Starcrossed (4 page)

“Please. She’s nowhere near thin enough to be a model,”

Gretchen hissed bitterly, before catching herself and adding, “Of

course I think she’s pretty, if you go for that exotic, voluptuous

look. But she’s nothing compared to her twin, Jason—or her cousin!

Lucas is just unreal,” she gushed.

The boys shared a knowing look, but silently agreed that they

were outnumbered by girls and should probably let it go.

“Jason is almost too pretty,” Claire decided solemnly, after giving

it a moment’s thought. “Lucas, however, is an über-babe. Quite

possibly the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen. And Ariadne is a

stone-cold fox, Gretchen. You’re just jealous.”

Gretchen gave an exasperated huff and rested a fist on her hip.

“Like you’re not,” was all she had for a comeback.

“Of course I am. I’m almost as jealous of her as I am of Lennie.

But not quite.” Helen felt Claire turn to her to see her response, but

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she had her elbows on the table and her head cradled in her hands,

rubbing her temples.

“Lennie?” Matt said, sitting down next to her. “Does your head

hurt?” He reached out to touch her shoulder. She stood up abruptly,

muttering an excuse, and hurried away.

By the time she got to the girls’ room she felt better, but she

splashed a little cold water on her face for good measure. Then she

remembered that she had put mascara on that morning in an attempt

to make an effort. She looked at her raccoon eyes in the mirror

and burst out laughing. This was the worst first day of school

ever.

Somehow she made it through the last three periods, and when

the bell finally rang she gratefully made her way to the girls’ locker

room to change for track practice.

Coach Tar was all fired up. She gave an embarrassingly optimistic

speech about their chances to win races that year and told them

how much she believed in them, both as athletes and as young women.

Then she turned to Helen.

“Hamilton. You’ll be running with the boys this year,” Coach said

bluntly. She told everyone to hit the trail.

Helen sat on the bench for a moment, debating her options while

everyone else filed out the door. She didn’t want to make a fuss,

but she was mortified by the thought of having to cross the gender

line. The muscles in her lower abdomen started to spasm.

“Go talk to her! Don’t let her push you around,” Claire said indignantly

as she left.

Confused and afraid she was going to get a bellyache, Helen nodded

and stood up.

“Coach Tar? Can’t we just do it the way we always do?” she called

out. Coach Tar stopped and turned around to listen, but she didn’t

look happy about it. “I mean, why can’t I just train with the rest of

the girls? Because I am a girl,” Helen finished lamely.

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“We’ve decided that you need to start pushing yourself more,”

Coach Tar responded in a cold voice. Helen had always gotten the

feeling that Coach didn’t like her much, and now she was sure of it.

“But I’m not a boy. It’s not fair to make me run cross-country

with them,” Helen tried to argue. She jabbed two fingers into the

spot between her belly button and her pubic bone.

“Cramps?” Coach Tar asked, a touch of sympathy creeping into

her voice. Helen nodded and Coach continued. “Coach Brant and I

have noticed something interesting about your times, Helen. No

matter who you’re running against, no matter how fast or slow

your opponents are, you always come in either second or third.

How can that be? Do you have an answer?”

“No. I don’t know. I just run, okay? I try my best.”

“No, you don’t,” Coach said harshly. “And if you want a scholarship

you’re going to have to start winning races. I talked to Mr.

Hergeshimer. . . .” Helen groaned out loud, but Coach Tar continued,

undeterred. “It’s a small school, Hamilton, get used to it. Mr.

Hergeshimer told me that you were hoping for an athletic scholarship,

but if you want one you’re going to have to earn it. Maybe forcing

you to match the boys will teach you to take your talent

seriously.”

The thought of displaying her speed for the world to see had a

physical effect on Helen. She was so afraid that she was going to

get some kind of cramp or bellyache that she started to have a mini

panic attack. She began to babble. “I’ll do it, I’ll win races, just

please don’t single me out like that,” she pleaded, the words tumbling

out in a rush as she held her breath to hold back the pain.

Coach Tar was a hard-ass, but she wasn’t cruel. “Are you okay?”

she asked anxiously, rubbing Helen between her shoulder blades.

“Put your head between your legs.”

“I’m okay, it’s just nerves,” Helen explained through gritted

teeth. After catching her breath she continued, “If I swear to win

more races, will you let me run with the girls?”

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Coach Tar studied Helen’s desperate face and nodded, a bit

shaken from witnessing such an intense panic attack. She let Helen

go to the girl’s trailhead, but warned her that she still expected

wins. And more than just a few.

As she ran the trail, Helen looked at the ground. An academic

scholarship would be great but that would mean competing with

Claire for grades, and that was out of the question.

“Hey, Giggles,” Helen said, easily catching up. Claire was panting

and sweating away already.

“What happened? God, it’s so hot!” she exclaimed, her breath

strained.

“I think the entire faculty is trying to see if they can climb up

onto my back at the same time.”

“Welcome to my life,” Claire wheezed. “Japanese kids grow

up . . . with at least two . . . people up there. . . . You get used to it.”

After a few more labored moments of trying to keep up with Helen,

Claire added, “Can we . . . slow down? Not all of us are from . . .

planet Krypton.”

Helen adjusted her pace, knowing that she could pull ahead in

the last half mile. She rarely exerted herself in practice but she

knew that even without trying hard she could easily finish first.

That fact scared her, so she did what she usually did when the subject

of her freaky speed came up in her head. She ignored it and

chatted with Claire.

As the two girls ran down Surfside and out across the moors to

Miacomet Pond, Claire couldn’t stop talking about the Delos boys.

