Under Rose-Tainted Skies(18)

‘Norah,’ he greets me, looking all kinds of sheepish with his chin tucked into his chest. His dad looks at me expectantly, then back at Luke, then back at me again. But instead of offering an introduction, Luke scuttles into his house. His dad follows, but not before throwing a confused glance my way.

Interesting.

My mind is a rabbit hole that I fall down repeatedly for the next hour. I wonder why Luke got squirrelly at the idea of introducing his dad to me. I blame myself, being scrunched up in a blanket and sitting in my hallway like it’s the norm. What’s left of my fingernails pays the ultimate price for my feelings of inadequacy.

Sometime after eight, Luke emerges from his house, twirling car keys around his finger and carrying his school backpack. I turn away, fix my sights on a monarch butterfly that’s flirting with the flowers.

‘Hey, Neighbour.’ My head snaps around. Luke is standing by the boxwood, smiling at me, almost a different guy from the one who was here before.

I summon enough enthusiasm to smile back.

‘Hi.’

‘Don’t suppose you need a ride to school?’ He shakes his keys at me.

‘I’m good. But thank you.’

‘Any time.’ There’s a brief pause during which I attempt to braid my fingers. ‘Did you get my invite?’ he asks.

‘Yes.’ It takes a huge amount of effort to stop myself from wincing. Or, you know, start weeping and begging him to cancel for the sake of my sanity.

‘You’re coming, right?’ He laughs, all nerves. ‘You have to come. Yours will be the only name I know.’ He plucks leaves off the boxwood. I pluck threads from my duvet.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to come.’ Awkwardness bleeds into my tone.

‘Ah. You have other plans,’ he concludes with a nod of his head.

‘No. It’s not that at all.’ This is not an absurd assumption for him to make, but I raise my voice and respond like it is. Relief flashes across his face, and I lift my chin a little higher. ‘It’s just . . . I still have this cold . . .’ But that’s not enough. A slight case of the sniffles doesn’t stop normal teenagers from having a good time. ‘Then there’s this important French assignment I have to finish . . .’

‘I didn’t think they were still teaching French at Cardinal.’

Double crap. They’re not. Cardinal is the third school in the state to swap French for Chinese. It happened the summer after I left. There was a ceremony. Police Chief Zhang Yong gave a speech about diversity that made Vice Principal Turner ugly-cry. I know all this because someone took her picture, posted it on The Hub, and the thing was circulated for what felt like half a century.

What a dumb mistake to make. I’m not thinking straight. The space outside seems to be swelling. My head is begging me to kill this conversation, slip back inside, and close the door. Like a toddler tugging on my apron strings, it’s demanding, forcing me to think about everything. It wants me to slink back, seamlessly, into our routine. It’s getting twitchy at the idea of human conversation or, worse, human contact. In complete contrast, the only thing my heart’s wondering right now is: How well do you have to know someone before you can call them a friend?

‘It’s this extracurricular after-school thingy,’ I reply. Eventually.

‘Ah. Well, in that case, bonne chance.’ He speaks French? It’s boxy, and clunky, and butchered by his American accent, but I’m pretty sure it was French.

‘Parlez-vous Fran?ais?’

His eyes narrow. He clears his throat and snorts a nervous laugh. ‘This is kind of awkward.’

‘Oh. You don’t speak French?’

‘Busted.’ He grimaces and I giggle. Then he does something I’m not expecting and hops over the boxwood.

No. Don’t come over. Please don’t come over.

Yes. Come over. Please come over.

He’s coming over.

I slide back a little on my butt so I can be more inside without shutting him out. I don’t know. I feel safer this way. I sit up straighter, suddenly wishing I’d slept in pyjama bottoms instead of board shorts. My legs look atrocious, too skinny, too pale, too covered in purple scabs from all the scratching.

Before Luke gets too close, I tug the duvet from my shoulders and throw it across the parts of my body that I don’t want him to see.

‘You caught me,’ he continues, perching on the porch steps. ‘I can’t speak French, but I’ve been there, so it still counts as cultured, right?’

‘You’ve been to France?’

‘Yeah. A couple of times. You?’

No. Never. Not once.

I hate him. I mean, I don’t hate him, but jealousy squirms like a nest of snakes in the pit of my stomach. The fake smile I throw his way makes my cheeks sting.

I thought for sure I’d reached my inadequacy limit when he didn’t introduce me to his dad. I was wrong. Feeling intimidated is nothing new to me, but this overwhelming urge to fudge my skill set just so I can impress him is all new. It makes me feel cold, uncomfortable, like I’m two-feet tall standing in front of a skyscraper. I’m not going to lie. Lying just trips me up, but I can’t say no either.

‘I’m going to study architecture over there.’ That was the plan. That had been the plan since middle school. Since Mom bought me plastic bricks one Christmas and Gran helped me build a castle with them.