Dream Boy (7 page)

“So are you.”

“Do you have to say stuff like that?” I asked.

“You don’t like it?”

“No, I mean do you
have
to? Do you have any choice or are you, you know, compelled?”

“No, of course not,” he said, though he didn’t sound quite so confident this time. “There’s a certain
track
, I guess you’d say. Like my house, my parents, football. There’s a place I’m supposed to fit in. But once I got here, my mind was my own. Finally.”

I tried not to wonder if I was just another part of his track. “And you’re here,” I said.

“Yes.” He grinned at me, and honestly, his smile could power a third world village.

When he reached out his hand, I took it.

“Can you hear what I’m thinking now?” I asked.

He nodded. “Though it’s farther away. I can feel things shifting.”

“Shifting,” I repeated. “But you weren’t going to listen anyway, right?”

“I didn’t think I’d have to, but you don’t say what you’re thinking.”

“I don’t always want to say it.” I turned and looked at him.
Kiss
me.
I thought.
Kiss
me
now.

He leaned forward, took my chin in his hand, and did.

He smelled of syrup, tasted of it. When he pulled away, a passing car honked and someone let out a rebel yell. I touched my finger to my lips, feeling off-balance, and dazzlingly awake.

“Ve have vays of making you talk.”

Talon’s accent was straight out of a B-grade movie.
The
Gypsy
Bride
of
Düsseldorf.

“I thought we were supposed to be concentrating,” I said. We sat across from each other on Serena’s four-poster bed, our fingers lightly touching the arrow-indicator-thingy from Talon’s Ouija board. “Anyway, I’ve already told you guys everything.”

Which wasn’t precisely true. In all my phone conversations and texts the day before, I’d been as elusive as possible. Plus after lunch, Martin had asked me not to tell anyone about how he’d gotten here. Even though I’d already told Talon and Serena that I’d seen him in my dream, I was now supposed to say he was from Philadelphia and it was all just a big coincidence.

“Let’s see.” Talon was all American now as she addressed the Ouija board. “Has Annabelle told us everything?” Slowly, as if a magnet were drawing it there, the indicator moved to “no.”

“See?” Talon quirked one eyebrow up in a No-More-BS gesture, and I felt a wave of sympathy for her future children.

“We just took a walk,” I said. “And went to lunch…and talked and stuff.”

“What stuff?” Serena asked.

“Well”—I had to give them something—“he’s an
amazing
kisser!”

Serena literally clapped her hands.

“Tongue?” Talon asked.

“Some,” I said. “He’s really sweet. Kind of clueless, but
hot
clueless.”

“That wouldn’t have anything to do with him being from another planet, right?” Talon had a propensity for one-track sarcasm. As usual she was right on target, but I couldn’t let her know that.

“Shut up,” I said. “Okay, he looks like my Dream Boy, but not totally-totally. He also kind of looks like Sean Farrell.” Sean Farrell is the lead singer for Sideways, my favorite band of all time. Besides the Pacers, they were the only band who ever came through Chilton because they were actually
from
Chilton. “I mean, who wouldn’t dream about him?”

I picked up a wedge of zucchini from the tray Mrs. Mendez had set out for us. You couldn’t come over to Serena’s without digesting vegetable matter. The last time I visited, her mother fed us eggplant, pine nuts (“pignolia,” her mother called them) and a pile of unidentifiable leaves that took forever to chew. I think that’s why Serena drinks so much Diet Coke and stuff whenever she’s away from home.

I pointed at Talon with the zucchini in a way that I hoped made me look convincing. “You dreamed about Spice. Does that mean Spice is an alien? Anyway, Martin’s from Philly, which, last time I checked, is in this galaxy.”

“I thought he was from Egypt,” said Serena.

“He was only there for a year or something.”

“Yeah.” Talon squinted and tucked her hair behind her ears—which is the same thing she does when she watches cop shows on TV. Not a good sign. “And Chilton, Virginia, is the next logical stop on his world tour.”

“Why not Chilton?” Serena interjected. “Mr. Stauffer says with the Internet, you can live pretty much anywhere and work out of your home.” Serena has a huge crush on Mr. Stauffer, our guidance counselor. She says she doesn’t, but then she quotes him on everything from organizational strategies to paradigm shifts.

“There you go!” I said with more enthusiasm than was warranted. “And anyway, I think I must have remembered the dream wrong.”

