Undercover (4 page)

T
HERE WAS NO SCHOOL the next day, and I was out of the house by dawn, hours before Mom or Jilly would ever dream of getting up. The yard was not a yard anymore; it was a crystal quilt of white. The Japanese maple looked like it had been taken over by a flock of white birds, and the bench beside it looked as if it had lifted up and floated. There were no people out, not even the evidence of people, and I remembered how my dad once said that if you dug deep enough in our neighborhood, you’d find the archaeology of hundred-year-old parties and abandoned pleasure gardens
and the footings of the old stone houses that had not survived. You can listen for the sound of ghosts, Dad once said, on a summer night when it was just the two of us. But in snow that deep and that new you don’t hear anything but yourself—your boots in the snow, the thoughts in your head.

I wanted to tell my dad what Mom had said. I wanted to put it in a letter. But what I’d heard I wasn’t supposed to have heard. What I knew wasn’t mine. That’s the thing about being undercover: You know what you know, and you cannot act on it.

The way to the woods had disappeared beneath the snow. The evergreens on one side of the street were bent like half a tunnel. The snow came up to my knees and fell back inside my boots, but the coldest part of me was my lungs, which felt all scorched and steaming. By the time I crossed the cul-de-sac and went past the Gunns’, I was in another country. I was the first female explorer of Antarctica. I was the one survivor of the Holocaust. I was alone like nothing and no one had ever in the history of the
world been alone, and then I saw the fox.

He was on the other side of the snowed-in stream. He had a yellowish chest and the prettiest auburn hair and a smart pair of ears, and also, this is the truth, he had a raven. The bird was oily and so black that it might have been purple, and when it moved one wing, just slowly opened it and closed it, I understood that it still had the twitch of life. That if I ran after the fox, it might release the bird, and if the bird were released, it might fly. But I also understood that it wasn’t my place to interfere, that it wasn’t my place to choose between them.

I leaned against a tree.

I tried to breathe.

Dad,
I would write in my letter.
You need to come home. Please. Get back to me.

What happens to bees when it snows? I wondered. What happens to dragonflies? How do monarchs always know their way back home, across a million miles? These were the questions I’d ask Mr. Sheepals if I weren’t an Honors sophomore now, and already supposed to know.

D
R. CHARMIN HAD SAID that I was to report to her after school, and I was, shall we say, disinclined. Going mano a mano with most teachers is not my idea of a good time, and in imagining myself with Dr. Charmin after school, I got no comic relief whatsoever. Once she asked Shelley Fisch to copy out an entire chapter of a book she had not read. Once she made Missy Sweeney sit for two whole hours in absolute silence to teach her a little lesson about in-class gossip. Dr. Charmin was my high school’s only Ph.D. She thought the whole place stood in her shadow.

It was a week after the big snowfall, and it was cold. I had my backpack strapped on and my mittens pulled tight to the wrists, and I was chewing the soft inner pink of my lips, because I didn’t know why I was there. “Elisa,” Dr. Charmin said, “sit down,” and I did, leaning forward in a front-row seat without taking one ounce of gear off.

“I wanted to talk with you about your paper, Elisa,” Dr. Charmin said.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Charmin,” I said, because if there’s one thing Dad’s been very clear about, it’s that the client—or the teacher—must always be kowtowed to.

“Sorry for what?” she asked.

“For whatever I didn’t do right, I guess.” Now my inside lip was really sore.

“You’re not in trouble,” Dr. Charmin said. “I just wanted to talk with you.”

I could feel my face turning the color of shame and also relief, which are possibly two separate colors, an ugly clash. I wasn’t in trouble, but there I sat,
waiting for whatever would come next.

“‘Cyrano is a tragedy made more tragic by the humor,’” Dr. Charmin said, quoting from my paper. “An interesting proposition, that.”

“I thought so,” I said. I mean: What else?

“Is something going on with you, Elisa?” Dr. Charmin asked.

“No,” I said. Too quickly. “No. Why do you ask?”

“‘Cyrano can’t hide his monstrous nose, so he hides behind his humor,’” Dr. Charmin read to me, from me. “‘He hides behind his words, and that’s like death. No one can ever see Cyrano for who he is, least of all Cyrano himself. No one can ever prove to him that he’s worthy of Roxane. Love isn’t fair, it just isn’t. And beauty is the worst kind of lie.’” Dr. Charmin’s skin was paler than usual. She had a spiderweb of a pin stuck in above her heart and worry lines across her face. “Elisa,” she continued, “that sounds serious.”

“Serious assignment,” I said. “Serious response.” My backpack was heavy and sweaty on my back. I
peeled off my mittens. First my right one. Then my left. I looked everywhere but at Dr. Charmin. I even closed my eyes. “I should have copyedited,” I said after she said nothing. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s good work, Elisa. That’s not the point. The day you couldn’t read Roxane? What was it?”

“My throat,” I said. “My throat got dry.”

“There’s no one in this room right now but you and me, Elisa,” Dr. Charmin said warningly.

“I know,” I said, and really I did, and I was using every trick in every book not to cry. I was thinking about the pond and the girl in the pond. I was thinking about the seals of San Francisco. I was thinking about how it would be if Dad came home for Christmas, and how it would be if he didn’t. I was wondering if Dr. Charmin lived alone, if her house reeked with the smell of old books. Panache, I thought to myself. Panache. But still my eyes were burning.

“If you want to talk to me, Elisa, you can,” Dr. Charmin said, between tightening lips.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I really am.”

“I gave you an A on your paper.” Dr. Charmin leaned forward on her desk and stared hard and into me. She straightened and stood and faced the chalkboard, then turned back around with her lecturing face. I stood, for it seemed it was time to go. I fixed the backpack on my back.

