I’d snorted and she’d looked offended—a look that was glossed over with a quick reply—“Sorry I can’t chat. I need to hang these up. If you need anything, let me know”—and a rapid exit. Perfect manners. Perfect girl.
The name fits her—shiny and pretentious. And there’s no escaping her within the high school; she’s like the town’s poster girl for model teenage citizen. Besides her save-the-world-from-everything campaigns, her face smiles down from the video announcements broadcast every morning. Video. Because what’s the point in having networked hi-def projectors and a state-of-the-art video-editing lab if you can’t use them in flashy ways? And even among all the too-peppy students speaking way too cheerfully, way too early in the morning, she stands out: all smiles and school spirit while urging people to buy prom tickets, vote in student elections, support the Cross Pointe Cougars in playoff games, come to Gay-Straight Alliance meetings, see the spring musical …
In fact, I bet if I bothered to check the Facebook pages of any Cross Pointe students, the one thing they’d all have in common is her on their friends’ list.
And now she’s in my car too.
The car where—dammit! Like she didn’t do enough damage tonight.
I can’t think about Carly right now.
Brighton interrupts my brooding to say, “I’m sorry you got stuck driving me. I know it’s not how you wanted to spend your night.”
“It’s fine.” I do not want the drive to turn into a round of socially acceptable small talk. I gesture to the stereo. “Put on whatever.”
“Whatever you were listening to is fine.” She presses the power button and flinches back from the loud barrage of screaming and thudding.
I doubt she can hear my laughter till I turn it off and spin the dial on my iPod to illuminate a list of bands. “Probably not your taste. What do you want to hear?”
“Anything’s fine.”
There is nothing more annoying than people with no opinion. “Rap?”
“Sure.”
“Country?”
“I guess.”
“Classical?” No one can like rap, country, and classical.
“If you want.”
“God, how can you stand to be around yourself?”
“Excuse me?” But her voice doesn’t go up in a question, it goes down in annoyance. “I don’t understand why you’re so determined to dislike me.”
Does she really want to go there? Because I will. “How do you think people describe you? They say, ‘Brighton Waterford, she’s so …’”
“I don’t know.” She stares at her nails. “I hope they’d say nice.”
“Nice?” I scoff. “Nice is the word you use when you can’t think of a real adjective. It’s what you say when something doesn’t make an impression. Socks are a ‘nice’ gift. That’s the word you want people to use about you?”
“What would people say about you?” she challenges.
It’s a fair question, but it doesn’t have just one answer. My old baseball team would go with quitter; apparently Carly would choose cheater; anyone at CP High would say loser; while my mother would say maladjusted. My dad wouldn’t sugarcoat it; he’d called me a traitor, a disappointment, and worse before he left.
I offer the words that seem truest: “Cynical? Jaded?”
“And those are better than nice?”
“Yes, because nice is for people we forget.” This answer finally silences her.
I’ve reached the edge of my neighborhood and have to turn onto Main Street. Each of the neighborhoods in Cross Pointe connects to Main Street, and each has its own pretentious name: an Estate, a Hunt, a Grove, or a Glen. “So, where do you live, Bright?”
She drops the iPod and her cell phone into the cup holder. “Don’t call me that!”
I shrug like it’s no big deal, but I know she’ll be Bright in my head from now on. This is what it takes to get an opinion out of her, a stupid shortening of her name? Nicknames probably aren’t snobby and proper enough for her. She’d probably prefer I call her by her full name, while genuflecting.
“Turn left on Main. I live in Ashby Estates.” She picks up my iPod again and scrolls. “Wait! You have ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch’? Really?”
The smile she sends my way is the first nonplastic one of the night; it’s a little lopsided and a hell of a lot sexier than when she poses. I turn away.
The song’s from a playlist I made for Marcos when Carly and I took him to see Santa at the mall last Christmas. I reach over and place my hand on top of hers, ready to press the skip button.
Her skin is so soft.
Soft skin? Carly and I just—I jerk my hand back to the wheel before my thoughts veer down the revenge-screw path.
“I don’t get why you’d choose to be grinch-y,” she persists, a cheerleader tone creeping into her voice. “People would like you if you’d let them. You’re a great guy, I can tell.”
“You’re right! If I just listen to Brighton Waterford’s guide to popularity, my life will be perfect.”
She stares at me, shoulders pulled in and forehead creased. “So, you don’t want anyone to like you?”