by Paula Stokes
“What do you mean?” Another burst of light—this one colored. Someone who lives nearby must be putting on quite a show for their neighborhood.
“You seem upset.”
“Upset how?” I watch the falling embers of the fireworks dissolve into the night.
“Upset like maybe you discovered that soccer guy you worship is actually a robot, designed and operated by the people who create boy bands.” Micah studies me as he takes another long drag off his cigarette.
What I mean to say is “I’m fine,” but what comes out is “Jason and I are over.”
Micah coughs hard, expelling little swirls of smoke from his mouth. “Why?”
I think about Jay and his lame reasons for us being together and how everything I thought I wanted suddenly seemed irrelevant. How do things like that just change? My face scorches hot when I imagine how the night might have gone if I’d decided to drink or if Jason had been a little more persuasive. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter. I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be with him anyway.”
A tiny fleck of glowing ash falls from the tip of Micah’s cigarette. The wind pulls it in an arc through the air, like a miniature shooting star. “Got someone else in mind?” he asks.
This simple, but not-so-simple question terrifies me. I know what it means, I think. But I’m not ready. I don’t want to get hurt again. I don’t want to hurt Micah either. It’s hopeless. Me and him—we can’t. We just can’t.
“Lainey? Are you in there?” He waves a hand in front of my face.
“Sorry.”
“No, I kind of like this new, quieter you.” He’s using that low voice again.
“I think I need a break from dating,” I blurt out. I turn to unlock the car door with a click. I definitely need this conversation to be over.
Micah doesn’t get the hint. He stays right where he is, effectively blocking me from leaving. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s been kind of a crazy summer.” I jingle the car keys in my hand and he slides out of the way so I can open my door. He takes another puff off his cigarette, watching me as I slide into the driver’s seat and fasten my seat belt. He taps on the window and I roll it partially down.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Sorry it didn’t work out with Jason. At the soccer game, it seemed like things were going your way.” Micah’s mohawk twists in the breeze, individual spikes of hair blowing forward into his face. He drops his cigarette to the ground and grinds it forcefully into the asphalt parking lot. His eyes meet mine, just for a second, and then he looks away. “Of course, sometimes it seems like that and then you find out it’s all bullshit you made up in your head.”
He bends down to pick up his cigarette butt and I put the car in PARK. I roll the window down the rest of the way. “Hey. You’re not mad at me, are you?”
“Nope. I’m thinking you’re probably right. We have had a crazy summer. Maybe you’re not the only one who needs a break from dating.”
Another burst of fireworks explodes across the dark sky, back-lighting Micah’s frame as he turns and walks away.
Chapter 32
“WHEN THE ENEMY IS CLOSE AT HAND AND REMAINS QUIET, HE IS RELYING ON THE NATURAL STRENGTH OF HIS POSITION.”
—SUN TZU, The Art of War
I’m dying to tell Bianca what happened at Jason’s party, but she calls in sick again the next day so I’ll have to wait until later to fill her in. Leo apparently picked up her shift and it’s just the two of us out front—him on the register and me making drinks.
I catch up on orders and then lean against the counter. “Did you ask that girl out yet?”
“Shhh.” Leo looks around nervously. “You’re the only one who knows about that.”
“You told me but didn’t tell Micah? Why?”
“I don’t know.” He wipes down the cash register with a damp towel. “I’m waiting to see if anything is going to come of it.”
“Probably nothing is going to come of it if you don’t ever talk to her,” I say.
“You guys telling secrets?” Micah passes by with a tray of Caribou Cookies. I feel my lips curving upward at the sight of him.
“Lainey’s giving me a pep talk,” Leo says. “I think she’d make a good cheerleader.”
“Thanks, Leo.” I tap the brim of his cap so it covers his eyes.
“That’s not really a compliment,” Micah informs me with a grin. He seems to be in a better mood than he was last night.
“Dude. Those cookies smell amazing.” My stomach growls.
