The Possibility of Somewhere Page 4

  She giggled. “Bye, Eden.”

  I looked at her brother. “Be sweet today, Kurt.”

  He turned away to stare out the window, but I didn’t let it worry me. It was hard to know if he didn’t want to say good-bye or if he was lost in his own world at the moment.

  I ran into my first-period classroom as the tardy bell rang, pretended not to see the steely-eyed stare from Ms. Barrie, and slipped into my desk on the last row.

  Mundy Cruz was sitting in the desk beside me. She poked me with a sharp fingernail. “What’s your phone number?”

  I fumbled around inside my bag, hunting for a pen. “I don’t have one.”

  “You don’t have a phone?”

  I shook my head at her. My dad had a cheap mobile phone since Heron Estates paid for it. He didn’t like for the rest of us to give out the number.

  The teacher rapped on the podium. “All right, class, please get out Pride and Prejudice and turn to chapter fourteen.”

  Desks creaked and notebooks rustled. As usual, a couple of kids had forgotten to bring a copy and had to approach the teacher to beg.

  Mundy whispered across the aisle, “What’s a MIM?”

  That got my attention. “Where did you hear about MIMs?”

  “It’s written on the whiteboard.”

  I didn’t bother to stifle my groan. AP certification brought out the worst in our faculty, like they were in some bizarre competition to be the teacher with the most original assignments. But they weren’t being clever. They were just giving us work. Lots and lots of work. “MIM stands for Make It Modern.”

  “Which means…?”

  “Ms. Barrie will pick a scene from the book. Then she’ll assign a few students to act it out, except we’ll have to use today’s language and situations.”

  “Ah.” Mundy’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Sounds like fun.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Ms. Barrie was speaking. “For homework this weekend, read volume two. We’ll do the first MIM on chapter eleven.” She looked up, her gaze scouring the classroom.

  The eyes of every student (except Mundy) focused on their desk.

  “Eden, you’re Elizabeth.”

  Crap. I didn’t want to do this scene, and it wasn’t because I minded being Elizabeth Bennet. If I had to do a MIM, she was as amazing as a character got.

  No, the problem was chapter eleven. The marriage-proposal scene.

  Why couldn’t I have been assigned a scene with a sword fight? Not that P&P had many of those. But still. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than fending off the fake romantic feelings from a guy in this English class.

  “Ash, you’re Darcy.”

  Holy. Shit.

  I glanced toward his desk in the front row. He stared straight ahead, back rigid, finger gripping his pen hard. Ash seemed as happy about this as I was.

  “He’s perfect,” Mundy said in her normal speaking voice.

  “Really?” I spoke through gritted teeth. “Do you think you can repeat that louder? I don’t think the people in the main office heard you.”

  “It’s brilliant.”

  “It’s obnoxious.”

  “Excuse me, Eden, Mundy…” Ms. Barrie said.

  We looked up. All eyes in the classroom were on us. I glanced at Ash and found him watching me, his expression stony.

  “Let me know when you’re done with your conversation. The rest of us are ready to begin,” the teacher said.

  I flushed. Mundy nodded.

  Ms. Barrie launched into her lecture. I hunched in my seat and tried to focus, but the MIM wouldn’t leave me alone. This didn’t make sense. Ms. Barrie knew that Ash and I didn’t get along.

  Why had she picked us?

  * * *

  Mundy plopped onto a seat across from me in the cafeteria and opened her lunch pack. That made twice that she’d decided to eat with me. It could be a trend. I struggled to hold back a smile. My reputation hadn’t scared her off.

  “Why did Ms. Barrie assign Pride and Prejudice as our first novel this semester?” Mundy asked as she unwrapped a shrimp quesadilla. “It’s kind of cliché.”

  “Why would you think that?” I loved P&P.

  “That book has hundreds of knockoffs. She should try something that students haven’t read before.”

