Zenn Diagram Read online

  “What kind of scholarships are you applying for?”

  “All of them, pretty much. But there’s one through this company that gives out a hundred thousand dollars. It’s called the Ingenuity Scholarship. That’s the one I really need.”

  “You’ll get it. Aren’t you, like, valedictorian?”

  I roll my eyes. “No. Daniel Kim, that AP bastard.” I’ve always finished just behind Daniel Kim in everything — test scores, class rank, you name it — which would be infuriating if he weren’t such a super nice guy.

  “Ah. Kim. Figures. That kid has even less of a social life than me.”

  “Besides, it’s not really an academic scholarship.”

  He looks confused. “It’s not?”

  “They look for someone with a unique story and some kind of special talent or gift. Could be anything, really.”

  “Huh,” he says.

  “What about you? What do you want to do after graduation?” I’ve learned to be careful with this question because not everyone plans on going to college.

  Zenn hesitates, still looking out the windshield. His profile is perfect: straight nose, slightly pouty lips, eyelashes, eyelashes, eyelashes. Damn. He could major in eyelashes. Get a full ride.

  “Hopefully college. But … I’m not holding my breath.”

  I sense that I shouldn’t push, so I don’t. “So, thanks again. For tonight. I didn’t think I cared about homecoming but I guess I did. A little bit.”

  “Yeah,” he says, still staring out the front window. “Everyone cares about this high school shit a little bit.” He glances over at me. “Thanks for keeping me company.”

  I put my hand on the door handle but am hesitant to get out of his warm, comforting truck. I wonder, if I sat here long enough, if he’d kiss me. You know, just for something to do, not because he likes me or anything. Just to fill an awkward silence. Teenagers do that sometimes — just hook up out of curiosity or boredom. I could kiss him back — my mouth doesn’t transmit fractals at least. But I couldn’t touch him. I couldn’t rub my hands down his back, slide my fingers through his hair. I could kiss him, but my hands would have to stay away from his body. It’s too depressing to think about.

  “See you on Monday,” I tell him.

  He lifts his hand in a small wave as I close the door.

  Chapter 13

  On Sunday I get to sleep in. Sleep in is a relative concept with four preschoolers in the house, but miraculously I make it until eight and my mom doesn’t even make me go to church. I’m guessing she feels a little sorry for me, thinking that I stayed out so late working on my college applications instead of going to the dance. I don’t tell her that I was with a boy, not because she’d be upset or mad, but because she’d have a thousand questions for me and I’m not in the mood to deal with her trying to relive her youth through my experiences. My story would be a bit of a letdown, anyway.

  The morning is sunny, bright and cool, the kind of fall morning that makes you feel guilty to be inside, so I decide to go for a run while my parents and the kids are at church.

  I run past Charlotte’s house, but it doesn’t tell me anything about her night. Her car is in the driveway. The curtains in her bedroom are still shut, but she doesn’t have little brothers or sisters so that’s not unusual. I imagine her curled up in bed, her hair still stiff from last night’s styling products, Josh’s scent lingering … well … everywhere. I wonder how it went, if she had fun, if Josh kissed her goodnight and, if so, what it felt like to run her hands over his shoulders. I wonder what guys’ shoulders feel like. I wonder if they held hands. God, the thought of holding hands with a guy is almost more of a turn-on to me than a kiss. Interlocking warm fingers, the brush of fingertips against a palm. It seems like such a tame and G-rated gesture, but to me it would be everything.

  I wonder if Charlotte will call me later today with the details, or if she’ll call Jessica first since the two of them seem pretty tight lately. Maybe because Jessica actually seems excited about Josh where I just seem … skeptical.

