“I told you, you don’t need to be sorry.” Ben pops the mint in his mouth. “Thanks, though.”
While we wait for Mr. Salmon to proceed with the lesson—he’s got his face hidden behind the computer on his desk—Ben pulls Chapstick from his pocket and adds a layer to his lips. He licks them when he’s done. There’s no way Ben’s a virgin.
When he catches me looking, he says, “You want some?”
I sit back, surprised. “Are you trying to share your Chapstick with me, like I shared my mints? Because that is definitely not the same thing.”
Ben looks at the tube. “Technically, we’re not sharing mints. You gave me one.”
I grin. “Do you share your Chapstick with all your lab partners, or am I special?”
Ben stifles a laugh. “I’ve never thought about it.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of herpes?”
He puts the Chapstick cap back on and grimaces. “Well, now I’m throwing it out.”
“Sorry, but it’ll probably be awhile before we share Chapstick. We’ve only been lab partners for a few minutes. I’m not that kind of girl.”
“That’s okay. I like a challenge.” Ben winks.
My cheeks heat. We sit in awkward silence. And then Ben scoots his chair away from me and focuses on the front of the room.
I can’t believe I just had a flirty moment with Ben Tyler. And we have to sit next to each other all year. I’m definitely failing physics.
I get a charcoal pencil out of my backpack and start nervously adjusting the already-done picture on the front of my sketchbook. I retrace lines and darken places that don’t need to be darkened. Using my middle finger, I smudge the edges of the drawing until my hand is covered in black.
“It’s Steal Your Face, right?” Ben whispers.
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“This is Boulder. I think we have more pot dispensaries than Amsterdam.”
“Touché.” I run my hand over the Grateful Dead album cover replica and push away the curl falling in my face. “They’re my favorite band.”
“You have . . . ” Ben points at my face.
“What?”
“Black on your cheek.”
“Shit.” I cringe and pull my mirror from my purse. Licking my hand, I try to wipe it away, but it only gets worse, like I put on grey cover-up. When I know it won’t come off completely, I put the mirror back and abort the mission.
“You’re just going to leave it there?” Ben’s staring at my cheek.
“It’ll come off eventually. It’s not a big deal.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?” Ben’s eyes stay on my dirty cheek, like he’s never seen anything like it before. The longer he looks, the more I wish I could melt into the floor.
“Should it bother me?”
“I just thought all girls cared about how they look.”
“I guess I’m not like most girls,” I mumble.
“Can I ask you something else?” When I nod, Ben says, “Why do you bring a sketchbook to science class?”
“I don’t plan on passing.”
Ben’s eyebrows rise. “I just got nervous about my grade.”
“Oh. I guess I could try.” I put away my sketchbook.
“I’d appreciate that.” Ben smiles, the scars on his cheek and eyebrow creasing.
I dig around in my backpack, looking for paper and a pen. It’s overstuffed with my Shakedown Street apron and the new sketches I made for Kim and Cass. Setting my apron on the desk, I dig deeper and grab a few sheets of loose paper at the bottom.
“Can I borrow a pen?” I whisper. Ben nods and pulls one from his back pocket. “Thanks,” I say.
“You have a lot of stuff in your bag.”
“Doesn’t everyone have a lot of baggage?”
Something like a half-laugh escapes Ben’s lips, and he nods, “Touché.”
We go back to the awkward silence thing. Ben pulls on the neck of his shirt, like he’s trying to loosen it, as his leg shakes under the desk. The shirt is a blue button-down with wrinkles around the pocket and armpits. There’s even a yellow stain of some sort under the breast pocket.
Mr. Salmon’s face is still behind his computer, so I point at Ben’s shirt and say, “Mustard?”
He looks down at the stain. “Yeah, I can’t seem to get it out.”
“Baking soda. I use it on my mom’s stuff all the time. She gets the weirdest shit on her clothes.”
“You do your mom’s laundry?” I nod, and Ben cocks his head to the side. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but this is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had.”
