Exposed (8 page)

I type back, “Maybe,” and realize my hands are shaking with relief. He’s not mad, and he’s not acting like a pervert. “It’ll take me a few weeks to get the money or convince Mom, but I can at least get the first pair and add as I go.”

Another long few seconds pass, nearly a minute, then Paul comes back with: “Had an idea. Open a new window.”

All the pervert fears come creeping back, but I can imagine him grinning and what that grin would do to his already way-handsome face. The thought of it gives me new rounds of shivers and flutters.

When I open the new window, I type, “Okay.”

“Go to
portalpay.com.
Use
redgetsfit
as a username and
amherstemily
as your password.”

Confused, I do what he says. Portalpay’s an online banking site lots of people use to keep accounts to buy things online if they’re paranoid about putting credit card or bank info on merchant sites.

When I open the
redgetsfit
account like he instructed, I find a new account label with a time stamp of like three minutes ago, and a balance of $150.00 transferred from a blinded account.

Oh, no way. One hundred and fifty bucks?

“It’ll clear by tomorrow, and you can order the weights and a bench,” Paul types. “Your delivery address will be stored wherever you buy the stuff, so I won’t see it. Fair enough?”

My eyes stay fixed on the money in that new account as I fumble on the keyboard. “Paul, I can’t take money from you—especially not that much!”

I can’t believe he opened me an account that fast—and that he has that much cash hanging around in his own account to transfer over without a second thought. His dad must be super-loaded, like he told me. What would
that
be like, to have hundreds of dollars to blow whenever you want, on whatever you want to buy?

And he wants to buy weights for
me.

“This is pocket change for my dad. Trust me.” Paul gives me a winking smiley. “If it doesn’t feel right to take it as a gift, you can send the weights and bench to me later, once you move up to better equipment. But, Red, I do have a price.”

Oh.

My fingers come away from the keyboard, and I feel a little dizzy.

One hundred and fifty dollars. All mine for the clicking. And now the price.

So, he’s a pervert after all?

What if this is something way gross or out of the question?

I press my hands against the sides of my head to keep it from falling off my neck.

“Two things, okay?” he types.

I don’t answer because I know my fingers won’t move.

Paul is typing.

“The first thing is, my dad’s got bucks because he’s somebody. Like, somebody other people might know. You know?”

My eyes get wider. “Somebody famous?”

“Yeah. But I can’t give any of that out, okay? And you can’t ask me about it or tell anybody. Nobody. About my dad, or the money and stuff. We have to be a secret. Deal?”

I answer with “Sure.”

Easy enough, but I’m way curious now, and thinking of ways to Google famous guys with sons named Paul. Actors. Musicians. Politicians. Or he could be a mobster or something. Like in the television shows….

Paul is typing.

Part two of the deal.

Is this the perv part? Is this what’s going to freak me out and make all of this not real and not fun and just something nasty and stupid?

I squirm against the closet wall and wait, and wait. The words seem to take
forever
to pop up.

“Once you get all set up, you’ll have to stream me a few minutes of your workout.” Paul adds a smiley. “Bet you look twice as hot pressing weights on a bench.”

I do laugh out loud, then swear and clap my hand over my big mouth.

Crap.

Did my parents hear that?

And this boy is out of his mind.

For real.

Thank God I don’t hear any noises outside my room.

When I think I can safely let go of my mouth, I risk it and type, “You’re going to get me caught if you keep cracking me up.”

“Can’t have that. So … will you do it? Buy the weights, I mean. And keep my secret—and pay my price?”

“Yes.” My hands are shaking all over again, but it’s not hard to agree. “I’ll do it.”

Heat covers my whole body. If Paul could see me through the computer screen, he’d get a good look at a totally pink girl with even brighter pink cheeks. My toes curl and my heart squeezes and beats funny. It’s so warm and so, so nice. The last time that happened was when Adam-P first asked me out last year.