Micah snaps the nearest cookie in half. “Oh, look, I broke one. Can’t sell that.” He offers the two pieces to Leo and me and then turns back to shut the pastry case.
“Micah, you are seriously the best.” I turn to Leo as I nibble on the frosted cookie. “I’m going to take a quick break if you’re cool up here for a couple minutes. I want to check on Bianca.”
“Sure,” Leo says. “Tell her I hope she’s feeling better.”
I follow Micah to the back where he returns to his prep list. Loitering in the doorway to the manager’s office, I finish eating my Caribou Cookie and then slide out my phone to call Bee.
She answers on the first ring. “Hey. How’s everything going?”
“Fine. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Everyone here says they hope you feel better.”
“I do feel better. Might become a vegetarian though.” She sounds cheery, but weak. “How are things? What’d you end up doing last night?”
“I went to Jason’s.” I watch Micah’s knife blade fly as he slices mushrooms for the pizza station. “I’ll fill you in on everything later.” I lower my voice. “When I can speak freely.”
“Sounds intriguing,” Bee says. “I look forward to it. Tell everyone I said hi and that I’m sorry for leaving them shorthanded.”
Even when she’s sick, she feels guilty about missing work. Sainthood. “Okay. We’ll talk soon.” I hang up the phone and head back to the register.
Leo gets off work an hour before my shift is over. “Hey,” I say as he heads for the front door. “Hang on for a minute. I’ve got your money in my purse.”
Micah glances up from the smoothie station where he’s cooking himself up some kind of blueberry-chocolate concoction. He’s always doing weird mixes of stuff. The other day I caught him blending pineapple and chili powder. He drank the whole thing without gagging too.
“It’s all good,” Leo says over the whir of the blender. “We had a deal.”
I shake my head. “I wouldn’t feel right. I shouldn’t have let you pay me in the first place.” I head to the back and grab the wad of twenties out of my purse. I count the money to make sure it’s all there as I return to the front counter. “Here.” I toss Leo the wad of bills.
Leo shoves the money in his pocket. “Cool. Thanks. I’ve got to get to my other job. See you guys.” He waves and then disappears out into the sun. Through the window, I watch him cross the parking lot.
Micah finishes blending and gives me a long look.
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head, topping his grayish-brown smoothie with a dollop of whipped cream. “I didn’t say anything.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I swipe at the screen. Kendall. No thanks. The phone buzzes again. And again. I pick it up and hit IGNORE. She calls back. Relentless. I swear.
“I can watch the counter if you want to get that,” Micah says.
I sigh and walk toward the front door where he won’t be able to hear every word I say. “What?” I snap into the phone.
“What happened last night? Jason said you guys got in a fight and then you ran off.”
“I did not run off.” I lower my voice and cup my free hand around my phone. “We started to hook up but then it felt weird so I left.”
“Weird how?”
“I don’t know. It just did.”
She scoffs. “Probably because it’s been a while for you two. He seems pissed. I’m not sure if he�
��s going to give you another chance.”
“I don’t think I want one,” I say coolly. I can’t believe I used to think Kendall was so smart. In a way, I’m glad she left town this summer. It gave me the space to think, to figure out what was important to me.
She changes the subject abruptly. “Come out tonight,” she says. “Let’s go dancing.”
The door swings inward and a pair of girls in plaid skirts and St. Martin’s windbreakers enter. One of them has a thick braid like Bianca.
“Where? Beat?” I watch the girls ponder the menu on the wall.
“Sure,” Kendall says.
Micah looks over at me from the cash register. He can make drinks but I’m not sure if he’s ever been trained in ringing people out. I need to go help him. “I don’t know, K. I’m kind of tired. And I don’t think I can deal with your brother again right now.”
“Come on,” she wheedles. “Jason won’t be there on a Wednesday night, I promise. He said something about going to Pin-Up Bowl. You totally owe me after skipping out on our party without even saying good-bye. My Jeep’s running all crazy and I’m afraid to drive it. If you don’t come get me, I’ll be stuck home doing nothing.”
