Exposed (4 page)

My heart beats a little faster as I wait for her to scream, or yell at me, or make me shut off the camera.

Instead, she leans forward and kisses the tiny camera lens in the front of the laptop. I jerk the screen toward me and wipe off the lipstick.

She springs up, kicks those long legs, and pretends to twirl.

I use the button icons to adjust the angle and width of the lens until it picks up the whole space between my desk, bed, and rockers. Then I run to the closet, grab my case, throw it on the bed, unzip it, toss Devin a baton, and keep one for myself.

We move through our steps with no misses, marching with the military strut the Bear likes us to use for band routines, only really quiet so Mom won’t hear us and start yelling about twirling in the house. Devin hums last year’s band routine and steps us through the
lobs and rolls, then a vertical twirl and a horizontal twirl. We only pretend to do the big tosses and ham it up major on the dance steps, but when we get to the exchange, I start the pass too soon, and Devin’s arm crashes into mine.

Both batons slam to the floor. Devin’s bounces, tip first, and bangs three times.

“Crap!” I grab for the one closest to me.

Devin snatches the other one off the floor.

By the time Mom storms into my bedroom (with Lauren right behind her, of course), we’ve stuffed the batons back in the case, tossed the case in the closet, jerked the door shut, crashed back into our chairs, and almost stopped laughing.

Mom’s cheeks are bright red and her eyes squint like they do when she’s trying really hard not to lose her temper. She points her finger and counts all the lamps in my room to make sure they’re still in one piece. Lauren steps up beside Mom, points her finger, and counts lamps, too.

When Mom speaks, her voice is icy-nice. “I know you ladies weren’t twirling in the house after I remodeled our
entire
garage just for indoor practice.”

Neither one of us says a word. I risk a glance at Lauren, and go for shifting attention away from Devin, me, and the baton-sounds Mom heard. “Are you through with my leotards? You know the rules—if you change back to regular clothes, they go back in my closet so they’re clean and nice when you want them next time.”

Lauren huffs and starts to throw a fit, but Mom reaches down and squeezes her shoulder. “Go get the uniforms.”

Like a cartoon character, Lauren jerks herself free, smooths her hair, and stomps out to fetch them.

Mom watches her go and shakes her head. “Dad and I really need to talk about that new play she’s doing. Lauren’s dramatic tendencies do
not
need more encouragement.”

She starts to leave, seems to remember why she came, and turns back to us, pointing her finger at our faces. “If the batons come out in the house again, I don’t care how old you are. I’ll use them to tan your hides. Got me?”

“Yes ma’am,” we say at the same time.

Devin lets out a breath as Mom shuts the door. So do I.

But when I turn back to the computer, there’s my new e-pal profile, blaring out, bigger than life.

“Oh, no.” I grab both sides of the screen, then throw Devin a desperate look. “Did she see it? Did she see us in the streaming video window—or the AmherstViolet337 name?”

Devin shrugs and glances back at the door as if waiting for Mom to come charging back in and start yelling.

At that exact second, a new message pops into my in-box, and not one of the generic porn-and-perv spams I usually get when I start a new profile.

This one’s from KnightHawk859 with a subject line of: “Dear Goddess of Twirling.”

Devin and I stare at the message, then at the door.

No Mom.

My finger slides across the laptop’s touchpad.

“Girl, you better delete that,” Devin says in a low, tense voice. “It’s probably some freak.”

“Yeah, but he thinks I’m a goddess.”

She shakes her head and gives me the shut-up hand. “See, now you’re trippin’. He thinks
I’m
a goddess, not you.”

I highlight the message from KnightHawk859 and click OPEN.

Devin’s halfway through a sentence about how I’m an idiot for clicking on the message and how Knight-Hawk859 is probably some gutter-kissing lowlife when the message opens.

KnightHawk’s face fills my screen.

The sight of him makes Devin suck in her breath and shut her mouth so fast her teeth click together.

So … do … mine.

My entire world spins down to stillness. In the distance, I hear the murmur of Lauren’s television. Something clatters downstairs. Neither sound seems real or connected to the universe.

In my room, the only noises are the soft rattle of the central heat and air fan and Devin’s breathing.

