Please clap your hands (both real and virtual) for the FANTASTIC cover for Lisa Burstein's PRETTY AMY!
I was just about to put
out my cigarette and go back inside when I heard a skateboard coming down the
street. It sounded like waves, like a conch shell against your ear. That full,
empty sound.
Maybe it was Aaron. I
conjured up my stupid daydream, the one I used to fill my head when I couldn’t
deal with any of the other stuff in there—that he would find me, that he would
apologize, that he would tell me that prom night hadn’t been his fault.
The difference this time
was that when I looked toward the sound, he really was there.
It was him.
Aaron.
He was skateboarding down
the sidewalk like it was made
of
water, wearing the same loose,
worn
jeans from his Facebook picture. He carried a backpack, like he might have been
coming from the library, but I doubted he ever went to the library.
I lit another cigarette
with the end of my last one; any excuse to stay put. Then I remembered I was
wearing a suit.
“You got another one of
those?” he asked. His eyes were blue. I hadn’t noticed that in his picture.
My hands shook as I gave
him a cigarette. He brought a silver-and-black Zippo to his mouth, flipped it
open with one hand, lit his cigarette, and slapped it shut. The whole thing
took seconds, but it felt like he was doing it in slow motion. “Thanks,” he
said.
Maybe he had just stopped
to get a cigarette. Maybe it had nothing to do with me.
It probably had nothing to
do with me.
“I know you,” he said. “Where
do I know you from?”
I couldn’t tell him.
Telling him that he’d stood me up for my own prom would have been way too
embarrassing. It would tell him that I still cared enough to remember.
“I’m friends with Lila and
Cassie,” I said, wishing that my hair wasn’t pulled back in a headband like I
was a nun.
“What are you all dressed
up for?” he asked.
Of course he didn’t know
me. If he had, he would have known that I’d just come from court and that I was
trying to do everything I could to forget it.
“I work here,” I said,
thinking fast. “I’m supposed to be a librarian.”
“You don’t have to lie,”
he said, laughing. “I’m Aaron.”
“Amy,” I said, waving
hello with the cigarette in my hand.
He smiled. “Though you do
make a cute librarian.”
I tried to keep myself
from coughing. “This suit sucks,” I said. It seemed cooler than saying thank
you. It seemed cooler than getting all squishy over what he said, even
though that was how I felt.
I looked at his
skateboard. “You wanna try it out?” he asked.
The deck had a mural of
blue sky and white-capped mountains hand-painted on it. The wheels were covered
with stop-motion birds, so that when they spun it must have looked like the
birds were flying.
There was more to this
boy. More that I wanted to know.
“I guess I could,” I said,
but then I remembered my mother. She would come looking for me soon.
I shook my head. “I should
go.”
“You got a cell
phone?” he asked.
“Not that I’m allowed to use anymore.”
“Parents,” he said. He
pulled a sketchbook from his backpack. Maybe he had painted that beautiful
mural. He ripped out a piece of paper, wrote something down, and handed it to
me.
It was his phone number.
I tried not to act
surprised, tried to act like boys gave me their numbers all the time,
especially when I hadn’t asked for them.
“See you around, Amy,” he
said. He dropped the
skateboard
next to him. It landed perfectly on its wheels like a cat would on its legs.
As he skated away, I
looked at his number; the paper was as soft as fabric. I folded it smaller and
smaller and hid it in my bra. Maybe he hadn’t said what I wanted him to say,
but he had found me.
He had found me.
Lisa
Burstein is a tea seller by day and a writer by night. She wrote her first
story when she was in second grade. It was a Thanksgiving tale from the point
of view of the turkey from freezer to oven to plate. It was scandalous.
She was a lot like Amy when she was in high
school.
She is still a lot like Amy.
