31
On Monday morning the lockers seemed to have been waiting for her to arrive. There was a picture of a chicken stuck on the front of her locker, which she decided to ignore and take down when the area was less crowded.
Holly made a clucking noise when Vân Ước opened her locker to put her bag in. Billy arrived to hear the clucking. He walked over to Holly.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s this?” Billy ripped the chicken picture from Vân Ước’s locker. “Who the fuck put this here?”
People turned away and got busy with doors and books and bags and locks.
“I’m going to guess it was the person clucking, then.” Billy handed the screwed-up ball of paper to Holly.
“Billy, are you for real?” she asked. “Since when did you get so weird and lose your sense of humor? You would have been making the same joke back when you were normal.”
Vân Ước took a deep breath. “If you want to joke about it, go ahead. My father works in a chicken-processing plant. He doesn’t drive, or own a car. His boss offered to drop me at Billy’s and pick me up on Saturday night. I was lucky to be allowed out at all. My parents don’t particularly believe in students having a social life.”
Holly didn’t say anything else, but her face was set in a sneer.
Billy held Vân Ước’s hand, but he was looking at the assembled group. Ben walked in as Billy said: “What a pack of losers. Do you really think that because your parents have money, or their parents did, that you’re better than Vân Ước or her parents? You didn’t make the money. It’s random. It’s dumb luck. Let’s see what you do yourself. Let’s take a look in ten years.”
He directed the next comment squarely at Holly. “And it’s pretty easy to see that some people are so pathetic that all they will have done is buy clothes and prance around like idiots. Talking about clothes. With other idiots.” Vintage mean-Billy.
Ben had been looking on with apparent incredulity as things blew up. “Lighten up, dude,” he said.
“Fuck off, dude,” Billy said.
“What about you, Billy? Won’t you just be another dull doctor who briefly went out with a povvo Asian girl at school to piss off his parents?” Holly’s voice was shaking. She obviously felt she had to retaliate, but she clearly didn’t feel comfortable turning against someone like Billy, even in self-defense.
Billy looked at Holly with freezing disdain. “Wrong on both scores. Surprise, surprise.”
Holly gave Vân Ước a look of pure hostility as she walked past, as though to say, Look at the trouble you’ve caused.
If Holly knew how transitory her going out with Billy was likely to be, she wouldn’t waste the frown repetitions getting angry about it. Vân Ước wished she could go home. Couldn’t she have the occasional “mental health day” her classmates took from time to time? It seemed to be a day at home being pampered and not having to turn up at school, despite being perfectly well. Her parents wouldn’t even understand the concept. Her sick days were hard enough to come by when she was half dead.
Holly’s nasty comment was still stinging; Vân Ước had never considered that Billy’s motivation for going out with her might simply be to annoy his parents.
By lunchtime, things seemed to have settled sufficiently that there was another bout of the ongoing Jenga tournament. Billy was still undefeated. Vân Ước was uncomfortably aware of Holly, Tiff, Ava, and Gabi vipering quietly in a huddle. No doubt talking about her—in their eyes, a thief, of cardigans and boys. An unworthy interloper. She half watched Jenga, feeling glum, while she ate her lunch, then went to the library.
She and Jess always ridiculed the role of girlfriend-to-the-jock on movie nights. Too sidekick to be interesting, and it turned out to be true. The concept of looking on from the sidelines and cheering was not something she’d ever feel okay about. Plus, it was half an hour better spent reading.
Sibylla and Lou and Michael were already in the library. Michael and Lou were playing chess; Sibylla was flicking though a pile of magazines.
“Escaping Jenga?” she asked.
“It’s a bit loud to read in there,” said Vân Ước.
Lou looked up. “I can’t wait till it ends, the Jenga thing. It’s the bro-dudes building the world, and destroying the world. Too much like real life to be funny.”
Vân Ước smiled in agreement and headed to the quiet study area.
It felt impossible that Vân Ước could be more in love with Sylvia Plath, but after finding “Mad Girl’s Love Song” she was. Written when Plath was twenty. Genius. She looked up to see Billy walking toward her and sighed.
“You disappeared—I thought you were still in the common room. I remain, yours truly, king of the Jenga world.”
“I’m so happy for you.”
“Oooh, the Vân Ước low-key stinging sarcasm.”
“Well. Jenga.”
“Hey, I’m so sorry about all the chicken stuff this morning.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It’s not your sorry.”
