manicpixiedreamgirl (9 page)

I wanted to say something. Again, “hi” might’ve been a good start. But I didn’t. And neither did she.

But we made eye contact. Oh yes, we saw each other.
Sometimes she gave me a nod and a smile—small, barely registering. Other times a smirk, which to me read like,
Why on God’s green earth are you going out with Sydney Barrett, you great feeb?

Maybe I was projecting my own thoughts onto her expression. I don’t know.

I continued hanging out and hooking up with Sydney. We’d eat lunch together, sometimes with Robby and Justin and some other people from Justin’s art class. With Michelle and Staci off their radar because “they were too clingy,” the guys moved on to other potential ex-girlfriends. Justin flirted endlessly and hopelessly with this tall granola-soy junior named Holly who made “sublime ecoterrorist sculptures” out of plastic utensils. He had no chance, and he knew it, but I gave the guy credit: he kept trying, which was more than I could say about myself. Robby brought a new girl to the table every few weeks or so, but he didn’t seem to really fall for any of them. Mostly he kept the whole table laughing, as usual.

Becky ate alone. Reading a book, or staring out the windows. There was nothing to see, just a row of classrooms about ten yards or so from the cafeteria. I always wondered what she was thinking about.

Every school has freaky kids, right? The easy targets. Because she was always by herself, I started expecting someone to rag on her, maybe throw something at her, laugh at her.

Part of me wanted it to happen, to be honest, so I’d have
a reason to stand up and deliver this full-throated baritone monologue about leaving her alone or facing my wrath. Maybe, if I was lucky, it would be followed by a slow clap from the rest of the students in the cafeteria.

That was another version of the story I was writing about her.

But no one ever gave her any grief that I saw. She left people alone, and they left her alone.

I felt like we were dancing. Not together, not at a dimly lit gym prom or anything. But—
maneuvering
. Jockeying for position. The daily, silent half smiles and nods in the hall meant something, didn’t they? They had to. Or maybe I needed them to.

At lunch one day about a month into sophomore year, the cover of the book Becky was reading had an excellent illustration of a dragon on the cover. A fantasy novel. And that got me thinking.

“You remember that sort of fantasy story I wrote sophomore year?” I ask Robby. “The real short one for English?”

He belches. “Um … no. And don’t change the subject. I’m talking about Sydney.”

“So am I, actually.”

“I ’member it,” Justin says. He spies into the bottle, which must be bone-dry by now, and makes as if to throw it into the parking lot. I tense, waiting for him to send the
bottle hurtling to the concrete and smashing to bits, but then he laughs and sets the bottle down on the table.

“The chick was hot,” Justin says.

“How do you know?” I ask. “I didn’t describe her.”

“That was the thing,” Justin says. “You didn’t have to. The dude wanted her. That’s all you had to say.”

Sometimes, Justin is a right royal idiot. Other times, he nails it.

“Interesting,” I say, frowning at my sneakers.

“But that ‘milky belly’ thing, that was hysterical!” Justin adds, cackling. “Miiiiilky beeeelly!”

He’s really cracking himself up now.

“What can I say?” I tell him, and sigh dramatically. “I was young.”

That gets them both going. Excellent. Once they’ve calmed back down, though, Justin adds, “It was about, like
—desire
. They were acting like they wanted to kill each other, but really they were totally flirting.”

“You remember all that?” I can’t help but be a little flattered.

“Yeah, man,” Justin says. “It was sexy.”

“What did Sydney think of it?” Robby says, narrowing his eyes at me. I can’t tell if he’s still drunk or not. Or, come to think of it, if he really was to begin with. Justin did the most damage to the champagne.

“I don’t think she ever …”

I stop as Robby raises his hands. “You never let her read it, did ya.”

“… No.”

“Which is why you gotta figure yourself out,” Robby says. “Man, that’s your
girl
. Shit or get off the pot, know what I mean?”

