Little Black Lies (7 page)

Dad's response wasn't exactly what I'd been hoping for. “Prom? You're only in tenth grade.”

“Jeremy's a senior.”

“I don't know. You've never even been to a school dance before.”

“Rub it in, why don't you?”

“Sorry.” He opened the cupboard and pulled out a bag of pretzels. “Are you—and this boy—going alone or with a group of kids? And does he drive? More importantly, does he drive well? Because I could drop you off and pick you up.”

Oh, God. This was going to be a disaster. I needed my mother to intervene; she'd understand that having Dad peering at us from the front seat would be an absolute prom killer. I'd rather walk.

“When's Mom coming home?”

“Should be any minute now.” He sat at the table and poked at my chicken with a butter knife. “Traffic is terrible out there.”

The phone rang. Dad picked it up. “Hey. You might want to hurry home. Our girl has outdone herself in the department of Roasted Chickens Gone Wild.” His face darkened slightly and he turned away, lowering his voice. “Seriously? Again? You worked late three nights last week.”

I walked to the sink and pretended I wasn't listening. And while I was at it, I pretended it wasn't happening again. Pretended it wasn't killing me that my mother wasn't coming home to my meal. Didn't care to hear my … whatever.

It wouldn't matter. Not compared to what would follow.

“It's not me you're disappointing,” said Charlie. A long pause, then, “All right. Don't wake us when you get in.” He hung up and sat himself at the kitchen table in front of the noxious chicken. For a moment he said nothing. Then he picked up his knife and fork and smiled as if nothing had happened. “So, should we see if this bird tastes any better than it smells?”

Other than the scrubbing of the frying pan, all was quiet on the OCD front over the weekend. I studied, Dad played with the van with no mention of door locks, and we shared a few games of Scrabble, most of which I lost to Dad's fussy vocabulary.

Monday morning Dad goes into “the office” early, so I get myself to school on a bus that takes forever to show up. For the first time, I step onto campus looking like a true Ant. With thick black socks that hug the backs of my knees. With bare thighs so cold they ache. With dark, sleepy, under-eye smudges that have puffed up into tiny pillows.

I have no idea what to expect today. What will Carling do now?

Trotting up Arlington Street, I realize I'm later than I thought. The sidewalk is completely empty of kids. A car pulls over and a boy dressed in jeans jumps out and races through the great carved doors. He might as well turn around and race home. From what I heard last week, forgetting your uniform is akin to showing up at school naked. They whisk you out of sight and place a swift and stern phone call to your parents.

The moment I walk through the doors, I spy two more kids in street clothes: a wannabe jock in cut-off sweats and a Red Sox T-shirt, and a tall girl in the Ant yoga pants and matching hoodie. On her feet are brown sheepskin boots. She looks me up and down and giggles as she passes. A sick feeling scrabbles down into my stomach.

Inside the classroom, no one is in uniform. I feel as if I'm in a bad dream. Guys are in ancient polo shirts, jeans, baggy shorts, sweatshirts, flip-flops. Girls are wearing blue, black, or colored jeans; jeweled ballerina flats or Vans slip-ons.

Some wear pastel Lacoste dresses with sheepskin boots. Willa, usually so buttoned-up and tucked in, wears a multipurpose sequined minidress that looks like a computer chip from afar. Isabella is ready for stripper pole or pop equestrian event in a plunging wraparound sweater, tan breeches, riding boots, and a velvet baseball cap. Poppy is even more versatile. In her grim reaper– colored taffeta dress, broken tiara, shredded fishnets, and knee-high combat boots, she's prepared for the exhuming of graves, the attending of brides, and the invading of unsuspecting countries. Sloane looks like she's just climbed out of bed in her thermal undershirt and plaid jammie bottoms tucked into sheepskin boots.

Hair, it seems, has exploded into ironic ratted, matted, teased, curled, pigtailed, or faux-hawked statements of rebellion; Willa's demure ponytail being the only exception.

I try to slip into my desk without anyone noticing. I fail. Some people roll their eyes and turn away, bored by my unwillingness to participate in the fun. Others giggle and nudge their neighbors. But the worst is Isabella. She looks me up and down as if I just don't get it. As if I'm just too different to bother with.

I slide into the seat behind Carling, who is wearing a flaming orange fitted blazer, skintight faded jeans, navy ankle boots. It's pretty clear she's braless since the jacket buttons well below her breasts and she didn't waste any energy slipping on a camisole or a tee. Maybe her days-of-the-week panties got the day off as well. She turns around and looks right at me but I can't read the expression on her face.

