You and Me and Him (12 page)

“I try. I try.”

“Seriously, Mags. I don’t understand why you would risk letting her near you again.”

“Masochism? Morbid curiosity? Take your pick.” All at once I’m sick to death of talking about Kayla and Tom and Nash and all of it. “Listen, I have to go. Long day.”

“Well, don’t come running to me when Little Miss Perfect Cheekbones curb-stomps you again.” He hangs up.

“Arrrrgh!” I put my phone in a death grip and shake it in front of me, strangling Nash in my mind. He’s successfully killed my happy Seattle buzz. I need a distraction, and I gave away all the cookies today, so it’s time to bake. I think about Tom and the smell of his gum at the gum wall. I pull out molasses, ginger, and clove and get to work. Soon the smell fills the kitchen and draws my dad in from his workshop.

“You know your Grandma Mary baked cookies all the time,” he says, settling his broad frame onto one of the stools at the counter.

“Yeah, Dad. Who do you think got me started?” I say. “Mom said Grandma was famous for her shortbread.”

“Shortbread was her specialty, but all her cookies were works of art. Once I started dating your mom, I would get regular care packages from her, full of cookies.”

“Grandma Mary died when I was only six,” I say. “I don’t remember much, except helping her make gingerbread people.”

“At Christmastime she made these special spice cookies. She’d put together huge platters of them to give away at church.”

“She did?” I didn’t know that about her, and I like the idea that I’m continuing her legacy in my own way.

“She gave away a lot more cookies than she kept over the years. It’s like baking itself was important to her, not the cookies.”

“Yeah. That’s what it’s like for me.” I lift the first batch of ginger cookies off the pan and onto the rack to cool. The spicy scent wafts between Dad and me, making us both smile. I pour two glasses of milk and put two cookies on a plate. Joining him at the counter, I offer one to him. We bite into them, and the clove goes to work on my lips and tongue right away, numbing them slightly. The smell makes me remember Tom at the gum wall again, and I wonder if his clove gum would make my lips numb if I kissed him.

“These are delicious, Maggie.” Dad’s voice brings me back to the warm kitchen. “Your grandmother would be proud.”

I shake my head and raise my glass. “To Grandma Mary.”

“To Grandma Mary,” Dad says.

Nash is distant the next day, but I don’t think he’s really mad. I steer clear at lunch, giving him some Tom time. Cece’s already in the library when I walk in.

“Hey, Maggie,” she says. “How was your weekend?”

“Mostly the usual.” I drop my bag with a clunk. “Did you go to the art museum?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “My mom went with me.”

“I wish I had a mom I wanted to hang out with.”

“Well, sometimes there aren’t any other options.” She pinches off the crust of her sandwich bit by bit, discarding it onto her napkin. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Cece so down.

“Tom and I went to Seattle too,” I say. “Yesterday.”

Cece perks up a little at this. “Just you and Tom?”

“Just me and Tom,” I say. “Nash had to . . . help his mom.”

Cece nods. She’s smiling a little and takes a bite of her now-crustless sandwich. “That’s great.”

We finish lunch, chatting until I’m almost late for biology. Tom is already at our lab table. Kayla’s in my seat, laughing and tossing her curls off her shoulder. Tom leans in, hands gesturing as he talks softly to her.

I feel a little stab of jealousy seeing them together. Then I remind myself to be jealous on Nash’s behalf.

Kayla waves, and Tom stands up, smiling, like he’s been waiting for me.

“Hey, Maggie,” Kayla says. “Tom’s been giving me a rundown of his most embarrassing moments.”

“Not the
most
embarrassing,” Tom corrects her. “You’ll have to earn those.”

“Well, if they’re like the stories you just told me, I’d do anything to hear them.” Kayla leans in a little, touching Tom’s arm and flashing those white Chiclets at him. The bell rings. “See you later.”

“Definitely,” Tom says.

Kayla leaves and I move around to my side of the table, not meeting Tom’s eyes. I haven’t actually talked to him since I dropped him off.

“You weren’t at lunch,” Tom says.

It’s a statement, but there’s a question underneath. I throw my backpack down and climb onto the stool.

I’m deciding whether to be evasive or honest when he says, “Nash seems kinda pissed at you.”

“He does? How pissed?” I put my head down on the cool black surface of the lab table. It feels good. “Did he tell you why?” I say into the table.

