Ask the Passengers (16 page)

“Can’t do it. Next weekend is out for me.” A sad smile forms across his lips. I feel instantly guilty. “But maybe the weekend after that?”

He smiles. Why do I do this to him?

It’s been two weeks since I dropped trig, and I’m still aware of it every minute of fourth-period study hall in the auditorium. I stare into space and picture those poor students still stuck up there in room 230, learning about triangles. I think about the theorems and the equations I will never have to do. I think about the way Mr. Trig’s ass looked in those plaid suit pants—how flat it was. How I used to picture it as some sort of foam insulation sprayed atop his blocky pelvis.

Seriously. I think of all those things. And I smile and smile and smile.

“You thinking about your boyfriend?” Stacy Koch asks.

“What?”

“I said are you thinking about your boyfriend? You look all happy and shit.”

Stacy has never talked to me before, so I have no idea what to say. She and her twin sister, Karen, are grinning at me. They are cheerleader types. Not real cheerleaders, but close. I think Karen might twirl a baton.

“Oh. No. I was, uh—” I can’t tell her I was thinking of Mr. Trig’s ass in plaid suit pants. “Yeah. I was. Can’t help it.”

“He’s a catch,” she says. “Isn’t he, Karen?”

Karen leans forward and nods. Stacy adds, “He’s like a little brother to us.”

Before lunch, I hear two interesting tidbits.

Astrid Jones is a prude. Jeff Garnet says she doesn’t even kiss yet.

I hear one of the Koch twins has it bad for him, too.

Life was so much easier being an honest nerd who didn’t do anything.

On Tuesday I realize I am a horrible person. I am a horrible person for doing this to Jeff Garnet. And to whichever Koch twin is in love with him. I should set him free.

But I don’t.

I tell Kristina at lunch about how Ellis saw Jeff walking around Unity Valley on Saturday night, and she says, “So?”

“So didn’t you make him promise not to blow the cover?
Why are we using him if he’s just going to mess everything up?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, it was your plan,” I say.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want, dude. You are the master of your own destiny and all that,” she says. She’s a little cold or something. I can’t put my finger on it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that what you learn in humanities?”

I think about what Frank S. would say. But I say nothing.

It’s Friday. I’m reading Plato’s Allegory of the Cave during lunch.

This week kinda sucked all the way through. From hearing rumors about prude Astrid Jones and being the only reader who showed up for lit mag on Wednesday and doing all the work myself to having to take a European history test yesterday that I forgot to study for. Plus, Kristina is still acting weird. So, now is not really the time for me to see Jeff Garnet.

He sits across from me the minute I’m done with my Caesar salad. I made it four whole days avoiding him—taking different staircases, using different hallways, only going to my locker during lav breaks.

“Are you avoiding me?” he asks.

“No, why?” I ask, completely nonchalant, as if I wasn’t hiding in the girls’ room two periods ago, waiting for him to pass by.

They say:
I don’t know why she’s stringing him along. Maybe it’s a pity thing, like Tim Huber.

“Astrid?”

“What?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“No. Sorry. I was spacing out. What did you say?”

“Stacy told me that she heard you were avoiding me.”

“Huh.” I shrug. “Well, she’s wrong. I’m not avoiding anyone,” I say.

“Oh,” he says. “Okay. Uh. Still not free this weekend?”

“Nah. I gotta do some family stuff. Bleh, you know?”

“Sure. So, how about you, uh—you know—just, uh—” he says as he awkwardly half stands so he can lean across the table to kiss me. As he’s doing this, I pretend I don’t see it, and I turn to my stack of books, pick them up and walk out of the cafeteria.

When I get home, Mom is at the kitchen table. Never a good sign.

“Astrid, I need to talk to you.”

I sit down and pretend for a minute that she actually cares about me and is going to say something normal Unity Valley mothers say to their normal Unity Valley daughters.

“Kristina told me that you and Jeff are having problems.”

I think of all the things I could say to this. I say nothing.

“Look. You can talk to me if you want. I can tell you what
you need to know about—you know—sex, or whatever the problem is.”

The problem is I’m dating a girl. I say nothing.

“Hmm. Well, Kristina called me today and told me she wanted to take you out this weekend, but you said no, and really, Astrid, the time you need your friends is now. I mean, if you and Jeff are going to break up, you shouldn’t take it out on Kristina.”

This is ridiculous. This is Kristina trying to get me to go out when she knows I don’t want to. My brain people remind me:
This is also Kristina trying to help you stop jerking Jeff around. She’s lying to Claire to help you.
I remind my brain people that this is also Kristina talking to my mom behind my back, which I don’t like. They reply:
But it’s for your own good, and you know it.

“Anyway, just know I’m here for you,” Mom says.

“Okay.”

“And those people calling you a prude were prudes once, too,” she adds.

Great
, I think.
That’s just great.
On the way up the steps, I tell my brain people they can just shut up now.

I’M TEN MINUTES LATE
to work because I wanted to be. Last I heard from Dee was her
abracadabra
text message last Sunday, and I didn’t answer, because I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now.

Juan says, “Big day today. Same as last time, but even bigger.”

“Grande!” Dee sings, high-pitched and with plenty of extra cartoonish vibrato. The guys laugh. I don’t even smile.

Dee and I are awkward by ourselves. We don’t talk or joke while we work, and I ignore her when she asks, “So, are we on for tonight or what?”

We don’t finish the dishes until four. I don’t punch out
until 4:10. That’s a ten-hour workday. Juan tells us we don’t have to come in tomorrow, and Dee says, as we toss our aprons into the laundry box, “Come on. Let me make it up to you. You got my text, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You still mad?”

“Yeah. I’m mad at all of you.”

She laughs. “All of me?”

“No,” I say, smiling a little. “All you people who think you can boss me around.”

“You
are
a pushover. That’s a fact.” She starts dancing a little and smiles at me, and when we get to the parking lot, she says, “Come on. You know you want to. Let me make it up to you, and I promise, no stupid pushy shit.”

I admit I could use a night out away from my house, and I wouldn’t mind a hard lemonade after the cruddy week I had. We get into her car and brainstorm my cover. We totally suck at brainstorming, so I call Kristina.

“I’ll cover you for tonight,” she says. “Claire owes me one.”

“I don’t even want to know what that means,” I say. “Text me with whatever I’m supposed to tell her.” Dee is dancing in place to imaginary music, making a bass sound deep in her throat. I admit I’m excited to go out to Atlantis again. An hour ago, I wasn’t going anywhere tonight. I think:
Maybe it’s okay that people talk you into things. Maybe if they didn’t, you’d never go anywhere.

Claire is locked in her office, talking on the phone with a client. You can tell she’s talking to a client because she puts on her New York City accent and talks about three decibels louder.

I find Dad in the quiet room, dozing with a book on his chest. I dust quietly around him, and before I leave, he says, “How’s my favorite daughter?”

“Dad,” I say in that exasperated way. “You can’t say stuff like that.”

He sits up and blinks his eyes hard a few times and stretches. “You know what I miss? Making birdhouses. What are you doing now? We should go make one.”

“I’m doing stuff,” I say. I wiggle the feather duster. “Waiting for her to get off the phone so I can sweep the upstairs.”

“You going out tonight?”

“I hope so.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“This guy a serious thing? Shouldn’t you bring him here to meet me?”

“Nah. Don’t tell Mom, though.”