Leila
hung up the phone, dejected, anger still boiling over in her belly. She had a
certainty in the back of her head of what had just happened in the Belmonte
offices.
Paging
forward in her journal, she found the evidence that confirmed her suspicions.
The events of that day were back in her mind, clear as the day they’d occurred.
The events of November 9
There was no talking to Leila for
the next two weeks. Days went by with no more lucid dreams to speak of, not a
sign of Clay and no way to find out who he was or why she even concerned
herself with his identity. She turned herself a little walking scorn storm.
It was hard on her to even harbor
the wild notion that someone in her current circle of acquaintances could be
the enigmatic boy in her dreams. The few people whom she considered decent had
already been summarily dismissed. Vin, and even Evelyn had been quizzed on the
possibility of possessing dream immersion capabilities and had been as
successful as an underwater opera. She was estranged from most of her cousins and
even the ones she visited on a semi-regular basis were, she decided, as
probable as a flying whale. That only left her with one possibility: it had to
be someone from school.
Exams for the second term had come
and gone, and although her grades still ran the gamut from stellar to shameful,
she had managed to scrape by with minimum passing grades on the subjects that
were her biggest threat. She had, however, in an unexpected turn of events,
failed computer sciences for the first time. Never a dull moment, she had thought, except when you’re praying for a little pit stop along the way.
It was a Friday morning when she
finally had hopes for something to come about. They were en route to the local
museum, on a field trip organized by Miss Epps for first and third year
students. It was, in more or less her own words, an attempt to break the
monotony of school activities, although Leila suspected her teacher just wanted
a pit stop of her own from her everyday reality of dealing with these heathens.
How nice it must be to just be able to
plan one of those for yourself when you need them.
The reason she found a sliver of
sunshine creeping through her dismal disposition on this particular day, was
that she held hope against hope that being able to observe her classmates in a
casual setting could yield some information on which one of them could be Clay.
Watching them in class was a fool’s errand, in particular when everyone was
already so intent on anything other than their lessons. Leila’s classmates fished
for bait they could later use against each other, in the only version of the
sport where the worms were more important than the catch. Watching them during
recess wasn’t much better. There they all sat in mutating clusters that changed
according to interests and present holding of worms. There were no cliques, no
defined alliances; it was a regular shark tank. In a way, Leila was thankful
for being afforded the chance to study the local wildlife more than the chance
to bone up on local history.
She’d been heavy with contemplation
on these important topics, staring out the window of the bus from her wonky
seat when she heard a weak “Hey.” Evelyn said it in a tone much like that of a
three year old begging for attention, “hi.”
“I’m sorry,” Leila answered,
turning in her uncomfortable bus seat to face her friend, “how long have I been
out?”
“About ten braids.” Evelyn remarked
in a flat tone, holding a neat row of tiny braids she had endeavored to create
on the front of her head out of sheer boredom. Leila smiled, took the one
nearest to her and started to take it out of her hair.
“Your hair is gonna frizz, you
dummy.” She finished one and went for the next one while the novel hairdresser
remarked, “I don’t care. It was either that or writing ‘dork’ all over your
backpack.”
“Did you write ‘dork’ on my
backpack?”
“It’s tiny. And look, it’s okay, I
put a little heart next to it, because I love you.”
“You’re horrible.”
“Are you still worried about that
thing?”
In the terms of their friendship,
it was established with no waste of solidity that any subject deemed too touchy
or sensitive to address by direct nomenclature was to be referred to as “that
thing”. Over the course of their short, but substantial friendship, “that
thing” had been, in turn: Leila’s dad and his incessant banter, Vin’s
shenanigans (before Leila inducted him into the relationship –much to Evelyn’s
initial chagrin), cockroaches (during warm weather), History class, Math class,
homework, exams, and run-ins with random people in their classroom. Now, “that
thing” referred almost in the entirety of its use to one thing and one thing
alone: Clay.
“Yeah,” Leila half-sighed,
half-groaned, “there’s no getting around that thing nowadays. I’m sorry about
being such a crap friend lately. I want to be okay and talk with you about
little things and laugh like we used to, but it gets harder every day that goes
by and I still know nothing about this guy. You must think I’m crazy taking
what’s most likely an apparition at his word.”
Evelyn smirked and rolled her eyes
at her friend before answering with full solemnity, “Leila, if I had wanted
normal I would have never even talked to you the day we met. You’re not
entirely sane, sure, but I like your kind of crazy. If this dream of yours
turns out to be just that and nothing else, then we’ll just throw it out with
the trash and move on to the next odd bit of business. We get to be crazy for
now.”
“Aww, thanks Evie-lyn,” Leila cooed
and pouted at her friend’s frankness. Evie-lyn was Evelyn’s angelic side, while
Evil-lyn was the little demon that won most of her internal battles. “You know,
it’ll always be a mystery to me how taking an interest in dreams and what makes
you tick as a person will get you pegged as a child, while these hollow nuts
we’re riding with today talk of nothing but each other, and makeup, and clothes
and pimply pop idols and still have the nerve to consider themselves ‘mature’.
