Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [58]
Even if I’d found somebody to fall for, it wouldn’t have mattered. None of the guys paid any attention to me. Except for Davey Miller, and he didn’t really count. As far as I could tell, I possessed none of Mandarin’s power—whatever it was that drew guys to her, made their eyes unpeel, their mouths hang open in that particular way.
Until one day at lunch, when I did.
I stood in the cafeteria line, waiting for the girl in front of me to select a cube of sponge cake. I’d informed Momma that I wanted to buy my lunch from now on. She was so harried with pageant prep, I thought she’d be relieved, but instead she seemed offended. I didn’t get it. It wasn’t like I’d directly insulted the lunches she packed.
By the time I got to the fruit basket, there were no bananas left, just green and red apples. As I reached out to grab one, my shirt crept up. It was shorter than usual; maybe it had shrunk in the wash. I instantly became aware of the two senior boys beside me, their attention angled in my direction like a sunbeam through a magnifying glass.
I almost jerked my arm back. But that wasn’t what Mandarin would have done. It was about being conscious without being self-conscious. So I let my hem slide up just a little farther before I grabbed the apple and thumped it onto my tray.
One of the boys cleared his throat. I allowed myself a quick glance over. He closed the gap between us and stuck out his hand.
“I’m Joshua,” he said.
Of course I recognized him: Joshua Mickelson, the lifeguard. He was compact, with curly blond hair and a nose that looked broken in sixteen places. Beside him stood Tyler Worley, the brown-haired lifeguard beloved by Brandi Shelmerdine and her friends. He leaned across Joshua and jutted his own hand in front of Joshua’s.
“And I’m Tyler.”
I tucked my bangs behind my ears and smiled slightly, then slid my tray down the line without shaking either hand.
“Yeah, it’s nice to meet you, too,” Joshua said.
“Are you new?” Tyler asked. “From another town, maybe?”
“A far-off place? A better planet?”
“I’ve been around,” I said.
I paid the cashier and turned to face the cafeteria crowd. The boys kept close behind me. Their attention seemed competitive, almost aggressive. Or maybe I’d just never been hit on.
“I find that hard to believe,” Tyler said.
“Yeah, we’ve been living in this stinkhole all our lives,” Joshua added. “We’d know if a girl like you popped up. You must be lying.”
“You must be new.”
“Or,” I said smugly, spotting Mandarin a few yards away, “you must not be looking in the right places.”
Then I sauntered off, leaving the boys to witness our reunion. I still felt the heat of their stares, all that searing male attention focused on me and Mandarin as she put her arm around my waist and led me from the cafeteria.
The constant surveillance still excited me, but it seemed to exhaust Mandarin. To combat it, we located places all over town to hide from prying eyes.
We scaled the pipes behind Solomon’s and reigned over Washokey’s streets and alleyways from the rooftop. We climbed chain-link fences and the cottonwood trees that dropped over the canal. We found a sheep farm a quarter mile out of town, and we snuck into the stables when no one was around and cuddled the spring lambs. We even peed together at the side of the road with cars going by, laughing so hard we both got hiccups.
We never went to our houses. I didn’t want to deal with Momma, and ever since the fight Mandarin and I’d had at her house, we didn’t go there, either.
But it didn’t matter. We had our best conversations strolling through town, exchanging questions we both had to answer.
What would you be if you could be anything at all?
I wanted to be an explorer in the name of science, like Charles Darwin, while she wanted to be an actress in a Broadway show, even though she couldn’t sing.
What’s the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?
I told her about my lopsided graduation dress, while she swore she’d never been embarrassed