The Thirst Within (3 page)

“Where’s your new house?”

“Oh. Um, the Garden District.” I remember Ms.
Johnson telling me what a nice area it was. “What’s Nola?”

He grins at my ignorance. I should be miffed,
but I like his grin too much. I’m stupid, I know. “Nola’s just another nickname
for New Orleans,” he explains. “It’s technically an acronym for New Orleans,
Louisiana. N, O, L, A,” he writes the letters in the air. At the end of the A
he draws an invisible flourish. Cute.

Damn cute boys.

“Oh. I only know The Big Easy. And Nawlins.” I
say, thinking of Ms. Johnson again.

“Well, now you know a third. How about Crescent
City?”

“Oh, I guess I’ve heard that one too.”

“See? You’re not so bad. So tell me more about
your lack of friends.”

I snicker. “Nothing to tell. I have a lack of
friends.”

“I’ll be your friend,” he offers simply, and
shrugs as if to say “Problem solved.” My heart does a stupid little flip.

“You will?” I say, joining my hands over my
heart with mock enthusiasm, but I know a little of it is authentic. “But you’re
so
old
,” I add with fake sadness, like it’s a terminal disease, and our
friendship will never work.

“Rocks are much older than trees, and look how
well they get along.”

“That’s profound,” I say.

“I just made that up,” he says, and he laughs.

Is this really happening? I’m laughing with him
like we’re really friends. There’s something wrong with this picture. I say, “Still.
I’m in high school. You’re in college.”

“So you’re saying… we’ll be the very first
friends that are one in high school and the other one in college.”

“No. What?” He’s messing with me. “No, I didn’t
say we couldn’t be friends
because
you’re in college and I’m in high
school,” I protest.

“That is exactly what you said.”

“Not
exactly
exactly….” Did I? “No, what
I meant was, how are we supposed to hang out? We wouldn’t have like, the same
schedules. If we’re not in the same—” I stop myself, and roll my eyes. “You
know what? Whatever, we’ll be friends.”

“Really? Great! So we’re friends then.” He
beams. “Tori and Thierry, BFFs.” He points to the air with his open palm, as
though our names were written over us.

“No, no; you can only have
one
BFF,” I
argue.

“But you said you don’t have any!”

“Me? No, I meant you. You’ve got to have
friends, like a regular person, right?”

He pauses for a second. “Maybe I’m not a
regular person.”

“Yeah, right. You don’t have any friends?
C’mon.”

“Come on what? It’s true. Why do you think I
need a journal?”—He shakes his bag—“To vent. It’s hard for me to get along with
people. At Tulane—that’s the college I go to—sometimes I feel like I’m an
outcast.”

An outcast. Hard to believe, but I kinda want
to believe. So we can be friends, for real.

I don’t say anything, still debating the truth
of his words, so he adds, “Besides, why do you have to own the corner of
friendlessness?”

“I don’t! It’s just I find it so hard to
believe that you’re friendless. I mean, you’re….” He’s….

Shit. Of course the reason I think he’s lying
is because he’s too good-looking to be friendless. Hell no, he probably has
many friends. And girlfriends he cheats on, let’s not forget that. Girlfriends
he cheats on… with
me
?

The thought is so stupid that I want to
facepalm myself. Does he want me? No way. He shows interest in me, but he can’t
possibly want me
that
way. He’s only talking to me because he’s a
horndog that can’t be satisfied unless he constantly hears praise from girls
like me. And I’m the only girl in the store dumb enough to fall for his charade
like some eager hormonal female. Stupid, stupid.

“Hey, I gotta go.” I tell myself to move, to snap
out of it.

“Wait! I’m what?”

“Nothing. It’s been fun, but my cousin’s prolly
waiting for me. And we’re standing here in the middle of the aisle.”

“Okay, Tori.” He has a hurt look in his eyes.
Only momentarily—he suddenly brightens up. And I notice his eyes are gray, not
blue like I thought at first. Right now they’re shining with enthusiasm. “Hey,
but you’ll call me, right? Or email me about that money you owe me.”

He means it playfully, I know, but I’m
embarrassed. I start to turn around. “Let’s just return it—”

He grabs my arm. “Please, Tori!” He laughs. “You
know I don’t care. I don’t want your money anyway.”

The touch sends a thrill up my arm, and I
realize I’m dangerously close to being a goner. I’m in fact upset that I’m
wearing a long sleeve sweater. It would have felt nice to feel his fingers on
my bare skin.

What am I thinking? I have to go.

I sigh. “I know. I’ll pay you back, anyway. It
was nice meeting you, Thierry.”

He lets me go, almost reluctantly. “Same here,
Tori.”

I walk away, feeling his gray eyes on my back.

