Life by Committee (24 page)

“It's dumb.” We're both still whispering, but I go even quieter now that we've started this portion of the conversation.

Devon shrugs and flashes that smile again. Lets out a hushed chuckle. A bit of my heart lights up. It's strange how easy it is for me to feel this way, pretty and alive.

I think a thought that makes me hate myself:
Maybe if Joe got jealous, he'd realize he could love me, not her
. I swallow. I have no idea what to do. Those photographs are so close to me, and maybe if I could get even the quickest glimpse, I'd have some vague idea of who I am.

“You don't seem like the breaking-and-entering type,” Devon says at last, trying, I guess, to help me figure out how to explain myself.

“You can call the cops. Seriously. I probably need the consequences, you know? It'd probably be good for me or something.” My voice is shaking so much, I barely recognize it.

“Naw, I'm an accomplice now,” Devon says. He takes a step closer to me, looks at the bookcase, like maybe
he'll be able to figure out what I wanted. “Helping you steal. Aiding and abetting. I don't know all the legal jargon, but it's a serious offense.”

“Well, as long as we go down together,” I say. I don't blush. I flame.

Devon does his low breathy chuckle again and picks out one of the family Bibles. “This what you wanted, I assume?” he says. I am going to kiss his dimples if his face gets any closer to mine. I've never kissed a dimple before. I giggle, but it comes out all choked.

“The photographs,” I say, and point at the binder. “I mean, I could just look at them. I don't need to take them.”

“Don't come this far and then give up,” Devon says.

The words make me shiver. He's right. He doesn't know how right he is.

Devon grabs the binder and opens it, and there I am. Me, but not me.

The me I used to be.

The very first picture is me in a pile of leaves. I could be six, but I'm fourteen maybe. I'm sitting, and the leaves cover most of my lap. I've thrown half the pile in the air, and they are raining down on me as I look up at my hands, still lingering above me. I am grinning. My ears look bigger than I think they do now, like I grew into them a bit, but not enough. In the photograph I'm wearing an
oversize sweater and French braids and my eyes are squinting and mascara-less.

“That's you,” Devon says. It's almost a question.

“It used to be.”

The tears come back. I sniff and bite my cheeks and blink really fast to try to keep them inside, but they are the reckless kind, and by the time we're on the next page, they are running down my cheeks. My face next to Jemma's stares up at me. My mouth is wide open, my nose scrunched, my hands blurry with movement. I must have been telling some story. Jemma's mouth is open too, and I can almost hear the laughter.

Then I'm sobbing. Into Devon's T-shirt. He is not a perfect boy. He pats my back awkwardly, and I know he has no idea how to deal with a crying girl. “Shhhh,” he tries.

I take the binder from his hands and hold it to my chest, like maybe it will help me gain control of my breathing. It doesn't, so I let myself outside, and he follows. I can't risk Jemma finding me here. As much as I want to not care, I can't take things at school getting any worse. So we stand on the porch. There is a not-quite-full moon and a cold wind rustling the trees. Devon puts his hands in his pockets. I can see his fingers moving beneath the fabric, and I like that he can't completely hide his nerves. I look up, tilt my head back a little, and try to
maintain eye contact for as long as my heart can handle it. He takes a step closer and I think maybe he will kiss me and maybe I want him to, but maybe I don't. Yet. There's a breath when I could move toward him too, but I don't take it. I let my chin drop, my eyes drift to the trees instead of his mouth, and the moment's over.

For some reason, this is the Assignment I cannot complete.

“Are you gonna be okay?” he says. I take a step from his porch back to his lawn. I look up at Jemma's bedroom window and for a split second wonder if I could plant the weed in there. Direct her parents toward its hiding place.

“Yeah, yeah, we'll figure it out,” I say.

“We?” Devon says.

I'm so dizzy from the crying and the overwhelming weirdness of tonight that I'm not watching my words carefully enough.

“Like, me. And my friends.”

Devon looks at me funny. Like Jemma has told him that I have no friends. Which I'm sure she has.

“Maybe I'll come by the Cozy tomorrow?” he says.

But tomorrow I will be busy ruining his sister's life. So I shake my head no.

“I have an Assignment I have to do,” I say. I take a few
steps farther away from him, and it's sad to know the night's basically over, that whatever adventure I was on is over, and all I'm left with is my own failure and a book full of pictures of a person I used to be. Devon's eyes are the kind that make me want to say all kinds of things, and I have too many things I'm not allowed to say.

“Hey, Tabby?” he says, before I am totally in shadow on the street.

“Yep?”

“Don't give up on us. On me. Or Jemma. Or just people, you know?”

“Why would I?” I say.