She told Helen at least three times that Lucas had held the door for

her at the end of class. That act proved he was not only a gentleman,

but already in love with her as well. Jason, Claire decided,

was either gay or a snob because he had only glanced at her once

before quickly looking away. She also took offense at how nice a

dresser he was, like he was European or something.

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“He’s been living in Spain for, like, three years, Gig. He kinda is

European. Can we please stop talking about them? It’s giving me a

headache.”

“Why are you the only person in school that isn’t interested in the

Delos family? Aren’t you even curious to get a look?”

“No! And I think it’s pathetic that this entire town is standing

around gawking at them like a bunch of hicks!” Helen shouted.

Claire stopped short and stared at her. It wasn’t like Helen to argue,

let alone start yelling, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

“I’m bored to death of the Delos family!” Helen continued, even

when she saw Claire’s surprise. “I’m sick of this town’s fixation

with them, and I hope I never have to meet, see, or share breathing

space with any of them!”

Helen took off running, leaving Claire standing by herself on the

trail. She finished first, just like she’d promised, but she did it a

little too quickly; Coach Tar gave her a shocked look when she recorded

the run time. Helen blew by her and stormed into the locker

room. She grabbed her stuff and bolted out of school, not bothering

to change or say good-bye to any of her teammates.

On the way home, Helen started crying. She pedaled past the

neat rows of gray shingled-sided houses with their black or white

painted storm shutters and tried to calm down. The sky seemed to

sit particularly low on the scoured land, as if it was pressing down

on the gables of the old whalers and trying to finally flatten them

after a few centuries of stubborn defiance. Helen had no idea why

she’d gotten so angry, or why she’d abandoned her best friend like

that. She needed a little peace and quiet.

There was a car accident on Surfside; some gigantic SUV had

tried to turn onto a narrow, sandbanked side street and turned

over. The drivers were okay, but their beached whale of a car

blocked off traffic from end to end. Annoyed as she was, Helen

knew she couldn’t even pedal past the boneheaded off islanders

without losing her checkers. She decided to take the long way

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home. She turned around and headed back toward the center of

town, passing the movie theater, the ferry, and the library, which,

with its Greek temple architecture, stuck out like a sore thumb in a

town that otherwise was an ode to four-hundred-year-old Puritan

architecture. And maybe that’s why Helen loved it. The Atheneum

was a gleaming white beacon of strange smack-dab in the middle

of forget-me-now drab, and somehow, Helen identified with both

of those things. Half of her was no-nonsense Nantucket through

and through, and the other half was marble columns and grand

stairs that just didn’t belong where they had been built. Biking

past, Helen looked up at the Atheneum and smiled. It was consoling

for her to know that she might stick out, but at least she didn’t

stick out that much.

When she got home, she tried to pull herself together, taking a

freezing-cold shower before calling Claire to apologize. Claire

didn’t pick up. Helen left her a long apology blaming hormones,

the heat, stress, anything and everything she could think of, though

she knew in her heart that none of those things was the real reason

she had flipped out. She’d been so irritable all day.

The air outside was heavy and still. Helen opened all the windows

in the two-story Shaker-style house, but no breeze blew

through them. What was with the weird weather? Still air was

practically unheard of in Nantucket—living so close to the ocean

there was always wind. Helen pulled on a thin tank top and a pair

of her shortest shorts. Since she was too modest to go anywhere

dressed so scantily, she decided to cook dinner. It was still her

father’s week as kitchen slave and technically he was responsible

for all the shopping, meals, and dishes for a few days yet, but she

needed something to do with her hands or she’d use them to climb

the walls.

Pasta in general was Helen’s comfort food, and lasagna was the

queen of pasta. If she made the noodles from scratch, she’d be

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occupied for hours, just like she wanted, so she pulled out the flour

and eggs and got to work.

When Jerry came home the second thing he noticed, after the

amazing smell, was that the house was swelteringly hot. He found

Helen sitting at the kitchen table, flour stuck to her sweaty face and

arms, worrying the heart-shaped necklace, which her mother had

given her as a baby, between her thumb and forefinger. He looked

around with tense shoulders and wide eyes.

“Made dinner,” Helen told him in a flat voice.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked tentatively.

“Of course not. Why would you ask that when I just cooked you

dinner?”

“Because usually when a woman spends hours cooking a complicated

meal and then just sits at the table with a pissed-off look

on her face, that means some guy somewhere did something really

stupid,” he said, still on edge. “I have had other women in my life

besides you, you know.”

“Are you hungry or not?” Helen asked with a smile, trying to

shake off her ugly mood.

Hunger won out. Jerry shut his mouth and went to wash his

hands. Helen hadn’t eaten since breakfast and should have been

starved. When she tasted the first forkful she realized she wouldn’t

be able to eat. She listened as best as she could while she pushed

bits of her favorite food around her plate and Jerry devoured two

pieces. He asked her questions about her day while he tried to

sneak a little more salt onto his food. Helen blocked his attempts

like she always did, but she didn’t have the energy to give him

more than monosyllabic answers.

Even though she went to bed at nine, leaving her dad watching

the Red Sox on TV, she was still lying awake at midnight when she

heard the game finally end and her father come upstairs. She was

tired enough to sleep, but every time she started to drift off she

would hear whispering.

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At first she thought that it had to be real, that someone was outside

playing a trick on her. She went up to the widow’s walk on the

roof above her bedroom and tried to see as far as she could into the

dark. Everything was still—not even a puff of air to stir the rosebushes