Paper Towns(9)

It felt like Margo was just rambling to avoid the question at hand. So I repeated it. “Why do we need The Club?”

Margo patted me in the middle of the back softly. “I mean, obviously this is all going to be revealed to you before the night is over.” And then, in boating supplies, Margo located an air horn. She took it out of the box and held it up in the air, and I said, “No,” and she said, “No what?” And I said, “No, don’t blow the air horn,” except when I got to about the b in blow, she squeezed on it and it let out an excruciatingly loud honk that felt in my head like the auditory equivalent of an aneurysm, and then she said, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. What was that?” And I said, “Stop b—” and then she did it again.

A Wal-Mart employee just a little older than us walked up to us then and said, “Hey, you can’t use that in here,” and Margo said, with seeming sincerity, “Sorry, I didn’t know that,” and the guy said, “Oh, it’s cool. I don’t mind, actually.” And then the conversation seemed over, except the guy could not stop looking at Margo, and honestly I don’t blame him, because she is hard to stop looking at, and then finally he said, “What are you guys up to tonight?”

And Margo said, “Not much. You?”

And he said, “I get off at one and then I’m going out to this bar down on Orange, if you want to come. But you’d have to drop off your brother; they’re really strict about ID’s.”

Her what?! “I’m not her brother,” I said, looking at the guy’s sneakers.

And then Margo proceeded to lie. “He’s actually my cousin,” she said. Then she sidled up to me, put her hand around my waist so that I could feel each of her fingers taut against my hip bone, and she added, “And my lover.”

The guy just rolled his eyes and walked away, and Margo’s hand lingered for a minute and I took the opportunity to put my arm around her. “You really are my favorite cousin,” I told her. She smiled and bumped me softly with her hip, spinning out of my embrace.

“Don’t I know it,” she said.





4.



We were driving down a blessedly empty I-4, and I was following Margo’s directions. The clock on the dashboard said it was 1:07.

“It’s pretty, huh?” she said. She was turned away from me, staring out the window, so I could hardly see her. “I love driving fast under streetlights.”

“Light,” I said, “the visible reminder of Invisible Light.”

“That’s beautiful,” she said.

“T. S. Eliot,” I said. “You read it, too. In English last year.” I hadn’t actually ever read the whole poem that line was from, but a couple of the parts I did read got stuck in my head.

“Oh, it’s a quote,” she said, a little disappointed. I saw her hand on the center console. I could have put my own hand on the center console and then our hands would have been in the same place at the same time. But I didn’t. “Say it again,” she said.

“Light, the visible reminder of Invisible Light.”

“Yeah. Damn, that’s good. That must help with your lady friend.”

“Ex-lady friend,” I corrected her.

“Suzie dumped you?” Margo asked.

“How do you know she dumped me?”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Although she did,” I admitted, and Margo laughed. The breakup had happened months ago, but I didn’t blame Margo for failing to pay attention to the world of lower-caste romance. What happens in the band room stays in the band room.

Margo put her feet up on the dashboard and wiggled her toes to the cadence of her speaking. She always talked like that, with this discernible rhythm, like she was reciting poetry. “Right, well, I’m sorry to hear that. But I can relate. My lovely boyfriend of lo these many months is fucking my best friend.”

I looked over but her hair was all in her face, so I couldn’t make out if she was kidding. “Seriously?” She didn’t say anything. “But you were just laughing with him this morning. I saw you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I heard about it before first period, and then I found them both talking together and I started screaming bloody murder, and Becca ran into the arms of Clint Bauer, and Jase was just standing there like a dumbass with the chaw drool running out of his stank mouth.”

I had clearly misinterpreted the scene in the hallway. “That’s weird, because Chuck Parson asked me this morning what I knew about you and Jase.”

“Yeah, well, Chuck does as he’s told, I guess. Probably trying to find out for Jase who knew.”

“Jesus, why would he hook up with Becca?”

“Well, she’s not known for her personality or generosity of spirit, so it’s probably because she’s hot.”

“She’s not as hot as you,” I said, before I could think better of it.

“That’s always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people would want to be around someone because they’re pretty. It’s like picking your breakfast cereals based on color instead of taste. It’s the next exit, by the way. But I’m not pretty, not close up anyway. Generally, the closer people get to me the less hot they find me.”