KnightHawk has thick black hair trimmed even with his jaw, and he has big brown eyes. The kind of eyes I could stare into for hours. His upturned mouth makes a perfect heart, and his chin has the cutest dimple dead
center. I want to push my thumb into the spot and watch him grin. KnightHawk’s head rests against his hand, and tattoos peek above his black shirtsleeve.

Does the boy
ever
have some muscles, too.

His note says:
Great stream, Red. You should pop a video to the Band Section.

“OhmyGodhewaswatching,” Devin blurts. Then slower, “He saw us. Me. On that video.”

I’m too busy staring at the e-mail to say anything.

It’s signed
Paul, 1
^st
Trumpet, Jazz Band
, with a link to his profile at BlahFest. Under that is a P.S. reading
I’m nobody, too
.

“Now that has to be a coincidence,” I mutter, running my finger over the line of type.

But how incredible is it that he’s finishing a line from the poem I quoted in my profile?

No guy really knows an Emily poem well enough to do that, right?

No straight guy, anyway.

Devin’s probably missing that reference, because the only Emily poems she knows are the two I gave her to learn so we won’t flunk the classroom part of presenting our paper.

After a few seconds of shameless staring, she says, “Daaaaaay-um, Chan. Click that boy’s profile.”

I don’t waste any time following the link.

A private profile unfolds on the screen, tagged
Paul Hawkmore
. He lists himself as eighteen years old and a
senior at Underwood High School in Burbank, Michigan.

That’s pretty good.

Michigan’s what, seven hours from West Estoria? Maybe eight.

Paul’s other info is definitely phony—all sixes on the numbers, and his street is Louis Armstrong Way. Guess he has PIRs, too, even if he’s eighteen like he claims.

Under
Interests,
he’s listed
horns
,
jazz
, and
redheads
.

Devin punches my shoulder.

I ignore her.

My fingers move fast as I click on Paul Hawkmore’s message, hit REPLY, and write:

Thks.

You have a video at BlahFest Band?

I sign it,
Chan, Majorette
, with a P.S. of
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!

“Don’t put your real name.” Devin knocks my hand sideways before I can hit ENTER.

“Ow!” I move my hand back and push hers out of the way. “You did agree this Internet guy thing’s not a bad idea, and I’m only using my first name like he did.”

“His first name could be Merwood or Spitball for all you know. Merwood Spitball. That sounds about perfect.”

“You’re as bad as Mom.” I hit ENTER.

It’s not like we haven’t dodged Parental Internet Rules before, especially with chat and stuff. With the
laptop, I’ve been dodging them a lot more lately, within reason. I’m sixteen, for God’s sake. I know how to protect myself from freaks and perverts.

Devin snorts after the message sends. “Bet his name
is
Merwood, and that’s a picture of his older cousin or something. Paul Hawkmore’s probably five foot nothing and eighty pounds soaking wet.”

“You’re just jealous because he likes redheads.” I sit back in my chair, surprised by the sharpness in my voice. “I think that’s his picture. It
is
possible a good-looking guy would like me, you know.”

Instead of you. It’s not always you, even though you’re perfect.

Devin stares at me. “Duh? You dated Adam Pierpont all last year. He’s a god.”

“A god who likes to boink cheerleaders.” I turn back to the computer and try not to feel sick to my stomach. “A god who wrecked my entire life.”

I so need to be over all that, but it’s hard with the daily reminders I get.

Irritated with Devin, but more with myself, I turn my eyes toward the bottle of pills on my bedside table. Antiviral “suppressive therapy.” One per day, forever, to reduce my number of herpes outbreaks. I’ll be dealing with herpes the rest of my life, courtesy of the best-looking guy in my class and the biggest pom-pom whore in school.

And me, not making Adam use protection because I was on the pill.

Did I actually give that cheating, lying moron a book of poetry because I loved him sooo much?

Barf.

I’m such an idiot.

So much for pretend-friends I thought were real friends.

So much for boyfriends and dates and self-respect.

Oh, yeah. And parental trust. That’s still pretty empty, too, even a month into the new school year. If I did produce an actual as opposed to cyberspace boyfriend any time soon, both my parents would probably die of sudden strokes.

