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“Don’t let the elegance act fool you,” Varen said, drawing out his notepad. “She farts.”
28
Ulalume
They’d spread out on the floor to work, sitting on the white throw rug beside the bed. The small red and white Chinese food containers had been opened and passed back and forth between them indiscriminately—neither of them, Isobel had noted, keeping track of which fork was whose.
At first Slipper had watched them from the bed, blinking cool, disinterested eyes. She had waited, it seemed, until they’d become fully engrossed in their work before slinking off the bed and, after making a big show of stretching and yawning, unfolding herself across their papers. From there, she purred loudly and flopped her tail against the floor.
They had decided to divide the presentation into three major categories: Poe’s most famous works, his influence on modern literature, and, last but not least, the strange circumstances surrounding his death. Tackling each category one at a time, they thumbed through their combined stack of library books, picking out key facts. Isobel insisted on being the one to copy them down onto numbered index cards, wanting something from the project to be in her own handwriting, just in case Swanson suspected she’d done less than her part. Varen hadn’t protested, and even seemed to enjoy this method of locating long stretches of information and condensing them out loud, speaking slowly so that she could finish writing each word.
Working like this, it took them a little more than an hour to get to the last category, and Varen, who had flipped to the back of one colossal door stopper of a biography, grew suddenly quiet as he read.
Isobel glanced up from her own perusing and wiggled her pen, waiting for him to prompt her to jot down the next fact. When he didn’t, she pursed her lips and tapped her pen against her chin in thought. She glanced to the spread of papers, index cards, and poster board around her, wondering if she should interrupt him with her newest concern. Deciding it couldn’t hurt, she lowered her pen and spoke up. “Um,” she began, “do you think our presentation is going to be too, I don’t know . . . I mean, it’s kind of boring, don’t you think?”
Without looking up from his book he said, “Seeing as how down to the wire we are, what other choice do we have?”
She nodded, knowing that the same thought must have already occurred to him. She also knew that he was right. Even though this was how things were going to have to go, she still couldn’t help but wonder what their project might have been like if they’d actually been able to concentrate from the very beginning. Then at the same time, Isobel reminded herself that she wasn’t exactly a Poe enthusiast, and it would be a huge relief to have the whole thing over and done with. Well, the project at least. If nothing else, she hoped that whatever they managed to pull together tonight would be enough to keep her on the squad so that she could go back to being a cheerleader for a change.
Isobel sighed. Slipping her note cards between the pages and shutting her book, she diverted her attention to a pile of printouts of pictures from the Internet and a neighboring stack of poster board. There were several pictures left to glue onto poster board, pictures that Varen would hold up at certain moments during their presentation, and then place along the chalkboard tray. Nothing fancy. Very run-of-the-mill high-school project-esque.
She slid one of the printouts toward her, one of Poe himself. After rubbing the back of it down with a glue stick, she smoothed the gloomy-looking portrait onto its poster board and set it aside to dry. Yet she couldn’t seem to help but stare at it. And she knew it was because of those eyes, those deep, hooded black holes. They seemed to tunnel through her with their sorrow, something about their expression making it seem as though Poe were silently beseeching the onlooker for something. “Forlorn” was the word that kept forming in her head, repeating itself over and over.
Isobel looked away, fighting back a shudder. She watched Varen as he, with head down, remained engrossed in whatever obscure Poe info he’d stumbled across. Shamelessly, she took the opportunity to study his long frame and how he sat with his back against his bed, his legs stretched out across the floor, boots crossed at the ankles, book open across his lap. With his head down like that, his hair curtaining his face, the only part of his features that remained visible was his mouth.
Her focus narrowed on the curve of the silver ring that embraced one corner of his bottom lip, and she couldn’t help but wonder how the metal would feel pressed against her own lips.
A boy shouldn’t have lips like that, she thought, and nearly started when he glanced up, catching her stare. She could feel her cheeks flare and knew they must be turning pink. She dropped her gaze immediately and reached out to wrestle yet another black-and-white printout from beneath Slipper, who batted at it greedily. Isobel turned over a portrait of Poe’s mother, a young doll-like figure wearing a ribbon-laced bonnet. She rubbed her glue stick over the back.
That’s when she started to wonder about what would happen after the project. She knew that now they’d at least be friends, she and Varen. After everything that had happened, how could they not? But would he ever ask her out again? What if he thought she really didn’t want to go to the Grim Facade when she’d told him she couldn’t? What if he thought she was just using her dad as an excuse?
Her movements slowed as a new concern swam into focus. What had she thought before now? That after the project was over, she’d be lucky enough for him to ask her out again? And then another realization dawned on her. What if this was the first and last time they were ever completely alone together? Sure, they would see each other at school, but if she didn’t speak up, if she didn’t say something now, would that be the end? She could almost see the run of their relationship from that point, dwindling and dissolving into the occasional and ever-awkward “Hey, how’s it going?” before disintegrating to feeble waves between classes. Without the project, she couldn’t be sure of when they’d ever meet outside of Mr. Swanson’s class or the cafeteria again.
She knew she would have to say something tonight.
Isobel ran a few phrases through her head, trying them all out, then letting them mellow in her mind. Each one clanged lamely against her internal ear and sounded vaguely insulting.
What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she just come out and say she liked him?
Maybe it was because she more than liked him.
Isobel let that thought swirl through her. She set her glue stick down and let her feelings frighten her because the only other option was to push them away. Only she was tired of pushing them away.
Determined, she looked up at him. A jolt of panic ran through her when she found him already staring at her. Had he been watching her this whole time?
“Uh, can we take a break?” she asked.
He closed the book and set it aside.
Wow, she thought, that had been easier than she’d expected. Now what?
In a moment of daring, Isobel lifted herself from where she sat across from him, scooting around Slipper, whose tail tapped and twitched in agitation. She repositioned herself to lean her back against the bed, sitting now less than a foot away from him, The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe the only thing between them.
She stretched her legs out in front of her just like him, crossing them at the ankles, then picked up the book, flipping it open across her lap.
“Why do you like Poe so much?” she found herself asking.
He shrugged. “Why do you like screaming and jumping around so much?”
