Cycler (7 page)

I crunch through the frozen grass to a splintery wooden swing that dangles from the maple tree. Stepping on it, I shinny up the rope and straddle the branch that will deliver me to the porch roof. The branch sags and creaks with my weight as I scoot outward. Halfway to the porch roof, I stop and look down. Below me is the hard, frozen ground. Above, the dark shapes of naked branches rustle and play peekaboo with the half-moon.

I am outside.

I am cold and frightened, and the knobby branch digs angry knuckles into the bony sections of my ass. I have never felt any of these sensations before. At least not with my own skin. In my three years of life, I have felt nothing but soft sheets, plush carpeting and central heating. Sure, Jill’s been cold and uncomfortable plenty of times, but I never bothered to dwell on those things. Now that I’m experiencing it all with my own body, I feel electric. I want to jump. I want to swim. I want to run. I want to break something. I want to fly.

I grab the rough branch in front of me and scoot outward. When I get to the tip of the branch, it sags just below the porch roof. Grabbing the edge of the roof, I pull myself and the springy branch upward, then slide belly-first onto the rough vinyl tiles. After lying still for a few seconds to ensure that the roof can hold my weight, I turn onto my back and wait for signs that someone has heard me. There is no sound except a weak wind through the bare branches of the maple tree. Slowly, quietly, I get to my feet. Just a few strides to the left, at the corner of the house, is Ramie’s bedroom window.

I won’t lie. The slim remains of common sense command me to run, to stop this imbecilic mission and go back to the safety of soft sheets and plush carpeting. But common sense is the ninety-eight-pound weakling in this contest.

I walk toe-heel to the edge of the roof, where Ramie’s bedroom window sits shiny and black, then press my forehead against the cold surface and make a visor with my hands. As my eyes adjust, a shape emerges, vague and cubelike. It’s Ramie’s bed and on it is Ramie. As the darkness retrains my eyes, I make out which end is the head and which is the foot of the bed. It’s a mere three feet from this window, three feet from my hands. My breath fogs the window and I wipe it clean. I make out the tangle of Ramie’s dark hair emerging like a wild bush from the pale comforter. She’s lying on her back with her face turned to the window. The half-moon’s light catches the sharp curve of her jaw, then fades to shadow where I know her lips are. Her big eyes are closed and a stray tangle of dark hair lies across her nose.

I am seeing Ramie’s face for the very first time with my own eyes.

There is movement in my nether regions.

I want to pry open her window and slither into her bed like a snake. But I’m not that far gone. Not yet. I unbutton my jeans. The cold air is a quick dampener but my desire revives quickly. I keep unbuttoning and when I reach in, something happens inside Ramie’s room.

She’s rolling away from me! Instinctively, my right hand emerges from my jeans and raps on the window. Ramie starts and turns back to me. I catch a brief glimpse of the shining paleness of her face and that’s when it happens.

I peel myself from the window, press my back against the sliver of roof between it and the edge—and miss!

It’s not a long way to the ground. But it is far enough for me to realize I am falling from Ramie’s porch with my pants unbuttoned. I do manage to right myself midfall and land feetfirst, but it’s hardly a gymnast’s dismount. The momentum of the fall sends me over onto my left hip and shoulder. I hear Ramie’s window hiss open. Scrambling to my feet, I press my body against the porch screen and button my trousers. She moves above me, but the vague creaking is indecipherable.

If I sneak to the base of the maple tree, I should be able to see her. But then she’d see me too. Do I risk it?

The creaking stops. Either she’s gone back to bed or she’s waiting for me to reveal myself. I have to move eventually. I can’t hide under the eaves of her porch roof all night. I guess this is what backup plans and abort protocols are all about.

As I press against the porch screen, trying to make myself as flat as possible, I recall an old Kick-the-Can strategy of Jill’s. I decide to adopt it. Dropping to my belly, I snake as quietly as possible from Ramie’s porch right onto the lawn, shielded only by darkness. When I get to the maple tree, I slither to the far side, then slowly get to my knees and peer around the trunk.

Ramie stands at her open window, hands pressed to the sill. The wind blows her tangle of hair and she shakes it out of her eyes. The odd thing is, she’s not looking down. She’s looking up. I look up to see what she’s looking at, but all I see are the branches of the maple tree. In another moment, she’s gone.