“Hold on,” Talon said. “You dream about this guy and then
poof
, he appears. And he not only appears, but he shows up at your house and sticks his tongue down your throat. And now you’re all ‘tra-la-la my Dream Boy didn’t have a freckle on his arm so it wasn’t him.’ Come
on
, Annabelle. This is
cosmic
. You’ve got to admit, something’s up.” She addressed the Ouija board again. “Is something up?” she asked.

We put our hands back on the board and slowly, the indicator moved to the letter U, then P, then U, then P, again and again until I took my hands off to make it stop.

“You made it do that,” I said.

“Did not,” Talon said. Serena put her hands out for me to inspect, to show that she, at least, was innocent.

I’ve never known quite how Ouija boards worked. I mean, it’s not like I believe there are a bunch of spirits just waiting for us to call on them and ask them dumb questions like “Who will I marry?” But at the same time it doesn’t seem like Parker Brothers could manufacture a game where you rely on someone to cheat and make the little thingie move. That’s not exactly a business plan, is it?

I rested my fingers back on the indicator. Talon was being a total contrarian. Had I been all freaked out (
I
kissed
a
dream
who
came
to
earth
through
pipes!
) she likely would have acted nonchalant (
Just
as
I
suspected
all
along.
). But since I was understating things, not to mention
omitting
them, she was determined to stir up drama.

“It’s surreal! Who’s with me?” Talon raised her arms like she was talking to a huge crowd instead of just Serena and me.

“Of course, it’s surreal,” I said. “With my love life,
any
guy showing up at my house and sticking his tongue down my throat is surreal. And just for the record, he didn’t ‘stick his tongue down my throat.’ Our tongues just sort of touched. Like they were bumping into each other. It was nice.”

“But he is”—Talon said this slowly, as if I’d just had an emergency lobotomy—“the same…guy…from…your…dream. You said so Friday.”

“It’s just a coincidence. End of story.”

“You are one sucky liar, Annabelle Manning.” She went back to the Ouija board. “Is Annabelle lying?”

And this time, I couldn’t help myself, I did cheat, to keep the indicator from going to yes. I couldn’t tell if Talon and Serena were pushing back or not, but the spirit didn’t tell us anything in the end, just kind of shuffled around a little in the middle.

“Okay, next question,” Talon announced. “Is Martin Zirkle an alien?”

“GUH!” I took my hand off the indicator. “Can we move on?” I wanted to change the subject and besides, Talon was right about the lying thing. I could never quite wrap my face around a lie, ever since my very first fib, when my dad asked if I had eaten all twenty-two of the lollipops I was supposed to tape onto my kindergarten valentines. “It wasn’t me,” I’d said. But my lips were coated with red sugar and I couldn’t look him in the eye.

When I faced my dad I was alone. This time, I had Serena.

“You’re missing the point,” she told Talon, folding her arms, too. “First of all he is so
not
an alien. And second of all it doesn’t matter where he came from. What matters is he’s hot and sweet and…what else did you say he was?”

“Clueless?” offered Talon.

“Romantic,” finished Serena. “He got her
flowers
.”

“Technically he got me
flower
, singular,” I said. “But it
was
romantic. Now ask a question.” We put our fingers back around the edges of the indicator.

“What is—” Talon began.

“Not a me-and-Martin question,” I interrupted.

“What is your name?” Serena asked. The indicator swirled over the board, stopping on the letters A, S, C, O, and T.

“Your name is Ascot?” I asked.

“Just ‘Scot,’ maybe,” Serena said.

“You’re
wearing
an ascot?” Talon asked. The indicator moved straight to “yes” and the three of us cracked up.

We moved on to debating whether or not Serena should get her belly button pierced. (I was
Why?
Talon, who had already pierced her tragus, was
Why
not?
The Ouija board was
Goodbye
.) Then Serena’s mom poked her head in the door.

“You girls staying for dinner?”

“Thanks for the offer, Mrs. Mendez, but I have a thing with my dad,” Talon said.

“Annabelle?”

“Oh, thanks”—I thought of the pine nuts—“but I have to get going, too.”

“Next time then. Serena, I still want you to try on these hiking boots to make sure we have the right fit.” She tossed a box on the rug. “You know I don’t like you girls using that thing, especially on Sunday.” She sighed. “But as long as you’re using it, ask about my necklace. I still can’t figure out where I put it.” She shut the door behind her.

“Where is my mother’s necklace?” Serena asked.

“S, L, E, L, F.”

“Slelf?” Serena said.

“Maybe he means shelf,” I said. “Like bookshelf or something.”

