The suspended girls are back and the school is practically throwing them a parade. But it’s not like anyone in that weird club has done anything besides sit around and talk about how much they’re changing the world, even though nothing’s really changed. They’re all patting themselves on the back for nothing. The only reason they think things are different is because they haven’t been hanging out with the boys. They’re going to be real disappointed when they end their stupid sex strike and find out guys are still assholes.
Except for one. But he’s not at school today. The seat next to Amber in Graphic Design is empty.
She’s supposed to be working on her midterm project, but she’s online looking up Web design classes at Prescott Community College. She always figured she’d start waitressing full-time at Buster’s like Mom as soon as she graduated, but maybe there are other options. Like maybe she could work part-time and get student loans to pay for college. Maybe she could find a roommate and a cheap apartment. Maybe there are possibilities she hasn’t even thought of yet.
Otis Goldberg told her she was good at computers. She’s better than him even, and he’s one of the smartest kids in school. No one’s ever told Amber she is good at anything, except for the things she’s not exactly proud of being good at.
Amber’s started thinking about other things, too. Like maybe that Chad guy can be the last guy she ever sleeps with on the first date. She thinks maybe she can decide if she likes a guy before she has sex with him, not after.
Sometimes she walks by Otis’s house, just hoping he’ll happen to be in the front yard and she can talk to him outside of school, outside of everybody looking at her the way they do. She wants to know what it feels like to have only him looking at her, as if his look could change her, as if it could tell her who she really is. There must be something like Cinderella’s glass slipper for Amber, something that could transform her in an instant and sweep her away from this life she inherited in a cruel twist of fate—if only she could make it fit. Otis’s desire could save her. His desire could turn her into a princess. All she has to do is be wanted by the prince.
People think Amber’s dumb, but she knows some things about people. Like how they get used to the way people look at them, how someone starts it and then everybody follows, and then before you know it, everybody looks at you that way, including yourself, and no one can remember where it started, and no one cares, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
But then maybe someone looks at you a little different. And maybe you start thinking you can be someone beside who you’ve always been, ever since Uncle Seth started looking at you when you were ten, when his eyes traced your body and told you who you are—not a princess anymore, not someone allowed to dream—when he started to do more than look, and then that’s all anyone ever did, all they ever wanted, and you were branded, like your body was made out of red flashing lights that told everybody the one thing it was good for, and their eyes told you who you are, and their eyes told your story.
But then one day, you stopped to think, What do I want? You stopped to think, Maybe I can tell my own story.
The only reason Otis Goldberg would ever miss school is because he’s sick. He’s that kind of person. So here Amber is now, ringing the doorbell of his house. She’s supposed to be in third period, but who is she kidding? Amber is not the kind of person whose life is going to be changed one way or another by how well she does in Math Fundamentals.
Otis will never know how much he’s done for her, but she can thank him. If he’s sick, she knows she can make him feel better. She knows she can’t do many things, but she can do that.
The door opens and Amber almost screams.
“Oh,” Otis says through cracked, bruised lips. “Hi, Amber.”
One of his eyes is swollen completely shut. He’s holding an ice pack on his side.
“I fell off my bike,” he says. “I’m not very coordinated.”
“I thought you were sick,” Amber manages to say. “I came to see how you were doing.”
It’s hard to tell if he smiles, because his mouth can’t move much. But Amber thinks she sees it in his one good eye, the way it crinkles at the side.
“Do you want to come in?” he says. “I’m watching a documentary about squid.”
His house is nice. It’s like TV-show nice. It’s obvious a real family lives here. Amber sits by Otis on the couch, and he doesn’t even seem to notice that she chose the spot in the middle, right next to him.
“Where are your parents?” she says.
“Both at work,” he says. “It was nice of you to come check on me.”
“I was worried about you.” Amber scoots closer so their legs are touching. She stares at him, waiting for him to meet her eyes so she can give him the look, but his eyes are on the TV.
“I never realized the ocean was so cool,” he says. “My interests have always been with history and current events and figuring out why people do things, but I guess science can be pretty fascinating too.”
“Oh, really?” Amber says. Guys love it when you act interested in what they’re saying.
“Yeah, like this Humboldt squid is supposed to be as smart as a dog. And it doesn’t even have a spine!”
Otis is different, yes. But he is still a boy, and as far as Amber knows, he is a boy who likes girls. He speaks the language of boys. It is a language Amber knows. It is the thing she does well. People act like this is something to be ashamed of. But when you get right down to it, everybody’s playing the same games.
Amber leans over Otis and grabs the remote control from the side table. She presses her breasts against his chest, just briefly, just long enough to make him gasp. She turns the TV off. She places her hand softly on his unbruised cheek. “Does it hurt?” she whispers.
He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. His eyes are wide. He is still trying to figure out what she is doing. Amber thinks he must not be used to girls like her, girls who speak his body’s language, girls who know what he wants.
She leans in closer. She can feel his chest breathing against hers. Amber’s lips are close to his ear, her hand on his knee, his thigh, inside, higher. She knows exactly what boys want. What men want. They have taught her.
“Stop,” he says, springing up so quickly Amber falls backward on the couch. “What are you doing?”
“I like you, Otis,” she says. “Don’t you like me?” She reaches for him but he backs away.
“As a friend,” he says. “I like you as a friend. That’s it.”
“I can be more than a friend.”
“I’m not interested in you that way, Amber.”
“It’s okay, Otis,” Amber says. “It’s not like I need you to call me your girlfriend or anything. We can have fun, that’s all. We can have a good time.”
Otis tries to back away, but his legs knock against the coffee table. He is trapped.
“I’m in love with someone else,” he says. “I don’t want to be with you.”
Amber sees something dark in his eyes. He is looking at her like she never thought he could—with pity.
“Who’s the lucky girl?” she says. She can feel herself harden. She can feel herself turn. She is becoming the other Amber—the bitch, the one everyone hates.
“Erin DeLillo,” he says, with a completely straight face.
“You can’t be serious,” Amber laughs.
“I am very serious.”