Текст книги "Let It Snow"

Автор книги: John Green

Соавторы: John Green,Lauren Myracle,Maureen Johnson
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Chapter Four

“Angels, schmangels,” Dorrie said. “Forget angels.”

“No, don’t forget angels,” Tegan said. She flicked Dorrie. “You pretend to be such a Grinch, but you don’t mean it.”

“I’m not a Grinch,” Dorrie said. “I’m a realist.”

Tegan got up from the computer chair and sat beside me. “Just because Jeb didn’t call you, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Maybe he’s on the reservation, visiting his dad. Didn’t he say the res has crappy cell service?”

Jeb had taught us to call the reservation “the res,” which made us feel tough and in-the-know. But hearing Tegan say it just deepened my despondency.

“Jeb did go to the res,” I said. “But he’s back. And how I know this is because evil Brenna just happened to come to Starbucks on Monday, and she just happened to trot out Jeb’s entire Christmas break schedule while waiting in line to order. She was with Meadow, and she was all, ‘I’m so bummed Jeb’s not here. But he’s coming in on the train Christmas Eve—maybe I’ll go meet him at the station!’”

“Is that what made you write the e-mail?” Dorrie asked. “Hearing Brenna talk about him?”

“It’s not what made me, but it might have had something to do with it.” I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. “So?”

“Maybe he got stuck in the storm,” Tegan suggested.

“And he’s still stuck? And he dropped his phone in a snowdrift like the kissing girl, and that’s why he hasn’t called? And he doesn’t have access to a computer because he had to build an igloo to spend the night in and he doesn’t have electricity?”

Tegan gave a nervous shrug. “Maybe.”

“I can’t get my head around it,” I said. “He didn’t come, he didn’t call, he didn’t e-mail. He didn’t do anything.”

“Maybe he needed to break your heart the way you broke his,” Dorrie said.

“Dorrie!” Fresh tears sprung to my eyes. “That’s an awful thing to say!”

“Or not. I don’t know. But, Adds . . . you hurt him really bad.”

“I know! I just said that!”

“Like deep, wounding, forever bad. Like when Chloe broke up with Stuart.” Chloe Newland and Stuart Weintraub were famous at Gracetown High: Chloe for cheating on Stuart, and Stuart for being unable to get over her. And guess where their breakup occurred? Starbucks. Chloe was there with another guy—in the bathroom! So skanky!—and Stuart showed up, and I got to be there for it all.

“Whoa,” I said. My heart started thumping, because I had been so mad at Chloe that day. I’d thought she was so . . . heartless, cheating on her boyfriend like that. I told her to leave, that’s how worked up I was, and Christina had to give me a little talk afterward. She informed me that in the future, I was not to throw out Starbucks customers just for being heartless bitches.

“Are you saying . . . ” I tried to read Dorrie’s expression. “Are you saying I’m a Chloe?”

“Of course not!” Tegan said. “She’s not saying you’re a Chloe. She’s saying Jeb is a Stuart. Right, Dorrie?”

Dorrie didn’t immediately answer. I knew she had a soft spot for Stuart, because every girl in our grade had a soft spot for Stuart. He was a nice guy. Chloe treated him like dirt. But Dorrie’s protectiveness went even deeper, I think, because Stuart was the other Jewish kid at our school, so he and she sort of had a bond.

I told myself that was the reason she brought Stuart and Chloe up. I told myself she didn’t mean to compare me to Chloe, who, in addition to being a coldhearted bitch, wore red lipstick that was totally the wrong shade for her skin.

“Poor Stuart,” Tegan said. “I wish he’d find someone new. I wish he’d find someone who deserves him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I’m all for Stuart finding true love. Go, Stuart. But Dorrie, I ask you again: Are you saying I’m the Chloe in this scenario?”

“No,” Dorrie said. She squeezed shut her eyes and rubbed her forehead, as if she’d developed a headache. She dropped her hand and met my gaze. “Adeline, I love you. I will always love you. But . . . ”

Prickles shot up and down my spine, because any sentence that combined “I love you” and “but” could not be good. “But what?”

“You know you get wrapped up in your own dramas. I mean, we all do, I’m not saying we don’t. But with you it’s practically an art form. And sometimes . . . ”

I rose from the bed, taking the blanket with me. I rewrapped it around my head and clutched it beneath my chin. “Yes?”

“Sometimes you worry more about yourself than you do about others, kind of.”

“Then you are saying I’m a Chloe! You’re saying I’m a heartless, self-absorbed bitch!”

“Not heartless,” Dorrie said quickly. “Never heartless.”

“And not a”—Tegan dropped her voice—“you know. You are not that at all.”

