Crescendo

Bracing my fingertips on his hard stomach, I leaned in, stopping just short of a kiss. I love you more, I said, brushing his mouth as I spoke.

Only, the words didn’t come out. They stayed caught in my throat.

While Patch waited for me to respond, his smile faltered.

I love you, I tried again. Once again, the words stayed clamped inside.

Patch’s expression turned anxious. “I love you, Nora,” he repeated.

I nodded frantically, but he’d turned away. He swung off the motorcycle and left without looking back.

I love you! I yelled after him. I love you, I love you!

But it was as if quicksand had been poured down my throat; the harder I tried to wrestle the words out, the faster they were towed under.

Patch was slipping away in a crowd. Night had fallen down around us in a snap, and I could barely distinguish his black T-shirt from the hundreds of other dark shirts in the masses. I ran to catch up, but when I grabbed his arm, it was someone else who turned around. A girl. It was too dark to get a good read on her features, but I could tell she was beautiful.

“I love Patch,” she told me, smiling through shocking red lipstick. “And I’m not afraid to say it.”

“I did say it!” I argued. “Last night I told him!”

I pushed past her, eyes scanning the crowd until I caught a glimpse of Patch’s trademark blue ball cap. I shoved my way frantically over to him and reached out to catch his hand.

He turned back, but he’d changed into the same beautiful girl. “You’re too late,” she said. “I love Patch now.”

“Over to Angie with weather,” Chuck Delaney yapped cheerfully in my ear.

My eyes sprang open at the word “weather.” I lay in bed a moment, trying to shake off what was nothing more than a bad dream, and get my bearings. The weather was announced at twenty before the hour, and there was no possible way I was hearing the weather, unless …

Summer school! I’d overslept!

Kicking back the covers, I fled to the closet. Shoving my feet into the same jeans I’d discarded at the bottom of the closet last night, I stretched a white tee over my head and layered it with a lavender cardigan. I speed- dialed Patch but three rings later was sent to voice mail. “Call me!” I said, pausing a half second to wonder if he was avoiding me after last night’s big confession. I’d made up my mind to pretend it had never happened until it blew over and things returned to normal, but after this morning’s dream, I was beginning to doubt I’d let go of it that easily. Maybe Patch was having just as hard a time dropping it. Either way, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it right now. Even though I could have sworn he’d promised me a ride …

I pushed a headband into my hair in lieu of a hairstyle, snatched my backpack off the kitchen counter, and rushed out the door.

I paused in the driveway long enough to give a scream of exasperation at the eight-by-ten-foot slab of cement where my 1979 Fiat Spider used to sit. My mom had sold the Spider to pay off a three-months-delinquent electricity bill, and to stock our fridge with enough groceries to keep us fed through the end of the month. She’d even dismissed our housekeeper, Dorothea, a.k.a. my surrogate parent, to trim expenses. Sending a hateful thought in the direction of Circumstance, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and started jogging. Most people might consider the rural Maine farmhouse my mom and I live in quaint, but the truth is, there’s nothing quaint about the mile-long jog to the nearest neighbors. And unless quaint is synonymous with eighteenth-century drafty money pit situated in the eye of an atmospheric inversion that sucks in all the fog from here to the coast, I beg to differ.

At the corner of Hawthorne and Beech, I saw signs of life as cars zipped along on their morning commute. I used one hand to stick my thumb in the air and the other to unwrap a piece of breath-freshening, toothpaste- replacing gum.

A red Toyota 4Runner braked at the curb, and the passenger window lowered with an automated hum. Marcie Millar sat behind the wheel. “Car trouble?” she asked.

Car trouble as in no car. Not that I was about to admit it to Marcie.

“Need a ride?” she rephrased impatiently when I failed to answer.

I couldn’t believe out of all the cars passing down this stretch of road, Marcie’s had to be the one to stop. Did I want to ride with Marcie? No. Was I still worked up over what she’d said about my dad? Yes. Was I about to forgive her? Absolutely not. I would have gestured for her to keep driving, but there was one small snag. Rumor had it that the only thing Mr. Loucks liked more than the periodic table of the elements was handing out detention slips to tardy students.

“Thanks,” I accepted reluctantly. “I’m on my way to school.”

“Guess your fat friend couldn’t give you a ride?”

I froze with my hand on the door handle. Vee and I had long ago given up educating small-minded people that “fat” and “curvy” are not the same thing, but that didn’t mean we tolerated the ignorance. And I would have gladly called Vee for a ride, but she’d been invited to attend a training meeting for hopeful editors of the school’s eZine and was already at school.

“On second thought, I’ll walk.” I gave Marcie’s door a shove, locking it back in position.

Marcie tried on a confused face. “Are you offended I called her fat? Because it’s true. What is it with you? I feel like everything I say has to be censored. First your dad, now this. What happened to freedom of speech?”

For a split moment I thought it would be nice and convenient if I still had the Spider. Not only would I not be stranded without a ride, but I might get the pleasure of plowing Marcie over. The school parking lot was chaotic after school. Accidents happened.

Since I couldn’t bounce Marcie off my front fender, I did the next best thing. “If my dad owned the Toyota dealership, I think I’d be environmentally minded enough to ask for a hybrid.”

“Well, your dad doesn’t own the Toyota dealership.”

“That’s right. My dad’s dead.”

She raised one shoulder. “You said it, not me.”

“From now on, I think it’s better if we stay out of each other’s way.”

She examined her manicure. “Fine.”

“Good.”

“Just trying to be nice, and look where it got me,” she said under her breath.

“Nice? You called Vee fat.”

“I also offered you a ride.” She floored the gas, her tires spitting up road dust that wafted in my direction.

I hadn’t woken up this morning looking for another reason to hate Marcie Millar, but there you go.

Coldwater High had been erected in the late nineteenth century, and the construction was an eclectic mix of Gothic and Victorian that looked more cathedral than academic. The windows were narrow and arched, the glass leaded. The stone was multicolored, but mostly gray. In the summer, ivy crawled up the exterior and gave the school a certain New England charm. In the winter, the ivy resembled long skeletal fingers choking the building.

I was half speed-walking, half jogging down the hall to chemistry when my cell phone rang in my pocket.

“Mom?” I answered, not slowing my pace. “Can I call you ba—”

“You’ll never guess who I ran into last night! Lynn Parnell. You remember the Parnells. Scott’s mom.”

I peeked at the clock on my cell. I’d been fortunate enough to hitch a ride to school with a complete stranger—a woman on her way to kickboxing at the gym—but I was still cutting it short. Less than two minutes to the tardy bell. “Mom? School is about to start. Can I call you at lunch?”

“You and Scott were such good friends.”

She’d triggered a faint memory. “When we were five,” I said. “Didn’t he always wet his pants?”

“I had drinks with Lynn last night. She just finalized her divorce, and she and Scott are moving back to Coldwater.”

“That’s great. I’ll call you—”