  I run slowly down Oak Street, admiring the big houses. Josh Mooney’s old girlfriend lives in one of them, but I can’t remember which. I can’t even remember her name. I look up and down the street and guess it’s the big Victorian with the complicated color scheme and gingerbread trim. It looks like her: frilly and high maintenance. In the way that jealous girls do, Charlotte used to call her Bucky because the girlfriend had slightly prominent front teeth. She wasn’t bucktoothed by any means, but when you hate a girl because she gets to kiss the boy you like, any little imperfection can become a spiteful nickname. I don’t even remember her real name. Rebecca? Bucky Becky? I think about texting Charlotte to ask her, but I don’t.

  Down the street there’s a guy raking leaves in front of my favorite house: an Arts and Crafts–style with a huge front porch. I slow my pace when I realize the guy is wearing a green army jacket.

  Holy crap. Could Zenn live in my very favorite house in the whole town? What are the odds? And he’s up at eight thirty — what are the odds of that?

  I cross over to the other side of the street because, although I would love to see him, I don’t really want him to see me.

  His back is to me, he is wearing headphones and he is focused on his task. He doesn’t notice me today.

  I circle back toward home and spend the rest of the day raking our leaves, helping my mom with laundry, doing homework, playing with the kids. Charlotte finally texts me back at nearly three o’clock.

  Charlotte: Hey!

  Me: Hey! How was it?

  Charlotte: Totally on fleek!!!

  Oh, Charlotte. Her attempt to use slang that is already outdated, and use it just slightly incorrectly, is why I love her. But the fact that she’s saying on fleek at all makes me sad. This is the kind of language and enthusiasm that she has picked up since hanging out with Josh and his gang.

  Me: That’s good. It was fun, huh?

  Charlotte: SOOOOO fun. I wish u were there. I missed u!

  I’m sure she was all broken up about me not going while she and Josh were making out.

  Charlotte: What did u do?

  I debate just telling her I hung out at the coffee shop. Something in me wants her to feel bad about abandoning our tradition of skipping homecoming and making ourselves feel okay about it with chocolaty coffee and muffins. But instead I decide to tell her the truth.

  Me: I hung out with Zenn

  There is a slight pause before she replies.

  Charlotte: Wait … tutoring guy?

  Me: Yep

  Charlotte: Oh! Cool. Did u have fun

  Charlotte: ?

  Me: Yep

  Charlotte: Cool

  Me: Yeah.

  Me: I saw your pictures on Insta. You looked really pretty.

  I hate that I do this. I don’t want to be one of those girls who gives empty compliments. But she did look pretty. She always looks pretty. And I know this is proper girl etiquette — to tell each other how pretty we are.

  Charlotte: Thnx!!

  I want to ask her more. I want to hear every detail of her night, but it feels too strange. It’s like I’m a younger sibling she used to play Barbies with, but now she’s outgrown them and only plays to humor me.

  Me: Maybe we can go to Java Dock later and you can tell me about it?

  Another longish pause.

  Charlotte: Shoot. Sorry. Jessica and I are going to *$.

  Starbucks. No more Java Dock.

  Me: That’s fine. I’ll just talk to you tomorrow or something.

  Charlotte: K.

  Charlotte: Sorry …

  It’s that last sorry, like an afterthought, that does it. I feel tears well in my eyes. I don’t want her feeling sorry for me.

  Me: TTYL

  I wonder if she’ll sense my disdain. We used to make fun of texting abbreviations like that: LOL, TTYL, BRB, GTG. But she’s speaking a new language now because she texts back:

  2DLoo

&nbs
p; I think I’ve lost her. She’s becoming one of them.

  Chapter 14

  My mom and I make our weekly trip to the grocery store late Sunday afternoon. My dad stays home with the kids and we tackle the shopping, stretching it out as if it were an afternoon at the spa. We enjoy our time together, our time without four little people asking for cereal or candy or cheese or soda.

  I worry (and simultaneously hope) that I’ll see Zenn at the Piggly Wiggly, but he’s nowhere to be found. Another guy takes our cart; his name tag says Brian.

