I crawl back into bed and run my finger along each of Elgin’s eyebrows. “Wake up,” I whisper. His mouth twitches and I run my finger along his lips. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.
One year my parents took Carlie and me to Maui for Christmas. It was hot, but we strung Christmas lights on our balcony. I touched everything in the hotel room before we left — the TV, the lampshade, the towels, the hair dryer — like it was some sort of ritual. I wanted to because I loved it there. And maybe because I thought I’d never be back.
PAUL SHUTS THE DOOR and takes a seat behind his big, crappy desk. If it fell on you it would kill you instantly. I’ve thought about that a lot in this office. “How many classes have you missed since the beginning of the year?” He picks up a pen and taps it against his lip. I have to go see the school counsellor every time I’m late now. The secretary is so tired of giving me late slips she barely acknowledged my presence this morning. Usually she makes a big deal, staring me down, huffing at the other secretaries, her fluffy bangs fluttering around for what feels like forever before she’ll fill out the slip. This morning she must have seen me coming; the late slip was sitting on the counter already filled out and she was back at her desk doing paperwork.
“I’ve missed a few classes,” I say. “I’ve been sick.”
“You look fine to me.” When Paul smiles he shows a mouth full of abnormally long teeth. One of his incisors is dead, grey and creepy. “What made you late this morning?”
“I was sick to my stomach. Really sick. I was throwing up. Berries and seeds and something else, like animal fur or something.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“No, probably not.”
There’s a photo sitting on the windowsill behind Paul’s head. A woman sits at a table scattered with half-empty dishes. There are candles burning as though the dinner is a celebration, maybe a birthday. She’s laughing and she looks young. Her hands are small like a girl’s. “Is that your daughter?”
“That’s my wife.” Paul turns the frame away from me. “Do you have a doctor’s note?”
“No. Do you think I should go to the doctor?” I look back quickly at the clock: ten to ten. Elgin’s probably still sleeping. “Could I have leukemia? Kids my age get that all the time, don’t they?”
“I don’t think leukemia is common.”
“I should get to class.”
“Yes, you should, but you’re here.” He crosses his legs under his desk. Today he’s wearing tan-coloured Birkenstocks. I find his toes offensive even from a distance. He wears sandals in the winter too, but with socks. It’s hard to believe even when you’re sitting right in front of him. Some girls think he’s good-looking, but I don’t see it. All I see is that dead tooth. “Why are you here?” Paul says. When I look up he’s giving me the raised eyebrows and I wonder if he can tell I had sex this morning. He comes around and stands behind me where I can’t see him and talks about my opportunities, my potential, my budding possibilities. He talks about flowers and loses me, then he asks me if I’m distracted by some of the guys at school.
“No,” I say.
He asks me if I still think about Max, but when he says his name what I see is a puffy, bloated body busting up on the jagged rocks along Ambleside Beach, the same rocks Kate climbed down on her thirteenth birthday when we were drunk on a shared beer. Her party dress ballooned around her in the water.
“No,” I say. “I don’t think about Max.”
Out the window Rana is smoking in the courtyard in plain view. Something has happened to her, like she decided to become a completely different person this year. She doesn’t take any bullshit anymore and she gets away with everything. Somehow at school she always manages to stay below the radar. At home is a different story. She sees me sitting in the office and sticks her tongue into her cheek like she’s giving a blow-job.
“You and Elgin Murphy are dating?”
I snap back to attention. “What?”
“How long have you been seeing each other?” He’s sitting behind his desk once again, chin cupped in hand, leaning toward me like a girlfriend who wants all the gossip. His tactics are obvious to the point of being sad.
“We’re friends.” I examine Paul’s face carefully and wonder how he found out about us. When Kate and Elgin broke up the whole school was devastated, like the world stopped making sense and all hope was gone. It was a load of crap and I would have told that to anyone if anyone had bothered to ask me. Everyone wanted to know why, but there was no reason, things just died the way things do and Elgin and Kate went back to eating lunch in their regular spots, Kate in the drama room with friends, and well, no one ever really saw Elgin eat lunch before he was with Kate, so he just went back to wandering through the field and the smoke pit and now I guess he’s with me. The alcove beside the library is still empty.
“We hang out sometimes.”
Paul is smiling and nodding, wanting a little more. Could he actually be spying on me? Would Paul crouch in the pine tree outside my bedroom window? Can you climb a tree in Birkenstocks? I squint and he picks up his pen again and runs it along his bottom lip. “You’re friends, though?” he says.
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“He’s barely attended any classes this year,” Paul says, flipping through attendance records. “Do you know what’s going on with him?”
“Nope.”
Paul looks out the window and catches Rana taking a long drag from her cigarette. She drops it quickly and heads for the cafeteria. “I worry about you guys,” he says, shrugging his shoulders like it doesn’t really matter whether he does or not. It’s hard to tell who he’s talking about specifically. “If you see Elgin, tell him I’d like to talk to him? Let’s make grade ten a better year, okay?” He goes over to his bookcase and fidgets with the spines of the books, pulling one out and then pushing it back in. “I gave you my cell number if you ever need to talk.”
“Sure.” I pick up my books and make a phony attempt to look like an enthusiastic student.
“I’m here for you guys.” He pats my shoulder and squeezes my arm. “Use me.” The warning bell for second block rings. As I stride out of the room, I look at Paul over my shoulder and catch him staring right at my ass.
I MAKE IT INSIDE the portable before the second bell rings, but I can feel Mrs. Sasaki watching me the whole way to my desk. She makes some kind of joke about having to put an exponential number next to my absences. It’s stupid and everyone laughs and then we learn how to graph the sine or the cosine or something like that. The portable is like a huge oven. I imagine the principal opening the door at the end of class and finding us all baked and crispy. Rana is sitting beside me gouging a big long mark down her desk with her compass. She turns to me and mouths this sucks dick and I wonder where she suddenly got such a foul mouth. She pulls her cigarettes out of her backpack, stuffing them into her pocket and raising her hand to go to the bathroom. I slump down in my chair and check my phone. Elgin’s sent me two text messages already.
When the bell rings, I’m one of the first ones out of the class and I go stand in the thick weeds behind the portable to call Elgin. I twist a long piece of grass around my finger and after the first ring he picks up. “Let’s go for a swim,” he says. I can tell by his voice he’s pacing. He hates being in the house by himself.