“I don't know,” Devon says, taking a big breath and focusing those incredible blue eyes on me like he knows I already have. “That's what I'm trying to figure out.”

Secret:

It wasn't love.

—Star

The next morning, eight hours to go, I treat myself to three cups of coffee at Tea Cozy. It does not help me forget about the weed in my backpack. For something so light, it is unusually heavy. I wait to go into school. I skip first period. Paul is working, but there's no sign of Cate. For all I know, Paul thinks it is Saturday. His beard is neat and trimmed, though, and his flannel shirt tucked into his pants. His eyes and hands are steady, and he's listening to Aerosmith, which I know he can't handle when he's high.

Still, he doesn't see me. Not enough to do any more
than wave at me and ask me to clean up a table.

I stare at LBC until my eyes hurt and my father starts to get a look on his face like maybe he has realized it's not the weekend and I should be at school.

This happens sometimes. A thread will start off as mine or Zed's or Elfboy's or whatever, but it will shift and turn into another conversation entirely, before it circles back around to the relevant secret or Assignment. So at first I'm only skimming the comments, but when I realize what a tense, massive conversation it is, I go back and read more carefully.

It's the least interesting part of the whole conversation, except that it's everything.

Star doesn't like reading.

And whoever made notes in
The Secret Garden
loved reading.

It shouldn't be a big thing. I never knew for sure that Star was my note taker, I only ever hoped. And assumed.

There's a chorus of support for Roxie, and I relax enough to eat half of a raspberry ricotta scone Paul likes and Cate hates. It's not so busy at Tea Cozy right now, and Paul keeps looking over here, so I don't have much time. I've got on cords and a turtleneck sweater of Paul's. I could not look like less of a slut, so I'm ready, I guess, to do this. I pretend to be typing something very official and school-like, but Paul's not an idiot, so I have to scan through the rest of the conversation quickly so I can log off. He's ringing up the last three people in line and raising his eyebrows at me.

There's more to read, but Paul reaches over me and closes my laptop. My heart jumps, and it's amazing that I can get so sucked in by LBC that I forget where I am and who's there and what I'm supposed to be doing.

“It's a school day,” he says.

“Yes,” I say, and give him a shared Paul and Tabby smile, but he's not buying it.

“You have any idea how much trouble I'm in with Cate? And now you want to get me in even more trouble? What's going on with you? Get to school.” Paul has new wrinkles around his mouth and eyes and streaking
across his forehead. He's older than I thought he was, older than he used to be. He's not joking.

“You're really getting yourself . . . together,” I say. He's retying his apron and getting ready to bake another round of scones, and I know he wants me to be on my way, but I want to stare at him, this man who used to be a friend and is now my dad.

“You didn't give me much choice,” he says, and I try to place what the smell is, coming off him, that's replaced the skunky-sweet smell of weed. It's chocolate and flour and coffee on his breath, and nothing else. Soap, maybe. “I believe that is what they call reaching your own personal rock bottom.”

“Plus the baby,” I say.

“I think we did pretty well with you,” Paul says. “You like the right books. And the right bands. And you don't play sports. And you don't spend too much time on your hair or anything. I'd call it a win.”

Paul packs my stuff up for me. I guess he can tell I'm sort of paralyzed. He offers to drive me to school, but I can get myself there. I can do what I need to do. I have to. Because my last Assignment made Paul get his act together. It's working. LBC is working.

I want to read more—I missed her secret and Assignment yesterday in the buzz and fury of my own life—but I'm already shaky behind the wheel today, shaky in my whole life today, so I decide to not look at my phone and drive at the same time.

I have the Ziploc of weed in my backpack and my hurt from how Jemma has been treating me and Jemma's locker combination. I have Life by Committee on my phone, in my pocket, and unlike the rest of the kids at Circle Community living their boring drone lives, I have purpose.

And, like, justice.

And for a few glorious moments my head is held high
and my shoulders are back and I think I am doing something dangerous and earned and powerful that will change the entire structure of the world.

Dictators must feel this way. And scientists maybe. The super-smart ones. And gods, I guess too. I seriously doubt people feel this way from yoga or self-help books or meditation or even love. Because love didn't end up making me feel powerful at all. I felt small in its shadow. It was bigger than me.

Yes. Yes, this is much better than love.

The feeling vanishes the instant I walk into the lobby.

Artsy photographs are hanging in the hallway that leads from the front door of the school to the assembly hall. They are oversize and framed in gold, making the whole thing look like a New York City gallery instead of a lame private school started by a bunch of tree-hugging vegans.

Which means upon first glance I'm loving it.

Upon first glance I'm thinking:
Sweet. Maybe Circle Community isn't totally lame. Maybe I'll make it through the next year here
.