The Princesses of Iowa (18 page)

I buried my face in my hands. “Mom.”

The nail lady’s name tag said,
I’M KARLA! ASK ME ABOUT OUR REVLON SPECIALS!
She kneeled at my mother’s feet, smiling up at me. “Oh gosh, you must be real proud there! That’s a very big deal, isn’t it!” Her Minnesota accent was so thick that it took my ears a few seconds to translate her words into English.

My mother looked pleased. “It is a very big deal! We’ve been working toward this for years!”

Karla nodded, pulling my mother’s right foot out of the water. “I had a girlfriend in high school who missed getting onto the prom court by three votes, and you know what? She never forgot it. To this day, she blames her first divorce on the fact that she was three votes shy of being pretty enough.” She lowered her voice and glanced over her shoulder, as if her high school girlfriend might walk into the nail salon at any moment. “Of course, I say it has more to do with the fact that her first husband loved his six-packs of Schlitz more than he loved her, don’t you know.”

“I was the homecoming queen myself,” my mother said. “In high school
and
college, if you can believe that! Of course, that was a long time ago.” She shook her hair slightly, as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself, but I knew that she was waiting for Karla to tell her how she could believe it, of course she could.

Instead, Karla looked at me. “You know, I always thought it would be fun to ride in the parade. It goes right past the store there, you know.” She pointed, and I tried not to notice the folds of her arm swinging under the fabric of her sleeve. “Those girls always look so happy.”

My mother looked at me, triumphant. “It’s a real honor, Paige.” She looked off toward the slatted windows, where potted plants and venetian blinds disguised the view to the parking lot outside. “These are the best years of your life, Paige. They really are. Enjoy them while you can.”

I wasn’t sure why she was arguing with me when I hadn’t said anything to contradict her, but suddenly I wanted to. I pulled my feet out of the water, shaking them gently. “I know it’s an honor, Mom. But isn’t life actually supposed to get even better than this? Shouldn’t the best years of my life still be ahead of me? I mean . . .” I closed my eyes, searching for the right words to say what I meant, even to know what I meant, as if I could find them etched across the insides of my eyelids, but the slate was blank, and by the time I opened my eyes, Karla had come back with a selection of nail polish, and my mother was deeply engaged in a discussion of the merits of eggplant versus mauve, and she never answered my question.

“All hail the power of the blue dot!” A circle of people were standing outside the newspaper room as I walked to my locker Monday morning. They laughed and pushed one another, reaching for a piece of paper floating above their heads. “Gather round, all ye infidels, and worship the awesome power of the mystical blue dot!”

“Praise be! Praise be! The blue dot is printed!” someone shouted reverently.

Jeremy stood in the center of the crowd, holding the paper and yelling. “The blue dot knows all, tells nothing! It has the power to heal! It has the power to reveal!”

Without really meaning to, I slowed as I approached them, looking for my sister. She was rarely far from Jeremy these days. I recognized some of the people from creative writing, as well as some of my sister’s friends, but I didn’t see her anywhere. Elizabeth Carr stood next to Jeremy, leading the crowd in its praise of the blue dot through hysterical giggles.

Jeremy called to me. “Hey, Paige! Come worship the mystical blue dot!”

“The mystical blue dot heals all woes!” Elizabeth added. “Praise be!”

“Oh,” I said. “Um.” I could feel the curious eyes of the crowd on me, wondering whether I’d join them or hang back, and I thought of Shanti on Friday night, laying out the social strata I’d never even thought about. Jeremy wasn’t a popular kid, not in the way that Lacey and I were popular, but he was the president of the senior class and widely liked.

An amused voice spoke in my ear. “The blue dot knows all, tells nothing.” I jumped in surprise. Ethan stood beside me, smiling. “Sounds like someone I know.”

I rolled my eyes. “Hardly.”

“The blue dot grants the truest wishes of your secret heart!” Elizabeth called, still giggling.

Jeremy looked at me. “What about it, Paige? Behold the power of the blue dot? What lies in your heart? Fame, fortune, and a bag of Skittles? Homecoming queen? One touch and the throne can be yours.”

