Need (3 page)

Ice stinks.

By the time I get to school, my knuckles are white from fear [_and _]frostbite and my heart’s beating a million thumps a minute, so I’m not too happy when some jerk in a beautiful red
MINI
Cooper cuts me off and speeds into the parking lot in front of me. He has chains on his tires. They don’t spin. I love MINls. “Hey!” I yell as my brakes lock up again.

I inch into a parking space, rest my head on the steering wheel, and let myself exhale. I’d like to pummel that guy in the
MINI
, which is not a very nonviolent thought. But instead I will be peaceful and good and make my dad proud. I touch the string on my finger, loose, frayed, still there.

“I will not be violent,” I chant-mutter. “I will not be violent. I am peaceful and good. I am peaceful and good. I do not want to give anyone the finger.”

I switch off the car, thrust myself out the door, and wait.

The
MINI
Cooper guy jumps out of the car with the grace that only really good jocks have and lands on an ice patch without slipping at all. He has boots on. God, the guys up here wear boots: tan, I’m-a-carpenter boots. It’s like I’ve completely abandoned civilization.

He slams the door, turns around, and finally notices that I exist. How kind of him.

My heart stops. It starts again, but it beats a lot harder when I meet his eyes. I’m frozen there and he strides across the ice like he’s moving across gravel or grass. He doesn’t slip once. Each step he takes brings him closer to me, and he only stops when I make out the deep brown irises around his pupils, the tiny bit of stubble on his cheeks and chin (not too much but enough that you know he has to shave a lot). I can actually smell the musk of him. He’s so close it’s like he’s invading my territory-no, my personal space. I take a step backward and slip. His hand reaches out and grabs my elbow, balancing me.

“Be careful. It’s wicked slippery here,” he says, a smile leaking across his face.

I would smile back, but I’m too busy feeling all wiggly inside. I tough up my voice. “Oh. Yeah.”

His thick chestnut hair lifts with the wind. He sniffs the air. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll be okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He nods and gives a little half smile and waves before he walks away. He strides, really. He’s beautiful, even from the back. I shake my head to stop staring, bustle off to the school’s front office, and push open the door. It’s a lot lighter than I expect. It slams into the wall with a big thud. My cheeks get all hot and I say, “Sorry.”

The good-looking pale girl doing the announcements gives me one of those “Who the hell are you?” looks.

I smile at her and try to channel total sweetness while I say it again. “Sorry.”

It doesn’t work. She flings her long strawberry blond hair behind her shoulder and lifts her lip in a little snarl. I raise my eyebrows in some sort of movie move. Touche.

My apology works on the school secretary, though. She perks right up and bustles over to the counter. She reminds me of Mrs. Santa Claus, only without the red jumpsuit and the sugar cookies.

“Oh! You must be Zara White! Betty’s granddaughter.” She pushes her long, thinning hair behind her ears like a little girl. “You look so much like your mother. It’s really remarkable. I would have known you anywhere. It’s like twins… only different hair. You must have your father’s hair.”

She takes a breath in the middle of her gushing and I take advantage.

I nod, all awkward. “Yep, that’s me. Hi. I need to register for classes. Sorry if that makes extra work for you.”

Evil Announcement Girl huffs and her nose actually twitches but the secretary smiles and says, “How sweet. She’s sorry. Your mother raised you well. I’m so sorry about your stepfather, dear.”

A gulp sticks in my throat but the word manages to get out. “Thanks.”

“I blew them, you know, your parents…”

The secretary pulls off her glasses and squints at me with smiling pity eyes, then she pulls the edge of her shirt sleeves down closer to her wrists and hauls out a folder, plopping it on the counter. Evil Announcement Girl rolls her eyes and turns her back. The secretary lady doesn’t even notice. She yanks out a class schedule. “Here you go, sweetie. All your classes. I’m Mrs. Nix.”

I take the computer printout with my shaking hand. The whole paper shakes with it. God.

“It’ll be okay, dear. First day’s the hardest!” She turns to Evil Announcement Girl. “Megan, you want to show Zara to her first class?”

Megan. What an absolutely perfect name for Evil Announcement Girl. Megans always hate me.

This Megan isn’t about to break my record.

She turns and glares at me. “I have announcements.”

Mrs. Nix smacks her head. “Oh, that’s right.”

