Zenn Diagram Read online

  I read over my application and decide it’s about as good as it’s going to get. I impulsively hit Send before I can overthink it or delay any further. I’m exhausted from the effort and shut down the computer. The big scholarship application is done. The college applications will have to wait for another night.

  Chapter 10

  On Wednesday Charlotte stops by to pick me up, once again conveniently showing up a few minutes early. Today her hair is attractively messy in a way that screams Jessica has struck again. Lip gloss and eyeliner seem to be Charlotte’s new best friends.

  Josh remembers her name (and its correct pronunciation) without any help. We all walk out of the room together, Josh politely holding the door for us. Charlotte giggles at something he says. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Charlotte giggle quite like this before. Or at least not since middle school.

  Instead of having her drive me home, I fake that I need to get my dad’s car from church so she drops me off there. But rather than my dad’s car, I pick up the Loser Cruiser. I pull out the business card Zenn gave me, and head up the hill to the body shop.

  I suppose I could call first, but the number on the card is clearly the shop’s number and he probably wouldn’t answer. The truth is I just want to see him again. I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled at school, but either he’s never there, or he’s some kind of phantom that apparates at will.

  I pull the van into the parking lot and briefly check myself in the rearview mirror. Some days I don’t look in the mirror at all between when I get ready in the morning and wash my face at night. I just don’t think about it that much, which is unfortunate when your face is dusted with flecks of glitter from some three-year-old’s princess crown. Then, an occasional glance in the mirror might be a good idea.

  But today there is no glitter. Just my pale but clear skin, relatively pretty blue eyes that tend to get lost behind my glasses, and a mouth that’s most interesting (and pitiful) feature is that it has never been kissed.

  I climb out of the van and head into the shop. One of the garage doors is open and two guys are inspecting some damage on a car that appears to have hit a deer. A small tuft of fur is still stuck by the license plate frame. This unexpectedly makes my throat close up. I swallow to try to clear it.

  The men look at me and one of them nods an informal greeting. Then they look past me at the Loser Cruiser and smile, nudging each other and making comments that I can’t make out. Funny that my van elicits more lingering glances than anything about me.

  The shop is dingy and 100 percent man — from the three mismatched, dirty chairs that line one wall to last year’s sexy-tool-girl calendar attached to the top of the counter with tape, now curling up at the edges. No one has taken the time to just peel it off. My fingers itch to do it, but I know better. Even old tape can sometimes hold memories.

  “Can I help you?” One of the guys from the garage has come in to see what I need. The name patch on the chest of his dirty shirt reads Dave.

  “Um … I’m looking for Zenn?” I hold up the business card, maybe trying to prove that I’m here for official car business and am not just some girl stalking him. He might get a lot of those.

  Dave nods and looks at the clock on the wall. “Calder, is Zenn comin’ in today?” he calls out to the other guy.

  Calder yells back, “What is it, Wednesday? I think he’s at the mansion today.”

  Mansion? Wait, he lives in a mansion?

  “Right,” Dave says, more to himself than to me. “He’ll be in tomorrow. After four, four thirty, probably. Can I help you with something?”

  I clear my throat. “He said he could paint our church van? With something a little less … butt ugly?”

  Dave smiles and looks past me at my van again. “Yeah, I’m sure he can help you with that. We can paint it a solid color for … probably two grand? Anything Zenn does would be extra. He’d have to give you a quote on that himself.” Already I feel the pointlessness of this endeavor. Two grand just to paint it a solid color. Bible quotes and rainbows extra. Crap.

  “Okay. I’ll see him tomorrow after school — I’ll just ask him then.”

  “Right,” Dave says again. “Sounds good.”

  “Thanks for your help.” I nod and turn toward the door.

  “No problem.”

  I decide to drive the scenic way back to the church, through the historic part of town. The houses along the main drag are huge and old, and I suppose there are a few you’d consider mansions. I wonder if Zenn lives here. He doesn’t strike me as the type of kid who comes from money — he doesn’t have that preppy, soft, spoiled look about him. But of course I don’t know anything about him, really.