It didn’t escape me that neither of them denied the “self-absorbed” bit. “Oh my God,” I said. “I’m having a crisis, and my best friends gang up and attack me.”

“We’re not attacking you!” Tegan said.

“Sorry, can’t hear you,” I said. “Too busy being self-absorbed.”

“No, you can’t hear us because you have a blanket over your ears,” Dorrie said. She strode over to me. “All I’m saying—”

“La-la-la! Still can’t hear you!”

“—is that I don’t think you should get back together with Jeb unless you’re sure.”

It was insane how fast my heart was going. I was safe in my room with my two best friends, and I was terrified of what one of them was about to say to me.

“Sure of what?” I managed.

Dorrie pulled down my hood. “In your e-mail, you said you’ve changed,” she said carefully. “But I’m just wondering if you really have. If you’ve, you know, looked inside yourself to figure out what you even need to change.”

Spots popped in my brain. It was extremely possible that I was hyperventilating, and I would soon faint and hit my head and die, and the blanket clutched around me would turn red with blood.

“Leave!” I told Dorrie, pointing at the door.

Tegan shrank into herself.

“Addie,” Dorrie said.

“I’m serious—just go. And Jeb and I didn’t get back together, did we? Because he didn’t show up. So who cares if I’ve ‘really’ changed? It doesn’t frickin’ matter!”

Dorrie held her hands up. “You’re right. I suck. That was completely bad timing.”

“You’re telling me. You’re supposed to be my friend!”

“She is your friend,” Tegan said. “Could you stop bickering? Both of you?”

I turned away, and as I did, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in my dresser mirror. For a second I didn’t recognize myself: not my hair, not my scowl, not my anguished eyes. I thought, Who is that crazy girl?

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Addie, I’m sorry,” Dorrie said. “I was talking out of my butt like I always do. I just—”

She broke off, and this time I did not say, “You just what?”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

I dug my fingers into the fibers of my throw blanket. After several long seconds, I gave a tiny nod. But you still suck, I said in my head, even though I knew she didn’t.

Dorrie squeezed my shoulder, then released me. “We probably should get going, huh, Tegan?”

“I guess,” Tegan said. She fooled with the hem of her T-shirt. “Only I don’t want us to end the night on a bad note. I mean, it’s Christmas.”

“It’s already ending on a bad note,” I muttered.

“No, it’s not,” Dorrie said. “We made up. Right, Addie?”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” I said.

“Stop,” Tegan said. “I have something good to tell y’all—something that has nothing to do with sadness or broken hearts or arguing.” She gave the two of us a pleading look. “Will you listen?”

“Of course,” I said. “Well, I will. Can’t speak for Grinch here.”

“I would love to hear something good,” Dorrie said. “Is it about Gabriel?”

“Gabriel? Who’s Gabriel?” I said. Then I remembered. “Oh! Gabriel!” I didn’t look at Dorrie, because I didn’t want her using this as proof that I thought only about myself or whatever.

“I got the most amazing news right before we came over,” Tegan said. “I just didn’t want to bring it up while we were still dealing with Addie’s crisis.”

“I think we’re done with Addie’s crisis,” Dorrie said. “Addie? Are we done with your crisis?”

We will never be done with my crisis, I thought.

I sat down on the floor and tugged Tegan to make her sit beside me. I even made room for Dorrie. “Tell us your good news,” I said.

“My news is about Gabriel,” Tegan said. She smiled. “He’s coming home tomorrow!”

Chapter Five

“I have his bed all set up,” Tegan said. “I have a special Piglet stuffed animal to make him feel comfortable, and I have a ten-pack of grape Dubble Bubble.”

“Ah, yes, because Gabriel loves grape Dubble Bubble,” Dorrie said.

“Do pigs eat gum?” I said.

“They don’t eat it, they chew it,” Tegan said. “And I have a blanket for him to snuggle on, and a leash, and a litter box. The only thing I don’t have is any mud for him to roll around in, but I figure he can roll in the snow, right?”

I was still hung up on the gum bit, but I pulled myself out of it. “Why not?” I said. “Tegan, that is so awesome!”

Her eyes were bright. “I’m going to have my own pig. I’m going to have my very own pig, and it’s all thanks to y’all!”

I couldn’t help but smile. In addition to being impossibly endearing, there was something else that gave Tegan her distinctive Tegan-ness.

She had a thing for pigs.

A really big thing for pigs, so I guess if she said pigs chewed gum, well, then pigs chewed gum. Tegan, of all people, would know.

