Gemini (10 page)

I shrugged, using every ounce of strength to feign nonchalance. “Well, so you can see why I don't want to wait around to see if you're going to show up some other time. I'll probably be busy some other time. This Friday night is very likely the last chance you'll have to catch me with that kind of free time on my hands.”

My palms at this point were so sweaty, I thought they might start dripping right onto the ground.

Max's smile was still there. “All right. Friday night it is, then.” He looked sideways, then down at his absurdly large feet, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Um, do . . . you find you . . . can actually
see
very much of the meteor shower from there?”

“Meteor shower?”

He met my eyes. “You do know that's supposed to be the height of the Orionid meteor shower this year, right?”

Hailey cackled.

Max raised his eyebrows, looking at her.

“Sorry,” she said, even as she laughed again. “I was trying so hard to be quiet. But the Orionid meteor shower! Is it really this weekend? I can't believe Clara didn't know that!”

I nodded, as all that hot air seemed to seep out of me. “I can't believe it either.” An observatory was perhaps the worst place in the world to watch a meteor shower.

Max said, “A powerful telescope . . .”

He let this trail off, but I finished his thought for him. “. . . shows you only a little bit of the sky.”

“And for a meteor shower . . .” He looked questioningly at me, openly waiting for me to complete his thought for him.

“You want to lie on your back in an open space,” I said, “and take in as much of the sky as you can, all at once.”

He sucked in a deep breath and said nothing.

I stared at him—those gorgeous blue eyes, those long black lashes—until Hailey elbowed me in the ribs.

“Were you planning on watching the meteor shower all along?” I asked. “Is
that
what you're planning to do on Friday night?”

He scrunched up his face in a sort of exaggerated embarrassment, as if to say,
You caught me
.

“I know it's supergeeky and everything,” he said, “but I've watched it every year since I was four years old, and I kind of, ah, make a point of never missing it.” He looked down. “I should have told you. I mean, I tried, but . . .”

I said, “My friends and my sister thought you were afraid of us. Or afraid of being seen with us.” I stopped talking. Why was I telling him this?

He looked at me for a minute without answering, and then he said, “Have you seen my house? It used to be the Olsens', over on Ridge Road?”

I shook my head.

He said, “We have a pool surrounded by a deck. It's made of that fake wood stuff, you know that stuff? They make it so you don't get splinters? We have these deck chairs on it that recline all the way back.”

I nodded. “Probably a better viewing place than the observatory. To tell you the truth, I just about always watch the Orionid meteor shower too. I don't know how I managed to forget about it this year.”

I'd forgotten, of course, because I'd been so caught up in the plans to get Max up to the observatory. And then I'd been enmeshed in the agony of defeat. I hadn't even checked the dates for this year, but I knew that this particular meteor shower always took place about a week before Halloween, so of course this Friday would be just about right.

“I hope you're not offended if I ask you this,” he said, “but are you guys able to sit on a deck chair? Or on two of them?”

“Um . . . yeah, I'm pretty sure we could do that. At our house we just sit on the lawn and lean back against each other.”

He nodded. “That would work too. My house is up on a hill, and it's a little bit away from any other houses, and the trees and brush are all cleared away around it.” He swallowed. “Would you . . . would you maybe want to come over and watch the meteor shower with me on Friday?”

I stared at him. I supposed after all that chitchat about his house and the chairs, a normal girl might have seen this coming.

“Well,” he said, with just a hint of a smile, “you did say Friday night was my last chance, right?”

I kept staring.

“Hailey,” Max said, looking over at her, “obviously I'm inviting both of you. And your friends too, if they feel like coming, and if they don't mind missing the observatory. It sounded like that was more your thing anyway, wasn't it?” he asked, turning back to me.

“Um . . .”

Hailey, who had been holding herself so silent and still that it was almost like she wasn't there (yeah, right, as if I'd know what
that
would feel like), now took the opportunity to kick me pretty hard in the side of my calf. And then, because she can feel what happens to my legs, she had the gall to cry out, “Ow!”

