The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things Read online

  Shane hits the ground, his backpack smacking open. His iPad doesn’t bounce out, but everything else does: dog-eared notebooks, nubs of pencils, and what looks like sheet music. Only it’s not the professional preprinted kind. This is blank white paper with lines, notes, and bars drawn in. I’ve never known anyone who wrote music before. I break away from Ryan and Gwen, who’re talking about logistics for the cleanup next week. Shane doesn’t even glance up as I help him gather his stuff; he snatches his music, shoves to his feet, and strides away.

  Ryan watches with a faint frown. “He seems pretty antisocial.”

  “It’s hard being the new kid.” I remember how hard I tried to hide my desperate fear that people would sense that I wasn’t like them … and how much I wanted to make friends, but I couldn’t show it, not like grade school when you can hand over a juice box and seal the deal. By high school, there’s so much judgment.

  “You did okay,” he points out.

  “Because of you.”

  Ryan laughs. “It wasn’t a hardship. In case you didn’t notice, in junior high, I had exactly one friend, who was sick that day.”

  I remember. “Then Phillip moved to Cleveland. Do you talk to him much?”

  “Online sometimes.” Ryan slings an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s get to lunch.”

  People act like we’ve been dating for two years, but in fact, he’s never asked me out. Early on, I obsessed over it, trying to decide if he like liked me, but eventually we settled into a comfortable routine. Now he’s my best friend; since I got my laptop, we’re always on Skype when we aren’t together, but I can’t imagine making out with him anymore.

  We stand in line, so I can get what passes for a veggie entree at this school, macaroni and cheese with a side of withered green beans. I’m offered Jell-O, but that has pig parts in it, so I pass and follow Ryan to our table. Gwen from Green World doesn’t eat with us, but the freshmen do, and we let them because we remember how much it sucked. Sometimes Ryan’s other friends join us; he’s a Renaissance man these days, so in addition to all the academic clubs and the debate team, he also takes pictures for the yearbook and the school blog. Which doesn’t sound cool, maybe, but everyone knows who he is. I’m definitely the sidekick in this relationship.

  As I take my first bite, Ryan asks, “So what’s with you and the new kid?”

  I can’t place his tone, but I’m feeling squirrelly. “Huh?”

  “You invited him to join our stuff?” He says the last two words like some people say “our song,” as if it’s private and privileged, just for the two of us. But he’s never been exclusionary.

  “He was there when I showed up,” I say, puzzled. “So I told him about the meeting. Was I not supposed to?”

  Ryan snaps, “He’s a grunge kid. Like he cares about the environment. Right now he’s probably writing song lyrics about how nobody understands him.”

  Wow. He seems to have it in for Shane, which is so not like him. I frown while Tara and Kenny glance between us, wide-eyed. They’re not sure what’s going on, and neither am I.

  “Maybe we could talk about this later?”

  “Come on,” he says, gathering up the remnants of his lunch.

  I’m not sure I want to, but following Ryan has become second nature at this point. So I trail him into the hallway. I fold my arms, waiting for an explanation.

  “I just…” Here, Ryan pauses, at a loss for words as he never is. “He doesn’t seem like our type, that’s all.”

  “How can you tell, just by looking?” I ask incredulously. “You’ve hardly talked to him.”

  I can’t believe I’m hearing this from him. He should know, better than anyone, how it feels to be picked on and excluded, based on factors beyond one’s control. Until the summer after freshman year, he was five foot four and routinely got shoved inside lockers. So Ryan knows damn well how Shane must feel; apparently he just doesn’t care.

  “Well, I’m not letting you decide who I can be friends with,” I tell him.

  “You don’t know—” he starts.

  “Does he kill kittens? Sell drugs?”

  “One of the secretaries talked to my mom, okay? She said he’s got a thick file. I’m not supposed to know about it, but … that’s never good, right?”

  I almost get mad at Ryan then, but that—no. For a few seconds, I’m woozy and scared; this can’t happen. So I take four deep breaths, mustering a smile and a polite tone. “Did Dylan’s mom talk to yours?”

