The Julian Game

by Adele Griffin

  Dad reached over and opened the door into a blare of Manilow.

  As I got in, I gave a glance over my shoulder. Just to be sure.

  No Julian.

  thirty-one

  Mrs. Field never smiled, so it wasn’t a good or bad sign when she ushered me stone-faced into her office, where I’d pitched up after getting her note. But my heart was hammering as I took the chair opposite her desk. All I could think was that she’d seen my picture on the site, and that a petition to throw me out of Fulton on the grounds of General Sluttiness was circulating.

  “Is my office really that scary?” She waved a piece of paper. “Let me give you the good news quick, then. You won.”

  “Won . . . ?”

  “Second place in the CAFÉ essay contest. Nobody from Fulton has placed in this contest in thirteen years.”

  I struggled to remember the second-place prize. It wasn’t Paris.

  “Five hundred dollars,” she said, and handed me the letter. Plus a check.

  I stared. “Oh.” My brain wasn’t geared for pleasant surprises. Five hundred dollars seemed like both a huge amount of money and a drop in the college fund bucket, where it would surely land.

  “Congratulations. You’ve done so well here at Fulton, Raye. You’re really thriving.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  Back in the hall, I crouched and stuffed the letter and check into my book bag. Some girls walked by and I jumped to my feet. These days, I didn’t like to have my back turned to anybody.

  I told Natalya the news at lunch, but I didn’t think about the CAFÉ contest again until that afternoon’s final assembly. A guest speaker lectured us about good versus bad eating. Yes Swiss chard. No Red Bull. Followed by general announcements. Same old, same old. Fire drill tomorrow. New recycling bins. Bel Cantos concert this weekend.

  Then Mrs. Field whisked right up to where I was sitting on an aisle seat. The weight of her hand cupped my shoulder. “Raye, stand up,” she whispered.

  I didn’t. I couldn’t. “One more announcement!” she trilled.

  Noooo.

  Don’t do it. Anything but this.

  On my other side, Natalya slumped as if the air were leaking out of her.

  Realizing that I wouldn’t be standing, Mrs. Field took the plunge anyway. “It gives me great pleasure to tell you all that Raye Archer placed second in the Cultural Awareness For Everyone contest,” she announced throatily. “Which came with an award of five hundred dollars, for any of you who need reminding.”

  Murmuring among the freshmen. And then underneath, from the sophomores, another kind of whisper. Mrs. Field continued blithely. “So join me in congratulating her. And at next Friday’s assembly, I’m hoping that she’ll read her essay for everybody.”

  Obviously, I wouldn’t be doing that because I would have transferred. Shot myself. Left the country.

  Applause spattered. Mostly freshmen, joined by a round from juniors and seniors. From my class, whispers mixed with smothered laughter.

  Then Ella’s laugh, whipping out like a jackknife.

  And from Alison, in that distinctive gravelly voice. “Oh, you go, Nerbit.”

  Mrs. Field wavered. She didn’t know what she was up against, and she was no good improvising. Her hand freed my shoulder. “Oookay,” she said. “All right, then. Quiet down, everyone. Quiet. Next announcement is Jessica Flaherty about new rules for senior parking, right, Jessica? Please.”

  “Speech, Nerb.” Alison again. Too loud, braving the threat of detention.

  “Hush, girls!” Mrs. Field’s voice had become strangled. “This is not the . . . forum.” But I could feel her reorganizing files in her head: Raye Archer is bullied. The other girls don’t like Raye Archer.

  Labeling me F for Fragile, D for Distressing.

  NTAMAOMHH for Not Thriving As Much As One Might Have Hoped.

  As Jessica popped up and began to talk, the whispering died. But I was sure I could still hear its restless ebb, all the way until we were dismissed.

  thirty-two

  WHAT SHOULD NERBITINA DO WITH THE MONEY???

  She should start a fund to get her boobs done so they match.

  She should buy herself a better personality cuz the one she has sux.

  Buy a car and drive off a bridge.

