Harmonic Feedback (6 page)

Kari spun around and grabbed Justin’s wrist. “Will you be my partner again?”

“Okay, but don’t spill any iodine on me this time,” he said.

I glanced at the guy next to me, but he was already whispering to the girl in front of him. In fact, it seemed everyone but me had a partner. This meant the teacher would pair up with me, or he’d force me into a three-way. Either way, I’d end up the focal point of the class—the one nobody wanted to partner with.

Mr. Duncan handed some papers to the first person in our row. “When you guys are done, I want you to introduce your partner to the class. Clear enough?”

I kept hoping that one teacher out of the bunch would come up with a first-day activity I hadn’t done a zillion times before. Or at least one that had some purpose.

Justin turned around and handed me the last questionnaire, a smile flickering at his lips. “You need a partner, don’t you?”

I shrugged, not really knowing how to respond.

“Scoot your chair up,” he said. “The more the merrier.”

“Okay.”

“She doesn’t have a partner,” Justin said to Kari as I moved my desk next to his.

“Aw, sure—yeah, join us,” she said in a high voice. Too high. It sounded fake, even to me.

I had to look twice at the questions on the paper. They definitely weren’t the normal set, like what’s your name, favorite subject, etc. This one wanted to know our favorite vacation, the best book we’d ever read, what we wanted to be when we grew up, and the first thing we did this morning.

“These are really random,” Justin said.

“Yeah, I had Duncan my freshman year,” Kari said. “He’s a nut job, but he’s entertaining.” She twirled a lock of hair around her finger, biting her lower lip. “We’ll just go around in a circle. I’ll ask you.” She nodded at Justin. “You can ask Drea and whatever.”

“That works,” I said, glancing at the clock and counting the minutes left. Thirty-six.

“Okay.” She poked Justin. “Tell me all about your favorite vacation.”

Justin rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “You’ll have to give me a minute to think about that.”

“Sure.” Kari smiled at him. Her eyelashes looked like they belonged in a mascara commercial; every lash was perfectly separated and curled. I’d tried to use my mom’s eyelash curler once, but it ended up being more of an eyelash eradicator.

“Do I have something on my face?” she asked me.

“No. I like your makeup.”

The corner of her glossy mouth perked up. “Uh—thanks.” She glanced at Justin, but he was doodling on his questionnaire. “Got an answer yet?”

He dropped his pen and folded his arms across his chest. “I guess it would be the summers I stayed in Milan with my grandma. She lived right by this gelato place, and they had a coconut and mango combo that rocked.”

“I like coconut,” I said.

“Hold up. You spent summers in Milan and all you can say is you liked the ice cream?” Kari asked.

“It ruined me on pizza in the States too. Can’t eat it unless I use my grandma’s recipe.”

Kari wrinkled her nose at him. “Come on, you gotta give me more than that. Did your parents just, like, put you on a plane every summer?”

“Well, my dad worked for a company based out of Munich, so sometimes he took me with him. And Milan was only about a five-hour drive. Staying with my grandma was more fun than a hotel, you know?”

“Not really. My parents don’t exactly frequent Europe much.” Kari rolled her eyes. “We might see my aunt in Vancouver if they’re feeling daring.”

Justin looked down, drumming his hands on his desk.

“Do you speak Italian?” I asked.

Both their heads jerked up like they’d suddenly remembered I was sitting with them. Kari’s eyes darted from me to Justin.

“Sì.”
He smiled at me. “I’m a lot better at understanding it than speaking it, though.”

“I have a bunch of language books at home,” I said. “But they don’t teach me how to say the weird stuff.”

“Nah, you have to actually experience the place to learn the good words,” he said.

“Do you study languages for fun?” Kari asked me.

“Yes.”

“Interesting.” She shifted her gaze to Justin and pursed her lips.

“Do you have a favorite language?” he asked me.

“Gaelic.” I didn’t even have to think about it. “It’s really lyrical.”