The silence in the room gets heavy, and my stomach twists.

After a minute or so, Devin says, “I’m sorry I brought up Adam-P. I thought you were past all that.”

Sure. Like that’ll ever happen.

Out loud, to Devin, who never quits defending me when the skank-whispers start or the Ellis witch-monster rears its evil blond head, I say, “I’m over it. More or less. It just hits me sometimes, you know?”

“Yeah.” Devin’s eyes look unfocused. She doesn’t like to think about negative things very much. “We, uh … I guess we should … Do you want to look at some other profiles before we make notes on our paper so you can get that outline done? The outline’s due first, right?”

I glance at the mailbox again.

Still nothing.

“I don’t want to look at any more profiles tonight,” I tell Devin, knowing it’s probably better if we just move on to other things.

Paul—or whatever his name really is—might have gotten busy, or maybe his parents made him knock it off for the night. Mom would be making me shut down if I was using the computer downstairs, or if Devin weren’t here to work on our assignment.

I hit REFRESH one more time, but my BlahFest mailbox still doesn’t have a new message. “Okay.” I click over to a search engine page. “Shoot. What should we look up first?”

For a few seconds, Devin doesn’t say anything.

I glance toward her as Mom and Lauren break into a typical bedtime why-can’t-I-stay-up-because-you’re-eight argument out in the hallway, near my door.

Devin rolls her eyes and raises her voice over the chaos. “Before I came over, I did a few searches. Got a lot about Emily’s poetry, but we need more about her life. Ms. Haggerty wants
an exploration of her inner being
. Or some crap. You heard her.”

My turn for the eye-rolling.

Woo-hoo.

We get to write a paper exploring the inner being of a reclusive hermit who never went farther than her garden after she dropped out of college. Emily Dickinson’s poetry wrenches my soul, but her life—a little on the tame side.

“Do you think Emily was queer with her brother’s wife?” Devin shuffles the stack of note cards she brought—the ones I can’t believe she already made, but Devin is all about A’s. “Sue Gilbert. Yeah. I found some articles that say they were, you know, philandering with each other—but other sites swear Emily was in love with a bunch of different guys but too shy to say anything.”

I stare at the search engine page and chew my lip, resisting an urge to zip back to BlahFest and check my messages. “Emily and Sue Gilbert Dickinson wrote lots of letters to each other, and they were sort of passionate in that old-fashioned way. But I think it was normal for women to talk like that back then.”

“Lots of letters?” Devin scoots closer to me, on the very edge of the bed, ripping my brain away from the blank search engine screen for five seconds. “So, you’ve read some?”

My cheeks warm up a little. “Okay, I’m a total Emily geek. I’ve read a few—some of her poetry came out of those letters.”

Devin snickers. “How many did she write? I mean, they lived next door to each other for like thirty years. No real need to epistolize on a daily basis.”

Epistolize.

Devin and her ten-dollar words.

She studies vocabulary like a fiend to keep her English grade up—and it usually works, too. Her motto’s simple.

If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle ’em with bovine excrement.

“Emily and Sue
epistolized
more than two hundred and fifty times,” I explain, “but I don’t think the letters are all online.” I type in a search to show her, cue it up, and wait a second for her to scan the headers. “Sue Gilbert’s family burned her epistles, so all we have are Emily’s letters. Sue might not have answered her the same way.”

“What way?” Devin reaches over and flips on my desk lamp, brightening the room and her smooth, perfect face. Her eyes sparkle as she asks, “Are the letters sexy?”

“Well, sort of. Not really. It’s all 1800s language. Pounding hearts and fainting bosoms and all that.” I pick up my Emily compendium from the corner of the desk, flip to one of the poems taken from Emily’s letters to Sue, and read: “Her breast is fit for pearls, But I was not a ‘Diver—’ Her brow is fit for thrones, But I have not a crest.”

Devin stares at me blankly as I put the book down.

“See what I mean?” I gesture to the thick volume of more than seventeen hundred poems. “They’re like that, the poems from her Sue letters.”

“‘Her breast is fit for pearls’?” Devin shakes her head. “That’s got to be more than friends. I’d never write a poem about putting pearls on
your
titties. No offense.”