Spectacle (A Young Adult Novel) (4 page)

“Just own it, girl.”

Talking to Thomas always made her feel better. Even if there was no way to prevent her growth spurt, at least she had him, who would accept her no matter how tall she got.

She went back to grinding beans, which she’d been doing before the last wave of customers came in.

He stepped up to her, shoved a hand in her back pocket and pinched. Over the grinder, he said, “You know the freakier you get, the more I’ll love you.”

When Emily came home, Melissa was waiting.

She ushered Emily into the family room, handed her a can of Hansen’s raspberry soda and a piece of string cheese.

“What am I? Five?” Emily asked.

“Of course not,” Melissa said, and ruffled her dark bob nervously. “I just thought you’d want a snack. You know, like you always do.”

“I’m a growing girl.”

“Yeah.” Melissa paced the room now, back and forth between the microfiber ivory sofa and flat panel TV. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Emily looked at her. She tucked her feet under her butt and sat up straighter. “What?”

“Dr. Haskins called. You know, the pediatric—”

“Endocrinologist,” they both said together.

Melissa said, “Right. He read your X-rays and he thinks … he thinks you’re still, well, shooting up.”

“Awesome,” Emily said flatly.

“In fact, his prediction is—,”

“Wait!” Emily yelped. She vaulted to the window. Behind their house was a deep ravine, green with trees and moss and shrubs. When she and Kristen were younger, they loved to explore down there, loved to pretend they were slashing their way through a jungle, watching for snakes and wildcats in the branches.

“Don’t tell me.”

She heard Melissa inhale. “It’s up to you.”

Emily wondered why Melissa wasn’t beaming, wasn’t filled with glee to know that she was still sprouting like an overfertilized sunflower. Dread filled her stomach like wadded up newspaper. The news must be bad. Really bad.

In that moment, she decided. She had to hear the truth. “Okay. What? Tell me fast.”

“Six two to six three,” Melissa said.

Emily squeezed her eyes shut. Two to three more inches. She was going to grow
two to three more inches.
She would tower over everyone except the tallest of the tall. She’d never have a boyfriend. Girls would be too squeamish to hang out with her. “I’m sure you’re happy about that,” she said.

“No,” Melissa shook her head. “I mean, I think it’s kind of neat, yeah. But I know it’s really hard on you.”

The furnace clicked on, but goose bumps rose up and down Emily’s arms anyway.

“Hey,” Kristen said.

Emily looked up and noticed her sister standing in the doorway between the kitchen and family room. She rubbed an apple on the hem of her softball jersey.

“You okay?” Kristen asked.

Emily shrugged.

Melissa patted Emily’s shoulder and left.

Emily heard her pick up the phone and make a call, speaking in low tones, probably to Emily’s dad.

Kristen flopped onto the couch. “You should totally join the track team this year. You’d kick ass on the high jump.”

Emily bit her lips, forcing herself not to cry.

“Seriously. You have tons of poise.”

“Poise doesn’t equal athletic ability,” Emily snapped more forcefully than she meant to. Kristen was only trying to be nice. But Emily didn’t have it in her to be nice back. Not right then.

She collapsed next to Kristen.

Kristen lowered her voice and said, “How’s Melissa acting? Is she bugging the crap out of you?”

Numbly, Emily said, “She’s being okay. She actually seems sympathetic. Which just shows you how horrific it is.”

Kristen clicked on the remote and said, “Watch TV with me. It’ll help you forget.”

So they sat through dating reality shows, an hour of dysfunctional crazies living together, and contests where pretty but strange-looking girls competed for a modeling contract.

During the last genre, Kristen raised her eyebrows. “There’s always that,” she said.

“Right.”

“No, really. You’re good looking enough to do that. You’re way better than those weirdos. That one with red hair? Her eyes are like two feet apart.”

Kristen and Emily dug in and criticized every girl on screen, commenting on the chins or brows or shrill voices. It wasn’t nice, of course. It was awful and mean and petty. But it made her feel a little better.

Their dad came home around eight. He popped open a bottle of beer, changed into khaki shorts, and stood at the counter eating lowfat, baked tortilla chips that Melissa supplied.

Emily stayed in the family room, her eyes trained on the TV. She didn’t want to talk to her father about The News. He would treat it as if it were just another hurdle to overcome.
Everyone has issues
, he would say. While inside Emily would know he was mortified.