Tegan’s room was Pig Central, with porcelain pigs and china pigs and carved wooden pigs on every surface. Every Christmas, Dorrie and I gave her a new pig for her collection. (Tegan and I gave Dorrie Hanukkah gifts, too, of course. This year we ordered her a T-shirt from this cool site called Rabbi’s Daughters. It was white with black baby-doll sleeves, and it read, GOT CHUTZPAH?)

Tegan has wanted a real pig forever, but her parents always said no. Actually, because her dad fashions himself a comedian, his standard response was to snort and say, “When pigs fly, Sugar Lump.”

Her mom was less annoying, but equally unyielding.

“Tegan, that cute little piglet you’re dreaming about is going to grow up to weigh eight hundred pounds,” she said.

I could see her point. Eight hundred pounds—that was like eight Tegans all balanced on top of each other. It might not be such a good idea to have a pet that weighed eight times as much as you did.

But then Tegan discovered—drumroll, please!—the teacup pig. They are beyond cute. Tegan showed Dorrie and me the Web site last month, and we oohed and ahed over the pictures of teensy-weensy piggies that seriously fit inside a teacup. They grow to weigh a maximum of five pounds, which is a twentieth of Tegan’s weight, and which is a much better proposition than an eight-hundred-pound porker.

So Tegan talked to the breeder, and then she made her parents talk to the breeder. While all that talking was going on, Dorrie and I did some talking to the breeder of our own. By the time Tegan’s parents gave their official okay, the deed was done: the last of the breeder’s teacup piglets was paid for and reserved.

“You guys!” Tegan squealed when we told her. “You’re the best friends ever! But . . . what if my parents had said no?”

“We had to risk it,” Dorrie said. “Those teacup pigs go quick.”

“It’s true,” I said. “They literally fly off the shelves.”

Dorrie groaned, which egged me on.

I flapped my wings and said, “Fly! Fly away home, little piggy!”

We’d fully assumed Gabriel would have flown home by now, so to speak. Last week, Tegan had gotten word from the breeder that Gabriel was weaned, and Tegan and Dorrie made plans to drive to Fancy Nancy’s Pig Farm to pick him up. The pig farm was in Maggie Valley, about two hundred miles away, but they could easily get there and back in a day.

Then came the storm. Bye-bye plan.

“But Nancy called tonight, and guess what?” Tegan said. “The roads in Maggie Valley aren’t so bad, so she decided to drive on up to Asheville. She’s spending New Year’s there. And since Gracetown’s on the way, she’s going to swing by and drop Gabriel off at Pet World. I can get him tomorrow!”

“The Pet World across from Starbucks?” I said.

“Why there?” Dorrie said. “Couldn’t she bring him straight to your house?”

“No, because the back roads haven’t been cleared,” Tegan said. “Nancy’s buddies with the guy who owns Pet World, and he’s going to leave a key for her. Nancy said she’d put a note on Gabriel’s carrier that says, Do Not Adopt This Pig Out Except To Tegan Shepherd!”

“‘Adopt this pig out’?” I said.

“That’s pet-store-speak for ‘sell,’” Dorrie said. “And thank goodness for Nancy’s note, since no doubt there’ll be thousands of people storming the pet store, desperate to buy a teacup piglet.”

“Shut up,” Tegan said. “I’ll drive into town and get him the very second the snowplow comes through.” She made praying hands. “Please, please, please let them get to our neighborhood early!”

“Dream on,” Dorrie said.

“Hey,” I said, struck by an idea. “I’m opening tomorrow, so Dad’s letting me take the Explorer.”

Dorrie made muscle arms. “Addie has Explorer! Addie no need snowplow!”

“You’re darn straight,” I said. “Unlike—ahem—the wimpy Civic.”

“Don’t be mean to the Civic!” Tegan protested.

“Ooh, sweetie, we kind of have to be mean to the Civic,” Dorrie said.

“Anyway,” I interrupted, “I would be happy to pick up Gabriel if you want.”

“Really?” Tegan said.

“Is Starbucks even going to be open?” Dorrie asked.

“Dude,” I said. “Neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail shall close the doors of the mighty Starbucks.”

“Dude,” Dorrie shot back, “that’s the mailman, not Star-bucks.”

“But unlike the mailman, Starbucks actually means it. They’ll be open, I guarantee it.”

“Addie, there are nine-foot drifts out there.”

“Christina said we’ll be open, so we’ll be open.” I turned to Tegan. “So yes, Tegan, I will be driving into town far too early tomorrow morning, and yes, I can pick up Gabriel.”

“Yay!” Tegan said.

“Hold on,” Dorrie said. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I wrinkled my forehead.

