“Little D.” Miney sits up and shakes her head. “You can’t. I mean, you got to be careful about the dead dad stuff.”
“Kit says she likes that I tell the truth. She called it ‘brutal honesty,’ but I think it’s the same thing.”
Miney stays still for a minute. She’s wearing her thinking face.
“I think you need to ask Kit out.”
“What?”
“Not like on a date or anything. Not yet. Something super-casual. Maybe to study. Or to work on a school project together. You need to up your time together in a way that feels like a natural extension of lunch.” Miney pulls her hair back from her face and ties it in a ponytail. The purple gets mostly hidden, and I feel the tightness in my chest lighten. Her eyes are still bloodshot, and there are triangles of blue below them. I will pick up some zinc lozenges from the drugstore later in case she’s getting sick. “I wish I remembered Kit from when I went to Mapleview. I looked up her Twitter and Instagram and stuff, but it didn’t tell me much. She seems surprisingly normal.”
“Why is that surprising? I told you she was perfect. Also, she’s the prettiest girl in school.”
“Eh, she’s cute enough.” I have no idea what she’s cute enough for, but I don’t ask. Whatever Kit is, I like it.
“Why would we study together? I’m way ahead in all my subjects. It would be inefficient.” I stare at the right side of Miney’s face. That way I can’t see the new piercing. Like the purple stripe, it screams at me. No, there’s a slight octave shift. It feels like it’s demanding something, but I don’t know what.
“Missing the point. But before we get to any of that, if you want any shot here, we need to clean you up. The time has come, Little D.”
Miney smiles in that way she does when she’s about to force me to do something scary. She’s like Trey that way. Always pushing me out of what she calls “my comfort zone,” which I’ll never understand. Why would you purposely make yourself uncomfortable?
Since Miney is number one on the Trust List, I try hard to do whatever she asks. That’s not always possible.
“The time has come for what?” I think of Kit’s clavicle. The perfect little circle of freckles. Pi. It relaxes me, like counting backward.
“Shopping, Little D. Time to get over your fear of the big bad mall.” Yup, I was right. Horrifying.
David Drucker is officially everywhere. In the parking lot before and after school. In almost all my classes. And, of course, at lunch, since I continue to choose his table as a refuge. Presumably he has always been in all these places, but until now I’ve never noticed him. You would think someone who is that bizarre wouldn’t be able to camouflage, but he is so entirely self-contained on his strange headphone island that he moves silently through school. He causes almost no ripple.
Still, after what is shaping up to be the Week of David, it’s just plain weird when I run into him at the drugstore. And I mean that literally. We are both looking down when our shoulders crash. Ouch.
“Are you following me?” I ask in a jokey tone. I’m borderline flirting with him in front of the maxi pads with wings. I drop my jumbo pack of super-absorbent Tampax and kick it behind me so he doesn’t see.
“No, of course not,” David says, and he sounds offended, like I’ve accused him of something.
“I didn’t mean…Never mind. It’s just funny to see you here.”
“Just picking up some stuff for Miney,” he says, and it occurs to me that actually I’ve been the one seeking him out lately, with the notable exception of the football snack shack. I chose his lunch table after all. I offered him a ride home yesterday. Maybe I’m annoying him?
“Miney?”
“My sister.”
“You have two sisters?” I wonder if Miney is as effortlessly cool as Lauren. I decide not. Not only does she have a weird name—who would name their kid Miney?—but no one is as effortlessly cool as Lauren Drucker. I glance at his basket: a bunch of different cold medicines.
“Just the one. Miney’s a nickname. Lauren graduated last year.”
“I know.”
“You know Miney?” he asks.
“I mean, I know who she is. Everyone at school does.” I wish I could somehow move us out of the feminine hygiene aisle, but condoms and lubricants are next.
“Really?”
“Of course. President of her class. Homecoming queen. She’s, like, Mapleview royalty.” If I were talking to Justin, I probably wouldn’t have admitted knowing all this info about his family. I don’t bother playing it cool with David. Not sure he’d notice.
“You don’t have any siblings, right?” he asks, and for the first time I see that he looks a lot like his sister. Different demeanor and mannerisms and voice, but the same face. Dark eyes and long eyelashes and full lips. If it weren’t for his jaw, which is square and strong and always has a dusting of five-o’clock shadow, he’d be almost pretty.
“Just me. All by my lonesome.” He nods, as if confirming that which he already knew.
“You seem like an only child.”
“I can’t decide if that’s an insult or a compliment.”
“Neither. It’s an observation. I’ve always thought it would be even lonelier not having a sister.”
“Are you saying I seem lonely?” This is what it is like to talk to David Drucker. Dive straight into the center. No matter that we are in a drugstore, surrounded by tampons and Monistat. We make good conversational partners, I think: I’ve forgotten the art of small, inconsequential talk, and he’s never learned it.
“No, not really. But there’s a stillness to you. Like if you were a radio wave, you’d have your very own frequency. Which is isolating because I don’t think everyone can hear you.” He delivers his speech to my feet but then suddenly looks up and stares into my eyes. The eye contact feels raw and intimate, and I shiver. I blink first. “I mean, you have lots of other waves too, all those commonly shared frequencies, the ones I most certainly lack, but the most important waves, the core you ones, those are harder for other people to decipher. That’s my theory, anyway.”
I don’t know what to say to this. David Drucker has a theory about my metaphorical radio waves.
—
Once we are outside in the bitter cold, standing with our hands stuffed into our winter jacket pockets, I suggest we get something to eat. I don’t want to get back into the car. I don’t want to go home. Both of these involve feeling feelings, which I prefer to avoid. Distraction is what I need. Distraction keeps time from being in slo-mo.
“Pizza Palace?” David asks. It’s just a few doors down. I picture my friends all huddled in a booth in the back. No need to combine David with my real life.
“Nah.”
“I figured you wouldn’t want to go there. Pizza Pizza Pizza is so much better and has that great two-for-one deal. I just didn’t want to suggest it,” David says.
“Why?”
“The name. It’s not like they have three times more pizza than other places. Ridiculous.”