Definitions of Indefinable Things Read online

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I’ll tell Carla.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  “Ugh, fine. It was worth a shot.” He placed his hand on the doorknob and shot me a pleading look that was all kinds of attractive and obnoxious. “We wouldn’t be any worse off for it, you know.”

  “Open the door, Fabio.”

  He obeyed with a smile, and I walked outside onto the dog bone mat with Snake trailing behind me. I heard him make a sort of gasping sound that was one octave away from being the most embarrassing sound a teenage boy ever uttered. And that was when I saw the porch light reflecting off her long red hair.

  Karma (see: Carla Banks).

  There she sat, her back against the porch steps, wearing the ugliest purple sundress any hand had ever sewn. She was staring across Snake’s lawn where the moon and clouds drew gloomy pictures on the surface of the pond. When she heard the door open, she spun around. Her shaken reaction to seeing me signaled that I was not a welcome intruder. Her eyes were familiar because they were my Stage 2 eyes. Puffy. Drained. All cried out.

  Snake brushed past me down the short steps, kneeling to her level. Even with his arm around her, she was still looking at me. “Babe,” he whispered in what I dubbed the Official Carla Voice, a composition of whiny, affectionate, and other stereotypical boyfriend sounds. “Is everything okay? Is the baby all right?”

  “He’s fine,” she snapped. “Help me up.”

  Angry Carla. I didn’t mind her. She was way more tolerable than Preppy Carla or Little Miss Flashburn Carla or Ohmigodtotally Carla. Snake gripped both of her arms and struggled to pull her to her feet. After a little effort and a lot of emasculation on Snake’s part, she was up with her hands on her belly and her teeth biting the blood out of her glossy lips.

  “I didn’t know you would be here, Reggie,” she said through gritted teeth. I could tell she was trying to keep from crying again.

  “I didn’t either.” I glanced at Snake, who was pleading with his eyes again. A different plea this time. “Snake, uh, left his wallet at work. I was returning it.”

  “He had his wallet last night when we went to dinner.”

  I glared at him in a way that wasn’t exactly a glare, but enough to make him squirm. He knew what he had done. He had been texting me last night. Where was Jeanine when you needed to prove to her that her son really was the douchelord of Doucheshire?

  “Why aren’t you at the wake?” Snake asked, to change the subject.

  “Everyone left an hour ago.”

  “Did you drive here? I don’t see your car.”

  “My dad dropped me off.” She glanced down the street. “He’s waiting at the dead end.”

  “Why didn’t you ring the doorbell?”

  “I was giving myself time to think.”

  “About what?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I tried to stop myself from staring at her pretty face, but there I was . . . staring at her pretty face. Again. And, much to my misfortune, she did have a very pretty face. She was dainty and full-lipped and more superficially beautiful than the rest of us suburbia girls. When we were growing up, her looks were one of the main things I had always secretly resented about her. But that night, she didn’t look so pretty. Her caramel-brown eyes were droopy, and her pink cheeks were bloated, and she was tired and angry and lonely. She had Snake on her arm and a baby in her stomach and her dad waiting at the end of the street, and she was lonely.

  “I better get home,” I said, reaching for my keys. “Don’t want Karen to send out an AMBER Alert.”

  Snake didn’t look at me. He never looked at me when Carla was around. When he did, it was just his puppy dog eyes begging for me to lie so that he could have his cake and eat it too. Carla looked at me, but I couldn’t tell what she was looking for. Maybe a sign that I was hiding something. Maybe a flash of honesty in my eyes that could back up my story. Or maybe she was just afraid of being fooled, and opening her eyes to any possibility was better than being blind to it.

  I walked past them down the sidewalk that was all stone and decorative bead liner. I was almost to my car when I heard Carla yell, “Reggie! Wait!”

  She hadn’t moved from her spot beside Snake. His back was turned. The coward wouldn’t even tell me goodbye.

  “I just wanted to say thank you,” she called.

  “For what?”

  She shrugged. “Just . . . thank you.”