  At the church I go in to see my dad, whose car is still in the parking lot. Maybe if he’s heading home soon I can catch a ride.

  “Any luck with the van?” he asks when I plop down on a chair in his office.

  I shrug. “The guy I tutor wasn’t there. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” I pull the sleeves of my sweatshirt down over my hands. “Is there any kind of … budget … for that kind of thing?”

  “Budget? For the van?” He thinks for a second. “I suppose there is something for maintenance. I’m not sure how much. I can have Joanne check.”

  “Could you?”

  My dad looks at me kind of funny, like he senses there is more to this story than just my desire to get rid of the sheep. “I could.”

  I nod and change the subject. “Are you going home soon? Or should I walk?”

  “I can run you home. I told Mom I’d pick up KFC for dinner.”

  “Sweet. Ethan will be stoked.”

  Hopefully chicken strips will lull the kids into submission and we’ll have a peaceful, spill-free dinner.

  Stranger things have happened.

  Chapter 11

  “Does your friend Charlotte have a thing with anyone?”

  The question comes while I’m in the middle of explaining the Gudermannian function to Josh, so it catches me off guard.

  “Have a thing? Like I have a thing with trig?”

  He laughs a little self-consciously. “Yeah, I mean, does she have a boyfriend or … whatever?”

  I put down my pencil. “No. She doesn’t. Not right now.” I add that last part, trying to make it seem like Charlotte is in a very rare and brief window of opportunity between love interests.

  “Cool.” Josh leans back in his chair and taps his hands on the tabletop. “Cool.”

  I look at him for a moment and before I think better of it, I reach over and pick up his cell phone.

  “Is this that new one?” I ask vaguely. I don’t know much about phones. I’m sure his phone is the newest and greatest model — I couldn’t care less. I’m just making small talk while I peek into his life for a second. I want to see if I can sense his motivations because I’m not sure I trust him yet. Not with my best friend.

  “Yeah,” he says. He starts to explain how awesome his phone is, but I don’t hear him because the fractal is already sweeping over me. It’s only slightly milder than the one from Zenn’s coat, which surprises me because I wouldn’t think a guy like Josh struggles with much. But this one makes my palms sweat, my ears ring, my throat tighten. I set the phone down quickly, before full-blown dizziness or nausea sets in. I steady myself, taking a deep breath to try to shake off the surprising weight of rejection and insecurity and loneliness.

  “Are you okay?” Josh’s voice is concerned and I realize I’ve ignored him since I picked up the phone. I’m probably a little pale and sweaty, too.

  “Sorry. Low blood sugar, I think.”

  Josh digs in his pocket and pulls out a half-eaten bag of Skittles. For some reason the fact that he has a bag of opened Skittles in his pocket and is not too embarrassed to offer me some makes me instantly trust him more. That, and the fact that his fractal is nothing like what I expected.

  Although my blood sugar has nothing to do with why I’m pale and sweaty, I take a few Skittles to play along. The
y are slightly soft.

  “Thanks,” I say, and he smiles, happy to help.

  He reaches for his phone and presses the button to check the time. I already regret touching it because now when I look at him all I can think of is that fractal. I get the feeling of watching someone kick an adorable puppy.

  There is a tap at the door and Zenn peeks his head into the room. He lifts his hand in a small wave. Josh stands up and pronounces my name correctly as he says goodbye. I wonder if someone — maybe Charlotte? — tipped him off on that.

  Josh leaves and Zenn takes his chair. I quietly inhale the fresh air he brings with him. In what I realize is becoming a habit, I study his hands. Today he has medical tape wrapped around two of his fingers and a bandage across one of his knuckles. I wonder, briefly, if he was in a fight. As if teenage boys are getting into fistfights every day. What is this, West Side Story?

  “I stopped by the body shop yesterday with the van,” I tell him.

  He looks up at me. Wow, his eyes are truly gray. Like … number 2 lead pencil gray. I’m probably the only girl in the world who would notice that, and also find it a little sexy. “Really?” he asks, his voice almost hopeful.

  “Yeah. But I’m not sure the church can afford two or three grand.”