My eyes shoot to the crack I left so I can see into the room, and to the leg of my desk, and I think about
Poems
of Love
. Adam-P’s handsome, grinning face pops into my head. Then it morphs into embarrassed-sad-Adam-P, when he was apologizing for having herpes and me needing to get tested. Then it turns into angry-yelling-Adam-P when I got in his face about the cheerleader, after everybody told me who gave him that “gift that keeps on giving”
while we were still dating
, thank you very much.

How do you even know for sure you got it from me, bitch?
He was so horrible that day.

Because I’ve never been with anybody but you!
Me, I had been furious … and pathetic.

Then the smirk, and the way Adam-P rolled those blue eyes—eyes I thought were just so cute when he was saying sweet stuff to me—lies. I’ll never forget what he said next.

Yeah, Chan. Sure. Whatever you say.

Bastard.

I clench my fist and slowly come back to realizing where I am, what I’m supposed to be doing—and who I’m talking to. Not Adam-P. Not the bastard. Not anyone bad at all.

“Hello?” Paul’s typed a few times. Then, “You still awake?”

“Sorry. Spaced out for a second.” I shake my head and try to slam the door on all things Adam-P. “Thank you so much. You don’t know how much you’re helping me.”

Paul blows that off and gives me a few links where
I can order the weights and bench. I’ll have to think up some story for Mom about how I saved money, but that’s doable.

“I’d love your help with training, but do you really think I can do this?”

“Absolutely, Red. I can tell. You can do
anything
.” He calls up another smiley face. This one has a pounding heart, and I stare at it.

Paul likes me.

And he’ll help me. He’s already helped me, giving me the bucks to buy my weights and the links to get them ordered. Besides that, hundreds of miles away, on the other side of a keyboard, he won’t be a temptation in ways he shouldn’t be. After Adam-P, and what with fighting those stupid sores every month or two, I don’t want to have sex with anybody—or even the pressure of maybe possibly getting asked about sex.

Or the off-chance freak occurrence that I’d actually
want
to do it.

Maybe not until I’m in college. Or thirty.

I just don’t want to go through that again. And with school and twirling, I don’t have time. An Internet relationship will work just fine for now.

I click open the word processor and glance at the training program once more. I’ll have even less time if I stick to Paul’s plan, but I think I can do it. At least there’s hope, right?

And even better, if I get going and lose weight, maybe
I can help Dad do the same thing. That would be way past perfect. Dad and me, joining the ranks of the stick-thins-who-can-eat-anything.

“When can you talk again?” Paul’s font is bright purple, no doubt to get my attention. “Please say tomorrow night.”

I grin at the shining laptop screen. “Same time, same place,” I type.

He signs off with “CYL,” for “See You Later,” and “P.S., Because I could not stop for death …”

More Emily.

I smile all over again, sign off with a hug symbol, and “P.S., He kindly stopped for me.”

Then I sit there like the big idiot I am, with my fingers on my monitor, wishing I could part space and time and give Paul a kiss on the cheek.

Just a quick pop-kiss.

But he’d know I meant it to be more.

I didn’t make it
.

I bite my lower lip. I knew I couldn’t, knew I probably wouldn’t, but the reality feels like forty extra pounds on my head instead of one extra pound … probably on my butt.

JV, here I come.

Devin will die. I’ll die. I’m so dead. I’m so done.

I twist in my yellow plastic chair as the Bear squints at the papers I gave her. She tips her head back and scours each line and paragraph, peering underneath the lenses of her thick gold-rimmed glasses. Every few seconds, she sniffs as if to say,
This is such the bull droppings, Chan Shealy
.

Above us, fluorescent lights buzz and fritz. Shadows pitch across the Bear and her desk, then vanish when the blue-white glare blazes strong again. Outside the Bear’s windowless cube of an office, out in the main gym, Devin and the other girls have already started
warm-up. The
thump-thump-thump
of dance music invades the space, bounces up the yellow concrete walls, and ricochets over shelves of trophies and plaques and the dusty row of photos of the Bear standing on medal platforms, waving to crowds at gymnastic competitions.

