Smiles and waits for us to be impressed.
Only one of us is. Catlin raises her eyes to his, shoulders back, boobs out.
‘You’re Brian’s new children, right?’
‘Stepdaughters,’ I tell him. I want to say ‘step-women’, but that might sound even creepier than children, to be fair. Who says the word children in a flirty manner? Predators, I think. I glare at him.
He holds out his hand.
‘My name is Lon Delacroix. Short for Laurent Delacroix.’ His voice is warm. He raises both his eyebrows plaintively as if to say, Don’t leave my hand alone.
Catlin nods, and takes the strange boy’s hand. Her eyes light up a bit. She’s found a snack. I look at the poor fecker. He doesn’t know what he’s in for.
He chats to us as though we were people until the bell rings, and I can feel it nourishing my twin. An older man, but not like creepy old. Like, college-age. Lon seems grand, maybe a bit up himself though. What’s he doing sneaking around the schoolyard, like? It’s odd.
On the way back into class, Catlin pokes me in the ribs again. She gets the same place almost every time. It’s sore. I can feel a little bruise beginning to form. A little purple welt of boy-potential. The day passes as days do, and by the end of it I’m exhausted. Meeting new people is hard. I feel like I’m doing a series of job interviews and if I don’t get the job I’ll end up lonely for the next two years, doing my homework and watching Catlin flirt with inappropriate older men. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but it wouldn’t be ideal.
We’re quiet for most of the bus ride home. Listening to the Ballyfrann kids interact. I feel like they have cast us as observers. It’s weird and things, but also a little bit refreshing. Why should they be our friends, like? They don’t know us, and we don’t know them.
Travelling back, the sky already dimming, I listen to the rattle of the bus. The bright of the cat’s eyes in the headlights. The hedgerow alongside the road is patchy, bare. I count seven white crosses on the roadside. A cluster and another and another. A little pattern in this unkempt place. The whirr of tyre on road grates loud, louder. Nails on chalkboard, scraping danger deep into my brain. Anything with wheels can be a weapon. I need to leave. I’m stuck. I’m stuck. I’m stuck.
I look at Catlin, on her phone again. Her face is focused, glowing with intent. The other students talk. I can’t hear what they say, not exactly. More the hum of it. Mixing with the harsh metallic clicks. We’re trapped inside a metal shell together. Counting crosses passing on the road.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven …
Mamó slices past us in a blood-red tin can. I only catch a flash of hemp and hair, but I know it’s her. A wave of recognition laced with anger. No wonder there are crosses on the road if that’s the way the locals drive.
Twelve …
Thirteen …
I think of the small shrew we saw this morning. Its little paws. The moisture on its nose. We’re so close to nature here. Lots of hidden life. And hidden death.
5
Juniper
When Mam was pregnant with the two of us, we were nestled so close together in her womb that for a while the doctor thought that we might be conjoined. I’m glad we weren’t. Catlin would probably make me do all the hard jobs. Tweezing eyebrows. Hoovering and such. And I’d have to sit around closing my eyes while she kissed all the boys. All of them. Including Lon. The only item on her Ballyfrann to-do list.
That would be more punishment than fun. I would not like to be so close to that side of her life. The messiness of lust and indecision. In fairness, though, Lon might be in for a world of hurt. She’s made more than one boy cry. Once through an entire hurling match, during which he scored several times. Which only made him sob harder. ‘Because I knew I’d never score Catlin again.’ I imagine Lon’s perfect face crumpled up with sorrow. I don’t know what that would even look like. When I picture Lon in my head, his face is expressionless.
Our first week in school has passed without any major incidents. We haven’t set anything on fire, or made any enemies. Or friends. The Ballyfrann kids are grand, but it’s hard to spend time with them when Catlin keeps taking increasingly long smoke breaks to flirt with Lon.
‘He’s easier than they are, Mad,’ she tells me, as I awkwardly hang out beside her.
‘I get it, Catlin,’ I say, leaning against a sycamore tree, feeling the mulch of leaf under my boots. ‘But it’s not easier for me.’
‘I’m not stopping you from hanging out with them.’
Only we both know that she kind of is. I’m fairly independent in a lot of ways, but new groups of people isn’t one of them. And it’s hard to say it out loud, because it shouldn’t have to be said, but as I open my mouth to try, there he is.
Lon fecking Delacroix.
‘Catalina!’ he exclaims. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’
Catlin exhales a long thin curl of smoke.
‘Lon,’ she says, with a smile.
It’s not her real smile. It is her smile for boys.
‘Maddy,’ Lon says, with more warmth than he should be allowed to feel for me. He should not be the person who is soundest to us here. I know it’s for Catlin, so it’s something like a lie, but it’s annoying.
‘Hi, Lon,’ I say, taking out my phone and scrolling through pictures of our old life in Cork while playing a mournful power ballad in my head.
‘That’s a nice phone, Madeline,’ Lon says, completely ignoring my ignoring. ‘Mind if I take a look at it?’
I look at Catlin.
Catlin looks at me.
I look at my phone.
Sadly, like a child relinquishing the last Haribo in the pack to a mean auntie, I pass it over.
‘What’s the PIN?’ he asks.
And Catlin tells him.
Urrgh.
He scrolls around for a bit, in silence. The screen glares at him like it was me.
‘Ha!’ he says, and hands it back to me with a flourish. ‘I took the liberty of sending myself your numbers, ladies.’ He grins. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Actually …’ I begin, but Catlin stops me.
‘Bit desperate of you, to be honest,’ she says. ‘Come on, Maddy, we better get back to class.’
‘See you tomorrow?’ Lon asks.
‘No school tomorrow, Lon,’ I remind him.
We walk away and don’t look back.
As we turn into the building, Catlin squeaks at me, ‘I can’t believe he took our numbers!!’ Her tone of voice has changed to something like glee.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘It’s a bit much.’
‘No, it isn’t. It was suave.’
‘Suave is such a disgusting word. Suave.’ I make a face like I’ve vomited a bit in my mouth.
‘There’s nothing wrong with the word suave. And there’s nothing wrong with a boy being interested in us.’
‘In you,’ I correct her.
‘Well, in fairness, I’m the one who talks back, Maddy.’
‘I’m not jealous. Like, I don’t talk to him because I don’t like him that much.’
‘Then stay with Charley and them at lunch.’
I make the vomit-in-my-mouth face again. But this time it is sad pretend vomit. The vomit of my own limitations. The vomit that holds me back when all I want is to be a normal human who can hold conversations and make friends.