“Say something in Italian, Justin,” Kari said, biting the cap of her pen.

“Like what?” He glanced at his hands again. His nails looked like the edges of broken glass. Maybe he bit them, like Naomi did.

She leaned closer to him. “Anything.”

“Sono strano.”
He gave me a side glance.

“You don’t seem that weird,” I said, hoping I got the translation right.

“That’s because you don’t know me that well yet.” The way he said
yet
made my cheeks feel hot. Like he’d actually remember my name in a couple of weeks after he made friends here. Normal friends, like Kari.

By the time Kari was done prodding Justin, we’d learned that his favorite book was
Slaughterhouse Five
, he was interested in psychiatry because the human mind “fascinated” him, and he needed to make sure he still had teeth this morning. He’d dreamed that they’d all fallen out.

“So what was your favorite vacation, Drea?” he asked.

Considering my mom and I were always too busy moving to take vacations, I didn’t have a lot to draw from. “My mom took me to SeaWorld once. I didn’t want to leave after we saw the dolphins—so we watched them until the park closed.”

“If that’s your best vacation, you’re even worse off than I am,” Kari said. “Mine was when I snuck off with my ex during spring break. We drove along the coastline all the way to some town in southern California.”

“Hey, it’s Drea’s turn,” Justin said with a smile.

“I was just trying to speed this up.” She grinned back.

“I want to be a sound designer, don’t have a favorite book, and I tripped over a moving box this morning. Fast enough?” I asked. Next time I would have to come up with a better story for my vacation. Maybe one involving skydiving out of a plane with
my
“ex.”

“For now,” Justin said. “I’ll just grill you more later.”

Kari’s favorite book was
Anne of Green Gables
, she wanted to be a journalist, and she’d hit the snooze button three times before she got up. My interview went a lot quicker because I didn’t ask her to elaborate on her experiences. And Justin drew pictures of rectangles and eyeballs on his paper. I wondered if he was even paying attention to her answers.

“Guess we moved too fast,” I said, looking around the room. Some students were using animated hand gestures, others were laughing, and many were writing furiously.

Kari leaned back in her chair, studying me. “So—when did you meet Naomi?”

“When I moved in on Friday. She lives across the street.”

“What do you think of her?”

“She’s nice.” What else could I say? Mom told me to keep my answers to a minimum around people I didn’t know, especially when they wanted to gossip about someone else.

“Yeah.” Kari chuckled. “She sure seems that way, doesn’t she? Watch your back around her.”

Kari’s words made me squirm in my seat. She was the second person in three days to warn me about Naomi. But almost everyone I met made me feel like a freak. They’d give each other these looks, much like the ones Kari gave Justin. I didn’t notice the looks when I was little—the smirks and raised eyebrows. Not until the teasing started. Naomi never looked at me like that.

“She’s my friend,” I said.

Kari put her hand up and shook her head. “You need better taste in friends.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but Justin reached under my desk and brushed his fingers against the back of my hand. It was a quick gesture, but enough to make me forget whatever I was going to say. Warm tingles shot up my forearm, and my stomach felt weird.

“Nothing wrong with loyalty,” he said, giving me a smile.

N
AOMI JUMPED IN FRONT OF ME
and grabbed my shoulders as I left fourth-period biology. “Anyone?” she asked in a low monotone. “Anyone know what this is? Class?”

I pulled out of her grasp. “You’re not making any sense.”

She fell into step alongside me, her mouth hanging open. “Please tell me you’ve seen
Ferris Bueller
.”

“I might have.” It’s not like I took notes on every single movie I saw.

“Okay, we’re so watching that. There’s a teacher in it who’s just like the Bot.”

“The Bot?”

“Yeah—that’s what we call Mr. Harvey. He’s the only bio teacher I’ve had who can make dissecting a fetal pig seem like a real estate seminar.”

I hadn’t noticed anything unusual about Mr. Harvey other than the spit flying out of his mouth with every hard consonant. He also smelled like an old closet—no wonder I had a front table all to myself.