Desperate for another look at her, I haul ass up the maple tree and straddle the branch leading to the porch roof. I’m about to start inching outward when Ramie returns to the window, wrapped in her thick white comforter. I freeze. Ramie opens her window wide, then perches on the sill with her knees tucked up against her and the comforter as shelter. Leaning her head against the window frame, she looks upward again.

Looking upward myself, I can just make out an incredible sight between two branches of the maple tree. The wispy clouds are gone, and against the ink black of the night sky are a billion pinpricks of light. Among them, in a definite band, is the arc of the Milky Way. Turning to Ramie’s window, I triangulate her gaze. She’s looking right at it. She’s wondering what it’s like out there at the edge of the galaxy, wondering if anyone’s sitting there among those stars looking earthward. I know Ramie, even if it’s through the veil of Jill’s perception. She’s thinking all of these things, plus some things I couldn’t imagine. She’ll sit there until the night air seeps in through that comforter, thinking beautiful Ramie thoughts until it’s too cold to bear. And I’ll remain here straddling this branch with a bruised hip, frozen ankles and a persistent hard-on. I’ll sit here and stare at Ramie Boulieaux until she returns to bed.

And that is exactly what we do.

April 13

Jill

When I wake up, my whole body aches.
I sit up, look at my all-girl face in the mirror, then do my Plan B rituals. After that, I check the date on my clock. Friday, April 6. Seventy-eight days until prom night. Apple green marker in hand, I cross off the four previous days. Jack came early this cycle, so I have to rework my prom projections. Flipping through the months, I realize that my previously reliable 28.76-day cycle has drifted into a disconcerting irregularity. I do a quick calculation. The new average cycle length, based on the last six months, clocks in at 27.67 days. That whittles the window between prom night and Jack’s expected arrival from five days to a hair-raising two! A further increase in cycle irregularity, and I could miss the prom altogether!

Prom.

Tommy.

The Bump.

The J-bar!

My life is a disaster on so many levels, I can hardly keep track of it all.

Dragging myself to the dresser, I peel off Jack’s stinky white T-shirt and notice a hideous bruise on my left shoulder. Pulling his boxer briefs down, I spot its bluish green twin on my left hip. I take down the note taped to the corner of the mirror. “Hey, Jill. Sorry things didn’t work out for you at the Bump. Maybe you should try something truly radical, like being yourself. Just a thought. Anyway, I do appreciate the porn. How about some DVDs next time? I like brunettes. Oh, and sorry about the bruises. I was doing yoga. Got carried away. Love, Jack.”

Love,
Jack? What a suck-up. And how gross is it that he knows about the Bump, that he knows about my life at all? Plus what’s with showing up early? I turn the note over and write “Stop invading my phase! I’m on a tight schedule here!”

Then I realize how stupid that is. It’s not as if he controls these things. I grab some paper from my desk and write, “Sure. No problem. I’ll ask Mom for more naked brunettes. Hey, while you’re exercising, how about trying to do something about this arm flab?”

I almost write “Love, Jill,” but it feels smarmy, so I just write “Jill.”

Over French toast, I ask Mom for the porn DVDs, which she agrees to after casting a cold but ambiguous glance at Dad. I have not been entirely successful in my avoidance of Baron von Box-of-Porn, as he tends to be underfoot now and then. I suppose I shouldn’t blame him for hoarding it, though. I’m sure he gets nothing from Mom. I deeply hate having psychologically complex parents. Have I told you that?

The French toast is yummy as always, but I do not linger over breakfast. I drive to school early and hide out in homeroom to avoid running into Tommy Knutson before Ramie and I can strategize damage control. It’s Friday, so I just have to get through one day before a weekend-long brainstorming session can commence.

As Mrs. Schepisi and the other students filter in, I get nervous that Ramie’s ditching school. But just as the late bell rings, she rushes in. Let me paint a picture for you: vintage sailor’s cap, super-skinny white jeans (it’s early April, for crying out loud), her dad’s blue button-down shirt and a long ribbon of black grosgrain wound around her torso and thighs like she’s in an S and M movie.

Eliciting the usual snide comments and chuckles from our homeroom crowd, which she ignores, Ramie slides into the seat next to me just as Mrs. Schepisi closes the homeroom door.

“Nice look,” I tell her.

She pulls back and gives me the up and down. “Blue cashmere sweater set again?” she says. “Nice jeans, though. Hem them shorter. Ankle length. It’s the new black.”

“Along with Chubby Chic?” I say. “Anyway, what’s the word on the street?”

