Boy Proof (6 page)

“Where are you sitting? Let me get a board and we’ll ink each other’s drawings.”

He leaves me there to go off and find his own board. I shouldn’t let a stupid blank board drive me into a fit of not doing anything. I go back to my seat. I feel fluttery, like I am on a tightrope. I am exposed in the air. Naked. Out of my element. Feet not on the ground. The fluttery feeling turns into nervousness. Which then turns into anger. Which then turns into action.

I attack my blank board. I start with wide lines and circles and begin to draw my newest alien creations, the ones I am keen on making into masks.

Max moves my cloak from the back of the other chair and begins to draw. We don’t even talk once, even though the café is buzzing with conversation. The silence stretches out between us, and that suits me just fine.

After a bit Max hands me his board.

I scan it. It’s a sketch of an apartment building with eight windows. Each window reveals a scene about the loneliness of the person inside. Growing up the side of the building is a vine of flowers.

I don’t say anything about the drawing, but it moves me.

“It’s an idea I have for a story in the graphic novel I’m working on.”

I nod.

He takes a marker out and starts on the board with my multiple monster alien faces on it.

“I love the way you draw with such detail,” he says. “Where do you get your ideas for these?”

“My dad’s workshop, I guess,” I say.

I decide to ink his drawing in grays and blacks, but make the flowers a hopeful dusty pink.

“I’m glad I found this café,” he says. “It reminds me of a place where I used to hang out in London. They were always doing cool shit like this there.”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

I don’t know how to make small talk. But Max does.

“It’s essential, don’t you think, to find a place that you can call your own?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I really don’t like to run into people I know.”

“I know, me neither,” Max says. “I like to be alone sometimes. Especially when I’m drawing. Especially when I’m doing stuff like this.”

Suddenly I find it strange. Max and I are sitting together and yet somehow I feel just as clear as when I’m alone.

“I think clearer, study better, when I’m alone in a café,” I say.

“Me too!” Max says. “Even though there is so much going on around me, I feel like I’m in my own world.”

“In the flow,” I say.

He nods as he picks up another marker color to add to one of my monsters.

“Some people go to cafés just to see and be seen,” Max says. “I hate that they don’t get it.”

“No one ever sees me,” I say.

“Yeah, right.” He laughs. “You’re invisible, Egg.”

But that’s how I feel. I’m the Invisible Girl.

Max approaches me in the quad, hand extended, offering me a bottle of sparkling water. I take the bottle reluctantly.

“Hey, can I sit here?”

“I’m not in the mood for small talk,” I say. “I’m studying.”

But my math book is on the bench next to me and I’m actually reading a novel.

“Really?” Max says.

“What does it look like?”

“It looks like you could use some company,” he says. “Why didn’t you tell me last night that your father is
the
Sam Jurgen? No wonder those alien faces you drew are so kick-ass.”

“It didn’t come up,” I say.

“God. I loved his work in
Star King,
” Max says. He sits down next to me, uninvited, and opens up his bottle of water. His head tilts back as he swallows most of it in one gulp. “When they cut that lizard alien out of its mother’s stomach and it has the mark of the king. Wow!”

“I’m kind of reading.”

“Yeah, I remember when I went through my Dick stage,” he says.

“What did you call me?” I ask.

He points to the novel I’m reading. It’s by Philip K. Dick. I feel like an idiot.

“So let me get this straight. You’re telling me that you
prefer
to eat lunch alone every day?” Max says.

“Yes,” I say.

“Okay. I respect that,” he says, tossing his empty bottle into the recycling bin. “You know, you’re a real puzzle.”

“I’m not something to be solved,” I say.

“De gustibus non est disputandum,”
Max says, and walks off.

Zach Cross is unhooking my bra and kissing the nape of my neck.

“What do you think about love, Egg?”

Just like in the movie, we look up at the sky. There are needleships hovering in place above us.

“I think it’s all about smell,” I say.

He breathes in my scent and whispers in my ear, “I think you smell like hope.”

He kisses me, and unlike in the movie, the needleships fall to the ground, setting off an apocalyptic fireball.