If anything is crazy it’s this world we live in.”
“You lose two cool points for being
obvious and preaching to the choir,” was Evelyn’s quick, yet absent-minded
answer, as she was busy pulling on tendrils to take the tiny braids out of her
hair. She turned to meet Leila’s tight-faced, squint-eyed reaction and added,
“I mean; I love you!”
The bus stopped and students moshed
against each other in the scanty aisle until they were packed as tight as lego
bricks. Everything was a competition to them, even getting to the door. Evelyn
and Leila watched the whole thing go down while attempting to camouflage
themselves against their seats. But as luck tends to have it during times when
one desires to be inconspicuous, the biggest threat to their peace took form right
next to their seat.
“Hey girls, how are you this
morning?” The unwelcome utterance came from none other than Lane Tibbs, asshole
at large. Lane was runner-up on Leila’s mental list of hate after Hannah the
Painted Clown. The only reason he wasn’t at the very bottom of the heap was
because he wasn’t even in her class. He skipped from third grade and straight
onto her list by sheer virtue of his unyielding noxiousness. Leila and Evelyn
had reflected on the subject of Lane on more than one occasion, and they had
both concluded that if they’d been placed in the same class as him they would
have held hands and jumped off the third story window of the school building,
and landed with smiles of relief. They would have also made sure to wear
matching t-shirts emblazoned with the words “Lane pushed us”.
“Hi, Lane.” Leila’s voice was as
commanding as a snapping twig. She hoped, as did Evelyn, judging by the way she
was working on her unraveling braids with the intent of a sushi master slicing
up a deadly puffer fish, that the line would move before he had the time to
make a go at them.
“Hey Evelyn, nice dreads, mon. Are
you going rastafari on us? Hey Vin, is your sister on the ganja? You know, you
can get in real trouble for drug use in this school.” Lane’s tone was high and
clear. He was a human loudspeaker for abusive, heinous oral garbage. His speech
always skirted the edge between condescension and scorn.
Evelyn scoffed and squirmed in her
seat, managing a tepid “No, that’s dumb.”
“Are you saying I’m dumb? Is that
where our relationship is at right now?” As he spoke, Lane put out his chest
and raised his chin and mockingly patted his chest in a distinct animal threat
of harm by way of preening. Still, his face and voice lost none of their
habitual patronizing sarcasm.
Leila could feel her knuckles
tightening and saw the veins in her hands popping up under her skin. Her mind
wanted to break away from the scene, causing her to feel lightheaded and out of
control. It was a mere instant, little more than seconds since this exchange
had started, but already she felt her primitive brain demanding an escape.
“She didn’t say that, and she’s not
a stoner. Just leave her alone.” She’d been beside herself as she said this,
and she would have been unable to credit herself with the words if she hadn’t
been able to hear them escape her mouth. The sentence flowed smooth and even,
with an underscore of definitiveness that stated simply: You best cut that out.
Lane barked a whoop that turned
into a mocking, disbelieving laugh, “Whooo! Look out for this one guys, looks
like little Miss Scholarship is finally finding her vocal cords.” She turned to
Leila then, his voice smooth and sharp enough to slide over her gut like a
samurai blade. “You might wanna watch yourself, little girl, you can get
yourself in trouble talking like that to your superiors.”
The front of the line had vacated
the bus by then, but a small group remained cemented in place. They faked
conversation, but the intent was clear. They were all taking receipts on this
heightening conversation.
“We’re only two grades apart,
Tibbs. You don’t get to pull rank just because you’re old enough to be a
teacher.”
The students’ titter stopped cold
then. It was as if the entire bus and its passengers had been suddenly cinched
in plastic wrap. Vin, who had been approaching from the back of the bus since
Lane had directed himself at him, also halted dead in his tracks and stared
slack-jawed at the author of these words that would, in all likelihood, go down
in Belmonte history.
Leila also looked over at the
valiant soul who had, even in dumb-nuttery, managed to one-up her on this
momentous occasion. Evelyn, the precious soul, looked every bit the part of the
rabbit caught in the bear trap.
I’ve
lost her. She’s gone. My best friend is now tobogganing down to Hades. Dammit
Evelyn, you really screwed yourself this time.
Lane’s fish maw dropped open for
the briefest instant, and then curled at a corner in a derisive smirk. His
eyes, though, were what made Leila shudder to the most remote atom of her
person. While he was a character no one liked to trifle with, Leila had found
that she could at least expect him to be predictable. In this predictability
there was at least a way to prepare for his attacks, and even a way to fend him
off. In a sense, Tibbs was like a bear. When confronted with him, it was best
to play dead. He would move on to the next activity soon enough. There was
nothing predictable about the look in his eyes as he tried to keep his
composure. Evelyn had lit a fire in him, and if his stare was any indication,
he would not be satisfied until someone was burnt to a crisp in the ensuing
flame.
A voice came from the door of the
bus just as Lane was gearing up to speak again, with definitive force. “The
teacher’s coming, you all better haul ass before we catch some shit.”
“What were you thinking? I thought I’d lost
you!”
