22
Formerly Yours

MY FIRST WEEK as Barracuda Bay High School’s newest Goth doesn’t exactly go very well in just about every department. Lots of stares, lots of finger pointing, daily lectures from Ms. Haskins, from Hazel, and, well, let’s just say it goes downhill after that.

By A-lunch on Wednesday I’m so ticked off—with everybody, everywhere, in every class, during every period—that the thought of suffering through another of Hazel’s insufferable lectures about the difference between glam and Goth literally has my stomach turning.

So I avoid the cafeteria altogether and head out past the quad to the track and field, where B-lunch is still sweltering through a mild October noontime as their PE class winds down. Hey, as far as lunch-times go, it’s not a bad way to spend half an hour.

There are lots of strapping young guys in tight gym shorts and tighter tank tops, but I don’t really even notice them as I climb into the bleachers and fume in my new Goth wear. I’ll give you this much, though: the sun feels good on my face. I blink and put my sunglasses on top of my head, Princess Grace style, and stare off into the nothingness behind my thick gray eyelids.

“Maddy?”

Seriously? Now?

His legs look funny in shorts. Don’t get me wrong; they’re still hot. It’s just …funny to see them so bare and so …close. “Stamp?”

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he says sincerely, sitting down backward on the bleacher bench in front of me. “Your car was already gone when I came by this morning, you haven’t been to your locker in forever, you keep ditching Art class; it’s like …like you’re avoiding me or something.”

Bingo! But not for the reason he thinks. “Stamp, I’m not avoiding you, really. I just—”

“Is that black lipstick?” He reaches to touch it.

I don’t want him flinching from the cold of my skin, so I instinctively shrink back.

He doesn’t seem hurt, just …more curious. “And, why are you, I mean, when did you go …Goth?”

“What? You don’t like it? Well, you don’t have to like it, Stamp. What, just ‘cause you ask me out to a party—once—you think you can tell me how to dress? What to wear? Who to hang out with?”

He smiles, then laughs. “No, no, not at all. It’s just, one day you look like little miss bookworm with the beret and the scarf and the stack of homework, and now, all of a sudden, you look like …like …a vampire chick. Actually, it’s kind of …hot.”

I tilt my head. With the sun blazing right behind him, it kind of looks like he’s wearing a halo. “Really?” I ask hopefully. I mean, if a guy like Stamp can go for the Goth look, maybe there’s hope for me passing among the Normals yet.

“Yeah,” he says, inching forward. “I mean, I always thought Goth chicks were kind of sexy.”

“Yeah? Really? You’re not just saying that?”

“All the girls in Wisconsin were so …blonde,” he says. “And, I mean, they all looked the same. I dunno, I just, I’m digging the new look.”

Oh boy; this is going to be harder than I thought. “Listen, Stamp, about the other day—”

“Tell me this,” he says, idly fingering the laces of my new black boots. “Are you going to wear this when we go to the Fall Formal on Friday?”

My stomach falls, and my mouth drops, and my eyes close, and I think, Great. Your first official week as a fully Council-of-Elders-approved zombie, and you’re about to break the Number 1 Rule of All Zombie Law Ever: “thou shalt not date Normals”?

“I can’t,” I say, inching back like maybe I just saw a bug scamper across his thigh.

He blinks—twice—but never stops smiling. “Sure you can, Maddy; just say ‘yes’ and we’re good to go. I mean, it’s just a dance.”

“No, I mean, I can’t go, Stamp.”

“Look, if your dad’s not cool with it, I can talk to him and make him see …” He keeps blathering, the little black curl dangling over his forehead moving with each smarmy come-on.

No matter how attractive he’s making it sound (and look), I have to shut him down completely, no questions asked. It’s not even a Zombie Law thing so much as a common courtesy thing.

Even if it wasn’t against the Law to date Normals, why would I? Why would I take a kid like Stamp and lead him on when it can’t go anywhere? I mean, what am I going to do when it’s time to go to second base? (Or is it third? I always get them mixed up.) Make sure it happens not merely near a sauna but in a sauna?

And what about after that? What if it’s really the real thing and he wants to get married? Have kids someday? Can zombies even have kids? I’m doubting it since they have no heartbeat—and don’t nutrients move through the blood?

And no, just …no. This has to stop. Now.

Whatever Stamp is saying, I shut him down in the worst way possible. “I don’t mean I can’t go to the dance, Stamp. I mean I can’t go to the dance with …you.”

Ouch. And now his eyes go soft, not tearful soft, just …hurt soft. Great. So now I’m the creep at the end of White Fang? Tossing sticks at the wolf to get him to go away because I know he has to go live in the wild but he doesn’t know that?

“I don’t understand. I mean, I thought we had …something?”

“We do, Stamp; I mean, we did. But I’m not who you think I am. I’m not what you think I am. A good girl, I mean. I’m not, really, a good girl.”

He shakes his head. “There’s someone else?” he says, almost like he can’t believe it.

And suddenly—right then and there—he gives me the out, the really mean, nasty out I’ve been struggling to find since he walked up the bleachers. “Yes, I mean, I didn’t want to tell you but—”

“Who?” he asks. “Who is it?”

“You wouldn’t know him.”

“I don’t care, Maddy. I want to know who it is.”

Now his face is ruddy, and I’m mad that I have to do that to him, and mad that he’s pushing it so hard, but most of all I’m mad that he can get red in the face when I never, ever will again.

“Fine, Stamp,” I shout, standing in the bleachers, making a scene now. “You want to know why I can’t go to the stupid dance with you, Stamp? I can’t go to the Fall Formal with you, Stamp, because I’m already going with …with …Dane Fields.”

Wow, that comes out of nowhere. He looks momentarily confused; then the clouds clear and the light shines and he smiles, thin and mean, and says, “What, that creep who’s always hanging out with that Goth Amazon chick? The one who never takes down his hoodie, even in class? The one who smokes out by Shop class every day? That’s the loser you chose over me?”

I want to say Dane’s not a loser, that I’m the loser, but this is for the best. I keep telling myself this is for the best. So I let it go, I let him rant, and with every word, with every fleck of spittle that flies from those beautiful, full lips, I thank him, thank him for doing what needed to be done when I was too weak to do it myself. Because whatever he thinks of me, whatever lies I’ve had to tell, whatever happens next, at least he’ll never know the truth.

Not the real truth.

“Fine, Maddy,” he says, standing now, towering over me, his curl wagging left and right like that hanging ball in a grandfather clock. “Whatever. Take your little punk loser to the dance. I don’t need you, Maddy. I can ask two dozen, three dozen chicks right now to go with me.”

“Well then,” I shout over my shoulder as I stomp down the bleacher steps, “I guess you better start stocking up on corsages.”