  Five hundred dollars is her nightly escort fee.

  I think Nerbit should buy herself some blue thongs to match her blue wigs and pole dance downtown at the Foxy Lady.

  Yeah she could run a special 241 service: lap dance + tutoring

  New posts popped up all weekend, a little boost for the blog just when I thought it was sinking. Most notes were from Lindy and Jeffey and Ella herself, I figured. Even though they listed various identities like “ladybug” and “me99” and “fultygrl.”

  Hiding at the Zawadski home protected me from totally fixating on it. But I just couldn’t stop myself from going online, either late at night or during TV commercials or sitting at the kitchen bar while Natalya rummaged for interesting things to add to her Duncan Hines cookie dough mix. First I’d hit Ella’s blog, and then, sort of as a reward . . .

  “What about cashews?” From the stepladder, Natalya beaned one at my head. “Would that be gross?”

  “Don’t think so. Go for it.”

  “With the coconut flakes? Or now is it too much like I’m making a curry? Raye, why’re you looking so secretive? You’d make such a bad spy.” Hopping off the ladder, she was at me in a flash. “Who are you IMing with?”

  I’d minimized the screen, but not in time. Natalya stepped closer. “That was not Julian Kilgarry’s name I just saw, was it?”

  “It’s just I wanted to ask him about changing the masthead for the Delta.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Okay, so maybe I haven’t exactly taken your advice.” I struggled to explain it. “The thing is, online I’ve got this little piece of Julian left. He’s not a cyber-creep, either. We’re friends. And that means something.”

  “Sure. It means you’re spineless, is what it means.” Natalya shook the bag of cashews like a maraca in my face. “Earth to Raye. The real Julian doesn’t want the real you. In fact, he’s basically using you.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. As a homework buddy, I guess, or for sex-ting or playing chess, or just to be a secret, so-called soul mate that he’d never admit to in front of any of his real friends.”

  My cheeks pinked. “How do you know I’m not his real friend?”

  “I don’t. But there’s an easy test. Tell your real friend Julian to call off Ella. Tell him to tell her to shut down that hellacious blog of hers. In person. Get brave. He could do it in a snap.”

  “We never talk about the blog.”

  “All the more reason.” Natalya moved to the bowl and dumped all the cashews into the mix. “Actually, forget I mentioned it. If you can’t see the light, I can’t make you. But it kind of blows for me to think I’m your friend, knowing that category also includes a narcissist like Julian Kilgarry.”

  “He’s not . . . he’s sweet. And he can be very real.”

  “Sure, Raye. Go there,” she answered as she began landing blobs of dough on the cookie sheet. “Keep telling yourself that, and who knows? Maybe one day it’ll all come true.”

  thirty-three

  Monday was cold, and looked better from indoors. Too cold, really. I could always do it Tuesday, I told myself. But that would mean another day of Natalya’s voice reverberating in my head. By afternoon, I’d made a decision. In the locker room, I pulled one of my XXL sweatshirts over my Health & Fitness uniform, and for the first time ever, I cut gym.

  I was at MacArthur in ten minutes. I leaned over the fence to watch the lacrosse players slam themselves up and down the field. But there might as well have been brackets around my vision, because all I saw was number 08.

  Julian was a star, one of two sophomores selected for varsity last year. Guys seemed energized by him, the way t
hey shoulder-pad bopped him or hip-checked him or pounded their gloves against his helmet in headlocks, jolly as bears.

  Henry was right. MacArthur was the same as Fulton. Filled with people who adored Julian. He was just one of those people who seemed to connect with everybody.

  He’d seen me. Toward the end of practice, he spoke to the coach, inclined his head and crossed the field to where I waited.

  “Raye, what’s up?” His voice friendly but uncertain. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s nothing.” Oh, God. This had been so much easier when I’d practiced it in the mirror and into my pillow last night.

  “It’s something.”

  “It’s hard.”

  “Try me.” His hands were on his waist, his body bent forward as he caught up to his breath.

  “I want you to talk to Ella.”

