The Unquiet (10 page)

After school, when I break for freedom, Dino steps in front of me as I trot down the steps. I slam on the brakes, losing my balance. “Hey!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he stammers, catching me before I fall into
him. He adds as I hoist my book bag back up, “Hey, can I talk to you a sec?”

I glance around for Nate, who’s been meeting me after school. Then I remember he has band practice tonight. “Okay,” I say cautiously.

Dino guides me down the steps to the sidewalk and then stands there a moment, his hands shoved into his shabby jacket, the wind tossing his dark hair. “Okay, um, what I wanted to ask you was … um, about Saturday night?”

“Saturday night?” Confused, I think for a second. Then I remember.
Oh, no, no no … please don’t ask me this.

“Yeah, um, you know. Homecoming. So I was wonderin’ …” Red-faced, Dino gulps hard, like he just swallowed a peach pit; I’m terrified he’ll choke before he can spit out the words. “You want to go? I mean, y’know … like … go with me?”

“Oh.” My own cheeks grow warm. I hate to hurt people’s feelings. “I’m sorry, Dino. I’m already going with someone.”

“You are?” Clearly he’s astonished. “I thought, you know, you bein’ new here and all, I … well, I just figured nobody would’ve asked you yet.”

You thought wrong
. “I’m really sorry,” I repeat. “But I appreciate your asking me,” I add, surprised by my own sincerity. Fine, he’s a stoner. But is he as bad as Meg says?

As I turn away, he asks, “Um, who you going with?”

“Nate Brenner.”

“Nate Brenner?” His unexpected smirk catches me off guard. “That figures.”

Miffed now, I walk away.

Tuesday, October 28

Lacy struts around my room, rubbing her flat stomach. “I e-mailed Chad ten times over the weekend and he still hasn’t answered me! Now what do I do?”

“Blow your brains out?” Tasha suggests. “Oh, wait. You don’t have any.”

Meg slaps down her pen. “Look, we’re supposed to be planning the Homecoming decorations. Can’t you guys at least
pretend
to be interested?”

“Why don’t you jump down Rinn’s throat?” Lacy retorts. “I mean, she invites us over for this and she hasn’t said a word this whole time.”

Busted, I lower my paint roller. I’ve been rolling gray paint nonstop and the second coat’s almost done.

“Homecoming’s Saturday,” Meg whines. “We have to do the cafeteria on
Thursday
. I can’t do this by myself!”

“There’s not that much to do. There’s already decorations
left over from last year, right? Besides”—I aim this at Lacy—“Cecilia offered to help. Maybe we can get her back.”

“Yeah,” Lacy drawls. “Orca can do the refreshments. If she doesn’t gobble ’em all first!”

Tasha groans. “You’re so mean, Kessler.”

“Shut up, Fishgills. You’re not even on this committee. Why aren’t you splashing around in your aquarium tonight?”

Before I can suggest that both of them shut up, Meg falls down on my mattress next to Tasha. “Oh, I’m sick of this whole thing.”

Last week she was so psyched. Now she’s sick of it?

“Blah-blah,” Lacy says rudely. She then gestures at my walls. “Yuck, this color is
gross
. But I guess it’s perfect for this room.”

“Meaning?” I demand.

“Meaning, doesn’t it bother you one bit that some old lady hanged herself”—she points upward—“from one of those very beams?”

She is
such
a pain. “Can we not talk about it? I have to sleep here, you know.”

Tasha sits up on one elbow. “Maybe she went insane, like Miss Prout.
She
took off in the middle of the night. Never said a word. Left everything behind.”

Meg speaks up in a whisper. “Maybe
she
did herself in, too.” To me: “They were friends, you know, Miss Prout and Mrs. Gibbons.”

Enthralled, Tasha adds, “Or maybe she never left. Maybe someone murdered her and buried her in Rinn’s cellar!”

I’ve had enough of this. “Are you guys
trying
to freak me out?”

“You wuss.” Lacy rubs her stomach one last time, then throws
back her hair with an evil smile. “Okay, Rinn. Show us what you’re gonna wear to the dance, then.”

Rats
. “I didn’t buy anything.”

“Are you kidding? Why not?”

“I hate shopping,” I confess.

“Could’ve fooled me,” Tasha remarks, nodding at the loaded laundry baskets and piles of clothes on the floor, all covered with sheets so I don’t splatter paint on anything.

Okay, so it’s not “shopping” I dislike. It’s shopping for a
formal
. There is no Homecoming dress on earth that’ll hide my scar. Now I’m almost sorry I agreed to go. But if I try to explain this to my friends, I’ll have to explain other things, too …

“No biggie,” Meg says, sounding enough like the old Meg to brighten me up. “We’ll take you to Barney’s. Everything’s used, but in mint condition. Tasha got her dress there.”

Tasha speaks up in a tight, funny voice. “You mean the dress I’m not wearing?”

Now we all stare at
her.
Meg asks, “What’re you talking about?”

“I can’t go. I’m swimming that night.”

“On
Homecoming
night?” Lacy shrills.

“I have to. Nancy reserved the pool at the Aquatic Center for me.” To me, Tasha adds, “Nancy’s my coach. It’s over in Kellersberg and it’s the best pool around. I mean, Nancy really,
really
went out of her way, and—” Tasha’s face falls. “I told my mom about Homecoming. But I can’t get out of it.”

