Читать книгу Devilish - Maureen Johnson - Страница 14

You know how in those really tiny countries — the ones with a population of two people and three pounds of assorted fruit — the leaders always wear big hats and huge aviator sunglasses? It happens in nature too. Animals puff up to make themselves look bigger. Cats do it. Owls do it. It’s the puffing instinct. Rhode Island puffs. Rhode Island isn’t actually called Rhode Island — the real name is the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. We don’t use it because it takes up more space than we have. We’re small. Vermont is a superpower compared to us. If you screw up in Rhode Island, the news goes statewide in about ten minutes. There is no escape.

And we have trolleys in Providence. That’s how we get around if we don’t drive. It was no shock that I found Allison waiting for the trolley or that I found most of our school waiting with her. In fact, it seemed like half of Rhode Island was waiting for our trolley.

Allison barely turned as I approached. It wasn’t cold. She just looked like she wanted to be unrecognizable. I think she would have gladly erased her entire existence and embraced that happy state of nonbeing that Eastern religions are always talking about. I stood by her silently. Unfortunately, my joining her only drew attention. A clump of weedy Sebastian’s guys started chin-upping in interest.

‘Hey, barf bag,’ one of them said.

I fixed my eye on him.

‘Ignore him, Jane,’ Allison said.

‘But Al…’

‘Let me handle it myself, okay?’

I let that go for her sake, but I couldn’t do the same for the giggling sophomore who was staring Ally up and down but pretending to be fascinated by her phone.

‘Haven’t you ever seen one of those magical talking calculators before, sweetheart?’ I said innocently.

The girl’s eyes went wide. I felt Ally’s elbow land softly in my ribs.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

I started to go with her, but she indicated with a shake of the head that she wanted to go home alone. It was hard to let her go, but I could see she meant it. Many eyes followed her as she walked off.

Three zip codes’ worth of people tried to get onto the trolley when it came, meaning that we were all squashed together. I managed to take advantage of my height and wriggle through to an open spot under a handle bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone giving up their seat to a girl with a cast on her arm who couldn’t hold on. I could only see his back, but I knew from the gesture and from the exact length of the back, the way the gray Sebastian’s shirt just came out of the top of his pants over on the left, it could only be Elton.

Like I said, it had been six months, three weeks, and two days — the healing process was well under way. But still, what exactly are you supposed to do when the only decent, the only truly intelligent, the only really perfect guy within the entire metropolitan area dumps you for no reason at all? If you are me, you curl up in a ball for two weeks and refuse to eat, then you do things like apply to a men’s seminary school, pass out condoms at your Catholic school, argue with teachers, get a small tattoo, and stop doing homework. You go through that phase for about two months. And from that point on, you just overeat and generally lose control of your own mind whenever you see your ex. This plan had been working like a charm for me so far.

I tried to turn and get off, but I was wedged in. I almost knocked a baby out of her mother’s grip in the effort. The trolley doors shut and bang — Elton and I were two feet from each other, separated only by a slightly smelly guy who looked like he was probably from the art school. (He was wearing a big striped scarf. Only an artist guy wouldn’t change his look on a ninety-five-degree day.)

This was the closest I had gotten to Elton all this school year. He still had a tan. He had stopped spiking up his hair in the middle. It was longer now, a bit more romantic and shaggy, sweeping over the tops of his round glasses. I could see the pattern of his T-shirt through his white Sebastian’s dress shirt — it was his ‘Geek’ shirt. I had gotten him that shirt last Christmas, back when I had no hint at all that things would soon blow up and change.

‘Hey, Jane,’ he said. But it wasn’t a friendly ‘Hey, Jane.’ It was a ‘You are staring at the spot where my heart is located with an intensity that unnerves me’ kind of ‘Hey, Jane.’

‘Oh, hi,’ I said. Though there was no way he would ever believe I hadn’t noticed him, I still tried to pretend like I hadn’t. I stared at the art school guy’s book (it was called The Waye of the Witch, if you’re interested) until he saw this and turned away.

In my mind, I said the best things to Elton. I wrote countless excellent notes that I never sent. I came up with clever and highly detailed imaginary situations in which we were thrown together and somehow made him realize that life without me was a hollow shell. but he didn’t look like a hollow shell. He looked like he was back on the soccer team, all calf muscles and lean body. He looked sane and full of life. He was not, as I had hoped, pale, consumptive, and constantly weeping and mumbling my name.

And neither was I. Not anymore. But none of those wonderful things I had scripted out came to mind. Instead, what I blurted was, ‘Allison puked today.’

‘I heard,’ he said. And because he was Elton and not an ordinary, snorting Sebastianite, he seemed genuinely concerned. ‘Hope she’s okay.’

I nodded and found myself staring at the floor, unable to continue the conversation. I tried. I searched every part of my brain for something to say, but it was an empty vault. So I took the easy route out — I excused myself and got off at the next stop, then walked a mile home.

It was, in short, a terrible day. But it was behind me.