Chasing Boys Page 9

  “Dad, this is my good friend El.”

  Good friend? I hardly know the girl, and we’re good friends?

  She gives me a hug. I don’t miss the awkward pat that Dylan gives her. The sight of it causes my heart to jolt a little.

  “Call me?” she asks, and I promise to as we leave the emergency room.

  Dylan and I hail a taxi. He slouches in the corner of the backseat and pulls out his phone. I look out the window, pretending not to listen.

  “Hey,” he says. “Yeah, good. Listen, Angie’s in the emergency room. No, fine now. Probably a while. Maybe you should—”

  He grunts a few times then says, “Whatever.”

  His phone light fades and we’re left in the darkness of the cab.

  We figure out we have just enough money for the trip to my place. When we get there we pay the driver and both get out.

  “I’m off,” he says, zipping up his jacket.

  “Was that Eric?” I have to ask.

  “They won,” says Dylan shortly. “He’s a little busy. Nothing he could do to help her. Thought he’d catch up tomorrow.”

  “I guess he’s right,” I say. I hate the way Dylan’s lips twist. “I mean, there really is nothing he could do . . .”

  Dylan just stares.

  I try again. “She didn’t want him to know anyway.”

  “Here’s a tip—Eric doesn’t need you to make excuses for him. Don’t you get it? He’s never going to be interested. You’re too noisy. You have too much to say, too much attitude. And, just in case you’ve forgotten again, he already has a girlfriend. Your good friend Angelique.” He shoves both hands into his pockets and strolls off down the road. “Good night, Ariel Ariel,” he calls out.

  I feel confused and hurt and angry. I want to lash out at Dylan—want to find some words that will pierce his thick skin.

  Finally I yell, “Yeah, well, maybe you should mind your own business.”

  But Dylan’s already left.

  43.

  When Dad left, he didn’t take a suitcase. It was like he’d decided on the spur of the moment that he wasn’t coming back. Mom didn’t bother to gather up his stuff at first. Then one day I came home from school and I felt it straightaway. Something had changed.

  With a turn of my key, the front door of the Big House (we’d already downgraded) opened, and my bag landed in the entry hall with a thump. So far, normality. The first thing I noticed was the hall coat rack. My dad’s things—his golf umbrella, his jacket—were gone.

  “Dad?” I called out. “Daddy?”

  I waited for a reply, but the only sounds were the ticking of my grandparents’ clock from the living room, the drip of a tap not quite turned off, a fly banging against a window in an effort to escape. Or maybe it just wanted some attention.

  “Dad?” I repeated, as I slowly walked upstairs.

  But I knew that he’d already gone.

  I checked the master bedroom first. Sunlight filtered through the lace curtains, framing the dust in the air. Dad’s slippers were missing from under the bed: old brown slippers with a tartan band.

  The dressing table looked a little bare. Mom’s things were still there, grouped on the right-hand side. Dad’s silver dish remained—the one he unloaded all his coins into. The one I often borrowed from. But his comb and handkerchiefs were gone.

  I opened my parents’ wardrobe doors to find a gap where his clothes had been.

  I poked at the hole, like I’d probe with my tongue at the space left by a missing tooth. A few bare hangers remained. His drawers were empty.

  I smoothed the cover on the big bed and noticed she’d left his pillow. I hugged it to me, breathing in deeply. The only smell was the fresh smell of fabric softener. My mother had washed the sheets and pillowcases many times since he’d left.

  He’d been gone for a while.

  I moved on to the bathroom. Aftershave, electric razor, deodorant—all gone.

  While his things had been at home, I could still pretend that he was coming back to us. That he would change his mind and we would laugh about it one day and say, “Remember the time you left?”

  Well, maybe not laugh.

  I moved on to the study, the TV room, the garage, the poolroom. Mom had been pretty thorough, removing any clues that he’d ever existed.