She calls behind her shoulder. “Ian. How about you bring Zara to her homeroom?”

Megan smirks and points at my jeans. “Nice peace signs, hippie freak.”

I smile at her and mutter in my head, “Nice shoes made by child slaves in Asia, materialistic Barbie.”

After she turns her back on me, I cover my mouth to make sure I don’t actually say my come-back out loud. Mrs. Nix bounces on her heels, watching for Ian.

“Here he is,” she sings. “Show Zara to her class, dear?”

The boy in the back of the office unfolds his long legs from behind a computer and smiles at me appraisingly. “Sure thing.”

He saunters over and stands so close that I have to crane my neck to look up at his long, pale face crowned with out-of-control reddish blond waves. Are all the boys in this town tall? My step-dad wasn’t that tall, although I’d always thought he was, especially compared to me.

“Pullman, Easy. Mine too.” Ian slings a pack behind his shoulder, smiles at me, and grabs my paper. “You have her locker number, Mrs. Nix?”

Mrs. Nix smacks herself in the head again. If she keeps that up, she’ll bruise. “Sure, right here. How could I forget?”

She shakes her head at herself and smiles at me.

“Sorry. Age.”

“It’s okay,”I say. “Thanks.”

I shoot a look at Megan, amazed by how much she hates me already, and scurry out of the office with the loping Ian picking up speed ahead of me. He notices and slows down.

“Sorry.” He blushes. “Long legs.”

I smirk. He blushes harder and starts stumbling over his words. “I didn’t mean that you were short or anything. I just meant that my legs are… well… they’re long, you know, and…”

I touch his arm “It’s okay.”

“Really?”

He smiles at me, one of those little boy smiles, like he’s just been offered a chocolate chip cookie even though he spilled coffee grounds all over the Persian carpet.

“Really.” I take in a deep breath. “You a runner?”

“You could say that.” He grabs my elbow, “I won All-State in the I600 last spring and I was All-New England in the-”

“Bragging competition,” someone grumbles as they bump me, jolting me away from Ian, whose hand tightens on my elbow in a way that is way too protective to be normal.
MINI
Cooper guy waves and says, “Excuse me.”

I stare after massive
MINI
Cooper guy. His shoulders are huge inside his sweater, not that I’m looking or anything. And the sweater looks cashmere, which is pretty hoity-toity for Maine. They must have Big and Tall stores around here, or maybe he ordered it off the Net.

Ian makes a little growling noise. I pretend like I don’t hear it but I touch his arm again, trying to calm him down.

“Who is that?”

He shudders and leans down so I can hear him. “That is Nick Colt, otherwise known as bad news.”

I laugh. “Otherwise known as bad news?”

“What?” lan’s big eyes turn sad in his banana-long face.

“It’s just everyone around here sounds like they’re fifty years old:
otherwise known as bad news
.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and steers me through the hall. “Don’t people say that where you’re from?”

“In Charleston?” I’ve come across a lot of interesting ways of speaking while traveling with my parents outside the U.S., but Maine still [_is _]in the United States, last time I checked.

“You’re from Charleston.” He nods. “No wonder.”

“Mo wonder what?”

He stops outside a door. “Nothing.”

“No, really.” I hope he doesn’t think I’m a hick or a bigot, which is what some people think about anyone who lives south of New York City.

“You just seem different.”

“Hollow?”

“What?”

I drag my feet for a second, horrified that I said that out loud. “Nothing. Sorry.”

He doesn’t seem phased. “So if you need any info about anything, just ask me. I’m on cross-country and basketball, and I’m in key club and I’m the junior class president, and some oilier clubs too, so if you want to join anything, just let me know. I’ll get you in like that.” He snaps his fingers. “Sorry. Corny.”

“No. It’s… good. You’re a little bit of an overachiever, huh?”

“There’s no point in blending in, you know? Got to grab the power where you can.” He shakes his head at himself. “That sounds awful. I just mean… you’ve got to do what you can to get ahead, to get into college, that stuff. Well, we’re here.”

