’d been asleep for only half an hour when my phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Did I wake you?” she asked. Like she cared.

  “Not really. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I decided to forgive Lindy. I just got off with her and I thought I’d call you.”

  “Oh.” I switched on my lamp and sat up rigid. Whatever Ella Parker wanted to say to me, I needed to be awake for it. “Forgive her for . . . you drawing circles on her cellulite?”

  She chose to ignore this comment. “Listen, Raye. There’s something you should know,” she began. “A long time ago, I used to be kind of very into Julian Kilgarry. We were at Poconos Kids Camp Club together one summer between seventh and eighth grade. It seems like a million years ancient history, but we went out. If that’s even what you call it when you’re in middle school.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  Was Ella joking or serious? She had that singsong tone she sometimes adapted when she was tattling about Lindy’s body odor or Faulkner’s bedwetting.

  I fell silent.

  “Anyway, let’s get to the point,” she continued. “Jeffey said she saw you and Julian together at Luddington earlier tonight.”

  “Yep, I saw her there, too.”

  “So what’s the deal? You told me you’d never even met Julian.”

  “That was true at the time. But after what happened, I had to tell him. Ella, I’m sorry, but I felt pretty guilty.”

  “Listen to you. Taking the bullshit moral high ground. Apologizing to Julian. You might have given me a heads-up.”

  My mind was firing all directions, and it was hard to think straight. “The thing is I figured you’d be annoyed. And I thought everything would end with my apology. But then I ran into Julian at Luddington . . . and he asked for help with a composition he’d been working on. It was something he’d talked about online with Elizabeth. That’s all. I promise.” In the dark, I crossed my fingers. A little white lie wouldn’t kill anyone.

  “Here’s the thing.” With a laugh that didn’t soften what she was preparing to say, if that was her intention. “I’m suggesting nicely. Don’t get cozy with Julian Kilgarry.”

  “How does one study session at Ludding—”

  “Because. I. Can’t. Deal. With you. Plus him.”

&nb
sp; “There’s not really anything to deal with, Ella.” I swallowed.

  “What are you missing? Can’t you see how this whole thing, this ridiculous you-and-Julian thing, makes me feel? You want to talk on the phone with me and come over to my house and wear my clothes and go to my parties and be friends with me, then you don’t betray me. Right?”

  “Friends.” I repeated her word. I wouldn’t have chosen it. Ella was hardly giving me the access to the Group that I’d hoped for. But none of that stuff mattered, not if I had Julian.

  “Right, Raye? We’re friends. Not enemies. And friends are loyal. You don’t want to be my enemy.”

  My fingers were still crossed. “Um, my dad just came in my room. He wants me to get off the phone.”

  “Oh my God, you absolute liar. Do you think I’m an idiot? I am not joking around, you smug little bitch.”

  “Okay. I understand. I gotta go.”

  “You’d better think very long and hard about what you want to do here, Nerbit. Get your priorities in line.”

  “Really, Ella, I need to go . . .”

  “I mean it. Think. Even if you have to stay awake all night. Am I clear?”

  “Okay . . . good night.” I clicked off. Seismic tremors were rippling through me. I couldn’t remember when anyone had ever talked to me like that. The sternest Dad ever got with me was about wasting time, as in, “Your future’s too bright to waste on [television, phone calls, the Internet], young lady.” And once some old crank at the Exchange called me a “dimwit,” and said I wasn’t qualified to offer my opinion on taste.

  Those were incidental outrages. Ella Parker’s anger was something else entirely.

  twenty-two

  “April is peanut butter month, Looze.”

  Ella was standing in front of me. Her gloved hands were holding a cling-wrapped platter of cookies, and her eyes were on guard. She possessed such an abundance of the “right” things—flawless figure, glass-cut features—that just looking back at her upset me. Now that I knew her, it seemed wrong that Ella could play off such refined, tasteful beauty when her core self was so warped.

  I took my hand off my locker. Was she actually smiling? Was she honestly offering cookies, after what she’d said to me last night on the phone?

  “And I hope I didn’t call too late.” Ella’s voice was bakery sweet.

  “No. I mean, it was no problem.”

  “Then . . . are we good? About Julian? Because after our chat, I realized that you hadn’t directly answered me. About, you know. Keeping a distance from him.”

  “Sure. Sure, we’re good.”

  Ella rewarded me with a sly, cat smile. “You’re the best. I’ll see you around. Don’t forget. Cookies in homeroom. Here, a sample.” She loosened the wrapping and handed me one.

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  After she’d gone, I set it on the radiator. Eating it somehow implied I was telling Ella the truth.

  When in fact I’d just lied my ass off.

  When in fact I was seeing Julian this very afternoon after school, meeting up with him at MacArthur to check out how things worked at The Wheel. He’d texted my phone this morning. He didn’t have lacrosse practice, and he wanted to use the afternoon to show me his new layout proposal.

  Brutal as Ella’s warning had been, it couldn’t compete with Julian’s invitation.

  She can’t scare me away from my life, I told myself. And she’s insane to think she can.

  The factor that Ella couldn’t possibly understand was that Julian and I just clicked. The fact that we were both newspaper managing editors, and both considering careers in journalism, was something I’d known about from Facebook. What I hadn’t known, until Julian told me, was that as a kid he’d also created homemade newspapers for his family, and he’d also been a loyal Meet the Press fan since sixth grade.

  the longest running show on tv, he’d noted.

  since 1947

  still missing russert

  me 2

  Ella just didn’t get it. Julian and I had connected. Intensely.