“The world is a dying place,” I say.

“I expect it to end hourly,” Zach says. Then he flames out. Dead.

I wake up. It’s 2:37
A.M.
and I’m not sleepy anymore. I pick up my Dick book,
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
and begin reading. It must be hours later that I finally fall back asleep.

“Victoria.” Mom knocks on my door. “You’re late for school.”

Shit.

I scramble out of bed and throw some pants on. I don’t bother changing my shirt — it’s too cold to take it off. I rub some jasmine oil on my skin, brush my teeth, and fly out the door.

Global History is half over.

“Do you have an excuse?” Mr. Gerber asks.

“I overslept.”

“Invest in an alarm clock, Miss Jurgen.” He turns back to the chalkboard and begins arranging all the French Republics onto a timeline.

I open my notebook and start to take notes. The pages are blurred because I am crying. I have never been late to Global History before. It’s my favorite class and Mr. Gerber is my favorite teacher. It’s the only thing worth coming to school for.

“You smell good today,” Max Carter turns around and whispers.

I don’t answer him.

“Are you crying?” he asks.

“I don’t cry.”

A tear falls onto my loose-leaf paper, making me a liar and smudging the words
Third Republic.
Max Carter’s hand slips a little package of Kleenex through my arms and onto my notebook. The Kleenex is from Japan. It is pink and it has little goofy characters on it. I take a piece out and wipe my eyes. It feels like everyone is looking at me.

Except Max Carter. He’s leaving me alone, just like I asked him to.

During the trigonometry quiz, instead of solving any of the problems, I notice that the whole world is made up of angles and arcs. If I squint just the right way, I can make anything look like an angle.

I can see me in relation to the rest of the world. I am
x.
The pen in my hand, my elbow, and the distance to my empty brain is a math problem. I can vary the arc. The pen is
x.

The bird in the air, outside the window, flying to the tree is unconsciously measuring the arcs and angles. I can see the math all around me.

But when it comes to putting it down on paper, I draw a blank.

One thing I can answer for sure. I’m going to fail another quiz.

I am in the gift shop, next to Hasan, who is nearly peeing his pants over all the DVDs of TV shows they have. He’s bought nearly everything in the store.

“If I bought the first season of
The Nemesis
on DVD, could you get your mom to sign it for me?” Hasan asks.

“No,” I say.

“Oh, come on,” Hasan begs. He is so geeky it’s embarrassing.

“You’ll sell it on eBay or something,” I say.

“No, he would only do that if he bought two copies,” Martin chimes in.

“I’m so in love with your mom, Egg. If I was older or she was younger, I would ask her out on a date,” Hasan says.

“That’s pathetic,” I say.

“I can’t see any of your mother in your face,” Hasan says. “You must look like your dad.”

“Ugh,” I say, and roll my eyes at the pins and mugs under the glass counter.

“Is there really a need for this much
Nemesis
stuff?” I say.

In the screening series, they showed the
Nemesis
pilot. My mom, prancing around in a skintight catsuit before she got knocked up with me.

It’s embarrassing.

It’s unfair.

She was hot and I am not. Under my layers of clothing, there is not such a toned skinny body as hers was. I have curves. I have boobs.

“I would have loved to have had your boobs,” Mom always says. “Why do you always hide your body? You should emphasize your assets. You make yourself ugly on purpose.”

“Boy proof,” I remind her.

“The museum is going to have a
Nemesis
marathon for its twentieth anniversary,” the gift-shop guy says. “There is going to be a reception and everything. The whole original cast is going to be here.”

“I haven’t heard about that,” I say. “I would know.”

“Well, it’s true. That’s why I’m so stocked on
Nemesis
stuff right now.”

“Cool,” Hasan says. “Can we come with you to the reception, Egg?”

“No,” I say.

I leave the gift shop and slam the door on my way outside to be by myself.

I wish I smoked cigarettes or had a flask or did something self-destructive to get rid of this burning black feeling inside of me. Instead I resort to biting my nails. If the world were going to end, like in
Terminal Earth,
I wish it would do it right now on top of me.