  He shot me a bewildered glance. “And say what?”

  “You know what. Tell her to close the site and end her campaign. Nothing else will work,” I continued when he didn’t speak. “I can’t control the situation. I thought you might be able to.” Get brave. “I mean, I know you can.”

  He stepped back. “Back it up, there, Raye.” One palm raised, as if to hold me away. “You think I’ve got more pull than I do. Maybe I used to. God knows things used to be different. When my life was simple.”

  “All I want is—”

  “But did you know that last week, my mom started selling sandwiches for MacArthur’s cafeteria? Imagine how I’ve had to deal with that one. When Chapin Gilbert asks me to tell Mom to add more horseradish to the roast beef on sourdough?”

  “So Chapin’s a big jerk. That doesn’t feel like news,” I said.

  “No, look . . . all I’m saying is I’m in a different position. I’m not bulletproof anymore.”

  “But you can’t do anything because your mom sells sandwiches? Are you serious?”

  Julian’s face tightened. “You know, you’re not totally innocent yourself. You sure gave Ella all the ammunition she needed. A few of the guys here printed that raunchy picture of you—one’s tacked up in our old AV room.”

  I stepped back. “That’s so out of line. Make a decision to help me or don’t help me, but don’t act like I’m getting what I deserve.”

  Julian pulled up his T-shirt by the hem to wipe the sweat from his face. Embarrassed by what he’d just said, or maybe by what he was about to say.

  I waited for it.

  “The bottom line is that I can’t be what you’re looking for,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I was really into you. And I’d stand by everything I wrote in those first notes, especially when you were Elizabeth. Sometimes I wish we could go back to that time, you know?”

  “Back to a time when I was a fake person.”

  “When it wasn’t as complicated, is all I meant. Back when you were fun, and before everyone had all these opinions about who you are. And the truth is, I’ve slipped down too many rungs here already. I don’t mean to sound overly harsh, but you’d have to put yourself in my shoes to understand it. I just can’t risk slipping any more.”

  In my worst imagining of Julian’s true self, this was the person I’d feared most. “You know what? I’d never want to be in your shoes,” I said, “because that would mean I’m a guy who makes all his decisions based on what other people tell him.”

  “I’m not saying I feel good about myself.” With a weak smile, a flimsy attempt to charm me, against his odds.

  “But if you can’t speak up for yourself, then who are you, Julian?”

  “Well, maybe I’m still trying to figure that one out.” A defensiveness had crept into his voice. “But the thing is, I really do want to stay friends, Raye. It’s great hanging out with you online. And you can get close to people there, you know what I mean? It might be a better way for us to have a . . . r elationship.”

  My face flushed. “Sending hot messages and pictures online, but then acting like we don’t know each other in real life? I’m sorry, but I’ve got a little more self-esteem than that.”

  I could feel his loss for words, and his disappointment, even as I sensed him searching determinedly for the way out, to finish this. “Raye, this isn’t how I wanted it between us.”

  I believed him, sort of. But I knew him well enough to see that things couldn’t be any different. When he stole a look at me, the hopeful plea in his translucent blue eyes—don’t hate me, I’m a nice guy, promise—seemed to swallow me whole.

  Except I did kind of hate him now, as much as I wished I didn’t. And Julian wasn’t a nice guy. He was the guy who had decided the most important thing about him was that everyone thought he was nice. Which had nothing to do with actual niceness.

  I’d come here to ask Julian if he would save me, and I ended up biting off the last thread that connected us. Maybe it was for the best. But it sure didn’t feel that way.

  “Guess I’ll see you around,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said. “Drop by the store sometime, if you feel like it.”

  “Okay. Will do.”

  Though I couldn’t help but feel cynical, later, when I thought about Julian’s compulsive need to go that extra Mr. Nice Guy yard. Offering up that folksy invitation to make us both feel better in the moment. Allowing me room to give an equally corny response—“will do!”—when we both knew full well that “sometime” meant no time, and that the entire promise smacked of insincerity, no matter how much I wanted to believe it.

  thirty-four

  The checkerboard bathroom was in the oldest part of Fulton. The grubby black and white floor tiles had been trafficked in generations of cleats and penny loafers and ballet flats, and the press of thousands of privileged Fulton bottoms had gently grooved its two wooden toilet seats.

