The Reece Malcolm List (9 page)

It isn’t fair that you can never go back to not seeing something.

By Thursday morning, Travis is waiting by my locker like it’s routine. “New Girl, what are you doing this weekend? There’s some production of
Into the Woods
that should either be fun or fun to laugh at. You in?”

“Um, yeah, I should ask my mother, but, maybe?”

“Good.” He links his arm through mine. “I’ll walk you to your class.”

I fall right into step with him. We pass Sai, who’s hanging out with Nicole near her locker. They’re talking and laughing, but he still waves to us.

“Ugh, it’s so predictable,” Travis says.

“Yeah, I think it’s dumb to believe guys like that would look at anyone else.” I don’t go on to say that believing the contrary is a pretty immature line of thought. Just because you know people in your actual life doesn’t mean you’re any better than a kid dreaming a celebrity could be his or hers someday.

“Ooh, a pessimist,” Travis says. “Interesting. I would have called you as more glass-half-full, with your whole flouncy skirt thing you’ve got going on.”

“I’m not a pessimist.” I pause at my Women’s Choir classroom. “Just a realist. Also, I just really like fashion.”

“Well, duh.” He takes off in the opposite direction. “See you later, Devvie.”

I walk in and take my spot. Mira isn’t far behind me, but we don’t really talk unless Travis or someone else from our lunch table is around, too. I’ve tried—as much as I’m capable of, at least—but I still don’t take it personally or anything. Travis’s fast friendship is kind of a miracle; I don’t expect that from
anyone
everyone.

Sai practically rushes me when we walk into show choir later. It must mean something that he’s around Nicole so much, like that they’re falling in love or at least making out with each other, but I still like his attention.

“Kennedy just invited me to a show this weekend. Are you coming?” Sai asks.

I wonder if there’s some kind of Secret Boy Handbook with rules like #87: Only refer to other boys by their last names.

“Um, yeah, he invited me, too. I think I can go. I just have to check with my mother.” I’m excited and embarrassed at once. Despite everything I said earlier, Sai and I might be socializing this weekend. But then there’s me needing permission. Do popular people ever need to ask their parents to do anything?

He grins at me like that answer made his day. “Awesome, I don’t know everyone else as well as you, so it’ll be good if you’re there.”

I wish that meant more than it actually does. “What about Nicole?” Of course I don’t want him to invite her, but I’m testing to see what he says about her. Hopefully that’s not awful of me.

“She’s not into the whole musicals thing,” he says.

“Why does she go to this school, then?” I actually am curious about the New City students who don’t participate in everything that makes this school what it is.

“It has the best academic standards in the Valley,” Sai says. “Which I only know because that’s how I convinced my dad to enroll me here.”

I think of ten other things I suddenly want to ask Sai, like why he moved here, if he hates that his dad had to be convinced, and does he ever feel guilty loving a thing his dad probably wishes he didn’t? (Because I did, sometimes.) And if theatre and music are so important to Sai, is it weird spending so much time with a girl who doesn’t feel the same?

I mean, despite his hair and his chest and his eyes and the way jeans hang on him, I’m definitely into Sai because of his voice and the way those eyes flash when he talks about the same things I care about. The rest is pure bonus. (Well, it would be, if I were naïve enough to believe I could ever have a boyfriend like him.) Guys—well, straight guys—never seem like that to me. Of course I believe there are things they do care about but at school it’s like there’s a secret boy contest to see who can act the most
whatever
about everything. Sai would lose that contest immediately, and I
love
like that about him.

And I don’t mind how I feel around him. Even when I’m thinking about his hair or whatever, conversation is easy. For me that’s pretty amazing, hotness or no hotness. Thanks to him and Travis being so friendly, I don’t feel words piling up in my throat, bursting forth at the worst times. I think New City is good for me.

I’m the last to head over to the table at lunch, since I ended up in another conversation with Sai while in line for sandwiches, until Nicole walked up and he very nicely waved good-bye to me.

That’s how I overhear them talking. “. . . just don’t know her very well,” Mira is saying. “Her
or
Aladdin. You can’t just invite everyone who’s ever been nice to you to everything.”

“God, Mir,” Lissa says to her, laughing. “You’re making a really big deal out of seeing a show that might suck.”

“I just like knowing people before I start hanging out with them,” she says. “So tell them we changed our minds about going, okay, Travis?”

I manage to back away without anyone spotting me—I guess I’m still good at being invisible—and sit down with my tray at one of the tables in the very unoccupied cafeteria. Travis told me people really only use it when it rains or gets cold. I don’t know if that was a joke or not, since those are two things I didn’t think happened in L.A.

“Hey.”

I look up from my Acting monologue to see Elijah standing at the table. “Oh, hi.”

“Everything cool?” He digs through his pockets, pulling out a few coins. “You have eighty cents? I think it’s gonna be a two-sandwich day.”

I pull out my wallet and hand him a dollar. He presses two dimes into my hand.

“Everything’s fine. I just thought I could concentrate better in here.”

“Yeah?” He gestures to the line for sandwiches. “You want anything?”

“You had to borrow eighty cents just so
you
can get something.”

He laughs. “I’m not offering free food. I’m offering free service.”

“I’m okay.” I think about how he said
free service
. Elijah isn’t really the kind of boy I’m into, and, anyways, he’s clearly earmarked for Lissa, but it’s still
something
to feel anything extra from a boy’s words. “Thanks, though.”

He gives a salute before walking off. I get back to my monologue and think how much easier things are now that life has been put into place. Those few days of having a regular lunch table and people who could be friends were, clearly, pretty nice, but I should be at this empty table. Social order.

In English lit I do my best to ignore everyone—and Mira seems happy to go with that—though Elijah makes a big deal of paying the eighty cents back to me, and Lissa talks to me like all is normal. I don’t know how to handle any of this, so I try not to.

