Handcuffs (5 page)

Raye is determined to medicate me with sugar. She pulls me along and I follow her because I can think of nothing else to do. There is no line at our cookie place, because it’s off in the corner and not as flashy as the other cookie place. They don’t have smoothies with protein infusions, but they do have frozen mocha-mugs, though these come in paper cups rather than mugs and have mucho-mocha fat grams, and chocolate shavings.

“I’ll take three cookies.” I try to ignore Raye’s words, though they are bouncing around in my head.

“Rough day?” Cute Cookie Guy is always sympathetic. If he wasn’t so obviously gay, I would run off with him, bear his children, and get fat eating cookies all day.

“Terrible day, terrible week, terrible life,” I say. He puts twelve cookies in a brown bag and rings me up for three. Cookie Guy rocks.

He hands me the bag. “At least you have a good metabolism.”

“Tell me about it.” Raye is practically shoving me out of the way, because she’s addicted to iced cappuccinos. Raye wears size six jeans and I wear size four. This means that I can borrow her jeans and she can’t wear mine. This is fair because she has a bank account and I don’t.

8

T
hree hours, two phone calls, one quick glance at Marion’s stupid blog, and six cookies later, we are on our way to the movies. Raye has a cute date named Josh, if you like the clean-cut type. My blind-date guy is tall, which is good, but kind of droopy, which is bad. He is down and depressed, which is okay (Parker likes the moody guys, all right?), but he’s moody because his girlfriend broke up with him, which is bad.

He keeps staring at the front of my new sweater, which I have realized might be a bit tight. If I liked him this might kind of be good, but I absolutely do not like him.

Clean-cut guy drives an SUV. Me and Droopy sit in the back. Raye keeps the conversation going until we get to the theater. The real theater, not the one at the mall. These guys are a class act.

So Droopy doesn’t say anything until we get out of the vehicle, then he comes around to help me down, and he asks,

“Do you like fish?”

“Um, like fried fish?”

“Do you like
to
fish?”

“What?”

“I really like to fish.”

“Like, catching fish with a fishing pole?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh-huh.” I am imagining that whore Kandace Freemont in the basement. If his parents are out, then they will be on his bed. It squeaks. Great, now I have visual
and
audio. If the family is home, they will be on his floor, on the striped quilt. So much for his not liking sleazy.

“You know what,” I say, and as I am opening my mouth I’m already kicking myself, but I just plow on and say, “there are a lot of challenges in this world, but I don’t have to try to outwit a fish, because I have all the confidence in the world that I am smarter than the average fish.” Raye is looking at me and kind of stomping her foot. Clean-cut guy is looking at me with a little half smile on his face. Droopy is staring at my chest again.

We get into the ticket line. Raye is quizzing Josh about the types of candy he likes. Reese’s Pieces get a yes, Sour Patch Kids a no, Junior Mints a sometimes. Raye doesn’t like Sour Patch Kids either. They should live happily ever after. I am trying to keep my mind out of the basement when I notice Droopy has dropped out of my peripheral vision. What’s he doing now, checking out my ass?

Raye and Josh, tickets in hand, sprint to the candy line, intent on those Reese’s Pieces, and I am left staring at the ticket guy, who has six piercings just in the side of his face that is turned toward me. (Eyebrow, nose, weird chin thing, and three earrings.) Freaky.

“How many?” he asks. I glance behind me. Droopy is intently studying the coming attraction posters.

“How many?” The ticket guy is getting impatient, and he’s a little intimidating, with all the barbells stuck through his face and the lank midnight black hair. Droopy, on the other hand, is not moving forward. I get the message, loud and clear. My blind date is rejecting me;
he’s forcing me to pay my own way.

“One,” I say. The ticket guy prints my single lonely ticket. I have to pay with my last wrinkled dollars and eight quarters.