He gives a little lopsided grin as we face a classroom doorway. Beyond it people are shuffling their stuff around, cramming themselves into seats, gossiping about all sorts of tilings I don’t understand. They all have Gap clothes and that sort of almost-designer, mall-casual look, except all the guys wear work boots. There are a few guys wearing flannel and black sweatshirts. And here I am in my holey jeans with peace signs. I take a deep breath. I have no chance of fitting in, transferring in the middle of junior year. It’s hopeless.

The ache inside me grows and grows.

Auroraphobia, Northern Lights creep you out.

Autodysomophobia, you are afraid of someone who smells vile.

Automatonophobia, ventriloquist’s dummies terrify you.

Automysophobia, being dirty is the end of the world. Autophobia, you are afraid of yourself.

[ * ]

The evil Megan girl is not in my homeroom, but she is in my Spanish class. Ian drops me off at the door there too and she eyes us suspiciously. I swear, if she were a cat she’d be hissing.

“It really wouldn’t be a big deal for me to come and walk you to your advanced chemistry class,” Ian says for the fourth time. “I mean, I don’t want you to get lost or anything.”

“Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Who [_is _]that girl?” I nod at Megan.

“Oh, Megan Crowley.”

I stand up on my tiptoes and whisper, “I think she hates me.”

He laughs and nods while I go back to my flat feet. “Probably.”

I wait for more. He just kneads at the top of his shoulder and yells hi to some guy in a soccer shirt who yells hi back to him.

My hands find their way to my hips. “Are you going to tell me why she hates me?”

His attention turns to me. His eyes flash. “Probably doesn’t like the way you smell.”

“What?” I step back. I thought he was nice, not slap worthy. Not like I go around slapping people, but whatever.

He raises his hands. “Just kidding. Just kidding. You’re the competition. Megan hates competition. She has a tiling for Nick Colt. She saw you come into school with him. End of story, beginning of competition.”

“Right, like [_I’m _]competition. Mini me.” I walk into Spanish class, where Megan whispers snide tilings as Mrs. Provost, the teacher, introduces me to everyone and finds me a place to sit. The girl next to Megan giggles behind her hand and looks at me. Great.

The last tiling I’m paying attention to is Mrs. Provost, who is saying, “Zara, what an unusual name.”

She glances at my ripped-up jeans with the peace signs and her eyes shift into another thought. “Mice to have you here. Class, let’s begin. All in Spanish.”

I stare out the window, zone out, and wish more than anything that I’m back home with my dad and he’s alive and my mom’s all happy and we’re eating eggplant smothered with mozzarella cheese and everything is normal again. But it can’t ever be normal again.

Outside, a birch tree bends from the weight of the snow. It’ll spring back up once the snow melts, back to its normal, upright self.

Could that happen to me?

The answer is a big fat no.

Megan Crowley turns all the way around in her seat to stare at me. Something evil flashes in her eyes and for a second I think she’s not real, not human. She lifts a perfectly manicured fingernail at me and mouths, “I am onto you.”

Que?No entiendo.

“What?”I mouth back.

She does it again. “I am onto you.”

Mrs. Provost sweeps between us. “Girls, I am so happy that Zara is making friends, but now is not social time. Now is Spanish time. Zara? Why don’t you tell us about Charleston?”

“Um…” I look around for help. It’s just a bunch of pale people staring at me. God, how can Maine be so white? “Um, Charleston is really beautiful and warm. There are these antebellum houses and-”

“In Spanish,
por favor
,” Mrs. Provost interrupts. She pulls at her bra strap and lifts it farther up her shoulder.

She wants me to talk about antebellum houses in Spanish? I hate this place. Megan laughs behind her hand and turns back around. I shiver. It is so cold here.

“Charleston _ess caliente y hermosa _,” I start again. “A
mi me gusta alli.”

A thin girl with wild brownish hair waves at me as we leave class. An orange Hello Kitty T-shirt bags off her shoulders. Her nose twitches like a bunny’s and she hops up and down to get me to look at her.

“Hey.” She waves again, this massive kind of wave, like when you’re trying to hail a taxi on a busy street. But this is a hallway, not a street, and it’s nowhere near busy.

“Hi.”

I put my oh-so-exciting, brand-new Spanish textbook into my pack. Then I snap it shut. In passing I notice that one of the snaps is missing.

“I like your pack. Did you get it at an army-navy store?” She bounces on her toes when she talks like she has way too much energy for her body and just has to do something with it.

“Yep.”

“In Bangor?”