You (11 page)

She rolls down the window as she pulls away, telling you to smile.

You can't think of a single reason why.

 

Y
ou cut around the food court, past the lame mechanical Santa's Workshop, past the Gap and the Aberzombie and the Spencer's Gifts and the four or five stores in a row that only sell sneakers, then you
slow up and look ahead through the crowd to the Piercing Point kiosk in the middle of the mall.

Déjà vu
.

It's Monday, but the mall's still crowded, and they're standing three deep at the Piercing Point. Ashley is helping a guy your father's age buy a pair of earrings. When she looks down into the case in front of her, you notice that he's trying to look down her top. Not that she has a lot to look at, but still. He's probably got a daughter her age. He ends up buying a few pairs and while she rings him up, you stroll over and stand near the register.

“Oh my god, it's sooo busy,” Ashley says after the man leaves. “I can't talk now. You look nice. Call me, okay? Before eleven. Gotta go.” She does one of those air kisses, then turns to help some woman.

And now you are smiling.

 

“
K
yle, I have to tell you, I'm impressed.”

You're sitting in an office in the customer-service area at Sears, near the bathrooms and the photo studio and the counters where people are making credit-card payments, and the guy interviewing you is sitting behind a desk that can't be his, not with the stuffed animals on top of the computer terminal and the collection of cat postcards tacked up on the bulletin board. All you did was ask for a job application but instead of just handing you the form and letting you walk away like you had planned, this guy appeared and said that he'd like to interview you now if it was convenient. You couldn't think of a reason why it wasn't—at least not fast enough—so here you are.

“Not many kids your age think to bring a résumé when they pick up an application,” he says, holding it up as if he were presenting it to the court. “You know what that tells me? It tells me that you think ahead, that you plan for the
unexpected. And it tells me that you're conscientious. You notice details.
And
, most important, it tells me you really want this job. Now tell me, am I right?”

He's not, but he's on a roll. You just smile and nod, and that makes him smile and nod.

“When I was your age—”

Here it comes.

Is it possible that it's genetics? Something gets triggered when you hit a certain age, like a form of puberty, but for adults? At thirteen, it's hairy under-arms and an obsession with sex. At forty, it's hair in your ears and an uncontrollable urge to tell people how things were better when they were a kid. Only with puberty you pass through it in a couple of years. This adult thing, when it hits, lasts the rest of your life.

He covers the usual points: clothing, music, hair-styles, chores, jobs, school, church, Scouts, cars, and respect.

“So tell me, Kyle,” he asks, “how are you doing in school?”

So you tell him. Why not? He'd probably call anyway.

He stares at you. And keeps staring at you. You're about to stand up and walk out when he says, “Good for you.” Not a condescending “good for you,” the kind your father says when you mention that you've jumped three levels on an online game. He really means it, and now you're staring at him.

“See, Kyle, most kids your age would lie. Okay, maybe not lie. They'd stretch the truth a bit or maybe blame the teachers, all that crap. You? You told the truth. Kids with good grades we've got.
Honest
kids? That's something else.”

Now comes the standard hard-work/rags-to-riches/lots-of-opportunities-for-those-who-try speech, and you zone out a bit until you can sense it's wrapping up. You sit a little straighter, mostly because your back is starting to hurt.

“I like what I see here, Kyle,” he says, tapping your worthless résumé. “I'm sure we'll have a few more applicants, but I'll tell you right now, I doubt I'll see anyone as good as you.”

You're thinking, he has to be kidding, but apparently he's not, and the next thing he's walking you back to the service desk, telling you about the break room and how you'll have an ID card.

“I can tell a lot by a handshake,” he says, working your arm like it's a pump handle. “I can tell you'll do fine here.”

Before he goes back to the office, he asks if you can stop back tomorrow, say around four. You say yes and the interview is over.

You said exactly twelve words.

 

Y
ou don't want to walk past the Piercing Point again—well, you do, but you know you can't—
so you go the long way around the mall, past the Banana Republic and the pretzel place, and past what's supposed to be Santa's stable, complete with nine mechanical reindeer, one with a flashing red nose. Much more interesting, however, are the life-size photographs of sleepy-eyed models in red negligees in the store's windows. So interesting in fact that you walk right into Nicole as she comes out of Victoria's Secret.

It takes you both a second, but then you remember that night at Zack's party. You remember her talking about Canada and growing up in Dawson Creek. She smiles at you, a beautiful smile, and then you can't help but think about what Zack said about the webcam.

She holds up two armloads of bags. “Getting my Christmas shoplifting done early.”

You laugh, wondering if it's true.

“I wish you were here ten minutes ago. I was
trying on a bathing suit and could have used a second opinion.”

You make some lame comment about how you're sure it looked great and then she says no and you say yeah and now you can't stop thinking about the webcam.

“So,” she says, stretching the word out as she shifts her grip on the bags, “did he figure it out yet?”

You give her that blank look.

“Zack. Did he figure it out yet?”

“Figure what out?”

She sighs, but she's still smiling. Obviously the boy is a bit slow. “Your weakness. How to get to you.”

You remember what that girl told you at school, the perfect senior who liked margaritas.

He finds your weak spot, then keeps pushing till you crack.

He pushed Brooke until she cried. And what he
said to Nicole pushed her out of the house and into your fantasies.

But…

It's different for guys.

Everybody knows that.

A guy pushes you, you punch back.

End of story.

“He gets to everybody. He'll get to you. Trust me, he'll figure you out.”

You shrug. “There's nothing to figure out.”

“Funny.” Her smile shifts—not quite a smirk but not as warm as it had been. “That's what I said too.”