***

I drift back towards the shops in the area where
Fiona and Pals should be, all the while thinking about my new best friend. If
only. I know that he isn’t, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking about him. It
did
feel like he wanted to be my friend.

“Tori! Over here,” Fiona calls from some
distance.

I’m smiling like an idiot. “Hey, guys,” I say
as I approach them.

“We’re not guys,” says one of the girls. Laura,
I think. Or Lauren. Or Megan (whatever—the pale one). She scoffs. “Northerners.”

Her bitchiness goes over my head. I can’t care
about it. “Girls. Y’all. Whatever,” I say dismissively.

Fiona says, “I’m sorry you had to go off by
yourself. We could’ve gone with you, you know.”

No! Would Thierry have spoken to me? Worse,
would he have preferred to talk to Fiona? The other two girls are pretty, but
Fiona’s clearly the cutest one. I haven’t observed them long enough to figure
out who’s the leader, but it’s probably her. “Nah,” I say like it’s not a big
deal. “I didn’t mind being by myself in there, at all. I hate making people
wait for me.”

Fiona asks me, “So how was your shopping? I see
you got something.”

“Yeah, a notebook.” I don’t say it’s a journal.
I figure, if I use it to write personal stuff in it, the less people that know
about it the better.

“That’s all?” Asks the other girl, Megan (or
Lauren? The Asian).

“It’s the best notebook ever, though.” It got
me a hot guy’s number.

Then Fiona looks at me questioningly. Is it
just me or do I detect…? She seems confused. Like she expected me to be…. How?
Gloomy?

Oh. I realize I’m still smiling.

The first weekend comes by and I haven’t called
Thierry. Every day I think of calling him, but I don’t want to use the house
phone. I start thinking about getting my own phone, just to call him. I
especially want to call him every night after dinner, the only time when the
whole family sits together. Quality time with the Harris—the Harris
es
(thank you, Fiona)—is nothing but awkwardness and intolerance on a plate.

June hasn’t been warm towards me at all. I feel
like she makes sure I remember my place as The Leech by not making an effort to
treat me as she does her children. Fiona can walk up to her mother and ask for
money, and she gets handed a ten-dollar bill. Uncle Roland doesn’t say much. He
pays more attention to Jack than Fiona, I’ve noticed, and during dinner he
mostly talks to the little brat—who’s never talked to me, and that’s somehow
okay with everyone—about football. Gotta start ’em young.

And that’s it. No money, no attention for me. Nothing.
My new family’s fubar, but at least no one has tried to get nasty with me or
died, so that’s an improvement.

I’m poor, and I don’t have the nerve to ask for
money, so I decide I need some form of income. One evening during dinner, in
one of those rare moments when my uncle asks me how I am, and whether I’m
adjusting to New Orleans, I tell him that I’d like to get a job. June decides
to chime in and she commends me for my effort—first time June says something
nice about me—and pretends to be disappointed at Fiona’s lack of similar enthusiasm.
June even offers Fiona’s laptop if I need to search for jobs.

So after dinner I follow Fiona to her bedroom.
I’ve seen it since I got here, and as I suspected, yes, it’s as big as Jack’s.
She doesn’t tell me to take the computer with me, so I sit at her desk where
she can watch me. I wonder what she’s hiding.

Or maybe she just wants someone to talk to
,
says a little voice inside my head.

No, she’s mean; don’t trust her
,
counters the voice of reason.

I nod wisely at the voice of reason and search
for jobs in Fiona’s computer while she chats nonstop from her bed. She tells me
it’s so cool that I’m going to work. She wishes she did, because I’m going to
meet new people and get to be out of the house.

Yeah, I’m going to be a freaking rock star.

She stretches on her bed and groans. “Ugh.
These sheets are
too
soft.” Why would anyone complain about sheets? Mine
smell like pee, and you don’t hear
me
complaining. I just assume old
smelly sheets are a given. “I miss my old sheets,” she adds with a sigh.

“Why? What happened, did someone throw them
away?” I ask because apparently Fiona wants to talk about sheets.

“Yeah, Mom’s like, ‘Blah blah blah, your sheets
are nasty, anything less than three hundred count is prison clothes.’ So she
ordered these for me when she got Jack’s. Then she threw mine out.”

“Oh, so Jack got new sheets too?” I ask. I
can’t help but feel hurt and angry at this information. Jack and Fiona get new
sheets, but I, the new person, nothing? Just the old pee-smelling sheets.

“Yeah, but you know, he had to, ’cause the old
ones didn’t fit. He’s got a new bed. I think you’re using his old bed.”

My nose abruptly feels a hundred degrees and
totally embarrassing tears pool in my eyes.

