Swimming Through Clouds (A YA Contemporary Novel) (5 page)

L

My gut contracts. I take the Post-it and return the tray. I
thought I did a decent job at keeping my pain a secret. Thinking back to the
morning, I wonder when Lagan picked up that my arm hurts. I decide I can handle
this. I have lied about home my entire life. I have more excuses than pairs of
unmatched socks when it comes to Dad. Sigh. Poker face in place, I walk over to
the table next to Lagan’s and sit down in front of an untouched tray of food.

“Thanks.” I let the whispered word fall in my lap.

“No
problemo
,” Lagan answers,
looking away from me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that he hasn’t eaten
yet either. He lowers his head with his eyes closed momentarily. Then he looks
up and picks up his fork.

“
Yo
, L-Train! Thanks for saving us
seats.” Two of Lagan’s basketball buds approach our table, but Lagan intercepts
them before they put their trays down.

“Sorry, dudes.
Gotta
keep my
grades up so I don’t get kicked off the team.” Lagan pats his math book on the
table next to his tray.

“Coach would never drop you. Shoot. You’re only the best
point-forward Hinsdale has seen in like the last century.” The taller of the
two fellas tosses in his opinion.

“I’m not worried about the coach. If my parents see my GPA
drop, Mom will personally escort me off the court. Not taking my chances. I’ll
catch you guys at practice. Peace.” Lagan nods to the two, and they shrug
shoulders before walking away to another table. All the while I’m staring at my
tray, being what I am best. Invisible.

I see that he brought me soup, yogurt, juice, and two slices
of white bread. Untoasted.
Do you notice my lips too?
Who am I kidding? Who can’t tell there’s
something wrong with me? I dismiss the voices in my head and say to my tray,
“I’m ready for question number one. Going for twenty-one. Yes, I am.”

“
Alrighty
then.” Lagan smiles, and
the sight of that dimple greets me like than an umbrella on a rainy day.

Just hearing his voice transports me far away from the
wicked world in which I live most of my minutes. I just hope his questions will
keep me here, and Lagan won’t snoop around my house of pain.

“Question number one: Is your name really Talia Grace
Vanderbilt, Talia meaning ‘dew drop from heaven’?”

I nod to my tray, giggling softly to myself.

“Great! Two points.”

Two girls approach our table, and Lagan stops. The tall
blonde with a hot pink hair extension clipped on her right side stops in front
of Lagan and asks, “Is anyone sitting here, Lag-in?”

“English assignment, Nadine. Sorry.” Lagan shrugs his
shoulders.

I glance up and see the other girl, the one with
perfectly-crimped, shoulder length, brown hair, roll her eyes.

Nadine clears her throat. “That’s cool. Let’s go,
Stace
.”

I guess the brunette chick is Stacey. They walk past several
empty tables before sitting down. Must be nice to be so popular. Can’t help but
feel a little special that he didn’t ditch our sort-of conversation for his fan
club co-presidents.

Lagan shakes his head to himself. “
Wanna
know something funny?”

Are we still playing the game? Or—

Lagan answers his own question. “With a name like Lagan
Kumar Desai, middle name a definite no, and LK, not nearly as cool as TJ or JR.
So in third grade, I actually gave my parents the option to change my name to
Logan. They didn’t go for it.”

But you look
like a Lagan, not a Logan.

Lagan keeps talking.
“
Do
you ever wish your parents had hyphenated your name? How easy if they had
written La-
gan
, as in, she finished the soup and the
soup is now
gone
, on my birth certificate?”

So the question was…? I look to my left, to the exit sign.
Because the soup? Definitely not
gone
yet. I carefully spoon a bit into my mouth, failing to pass
it past my stinging lips.
Ouch!

“Three-pointer! You are a natural. Awesome. Next question:
Do you have a favorite color? Let me guess. Green? Since you’ve worn a
different green, long sleeve pretty much since school started.”

