Beckoners (17 page)

“Never.” Beck lifted the partition and stuck her hand into the pile of smoldering ash. She grabbed a fistful and walked back to April, who was still crying on the floor. Beck yanked her head up with one hand, and smeared the ashes all over April's wet face with the other. April sputtered and coughed. She reached up to wipe her face, but Beck smacked her hands away. April looked up at the class, her red face streaked with ash and tears and snot. Everyone was quiet.

“Never,” Beck said again, her voice so low it was almost inaudible. She backed towards Heather and Lindsay, who were keeping an eye on the hallway. “I'm done.” She glared at Zoe one last time. “For now. Let's go.”

When the door shut, Simon rushed to April and helped her off the floor and into the nearest seat. The class stared at him, but he ignored them. The bell rang and the room started to clear, a couple of Brady clones spitting “faggot” and “homo” at him as
they passed. Zoe filled a clean beaker with tap water and handed it to April. She gulped it down and finally stopped coughing.

Brady slapped the back of Simon's head on the way out. “You even look at me, and I will kill you, faggot.”

“Like I said,” Simon took the beaker over to the sink to refill it, “You're not my type.”

Brady stopped mid-stride, inches from the door. Zoe braced herself, expecting him to go ape-shit on Simon, but Mr. Turner showed up then, nose and cheeks rosy. He pushed Brady aside and came into the room. He saw April, but he didn't ask. He went to his desk, ignoring them all, except to say, “If I find out who it was who used the fume hood without my permission, they will be suspended.”

“You're dead,” Brady whispered to the three. “You are so dead.” He slammed the door.

“Get out.” Mr. Turner said to Zoe. “And take your mess with you.” He flapped a hand at Simon and April.

Once out the door, April pulled away from Simon and ran ahead of them and out of the school. Out the long bank of windows, Simon and Zoe watched her run for home, Shadow struggling up the drive to meet her, as if he'd expected her to come home early.

“I wish I had a dog,” Simon said. It was such a strange thing to say. “I always wanted one.” His voice dripped with grief. “But I'm so allergic.” Then he cried, his eyes red and glassy. He cried silently, with no hysterics, as if he was just dicing an onion.

“Should I go after April?” Zoe handed him a wad of tissue from her pocket. “Or do you want me to stay with you?”

“I'll be fine,” Simon rested his head against the window. “She won't.”

Zoe lay on the
buzzer for nearly five minutes. Shadow barked furiously inside, but April did not open the door. Zoe went through the gate and hollered up at her window, but still, she didn't appear; there was only Shadow, paws on the sill, barking down at her. Finally, Zoe left a note for April to call her and went back to the school to find Simon.

He wasn't in Art, which is what they both had after Science. Zoe felt a prickle of worry; maybe Brady went and got Trevor and the two of them went after him. He wasn't in the ravine. He wasn't in the cafeteria. He wasn't at his locker, and he wasn't in
any of the boys' washrooms. She found him in the Dungeon, on the couch beside Leaf, looking guilty, like he had been about to lean over and kiss Leaf, but it wasn't that at all.

“I told him,” he said as Zoe shut the door. “I'm sorry, Zo.”

“Told him what?” Zoe asked, but she knew.

“He told me what just happened.” Leaf's face was stone. “He told me that you have the Beckoner's scar. He told me you're a Beckoner.” He said the word like Beck said, “bitch,” spitting it out like a sour candy.

“I am NOT a Beckoner.”

“But you
were
.”

Zoe glared at Simon. “You promised you wouldn't tell!”

“I had to tell someone, Zoe! You're in trouble. You heard Beck. Who else could I tell?”

“I can handle it,” Zoe said, although she didn't believe that for one tiny moment.

“Oh, sure.” Leaf crossed his arms. “Like you've handled it so far? Denial? You know what denial stands for? Don't Even Know I Am Lying.”

Simon frowned. “There's no K in denial.”

“Simon!” Leaf and Zoe said at the same time.

“Do you mean
notice
? Like Don't Even Notice I Am Lying?”

Zoe and Leaf glared at him.

“Right, I'll go.” Simon stood up. “You two can figure this out.”

