Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard [81]
I knew I could defend her. I could lie and say she was working on something top secret, give her one last chance. In that moment, I had the ability to save her.
I closed my eyes when I spoke.
“Mandarin hasn’t even picked a service project. I don’t think she ever planned on doing one.”
The next day, Mandarin showed up to geometry. I knew she’d arrived when I sensed some subtle shift in the atmosphere, but I never turned to look. For once, Mrs. Cleary didn’t call her out for being tardy. Maybe she had some compassion after all.
At lunch, I headed for the end bathroom stall, like I had all week. No one was inside the bathroom when I knocked my English textbook to the floor. As I leaned over to pick it up, I noticed the red words scrawled along the very bottom of the stall door.
School is Horseshit.
Despite the hours I’d spent in the stall, I had forgotten about it. A person could only read the phrase from ground level—sprawled out on the tile, or leaning over, like me. For some reason, it bothered me like it never had before. I rummaged around in my tote bag until I found a pen. I leaned forward and drew a fat black line over the first word. Then I hesitated, my hand hovering uncertainly. I wasn’t sure what to write.
Before I could make up my mind, I heard the outer door creak open.
I froze, trying my best to remain silent and motionless. I waited for the intruder to go into one of the stalls beside me.
Instead, the faucet turned on. I heard intermittent splashes and, indistinctly, a low humming. Strangely familiar.
Prince’s “Little Red Corvette.”
Every day after school that week, I’d been forced to avoid the places Mandarin and I used to frequent—which made up practically our whole town. I couldn’t grab a milk shake at the A&W or brood in the empty school yard. I didn’t go to the Sundrop Quik Stop, because it was across the street from Solomon’s. What if I passed Mandarin outside while she was on a cigarette break? The library was too close as well. And after what had happened with Tyler, I didn’t want to go to the Tombs. Maybe someday I’d be ready to return. But not yet.
All Mandarin’s fault.
If it was really her humming out there, I should fling open the door of the bathroom stall, confront her, tell her everything I was thinking.
But even after all this time, I was still too much of a coward.
At last, the faucet shut off. I heard paper towels cranking from the dispenser. Then nothing, for a moment, as the person seemed to hesitate.
I held my breath.
Then the outer door creaked open and shut. Silence. I exhaled shakily, lowering my crossed arms to my knees.
Life, I wrote above my fat black line. I stared at it, frowning.
Every moment of that endless week, I had to live with the awareness that somewhere within the confines of Washokey, Mandarin existed without me. And the return to my ordinary life without her, to the lonesome, solitary Grace I’d been stuck with for years and years, was almost debilitating.
As angry as I was at Mandarin, most of all, I missed her.
I missed the childlike Mandarin, who twirled in the cotton, danced through the grocery store aisles, flew across the empty football field with both arms open. I missed the passionate Mandarin, who looked into the glass eyes of a trophy and saw the wild animal it used to be. I even missed the impulsive, dangerous Mandarin, who pulled me into the murky canal waters, drove her ancient truck way too fast, painted my eyes and led me toward the bonfires. Because even as she terrified me, it was that Mandarin who finally woke me up.
Until our friendship, I’d never known how good my life could be.
That was her fault too.
Early on Saturday, I took a walk in the badlands.
I brought my English notes, although I didn’t plan to study much. If finals