The Memory Book(12)

Stuart is a friend of a friend, Maddie told me.

Stuart had become super close with Dale when Dale played Rosencrantz to Stuart’s Hamlet.

And Dale’s friends with Maddie.

And Dale and Stuart are coming here.

My stomach is a washing machine.

Earlier we picked up my siblings after school and waited until my dad got home from trimming trees. While I made us a quick dinner of spaghetti, Maddie played with my sisters out in the yard.

Bette roamed around the perimeter, yelling her questions, and Maddie yelled back answers while throwing a Frisbee to Davy and/or Puppy, whoever got to it first.

Then came the whole CPR-certified thing. Maddie still didn’t know I was sick, and at the risk of her thinking I couldn’t handle Nationals, I had to keep it that way.

So I did some James Bond shit. As Maddie was outside, I asked her for some gum. She pointed to her bag and invited me to dig around. I dug. Instead of gum, I pulled her Red Cross CPR-certified card out of her wallet and slipped it into my jeans. While the spaghetti boiled, I went to the family desktop, scanned it, printed it, and then returned it.

Dad came home. I followed him into my parents’ bedroom, told him my plans, and showed him the scanned certificate.

He pretended to examine it really closely like he actually knew what he was doing. He even put on his bifocals and took it to the desk where they pay bills and held it under the lamplight. I was like, Cute, Dad.

After leaving a message on my mom’s cell, we came here to Maddie’s place in Hanover, where I told Maddie’s mom, Pat, that yes, Maddie would be spending the night with me and therefore would not be home at curfew.

Maddie stood behind her in my sight line, giving me a quiet thumbs-up, which made me feel cool and rebellious. Pat gave us both a kiss on the cheek and went out to eat with her book club.

Maddie’s room smells like how I think Lothlórien, the elf realm from Lord of the Rings, would smell. Like burning wood and lavender and kind of like dirt. She has leafy plants hanging from every corner, succulents in little glass terrariums in rows along her windows and desk and dresser, a skinny tree in a big ceramic pot. Her stereo speakers take up almost a third of the wall, blaring synthesizers, and she roams back and forth from the bathroom in her bare feet, wearing boxers and a tank top, hair in a towel.

The plan was that we would pregame and leave for the party before Pat got home at ten. That was the plan. Stuart was not part of the plan. I was just going to watch him from a distance at the party and if he saw me, wave, and that would have been enough for me. And now he’ll be in the same room as me. Where I am one of four people. Where I can’t just hope he’ll notice me, where he will have to notice me, and where I will have to acknowledge that he notices me. I will have to pretend like I haven’t wanted him since the first time I saw him. Maybe I’ll even have to figure out if I actually want him to want me back, or just want to add him to a list of smart people with whom I would make out if given the chance.

Once, shortly after he had gotten published for the first time, I had stayed late to talk to Ms. Cigler about an assignment, and Stuart came into the classroom for the following period. He had sat down and scrawled something quickly on a piece of notebook paper, looking back and forth from a novel held open, doing his homework at the last minute.

I could have said something so simple. Like hi. Or congratulations. Instead, I said loudly to Ms. Cigler, “Thanks, Ms. Cigler. I didn’t consider that passage that way before.”

I guess I hoped he would have looked up and said, What passage?

And I would have told him which one, and he would have said, You have an unconventional beauty. Let’s talk about it sometime.

But I had wanted him to think I was smart before he thought I was beautiful, because I knew no one would think I was beautiful, so I just kept talking, louder and louder, about the book, until Ms. Cigler said, “My next class is about to start,” and he never looked up from his homework.

That was about how much I was prepared for an interaction with Stuart. Talking loudly to other people while he was in the room. Oh god.





THE DEATH DRIVE


When Maddie was done in the bathroom, she came back with wet hair and a green glass bottle of gin.

“What color is your hair now?” I asked.

“Just a little darker red,” she said. “Less Ariel, more Loud-era Rihanna.”

I bunched my curls into a ponytail and looked past her to her mirror. “What music is this? This isn’t Rihanna.”

Maddie laughed. “No, it’s not.” She toweled off her hair and tossed the towel aside. “It’s the Knife.”

I took my hair back out of the ponytail. “How long until they get here?”

She squirted gel into her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe an hour.”

“Do we have a designated driver?”

Maddie spiked her hair. “Dale doesn’t drink, and he can take my car.”

The image of Stuart walking along the road played in my head. I unbuttoned my shirt one button, so you could see the hint of upper chest. Then the thought of sitting next to Stuart, his thigh touching mine, made me paralyzed, and I buttoned back up.

“Sammie.” I looked at Maddie. “Relax.”

“That’s the worst way to relax someone.”

“Your teeth are audibly grinding.”