Me, My Elf & I (31 page)

“Would you like some tea? And some snacks?” my mother asks.

“That’s not—” Mr. Sanchez starts to say, but Mrs. Sanchez interrupts him.

“Yes!” she says. “I’ll help you.” She leaps up from the couch and follows my mom to the kitchen.

 

The Sanchezes end up staying for dinner. My mom and Maria talk nonstop about family. And it turns out that Victor spent a lot of time hunting when he was a kid, so he, Dad, and Grove trade stories for an hour straight. At some point, Mercedes and I manage to sneak up to my bedroom with a plate of peanut butter cookies and milk (cow’s milk, that is). We lay on the floor and fill each other in on our last few weeks. She tells me all about how she had to clean the house every day and go to church and the botanica with her
abuela
plus babysit for her sisters. I tell her about the ELPH audition, skipping the part about hexing Bella, and fill her in about Timber.

“Do you think he actually likes me?” I ask her.

“Duh,” she says. “He talks to Ari about you all the time in improv.”

I break a cookie in half, scattering crumbs on the plate. “Really?”

“Yeah. And he’s been calling you. So I’d say that he’s into you.” Mercedes dunks her cookie into her milk.

“How do I find out for sure, though?”

“Ask him out,” she says with her mouth full.

“You mean on a date?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“What if he says no?”

She reaches for another cookie. “Then you know for sure.”

“You sound like my cousin Briar.”

“She must be brilliant,” Mercedes says, then she adds, “If you go out with Timber that’ll stick it to Bella more than anything.”

“Well,” I say, ducking my head. “That’s not why I’d ask him out.”

“You really like him, don’t you?” she asks.

I nod.

“Then you should definitely call him.” Mercedes dunks a second cookie, then pops it in her mouth. “Ask Ari. He’ll tell you.”

I toss my cookie to the plate because I’m not hungry anymore. “Ari won’t even talk to me.”

“Mercedes, Zephyr!” my mom calls up the stairs. “The Sanchezes have to go home.”

We pick up the plate and glasses and head downstairs.

“Don’t worry about Ari,” Mercedes tells me. “He never stays mad that long. By Monday everything will be fine.”

“I hope so,” I say. “I miss him.”

Mercedes and I hug by the front door. “Good luck tomorrow with the ELPH shoot,” she tells me as she goes out with her parents.

“You won’t be doing that,” my mother says.

“Why not?” I ask. “I’m not sick anymore. I can do it.”

“Not a chance,” says Mom. “I discussed it with Maria. You’re not going anywhere tomorrow. You’re grounded.”

“What!” I yell. “For how long?” I can’t believe she’s doing this to me.

“A week,” she says.

Maria turns around and winks at my mom. “You go, girl,” she tells her.

“I’ll give you a call once I mix that arthritis remedy for your mother,” Mom says to Maria and waves good-bye. Then she pulls me inside and shuts the door.

“You didn’t discuss anything with Maria,” I say to my mother. She raises her eyebrows at me. “You wouldn’t because that would mean telling her about
us
. That we’re not, you know,
normal
.”

“I’m not quite that stupid, Zephyr,” Mom says. I’m speechless.

“What did you tell her?” Dad asks, as surprised as I am.

“I told her that Zephyr disobeyed me about the audition but then she got the part so I didn’t know what to do. And Maria said it was simple. If you disobeyed me, then you should not do the shoot and you should be grounded.”

“But Mom!” I protest. “You don’t understand. Bella pushed me too far. I cast that spell on her because it was the only way to stop her from spreading more rumors about Dad and hurting our family.”

“Did you ever think about asking her to stop?” Dad says.

I can’t even help it, I
have
to roll my eyes at that one. “You don’t ask a girl like Bella to stop being mean. That’s who she is.”

“Because she feels threatened,” Dad says.

I shake my head. They are so clueless! “No, you don’t get it. She has all the power. Everyone is afraid of her.”

“Exactly,” says Dad. “She’s afraid of losing that power. And you threatened her.”

“I did not!” I yell. “I never threatened her. I was so nice to her until . . .”

“No, no,” says Mom. “She felt threatened by who you are, not by what you did.”

