Miss Taken (14 page)

Ned didn’t look convinced.

“I swear, he followed me to my locker. I
didn’t even know he was there. Then he lays one on me. I was as
surprised as you.”

Ned was still unimpressed with my story. He
gazed at me, now looking more sad than angry, and then shrugged. He
turned to walk away, mumbling something I couldn’t hear.

“Ned!” I cried, much louder than necessary
since he was still standing right in front of me, just facing the
opposite direction. He cringed at my shriek.

Once again, I took advantage of his momentary
shock to hang on to him. “Where are you going? Why won’t you talk
to me?”

Ned turned halfway. His lips were almost
white, they pressed together so tightly. “So, he kissed you and you
were surprised.”

“Yes! Yes! That’s exactly what happened!” I
was starting to hyperventilate.

“So then what?”

“What do you mean? You showed up.”

“Yeah, I remember that part. I mean what
happened after I left?”

“Oh, I see. I ran after you.”

“After that.”

“Well, I dropped the truffles I made for you
in the hallway.”

“You made me truffles?”

“Uh-huh.”

He softened ever so slightly at the mention
of food. More shameless advancing of my cause. “A whole bunch. I
almost got suspended because Mrs. Rochel smelled the alcohol in
them. I threw them away, even though Kyle said he would eat them
after they fell on the floor. I almost wish I had let him eat the
dirty ones so he would have dropped dead and died.” Okay, too much
information.

Ned crossed his arms. “So he was still
waiting for you.”

“Yeah, but I screamed at him and told him to
leave me alone.”

Ned nodded faintly. “Then what happened?”

Uh-oh. “Um, nothing much. I missed the bus
and had to call my mom for a ride.” I couldn’t quite meet his eye
for that one.

“Did she come?”

I hadn’t notice Ned’s car in the parking lot
that afternoon. Then again, I hadn’t lifted my eyes higher than the
pavement.

“She said it would take a while,” I said
evasively. I don’t know why I was prolonging the agony. Ned totally
knew.

“So what’d you do?”

“Umm, I said I would wait, what was I going
to do? Then I went and cried in the bathroom for a while.” I said
in a pathetic attempt to pull his heart strings.

“So you didn’t get a ride from anyone
else?”

My heart strings were the ones being pulled.
Ned had waited for me. He saw the snow and was going to at least
give me a lift home. My stomach did another twist. It felt like my
pancreas and liver swapped places too. It can’t be healthy to have
one’s organs lurching about like this.

Ned crossed his arms, waiting for me to
answer.

“Oh, yes. That’s right. I forgot. Kyle’s mom
did offer me a ride. Totally slipped my mind.” I let out a little,
light chuckle to show how ditzy I can be sometimes.

Ned nodded his head slowly. He turned to
leave.

“Wait, Ned, let me explain,” I said, catching
up to him again. “My mother forced me to take the ride with his
mom.” Then I really started blathering, “Really, she is trying to
hit Kyle’s mom up for some charity fundraiser or something and she
is forcing me to be nice to him. But I just rode in the car. I
didn’t even speak except to say thank you to his mom. He even had
the nerve to ask me out on a date after all that. But I told him to
bug off. I haven’t spoken to him since except when I have to in
biology class because he’s my partner.”

I would give anything - a kidney, 75% of my
liver, my whole entire brain - to not have said the last three
sentences.

Ned actually laughed a little, which I took
as a good sign. “I love the way you’re so bad at lying.” He walked
around me.

He just said love! I darted in front of him.
“Wait! Where are you going?”

“Inside. It’s freezing.”

“But what about us?”

Ned shrugged and looked a little
uncomfortable but said loud and clear, “I don’t think there is an
‘us’ any more.”

As Ned disappeared back inside the building,
my stomach did its final drop. I wouldn’t have been surprised to
see it lying on the ground between my shoes.

Strange but true scientific fact: 93% of
communication is non-verbal.

I don’t know why I ever bother opening my
mouth.

Leaving behind any organs that may have
fallen into the mud, I walked robotically back into the building.
Somehow I found the correct class. Or at least, the teacher didn’t
tell me to leave. Then again maybe he or she did. I don’t remember
what the teacher looked like or what s/he talked about. The only
thing I could see was Ned’s face as he said those horrible final
words to me.

