Page 3 of What You Left Me
“Failing would be you not showing up.”
“How does he know that I won’t go?”
“Exactly. Orange house. Basketball hoop. Ten o’clock.”
“We’ll see.”
“Who are you?”
“The name next to yours in the yearbook,” she says.
I try to get a good look at her, but the sun’s so bright she becomes her own kind of light. Her eyes are all I can make out. They’re brown, but a shiny kind, like maple syrup glistening on a pancake.
Man, I’m hungry.
“Guess I need to pay better attention to the yearbook,” I say.
“Same,” she whispers.
• • •
When I open my mouth to speak, my voice crackles with Martin’s style of speech, one so easy to fall into, I do it without even realizing. My dress may as well be made of concrete. It blocks my exasperated air from releasing, shoving it into space around my rib cage.
“We’ve got a whole list of things to do,” he says. “Number one, watchBack to the Future.I can’t sleep until you’ve met the real Marty McFly.”
“You know I can stream it, right?”
“You can?” His tone isn’t mocking, just playful. “My copy is special though. It’s the Marty ‘Fly’ McGee platinum edition. Extremely rare. Actually, one of a kind.”
“Wow. What an honor.”
“Please, please. It’s not a big deal. I don’t like to make a fuss. At the end of the day, I’m just a regular guy.”
We share a laugh. As it tapers out, there’s a pause, like in the space between words, something has shifted. It’s almost awkward.
Martin swoops back in to save the moment. “All right, back to my list. Number two, look at our yearbook. If I’ve missed you, my alphabetical neighbor I’ve never been put next to at any other school thing, who knows what else might be in there?” He pauses to smile at me. Mouth open, molars visible, so lacking in self-consciousness that I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from smiling too big in return. “Number three, I’m gonna need you to show me what there is to love about this place.” He takes out his phone. “So, Graduation Girl, how about a phone number for your new friend Marty McGee?”
I shake my head no, because if there is one lesson I will take away from my four years here, one definitive thing I have learned, the hard way, it is to beware the smiling sweet talker.
Stop while you’re ahead, Petra.
You have more important things to accomplish this weekend.
• • •
Graduation Girl’s got her own set of tricks. No name. Won’t give me her number. Smells like that fancy soap store in the mall where all the girls get their bath bombs. “Seriously though, how have we never met?” I ask her.
Ms. Hornsby, resident terrifying math teacher, walks by to shush us. Graduation Girl gets all flustered, which makes me laugh. “What can she do to us for talking?” GG doesn’t answer. “I’ve got a lot of bucket list items to cross off with you,” I say, trying to puff out my voice so it sounds bigger. More confident.
“Martin!” Ms. Hornsby scolds. “Be quiet!”
“Yeah, Martin,” GG jokes, “be quiet.” She plays it like she’s kidding, but I can tell she means it. Her chipped-off nail polish is all over the lap of her gown, and she’s going to town on the little that is left on her nails.
My mind runs through all the ways I could get her to notice me again. There’s always flicking her arm. Eh. Being annoying doesn’t seem like the right move. I look around for another idea and accidentally make hard eye contact with Hornsby, which makes me sweat, which makes me overcompensate, which makes me start humming, which is actually the perfect solution. It’s not talking. It’s fair game.
After a big throat clear and a good neck crack, I push air through my teeth to recreate the synthesized greatness of Van Halen. No human being can resist the musical mastery that is “Jump.”
I check in on Graduation Girl. The ridiculousness of my humming should be at least a half smile’s worth of points from her.
