Never Enough (15 page)

Marcus looked down at it for a second, then he lifted his hand to shake it. Dad was pretty good with pleasant introductions. Much better than Mom, anyway.

Marcus’s shoulders relaxed when Dad finally left him alone to go shake the other boys’ hands. When the introductions were over, I said, “I’m ready for you all over by the fence.”

I took the shots quickly. With such a large group, I didn’t move them around much, so I could be sure to keep them all in the frame.

“Maybe Marcus could take a shot so you could be in a picture, Loey,” Claire said when I was just ready to wrap it up.

I looked down at my T-shirt and shorts. “I’m not dressed for it at all.”

“But we need at least one family shot,” Mom said. She was already taking over organizing this one for me, nudging Jaz and Laz to the outside and leaving a space for me between Claire and my parents.

Great, right in the middle.
I glanced over at Marcus. Mom
had still made absolutely no effort to say hello to him. She certainly hadn’t welcomed him into “the family shot” the way she had with Josh.

Suddenly that made me angry.

“Hey, Marcus,” I whispered. “Help me figure out how to set the timer.”

I’ve never been good when it came to electronics, but Marcus seemed to have a knack for it. As soon as he confirmed it was set, I grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him toward the cream backdrop. He stiffened, but he stood back against the fence with me in front of him.

“Wait, wha—” Mom started, but I could tell she was fumbling for words that wouldn’t sound too bitchy.

“Smile, everybody,” I said. And hopefully they all did, because the flash went off only a second later.

After finishing the group shots, I claimed exhaustion. And really, I probably was, though it was hard to tell, with my pumping adrenaline.

“This was amazing, with the backdrop and the tree,” Claire said in front of her three friends and our parents. “I have no idea when my little sister became Ansel Adams.” Claire met my eyes, and there was something so close to admiration in hers, I wanted to cry. “You’re the best, Loey.” Everyone nodded in agreement, and for that second, I almost believed that I was.

On the first Friday after school let out for the summer, I headed to the Arts Club.
I bit my lip when I saw Marcus sitting at “our” table, waiting for me. We had coffee, and he paid without even asking me if I had cash.

“Thanks again for helping me with the grad photo shoot,” I said. “The pictures turned out great.” I passed him a copy of the one family picture that had both of us in it. His neck went a little pink. Surprisingly, Mom hadn’t gotten on my case about inviting Marcus into the shot. Hopefully she was softening toward him.

After looking at the photo for a few seconds, Marcus slid it into the front of a car magazine he’d been reading.

“It was weird, feeling like I was the one in charge of the photo shoot,” I said.

“You
were
in charge,” he said with an arched eyebrow, like I was being silly.

“Well, yeah, I know, but . . .” I had to think of how to explain it to him. “You know how geese always fly in that
V
kind of formation? I just always thought of Claire as the front goose, you know, breaking the wind for little misfit birds like me.”

He laughed. “You know that the front bird has to switch out, though, right? And another bird has to switch in. The front bird is always changing.”

Hmm. He was right. Maybe that wasn’t a good example. Then again, maybe it was a good example after all. Maybe sometimes I
did
need to switch in and become more of the leader.

When it was time for dinner, I stood to head out. Marcus and I didn’t talk about seeing each other again, so I assumed I would come back to find him there next week. I still had his e-mail address, but for some reason I felt weird about using it.

*   *   *

I stayed around the house the next few days and watched TV whenever Claire’s soap operas weren’t on, or hung out in my room, listening to her rattle away on the computer down the hall. I thought a lot about Marcus. How often would be too
much to drop by the Arts Club? If I went every day, would that seem clingy? And would he be there every day?

Claire interrupted my thoughts from my bedroom doorway.

“Wanna come to the movies with me and Jasmine?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, trying not to register my shock. “What are we seeing?”

“That new one with Miley Cyrus.”

Even though it wasn’t my thing, I followed her out the door without complaining. It wasn’t often that Claire invited me to do “friend” things with her anymore, so who cared if it was a little perky for my taste?

“We should get inside,” I said when I noticed Jasmine looking me up and down outside the theater. The way she kept scrutinizing me, you’d swear I’d worn my bra on top of my shirt today. I didn’t actually care what Jasmine thought, but I hoped her embarrassment wouldn’t rub off on Claire.

Jasmine flipped her enhanced blond hair over her shoulder and led the way, like she couldn’t get in there fast enough.

During the previews, Claire kept whispering to Jasmine about Josh.

“It
was
a big deal,” she said. “Trust me, he was mad.”

I leaned in to try to hear more. Even though I couldn’t make out many of their words, I got the gist. Josh and Claire
had
had a fight.

“Don’t worry, he still totally likes you,” Jasmine said with a sigh, like this was barely worth talking about.

“How do you know?” I blurted, and someone shushed me from behind. Claire and Jasmine both stared at me for a second, like I’d asked the question in Swahili. “I mean, how do you know when a guy likes you?” I whispered. If someone like Claire had doubts, it had to be confusing. Besides, I didn’t want Jasmine to change the subject if Claire wanted to talk about this.

Jasmine chuckled. “You just . . . know. It’s, like, obvious.” She looked at Claire with her eyebrows raised. I knew the look. The look that said,
Tell me again why you brought your little sister?
I couldn’t believe how much she changed when I didn’t hold a camera.

It’s not that I disliked Jasmine. She’d been hanging around since she met Claire in ninth grade. I guess I just wished she liked me.

And I wished I could talk to my sister more, now that there were important things to talk about.