The bell rang. People around me moved. I knew
I needed to do the same but the prospect seemed overwhelming.
Fortunately someone took pity on me.

“Jane? Are you okay? You look a little
dazed,” said a kind soul, whose features I eventually recognized as
Diana’s.

I found I could not speak.

“What’s happened? Something bad, I can see.
Tell me.”

My jaw opened but the only thing that came
out of me was a torrent of water from my eyes.

“Oh, you poor thing. Come on, let’s get out
of here.”

She guided me to the nearest girls’ room and
thoughtfully checked to make sure all the stalls were empty. As
soon as I got the all-clear, I let out a howl which I’m sure the
wolves on the Siberian Tundra replied to.

It did not summon anyone locally, however,
thank goodness.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Diana said again. “Can
you tell me about it?”

I shook my head.

“It’s Ned, isn’t it?”

Torrent #2 told her the answer to that
one.

“He stormed by me in the hall.”

I didn’t want to hear further details. I held
up my hand.

“Oh, Jane.” Diana sounded so sympathetic, the
wailing got worse. She cleared her throat and grabbed me by the
shoulders. “Jane. Listen. You must listen to me: You are a strong
and powerful woman. Use your power. You can get through this.”

This from the girl who was screeching “Turn
Around” because my brother didn’t stick around for a non-existant
date? It helped dry up the tears though.

“The best way to deal with it is to go on as
if nothing has happened. It’s hard at first, but time heals all
wounds.”

Diana had perhaps been watching too many
daytime talk shows. And while I’m sure her advice was sound, it was
also totally cheesy. The whole problem with ‘taking the long view’
and all that crap, is that nothing matters in the long run. We’re
all just worm food in the end, so the only thing that does matter
is living right now.

And right now, I felt like my heart had about
a dozen dissecting scalpels stuck in it.

The bell rang for the next class. Diana was
incredibly nice by not even mentioning that she was now late
because of weak, pathetic me who was unable to see myself at age
85, laughing this off as silly, overly emotional youth.

She asked, “What do you have now?”

I honestly didn’t even know. “What period is
it?”

“Eighth.”

“It’s just wood shop. I don’t care about
going.” Not to mention that I did not want to end up in jail. If I
had to even look at Kyle right now, it would take more will power
than I had not to take the jigsaw to him and cut him into 17,000
island-shaped pieces.

“Okay, but I need to go to class. Can we meet
after school? Do you want to come home with me today?”

I was genuinely touched by her caring. “Do
you have any good records we can sing along with?”

“You betcha,” she said with a wink that was
meant to be encouraging. Instead it felt like she was humoring
sadsack little me. The waterworks threatened to start up all over
again.

I felt bad for making her late though. And I
didn’t think any more Phil Monahue pep talks would help, especially
coming from someone who was unaware that yellow should be worn only
as an accent color as it can be quite depressing in large amounts
and is definitely not slimming.

I told her to go, I would be fine.

I spent the whole of that period trying to
wallow in self-pity, but I actually got pretty bored with it after
twenty minutes or so. There was still another twenty to kill. I
spent it racing into a stall each time I thought I heard a footstep
outside the bathroom door. By the time the next bell rang, I was
more than ready to attend my social studies class.

After school, I took a cursory look around
for Diana, but when I didn’t see her, I went to wait for my bus. I
had pulled myself together sufficiently and didn’t need the
embarrassment of either a) going over the horrible event all over
again or worse b) turning back into a water-filled bag of
pathos.

Just as my bus pulled up, Diana came over.
“Hey,” she said, “Did you forget?”

“Oh, I’m okay,” I replied. “Thanks for the
offer, but I’m feeling a lot better.”

She looked hurt. I said, “No, really. The pep
talk really helped.” I nodded in reinforcement.

She continued to glare at me. “I’m not
embarrassed about where I live you know.”

I didn’t know where this was coming from, but
I was about to miss my bus. “Diana, I didn’t mean -”

“A person’s shelter is not necessarily
indicative of anything. Great people have come from very humble
beginnings. Look at Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley.”