“Well, something tells me we’re not
out of the woods yet.” Evelyn was crouching on the floor of the museum’s
restroom with her head between her knees, trying to catch her breath.
After everyone had gotten off the
bus they’d just sat there looking off into an inwards void, too shocked to
move. Even Vin had just passed by them without saying a word. It wasn’t until
Miss Epps walked in on the pair and commanded them to get off the bus and get
together with the rest of the group that the girls gathered enough will to
recover their mobility.
“We? What do you mean, ‘we’? You’re the one who breached the
unspeakable topic!”
Lane Tibbs was seventeen years old,
and his official explanation for being held back in school when he transferred
from out of state the previous year was that he’d broken his leg in a skiing
accident and spent a whole year recovering. Everyone knew it to be as true as
rain falling upwards, but none dared mention it to his face, or approach the
subject of his age in any way.
Evelyn was riding an angst wave as
she spoke, “Hey look, if anything, I just followed your lead! You were all ‘oh
no you don’t’ in his face and I was aiming for a ‘what she said’ and I guess I
sorta overshot it a little.”
“A little? Evelyn, we’re toast! The
only reason we managed to keep our heads out of the water was because we were
insignificant. Now we’re chum. We’re bloody entrails in the water and it won’t
be just Tibbs, everyone’s gonna be coming for us after this.” Leila paced the
restroom floor as she spoke, gesturing with her hands and stressing her final
statement by sliding down the wall next to where Evelyn was sitting. She sat
cross-legged on the cold tiles next to her friend and leaned her head on the
girl’s shoulder.
“We might be over reacting. I mean,
think about it, it was just one comment. Only a handful of people were there.
It might not be as bad as we think.”
Leila had no intention of letting
her friend believe she had any kind of hope for this. “I don’t know Ev. Just
remind me to kiss the guy who cut in and got everyone off the bus when he did.”
“It was Marco.” Evelyn stated as a
footnote in her obvious state of detachment from the conversation.
“Marco? Marky Marco? Rassler Marco?” Leila
straightened up and shuddered before she said, “Okay, nevermind.”
They both shared a look and barked
a strained laugh.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you
something for a while.” Evelyn said this as she straightened the pleats of her
uniform skirt. She was now also sitting cross-legged on the tiled floor.
“Hm? What’s that?” Leila was
counting tiles on the opposite wall, in a failing attempt to steady her
thoughts.
“Why are you spending so much of
your energy trying to find out who this Clay guy is and zero time worrying
about face in the water guy?”
“I don’t think about face in the
water guy. I don’t want to. Besides,
what good would it do me to find out if that person is also someone I know? I
only know what Clay said, and he’s the only one who could answer any of my
questions anyway.” She tried to shrug it off, but Leila knew her underlying
concern was as plain as the brand new zit on her face.
Evelyn looked down at her feet like
she was reading something on them, then shook her head slightly and said, “I
just… Did I ever tell you the story of my bologna sandwich?”
“Your what, now?”
The door opened and, keeping with
the tone of the day, a group of their female classmates walked in, led by none
other than Hannah.
Will
this day just quit already?
Hannah was an impressive youth,
tall, porcelain-skinned, with long, light blonde hair. Although Leila and
Evelyn theorized that the blonde came from a box, there was no denying that she
was very attractive. Even her rather large nose was overlooked by all, perhaps
because of the fact that people had to look at it from an ascending angle all
the time, this because of her impressive height and her tendency to look down
at others.
But the most fascinating
characteristic that Hannah possessed was by far her daunting abuse of
cosmetics. She used a full face of makeup even though she was still just shy of
fourteen. Under a generous slab of foundation her skin took on a pink, sallow
tone which was only made more apparent by the harsh application of matte
terracotta blush. Her green eyes, which Leila thought must be quite pretty by
themselves, were always encased in stark outlines so thick they gave the
impression that she was preparing to put on a Zorro mask but just never got
around to it. Rounding off the look were a ruddy matte lip, and ill-groomed
brows painted in way too high, which was the main reason Evelyn had come up
with her nickname, the Painted Clown.
“What are you two doing here?” The offending voice was not Hanna’s, but
Frieda’s. Although friendships were a flimsy construct in Belmonte student
society, some people, like Frieda, put up with all sorts of abuse from key
players in order to hold status. Leila realized this too late into the school
year. Not that it would have made a difference; she was understated in her
socialization by nature, but selective in her company by conviction. There was
no way she could imagine limiting her conversations and activities to absolute
basics for the sake of being even marginally accepted.
Frieda spoke again when she
received no answer, “Hello? Little alien girls? I asked a question, don’t be
rude.”
We’re
rude? This is where I’d tell you to check your brain if I thought you had one.
Hannah spoke up in her raspy,
languid voice that made her sound like she had just bitten off a chunk of her
tongue during a bad cold, “They’re not aliens Frieds, don’t be silly. They’re
hippies, haven’t you heard? They were probably just smoking a joint. Am I
right?”
So
much for that conversation not turning into a big deal, and she wasn’t even in
the audience. I should just go to a trade school. Or clown college. That sounds
fun. I bet she even has a number.
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