I nod slowly. And think about Gabby’s last text:
Fix this
.

Right after I wrote “Stalemate,” I started considering
getting into the drama department.

I couldn’t very well drop any of my classes and take
Drama Two—you had to take Drama One first anyway,
and I didn’t want to get onstage—but our speech, debate, and theater club, Masque & Gavel, met after school. Robby called it “Massengill.” Sydney always attended the meetings, because she was on the debate team.

Since I couldn’t ask Syd about Becky anymore, I figured joining the club would be a good way to see how Becky got along with the drama club weirdos. Yes, I dubbed Sydney a drama weirdo, too. She knew it and never argued the point.

“So, what do you guys do in the drama club, anyway?” I asked Sydney a few days after it occurred to me to join Masque & Gavel.

“Eh, talk about the plays and speech competitions, mostly,” Sydney said.

We were sitting near the parking lot after school, waiting for my mom to come pick us up. It was a Friday, which meant Syd was coming over for dinner, a movie, and making out until her dad came to get her. Not having a car
sucked. And as far as getting together was concerned, we were limited in what we dared with my bedroom door open; i.e., not much.

I didn’t see Becky waiting for her ride. Hadn’t lately, in fact.

“Usually there’s either rehearsal for a play or practice for a tournament afterward,” she added. “Why? You thinking of joining?”

I shrugged. “Nah,” I said. Fairly convincingly, I thought. “I’m not an actor.”

“You don’t have to be an actor,” Syd said. “You could learn how to run lights or sound. Or help build the sets. Or why don’t you write a play? Maybe they’d let you put it on.”

That actually caught my ear, for real. For a minute there, I actually forgot about Becky.

No, that’s a lie. Moved her temporarily to a different location in my brain, maybe.

“You think so?”

“I couldn’t promise you, but it’s worth asking,” Syd said. “Have you ever written a play?”

“Nope. Just stories.” My short piece about Becky was on its one hundredth draft by that point. Not the fantasy story—the heroic, romantic one I’d been revising every month since I’d first written it the year before.

“But
good
stories,” Sydney said, kissing my cheek.

Maybe that was another reason I stayed with Syd. She liked my writing. I didn’t really do anything with it except
give a few of what I thought were the funnier ones to her, Robby, and Justin to read. But I figured I could write a play. It would be just like a story, only without the description. God knows I had enough experience dreaming up dialogue for Becky to follow with me as leading man. Even if I never wrote it down.

“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it. “Maybe I will.”

“There’s a meeting on Monday,” Sydney said. “You could come with me if you wanted. Just to meet … people …”

Syd paused and scrutinized me. “This isn’t about Rebecca Webb, is it, Ty?”

“What? No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Syd. Come on.”

“You spent half of last year going on about her. And I’m not stupid.”

“I didn’t say you were stupid!”

“Then tell me. Tell me this newfound interest in Masque and Gavel has nothing to do with her.”

My mom pulled up and waved at us through the window. She, like my sister, loved Syd. Which didn’t make it any easier to consider breaking up with her.

I stood up. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” I said, half joking, half scared to death that I was as transparent as Mom’s windshield.

Sydney stood up too. “All right,” she said. “Forget I said anything. Think about it this weekend, maybe write some ideas down.”

“Cool,” I said, and opened the passenger door for her.

I did think about it all weekend. Even wrote a few pages of five or six different play ideas.

All of them ended up centering around a guy who likes this girl.…

I didn’t print out any of these ideas. And didn’t finish even a whole scene.

Yet Monday after school, I went to my first drama club meeting.

Becky Webb sat in the front row, farthest corner to my right. Like in the cafeteria, there was an empty chair to her side and behind her. As if she was shielded from the rest of the class. I saw a couple people give her nods as they stomped through the rows to find seats, and she’d look up and smile toothlessly. Most of these greeters were guys.

So she did have friends here. But then why did she still look so isolated?