  Ms. Smith might be Mrs. McKenna’s source; she works in the school office, which should make Dylan an outcast. Instead, he manages to be popular, probably because he’s hot and plays multiple sports. He’s also the asshole leading the crew that picks on Shane, who’s supposedly a bad guy. I could laugh at the irony.

  “It doesn’t matter. Do what you want.” Ryan falls silent then.

  This feels weirdly like an argument, but I have no idea what it’s—and then it dawns on me. “Are you jealous?”

  Possibly not in a romantic sense, but Ryan’s used to being the only star in my firmament. Maybe he’s worried the Sage and Ryan Show can’t withstand Special Guest Shane. Who is totally uninterested in the role, believe me. Besides being the new kid, he’s got other problems, most of whom wear lettermen jackets.

  “Do I need to be?”

  Huh. That’s not a no.

  “You’ll always be my best friend, no matter how many others I make.” Is that what he wants to hear?

  Maybe I’m paying more attention than I usually do, but his face falls a fraction, and then he pulls on a goofy smile. “Obviously. Who could ever replace me?”

  “Nobody.”

  Ryan slings an arm around my shoulders on the way to chemistry. It occurs to me that people are used to seeing this because it doesn’t earn us a second glance. In chem, we’re lab partners, and if I’m honest, Ryan does most of the work. I’m not good with hard sciences or math; this frustrates me because I feel like I’m letting women down all over the world by feeding existing stereotypes. I wish I rocked at physics and could do differential equations, but I don’t have that type of intelligence. In fact, it’s likely I’ll never even get to physics or calculus.

  Mr. Oscar teaches all the advanced science classes. You’d think that’s a first name, not last, but in his case, you’d be wrong. He’s thirty-something, and he thinks he’s cool, which means he’s always telling people, “Call me Tom,” but he doesn’t notice that everyone still calls him Mr. Oscar and only laughs at his jokes to be polite. I laze through a lab experiment while Ryan does all the measuring, mixing, and pouring. I pull my weight with excellent note-taking, however, and then I log our result. Chemistry is boring, but since it’s after lunch it means there’s only three periods to go.

  The rest of the day, every time I see Shane, he’s getting a different kind of crap from the jock squad. At this point, if he was anybody else, I’d have already put a pink Post-it on his locker, but it feels like it would be too personal now. I mean, I could totally write, Your eyes take my breath away, in purple glitter pen, and I’d mean every word, but that would be so weird now that I’ve hung out with him. He’d probably take it wrong, not realizing this is what I do, and other people would see it, Ryan would hear about it, and it would become a thing—

  No. I’m definitely not writing about his eyes. That’s a quiet truth, just for me, hugged to my chest like the hitching breath I can’t control when I glimpse him. He’s like a hunk of chocolate cake slathered in frosting that I’m not supposed to have, but can’t help wanting.

  When I walk past the music room, I hear something that stills me in my tracks. People push past; I’ve become a rock in the middle of a rushing stream, but I can’t move. Then someone shoves me from behind, not on purpose, but the result is the same. I slam into the lockers past the classroom and bounce. The underclassmen who were wrestling don’t even notice that my brain has stopped firing.

  Shane Cavendish plays like it’s his reason for living.
>
  I don’t write that on the Post-it, of course. That would just get him beaten up even harder. Instead I scrawl, You’re awesome on the guitar, because the jocks might think that’s cool and leave him the hell alone. It’s a long shot, as I don’t have any particular cred with their crew, but being a musician is pretty spectacular. I can’t breathe for how good—how remarkably talented—he is. And I suspect that if he found out anyone was paying attention, he’d stop playing.

  Backtracking to his locker will make me late for class, but it’s worth it. I stick the note just below the vents, as I always do, but this time it feels weightier, more, somehow, like this is a turning point. Shaking off the odd sensation, I dodge into econ with a mumbled excuse. Sadly, it holds no weight with Mrs. Palmer. Unlike the male teachers, she isn’t impressed with talk of “female problems,” so I get my first detention of the year, only the second I’ve ever had.