Mr. Curtis turns from the board, where he was calculating an equation I just figured out in my head, and smiles. “Saint Sarah. Welcome. How befitting that you don't stoop to the wanton anarchy of your classmates. Your mythical parents would applaud you.”

I start to explain, “I didn't know today was—”

He waves away my words. “Not only do I admire your extraordinary grooming, but I refuse to send you to the office for a late slip, on compassionate grounds.” A ripple of giggles flows across the room.

I can feel my cheeks burn.

“I want you all to clear your desks. We're going to have a pop quiz so I can see how badly your brains were fried by the summer heat.”

As soon as everyone turns around, groaning, I tug off my vest and tie, stuff them into my backpack, and pull out a pencil. Carling, I notice, slides her desk about an inch closer to Isabella's and gives her an appreciative smile. Once the tests are passed out and Curtis gives the word, my mouth falls open. Carling Burnack is copying Isabella's answers onto her own paper.

We're let out of class a few minutes early because Mr. Curtis has to take a phone call. Carling and Isabella head for their lockers in the near silence of the hallways, their heels ticking along the floor like cinnamon hearts clattering into a porcelain dish, while Sloane slides along behind them as if she's crossing a frozen pond. Knowing full well my locker is on a different level, I glide along in their wake and pretend I'm not listening to their mumbled chitchat.

They arrive at their lockers and Sloane dumps her books inside, then pauses to examine her fingernails. “Whenever I'm in Curtis's class, I fantasize about dropping out. I don't even know if I want a career. Sometimes I think my sole ambition is to fall in love and have babies.”

Carling and Isabella stare at her, horrified. Then Carling bursts out laughing. “I totally thought you were serious.” When Sloane doesn't react, Carling loses interest. “Thank God for Izzy's brain. If I didn't have
the
most brilliant eleventh grader as my bud, that class would destroy me.”

Isabella's eyes widen. “I'd never let that happen. My brain is your brain.”

“My brother said Curtis was an easy marker a few years back,” says Carling. “I don't know what gives.”

“That's what my cousin said,” Sloane says. “The guy used to be a softie.”

Without thinking, standing at a locker about four doors down, I blurt out, “Midlife crisis.”

They're silent for a moment, staring at me as if a homecoming poster has just sprung to life and dared to address them. Carling reacts first, tossing me a half nod.

It's enough to make me bolder still. I say, “Teachers can't afford fancy convertibles or hot women. So what do they do when they realize they're falling apart, bit by bit? They lord their power over the very ones whose youth they covet.”

Like a group of wild rabbits I'm trying to get close to with a handful of celery sticks, they're wary of me but don't quite shut me out. Sloane, digging through her locker now, actually says, “Yeah. And since Curtis has a full head of hair, it must mean his winkie is malfunctioning.”

Just as I'm planning my next approach, Poppy strolls by, sucking on a mint.

“Hey, Poppy,” says Carling. “Can I see your camera for a sec?”

Poppy wiggles her hand out of the camera strap and hands it over. “Be careful. It cost me a lot of money.” Then Poppy notices me and flashes the peace sign. “Hey.”

I smile. “Hey.”

Carling flicks on the camera and pans around the hallway, slowing on Sloane, then me, then a pair of ninth graders walking by, then Isabella. She moves closer to her friend and, without taking her eye from the screen, starts unwrapping Isabella's sweater with her free hand.

Isabella grabs her sweater, clearly distressed. “What are you doing?”

Carling laughs. “Let's send Mrs. Middle-Aged Curtis a flesh tape and pretend it belongs to her husband. Then she'll dump him and he'll shut himself away with a bunch of cats and stop coming to work.”

Isabella says, “Not with my flesh!”

“Give the camera back,” wails Poppy. “You're going to drop it!”

Carling looks hopefully at Sloane, who flips her off, laughing. Carling shrugs. “Whatever, I'll film myself.” She undoes her top buttons and angles the camera down her shirt, then sashays in a slow circle. Dropping her voice even deeper, she says, “Hey there, pop-quiz boy …”

“Gross!” Poppy snatches up the camera and wipes the lens on her sleeve. “You think I want my camera equipment touching your sweaty body parts, Burnack? You owe me a new lens.”

“You're insane,” Isabella says to her. “Your camera never had it so good.”

“Yeah,” says Carling, laughing. “I charge big bucks for peep shows like that.”

“Exactly what I'm afraid of,” Poppy says. “Your STDs on my lens.”