Naomi pushed open a set of doors and led me back to the fountain. Students poured out into the quad like ants zeroing in on a juice spill. “Is your lunch in there?” She nodded at my blue lunch box.

“It’s in my backpack.”

“Do you take that thing everywhere with you?”

My hand tightened around the handle. “Yes.” Like Mr. Fuzzy the blanket, my box was a piece of home. It comforted me.

“Got anything I can eat?” She elbowed her way through a group of jocks and slid onto the cement wall, spreading her arms wide and leaning on her palms.

I plopped next to her, yanking a crumpled brown bag out of my backpack. “I’ve got a jelly sandwich and an apple.”

Naomi wrinkled her nose. “Feeling extra fruity this morning?”

“The apple was Grandma’s idea. You can have it.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You got something against peanut butter?”

“Yeah, it’s gross.”

“But purple jelly between two pieces of… what the hell kind of bread is that?”

I shrugged. “Some twelve-grain stuff my grandma eats. I didn’t have time to buy food this weekend.”

She shook her head and sank her teeth into the green apple.

Drizzle sprinkled my cheeks, and the smell of wet pavement curled into my nostrils. I loved the scent of rain—if only it came in bottles. A couple of guys with messy hair and studded belts nodded at Naomi as they passed. She wiggled her fingers at them, and they nudged each other, smirking.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Dumb and Dumber—the emo twins. I hooked up with the blond one last year. Shortest lunch break I ever had.” She grinned.

How was I supposed to respond to that? I swallowed a lump of jelly. “How come Kari doesn’t like you?”

Naomi rolled her eyes. “I messed around with her ex-boyfriend. Only—I didn’t know they were still together at the time. The dude in the red shirt.” She pointed to a guy with a shaved head and biceps as big as my thighs. He stood near the school entrance, laughing with a couple other boys.

“Oh.” I took another small bite of my sandwich. The seeds in the bread stuck to my teeth.

She nibbled on her thumbnail and gave me a sidelong glance. “It’s not like I’m a slut. I’ve only had actual sex with three guys.”

That sounded like an awful lot to me, but what did I know? The only people I talked to were net geeks online, and they never had dates either. “How old were you—the first time?”

She devoured the last speck of skin on the apple. “Fifteen. What about you?”

What made her assume I’d had sex? Maybe because she thought I had all these crazy-boy stories. “Um…” I tried to think of a good answer, but a hand squeezed my shoulder, making me jump.

“Hey.” Justin smiled at us. “Mind if I join you?”

Naomi glanced from me to him. “Fine by me.”

Justin sat next to me and unraveled a brown bag of his own, pulling out a couple pieces of vegetable pizza. The crust was super thin, like crackers. I wondered if it was his grandma’s recipe.

“You gonna answer the question or not?” Naomi nudged me.

I leaned closer to her ear and lowered my voice. “Not now.” Mom used to get on me about bringing up certain subjects around strangers, especially anything sex related. And talking about boys around a boy was just weird.

She leaned forward to look at Justin. “We were discussing our first time—when was yours?”

“Naomi!” I elbowed her. Maybe she needed a few social lessons herself.

Justin swallowed a massive bite of his pizza. “My first time… what?”

She squinted at him. “Don’t be coy.”

He crinkled his brow at me. “She always like this?”

Before I could answer, Roger shoved himself between Naomi and me. “Anyone game for Taco Bell?”

“Count me in,” Naomi said.

Roger pushed his shades down his nose and peered at me. “What about you, Grannie Panties? You and your boyfriend want to come?”

I looked away. His presence and loud voice made me cringe. “Can you not call me that?”

“I’m just teasing. Don’t get your panti—” He paused and laughed. “Oops.”

“Why don’t you drop it, man?” Justin asked.

Naomi’s eyes widened, and she made an
O
shape with her mouth.

Roger held his hands up. “I’m just playin’. You guys coming or not?”

Justin raised his pizza crust at him. “Nah, I’m good.”