Emmy & Oliver (5 page)

O
liver's first day of school didn't go well.

My day didn't start off great, either. First thing, my mom cornered me in the kitchen. I was shoveling Frosted Flakes into my face while reading the back of the cereal box. (Those mazes are getting more and more difficult, I swear.)

“So,” my mom said in a way that made me look up from the box with my eyebrows already raised. “Oliver's going to start school today.”

“Today?” I repeated. “But it's raining out.”

What does that have to do with anything?
I immediately thought, just as my mom said, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I don't know, shouldn't it be sunny? Rain on your first day is not a good omen.
These are not good omen skies.”

My mom eyed me. “Have you been drinking coffee again?”

I had. She wasn't supposed to know about that.

“So it's Oliver's first day,” I prompted her, ignoring the question. “And?”

“And it would be nice if you were nice to him.”

“I thought we were giving him space. And if we're not, why wouldn't I be nice?” Then I added, “I'm very nice. I'm nice to everyone who deserves my niceness.”

“I just mean that I'm sure it won't be an easy transition for him.”

“So be nice, but don't tell him that I'm being nice?”

“Emmy. He's probably nervous.”

“He should be,” I muttered. Oliver was pretty much starting off his first day of public high school as a quasi-celebrity. And to attract that kind of attention in high school often meant disaster.

“What?” my mom asked.

“Nothing,” I muttered.

“Well, I know that Maureen is just a wreck. She's convinced that Keith is just going to show up on campus and spirit him away again. I've told her that's not going to happen and Oliver needs to go to school, get back into the routine of things, but you know Maureen.”

I wondered if my mom even realized I was still in the room.

“Anyway,” she suddenly said. “You'll be nice to Oliver.” It wasn't a question.

“Yes, I'll be very nice to Oliver. Do you want me to carry his books for him? Open his juice at snack time?”

My mom tried to swat me with the dish towel, but I was already dumping my bowl in the sink and dodging away from her. “Oh, you missed!” I cried. “Too bad, so sad! And
you
should be nice to
me
. Take your own advice!”

“Drive safely!” she called after me. I could tell she was trying not to laugh. “Have a glorious day at school! There, are you happy?”

“Elated,” I yelled back. “Bye!”

Outside, I fired up my car and let it run for a minute while I got situated and threw my bag into the backseat. It was actually a minivan, a bright-blue used one that my parents had gotten me for my seventeenth birthday, sort of the sad twin to Drew's spectacular VW. “For being such a perfect daughter!” my mom had said, which made me feel a little guilty about the fact that I was using the thing to sneak around, surfing. “Don't you want something a bit . . . sportier?” my dad had asked when we were at the lot. But I had
done my homework. I knew that my surfboard would fit perfectly in that car. And I had been right.

The rain was falling harder now, smearing dirt and sand and salt into rivulets that blocked my view. I turned on the windshield wipers a few times, then rolled down my front windows so I could at least see out of them.

In the next driveway over, Oliver was doing the same thing from the passenger seat of his mom's car.

Our eyes met as his mom started the engine. She was talking to Oliver while putting on lipstick in the rearview mirror, her eyes steady even as her hand shook a little bit. I couldn't hear everything that she was saying, but a few words stuck out:
positive attitude, give it a chance, have to try.

My mom probably helped her write that motivational speech.

Oliver was still looking back at me, both of us not moving to roll the windows back up. He looked bleary-eyed and tired, like me. I wondered if he needed coffee. Then I wondered,
Does he even drink coffee?

Maureen rolled her lipstick back down, tucking it into her purse before frowning into the mirror and fluffing her hair. (The rain wasn't doing anyone any favors, hair-wise.) Oliver hadn't looked away yet. He was inscrutable, just like those age-progression pictures of him on the missing children databases. I couldn't read his face at all and it was . . . weird.

So I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him.

The minute I did that, I realized that I was an idiot. A first-class idiot that clearly had no idea how to interact with people—or how to roll her window back up and avoid getting rain all over the car's interior, for that matter. Who just crosses their eyes at someone? Four-year-olds, that's who. Four-year-olds and people who need corrective lens wear.

But Oliver's face suddenly split open into a confused smile, like he wasn't sure what he was seeing, but liked it, anyway. His eyebrow arched as he started to roll the window back up and I quickly did the same, my cheeks on fire.

The second I ran into Caro in the hallway, I grabbed her arm. “Ow and hi,” she said, taking her arm back.

“You won't believe what I just did,” I said to her.

“I probably will, but try me.”

“So I saw Oliver in the driveway this morning—”

“Why was he in the driveway?”

“He's starting school today. Anyway—”

“He is?” Caro gasped, now grabbing my arm. (She was right, it hurt.) “Oh my God, is that even a smart idea? Everyone knows who he is!”

“I know, right?” I said. “I tried to tell my mom the same thing, but she didn't get it.”

“Moms never do,” Caro said in sympathy. “Okay, so you saw him in the driveway, heading straight toward this torture chamber, and . . .”

“And both of our windows were rolled down.”

“Yeah?”

“And he wouldn't stop looking at me.”

Caro widened her eyes a little. “He wouldn't stop looking at you? Or you wouldn't stop looking at him?”

“Caro, that's not important. We were both looking at each other, and it was really weird, so I crossed my eyes and stuck out my tongue at him.”

Caro just shrugged. “It sounds cute. You're adorable when you cross your eyes. What'd he do?”

“He smiled,” I admitted. “And then we rolled up the windows because it was raining.”