Cheap ass suddenly becomes aware that he’s in the ticket line and asks for one ticket. I don’t know whether I should wait for him. Obviously we aren’t exactly on a date, are we? I could walk ahead to show him I don’t really need his lousy company. I feel all jangled-up and confused. Droopy does not go to the refreshment line, and I can’t afford even the cheapest, smallest item they sell. There is exactly thirty-five cents in my purse and a few sticky pennies that don’t count because they don’t fall out when I turn my purse upside down.

For some ridiculous reason, I feel my eyes start to tear up a little. I feel crappy that I can’t afford anything to snack on, and even more crappy that Droopy didn’t consider me date-worthy. What’s wrong with me? I take a really deep breath and force the feeling away, because there is no way I’m going to sit here and cry in the middle of this action-adventure spy thriller, with Kandace probably in his bed and my feet stuck on the floor thanks to the adhesive nature of spilled cola drinks, when I can’t even afford a syrupy fattening soda of my own. I take three deep breaths and then wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

Raye has horrible taste in movies. Not that she was really ever planning on watching this one. I look over at the end of the previews, prepared to bum just a couple of Reese’s Pieces, but she is already locked in an embrace with this Josh guy. My brain is in slow mode, and they catch my eye for like two seconds more than I’m comfortable with. It’s weird, seeing something like that from another perspective. His tongue, her tongue. Different when it’s my best friend and not some person on TV. Or me on the striped blanket on my ex-boyfriend’s floor, trying to be quiet. Anyway, I guess Raye likes Josh.

On-screen two people hit each other until one guy, the bad one, I think, falls down. I glance at my watch, but I can’t see it because the probably-good-guy is running through a cave now, and there’s no light. I’m guessing that the movie is about half over. I feel a stab of annoyance that morphs into anger. Anger that Raye’s being a total slut. But I know that’s not fair, because I want her to get over Ian and move on. Because if I am jealous that she went out with Ian for nearly a year, and jealous that she is finally able to kiss some new guy and forget about missing Ian, I wouldn’t be a very good friend, would I? So I’m not jealous, and I’m not pathetically sad, and I’m no longer stuck to the floor because I kept wiggling my feet until they pulled free.

As I sit through the movie I concentrate on being really still between the kissing session on one side and my anti-date on the other—oh, and trying to follow the movie, since I invested all my money in watching this film. I don’t use the armrests at all. By the time the lights come back on I’m almost used to having my elbows smashed up against my rib cage. Almost.

After the last explosion we file out of the theater, and Raye suggests we drive to the park. She wants a more scenic place to make out with Josh. To give them privacy I walk with Droopy down to the fishpond. It’s a koi pond, like with those really big fat goldfish.

“So would you like to fish here?” I ask him.

“No,” he says.

Then he moves in and tilts his head, and his whole face comes closer and closer. This is not possible. No way. He’s not trying to kiss me. Or at least he shouldn’t be, but, well, he is. I take a step back. I mean, really. I’m not saying I would have kissed him if he had paid for my movie ticket. It isn’t like the price of a movie ticket will guarantee you a few minutes of putting your tongue in my mouth. But he didn’t even pay for my ticket. I don’t
like
him. He’s weird and he’s boring and he stares. The not-paying thing was just like the ultimate in disdain, so even if I had liked him he would have ruined the date. Plus, since he and Josh are both from Mr. Tannahill’s neighborhood, the price of a movie ticket should be nothing to him. Disdain.

I do let him press his mouth against mine, just to see how it feels. Just to test myself. Nothing.

I pull away from him. I have proven that I’m impervious to the thrill of pressing up against random guys. This is good because I haven’t turned into a complete and total slut like my sister, but it’s bad because it proves that I’m still hung up on my ex. I’m not tempted to kiss some weird guy just because he’s leaning over and staring into my face. That’s kind of a relief. With the genes Paige and I share, who knows what could happen.

“Raye tells me you just got out of a serious relationship,” I say in a tone that indicates I care.

