I know things will go back to normal after tomorrow.
Caro won’t talk to me after the presentation, and it looks like things are getting back to how they were with Mom and Dad. It’s good. It’s all really good. It’ll all be like it was. Like I deserve.
But then why . . .
Why do I feel so bad?
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T W E N T Y
MEL AND CARO ended up doing all of the talking during our presentation, which was fine with me. I hadn’t thought about what a class presentation really meant.
How it was a whole standing-in-front-of-an-entire-room-of-people (annoying people, but still) thing. It was like being at a party, only worse because it was school, I wasn’t drunk, and Julia wasn’t there.
If there was a way I could have bolted out of class and gone and gotten a drink, I would have.
I suppose I could have. I could have walked out of class, out of school, and found a drink. But I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. I was too scared to move. I stood there, too tall, too quiet, tugging at the ends of my too-red hair, and missed J so much it felt like I couldn’t breathe.
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If Julia had been there, I could have gotten through today okay. Safely.
We were the last group to go, and when the bell rang Mel was still talking. Gladwell said, “Thank you all for a wonderful presentation,” raising an eyebrow at me because I hadn’t said a word the whole time. (But she didn’t give Patrick the eyebrow. Apparently clicking a mouse counts as talking.)
Everyone left except us and the other two groups that had spoken. Of course they got their grades fi rst. Caro disappeared into the hall before we got ours, though, because Beth gave her a look, and so me and Patrick and Mel were left standing there.
“You know,” Mel said, “I thought about you when I was talking about Huck and Jim’s friendship.”
I (stupidly) nodded, figuring Mel was about to head off into one of his tangents where he asked me if I liked tacos or something, but instead he said, “You must really miss Julia. I mean, you never talk about her or anything, which is kind of weird, but I can just tell you do. I talked to her at parties a couple of times, you know. She had a great laugh. I remember this one time—” He kept talking and I thought about taking my copy of Huckleberry Finn and stuffing it in his mouth so he’d shut up.
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I could actually see myself doing it. I wanted to do it.
I wanted to do it so badly it scared me.
Patrick cleared his throat. I looked at him, surprised.
He looked away, of course. Mel glanced at him too but kept talking to me. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think Julia would have wanted you to be so sad.”
I forced myself to nod. A few conversations at a party and Mel was qualified to tell me what Julia wanted? It was like being in freaking Pinewood or talking to stupid Laurie, where everyone was so sure they knew J and what she thought about her life and me even though they’d never met her.
“See, the thing about grief is—” Mel said, and Patrick shifted the laptop he was carrying, his elbow clipping Mel’s side.
“Sorry,” Patrick said. “Hey, can you go grab the CDs?
I left them on the bookshelf in the back. I would get them, but I have to put all this stuff away before my next class.”
“Sure,” Mel said and patted my arm before he turned away.
“Thanks,” I told Patrick, and I meant it. I thought he understood, and it was nice that someone knew that people telling you what you should feel sucks.
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“Sure. The anger will go away, you know. Mostly, anyway.”
“What?” That wasn’t understanding at all, and I felt so stupid for thinking, even for a second, that someone could really get how I felt. It pissed me off.
He took a step back. “Never mind.”
“No, go on. You were going to, what? Tell me I’m not sad, I’m angry at myself? Wow, you’re a genius. Con-gratulations on observing the obvious!”
“You know what I mean,” Patrick muttered.
“Whatever.” I started to walk away. Hearing my grade could wait. I just wanted to get out of there.
“You’re angry at her,” he said. “At Julia.”
I kept walking like I didn’t hear him. But I did.
I should have just left it at that, but I had to sit through lunch and the rest of my classes, and even though I ignored Patrick I knew he was there. I saw him sitting in physics with both hands clamped to his lab table like they were bolted to it. He got up and left when we still had twenty minutes to go, saying he had to use the bathroom and never coming back.
And did anything happen to him? Did the teacher realize he was gone and report him? Of course not.
I got mad then. I got really mad. It was okay for him to leave class early, because he was smart and not 223
a freak like me? It was okay for him to skulk around hallways and not talk during class presentations? But me not wanting to talk about Julia with the losers I’m stuck seeing in class?
Well, something must be wrong with me, and I shouldn’t be so sad. But wait! I’m not sad, I’m mad at Julia!
I raised my hand and asked to go to the nurse’s offi ce.
I told the nurse I had cramps. She let me lie down and went off to gossip with the secretaries. I used her phone to call Dad. He was on a conference call, but his secretary put me through.
I told him he didn’t need to pick me up. I said I was going to the library. I said I was going with Caro. I said she was going to give me a ride home. He said, “That’s wonderful, sweetheart,” and sounded so happy. The “sweetheart” didn’t even sound forced.
I should have called him back and said I’d changed my mind or something. Should have, should have, should have. Instead I flipped through the school directory in the nurse’s desk and wrote down an address. Patrick lives in Meadow Hills, over by the golf course.
I took the bus there. His house looked like every other one on the street, white with big columns and a stained glass window over the front door. A woman shouted,
“Come in!” when I knocked.
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I didn’t see anyone when I walked inside, but there was a television on in the room right in front of me, and past that I could see a kitchen with the fake marble lino-leum Julia’s mom always wanted. (And Julia was right, it looks horrible.)
There was a staircase just to my right, one of those split ones for people with houses on three levels. The upstairs part was barricaded with the gates people get for little kids. The downstairs part led to a hallway.
“I thought you weren’t coming till after six!” It was the woman again, still shouting, and before I could say anything, she added, “I’ve got Milton in the tub, Wendy, so just go downstairs and get Patrick to help you carry the bikes out. He came home early to get them ready.”
I went downstairs. I didn’t bother knocking before I started opening doors. The first one led to a laundry room, and the second room was full of hospital-type stuff: a bed with railings, a wheelchair, and one of those walkers medical shows use during the very special episode when someone learns to walk again.
The third one was Patrick’s room and Patrick was sitting on his bed, which was just a mattress on the fl oor.
His room was a total mess, clothes and books and CDs everywhere, and I could barely get the door open. When 225
I did I just stood there, staring at him sitting cross-legged and hunched over his laptop.
He didn’t even look up, and after a minute he said,
“I know, I promised I’d get the bikes together and help with Dad before Wendy comes over, but I had a really bad day.” I thought of a million things to say like, “Yeah, must be tough to get to leave class whenever you feel like it,” or “I just came by to say you’re a loser freak.