“Oh, yeah, well, that makes sense.” I’m
extremely proud of myself for keeping it cool when what I want to do is scream.
“Which bed was in my room before, then?”

“None. Your room used to be Mom’s crafts room.
She gave it up for you,” Fiona says, and she almost sounds proud of her mother
for showing me such fondness.

“That’s so nice of her. Hey, um, I’m gonna use
the bathroom.” Thankfully, she’s not looking directly at my face, and my voice
hasn’t betrayed me like my stupid nose wants to.

I get up and turn away from Fiona just as she
turns towards me and says, “Okay, but come back and find a totally awesome job,
for me! I need to live vicariously through you!”

I hate her—I hate them all so much.

I don’t return to Fiona’s bedroom. I looked for
jobs for almost an hour and didn’t find one in this neighborhood that I can
walk to. So I’ll tell her (if she asks) that I got tired and went to bed. And I
do that, except I don’t fall asleep. I stay up thinking about my life.

Ohmigod my new family sucks so bad. The mother
put me in the smallest room in the house with her son’s old bed and smelly-ass
bed sheets, the son is a spoiled little psycho, the daughter is totally
uncaring and selfish and may or may not have issues with her stepfather, and
said stepfather, my uncle, I’m still trying to figure out. Even if he’s nice to
me, he doesn’t show it much; and anyway, given my luck he’ll probably have an
accident and die. Then I’ll be stuck with the evil stepmother and stepsisters,
Cinderella-style; just replace “mother” with “aunt”, and “sisters” with
“cousins,” except that I’m pretty sure there is no Prince Charming that would
take
me
when the older sister is the one that looks like a princess.

At that moment I think of Thierry. I want to call
him. What was that great reason I had to run away from him? I can’t remember.
Now I’m afraid it may be too late and he might have forgotten about me.

I pull out my new journal, and write him an
apology.

***

Monday morning arrives, and, as expected, I’m
freaking out about my first day of school. I dress in my favorite clothes, but
I have nothing new. Even though no one at my new school will know how old my
clothes are, my entire wardrobe is a little outdated. It would have felt good
to have something new to wear, like Fiona is.

I push the thought away; try to stop thinking
about it. Focus.
New school, new me
. I do wear my contacts, which make
me look better in my opinion. Well, in the opinion of a girl named Sharon, who
was my friend in Eldridge. I got them for the first time a year and a half ago
for my sixteenth birthday, a gift from Nana and Grandpa John, one which wasn’t
the norm. I grew up with very little extravagance.

Fiona drives us to school in the Impala, and she’s
enthusiastic. She says she’s excited for me, and tries to describe the teachers
and the important people in high school. I like that she’s including me, but
frankly, the information overload is making me nervous. As if I’m going to have
a horrible day if I don’t remember that Janet dated Scott
before
Jessica
dated him, or that Darcy and Kristen aren’t talking because Justin asked
Kristen out and she said yes, when Kristen knew that Darcy liked him. I smile
and nod like I follow, but inside I just get more and more anxious.

We pull into the parking lot, and I finally
read the name of my new school—Walter L. Cohen High School—and for all the
bonding we did in the car, Fiona immediately abandons me as we get to the
office where I’m supposed to pick up my schedule. She wishes me good luck, but
that’s it; she walks up to her friends and immerses herself in whatever conversation
they were having, without anyone paying attention to the new girl.

When I exit the office, I stand there next to
the doors like a total newb looking down at my schedule and trying to figure
out the little map that the secretary drew for me. The woman’s calling was
definitely not architecture or anything that requires drawing plans. She
couldn’t draw a map to save her life.

“Hey, hi,” a voice says, and I look up to see a
guy. Of course. I’m new. Not only I’m new but I’m new and trying to read a map
right next to the main office.

“Oh, hi,” I say.

“I’m John. Schmidt,” he tacks on his last name
as an afterthought. He doesn’t look like a John Schmidt. From his golden brown
skin and sharp features, I would think he’s either Latin American from the
Caribbean, or perhaps Indian—from India—or something. A mix. I’ve no idea.

“Tori Green,” I introduce myself.

“Green? For real?”

What an odd question. “Yeah. Why?”

“Your eyes are green. That’s like
double-dipping on the color,” he says.

Oh. I’ve always been a Green with green eyes.
I’ve never thought much of it.

I shrug. “Brown’s a last name too. I’m sure there’s
plenty of Browns with brown eyes,” I say, possibly sounding bitchy.

“Yeah, I guess. I didn’t think about that.”

I don’t know what to say, so I look around.

“So hey—you’re new, right?” he asks, but not
unkindly. “Do you need any help? Figuring things out? Like where your locker
is, who the bad girls are, that sort of thing?”

“I could use some help pointing to my locker.”
I show him the paper.