“There's nothing to figure out,” Leaf said. “Apparently Zoe can handle it.”

“I can, thank you very much.”

“Okay.” Simon drew the word out and up at the end, like a question. “I guess I'll go now.”

“I guess so,” Leaf said.

“I guess so too.” Zoe said. She wanted to leave with Simon. No, she wanted to leave ahead of Simon. She wanted to stalk out, flip her hair over her shoulder in that same self-righteous way Heather did, but Zoe's hair was braided and entirely unflippable. She wanted
to flounce with a capital F. She wanted to simper. She wanted to be right, but she knew she was so totally and completely wrong, in so very much over her head, so far past the land of apologies that she'd tipped over into that ugly self-righteous place where it's impossible to say what she wanted to say, and the green blather that came out of her mouth was not at all what she intended. She wished, for a brief moment, that she was enough of a bitch to go home without finishing the layout. But if she didn't, the paper couldn't go to press on time, and there had never been a time in the two years Leaf had been editor that the paper was late.

“Okay, then. I am sorry, Zoe.” Simon's hand rested on the doorknob. “Bye?”

“Uh-huh.” Leaf and Zoe said together, and then glared at each other like each of them was the one that owned the words, and how dare the other use them.

The door closed, and Zoe was stuck with Leaf's stuffy disapproval fouling the air in the tiny, windowless room. Or maybe it was her.

Zoe was going mad.
It had been almost an hour of itchy silence, except for the sound of fingers tapping keyboards. Her mouth kept opening for what one part of her wanted to be an apology, a plea, but then just as she was about to say it, the apology would get shoved out of the way by a snarky one liner. Unfortunately, it was one of those that made it out first.

“I didn't exactly plan on being in this mess, you know.”

Leaf didn't look up from his computer. “Well, maybe you should've thought of that before you got involved with the Beckoners in the first place.”

“You think I knew what I was getting into? I had no idea.”

“No idea? Simon told you.”

“Hardly anything!”

“He told you.” He shrugged. “What more did you want? Someone to hold your hand?”

“Gee, thanks.” Zoe's heart sank. Her tone of voice was so much bitchier than she intended. She wanted to say, “Yes, I did want someone to hold my hand.” She wanted Leaf to hold her hand. Instead, she added icily, “Your kind words of support mean so much to me.”

“Wait a minute.” He was not going to look at her. “I'm supposed to feel sorry for you, just because things aren't going the way you want them to? If that's what you think, you've got another thing coming, Zoe.”

“Another thing coming?” Zoe's jaw dropped. Her voice shook. “That's something my mother says when she's piss drunk and talking shit. That's something Beck would say.”

Leaf shuffled through a stack of papers on his lap and shook his head. Conversation over. Zoe got the last word, but she wished she hadn't. She wanted to say more, but she couldn't trust what she'd come out with, so she resisted. Instead, she stared at Leaf so hard and imploringly he finally had to look up at her and say something.

“What about April?” he finally said. “How do you think she feels?”

“I know how she feels.”

“Do you? Really? You think you know how she feels because now Beck's after you?”

Zoe was going to nod, but she knew where he was going with this, straight back to “another thing coming.” She didn't respond.

“That's sweet.” He nodded. “The Beckoners give you what, a couple of weeks of shit, and you think you know what it's like to be April in the world? She's been dealing with their bullshit for years.” His voice was getting louder. “Years! You know nothing. You know less than nothing. None of us do. Being April would be like living in a war zone. Have you ever lived in a war zone?” He jutted his chin out. “Have you?”

“Anything I say will be wrong, won't it?”

“There's lots you could say that wouldn't be wrong.”

“Like what?”

“Come on, Zoe, it's not that hard.”

“Maybe it is. What do you know about it?”

“I know April is afraid. I know Simon is hurt, and afraid. I know you're afraid.”

“I'm not.”

“You
are
. Stop pretending.”

“Beck wouldn't hurt Simon. They used to be friends.”

“So did you.” He crossed his arms.

“Hardly. He's been friends with her longer.”

“Friends? Or was he just being careful? Staying on her good side? Afraid?”

