Riding the Universe (2 page)

I
'm riding along Cancún's highway, headed to meet my birth parents. The air is hot and dusty. Suddenly, I see a refreshing blue lagoon up ahead. I stop for a drink of water, and there, waiting for me under a gushing waterfall, is my yummy-cocoa-butter-and-ripped-muscle-y peer tutor, Julio.

“
Bienvenida, mi amor
,” says Julio. I am surprised to see him. My riding jacket and jeans melt away to reveal a teeny bikini.

“Did I keep you waiting long?” I blow him a sexy kiss.

“For you, I wait forever. Ready for your first lesson?” He raises his dark eyebrows and crosses his arms to show off his biceps. The words
stupendous
and
spectacular
separately
cannot handle these babies—these are
stupendicular
.

I feel like I am drooling, because…I am. The sound of backpacks zipping up has roused me from my last nap of the day at 'Glades High. I wipe my mouth and shake off the dream. Two minutes to the final bell. My zombie classmates and I have reached dismissal without falling off our chairs unconscious. Five months until summer. Why haven't any quantum physicists discovered the secret to time-leaping yet?

Outside, the sky has turned gray. Lolita will definitely get rained on, but I can't rescue her right now: Peer tutoring awaits. My stomach hurts. I've never had a peer tutor before. I can already tell I'm not going to like it. What's to like about someone your age, or even younger than you, knowing you're a dumb-ass? I pray to the gods of Afterschool Academics that my tutor is not Sabine. Because to get Sabine would Sa-suck. Sabine is a cross between a girl and a gargoyle—a
girlgoyle.

Then I see Rock down the hall. He jogs up and crushes his sculptured arms around me. “Chloeeee!” he cheers. He's rather strong for a best friend, but I am too. I elbow him hard.

He recoils like a wounded snake. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Where were you at lunch?” I ask. “Dead somewhere?”

“Nah, you can't kill a bad weed, sweetheart.”

“True, but you've been spending less and less time with me. If you're not careful, I may get jealous.” I wink at him.

“You? Jealous?” He laughs. “Now that's funny. Listen, Chlo, I gotta talk to you later.”

“About?”

“I'll just talk to you later.”

“You know where to find me.” It's probably about one of his sexquests. I'm tired of doling out free advice.

“Looking good, baby doll.” He winks. When he turns around, two senior girls immediately flank him. He puts his arms around their waists, and together they disappear down the hall. The weirdest part is how this kind of thing never seems to bother Amber, his supposed girlfriend. What is
that
relationship all about?

I do have one theory.

Rock was the quietest kid in my third-grade class, the sort of kid who had “Excellent” in conduct but just barely passed all his subjects. One day, he was crying in the playground. When Ms. Morena asked what was wrong, he told her his mother had moved to Kendall with her boyfriend. I heard Ms. M tell him that Kendall wasn't so far away—only forty minutes—but
that
made him cry even more. When she walked away, I sat with him and said that forty minutes must feel like forever and that would probably make me sad too. I'll never forget the long look he gave me. He wiped his nose with his shirt and said, “Wanna race?” We took off running and have been racing ever since.

His dad told him to “man up” and “get over it” lots of times over the years, insisting that he'd still see her whenever he could drive him. But of course, that rarely happened. Since then, Rock and I have taken apart bicycles, motors, and, eventually, whole cars. I've seen him get a few shiners, and I've seen him in his boxers. But I have never seen him without a girl (or two) waiting in the wings. And while I'm no psychotherapist, I have to wonder if he is not somehow trying to replace…
Her
.

Freakin' kills me.

After crossing the entire campus, I finally arrive at the auditorium, which is practically
in
the Everglades itself. I almost have to machete my way through cypress trees, pythons, and snapping alligators to get there. I open one of the noisy double doors, and everyone turns to look for a second. At the front of the stage, Ms. Rath and her team of helpful, smart students greet the needy masses. Sabine is among them, reading what appears to be a small 8,995-page book.

I calm my stomach aerobics by taking a few deep breaths. There aren't too many people here, which makes me feel better yet crappier at the same time. I count…ten…fifteen…only twenty kids failing in all of 'Glades? That's impossible. I mean, at lunch today, I ran into a dude ramming his body into the Coke machine that read
OUT OF ORDER
. Where is
he
?

Ms. Rath flags me down. “Over here, please.”

I make my way down the aisle and stop in front of the table.

“Name?”

Ms. Rath reminds me of Gene Simmons, that guy from the old band KISS, but in a dress. Her hair is jet-black and her lips are full, like his.

“Chloé Rodriguez,” I mumble, trying not to stare at her manliness.

