Here So Far Away(11)

“I don’t have a thing either.”

“Yeah, you do. You’re all theater and look at me expressing myself I’m so expressive.”

“Whatever are you talking about?” She was doing some kind of veil dance with a large beige girdle.

“If I wore this top, people would say I’m quirky.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but the only quirky thing about you is wanting to do it with Tom Petty.”

“Speaking of hot guys . . .” I’d been trying to get up the courage for three days to tell her about what happened at the lighthouse, the longest I’d kept anything from her. She wouldn’t approve of what I’d done, plastering myself to some stranger’s face when there was a perfectly good Joshua Spring to tickle my tonsils, but I couldn’t tell anyone before I told Lisa, and if I didn’t tell someone soon I was going to lose it. Each night when I curled up in bed, I cradled the memory of the stranger like a new toy, though it was beginning to seem less like a memory than a dream.

“We might need one of these next year,” Lisa said, holding up a Noel University jersey. “What’s wrong? Why are you smiling without your eyes?”

“Nothing—”

“Bullshite. You look like a stuffed elk.”

“It’s just, you don’t want to go to a university up the highway, do you?”

“It wouldn’t be so bad. We’d know lots of people, and they have a great theater program.”

“As great as Aurora’s?”

“Sure. Well, almost. And their sports teams are definitely as good.”

“Basketball, maybe.” Wait. “Is Keith planning to go to Noel?”

“No. I don’t know. If he gets in.”

They’d only been dating for two months. We’d been talking about moving to the city together forever. Aurora also had a history of science program that Nat had her eye on, a hockey team the boys approved of, and for me—it was in the city, and since I had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life, that was all I needed.

“It’s not like we’ll be stuck at home,” she added. “We can still live in the dorms.”

“You think the Sergeant is going to cough up for residence if I can stay at home and drive that car he gave me?”

“You could live in that car. It’s big enough.”

“We could all live in that car.”

I smiled, this time with my eyes, I hoped, but my warning gauge was still quivering in the yellow zone.

“Forget I mentioned it,” Lisa said. “It’s way too early for us to be thinking about this. Who knows what could happen in a year?” She picked up the girdle and slingshotted it at me. “Were you going to say something about hot boys?”

It no longer felt like the right moment to describe how the stranger’s hand had tentatively touched the small of my back when I kissed him, how I could still feel the weight of his thumb pressing lightly on my flesh through my shirt.

“I was going to say that we should hit the mall again, see if that cute guy who gives free drinks to redheads is working at Orange Julius today.”

Lisa plopped her bag on top of the wooden bin. “I’ll give you five bucks if you can convince the lady at the register that you were wearing that shirt when you came in.” She plunged her hand into the bag and pulled out her wallet triumphantly. “And a thousand more if you promise never to wear it again.”

Keith and Joshua were hanging out in the food court with some guys from the school basketball team and the county swim team, which Joshua had joined. “It’s like how you can entertain a kitten all day with just a cardboard box,” Lisa said as we watched them from behind a pillar flicking straws and ketchup packets at one another.

“Seriously!” one of the basketball players was yelling. “This dog had balls as big as my TV set, I swear.”

“Did you know they would be here?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I swear.”

“Let’s go over.” I peeled off the horrendous shirt, which I still had on over mine, and crammed it into her bag. “If we act like the other night was a big deal, it’ll be a big deal and it’ll suck at school next week.”

“I don’t think that’s a good—”

I was already walking away.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “Whatcha doing? Planning your prom dresses?”

“Go to hell,” Joshua said.

He tried to storm off, but he was so big and the space between the tables was so narrow that his arm caught mine, knocking me sideways. He walked on.

I stood there for a second as everyone stared at me, Lisa with her hand over her mouth. Then I followed him, my sneakers squeaking on the fake marble floor, grasped his elbow, and yanked.

I was usually pretty good at comebacks, which sometimes made me think I was smarter than I actually was. Much like how my long, wavy hair compensated for the plainness of my face, so naturally I was hugely vain about it. No, I’d never been in an airplane, never met a Jewish person (I think?), wasn’t entirely sure if Mongolia was a real country that just sounded like a made-up place, but I could be quick, and quick can make up for less than clever.

Not this time.

“I don’t think so, asshead!”