The Beginning of Everything(53)

When I sat down at my lunch table, it was oddly empty. Luke and Sam had driven off campus, to Burger King or somewhere, and we didn’t talk about it—where they’d gone, or if they’d be back.

Phoebe had swiped half a bag of candy corn from the journalism room, and we each took a handful. Cassidy showed us how to pinch off the bottom parts so they looked like teeth. Well, she didn’t so much show us as pretend she’d knocked a tooth out, and then laugh when we realized what had happened. But our laughter felt too small, as though we were in a theater with an overwhelming number of open seats, and nothing we did could make the space less empty.

Our lunch table stayed like that for two days, until Luke and Sam reappeared as though they’d never been away. There was a smug cast to Luke’s shoulders, and when he unpacked his sandwich, a flash of silver glinted on his finger. A purity ring. At first I thought it was meant to be ironic, so I didn’t understand why everyone was laughing. But it turned out Luke meant it—or wanted us to think he did.

“What can I say?” he shrugged humbly. “I’ve seen the error of my ways.”

Phoebe snorted and whispered in a way that suggested she wanted Luke to overhear her: “More likely he’s hooking up with a girl from his church.”

It was fantastic. Instead of Luke reappearing at our table in a massive cloud of awkwardness, the way these things usually went, his holier-than-thou attitude and Sacred Gift Ring gave us all an opportunity to poke fun at him, an opportunity Toby seized with glee. It was as though the fault in our lunch table had resolved itself into a jagged crack, with Luke and Sam on one side, and the rest of us on the other, wondering how we’d missed the earthquake in the first place.





23


FRIDAY MORNING BROUGHT with it the second pep rally of the year. The balloon arches over each section of the bleachers were in fall colors. God, brown and orange balloons. It was like the world’s most cheerless carnival.

I joined Toby and Cassidy in the third row of the senior section; Toby had saved me the end.

“Sure you don’t want to switch to the teacher bleacher?” he joked.

“Screw you,” I said, not really meaning it.

“Screw your girlfriend,” Cassidy added, laughing. It was something we did now; the phrase had become a joke among our group of friends, and I was glad of it.

We settled into the bleachers, waiting for the pep rally to begin. In the row below us, Staci Guffin’s hot pink thong rose magnificently out the back of her jeans in a neon whale tail.

Toby pointed it out with a disapproving frown that sent Cassidy into muffled hysterics, and I felt sort of bad that they were laughing, even if Staci was one of my ex-girlfriends. The pep rally started then, with SGA coming out in plaid shirts to dance to some hideous Katy Perry number. I glanced at Toby, who shook his head as though embarrassed for them.

“SENIORS! SHOW SOME SPIRIT!” called Jill, putting her hand on her hip.

The noise was deafening.

It went on like that for a good five minutes, with the requisite I can’t hear you’s and That’s more like it’s.

Tiffany Wells, our hopelessly blonde social events chair, took the microphone. She’d written notes at SGA meetings the year before with a pen topped by a cloud of pink feathers. You got the impression that her friends made fun of her to her face, and she didn’t quite understand why they were laughing.

We all paid attention as Tiffany announced the theme for the homecoming dance: Monte Carlo. She said it as though it was particularly thrilling that we’d have cardboard backdrops featuring casino motifs and “real live blackjack tables.”

Toby almost died.

“Sober, fake gambling,” he whispered. “In the gym.”

I had to admit, it was terrible.

And then Jill handed Tiffany an envelope.

“Okay,” she said, drawing out her vowels in that particularly Californian way, “we’re going to announce the homecoming court nominees, and I’m, like, super excited about this, you guys!”

She squealed into the microphone, making everyone wince from the reverb.

“If I call your name, you should come down here and take a Royal Rose!”

“Dear God,” Toby whispered. “It’s like being at a reality television taping.”

I laughed.

Cassidy shushed us, enthralled.

“The nominees for queen.” Tiffany went on, naming Jill Nakamura; Charlotte Hyde; Sara Sumner, who ran that obnoxious clique of Charity League girls who pretended they lived in beachfront mansions in Back Bay; and Anamica Patel.

I winced when she called Anamica; it was one of those cruel games Charlotte liked to play, telling everyone to nominate someone as a joke, and Anamica was undoubtedly that year’s target. Anamica was a bit too focused on earning straight As, but she didn’t deserve to have her name hooted laughingly by the assholes sitting in the back of the senior section.

“That’s awful,” Cassidy whispered as Anamica accepted her Royal Rose, her face bright red.

“And now, the nominees for king,” Tiffany continued, once the hooting had died down. “Evan McMillan.”

Evan sauntered up there and hoisted the rose over his head like it was a prize.

“Jimmy Fuller.”

Jimmy fist pumped.

“Luke Sheppard.”