After my mother picks me up from school, she takes me to get a cell phone because she claims it’ll make life easier. I don’t know about that, but everyone else I know at school takes out their phones at lunch and checks their texts and Facebook and who knows what else. So at least I’ll look more normal. It’s almost as good as invisible.

“Everything all right?” she asks on the drive home, while I tap my phone, figuring it out as best I can, after programming in the only number that matters, Justine’s. (Also obviously the only one I know.) “You seem . . .”

“I’m fine,” I say because I’m sure to Reece Malcolm, getting snubbed out of seeing a musical interpretation of fairy tales isn’t exactly up there for bad days. “Thanks again for the phone.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, almost like a question. “Seriously, you’re allowed to have a crap day. I myself have tons.”

I hope I’m not to blame for any of those crap days. “It’s nothing.”

“Hmm.” She leans over and taps my phone. “Seriously?”

“Sorry, I was just figuring out where everything is.” I drop it into my purse. “And I’m really fine. Sorry if I acted like I wasn’t.”

“Between you and Brad, I’m getting a little tired of people acting as if they’re perfect for my benefit.” This is the thing: it sounds mean. Except she says it in a nice way, and then leans over and puts one of her hands on top of mine. “Trust me, it’s entirely unnecessary.”

“Thanks,” I say. “But, really, it’s just dumb school stuff. Totally not worth it.”

“That’s fair.”

Her hand is still on mine, which gives me time to realize it looks exactly the same as mine does, except my cuticles and nails are in way better shape. A nice discovery today. (The similarity thing, not the cuticles.)

“We could go do something,” she says. “Unless you have a ton of homework. Or even if you do, and you want to live dangerously.”

I grin at that. It’s a relief that after a bad day she’s the right blend of understanding and funny. When she’s not being scary, I actually like Reece Malcolm a lot. “I don’t have much, which is good. I don’t think I’m cut out for living dangerously.”

“Somehow not surprising.” She turns the car to merge onto the freeway, which is clogged with cars already, even though back in St. Louis four p.m. wouldn’t exactly be rush hour yet. “It’s a really clear day. We can go to Griffith Observatory and see the whole city.”

“Sure.” I reach toward the car stereo, reconsidering living dangerously. “Is it okay if I turn on the radio? If there’s nothing good I’ll turn it off, I promise.”

“Oh, sure, it’s fine. Brad signed me up for satellite radio, so I’m sure you’ll find something. I myself have to wonder about someone’s music addiction when he finds the need to outfit his girlfriend’s car with this much music, on top of his own.”

I zip through the stations, pausing when I find one that plays Broadway hits. Adam Pascal is whining about his hypothetical one song glory. “Is this okay?”

“Sure,” she says right away, like anything else would be, too. I guess it’s nice of her. Still, I’m not going to lie and say it isn’t more than a little disappointing she doesn’t love music like I do. I keep waiting for something we share, besides our eyes and hands and build and preference for Diet Coke.

Griffith Observatory is up high, requiring my mother to drive curvy roads surrounded by green. I totally didn’t expect there would be anything lush or green in L.A., except maybe money, but I don’t say anything because maybe I should have known it could be so pretty. We walk around the outside of the building (my mother declares the inside is a science museum, something neither of us is exactly dying to explore), and I take a picture with my new phone of the bust of James Dean. Finally we climb the stairs to the roof of the Observatory itself, where seemingly all of L.A. stretches beneath us, out to the ocean.

“Do you know my favorite thing about being up here?” My mother leans over the railing, stretching her arms out into the sunshine. “For me, at least, when everything is actually going well and I’m succeeding in whatever I’m doing—and let’s face it, that’s always writing, because that’s the only thing I’m good at—that figurative feeling of being on top of the world? This comes close to literally recreating it.”

I think about being onstage with my voice filling the air around me, around everyone, before leaning out to mirror my mother. “I know what you mean.”

“See that apartment complex?” She points to a nearish tall building, tucked into the hills and trees. “Brad just moved out of it.”

I try to imagine that. Even to total no-relationship-experience me it’s obvious they’re stumbling around new in the living-together arena, but it’s also hard to imagine them so separate.

“We hiked up here once,” she says. “And I hate hiking, but I did it for him, and then we got up here and I thought I’d pass out, considering normally my idea of exercise is walking from the couch to the refrigerator, and I noticed he’d gone red and huffy and was probably closer to fainting than I was. He said he only suggested going because he thought I would enjoy the view, so we stood here and promised to be honest, since clearly not speaking up could have led to our deaths.” She laughs her usual brusque laugh at that. “So while we were still being honest, I told him he should move in with me. I think he almost cried.”

I love the way Reece Malcolm talks about her life.

“What’s your favorite—” She cuts herself off. “I was about to ask what your favorite thing about L.A. was so far, but I should probably ask if you can even stand it enough to have a favorite thing.”

“Is it dumb if I say the weather? It’s totally a cliché, right?”

“It’s a cliché for a reason,” she says. “It’s generally glorious here. I won’t deduct points for lack of originality.”

“What’s your favorite thing about L.A.?” Right now feels like a safe time to ask.

“Oh, God, don’t repeat it, but probably that most of the people I care about are here.” She raises an eyebrow at me. “But I’d hate to lose my rep of not giving a shit.”

“So the weather?”

“Right,” she says with a smile. “The weather.”

Chapter Seven

Things I know about Reece Malcolm:

18 She apologized to Brad about me.

19. Her hands are the same as mine.

20. Most of the people she cares about are in L.A.

Travis is at my locker again the next morning, which is a relief. I have no idea how stuff works in groups of friends, but at least Mira not wanting me around doesn’t necessarily translate to Travis feeling the same. “So did you talk to your mom?”