“Um, who?”

“You know, Molly Pitcher?” She jutted her jaw
out in case I was thinking about contradicting her.

This was not clearing things up for me much,
but we both needed to get on some bus or other soon. To keep the
peace and to avoid having to walk home, I capitulated. “I’ll come
over. I just didn’t want to impose, that’s all.”

Diana stopped glaring and smiled a little.
“Okay,” she said. “Great. C’mon.”

Diana takes the 123, which is also Hannah’s
bus. I was glad we were all getting along.

That is, I thought we were all getting along
until I got a glimpse of Hannah’s face when she saw me waiting with
Diana.

“Hey,” I called to her because we are
officially acknowledging each other in public.

“Hey,” she replied, totally flat with a quick
darting of the eyes in Diana’s direction.

“Hello, Hannah,” Diana said formally through
pursed lips. “Jane is coming over to my place this afternoon,” she
added in a somewhat gloating manner and, I thought, unnecessarily.
I wasn’t in the habit of taking any old bus after school just to
see where it went.

Diana flamboyantly allowed Hannah get on
first and selected a seat across from her. It took me a beat to
realize that Diana did this intentionally so Hannah could hear what
she was saying. Diana proceeded to gush about all the great things
we had on the schedule for that afternoon, including such exciting
items as an extended examination of her seedpod collection. She
also promised a decent quantity of records we could listen to,
thank goodness.

I was sitting by the window, facing in toward
Hannah so I could see her eyes roll at the mention of seedpods. She
flipped her hair to block her face before I could see what she
thought of the record collection.

I was a little surprised to see Hannah and
Diana get off at the same stop. Neither had ever mentioned this
little factoid to me before. But when it turned out they lived in
the same building as well, I couldn’t stop myself from throwing a
quick glance at Hannah. I didn’t know what she was embarrassed
about. It wasn’t like there were derelicts passed out in the lobby
or anything. As far as apartment buildings go, it was pretty
nice.

It should have been natural to walk in
together, but instead it was very, very awkward. Diana was
purposely excluding Hannah from the conversation, all the while
making sure we stayed at a close enough distance so she could hear
every word. I didn’t know why; Hannah was hardly one to be made
jealous by listening to a description of Molly Pitcher’s tireless
work, which seemed to consist primarily of hauling around buckets
of water and washing soldiers’ dirty laundry.

Hannah hurried ahead in an effort to get the
elevator to herself. Luck was not on her side. We caught up just as
the bell dinged and trouped in together. Hannah did her best to
pass the time by checking for split ends on her perfect hair. I can
assure you, she didn’t have any.

The endless stream of inanity continued to
flow out of Diana’s mouth. I stopped listening. I even ceased
making the polite “Uh-huh” kind of noises I had initially been
giving her.

Diana’s floor came first. The discomfort was
finally at an end. Or should have been, until I interrupted Diana
to call out extra-chipper, “See you tomorrow, Hannah!” which
sounded like I was trying to rub it in that she was not invited to
Diana’s house.

These social situations can be so complicated
sometimes.

Scientific fact: Excessive stress can cause a
wide variety of symptoms, from headache to nausea, sweaty palms to
difficulty breathing.

Stress can also make it very hard for a
person to get off the couch. I have firsthand knowledge of
this.

The ceaseless chatter stopped as soon as the
elevator door closed on Hannah. Or perhaps it was the stink of
stale smoke in the hall that knocked the phony cheer out of Diana.
Either way, she shut up. I was grateful for the reprieve, but not
the smell which intensified as we neared her door.

“I don’t know if my mom is home.” Diana
smiled at me apologetically.

I felt a flash of annoyance. If Diana had
dragged me on this boondoggle only to inform me that we were locked
out, I was not going to be happy.

Putting her hand on the door, Diana leaned in
for a moment as if she was listening for something. She then
produced a key - thank goodness - and opened the door slowly. A
thick wave of stale smoke hit us. I had to hold my breath to not
choke on it. With a hard edge in her voice, Diana called out,
“Mother? Are you here?”