Fairy Tale (12 page)

Yes,
she is pointing at us. I feel the half bite of mini quiche I'd tasted in Gizelle's office trying to force its way up my throat. "We can't-"

She claps again. "Don't tell me you can't. I'll show you. Now, get into position."

I feel her adjusting my limbs like I'm some life-sized Barbie, placing Pip's arm around my waist. He pulls me in close, and I don't think I've ever been this near to a guy that wasn't Cam, so maybe that's the reason I start to feel hot and feverish. Or maybe it's because if it isn't solo butt-shaking or hug-and-sway, I don't dance. Pip is grinning dumbly at me, so it's obvious he has no idea what he's in for. I feel his arm around my back, pulling me into the curve of his body, his cool, soft hand wrapped perfectly around mine. And he's so close I can smell something of him, something other than the Jean Nate, something familiar, but my mind is racing and I can't concentrate enough to know what it is. All I know is that this is so wrong, and it is time to leave.

"Listen," I mutter, as I realize the old ladies are forming a half circle around us. I think one of them is pointing out to another how my jeans are too tight. "We just came here to check out the room. I don't know how to tango:"

Fit Lady looks deflated for a moment, but only for a moment. She brightens up with, "It's very simple. Just follow my cues and you'll be pros in no time!"

Before I can protest, she jogs over to a little radio and pops in a new CD. Immediately, slow, seductive Latin music fills the air. The drumbeat pulsates with my own heartbeat.

I am going to faint.

"And one, and two, and..."

I decide that the man should have the responsibility of leading, so I won't do anything. I will just stand there and let myself be taken like a rag doll. Then, hopefully, when the two of us have fallen into a disgusting mangled heap of broken limbs, Mrs. I-Can-Conquer-the-World will give up trying to teach us. I clamp my eyes shut and let my mind go blank, bracing for the pain I'll feel when my body hits the parquet floor.

We begin to move. I feel the air on my face, and my limbs are being pulled every which way in what feel like short, jerky movements. It feels like I'm having a convulsion, so I know we can't be doing it right. Can we?

Then I hear Fit Lady cry, "Good. Good!"

So I have to open my eyes. I see Pip, concentrating hard on the instructor's footsteps, and he's following them, pulling me along with him. We're perfectly in beat with the music. Amazingly, I see the mouths of the old ladies curved into mesmerized Os over their dentures. We're doing it right.

When I feel comfortable enough that he's not going to trip me, I manage to look down, and see that his feet are gliding gracefully on the floor in his black loafers. He's even doing this very hot rhythmic figure eight with his hips.

Maybe it's the music that's growing on me, or maybe it's that I'm giddy from not having had anything to eat except half a mini quiche, but after a moment or so, I start to move my hips, too. And suddenly, I'm breathless again, but in a good way.

Once Pip gets into the groove, he stops looking at the instructor and his eyes fasten on mine. So close like this, they're shocking in their brilliance, so light blue as to be almost white. Like silver medallions moving back and forth on a chain, they're hypnotizing. Where did they come from? I swear they weren't so beautiful a day ago, when we were sitting in the food court, talking about
ewl
and popping
sagmints
.

"Where did you learn to do this?" I whisper in his ear, still unable to break from his gaze.

"Fairies love to dance. This is similar to one of theirs" he explains as he slows to a near stop. His eyes focus on Fit Lady again, and before I can ask what he's doing, he expertly glides his leg out from underneath his body, dragging his foot on the ground.

"Yours should follow his," Fit Lady says, watching my legs.

"Like how?" I ask, suddenly nervous again. I pull one out from under me and clumsily lean it against his, nearly stepping on his toe. "Like this?"

Then I notice Pip is back to staring at me, and self-consciousness washes over me. And heat stings my cheeks. I'm blushing, something I never, ever do.

"I meant the other one, but okay." Disappointment hangs in her voice.

"Oh, sorry," I mumble, upset that she doesn't have the same faith in my dancing abilities as she has in Pip's.

