See All the Stars Page 8

  He shrugs. “It’s no big.”

  I stand there until Dave gets the picture and turns back toward the main building. “See you, Holland.”

  * * *

  When I step through the door, the crisp, tangy smell of the shop hits me right away. Everything about being in here is familiar, comforting. I immediately feel the knot in my stomach loosen a notch. Mr. Michaels is at his desk, eating a sandwich out of a white paper bag. He looks up at me, taking in my regular Ellory outfit.

  “I get it. It’s meta, right?” he asks. Mr. Michaels is cool. Easy to talk to. He makes fun of his age all the time, but then he’ll surprise you by quoting Miley Cyrus or the new Shailene Woodley movie. Someone in his family subscribes to US Weekly.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m going as a junior. Totally meta.”

  “You are going to the Goblin Gala, right? I assume I won’t see you after school.”

  I slide my bag off my shoulder and walk over to the shelves in the back where my assorted unfinished projects are stashed.

  “Zombie Smash. And no, you’ll see me.” Dave’s words are still ringing in my ears, and I can feel my insides crackle. I lift my sculpture-in-progress up onto a worktable and try to shake it off. “Faux-spooky decor and football players dressed as hipsters—it’s not exactly my scene.”

  “Hmm.” Mr. Michaels regards me coolly. “I thought the dance was every senior’s scene.”

  I shrug, and he lets it go, returning to his sandwich. That’s what I like about Mr. Michaels. He takes an interest, but knows when to butt out. He’s one of the only teachers who isn’t all over me with concerned eyes and down-turned lips this year.

  I slip my earbuds in and try to get to work. This sculpture is the first thing I’ve made any headway on since school started, but something’s still off. The proportion, the mix of materials, I don’t know. Thank god I got so much done over the summer, because ever since I returned to Pine Brook, my work has been shit. I can’t figure out why nothing’s coming together; I’m used to being in my element in here.

  I took shop freshman year along with everyone else, but while my classmates packed up their metal roses and never set foot in the shop again, I couldn’t get enough. I begged Mr. Michaels to hire me as his assistant so I’d get to keep working on my own stuff after I cleaned up and pulled materials after school. It’s not like I see myself joining the Future Welders of Pennsylvania, but there are so many possibilities in the metal.

  I’m not interested in making things that are beautiful, although sometimes there is a beauty in what I create. I’m interested in making things that are strong. I start with metal scraps—whatever I can scrounge from abandoned lots on the East Shore and down by the river. They’re discarded things, broken and beat-up pieces of metal that nobody wants anymore. Except me. I look for the relationships between the parts, the ways they sing to each other. I bring them together. Alone, they’re just scraps, useless junk, but when I’m done, they’re part of something strong, unbreakable, unrecognizable. Something new.

  When I can make myself focus, that is. Which hasn’t been much ever since I got back to school. I grab a curved, triangular piece of scrap—something that used to belong to a playground set—and hold it up, trying to concentrate, but I can’t get Dave Franklin’s voice out of my head. I remember that day, or a day just like it. By February, Ret had been spending more and more time downtown with the guys. I’m so bored, Ellory. I just want an adventure. I’d left school late, as always, after finishing up in the shop. When I drove out of the lot and pulled up at the first red light, I realized the car stopped ahead of me was Dave’s. There were only so many black Mustangs in town, and I could see Matthias in the passenger’s seat, his arm hanging out the open window despite the cold.

  I followed them. It wasn’t my coolest move, but by then, I had no chill to spare. I had to know where they were going. If Matthias wasn’t going to tell me, wasn’t going to let me in, I had to find out for myself.

  They drove to Ret’s. When they pulled up in front of her house, I was so shocked, I just kept driving. I circled around the block and killed the lights, then pulled up a few houses down from the Johnstons’ just as Ret was taking the stairs two at a time and slipping into the back of the Mustang. I followed them as far as the Market Street Bridge before turning toward home. Whatever they were doing downtown without me—Dave, Matthias, and Ret—whatever adventure awaited them, it was an adventure made for three. She’s too good for the rest of us. That might be Dave’s truth, but I know the real reason I wasn’t invited.