I lean in and whisper, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look weird in that shirt.”
Ben gasps, his colorful eyes getting bigger. “I hate this shirt,” he says and un-tucks it.
“Why’d you wear it?”
“I . . . ” Ben’s mouth fumbles with his words. He squints his eyes at me, like he’s looking for something. “It was Katelyn’s favorite.”
Neither of us moves. Our minty fresh breath mixes together.
“If you two are done talking, we’ll get started.” Mr. Salmon is standing at the front of the room, arms resting across his huge beer gut. We look forward at the same time. The majority of the class is looking at us. I cringe and slouch back in my seat.
“This is Newton’s cradle,” Mr. Salmon continues, holding up a contraption with five metal balls hanging from two metal bars. “If this ball on the end is released into the others, the energy travels through the three center balls, forcing the fifth ball to move.” Mr. Salmon picks up one end and releases the first ball, causing Newton’s cradle to move, the balls on either end rocking back and forth in rhythm. It clicks as he talks. Click, click, click. “Conservation of energy. That’s all we are. Balls of energy waiting to smack into someone else’s energy. It’s why you should always use a condom to protect what’s in your balls.” Mr. Salmon laughs. “Just a little physics humor.”
No one in class moves. I think we’re all shocked to hear the word “ball” used so many times in one lesson.
“I hate teenagers,” Mr. Salmon says.
At the end of class, I hand Ben his pen. “To borrow. Verb. To accept something with the intention of returning it.”
“Keep it.” He smiles at me for a moment before tucking in his shirt and meeting his friends in the hallway.
To say that Dr. Brenda’s office is cluttered would be an understatement. It verges on hoarder status. Her desk is covered in about a hundred snow globes, each with its own snowy scene: the Eiffel Tower, the Bay Bridge, Times Square. I asked her last week if she’d been to all these places and she said no, that she picks them up in Vegas but hopes to travel more someday. I think it’s kind of weird that she displays stuff from places she’s never been, but who am I to judge? I see a dead girl.
Dr. Brenda came to see me in the hospital. She said it was standard procedure for her to meet with me before the doctors would let me leave. Then she left her card on the bedside table. Ninny found it and set up six months of appointments. I think Ninny felt so guilty for being late to the hospital that she needed to do something extra “mom-ish,” like make me go see a shrink. I do it just to keep Ninny’s suspicion down. Most of the time, Dr. Brenda and I talk about the weather and her tchotchke collection.
A couch sits along one wall, a multi-colored afghan spread out on the back. It looks like something Toaster might have in his house, something dumped on the front lawn of a fraternity house after a really long weekend of binge drinking. But it smells okay, so I usually park myself there. Dr. Brenda sits in a large leather chair across from me. Today, she’s wearing a red dress that comes to her knees and a neckline that hits at the collarbone. The dress matches her fiery hair. I’d even take Dr. Brenda’s straight red hair over my own.
“How are you, Aspen?” Dr. Brenda blows on the top of her coffee cup.
Still seeing a dead girl, I think to myself.
“Fine.” I nod and look at the huge lan
dscape painting of the mountains that hangs above her head. “Why does everyone in Colorado insist on decorating their houses like we’re all ranchers and cowboys? Did you actually shoot that deer and stuff it?” I point to the deer head above the door.
“No. I took it from my father’s house after he passed away.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Is most of this stuff his?”
“Some of it is.” Brenda looks around and smiles. “He definitely fell into the rancher category. The house I grew up in had more dead animals on the walls than family pictures.”
“So in a way, that deer is kind of a family member. You’re lucky your dad didn’t hang you on the wall.”
“I’m pretty sure he wanted to when I was in high school.” Dr. Brenda laughs and sets her coffee down. “But this isn’t about me. This is about you and how you’re feeling.” She squares her shoulders to me, a posture indicating her resolute determination to keep things on point.
“I told you. I feel fine.” I stuff my hands in my pockets.
