“Of course we do,” he says. “Just picture it: it’s before class, and Kimmie’s on her way up to the front of the room to sharpen her pencil, not even realizing her underwear is falling down around her ankles. The next thing you know, Davis Miller grabs for it—”
“Okay, first of all,” Kimmie interrupts, “let’s just say there’s been a lot of drama going on at my house as of late. A girl—even the most fashionably minded—doesn’t always get it right, especially when she’s racing out the door first thing in the morning for fear her dad might ask for another lesson on setting up a Ferrari blog. By the way, he wants everyone to call him Turbo from now on.”
“And second of all?” Wes asks.
“Davis Miller is clearly the result of birth-control failure,” she says. “He looks like a walking Mr. Potato Head with those bulging eyes, that bulbous nose, and those blubbery lips.”
“But he does play a mean electric guitar. Have you heard his rendition of ‘Walk This Way’? Seriously, it’ll bring tears to your eyes.” Wes uses the corner of his sleeve to dab at the invisible tears on his cheeks.
“Because it’s so horrible?” Kimmie asks.
“Because it would make Steven Tyler proud.”
“Who?” Her face scrunches up.
While the two continue to argue over what makes great music, I keep an eye on the door, until I notice them staring at me, arms folded, awaiting my response.
“What?” I ask, feeling the color rise to my cheeks.
“My question exactly,” Wes says. “What’s up with you today?”
“Nothing.” I sigh.
“Not nothing,” he says. “You look like the old woman who swallowed a fly.”
“I guess she’ll die,” he and Kimmie sing in unison.
“Very funny.” I laugh.
“No.” Kimmie corrects me. “Funny would be Wes continuing to dress like a third grader on school-picture day. I mean, honestly. Dickies and boat shoes?” She tsktsks at his outfit. “Totally two decades ago.”
“This from the girl who wears enough black eyeliner to paint a large hearse, casket included,” Wes says.
“Not to mention granny panties,” I add.
“Okay, minus the geriatric Skivvies, it’s called style,” Kimmie argues. “And we need to get Wes some, pronto. Camelia, are you in? Something tells me you could use some shopping therapy. Nothing like a fresh pair of undies to lift the spirits.”
“That’s what I always say,” Wes says, girl-ifying his voice by raising it three octaves.
I nod somewhat reluctantly, warning her that I have to be back early for a tutoring session with Matt.
“Don’t worry about it.” She links arms with me. “We’ll have you back in ample time to rendezvous with your ex.”
We move quickly down the hallway, en route to our lockers, Kimmie blabbering on about how she’ll be forever remembered as the girl with the huge-ass granny panties.
Before we turn down the hallway to get to our lockers, I glance back one last time in the direction of the chemistry lab.
And that’s when I see Ben, standing in the doorway, staring right back at me.
“Hold up,” I say, stopping us in our tracks. “I think I forgot something.”
“What did you forget?” Kimmie asks.
“Something,” I say, pretending to search in my bag.
“Something, huh?” Kimmie looks in the direction of the chemistry lab.
Ben is still there.
“Something tall, dark, and dangerous, maybe?” She puts her hands on her hips. The poodle on her skirt glares at me, foaming at the mouth (a Kimmie-designed appliqué).
“Maybe.” I shrug.
“And maybe you’re too transparent.”
“Like tissue paper,” Wes adds.
“Well, Kimmie should know about tissue paper,” I say, gesturing toward her stuffed bra. “I really think he wants to talk to me.”
“So, then, why doesn’t he come over here? Why is he just standing there, gawking at us?” Kimmie asks.
“The angoraphobia thing,” Wes whispers, to remind her.
“That’s agoraphobia, you dumb-ass.” She swats his head with her rhinestone purse. “The poor boy doesn’t have a fear of rabbit wool.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird he’s hanging around you all of a sudden?” Wes asks.
“He’s not hanging around me,” I snap.
“First, the parking lot,” Kimmie begins. “Then you guys are conveniently paired up as lab partners.”
“So he can poke you with his test tube,” Wes chimes in.
“Right,” Kimmie says. “And don’t forget this morning in front of the school. We saw the way he rubbed up against you in the doorway.”
“He didn’t rub up against me,” I bark. “We bumped into each other.”
“Call it what you will,” Wes says, “but that move would be considered illegal in some states.”
“What, are you guys spying on me now?”
“Well, the mauling in lab class is public knowledge,” Wes explains. “As for the doorway incident, Kimmie and I were on our way to say hi, but you and Ben the Butcher—that’s what people are calling him, FYI—were looking a little too chummy for a party.”
“And that was just in a doorway,” Kimmie adds.
“Right,” Wes continues. “Just imagine what could happen if we left you two alone in an entire foyer.”
“Definitely peculiar,” Kimmie says.
“Whatever,” I say, refusing to get into it. I turn and head toward Ben.
But he’s no longer anywhere in sight.
17
After finding Wes the perfect non-third-grade school-picture-day outfit, complete with Adidas sneakers to replace his “two decades ago” boat shoes, and Abercrombie jeans in lieu of the Dickies, Kimmie and I drop him off at the arcade and make a plan to meet him at the food pavilion in a half hour.
