Sacred (10 page)

When Lily returned at lunchtime, she’d traded the shredded jeans for a skirt that I thought was probably a good three inches shorter than school regulations allowed, but I guess Mr. Steiner decided to let it slide since at least it wasn’t held together by safety pins. She had these fabulous sequined high-tops, unlaced, and her tank top was edged with sequins too.

I tried harder today to focus on eating lunch. But the voices all around me, the constant shoving by the boys as they jockeyed for position in the unspoken hierarchy, the raised eyebrows and silent discussions carried on by the girls … it was deafening, all of it. I focused on breathing regularly, trying to slow down my heartbeat to something approaching normal.

A tray crashed down on the table at my elbow, and I practically leaped out of my seat.

“Easy, Scarlett.” Andy laughed. “You’re jumpier than that horse of yours.”

I managed to smile. “Hey.”

Andy leaned in close and kissed me just beneath my ear. I tried not to count how many eyes were watching us, but I couldn’t help wondering if Will had seen.

He was sitting two tables over with a few other people. Today he was wearing a light brown T-shirt with the name of some band I didn’t know and low-slung jeans.

I didn’t intentionally catalog his outfit, and I didn’t really mean to pay such close attention to the way his brown hair fell across his forehead, I didn’t want to obsess over whether his eyes would look stormy or clear today … but it was like I couldn’t help myself. All I wanted to do was stare at him.

Andy must have noticed how often my eyes darted over to Will’s table. He frowned.

“Looks like that Cohen kid has made some friends,” he observed.

“Some kid,” I answered. “He’s older than we are.”

Andy shrugged. “In years, maybe. But in experience, no way.”

This earned a loud laugh from Lily. “Yeah, right, Andy,” she said. “You’ve spent the last sixteen years stuck on this island out in the Pacific, but you’ve seen more than Will, who was raised in New York.”

“Connecticut,” I corrected her. Damn. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud. One of my worst personality traits was that I couldn’t stand to hear incorrect information bandied about. I was, admittedly, a bit of a know-it-all.

Andy raised an eyebrow. “Quite the Cohen experts, aren’t you, girls? Well, Lil, for your information, you can
learn quite a bit about human nature without ever really going anywhere. This little island is a microcosm. If you pay enough attention, you see things.”

“What the hell’s a microcosm?”

This from Connell, who was powering through a bag of potato chips in between gulps of soda.

“
Micro
, meaning ‘small,’
cosm
, meaning ‘world.’ ” Andy loved to show off his vocabulary. “You know—this island is like a little version of the bigger world. Everything is represented here, in miniature.”

Connell nodded. “Got it. Like the tits of most of the girls at this table are a microcosm of the bigger, better tits of the girls on the mainland. Except for yours, Lily. Yours are great.”

The girls at the table squealed angrily, some crossing their arms across their chests in embarrassment.

“Take a good look, little man,” Lily answered smoothly, thrusting her chest in his direction. “This is as close as you’ll ever get.”

The table laughed loudly, and Connell blushed red.

Andy wasn’t done with his lecture. One of the things I liked best about him was how smart and well-read he was, but one of the things I liked least was how much he enjoyed showing off about it.

“Like I was saying, I’ll bet there’s nothing Mr. Big City Cohen has seen that I haven’t seen represented just as well here on the island, microcosmically.”

“You’ll bet, will you? How much?” This from Lily, of course.

“Twenty bucks.” Andy didn’t hesitate.

“Fifty,” Lily responded. “And the loser has to do the winner’s trig homework for a week.”

Andy snorted. “Yeah, like I’d let you anywhere near my homework. I actually want to
pass
trig.”

Lily narrowed her dark eyes at him. “Fine,” she said. “Loser has to convince his parents to let him throw a killer Halloween party.”

“Done,” Andy said, sticking out his hand to shake Lily’s. “Good thing the loser’s parents—the
Adamses
—have such a sweet pad.”

This wasn’t the first time it had occurred to me that Andy and Lily may have made a better couple than he and I did. They certainly thought alike.

Lily swiveled in her chair and waved at Will. “Hey,” she called. “You … new kid! Come over here, will you?”