For a moment, homecoming queen sounded wrong, but then I shook myself. What else could it possibly be? Though I wouldn’t say no to Skittles.

“Behold its majestic power!” Elizabeth cried. “Worship the blue dot!”

Six months ago I would never have touched a stupid blue dot just because the weird kids were yelling at me. In fact, I wouldn’t even have slowed down, and I definitely wouldn’t have been singled out as their target. Then again, if my friends had been yelling about something in the hallway, I would have stopped to listen. What was the difference? Just that the weird arty kids were yelling about a piece of paper, while my friends would have been yelling about some kegger they were planning?

Jeremy smiled at me, and I made a decision. “Fine.” I glanced at Ethan and tried to match Jeremy’s royal tones. “I shall grant thy wish, but henceforth I warrant the blue dot should, um, behold the awesome power . . . of me.” I reached forward and poked the paper, and the crowd applauded.

I turned back to my place at the back of the crowd, but Mr. Tremont was standing in my spot, next to Ethan. “Nice,” he said. “Whitman would approve.”

Shanti joined us.
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,”
she said, her voice lilting up and down with the lines.
“And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

“I’m impressed,” Mr. Tremont said. “But not surprised.”

Shanti’s round cheeks turned pink, and she shook her dark hair over her shoulder. “That’s all I know, actually. My dad made me memorize tons of poems when I was little, but I only remember the beginnings of most. I can do the first few stanzas of ‘Prufrock’ for you, if you’d like, or all of ‘Ozymandias,’ or most of ‘Stopping by Woods,’ or —”

“Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Ethan said. “You’re a genius.” He smiled at me, as if this were some inside joke we’d been passing back and forth for years.

Shanti ignored his teasing tone and answered him seriously. “Only insofar as your average African gray parrot is a genius. I was my father’s little parlor trick, that’s all.”

“Parrot?” Ethan asked. “Don’t you mean cuckoo?”

She shook her head. “Poor Ethan. You try so hard, but you’re just not funny.”

Behind us, Jeremy and Elizabeth were still yelling about the dot. “All hail! All hail the power of the blue dot!”

Mr. Tremont laughed. “You guys remind me of my friends in high school.”

I took a half step back, knowing he didn’t mean me and not wanting to intrude. I could hardly follow the conversation, much less start quoting Whitman. Anyway, I had to get to my locker before history, and even though Elizabeth was in my class and didn’t seem concerned about the time, I didn’t want to be late.

But Mr. Tremont looked at me and asked, “How’s the writing going? Going to be ready for workshop?”

I cleared my throat. “I don’t . . .”

“Of course she will be,” Shanti said. “We all will. Class guinea pigs. First to fly, first to fall. Like Laika the Space Dog.”

Mr. Tremont looked confused, and Ethan said, “She means Muttnik.
Sputnik II
had a dog in it.”

“Actually, the Russians sent nine dogs into space, all total,” Shanti said. “I like to think that they flew off and started their own planet. A dog planet.” She caught my eye and shrugged. “I did a research project on it in seventh grade. Sputnik, not the dog planet.”

Mr. Tremont said, “Well then, yes. You’ll be our Space Dogs, and you can tell us how the view is from up there.”

“Laika died of stress and overheating a few hours into the flight,” Shanti said.

Ethan rolled his eyes. Mr. Tremont said, “Let’s hope my class isn’t quite that bad.” He looked at me and smiled. “I know you’re up to it, though. You’re tough.”

The five-minute-warning bell rang, and the crowd around Elizabeth and Jeremy began to disperse. The hallway flooded with people, and Nikki appeared, grabbing my forearm. “Paige. I have to talk to you.” Before I could protest, or even say anything in apology or thanks to Mr. Tremont, she dragged me off to a corner between a fire door and the end of a bank of lockers.

“Ow.” I rubbed my arm where she’d pulled on it, wondering if it would bruise. I imagined a tiny black-and-blue circlet above my wrist. It would match the one on my ankle from Friday night. “Jeez, Nikki.”

