I Am the Wallpaper (18 page)

I opened my eyes. Wen was studying my face.

“No, Azra,” I managed. “It’s just me.”

Azra must have said more, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I kept smiling, trying to act as normal as possible. I was glad I’d stayed loyal to our friendship, but I was frustrated, too. For a moment real love had seemed within reach, but once again it had been proven impossible after all.

After a few minutes, I felt I just had to leave. I told them I needed to go to the bathroom and then I bolted for the house.

I was so thirsty. There was a keg of beer in the kitchen, but after my bizarre champagne-induced performance at Lillian’s wedding I didn’t want to take any chances. Instead, I helped myself to the punch. I leaned back against the kitchen counter with a plastic cup full of the stuff and gulped it all down very quickly.

What was wrong with me? Where was my hard-earned emotional independence? I wanted to be extraordinary, but instead I’d discovered that I was just an extraordinary puddle of hormones.

I tried to pull myself together, but after a few minutes in the Eaglers’ kitchen my head was spinning. I wondered vaguely if somebody had spiked the punch. I decided I should leave right away.

But then I thought, No. Don’t panic. What would Lillian do?

“There you are,” Dean Eagler said, his face close to my
ear. “I’ve been looking for you.” I turned to him, but it was hard to focus with the room gently rocking around us. “Listen,” he said, “you like music, right?”

I just stared at him.

“Come with me.”

After the Wen incident, you might think there would have been a little voice in my head telling me to be cautious.
Another potential emotional disaster! Get away while you can!
Unfortunately, it turned out that deep down I was exactly like all the other girls I knew who would have given up two bust sizes if Dean Eagler would even glance in their general direction. This was definitely an un-wallpaper-like opportunity.

“Yes!” I said a little more enthusiastically than I meant to. “Yes, I’ll come with you!”

I followed him to the back of the living room, where three ceiling-high bookshelves formed a private little nook. The stereo was on two of the shelves. As soon as we reached it, he turned the music down.

“Somebody keeps cranking it too high,” he said. “It’s so loud you can’t really hear anything. I don’t like that song anyway, do you?”

I shook my head. Actually, I hadn’t even noticed the song.

There were rows and rows of alphabetically arranged CDs on five or six shelves. It reminded me of Wen’s music collection, except it was much neater. Why did I always
seem to be attracted to boys with enormous CD collections?

“You do like music, Floey. Right?”

“Sure. Yes.” Uh-oh, my monosyllabic alter ego was rearing her ugly voice again.

He smiled. “What kind of music?”

I forced myself to say something intelligent. “I like all different kinds. New, old, pop, classical, punk, jazz, thrash, whatever. Surprise me.” Right! That was more like it!

He scanned the shelves with his finger and reached for a CD on one of the middle rows. I was already feeling much better. I didn’t need Wen. I had a tall, dark Elvis taking care of me.

“Here’s something. Tell me what you think about this.” He pulled it out, opened up the box and placed the CD in the slot. Before the music came on I noticed the cover—it was Mudslide Crush. Dean had chosen his own CD, the new one.

He put his arm around my shoulders. I hadn’t expected that, but since he’d already lifted me right up into the air earlier in the evening, I decided it probably wasn’t a big deal. The first song came on. It was one of my favorites, slow and moody and very, very cool, with a deep bass line that sounded like wading through a swamp.

“This is pretty good,” I said casually. “Is it you?”

He flashed his killer smile. “Yeah. Glad you like it.”

I nearly keeled over with happiness.

His hand slid down my back until it rested on my waist. That felt a little weird. Nice, but weird. I supposed he was
just an affectionate guy. I wondered when I would get used to him standing next to me. He leaned in even closer. “I had a feeling you were into music,” he said.

“You did?” I asked. “How come?”

“I can tell. I feel like I know you. You’re an artist, like me.”

“I am? What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on, Floey. The only difference between us is that I express myself through music while you express yourself with words.” In the confusion of the moment, I wondered what he meant. I also wondered how long he was going to leave his hand on my waist. “This sleepy little town is no place for people like us. I can hardly breathe here.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I just nodded.