  I was in the minivan before I could press her for an explanation, backing out of the driveway onto the street. Her hair flamed under the porch light. Snake had a hand on her face, whispering something against her skin. I wondered if she liked the way he smelled of strawberry. I wondered if she appreciated his dull, honest eyes. I wondered if she had ever seen The Snake Project. I wondered if she knew the right way to hate him.

  He led her inside as I drove away, and all I could think of was Margaret and that damn tightrope.

  Just imagine how miserable a fate it is to be to be a woman unable to close her eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  “YOU VERY MUCH SUCK RIGHT NOW.”

  “That’s a little harsh for a tutor.”

  “I can say what I want. You don’t pay me.”

  Polka and I had been working on a writing assignment for forty-five minutes, and he was clearly fed up with my shit. Admittedly, he was justified in ripping my first draft to shreds, but hitting me with his notebook felt a tad excessive. I’d finally given in to his begging after I got a C on last week’s character study. I’d stated the hero’s motivation as “Becoming the biggest mansplainer in history,” which, apparently, was a hindrance to the cause.

  “You still not write your final paper yet,” he accused. He jumped up and slung his backpack over a studded jean jacket, straightening the checkered bow tie around his neck. His style—’80s pop star meets cocktail waiter—​was incongruent with his personality.

  “I’m getting to it,” I said, zipping my bag.

  “Getting to it mean waiting to night before.”

  “I’m not going to wait until the night before.”

  He focused his black eyes on me. “Because I come to your house and help you.”

  “Polka—”

  “It settled.” He said it the same way he cursed, matter-of-factly and nothing to it. “I come to your house and help with paper. When good time?”

  “I don’t know . . . sometime,” I groaned.

  Translation: I’d rather get hit by a semi.

  It was nearing four o’clock when we left the cafeteria. When I finally saw his guardian’s red Jeep pull to the front of the awning, I turned into Karen 2.0 and thanked the Lord for His impeccable timing. I made my way across the parking lot, which was empty for the most part, considering it was Friday and the only people still at school were nerds, teachers, and those with no life. The minivan was parked in what everyone called the last-minute section at the farthest end of the lot. Splattered chocolate milkshake was smeared along the driver’s side where some moron had been too lazy to move three steps closer to the garbage can. I vowed to take my chances with handicap towing next time.

  It had been another dragging day. Go figure. As uneventful as it was, I’d had more than sufficient time to dwell on all the things I hated. My depression. My friendlessness. My pending date with doom and worst people manifestations (see: family reunion). And Snake. Snake the cheater. Snake the survivor. Snake the Twizzlers addict. Snake the poser filmmaker extraordinaire. Snake the douchelord.

  Carla’s Snake.

  I dwelled extra long on the last one.

  It wasn’t easy having two classes with her, especially that day, when she kept looking at me like I had stabbed her in the back with a pencil and asked for the lead back. Something had happened after I left last night. Something had happened with Snake. Well, things had happened with me, too. In my mind. A change. And I didn’t want that change to leave me in a state of Carla, with puffy eyes and
desperation and loneliness. But Snake had a way of making crazy people crazier. And although I was almost embarrassed for thinking it, I kind of felt like Carla and I were weathering Hurricane Snake together.

  I fumbled for the van keys at the bottom of my messenger bag. As I struggled to get ahold of them, I heard a familiar voice a few feet away.

  I went through the checklist of the kinds of people who stayed at school until four o’clock on a Friday. Nerds. Teachers. Those with no life.

  Carla definitely fell into the third category.

  “Hey, Snake.” She paced by the trees, twirling a strand of red hair around her finger as she spoke into her bedazzled phone. “I’ve left at least five messages. It’s four o’clock—​you’re twenty minutes late. I thought we agreed you would still come today. Maybe I heard wrong. Call me back if you’re coming. Oh, and bring—” She paused and drew the phone from her ear. “Dammit.” She pounded the screen and grabbed her forehead with her hand.