  On the way home my mom drives down Oak Street and I’m not too proud to admit that I scope out the Arts and Crafts house again, wondering if Zenn might be around. I’m amazed how you can go from not knowing someone exists to thinking about him around the clock in just a couple of weeks. There is no sign of him until we pass Bucky Becky’s Victorian, and I spot him raking her yard. I do a double take to make sure. Yes, there is his green jacket and his truck in the driveway. Could he be dating Bucky? Then I realize if that were the case she would have chomped down on his collar with her big buck teeth and dragged him to homecoming, whether he wanted to go or not. As we get closer to his truck I see a sign on the driver’s-side door, one of those magnets that you can just stick on there, advertising Eden Landscaping Service. I think back to his scraped-up knuckles and the bandages and realize that blisters from yard work probably make more sense than injuries from fighting.

  So. He works at the Piggly Wiggly. And the body shop. And some kind of landscaping place.

  I’m starting to suspect that he is not rich after all, which makes me feel slightly more hopeful about the prospect of any kind of anything with him. As long as he’s okay with, you know, no touching.

  Right.

  “You know him?” My mom has followed my lingering gaze.

  I look back out the front window, trying to play it cool. “Who?” I’m as bad an actress as Charlotte. Maybe worse.

  “That guy back there? You were totally checking him out.”

  “I was not.”

  “You kinda were.”

  I shrug and pick some lint off my black coat. “I think it was one of the guys I tutor.”

  “The one who went to homecoming with Charlotte?”

  I shake my head.

  “Oh.” My mom slows the minivan. “Should we stop and say hi?” I can hear the teasing in her voice. She turns up the goofy children’s music CD that plays in a never-ending loop, whether the kids are present or not. “Maybe we should roll down the windows so he can hear our tunes.”

  This makes me laugh. “Please don’t.”

  She slows even more and starts to roll down her window. She sings along loudly with the CD:

  “Harry the silly platypus

  Has fur like a bear but a nose like a duck!”

  “Mom!”

  I look in the rearview mirror and see Zenn glance up at us. I’m sure he can’t tell it’s me, but I feel panicky and sweaty anyway.

  My mom rolls up her window and presses on the gas. She turns the radio back down.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Harry.” If she’s going to be difficult, then so am I. “The platypus.”

  My mom slows the car again, rolls down the window and turns the radio even louder.

  “Zenn,” I yell, laughing. “His name is Zenn.” I turn down the volume.

  “Ben?”

  “Zenn. With a Z.”

  “Oh. Unusual.”

  I nod. I know she’s just trying to make conversation, to get me to include her in my life, but it feels weird. Moms want to talk to their daughters about boys, but daughters do not want to talk to their moms about boys. I don’t know why. It’s one of the rules of teenager-parent interaction.

  She is raising her eyebrows in a hopeful way. Oh, God, what the hell. It will make her so happy.

  “He’s the one painting the church van.”

  “Oh! In that case I should turn around and give him a hug.”

  She starts to brake again and I whine, “Mom!”

  “I’m kidding. Jeez, lighten up, Ev.”

  I don’t offer anything else right away, maybe to punish her. When my mom tries too hard to be chummy, I clam up. I am the gatekeeper of information and if she wants any of it, she has to limit her embarrassing behavior.

  Now she sighs, and the melancholy sound of it makes me want to offer her more.

  “We hung out last night.”

  Joy flashes briefly in her eyes, and I want to tell her not to get her hopes up. I think she’s just thrilled that I wasn’t alone on homecoming night. Must be hard to watch your kid be such a loner.

  “I thought you were at Java Dock?”

  “I was. But he stopped by to get coffee and then I hung out with him while he worked on the van. We went to Taco Hell. No biggie.”

  She keeps it low-key. “Cool,” she says. “Is he cute? I didn’t get a good look.”

  I want to be cool, indifferent, blasé … but against my will I admit: “He’s not bad.”

  Understatement. Of. The. Year.