 

Y
ou're lying on your bed, lights off, hands behind your head, staring up at the ceiling. You're still wearing the clothes you wore to the job interview—you were supposed to hang them up right away, but it's not like you're going on another one
in the morning or something.

It's early. Eight, maybe eight thirty. Too early to call Ashley. You could go downstairs and watch TV, but your father's watching that shouting guy again. Now and then a “shut up” cuts through the mumbling white noise, either your father or the TV guy, you can't tell. You could go watch the other TV, but there's never anything good on, and walking that far doesn't seem worth the effort.

What you'd like to do is play an online game, maybe World of Warcraft or Fallen Earth, but your computer is missing, one of your father's brilliant motivation techniques. It seems you have to
earn
the right to have a computer in your room. And they think you didn't do any homework before?

So you lie there.

You do this a lot, this lying on your bed, lights off, hands behind your head, staring up at the ceiling. It's what you do when you think about things. Not things like school or getting a job or your future.

You do your best not to think about them at all.

What you think about are sold-out concerts and you up on the stage, or leading a ninja death squad into a shogun castle, or gun battles with alien predators, or racing stolen Ferraris through the streets of LA, a hardcore soundtrack shredding your ears.

Oh, by the way, your iPod? That's gone too.

But mostly you think about Ashley.

Is that why you keep your hands behind your head?

So you're lying on your bed, lights off, etc., and instead of listening to music you're listening to your mom talking to Paige as she gets your sister ready for bed.

“I don't wanna wear the blue dress to school tomorrow.”

“I thought it was your favorite?”

“Uh-uh. The pink one is my favorite.”

“You just wore the pink one today. You have to
wear something different tomorrow.”

“Kyle wears the same shirt every day.”

Technically, she's wrong. They may look like the same black T-shirt, but they're different.

“That's Kyle,” your mom says.

“I wanna be like Kyle when I grow up.”

There's a pause—and you're thinking, does she mean the clothes or something else, something she sees in you that no one else sees, that you don't see, something she likes, something no one else has, something that means the world to her?

Then your mom says, “No, Paige, you do not want to be like Kyle. One in a family is enough.”

Your breathing changes first. Short, choppy breaths pulled in and out through flaring nostrils.

Next your jaw muscles lock up, then your teeth grind.

Your fists are held so tight your knuckles crack one by one.

She could have said anything.

Any damn thing.

But she said that.

To Paige.

And you're…what?

Pissed?

Hurt?

Embarrassed?

Betrayed?

Yeah.

All of those.

Because it's unfair?

Or…

Because it's true?

 

“
O
h my god, Kyle, you called. I was worried you'd forget.”

You're standing in the darkened kitchen, leaning against the door to the garage, the telephone cord
stretched across the room, trying to sound casual without being overheard. Normally you'd be up in your room with the door shut, talking on your cell phone, but that's another thing you have to earn back. And you're thinking, there's no way I'd forget to call you, but what you say is, “I just remembered.”

“I'm glad. Did you get the message I left on your phone?”

And yet another reason to be pissed at your father. You tell her no, hinting at your father's latest hobby.

She laughs. “Sounds like my mom and her stupid phone rules.”

And you laugh. You know all about stupid rules.

“Sorry I couldn't talk when you came by. We were
so
busy. What were you all dressed up for?”

You tell her about the job interview at Sears, but after twenty seconds you hear her mom saying something in the background, then Ashley
saying something about there still being like five whole minutes, and when she comes back with an eye-rolling “sorry,” you jump to the end. “Anyway, I gotta see him tomorrow. I think I got the job.”

“Really?” she says, and she sounds either surprised or disappointed. There's a two-beat pause, followed by a distracted “huh,” then another pause, and the silence is roaring in your head, so you ask her how her job was because you know that will get her talking.

“Okay,” she says. Then that damn pause again, this time with a sigh.

Your stomach is starting to roll up, squeezing the air out of your lungs, your gut way ahead of your mind.

“Kyle?”

Pause.

“Yeah?”

Pause.

“I gotta ask you something.”

Pause.

“Yeah?”

Pause.

“You and me, we're tight, right?”

Tight.

As in close?

As in intimate?

Or as in friends?

“Okay, Mom, I
know
!” she shouts as she tilts the phone away, not far enough really. “
Jeez
. Anyway”—another sigh, the kind that says she's waiting for her mom to leave—“I gotta talk to you about something.”

You swallow. “Yeah?”

“I've been thinking…lately I've been, like…this is
so
embarrassing…okay…so, like…you and me…ugh, this was
so
much easier just leaving you a message…I wanna tell you…”

I love you.

That's gotta be it.

That's what she's going to say, you can feel it.

Okay, maybe not love, but something like love, something close enough.

And you're hanging there, waiting for it, knowing it's coming, and you hear a loud voice say, “Right now, young lady. You know the rule.”

Then a sigh.

“Sorry, Kyle. I gotta go.”

Two minutes later, a recorded voice tells you that it appears that there is a phone off the hook, asking you to check your extensions. You listen to the message three times before you hang up.

 

Y
ou blame your father for your being late for school.

For the past six months you've been using your cell phone as an alarm clock. You had to, since your regular alarm clock somehow threw itself against the
wall one afternoon. On school days you're always the first one out of bed, and since you're “so damn noisy in the morning, Kyle,” no one else bothers to set an alarm.

But no cell phone, no alarm.

And this is why, fifty minutes after the bus passed by your house, you're sitting in the front seat of your father's Bronco as he drives you to school. He's running late too. He hasn't said a word to you all morning. You know he blames you and you expected to hear all about it the whole way to school, but he's got the radio cranked up, listening to the shouting shut-up guy. His role model.