“Nathan Krugle?” she said. “Works at Pet World, hates your guts?”

My stomach plunged. In all the talk of pigs, I’d forgotten entirely about Nathan. How could I have forgotten about Nathan?

I lifted my chin. “You are so negative. I can totally handle Nathan—if he’s even working tomorrow, which he probably won’t be, since he’s probably off at a Star Trek convention or something.”

“Already you’re making excuses?” Dorrie said.

“Nooo. Already I’m demonstrating my complete and utter lack of self-absorption. Even if Nathan is there, this is about Tegan.”

Dorrie looked dubious.

I turned to Tegan. “I’ll take my break at nine and I’ll be the first person through Pet World’s doors, ’kay?” I strode to my desk, ripped off a Hello Kitty sticky note, and scrawled, Do Not Forget Pig! on it with my purple pen. I marched to my bureau, pulled out tomorrow’s shirt, and slapped the sticky note on it.

“Happy?” I said, holding up the shirt for Tegan and Dorrie to see.

“Happy,” Tegan said, smiling.

“Thank you, Tegan,” I said grandly, suggesting with my tone that Dorrie could stand to learn a little lesson from such a trusting friend. “I promise I won’t let you down.”

Chapter Six

Tegan and Dorrie bade their farewells, and for about two minutes I forgot my heartbreak in the midst of our good-byes and hugs. But as soon as they were gone, my shoulders slumped. Hi, said my sadness. I’m ba-a-ack. Did you miss me?

This time my grief took me to the memory of last Sunday, the morning after Charlie’s party and the worst day of my life. I’d driven to Jeb’s apartment—he didn’t know I was coming—and at first he was happy to see me.

“Where’d you run off to last night?” he said. “I couldn’t find you.”

I started crying. His dark eyes filled with worry.

“Addie, you’re not still mad, are you? About our fight?”

I tried to answer. Nothing came out.

“It wasn’t even a fight,” he reassured me. “It was a . . . nothing.”

I cried harder, and he took my hands.

“I love you, Addie. I’ll try to be better about showing it. All right?”

If there’d been a cliff up there in his bedroom, I’d have flung myself off it. If a dagger had been lying on his dresser, I’d have plunged it in my chest.

Instead, I told him about the Charlie Thing.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, blubbering. “I thought we’d be together forever. I wanted us to be together forever!”

“Addie . . . ” he said. He was still trying to catch up, but right that second, what he was reacting to—and I knew this because I knew Jeb—was the fact that I was upset. This was his most pressing concern, and he squeezed my hands.

“Stop it!” I said. “You can’t be nice to me, not when we’re breaking up!”

His confusion was terrible. “We’re breaking up? You . . . you want to be with Charlie instead of me?”

“No. God, no.” I jerked away. “I cheated on you, and I ruined everything, so”—a sob choked out—“so I have to let you go!”

He still wasn’t there. “But . . . what if I don’t want you to?”

I could hardly breathe for crying, but I remember thinking—no, knowing—that Jeb was so much better than me. He was the greatest, most wonderful guy in the world, and I was an absolute shit who didn’t even deserve to be stepped on by him. I was an asshat. I was as big an asshat as Charlie.

“I have to go,” I said, moving toward the door.

He grabbed my wrist. His expression said, Don’t. Please.

But I had to. Couldn’t he see that?

I wrenched away and made myself say the words. “Jeb . . . it’s over.”

He hardened his jaw, and I was perversely glad. He should be furious at me. He should despise me.

“Go,” he said.

So I did.

And now . . . here I was. I stood by my bedroom window, watching Dorrie and Tegan grow smaller and smaller. The moonlight made the snow look silver—all that snow—and just looking at it made me cold.

I wondered if Jeb would ever forgive me.

I wondered if I would ever stop feeling so miserable.

I wondered if Jeb felt as miserable as I did, and I surprised myself by realizing that I hoped he didn’t. I mean, I wanted him to feel a little miserable, or even fairly miserable, but I didn’t want his heart to be a frozen lump of regret. He had such a good heart, which made it so confusing that he didn’t show up yesterday.

Still, it wasn’t Jeb’s fault that I screwed up, and wherever he was, I hoped his heart was warm.

Chapter Seven

“Brrr,” Christina said as she unlocked the front door to Starbucks at four thirty the next morning. Four frickin’ thirty! The sun was an hour and a half from rising, and the parking lot was a ghostly landscape, broken up here and there by snow-covered cars. Christina’s boyfriend honked as he pulled onto Dearborn Avenue, and Christina turned and waved. He drove off, and it was us, the snow, and the unlit store.

She pushed open the door, and I hurried in behind her.