Then I feel her hand on my leg, pulling it up into the air. I toddle about on one leg like a top that's about to fall, so Pip steadies me, and I hold on so tight to his arms with my sweaty hands as to cut off his circulation. But he doesn't seem to mind. I watch as she grips my leg at the knee and pulls it, higher, higher... almost to Pip's hip level, then forces me to extend and curve it around him. Ow, I am not a pretzel. "What are you doing?'

"Gancho"
she says. "Just take your leg up and wrap it around his body."

"Wait. Wh-wh-at?"

He's still staring at me with those amazing eyes as I push him away, falling back onto my elbows with a deafening crack.

"I FEEL TERRIBLE," Pip says to me as he helps me up to my bedroom.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

My mother spent most of the ride home from the city hospital complaining about how wearing an Ace bandage on my arm would ruin all of my sweet-sixteen pictures, and as we pulled into the driveway, she was still hurling Italian curses at me loud enough to wake our ancestors in Sicily. She refused to look at me after she turned off the ignition; instead, she wordlessly retired to the living room to catch the end
of MacGyver
with my dad. The silent treatment is a favorite tool in my mom's arsenal; however, since she loves talking as much as she loves food, I fully expect her to be chattering away by tomorrow morning.

Until then, peace. Just what I need.

"Leave the door open," I instruct Pip, and then feel the need to explain, as if he has any clue what I mean, "My mother's strict Italian upbringing."

"Oh." He nods with understanding and does exactly as he's told, as usual.

Though I'd only bruised my arm, every part of my body feels like it's been through a meat grinder. My left arm is worse, but both are swollen and purple from wrist to elbow, and my lower spine feels like it might snap apart.

"There's nothing you could have done. It's all my stupid fault," I tell him as he fluffs some pillows on my bed and gingerly lays me down. He's so careful that I know he isn't just saying it; he really does feel terrible about the whole thing.

"No. Cameron told me to look out for you."

"He did?" I stop pulling the covers over my body and sigh. Before I can be overcome with an urge to smother myself with a pillow over losing the best boyfriend in the world, I say, "That's because he knows I'll never be able to make it without him. I'm hopeless."

"He told me he thinks you're the bravest girl he's ever met."

I raise my eyebrows and then sigh. Yes, maybe I used to be. Having the world's yummiest boyfriend and being able to predict the future would boost anyone's confidence. But now that the yummy boyfriend is leaving me forever, and my amazing psychic abilities can't do a thing to stop it... suddenly I feel like I'm walking a tightrope without a net. "Maybe I was, once. Not so much anymore. Sometimes I think I'd rather jump off a cliff than face a day without him."

He looks surprised. "Is it normal for humans to feel that way when they're in love?"

I shrug and nod, then study him. He really does have no idea. Then I roll over and prop myself up with my good elbow. "Why? Haven't you ever been in love?"

He looks away. "In Otherworld, that love doesn't exist."

"Oh, right. Dawn said something about that before. That Cam couldn't possibly love me. So fairies aren't supposed to fall in love?"

He opens his mouth and closes it again. "In Otherworld a fairy does not love one person above all others."

"Well, talk about horrible." I shake my head, suddenly feeling dreamy and warm and altogether touchy-feely from the medication. I guess that's why I launch into a heart-to-heart with Pip. "But what about you? You're human. You've never been in love?"

He looks away. I can tell I'm making him uncomfortable, treading into that part of Otherworld that he just doesn't seem interested in talking about. I'm about to change the subject, when he softly answers, "I'm not sure if I can be that kind of person. Or if anyone could feel that way about me."

I smile, thinking how oblivious he must be to not have noticed the events manager crushing on him earlier today. And when he danced with me, he could have passed for more than just human... girls would have found him downright droolworthy "Well, I think someone could feel that way about you. I mean, any-thing's possible, right? Cam is a fairy. He isn't supposed to love me. But he does."

He nods but doesn't say anything.

"Why don't you ask a girl to our party next Friday? I bet one would go with you, now," I press on, biting my tongue with the urge to finish that sentence with "that you don't look like a goober."

His bottom lip quivers. "Uh, no. I wouldn't know what to do."

"Just
go
up to one on Monday in school and say, 'Listen, there's a party on Friday, and let's go together.' That's it."