Ve had no choice in Russia
, she had explained once, late at night when we were locked into the gym during a band retreat.
Children vith talent trained and performed. It vas expected.

When we asked what would have happened if she had refused to be a gymnast, she just stared at us and never answered.

Devin thought the Bear had downed a bit too much vodka from the little silver flask she usually kept tucked in her purse, especially on retreat nights.

Me, I thought I was glad I hadn’t grown up in Russia and gotten snatched away to live in some isolated gym the whole time I was little. I wouldn’t have known what to do without my parents and my house, without my stuff and my computer. How did people live before computers, anyway? It must have been so boring, not to know people from other places and be able to e-mail and send messages and chat.

Paul’s image floats through my mind.

Computers.

More opportunities. Better choices. And personal trainers who look like wicked Greek gods.

I almost have my weights-and-weight-bench cover story ready for Mom. And Dad, if he notices.

The Bear smacks her hand on the top page of my training plan.

I jump—and slam back to the reality of her office, her frown, and the fact I didn’t make weight.

Thump, thump, thump
. The beat from the music imitates my heart, only slower.

“Who gave you this?” Her eyes look ginormous behind her magnifying lenses. “Did you hire a trainer?”

Thump, thump, THUMP, thump
…

“Hire? Uh, yes. Sort of.” I clench my fists and try to keep my breathing even. “It’s … on the Internet, you know?”

The Bear stares at me so long I scoot back in the chair and brace for the tirade. The icy look in her giant eyes makes me shiver inside. A stupid five-year-old part of my brain screams,
She knows, she knows, somehow she knows all about Paul and our chat. She’ll tell Mom.
But an older, less lame part of my brain insists,
That’s totally ridiculous
.

And from outside, in the gym, where everybody probably thinks I’m dead or on the first bus to Fat Camp—
thump, thump, thump, THUMP.

God, could somebody shut off the music? I can’t take it.

Any second now, the Bear will just laugh at me and pop me back to the JV squad, and tell me good luck earning my way back up to varsity.

Thump. Thump …

She lets out a long breath and nods. Her fingers tap the papers as she speaks. “This is the first sign of you taking responsibility for
you
. Good. I am impressed.”

Responsibility—me—whoa.

Okay … she’s … impressed.

Color me stunned.

But
responsibility
. There’s that Mom-word again, the one she’s always using to beat Dad to death. And me, too, when she’s mad over something I’ve done—or not done. Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility. I go to school and practice and work my ass off at
everything
I do. How much more
responsible
can I be?

The music outside the office fades, and the question marks floating through my brain must be showing on my face, because the Bear says, “You have so very much talent in many things.”

What?

“Twirling, poetry, the language—vhatever you decide to pursue. But no belief. No confidence. And no—vhat is the right term. Ownership?”

More question marks float through my brain.

“You look for fast vays. Easy vays.” The Bear waves both hands, a lot like she does when she imitates butterflies in our practices. “Fast and easy earns you nothing but debts you can’t afford to pay. Your father, he knows, poor man. There is no fast, easy vay to fight how your body’s built. Maybe vith a plan, ve see some real progress, yes?”

My mouth drops open. All I can do is nod like a stupid bobble-head doll.

The Bear exhales out her long nose. “I vill give you another chance. Thursday two veeks from now, you veigh vith everyone else.”

I leap out of my chair and almost vault over the desk to hug her. At the last second, I manage to hold myself back. “Thank you. You’re—I’m—just thanks, Coach. I’ll—”

She cuts me off with a wave, then gestures toward the door.

Her meaning’s clear.

Practice, Chan Shealy. You are already late.

“And I should not see that number on the scale too far down, either,” she says loudly as I open the door.

I stop and look back.

Behind her desk, in the corner of that dark, dusty little office, the Bear reminds me of a mysterious wise woman hiding out in a faraway cave. Once upon a time, when she was younger, she might have been beautiful in that Devin-perfect way—only lots shorter, like some sort of Russian pixie.

She taps her copy of my training plan again. “Following this. Moderation. Do ve understand each other?”