I sigh. God forbid Kendall be stranded at home on a Wednesday night. I know I’m being manipulated but sometimes it’s just easier not to fight with her. And I could use a distraction of the non-boy variety. “Okay, I’ll go. But I have to get back to work now.”
Slipping my phone in my pocket, I rescue Micah from the register and he brews espresso for two cappuccinos while I make change. “Big plans?” he asks wryly.
“All my plans are big,” I say. “You? What was that about last night? You seemed kind of down when I left. I thought you and Amber had fun at the concert. Did I misunderstand?”
Micah pulls a rag out of his back pocket and wipes at an invisible spot on the espresso machine. “No. We had fun. We’re supposed to do something tonight too. I guess I’m just worried about rushing back into things.” He froths milk and finishes the girls’ drinks, setting them gently on the far side of the counter.
“Well, I hope it works out. I’m happy for you,” I say. I’m trying to be happy, I really am. But it’s hard to ignore the voice in my head that’s telling me if only I hadn’t been so stupid it could have been me and Micah having fun at the concert last night instead of him and Amber.
The girls take their drinks and Micah attacks a splash of milk on the counter with his rag. “I guess that’s it for us then, huh?”
“What do you mean?” A tiny crack opens up inside of me. You can still win, the voice says. I shush it. Enough with The Art of War. Enough with winning. People aren’t prizes. They’re not foreign territories or the spoils of victory or whatever Bianca said I should equate them to. Micah clearly wants Amber or he wouldn’t still be strategizing to win her back. And she’s better for him. She knows how she feels and isn’t afraid of it. They like the same stuff. For once in my life, I’m trying not to be selfish.
Why does it have to be so difficult?
“You’re giving up on Jason. Amber and I are probably getting back together. . . .” Micah trails off. There’s a hardness in his eyes.
“You know, we could always hang out as friends,” I suggest. “If being seen with a girl jock won’t damage your rep.”
His expression relaxes. “I might make an exception, for you.”
“You better,” I say. “Besides, by my count, you still owe me a couple of dates, and I reserve the right to collect on those when I have a sudden craving for screaming music or torture breakfast food.”
“Deal,” Micah says. Then he smiles. “Tell the truth. I’m more fun than that douche bag Jason, aren’t I?”
I smile back at him. “Maybe.”
Chapter 33
“IF IT IS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE, MAKE A FORWARD MOVE; IF NOT, STAY WHERE YOU ARE.”
—SUN TZU, The Art of War
Beat is much less crowded during the week. There are only about fifty people here. Thankfully none of them are Jason.
“I can’t believe I let you drag me here,” I tell Kendall.
She pulls me out into the smoky haze. “You like dancing,” she insists. “This will make you feel better.”
The weird thing is, I don’t actually feel too bad about everything that’s happened. I’m happy. Micah is happy. Leo is happy. So what if only one of us got our ex back? We all had fun, and I made a couple of new friends in the process.
The video screen is pumping out a skewed version of a rap video. The bass reverberates through the floor, the music cutting out occasionally. A handful of people are moving to the beat. I can only see the occasional flash of an elbow or head through the fog.
“Don’t think of this Jason thing as an epic fail.” Kendall grinds up against me. “If you’re really done with him, we’ll just have to find you someone else suitable.”
I barely hear her. The smoke is filtering away. Across the dance floor, a girl with ripped jeans and long, blonde hair is swinging her hips to the music. Amber. And shuffling his feet next to her is Micah.
Kendall follows my line of sight. “Mohawk Boy, she says triumphantly. “Micah something, right? You know, since I got back in town, several people have asked me what’s going on with you two. I thought they were delusional, but maybe I was wrong.”
“Nothing is going on with us,” I say.
“Then why are you gazing at him like he’s my brother and Caleb Waters rolled into one?”
I don’t answer. I’m still staring. Amber tosses her hair back from her face. The song stops but she keeps dancing.