“Simon's tough, and he's got Teo. He can handle it.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yes it is.” Zoe crossed her arms too. “I'm the fresh meat. I'm in the most trouble right now. I'm the one they're going to un-initiate. What about that?”

“You expect me to feel sorry for you?”

“That's obviously not going to happen, is it, so why don't you just lay off?”

“Fine. I will.” Leaf pulled his jacket off the back of the chair. He started for the door, and then stopped. He pulled a red slip of paper out of his pocket. He stared at it for a second, and then dropped it in her lap. It was a flyer for Wish's band, The Fist Amendment.

“They're playing at the Agriplex next Friday. Wish made me promise I'd ask you to go.”

Zoe stared at the flaming anarchist symbol, wishing it were a magic eight ball with all the answers. “I guess you don't want to take me now.” She handed the flyer back.

In that moment, the air shifted. It was less stuffy. She could suddenly breathe more easily, like an invisible window had opened somewhere in the room.

“I wouldn't mind taking the girl on the roof.” Leaf cocked his head, appraising her. “I'd like to take her.”

“I don't know her anymore.” Zoe felt her throat well up, and a puffiness pushing under her eyes. “She moved, I think. To the Cayman Islands.”

“Nah, she didn't.” Leaf stepped away from the door. “I'm hoping she's still my next door neighbor.”

Zoe had nothing to say. She just sat there, elbows on her knees, waiting for the tears to come. This felt like the few times she'd been sick to her stomach but couldn't actually throw up, times when she'd stuck her finger down her throat to make herself throw up, just to get it over with so that she could start to feel better. She couldn't force tears, though.

“Hey, Zoe? Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” she said miserably, staring at her knees.

“What changed your mind about the Beckoners? What happened?”

“The more I got to know them, the more I didn't want to.” She closed her eyes and saw, like a movie played in speed rewind, that awful scene in the dark of the trees at the back of Heather's property. Her stomach flipped. “But you can't just walk away. Not from girls like them.”

“What do you do then?”

“Wait.”

“For the un-initiation?” He lifted her arm and pushed her sleeve up to look at the scar. Still raised. Still red. Still tender. “Then it'll be over?” He covered the four lines with his fingers. A rush of pure attraction pushed Zoe's queasiness and shame aside, making room for a sudden storm of butterflies.

“I hope so.”

“This scar isn't the end of the world, you know.”

“It feels like it is.”

“It might feel like it, but it's not.” He lifted his fingers away. “Do you believe me?”

“Not right now.” Zoe wished she could say yes. “Not yet.”

That scar would always be there—a reminder of this mess. When she's twenty, studying film, on set in the summer in a
slinky tank top showing off the tits she finally managed to grow, calling the shots—the scar will be there. When she's forty, at the Oscars in a strapless evening gown, saluting the adoring crowd with the heavy award, lurching through her thank-yous—the scar will be there. When she dies, her body being prepared for her funeral, the man gently lifting her arm to wash her papery skin—the scar will be there still, and he would wonder about it and never know.

Zoe would never be rid of it. She started to cry. Leaf lifted her arm and kissed the scar once, and then again. Then he cupped his hand behind her neck and pulled her to him. He kissed her on the lips, and then again, parting her lips with his. He tasted of coffee. His lips chapped, dry. Zoe blinked a few times, and then closed her eyes and relaxed, kissing him back.

When Leaf left her
at her door later, he kissed her again. Zoe hoped the whole world was watching. She hoped everyone had reason to be looking out their windows right at that moment. She wanted the whole world to know that Leaf picked her. Of all the girls he could've had, he chose her. Zoe glanced at the kitchen window, hoping Alice was at the sink, watching, but the window was dark.

Zoe floated inside, and immediately came crashing down to earth. Alice was curled up on the couch, clutching a box of tissue, sobbing, empty beer cans scattered on the carpet and coffee table. Cassy was squatting in the middle of the floor pulling stuffing out of a pillow and carefully distributing it around the room. Fluffs of it decorated the plants, the carpet, and the top of the TV, which was muted on a talk show, two junkie twins with buzzcuts lunging at each other. Zoe turned it off, picked up Cassy and waited for Alice to say something.