  Ugh. I was going to have to do a good deed. I resented people like Snake who made other people like Snake (see: me) pick up the pieces of Snake-like victims (see: Carla) and do good deeds (see: torture). I gave up on my keys because, frankly, they were too tangled for me to care, and I had to talk to Carla fast or I would burst with glitter and fairy dust and go-team positivity.

  She didn’t see me until I was nearly a foot from her, but she bore the weirdest expression when she did. Her mouth opened and she let out a breath, blinking her eyes at twice the rate. Was she relieved to see me?

  “Hey,” she whispered, wiping her mascara like I didn’t already know she was a blubbering mess. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Really? I could hear you wailing from the library.”

  “What?” she gasped.

  “Kidding. Relax. You’re pregnant, you can get away with the constant hormonal tears.”

  She glanced down the street. “He didn’t come.”

  “Who didn’t come?”

  “Snake. He was supposed to take me to birthing class, and he won’t answer his phone.”

  “Oh, maybe he’ll show—”

  “I know something’s going on with you two,” she blurted. I tried to keep a poker face, but I was terrible at lying. And poker. “You can stop pretending like you barely know him.”

  Her voice quivered a bit too loudly to be ignored. Then the lip biting started. And after that, the grand finale. The bursting of the emotional floodgates. At least she had the decency to cry into her hands and not subject me to one of those horrible, nostrils-flared, mouth-agape cry faces. Because I would have laughed, and the whole “do good” thing would have been shot.

  “Why are you crying?” I asked.

  I waited for her to pick either A) because I’m pregnant, that’s why!, B) because my boyfriend’s a cheating asshole, or C) I just realized how bloated I am. (I knew she wouldn’t pick option C—​I tossed that one in there for shits and giggles.)

  “Snake hates me,” she cried against her snotty hand.

  “Did he say that?”

  “No, but he does.” She reached into her pocket for a Kleenex. She would fare well in therapy. “Can we talk in your car?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Please.”

  Etched into stone since the universe’s creation is this basic law of humanity that you have to give pregnant women what they ask for, or else you’ll be haunted by the gods of fertility and die a virgin. Not quite ready to take my vow of celibacy and invite the ghosts of pregnant women past upon myself, I gestured to the van. When she clumsily climbed into the passenger seat, she was still crying. I was still hating my life.

  “Can you not? You’re getting your emotions all over my mom’s seat covers.”

  “I’m hormonal, okay?”

  “You’re also covered in snot.” I handed her a fresh tissue from the console. “Get yourself together.”

  “He hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you.”

  “We broke up last night. And I dumped him, in case he tries to spin the story.”

  “Why?”

  “I had my doubts about us before, but seeing my aunt die made me realize that life’s too short to waste it with people who don’t care about you.” She blew her nose. She even snorted like royalty. “And my dad highly encouraged it.”

  I didn’t want to slip and make it look like I cared. I didn’t do the caring thing. They broke up—​big deal. They broke up, and it meant nothing to me. It didn’t change anything. They could break up or get married or have seven kids or be madly in stupid love, and none of it would matter.

  Except that it did matter. I hated that it mattered.

  She held her stomach. “And he doesn’t love Little Man. Not the way I do, anyway.”

  “Little Man?”

  “I haven’t picked out his name yet.” She looked at me like the new Carla. Puffy-eyed. Lonely. Resentful. When she wasn’t crying, new Carla was becoming, dare I say it, mildly tolerable. “He doesn’t love him, does he?”

  I didn’t say anything, because I honestly didn’t know. Somehow, it never came up.

  “I can accept that he doesn’t love me. I think I always knew that he didn’t. Even when he said he did, he didn’t.”

  “He said he did?”

  “Yeah, sometimes.”

  I wondered if he ever meant it. He probably tossed it out there as a crutch, as a safety net to keep her happy. A happy Carla was a less miserable Snake, after all. His selfishness repulsed me.