  He waves his hand, dismissing my argument. “It won’t be that much.”

  “It won’t?”

  “I can get Dave to write some of it off as a charitable donation since it’s for a church. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Really?”

  Zenn nods. “Do you want me to meet with the priest or whoever to talk about some ideas?”

  “Well … that would be my dad. The pastor.”

  “Oh!” he says. “Your dad?”

  Yeah. I suppose that’s pretty sexy — having your dad be a man of the cloth. “But he’s delegated this to me, since I’m the one who thinks we should paint it.”

  “Oh,” he says again. “Great. So … what were you thinking?”

  I shrug. I haven’t put a lot of thought into anything but getting rid of the sheep. “Just something … less.”

  He nods and takes out his phone. He touches the screen and opens his camera roll. “Maybe something like this?” He finds what he is looking for and he holds the phone out to me. I hesitate. If touching his jacket was any indication, holding his phone could be a nightmare, just like Josh’s. To my relief, he sets it on the table and slides it toward me.

  I look at the screen and there is a picture of a motorcycle fuel tank painted with a very busty woman in a tiny black bikini top. Her hair is made of snakes, like Medusa’s. Fire is shooting out of her eyes.

  I grin and look at Zenn, who is deadpan.

  “You know,” he says, shrugging. “Something classy.”

  “Could you make her with, like, devil horns? And maybe paint the lyrics to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ along the running board?”

  Zenn nods, smiling finally. He takes the phone and flips to another picture.

  “You could just do the name of the church. Something basic. Or you could do something like this.” He shows me another picture, this one of a mural painted on a school wall, a simple silhouette of children backlit by sunshine.

  “Oooh, that’s nice. I like that.” This time I cautiously take the phone from him to study the picture and I brace myself for a fractal. But … there’s nothing.

  “You could put a cross in the background or something. To make it more … churchy.”

  “Is this a new phone?” I ask, grasping it more firmly.

  “Huh?” He looks up, confused. “Oh. No … not really.”

  Maybe he’s not an Instagram-selfie-overtexting sort of guy, not attached to his phone at every waking moment.

  Zenn takes out a pencil and opens his notebook and starts drawing. In just minutes he scribbles an amazing sketch, something I couldn’t have done if you gave me weeks and something to trace.

  “Holy shit.” I watch his pencil fly across the page, like it’s magic.

  Zenn looks down at his sketch and shades in a little more. “I could come up with a couple of options for you to run by your dad.” For the first time since I met him, he seems relaxed. His jaw is unclenched, his face calm and less weighed down with worry.

  “Sure. That’d be great.” I pick up the scrap-of-paper masterpiece. “Or I could just show him this. This should be more than enough.”

  I’m surprised to find Charlotte waiting in the parking lot when I come out of school. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. She’s been lingering after school more often, planting herself wherever she might cross paths with Josh.

  She sees me and starts hopping in her lanky, goofy way, like a baby giraffe on a hot asphalt sidewalk. I’ve rarely seen her so animated. She’s usually all chill and yoga-ish. But she runs up to me and grabs my arm, bouncing on her toes. She’s like a six-foot-tall version of Libby.

  “He asked me! He asked me to homecoming!”

  “Who?” I ask, although I already know the answer and maybe don’t want to admit it to myself. “Josh?”

  “Yes! Oh, my God! Can you even believe it?!”

  We get in the car and she lets out a small squeal when the doors close.

  “Josh. Freaking. Mooney!” She bangs her hands against the steering wheel with each word. It takes her several minutes to calm down enough to put her seat belt on.

  “Will you go shopping with me on Saturday? I need a dress! Oh, crap, and shoes!”

  Oh, man, I forgot about her shoe issues. Finding cute ones for her huge feet is always a challenge.

  Before I can answer, she’s babbling again. “I have a Pinterest board. Look it up on your phone and tell me which ones you like.”

  Charlotte has a Pinterest board of homecoming dress ideas? When did this happen?