Meanwhile, we make our way to the lingerie store.
“They can’t just be any undies,” Kimmie explains, picking through the pile of cotton briefs. “They have to call out to me. They have to say, ‘I. Am. Worthy.’ I mean, we are talking about my caboose here, right?”
“Right,” I say, playing along, trying not to laugh out loud, even when she gives her caboose a shimmy-shake.
While Kimmie continues to look around, I decide to check out some pj’s. I find a really cute pair—a snuggly pink hoodie top with matching fleece shorts. I hold them up to myself in the mirror.
“Too cute,” Kimmie says, sneaking up behind me. “That’s what you want to be wearing when the fire department rescues you in the middle of the night from the window of a blazing building.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.” I roll my eyes.
“So, I got the goods.” She jiggles her shopping bag at me, having already paid.
“And did they call out to you?”
“These babies didn’t just call; they screamed.”
“Well, unfortunately, my wallet is screaming, too.” I reluctantly return my pj’s to the rack, and we head out to meet Wes, lingerie catalog—the price we’re paying him for being our taxi this afternoon—in hand.
We end up making a couple more stops, including a trip to the drugstore for some self-tanner, which, according to Kimmie, is exactly what Wes’s “pale-ass” complexion could use.
“You’ll be stylin’ in no time,” she tells him.
“I’d better be,” he says. “Because if I don’t start bringing some girls home soon, my dad’s gonna sign me up for Girl Scouts. No joke. He’s already threatened it twice.”
“Well your dad’s a psycho,” Kimmie says.
“A psycho who wants his son to be a stud, maybe. Did I ever mention he got voted Best Looking and Most Datable in high school?”
“About a thousand times,” she drones.
“He expects me to be just like him,” he continues.
“Furry, fat, and bald?” she asks. “Honestly, try the self-tanner. Then we’ll
work on getting you a date.”
* * *
When I arrive home, Matt is already waiting at the dining room table for our study session.
“Am I late?” I ask, checking my watch. It’s barely six thirty.
He shakes his head. “Your mom let me in. I just thought we’d get a head start.”
“Didn’t you have a date earlier?”
He nods and flips a page in his book, snacking from a bowlful of what appears to be soy butter–drizzled popcorn, my mother’s signature snack.
And so, before I can even say, “parlez-vous pain-in-the-butt?” we get right down to it, our elbows deep in la grammaire fantastique.
“It just doesn’t make any sense.” Matt sighs.
“Why don’t we move on to vocab?” I suggest, after a good hour and a half of phrase-and-clause hell.
Matt agrees, and we spend the next half hour going over la liste. “I think you’re ready,” I say, slamming his book shut.
“I don’t.” He lets out another sigh.
“Quick, how do you say ‘movie star’?”
“Cinéphile?”
“No.” I flick a popcorn kernel at his forehead. “A cinéphile is a person who frequents the movies. A vedette is a movie star.”
“Right.” He nods.
“Speaking of movies,” I segue, “how was your hot date with Rena this afternoon? Did she do that hyena giggling thing?” Last year in gym class, she practically had to get mouth-to-mouth from laughing so hard at Mr. Muse in his spandex biker shorts.
“Do I detect an air of jealousy?”
“What you detect is mere curiosity,” I say, correcting him.
“How do you think it went?” He glances at my mouth as I chew.
“I don’t know,” I say, remembering how Kimmie said she didn’t believe they were dating at all. “You’re eating my mom’s popcorn, aren’t you?”
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“Who eats the soy-buttered organic blend after going to the movies, where there’s tubfuls of the good stuff? Not to mention the fact that you were here early. . . .”
“So?”
“So my guess is that you didn’t even go. Am I right?”
“Nope,” he says with a smirk. “Rena and I caught an early show and feasted on gummy worms and nacho chips. But I’ll give you an A for effort.”
“I guess there’s no kissing and telling with you, huh?”
“I think your parentals do enough kissing for the both of us.” He gestures to the sofa in the next room, where my mom and dad are snuggled up. Dad is stroking my mom’s hair and nuzzling her neck, but my mom has this faraway stare, like she’s someplace else entirely.
“Seriously, could my parents be any more mortifying?” I ask, trying to keep things light.
“Your dad’s a lucky guy.”
For environmental reasons, they only had one child— me—but at the rate they were going, I’m guessing they could have had dozens.
“Remember when we caught them making out in the backseat of your mom’s SUV?” he continues.
“My parents have this philosophy that Americans are way too reserved. And so they feel a social responsibility to display themselves pawing all over each other whenever the occasion arises—to cure America of its prudishness.”
“Makes sense to me.” He smiles and wipes a stray piece of popcorn from my cheek.
“Very glamorous,” I joke, grabbing a napkin.
He smiles a little more broadly. His teal blue eyes match his shirt.
“Want to watch TV?” I suggest, suddenly sensing a bit of awkwardness between us.
“Actually, I should probably get going.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, almost reluctant to see him leave.
He nods and fishes through the side pocket of his backpack. “Before I forget, I have something to show you.” He pulls forth not one, but two article clippings that detail the events of the so-called murder that Ben was allegedly involved in. “I told you I’d get the scoop.”