  I’m so absorbed in my not-so-sweet trip down memory lane that I don’t notice Abigail until she’s standing right in front of me. Dark, curly hair and warm, amber skin. Dimples for days. I think she’s Chinese and Latina, but I’ve never met her family. Falling out with Ret aside, I don’t know much about Abigail at all.

  “Cool piece,” she says, her eyes wandering over my half-finished sculpture. “You’re really talented.”

  I pop my earbuds out. I want to defend myself, tell her this disjointed thing is definitely not my best work, but it hits me that she’s being sincere. “What are you doing here?” I ask instead.

  As if Abigail weren’t already oozing enough cuteness, today she’s wearing cat ears, and I can see a striped tail pinned to her jeans. I want to tell her to fuck off, but it’s impossible to be mean to Abigail Lin. It’s the main reason I’ve been avoiding her.

  “You’re a hard one to track down.”

  I glance over to Mr. Michaels for backup, but his desk is empty. I didn’t even see him leave the room.

  “Maybe I don’t want to be tracked down,” I manage in an almost cold voice.

  “Right.” She tilts her head to one side, studying me. “I promise I’ll be quick.”

  I put the metal triangle—the one I’ve been holding for at least five minutes—down on the worktable and pull out a stool. Abigail is five foot one at most, and I’d rather not feel like a giant in her presence.

  “I know we don’t really know each other, but I thought you might want someone to talk to.”

  I press my lips together. Once upon a time, Ret made Abigail’s life hell. I get why she thinks I’d want to talk to her now, but she’s wrong.

  “No, thanks,” I say. Abigail thinks Ret left me too. But she’s wrong again.

  She smiles, undeterred. She’s sugar and spice and everything nice. She’s not what I need.

  “I know what Ret did to you,” I say when she’s still standing there a minute later, showing no signs of leaving. “But it’s not the same.”

  “What Ret did to me?” she asks. She sounds genuinely curious.

  “Back in eighth grade. When she cut you out over break.”

  “Is that what she told you?” she asks. “I always wondered where that story got started.”

  My mouth falls slightly open, and Abigail laughs.

  “No one walks away from Ret, right?” she says. “But I did. Not the other way around.”

  “But that day in the locker room,” I say. “We all saw you.”

  Abigail frowns, remembering. “It was a tough time. My mom and I moved into a motel when we left my dad over Christmas. One of those cheap places out on the highway. He kept calling my phone, trying to use me to get to her.”

  “Did he . . .” I start to ask, but I’m not even sure what I’m asking. Did he hit her? Did he come after you? It’s none of my business, but why is she telling me this?

  “He’s not a good guy,” she says when my words trail off. “But my mom was an inspiration. She stood up to him, and she got me out. After that, I didn’t need anyone else pushing me around.”

  “So you walked away from Ret.”

  Abigail nods.

  That day in the locker room hadn’t been about Ret at all. Until Ret had taken the story, twisted it into something she controlled. How she’d dropped Abigail cold. How Abigail couldn’t hack it without her. I wonder if Ret even knew her parents were getting divorced.
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br />   “Why are you telling me all this?” I ask.

  Abigail takes a minute before she speaks, chooses her words carefully. “I think you know what it’s like to be the star of a story that you didn’t write.”

  “But everyone else believes,” I say softly.

  Mr. Michaels comes back in the room, and I glance up at the clock. Lunch is almost over.

  “Anyway,” Abigail says, “if you ever want to talk.”

  And then she’s gone, cat ears and cat tail and fractured fairy tales disappearing with her out into the hallway. She thinks she knows things. About Ret. About me. But she doesn’t know what I still have, the long afternoons down by the river, the story that isn’t over.

  11

  SEPTEMBER, JUNIOR YEAR

  (THEN)

  I drummed the tips of my fingers against the steering wheel while I waited for Ret. It was two weeks into junior year, but it still felt like summer, hot, bright, slow. I hated being trapped inside school, but I hated being late even more. I checked the time on my phone and kept drumming until Ret finally skipped out of her house in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs T-shirt, a tiny corduroy skirt, and a pair of ridiculously tall snakeskin heels she’d nabbed from the remainder bin at Hot Topic.

