don’t let us mix much here at the gulag,’ I explained. ‘And Ally sometimes finds it hard to meet people in person. So, she went online, to some Boston teen dating site.’
‘Ah,’ she said knowingly. ‘E-love.’
‘She met this guy who called himself Hawkster…’
‘Hawkster?’
‘I know. She got kind of… obsessed. I kept trying to warn her about getting too crazy about someone she didn’t know, but she didn’t want to hear that.’
‘What about this countdown?’ Lanalee asked.
‘She started doing this countdown thing, ticking off each week, day, minute, hour, and second to anyone who said hello to her. She texted me at random points to give me the count. She left notes in my locker with times on them and nothing else. One time she wrote “5 d, 6 h, 37 m, 14 s” on the back of my hand. But it was cute — she’s not crazy.’
‘Okay,’ Lanalee said with a nod. ‘She was a little wound up. It happens. I’m with you.’
And she was with me. Her face was intent, studious.
‘The thing is,’ I went on, ‘they made this deal that they wouldn’t exchange pictures, or even real names, until a few hours before. Al got all dressed up, had her hair done, everything. She sent off her picture… and the guy went silent. She thought maybe he’d left his house already, so she went to the prom and waited. All night she checked her cell phone. She called me at home to have me check her e-mail.’
‘You were at home?’
‘My boyfriend and I had just broken up,’ I said, waving my hand. ‘We weren’t planning on going anyway. The point is, web guy went subsonic. Dead. She waited for three hours before she gave up and called me to go and get her.’
‘Oh, wow,’ Lanalee said. ‘That sucks. Did she ever hear from him?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘She never did. She never really got over it. She always thought it was her picture. It made her hate the way she looks.’
A black Lincoln Town Car sidled up the drive, carefully plodding its way among the holes.
‘That’s my ride,’ she said. ‘Take this.’
She reached into her bag and pulled out a small lavender card with her name, address, and phone number printed in dark purple script.
‘My grandmother always gets me these things,’ she said. ‘They’re supposed to be for events, society things. Don’t laugh. They’re great to take to parties. Really.’
I wasn’t laughing. I was feeling the heavy, fine card stock. It had a rosy scent. This kind of little touch, combined with the Bobbin and the driveway stories, meant that Lanalee came from one of those families. Those families that went sailing off Newport at spring break, who had friends who lived in brownstones or mansions in Federal Hill, and had Uncle So-and-so’s old Yale sweater in the trunk of the car, just in case they needed an extra layer when they went skiing.
‘Have to go,’ she said, loping to the car. ‘But I’ve decided. Allison will be my project for the year. I need one, or I’m not going to be able to cope. We’ll make it right.’
This was all rattled off in one breath and punctuated by the muffled slamming of the car door. The car remained still for a moment, then a loud burst of opera rumbled from within. Whoever was driving hit the gas, sending the massive car off on a kind of extreme rally drive, almost taking out Sister Philmonilla as she watered the flowers at the base of the statue of St. Teresa. Sister put her hand to her heart to steady herself and looked at me disapprovingly. I knew she was about to come over and lecture me on safe driving, even though I had nothing to do with it, so I pretended not to see her and quickly turned and jogged down the driveway.
You know how in those really tiny countries — the ones with a population of two people and three pounds of assorted fruit — the leaders always wear big hats and huge aviator sunglasses? It happens in nature too. Animals puff up to make themselves look bigger. Cats do it. Owls do it. It’s the puffing instinct. Rhode Island puffs. Rhode Island isn’t actually called Rhode Island — the real name is the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. We don’t use it because it takes up more space than we have. We’re small. Vermont is a superpower compared to us. If you screw up in Rhode Island, the news goes statewide in about ten minutes. There is no escape.
And we have trolleys in Providence. That’s how we get around if we don’t drive. It was no shock that I found Allison waiting for the trolley or that I found most of our school waiting with her. In fact, it seemed like half of Rhode Island was waiting for our trolley.
Allison barely turned as I approached. It wasn’t cold. She just looked like she wanted to be unrecognizable. I think she would have gladly erased her entire existence and embraced that happy state of nonbeing that Eastern religions are always talking about. I stood by her silently. Unfortunately, my joining her only drew attention. A clump of weedy Sebastian’s guys started chin-upping in interest.
‘Hey, barf bag,’ one of them said.
I fixed my eye on him.
‘Ignore him, Jane,’ Allison said.
‘But Al…’
‘Let me handle it myself, okay?’
I let that go for her sake, but I couldn’t do the same for the giggling sophomore who was staring Ally up and down but pretending to be fascinated by her phone.
‘Haven’t you ever seen one of those magical talking calculators before, sweetheart?’ I said innocently.
The girl’s eyes went wide. I felt Ally’s elbow land softly in my ribs.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I’m going for a walk.’
I started to go with her, but she indicated with a shake of the head that she wanted to go home alone. It was hard to let her go, but I could see she meant it. Many eyes followed her as she walked off.
Three zip codes’ worth of people tried to get onto the trolley when it came, meaning that we were all squashed together. I managed to take advantage of my height and wriggle through to an open spot under a handle bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone giving up their seat to a girl with a cast on her arm who couldn’t hold on. I could only see his back, but I knew from the gesture and from the exact length of the back, the way the gray Sebastian’s shirt just came out of the top of his pants over on the left, it could only be Elton.
Like I said, it had been six months, three weeks, and two days — the healing process was well under way. But still, what exactly are you supposed to do when the only decent, the only truly intelligent, the only really perfect guy within the entire metropolitan area dumps you for no reason at all? If you are me, you curl up in a ball for two weeks and refuse to eat, then you do things like apply to a men’s seminary school, pass out condoms at your Catholic school, argue with teachers, get a small tattoo, and stop doing homework. You go through that phase for about two months. And from that point on, you just overeat and generally lose control of your own mind whenever
