Zenn Diagram Read online

  It’s nearly eleven when I think about college applications

  for the thousandth time. One of these nights I’m going to have to tackle them. But not tonight.

  Chapter 5

  On Saturday Charlotte drags me to a horrible-sounding Nicholas Sparks kind of movie that I’m afraid might make me vomit if I go with a full stomach.

  “Come on … it has Bradley Simon in it!” she whines. “With his shirt off! You’ll get your money’s worth for that alone!”

  “These movies are all the same, Char. Hot guy, beautiful girl. Impossible love. Bad dialogue.”

  “Yeah, but there’s kissing. And partial nudity.”

  I laugh at the way she raises her eyebrows playfully. “What has happened to you, friend? You used to be so sexless and levelheaded.”

  “I know.” She sighs, almost sadly. “Things were way simpler back then.”

  So we buy our tickets and camp out with our popcorn. As I suspected, the movie is horrible. I’ll admit Bradley Simon looks good without his shirt on, but that is truly the movie’s only redeeming quality. I could write a better script, and I’m a math nerd.

  Although, if I’m totally honest with myself, it’s not just the poor quality of the dialogue that makes me hate the movie so much. What really gets me is all the touching. Hand-holding, strokes on the cheek, arms wrapped around each other. There’s one moment when the actress — some waify blonde with doe eyes and perfect perky boobs — grabs Bradley Simon’s face while they kiss and I want to gouge both of their eyes out with my ticket stub. All it does is remind me of all that I will never have: simple touching. Warm skin on warm skin. No fucking fractals.

  I’m understandably a little cranky when we get frozen yogurt after the movie. I pile Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and chocolate-chip-cookie-dough bits in my dish with a heavy, bitter hand.

  “Why do you even bother getting yogurt, Ev?” Charlotte studies my paper bowl. “If all you wanted was candy, we could have gotten that a lot cheaper at Walgreens.”

  I stick out my candy-coated tongue at her.

  We go to the beach to eat — our favorite spot. Lake Michigan is more like an ocean than a lake. You can’t see across it and on nights like this the waves crash against the sand so fiercely that we can barely hear each other. I have to give Charlotte credit: she doesn’t gush on and on about Josh. She knows my situation leaves me with a limited amount of patience for unrequited love. Given my circumstances, her heartache tends to fall on deaf ears. I only have so much sympathy for girls who could find a boyfriend if they wanted to, but instead keep liking unattainable guys above their social station. It’s why Charlotte loves Jane Austen and I stick with nonfiction books about science and anthropology.

  “Homecoming is soon,” she says.

  “Yep.”

  “Do you think we should go this year? I mean, we are seniors.”

  I shrug. “You should go, if you want to.”

  “You don’t want to?”

  I shrug again. “What’s the point?”

  “I don’t know. To make memories? To have fun?”

  I sigh. She’s probably right. I only make my situation worse by wallowing in it. Maybe if I tried a little bit I could enjoy my senior year instead of just enduring it. But the thought of watching all the other couples slow dance while I stand alone along the wall, my hands carefully protected behind my back, is too depressing.

  “Maybe …”

  Apparently my nonanswer appeases her because her mood lightens and she’s back to talking about the ripples of Bradley Simon’s stomach muscles and how he looks like he’d be a really good kisser. I concentrate on the peanut-buttery goodness of my Reese’s and try not to think about the kisses I’ve never had or what stomach muscles might feel like under curious fingertips.

  Chapter 6

  Sunday mornings are the worst for me. Not because I have to go to church, although sometimes that’s a real buzz kill, or because I wake up knowing my precious weekend is nearly over. No, Sundays are hard for me because of the never-ending affection of church people. The hugging, the handshakes, the love. Most of our congregation is aware of my aversion to touch and give me sad half smiles of pity instead of handshakes. But some don’t know me yet, or they do and they think all I need is a good squeeze to cure me. A little “laying on of hands,” if you will. So I endure intense fractals from people who look like they haven’t a care in the world, but are really just as full of heartache and pain as non-churchgoers. Often much, much more.