“He didn’t. And I’m not sure I’m qualified to assess the different levels of Nash’s emotional turmoil quite yet,” Tom says. “But if I had to take a guess, I’d put it at a five or six?”

I lift my head. “Is that all?” I say. “And we’re talking a scale of one to ten here?”

Tom nods.

“That’s a relief.” I know from experience that a five on the Nash scale feels bigger than it is, and that the anger is usually short-lived. A Tiger all the way.

Mr. Smythe shows a movie about the sexual organs of plants.

“I never knew sex could be so boring!” Tom whispers, throwing his book into his backpack at the end of class.

“Personally I was riveted. Stamen and angiosperm? That’s serious stuff!” We both turn toward the gym and the dreaded Ms. Perry. My mood collapses.

“You know you shouldn’t let her get to you,” Tom says, falling into step beside me.

“Oh, okay. Wow, I never thought of that. Don’t let her get to me. Thanks.”

“I know, easy to say, but she is twisted. She’s clearly got some sort of eating disorder and an unhealthy fear of . . . um . . .” Tom shifts his eyes away from me.

My face burns as I realize what Tom was going to say. “Fat?” I supply. “Were you going to say ‘fat’?” I clutch my notebook a little tighter and speed up. Tom is so good at making people feel at ease that I’d almost convinced myself he didn’t notice or care about what I look like. I feel stupid for letting myself think that even for a moment. My throat tightens unpleasantly as I pass a garbage can, and I consider whether or not I might need to stop and throw up into it.

“Look, it’s not a secret and it’s nothing new. I’ve been dealing with this shit my whole life. Believe me, if I could tune out the Ms. Perrys of the world, I would, but they are everywhere. They’re an occupational hazard for people like me.” We’re still walking, but I feel Tom’s hand on my arm and I stop. “What?” I say, the prick of tears behind my eyes.

“Breathe.” He puts his hands on my shoulders. “In and out. For just a minute. Breathe.” He closes his eyes as if to demonstrate the kind of Zen breathing he wants me to do.

I roll my eyes. I breathe. After a few seconds, my heartbeat starts to slow and my cheeks don’t feel quite as hot.

“Listen for a minute.” Tom’s hands are still on my shoulders, and now that I am not quite so absorbed in my own pity party, I become aware of the warm, gentle pressure of his thumbs resting on the bare skin on either side of my neck. “To clarify, I don’t think you’re fat,” he begins.

“Yeah, right.” I avoid looking at him. “Then why did you have such a hard time saying it?”

“Nash told me you were sensitive about—”

“Nash told you? Nash? Told you?” I step away from him, shaking off his hands. What else had Nash told him? “Jesus, we’ve only known you like a minute and a half, and you’ve got Nash and me both spilling the deep stuff. What else has Nash said about me? No, never mind. I don’t want to know.” I start toward PE again. “I’m going to be late, and Ms. Perry does not make a habit of extending her minute reserves of compassion to me.”

Tom starts to follow, but I change course, veering to the exit doors that lead to the back parking lot.

“Where are you going?” he says. “Maggie, wait, don’t . . . I didn’t mean to . . .” He trails off as I bust through the double doors and into the golden light.

I walk as fast as I can to a hole in the back fence, praying I can still fit through it. I haven’t left school this way since early freshman year. Squeezing through, I head down a side street away from the school. I’m not sure where I’m going, just away. The tears are still threatening. One minute I’m walking to class with a nice guy that my best friend is crushing on; the next minute we are having some sort of impromptu counseling session about my body image issues.

“Screw that,” I say, startling a woman walking by with her dog. I head for the mini-mart on the next corner. Inside, I roam the aisles for a couple minutes pretending to look for something I need. I pick up some lip balm and a can of Diet Coke and take them up to the counter to pay.

I don’t want to see anyone, so I choose one path in the maze of trails running along the hillside that divides our small city into the upper town and the lower town. You could do a whole year’s worth of after-school specials about the kids on the bluff. The stoners, the kids having sex with their boyfriends and girlfriends, the kids having sex with other people’s boyfriends and girlfriends, the LARP kids roaming the trails, challenging one another to sword fights with fake swords wrapped in foam. The trees offer plenty of places to hide and party, so I run the risk of bumping into stoned gamer geeks having wild sex among the pines, but it’s early yet, so I’ll probably be left alone.