  A portrait still hung on the living room wall—a picture of a family frozen in time. A tall man was holding tightly on to a chubby bald baby. You could tell by the way his fingers bit into her smooth pillowy legs that he was scared she might fall. A fine-boned woman leaned against him, her hand draped over the shoulder of a girl with long blonde hair. The woman’s stance was casual, but her eyes were narrowed, perhaps in anticipation of the impending flash. Everyone was looking directly at the camera lens except for the baby. She looked off into the distance with a frown.

  I studied the man closely. Clear brown eyes, a sharp nose, ears flat against his head. He seemed happy, but who could tell?

  I found what I wanted in the kitchen. It was shoved right to the back of a kitchen cupboard, as if someone had tried to hide it. I grabbed it and returned to the master bedroom. I sat in the gap of Dad’s wardrobe and watched the sunlight grow weaker and turn into night. Mom found me there when she switched on the light.

  “Ariel,” she said in her quiet voice. As if it were normal to find me sitting in a wardrobe.

  I held the mug out to her. WORLD’S GREATEST DAD, it read.

  “He’s really gone,” I said.

  44.

  At home in bed that night, I add another thing to my list for Leonard. It’s more of a statement than a question, but I’d like to see where he stands on it.

  I believe that if somebody makes a promise to stay around, like a wedding vow or something, then they should keep it or not bother making it in the first place. Because that’s just crap if they leave and how can you believe anything they’ve said before or will say again?

  45.

  The next day I call Angelique’s cell, but all I get is her voice mail. I mope around all morning, until finally Mom asks if I want to help her clean out the kitchen cupboards.

  “Sorry, can’t,” I say. “I promised Desi I’d visit.”

  Which is kind of true.

  I think about calling Margot and getting her to meet me there, but I hang up after a couple of rings. I get a bottle of soda and tell Mom I’ll be home in a couple of hours. Then I walk to Desi’s house. A dose of Desi was just what I needed.

  I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m surprised when Margot answers the door.

  “Hello,” she says coolly, standing aside to let me in.

  “How’s the patient?” I ask.

  “If she’s sick, I’m a two-humped camel.”

  We both laugh, then fall silent. I want to ask her about her Friday night, but Desi calls out, “Who is it?” and we tramp into Desi’s room.

  Desi is wearing pajamas, socks, a sparkly scarf, and pink earmuffs. Her room is filled with stuffed toys and posters and knickknacks that line her windowsill and bedside table.

  “We were just talking about you!” says Desi, flinging her arms around me for a quick hug.

  As I remove myself, I see Margot give Desi a warning look.

  “You were?” I ask.

  “Is that for me?” Desi says, pointing to the bottle of soda. “That’s just what I feel like.”

  “I’ll get some glasses,” says Margot, escaping to the kitchen.

  Then Desi launches into how sick she’s been feeling, how high her temperature had got to, how bored she was.

  “You realize you missed out on the science test,” says Margot as she comes back in balancing glasses.

  “Oh, no!” Desi pouts, looking miserable.

  “Oh, no!” Margot and I say together with oversized pouts of our own.

  Then Margot and I are laughing and Desi finally joins in.

  “I actually studied for that test,” says Desi.

  “Studied?” asks Margot.


  “I brought my textbooks home,” says Desi.

  Then we talk about nothing in particular for the next two hours and everything feels like it used to. Well, nearly. Margot doesn’t talk about her Friday night. Neither do I. And Desi doesn’t ask either of us.

  “Do you think I’m loud?” I suddenly ask them both. Dylan’s opinion of me had been niggling away at the back of my mind. “Do you think I have too much attitude?”

  “Attitude?” repeats Margot, shaking her head as if she can’t believe what she’s hearing. “Loud?”

  “Sure,” says Desi. She shrieks as I whack her with a pillow. “What?” says Desi. “What did I say?”

  “Do you have anything to eat?” asks Margot. “I’m starving.”