“We have a lot of shelves.” Serena moved away from the Ouija board and started to unpack her boots. “So what’s the ‘thing’ with your dad?”

“Dinner at Sushi Palace,” Talon said. “He’s never been; I’ve never been. We’re ‘opening ourselves up to experiences.’”

“Sushi in Chilton is an experience all right,” I said. “It’s like roast beef in…I don’t know. India. Is that something The Doctor suggested?”

“What else?” Talon grimaced.

I looked down at Serena’s feet, now clad in industrial-strength pink boots. “Nice.”

“I needed some new ones before our trip to Black Beak.” Serena clicked the toes of her boots together.

“So you’re still going AWOL over homecoming?” Talon asked.

“It’s not like I have any better options,” Serena said. “It’s too bad really. I would have liked to see Annabelle all dolled up with her new boy.”

“Oh crap! Crap crap crap!” I bit my lip. “I sort of made plans for homecoming with Will.”

“Will. Really?” Talon had that cop-show look again.

“We were just going as friends.”

“Well, then, tell him
as
friends
that you’re making other plans,” she said, still squinting.

I didn’t want to think about that conversation—especially not after all his weirdness yesterday. “Anyway,” I said, “Martin hasn’t asked me.”

“Hasn’t asked you
yet
,” Serena amended. “I don’t even
have
to ask the Ouija board that question.”

“All right, then. How about this?” Talon rubbed her hands together and then put her fingertips on the indicator. Serena and I followed suit. “Oh great and powerful Ouija, what does homecoming have in store for our sweet little Annabelle Manning? Will it be everything she could hope for—the night of her dreams?”

“B, E, W, R, E, G, R, L.”

“Be We Are Grill?” asked Serena, taking her hands from the indicator and shaking them out. “Be Regal?”

“Beware G.R.L?” Talon asked. “Who’s G.R.L.? Do you know anyone with the initials G.R.L.?”

“Beware GRILL,” Serena said. “No barbecuing on homecoming.”

To me the interpretation seemed obvious but I didn’t share it: BEWARE GIRL.

The girl in the dream. A warning.

But whether the warning was for her or for me, I couldn’t say.

I didn’t have any nightmares on Sunday night, which made it a lot easier to face Monday morning. Instead I focused on my good dreams, and on the one that had come true and had followed me to my locker and kissed me on the cheek in front of God and Mr. Stauffer.

I avoided mentioning homecoming—to Will or Martin, though I’d been thinking it at the top of my lungs.

It probably seemed weird that I even
wanted
to go to homecoming since it was such a disaster last year, and since technically it fell under the category of “school spirit.” But I did want to go. For one, it was a chance to show Daniel that I’d gotten over him. And for two, it was a chance to spend the night leaning against Martin and listening to music, both of which are good things in themselves, but which, when combined, are amazing. At least, I thought they would be amazing. I guess I’d never know unless Martin asked me to homecoming. It wasn’t that I thought he didn’t like me. Even given my usual insecurities I was pretty sure he did. I mean, he kind of had to, right? But I didn’t know if Martin
knew
he could ask me. Or should. Or if he even danced.

When I got to the lunchroom, Will, Paolo, Talon, and Serena were already in our spot. I didn’t see Martin anywhere. I moved to the end of the table next to Will and opened my bag lunch. I’d packed PB&J, an apple, and some carrot sticks wrapped in aluminum foil, which is SO middle school, but is at least edible. Then I had a panic attack. What if Martin came to lunch but didn’t sit with me? What if he did sit with me and he and Will went all Testosterone again?

I felt him looking at me before I saw him, but when I did, everything seemed all right. He was coming out of the cafeteria line, and he was smiling. He wouldn’t be for long. I should have warned him about cafeteria food when he called Sunday night. “I just wanted to hear your voice,” he’d said, and my heart beat like I’d just run a six-minute mile. We’d talked for two hours, and I’d kept my head under the covers so my mom wouldn’t hear me. And even though he wasn’t there, I’d felt like we were alone together in a cave.

Now my heart was beating fast again. We were in a wide-open space and Martin was walking toward me.

I gave him a half-wave.

“Who are you—oh,” Will said. He had a camera on the table in front of him and he was trying not to drip mustard from his sandwich on it.

“You’ll be nice, right?” I said.

“I’m always nice,” Will said.

“Not always.”

“I’ll be nice.” He raised his hand like a Boy Scout, though he’d never been one.