  It’s a brutal way to spend your priceless morning off.

  This morning I’m hiding out in the nursery with the quads and a handful of their little friends. It’s the safest place for me after the service, when all the good Christians are pumped up by a motivating sermon and a moving hymn. I’m on the floor pretzel-style playing duck, duck, goose when my mom peeks her head in.

  “Eva, can you take the church van and run to Piggly Wiggly for me? I just found out Mrs. Effertz broke her hip and I don’t have any cream of mushroom soup at home. Or chicken. Or those crispy onions.”

  This is how the mother of quadruplets talks: in riddles that leave out a lot of important information. Luckily I speak this language as well. I get that she wants to make a casserole for poor Mrs. Effertz, but is missing, well, all the essential ingredients. I bite my tongue to keep from saying that Mrs. Effertz’s hip will be the least of her worries if she eats my mom’s casserole.

  Instead, I groan. “The Loser Cruiser? Why can’t I take your minivan? Or Dad’s car?”

  “Mine’s got the car seats. Unless you want to take four kids with you,” she threatens. I shake my head vigorously. There isn’t much worse than taking four preschoolers grocery shopping. “And Dad needs his car to go to the hospital for chaplain duty.”

  Jeez. Sometimes it’s tough living in a family of do-gooders. “He can’t take the van?”

  “There’s no room for groceries in his car, Eva!” She’s losing patience with me. I see it between her eyebrows. “It’s so loaded up with sh —” she catches herself just before a shit escapes in front of seven bat-eared preschoolers, “shoes for the shoe drive.”

  Nice save. Sometimes I wonder if my mom would swear like a truck driver if she weren’t married to a pastor.

  “Fine.” I reluctantly stand up and ruffle the hair of my two closest circle friends. “Gotta fly, ducks. Goose you later!”

  They all laugh hysterically. This is the problem — I can fool myself into thinking I’m hilarious because I hang out mostly with three-year-olds who laugh at everything.

  I sneak out the back to avoid the hug-happy coffee klatch in the narthex, and there it is, waiting. If a Care Bear and the Magic School Bus procreated, their offspring would be the Loser Cruiser. Poorly painted clouds dot a bright blue background so it looks like headless sheep are floating in the sky along the side of the van: a bloodless horror movie meets mattress commercial. There’s a Bible verse on there, too, in uneven, messy, microscopic script. Luke 9:24: For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. I keep telling my dad we should repaint the bus and use a verse that is less confusing in a font size people could actually see. But who has the time, or the money, or the talent? And they’d have to call a heated church council meeting just to decide which Bible translation to use.

  The door is never locked, because who would want to steal this monstrosity? And how far would they get, anyway? It’s not exactly like it blends in with all the other cars. I pull the door open and climb up. I may not be particularly cool, but even I’m aware of how horrible this van is. I duck low behind the wheel and drive.

  At the grocery store I load up my cart with the makings for my mom’s infamous chicken-and-rice casserole (the only ingredient we actually have at home is the rice). As each item goes into the cart, I subtotal the bill in my head. It’s easy for me, and oddly fun. Charlotte sometimes calls me Casio because she says I’m a human calculator. I pick up two ga
llons of milk (one of which will no doubt end up splattered across our table), bananas, Rice Krispies, Huggies and anything else I think we might be running low on. As I said, shopping with four three-year-olds would be appropriate torture for terrorists, so I’m trying to postpone my mom’s pain a little longer.

  I add the 5.6 percent sales tax in my head and smile in the checkout line when my half-full cart of groceries comes to $104.23: exactly what I figured. I use the $50 my mom gave me and dip into my tutoring money to cover the rest. That money usually goes straight into my college savings account, but occasionally I use it to help out my parents. I’ll conveniently lose the receipts, put the groceries away before my parents get home and let them somehow believe we are living within our budget. Frankly, the money is probably better spent on bananas and milk than my impossible college dreams.

  I load the groceries into the back of the Loser Cruiser, wedging the bags under the last row of seats.