*   *   *

I met Marcus again the next Saturday at the Arts Club, glad to be able to be myself around someone again.

Armando came up to us right away and asked, “You watch coffee all day?”

Marcus nodded, so I did too. We didn’t have plans for the
rest of the day, and it wasn’t like we had anywhere else to go.

Ten minutes after Armando left, a swarm of customers came through the door. I had never been in on a Saturday, and it caught me off guard. Marcus met the first couple at the counter, and within five minutes, a line up formed and he needed my help. I stood beside him taking orders, surprised at his expertise at making the specialty coffees.
Had he done this before?
He ground the espresso beans without even looking at them, and moved back and forth between machines with finesse.

Another hidden talent.
Which only made me want to learn more about him. We were a pretty good team and worked without stopping until almost noon.

When the last customers had gone, Marcus pushed a silver canister in my direction. “Here. You try,” he said.

I held the container under the big cappuccino machine and he talked me through making my very own latte. It was actually easier than I expected, and fun to be able to leave my milk under the spout to make it extra frothy. After that, we sat and silently drank our coffees, proud of our work. At least I was.

The next two hours passed without much activity.

“So . . . we’re seniors next year,” Marcus said. “I guess we should think about what comes next. After high school.” He paused, but not long enough for me to comment. “I gotta get
out of Alder Grove. I started working on the old man’s Chevy the other day.”

I wasn’t quite sure what one had to do with the other, but I nodded. It was the first time Marcus had ever said a word about his dad, or ever let on that Marcus had a part of his life he was unhappy with.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said. “But if I’m lucky enough to get into college, believe me, I won’t just throw that away.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness toward Claire from leaking out in my voice. We’d been off school for two weeks, and she hadn’t been practicing ballet, or really doing much of anything, other than getting in my way and taking over the TV whenever I wanted it. Fortunately for her, I think our parents were too busy at work to notice.

At two in the afternoon, I glanced to the opening door and did a double-take. Shayleen strutted into the café with three guys I recognized from school. She was so busy talking, she didn’t notice me at first. But I couldn’t stop staring at her. Her skirt barely covered the tops of her thighs. I watched her move through the place as though she’d been here many times. When she finally noticed me, she stood too far from the door to nonchalantly make a retreat, and had been looking at the counter for too long to pretend I wasn’t there.

I reached to pat down my hair, suddenly self-conscious. It
hadn’t occurred to me that I might see people from school at the café, since I’d never known about the place until Marcus introduced me.

“What are you doing here?” She pulled her arms across her chest.

“I work here,” I said, with as much false confidence as I could muster. It was stupid to play this up like it was a real job. She could so easily find out the truth. I just couldn’t help myself. I wanted it to sound like I had more right to be here than she did. This was my and Marcus’s place.

“Oh,” she said, glancing at the door. I knew she wanted to leave, to tell her friends, “Let’s go somewhere else.” But at the same time she didn’t like to be pushed around.

“Iced mocha,” she finally said.

Marcus started to make the drink while I took the other orders and made change. The boy right beside Shayleen paid for her coffee, and I wondered if this was a new boyfriend. And if so, why were the other two tagging along?

“Is it hot out?” I asked the one guy who kept looking at me. Marcus and I hadn’t been outside the doors since nine a.m. so I had no idea.

“Yeah,” Shayleen’s boyfriend said. “I can’t wait to get in the pool.” He was the cutest of the three, but they all had a rough-around-the-edges, uncombed look about them.

Shayleen nudged her guy with an elbow. He stopped talking
and they all got quiet. Finally I turned to help Marcus while they stood staring at us.

We brought their drinks to the counter. It didn’t surprise me when Shayleen directed her group to go drink them at the park. I let out a big breath after the door closed behind them. Marcus didn’t seem to notice my stress over the whole ordeal. Or at least he didn’t say anything about it.

Then another lull hit. Marcus walked around the café, talking more about the paintings on the walls, and I followed him. I liked his voice. It was quiet and deep for a seventeen-year-old. He rambled on about his favorite Michelangelo repro.

“And this is a van Gogh,” he said, moving on to another one.
“Portrait of Dr. Gachet.
The original sold for eighty-two and a half million.” He nodded his approval toward it.

Then he moved on to the next one. “
The Yellow House
,” he said. “By some unknown, uh, Guy Roberts, I think.” Marcus was already walking away from it. “Worth five hundred, at most.”

The next painting, a new one—or at least, one I didn’t remember from my last visit—was disturbing. An older man held a young boy down by his throat. With his other hand he held a knife.

“Wh—who’s this by?” I asked.

Marcus swallowed so loud I could hear it. “Uh, Caravaggio,”
he said. “It’s pretty . . . famous.” He angled his face away from me, a hardness forming around his jaw. It was a difficult painting to look at, but looking at Marcus was almost harder. I wanted to reach for his hand. But just as I worked up enough courage to do it he headed back to our table, sat down, and started sipping his coffee.

When Armando returned, he shuffled through the door and over behind the counter. Then he came over and dropped two twenties on the table between us. Not exactly top dollar for a full day’s work, but we both beamed anyway. We’d made it ourselves.

“You good kids,” he said to us in his heavily accented tongue.

We thanked him as he walked away. Then he turned back and said, or asked, I couldn’t tell quite which, “You work Saturdays now.”

And that’s how Marcus and I got our first jobs.

*   *   *

I told my parents as soon as I got home.

“Good for you, honey,” Dad said from just outside the front closet.