  “Your mom’s going to freak when she sees you in that.”

  “What? It’s corduroy, it’s preppy. Besides, you know Veronica. She’d say something gross about harnessing my self-expression.” Ret slid into the passenger’s seat, and I backed out of the drive. “Anyway, she’s not going to see me. I have jeans in my bag.”

  I shook my head but kept my mouth shut as Ret leaned forward to refresh her lip gloss in the visor mirror. After a minute, she said, “We should talk about your behavior, Ellory May. With Matty? It’s textbook enabling.”

  I lifted my eyes from the road to glance at her. She pressed her lips together, sealing some secret in and daring me to turn the key.

  Enabling. Matthias hadn’t pulled anything like abandoning me in front of Sally’s again, but his phone habits left something to be desired, and the string of nighttime errands had carried on from summer into fall. When I asked, he mumbled something about Cordelia. I couldn’t imagine what he was getting for his kid sister so late at night, but he didn’t explain, and something in his eyes warned me not to press. I’d only met her twice so far—a special screening of Finding Nemo in August and a pool day last Saturday—but she seemed like a pretty normal kid. Not someone in need of secret missions.

  “Do tell,” I said after a beat, keeping my voice casual, but taking her bait.

  “His concert habit. You’re enabling it with caffeine?”

  “Oh. Right.” So that’s all she’d meant. I leaned back in my seat and kept driving.

  We were headed to the Susquehanna Roasting Company, better known as simply the Roaster, for pre–Pine Brook coffee. On Thursday mornings, Ret’s mom had a team meeting at her real estate office downtown, so I left early to get Ret before school. The bus was for freshmen, athletes, and losers. The bus was not for us.

  I liked Thursdays. About once a month, Ret and I would ditch, but it was too early in the year for that now. Teachers were still forming their impressions. You had to be on your best behavior for the first month at least. On time, awake, homework done, hand raised.

  Matthias was not winning at that game. Already, he was slipping into his sophomore year habits, falling asleep in class, doing his homework but forgetting to bring it to school. Sometimes, I let him copy mine. I figured I had a whole year of Comparative Religions notes to make up for.

  Coffee helped too. Maybe Ret was right, maybe I was enabling his concert habit, but whatever. No sixteen-year-old should have as much on his plate as Matthias did. If staying out late, listening to music in dark, sweaty clubs helped him escape his shitty home life for a few hours each week, fine. The longer we’d been together, the clearer it had become how vital music was to him. I regretted my earlier claim that I didn’t want anything to do with his music stuff. After three months together, I was curious. I wanted him to take me along.

  I turned on the radio and flipped through the stations. As always, there was nothing good. Ret waited a minute for me to open up about the caffeine or concerts or whatever, but when it was clear I wasn’t going to humor her, she launched into a detailed description of yesterday’s after school hookup with Jonathan Gaines. (Pants off, underwear on, everyone satisfied.)

  “God, Ret, it’s too early to think about sex. No hookup details before coffee.”

  “Oh, please.” I could feel her rolling her eyes at me through her sunglasses. “I have to tell you what he said when we were messing around. He was babbling like a baby; it was amazing.”

  “I thought you were breaking up with Jonathan,” I teased. “Like two weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, well. He’s not totally boring in bed, so maybe I’ll let him stick around for a while. Did I tell you he wants to go to homecoming? You know I hate a school dance, but I found this lacy red minidress? He’s going to die dead.”

  I let Ret chatter on. She was so not breaking up with Jonathan Gaines. And whatever she wanted me to believe, this was not just about sex. I was a virgin, and so was Ret, but she had hooked up with a few different guys. To Ret, it wasn’t anxiety-making or embarrassing, not like the emotional stuff, which turned hard core Ret into a quivering blob of sky dome Jell-O. She wanted to talk about sex all the time. Until now, I’d been a willing audience, as if by soaking up her experience I might gain some of my own.

