Emancipated (7 page)

“Where are Candace and Grace?” John-Michael asked.

“They went to IKEA to get pretty stuff for the rooms.”

“Wish I'd known. I need things for the kitchen.”

Maya looked at him. “You cook?”

John-Michael smiled slightly. “I've been known to bake.”

Paolo placed a hand on Maya's shoulder. She was tense. “Relax. There'll be a way to sort this out. I'm gonna talk to Lucy.” Maya's aunt also looked uneasy. Paolo wondered if he'd been right to guess that money would be an issue with Maya. He'd been around people with money—they didn't get this upset
when the price went up by a hundred and fifty dollars. Maya might be enrolled in some fancy prep school and her aunt might drive a Cadillac, but something told Paolo that her family wasn't well off, after all.

“Come and see the kitchen,” John-Michael told Maya and her aunt. They followed him down the hallway.

Paolo knocked softly on the door to Lucy's room. He could hear the strumming of a guitar, playing five chords in succession. It didn't sound as though she was practicing particularly hard. Paolo poked his head around the door.

“Hey. Whatcha playing?”

Lucy glanced up. “I'm practicing a song.”

“Can I hear it?”

“Sure, why not.”

Paolo closed the door behind him and looked for a place to sit. Lucy was sitting cross-legged on her own bed, an acoustic guitar across her lap. He decided to take the red swivel chair from under the nearest desk.

“You ready?” Lucy began to play, singing along in a slightly crunchy voice. The song sounded great. Raw and uncompromising.

“You didn't write that,” he interrupted with a shy smile.

“Of course I didn't. It's ‘Holiday in Cambodia' by the Dead Kennedys.”

“Who?”

She cocked her head to one side. “Not your style?”

“What's not my style?”

“Punk rock.”

“That's what you're into?”

Lucy merely raised an eyebrow in confirmation. Paolo glanced along the sleek line of her arms, perfectly toned shoulders, and triceps. The swirled ink of a tattoo coiled around her right arm, all the way down to her long fingers. The fingernails on her left hand were painted black and filed down, neatly, whereas on the right hand each fingernail was individually decorated with a miniature image. It was impossible not to imagine what those slender, dark fingers might look like wrapped around him. She watched him calmly, her stare surprisingly penetrating. With a dry throat, he tried to swallow.

“You have a nice voice.”

“I can sing a little. But I play lead guitar. Sometimes it's hard to carry the tune as well as play.”

Paolo picked up a copy of
Rolling Stone
magazine that had slipped from the bed and onto the floor. “I like Green Day.”

“Well, they're pretty vanilla.”

“Oh, like me?”

A smile touched the corner of Lucy's mouth. Gently, she told him, “Your word.”

He shrugged, but her comment struck him with surprising force. “You play any songs by them?”

“Sure I do.”

“Can I take a video of you?”

“Go ahead.”

Without taking her eyes from his, she propped up the guitar and began to play. Paolo recognized the tune immediately—”Good Riddance” by Green Day.

When she was done, Paolo could only gaze in astonishment. “Marry me.”

Lucy smiled a little awkwardly. “Glad you liked it.”

“I freakin' loved it. You're better than that Billie Joe dude.”

“And yet he's the one with the stadium tours.”

“You'll get there.”

“My dad didn't think so.”

“Your dad, the assistant secretary of defense? Does he know
anything
about music?”

“He thinks he does.”

“Well, he can't. It's obvious you've got amazing talent.”

Lucy lowered her eyes. “He never really doubted that.”

Paolo looked at his phone and hit play on the video he'd just made. “I should put this on YouTube.”

Lucy wrinkled her nose. “I don't know. . . .”

“Gotta have a channel. Put vids of you online. Get discovered. It happens.”

“I know, but . . . we need better equipment to record decent sound.”

“You'd be surprised. The sound on this thing is pretty good.”

Lucy frowned and then broke into an unexpectedly bashful grin. “Is this what you came in here for, Paolo? I thought you came in here to hit on me.”