  I open up the Pinterest app on my phone and click onto Charlotte’s boards and, sure enough, there is one for homecoming. I scroll through the dresses, all of them more subdued and sophisticated than any teenager in her right mind would wear. None have sparkles, none are strapless and not one of them is shorter than knee-length.

  “Maybe you should get the shoes first and work backward from there.”

  She groans in agreement. “Uggh. I hate my feet!”

  I nod in fake sympathy at her ridiculous problem: being tall and gorgeous, trying to find something to wear for her date with the hot football player. Sucks to be her.

  I agree to go shopping on Saturday, though I can’t think of many worse forms of torture. But she’s my best friend and it’s our senior homecoming. Her first high-school dance with a date. For Charlotte, I will endure a day of searching for granny shoes and a dress that won’t make her look like a politician’s wife. It’s the least I can do.

  And it really isn’t so bad, after all, considering both Charlotte and I seem to be missing the gene that makes most women love shopping. We kind of wander around aimlessly, laughing a lot. We finally get down to business at DSW and find her a pair of low, strappy black heels that don’t look too matronly. The large-size boxes are helpfully labeled with bright yellow stickers. ELEVEN! they scream at us. TWELVE!!! BIG-FOOT GIRL, HERE'S YOUR TWELVE!

  “I know I should be offended by this,” Charlotte says as she points to one of the hard-to-miss stickers, “but it really does make it easier. I can’t even get attached to a pair of shoes if I don’t see a box with that freaking number of shame. Saves me a lot of heartache.”

  I nod and think of how helpful it would be if boys had stickers like that. If they had a girlfriend, their sticker would say TAKEN, or maybe if they were gay, their sticker would say, OTHER TEAM. Would make life a lot easier for most teenage girls.

  I wonder what Zenn’s sticker would say. Maybe DAMAGED GOODS, based on his fractal.

  After we get her shoes, we head to Macy’s and browse the racks in the juniors department. Charlotte has a hard time hiding her disgust.

  “They’re all so … shiny and bright.”

  “And small,” I add. �
��They’re like, Las Vegas doll dresses.”

  “Let’s try some on,” she says, and grabs a bubblegum-pink dress and another one the color of the inside of a lime.

  “I’m not trying anything on.” I doubt I’ll get any fractals from the dresses — no one has worn them for more than a minute or two. Especially this hideous one, which I doubt has ever been taken off the hanger. But even without fractals, there’s something depressing about trying on dresses for a dance you won’t be going to. She grabs my arm and drags me to the dressing room. “C’mon. If I have to, you have to.”

  I find myself in a dressing room next to her, pulling off my yoga pants and pulling on the lime-colored dress.

  “On the count of three we both come out, okay?”

  I glance in the mirror and cringe. “Sure. On three.”

  “One …” she says, her voice high and excited. “Two …”

  I wonder if I should take off my socks, then decide that they add to the comedy.

  “Three!” And we both fling open our dressing room doors and step out into the aisle. I’m ready to laugh at how stupid we both look, but one glance at Charlotte and my laugh dies before it starts.

  “Look at me!” she says, spinning awkwardly in the small space. “I’m like a piece of Hubba Bubba! But with sequins!”

  “I hate you.”

  “What?” She stops spinning.

  “You actually look good in that stupid dress.”

  “Shut up. This is hideous.”

  Yes, the dress is certifiably butt ugly. But Charlotte, with her long, shapely legs, her narrow hips and smooth skin, is still beautiful. The dress fits her perfectly.

  My dress is about three sizes too big and hangs off me. It’s the color of snot and as itchy as a wool sweater. It has no redeeming qualities.

  I love Charlotte, I really do, but sometimes it’s hard to be friends with a freaking supermodel.

  Eventually we give up on the Technicolor juniors section and look at the dresses for grown-ups. Charlotte gravitates toward things that Princess Kate or someone who goes to Princeton might wear. I have to talk her into something above her knees, something without long sleeves and a drop waist. We settle on a tight, asymmetrical black sheath that has one long sleeve and one bare arm. It shows one smooth shoulder and one peek of collarbone, but leaves the other side fully covered. It’s a great compromise between slutty and nun.