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He removes his glasses. “Forget it. I’m bored. Let’s go to the Fox Run Mall.”
“I’m not bored. I want to hear more about Walt.”
“And I don’t want to talk about it,” he says, rising to his feet.
Hmph. I pick up a cookie and shove half of it into my mouth. “I can’t go to the mall. I want to work on my piece.” When he looks confused, I add, “For The Nutmeg.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself. But I’m not going to sit here while you’re writing.”
“But I want it to be good.”
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll see you later.”
“Wait!” I grab my coat and run after him.
He puts his arm around my waist, and we do a funny walk we invented one night at The Emerald, and we walk like that all the way out to the car.
But when we pull out of the driveway, I look back at my house and feel enveloped in a fog of guilt. I shouldn’t be doing this. I ought to be working on my piece. How can I become a writer if I don’t have discipline?
But Lali has a new job at the mall, working at The Gap, and if left to his own devices, Sebastian is sure to stop by to see her, and the two of them will be alone again, without me. I feel lousy thinking I can’t trust Lali with Sebastian, but lately, the two of them have become increasingly buddy-buddy. Every time I see them joking or high-fiving each other, I have a bad premonition. It’s like the sound of a clock ticking, except the ticks get further and further apart, until there’s no ticking at all—only silence.
Cynthia Viande stands on the stage in front of assembly and holds up a copy of The Nutmeg. “And this week, we have a story from Carrie Bradshaw about cliques.”
There’s a tepid round of applause, and then everyone gets up.
“You got your piece in, Bradley. Good job,” The Mouse says, hurrying over.
“Can’t wait to read it,” a few kids murmur, rolling their eyes as they pass by.
“Glad that’s over, huh?” Sebastian interrupts, giving The Mouse a wink.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“The Nutmeg,” he says to The Mouse. “Was she bugging you with these endless ace reporter questions?”
The Mouse looks surprised. “No.”
I flush with embarrassment.
“Anyway, it’s done,” Sebastian says, and smiles.
The Mouse gives me a curious look, but I shrug it off as if to say “Guys—what can you do?”
“Well, I thought it was great,” The Mouse says.
“Here she comes,” Maggie cries out. “Here comes our star.”
“Oh, come on, Magwitch. It was only a stupid story in The Nutmeg.” But still, I’m pleased. I slide in next to her at the picnic table in the barn. The ground is frozen and there’s a damp chill in the air that will last, on and off now, for months. I’m sporting a knit cap with a long tail that ends in a pom-pom. Maggie, who deals with winter by pretending it doesn’t exist and refusing to wear a hat or gloves, except when she’s skiing, is rubbing her hands together in between taking drags off a cigarette that she and Peter are passing back and forth. Lali is wearing men’s construction boots, which seem to be all the rage.
“Give me a drag of that cigarette,” Lali says to Maggie, which is strange, because Lali rarely smokes.
“The piece was good,” Peter says grudgingly.
“Everything Carrie does is good,” Lali says. Smoke curls out of her nostrils. “Isn’t that right? Carrie always has to succeed.”
Is she being intentionally hostile? Or just Lali-ish? I can’t tell. She’s staring at me boldly, as if daring me to find out.
“I don’t always succeed,” I counter. I slip one of Maggie’s mother’s cigarettes from the pack. Apparently Maggie’s mom has given up on quitting. “In fact, I usually fail,” I say, trying to make a joke of it. I light up and take a drag, holding the smoke in my mouth and then exhaling several perfect smoke rings. “But every now and then I get lucky.”