“Wait—where did you get these?”
“First, answer my question. Is it true about what happened in lab—did he really grab you?”
“It was nothing,” I say, anxiously perusing the articles.
Both of them basically state that two minors, a male and a female, both age fifteen, went on a hiking trip one day, two years ago, and that the girl fell from a cliff and died instantly. “So, it was an accident.”
Matt shrugs. “I hear there’s a lot more to it.”
“Like what?” I ask, noticing there are no names listed in the articles. “And how do you even know it’s him?”
“Like I said, I’ve been hearing stuff.”
“Hearing from who?”
“Whom, not who,” he says, to be funny. “I may suck at French, but I’m good in English.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know.” He shrugs again. “Mrs. Shelley, Principal Snell’s secretary, has a friend who lives in the town where it happened. That’s how all the details leaked out in the first place.”
“What details?”
“That Ben pushed her, that he has a history of violence. And that this wouldn’t have been the first time he laid his hands on her.”
“He laid his hands on her?” I repeat, the words getting caught in my throat.
“I don’t know,” Matt repeats. “That’s just what I heard.”
“So, why isn’t he in jail?”
He shakes his head. “He was arrested, and there was a trial, but there were no witnesses, and they didn’t have enough proof.”
“Even with a history of violence?”
Matt shrugs. “I know. It doesn’t make sense, which is why everyone was pissed about the outcome. They thought he was guilty.”
“But the judge and jury didn’t?”
“Not that it mattered. Ben got so ridiculed after the trial that he ended up dropping out of school. What he’s doing here is beyond me.”
I sink back in my seat, feeling a knot form in my gut.
“Are you okay?” He reaches out to touch my arm.
I nod and look away.
“Just keep your distance,” Matt continues, his eyes full of concern.
“He’s my lab partner, remember?”
“So, can’t you ask to switch?”
“Don’t worry,” I say, getting up from the table. “I won’t let him lay a hand on me.” And just as the words escape my lips, I can’t help noticing the irony of it all— since it was just a couple of days ago, when Ben clasped my wrist and made my heart swell, that I didn’t want him to ever let go.
18
It’s Tuesday morning, just before the first bell, and I’m sitting outside on one of the benches that overlook the Tree-Hugger Society’s prize-winning garden, eating the remainder of the whole-grain granola bar that my mother insisted I take with me this morning. A bunch of people pass by me on their way inside and, though I’ve resolved to put the whole photo issue out of my mind, I can’t help wondering who the jokester is, and whether he or she might be lurking somewhere now, camera in hand.
John Kenneally, Kimmie’s flavor of the week, waves to me as he drives around to the parking lot behind the school. And so does Kimmie herself, her 1920s flapper boa flailing out the window of Wes’s car.
With only two bites left, I hear it—him. Ben’s motorcycle pulls into the traffic circle with a rumble. But, instead of driving past me, he stops, removes his helmet, and raises his hand to wave.
“What are you doing out here?” he asks, approaching me.
I flash him my granola bar. “Just having a little breakfast before the bell rings. Want a bite?”
He shakes his head. “I was actually hoping we could talk.”
“Sure,” I say, thinking back to everything Matt told me last night, and suddenly feeling a slight twinge in my stomach.
Ben sits down beside me on the bench.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, trying to sound
calm.
He nods and looks off toward the garden. “I just wanted to say, sorry about what happened the other day in chemistry.”
“Did you get in trouble?”
He shrugs. “Detention for a week, starting tomorrow.”
“That seems harsh.”
“Everything at this school seems harsh.”
I bite my lip, unsurprised by his perception of this tiny-town place.
“So, I suppose you’ve heard some stuff about me,” he continues.
“A little.”
“Care to elaborate?”
I shrug and follow his gaze, still focused on the garden. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“Maybe another time,” he says, finally turning to look at me. “I just thought, since we have to work together and all, we should probably start over.”
“What do you mean?”
He gazes at my hair, noticing maybe how I’ve got it pulled into two artfully messed-up braids. “You know, like we never met.”
“Like you never saved my life?”
He smiles slightly; the corners of his pale pink lips curl up. “Something like that,” he says, staring at my mouth now.
“So, you’re admitting it?”
He smirks, angling his body toward me more. He smells like maple sugar mixed with motorcycle fumes. “I admit to nothing.”
“So, what did happen the other day . . . in chemistry class?”
“I accidentally dropped the test tube.”
“No, I mean just after that . . . when you touched me—when you grabbed my wrist.”
“It was just an accident.”
“That was no accident.”
“It was.” He looks away again.
“Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”
Ben shakes his head and I purse my lips, wondering why he insists on keeping all these secrets, when he’s obviously trying to clear things up.
“So, shall we start over?” he asks.
“I guess,” I say, still utterly confused.
“Hi, my name’s Ben Carter.” He smiles, fully aware of how cheesy this is.
“Camelia Hammond.” I grin. “And before you ask, yes, it’s true, my parents are hippies and thought it’d be fun to name me after a lizard. I changed the spelling, against their wishes.”