The Julian Game (3 page)

“You know I live in Radnor? And you’re on North Aberdeen Avenue in Wayne, right? Actually I’m not guessing—I looked you up in the school directory. I’m only fifteen minutes, and Noreen—that’s my housekeeper—said she’d drive me.”

Why? Why did she want to come here? I was delirious to know and almost too shy to ask. “Do you need something . . . from me?”

“Remember you said you could teach me Chinese better than Filth? Well, I’m free tomorrow. Do you mind? I’m in major danger of failing the semester. Then we’ll do something fun, after. Promise.”

Awful as it was to think of Ella in my house, I didn’t know how to deny her. “No, I don’t mind. Come over whenever.”

“Eight-ish?”

“Eight-ish, sure.” After I clicked off, I rested the phone on my beating heart. Then I called Natalya’s. Then I hung up. Then I stared at the phone. What would I tell her? I felt horrible. But a bigger part of me was excited. A promise of fun, from Ella Parker, didn’t happen every day.

Almost a year before, I’d experienced my first kiss. It was
way overdue, and it happened in the final five minutes of a freshman mixer. Ed Strohman was cute, with a choppy haircut that made me think of artichokes, and a habit of repeating the last words I’d said to him. I’d been shyly orbiting him all night. Laughing at his jokes and accepting his offer of cinnamon Dentyne.

When he went for it, I was ready.

“It’s the last dance of the night, I think,” I’d prompted as the music switched to a down-tempo.

“I think,” he agreed with a nod of his big artichoke head. Moving in. His breath was sweet, his mouth was warm, his tongue roved but didn’t make me want to throw up. Afterward, he’d helped me on with my jacket and waited outside by the front wall for my ride. And although the image of Dad cranking down the window to tell Ed, “I’ll take it from here, son,” over “Looks Like We Made It” is seared forever into my Miserable Manilow Moments, that night also became a semi-precious stone embedded in my memory.

Nothing had come of it, but later that spring Ed sent me a good-luck note on Facebook about how he hoped I’d survive my new, all-girls school. Last time I texted him, he wrote back that he was seeing Maia Amodio. If I’d known that my next year at Fulton would be so parched of romance or adventure, I might have kept up with him more aggressively.

It seemed unnatural to have so few chances to talk to guys these days. So few chances to be social, ever. Which was probably why, by Saturday morning, I still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to cancel on either Natalya or Ella. I was stuck between the safe bet of a comfy night of videos with Tal, and that seductive, electric promise of “something fun” with Ella Parker.

“What’s wrong?” Dad asked me at breakfast as he peered over his Chex and coffee.

“Nothing.”

“You look thoughtful.”

I’d only been wondering what kind of party Lindy Limon was throwing. Which MacArthur guys would be there. Imagining a grateful Ella—after I’d cracked the mysteries of Mandarin for her in less than an hour—asking her housekeeper to drop us both off at Lindy’s house. Would the Group accept me if I showed up with Ella? Would they be shocked, or would Ella’s vote of confidence put them at ease? It’s not like I was some charity choice. My worst crime was being the new girl. And maybe not being superrich. But I could be fun, and I wasn’t too shy or too bold, which could land you in equal social peril.

Dad was still watching me. But he wouldn’t want to hear about any of this.

We cleaned up together before taking the short walk into town. At the corner, we ran into our neighbor Mrs. Savides, who gave me a honeyed good morning and a spiky-eyed once-over. Probably because I was drowning inside clothing two sizes too big for me—as usual. My love of floppy clothes had started after Mom died and I began wearing her stuff, wrapping myself in her fleeces and sweatshirts like multiple security blankets. Now it was just a force of habit.

I let Dad extract us, which took longer than if I’d handled it myself. Dad had a higher tolerance for cranks and spinsters. Not a bad trick, if you’re running a secondhand store.

Stacey, an incurable morning person, had left the house hours ago to open shop. We stopped to admire her new window display of Heidi Dean’s wooden ostriches.

“They look almost cute,” I admitted. Heidi was one of the artists for Dad’s shop, the Wayne Women’s Exchange, founded way back when as a place for Civil War widows to sell homemade wares. Today, you don’t have to be a widow—if you can sew or paint, or even whittle an ostrich, we’ll sticker and shelve it.