Max looked confused.

I laughed. “Um, yeah, okay. I'll ask them.”

“Great. I'll make popcorn. Um, do you
like
popcorn?” He sounded worried. “Because I could also make something else.”

And that was when I realized that all this time, feeling angry at Max for being afraid of me, I'd missed the fact that
I
was afraid of
him
. And all of a sudden, at least for just that moment, I wasn't anymore.

“Yeah,” I said. “I love popcorn.”

I smiled at him, and lo and behold, that was all it took to make him smile back.

“So you guys have to help me,” I told Bridget and Juanita at lunch the next day, sitting out on the grass. I could feel the coldness of the ground right through our picnic blanket, and we were all huddled inside thick winter coats. “How can I convince Clara to go to a three-week art program in San Francisco this summer?”

Since talking to Alek, my mind had been fizzing continuously with those same three Mentos-like thoughts: San Francisco. Art professors. Alek.

Juanita laughed. “Could we start with an easier problem? Like how to stop climate change?”

“I'm serious,” I said. “It's just three weeks in the dorms. With artists! They're all weird anyway. They
love
weird. We'll be gods to them. How can I make her see it?”

Clara nudged me. “Could you stop talking about me like I'm not here?”

“I never talk about you like you're not here,” I retorted. “I wouldn't even know how to do that.”

“Well, it might be good practice,” Bridget said. “Living in the dorms. Since you'll be in the dorms at Sutter in the fall.”

I cocked my head to one side, squinting at her. “No, that was never the plan. We're going to live at home.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “I thought we were all living in the dorms together.”

“Our tuition is free through our dad,” Clara explained. “But not room and board. Plus, it's easier for us to live at home, because we don't drive. Or, you know, grocery shop or anything.”

“But you don't have to do those things in the dorms,” Bridget pointed out.

“Well, I'm probably going to be living at home too,” Juanita said. “So that will be good. I can still drive you guys around in your minivan and everything, or maybe I can buy myself an old used car to get around to classes and work, and if it has the kind of backseat and leg room that you guys need, then I could even drive you around in that. Anyway, we can all hang out.”

“Hey, I know,” Bridget put in. “We could all share a house. Juanita and I can drive and shop, and you guys can help with stuff at home, and we can get furniture from Ikea and make our own decorations, and have parties—oh, this will be so fun!”

It actually did sound fun—a lot better than living at
home. More expensive, but at least we'd be getting a taste of independence. Maybe there was some way we could swing it. It had to be more realistic than my crazy art school dreams.

And maybe I could even try this ridiculous film school idea of Clara's; maybe I could make that work. People had been sending me a few clips, and some thoughts were starting to percolate around them in my mind. It was still pretty shapeless, but the seeds were there, and I was starting to see how film might be a canvas after all. I hadn't told Clara about any of this; I had watched all the clips with my headphones on, at times when she had her back to me and her mind focused on other things. I liked the idea of trying to surprise her.

But then I looked at Juanita, and her face was frozen in this sort of half smile, and there was so much sadness in her eyes that I thought she might be trying not to cry. And then I felt like I might cry myself.

“Not Juanita,” I said. “You're leaving, okay? We're going to figure this out. I don't want to hear any more talk about you living at home next year.”

She shook her head. “My dad did all these calculations. He just showed me last night, and he's right. It makes more sense if I take community college classes two days a week for the next two years, and work for three or four days a week. Then I can save money and I won't need so many loans.”

“Where are you going to work?” I demanded. “Taco Bell?”

She looked down. “There are worse things in the world.”

“But I just don't see the point. Yeah, college means loans, but it also means a higher salary, so you can pay them back. I feel like they're trying to bury you alive.”

“No. They're just trying to be sensible.” She gave her body an almost imperceptible shake, as if she were literally shaking the whole thing off. “Anyway, what's the deal with this art program? You really want to go to San Francisco this summer?”