  Since tomorrow is Friday and I have standing plans with Ryan, I ask, “Can I just get it over with tonight?”

  I calculate; school lets out at two forty-five. An hour of sitting in silence, and I’m supposed to be at work at four. If I hurry, I can still make my shift at the Curly Q. Which sounds like a diner, but it’s actually a salon. I’m not qualified to do anything but shampoo hair, sweep up, and answer the phone, but it’s better than fast food. I work two afternoons a week from four to eight, which earns me spending money for the week. Since I’m under eighteen, I get paid fifty cents an hour less than an adult; that makes me a bargain. After detention ends, I’ll just need to pedal hard to keep Mildred from yelling at me.

  Mrs. Palmer glances up from scribbling down my doom. “Can you get a ride home?”

  “Yeah.”

  I’ve always got my bike out front, and the town is small enough that I can ride anywhere I need to go from school. This is the one positive aspect of living in a tiny burg like this, especially given my opinion of privately owned fossil-fuel-burning vehicles, which covers nicely for my lingering fear

  “Then it’s fine with me. I’ll let Mr. Mackiewicz know.”

  The math teacher is on detention duty? Awesome. Math sucks, but I might learn something if Mackiewicz wasn’t such a black hole for hope. With such a good time ahead, economics drags even more than usual. I’m feeling bummed about the afternoon’s prospects as I take my place in Mackiewicz’s classroom, right up until Shane slips in. There are other people, too, mostly burners who cut class more than they attend. The room fills up, but I watch as he comes down the aisle toward me and settles in the desk next to mine.

  Questions clamor in my mind, and before I realize it, I’ve blurted, “Why are you here?”

  His brow goes up in quiet amusement, which is when I notice his black eye. “For fighting, of course.” Sardonic tone.

  “You mean when those assholes jumped you?”

  “The athletic department needs them. I’m superfluous. So, obviously, I need to work harder at getting along with my peers.” Though he’s trying to be cool, bitterness seeps through his flat tone like rain through a crack in the roof.

  “That is so unfair.”

  Shane shrugs. “Welcome to life. What’re you doing here? Doesn’t seem like your kind of place.” He offers a smile that makes me feel … I don’t even have the words, but it’s a longing that curls my toes.

  “Mrs. Palmer has no tolerance for tardiness,” I answer.

  “Harsh.”

  “Not really. I was late, so I’ll do my time.” With him sitting beside me, it doesn’t even feel like punishment anymore.

  Until Mackiewicz shuffles into the room and demands that we quiet down and do our homework. I do … for the ten minutes it takes him to doze off. The burners are already asleep, which leaves Shane and me alone for all intents and purposes. He digs into his backpack and produces the pink Post-it I left him. I guess he’s heard about the Princess.

  “You left me this?” he asks.

  I nod, feeling heat wash my cheeks.

  “When did you hear me play?” He studies me through those thick, curling lashes, giving me the I-see-you look. I could curl up in that expression like it’s an afghan.

  “Just before last period.”

  “Explain to me why this was worth a tardy.”

  So he knows, then. It sounds stupid when I try to articulate it; my reasons come out in a whispered jumble, about making somebody’s day better when things are total crap. I talk about silver linings and being the queen of bright and shiny things. He’s listening, but I sound crazy. I know I do. It’s pointless, possibly even pretentious, to think I could make a difference. I end my rambling recitation by saying as much.

  To my surprise, he shakes his head. “No way. I’m sure there are people who are glad that you pay attention to them, who need to know someone gives a shit.”

  “But not you?” I ask softly.

  “This is a cakewalk compared to what I’m used to dealing with on a daily basis.” The moment the words are out, he looks like he wishes he hadn’t spoken them, but it’s too late.

  I’m left wondering what’s so bad at home that being beaten up is a welcome change. His tropical eyes dare me to ask, dare me to pry into his business, but I’m not brave enough. If he wanted me to know more, he’d tell me, right? Otherwise it’s just me being nosy.