Inside, Stacey was unpacking Augie Hopkington’s latest wares. Augie was a Gulf War vet-turned-hermit-knitter from Stowe, Vermont.

“Aye or nay, for you?” She held up a thin caramel V-neck.

“Soooo nay.” My weekend uniform was clogs, jeans and one of Mom’s baggy sweatshirts. I didn’t mess with it.

She tossed it over. “Humor me.”

I slithered in, bunching the arms.

“It clings and it smells like a hospital.”

“No, that’s just mothballs. It’s nice on your shape. I’m going to the stockroom to break down boxes.”

Stacey’s morning energy always amazed me. I returned to the girl in the caramel V-neck. Soft brown eyes and shaggy hair. A nothing nose, but full lips that dressed up my face. More-athletic-looking-than-I-really-was body, thanks to Dad’s T-shaped shoulders. Big feet that I hated. Big hands that I liked.

“Dad, what’s my best feature?”

“Your brain.”

“For real.”

“Really? I really have to keep talking about this?”

“What if I wanted to transfer back to Conestoga?”

“I’d tell you Fulton’s a top-notch school and you’re lucky to be there.”

“Right. Just checking.”

I wasn’t surprised. After all, Dad truly thought Fulton would launch me into the glorious future that he and Mom had dreamed of since the day I killed it at my nursery school interview. Dad rarely lets a month go by without commenting on what is apparently Mom’s favorite pastime in heaven, gloating over my Fulton scholarship.

And it wasn’t just about honoring Mom. Dad had grown up a poor kid from Yardley, so having me in a fancy prep school meant he’d made it. I was double cursed. To let down Dad was one thing, and then to let Dad think he’d let down Mom was tragedy times two.

“I’ve been feeling some unrest since breakfast,” said Dad. “C’mon, Raye. What’s on your mind?”

“I think,” I said slowly, “that I want to have a friend over tonight.”

“Friend as in Natalya? No problem.”

“Actually, another friend. But the thing is . . .” My voice trailed off as Stacey reappeared.

“The thing is you don’t want us around,” Stacey guessed, smiling. “Easy-peasey. Your dad and I’ll go to my place. We never hang out there. I’m paying rent to store clothes.”

“I don’t know.” Dad didn’t like the plan. “You did all your homework?”

“Yesterday. Check it if you want.”

“And this girl isn’t a troublemaker?”

“She’s the most popular girl in my class.”

“Not the answer to my question.”

“Enough.” Stacey touched her fingers to his lips. “Let’s give Raye some space, okay? Besides, my spider plants are thirsty.”

Dad made an I-give-up face.

“Thanks, Stace,” I told her a little later, when Dad had gone off to the stockroom. “I mean, not that it matters if you guys are there or not.”

Untrue. It really did matter. Knowing Dad, he’d start right in grilling Ella on all the wrong things, like grades and SATs and her potential college major. He’d be intense. And the absolute last thing Ella Parker needed was to be reminded of her SATs.

With Dad and Stace out of the picture, I’d at least removed one of the million variables in how the night might go wrong.

“I am.”

Natalya exhaled. “If you don’t want to watch
Midnight Planet,
we’ll do something else.”

“No, I’m serious. I’m sick. Really.”

“It’s not like I don’t know you, Raye. Your voice is lying. And it’s making me feel weird.” Natalya snorted, waiting for me to admit it. Tough as it was, I waited her out. I didn’t enjoy lying, and especially not to Natalya, who was always so sincere. But how could I explain that I was trading our Saturday to tutor Ella Parker in Chinese?

“Okay, fine,” she conceded into the silence. “I’ll go tell my mom. She was making white borscht, your favorite. But now she can do it with beets instead of potatoes. The way
I
like it. If you’re really not coming over.”

“Tell her I’m sorry.” I meant it. Mrs. Z always spoiled me with her blinis and borschts and extra spoonfuls of mothering. “I don’t want to give you what I’ve got.”

“You could come here and be sick. I’m not feeling exactly fantastic myself, with all the pollen.”

“Thanks, but . . . I better stay put. I’ll call you later,” I finished. “If I feel any better.”

“Right,” she said, and when we hung up, I knew I’d need to make an effort Monday to put things right between us.

