Paula Stokes - The Art of Lainey

I glance at my black plastic travel mug. It’s worth a try, I guess. Grabbing the mug from the cup holder in the center console, I roll down the window and pour out most of my tea as the light finally turns green.

I pull over around the corner from Jason’s condo, where I can see the front of his building but hopefully he can’t see me. The soggy tea bag is stuck to the bottom of my travel mug. I rip the tea bag open and squeeze the wet pulpy leaves into the mug. I swish them around with the half ounce of liquid still hanging out in the cup. Then I invert the whole mess onto the lid, splattering my bare legs with droplets of tea in the process.

I swear under my breath. If form counts for anything, my cup is going to be full of skulls and tombstones. Laying the lid gingerly on the passenger seat so as not to make more of a mess, I pray for a symbol of happiness or good luck. A bell. A dove. Maybe a kite that means my wishes will be granted. As I look down at the tea leaves that stayed stuck in the cup, I see . . . wet leaves. I rotate the cup slowly, looking for anything familiar. Nada. Crap. The story of every teenage girl’s life—I should have paid more attention to my mother.

I hear a door open and I look up, forgetting all about my leaves as Jason appears from the entrance to his building. My chest feels like it’s being crushed in one of those blood pressure thingies the old people are always using at the Supermart. As he heads across the grass, my breath catches in the back of my throat. I pause just long enough to consider the likelihood that I may, in fact, be having a heart attack at age seventeen. Not. Likely.

Inhaling deeply, I grab the bag of muffins from the passenger seat and start to slide out of the car. And then the condo door opens again and an arm wearing navy blue appears. Jason isn’t alone. He must be with the EMT who is training him. Alex. Yeah, that was the name. It conjures up images of a short, slightly pudgy, thirty-year-old guy. But when Alex comes into view, he’s anything but a boring old dude.

For starters, he’s a she.

The bag of muffins slips from my fingers and hits the street with a deafening crunch. Or maybe that was my heart breaking? I snap out of my shock and realize Jason and Alex haven’t noticed me. Slipping back inside the car, I pull the door closed slowly, praying neither of them will look in my direction. I slouch down in my seat, my eyes peeking out the bottom of the side window.

Alex is a few inches shorter than me, with hair so long and shiny that mine probably looks

like yarn in comparison. Hers is movie-star red, definitely from a box, but still gorgeous. Even through her EMT cargo pants and high-necked uniform shirt, I can tell she’s built like a lingerie model. Suddenly my stunner bra doesn’t seem very stunning.

I realize I’m gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles have blanched white. My whole body is shaking and my inner warlord is screaming things like attack and kill . I need to calm down before I punch a window and they see me. I try to channel my inner Bianca instead.

Maybe they’re carpooling. She probably has a boyfriend. How could a girl that pretty ever be single?

I loosen my grip from the wheel and shake out my fingers. Everything is going to be okay. My inner Bianca has to be right. He’s only been doing ride-alongs for a couple weeks. There’s no way he dumped me for a girl he just met.

I almost have myself convinced. Until Jason and Alex make it across the lawn to Jay’s convertible Mustang, and he presses her up against the side of the car playfully. And she laughs. And then he kisses her.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Image deleted,” I whisper. But it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s like a movie playing on the back of my eyelids. Jason and Alex kissing. Jason and Alex kissing. I squeeze tighter, scrunching up my whole face until I hear a car engine purr to life. It’s probably the Mustang but I’m taking no chances. I cannot handle one more second of them together. I stay slouched down in the driver’s seat for a count of one hundred. When I open my eyes, Jason and Alex are gone.

Bianca sits in our usual spot at Denali, the big, round table by the bookshelf. She’s sipping from one of Dad’s ceramic painted eco-mugs. It’s probably a skinny chai. Bianca loves chai.

As I approach, she looks up, a concerned frown forming on her face. “Do you want to go back to your house?” she asks immediately.

I can tell by the hippietastic music that my dad is here somewhere. He’s really big into tribal drums and monks chanting and stuff like that. Apparently it adds to the ambience.

“Nah, let’s stay here. My mom is at home, writing. Even if my dad comes around, you know him. He likes to steer clear of the girly drama.”

“Okay,” Bianca starts as I slide into a chair. “So was Jason mad you came over?” She toys with the end of her braid.

“I don’t know. I didn’t even talk to him.”

“Why not?”

I lower my voice. “He was leaving when I got there.” I sigh dramatically. “And he wasn’t alone.”

“What?” Bianca sucks a straw full of chai straight into her lungs. Her tan face turns bright red and she coughs for about three straight minutes.

“His ambulance partner,” I say. “Alex? Well, Alex is a girl. And they were leaving his place together at six thirty in the morning, so . . .”

“Are you sure he wasn’t just giving her a ride to work?” Bee takes another sip of her drink.

I wait until she swallows. “He kissed her.”

She gasps. “No way.”

“Yeah way.” Reality starts to set in for me. My life. My epic summer. It’s gone. It’s like I’m back in eighth grade, not making the soccer team. And this time it’s even worse because I didn’t mess anything up. I didn’t fall on my face at tryouts. I just . . . lost. I’m a loser.

I bite back tears. I will not freak out in the coffee shop again.

My dad strolls out from the back. “What’s this? Meeting of the minds?”

“Just girl talk.” I keep my voice light.

“Ah,” he says. “Covert ops. Carry on, ladies.” He makes a loop around the dining area, stopping to wipe down a few tables and ask a pair of college kids how their drinks taste. Then, satisfied that everyone seems content, he turns back toward the office.

Bee waits till my dad is out of sight. “You know what this means, right?”

That I’m a total loser? “That Jason is an asshole?”

“Well, maybe. More like if you want him back you have to step up your game.” She pauses. “ Do you want him back?”

I lower my voice. “I do. Is that terrible? We’ve spent the last two and a half years together, Bianca. I don’t even know who I would be without him.”

“You would be my amazing friend, Lainey,” Bee says vehemently. “The same person you’ve been since second grade. Seriously. You don’t need Jason to define you.”

“You don’t think? Remember how the soccer team joked that instead of ‘Mitchell,’ my jersey should say ‘Chase’s girlfriend,’ because that’s how everyone knows me.” I slouch forward in my chair. “It’s more than that, though. I can’t imagine my life without him. It’s like I try, but nothing makes sense. Everything was perfect, and now everything is crap. I need him back. I need everything to go back to the way it was.”

Bee purses her lips together. I can tell she still doesn’t agree with me, but she’s not going to argue. “Okay,” she says. “Then we need a better plan.” She drums her fingernails on the table and stares off in the direction of the tribal masks.