"Noel hates me," I said.
Meghan pulled into the Tate Prep parking lot. "No one hates you, Roo. Noel just got jealous. You worry way too much."
I was ridiculously glad that Meghan didn't hate me, even though I would never understand the way her mind worked in a million years. As soon as we got to school, I went to the Valentine's Day table in the refectory and ordered her two dozen carnations.
***
Nora ate lunch with Kim and Cricket. She didn't meet my eyes in Am Lit. She looked away whenever I passed her in the halls. But ninth period I cornered her in the darkroom.
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She was bent over the enlarger, fiddling with the focus on a photograph of the men's heavy eight posing in their boat. The room glowed a soft red, and there was the sound of running water. There was no one else there.
"Nora?"
She unbent at the sound of my voice. "Roo, I asked you to just leave it."
"I need to apologize," I told her.
"You've apologized six different ways already. What else are you going to say in person?"
She had a point. "I thought maybe we could talk about it, figure things out between us."
Nora put her hands on her hips. "The only thing to talk about is how I don't want to talk about it."
"But-"
"You went behind my back, you took the guy I liked, you did everything the same as you did last year, and no amount of apologizing or saying you're not going to go out with him now-nothing is going to erase it."
"Nora, I'm sorry."
"You should have thought of that before you kissed him. You should have thought of that before you lied and said you wouldn't steal him."
"Can't you just try and understand?" I begged her. "It's not fair for you to just stop speaking to me without even listening to my side. I tried to tell you how I felt when we went to Dick's. I told you about the ginger ale and the hoodie."
"And then you said you wouldn't steal him."
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"I didn't mean to lie about it. I was trying to be the person you wanted me to be."
"Roo. Please just go. I have to get these pictures done."
"Nora, we've been friends since sixth grade. Can't you cut me some slack? Do I have to be perfect all the time, or we're not friends?"
"Please go!" Nora yelled.
I stood there, trying to think if there was anything I could say that would make things better. "It just seems like friends should forgive each other," I said lamely. "Or at least try to understand each other. Not shut down completely."
"If you won't leave, then I will," Nora snarled at me.
She grabbed her bag and walked out of the darkroom, leaving her negatives on the table and the light on in the enlarger.
***
Over the next two days, my life was like a movie entitled Return of the Roly-poly Slut. Meghan and Hutch were the only people to even speak to me. Hutch gave no indication he had any clue what had happened, but he did do a stealth coffee run one afternoon when he was working for my dad and brought me a surprise cappuccino. So maybe he felt sorry for me.
I had two panic attacks.
Trying to get my mind off things, I called Granola Brothers and asked if they had any extra hours for me to work over the weekend.
"Sure, dudette," said Fletcher. "You can work till eight
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on Saturday instead of four--and if you want to come in for Jo-Beth on Sunday at ten, she has a birthing class she wants to go to. You can sub for her until two."
So I went in. It was a good distraction. The only bad part of the job was the feet. When people came in to try on shoes, they had to be fitted barefoot. Birkenstocks have these special footbeds that mold to your feet as you wear them, and you have to make sure the customer's foot is fitting properly in there or else the shoes won't be comfortable. So for a good chunk of a working day I was on my knees buckling sandals onto sweaty winter feet. Feet with chipped toenail polish, feet with hair, feet with black gunk underneath the nails, feet with misshapen toes, all kinds of feet.
Fletcher and Jo-Beth and the other people who worked at Granola Brothers were seriously committed to the health of feet. They wanted everyone to leave the store with shoes that were going to change their whole attitude toward footwear. And I have to admit, my Birks--hand-me-downs from Meghan-were comfortable. So comfortable that I had started noticing the way my Mary Janes pinched around the toes, and the way my Vans didn't have a whole lot of arch support.
While I was working my late Saturday shift that weekend, a tall, long-haired guy about forty-five years old came in. The store was busy, and he stood there looking at a pair of suede Arizona-style and patting them the way people do when they're not quite sure they want to try something on. He was wearing a hand-knit sweater and jeans. He had white skin and hair that used to be red but was
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now graying. Deep grooves on either side of his mouth, like he smiled a lot, and little rimless glasses.
"That's our most popular style," I told him. "Would you like to try them on?"
He looked at me as if he was surprised I worked there, and said, "Yeah, that would be great."
He told me his shoe size and I went in the back and brought out a couple of pairs for him to try on for fit.. He took off his boots and a pair of old, used-to-be white tube socks and happily revealed the strangest, hairiest, smelliest feet I'd ever seen. I mean, I had seen a lot of feet by this point, but these were especially horrible. I tried not to gag as I buckled him in. He must have had some kind of fungus on his toenails, or between his toes. Something was not right.
"My girlfriend thinks I should start wearing these," he said. "The air circulation is supposed to be good for the skin, yeah?"
I stood up to get away. "The air circulation is a benefit, but people also wear them with socks in the cold weather," I said, gesturing at the sock wall. "The footbed molds to your sole and gives you ideal arch support."
He paced the floor with a spring in his step. "These feel good. How do they look?"
Aside from the fact that I could see his disgusting feet, they looked fine. At least, as fine as Birkenstocks can ever look. "I think that's your size," I told him. "As long as they're comfortable."
"My girlfriend is meeting me here soon," he said. "She's across the way buying vegetables. Do you mind if I
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wear them around the store for a few more minutes until she arrives? I'd like to have her opinion."
"Knock yourself out," I told him. "And investigate our sock wall. If you're looking for air circulation, you're going to want only a hundred percent cotton."
"Hey, thanks!" He smiled and went over to the socks and started looking at them with impressive earnestness.
I headed for the door of the store and opened it for a moment to get some fresh air after the strange and funky smell of his feet. As I stood there, I saw a familiar sparkly orange poncho heading across the cobblestone street of the Market, past the Hmong tapestry place, along the aisle of batik blankets-Doctor Z.
I had never seen her out in public before. I had never even seen her in the waiting room of her office or the halls of her building.
What are you supposed to say to your shrink when she's shopping?
How nice to see you, what a cute poncho?
Ooh, what did you buy?
How's your weekend going?
No! You can't ask her anything, because you're not supposed to ask about her personal life. She only asks you stuff. And you can't update her on your mental health either:
Oh, about my insanity, I can kind of turn it off and function while I'm at work, isn't that interesting?
Or, Hey, I was going to tell you on Tuesday, but since you're here, I made out with Noel, got caught by Ariel,
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then hugged Jackson and got caught by Noel. Nora hates me and my life is falling apart. Ag-