  It was adorable that Mundy thought Heron kids had read anything longer than a tweet, much less a centuries-old classic. “Ms. Barrie has to pick books that have been made into movies. Otherwise, hardly anyone would take her class.”

  “Ah.” Mundy chewed for a moment, nodding as if in conversation with herself. “The MIM will be amazing. I wouldn’t mind hearing Ash speak Darcy’s lines to me.” She switched to a decent British accent. “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

  “If he says that, I’ll bust out laughing.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll be immersed in your character, enthralled by his hotness, mesmerized by his sexy voice.” She bobbed her head like my reaction was inevitable. “And you will melt. A puddle on the floor.”

  “Not likely.” Although he did have a sexy voice. “Ash would choke on those words.”

  “He admires you. You admire him. It’ll feel real to you both.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten. You’ve detected a hidden thing that no one else knows about. Not even the two of us.”

  “It’s because I’m new. I’m not cluttered by the past.”

  “It’s because you’re wrong.”

  “What have you got against Ash Gupta?”

  “I’m okay with him. We’re polite.” I picked up a fork and stabbed a french fry on my tray. “It seems kind of random, though, that Ms. Barrie put the two of us on this project.”

  “It wasn’t random.” Mundy took a bite of her quesadilla.

  I blinked at her. “What was it then?”

  She reached into her lunch pack for the next item. “The faculty doesn’t like that you and Ash fight when you’re on project teams together. They think you’re both natural leaders who could be amazing if you would learn how to get along.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope.”

  “Ms. Barrie is forcing me to learn from Ash?”

  “She’s forcing you to work with him. She wants the MIM to teach you how to negotiate and teach him how to stand up for his ideas.” Mundy nodded solemnly. “Mrs. Menzies wants the same thing.”

  “How can you possibly know this?”

  “My dad is on the faculty. He overheard them in the teachers’ lounge.”

  The information was flying too fast for me to process well. I lost interest in my lunch, my attention completely absorbed by what she was saying. “Wait. Who is your dad?”

  “Campbell Holt.”

  Whoa. Dr. Campbell Holt had arrived this semester to substitute for our regular art teacher while she was on maternity leave. He’d created a sensation from the very first day, not only because he was unbelievably good at getting ordinary, untalented students to try things, but also because he was movie-star, underwear-model hot. “Dr. Holt doesn’t look old enough to be your dad.”

  “Actually, Cam is my stepfather. He’s younger than my mom.”

  “How have you kept this a secret?”

  “It’s not a secret. The teachers know. We asked them not to share it until I’d been here a couple of weeks. I didn’t want kids treating me differently.” She smiled. “I’m ready now. You’re the first person I’ve told.”

  “Is that why you started three days late?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been homeschooled all of my life, so I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go to a regular high school. We let Cam scope it out to make sure it made sense.”

  “Apparently he thinks so.”

  “Yeah. I’m having a lot of new experiences, but I like it.”

  “Homeschool, huh?” That explained so much. “How did that work? Did you take classes online? Were you involved in homeschool groups?”

  “Both.�
� She licked the lid of the yogurt container. “I belonged to an orchestra, a softball team, and a drama club.”

  “So what new experience are you getting by eating lunch with me?”

  She looked up, her expression guarded. “You live in a trailer park.”

  Her response stunned me. Had she really just admitted I was the token poor person? I bowed my head and willed myself not to care.

  “Eden, I’m sorry if that sounded harsh, but I didn’t want to hide it from you. We have to be honest.” When she extended her hand toward me, I jerked away. “Please listen. It was one of the reasons I came over here the first time, but I’ve come back because I like you.”

  “Excuse me, but can you give me a moment while I take this in? I’ve been around people who avoid me because of where I live. I’ve never had to think about the reverse.” I shook my head slowly. My legs were jumping, as if this news were terrifying. Maybe it was. I enjoyed having her join me at lunch. I didn’t want to end it, but I had to now. Right? “I suppose I should be proud to serve as a specimen in your poverty experiment. Maybe you can explain, though, what I’ll gain.”