He came to the doorway and said, “Em.”

She looked up at him sheepishly. Kristen had stiffened.

He hesitated for a minute before he said, “So, another couple, three inches, huh?”

“That’s what the doctors think,” Emily said.

She searched for the tiniest hint of concern etched around his eyes, but she couldn’t see any. Bob Lucas was an okay-looking guy, she guessed. For a forty-two-year-old. He’d lost a lot of hair, but what he did have was shaved close to his head. He was trim. He wore silver-rimmed glasses and had perfect teeth.

“Character builder!” he bellowed.

He crunched a handful of chips. He was a fast chewer. Which fit his personality. Always thinking, angling, hurrying.

“Sure, Dad.” Emily wished she could disappear into the couch cushions.

“Thatta girl,” he nodded and took a swig of beer. His BlackBerry trilled. He answered it and, talking loudly enough for half the neighborhood to hear, went back into the kitchen.

“Thatta girl?” she whispered to herself. Her dad just wanted to acknowledge the news and move on. Do what he thought was his fatherly duty. He didn’t care how Emily felt or what she might fear.

Emily, Melissa, and Kristen sat down to a meal of smothered pork chops and mashed potatoes, which were two of Emily’s favorites, but a huge departure for Melissa, who usually served things like quinoa with organic chicken breasts and yams seasoned with lime juice. Her dad had moved his call into his office, but they could still hear his voice pulsating through the walls.

Emily politely ate a few bites, but wasn’t hungry.

Melissa sipped from her glass of iced tea, eyeing her as she gulped. “It’s okay. You want to go?”

Emily nodded and, with tears in her eyes, left the table.

7. Into the Night

L
YING ACROSS THE
twin bed in Trix’s tiny room, Emily scrolled through her friend’s iPod, listening to a few seconds of a song, commenting on it, and moving to another.

“Anger,” she said, staring at the water-stained ceiling. “That’s all I’m getting from this. Anger.” Emily was into indie pop stuff, a little electronica, and some jazz. She hated a lot of Trix’s hard-core rock.

“What’s wrong with a little anger?” Trix asked. “We’re teenagers, we’re supposed to be angry. Rage cleanses the soul.”

David was curled up on Trix’s pillow, twitching in his sleep.

“No, it doesn’t,” Emily said. “It just riles up the soul. It feeds on itself.”

Traffic whizzed by on 99, practically shaking the walls.

Trix grabbed the iPod from Emily. “What about this one?” she said, choosing a rap that was more catchy than demeaning.

“Eh, not bad,” Emily said.

“Oh, you. With all your trip blip clip hop whatever.”

In the kitchen, Trix’s mom microwaved popcorn, and its aroma filled the trailer, obliterating the nighttime city smells wafting in the window. Trix hoisted herself off the floor, left for several seconds, then came back with two cans of Diet Rite and a plastic bowl filled with popcorn. “Wish these were hard lemonade,” she said, referring to the sodas, “but this’ll have to do.”

They ate and drank for a few minutes, crunching and slurping quietly.

Trix asked, “Should we go out somewhere?” She was restless, feeling too confined by the trailer walls.

“Like … ?” Emily thought of Vera Project for an all ages show, or Dick’s for burgers, but neither of those places inspired her enough to stop flipping through tracks.

“I’m not going to Vera,” Trix said, reading Emily’s mind. “Ben’s working there this weekend.”

Honestly, Emily wanted to go out, too, to see and blend, to the extent she could, before being just one of the crowd became a complete joke.

Trix said, “I could go for a coffee.”

“You could always go for a coffee.”

“Yeah, well, it’s something.”

So Trix and Emily grabbed their bags, said goodbye to Trix’s mom—who ate popcorn with one hand and held the remote with the other while watching a medical drama on TV—and went out into the night.

8. Party

“
W
ELL, WELL, WELL,”
Trix said from the table where she and Emily sat at a coffee shop on 80th. “Look what the mangy old cat dragged in.”

Emily turned and saw Ryan McElvoy. He caught her eye and flashed a mischievous smile.

She gripped her white, porcelain mug hard, burning her fingertips. Kind of liking the sting.