“This is bullshit,” Lacy announces.

“I bet
your
mom never missed a dance,” I put in. In fact, to hear Mom talk about their old school days, she and Millie never missed a social function, period.

“I know,” Tasha says sadly. “I told her that, too, and you know what she said?” She mimics Millie perfectly: “‘That’s different! I was popular! You don’t even have a
date
.’”

“Harsh,” Meg murmurs.

“Oh, and, ‘If you’re serious about the Olympics, then you gotta make sacrifices.’”

“She’s ruining your life,” Lacy says bluntly.

“Do you want to go?” I’m disliking Millie more and more.

Tasha shrugs. “Yeah, but I don’t want to fight with my mom. I mean, she works her butt off to pay for my coach, and my fees, and to book these pools, and …” She trails off, and then abruptly lifts her chin. “Yes, I want to go. It’s not fair!”

“Just tell her no,” Meg suggests. “She can’t drag you there, right?”

“Yeah,” Lacy agrees. “You already swim, what, three or four days a week? Plus gymnastics? One night off won’t kill you. It’s Homecoming! Stick up for yourself!”

Tasha’s huge brown eyes take us all in, one at a time. We
are
kind of ganging up on her, I guess. But it’s Homecoming, a once-a-year event. How could Millie be so unfeeling, so unreasonable?

Then Tasha’s elfin face breaks into a shaky grin. “You guys are right. Screw the pool—I’m going to Homecoming! It’s my life, right? Who cares what she says?”

High fives all around.

After dinner, I relate Tasha’s dilemma to Mom as we carve pumpkins together. “And can you believe what she said about how Tasha’s not popular, so why bother going?”

Mom says neutrally, “Maybe Tasha’s exaggerating.”

“Or maybe Millie’s a bitch,” I grumble.

Mom opens her mouth, then changes her mind. “Well, I guess she can be. At times.”

I don’t repeat the earlier part of our conversation, how my friends kept harping about Mrs. Gibbons hanging herself in my room. I don’t want her to suspect that, yes, maybe I
am
a bit paranoid about sleeping upstairs, after all. I wasn’t before. But they sure got to me today.

I jab the knife into my pumpkin to scrape out an eye socket, wondering suddenly about Frank and if he’s called here lately. Or, if I called him, if he’d hang up on me.

Probably. The day Mom and I left California, he ducked away from me when I tried to hug him. He barely said goodbye. It still hurts me to think about it.

But I bet it doesn’t hurt me as much as what I did to him.

Wednesday, October 29

In my dream, I’m playing my guitar onstage in front of the whole student body. Halfway through whatever I’m playing—it’s not even clear in my dream—someone in the audience yells: “MURDERER!”

One by one they all take up the chant: “MURDERER! MURDERER! MURDERER!”

I jump off the stage and try to run, but the mob surrounds me, smothering me, slashing me with their claws, and I can’t escape …can’t escape!

The thing about dreams is that they’re only dreams. If you don’t dream, Dr. Edelstein once explained, you can develop emotional problems. At best, you can’t concentrate. At worst, you hallucinate. Dreaming is how people cleanse their brains. A “cerebral enema” was her exact description.

At breakfast, the first thing Mom says is, “I heard you talking in your sleep. Another bad dream?”

“All my dreams are bad.” Seriously, they are.

Mom bangs silverware into a drawer. “I can’t believe he’s making you wait till January for an appointment.” She means the new psychiatrist Dr. Edelstein referred me to. Someone in Cincinnati, not here in town, thank goodness.

“I could threaten to bomb the school. That’d get me in quicker.”

“Don’t even joke about that!”

Well, isn’t she in a delightful mood? Days like this I wish she’d go back to smoking.

In art, when I see Cecilia Carpenter, I’m not sure how to approach her. Lacy was so nasty to her; what if Cecilia takes it out on me?

Taking a chance, I pop out of my chair and slide in next to Cecilia, two tables away. “Hey.” Yes, I’m saying “hey” like everyone else around here. “Sorry about the other day. You know, with Lacy?”

Cecilia smirks. “Why are you apologizing for Lacy?”

“Because Lacy won’t.” When her smirk spreads to a smile, I add, “I should’ve stuck up for you. I guess I wasn’t expecting it.”

“
I
should have expected it. She’s so, she’s such a—”

“Shrew?”

Cecilia giggles. “Yeah. Too bad, because I really like Meg. Tasha, too. Tash and I took gymnastics together, and then”—she gestures downward—“I got fat. And please don’t say
anything stupid like ‘Oh, you’re not that fat.’ It’s no big deal. I know what I look like.”

Relieved by her candor, I plunge right in. “Why don’t you change your mind about helping us out? Seriously, we need you. Tomorrow, in fact.”

“Are you guys that desperate?”

That’s when Mr. Lipford catches on that I’m at the wrong table: “Well, Corinne. I take it you’re ready to add your final coat of paint?”

“Uh, yeah.” I hop up and whisper, “Eat with us!” to Cecilia, and scurry back to my own hard lump of clay.

“What was that about?” Meg whispers, paint brush poised.

I pretend not to hear her and hold up my project instead. “So what do you think this is?” It started
out
as a bowl, but …

Meg examines my work of wonder. “Ashtray? Candleholder?”