“What’s his name?”
“Harry.” If she’s going to be difficult, then so am I. “The platypus.”
My mom slows the car again, rolls down the window and turns the radio even louder.
“Zenn,” I yell, laughing. “His name is Zenn.” I turn down the volume.
“Ben?”
“Zenn. With a Z.”
“Oh. Unusual.”
I nod. I know she’s just trying to make conversation, to get me to include her in my life, but it feels weird. Moms want to talk to their daughters about boys, but daughters do not want to talk to their moms about boys. I don’t know why. It’s one of the rules of teenager-parent interaction.
She is raising her eyebrows in a hopeful way. Oh, God, what the hell. It will make her so happy.
“He’s the one painting the church van.”
“Oh! In that case I should turn around and give him a hug.”
She starts to brake again and I whine, “Mom!”
“I’m kidding. Jeez, lighten up, Ev.”
I don’t offer anything else right away, maybe to punish her. When my mom tries too hard to be chummy, I clam up. I am the gatekeeper of information and if she wants any of it, she has to limit her embarrassing behavior.
Now she sighs, and the melancholy sound of it makes me want to offer her more.
“We hung out last night.”
Joy flashes briefly in her eyes, and I want to tell her not to get her hopes up. I think she’s just thrilled that I wasn’t alone on homecoming night. Must be hard to watch your kid be such a loner.
“I thought you were at Java Dock?”
“I was. But he stopped by to get coffee and then I hung out with him while he worked on the van. We went to Taco Hell. No biggie.”
She keeps it low-key. “Cool,” she says. “Is he cute? I didn’t get a good look.”
I want to be cool, indifferent, blasé … but against my will I admit: “He’s not bad.”
Understatement. Of. The. Year.
Chapter 15
On Monday in AP Literature we have to work in groups and, for the first time ever, Charlotte allows herself to make immediate will-you-be-my-partner eye contact with someone besides me. By the time she looks my way, she has already committed to working with a cheerleader and a basketball player. She gives me an apologetic look. I can tell she feels bad, but not bad enough to ditch them. Instead, I ask the two boys in the class who are least likely to get laid before their twenty-fifth birthdays. They graciously accept my offer.
At least I’m still appreciated in some circles.
The same sort of subtle abandonment is happening at lunch. A group of Josh’s friends is trying to lure Charlotte to their table, but there is only one open seat. Charlotte stays with me, but glances longingly at the empty chair that is meant for her.
“Soooo,” I say, trying to start up a conversation. “Are you going to do Science Fair again this year?”
“Hmmm?” Charlotte looks up from her phone.
“Science Fair? Are you doing it this year?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Are you?”
“Yeah. Carlson says I should. Since I want to major in something STEM related, he says it looks good to do it all four years.”
She nods and takes a bite of her sandwich. “I might not. I’m not majoring in science so … you know.”
“Right.”
Someone laughs loudly at the other table and Charlotte glances over again. What am I doing? She’s like a dog who wants to run and I’m standing on her leash.
This is so hard.
I toss my garbage in the trash can and feel like I’m about to do the same with our friendship.
“Char, I’m going to be tutoring at lunchtime, you know, before midterms. So … I probably won’t be here much.”
“You won’t?” She sounds sad, but I don’t know what to believe anymore.
“Probably not until after Christmas break. So if you want to find someone else to sit with, go ahead. Since I’m not going to be here anyway.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Letting someone go is hard.
I guess I get it. It’s exciting to have new friends. I remember when we first met in sixth grade and we couldn’t get enough of each other. We liked the same TV shows, laughed at the same things, had the same sort of disdain for the cool crowd that comes from knowing you’ll never be a part of it. Charlotte was all elbows and knees with puffy blond hair and braces. If you really looked at her, you could see that she’d be pretty one day. But at twelve, she wasn’t there yet.
Up until fifth grade, my friendships were unaffected by my “gift.” But after Lauren, all hell broke loose. Every rejection and insecurity and drama-filled adolescent moment left kids scarred, and when I touched anyone or anything, I became scarred, too. But Charlotte’s fractals were surprisingly pure. Where touching most thirteen-year-old kids left me feeling woozy and exhausted, Charlotte’s fractal still managed to be pink and sunny, hopeful and warm. Charlotte and I became connected at the hip, and eventually I told her all the secrets (well, the two main secrets) that I kept from everyone else: about my “parents” and my “condition.” She’s never shared any deep, dark secrets with me, but I suspect that’s because she doesn’t have any. Most of her secrets have been about which boy she likes at the moment. So I guess it’s not surprising that we’ve gotten to this point, where she’d have to choose between a boy — that one special boy — and me. I guess I just thought that once we made it through middle school we’d be past this sort of thing.
I don’t really have any lunchtime tutoring to do, so I’ll have to find somewhere to hang out during fifth period. The other people we sit with at lunch are okay, but I don’t want to hang out with them without Charlotte. She may be quiet and slightly awkward, but she is Miss Congeniality compared to me. How do I get closer to people when one touch tells me far too much about them? How do I ever erase that stuff from my mind and just be normal teenage friends?
Sometimes Charlotte has cello-group lessons during lunch, and I go to the library or to Mr. Haase’s room. Guess I’ll be doing that every day now.
When I check Josh’s algo, I can tell that he’s finally starting to get bits and pieces of trig. Sure enough he reports that he’s gotten his grade up to a low C. He’ll be going back to football practice starting tomorrow, just checking in with me weekly for maintenance. He seems happy and proud of himself and I’m not sure how much of that has to do with his math grade and how much has to do with Charlotte.