She scoots her metal desk closer, leans over and lowers her voice. “On Tuesday he asked me where you were.”

My stomach flips over.

“I told him you were out sick. I didn’t want to get into the whole blood transfusion thing, but he did ask why you miss so much school.”

“What did you say?”

The principal’s voice crackles over the ancient PA system with pointless announcements about yearbook meetings and an upcoming pep rally for the baseball team. Like anyone cares.

“I told him you were a woman of many mysteries,” Ramie says.

“Good improv.”

“He did mention calculus,” she says. “Are you tutoring him?”

I take a few deep breaths and release the tension from my body. It looks like, fingers crossed, I have survived the J-bar incident with at least enough dignity for Tommy Knutson to risk being seen with me for tutoring.

“You should meet him today,” Ramie says. “At lunch. I’ll make myself scarce so you can do sticky eyes over sines and cosines. Mmmm . . . sexy.”

“That’s trig, not calculus, you math dunce,” I say. “How’s my hair?” I turn to the side so she can see.

“Looks like it always looks.”

“New conditioner,” I tell her. “Hey, we’re abandoning the Lexie Oswell routine, okay?”

“About time,” Ramie says. “It’s so not you.”

“Yeah, being an uptight snob is harder than it looks. Good for your posture, though.”

The bell rings and we gather our bags. As we head to the door, Ramie reaches around me from behind and tries to tie my cashmere sweater at the waist.

I push her hand away. “Stop it.”

She holds tight and shuffles me out the door. In the hallway, I dig my thumbnail into her wrist.

She rips her hand away. “Ow,” she says. “I’m just trying to help.”

I make a quick scan of the hallway to make sure Tommy’s nowhere in sight. “Shut up,” I say through clenched teeth. “You’ve wrinkled it.”

“Good. You’re too perfect.”

We head toward the North Wing together.

“I may be too perfect,” I say, “but at least I don’t look like Houdini. Are you planning a daring escape from that outfit?”

She throws her head back and rolls her eyes dramatically. “You are deeply boring.”

“And
you
have a ribbon up your bum.”

“Ooh, good one.”

Lunch.

The cafeteria smells of spaghetti Bolognese, which is to say it smells of puke and Parmesan. I arrive early, and rather than sitting at my usual table with Ramie and Daria, I snag the table farthest from the kitchen near the big window overlooking the courtyard, with its muddy lawn and spindly cherry trees debuting the barest hint of pink bud. I take out my cheese sandwich and bottled water, then press my paper bag into a neat little mat and lay the sandwich on top of it. I want my lunch to look small and orderly. I do not want Tommy Knutson to think I am expecting him, so I resist glancing around the cafeteria. Instead, I busy myself with my sandwich and water bottle until he decides to show up.
If
he decides to show up, that is. I’m not overly concerned. I have lots of things to think about. In fact, I have my composition book open next to me and am writing very interesting things in it. Things like all the days of the week and possible names for the fashion zine Ramie and I will never start up, such as Styleslut, FashionX and Anti-Glam.

“Hey.”

I look up from my notebook, and there he is. Threadbare navy blue sweater, faded baggy jeans. He’s smiling at me and I notice for the first time a slight gap between his two front teeth. “Recovered?” he says.

I close my notebook. “From what?”

He slides onto the bench across from me and places his green spiral notebook and calculus text on the table next to his lunch bag. “From the J-bar,” he says.

I toss out a lighthearted chuckle, which I practiced in the car on my way to school. “Oh, that. Pretty funny, huh? You should see me on water skis.”

He raises his eyebrows suggestively. “I’d love to.”

An outright flirtation? Whoa. Not prepared. Line!

I put my hand on his calculus book to steady myself, and change the subject. “So,” I say.

He cringes. “Yeah. I thought I was smart enough for honors calculus, but my last school kind of blew. It’s too late to drop down a level and I really don’t want an F on my record. A D, I can live with. I figure it’ll make me interesting.”

I take a very small sip of my water. “I’m not sure college admission officers will see it that way.”

He shrugs and pulls a foil-wrapped sandwich from his brown bag. “Not my concern.” He peels back the foil, revealing what looks like wallpaper paste and spinach on multigrain bread.

“You’re not going to college?” I say.

He takes a bite and shrugs. “Maybe. I’m gonna spend a year driving cross-country first.” He eyeballs my sandwich. “Aren’t you eating?”