“Did you talk to Lacey?” Her eyes shot back and forth, locking first on my left eye, then my right, and back, so quickly I felt a little dizzy. She glanced over her shoulder, into the crowded hallway.

“No,” I said. “I haven’t talked to anyone.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Where were you all weekend? I called you, like, six hundred times.”

“I was sick.” Across the hall, Jeremy and Elizabeth were taping the paper with the blue dot to the door of the newspaper classroom, laughing and yelling, “Praise be!”

Ethan and Shanti walked past, laughing. They didn’t look at me.

I turned back to Nikki, who was still doing the darting-eye thing. “Paige. Listen. Please don’t say anything to Lacey about Friday night, okay? Because she would be mad. And I really can’t handle that right now. She can’t know. Okay?”

There was only a minute or so before the last bell, and the teachers in their doorways started shooing kids off to class. “Hurry up, folks! Let’s go! Get to class!”

Nikki grabbed my hand. “Paige. Please.”

I nodded, distracted. “Yeah, fine. I promise I won’t say a word to Lacey.”

Nikki sighed, relaxing her hold on me. “Oh gosh. Thanks, Paige. You’re the best. Okay. Thanks. I have to go. Okay. Thank you!” She took off down the hallway, skipping lightly on impossibly high heels. I watched her until she disappeared, and I didn’t move until the final bell rang.

I avoided Lacey and Jake all morning. In Contemptible History, I sat on the other side of the room, behind Jason Anderson, who always smelled like the pigs his family raised. I watched with satisfaction as Lacey craned her neck, searching the room for me. The look on her face — confused, troubled, cracks in her usually serene mask — made sitting behind Pigboy utterly worth it. Between classes, I took different routes down the hallways, avoiding the rooms I knew they’d be coming out of or going into.

At lunch, I hid in the library, idly flipping pages in physics books so the librarian wouldn’t ask questions. Halfway through the period, I heard familiar voices and peeked through the stacks to see Nikki hunched over a computer, sitting with Jeremy. I tried to remember if they had a class together. Nikki took notes as Jeremy moved the mouse, clicking and pointing to the screen. I leaned in closer, trying to see what they were doing, but managed to knock a dictionary off the shelf and had to duck as they both turned in my direction. Embarrassed, I slunk back to my carrel, gathered up my things, and spent the rest of lunch in the English hallway bathroom.

As usual, the best part of the day was creative writing. “If you’d be so kind as to focus your attention on the board here,” Mr. Tremont started, pulling a white screen down from above the chalkboard and wheeling an overhead projector into the front row. “Jenna, could you please hit the lights for us? And, Paige, could I get you to scoot your desk over just a bit?” I did, and he maneuvered the projector in next to my desk.

“Great. Okay, guys, today I want to talk at you a little before we write, if you don’t mind.” The class murmured its consent. Mr. Tremont turned the projector on, and a hazy field of haystacks appeared on the screen before us. “How many people have heard of the Impressionists?”

A few people raised their hands, and Mr. Tremont asked Jenna French to share what she knew about them. “Well,” she said, “the Impressionists were a group of artists in the eighteen hundreds who took their canvases outside and tried to capture the landscape by painting really fast. They used colors in new ways, and their brushstrokes were visible in their finished paintings.” I twisted in my seat to see if she was reading from a textbook. Her cheeks were pink in the reflected light of the projector, and I caught her smile before she glanced down at her desk to hide it.

“Perfect,” Mr. Tremont said. “The Impressionists realized that in order to capture the truth of the landscape in that particular moment in time, they had to paint quickly to get the light right, because light was everything. They began to understand that everything that we see, at every moment, is just light bouncing off everything.”

He slid a new painting onto the projector. Another hay field. “The light changes at every second, so you have to work pretty fast to capture the truth of any given moment.” He showed us another haystack, and another, and another. They all looked similar, but none of them was exactly the same. “Anyone know who painted all these haystacks?”