  We grab something from Desi’s kitchen, which is an amazing treasure trove of chips, candy, and chocolate. Desi manages to eat a lot for a girl who’s sick, and Margot keeps us entertained with a Hitchcock movie that had been on TV late during the week, called The Birds. The movie is set in a little seaside town that is attacked by birds. Lots of birds. There is a scene in the movie where the main characters are hiding, locked in their house, although they can hear the birds outside pecking at the building.

  “It’s classic Hitchcock,” says Margot. “It’s not just a movie about outside forces. It’s also about the forces within us.”

  Desi says she knows what Margot means. She then goes on to talk about what the lead actress is or isn’t wearing in Hearts Are.

  All the while I can feel the elephant in the corner of the room.

  Everyone knows it’s there but no one’s talking about it. I want to tell them about the drama of Friday night and Angelique, but the right words won’t come. Maybe it’s because I don’t want Margot to turn cold and act like she doesn’t care. Maybe it’s because Angelique swore me to secrecy. Either way, I am stuck pretending everything’s normal.

  46.

  I phone Angelique’s cell on Sunday night and again there is no answer. Mom’s still coughing her head off, so I do a load of laundry and she acts like she’s won the lottery. Even Bella pats me on the cheek in a nice way, but instead of feeling good it makes me feel bad. It didn’t take much effort. It’s just not something I think of doing.

  Cow-leech. I make myself a promise to help out more around the house, but I doubt that I’ll keep it.

  I call Angelique’s number again. “Just checking how you are,” I say to her voice mail. “It’s El.”

  At school on Monday, Desi is waiting for me at the gate.

  “All better?” I ask.

  “Mom made me come, even though I am not entirely well.” Desi coughs for dramatic effect.

  The school bell rings as we make our way to the lockers.

  “I hear Angelique and Eric had a fight on Friday night,” says Desi, shoving at the books falling out of her locker.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “In the bathroom, this morning. I think it was Amanda Bingley. I had the door shut so I can’t really be sure. Anyway, she said that Angelique didn’t turn up to Friday night’s game.”

  I’m guessing by now that Margot has told Desi that I was invited to the game by Angelique. I bet my friends are both dying to know what really happened. If they just asked I might tell them.

  “Maybe Angelique had a good reason,” I say.

  Desi shakes her head and grabs my arm. “The beginning of the end, I’d say. Angelique out, El in.”

  I know she’s wrong but I feel a little warm glow inside.

  “Angelique’s nice enough, but I just don’t think she’s Eric’s type,” says Desi.

  At lunchtime I check out the conference room but Angelique’s not at the newspaper meeting. Coop, the newspaper’s self-designated sports reporter, waves and I half wave back and move on to the biography section. The chat today is all about the latest episode in Margot’s sister’s on-again off-again relationship with a loser named Rufus.

  “I mean, Rufus?” says Margot. “How could she go out with a boy named Rufus?”

  “Sounds like a dog,” says Desi. “Ruf ruf.”

  We move from Rufus to science and I realize that I haven’t done my science assignment that needs to be handed in at the end of the day. Margot and Desi give me some good excuses, but Margot goes too far when she offers her excuse of a dead grandmother.

  “Don’t say that, Margot,” says Desi, looking around. “That is such bad luck. What if El’s grandmother dies tonight? How would you feel?”

  “I would feel pretty amazed, considering El’s grandmother died ages ago,” says Margot.

  Then Margot rolls her eyes at me and I think how good it is to have someone who knows everything about you. Someone you can share your best and worst secrets with. Then I realize that I have been keeping secrets from Margot, and it makes me uncomfortable. Suddenly I want to come clean. To tell her everything.

  “Can I come over tonight?” I ask Margot.

  Margot shakes her head. “I’d love that, but I’ve got some serious studying to do if I’m going to pass that entrance exam for advanced math.”

  “You’re taking advanced math next year?” I ask.

  Margot looks like she’s been caught doing something illegal.

  “But I can’t do normal math,” wails Desi. “That means we won’t even be together for math next year. How can you do that? You’re breaking up the team. The only thing we’re going to have left together is English.”

