Chemistry (2 page)

“Esmeralda,” they whisper, like it’s a holy word or a prayer, like it’s a secret so precious no one could say it louder even if they wanted to. When I see her face, I’ve got to admit I get it. And I hear my own voice mutter her name before I can stop myself.

She is perfect, like the angel on top of a Christmas tree. She has long, black hair; a coy, pouting expression; and a lithe, little body that looks every bit as dangerous as it is fragile. To top it off, she’s livid. Unlike Valentine, she gets the joke and she hates it. She pulls the stupid crown from her head, crumples it into a ball, and throws it over her shoulder while everyone cheers.

I try to snap out of it, free myself from this spell, notice something other than her. But I can’t. She’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.

One of the gossips behind me taps my shoulder, but I don’t turn around. I don’t do anything but stare at Esmeralda, who notices how I’m watching her. And still I can’t stop. Even as the corners of her perfect mouth turn down, even as her eyes narrow in suspicion and anger, I can only watch. She hates me. I don’t know why she hates me, but she does, without a doubt. And suddenly, I realize how insane it is that
this actually bothers me
.

It isn’t until Esmeralda leaves the vicinity that I notice Valentine has been waving his big, ugly hand back and forth in my field of vision. When I finally acknowledge him, he signs something that basically means, “What the hell?”

I shrug and sign, “Sorry.”

But he’s already forgiven me. “I guess I have to go to the dance now,” he signs, and he pats his thigh to call Jackie, his certified hearing ear dog, back to his side. Jackie is a great, slobbering, tangle of fur, and she was worth every penny I spent on her. No one else could have done as much to renew Valentine’s sense of self worth.

“You don’t have to go anywhere,” I remind him. “Don’t let them push you around.”

“I can’t dance,” he signs.

“Neither can I.”

“But they voted for me, so I have to go.”

“No.”

“If I don’t go, Esmeralda will be alone.”

So here’s the crux of the matter. I want to explain to him that this is not how these things work. She is not his date. She doesn’t care about him. More than likely, she’s disturbed by him and afraid of him, but I can’t bring myself to tell him these things in public. It isn’t that I’m worried others might read my signs. Valentine and I don’t use your everyday ASL. What we use is a kind of sign-slang that we developed between us. No one else can read it. That’s the beauty of Valentine and I: we are an island in the crowd. But I don’t want him to react in front of his peers. I don’t want them to see the disappointment in his face or the humiliation he’ll no doubt suffer. No, I’ll tell him everything when we get home today. Then he can cry and sleep it off and face the world with a little more dignity tomorrow, when he will undoubtedly refuse the crown of thorns they’ve offered him.

IV

We’re shopping, Valentine and I. I can hardly believe it, but we are. I’ll probably spend the last of my savings on a tux—a huge tux that will likely make Valentine look more ridiculous than formal. I’ve tried to talk him out of it, but there’s no talking Valentine out of anything once he gets his mind set. I feel like an idiot sitting here, waiting for him to emerge from the dressing room so I can assure him that no, the jacket doesn’t make him look more crooked than usual, or no, he doesn’t look fat in those pants.

He wants me to go with him to the dance, but I refuse. I won’t be a part of this. If Valentine is happy to be an object of amusement for the whole school, then so be it. I will communicate my disapproval by my absence. I can be just as stubborn, and I’ll prove it.

Then someone behind me says, “Are you going to Flourdel’s after the dance?” I know the voice. It belongs to Robin, a popular student who caught Valentine off guard once and received a fist to the stomach for it. He’s never quite forgiven Valentine. I hope he doesn’t see us here.

A second person replies, “Yeah, are you kidding? I’m not missing it again.”

Flourdel’s is a hotel. This is where some of the less savory post-dance happenings go down. Every year, after each dance, several senior students buy a number of rooms and a number of bottles and host parties, which are, in reality, just an excuse to loosen their dates with drinks or pills or both. For most guys at our school, dances are about getting laid. Everyone knows that. People who think otherwise are either clueless parents or completely deluded girls like Lily Darling. I’m pretty sure Lily would change her mind about attending dances if she ever found out how many points her virginity was worth, and how much general talk there’s been about Phoebus’ inability to pop that cork after a year of trying.