Sabine looks up at me and smiles with her shiny braces. Forget everything you've ever heard about preachers' daughters being rebellious. This one actually takes after Daddy. Alejandra told me how Sabine gave her the number
to AA one time after she saw her sneaking a beer in the parking lot. How did she ever land a boyfriend in the first place? Please don't let me be paired with a girl who thinks she is doing God's work by helping us flawed mortals better themselves.

“You're chemistry, right?” Ms. Rath asks me.

Well, I'm not really chemistry personified, but what did this poor woman ever do to me? I let it slide and smile. “Yes.”

“Good, good. Great. Then have a seat with Sabine, sweetheart.”

NOOO!
I fight the urge to run. So what if I fail Rooney's class? So I won't be a chemist? I never liked Bunsen burners anyway.

Sabine smiles again. It's weird to see a girl my age wearing braces. They completely cover her teeth, so all you see is metal. A smiling, metal-mouthed
girlgoyle
. Help!

“Wanna come this way?”

No.

She gestures at a couple of seats in the second row, where she has already decorated her personal space. There are colored paper clips and colored pens, and I so do not have anything in common with this girl, other than the fact that we are both females who attend the same school. “You're Motor Girl, right?”

Argh.

Yes, I appreciate all things engine and wheels, but when will people stop acting like judgmental dorki and start learning real things about me? Like that I am adopted. Or that I make up new words. That I can point out twenty-five
constellations in under two minutes if bribed with a mighty slice of flan. I'm a Wikipedia of astronomical facts, if anyone would bother to notice.

“Chloé,” I correct her.

She stutters, “I—I know…What I meant was—”

“I know what you meant.” I try not to sound snippy, but why shouldn't I be? Have I called her ‘Metal-Mouthed Girlgoyle' straight to her face? No, I have not. “It's Chloé.”

“Sorry,” she says, and actually sounds like she means it. I decide to forgive her right there and stop calling names too. “I'm Sabine.”

“Hey, Sabine.”

She plops into one of the auditorium seats, which are more like plastic ass-buckets. I sit in the one next to her. I must write the administration a letter thanking them for these butt flatteners. She whips out the same chemistry book that we use in Rooney's class. “I guess we'll start with the structure of atoms. Is that good for you?”

Good for me would be leaving on Lolita and pretending I don't have any failing grades, but since that's not likely to happen…“Sure.” I take out my notebook and pencil and try to look grateful and interested at the same time. I imagine Sabine as Seth, explaining the difference between chains and belts in older and newer-model Harleys, and before you know it, I'm nodding, jotting things down.

“Sabine?” Ms. Rath hovers above us after about five minutes. “May I see you?”

Sabine sighs and pops up like an Eggo. “Hold on a sec.”

The auditorium doors open loudly as someone enters. I look back and see that Gordon dude shaking water off his
brown hair and backpack. Great, so it
is
raining. He glances around comfortably. This must be his home turf.

I shrink into my ass-bucket and hide half my face with my hand.
I am not here. I do not need peer tutoring. La, la, la
…But then Sabine's back, and I notice her tortured expression when she sees Gordon coming down the aisle. Her eyes look like they're going to explode with tears.

“I'm sorry, Chloé, but she reassigned me,” she says, sweeping up her rainbow of paper clips, more than a little frustrated.

“Why?”

“She thinks I'd be better off with—” She points to a girl I recognize as a freshman, wearing little barrettes in her hair. “Francine asked if she could get a girl, and
Gordon
is the only other tutor left.” She says
Gordon
like one might say
Lucifer, Ruler of the Underworld
. I'm guessing they did not part on amicable terms.

“Why?” I watch Francine clutching her books tightly. “It's not like she's getting a pap smear.”

Sabine shrugs. “Maybe she won't be able to concentrate with him, I don't know…” As if Gordon is such a hotbed of orgasmic activity that no one would be able to concentrate around him.

“No problem. Good luck,” I say. She smiles back hesitantly before traipsing off, looking back at me and Gordon as if I might start making out with her ex or something. Still, I actually feel disappointed that I came to a truce with Sabine over our nicknames for nothing.

But now this means I'm getting—

“So we meet again, Motor Girl.”

G
ordon stares down at me with a look I can only describe as
malevoly
—something both malevolent and “holy moly!”

And I actually thought he might be nice.

But I was wrong.

As I so often am, hence the peer tutoring.

Sabine, come back!

I must remain calm. I can do this.

“Ah, yes. We meet again, Brain Boy.” I was going to go with “Mensa Man,” but I didn't want him thinking he's a
man
or anything. I notice his shoes are in severe need of updating.

“What are you looking at?” His gaze falls on his feet.

“Nothing.”

Gordon's eyebrows draw together. He sits in the plastic ass-bucket next to me. “Sorry I'm late.”