  “Can I take your cart, miss?”

  “Oh, sure, thanks.” I remove the last bag and push the cart toward the guy who has offered. I look up to smile my thanks at him and find myself face-to-face with Mr. Eyelashes himself.

  His gray eyes focus on me, there’s a slow-motion blink of the never-ending lashes and then recognition registers.

  “Hey.” His reaction is friendly. Not necessarily enthusiastic, but at least he acknowledges that he knows me. He remembers my face. That’s something, right? Is it sad that I think that’s something?

  “Hey,” I say, with an identical level of enthusiasm — no more, no less. This is how teenagers work, I’ve learned. Only give back what you’re given.

  I assess my situation: in my church clothes, unloading diapers and applesauce into a bright blue van with a Bible quote on the side. Yep. If only I had a big box of tampons still in the cart. And maybe a mammoth zit right on my chin. Now that would be awesome.

  Zenn doesn’t notice the van. Or at least he doesn’t comment, because how could he not notice? He takes my cart, and I note that he is wearing a bright orange safety vest over his green army jacket, which makes us slightly more even on the embarrassment scale. The vest doesn’t erase the memory of the fractal I got from his jacket, though. Just seeing the sleeves poking out reminds me of the heaviness, the darkness.

  “You work here?” The most obvious question of all time.

  He nods and adds my cart to the train he already has. “Unfortunately, it looks that way.”

  “That’s cool.”

  He glances down at his orange vest and gives me that little smirk. He doesn’t beam, doesn’t often full-out smile. Just quirks his mouth a little on one side in a sarcastic compromise. “Yeah.”

  “Hello? Have you seen what I’m driving?”

  Now he does smile with his whole mouth — both sides. I relax a bit.

  “That is quite a ride. What are those?” He squints. “Sheep?”

  “Clouds. I think. Very poorly drawn clouds.” I study the side of the van. “Or maybe they are sheep. I really have no idea.”

  I turn back to him, but he is still studying the van. Light weekend stubble covers his jaw. His insane eyelashes blink once, twice. “I think your church should get a refund for that paint job.”

  “I know, right? It’s ugly as sin, ironically.”

  He nods and gives me a sideways smile. “It’s pretty baaaaad.”

  Oh, my God. Did he just make a sheep joke? I laugh, trying not to be too obvious about how much I love that. We stand for a moment in post-awkward-joke silence, glancing alternately at our feet and the hideous van. I’m just grateful that he doesn’t ask why I’m driving a church van in the first place.

  “Well,” I say, slamming the door shut. “I should let ewe get back to work.”

  Zenn looks at me, a sparkle in his eye telling me he’s quick enough to get my joke, and goofy enough to appreciate it. “Right.”

  “I’ll see you … when are we meeting again?” I know perfectly well we are meeting on Tuesday afternoon. I think his eyelashes have made me turn fake dumb.

  “Tuesday?”

  He remembered! My face and our meeting time!

  “Right! Tuesday. I’ll see you then.”

  “I’ll try not to be late this time.” He gives me one last half smile before pushing the line of carts toward the store.

  “And remember your calculator!” I call after him. I secretly hope he will forget it again. Any excuse to spend more time with him.

  He calls back, “I will,” but it sounds suspiciously like “I wool.” Which makes me think I might consider bearing his children immediately.

  I climb back into the van and take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Calm down, Eva. Just calm. The hell. Down.

  Chapter 7

  Classes start late on Monday morning, so Charlotte and I meet at Java Dock before school. There is a Starbucks by the highway, but Java Dock is downtown by the water and the owners make their own muffins that are as big as your head. I always vote for Java Dock.

  We split a Granny Smith muffin with streusel topping — Charlotte is a sucker for streusel — and sit on one of the sagging sofas with Charlotte’s cello case taking up the spot next to her. Sometimes she does this to keep older men from hitting on her. She may not attract the attention of high-school boys, but middle-aged men love Charlotte.

  It’s kind of gross.

  “Hey, new earrings?” I ask.