  But I should have spoken up for myself. Explained it to her. Scary as it would have been, what could Ella do? She didn’t make the laws. She couldn’t just exile Julian from my life.

  After school, I walked over to our meeting point outside MacArthur’s Squash Pavilion. It was a perfect spring day. The sky was a clear blue panorama, the dogwoods were blooming, and the hopeful newness of it all, coupled with the anticipation of seeing Julian, almost burst my heart.

  And then, there he was.

  “You keep checking over your shoulder,” he noted as we walked around the path that led into campus. “What’s the deal? You got a boyfriend coming to pick you up?” He was looking especially cute in his uniform chinos and V-neck undershirt, no tie or blazer and his school shirt unbuttoned all the way. Then again, Julian undoubtedly had looked hot in his grade school Power Ranger Halloween costume.

  “No. Sorry, I’m being rude.”

  He laughed. “There you go again.”

  “There I go again where?”

  “Something I’ve noticed about how you talk. ‘Sorry, I’m being rude.’ You’re definitely a straight shot.”

  “My mom was from Minnesota,” I told him. “People shoot straight there.”

  “You said was.”

  “She died four years ago of breast cancer.”

  “Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Guess it’s my turn to shoot straight. I’m sorry.”

  I shrugged. Sometimes it was a mouthful of words. Other times it was like permanently blocked sunlight, and I was aware of this physical weakening in me, the lasting result of Mom’s relentless absence. My mother had died. Four years ago. She was still gone. I moved my gaze to a median point. “So, where are we going?”

  “The paper’s headquartered in Wilson Hall. Can I take you on a tour first?”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  Like Luddington, this afternoon was turning out to be another almost-if-not-quite-date as Julian took me around campus. Giving me his private scoop on MacArthur’s history—mostly of its pranks. Like when some seniors sneaked a dressed-up mule into the headmaster’s office. Or how last spring, he and a few friends rearranged the chapel’s organ pipes so that it belched the alma mater on Alumni Day.

  The campus was busy with after-school activities. I sensed the slide of guys’ eyes over me, checking me out and pretending not to.

  “All boys, no girls. MacArthur is Fulton’s parallel alien planet,” I said as Julian showed me into the media room in Wilson Hall. “I’ve almost forgotten how to live in a coed world.” Although the all-male world of MacArthur seemed equally, similarly unnatural.

  “I never knew anything except this,” Julian remarked. “But if you were in any of my classes, it’d be way distracting for me.”

  And then it was perfectly natural to be standing in the middle of the room kissing Julian Kilgarry in a moment so intense that any lingering memory of Ed Strohman’s kiss melted away quicker than ice in coffee. How could someone’s neck and breath and hair smell so guyish and ordinary and be so uniquely powerful?

  “Too bad you’ve got your reputation,” I mentioned when we pulled apart. “I’m almost starting to take your attention personally.”

  “Reputation?” He pretended to be shocked. “What’s this slander?”

  “Like you don’t know. Everyone talks about your love life all the time.”

  “Name a name.”

  “Mia McCord. Tiffany Roekus.” That story was legend. Tiffany and Julian had gotten together last spring break when she was a junior and he was a freshman. It was an almost unheard-of age difference. “You got lucky at Club Med Ixtapa.”

  “Hey, what happens at Club Med Ixtapa . . . Tiff’s a sweetheart, and it was an escape.”

  “Escape from what?” I had to laugh. “From Club Med?”

  Julian’s face clouded. “A little more than that. On the first night we checked in, we had this nice, family paella dinner and at
the end of it, Dad said, ‘Enjoy this week, everybody, because it’s our last vacation for a long time. The dealership is going under.’”

  “That really sucks,” I said. “I had no idea.” Which wasn’t true. Of course I’d known about his dad’s business. Everyone did. But I hadn’t anticipated that Julian would confess it.

  “You look cute when you’re all serious,” he said, and kissed me again, his hand slipping under my uniform kilt’s waistband, nudging up the fabric of my shirt so that his palm pressed bare against my skin.

  “I’m usually not,” I said, laughing shyly as he bent and brushed his nose in an Eskimo kiss against mine. “Serious, I mean.”

  “Yeah, but you’re the brains of the Group,” he said. “Am I right? They must be so glad to get their hooks in you—I think everyone but Faulk is failing one subject or another.” He kissed me again, but now I was distracted, stumbling over his words. Julian had automatically thought I was in the Group—why? Because I was at Meri’s party, most likely. Or maybe because he’d never paused to consider the girls outside the popular clique.

  Would it matter, when he learned that I wasn’t one of them? His hand was inching upward. I pulled back slightly.

  “This feels kind of public,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, yeah. So let’s do something this weekend,” he said, his hand pausing but not retreating, his fingers spread over my ribs. “After I get off work. My mom’s got this store—”

  “I know. It’s down a few blocks from my dad’s,” I said. What I didn’t mention was how a few months ago Natalya and I had paid a visit to Avenue Cheese. We’d wanted to get a real-live look at Julian Kilgarry’s mother, who turned out to be this rosy hippie type, nothing like Fulton’s designer gym-rat moms who picked up their daughters in lift-and-tuck jeans and teeny sports cars.

  Natalya and I had ended up ordering an eighth of a pound of farmhouse cheddar and a box of crackers that we couldn’t afford. Even after scrounging our pockets, we’d come up thirteen cents short. Julian’s mom had let it go.