Cornered (40 page)

Nothing quite like a little ignorant stereotyping to really round out my day. Andy had to deal with this crap all the time and he managed to do it with style; I knew that because that's how I'd seen him handle everything. I wasn't as quick-witted as Andy, but the least I could do was not break down in tears of frustration. I gritted my teeth and just stood there as Tyler continued to “dust me off.” Abuse masquerading as kindness. My eyes were shut and I trembled, but I didn't cry. I didn't shout.

“I think he's clean enough.” A girl's voice said. Tyler stopped smacking my legs, and I finally cracked my eyes open. Brooke stood there, her arms crossed.

“Mind your own business,” Tyler said.

She gave a tight-lipped grin as she looked between us—Tyler doing his best bad boy routine, me a pathetic wreck of a human being. “Yeah. Okay. This is my business.”

Tyler turned toward her. He did his best loom, making himself look as big as he could, like some animals do when they face another predator. (I don't have a social life to speak of, okay? So I watch a lot of Animal Planet.) It failed to make an
impression on Brooke. He raised his finger to poke her in the chest, but she grabbed it and twisted, turning his whole body around and pulling Tyler's arm behind his back. Before he could even get out a full shout, she'd bent his arm up at an odd angle and I heard him grunt in pain.

Brooke wasn't grinning now. Her lips were firmly set and her eyes had lost their playful twinkle as she leaned in and whispered. “Look, buddy, I may not know what your deal is—maybe you weren't hugged enough growing up, maybe you were just born a jerk—but I do know that I don't really care. And I know that it ends. Now.” She pulled his arm up a fraction and he whimpered. “This kid here? The one you just tripped? He's my friend. You got that? Mine. Which means you leave him alone. Understand?”

He looked like an angry hunchback and started to call her names I won't even repeat. Brooke laughed and let go him go with a light push, causing Tyler to stumble before he spun around to glare at us. I took a half step behind Brooke. Not hiding exactly. More like cowering. Two guys—one dirty blond and blue eyed, one brown-haired and with a quick, easy smile—came up to stand beside Brooke. They were both sweaty from skateboarding and wore the same PLUMPY'S shirts on as Brooke. My introduction to Sam and Ramon.

“Is there a problem,
chica
?” Ramon asked. He was spinning his skateboard slowly in his hands, his eyes lit up in a rather maniacal fashion. His friend Sam just laughed, wiping sweat off his forehead with one hand and leaning on his board with the
other. He was smiling too. Perfectly pleasant. Sam didn't loom or menace or anything like that; he had no need for one of Tyler's parlor tricks. Yet there was something about him, something unmovable and steady that while good-natured and not fear inspiring, clearly said
hands off.
How did he do that? How could
I
do that?

“Nope,” Brooke said. “We were just leaving, weren't we?” I felt my stomach bottom out. My saviors were abandoning me. Tyler grinned, something more fitting for a shark then a person.

Brooke put her arm through mine. “Coming?” I nodded dumbly, too surprised to speak. Tyler's vicious smile began to crumble into a look of confusion. All he could do was stare as I was escorted out of his reach. “C'mon,” Brooke said gently. “I'll buy you a milk shake. You like milk shakes?” Again I nodded. Ramon hopped onto his board and skated down the sidewalk in front of us.

Sam stayed walking, apparently content as he was. He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “Sucks about your iPod,” he said.

I jammed my hands into my pockets trying hard not to think about what Tyler had cost me today. Patches on four tires, if they were able to be patched, the iPod, and a whole lot of self-worth . . . and I was already in the red in that department.

“Can you get a new one?” Brooke asked.

I shook my head, my eyes suddenly growing blurry. Just
what I needed to do to impress these people—cry over a damn iPod. Looking away, I swiped at my eyes with the back of my wrist and hoped no one noticed. “I can't afford it.” And lying to my parents by saying I'd dropped it would just earn me a lecture on responsibility, so I couldn't do that.