I find a patch of moss and fallen pine needles under a tamarack that’s starting to turn golden. The sun is shining on the lake, but there’s a bite of fall in the air. It won’t be long before it’s too cold to sit outside like this.

I remove the lip balm, put some on, and slip it in my pocket. Then I take out the Diet Coke, pop the top, and take a sip. I passed out most of the ginger cookies at school, but I find a couple more in my bag. The idea of the soft, sweet cookie is more soothing than the astringent fizz of the Diet Coke. Unwrapping a cookie, I raise it to my lips, inhaling the ginger and clove. Then I hear voices. I scoot back up the hill under the trees. Below me a couple of tiny, blond women come into view, power walking down the trail. The sound of their voices drifts up to me as they race by, but the wind chops up the words.

I let out a breath and look at the cookie in my hand. I take a slow bite and try to swallow, but the mash of molasses and flour sticks in my throat. I toss the remaining cookies into the trees. Maybe some lucky stoner will find them and think the marijuana gods have granted him an instant munchies cure.

I look out at the water and the patches of yellow tamarack on the distant hillsides. Nash is mad at me. Tom thinks I’m fat. And who knows what Kayla has in mind. The cookies are gone, and my tears are too close to the surface, so I let them come, slow and silent. No racking sobs or hysterics. Just a little of my sadness leaking down my face and leaving wet polka dots in my lap.

By the time I make it to Square Peg, ten minutes after my shift starts, Quinn is picking up the phone to call me. He’s having a full-on hissy fit.

“What the hell?” he starts in, putting down the phone. “Where have you been? I was worried!”

I toss my bag under the counter. “Sorry,” I say. “I was on the bluff and lost track of time.”

Quinn gives me the look he calls “the hairy eyeball.”

“What?” I say. “I’m never late. Why are you so mad about this one time?”

“That’s why I’m so mad,” he says. “You’re never late, and so when you are, I’m extra worried.” He goes to the turntable to change the record. “The bluff, huh? What were you doing there?”

I move closer so Quinn can scrutinize my eyes. “See? Not bloodshot.” I breathe on him. “And no skunky pot breath, either.”

“Okay, okay. I was just wondering. You know the bluff has been the place to party since I was at Cedar Ridge.”

I sometimes forget Quinn is a product of my hometown. The idea is so unlikely that my brain refuses to hold on to that tidbit of information. But it also gives me some hope. For me and for Nash. “How did you ever survive growing up in this town?” I ask.
I want to know; I
need
to know. If Quinn has the keys to the kingdom, I hope to God he’s in the mood to share them.

“Tough skin and good hair,” he says.

I wait for a real answer.

Quinn sighs. “Someday Uncle Quinn will tell you all about it, sweetie, but right now you need to get to work!” He hands me a pile of albums from the RAP (records already played) bin, and I start down the aisle putting them back in the inventory.

A thought stops me in my tracks, and I turn and look at him. “What would you have done if I had been stoned?”

Quinn thinks for a moment, looking at me. “Look, that’s not you. It’s not who you are. So I would have told you to stop being someone you aren’t.”

“Oh, the ‘be yourself’ speech. Heard it. Hate it.” I turn back to my work.

“No,” Quinn says, and there is an edge to his voice that demands my attention. “Not the ‘be yourself’ speech.” He rubs his hands back and forth across his balding scalp, trying to gather the strings of what he’s trying to say. “Look, Maggie, you’re a strange kid.”

I stare at him.

He backpedals a bit. “That sounded wrong. I just mean you aren’t normal.” He holds up his hands. “No. Wait.”

I have the uncomfortable impulse to laugh, but Quinn takes a deep breath.

“You are . . . you. And if you did the stereotypical movie-of-the-week teenager stuff, like smoking pot or lying to your parents, it wouldn’t fit.”

“Thanks, Quinn.” I run my fingers along the soft edges of the album covers. “I think I needed that.”

Quinn lets out a breath and I go back to filing records, and the room starts to feel like the home away from home I’ve come to expect.

“By the way,” Quinn says, his voice casual. “Tom came by to see you earlier.”

I stop what I’m doing and spin back to Quinn. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t realize you cared,” Quinn says, watching me.

I steady my voice, but my stomach clenches as I remember our conversation this afternoon. “What did he want?” I ask.

“You, I guess.”

“Did he say anything—I mean, what did he say?”