  But things felt different now that I had a boyfriend. I gripped the wheel as Ret debated the pros and cons of ordering a corset from ModCloth. “Not like a real one to shrink your waist. Just for fun, you know? I think it’ll work under my homecoming dress, but I hate not trying things on.”

  I nodded and bit at my lower lip. Every time Ret started talking about sex, I could feel my stomach clench up. She couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t open up to her, believed fervently that the idea that sex was some private, taboo thing was an outdated notion left over from our parents’ generation. She said we shouldn’t let archaic social mores hold us back.

  Matthias and I had messed around a little, but it never went very far before I pulled the plug. It’s like I was waiting for something inside me to click. Something that would guide me, tell me exactly what to do, make me feel less inexperienced, less naive. I kept waiting for that click, our lips meshed together, my body pressed against him, his hands running up and down my shirt, my jeans. When the click didn’t happen it’s like I’d zoom out of the moment, collapse into myself, pull back. Matthias never pressed, just backed off, kissed my forehead, buried his face in my hair.

  Ret always pressed. She clearly assumed Matthias and I had done more than we had, but when Ret pushed me to spill, I held my tongue. She got her way about most things—don’t you trust me, Ellory?—but on this I held firm. When there was something worth sharing, she’d be the first to hear it. In the meantime, the last thing I needed was every fumbling step of my Journey Toward Womanhood to be socially critiqued by Ret Johnston.

  We pulled into the lot at the Roaster. All of the regular spots were full, so I grabbed one of the spaces up front reserved for environmentally friendly vehicles or expectant mothers.

  Ret threw me some serious side eye. “Something you’re not telling me?”

  “Yeah, the Subaru is expecting a litter of kittens. Come on, we’re going to be in here five minutes. I probably would have gotten a normal spot if you hadn’t made me wait.” I bumped my hip against Ret’s, nudging her toward the door.

  Inside, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and vanilla bean brioche was intoxicating. We got iced vanilla lattes and croissants (chocolate for Ret, plain for me), and for Matthias, I got a large drip coffee, dark roast, with four sugars and no milk. Enabling.

  We piled back into the car, and Ret proceeded to spend the entire ride to Pine Brook on her phone.

  “Who are you texting?”

  “Jenni, who else? S
he’s pissed. I don’t know what the big deal is, it’s just coffee.”

  Our Thursday morning Roaster runs had always been a Ret & Ellory tradition. Bex squeezed in an hour of dance before school, and Ret had never invited Jenni, so I hadn’t either.

  “I told her you needed a private consult on the art of the blow job.”

  I threw Ret a glare from the driver’s seat as we turned onto the street that ran down to the high school. She could have told Jenni anything, but why make up something tame when she could go for my weak spot?

  “Oh, come on,” Ret said, mistaking my look for concern. “A little white lie won’t kill her. Jenni needs to lighten up, and it always falls to me to steer her in the right direction. It’s exhausting.”

  We pulled into the student lot with exactly eleven minutes to spare before the bell. It was barely enough time to walk with Ret as she teetered across the unevenly paved lot in her giant heels, but I gritted my teeth and matched my pace to hers. Chicks before dicks. When we got to the front door, the last bus was pulling up, and the kids who didn’t have cars or rides to school were streaming through the three sets of double doors that formed the main entrance to Pine Brook High.

  Jenni was standing to the side, one leg bent at the knee, the sole of her boot propped back against the redbrick wall. She plucked her gold aviators away from her eyes and smiled thinly at us.

  “Cutting it close, ladies.”

  Ret leaned in to give her a big hug, as if she hadn’t seen her in ages, as if they hadn’t just spent the last ten minutes texting back and forth about my supposed tutorial in R-rated activities. Suddenly, Jenni had Ret’s full focus.

  “Honey.” Ret’s voice was a purr. She tucked a red strand of hair behind Jenni’s ear. “I need your advice.”

  I shifted the coffee tray from one hand to the other. Ret seemed to have forgotten I was there, but I hadn’t been let go, either. Jenni glanced at me and poked the side of her tongue into her cheek, and they both giggled.

  “Well, go on, you still have six minutes.” Ret waved me toward the door.