  Girls hardly ever used this bathroom because of its proximity to the Admissions Office and the seething presence of Miss Flagler, but I’d learned early in the year that the Group liked to hang out there, for round-robin cigarettes and gossip. So I tended to stay away.

  “Raye, hold up.” My name, lisped in Lindy’s husky voice, caught me mid-motion on the way to lunch, just as I was slowing my rush down the hall to pass the speed bump of Flagler’s doorway.

  She’d been waiting for me. Which was strange. I stopped and turned reluctantly.

  “What?”

  “You’re wanted in the clubhouse.”

  Using the side of her body to push through the bathroom door, she buttonholed me inside. Where the rest of the Group was already assembled. Jeffey guarding the door. Ella and Faulkner in the window seat. Alison wedged in the corner so that she could stand beside Ella. Lindy flanking the other end.

  And between the two sinks and stalls, trapped in an unanchored middle space, Natalya.

  “Hey, Raye.” Ella clapped her green-gloved hands. “So nice of you to drop in.”

  “What’s up?” They all looked pretty smug, except Natalya, who stood with her arms crossed, weighted on one leg. Seeing them assembled, I felt weary and depressed. It had only been a few weeks, but it seemed like they’d been bullying me forever, with no end in sight.

  “Apparently the Wad’s not as much of a Nerbit-hater as the rest of us, so I want you to release her from your insecty spell.” Ella’s eyes twinkled. “Tell her she doesn’t have to be friends with you anymore.”

  “What do you want, Ella?”

  “Just tell her.”

  “Tal, you don’t have to hang out with me anymore if you don’t want to.” I said it hurriedly, the way you’d tell someone their fly was undone.

  Natalya, expressionless, nodded.

  “Wad must’ve told you we were tight once,” said Ella. “Didn’t we have some laughs, Natalya, back in the day?”

  “Sure.” Natalya shrugged.

  “But you and Nerb are Siamese twins. Two little smartypants fancy ants.”

  “You were smart, too,” said Natalya.

  “Were smart?” Ella snorted.

  “The brain’s a m
uscle. It gets soft if you don’t use it.”

  I cringed. This was not a good time for Natalya to go into Spock mode. Maybe she knew it. Maybe she was doing it on purpose.

  Ella didn’t bother with being insulted. “We used to put spells on Mimi, remember? When she bitched at us.”

  “Did we?”

  “We’d rhyme them and chant them at her. It was so funny.”

  “If you say so.”

  “You still got your trampoline?” she asked.

  “It’s in the garage.”

  “That piece of junk. You couldn’t do somersaults.”

  “Are we done with memory lane?” asked Faulkner. “We got Nerb to officially kill her friendship with the Wad. It’s shrimp tacos in the caf today, and I’m starved.”

  “But you had other skills,” Ella continued pleasantly, ignoring the Group’s impatience. “I remember you could put your whole fist in your mouth. Remember that trick?”

  “Not really.”

  “Liar. Hey, Nub. Idea. Try and do it for me now.” Ella slid off the window seat and advanced until they stood facing each other, nearly toe to toe.

  “Another time.” Natalya sounded irritated.

  “No, now. For me.”

  “Ella, enough,” said Natalya, crossing her arms tight, lifting her chin and arching her neck as if Ella were some random guy, brave on beer and coming on too strong.

  “Do it. Show it off for us.”

  “My hands got too big.”

  “Then swallow someone else’s, how about?” Ella flexed her fist. “Put Raye’s in your mouth, and then we’ll cut your bestie a break with the online, how’s that?”

  I could almost audibly hear Ella’s wheels turning, contemplating what a fun, viral little image that one would make. “Tal,” I said. “This is stupid. You don’t have to do anything.”