I have to admit he’s not a bad guy, really, but I worry that his attention span won’t last past Christmas. When you’re as good-looking and popular as he is, there is always a line of potential girlfriends waiting in the wings.
I covertly touch his letterman’s jacket while he’s packing up his stuff. I’m not proud of the fact, but I can’t help it. I want to see if there is anything going on that I need to worry about, but his fractal doesn’t give me the kind of information I’m looking for. All I get is the same navy-blue sadness — a complex network of arteries branching off forever. There is the same puppy-kicking heartache, the same heavy weight of disappointment, and a slight fuzzy, dizzy feeling. I don’t know what any of it means, exactly, but I doubt it has anything to do with Charlotte.
Zenn doesn’t come for tutoring on Mondays and Charlotte left right after school, so I walk home by myself. I think about heading up the hill to the body shop to see how they’re doing on the van, but I don’t want to seem like some kind of stalker. I mean, it’s a van I’ve seen a million times. They’re putting the clear coat of paint on soon. There is literally nothing new to see.
Out of ideas, I take a detour to the cemetery. I don’t go all that often because, frankly, I don’t have much of a connection to my real parents, much less to the random place where they are buried. But I find cemeteries oddly soothing, and maybe I still come occasionally out of survivor’s guilt. My mom brought me when I was little and I would make crayon rubbings of the headstones while she tidied up my parents’ — her sister’s and her brother-in-law’s — grave. I can tell she visits without me now because their grave is still weedless and green compared to the ones around it. I’m not sure what the proper frequency is for visiting the grave of parents you never really knew.
I step carefully down the rows between headstones until I find theirs: Lynn and Thomas Scheurich. Once again, a smooth, round stone sits on the top of the marker. The first time I found one I thought it was just a weird coincidence — that a rock had been kicked up by a lawnmower and landed on the gravestone — so I brushed it back to the ground with my hand. But the next time I visited, I found another one, same place. The third time, I pocketed the rock and went home to Google stones on graves. It had to be intentional.
My Google results showed it is a Jewish tradition to place a stone or pebble on a headstone, indicating that you have visited. Unlike flowers, stones don’t die, so stones are better suited to the “permanence of memory.” I also learned that shepherds used to keep pebbles in a sling, one for each of their sheep, to keep track of their flock when they would take them out to pasture. Placing a pebble on the grave is a way to ask God to keep watch over your departed loved one. So it’s a show of respect. And a symbol. Mystery solved.
Today, there is another one: nearly white, and speckled, about the size of an egg, but flat. I hold it in my palm and note it’s the kind I find when Charlotte and I walk South Beach, made smooth and round by the sand and waves. Someone brought it here on purpose, and I suspect it’s my mom. Even though we are clearly not Jewish, she loves religious traditions and tokens of any kind. We’re not Catholic, but she lights candles for people who have died and uses a rosary when she prays sometimes. Leaving a stone on the grave would be right up her alley.
I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my own stone — an almost square reddish one that I picked up the last time Charlotte and I were at the beach — and I swap hers for mine.
My mom and I don’t talk much about my parents and she no longer feels obligated to drag me along to the cemetery with her, but I know she’ll be happy to see this evidence that I am visiting on my own. If she notices the different rock and realizes I’m the one who left it, that is. I could leave hers there and add mine, or I could leave her a note or something, but I kind of like the idea that we’re having an unspoken conversation, back and forth, with just our stones.
On Tuesday I put on mascara, telling myself it’s not that unusual; I do it sometimes. But then I also blow-dry my hair a little and put on some lip balm. It’s lip balm, not lip gloss, but I know it’s a fine line — just a slight variation of shimmer — between the two. When I look in the mirror the difference is so subtle no one would even notice. But I notice. I know it’s all for Zenn, and my high-and-mighty stance about beauty now feels fake. Maybe it’s normal to want to make yourself stand out around the guy you like, I tell myself. It’s nature. I mean, that’s why peacocks have fancy feathers and why baboons flaunt their rosy-pink asses. It’s all a mating ritual and we humans are just animals when it comes down to it. Maybe Charlotte, with her lip gloss and eyeliner, is more normal and natural than I am. Maybe I’m the ridiculous one, destined for a life alone because I refuse to flash my pink ass. So to speak.
Frustrated and confused, I throw on my glasses and my favorite unflattering hoodie and head to school.
During fifth period I take my lunch to the library. You’re not supposed to eat in there, but Mrs. Lanham loves me and won’t say a word. Besides, it’s not like kids hang out in the library at lunchtime, much less any who will be tempted down the road to delinquency by me, their nerd ringleader. The place is deserted.
In my hurry to blend back in with the normal kids when the bell rings, I take a corner too fast and crash straight into Zenn. Like, smack into him so hard that my glasses nearly fly off my face. Figures. I have never actually seen him during the school day before and yet now, at a vulnerable moment, here he is. I grab his jacket to keep from falling, but the fractal hits so fast I let go like he’s on fire. Zenn steadies me by holding my shoulders.
“Whoa. Sorry,” he says.
“Totally my fault. I just” — I gesture a curve — “took that turn a bit fast.”
His hands are still on my upper arms, holding tight. His firm grip feels amazing and I wish I could grab on to him for balance (or under the guise of needing balance). But … touching is a one-way street. I can be touched, I can’t touch back. Not with my hands, anyway.
He looks down at the empty lunch bag clutched in my hand. “Did you eat in the library?”
Busted. What a loser. I adjust my glasses.
“Um …”
Unexpected tears of self-pity sting my eyes and I blink quickly to keep them at bay. I don’t think I fool Zenn. Still holding my shoulders, he steers me back into the library and pushes me gently to sit on a table. He drops his hands from my arms and leans down to make eye contact.
His direct gaze is unnerving.
“What’s going on?”
I shrug and look away, a little uncomfortable with his concern. “Nothing. Just … catching up on some homework.”
I can tell he doesn’t believe me.