“That’s good.” Dr. Brenda leans forward on her knees. “Would you like to talk about the accident this week?”
“Have you ever looked up the word ‘accident’?” I say. “My dictionary says it’s an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally. But doesn’t that mean that most of life is an accident?”
“Some people feel that way.”
“Why do I need to focus on one of the many accidents in my life? Shit, me being born was an accident. I’m like the walking personification of the word.”
“Aren’t some accidents more important than others?”
“Sure, but they all happen in the past. Why is it important to go back and rehash?”
“Looking at the past has its advantages.” Dr. Brenda sips her coffee.
“Like what? When I’m dead, people will make me and my past into whatever they want.”
“I think there’s a lot we can learn from our past.”
“But if most of life is an accident, happening unintentionally and unexpectedly, I have no control at all.”
“But we can prepare ourselves for how to deal with the accidents by learning from our experiences.” Dr. Brenda sits back in her seat and places her coffee cup down on the table. Putting her hands together in her lap, she says, “Let’s say you’re a smoker.”
“I’m not.”
Dr. Brenda cocks her head to the side. “Let’s pretend,” she says. I sit back, my arms hugging my chest. “It’s a physical habit. Something you think you need to do to help you get through the day. But it’s an illusion. If you’re taught the right skills, you can kick the habit.”
“I don’t get it.”
“People have emotional habits, too. They work like physical ones, except we can’t see them. We have to talk and learn about them.”
“All of this learning seems like a lot of work for moments that may or may not happen,” I say.
Dr. Brenda and I sit for a minute in silence. I pick at the yarn coming undone from the afghan and check the clock. Every week these sessions seem to last longer.
“Aspen, can I speak frankly to you?” she finally says.
“Sure, Dr. Brenda.”
“You can just call me Brenda.”
“If I spent a gazillion years in school to add ‘doctor’ to the front of my name, I’d insist that people call me that,” I say.
“Do you know what a willow tree looks like?” Dr. Brenda sits extra far forward in her seat. Her knee is almost touching mine. The closer she gets, the more uncomfortable I feel.
“Yes.”
“It has to bend with the breeze to survive.”
“Okay.” I shrug my shoulders, which must make me look like an ass, but I don’t mean to be one. I’m just sick of her analogies. They make my head hurt.
“What would happen if the willow tree didn’t bend?”
“It would snap,” I say.
“That’s right. The willow tree has to embrace the wind, or it’ll break. But no one knows which way the wind will blow. All the tree can do is prepare to move in whatever direction the wind takes it.”
I stare at Dr. Brenda. The silence between us gets longer. I notice her fingernails are painted hot pink with little yellow flowers etched on the tips. It looks like something Katelyn would have liked. Her nails were always so nicely groomed. Mine are still black from the charcoal.
“Do you want to talk about the accident, Aspen?”
My eyes meet hers. It would be easier if Dr. Brenda looked mad, like she hated spending an hour with me once a week. But she looks kind. Beautiful, actually.
“I told you, I don’t remember anything,” I say apologetically.
Dr. Brenda nods, taking a sip of her coffee. We chat about Ninny’s sex-capades with Toaster for the rest of the session. At one point, Dr. Brenda asks if it’s hard for me to have a mom who is so “open.” She uses her fingers to put quotes around the word.
“If being open with love is her worst fault, I figure I have it pretty good,” I say. “Most parents aren’t open about anything.”
I turn the topic to Uma and her Kim Jong Il tendencies until the receptionist comes over the intercom and announces that Dr. Brenda’s five o’clock is here.
“I like your nail polish,” I say as I walk out of her office.
“I’ll see you next week, Aspen,” Dr. Brenda says, closing her office door behind me.