“It’s freezing out there,” she said.

“You’re telling me,” I said. The drive from my house had been treacherous, even with snow tires and chains, and I passed at least a dozen cars abandoned by less gutsy drivers. In one snowbank there was an imprint of an entire SUV or some other monster vehicle. How was that possible? How did some idiot driver not see a six-foot wall of snow?

Until the snowplow came, there was no way Tegan would be driving anywhere in her wimpy Civic.

I stomped to dislodge the clumps of snow, then tugged off my boots and padded sock-footed to the back room. I flipped the six switches by the heating vent, and the store blazed with light.

We are the Christmas star lit by the angels, I thought, imagining how this one spot of brightness must look from anywhere else in the pitch-black town. Only Christmas is over, and there were no angels.

I pulled off my hat and coat and slipped on my black clogs, which matched my black pants. I resecured the DO NOT FORGET PIG! sticky note to my Starbucks shirt, which read, YOU CALL IT, WE’LL MAKE IT. Dorrie made fun of my T-shirt, just as she made fun of everything Starbucks, but I didn’t care. Starbucks was my safe place. It was also my sad place, since it housed so many Jeb memories.

Even so, I found solace in its smells and routines—and especially its music. Call it “corporate” or “canned” or whatever, but the Starbucks CDs were good.

“Hey, Christina,” I called, “care for a little ‘Hallelujah’?”

“Heck yeah,” she called back.

I stuck in the Lifted: Songs of the Spirit CD (which, yes, Dorrie gagged at) and selected track seven. Rufus Wainwright’s voice filled the air, and I thought, Ah, the sweet sound of Starbucks.

What Dorrie failed to appreciate—along with the squillions of other Starbucks scoffers—was that the people who worked at Starbucks were still people, just like everyone else. Yes, Starbucks was owned by some hotshot Starbucks daddy, and yes, Starbucks was a chain. But Christina lived here in Gracetown just like Dorrie did. So did I. So did the rest of the baristas. So what was the big deal?

I walked out of the back room and started unpacking the pastries left by Carlos, the food-delivery guy. My attention kept getting pulled to the purple chairs at the front of the store, and tears made the reduced-fat blueberry muffins go blurry.

Stop it, I commanded myself. Get a frickin’ grip, or it’s going to be a very long day.

“Whoa,” Christina said, her feet appearing in front of me. “You cut your hair.”

I lifted my head. “Um . . . yeah.”

“And dyed it pink.”

“That’s not a problem, is it?”

Starbucks had a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell appearance code that prohibited nose rings, other facial piercings, and visible tattoos—meaning you could have tattoos and piercings, you just couldn’t show them. I didn’t think there was anything in the guidelines that said you couldn’t have pink hair, though. Then again, the topic had never come up.

“Hmm,” Christina said, studying me. “No, it’s fine. Surprised me is all.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I said under my breath.

I didn’t intend for her to hear me, but she did.

“Addie, are you okay?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said.

Her gaze shifted to my shirt. She frowned. “What pig are you not supposed to forget?”

“Huh?” I looked down. “Oh. Uh . . . nothing.” I suspected that pigs were probably prohibited in Starbucks, too, and I saw no reason to get Christina all worked up by explaining the whole story. I’d keep Gabriel hidden in the back room after I picked him up, and she would never have to know.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she said.

I smiled brightly and peeled off the sticky note. “Never better!”

She went back to prepping the coffee station, and I folded the note in half and stuck it in my pocket. I lugged the pastries to the glass case, put on a pair of plastic gloves, and started loading the trays. Rufus Wainwright’s cover of “Hallelujah” filled the store, and I hummed along. It was almost pleasant, in a life-sucks-but-at-least-there’s-good-music sort of way.

But as I listened to the lyrics—truly listened, instead of just letting them float over me—the almost-pleasant feelings went away. I’d always thought this was an inspirational song about God or something, because of all the hallelujahs. Only it turned out there were words before and after the hallelujahs, and those words were hardly uplifting.

Rufus was singing about love, and how love couldn’t exist without faith. I grew still, because what he was saying sounded way too familiar. I listened some more, and was horrified to realize that the whole song was about a guy who was in love, only the person he loved betrayed him. And those heartbreakingly sweet hallelujahs? They weren’t inspirational hallelujahs. They were . . . they were “cold and broken” hallelujahs—it said so right there in the chorus!

Why had I ever liked this song? This song sucked!

I went to change the CD, but it switched to the next track before I got there. A gospel version of “Amazing Grace” filled the store, and I thought, Well, it’s a heck of a lot better than a broken hallelujah. And also, Please, God, I sure could use some grace.