I nod toward my tray, an unusual combination of warmth and
want clouding my senses. Details. He notices details.

“Another two points. Rock and roll! Is your favorite color
red since it reminds you of the sunrise?”

Huh? My eyes shift to the exit sign.
I
just told you my favorite color was green.
A smile escapes me. Lagan is creatively sneaking in details about himself. I
have to write an intro biography on him too, after all.

“Three more points. We quickly approach twenty-one, ladies
and gentlemen. This girl can shoot! Let’s continue. Question number five: Does
the soup taste good?” He nods his head, predicting an easy yes.

I want to say yes, but the salty droplets inevitably roll
over the tender, unhealed slits on my lips. I swallow, not wanting to seem
ungrateful, but shift my eyes to the exit sign again. Not even sure why I tell
the truth. I wait for Lagan’s response or the next question, but he doesn’t
speak. I look up and over to his seat, thinking the game’s over and I’ve lost.
Except Lagan isn’t there anymore. He’s walking back to the food line, and now
he’s talking to the cafeteria lady who handed me my tray. She leaves him, then
returns promptly and hands him something. He strolls back to our table, and I
turn my attention to the soup, picking up a spoonful and pouring it into the
bowl. Lagan places an ice-cream cup in between us and sits down.

“Sorry about the soup. I should have known it would hurt
your lips. Try the ice cream, and be ready. The next question is coming right
up. By the way, I told Vita, the lunch lady, to put it on my tab.”

My lips are ugly and he can see them. Instinctively, I pull
some hair over my face and reach over to retrieve the ice cream. Peeling the
cover and scooping my first nibble, I guess his next question and nod to my
spoon before he asks. The icy coldness soothes my lips.

“Okay, so we’re up to question number six. But before I ask,
let’s just tally up the score.” He pretends to push buttons on his imaginary
calculator in the sky. “The grand total so far is thirteen. Less than ten
points to winning. ‘On with the game!’ the crowd screams. Yes, yes, of course.
Time out is over.”

I’m beginning to wonder if he forgot that I’m sitting within
earshot as he plays sports announcer. He continues after taking a breath. Glad
he remembers to breathe.

“Question number six: Is the ice cream
yummay
in your
tummay
?” Lagan asks.

I look away, then realize that I meant to nod, so I quickly
nod, then finally just whisper the words, “Yes. Thank you.” The ice cream is
perfect, and my
tummay
ain’t
complaining either.

“Fifteen points, ladies and gentleman. We are approaching
the home stretch, and there are less than three minutes till the buzzer. Must
think quickly.” He fidgets and frets. We both know he pre-wrote the script.

“Thank you for clarifying before we move on to the final two
questions of the afternoon. Question number seven…” Lagan stops talking.

He cups one hand in the other and reverses. Then his left
hand in his right. He repeats this motion, and then finally speaks.

“Someday,” he speaks slowly, his voice hoarse but gentle.
“Not today. Not soon. When you’re ready. When you decide it’s the right time.
Someday? Will you tell me what happened to your...lips?”

Looking down, panic seizes me. I meant to look away. His
words spread like curtains in the space between us, uncovering a window to
Lagan’s heart. A window he’s trying to look through. Into my life.
 

Of course I
would never tell you the deal with my lips.

My eyes well up, and as I gather my things to leave before
the bell rings, so I can hide in the girls’ bathroom, I can see him scribbling
a note on a fresh Sticky Note. Planned to skip Gym today with my arm, because
wearing my uniform and expose my inch-thick, gauze covering was never an
option. Swatting away tears in defeat, Lagan pushes clean cafeteria napkins
across to me. Then he rests his hand on my tray. He will take it for me. Again.

He doesn’t try to stop me this time. Just slips me a little
yellow square sheet during this brief interaction. I take the paper and
hightail it to the girls’ locker room. The moment the cafeteria doors swing
behind me, my eyes scan the words on the note.