It was clear who Lily was talking to, but Will looked around anyway, before standing and walking toward us. As he came closer, I saw that there were shadows under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept well.

“Yes?” he said when he reached the table. He was there because Lily had called him, but he looked at me as he spoke.

“Umm … my friends wanted to ask you something,” I mumbled, looking down at the salad I’d bought. It sat mostly untouched on my tray.

“Hey, sit down, will ya?” Andy was smooth now, a host, king of the castle.

Will slid into a chair next to Lily, across from me. Again, his eyes searched my face as if looking for something
important, something essential—something I was certain I didn’t have.

“Will,” Lily said, all business. “We want to hear what it was like growing up in a big city.”

“New Haven’s not that big,” Will said. “It’s only about a hundred and twenty thousand people or so.”

The rest of us laughed, some with envy. A hundred and twenty thousand people? To us islanders, that sounded enormous.

I considered the anonymity such a populace would provide. Here on Catalina, everyone knew everyone else’s business. Secrets were a luxury we just didn’t have. But a place like Will’s New Haven … you could live there all your life and only meet a fraction of the other residents. To me, it sounded blissful.

“Well,” Will allowed, “I suppose compared to here, that’s a lot of people. What do you want to know?”

Andy leaned back in his chair, confident. “What’s the weirdest thing you ever saw?”

Will shrugged. “There was the assistant professor at Yale who tried to hold his office hours in the nude to protest the clothing industry’s sweatshops,” he offered.

“Mrs. Arugssy,” Andy said.

“Who?” Lily asked.

“One of the part-time residents, spends the summers here.” He looked over at Connell as if to ask permission. Connell nodded. Andy continued. “She likes to sunbathe naked. Not bad, either, for a woman in her forties with three kids.”

“You were spying on her?” I was disgusted.

Andy shook his head. “Hardly. She hired me and Connell the summer before last to paint her house. And she didn’t bother covering up while we worked.” He and Connell shared a high five.

“I don’t think that’s in the same class,” Lily argued. “Will’s story involves someone using his nudity to make an important point about oppressed workers. Mrs. Arugssy is just a MILF who likes to parade around naked in front of horny boys.”

“Who you calling a boy?” Connell guffawed.

Will looked puzzled. I filled him in. “Andy has a theory that our island is a microcosm.”

“Ah,” Will responded.

“Okay,” Lily conceded. “I guess your proximity to Mrs. Arugssy makes up for the political intentions of Will’s professor example. My turn to ask the questions.” She turned to Will. “What about real deviants? You know … sickos. Did you ever see anything like that?”

Will seemed to choose his words carefully. “There was Father O’Brian. He taught at the Catholic school just down the road. He was arrested last winter for sexual abuse of some of the boys—his students.”

Andy chortled victoriously. “Coach Bradley was diddling those cheerleaders a few years back,” he said. “Remember? When we were in, like, the sixth grade? He had to leave the island before the girls’ dads pounded him.”

Lily shook her head. She was upset—but not by the story Will had shared, I could tell. She was angry that Andy was winning.

What was wrong with these people—with my friends? Didn’t they get it? Those boys who were abused by the priest, they weren’t pawns in a game. They were real people with real lives that would always be screwed up now, because some prick-head priest thought his desires were more important than their rights. And those cheerleaders—one of them, Amanda, worked at the soft-serve place on Main Street. She was no cheerleader now. Just twenty-three, she was already saddled with two little kids by two different guys, neither of whom was around anymore. Didn’t anyone but me think there just might be a connection between what had happened when she was a teenager and the life she had today?

“One more shot,” Andy told Lily. “Lunch is almost over.”

“Come on,” Lily said to Will, her voice pleading. “Didn’t you see anything that was really screwed up—like big-time? Anything truly bizarre?”

Will looked at me, his green eyes soft. “There was this one girl,” he said, so quietly that everyone leaned in a little to hear him. “She went to my school for a while, before they transferred her somewhere that she could get some help. She used to … cut herself. She had little white scars, all over her wrists, all up her arms. Then it got worse, so she didn’t wear anything that didn’t have long sleeves, and then she took a bunch of pills. After that, she didn’t come back to school. This was a few years ago, when I was a freshman. I was just a kid; I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t even notice the scars until after she’d been transferred. Then people started talking—people love to gossip,” he said meaningfully, “and
I realized what she’d been doing to herself. I didn’t know her at all, really. It was a big school. But something like that … you remember.”