“Yes, didn't you chastise me this morning for being late, even though you were too? And look at you now. That's two tardiness strikes.”
Score!

“I wasn't late this morning.” He unzips his wet backpack and pulls out a different chemistry book from the one I use. “I was delivering a package to Henley's class.”

“Sure you were. And that's not my book.”

“I know, but we're going to use it. The other one is obtuse.”

Obtuse? Why, I would have said
obtusing
or
obtangle
.

He scribbles equations in his notebook with purpose and clear pissiness. What happened to him right before coming here?

“At least we agree on something.” I gnaw on my pen. “Even though my problem is more the teacher than it is the book.”

He scoffs. “'Tis a poor musician who blames his instrument.”

“Excuse me?” I say even though I heard him.

“Nothing,” he mumbles.

Daaamn
…I shift around in my seat. Well, maybe he's right. Maybe it's not my teacher's fault. Maybe I'm just…plain…stupid. How nice of my peer tutor to point that out.

“Too bad you got me. Sabine is better at chemistry than I am. But I suppose for Rooney's class, I can help you well enough.”

‘Well enough'? How formal art thou, Gordon.
All this, and he hasn't even formally introduced himself. Granted, it's understood that we probably know each other's names, but I still find it annoying, as if he assumes we probably won't be friends anyway.

“Great. So let's get started, Gordon Spoo…Spoo…”

“Spudinka.” He looks straight at me underneath the hair hanging in his face. I never noticed before that his eyes are the exact color of swamp reptiles. “It's Russian.”

“You're Russian?”

“I was born in Boston, but my grandparents came from St. Petersburg, so yes, I'm Russian. If you must know my family history.”

“Uh, I was just being polite.” I clear my throat. “And since we're going to work together, you should know my name is Chloé,
not
Motor Girl.”

He stares at the page under his nose. I shudder at his sudden resemblance to Mr. Rooney. I never knew spiral-bound books could have such a profound effect on people. “Nice to meet you,” he says flatly, looking at his watch (obsolete, sweetie, use your cell phone). He turns some equations toward me. “We've already lost a good ten minutes.”

Chemical equations are the root of all evil. I try to make sense of what he's written, but all I see are hieroglyphics. “Fire away.”

Suddenly Gordon perks up a bit, happy to be talking about things that make sense in his head. “It's really quite basic. All you do is balance the left with the right. It's like this. Watch…”

He proceeds to explain that balancing an equation is
nothing more than showing how the reactants become products, and shifting around the numbers is the way of conserving the equation's mass and charge. He goes on for thirty minutes, giving examples, then solving the equations himself,
showing
how it's done, not like Rooney's sink-or-swim technique.

During this time, I notice that the very tips of his brown eyelashes are blond. What this has to do with chemistry is anyone's guess.

“Make sense?” he asks, looking up. Fine, so maybe his eyes are not quite swampy upon further inspection. “If I give you ten more equations like these, can you do them on your own?”

“Correctly?”

Gordon blinks. “Yes, correctly.”

“Lighten up, Gordon. It was just a joke.”

He smirks, writes down ten more equations, and slides the paper over to me. Then he pulls out his own notebook, opens it to the last page, and starts jotting stuff down. Wait: Is that an actual
planner,
with tabs, charts, and sticky notes?
Holy shish kebab
. What is going on in Gordon Spudinka's life that requires such detailed organization?

“What are you writing?”

He speaks without looking at me. “I'll worry about me. You worry about you,” he says, pulling out a highlighter and dousing a page in fluorescent green. “And boy, does she have a lot to worry about,” he mumbles to himself.

Oh,
no
. He did
not
just take a condescending tone. I tap my pencil on my cheek. “Do you mind not talking about me like I'm not here?”

The sigh that comes next is so forced, so heavy, that I realize the awful truth—I am his volunteer work. He's here, teaching a certified moron about chemical conversions only because it will look good on his precious transcripts. No doubt he'd rather be home, riddling planetary cyborgs with bullets in his darkened room, while other globally connected computer geeks send him messages—each of them using one of their fifty internet pseudonyms.

Poor Gordon. He has every right to be rude to me.

I shift around in my seat, trying to suppress my own sarcastic thoughts, but my blood is starting to simmer. So I fire back. “Are you totally anal?”

He stops writing and turns a confused glare on me.

“Like, do you believe that every scrap of brain activity must be recorded on paper before it escapes you? You can't make decisions 'cause you're always afraid it'll be the wrong one. Am I right?” I've heard of people like this. So the legends are true.

Gordon's right eye twitches. Whatever comes next can't be good. “What I do outside of here is none of your business.”

“I only asked because you sounded so concerned about me when you said I have a lot to worry about, and I wanted to show that I care about you too. It's just in my personality to reciprocate.”