By eight o’clock, Dad and Stacey were out the door and I’d cleaned up three times, rearranging the pillows and hiding the Barry Manilow portrait that an Exchange artist had given Dad as a joke but that he’d accepted with much joy and then hung in our front hall right over the plastic-fruit-filled bowl.

I was about to hide all the plastic fruit when the doorbell rang. I counted to ten and opened it in time to watch a dark Mercedes glide away from our house like a bank vault on wheels.

“Hey.” Ella was, without doubt, the most glamorous thing that had ever happened to my doorstep. Burberry jacket, pale hair tied back in a puff of white scarf, cognac leather book bag slung over a shoulder.

Ella Parker. Here. No joke. In fact, she thought I was the one kidding when she realized it was just us. “Are you for real?” she asked, brushing past. “You’re alone?”

I was confused. “Is that okay?”

She looked around. “Sure. Nate and Jennifer would never trust me to be alone. I’d break house rules six different ways in the first five minutes.” She shrugged off her jacket, leaving me to wonder what the Parkers’ house rules were—and how Ella could break so many, so quickly.

“Let’s get the study session out of the way.” She strode past me through the living room and its partition to the dining room, where she unpacked the
Golden Bridge: Learning Practical Chinese
textbook plus workbook. Setting both on the dining room table, then turning to me. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Are your good grades luck, or do you work like a beast?”

I thought. “Maybe a little bit of both. But learning Chinese is like riding a bike. One day you just get it.” I sat at the table. “Help yourself to cookies.”

She stared at the plate and laughed. “Cookies? Thanks, Granny. But if I have to be a fatty, it won’t be off lard-packed Oreos.”

I flushed. “They were already there,” I lied. “My dad’s girlfriend put them out.”

“Whatever.”

As we got into the work, I continued to lose credibility. My hopes of Ella’s unending gratitude, followed by a spontaneous, late-night invite to Lindy’s party, all went swirling down the daydream drain. Not that it was exactly my fault. Ella had no talent for the language, and the longer we went at it, the crueler it seemed to force her. Only it was Ella who was getting angry.

“I knew this wouldn’t work,” she said, pushing back her chair. “You’re making it more complicated. You’re as suckass as Filth.”

“I’m sorry.” I hated to fail in Ella’s eyes. The tiniest flick of her criticism was like a whiplash.

We struggled with interrogations until nine-thirty.

“You’re not really concentrating anymore.” I pointed at one of her mess-ups as she texted on her phone. “
Shì bú shì
is three distinct characters. You know that.”

She looked up. “I like shì bú shì. It’s a cute word, isn’t it? It’s three syllables and kind of means nothing.” She began to tap her finger and sing. “Live your life, shì bú shì, is my song, shì bú shì . . .”

“Actually, it’s called a tag,” I said. “But getting back to the grammar—”

“Speaking of tags.” Ella swiped three cookies off the plate, her voice spiced with mischief. “Tag, you’re it, game over, time to do something else, shì bú shì?” She checked her watch. “Noreen’s not coming for me for another hour. Where’s your online?”

I had a computer in my room, only I didn’t want Ella in there, with all my personal stuff. But the basement den was so skunky.

She was waiting. It was one or the other. There was no win here, I realized. This whole night was about playing defense. I just had to hope I got through it intact.

The den was mostly a TV and laundry room, with a sec
tion for Dad’s desk and laptop that he rarely used since he did most business at the shop. The lighting was ghoulish, but Ella didn’t seem to notice. She’d gone straight for the bookshelf where Stacey kept a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream for nights that she wanted a kick in her coffee.

“Will they care?” Ella asked. “Just a drop. To forget the horrendousness that is Mandarin.”

I didn’t answer. There was no casual way to take the bottle from her. I’d have to hope that when Ella said a drop, she meant a drop.

Bottle in hand, she perched at the edge of Dad’s chair and logged on to Facebook, but not as herself.

“Who’s Groaner?” I asked. The kid in the display photo had limp black hair and a sulk.

“Groaner’s friends with my sister, Mimi. He’s in this band Raised By Wolves and he likes when I friend high school kids under his profile because I bring in new fans. He’s how I got to be ‘friends’ with Mia McCord.” On the word
friends
, Ella inchwormed a one-fingered, sarcastic quotation mark.