Second Skin (18 page)

"Just spend a good two hours every day working on this stuff," Alex said as the bell rang. "I'd start today if I were you."

I sighed. "I'm not sure I'll have time. I have a meeting after school. I think this one's about decorations." I frowned, trying to remember. "For something."

"Fine. Then tomorrow."

I shook my head. "Tanner has a game."

Alex snorted. "Well, that's definitely more important," he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "Why are you doing this, Sam?"

I clicked my mechanical pencil until the lead was about three inches long. "Doing what?"

"Changing," Alex said, shaking his head. "I just don't get it. It's like you've gone totally crazy."

"I'm just trying new things," I told him. "What's wrong with that? You've got your telescope and soapbox cars. Gwen cooks." I looked at him. "How about me? What do I do?"

Alex rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "For starters, you drink Snapple with a straw," he said, tilting his head toward my lemonade. "You read."

"You study everyone around you," he continued. "And you draw." He looked up at me, his dark eyes wide. "Look, Sam, maybe the things you're interested in aren't that..." He frowned, searching for the right word.
"Formed.
But so what?" He tapped a doodle of my geometry teacher, Mr. Slater, getting beaten up by Sponge-Bob. "You're good at all of them."

I felt my shoulders lift. I missed Alex, I realized suddenly. I missed hanging out with him. As the second bell rang, I found myself wishing my afternoon were clear. I could go watch him work on one of his cars or something, just like before. If only I had time.

Tanner Mullins.

Even after a week and a half of coupledom, the four syllables still sent little shivers up and down my spine. Every once in a while, from out of nowhere, his name would flash through my head like an alarm, followed by the thought:
I can't believe he likes me...

Okay, so maybe it wasn't an apology. At all. But he'd sworn he wanted to spend the day with me, as a makeup for the night before. We'd driven out to the beach, and even though it was February-way too cold to swim-I was sort of looking forward to the trip. I pictured us skipping stones, building a bonfire. A repeat of my day with Alex, except with kissing.

As soon as we got to the beach, though, Tanner stripped off his shirt and stretched out on the sand.

"Aren't you freezing?" I asked, trying hard not to stare at the neat row of muscles that lined his abs. Even in the hard winter light, the skin on his chest looked smooth and toned.

He shrugged. "I want to build up a base before June," he explained. "That's when the serious sun hits." He tilted his chin up to the sky. "Listen, can you do something for me?"

"Sure, anything."
Here
it comes,
I thought.
He's going to ask me to Spring Fling.

"Can you time me?" he asked.

I blinked. "Time you?"

Tanner nodded. "I want to do ten minutes on each side." He glanced down at his perfect torso,

"Uh, sure," I told him. "Don't worry. Ten minutes."

"Nice. You're the best."

I watched as Tanner turned away from me and flipped open the latest issue of
Maxim.
I considered reading the
Cosmo
I'd stuck in my bag, but after one glance at the ocean, I closed my eyes and dove headfirst into the memory of my quarter birthday. Alex and I had collected seashells on this very same stretch of beach, just a few yards away. I giggled, remembering his bright green face.

"Hey, babe?" Tanner asked, glancing up from an article entitled "The Best Badass Movie Weapons."

"You're still timing me, right? I mean, I just don't want you to break your concentration or anything. It's, like, my tan has to be even, you know?"

"Eight minutes left," I assured him.

He leaned over and gave me a quick, rough peck, then settled back into the sand and closed his eyes.

Yeah, the guy was a little vain. And his kisses were hardly the mind-blowing affairs I'd dreamed of. Still, he was an all-star lacrosse

It wasn't that my ultimate was less than ultimate. Real Tanner was just a little different from dream Tanner. A tiny bit of disappointment, I reasoned, was only natural. Expected, even.

Besides, the most important thing was that he liked me. Enough to ask me to Spring Fling on the drive home. We were a couple.
The
couple. And that was amazing.

I swung my backpack over my shoulder and followed Alex out of the room.

"See you next session," Alex said coolly, moving past me down the hall. He didn't wave or look back. Not once.

For a few seconds, I considered going after him.

It was true, too. For the new Sam Klein, the halls of Woodlawn High were lined with low-hanging fruit.

I was definitely in season.

"Seriously," Jules said, nodding emphatically. "What does that tell us about Woodlawn?"

Gina opened her green
I Am
Not a Plastic Bag
bag and pulled out the black bankbook where we logged our expenses. She flipped through a few pages and frowned. "We spent it all on the DJ."