“I came in here to ask if you'd like to switch rooms with Maya. She's gonna have a hard time finding five-fifty a month for the room upstairs.”

“That how much it is?” Lucy whistled. “Not gonna lie, it's a lot. But then again, I could use my own desk. Yeah. My savings will cover that. I can make an academic case for it.”

Paolo raised his phone to his right eye. “But also, I
did
come in here to hit on you, by the way.”

Lucy didn't react.

“Just to get it out of the way, you understand?”

“Sure, sure,” she said, indulging him.

Paolo stared at her through the phone's camera lens. She hadn't so much as flinched. A totally cool customer. He'd flirted like this once before, both him and the girl so calm in the approach they were practically flatlining. Right up until the electric first touch. That time he'd been the one in Lucy's position, calmly waiting for the other person to make the first move.

He decided to push things straight to the next level: the joke that wasn't a joke. It had worked on him after all. “So we'll record this song, and then we'll . . .”

And he stopped.

With this girl, Paolo didn't know how to take things to the next level. It was like his neurons were temporarily blocked. Lucy was already smiling, a little resigned if anything, and shaking her head. Rather lamely, he finished, “And then I guess . . . I'll leave . . . ?”

“See now, we've gotten it out of the way.”

For a second, Paolo was confused. They hadn't gotten anything out of the way as far as he was concerned.

Lucy fixed him with a gaze of devastating cool. “You hit on me. It's done. Now we can move on.”

Paolo felt as though his chest had been chilled by a sudden, frozen blast of air. It took a few seconds for sensation to return. But when it did, it was like a rush of wildfire to his extremities. Unsteadily, he rose to his feet and backed out of the room. He babbled something nonchalant. He closed the door behind him
and leaned against the wall.

She'd blown him off. It wasn't possible. And yet what he felt wasn't embarrassment, but desire. There had to be something very wrong with the way he was wired. Because before, he'd only liked her. Now he wanted her. The image of her shoulders, arms, and fingernails, the swell of her breast were already seared on his brain, tattooed onto the backs of his eyelids.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

THIRD FLOOR, SUNDAY, JANUARY 4

Finally, her aunt left and Maya was alone in her room. Behind the closed door, she could hear John-Michael talking quietly to Paolo. Lucy's name was mentioned. After a few moments, she heard them go back downstairs.

She thought about unpacking but decided to wait; it would be a hassle to do it twice. Better to wait for Candace to return and confirm the switch.

A pity, because this room was
way
nice. Two beds, one of them a double, spread with a metallic, anthracite-colored quilt, bloodred pillows, and a crimson chenille blanket tossed in a stripe across the end of the bed. Two desks, both against a wall, not facing a bed as she'd spotted in the triple room. There was even a generous white closet with an attractive, abstract pattern in pink, green, and blue across the middle. And still tons of floor space.

Maya left the room and went outside along the cedar decking of the outdoor corridor, past the spiral staircase and to the third-floor balcony. Three woven rattan easy chairs faced outward, a round, glass table with a matching rattan base in between them. She eased into the chair farthest from the staircase and gazed over the low wall of the balcony toward the beach.

It was the best view in the whole house, looking out over the ocean. The sun's reflection glittered off the water, bright silvery white, almost too dazzling to bear. A wide strip of sand separated the house from the sea. A paved path wove through sand dunes and tall palms. Every now and then a group of Rollerbladers or skateboarders would stream past.

It was incredible that she had the opportunity to live in a house this amazing, considering Maya's situation. There was no point getting antsy about the specific room she'd have to share—she couldn't really afford any of them.

If it had been up to Maya, she'd have taken the single room. She doubted that her housemates were going to be too happy when they figured out what it was she liked to do until the early hours of the
morning. Solitude had always suited her.

But it wasn't up to Maya.

Who'd have thought that a person Maya loved so much could want her out of the house so bad?

She opened up her pink Kipling backpack, slid out her MacBook Air, fired it up, and checked her in-box. Her eyes went straight to the latest email:
Cheetr—Bug Report
. Tensely, she opened the message, started to read.