CHAPTER 5
Kim, Cass and I walk around GameStop in Cherry Creek Mall Saturday morning. Or more accurately, Kim and Cass walk; I hobble. People crowd the store, looking at different video games and testing the gaming systems attached to the walls. Posters for ExtermiNATION, hanging in the windows of the store, show a man dressed in camouflage with guns slung over both shoulders. He’s attractive: blond sculpted hair, dirt on his cheek. He stands atop a pile of rubble, a destroyed city blurred out in the background. “Only one man stands between peace and the destruction of all humankind. It’s fight or face extermiNATION,” is printed over his head.
“I can practically smell the God complexes in this store.” Kim leans up against the wall, her hip popped out to the side and a disgusted look on her face.
“And they can smell the overdose of whatever Bath and Body lotion you have on today.” Cass plays one of the sample games, his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him.
“I’m not wearing Bath and Body,” Kim sneers. “It’s Victoria’s Secret.”
“At least your new Disney name matches your smell, Jasmine.”
I laugh and lean back against the wall next to Kim, resting on my good leg. I was at Shakedown Street until late last night. Friday nights are my favorite. Mickey lets me work by myself because the place is so dead. I play the Grateful Dead Pandora station too loud, test out different recipes for shakes and draw.
Mickey gave me a set of keys last year for my birthday. Said he trusted me more than my mom, and if she has a set of keys, why not me?
When Mickey hired me he claimed he’d never seen a more responsible kid wearing irresponsible clothes in his life. I was in a pair of bell-bottoms and one of those Mexican poncho things I picked up at the Crystal Dragon, my favorite store in Boulder. I pointed out that I was fourteen and could no longer be called a kid. He said, “See, you’re even responsible with your words. Just promise me you won’t trade that in for boat shoes and khaki pants like the rest of the hippies out there.” I asked why I would wear boat shoes when we live in the mountains. He laughed, the kind of Santa Claus chuckle that I always envisioned my grandpa having. I couldn’t help but smile. In my experience, people who laugh hard, like their laughs are bursting from the bottom of their stomachs up through their chests, make the world a little lighter.
Last night, as I was getting into my sketching zone, Hunter Hunter came in with a group of his snowboarder friends and ordered half of the menu. They leaned on the counter and spoke really slowly and squinted their bloodshot eye. It took ten minutes just for them to pay, all of them
fumbling around in their pockets for cash while laughing to themselves. I see this behavior all the time with Ninny. Some mornings I’ll come downstairs to a trashcan full of Doritos bags and candy bar wrappers. She’ll be passed out on the couch, still in her clothes from the night before, the TV on.
I’ve only tried pot once. It was when Ninny was in Taos. I got so angry one afternoon, when I came home from school and the house was still empty, that I broke into her stash and smoked. Each time I inhaled, I blamed pot for her leaving me; Ninny clearly loved the stuff more than her daughter. If I was going to be left for a cannabis plant, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
I didn’t really feel anything at first, which made my blood boil, and then my head started to spin. Eventually, I was face down in the toilet, puking my brains out.
I was late to school the next day, which made the teachers start asking questions, which made me more nervous. In the end, the experience made me hate pot even more.
Hunter and his friends drank their shakes, sucking on the straws like it might be the last food on the planet, and dissected the movie Inception.
“This is all a dream, man.”
“No, this is a dream within a dream, man.”
“Shit, man.”
“Real isn’t real. Real is really a dream and a dream is really real.”
“All of life could be a dream that we never wake up from. We’re just dreaming this conversation.”
The whole time they were talking, I was dreaming of them getting the hell out of Shakedown Street so I could get back to sketching. After they left, my legs ached from hobbling around in my cast to clean up their mess. If I were dreaming, I’d make sure they put their own cups in the garbage can.
“That guy looks like Tom Ingersol.” I point to the poster.
“Don’t compare Dex Mayhem to Tom Ingersol.” Cass shakes his head.
“Dex Mayhem is his fucking name? He sounds like a porn star.” Kim rolls her eyes.
“Did you just say something about porn stars, Jasmine?” Cass’s eyes are wide on Kim. She slumps back on the wall.
“Whatever. Why do you even like this stuff?”
Aspen Page 5