I stifled a yawn and forced myself to pay attention. Ever since I was a freshman, I'd invested hours-entire days, even-fantasizing about events like Spring Fling and fall fashion show. But I'd never actually wondered how they came to be or what sort of planning was involved.

Well, now I knew.

The committees worked hard. Really hard. And at incredibly boring things. Like deciding which brand of poster board was the most cost-effective and which cleanup crew would be the most reliable.

And they took everything so seriously, too. That was the most amazing part about it. Every glue stick purchased represented a heated twenty-five-minute debate. The theme selection alone had practically resulted in a shoot-out between those in favor of "A Space Odyssey" and those who believed "Love Is All You Need" (after a bloody battle, space kicked love's butt).

It wasn't that I didn't want to go to the dance. I did. I'd even bought my dress-a black mini with

But I just couldn't seem to match the rest of the committee's enthusiasm for tissue paper and disco balls.

"I guess we'll just have to hold off on the refreshments for now," Gina said, the same way another person would say "I have six weeks to live." She sighed forlornly and glanced down at her clipboard. "Okay," she said, shaking off her despair. "Moving on. Decorations. Any ideas?"

"Pastels?" Adrienne suggested.

"Too girly," Heidi said, waving a knitting needle. "Besides, the theme's
space."

Adrienne wrinkled her nose. She'd lobbied heavily for love and was obviously still feeling bitter.

"Glitter," I blurted out, surprising myself. Color rushed to my cheeks as the heads around the table swiveled in my direction. "It's just, well, since the theme is space maybe we could cut the solar system out of cardboard and cover everything in glitter or even buy those glow-in-the-dark stars...." I gulped, absorbing

Gina flashed me a smile. "Fantastic," she declared as the room erupted into the sort of appreciative murmurs and congratulatory remarks usually reserved for Academy Award winners. "Just great."

"Really," breathed Jules, as if I'd just handed her a lifetime supply of Gamier. "I can't believe we didn't think of that."

I shifted in my chair, trying hard to appreciate the praise and accept it all at face value. But it was sort of tough. I knew my idea was cute, but it was hardly Nobel Prize-worthy. It wasn't even particularly original. If I hadn't suggested it, I was pretty sure someone else would have.

I rubbed the Skin through the sleeve of my sweater. Was that all this was? If I stepped into the bathroom and slipped the Skin off (assuming I could-this morning it took me almost a half hour to wriggle out of it), would I return as invisible as I'd been this time last year? Was all the worship triggered by the stolen Skin?

You
could put it to the test,
murmured an incredibly unwelcome--and extremely annoying-voice in my head.
You could remove the Skin and see where that leaves you.

Abruptly, I stood and walked out of the room. When I reached the bathroom, I locked myself into the first stall, ripped the Skin from my body (literally-at this point, the Skin put superglue to shame) and stuffed it into my backpack. Then I took my plain old one-skinned self out for a test drive.

I made it about halfway down the hall. That was when the panic set in. I remembered the A-list's snooty disregard for the pre-Skin me. All those nights babysitting, channel surfing and wondering when my life was actually going to happen. What if I had to go back to that? I couldn't deal. I wasn't ready.

I needed the Skin.

I ran back to the bathroom and slipped it back on, relieved as it poured over my body. I headed back to the meeting, not minding the Skin's supersqueeze.

"Are you okay?" Gina asked as I pulled in my chair. "You ran out of here so fast. We were worried."

"Yeah, I, uh, just realized I forgot to say goodbye to Tanner. I wanted to catch him before he left."

Jules smiled teasingly. "It's so cute how you guys are so in love."

"So, I guess that settles it," Gina said. "Thanks to Sam's brilliance, we've got the decorations all figured out."

"So that just leaves refreshments, right?" Heidi asked, unwinding some more yarn.

Gina frowned. "It's a real problem. After all our other expenses, we have less than fifty dollars to spend on food-and we need enough for the entire school."

"I know someone who might be able to help," I said, surprising myself again. Okay, so maybe my decorations idea wasn't all that groundbreaking. But this was pure genius.

"Really?" Gina asked. "Who?"

"I'll go talk to her now," I said, ignoring the question and leaving out the not-so-minor detail that the person I had in mind for the job was no longer speaking to me.

"Uh, great," Gina said as I grabbed my bag and raced out the door.

"Want some company?" Jules called after me, her voice hopeful. "I'll come with."

But it was too late. I was already gone.

***