I squeezed over and made room for Martin, completely ignoring Talon and Serena, who were elbowing each other and mouthing words like “finally.” Martin sat down. He was wearing another blue shirt that matched his eyes—did he own anything but blue?—and jeans.

“Miss me?” he asked. Then he made eye contact with Will. “Hello, Will,” he said and, after a pause that went on for a beat too long, he added, “Math…fascinating subject, isn’t it?”

I looked at Will. Today his T-shirt read “I eat
π
for breakfast.” I hoped Martin was responding to the T-shirt, not thinking that “math is fascinating” was a normal topic of conversation.

“Indeed,” Will said, all politeness, though his jaw was tight. “How are you adapting to life in Chilton? It must be quite a change from Philly.”

“I love it here,” Martin said.

“So, I guess you’re a big Eagles fan?” Will asked.

“Sure, I like eagles,” Martin said. I nudged him under the table with my foot. Even I knew that was a team of some sort.

Will raised an eyebrow in a “something’s fishy in Denmark” way, but he went on to comment on some guy who, from the drift of the conversation, must have been the team’s new assistant coach. Martin nodded, clearly lost.

“Um, Martin, these are my friends. Serena.” She waved, watching us like she was watching one of my mom’s old romance movies. “Paolo.” He nodded his head once, a weird, knowing smile on his face that made me want to slug him. Martin nodded back. “Talon.” Talon reached a hand across the table to shake his. I think she wanted to make sure he wasn’t made of alien goo.

Martin smiled at everyone and picked up his fork.

“Steak!” he announced.

“Ew.” Serena said.

“Ew?” Martin said.

“They
call
it Salisbury steak,” I explained. “No one knows what it is really.”

“Ground beef,” Serena said. “Only schools don’t use the best beef. They use the worst beef. And gravy.”

“They call it gravy,” I said. “It’s really—”

“Plasma,” Will finished.

“You mean plasma like the kind in your blood?” Martin looked a little paler.

“No, no,” I said quickly. “It’s edible. It’s okay.” I gave Will a dirty look, but of course he was all “What?” especially since I started it.

Talon started humming the theme from an alien movie.

“So he likes Salisbury steak!” I muttered at Talon. “So what?”

Then Martin tasted it and it turned out I was wrong. Martin didn’t like Salisbury steak. Maybe he was human after all.

He looked like he wanted to spit, so I pointed to his napkin, but right at that moment Stephanie Gonzales started walking toward our table and he swallowed instead. His eyes flashed the way most guys’ eyes flash when they first see Stephanie Gonzales. Like they’ve never seen a girl so perfect before. Only Martin’s expression was slightly different. It was like he
had
seen her before and was happy to see her again.

“Marty!” She stopped at our table—stopped, instead of walking past us.

“Steph.”

She
called
him
Marty! He called her Steph! I knew I shouldn’t have left that stupid football game!

“You were on fire Friday night!” She sounded like one of her cheesy cheers.

“Um, thanks,” he said. “So were you.”

She laughed and flipped her hair. “Are you sure you want to sit here?” She looked at me. “No offense.” As if that could somehow
not
be offensive?

“I’m comfortable,” Martin said, but he didn’t look comfortable. His smile was a little too determined, and he sort of gripped the edge of the table, like he was trying to keep himself from jumping up. “This is crazy, isn’t it?”

“Crazy,” I said, but they both ignored me.

“So, how’s it going?” Martin said.

Stephanie put one hand on our table and leaned down, putting her cleavage on prominent display. “How’s it look like it’s going?” Only Stephanie could make
how’s it going
an invitation to show off her boobs.

“Good,” he said. “Great.”

“We’re sitting over there.” She pointed to her table. I wanted to see Talon’s face but I was afraid if I looked away, Martin would stand up and follow Stephanie right into the sunset. Actually, I was afraid he’d do that even if I didn’t look away.

“I’m fine right here,” he said. “But we should get together and…finish our talk.”

“I’d really like that,” she said.

When she was gone, Talon kicked me under the table.

I gave her a weak-tea smile.

“She’s a friend,” Martin said, soft enough so that maybe I was the only one who could hear. “From before.”

“Before?” I muttered. “Before Friday or—Oh my God.” She was one of his dreamers! Just the thought of it gave me itchy skin. Stephanie Gonzales had dreamed about Martin. She’d probably kissed him and her tongue had probably—

“That’s not it,” Martin said. He looked at me meaningfully, like he wanted me to read his mind for a change.

