Mel said, “I’ll pick you up around seven, okay?” and then, “Ow,” as Patrick accidentally elbowed him in the head in his rush to get out of his desk.
I nodded in Mel’s direction just so I could get out of there and then spent all of my next class totally pissed at myself for being so . . . well, me. But then I realized Mel doesn’t know where I live, so maybe this dating thing will work out after all.
76
N I N E
TODAY ME AND LAURIE were supposed to talk about Julia. She said that last time. I know she did. I heard her. And Laurie—
I really fucking hate her.
Things started out okay.
“How do I start?” I said after we’d done the introduc-tory bullshit. I didn’t know how to put Julia into words.
She was bigger than that.
“However you want,” Laurie said. So helpful, as always.
I started at the beginning. “I met Julia when I was eleven.
I had just started sixth grade. Mom and Dad had spent the summer in Germany. Mom was working on her second book and doing research for it, and Dad was trying to get meetings with a bunch of companies his company wanted 77
to work with. I was sent to drama camp, art camp, and outdoor adventure camp.”
“You spent the summer away from your parents?”
“Obviously.” 111 days, and this was where I was. I deserved it, I know, but still. Laurie was a big fucking weight to bear.
“Did you miss them?”
I shrugged. It was easier than saying it was more complicated than that, that missing someone means they have to actually be there, really there, for you to miss them.
“They sent postcards and stuff, and when they came to pick me up two days before school started, they said I’d grown a lot and showed me photos. The archive where Mom worked. The office building where Dad worked.
The house they’d rented. The view from their kitchen window. They said they loved Germany so much they weren’t sure they ever wanted to come home and laughed. I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
She knew damn well why I didn’t—anyone with the slightest bit of a clue could know why—and so I ignored her and kept talking.
“I showed them the pictures I’d painted and gave them the video of the play I’d been in and—well, I didn’t have 78
anything to show from the outdoor adventure camp other than the certainty that I really didn’t enjoy white- water rafting, climbing ropes, or forced marches that were called ‘hiking.’ They said the pictures were nice and watched the video while Mom worked on syllabi and Dad read through contracts. They both promised I wouldn’t have to go to adventure camp again.”
They never said they missed me, but I wasn’t about to tell Laurie that.
When I looked at her, though, I could tell she already knew.
“And Julia?” was all she said, though.
“I started school, and it was the same as always. I just—I never said the right things fast enough or wore the right clothes soon enough. I never did things quite right.”
Laurie nodded like she understood. “So you felt like you didn’t belong?”
“No,” I said, even though that was pretty much how I felt. I just hate it when Laurie talks like she knows me. “I had friends, Caro and Beth and Anne Alice, but we—well, we fought, like friends do, and I was always the fi rst one to be talked about or laughed at or ignored. It was like no matter how hard I tried—that’s probably it. I tried too 79
hard. Nothing is worse than someone who wants something too much, you know?”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” I said, and she clicked her god-damned pen. I wished Julia was there, because she’d have just gotten up, taken Laurie’s pen, and thrown it out a window or something.
“So how did you meet Julia?” she said.
“She moved to Lawrenceville in October, and her first day at school was right before Halloween. She had to stand up in front of the whole class and talk about herself, and you could tell she wasn’t nervous, that she wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything. That was the first thing I noticed about her.”
“What did she say?”
“I don’t remember.” But I did. She said she was twelve and that she’d been held back a year. She said it like it wasn’t a big deal, like being held back was something we’d missed out on. And then, during recess, as I sat alone, banished from playing with Beth, Caro, and Anne Alice because Beth said I’d worn my hair wrong, she came up to me. She said, “I’m Julia. Want to go trick-or-treating with me on Halloween?”
