Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [27]
Maybe I wasn’t anything like Mandarin right now.
But I could be.
I forced myself to forget the things that didn’t quite fit. Like the map of the Bighorn River I remembered from my Wyoming geography book. As far as I knew, it never led to the ocean. It went as far as the Rocky Mountains. And then it stopped.
Alexis & Co. crammed themselves on the cafeteria bench across from me, watching me extract my sandwich from its petals of pink tissue paper. Ziploc bags were too pedestrian for Momma. Sometimes she used the funny pages from the Washokey Gazette, or holiday wrapping paper, even in the spring. I took a bite, chewed, and swallowed, as if there weren’t a panel of judges scrutinizing my every bite.
“That sandwich looks real good,” Paige Shelmerdine said.
I glanced at it. Tuna salad with diced green apples, slathered on a fat french roll. One of Momma’s better creations.
I wasn’t surprised Paige had broken the silence. She was the girl whose voice rose above any collective din. Even when no one else was speaking, she felt the need to shout. Physically, Paige reminded me of a lima bean. She had wispy red hair and skin so pale it looked greenish, and she stood the way Taffeta did: swaybacked, with her stomach sticking out. Paige’s older brothers were responsible for some of the most momentous keg parties in Washokey history. Her older sister, Brandi, was even louder than Paige, though she mainly used her voice to flirt.
“Grace’s ma’s a real good cook,” Alexis said. Only because she loved to eat so much. When we were in elementary school, she insisted on coming to my house most of the time, because our cupboards were stocked with better snacks. “If you think her sandwich looks good, wait till you see one of her ma’s big ol’ fancy dinners.”
“I’ll bet,” said Samantha Dent, baring a grin filled with rubber bands. She’d worn braces for the past four years. “Maybe she could give my mother some ideas.”
The Dents owned the Buffalo Grill, where Samantha worked as a hostess. She looked like a scrawnier, washed-out version of Alexis and tended to weep over the most trivial things, from ant bites on her ankles to grades with minuses. She was definitely the least offensive member of Alexis & Co., though she went right along with the other two in anything controversial.
I took another bite of my sandwich, delaying the inevitable. Paige’s face pinched and pulled, as if something crawly was trapped inside her cheeks. Samantha kept peering up at me from under her thick blond bangs and then looking away when I caught her eye.
“Aw hell, Grace,” Alexis said at last, “I can’t stand it anymore. My mom told me her cousin’s stepmother saw you at Mandarin Ramey’s house last week. That’s not true, is it?”
My insides became a clamor of fireworks.
Four days had passed since my afternoon at Mandarin’s and our subsequent late-night swim. And in those four days, Mandarin and I hadn’t spoken to each other once. Not the day after, when I’d staggered into math exhausted but ecstatic. My searching smile found her seat empty. By now, I’d lost my nerve even to look her way.
The one time I’d seen her outside class, we’d locked eyes. We stared for two, three seconds. Too late to look away. Maybe she’s been waiting for me to come to her first. The thought tapped against my brain like a windblown pebble. Cautiously, I lifted my hand to waist level, wiggled my fingers. Mandarin nodded back. And that was it.
As if none of it had ever happened.
Now, it seemed like some fantasy I’d had. Like I’d dreamed it all up in bed, intoxicated by wildwinds and mosquito poison. I forced myself to take another bite of my sandwich, to chew and swallow before I answered Alexis’s question.
“She needed help with her schoolwork,” I said.
All three girls let out gusty sighs. “So that explains it,” Paige said.
Samantha nodded. “Makes perfect sense.”
“I should have known.” Alexis leaned in my direction. “I mean, we’re, like, real close, you and me, Grace. Of course