  “The same thing as me. A friend.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I had to tell you this way, but I wanted that detail behind us. You know the worst of it now.”

  “Can’t wait to hear the best of it.”

  “That would be Cam’s opinion of you.” When I looked up, she was watching me anxiously. “When I told him about the people I was interested in hanging out with, he was thrilled that I included you. He thinks you’re exceptional.”

  “Thanks. I guess.” Her voice held the ring of truth. I let it ease into me and wondered if it could heal the shock. I admired her stepfather. I was beginning to look forward to her company.

  Had this been a calculated plan?

  Investigate the options.

  Monitor for a week.

  Narrow the list.

  I’d made the cut. Mundy had barfed out her confession. And now I was left to deal with whether it was too much. I picked at my meal and thought about Dr. Holt. And Mundy. And me.

  Several minutes passed before she spoke again. “Are we still friends?”

  “Were we ever?”

  “Yes.”

  I’d have liked to hop to my feet and storm away in self-righteous outrage. But the reality was, Mundy was correct. It had felt like we were on our way to friendship, and that would be kind of nice to have.

  “Are we okay again, Eden?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Great, ’cause I have something to ask.” She leaned on the table, propping her chin on her hand. “Can we play truth or dare—without the dare?”

  Whoa. Already? “Depends on the question.”

  “I’ve heard a rumor about your family, and I want to know if it’s true.”

  Did she bulldoze over everyone like this? I was still reeling. My defenses were down, which, now that I thought about it, was an interesting strategy. And successful in this instance, since I couldn’t resist finding out if the rumor was about, well, Heather. “What have you heard?”

  “What do you want to tell me?”

  Damn, she was good. “You’ve been told about my biological mother.”

  “Yes.”

  Of course she had. My bio mom was a specter that never went away. I frowned at my food and tried to imagine what Heather might look like now. Plastic surgery was one of her favorite hobbies, which her last two husbands had been happy to indulge. “Heather got pregnant her senior year of high school and went into labor during commencement. My brother was born the next day.” My lunch tray, with its soggy toasted cheese sandwich and canned peaches, blurred into a swirl of glistening yellow. “Dad had planned to go to a school to become a licensed plumber, but he had to abandon that idea to get a job. He married Heather when Boone was three months old.”

  “When did they divorce?”

  “I was four.” I slumped down until my head rested against the seat back, and allowed my eyelids to half close. It would be easy to drowse into a stupor. This was one history test whose answers I had memorized.

  “How often do you see Heather?”

  “Not at all since I was thirteen. We both went to her sister’s funeral, although we didn’t have much to say to each other. I’m not sure where Heather lives now.” I lowered my chin until Mundy came into view. “It turned out well. Dad remarried, and Marnie is amazing.”

  “Heather did you a favor.”

  “Yeah.” I hated what she’d done to us. I hated that she was likely living in luxury while I’d eaten too many meals bought with food stamps. Yet there was a tiny part of me that had grudging respect for Heather. She’d lived hard, partied hard, dressed the way she wanted, and hadn’t worried about what anybody thought. I could never forgive her, but I couldn’t blame her for wanting to get out of here.

  Mundy whipped out a banana and held it out to me. “Hungry?”

  “Thanks.” I couldn’t believe her reaction was so mild. She looked bored. Now I understood her earlier point. It was a relief to get past the ugliest part of the truth.

  Mundy was cramming trash and containers into her lunch pack. “Why did your parents choose the names Boone and Eden?”

  Another sore subject. “Heather named us after towns in North Carolina. How about yours?”

  “It’s short for Rosamund, which is the heroine’s name in one of my mom’s favorite books.”

  I added the banana peel to her trash pile. “Why did you move to Heron?”

  “My grandfather has cancer. He’ll move into a hospice house soon. We’re here to be with him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s been hard on Cam. He doesn’t want to believe Grampa is ready to die.” She picked up her stuff and nodded toward my essentially untouched tray. “Do you want to bring in some food Friday? We could potluck.”