I knew Will and Talon were trying to listen to every word we said. I searched my head for a code word, and for once I was grateful that Martin
did
know what I was thinking.

“So she’s…she’s from Philly?” I whispered.

His eyes said yes.

She’s one of the others
, I thought.
She’s somebody’s Dream Girl!
And this time he nodded.

“Was,” he whispered.

“I have to throw this away,” I said, wadding up my napkin. “Keep me company?”

We walked to the trash can.

“Whose?” I asked. “Billy’s?”

“I couldn’t say,” Martin said. “I don’t think I should be discussing this with you anyway. It’s too much.”

“You bet it’s too much.”

“Annabelle—”

I looked back at our table where everyone was watching us like we were a reality TV show.

“Let’s go back,” I said. “Before everyone gets suspicious.”

“They’re already suspicious,” he said. “Look. You go back. I need to tell Stephanie something.”

But I didn’t want to face my friends. What did he want to tell Stephanie that he couldn’t tell me? When he went to her lunch table, I followed, and stopped near one of the big blue columns that, I suppose, was meant to keep the cafeteria from collapsing. I crouched down and pretended to tie my shoe.

From my vantage point, I could see Martin bend over Stephanie as her full, red lips whispered something surely poisonous in his ear.

“All right,” Martin said, and then added in a deeper voice, “Hey, Billy.”

“Hey.”

“I have cheerleading this afternoon.” Stephanie made it sound like shaking pompoms was on par with curing cancer. Then Martin said something I couldn’t hear and she answered, “It’s a date!”

A
date!
I was thinking.
She
just
wants
to—

Whap.
Martin drummed the side of his head with his hand, as if he were trying to get water out of his ear.

“You know what else we should do,” she said.

“What?” At least he couldn’t read her like he could read me.

“Homecoming.” She said it casually, the way only a girl like Stephanie could say it. “For old time’s sake. I’m certain Billy wouldn’t mind.”

“Uhh…” This from Billy, who didn’t sound as certain.

“What’s homecoming, exactly?” asked Martin.

Like he hadn’t gleaned anything from all of the brain scanning he’d been doing the past two days! I reached down and tied my other shoe.

“A dance, silly,” she said. “Everybody goes. It’s the only thing to do this weekend. It’s the only thing to do all fall, really. You know,
Chilton
.” She said the word like it was a joke between the two of them.

“It’s beautiful here,” Martin said. “It smells good.”

“You have so much to learn,” she said.

“I can’t believe it’s really you, Steph.”

“Uhh, hey—” said Billy.

“So, how about it: homecoming?” She talked over Billy as if he hadn’t spoken.

“You said—” Billy started.

“Yeah, I know, we’re going, Billy.” She sighed. I could almost hear her lips turn down in a pout. “But Martin can come, too, can’t he?”

“I really think I should go with Annabelle,” Martin said.

“Well, I guess if you like that sort of thing,” Stephanie said, as Billy muttered, “Damn straight.”

I was having more uncharitable feelings about Stephanie and I was having them at the top of my lungs. Brain.

Martin dug his fingers through his hair and glanced toward my column.

“So, later?” he asked Stephanie.

“Be there with bells on,” she said.

“People wear bells?”

“You’re so silly!” She laughed, but it was fake.

A second later, Martin peeked around the pole and helped me up. “You know,” he whispered like he was letting me in on a secret, “I can’t hear a thing when you yell like that.”

“I wasn’t yelling. I was thinking.”

“Don’t think so loud,” he said. “It’s like a siren going off in my head.”

“Sorry,” I said.
Better?
I thought in a softer voice.

“Better.”

“So, you know Stephanie pretty well, I guess?” I asked out loud.

“I told you. We’re just friends.”

“Just friends,” I said, but I was thinking,
Not
if
she
has
anything
to
do
with
it.

“Maybe it’s like your Will situation,” he said.

“What Will situation?”

He looked at me like I was the clueless one. “Never mind,” he said.

We started to walk toward our table again, but he stopped.

“There’s a dance next weekend,” he said. “Homecoming?”

I shrugged, but I stopped breathing. “What about it?” I said.

He got down on one knee—I swear to God, one knee—right there in the cafeteria. “Will you go with me?”

The whole cafeteria was watching us, but I didn’t care. I looked at Martin’s face and those warm, honest eyes that liked me and maybe even more than liked. I knew he could read my mind but I wanted to say the answer out loud anyway.

“Yes,” I said.