Carling Burnack does not need a hero. She's a big girl. A wild girl. A girl who leaves people like me wishing I could spend five minutes
being
her, if only to truly understand what I'm missing. Still, I jump to her defense. “Don't trash-talk her,” I snap at Poppy.

Poppy steps back as if I've pulled out a gun. “What?”

“She was just goofing around.”

“Ohh, I get it.” She starts nodding in recognition. “Right. How could I have been so stupid? You were never going to be friends with me. You wanted to be one of the Carlingettes.”

I don't have to look to know the girls are staring—I can feel their curiosity crawling across my skin. Not wishing to appear as if I'm trying to be one of them, I spin around and busy myself trying my combination on someone else's locker. Though, even if this
were
my locker, my fingers are shaking too much to open it.

Isabella speaks first. “That's not your locker, London. It's Willa's.”

I look around as if confused. “I might be on the wrong floor.”

Carling walks over, glancing down at my uniform. “You're quite the spirited little Ant, aren't you?”

I shrug. “Number one rule about being the new kid. Be sure to make an ass of yourself.” My voice echoes loudly in the long hallway. I hate the sound of it.

Sloane yawns into her hand, then runs her fingers through her hair, pushing it behind her ears. “The first Monday of every month is Grub Day. No uniforms. No dress code. No exceptions.”

“That's cool. Thanks …”

But they're already walking away. Just before they disappear into the stairwell, Carling looks back. “Losing the tights was your first good move.” And they're gone.

It's official—I've survived two whole weeks. Now that we're into late September, autumn weather has settled in. Tuesday is unusually cold and windy, so after school I make an ill-fated attempt to study in the library so I can catch a ride home with Dad after five o'clock. In spite of its high ceilings, this is probably the coziest room in the school, with its ancient wooden shelving, tabletop task lighting, and chairs covered in nubbly fabric anyone's grandmother would adore. As soon as I step through the metal doors, I know coming here is a mistake. There doesn't seem to be a table or desk surface in the entire place that isn't six inches deep in textbooks, binders, graph paper, and—though I pretend not to notice—miniature cheat sheets.

Oddly, very few people are studying. They're mostly passed out atop their work in various stages of desperately needed sleep. Some have their faces buried in folded arms. Others are sprawled back in their seats, chins resting on books pressed to hunched chests like armor. But the best are the ones using their open textbooks as pillows, faces turned sideways, mouths agape, saliva pooling on defenseless paragraphs.

It's as if terrorists have pumped anthrax through the air vents and the librarian and I are the only survivors.

Eventually, I find an empty seat near the librarian's station and dump the contents of my backpack—about six hours of work—onto the table. My old school gave very little homework. If a high school's expectations of students' future accomplishments can be measured by the weight of their backpacks, it was fairly clear Finmory expected us to turn out pretty much like our parents—unfettered by the encumbrances of higher learning.

No such lighthearted attitude here. Anton's expectations could crumple a young girl's spinal column. I'm not even sure I'm still five foot six. Willa has been complaining school pressure is already so intense that even when she's done her homework, she can't sleep. I'm the opposite. With only four or five hours a night to sustain me, when not studying, walking, or talking, I'm having serious trouble staying awake. I fall asleep all over the place. During slide shows in history class. At the table eating cereal. I even dozed off on the escalator on the way to math yesterday. That'll teach me to skip my morning coffee.

After setting myself up with notepad, highlighter, and pens, I flip open my books and get to work. But not for long. Like the others, I'm way too sleep-deprived to resist this atmosphere. There's something too soothing about it—maybe it's the hum of overhead fans, or the
clickety-whir
of the photocopiers. Or maybe it's miasmic off-gassing from what smells like newly laid carpeting. Whatever the reason, it's impossible to fight off sleep. Just as I drop my head onto my arms for what I promise myself will be a ten-minute snooze, I hear the sound of labored breathing and look up to find myself being gawked at by none other than Griff Hogan.

His voice is husky as he holds out his wrist and says, “If you rub some of that perfume on me, I can tell my Scout leader I boned you.”

“Little Man Hogan, you are disgusting.” I fill up my backpack and head for the door.

I'm hit by a rush of wind the moment I step off the bus and onto the sidewalk. Blinking city grime from my eyes, I drop my chin and disappear behind two heavy blankets of hair, marching toward the safety of our building's front door. The wind is making it difficult, swirling overgrown bangs into my mouth and across my eyes.

Halfway across the sidewalk, still trying not to swallow my hair, I'm broadsided by a tangle of elbows, wheels, and handlebars and knocked down flat by a bicycle courier. The only thing stopping my skull from being mashed into the concrete is, of all things, my expectations-filled backpack.