The table was silent for a moment. I felt the weight of Will’s gaze on my face, and I wanted to shrug it off, I wanted to disappear—or punch him in the face. I realized my nails were cutting tiny crescents in my palms, and I forced my hands to relax.

Then the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.

“Shit!” Andy cursed, realizing he’d lost.

Lily held her hand out smugly, palm up. Andy slapped three bills, two twenties and a ten, into it.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll start working on my Halloween costume.”

During their exchange, Will stood smoothly from his seat at our table. He seared me with his eyes once more, then turned, and was gone.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it,” Andy complained as we left the cafeteria. “I don’t know how I’m going to convince my parents to let me throw a rager for Halloween.”

“You’ll figure something out,” I murmured, not really paying attention.

But then Andy turned me down the hallway, pressing me up against a row of freshmen’s lockers. He put his well-muscled arms on either side of my head and smiled down at me. “Well,” he said, “at least I’ll have the hottest date at the party.” He kissed me then, and I tasted the onions from the sandwich he’d had at lunch.

Ignoring the threesome of freshman boys who gawked at us, Andy continued. “You know, Scarlett, we’ve been seeing each other for a while now.”

“I guess so,” I said, trying not to be obvious about checking the time on my cell phone. I didn’t want to be late for Chemistry two days in a row.

“I was wondering,” Andy continued, his breath hot against my ear, “when you might want to … you know.” He ground his hips suggestively into mine, providing the freshman boys plenty to think about that night.

“Can we talk about this later?”

Andy looked at me, eyes hopeful. “Sure, sure, as long as we talk about it.” Suddenly, he looked as young and eager as the gawking boys who were waiting uncomfortably for access to their lockers.

“Yeah, we’ll talk.” I let Andy kiss me again before I ducked away from him, breaking into a sprint toward class.

“Promise?” he called after me.

This time, when I walked into Drama class, I was prepared to see Will. Before I crossed the threshold of the room, my eyes went directly to the seat he’d been in yesterday—
my
seat—and I felt a wave of confusing desperation when I saw that it was empty.

But then I saw him, two rows over, drawing something absently on the cover of his notebook. When I entered the room, he put down his pen and touched his forehead, as if in pain, and his eyes closed. I found my way to my seat and slid into it just as the bell rang. Mrs. B had her back to
us and was writing something on the board. I took out my notebook and pencil, preparing to take notes.

Just one look
, I promised myself, and slid my glance across to Will.

He wasn’t looking at me. His attention was focused on Mrs. B and the board.

My disappointment manifested itself in a sour taste in my mouth. I would be focused too, then. I looked up at Mrs. B and found her watching me.

“Hi, Scarlett,” she said warmly. “It’s so nice to have you back with us.”

My blush was hot on my cheeks. “Sorry I ran out of here yesterday.”

“No need to apologize,” she said. “We’re just glad you’re here today.”

She started talking about kitchen-sink realism, listing the various elements of the genre on the chalkboard. I fell into a familiar rhythm—taking notes, writing my own questions in the margin of my notebook for later thought and research.

Some kids hate taking notes. Not me. I love it. I get to disappear as the words I hear flow through my body to my fingers where I record them in neat letters on the page.

I have excellent handwriting. Back in elementary school, I won the penmanship award three years running, until the principal decided it was time to give someone else a turn. It soothed me to watch Mrs. B’s words transform into rows of writing in my notebook, and my world narrowed and focused as I wrote.

“Okay,” Mrs. B said at last, wiping the chalk from her
hands. “Now everybody pair up and take a good look at Arthur Miller’s
Death of a Salesman
. I want you to decide—does his play qualify as kitchen-sink realism? Why or why not?”

Ah. Classification and defense. What is something, and why? I was good at this, too, and my classmates knew it. Three people called my name, asking to be my partner.