“I’m so sick of all the average people crowding me with their average ideas, telling me what I can and can’t do, man.” I turned my head. His breath smelled of beer. He moved closer and spoke into my ear. “I know you know what I’m talking about, don’t you? We’re different from all the wallpaper people. We’re in a class by ourselves.”

Only then did I notice what he was wearing under the long plaid shirt that dangled below his waist. In the dark, I’d missed it.

Bike shorts.

That’s when his hand slipped a little lower and I felt his fingers pressing firmly on my butt.

I suddenly felt like a fool.

Not long ago he hadn’t shown the slightest interest in
my existence, and now here he was with his hand on my bum trying to convince me we were soul mates. Who knows, maybe he even believed it. He’d obviously read about me online and now he figured he knew all about me.

He stared into my eyes. Apparently, this was my cue to tell him I agreed with everything he was saying.

That’s when I felt another hand, this one on my shoulder.

“We wondered where you went, Floey.” It was Wen. “Everything okay?”

I was relieved Wen was here, but I didn’t take my eyes off Dean. Suddenly he wasn’t the young Elvis anymore; he was the old, fat Elvis—and I hated him. I gave him my angriest look, hoping it would deflate him.

“Yes,” I said, suddenly the Frost Queen. “I’m just fine.” I reached around and calmly lifted his hand off my waist and dropped it back to his side. “Dean was just telling me all about myself.”

Dean’s face changed. At first he looked confused, and then he shifted his weight and seemed almost angry, as if
I
were the one who’d insulted him.

“Are we, um, interrupting something?”

That’s when I noticed Azra, Leslie and Kate behind Wen, gaping.

I was so angry I could have screamed, but I didn’t want to make a big scene. Dean wasn’t worth it. “No, you’re not interrupting anything at all. I was just leaving.” I stepped away from him, but before I got too far I had to turn back. “You have
no idea
who I am or how I feel!”

“Life is suffering, man,” he said with a laugh. “Zen you die.”

I turned away again and pushed past my surprised friends, but that’s when I knocked right into somebody else. It was Miss Halter Top.

Her drink spilled to the floor. When she recovered and looked up to see who had done this, I wondered for a moment if, when she recognized me, she would really try to fight me this time. Instead, she just narrowed her eyes.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s
you.
”

I scrambled away from her. Thankfully, she didn’t try to follow me. All I wanted was to get away from this place, away from Dean. Now I knew the truth: Dean wasn’t like Elvis at all—he was just some conceited guy I never wanted to see again. But before I could escape, another wall of people blocked my path.

That’s when Azra, Wen and Leslie caught up with me a second time. All three of them looked worried, even a little angry.

“Did he do anything to you?” Azra asked.

“No,” I managed. “I’m fine.”

“Because if he did …”

But I didn’t wait to hear. I just wanted to leave.

“Just get me out of here.”

One thing was sure: I had to do something about
floeysprivatelife.com
.

I just wasn’t sure what yet.

When I came out of my room, there was a note from Ma telling me to do the laundry. Richard had made his bed again—the first time in a few days. After I sleepwalked through the bedrooms, I checked the dirty laundry hamper.

I imagined what Lillian and Helmut were doing at that exact moment: probably relaxing hand in hand under some picture-perfect palm tree. This was the last week of their honeymoon. Friday night they’d arrive back home, and then on Monday they’d move to New York to start their
new glamorous lives. After that they’d live happily ever after.

No, wait. That probably wasn’t true.

The hamper was full, so I heaved it down to the basement and tipped everything onto the floor in front of the washing machine. Mixed in with everything else were the sheets I’d put on Richard’s bed only the day before. He must have made his bed with new clean sheets and then thrown the old ones in the hamper. That was strange.

Why would he need to wash his sheets so soon?

But then I noticed that one of the sheets had a big dark circle in the middle.

It was wet, and it had the unmistakable smell of pee.

That’s when the door creaked behind me. I jumped.

After I spun around, the door opened very slowly and Tish gradually appeared. Actually, it wasn’t all of Tish, exactly. Just her head.

“Floey?”

“What is it, Tish? You scared me!”

She peered cautiously around the door. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me. After a moment I got pretty frustrated with her.