“Great! I know where that is. Follow me,” he
says.

I’m trying to take note of the things John
points out on our way to my locker, but all I do is think about Thierry… how
it’s too bad that he’s old and goes to college. I could sure use a friendly
face right about now.

“Okay, thanks! See you around,” I tell John
after he takes me to my locker, maybe a bit dismissive on my part.

“Good luck, Tori,” he waves at me as I go find
my homeroom.

The morning goes by slowly. It’s the first day
of class in the semester, so no one’s really teaching yet. Some teachers don’t
even bother introducing me, which is totally fine by me. Fiona is in one of my
classes, and at least she doesn’t ignore me like she did when we got to school.
We make it to lunch and I sit with her and only one of her friends, the blonde
Asian (Lauren?), because the other one (Megan?) is busy trying to catch a guy
whose name I forget right away. This time they stick to stories about teachers
that I’ve already met, so I don’t feel so left out. With only two girls it’s
not that bad and I actually don’t have a bad lunch.

In the afternoon, during my sixth period,
Biology, I meet Fiona and the Asian friend again. I sit a few tables behind
them next to the only girl sitting by herself—a pretty, willowy girl named
Kerin Mercer (she spells out her name for me). She was in my fifth period
before this one and I think I recognize her from a few morning classes, too,
because she stands out, being taller than most girls. Her skin is dark, almost
like John Schmidt’s, but unlike him, she doesn’t look like a Physics problem. Her
eyes are a dark shade of brown that makes them appear black. We sit in the back
and whisper over the teacher’s first-day intro lecture.

Apparently, Kerin has a lifelong friend, Lynn,
that turned out to be a geek in high school. Lynn is in all of the advanced
classes, which leaves Kerin partnerless and open to friendship. She’s chatty
and asks me questions about my life left behind. Where did I come from, why did
I move?

“Did your parents switch jobs or something?
That’s what happened to Neesha a few years ago. She started high school in a
different state. At least you’re already a junior. But imagine being a freshman
on top of being the outsider.”

“I guess it could be worse.” I thank her for
putting it in perspective for me.

“So did you leave a bunch of friends back in
Iowa?”

“A few. But they all have each other. We didn’t
pair up. I mean, I didn’t have just one that I left all alone.” In fact, for
the most part, my friends had been best friends with each other
first
,
before I joined their ranks.

“So have you made any friends here?” Kerin
asks.

Thierry
, I think automatically. A sudden
wave of warmth and pleasure sweeps my body. However, I don’t want to tell her,
for a few reasons. One of which is I’m embarrassed, and I don’t want to show
what a hell of a crush I have. I’m afraid she’ll judge me. And second, well,
it’s not like Thierry and I are really friends. I never called him.

So I just say, “No, not really.”

“Aww. What’d you do during lunch?”

“I sat with Fiona Harris,” I say, assuming she
knows Fiona. “And her friend over there. Do you know them?”

“You’re friends with Fiona? And Lauren?” She
sounds disbelieving. And there’s a little reverence in her tone that bothers
me. Great, Fiona and her pals are probably the most popular girls in our school
year.

But at least I now commit Lauren’s name to
memory.

“Just Fiona. I
guess
you could call her
my friend….” I say. Then I think about it. “Well, not really; she’s just my
cousin. I live with her.”

“I thought Fiona didn’t have any cousins,”
Kerin says right away.

Okay, apparently Kerin knows more about Fiona
than I do. I have no idea whether Fiona has real cousins or not. The fact that
Kerin seems to revere Fiona and Lauren makes me a little jealous, but of course
I don’t say anything. I don’t want to antagonize my lab partner who so far
seems okay, popular girls-idolization aside, and the heavens have made her
provisionally friendless.

“Yeah, okay, maybe she doesn’t,” I allow. “But you
know she has a half-brother, right?”

“Yeah, Jack. He’s in first grade with Lynn’s
little sister Emily. I hear he’s kind of cute. Emily has a little girl crush on
him.”

The thought of little girls having a crush on
Jack makes me want to find him and punch him. I ignore the urge and focus on
the conversation.

“Well, Jack’s dad is my uncle.”

“For real? Dude, wow. Fiona’s like, super
popular.”

“Maybe that’s why we don’t hang out that much.
I don’t like to hang out with popular people.”

In my mind I used to group together “popular”
and “beautiful.” I never liked beautiful people, because they were usually
shallow and ugly inside. But since Thierry, I’ve taken exception.

“So you only hang out with us losers? Gee,
thanks,” Kerin says, but she laughs.

“No, no! I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I know, I’m
kidding
,” she says,
smirking, making me feel like she
could
be my friend. “So why did you
move with them, if I may ask?”