Sam lazily spun one of the wheels on his board with his finger. “We're hiring, you know. Plumpy's sucks, but the people aren't bad.”

A sudden constriction in my chest made it so I had to clear my throat to answer him. “Well, I could use the money.”

• • •

Brooke stared at Tyler as he talked to Maren. Her eyes were in a squint and her mouth was slightly downturned. “Well, he hasn't changed, has he?”

“No,” I whispered. “He hasn't.” And I felt the old fear coming back, the tightness, the panic sweat.

“His kind never really does.” Brooke slipped a spectral arm through mine. “But you have.”

I shook my head. I didn't feel any different.

“Are you kidding me? You're chatting with a ghost like it's no big deal. You're driving a classic car, and you live in a house with a necromancer. You regularly talk to werewolves, and this morning I saw you give one of the attack gnomes a dressing down.”

“He set my pants on fire. I felt like some sort of discussion was in order.”

“Exactly,” she said. “And what about the time you talked to my severed head, huh? I bet ol' Tyler would've wet his pants.”

“Brooke, if I remember correctly, I screamed and threw shampoo bottles at you. Not really one of my finer moments.”

Andy slipped up next to me, his arms full of DVD cases. “If ever a man was a waste of resources, it would be Tyler.” He tipped his chin toward James, a wistful cast to his expression. “Now him . . .” And he gave a low, appreciative whistle.

I shook my head. “He's not into . . . well, actually, I'm not sure what he's into. He's just scary.” James came over then, a box set of DVDs in his hand.

Brooke peered at the cover. “What's
Murder, She Wrote
?”

“The blood has left your face,” he said, ignoring Brooke as he examined me coolly. “And your heart rate is up.” He did a quick scan of the room, catching sight of Tyler halfway. “Ah. A friend, I see.” Though he was smiling faintly his look reminded me of the expression some cats get when they see a moth. Kind of a
oh good, a new toy
sort of thing.

“I should haunt his ass,” Brooke said. “Think Sam can teach me how to haunt people?”

“Tyler,” I explained to James.

Andy jumped forward, his hand extended despite having to juggle DVD cases to do so. “And I'm Andy.” James shook it absently.

“Frank and I were just discussing how much carbon and water were squandered when Tyler was created.”

“I suppose we should be the bigger people.” I shuffled my
feet on the carpet, trying to channel their instinctive need to run. “You know, forgive and so forth. Let the existence he's carved out be his punishment or something.”

Brooke continued to size Tyler up. “No way—we totally did that before. That was stupid. Maturity is for amateurs.”

Andy turned to me, his eyes wide and his eyebrows up, as if really seeing me for the first time. “Are you serious? I mean really? This isn't some PSA afterschool special pile of crap. We don't have to be better men—for crying out loud, man, we don't even have to learn anything.” He jerked his chin at Tyler. “That pile of poly-cotton blend and testosterone certainly doesn't deserve our consideration. You think he's learned anything? He still calls me pansy and hits on Maren because he thinks, and I quote, that it's ‘all sexy when she speaks Chinese.'”

“I thought she was Japanese.”

Andy rolled his eyes and started roughly shelving the cases. “She is. And before you ask, no, she doesn't speak Chinese. She just repeats quotes from Sun Tzu her dad had her memorize. She only speaks Japanese because her adoptive parents wanted her to ‘know her heritage' or something.”

“She sounds awesome,” Brooke said. “You go talk to her while I figure out how to possess Tyler. . . .”

“You should do something. Attack before your enemy knows you're coming,” James said as he handed the box set to Andy. “I wish to purchase these.”

Andy's face burned red. He mumbled something that sounded vaguely like it might be English before cradling the
DVD set to his chest. I'd never seen Andy be anything but one hundred percent suave. It was almost reassuring to see him falter.

“I'm gonna try to make his head do a three sixty!” Brooke added.