“Huh?” I ask, not sure who’s more in the dark here, me or my parents.

“Look at it from her perspective,” Mom says. “A new girl comes to school. She’s beautiful, interesting, kind. People like her immediately.”

“I hate to burst your bubble about me, but that’s not how it happened. I was the biggest dork in the world when I first came to school.”

“You may have felt that way,” Dad says. “But that’s obviously not how other people saw you.”

“Otherwise,” Mom adds. “Why would you have friends like Ari and Mercedes? And why would Timber take an interest in you? And why would Bella think you could be competition for the audition?”

“But what am I supposed to do about that? I can’t help what people think of me and if they feel threatened by who I am.”

“That’s right,” says Mom. “You can’t control what people think about you or how they treat you. You can only control how you treat others and how you react to the way they treat you.”

I slump against the wall and cross my arms. “So you want me to change? That’s not fair!”

“Not at all,” Dad says. “That’s the point.”

“You guys are making
no
sense,” I tell my parents.

“If you had stayed true to yourself in this situation, Zephyr, you would have never cast an evil spell,” my mother says. “You would have been kind and compassionate. You would’ve come to us for help when the problem got out of hand. But instead, you acted like an erdler. And therefore, we’re treating you like one. That’s why you’re grounded.”

I hang my head because I know in a way they’re right. “But,” I say, “what you’re asking me to do is really hard.”

“Yes,” says my mom. “It is. But we expect more from you than just merely being normal.”

“You have to be true to yourself,” my dad adds. “True to who you are on the inside.” He taps his breastbone as he says this and I think about the shadow in my heart. “And who you are, Zephyr, is an elf. Be proud of that. Be fierce about it and protect that part of yourself because in the end, that’s all we’ve got.”

chapter 16

HERE’S ONE THING
I know for sure about being a teenager in the erdler world: being grounded sucks! My parents called Mr. O’Donnell and told him that I wasn’t allowed to do the ELPH shoot. They also made it abundantly clear: no phone, no Treo, and no friends visiting. The only thing I’m allowed to do is go to school but at least that’s gotta be interesting.

I get to BAPAHS early on Monday morning. There are only a few people in the hallways but most of them glance at me and say, “Hey” or “What up?” At first I look over my shoulder, trying to figure out who’s behind me that everyone’s saying hello to. Then I realize that it’s me they’re talking to, so I chirp, “Hi” and “Hello” back because when I say, “What up?” it just sounds silly. I find Ari and Mercedes at their usual table in the courtyard, huddled over Ari’s BlackBerry.

“Zephyr!” Mercedes says when she sees me. She opens her arms and I lean down for a quick hug.

Then I look at Ari. “Hi,” I offer, timidly.

“Hey, Zeph, what’s new?” he says.

“Well, er, um, lots of stuff, I guess,” I stammer.

He cracks up. “She’s so easy to fluster,” he says to Mercedes. Then he turns to me. “Obviously like a million things have happened to you in the last couple of weeks. How’s your grandma?”

“She’s better. Thank you for asking,” I say, then I blurt out, “Does this mean you’re not mad at me anymore?”

“For what?” he asks.

“You know,” I whisper.

“For telling everyone I’m gay?” he nearly shouts as he looks all around dramatically. “Yeah, about that . . .”

I drop down into the seat next to him. “Ari.” I place both of my hands on his forearm. “I am really, really sorry,” I plead and I wish I could tell him that I get it. That I have a secret, too, and if everyone found out, my whole life would change. But, of course, I can’t say that, so I just say, “Please believe me, I didn’t mean to ruin your life. If I had known how sensitive an issue it is, I would have never, ever told Bella. Like I told you, where I come from it’s just not a big deal who you love and I thought since you named your band GGJB that it was something you were okay with other people knowing. Now I can’t even believe that I was so stupid—”

Ari interrupts me. “The thing is, Zephyr, I’m not sure what I am. What I told you was that I think I
might
be gay. And I never told anybody but you and Mercedes what GGJB stands for. So what really bites is that now I’ve been labeled. I’m officially the gay guy.”

“Everyone thought you were gay anyway,” Mercedes says.

