Max took a detour to check on the lab mice. Admit it, he thought as he fed them a few pieces of celery. You're stalling. "Wish me luck," he whispered to Fred, his favorite mouse. Then he forced himself to walk over to the lab station he shared with Liz.
"We're doing a comparison between animal and plant cells today," Liz said in a rush when Max slid onto his lab stool. "I'm trying to decide which category a couch potato would fall into."
Her laugh sounded a little fake. But at least she was trying to joke around with him the way she usually did-even if she still hadn't managed to look at him.
If Liz was going to act as if nothing had happened, he would, too. We should both get Oscar nominations after this class, Max thought.
"Okay, let's get started," Ms. Hardy called. "Everyone on the left, use a vegetable scraping to make a slide. Everyone on the right, use a swab to get some cells from the inside of your cheek and do a slide. When you've answered the questions on your own slide-animal or plant-then trade with another team and answer the rest."
Max picked up one of the swabs. "I'll do it."
Liz grabbed the swab away. "Are you crazy?" she demanded. She lowered her voice. "Do you even know what your cells look like? What if they don't look… the same?"
She was right. Ms. Hardy often walked around and looked at their slides. And if there was something different about his cells, she would definitely notice.
Max was usually so careful, so cautious. He couldn't believe he'd almost done something that amazingly stupid. This thing with Liz had him totally messed up. All he could think about was her. He couldn't stop wondering what was going on in her head.
Liz wiped the inside of her mouth with the swab. Max pulled a chipped glass slide out of the little wooden box and handed it to her. She ran the swab over the glass, then Max dropped a thin plastic slide cover on top of the cell sample she'd deposited.
At least we can still do this, he thought. They had always been a perfect match as lab partners.
"I wanted to talk to you about what happened on Saturday," Liz said. She slipped the side under the microscope's metal clips, then peered into the eyepiece, checking the focus.
Yeah, Liz definitely doesn't back away from things, Max thought. Pretending nothing had happened might have been easier, but it just wasn't her.
"Telling me the truth must have been so hard, and then I totally flipped out on you," Liz continued. "I didn't even thank you for saving my life." She used the knob on the side of the microscope to make a few minor adjustments, then looked up at Max. Her gaze was direct and steady, but Max saw a tiny muscle in her eyelid jump.
It's taking everything she has to do this, he thought. She can't even look at me anymore without it being this huge effort.
"I don't know what to say. 'I'm sorry' sounds so lame. But I'm really sorry," she told him. "And thanks… thanks for saving my life."
"You're welcome." Max turned away and checked the lab book. "We're supposed to do a sketch and label the organelles." He pulled out a sheet of paper and pushed it toward Liz. "You'd better do the drawing. We both know I can't even draw stick figures."
Liz looked into the eyepiece again. She picked up a pencil and drew a big circle, still studying the slide.
"Start with the Golgi apparatus," Max suggested. "Do you see it? It's supposed to look like a stack of deflated balloons."
Liz shifted position, and a lock of her dark hair tumbled over her shoulder and fell across the drawing. Max started to brush it back-and she jerked away.
She bent down and fiddled with her shoe. "I… I tripped," she stammered. "The heel on this shoe always wobbles. I keep forgetting to take it to the shoe repair." The yellow streaks in her aura widened until they almost blotted out the amber.
Max knew she was lying. She didn't stumble. She jerked away from him because she couldn't stand for him to touch even a strand of her hair.
We can both try to act normal, Max thought. We can both say the right things. But it's never going to be the same between us again. Liz is afraid of me.
"So what kind of mood is el jefe in today?" Liz asked Stan, the cook on duty at the Crashdown Cafe.
Stan grabbed a spatula in each hand and flipped two burgers in perfect unison. "The boss man has been listening to the Dead all day," he answered.
"Cool." Liz and everyone else at the Crashdown could tell how Mr. Ortecho was feeling by what kind of CDs he played. You couldn't get better than the Grateful Dead on her father's musical mood scale.
Liz hurried into his office. She couldn't help smiling at the sight of her papa's compact beer belly pushing against his tie-dyed T-shirt.
"I think for your birthday I'm going to have to replace that shirt with a bigger one. You know, eating Cherry Garcia ice cream isn't the only way of expressing your love for Jerry," she teased.
"Not the only, just the best," Papa answered. "And don't even think about replacing this shirt. I bought it at the concert where you were conceived. Uncle John's Band was-"
Liz slapped her hands over her ears. "I don't want to hear any more, thank you." She did not need the details of her parents' sex life.
Her father laughed. "What are you doing here, anyway? You're not working today."
Liz lowered her hands. "I have to talk to you about something important."
His expression turned serious. "Is it something with school?"
"No, it's nothing with school." Liz sighed. "Why do you always think it's something with school? It's never anything about school, all right?"
Sometimes Liz felt like throwing back her head and screaming, "I am not Rosa." Because that's what this whole thing was about. It was about Rosa. She'd been dead almost five years, but in so many ways she was still the most important member of Liz's family. She was there in the things they said to one another and in the things they never said.
Liz knew exactly why her father was always on her case about school. The year before Rosa died, her grades started slipping. Liz's parents got Rosa a tutor and stuff, but they didn't realize that the grades were only a tiny part of the trouble Rosa was in.
Liz glanced over at Papa. He stared down at some invoices on his desk, but his eyes were blank. Liz knew that expression so well. He was doing it again. Wondering what if. What if he had paid more attention. What if he had put Rosa in private school. What if he'd read more about teenagers and drugs. What if, what if, what if.
"I'm pretty sure I'm going to be valedictorian," Liz said, trying to pull her papa out of his dark thoughts. "You'd better start thinking about what to wear to my graduation because everyone is going to be looking at you and Mama, parents of the girl making the brilliant speech."
"Make sure you mention the cafe," Papa said. He shoved the papers away and looked up at Liz. "If it's not about school, what is this something important?"
"It's our uniforms. The seventies Star Trek rip-offs we wear have a certain kind of cool retro thing going, but Maria and I would really like to move into the future." Liz held up a photo of Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in their Men in Black suits and shades. "We were thinking something like this."
Mr. Ortecho shook his head. "You want me to spend money on new uniforms when there is absolutely nothing wrong with the old ones? That's not good business, Liz."
Liz pouted for a second. Then she went in for the kill. "Oh, well. The guys do seem to like looking at us in those short skirts. Our tips would probably go down if we switched to the suits."
"Wait, who is looking?" Papa demanded. "Who, exactly?"
Mrs. Ortecho opened the office door and inched her way in, a huge baking sheet balanced in her hands. Flour dotted her baggy overalls and her short brown hair. "I just brought over my latest creation, and I had to show it off," she told them.
Ignoring her papa's frown, Liz grabbed one side of the baking sheet and helped her mother lower it to the desk. She gave a snort of laughter as she studied the cake. "An alien riding a horse?"