First & Then(8)

She was also singularly odd. I guess she reminded me of Foster in some ways. They both seemed to operate on their own wavelength. But whereas Foster excelled at being conspicuous, Marabelle was just … quietly eccentric. I wasn’t sure if she didn’t realize stuff sometimes—like Cas poking fun at her—or if she just didn’t care.

“How’re your classes going, Marabelle?” I asked as Cas dove back into his lunch.

She wrinkled her nose. “Trigonometry is awful.”

“Ah, yeah. Trig sucks. Sorry.”

She blinked. “For what?”

“I love that girl,” Cas said as we headed to class after lunch. Marabelle had drifted off in the direction of the foreign-language hallway with one arm wound around the bump swelling beneath her baby doll dress. “Like, I seriously love her. She’s the funniest person I’ve ever met.”

“She’s not trying to be funny, you know.”

“That’s why she’s hilarious.”

“She’s a teen mom. Have some sympathy.”

“Oh, so you can have sympathy for teen moms but not for abandoned children?”

I gave him a shove. “You’re a great big giant *, you know that?”

“Just like Ezra Lynley?”

“Worse. You’re not as good-looking.”

Cas grabbed his chest. “That’s a terrible, horrible lie.”

“Come on.” I glanced at my watch. “We’re gonna be late for Calc.”

He clapped his hand to his chest again and stopped dead in the middle of the hallway.

“Oh, stop it, you know I think you’re pretty.”

Cas shook his head, massaging his chest like some great pain was brewing under there. “It’s not that.”

“What is it?”

He grimaced. “Senioritis.”

I hit him in the arm. “Get to class.”

“Good one, right?”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Go.”





3


Foster was awake by five thirty every morning. School didn’t start until eight, and I was still trying to shake my summer sleep schedule, so I wasn’t the most receptive to his early-morning clattering.

Usually after a few minutes I would sink back into a nice doze, but this morning my eyes refused to stay shut. My head couldn’t find a comfortable spot on the pillow. The covers were too warm.

I flung them back and rolled over. A soft breeze blew through my window, pressing against the shade. Outside I could hear the scuff of sneakers on pavement and a faint intake of breath as a jogger passed by the house. A car door slammed somewhere not too far off. The blender buzzed.

Foster was making a smoothie.

I groaned. It was official: I was awake.

I never saw Foster in pajamas. He was always the last in bed and the first one up in the morning, looking just the same as he had the night before. I knew he must’ve had more clothes from home than it appeared, but the problem was that they all looked the same. All the crisp new tees, the button-down shirts, the perfectly whiskered jeans that my mom had bought him sat unworn in his dresser drawers upstairs. I felt bad that he refused to let go of his shit from home, but worse for my mom, who—although she wouldn’t admit it—scrutinized clothes that other kids were wearing on TV and in the magazines so that Foster would have exactly the right stuff. When he refused to wear it, she said she’d been silly—of course he’d want to pick his own look. But another shopping trip that ended empty-handed said it all: Foster had a look, and it was dingy.

“You want a smoothie?” Foster said when I stumbled into the kitchen.

“It’s really early to be using the blender, Foster.”

“You know, it’s only three thirty on the West Coast.”

“Did you wake up at three thirty when you lived on the West Coast?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “Doesn’t waking up early make the day seem longer?”

To me, the day was twenty-four hours long, and no amount of getting up early would change that.

“You know what today is?” Foster asked when I didn’t speak.

“Friday?”

“Uh-huh. And guess what happens on Fridays?”

The Future Science Revolutionaries of America focused their combined mental energies on moving the principal’s car one inch to the left? Wait, no—that was yesterday.

“I don’t know.”

Foster’s eyes widened. “You don’t know?”

“What happens on Fridays, Foster?” I was getting impatient. Then it dawned on me. But there was no way on earth something so normal could leave Foster’s lips. He couldn’t mean—

“Football!”

I stared. It had only been three months. There was still so much I didn’t know about him. “You like football?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been to a game in real life.”

That was more like it.

“Aunt Kathy said you’d take me.”

My mother had a way of volunteering me for Foster-related activities without my knowing. The look on Foster’s face said mine gave that away.

“Will you take me?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, because what else was there to say? Things were different now.