There were footsteps on the spiral staircase. She glanced around—John-Michael, asking whether she'd like to go to the grocery store with him and Lucy. Or maybe she'd prefer to go to the hardware store with Paolo? He wanted to get some tools to fix up the garden.

She felt the familiar tug. She wanted to go, definitely. Bonding with the housemates. A chance to get some of her favorite foods. Not being able to drive was going to be a real pain now that she didn't have anyone to drive her around. She was dreading having to get to school every day. It was a ten-minute walk to the school bus stop. Maya really should take any opportunity to get a ride to the market.

If only she hadn't opened the stupid computer. Once open, it was impossible not to work. It always started with a little tweak to her project. Five minutes' worth, nothing more. Yet five minutes so easily turned to fifteen, one hour, three.

John-Michael poked his head around the edge of the stairs.

“Knock, knock. You coming?”

“I kind of have a thing I need to do.”

“Will it take long? We can wait.”

Maya wanted to tell him sure, it would take five minutes, and then she'd be flying down those zany yellow stairs with her two new roomies. But it wasn't worth it. She'd grown used to the hostile glares of a disappointed friend who'd been forced to wait an hour while Maya tweaked a line of computer code. She couldn't risk that with these people.

Not yet, anyway.

“Ehhhh. Oh man. I want to.” She gritted her teeth.

“No problem,” John-Michael said. “Do what you gotta do. You've got my number? If you think of anything you need, text me.”

Maya smiled in relief. “Thanks, John-Michael.”

“No problem,
señorita
.”

She gave a gracious nod.
“Muy amable.”

“Means ‘you're very kind,' right?”

“Close enough.”

“It's so cool that you're Mexican,” John-Michael said. “We should have, like, Spanish conversations. I could seriously use an A in Spanish this year. That's my best chance to get my grades up so I graduate. Last year was kind of a washout for me. I'm working on catching up.”

“I'm not exactly fluent, but sure, anytime.”

“Bueno.”
He grinned and backed toward the staircase.

Barely two minutes went by before Paolo made his way up the staircase. He poked his head above the decking and gave a whistle to get her attention.

“Hey. How'd you like to come buy a shovel with me? I'm going to fix up the yard.”

“I can't right now.”

“Homework?”

“I'm—ah—well, I'm actually writing an app.”

Paolo looked stunned. “Wow!”

Maya had seen that look before, especially from jocks. They made a judgment about the types of people who did techy, digital stuff. She was guessing that they didn't expect a girl like Maya to be one of them.

“It's not that impressive. But I started and now I want to see it work properly. After a while it's like an itch you just gotta scratch.”

He said nothing but his eyes spoke volumes. “Okay.”

“Is there a lot to do?”

“In the yard? A little. It's just dirt now, and a bit of lawn. I'm going to put in some flowers. Something with color.”

Maya beamed. “Good for you! Listen, by the time you get back, I'll be finished. I'll help you plant.”

About fifteen minutes later, on the ground floor, the front door to the house opened. Maya heard two female voices. It had to be Candace and Grace. Maya put her MacBook down. She should really introduce herself.

But instead, she remained on the balcony, trying to listen to their conversation through the open kitchen window. She could just catch the occasional snippet. They were talking about Lucy, too, like the boys. That girl had obviously made some major impression on everyone. Maya hadn't missed the fact that Lucy hadn't even opened her door to say hello to her when she'd arrived. It was impossible not to feel that Lucy might be rather aloof. She wondered if the other housemates were saying something similar.

She heard footsteps on the spiral staircase. Maya stepped back inside and ducked into the double bedroom so she wouldn't be spotted. One of the girls was coming upstairs. Probably Grace, because she stopped at the second-floor room, the triple. Maya waited until she'd gone into the room, and then quietly descended.

She stood on the open threshold of the triple room for a few seconds without knocking. Grace hadn't noticed her—she was watching something on a laptop, with an earbud in one ear. Maya looked at the screen. It was a video of Lucy, playing the guitar and presumably singing.