I just want
you to know that, if I could kiss and make them better, I would kiss your lips
a thousand times.

How does he do
that?
I ask myself as heat
spreads across my cheeks. Draw a rainbow over my storm. With a little, yellow
Post-it note.

I flip the note over and a giggle escapes me as I read the
rest:

Not
romantically. Purely for medicinal purposes, of course. Btw, that last ? was
worth 10 pts. whether you answered it or not. So you win! C. U. tom.

L

CHAPTER
FIVE

I wish
Mom were around to talk to. Isn’t that what girls do? Talk to their mothers
about boys and crushes and the dancing butterflies that turn somersaults inside
you.
Mom, as much as you called me your sunlight, you were the
one who brightened my days. Most of them. I miss you, Mom.

When I was born, I brought light into our house of darkness.
That’s what Mom used to say to me when I grew old enough to remember her words.
She also said that when I cried as a newborn, it made her cry. She felt sad
when I felt sad. She laughed when I laughed. She slept when I slept. Her name
means “song,” and she sang to me a sweet “
gita
” or
two each time she swayed me to sleep. Everything changed when a year passed and
Justice was born.

Mom named me Talia because each day she awoke, like the
morning dew, I reminded her that there was a heaven. I hated heaven for taking
her from me. If heaven had to choose, why didn’t heaven choose Dad? Who was I
kidding? Hell probably had first dibs on the man.

Dad chose Jesse’s name.
Justice
. As a lawyer, all he thought about was
the law. Dad’s kids would know the law, and they would follow it to a T. Or
else. That’s why we called my little brother Jesse. Every chance we had to
forget Dad’s tyranny, we did.

Jesse hated his real name. When the teachers would call his
name off the attendance list on the first day of school, he wouldn’t even
respond. Then someone else would say aloud, “He goes by ‘Jesse,’” and that
would be the first and last time you heard his formal name spoken all year.

On my first day of kindergarten, Dad woke me up two hours
before the bus was scheduled to arrive to go over the “Proper Rules of Conduct
of a Respectable Daughter in Public.” I didn’t even know what half of the
words he said meant, but I learned to nod and agree at an early age. He
lectured me, and soon both of us siblings, each year when school began. We had
the gist of his speech down to our own memorized list.  

Be on time.

Get good grades.

Socialize with no one.

Come straight home.

In first grade, I asked Dad for the same thing every
six-year-old asks for. “Can I have a
playdate
with my
friend Melody?”

Dad corrected me on two points. “You do not have time for
friends after school, and you do not have time to play. Playing is reserved for
lazy people who amount to nothing but welfare- dependent citizens.”

I still didn’t get it. “Daddy, why is it bad to play when I
have plenty of time and hardly any homework?” He sat in his office behind his
desk, and his response was my first list. Then he handed it to me, and his
words sealed my fate. “Now, Talia, if you have any extra time after you
complete your chores, you can have a
playdate
.”
Having only recently learned to read, the sheer number of words on the page
crushed any hope of a semi-normal childhood.

I saw all the other kids run off on with each others’
mommies, inviting each other to birthday parties and weekend movies. Maybe
their lists were shorter? I put my best tough-girl face on when I rejected
their kind invitations. “Sorry, I can’t make it.” Before long, the kids stopped
asking.

At night, under my covers, I cried myself to sleep and
dreamt of tea parties and dress-up fun. I always included Jesse in my dreams,
because he longed for friends, too. And Mom would be a queen or a fairy or an
angel, free of rules and free to fly. When she flew, her long black hair
glistened in the sunlight. Mom only broke Dad’s laws twice, each incident
etched in my mind like a ridge of quicksand around a beautiful castle. I drown
each time I try to swim past the memories.

Mom and Dad rarely left the house together, leaving Jess and
I alone. Parent-teacher conferences marked one annual exception. Dad prepped
her with the same speech every year: “Stick to business. No social comments.
Only questions regarding the kids’ academic progress.”