“Yeah, but the problem is, I didn’t get to decide when or if to confirm that or deny what other people thought. It should’ve been my choice, my decision.”

“If there was some way I could take it back,” I tell Ari. “Or maybe I can tell everyone that you don’t know what you are.”

“You can’t, Zephyr. We both know that. It’s out there.”

I bury my face in my hands. “I’m just so sorry!”

“Actually, I’m dealing with it okay,” Ari says. “I mean, I already had a therapist before this happened, so you know, it’s just more fodder. And according to Dr. Melfi . . . ” Mercedes giggles, but I’m not sure what the joke is. “I mean Dr. Farmingham,” Ari says. “I can either choose to break ties with you for outing me because I no longer have a ‘safe relationship’ with you . . . ,” he says using finger quotes.

“Oh Ari!” I say, my heart breaking at the thought of truly losing his friendship forever.

“Or,” he continues, “I can forgive you and we can work to ‘rebuild our trust.’” More finger quotes.

“Maybe you should do a ropes course together in the woods,” Mercedes says with a snort.

“Yeah, and we’ll do a trust fall at the end,” Ari adds.

“Only make Zephyr be the one who falls off the log,” Mercedes says, giggling.

“Right,” says Ari laughing, too. “And I’ll drop her on her butt.”

“Wait, you guys are being sarcastic now, right?” I ask.

“Our little Zephyr,” says Ari. “She’s growing up so fast!” He reaches over and tousles my hair. “I guess I can’t stay mad at you forever. It wasn’t entirely your fault. And the fact that you’ve apologized like ninety-eight times does make a difference.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re all friends again,” says Mercedes as she scrolls through Web pages on Ari’s BlackBerry. “Moving on. Zeph, did you see the post of Bella’s ELPH audition on YouTube?”

“Are you kidding? I’m totally grounded. Not only did my parents take away the ELPH shoot, I’m not allowed near anything that looks like a computer. I’m surprised they let me use the microwave.”

“You’ve got to see this,” Ari says. Mercedes hands me the BlackBerry, which is set to a BellaHater entry from the weekend.

I click on the link. Up comes the video of Bella’s flubbed audition. Mercedes and Ari are laughing so hard I’m afraid they’ll fall out of their chairs. But I don’t think it’s funny. “That’s so cruel to post it on YouTube,” I say, still feeling guilty for zapping Bella.

“How can you say that?” Mercedes nearly shouts at me.

“She’s been so mean to us,” says Ari.

“Yeah, but we can’t control how people treat us,” I tell them. “We can only control how we treat other people.”

“She’s so Dalai Lama about everything,” Ari says.

“Seriously, girl, did you o.d. on Paxil this morning?” Mercedes asks me.

“But something was wrong with her,” I say.

“Yeah,” says Mercedes. “She was high.”

“Drugs?” I ask. Only I know it couldn’t have been drugs. It was me who made her act like that.

“Oh please, that girl has been using since eighth grade,” Ari says. “Her parents sent her to rehab.”

I gasp. “No!” My stomach clenches.

“It’s been coming for a long time. She drinks like a fish and has been caught with cocaine twice,” Mercedes says.

“And I know for a fact she buys pot because my cousin’s a total stoner who sold her some weed last year,” says Ari.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Ask Timber,” says Mercedes. “He’ll tell you. Her daddy is some big-time lawyer so he always gets her off when she gets busted, but this audition thing apparently sent her parents over the edge. It’s all so very Lindsay Lohan.”

“Timber told me that this is probably the best thing that ever happened to her because the drinking and drugs were getting really out of hand.” Ari takes the BlackBerry from me. “Let’s see what else BellaHater has to say.” He goes back to the blog and I read over his shoulder:

“That’s weird,” I say. “The only person I told I didn’t care about the part was Chelsea.”

Ari and Mercedes look at each other, then at me. “Are you serious?” Ari asks. Before I can explain, he says, “That dawg!”

“Two-timing, back-stabbing skank!” Mercedes says, but she smiles, too.

“I think I love her!” says Ari.

“What are you guys talking about?” I ask.

“Duh, Zeph.” Ari leans in close. “Now we know who BellaHater is.”