  “Sure, but why Friday?”

  “I’ve got plans for tomorrow. Potluck, then?”

  Raiding the pantry at home wouldn’t be practical, but maybe I could check out Granny’s cookie jar. “I could bring cookies,” I said, hoping that the heat creeping up my neck wasn’t obvious.

  “Sounds good.” She smiled. “See you Friday.”

  6

  A Scuzzy Place

  After school let out, I headed straight to the computer lab. My dad was picking me up today after his shift at the hardware store. I would use the time for research. My in-state list of potential colleges and scholarships was in good shape. The out-of-state list had room to grow.

  Ash and his friends were loitering in the hall near the lab. They stopped talking as I approached. Without making eye contact, I went around them and slipped inside. It was dim and quiet. Just as I liked it.

  “Hey, Eden. Do you have a minute to talk about the MIM?”

  I looked behind me. Ash had followed me in. “Sure.” I dropped onto a chair in front of the closest desktop computer but kept my hands in my lap. No way would I get started until he left.

  He sat next to me and set his iPad on the table while I tried to think about something besides how good he smelled.

  His fingers tapped. “Did you know that Ms. Barrie gave us the proposal scene?”

  “I did.”

  “Have you come up with anything yet? Because I have a few ideas.”

  “Already?” Less than seven hours had passed since we received the assignment, and we’d been in class for six of them.

  “It’s a major grade, and since it’s due Monday, we don’t have that much time.”

  “Understood.” Was Ash already trying to take over? Where were his famous negotiation skills? Maybe I should channel Elizabeth Bennet right now and act the way she did in the proposal scene. Confrontational and prejudiced.

  “Do you ever watch old TV shows—”

  “Stop, Ash.”

  “—like The Twilight Zone?”

  “Stop.” I reached over and flipped the cover across his iPad. “It’s my project, too.”

&nb
sp; He didn’t twitch a single muscle, except his hands—and they had fisted. “Okay. What have you got?”

  “Nothing yet, but I will when I’ve had a chance to think it through.”

  “Can we meet tomorrow during lunch?”

  My lunch break was the only unscheduled half hour I had all day. Not giving it up. “I don’t do assignments during lunch.”

  He studied me impassively. “You want to meet outside of school?”

  “I know it’s a sacrifice for you, but yeah.” He had beautiful eyes, dark brown and fringed with thick lashes. That was the second personal thought I’d had about Ash today. I strained away from him and inwardly cursed Mundy.

  “How about tomorrow night?”

  “Sorry. I’m working.”

  “Could we Skype after you’re done?”

  “My shift runs from seven p.m. until seven a.m.”

  His forehead scrunched with curiosity, but when I didn’t clear up that mystery for him, he opened his iPad again. “What about Friday after the final bell?”

  “I have Webmaster’s Club.”

  “Fine. Why don’t you tell me when you’re free?”

  Time to cut the pissiness. This was a major grade. “How about this afternoon? I could be done here in thirty minutes.”

  “Doesn’t work for me. I’m on my way to a club meeting.”

  Whoa. One of my responsibilities as the school’s student webmaster was to update the master calendar. There weren’t many extracurriculars that met today. “Dance Team, Horticulture, or Comic Book?”

  “Comic Book. Is that a problem?”

  “No.” Ash had this rigidly planned life, with every single moment designed to impress on his college applications. Comic Book Club didn’t quite fit. “How about tomorrow, immediately after school?”

  He nodded as he stood. “Where?”

  “In the gazebo at the town park.”

  “Why the gazebo?”

  “Neutral ground. No audience.”

  “Works for me.”

  I waited until he’d left to boot the desktop. I’d only managed to check out a couple of scholarship sites when the door to the lab creaked. Quickly, I closed the browser, just as someone stopped directly behind me, reeking of raspberries and vanilla.

  I didn’t have to turn around. “Do you need something, Tiffany?”