  “I can accept that,” she repeated, wiping her nose. “I just wanted him to love Little Man. And, I don’t know. I don’t know if he does.” She tried to breathe, but ended up wheezing like a pack-a-day smoker. “Did you know about Snake and me? When you guys started doing . . . whatever.”

  “We didn’t do whatever,” I clarified. “I don’t know what Snake told you.”

  “He told me that he couldn’t keep trying to make himself feel something for me.” She folded her hands over her belly. “It’s kind of pathetic when you’re having a guy’s baby and he still doesn’t feel something for you.”

  “That’s Snake’s fault, not yours.”

  “It’s both of us. Anyway, whatever you’re doing is working. He said you make him feel long-term, or some Snakeism like that.”

  “Snakeism.” I laughed. I was mad I didn’t come up with that myself.

  She turned to me. “So you didn’t know?”

  “I did, but nothing happened. I didn’t intend to rouse his long-term feelings, whatever that means.”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “I can tell you one thing. Snake is a jerk.”

  “Isn’t he, though?”

  “And conceited. And what’s with the Twizzlers?”

  “Ohmigod, it drives me insane. My dad calls him Sugar Rush.”

  “I hope he has good dental insurance.”

  We were smiling. I, Reggie Mason, was sitting in my mom’s minivan on a Friday afternoon gossiping about a boy with what appeared to be my up-and-coming BFF over a pack of tissues that smelled like peaches. My identity was slipping fast.

  “Can I be honest with you?” she asked.

  “As long as you stop crying about everything.”

  “I can’t make any promises.”

  “Fine. What?”

  She looked down at her engorged feet that were like two pears squeezed into ballet flats. Despite her splotchy eyes and soiled tissues, she was oddly at peace with losing Snake. I think she knew she’d lost him to something she would never have been able to compete with anyway.

  “I don’t have friends anymore.”

  “You have plenty of friends.”

  “Not now. Not anymore. I mean, they tried to be there for me. Olivia came to an appointment or two. And Ellie was going to throw me a baby shower, but got busy with gymnastics and lost track of time. I think I just became, literally, dead weight to them. I guess I tried to make it work with Snake for so long because . . .” Sh
e looked at me again. The loneliness from last night was there, and it was poignant. But it was a peaceful loneliness. “I don’t have anyone else.”

  “I’ve never had friends,” I said, tossing another pack of tissues at her. “You, on the other hand, have had them by the dozens. And yet we both ended up here, sitting in the school parking lot on a Friday night bitching about our pointless lives to the only person who will listen.”

  “That’s kind of depressing.”

  “It’s honest. Friends are just two people who mutually use each other to get what they want. You’re not missing much.”

  Neither of us said anything for a few minutes. We sat in my favorite perk of living, silence. It seemed appropriate since nothing made sense. I was feeling sorry for Carla Banks. And she was being nice to me. And we both hated Snake, only one of us in the good way. And he’d told her he loved her. And I wondered what that meant. And we were both alone, still only one of us in the good way.

  She glanced down at her blank phone screen. Snake had never responded. “In an unlikely turn of events, I need to ask you a favor.”

  “You need to use me?”

  “Is that your Reggie way of proposing friendship?”

  “Not on the life of your ginger squash.”

  She looked confused for a second before shaking it off. “Since my ex-boyfriend slash your current, whatever, is a no-show, I would really appreciate it if you would take me to my birthing class.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Please, Reggie,” she begged. “I know we’ve never been close. And you probably hate me, and I’m kind of angry at you right now. But I’m terrified of having this little person come out of me, and I really need this class.” She looked like she might hyperventilate. Good thing I had the numbers of over a dozen psychiatrists on speed dial. “Will you be Little Man’s dad today?”

  “I would rather get punched in the face.”

  “Don’t make me beg.”

  “That wasn’t begging?”

  “That was asking nicely.”

  God, she was relentless. No wonder Snake always catered to her every whim and called her babe and handled her like glass. I was genuinely afraid of Didn’t-Get-Her-Way Carla. Now I was the whipped one using the Official Carla Voice to keep that version from erupting.