Only these two aren’t talking about Lily at all.

“The new girl is going, too. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Who told you?”

“No one. I just know. Phoebus is tired of hearing ‘no.’ He’s going for an easy kill this year.”

“She’s not gonna be so easy.”

“I’m betting she is. Pour a little Southern Comfort down her throat, and she’ll open right up. He can’t lose.”

“You willing to put money on that?”

I can’t listen to any more. I’m standing up and grabbing the cheapest suit I can find. I’m charging into the dressing rooms to try it on. I’m looking for a shirt to go with it. Because, God damn it, they aren’t going to do that to her—not if I can stop it.

Valentine emerges in his ridiculous tux and sees in my face what I can only feel in my stomach. He questions me, but I have no answer for him. Even I think I’m crazy for doing this. Who is this girl to me? I’ve only seen her once. I’ve never even spoken to her. For all I know, she’s just like all the rest of them.

And then I start to rationalize. This isn’t my unhealthy obsession. I haven’t really been thinking about Esmeralda for the last two days—dreaming about her. Nope. I’ve been imagining a symbol, a non-existent representation of the ideal girl. In fact, if I saw the flesh and blood Esmeralda again, I bet it’d break the spell completely. And then I could finally focus on chemistry again. Because I haven’t been able to focus at all. I just have to see her one more time. No problem.

“I’m going to the dance, too,” I sign with a slight smile. I hope Valentine doesn’t notice my shaking hands.

He grins and nods. “Thanks,” he signs.

I can see he means it. He thinks I’m doing this for him, and I should be. He deserves so much more than what he has. And now he wants to go to a dance. You know what? Good for him. He should go. I’ll go along to pick up the pieces after they tear him apart. I’ll be there for him like I always have because that’s the kind of person I am. That’s the kind of person I want to be.

But my thoughts return to Esmeralda, and I fantasize about protecting her. I want to be there for her, too. I want to be the one she turns to. I want to be the one she can depend on. I want to lift her so high guys like Phoebus and Robin can’t ever touch her. Because I know she wouldn’t want anything to do with them if she knew what they were really like, if she could hear the way they talk about her. She’s not like other girls. She’s smarter than that. She’s… Stop it, Claude. The image you have of Esmeralda is just a personification of your ideals, because you’re finally having a biological reaction to another human being. She’s not even real. Right?

Still it’s time someone alerted Flourdel’s to the kinds of activities that regularly take place at their fine establishment.

BOOK TWO

“I’m going to say it again, slowly.” I squeeze the receiver and remind myself not to scream. This conversation is not going well. “I request you put a stop to the kind of parties certain seniors in high school hold at your hotel several times each year.”

The woman on the other end of the line sighs. “And I am telling you that unless they are minors and you are their parent or guardian, there’s nothing I can do about it. Hotel policy—”

“Have you never heard of date rape?” I interrupt with what I hope will finally get her attention. “Underage drinking? Drug abuse? Laws are being broken here.”

“Listen, kid.” Kid? “If you know a crime has been committed, you need to call the police about it.”

“I have. The police aren’t interested in prevention. They think I’ve got a personal problem.”

“I can see why they would.”

That does it. “Fine.” I hang up before my temper gets the better of me.

My open books lay abandoned on the lab’s familiar, yellow countertops. It’s useless. I know I won’t be able to concentrate until I’ve dealt with this. I’m pacing, mumbling, angry—more angry with myself than the manager of Flourdel’s. I don’t know what to do. My mind won’t quit spinning webs. I can’t bear to stay in the lab a second longer.

I walk through the halls with my head down, thinking I’ll ask Valentine what he would do about this. Valentine will be in the band room, playing the marimba far better than any hearing person could. I’ll go see him, listen to whatever he’s practicing. It always calms me to hear him practice.

Then a voice stops me cold.

“Hey,” she says. She doesn’t know my name. Of course, she doesn’t know my name. I stop, but I don’t dare look up. “I’m looking for the band room. I need a tambourine. They said I’d find one there, but I think I got turned around.”