“Jesus Christ, kid, watch where you're going!” Catlike, the bicycle courier springs to his feet and lifts his vehicle off my chest. His delivery bag has burst open and packages and envelopes lie strewn across the sidewalk as if there's been an explosion. A few of his lighter deliveries take flight in the breeze and skitter along the sidewalk.

“Sorry, I …” I wince as I try to sit up. My shoulder feels like it's skinned, and I check my mother's sweater for holes. Thankfully, it's dusty but not shredded.

“You're gonna get yourself killed!” he spits.

Just then, I feel someone lifting me to my feet from behind. He's male, and from what I can see of him, navy-and-white-striped rugby shirt and gray shorts—plenty short enough to reveal mud smeared across the blond hairs of a well-muscled thigh—it's pretty clear he goes to Anton High. Mortified, I scramble to get my feet beneath me and force myself to stand. Seriously, who wants to be picked off the ground by some guy from school? Too pathetic to fathom. Yet, some shameful part of me is swooning from the whole damsel-in-distress thing. I don't know whether it's that familiar trickle of musky cologne mixed with grass and sweat and mud that's wafting through the air, or the proximity of that seriously sculpted thigh, but I'm feeling kind of heady.

The moment I turn around, all swooning ends. This is no make-believe monarch, it's the senior I felt up in the dressing room last Friday. Stitched on his rugby shirt is
Leo
. Not sure which one of us is more shocked, I snatch my backpack and hold it against my chest like a shield, mumbling, “Thanks.”

Leo looks sickened to discover I'm the damsel he peeled off the sidewalk. One big waste of princely valor, he's thinking, I can read it on his face. “You okay?” he asks.

“I'm fine.” I turn away. “Seriously.” He's less than three feet from the entrance to my building. Behind him, through the door, I can see the illiterate
NO PET
sign. Silently, I beg him to leave so I can be swallowed up by my foyer. There's no way on earth I can walk into that lobby in front of this guy.

“My bike's all messed up,” rants the courier, glaring at me. “Look at the handlebars.”

Leo scoops up the runaway packages, which the courier doesn't appear to care about, and stuffs them into a Lightning Courier carrier bag. “Relax,” Leo says. “It was an accident. Anyway, shouldn't you be riding on the road?”

The courier snatches his sack and throws a Lycra-covered leg over his bike. He flashes me one final angry look before pedaling away. “Maybe your girlfriend should be on the road. On a leash.”

I could die right here. Right now. If a lightning bolt would only strike anywhere on this sidewalk, I swear to God I'd wrap my body around it, stick out my tongue, and pray for the end. I wait for Leo to correct him as he pedals away. Shout, “She's not my girlfriend, dude!” But he doesn't. He holds up his middle finger and mutters, “Eff off, asshole.”

Wow. Leo stood up for me. Flipped off the dragon. Maybe I misjudged him. I smile. “That was sweet. Thanks.”

He reaches for my hand, examining the skinned heel of my palm. My skin tingles right down to my toes. Peering at me from beneath a fallen lock of sandy hair, he says, “You should clean this up. It could get infected.”

I nod stupidly and he pulls a small zippered case from a bag. “I'm team captain in rugby,” he explains. “Coach Hudson's favorite player gets to haul the first-aid kit to and from practice.” He squirts disinfectant on his finger and rubs it on my wound, then holds up a Band-Aid as a question. Again, I nod, watching his face as he presses it to my skin.

In South America, army ants are actually used as sutures. Doctors squeeze the gaping wound shut and deposit ants along the gash. In defense, each ant grabs hold of the edges of skin with its mandibles, or jaws, and locks it into place. Doctors then slice off the head, leaving the mandibles in place to secure the cut until healed. I'm not saying I'd lop off this guy's head, but if his squared-off jaw were to clamp down on my flesh, I'm pretty sure I'd heal in half the time.

“I'm Leo Reiser. I'm a senior. You're the new eleventh grader, aren't you?” he asks. “The one from England?”

If I stand here in the street and don't correct him, does that make me a liar? Because what's the alternative? Saying no, I'm the eleventh grader from L
un
don, the only town in North America that doesn't track high-school graduates because the number would be too embarrassingly low?

For the first time in my life, I thank my dad for never allowing me to have a Web presence. With no Facebook page, no MySpace account, Sara Black from Lundon, Massachusetts, is virtually untraceable. I shrug. “I'm the one.”

