Maybe One Day. Melissa Kantor

Чтение книги онлайн.

      

4

      Livvie woke up with a fever Sunday, and she missed school Monday. Monday night when I talked to her she said she’d be in school Tuesday morning, but then she texted me and said she’d woken up with a fever again and her mom was taking her to the doctor.

      I called Livvie at the start of lunch Tuesday, but she didn’t pick up the phone. I was standing by my locker, finishing leaving her a message, when Mia Roberts turned down the corridor.

      Mia was the girl on the soccer team I knew the least. She’d been new freshman year (before coming east she’d lived in L.A.), and unlike the rest of the team (who hung out pretty much exclusively with one another), Mia hung with a lot of different people. And she didn’t just not hang out exclusively with the team; she also looked nothing like the other girls we played with, all of whom—whether white or black, Asian or Hispanic, freshmen or seniors—were very … American-looking. Clean-cut. Like, you could use any one of them in photos for an antidrug campaign.

      But Mia’s hair was bleached white except for the tips, which were blue. When she wasn’t wearing her soccer uniform, she wore black pretty much exclusively, down to black motorcycle boots or Doc Martens.

      “Hey,” she said. Today she was wearing a pair of black leggings with lace at the bottom and a black tank top. Her dark eyes were heavily made up with black liner.

      “Hey,” I said. I put my phone in my bag.

      “You heading to lunch?” Mia asked. I nodded, and she gestured for me to accompany her. “Let’s do it.” She was chewing gum, and while I watched, she blew a small bubble, then cracked it loudly between her teeth.

      I fell into step beside her. “I love cracking my gum. It drives my mom batshit when I do it, though.”

      “Well, your mom’s not here now, is she?” Mia reached into her bag and pulled out a pack of Juicy Fruit.

      I eyed the pack suspiciously. “I don’t know. Sugar gum. Kind of a gateway drug, isn’t it?”

      “Try it,” she said, wagging the pack at me. “The first slice is free.”

      I reached for a piece, unwrapped it, and popped it in my mouth. “Oh my God,” I said as the fruity taste exploded on my tongue. I had to close my eyes for a second to savor the experience. “This is the first nonsugarless gum I’ve had in years.”

      “I know, right?” said Mia, smiling triumphantly. “The dentist loves me. My mom says I’m sending his kids to college.”

      “It’s worth it,” I assured her.

      We passed a circle of football players, including Calvin and Jake. Each guy was surrounded by a healthy harem of cheerleaders. Jake looked up, saw me, and waved. I waved back. Calvin glanced my way also, but even though we were both at the Grecos’ practically every day, his glance slid over me as if I were some exchange student he’d never seen in his life.

      Inwardly I rolled my eyes at what an ass he was.

      “So,” said Mia, “how come you don’t do soccer anymore?”

      “Um, because I so totally sucked at it?” I offered.

      Mia laughed, but she didn’t correct me, which I appreciated. “Does that mean you went back to dancing again?” she asked.

      Here was concrete proof of how little anyone outside the dance world understood it. I imagined a universe in which Olivia and I had randomly decided to take a year off from dancing and then—equally spontaneously—decided to return to it. I let myself see the two of us as Mia must have seen us. In control. Masters of our destiny.

      The fantasy was awesome, which may explain why I lied to her. “Nah. I was kind of over dance.”

      “Got it.” We turned down the hallway toward the cafeteria. It was more crowded here, with some people shoving to get in and others shoving to get out.

      “You know,” said Mia, turning to me, “freshman year I was überintimidated by the two of you.”

      I practically choked on my gum. “You were?”

      “I was!” Mia imitated my tone exactly, then laughed. “Is that so surprising? You’re both tall and gorgeous. And you disappeared into Manhattan after school every day.” We stepped into the river of kids headed to the cafeteria. “I saw you once at The Nutcracker when my mom and I took my niece. I mean, I didn’t see you see you. Like, I couldn’t pick you out. But your names were in the program.”

      I shook my head, as much at the idea of Mia’s being at the ballet as at the thought of her searching for us in a sea of dancers. “That’s so weird. I mean that we were on your radar like that.”

      Mia raised an incredulous eyebrow at me. “It’s not weird, Zoe. You and Olivia were famous. I figured you were way too cool to hang out with regular people like me.”

      “Really? You thought we were cool?” I squeaked, so uncool that both Mia and I laughed. She held open the door to the cafeteria and I followed her in. As we joined a table, I composed a text in my head to Livvie, telling her about how cool and terrifying the population of Wamasset had once found us.

      I was irritated that Livvie didn’t respond to my text, which was, frankly, hilarious. Wasn’t she just sitting in the waiting room of Dr. Weiss, our pediatrician? Or sitting at Driscoll’s Pharmacy waiting for her mom to fill a prescription? Or sitting and waiting for me to call her? I didn’t stay home sick from school all that often, but when I did, that was my routine. The bell rang, ending math, our last period of the day, and Mr. Schumacher nodded in my direction. “You’ll give Olivia the homework.”

      “Sure,” I said, then muttered under my breath, “if she ever texts me back.”

      I went to my locker and slowly made my way outside. It was sunny but way cooler than it had been that morning, and I shivered, wishing I’d worn a jacket. The football team was heading out to the field all the way on the other side of the campus. I considered asking Jake if he knew where Olivia was, but the team was so far away I couldn’t even figure out which of the uniformed guys he was.

      Just as I decided it wasn’t worth bothering, since Jake wasn’t going to have any idea anyway, my phone rang. Livvie! Finally. I dug my phone out of my bag.

      But it wasn’t Livvie. It was some 212 number I didn’t recognize. This was getting so annoying.

      “Hello?”

      “Zoe?”