“I really do.” I'd spent a couple of hours looking at the program's website the night before. You picked two media and basically did art all day, six days a week, including some lectures and exhibitions. Some of their faculty had done this really mind-blowing work. I wanted it the way a little kid wants the candy at the supermarket checkout—with every molecule of my soul.

“The problem,” I said, “is that Clara's too freaked out.”

Clara sighed helplessly. “It's San Francisco. It's a dorm. It's nonstop art. There are so many things wrong with this. Too many things.”

I grabbed her hand and twisted toward her, straining to see her whole face. But I couldn't, because she wouldn't look back at me.

“Just go to the interview,” I said. “Just let me apply.
Come to the campus with me. That's all I'm asking for.”

“That doesn't even make sense,” she said, finally looking up to meet my eyes. “Why would you apply if you're not serious about going?”

“Just to see the place. Just to know. You have to give me this.”

She drew away, folding her hands in her lap. “No,” she said. “I don't have to.”

I was conscious of Juanita and Bridget pointedly looking away from us as they munched on their sandwiches and celery sticks. No help at all, these two.

“Anyway,” Clara said, “you'll never be able to convince Mom. And how will we even get there? She'd probably have to drive us, and she'll never agree to that.”

“Oh, I can handle her.”

“Really? How?”

I shrugged. “I'll tell her I'm not serious about going to the program. I'll tell her the interview's just an excuse to visit San Francisco and try something new. It's just a lark.”

“So you're basically going to lie to her about it, the same way you're lying to me.”

I grinned. “Exactly.”

Clara shook her head.

I'd heard of conjoined twins who took turns making decisions, or doing the things they wanted. Like, on Mondays we do whatever you say, and on Tuesdays I get
you back. Clara and I had never had a system like that. Usually we could just work things out, often with very little discussion. It was one of our magical qualities; just like we could walk, stop, and turn corners without talking about it, we could decide on most activities and priorities almost as easily. Two strong bodies, two strong brains, and more often than not, one will.

But every now and then we had to negotiate.

“What do you want?” I said. “In exchange for going to the interview.”

“It has to be in San Francisco? I mean, don't they have an option where the interviewer can come to us here or something?”

I didn't know the answer to that, but it didn't matter. That wouldn't give me what I wanted at all.

“I could write your English paper for you,” I offered. “Or we could schedule an extra five trips to the observatory. You can pick what we have for dinner every time Mom gives us a choice for the next, I don't know, the next year if you want.”

Clara took a bite of her pesto chicken wrap and chewed it slowly. I was not exactly breathing, because I was afraid she would come up with something way worse than what I'd offered. Something like,
Don't go to the dance with Alek
.

Finally she put down the wrap. “No,” she said, “I don't want any of those things.”

“Come on, Clara, you have to work with me here. There has to be something—”

“I want to trade Halloween costumes.”

I frowned. “What? Really? You want to be the Wicked Witch of the West?”

“Yes. I'm tired of always having the good-guy costume and letting you be the villain.”

“But everyone will be confused,” Bridget protested. “Hailey is always, always the bad guy. You'll be ruining your awesome tradition.”

“That's okay,” Juanita said. “It's about time they shook things up.”

In our previous sixteen years of Halloweens, Clara had never objected to being the good guy before. And I had no idea why she wanted this now.

I pictured walking into Amber's annual Halloween party dressed as Glinda the Good Witch, all sparkly and smiley and so sweet that she could rot your teeth. What if Alek came to the party? Having him see me that way—wouldn't he assume that I'd chosen that costume on purpose? Alek was so serious and full of darkness; his art, it seemed to me, was all about destroying ridiculous images of cheerful, sunny perfection. It was all about being disgusted with the perfectly pruned flower gardens of the world. I couldn't let him think that a character like Glinda was what I admired, or what I aspired to. He would never take me seriously after that.