  She touches them briefly. “Oh! Yeah. I got them at the farmers’ market. They’re made from sea glass they find on the beach.”

  “Our beach?” The glass is a pale, translucent blue that matches Charlotte’s eyes. I reach out to touch them and then think better of it. Even the most beautiful things can hide secrets.

  She nods.

  “They’re pretty,” I tell her. Most girls in our school would not be caught dead wearing earrings bought at a farmers’ market made out of recycled garbage. This is why I love Charlotte: she is not most girls.

  As usual, Charlotte grills me about my college and scholarship applications. She knows I’ve been procrastinating. Even though it’s barely October, she’s already completed her early-admission applications for three different schools, including Northwestern and Georgetown. But she’s an only child, and her family has some money. If she gets in, and I’m sure she will, she can go. I can’t say the same thing for myself.

  I try to change the subject with a slow sip of my café mocha — the mocha is the only thing that makes coffee drinkable for me — and debate telling Charlotte about Zenn. I rarely talk about boys, so any mention of a male would distract her from hounding me about my applications. I wouldn’t tell her about his fractal — I don’t usually talk about those — just about his mere existence. Most girls spend most of their time talking about boys so it wouldn’t be weird for me to do it once in a while.

  I don’t know. Maybe it would be weird.

  Charlotte beats me to it. “I can’t believe you got to sit with him for a half hour. Alone.”

  I shrug but can’t help smiling. A half hour alone with a cute boy talking about math. Doesn’t get much better than that for me.

  Then she says, “I’m so crazy jealous.”

  Oh, right. Of course. She means Josh, not Zenn.

  I shrug again. I can almost smell his cologne just from the mention of his name.

  “When’s the next time you meet?”

  I swallow a bite of muffin. “Today.”

  “Again? Already?”

  “He’s ineligible, so I have him every day until he gets his grade up. Coach’s orders.” I say this to hint that the guy is no rocket scientist, but that doesn’t seem to deter Charlotte. When it comes to Josh, attractiveness has always outweighed intelligence. I decide to throw her a bone. “Do you want to meet him?”

  Her eyes grow big.

  “Come by before, like, three forty-five. I’ll introduce you guys.”

  “That would be weird. Wouldn’t that be weird?”

  “Why? You’r
e just giving me a ride home.”

  She thinks about this for a minute and then makes a decision. “Okay.” Her cheeks are pink with nervous excitement. I’m worried for her. She’s usually a wreck around popular boys. But we’ll see.

  Josh and I are just finishing up when I hear a light tap on the door. Charlotte peeks her head into the room.

  “Oh!” she says, fake surprised. “Sorry!”

  Huh. Maybe she’s a better actress than I thought.

  “That’s okay. Come on in.” I turn to Josh. “She’s my ride.”

  Charlotte steps into the room and the first thing I notice is her mouth. It’s pale pink and shiny. Is she wearing … lip gloss?

  I’m so distracted by her shiny lips that I momentarily forget my promise. She opens her eyes wide and wags her head toward Josh while he’s facing the other way. My God, she’s wearing eyeliner, too!

  She clears her throat. Oh, right. Introductions.

  “Josh, this is my friend Charlotte. Charlotte, this is Josh.”

  Charlotte manages to make it across the room without tripping. She holds out her hand and I nearly roll my eyes. A handshake? Most kids just lift their chin and say hey. What is this, a business meeting?

  But to my surprise Josh stands up and takes her hand without missing a beat. Maybe he has one of those dads who has forced him to shake hands since he was a toddler. I shudder at the thought. Thank God my parents were lax in the social-niceties department.

  “Nice to meet you, Josh,” she says. I can definitely see the eyeliner. I blame Jessica, one of her fellow cello players. They probably did a makeover during orchestra.

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  Josh and Charlotte make a striking couple: tall, blond, all-American. If you dressed them in denim and put them on a beach with a golden retriever, they’d be a freaking Ralph Lauren ad.

  Josh squints at Charlotte in a charming, almost flirty way. “You … play the cello, don’t you?”