Truthfully, I’m terrified of eating in front of him lest I accidentally dribble or burp. “Yeah,” I say. I take a minuscule bite of my sandwich and chew as daintily as possible.

With his eyes penetrating mine like lasers, Tommy opens his mouth wide and takes a huge bite of his sandwich.

“What is that?” I say.

“Baba ghanoush,” he mumbles. He holds the sandwich out to me. “Want a bite?”

His teeth have left forensically perfect marks in the bread.

“Try it,” he says. “I made it myself.”

Not wanting to appear rude, I put my hand over his and guide the mushy tooth-marked thing toward my mouth. I take a very small bite.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not infectious or anything.”

I chew and swallow, then wave his hand away. “It’s great. I’ve never had baba ghanoush.”

He reaches into his bag for a small plastic bottle of something green, then takes a swig. “So.” He opens his calculus book. “Talk to me about absolute convergence.”

“Okay.”

Our heads come together over the calculus book as I guide him through some examples. As expected, he smells heavenly, kind of musky, like pumpkins and black licorice.

“Show me,” he says.

In his notebook, I write out some equations and talk him through each step. Mostly, I keep my eyes on the notebook, but every once in a while I look up to see if he’s following. His eyes lock on to mine, serious and without a trace of embarrassment.

“Nope,” he says. “Still not getting it.”

“Watch,” I tell him. Then I take him through the steps again. When I’m too chicken to look into his eyes, I sneak glances at his chest as it rises and falls beneath the blue sweater. He’s skinny, his shoulder bones boxy beneath the baggy sweater. I never realized I liked skinny guys.

“What are you doing after school?” he says.

I take in a sharp breath and open my mouth to answer when the bell slices into the cafeteria din.

“Today?” I say. I stuff my uneaten sandwich in the brown bag and put the cap on my water bottle.

Tommy puts his notebook and calculus text into his beat-up blue backpack. “There’s still some snow at the Bump,” he says. “Want a lesson? It’ll be too late, soon.”

I slide out of the bench and shoulder my bag.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You don’t have to use the J-bar.”

I stare at the linoleum and laugh nervously. “I’m not afraid of the J-bar.”

“Good,” he says. “I’ve got to pick up some stuff for my mom right after school. Meet me at the cocoa shack at three-thirty?”

I meet his eyes for about one and a half Mississippis. “Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

“Cool.” He turns and walks out of the cafeteria, his blue backpack dangling from his weirdly sexy shoulder.

Four tables away, Ramie stares at me, then rushes over. “So?”

Daria catches up with us. “How’d it go?”

I want to answer their questions, but I seem to have left part of my brain in Tommy Knutson’s notebook. Or it has wafted away on his pumpkiny scent. Wherever it went, it’s not working for me anymore. Ramie and Daria have to physically escort me from the cafeteria to my locker so I can get my books for Spanish class.

“The Bump,” is all I manage to say. “Three-thirty. Ski lesson.”

Daria starts jumping up and down, and Ramie has to stifle her with a firm hand to the shoulder.

“Good work,” Ramie says. “No H Block today, so the next time he sees you—”

“I’ll be dangling from the J-bar?”

Ramie helps me get the Spanish books into my bag and closes the locker. “No,” she says. She takes my arm and leads me down the hall toward my Spanish class. “You’ll be decked out in my best ski gear and ready to face the Bump again.”

Daria walks on my other side, all smiles and giggles. “He’s really cute, you know. I mean, not my type at all, kind of skinny, in fact, but he’s actually really cute.”

I look into her deeply clueless face. “I know,” I say. “Believe me, I know.”

I do not wear Ramie’s pale pink ski suit this time because I do not want to remind Tommy of the J-bar incident. Ramie has snuck me her mom’s blue and white ski suit, which is a hair too big but looks okay after we safety pin it in a few key places. With the big orange visor, I look like an insect, but a stylish one.

Fully decked out, I sit on the bench outside the cocoa shack with a pair of rented skis and a heart that is beating so hard I fear starting an avalanche. It’s three-forty-five and Tommy has not arrived. I hate for him to see me waiting around, so I clip into my skis and shuffle very slowly back and forth in front of the cocoa shack. Norm watches me from his ski rental hole and gives me a sarcastic thumbs-up.

At the foot of the hill, the J-bar taunts me.

The cocoa shack door squeaks open and Tommy emerges in his school clothes plus ski boots. He drops his skis into the snow, steps into them, and grabs his poles. “Let’s hit the rope tow.”