  Already the guidance counselor is on our case about making the right subject choices for next year. It seems Margot must have been listening after all.

  At the end of the day it takes me a quarter of an hour to explain to my science teacher, Mrs. Van der Droop, that I did in fact do my science assignment but that I was unable to hand it in due to a virus on my computer.

  “That’s fine,” she says. “Feel free to bring a note from your parents to confirm your excuse and you can hand it in tomorrow.”

  “Parent,” I correct her.

  On a scale of one to ten, I figure my day has rated a two. I’m stomping down the corridor making as much noise as possible when someone yells at me from behind.

  “Hey, El. Wait.”

  It was Eric.

  My day had just gone from a two to a seven.

  I waited for Eric to catch up. Eric Callahan was running after me. Actually my day was a nine.

  “I just wanted to thank you. For Friday night. Angie told me. You saved her life.”

  I shake my head. “I’m sure I didn’t.”

  “I’m just glad you were there.”

  “How is she?” I ask like I’m really interested. I mean, I am interested. I am also interested in the fact that Eric’s arm has just brushed mine as we walk through the school gates.

  There’s a rumble of thunder from far away and I hope that Eric doesn’t think it’s my stomach.

  “She’s fine. Just taking things a bit easy.”

  “How was your game?”

  Eric’s face breaks into a smile and I swear the sun has peeped out from the clouds.

  I’m walking home with Eric Callahan. Actually, Eric Callahan is walking home with me, because I know for a fact where Eric lives and it is nowhere near me. Eric is giving me a play-by-play description of Friday night’s game, so I don’t have to say much. Sometime during our walk he has grabbed my backpack and swung it over one shoulder like it’s a bag filled with cotton wool. Considering it has my science textbook, math textbook, English novel, and pencil case, I’d say it was more like a sack of potatoes.

  I want to say, “Hey I can carry that,” but the fact is I like that he has it. That Eric Callahan has my backpack slung over one shoulder and is walking home with me.

  I ask him what he wants to do after finishing school. I figure he’s going to say something to do with math. Instead he says maybe a sportscaster—TV if he can get it. He tells me Mr. Mendez pulled a few strings to get him an internship in the newsroom at ABC.

  “Wow, that’s so cool,�
� I say.

  “Yeah. As they say, it’s not what you know . . .”

  “Hey, you could cover the Olympics. Travel the world. You could be famous,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Eric. “I could cope with that.”

  The streets around the school are filled with old houses. Most of them are huge. Some are freshly painted and have neat gardens. A few of these have garden gnomes or other statues dotted about. Some have concrete columns and lions guarding their doorway. Sprinkled among these are houses with crumbled brick fences, cracked concrete driveways, and weeds for gardens. A woman collecting her mail eyes us suspiciously.

  We take a shortcut through a back street and pass an abandoned factory surrounded by a high wire-mesh fence with litter collected at its base. A guard dog lies in the shadows.

  The thunder rumbles are louder now. Leaves and trash rush around like they’ve got somewhere else to go. My hair whips at my face, and I feel the temperature drop even before the first fat plops of rain touch the sidewalk.

  “Oh,” says Eric.

  And then the heavy clouds drop their load on us and we’re standing still in shock.

  “Come on,” says Eric.

  He makes a dash for a strip of trees just past the factory and I follow close behind. When he stops under the shelter of a large pine tree, I bump into him and we laugh.

  “Where did that come from?” he says, but all I can think of is the wet wool smell of Eric’s school sweater.

  The rain is hitting the ground with so much force that it is bouncing back up. It’s making so much noise that, when Eric says something, I miss it. I shake my head to show him I can’t hear and he leans in closer to my ear and says, “I think we should wait.”

  For a moment I think he’s talking about us. About maybe him and me getting together in the future sometime. In the next second I realize he’s talking about the rain. I could nod, but instead I reach up to his ear and say, “Okay.”

  “I give it ten minutes,” he says in my ear.