“I don’t want anyone being mean to you.”
“And I don’t want to cause trouble with your friends.”
“You’re not the one causing trouble.” Looking at her books, he said, “Don’t forget, Sylvia part two, at mine on Wednesday.”
“Even with your parents there?”
“They won’t be home by then. Wouldn’t matter if they were.”
“I don’t know how thrilled your mother would be…”
“If she knew we were going out?”
Wow. He’d said it out loud.
“We are?”
“To the extent that we can, given that you’re not allowed out much, and you don’t want me to come to your place. And you obviously object to public displays of affection.”
“Wouldn’t you like to check in with me? Ask me if I want to go out with you?”
He looked shocked. “Don’t you?”
It cracked her up that the idea of a girl maybe not wanting to go out with him was utterly alien to his experience. “Sure. I guess. If you can cope with all the limitations.”
“That is the most excellent news I could hear. Ever.”
“But don’t get too excited, because from the look on your mother’s face when we met…”
Billy dismissed her misgivings with a shrug. “My parents don’t like anything that distracts me from study or rowing.”
“Ha. My parents don’t like anything that distracts me from study or study.”
“We’ve got heaps in common, you and me.”
“I.”
“I’m going to get the common room print done tonight. Maybe we could put it up early on Thursday.”
“Okay.”
Vân Ước was missing Jess. She stopped by after school. Jess opened the door with mashed avocado spread all over her face. She liked the occasional all-natural face mask. At least this one wouldn’t set like a rock, unlike the fateful, supposedly oil-absorbing oatmeal mask.
“Why are you mad about Billy before it’s absolutely warranted?”
“Hello to you, too.”
“He might be okay.”
“Unlikely, but. How was the party?”
“Pretty good. His parents and his friends hate me. And we only got to kiss for about one minute before my dad came to pick me up. In Bác Bảo’s van.”
Jess clapped a hand over her mouth in disbelief. “Classy move. What did he make of that?” She rinsed avocado from her hand at the kitchen sink.
“Didn’t miss a beat.”
Jess raised her avocado-y eyebrows. “Well, that’s one point for him.”
“He’s been winning plenty of points. The question is, why?”
“You’re not still thinking it’s got anything to do with that stupid teacher’s stupid glass vial stupid wish thing, are you?”
“I think I’ve got to try and find the teacher.”
“And out yourself as completely wacko?”
“I was thinking more, ask a couple of open-ended questions.”
“Like, ‘Anything strange ever happened to anyone in any of your classes evah?’”
“You don’t have to tell me how ridiculous it is.”
“Don’t do it!”
“I have to. Otherwise, it’s the most massive cheat. And how can I honestly let myself like someone who has been wishmagic-ed into liking me?”
“I’d have Jennifer Lawrence on wishmagic terms any day.”
“You wouldn’t. You’d want her to like you for real.”
“I’m not that fussy.”
“You know she likes boys, right?”
“Of course I know. It doesn’t really matter, seeing as how I’m not ever likely to meet her and all.”
“You know the cardigan I found?”
“That’s magic, too?” Jess could be very judgmental.
“No, but I like to pat it. And I talk to it occasionally. It seems to have a personality.”
“You’re telling me this why?”
“Who else would I tell?”
Jess got a skewer from the cutlery drawer and started gently poking it through her mask.
“Itchy?”
“Very.”
“Wash it off.”
“I’ve got five more minutes.”
“You might as well scrape it off with crackers.”
“Don’t worry. I thought about it.”
“But?”
“But if it’s been drawing out impurities from my complexion, I’d be eating avocado with a nice dose of impurity. Which is pus, I presume, in a best-case scenario—that is, if it’s worked.”
“Mmmm, delicious. So what are we watching on Friday?”
“Sally Thomasetti’s lending me Say Anything.”
“Omigod, I’m dying to see that. That’s the last item on our I can’t believe you haven’t seen it list, isn’t it?”
“Yup. And we can review Billy’s performance at homework club.”
“And figure out how I find the creative writing teacher.”
“Directory?”
“True.”
“But please don’t. Dignity.”
“I know. But I—I don’t know what else I can do.”
“Just get back in touch with the rational girl who lives in there.” Jess pointed to Vân Ước’s forehead.
“Wise words, avocado-face.”
“Hey, at least I don’t talk to cardigans.”
Vân Ước got up and stretched, picked up her bag, and headed for the door.
“You study hard, now,” said Jess.