  “My aunt Gabby is pretty great,” I say. “But … it was bad before.”

  Shane makes a scoffing noise. “What do you know about ‘bad’?”

  He sees the image I’ve cultivated for the last three years. I went to therapy; I learned how to be good, how not to be angry. But every day, there’s an underground river inside me, and I’m trying not to drown in it, every second of the day. This smile hides so much. It hides everything.

  Part of me wants to tell him the truth. But I don’t. Instead I duck my head, dodging his slow realization that my life hasn’t been sunshine and rainbows. I rarely let anyone see Shadow Sage; I’ve done my best to bury her. Now she’s just a thin hand reaching up from a fresh grave.

  “Hey.” He touches my forearm briefly, and in those scant seconds, I register the heat of his fingertips, the calluses on his skin. “I didn’t mean to be a dick. I don’t hold the trademark on crappy deals.”

  He’s looking at me that way again, and the pretext of dispassion falls away. We’re twin counterweights on a scale, hanging in a moment of perfect balance. I hardly dare to breathe for fear the air will shift, and the hunger I’m seeing in him will disappear. Though he’s pretending otherwise, he wants somebody to notice him. I recognize it so fast because I’ve been there. Hey, world, please acknowledge my existence. Please care. On my end, nobody has ever seen me before. Not like this.

  Until this moment, I didn’t realize I was walking around all this time with a Shane-shaped hole inside of me.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I love weekends.

  Most teenagers probably feel the same way, but I adore them. Friday night belongs to Ryan. Since there’s so little to do in this town, he comes over with a DVD and I make popcorn on the stove. Aunt Gabby doesn’t own a microwave oven; she says they’re dangerous and can give you cancer. I don’t agree with all of her opinions, but I’m so grateful to be here that I don’t argue with her. This is heaven, compared to where I’ve been, and I’ll do anything to stay, anything to keep her happy.

  She’s four years younger than my dad would be, if he were alive, which makes her thirty-seven. Gabby was married once, but it didn’t stick, and she’s been single for five years. So that means she’s bustling around the bungalow, trying on various accessories. I can’t remember when her last date was, so she’s probably nervous.

  “How does this look?” she asks from her bedroom doorway.

  Outfit number four is a simple black dress with wedge heels and silver accents. “Good.”

  She makes a face. “You said that about everything I’ve had on.”

  “It’s impossible for you to look bad.”

  She has smooth blond hair that falls j
ust below her shoulders. While some people might argue that she needs to lose weight, I think she looks soft and feminine. Like me, she tends toward narrow shoulders and wide hips. It looks better on her. She’s a little shorter than I am, which makes her five three. We share the shape of our faces and eyebrows, but that’s where the resemblance ends.

  “What’re you and Ryan watching tonight?” she asks, buckling a belt around her waist.

  “I dunno.” We didn’t talk today like we usually do, so there was no chance to ask him.

  “I want him out of here by midnight.”

  I laugh. “Absolutely. But you realize, even if he slept in my bed, nothing would happen.”

  “I’ve always wondered what his deal is. Is he gay?”

  “I have no idea,” I admit. “But it would explain a lot. I mean, I understand why he wouldn’t want to come out, here. JFK isn’t the most progressive of schools.”

  Of course, that would mean I’m functioning as his beard. I’m not sure how I’d feel, if that were true. During year two of our friendship, I developed an unfortunate crush, but since he never showed any sign of returning it, I smashed all such inclinations. I figured it was better to keep him as a friend than embarrass myself by pushing for a relationship he didn’t want. In retrospect, I’m glad things worked out like this. My aunt warned me that high school boyfriends rarely carry beyond graduation, so this way, I have some hope of keeping him in my life, even after he goes to MIT.

  “Still good?” she asks, shaking back her hair.

  “You look fantastic. Tell me about this guy?”

  “He works for UPS.” Aunt Gabby makes a face, like there’s some shame in that.