“I think I get it,” Kendall says. “When Nicholas and I broke up, I hooked up with Dan Spencer the next weekend, just so I could feel better. Jason broke your heart and you did the same thing, right?” She takes my silence for agreement and keeps talking. “You have to let it go, Lainey. Think of it like a sexorcism, something you had to get out of your system.”
“I didn’t get anything out of my system,” I say sharply. “Nothing happened.” And for some reason that cuts me almost to the point of tears. Choking back a sob, I make for a folding chair along the nearest wall.
Kendall follows, flouncing down in the next chair. Her eyes turn to slits. “No freaking way. You are seriously into him. Why? Better yet, how?” She peers at Micah through the dwindling smoke. “Isn’t he a total loner with no friends? How did you even start talking?”
“He works at Denali,” I say. “And he has friends. Obviously.”
Amber puts her hands on Micah’s waist and twirls both of them around in a circle. Micah leans in to tell her something and she throws back her head and laughs.
Kendall scoffs. “More like accomplices. Jason heard he got expelled from middle school for attacking a security guard.”
“It was elementary school,” I mumble. “And he didn’t get expelled. He just got homeschooled until the end of the year. No big deal.”
Kendall scoots her chair close to mine, so close I can smell her jasmine perfume. “What about his arrest last year? Also no big deal?”
“No, but who even knows what he did?”
“Well, it probably wasn’t overdue library books,” she says. “Oh my God, Lainey. What is going on with you?”
Again, I feel like maybe she’s worried about me. And then she keeps talking.
“What are people going to say if you go back to school as the girl who is pining after a criminal?”
“I seriously doubt most people would care,” I say. But Kendall would. Of course she would. She was raised to believe that what matters more than effort or talent or heart is the way that people perceive you.
“I just don’t want people to get the wrong idea,” she murmurs.
“Like I said, nothing happened. Remember what I was telling you on the phone? It was all a plan to win back our exes.” I relay the high points of the plan, leaving out the part about The Art of War and how I actually fake-dated Leo too.
Kendall whistle
s. “What a diabolical scheme.” She points at Micah and Amber. Their bodies are pressed tight together. “And look, it obviously worked for those two. Why are you being all mopey? You should be proud of yourself.”
“It was mostly Bianca’s idea. I told you she was smart.” I swipe at the tear that hovers in the corner of my left eye. Micah and Amber do look happy. So then why do I feel like total crap?
“It’s stuffy in here,” I say. “I’m going to get a soda and sit on the patio.”
“Cool, I’ll come find you in a couple of songs. I need to sweat off a little more weight. My mom was überpissed about the pounds I gained in New York.”
“Both of them?” I make a mock scandalized face. “You fat pig.”
“I’m a solid one twenty.” Kendall holds her hand up for a high five. “If you ask me, I look better than ever, but she’s still monitoring my weight, so it’s just easier to stay skinny until I can move out.” She cruises off toward the middle of the dance floor.
I buy a soda from the bar and step out onto the back patio, being careful to keep my back toward Micah and Amber until the door closes safely behind me. Seeing them together hurts even more than seeing Jason and Alexandra did. Which is a stupid way to feel, considering that I’m the one responsible for it. Well, me and Bianca. And Sun Tzu.
Five wobbly card tables are arranged in a semicircle out here, but I’m all alone. The night air is thick and humid. I sink down into a chair and think about the last time I came to Beat, about the way Micah carried me to the car and let Amber’s call go to voice mail until he knew I was okay. My eyelids flutter closed. I can almost feel his hands on me. I can practically hear his voice.
“Who are you hiding from?”
I can hear his voice. My eyes snap open. Micah is standing right in front of me.
“Kendall,” I say. “She’s a little too energetic for me tonight.”
He shudders. “Yeah, I’d hide from her too.”
“She’s not that bad.”
“Yes she is,” he says with a grin. “Where’s she been all summer, anyway?”
“Shooting a reality TV show, if you can believe it.”
