Chapter #11She So Mad by: Seuzz   "I gotta take this," you tell Sara as you study the screen of your cell phone. "I'll come find you when the band's back."
Not, you add silently as you leave the dance floor.
* * * * *
You change clothes in the truck, stashing the track suit and jewelry in a big under the passenger-side seat. You get home only ten minutes after your curfew, and there are no repercussions for breaking the wire as you slid in. Your mom, who was waiting up for you, asks if you had fun. You shrug and say that there wasn't a lot of fun to be had. She pointedly doesn't ask why you stayed out until the last minute if there was no fun on offer.
You have to grapple your way out of bed the next morning, so wracked with exhaustion are you—maybe a hangover from the previous night—and you suffer from stiff-limbed and heavy-lidded fatigue all through church services. Why the fuck did I try going out and doing something? you ask yourself in your misery during the hymns. And why the fuck did I go out to the Warehouse? It wasn't as intense or as scary as you'd heard it could be, but you felt wrong-footed and out place there. Just stick to talking to girls at school, you resolve to yourself. You know lots of girls out there.
Except you don't, really, and the ones you know are either totally not into you—like the Garner girls, or Yumi Saito—or you are not yourself interested in dating.
That was why you went out yesterday: to meet someone new. But you're not convinced it was worth it.
* * * * *
During lunch you get a text from Patrick, but you're not allowed to have the phone at the table so you don't find it until you return to your room afterward, when you plop onto your bed to text Caleb and Keith. You ignore it for the moment, though, and call Caleb.
"Yeah, I was gonna text you in a little bit," he says with a stifled yawn. "Assuming I remembered to."
"Glad I'm that important," you retort.
"Oh yeah, I was also gonna ask what you finally settled on for Walberg's class."
"What about Walberg's class?"
"The time capsule."
Your heart lunges. The time capsule! You forgot to pick out something for the goddamned time capsule!
"Oh, fuck me," you groan aloud.
"Did you forget?" Caleb asks.
"I didn't forget! I just—! I haven't got anything yet!"
"Well, whether you call that forgetting or not, you got less than twenty-four hours, boyo, to get something. Better get on it."
"Help me think of something!"
"Jesus, Will, I only had one good idea for it, and that's what I'm doing. You can come up with something as good as I can."
"I can't come up with anything!"
"Neither can I. Wait, didn't you tell me last week you were going in to town to pick something up? I wanted to do something with you, and you said—"
"Did I get something?" you ask yourself aloud. Hope soars in your chest. "I did go in to— Oh, fuck!"
"What happened? Tilley get in the way or something?"
"No! I did get something, but it's not gonna work. Or, I don't think it will."
"What was it? Not it's really gonna matter—"
You remember it now, though you've given no thought to it since last Thursday. An old book with red leather covers and a gold pentagram stamped on its spine. The store wanted two-hundred-and-something dollars for it, but sold it for two-and-change because it turned out there was something wrong with it. Where did you put it?
"—just a dumb assignment," Caleb is continuing as you push at the pile of books on your desk, and peer beneath reams of loose paper. "I don't even know how he's gonna grade it. Like, it's either you bring something in or you don't. Pass-fail. Is he really gonna flunk you if you bring in a package of Ding Dongs, and give Kelsey Bitchface an A because she brings in the keys to a new BMW her daddy gave her? Not that I wouldn't put it past him. Are you going to add anything to this conversation, or am I just gonna keep monologue-ing?"
"Were you talking?" you retort. "I'm trying to find— Oh, here it is." With a forefinger and thumb you grip the edge of the book, which is at the very bottom of a teetering pile, and pull it out. The fifteen pounds of books sitting atop it tumble with a rumbling thud to the floor.
"What is 'it'?" Caleb asks.
"This thing I picked up at Arnholm's. A book. Yeah." You plop onto your bed with the book in your lap, and open it. The first few pages, at least. It comes back to you now that most of the pages are glued shut.
It also comes back to you the reason you tossed the book aside. Those illustrated faces just inside the front cover are freaky to behold. And it asked for your blood.