“Shush,” I said. When James scowled at me, I assured him, “Not you. And not you either, Andy.”

“Ah, I see,” Andy said and nodded sagely. “The inner monologue is a harsh mistress.”

Film students take so much in stride, and of course, that's what Andy was majoring in. We had never really become friend-friends. He was—is—a little too cool for me. I'm still a flyweight when it comes to popularity.

But he had a point. I was so used to rolling over and making things easy on everyone else. Avoiding confrontation. Trying to be
good.
And for what? For who? Was I really trying to make life easier for Tyler of all people? What about Andy? Maren? And for the first time I thought,
What about
me
?

It was like an angry volcano had been lying dormant in my chest and only now was it waking up. Steam and heat escaped from its seams while beneath it red-hot lava boiled and churned. I didn't want Tyler to change me. Brooke was right; I'd come a long way and I didn't want to lose who I was now. I'm generally happy keeping the peace.

Just, you know, not today.

“Andy, do you have a Sharpie? The biggest, fattest, permanent marker you can scrounge.”

Andy shelved the last of the cases, juggling James's box set while he did, and nodded. “Yes, and based purely on the look on your face, I'm not even going to ask what you need it for, because I feel like the less I know, the better.” He came back and handed over the marker without making eye contact, then went to ring James up. I could see him trying to make small talk with James as they walked away. James wasn't saying anything back, because he doesn't understand the point of chatting to begin with.

I held up my cell phone again so I could talk to Brooke without looking crazy. I explained my idea to her, and she grinned wickedly. “I was just going to pants him, but this sounds way better.”

“So you can do it?” I asked.

She crossed her arms and snorted. “Ninja, please. I can move objects, for a short time at least. You think I've been wasting my free afternoons? I've been learning things.” She took the marker and was gone.

I went up to the counter where Tyler was still monopolizing Maren's time. James had inexplicably vanished, so I chatted with Andy, asking him different questions about movies, partly to make sure I was getting a good present for Ramon, but mostly so I could have an alibi. Sensing salvation, Maren joined in our discussion.

“I agree with Andy,” she said. “
Black Sheep
is amazing. WETA did the creature effects and man, those killer sheep look spectacular. Totally gory.” She shook her head. “I love that movie.”

“Well, I don't see how I can argue with both of you. I'll bow to your knowledge. Follow-up question—I was thinking of getting him another film.
Incubus
or
Mega Piranha
?”

Andy rested his elbows on the counter. “That depends. Do you actually like this person?”

Maren tapped his head with a movie case. “What a crap answer.” She turned toward me. “You get him
Incubus
now. Then, the next time he deserves a present, you get him
Mega Piranha
,
Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus
, and of course
Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.
That way you can have a marathon that not only covers giant mutant creatures but also features washed-up pop singers who can't act.”

I pulled out my wallet to pay for the movies, noticing out of the corner of my eye that James had rejoined us at some point. “That's a little harsh, don't you think? I mean, clearly the directors were going for camp. Poor acting and camp go hand in hand.”

“That's not entirely true,” Andy said.

Maren shrugged and started checking in movies with the scanner. “Look, all I know is the entire time I was watching those movies, I wanted to feed Debbie Gibson a sandwich. She's too skinny.”

“I think you mean Deborah Gibson,” Andy said. “She goes by her grown-up name now.”

I laughed. Tyler looked between us, clearly confused by our conversation and Maren's choice in joining it. Finally he gave up and left. Well, for a minute. Then he came back in
spitting and fuming, his face apoplectic and red.

“Car . . . words . . . I . . . not cool” were really all I could make out as Tyler sputtered. The rest sounded like he was trying to say several words at the same time. Tyler turned on me and pointed a shaking finger. “You—I know it was you, freak.”

I didn't even have to argue with him. Maren beat me to it. “I don't know what you're accusing him of, but he's been inside the store this whole time.”