My Not-So-Still Life Read Free Page B

both know Jewel wants herand not me. She has him. She gets to be happy about that. And I get nothing.
    Jewel smiles. My hand rises as if I’m a marionette, and I manage to wiggle my fingers.
    I am my own puppet master.
    I just hope no one else can see how those strings are the only things keeping me standing and smiling.

Three
    I can’t leave now that they’ve seen me. I would be running.
    I take Nick’s hand and lead him to the snack table, where there’s raspberry fizzy water for us youngsters. I’m tempted to sneak some white wine instead. Escape.
    Nick drops my hand and pours us each a paper cup of the fizz, and we look at the work on the walls. I keep my back to Jewel, but it’s like he’s true north to my body’s compass. I sense where he is.
    I try to focus on the moment, the way Nick can. Breathe. Sip.
    The first photo we check out is of the Fremont Troll, asculpture that lives near Jewel’s house. It’s all big and creepy and weird. That’s what he loves about it. Me too. This photo is a close-up of the troll’s eye, a hubcap.
    We drift to another photo. A snail’s head. Black-and-white.
    There’s something gorgeous in that snail. I stare.
    “Wishing you had a shell to hide in?” Nick asks.
    “That would be nice.”
    “Come on,” he says. “You don’t cower.”
    He’s right. “I’m gonna go say hi.”
    As I step toward Jewel, he breaks from his group to meet me. If I could fall into his arms right here, I would. In front of everyone. In front of Alice.
    “Nice stuff,” I say.
    “Glad you like it,” he says. “Your hair looks awesome. Doing the walk tonight?”
    I touch my hair without wanting to. Smile. He knows I do the walk every month. We’ve done it together. I nod. “And meeting a friend.”
    He knows Nick is gay, but maybe he’ll think the friend is another guy. Maybe he’ll think I’ve fallen for someone else.
    “Gotcha,” he says. “Thanks for stopping by. Have a good night.”
    “I will.” I turn and go out the door with Nick.
    It kills me that no night without Jewel will ever be as good as the few we spent together.
    *   *   *
    Nick and I get to the gelato shop before Holly. I send him in to grab a table while I wait for her outside, leaning against the brick building and watching the neighborhood breathe.
    Lots of people are out tonight, strolling with dogs, doing the art walk, browsing the shops, eating at the Thai restaurants, and starting to crowd the bars. The sun is low, but the sky’s not completely night-black. Some blue survives.
    I relax to the music of car engines and car tires and car doors as people get out and join the night. I don’t know how I’d ever survive living anywhere but the city. Everywhere else is too quiet. In the country, if you stop to think about a boy who broke your heart, you might never get jolted back into life.
    Headlights swim past. People laugh. A dog barks. I stand straight: Girl Waiting for a Friend. Not Girl with a Mashed Heart.
    Here comes Holly, bouncing. The girl is a true light. She’s got long blond hair and big blue eyes. She’s as perfectly gorgeous as the cliché, classically beautiful and tall in a flowery skirt and a ruffly yellow top under her denim jacket. If she went to public school with me instead of Saint Agatha’s, she’d probably be prom queen.
    Her school doesn’t have a prom, let alone a queen. Hermother thinks dressing her in a uniform and forcing her out of the sight line of boys will keep her pure or something. It’s kind of working. Girl is innocent.
    She’s the only person from Ocean Tides I still hang out with on a regular basis; we’ll always be tight at the core.
    “Love the pink!” She gives me a hug.
    There’s definitely something to be said for the Ocean Tides brand of hippiedom, where we got to go skiing Fridays in the winter and cook lunch for ourselves whenever we wanted, with an oven and using real knives, and where we were encouraged to spend time and energy on the things