I would have sworn it was impossible, but he droops even more. Then he starts in on his life story, and after half an hour, which I deem plenty of time for Raye’s mouth to get to know Josh’s mouth, we head back to the SUV. I seriously hope they aren’t doing it or something.

Oddly enough, Raye and I stopped talking so much about sex like three months ago, and even though I’ve told her a little bit, well, mostly I’ve been happy not to discuss certain things. I mean, she knows things and I know things, but we stopped sharing the really private things. There used to be all this endless speculation. You know, what do you think it will be like? And who do you think we’ll do it with? That kind of stuff. Raye was really into Ian, the cheating dumping ex. I’m pretty damn sure she was pretty damn intimate with him, and look how that turned out.

Josh drops me off at my front door, and Raye says, “I’ll call you later,” in her breathy voice that means she really wants to talk.

I go up to my bedroom and check my e-mail. Nothing. Since I don’t feel very sleepy I reach under my bed and pull out the big sketch pad I bought last year for geometry class. Mr. Lopez was desperate to help us understand why accurate measurement is so important. A squared plus B squared equals C squared and all that. So he made us design our dream houses. Mine was four thousand square feet and, get this, had an ice-skating rink in the basement. I don’t even like ice-skating that much, but the girl next to me was putting a bowling alley in hers, and bowling is just way too loud for me.

I never could quite get the lines right, even though I used the ruler, and Mr. Lopez still thought it was outstanding. He hung it up on the wall of the classroom and wrote
Outstanding!
on it with his big red marker.

I really liked the way the pencil felt in my hand, which was weird, ’cause I hadn’t used a pencil since fourth grade when they started letting us use ink pens. The softness of it felt right, especially when it had just been sharpened. I took that yellow pencil and the notepad home with me and stored them back under my bed.

I even did a drawing of my real house, kind of for practice and kind of in case we have to move so that I can remember everything about it. Downstairs there’s the big eat-in kitchen, the dining room, the oversized family room, where my family gathers to watch TV. Upstairs there are four bedrooms, all with decent-sized closets—though none of them quite big enough to suit Paige—and my dad’s tiny little study that is right at the top of the steps, where he sits and works crossword puzzles when Mom says he should be updating his resume.

I look at the huge expanse of empty white paper for a few minutes, and then I start sketching the façade for my dream house. Mr. Lopez still has the final copy, but I have the drafts. They’re floor plans, completely open so you can look inside. I figure the house could use a front. My house would definitely have a privacy fence, and maybe a stained-glass window.

Making a drawing to scale is really hard. When I realize that the front door is two stories tall, and I totally didn’t mean for it to be that way, I shut the sketch pad and push it back under my bed.

Raye never calls and it’s really quiet in my room. I know music would just accentuate the loneliness of everything, like trying to cover the quiet up, when it’s always, always still there.

I pull the sketch pad back out and turn to the back part, the secret part, where sometimes I try to draw people. I close my eyes and imagine my ex-boyfriend, and when I’m done, it doesn’t look like a camel or a bear or George Washington, though it doesn’t look like him, either. I got the mouth right. I stare at the mouth for a long time before I put on my pajamas and get into bed.

They say bad things come in threes. Like the Prescotts: Paige, Parker, and Preston. Except if I had been the boy they wanted, my parents wouldn’t have produced a third child. Anyway, here are Parker’s Very Bad Three:

1. Broke up with the love of my life

2. Made my mom cry on Christmas

3. Went on pseudo-date with “I like fish” guy, aka Droopy

You would think it might be time for something good to happen.

But then I start to think. Stuff started going wrong around here a long time before this.

Kyle Henessy started following Paige around and freaking everybody out.

Paige talked Mom and Dad into getting a restraining order against Kyle, throwing his sister and staunch defender, Marion, into a murderous rage that has not cooled, even though it’s been nearly a year, and putting Kyle (this is unverified) into some kind of treatment for depression.