"That's it?"

"Yeah, it's easy. But pick a cute girl. Aim high. You're totally worth it," I cheerlead, then realize that maybe the Percocet is kicking in a little too nicely.

Still, he gets this inspired gleam in his eyes. "Well, okay. Maybe I will."

Yawning, I say, "You just need the right girl to fall in love with. I was lucky to find the right guy as early as I did."

"So you know that Cameron is your true love?"

"I'm positive."

He clears his throat. "In that case, there's something you should know."

He sounds so serious that I lean in, wondering all the time if it's going to be an Edenism, like, "I have ten toes!" or "The sky is blue" "What?"

"We have to be very quiet, or else," he whispers, those clear eyes piercing mine. "But I know a way to keep Cameron here with you."

NOW I'M SITTING on the front porch, in darkness, waiting for Cam. There's a baby cricket in one of the rosebushes, and I can see its new, wet wings glistening in the yellow streetlight. I wonder if that's how Cam feels, struggling to keep up with the parts of his body that are so new and unfamiliar.

After Pip left, I'd tried to
go
to sleep, thinking it would be easy, since the painkiller had made me so wonky I could barely stand. Instead, fueled by what Pip had told me, my mind kicked into overdrive, assembling a giant jigsaw puzzle, fitting each piece together until I sprang from my bed, forgetting the pain of my bruised arm, and called Cam to tell him to meet me outside, stat.

It is possible.

I hear the creak of his screen door, and, realizing I've been so excited that I completely forgot to primp, I smooth back my hair and wipe any errant toothpaste from the comers of my mouth.

"Hey, Boo," Cam says, coming through the bushes. One half of his hair, the side he sleeps on, is spiked, standing straight on end like the bristles of a comb. His face looks puffy, and there are dark circles under his eyes, not much different from the black gunk he puts on before each game. He looks at my arm. "Damn. Pip told me."

He leans over to give me a kiss, but before he can, I burst out with, "So you talked to Pip?"

He blinks, surprised. "A little. Why? What is this about?"

I cock my head toward the garage and whisper, "I think my dad's up. Can we take a walk?"

He nods and says, loudly, "Okay, let's take a walk, and you can tell me everything I missed at the... at the meeting of the... oh, screw it. Sorry, Mr. Sparks."

A second later, there's the sound of movement, the noise of metal against metal, and shuffling. But I'm focusing my attention on Cam. Though he's a terrible liar, he is usually never at a loss for words. Not like this. While my dad huffs up the staircase inside with the last of his dignity, I say, "Things are bad?"

"What do you think?" He pulls me from the stoop with both hands.

I dig my feet into my flip-flops and stand up to face him. I stick out my chin, shrink down. Stand on my tiptoes. "You've..."

"Lost a few inches.
Yeah.
And get a load of this." He turns and pulls up his T-shirt and in the small slash of light, I can see that there are rips in the bandages, and this greenish, black-veined scale is poking through. I try to swallow the disgust, but it doesn't look pretty or soft or nice, like fairy parts should look. It looks like a gigantic fly wing. And the lump on his back is now twice as big as it once was. He faces me, eyes full. "I am officially a freak."

I take him by the hand, and we walk down my driveway, into the street. Everything is silent and still save for a few crickets and frogs and the tat-tat-tat of our neighbor's automatic sprinkler. I pull a plastic bag and a rubber band out from the pocket of my sleep pants. "I have something amazing to tell you. Let's go for a swim."

As I'm fastening the plastic over my arm with the band, he looks across the street and mutters, "Can yon reverse this?"

"No, but I can-"

"Then I don't want to know," he sighs, running his hands through his hair. "I don't want to get wet. I'm tired, and I'm going back to bed."

As I mentioned, he's a total Mr. Grouchy Pants when he doesn't get enough sleep. I grab him by the elbow and push him toward the sprinkler. "Trust me. You're going to feel a zillion percent better when I tell you this."

"If I've told you once, I've told you a million times. Don't exaggerate."

I'm happy for the old Cam humor, until I see the glower on his face. Still, he digs his hands into his pockets and follows me.