“McElvoy!” Trix called. “Why the hell aren’t you somewhere with beer and hot chicks? This place is for losers.”

“God, Trix,” Emily hissed.

Ryan sauntered over, shoving his wallet into his back pocket. He rested his hands on the back of Emily’s chair. “You two don’t look like losers to me.”

“We are,” Trix said, smiling a little too brightly. “The biggest.” She felt the ants again, skittering across her scalp. Maybe she’d caught David’s fleas.

Ryan stood back, “I guess that makes me the biggest lameass, then.”

“You said it, not me.”

Emily was struck mute, unable to find a way in to Trix and Ryan’s exchange.

“I bet money you’re just passing through. On your way to a party. Am I right?” Trix said, her heart jackhammering.

“Over in Wallingford. Jason Bleak’s.”

“I knew it!”

Emily hated how overly boisterous Trix was around guys. How she turned into a ridiculously animated version of herself. Emily had to admit, though, that her approach seemed to work. Guys responded. They liked the attention, she guessed.

“You coming?” Ryan said.

Trix gazed into her coffee and all but stuck out her lower lip. “Not invited.” A party was just what she was in the mood for.

“Who cares,” Ryan said, hearing his name and starting for his beverage, which sat waiting on the counter. “You know Jason. He’ll be totally slizzard. He won’t even know. He won’t care. I guarantee it.”

Trix tossed off a playful little shrug.

Ryan glanced at Emily and said, “You’re coming, right, Lean Bean?”

“Wallingford?”

“Yep. Behind QFC on 48th.”

“Maybe.”

Emily’s coyness drove Trix crazy. It wasn’t like she had Evites flying into her mailbox. What could it hurt to check out one little party?

“Cool.” He waved and dashed out to a waiting Hyundai just before it squealed away from the coffee shop.

“Whaddya think?” Trix asked. “Want to take the 358 to Wallingford? Crash the shindig?”

Emily shook her head. There were too many variables that could turn Trix’s plan into disaster.

1. It could be a small get-together, just a few guys with a case of beer.

2. Parents could show up.

3. Trix might end up drunk, which would force Emily to get her home and clean her up, something she did not at all have the energy for.

“We’re not invited, remember?”

“It was probably an open call. Anyone can show,” Trix said.

Emily was torn between going along and coming off as a buzzkill.

Then she remembered her doctor’s appointment. Six foot three. Would she even have the guts to enter rooms full of snarky guys and sneering girls when she was that much taller? Would she become a teenage shut-in, homeschooling online and socializing only through Facebook?

“Okay, for a little while,” she muttered.

The party at Jason Bleak’s, as it turned out, was big. There were at least 100 kids. Some Emily and Trix recognized from school, but many faces were new. Rap thumped through invisible speakers.

A group of guys stood to the left of the door, near a potted ficus, slamming beer from plastic cups.

“Hey, Big Bird’s here!” someone shouted.

Emily froze.

Trix prodded. “It’s okay,” she said. “Ignore them.”

The swirling crowd pushed the girls forward. But Emily’s face was hot, her feet heavy.

Trix felt bad for her friend when it came to making public appearances. People could be so rude. But she didn’t want to turn around and go home, either.

A girl wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and a blue streak through her bangs instructed Trix and Emily to pay ten dollars, handed them cups, and pushed them toward a silver keg.

They found a spot in the dining room and sipped their beer. “Not bad,” Trix said. She could easily chug six of them. Fast. The fizz felt great sliding down her throat. Soon the invincible warmth that came when she drank would envelope her, and all would be right with the world.

Emily thought the beer tasted like dirty socks filled with old coffee grounds. Dutifully, though, she sipped. It wasn’t that she was dead set against drinking; she just wasn’t wild about the flavor of beer and didn’t have any desire to end up sick and spazzy the next day like she’d seen Trix.

“Any sign of Ryan yet?” Trix asked.

“Ryan? Oh, uh, nope. No sign.” Emily tried to pretend she didn’t care. But she couldn’t help scanning over everyone’s heads, looking for him.

“Maybe in the basement?”

“Look,” Emily said. “It doesn’t matter. We didn’t come here for him. We came here to get out of our coffee house rut.”

Trix said, “Right. But it’d be nice to bump into him, yes?” She was hoping to bump into him herself. Preferably without Emily.