  Chapter 15

  On Monday in AP Literature we have to work in groups and, for the first time ever, Charlotte allows herself to make immediate will-you-be-my-partner eye contact with someone besides me. By the time she looks my way, she has already committed to working with a cheerleader and a basketball player. She gives me an apologetic look. I can tell she feels bad, but not bad enough to ditch them. Instead, I ask the two boys in the class who are least likely to get laid before their twenty-fifth birthdays. They graciously accept my offer.

  At least I’m still appreciated in some circles.

  The same sort of subtle abandonment is happening at lunch. A group of Josh’s friends is trying to lure Charlotte to their table, but there is only one open seat. Charlotte stays with me, but glances longingly at the empty chair that is meant for her.

  “Soooo,” I say, trying to start up a conversation. “Are you going to do Science Fair again this year?”

  “Hmmm?” Charlotte looks up from her phone.

  “Science Fair? Are you doing it this year?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Are you?”

  “Yeah. Carlson says I should. Since I want to major in something STEM related, he says it looks good to do it all four years.”

  She nods and takes a bite of her sandwich. “I might not. I’m not majoring in science so … you know.”

  “Right.”

  Someone laughs loudly at the other table and Charlotte glances over again. What am I doing? She’s like a dog who wants to run and I’m standing on her leash.

  This is so hard.

  I toss my garbage in the trash can and feel like I’m about to do the same with our friendship.

  “Char, I’m going to be tutoring at lunchtime, you know, before midterms. So … I probably won’t be here much.”

  “You won’t?” She sounds sad, but I don’t know what to believe anymore.

  “Probably not until after Christmas break. So if you want to find someone else to sit with, go ahead. Since I’m not going to be here anyway.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Letting someone go is hard.

  I guess I get it. It’s exciting to have new friends. I remember when we first met in sixth grade and we couldn’t get enough of each other. We liked the same TV shows, laughed at the same things, had the same sort of disdain for the cool crowd that comes from knowing you’ll never be a part of it. Charlotte was all elbows and knees with puffy blond hair and braces. If you really looked at her, you could see that she’d be pretty one day. But at twelve, she wasn’t there yet.

  Up until fifth grade, my friendships were unaffected by my “gift.” But after Lauren, all hell broke loose. Every rejection and insecurity and drama-filled adolescent moment left kids scarred, and when I touched anyone or anything, I became scarred, too. But Charlotte’s fractals were surprisingly pure. Where touching most thirteen-year-old kids left me feeling
woozy and exhausted, Charlotte’s fractal still managed to be pink and sunny, hopeful and warm. Charlotte and I became connected at the hip, and eventually I told her all the secrets (well, the two main secrets) that I kept from everyone else: about my “parents” and my “condition.” She’s never shared any deep, dark secrets with me, but I suspect that’s because she doesn’t have any. Most of her secrets have been about which boy she likes at the moment. So I guess it’s not surprising that we’ve gotten to this point, where she’d have to choose between a boy — that one special boy — and me. I guess I just thought that once we made it through middle school we’d be past this sort of thing.

  I don’t really have any lunchtime tutoring to do, so I’ll have to find somewhere to hang out during fifth period. The other people we sit with at lunch are okay, but I don’t want to hang out with them without Charlotte. She may be quiet and slightly awkward, but she is Miss Congeniality compared to me. How do I get closer to people when one touch tells me far too much about them? How do I ever erase that stuff from my mind and just be normal teenage friends?

  Sometimes Charlotte has cello-group lessons during lunch, and I go to the library or to Mr. Haase’s room. Guess I’ll be doing that every day now.

  When I check Josh’s algo, I can tell that he’s finally starting to get bits and pieces of trig. Sure enough he reports that he’s gotten his grade up to a low C. He’ll be going back to football practice starting tomorrow, just checking in with me weekly for maintenance. He seems happy and proud of himself and I’m not sure how much of that has to do with his math grade and how much has to do with Charlotte.

  I have to admit he’s not a bad guy, really, but I worry that his attention span won’t last past Christmas. When you’re as good-looking and popular as he is, there is always a line of potential girlfriends waiting in the wings.