“And how many personalities do you have exactly?” He gives me a facetious smile. “Four, five?”

I give a fake gasp. I'm actually proud of him. Gordon is not only cute but competitive as well!

Before I can answer, he tries to put an end to our peer
tutoring fun. “Why don't you just finish the problems I gave you so I can get home to
more important things
?” he says.

I knew it. I imagine flicking a bent staple off the end of my pencil right at Gordon's forehead. Smack! Right in the middle. One more…smack!

“More important things?” I stare at him in disbelief, but he just scribbles and scribbles, ignoring me as if I'm too insignificant to have a conversation with. “Hey…does God ever consult you for advice? Don't get mad at me, I was just wondering.” Oh, yes, he wants a battle, he'll get one.

Gordon looks up at me, and I totally think he's going to suggest that I get paired up with a different tutor, someone who I'd get along with better, when I see something—a little smile emerging on his lips. “Yes, on occasion, God and I hang out.”

He can kid! He may be human yet.

“For the record, you started it.” I smile, much to my own chagrin.

“For the record, Motor Girl, you know nothing about me. So don't assume anything.”

Hmm, I can't say he's wrong, even though he's a dork for calling me “Motor Girl” again. I
don't
know him. And he doesn't know me, so
touché.
“Same goes for you. I may not be the best at chemistry, but otherwise, I have nothing to worry about. I know I don't have to explain this to you, but I am not the illiterate imbecile you probably think I am.”

In fact, except for losing Seth, my life is just spiffy. Keeping safe from any more heartbreak is my main goal.
That, not chemistry, is my biggest worry, Gordon.
Although
balancing C
₃
H
₈
+ O
₂
= CO
₂
+ H
₂
O is quickly climbing the ranks.

“Well, now that that's squared off, can we please finish?” he asks.

“Fine.”

We say nothing else. I work on the equations, trying my best to remember what Gordon explained. I just don't know why we're forced to study things we're not meant for. I don't have any choice, though, or I'll be handing Lolita over to my dad by the end of the school year.

“Time's up,” Gordon says, starting to pack up his things. I glance at my cell. Three twenty-five. We have five more minutes. I spin the notebook around for him to check my answers.

His eyes speed over them left to right. “You may be a very well-adjusted individual, one who doesn't need to explain herself to me ever…” He leans over and proceeds to correct half of my conversions, putting a tiny
2
under the last chlorine symbol. “But I'm sorry to tell you that you still need a tutor.”

“Right.” I check out the grime clinging to the auditorium chairs.

“And for your information,” he says, zipping up his backpack, “I'm not anal. But if that's how you perceive me, who am I to argue?”

“Good. And for
your
information, I don't have multiple personalities.” I'll give Gordon props for one thing: Kidding or not—the guy knows how to push my buttons.

That's a first.

I collect my things and pack them carefully for the wet
ride ahead. Maybe the rain has died down by now and I can take Lolita on a slow coast home. It would be so nice to let the memory of this first tutoring session drip behind me until my head is empty. I put on my jacket, tuck my helmet under my arm. Maybe it's time to call a truce with Gordon, too. I hold out my hand. “Look, I really do appreciate your help. Sorry if we got off on the wrong foot.”

He stares at my hand for a second, then takes it and shakes evenly, with no more or less pressure than my hand in his. “You're welcome. I'm sorry too.” He smiles full out now, and—whoa—Gordon Spudinka has Spu-dimples!

I play it cool, but I can't seem to tear my eyes away from the cuteness that has suddenly appeared out of granite and stone. “See you next Monday,” I say, holding my breath.

“Monday,” he repeats and takes off toward the stage.

I head out of the auditorium, letting the doors slam shut behind me. Wow. I don't know if I want to slug him or hug him. I have never had such a hard time getting someone to loosen up. Gordon's sense of humor seems to be made of Sheetrock, or maybe he was just having a bad day. But there's definitely something about the dude. Or maybe I'm just a big idiot for dimples.
Shake it off, Chloé.

The deluge has stopped, but not without leaving behind lakes and rivers in the parking lot. As I walk toward Lolita, I notice something on her. One of those fabric-lined plastic tarps. I quicken my pace, examining the alien object that someone has had the nerve to lay on top of Lolita. Anybody who knows anybody who has a motorcycle knows they do not—and by
not
I mean NEVER—touch another person's bike, much less put anything on top of it.

I reach down to take off the rough cover. Up and over. Hundreds of water droplets converge and stream down, splattering my boots. I run my hands over Lolita's flames, feeling her paint job, which cost more than one month of Seth's rent and utilities put together. Still smooth. No nicks, no scratches.
Nada
. Not only is she fine, she's perfectly, happily dry.