I look up. Bad, bad idea. Because she’s standing in front of me with her arms folded across her chest and her hair falling over her shoulders and her dark eyes trained on me. She is a neutron star in our binary system, orbiting me, steadily sucking parts of me away until there isn’t anything recognizable left. And how do I know this? What is my evidence? Easy. Right now, the only thought in my head is that this meeting must be fate.

Fate. How stupid. How ignorant is that? And I suppose next I’m going to decide that just because I’ve never felt this way about another human being, just because she and I were both headed to the band room at the same time, she must be my destiny. As though some sentient being were watching over the entire cosmos and determined that this girl and I were meant to be together at this moment. I absolutely hate myself for these thoughts. They aren’t like me, not remotely.

Esmeralda arches a brow, and I realize I’m just staring at her like an idiot. Because that’s what I am now, apparently. “It’s this way,” I say, and I lead her in the direction I was already headed. It is physically painful to turn my eyes away from her.

Valentine is right where I expected him to be, just rolling the instrument back into the storage closet. Jackie prods him to alert him to our presence, and he turns with a smile and a wave. His smile broadens enormously as soon as he sees who is standing behind me.

“She wants a tambourine,” I sign, and Valentine is running to find one before I finish getting the word out.

Esmeralda backs away from Valentine’s overwhelming enthusiasm as he offers the tambourine to her. His entire crooked head turns as red as his hair when he sees he’s frightened her. I want to be angry with her for upsetting him, but I can’t. Especially not now that she’s laughing at herself and taking the tambourine from him with her deft, little hands.

And here’s the moment where my world catches fire because she doesn’t say thank you to him; she signs it.

There are a number of reasonable reactions I could have to this exchange. This isn’t one of them. I am bitter and sick. I would laugh at myself, at the very idea that I might be jealous of Valentine, but I can’t. I can’t laugh or do anything other than stare after Esmeralda in utter horror as she kisses him on the cheek and flits out of the band room like some elusive honeybee.

This now qualifies as an existential crisis.

II

Like the idiot I am, I followed Esmerada. But I convinced myself I was only following Valentine, who was following her. Now I’m watching her perform on stage for the Drama Club. It isn’t high drama she’s performing. It’s more like a carnival show with what looks at first glance like a small dog, but upon closer inspection turns out to be a white pygmy goat.

“Djali,” she calls it. She asks it the time, and it answers by tapping the tambourine with its hoof. I fold my arms and try to appear disinterested.

Peter is exasperated. “She interrupted our rehearsal,” he whispers to me, apparently too dignified to disrupt any show, regardless of whether the show in question has just overrun his own.

“So tell her to leave.” I shrug as though it were just that simple, when I know damn well it’s not.

“I can’t. I mean look at her. They all love her.”

“It’s the goat they love.” I’m such a liar.

He shakes his head.

Well, I’ll just have to prove it to him, won’t I? I’ll just have to prove it to us both, so I don’t go insane with jealously knowing half the school is in love with my destiny. I stare past Esmeralda—I can’t look directly at her—, clear my throat, and say, “You know you can’t have a goat in the building.”

The hush that follows is like sulfuric acid on my skin. I know everyone is watching me, glaring at me, ready to pounce because I’ve taken their small pleasure from them. Fine. I’m used to their contempt. What I can’t stand is thinking she might be burning me with her eyes, just like everyone else. Because she isn’t supposed to be just like anyone. She’s supposed to be different. I have to know, but when I finally look up and see the way she’s staring down at me, I swear my heart stops. She isn’t different. Not at all. In fact, I suspected she hated me long before this wonderfully affirming moment, didn’t I? But I can’t accept it. I can’t. She’s just misunderstood me. She would never be so cruel.

Then her expression softens. “What harm can it do?” She pouts to the whole audience as though my interruption were only part of her act. “Your friend has a dog in the building.”

Valentine grins stupidly when he sees her finger pointed at Jackie. He pats the dog’s great, black head with pride.

“That’s a service animal,” I answer back. The weakness in my voice astonishes me.

“No kidding!” She slaps her knees and laughs. “Djali is a service animal, too. Aren’t you, Djali?” She turns to the goat, holds the tambourine flat at Djali’s level, and says, “Service, s’il vous plaît!”