"You can't go wrong with the time capsule, Will," Caleb says. "If you got something picked out—"
"Yeah, I guess I'm just gonna dump this thing into it," you agree. "Might as well. Life's too short."
* * * * *
Caleb is up for doing something with Keith, and says he'll get back to you after talking to him. In meantime, you check out the text from Patrick.
WTF happend u last night? he wants to know. U go off w some girls? The text is followed by a string of laughing emojis.
Fuck you, man, you think, and almost delete his text along with his contact info. But instead you reply, Had to go.
U dipped on Sara, he replies. U find someone better?
No I just had to leave sorry I dipped on her.
Dots show him typing a reply. But then they vanish, and your phone rings instead.
"Oh my God!" Patrick gasps with a laugh the instant you pick up. "You dipped on Sara! No one dips on Sara!"
"What are you talking about?" you ask. You hop off the bed and walk over to close your bedroom door.
"No one dips on Sara!" he repeats. "God, she's mad at you!"
"Why's she mad at me?"
"'Cos no one dips on her!" He cackles with laughter.
You make a face at the universe-at-large.
"Listen, she wants to meet up with you," Patrick says. "Probably to yell at you, but I dunno. Can you make it?"
"Why do I wanna meet with someone to yell at me?" you grumble.
"Didn'cha like her?"
"She didn't like me!'
"Did she say that?"
"Well, no," you admit.
"If Sara didn't like you, she'd say so, she's that way."
"Well, she didn't act like—"
"She wants to meet up with you, dude. No one dips on her. Maybe she'll yell at you, maybe she'll tell you she hates you. But if you liked her even a little bit, if you were even a little interested in her, you should come meet with her. God, she's so mad!"
You don't really understand why you should meet with someone who's mad at you. But her being mad at you is somehow more flattering than her just ignoring you, like it seemed like she was doing last night. And even if she does just want to yell at you, it would give you a chance to yell back.
So you tell Patrick to tell her that you'll meet her at The Crystal Cave for coffee at four o'clock. He texts back twenty minutes later to confirm on Sara's behalf that she'll be there, and to warn that you better not dip on her again. In the meantime, you text Caleb to tell him something's come up, and you'll talk to him tomorrow.
* * * * *
You picked The Crystal Cave because it's right next to Arnholm's Used Books, and you want to stop in there first to ask them what they can tell you about that book, in case Walberg has questions. You've got it under your arm when you walk in—
And you almost instantly forget about it when you see Sara, the girl you're to meet next door, standing at the counter paying for a small stack of paperbacks.
She looks up at you with a glance of disinterest, then does a double-take when she recognizes you.
"Oh wow," she says. "Is this what you usually wear?"
"Huh?" you grunt, taken aback. "Yeah. What about you, is this—?" You point to her ensemble, which almost exactly resembles yours: khaki pants, and a gray t-shirt under a flannel plaid shirt.
"I wasn't gonna dress up for you," she retorts, and takes her credit card back from the guy behind the counter. She also collects her books. "Shall we go?"
"Hang on, I—" You look around, and catch sight of Ted Arnholm, standing at a work station in the corner. "I gotta talk to this guy."
He looks up at you with an expression of distaste, but it changes when you show him the book.
"Funny you brought that back in," he says. "The former owner was in here a day or two back, threw a fit because it got sold by mistake. If you're looking to get rid of it, he'll buy it back for a couple of hundred bucks." He rolls his eyes.
Arnholm even has the man's business card, which he gives to you. Aubrey Blackwell, Professor of Archaeology, Keyserling School of Mining and Technology, it reads.
Sara has followed you over, and she asks what that was all about after you leave. You show her the book, and tell her about it and how you acquired it.
"Is it, like, a grimoire?" she asks as she peeps at the pentagram stamped on its spine.
"I dunno. I only bought it to put in the school time capsule. Guess I'll sell it back to the guy who sold it."
"You should take a look at it first," she says. "If he wants it back so bad, maybe it's worth a lot more than he's offering."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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