Freak City Read Free

diamonds.”
    I was bewildered. “Your Barbie is a bride. She can’t be single,” I corrected her.
    “Yes, she can!” Iris protested. “She’s a bride without a groom. Instead, she has a shiny ring and shoes with glitter. And Ricko. That’s her horse’s name. They’re best friends.”
    “Is that supposed to mean Barbie only cares about the dress and the horse and the jewelry? Don’t you understand that getting married is really about love?”
    Over Iris’s head, I saw my mother tap her head to indicate that Iris was crazy. “She’s just a kid,” she mouthed silently. But at that moment, I didn’t care. I had finally grasped how girls worked. They didn’t care about us guys at all. It was only important to look good, to be a princess. To wear shoes with glitter. Us guys were just the assholes who paid the bills. “So the men are just the assholes who pay the bills!” I said gruffly.
    My mom slammed her fist on the table. “That’s enough! Watch how you talk with her! I won’t tolerate that in my house. What is
wrong
with you lately?”
    Sandra. I thought of how she had told me she wanted to break up in the swimming pool. The water had suddenly seemed infinitely deep.
    “Will Sandra come tomorrow?” Iris looked hopeful. I stared at her. There was glitter stuck to her forehead. No idea how it got on her face.
    “Didn’t I just tell you . . . ?” I made a dismissive gesture with my hand. “Forget it. Just forget it. And don’t ever say the name Sandra again!”

    I went to my room upstairs and turned on the CD player. Coldplay, extra loud. Mom hated it when I did that. But that was my revenge for the chocolate pudding I didn’t get. Some farmer’s family was having their fill of it right now, while there wasn’t even an expired yogurt in the fridge for us.
    I threw myself on the bed and stared at the opposite wall. Sandra and I had sprayed it with graffiti sometime around Christmas. We were bored out of our minds, so we went out and got a couple cans of spray paint in a little store north of the city. Now the words
Sandra and Mika forever!
stood next to a jet plane. My parents had almost had a stroke. I hadn’t gotten any allowance for three months. But it was worth it.
    Sometime, I’d have to paint over the glaring words.
Sandra and Mika forever!
    The lettering disappeared from view as I remembered the swimming pool. I had swum three laps of freestyle, and Sandra had been on her back, exactly in the middle of the pool, paddling around in circles almost without moving. A few of the old people were upset with her. “Get out of the lane, young lady! If you’re not really swimming, go get in the kiddie pool!”
    She just ignored them. Acted as if she couldn’t hear them, kept staring at the ceiling as if she were a drowned corpse.
    At some point, my path crossed hers. “Are you dreaming?”
    “No.” She stopped making endless circles. “I’m thinking. I think we need to call it quits.” She smiled at me. A smile she had learned from Pink, and her lashes were thick with mascara. I wondered how she managed not to smear it in the water.
    “Quit? Quit what?” I splashed around Sandra in circles and didn’t understand a thing.
    “Well, going out with each other.” She was still smiling like she wanted to pull my leg. And I immediately fell for it.
    “Good idea. We can still be friends!” I said jokingly and touched her on the shoulder. I wanted to kiss her, but she pushed me away roughly.
    “Stop that!” Suddenly, her smile was gone. “I’m serious. It’s over. Done. Finished.”
    My gaze wandered slowly to the tiles on the opposite wall. They were dark blue. I started to count them: one, two, three, four. . . . There must have been hundreds, or even thousands, of blue tiles. The lifeguard walked through my view. Over there, next to the plastic palm, hung an advertising banner. A local swim shop was advertising special sale prices. I looked at Sandra again. She was wearing a zebra