Lauren gives her friend a final push. “I slipped a jalape?o in her smoothie once and she didn’t even notice.”
Whit switches to me again and a smile creeps up his cheeks. My mouth goes dry. Don’t tell me Aunt Bryony’s batch is defective, too. Maybe something’s wrong with the formula. Now I’ll have to make another disclosure and—
“Do you have a library card? Because I am checking you out.” Whit beams at Pascha.
Pascha blushes, and Lauren claps her hands together.
I let out a held breath, then back away slowly. The only person who notices me leave is Lauren, who gives me a thumbs-up.
I take a shortcut around the crowd back to the library to grab my bike. After lunch, instead of regular afternoon classes, the whole school does “school-spirit-building exercises on the field, like tug-of-war and three-legged races. I might as well go home and talk to Mother. No use putting off the inevitable. Plus, then I can stop worrying about running into Court.
On my way to the library racks, I pass an equipment shed, wincing at the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. That odor could seep through a brick wall. A figure leans against the back of the shed, looking out toward the street. Melanie’s cigarette’s short enough to burn her fingers. When she sees me, she chuckles, then throws her stub to the ground. “Well, hello, witch.”
I don’t remember smelling tobacco on her before. Must be a new habit. Maybe she was sick of getting hand-me-down fumes from Vicky and decided to make her own. I’m tempted to throw something back, but then I notice her knees, both skinned and bleeding.
She snorts. “I tripped.”
I think about asking her if she’s okay, but she would just ignore me. Her trembling fingers reach into her purse and pull out a lighter and a fresh cigarette. I hike my messenger bag more securely over my shoulder. I should just leave her alone. But I can’t, either because I’m genetically predisposed to meddle in the lives of others or because I feel like she has earned the right to a few punches in my direction. “I can find you some aloe.”
“You think plants can fix everything.” Her face is blotchy with dry patches above her mouth.
“Not everything. We’re still looking for the cure for the common cold.”
She fumbles with her lighter but manages to light her cigarette. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
“What do you mean?”
“Mom and Mr. Frederics were good together.”
I swallow my surprise and lick my dried lips. “I thought you didn’t want them to be together.”
“At first. But they’re like, made for each other. Anyone with half a brain could see that. It would’ve been easier on everyone.” Spittle flecks her mouth.
I lift my chin. “Easier doesn’t make it right.”
“Harder doesn’t make it right, either.”
Touché.
“You live up there in your fairy-tale garden, thinking you’re so special because you bring love to the world.” She draws out the word love as if it’s a disease. “But what happens after you make those matches? What happens if Prince Charming turns out to be more like Prince Loser? Life is not all roses for the rest of us. Sometimes the right thing is the wrong thing.” Smoke curls out her nostrils.
I shift from clog to clog. She has a point. The Rulebook prescribes one course, but it’s not always the most humane.
When did the path grow so crooked? At first, undoing my mistake seemed all important. Then things changed, relationships changed.
The blood is starting to clot on Melanie’s skinned knee. I suddenly remember the business card in my bag. The words “Evelyn Salzmann, Sculptor to the Stars” are printed in typewriter font with a phone number. I hold the card out to Melanie.
She barely glances at the name and doesn’t take it. “Yeah, so?”
“She’s looking for an intern.” I stick the card in the hedge right where she can see it. Then I leave. If she decides to keep the card or burn it, I don’t want to know. I have enough Sawyers on my mind at the moment.
I collect my bike and walk it through the courtyard. Students lounge around a flagpole, eating lunch. Once I reach the parking lot, I hop on my bike.
Court’s Jeep is toward the back. The sight pours a giddy kind of poison into me. I think back to our kiss in Neptune’s court, knowing that the smell of the ocean, the miso scent of bladder wrack, the California lilac, even the Styrofoam smell of neoprene will always remind me of the pain and the joy of knowing Court.
A Volkswagen brakes hard right next to me and I stumble off my bike, but catch myself before I go splat.
Through the open window, the driver, a girl in a drill-team uniform, yells something at me. I hardly hear the obscenity when I recognize her passenger.
The sight punches me in the gut.
Court Sawyer, his face stricken, is holding a cheeseburger.