“Well, you were wrong, I totally believe this story,” she said as we arrived at her locker. “Why does it always smell like old sandwiches around here?” she muttered as she spun the lock. “Someone's hoarding food and it's disgusting. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that your reputation with the most famous person in our school is still intact. He smiled and that's a good sign.” Caro gave me a meaningful glance. “You should cross your eyes more often. You'll have a date to prom like that!”

I socked her in the shoulder even as I started to laugh. “You're the worst best friend ever.”

“I take pride in that,” she said, and was about to say more when Oliver walked out of the school office and started to head toward his locker.

It wasn't too difficult to find. It was the one that had milk cartons stuck all over it.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“What?” Caro said, then looked up from her phone to follow my gaze to Oliver's locker. A few other people were already looking at it, taking pictures that would probably end up on the internet in the next thirty seconds, even before Oliver had a chance to see it for himself.

“Milk?” she whispered. “Why milk?”

“Milk
cartons
,” I whispered back. “You know, missing kids. Oh God, this is awful.”

“How did they even know that was his locker?” Caro asked, running her hand
through her hair the way she always did when she was pissed off about something.

“One of the suck-ups who work in the office must've tipped someone off,” I said.

“What is that, fishing wire?” Caro said, squinting to see what held the cartons to the locker.

“Assholes,” I muttered. I was about to storm over there and start yanking them down when Oliver walked past Caro and me. His gaze was the same as it had been in the car, sort of expressionless and cautious at the same time, and it didn't change when he saw his locker.

“Oh no,” I whispered to Caro, who was clutching at my arm again. It still hurt, but I didn't say anything. “Oh my God, this is so bad.”

“It's milk, Emmy,” Caro whispered back. “Not arsenic. Unless he has a lactose thing, he'll live.” She paused. “Hey, remember when Kaitlyn Cooper was in the library and someone opened a package of peanut M&M's? Oh my God, she blew up like a balloon. People were practically throwing EpiPens at her like she was a dartboard.”

“Yeah,” I said, half listening.

“It was nuts. No pun intended.”

I shook Caro off and went over to where Oliver was spinning his locker combination, consulting the tiny sheet of paper from the office that had his schedule and info. The milk cartons were literally knocking into his knuckles as he worked, but he didn't acknowledge it, just like he wasn't acknowledging the people that were staring at him or giggling nearby.

“So mean,” I heard a few girls whisper into their cupped hands, but they were standing together in a tiny gaggle, hiding smiles behind their fingers. Probably freshmen. They loved drama at school because it was just like all the movies they had grown up watching. A delivery on a promise:
high school will be so exciting!
When in fact, it was normally just boring as hell.

I glared at the girls as I went over to Oliver. My cheeks felt like someone had packed hot coals into them, but his were still East Coast pale. “I'm really sorry about this,” I said, blurting out words before I could put any actual thought behind them. “Everyone here is an asshole. You should know that.”

Oliver glanced down at me, blinking a few times in slow motion and reminding me of Mr. Snuffleupagus on
Sesame Street
. “Why are
you
apologizing?” he asked. “Did you do this?”

“What? No! No, of course not.” I shook my head and crossed my arms. “No, I just . . . I'm sorry this is your first day and people are treating you like this.”

He pulled a brown-bagged lunch out of his backpack (so new that I could see where either he or his mom had forgotten to remove the sales tag) and shoved it into his locker. The milk cartons were still thudding against the door, drawing even more attention to the spectacle. Behind me, I heard someone's camera phone click. “Like what?” he asked.

“Like . . .” I gestured toward the locker.
Like what, Emmy? Like a kid who was missing and then came home? Like the new kid who has to be hazed? Like Caro said, it's milk, not arsenic.

And then Oliver blinked again and it was like a shutter went off in his own eyes so I could see the picture of the anger, the hurt, the embarrassment. It was a private viewing just for me, gone a second later when he blinked once more and his face smoothed back into its normal, passive shape.

“Emily, right?” he said.

It took me a few seconds to realize he meant me. No one ever called me Emily, not unless they were my parents and they were furious. “Um, yeah,” I said. “Emmy, actually.” It felt odd to introduce myself to him all over again.

“Want some milk?” he asked. He snapped a carton from its wire and handed it to me before I could even answer. “In case you're vitamin D deficient. Courtesy of our classmates.”

“But I—I'm not—okay, thanks.” The carton was cold, which meant someone had done it right before school started.

Small mercies. The milk could have been spoiled.

Oliver slammed his locker shut, then took his own carton, opened the top, and drank the whole thing in one gulp as he walked down the hallway. Just before he rounded the corner, he sank it into a trash can.

“What did he say?” Caro said, suddenly at my elbow again.

“He gave this to me,” I said, showing her the carton.

“Yeah, I know, genius, but what did he say? Is he pissed?”

I couldn't help but smile as I shook my head. “He said I could have this in case I had a vitamin deficiency.” I handed it to her as she frowned at me. “And he called me Emily.”

Caro wrinkled her nose. “Do you think he's . . . you know . . . ?” Caro tapped her index finger against her temple. “Addled?”

“No,” I laughed. “No, I think he's really smart.”

“Well, I hope so, for your sake.”

“Yeah? Why's that?”

“Because it's Wednesday.”

Wednesday
.

“Oh my God,” I said, whirling to face her. “It's Wednesday.”

“That's right.” She smiled and handed the milk carton back to me. “Babysitting night.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................