“Appreciate it, Dr. Charmin,” I mumbled.

“You’re free to go,” she said. I noticed how thin the skin on her face had gotten. And how much paler, too.

“Thank you, Dr. Charmin,” I said, and my backpack was like a ton of bricks and I was hot as Hades. I ran down the hall, though hall running isn’t legal. I ran every single block back home through the wintry world.

“I
T’S UP TO YOU,” I was telling Theo, “to decide.” It was Tuesday, and most of the snow had gone to wherever snow goes—underneath the grass, I guess. Down the sewer lines. Beneath the iced-over stream.

He was standing near my locker; this was his early-morning habit now. My habit too—I had begun to get there early, begun, in spite of myself, to look for him, to imagine, against my better judgment, that we were pals or something. That we had more than a Cyrano conspiracy. His hair was longer now than it had been, and the spikes had grown soft
and fell forward; he’d replaced the gold-colored dot in his ear with a tiny silver circle. When he talked to me, he looked at me. When I laughed, he laughed along too. The night before, I’d gone overboard with the Lila poems, and maybe it’s true that I was hoping that in them he’d see the genius of me, the beauty of my words in his hands.

“Well, doesn’t it depend on her mood,” he was asking, “if a card is right, or a moon?” He was sifting through my masterpieces, one by one. I stood against my locker, proud.

“She’s your girlfriend, Theo.” I said it like I felt sorry for him, like I could convince him to feel sorry for himself.

“I guess.”

“I wasn’t trying to confuse you.”

“Right.” He looked up and he smiled, that great Theo Moses smile.

“Options, Theo. It’s all about options. Just give her the one that fits.” I grabbed my math book and my notes from science lab. I raised my eyebrow,
laughed. A couple of the buses had just let out along the curb near Romance Hill. “Don’t look now,” I told Theo, “but she’s coming.”

“Lila?”

“Your moon. Your card. Your—”

“Yeah,” he said. “I get it,” and maybe he’d have said more except that Sammy Bolten was slithering by. Sammy, who has always been hot for Lila, and for whom I won’t write a single word. He asked me once, end of eighth grade, and I said no flat out. There are those who don’t deserve the blessing of our talent. Sammy Bolten is one of those.

“Trading down?” Sammy said to Theo, giving the once-all-over to me. You could have won Olympic gold if you’d ski-jumped down his nose. You could have tobogganed straight to China. What could it matter, what he thought of me? He was the biggest whatever on the planet.

“Leave it alone, Bolten,” Theo said. “Shut your trap.” He wasn’t slumped against the locker now; he’d stepped sideways, stood much straighter. I
looked at Bolten. Looked back at Theo. How can it be that a fight begins precisely where something pleasant was?

“Shut my
trap
?” Sammy said. “Did I
hear
you right?” He jabbed his elbow into Theo’s rib cage. Theo didn’t flinch.

“Go to Hell.” Theo’s voice was even and hard, and suddenly Sammy was pitching forward, his face red.

“You know the way there?”

“Follow your nose,” Theo said. “It’ll get you there pretty quick.”

Sammy pressed closer, raised his fist: “You know where this will take you?” Theo took two steps forward, and now they were standing nose to crooked nose. I was standing there too, and I couldn’t decide if Theo was protecting himself or saving me.

“Just let it be, Theo,” I said. “He doesn’t matter.” But already we’d collected ourselves a rubber-necking crowd. One more bit of threatening fist and we’d have Principal Kiley writing us up for
promoting an unauthorized spectator sport on school grounds. There was Margie, who’d already passed on by, making her way back down the hall. Sue and Mr. Sue were hovering. Even Jilly was there—I could see her sea-green eyes looking bigger for all their underlining. And now here was Lila, in her little sculpted coat, with her black hair swooshed up into one of those messy knots you just know she spends two hours on. Great, I thought. Like we need Lila.

“Theo?” Lila said in that whiny, dumb-girl voice of hers that puts a question mark at the end of every sentence.

“Hey, Lila.” Theo looked past Sammy to Lila, then to me.

“What’re you doing?” Lila had tucked a loose piece of hair behind one perfect ear, and you could smell her—lavender or lilac or something. With the super-high heels that must have killed her to wear, she came up eye to eye with Theo, or almost.

“Nothing, Lila,” Theo said. “Doing nothing.” He gave Sammy Bolten a little shove back toward the crowd and fingered the silver in his ear. Sammy made a move like he was going to push back, but we were saved by the bell.

“With
her
, Theo,” Lila persisted, looking up at me, because even with her sizable heels I had her beat. “What’re you doing with
her
?” I got my second once-all-over in as many minutes. I looked at Theo, and I looked at his hand, and at the papers that I’d folded into squares. Hide them, you idiot, I wanted to say. Put them in your pocket. Now.

“You don’t actually
like
her, do you, Theo?” Lila said, coming even closer and wedging in next to Theo. She hooked her arm into Theo’s sweatshirt. She gave him a big-eyed look.

“
Like
her?” Theo said. Looking from me to her, from her to me, looking at Sammy Bolten, who still hadn’t the sense to walk away. Theo turned a shade of red you find only in my mother’s garden, and I stood where I was, and I waited. Go ahead, I
thought. Answer Lila’s question. Do you like me, Theo? But nothing.

You’re the keeper of your own dignity, Dad always says. You’re the one who shapes your own story. I didn’t have many options, and I wasn’t about to be defeated. “English, Lila,” I finally said. “Fifth period. I was asking Theo for the assignment.” Theo stared at me and then he looked away. Lila kissed his lips in triumph.

I saw Margie slinking back down the hall. Saw Jilly falling in with the High Fashion crowd. “You’re a nerd,” Sammy Bolten said. “Nerds don’t forget their assignments.”