A storm front rolls across his face as he stuffs the medical kit in his bag. “My neighbor's British. He's a prick.” Without so much as a backward glance, as if he'd never seen me or my bleeding palm, he spins around and strides away.

I'm wrecked by his remark and I'm not even British. I trudge up the stairs of our building, trying to think up the perfect comeback that I'll never use. As usual, I have nothing.

I trudge up the stairs and see Carling's dreadlocked chauffeur smoking a cigarette in his doorway, as if he's chilling on his sleepy suburban veranda, drinking a refreshing iced tea and watching the world go by. As it is, his refreshment of choice is a cigarette, and all he has to look at is me. He acknowledges me by raising his eyebrows as I pass. I wave and continue upstairs.

When I'm partway up, he calls out, “Hey, does your boyfriend drive that sky blue VW?”

Is he kidding? I stop and peer down at him. “That's not my boyfriend, it's my
dad
.”

He half laughs, half coughs. “Sorry. You never know these days. I'm Noah.”

“Sara.”

“Just let your dad know I used to have a van just like his and I miss it. If he needs someone to help out, hand him tools and all that, I'd love to have a look at that engine. I'll knock on your door later and introduce myself to him.”

I nod.

Noah flicks ashes onto the landing and I continue up the stairs.

I hate the sound of human lips sucking on cigarettes—legal or otherwise. My mother smoked incessantly. Like most smokers, she was addicted. I always suspected, given the choice between her own daughter and a pack of smokes, that she'd take the Benson & Hedges. Like most things in life, it was a case of simple mathematical probability that was proven when she boarded that plane at Logan International Airport with only one of us on board.

She certainly chose other things over me. That night in early June, when the smell of toxic chicken had finally faded away—or annihilated my remaining nasal membranes—I lay in my bed, stomach rumbling, pretending to reread my current favorite book,
What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows
, about a girl who grows up without a mother—how was I to know what would follow?—under the covers, with a flashlight whose batteries were growing weaker by the page. It was way past midnight, and if Dad caught me, he'd be furious. Getting Dad riled up that late at night could have sent him into a maniacal cleaning fit—one that may or may not have involved me scrubbing right alongside him.

It's not that I couldn't sleep. I wouldn't let myself. I had my window open wide so I could hear Mom's car the moment she pulled into the driveway. I thought she'd probably squeal with joy when she heard I was going to prom with Jeremy, and the sound would probably wake up Dad, but it would be worth it. Besides, Mom would stop him from pulling out the bleach and the mop.

Her cell phone had been off all night, but one more try couldn't hurt. Peeking out to make sure my door was fully closed—it was—I slid the phone under the covers and dialed her number one last time. Like the last zillion times, it rang. Unlike the last zillion times, she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Mom? Why are you whispering?”

I heard scratchy shuffling sounds. A man's voice. “I'm at work, Sarie. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just have amazing news!”

“Really? What?”

“You know that guy I've been talking about?”

“Yes.”

“You're not going to believe it! Today he—”

“Wait a second, honey.” More shuffling, then, “I'll be right back.” In the background, I could barely make out the sound of water running.

“Mom?”

“I'm here.” The sound of an annoyingly long drag on a cigarette. “Can we talk in the morning, Sara?”

I lifted the sheet off my face just enough to see the clock. 1:40 a.m. “It is morning.”

She let out a sigh, as if talking to me was the last thing on earth she felt like doing. “We're cleaning up from a party here. Believe me, I'd rather be in bed. Can this wait? I'd like to be able to really focus on you.”

The flashlight faded to black and all I could see was the glow of the streetlamp out front. The light hit the wall above my desk, nowhere else, making the room look totally empty. “Doesn't matter. It's nothing.”

Now, sitting at my desk in my new room, still wrapped in my green cardigan, I pull out my mother's cigarettes and light one, setting it on the windowsill so I can watch the smoke curl up toward the ceiling and disappear. The phone rings. Mandy. “Hey, you,” I say.

“Ass in chair.”

“What does sitting have to do with anything? I've never gotten that.”

“Just do it.”

“Done.”

“I can't come this weekend.”

“No! Don't do this to me. I'm desperate to see you.”

“Eddie's family invited me to dinner. It's like they're sizing me up or something.”

“You're a junior in high school. They're not sizing you up.”

“He's almost twenty and the Wilcoxes reproduce early and reproduce big. Believe me, that mother of his wants a good look at my childbearing hips.”

“She better look hard. You have no hips.”

“I'm sorry. I can come next weekend instead.”

“Perfect.”