14

MID-NOVEMBER

A-minus on the government test, 89.99 percent.

Eric moves past my desk after Mr. Thurber hands out the graded exams.

“See?” he whispers. “I told you not to worry.”

“How’d you do that?”

“Magic.” He winks. “I have my ways.” He slides into his own seat.

I shake my head and smile.

Eric follows me at passing period and corners me at my locker. “If we’re study partners, I guarantee you’ll ace all your government tests.”

“Yeah?” I say, trying to pull the trash out of my locker. I’ve got to keep my grades up, at least until I get my acceptance letters. Then maybe I can let things slide. “Want to form a study group? If we invite Beth she’ll bring Oreos. Her mom buys them in bulk.”

“How about just you and me?”

I look up, and Eric’s all shifty, like he just asked me out on a date or something.

Life is crazy. For seventeen years no guy has ever noticed me, and now all of a sudden I’ve got two who want to hang out? Mom might be a little more approving of a study-date kind of thing, and who could be more brilliant than Eric?

“I don’t have much time,” I tell him.

“Well, you have to study, right?”

“Good point. I get home from clinic at seven thirty on Thursday. Want to come over then?” Mom won’t mind, I don’t think. She’ll be happy I’m studying, and we’ll sit at the kitchen table so there isn’t any stress about bringing a boy into my room.

“Sure,” he says, like this is what he’s been waiting for.

“My mom’s a health-food nut, so don’t expect chips or candy. You like carrot sticks?”

He looks at me like I’m kidding.

Mom is buzzing. Zipping around in the kitchen, hovering by the fridge, then organizing our junk drawer and fixing some snacks of veggies, hummus, and sliced triangles of whole-grain pita bread. “Eric is such a focused young man.” The study date meets her standards, apparently. Mom has known Eric since junior year’s academic decathlon, when he blew everyone away with his brilliance.

“You’re not going to hang around here while we study, are you?” I ask her.

Mom says “no” so trigger-fast that I know she’s lying.

“I am.” Chloe smirks. “Should be fun.”

“You can’t interrupt them, Chloe,” Mom warns, pretending like she wasn’t planning to do exactly the same thing.

“I won’t interrupt them. I’ll study. You want me to study too, don’t you, Mom?”

Mom is stuck. I can see her thinking through her answers, wondering how she can tell Chloe to stay away from us without insulting Chloe’s academic potential, and without implicitly condoning Eric and me spending time alone. So she just shrugs and says, “As long as everyone’s staying productive,” and continues buzzing around the room.

An hour later, Eric and I sit at the kitchen table, nearly elbow to elbow. “I thought you were kidding about the carrot sticks.” He grins.

“Nope,” I say cheerfully, crunching one loudly.

Mom has disappeared from view, mostly. She buzzes in and out periodically to make it clear that she is supervising. I’m embarrassed, because I’m seventeen after all. Please. Chloe sat with us for the first twenty minutes, her math book open and her pencil poised, clearly prepared to watch the show. But then when we really did talk government, I could see her excitement melt away. Eventually she slunk into the other room to watch TV.

I look at Eric. He’s sort of cute, I guess. At least he might be in a few years if he fills out and figures out a way to do his hair that doesn’t make him look like a little boy. Why is it that brilliant guys are so clueless about how to use hair gel? Maybe academic brilliance is inversely related to fashion sense.

Eric reaches for a carrot stick and chomps down. When he sets his elbow back on the antique table, he puts it directly against mine. It feels cold and smooth.

I look up and he is staring at me. Way to make me uncomfortable.

But I’m struck by something.

I have no tingles. Touching his arm doesn’t gross me out or anything, but I feel nothing.

I might as well have my arm against a telephone pole.

“Eric would have some cute potential, like, in a nerdy way, if he’d just wear something other than Star Wars T-shirts,” Janae says, all encouraging as we walk between classes. Some people do double takes as we stroll past. I guess we’re an unlikely pairing.

I can’t help but smile.

“He’s only got like seven different ones, and he recycles through them every week. Dude, at least alternate the day! Don’t wear them in the same order every single week.” She turns around and walks backward, facing me.

“I’m just not feeling it,” I tell her. “Sure, I’m happy for the help studying, but I’m not into him, you know?”

“I know who you are into.” She stops me, putting both hands on my shoulders.

“Shut up.”

“And so does everyone else. It’s obvious. Give poor Miguel a break. How hard are you gonna make him work before you break down and kiss him?”

“Shut up,” I tell her more firmly now. “Focus on your own love life, why don’t you?”

“That,” she says, eyeing Garth from across the quad, “is an excellent idea.”

Chloe has way more experience with dating, kissing, you-name-it than I do. By far. So although it seems strange to go to my little sister for advice, I find myself lingering near her bedroom door. I knock softly a couple times, but she must have her earbuds in because she doesn’t answer. Unsure if I’m going to walk in on her half naked or picking her nose or something, I place my hand on the doorknob and open the door slowly.

She’s sitting cross-legged on her bed. Her back is turned away from me, and she does have her earbuds in. The bass is so loud that I can hear it from the doorway.

But something stops me short. She’s holding a playing card in her hand. It’s a queen, with black Sharpie drawn on it like the others. She lifts the card up toward the light. The queen’s eyes are crossed out with x’s, her tongue is hanging, and there is a noose drawn around her neck.

What the hell? Did Chloe draw that?

Just as I step in closer, she throws the card across the room, or tries to. The card is too light, so the throw looks pitiful, and the card sort of floats to the floor. She draws her legs up to her chest and pushes her head down into them.

A lump crawls into my throat, and I feel suddenly sad. I step back and slowly close the door.