Pretend She's Here(61)

But where was he?

*

I went to homeroom. First-period geometry. Second-period English. Third-period colonial American history. Lunch.

Carole and I sat together. I ate my chicken Caesar salad without tasting it. She had packed her own lunch.

“Almond-and-apricot Kind Bars somehow have the power to completely transform me into a good mood and all-around better person within two seconds, honestly,” she said. “I have an extra.” She pushed it my way.

“No, thanks,” I said.

“This is not natural,” she said. “No one says no to a Kind Bar.”

“I’m not that hungry.”

“Freaking out about the talk?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, do I detect butterflies of love?”

“What?” I asked.

“From last night. You and Casey conveniently disappeared in the middle of the soiree. Nothing like being ice cold on a toboggan run to get the blood flowing, am I right?” She smiled. “You have to tell me.”

I was supposed to confide in her, to tell her about the kiss, but I couldn’t. Where was Casey? I was half frozen with fear. What if he’d taken matters into his own hands, called the police on Mrs. Porter? He had no idea who he was dealing with.

Finally, it was time to head to the assembly. Carole and I finished eating, and we walked down the hall together.

“You don’t seem okay,” she said as we approached the auditorium.

“I’m fine.”

“It’s a big deal, speaking to the school. I know you must be nervous.”

She was wearing an oversize white wool sweater and black leggings, her pale blue Uggs, and a gold chain with her initials on it: CD. Standing there in the hall, she unclipped her necklace.

“We’ll trade, just for the assembly,” she said. “You wear mine, and I’ll wear yours. It’ll make you realize I’m right there with you.”

That made me feel better. “Thank you, I love that,” I said, glowing.

“Well, it’s just in case you turn shy telling those stories about parties on the yacht.”

“Ha-ha,” I said.

Almost instantly my palms turned sweaty. I reached behind my head, swept my hair away, but my fingers slipped on the clasp of Lizzie’s anchor necklace. Carole undid it for me. Then she slid her CD chain around my neck and made sure it was fastened right. She carefully put on my necklace.

I stared at Lizzie’s gold anchor nestled against Carole’s sweater and tried to swallow. Walking down the hall, my thoughts began to swirl. I felt unsteady and actually bumped into her.

“Oops,” I said. “Sorry.”

“You’ll do great,” she said, giving me a big hug. She opened the auditorium door and let me walk in ahead of her.

Like all of Royston High, the large room made me feel I had stepped back in time. The stained glass windows glinted with red-and-blue light, and the dark walls with their intricately carved mottos and motifs climbed to heavy beamed ceilings. Delicate cat etchings were placed beside every door, even in here.

I thought of Sarah Royston, of how she had cared so much about girls who were far from home, who had lost their way. At that moment, I felt no one had ever lost her way more than me.

Carole took a seat on the aisle, and I walked toward the stage. All the kids I’d met and was starting to know filled the chairs. I spotted Mark and Hideki, Angelique and Beth, nearly everyone from my class. Chloe sat with Mel, Junie, and a cluster of other middle school kids. With every step I took, I felt I was disappearing down a tunnel. I told myself I was entering Lizzie Land. I felt weird because I was shedding all my Emily-ness to get through this.

Mrs. Morton stood on the stage, beaming as I approached. Suddenly there was Casey—he was sitting on the aisle, second row. He grabbed my hand as I walked by.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“I missed the bus,” he said. “I stayed awake all night thinking about you, about everything, and I overslept.”

“You kept the promise?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said, giving my hand a firm squeeze. It flooded me with relief, but that feeling lasted only a few seconds.

I climbed the stairs up to the stage. I pushed memories away from my mind—rehearsals and performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Crucible, and Ghost Girl. That had been Emily. I tried to channel Lizzie, the times she’d read her poems in English class and, once, in a state poetry contest. I gazed out at everyone. My eyes found Casey again. His half smile looked worried. My stomach clenched.

Mrs. Morton introduced me. I stared down at Casey and felt him watching me. I knew he’d sat so close so he could see me better, so I would be more than a shadow. Mrs. Morton’s introduction echoed in my head, like I was hearing her words from far away. They reverberated, sounding distorted, as if they were coming through gauze.

“And here, with no further ado, is Lizzie Porter to tell us what it was like to live in Europe.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Morton,” I said. My mouth was so dry my lips stuck together. I took a minute, trying to breathe the way I’d learned in theater class. Deep breaths, fill my chest, feel my diaphragm lift.

“At the beginning of freshman year,” I began.

I heard myself recite: I went to Paris. I lived with my grandmother in a seventeenth-century building on the Ile St. Louis. Every day I would walk to school along the Seine, and I attended classes in an old convent just off Boulevard St. Germain, where Hemingway and other writers hung out at the cafés, and I felt as if I was an expatriate, too, an American living in Paris, just like them.