Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [17]
Mandarin’s front door hurtled open before I had a chance to knock. I almost stumbled down the porch steps. Something about Mandarin made me back away each time we met, as if she were an explosion of heat or light. I felt like shielding my eyes.
“Hey,” she said.
She wore a white men’s undershirt over her low-slung jeans, and she’d tied her hair back with a scrap of thick yellow yarn. It made her look younger, her cheekbones more pronounced. We stood there for a second in uncomfortable silence. Maybe she was waiting for me to speak.
Finally, she held open the door. “Well, come on in.”
Her carpet was the sickly brown color of an old man’s den. A muted television made the dim room flicker and flash. In the intermittent light, I saw coffee-colored stains on the ceiling in menacing shapes and olive green furniture grinning at the seams. An oak dining table had been crammed into a corner, with one of the chairs overturned.
Mandarin followed my gaze to the table. She went over and righted the chair without saying anything. Then she led me down the hall, flipping on every light switch we passed.
She paused in front of her bedroom door, her hand on the knob.
“Before we go in, I feel like I need to give some sort of disclaimer, or whatever. Like a surgeon general’s warning. What you’re about to see has got absolutely nothing to do with me. If that makes any sense.”
“Okay …,” I said.
I wondered if her walls were quilted with pages torn from celebrity tabloids, like in Alexis’s room, or childish relics, like mine.
But the small space beyond the door revealed none of those things—just more of the same shabby brown carpet, pouring into her room like sewage. The same weird stains on the ceiling. The only furnishings were her bed, a tall dresser that leaned to one side, and a bookshelf with no books. Scuff marks patterned the lower third of her walls. There were no posters, no drawings, no photographs. No personality. As if the girl living there considered it a temporary apartment.
“It’s pretty shitty, yeah?” Mandarin asked, as if reading my mind. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I shrugged.
“Well, I’m glad you made it over here.”
“Really?” I said before I could stop myself. I hugged my textbooks more tightly.
“Sure.” She grinned. “I mean, I thought you might not come. I’m not dumb, y’know. I get how weird this is.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“I said I’m not dumb, all right? Course it’s weird. I’m, what, three years older than you? And you’re here to help me. How is that not weird?”
I shrugged again.
“It’s bizarre,” Mandarin said. “But here’s the thing: I got no shame. I know you’re, like, some kind of child genius, yeah? So I’d rather have you help me out than one of the kids who’ve been going to school with me since fifth grade. They’re all assholes. Not even worth the butts in my ashtray. If I used an ashtray, that is.”
I didn’t know what to make of the cheerful tone of her voice, her grin. It was like she took pleasure in being a misfit. While I felt exactly the opposite.
“I really do need help, though,” she went on. “I just slacked off and nothing makes sense to me anymore. And I promised I’d graduate. I promised my dad, I mean. He’s a good guy, deep down. But I can’t stand it when teachers try to jam their faces in my business. I’d have asked another student for help, but, like I said, so many of the smart kids are assholes, and the passably decent ones are, like, terrified of me.…”
She glanced at me. I probably looked terrified.
Her grin appeared to have frozen to her face. “Well. Want anything to drink? Or a snack?”
I shrugged for the third time.
“You don’t say much, do you? It’s all right. Just make yourself at home. I’ll be right back. And don’t worry, I won’t bring you tap water.” Mandarin pulled the door shut behind her, leaving me alone.
Alone in Mandarin Ramey’s room.
I hugged my books so tightly the corners bit into my stomach. It was