Part 7 (1/2)

”Um, Jessa?”

”What do you want, Sean?” Jessa took another bite of her sandwich, hoping she looked casual, like she couldn't care less. ”I'm eating.”

”Yeah. I'm sorry to bother you. Could I talk to you for a minute?” Sean cracked his knuckles and waited, an annoying habit Jessa had always hated. She could add ”cracks his knuckles” to the growing list.

She set her sandwich back into the little brown paper box. Tyler looked like he might say something, but instead he ate his own sandwich slowly, not taking his eyes off Sean.

”Here.” Dylan Thomas offered her his soda. ”You might need this.”

Smiling, she walked away with Sean, aware of the s.p.a.ce of their bodies, the p.r.i.c.kly sizzle of his nearness. What was it about this boy that made her skin feel drizzled with something electric, something alive?

They found a bench several yards away and out of sight of her friends. When he didn't say anything, just picked at a hangnail, she finally asked again, ”What do you want?”

He sighed, his face dark. She could see a piece of lint in one of his lashes. A week ago, she'd have picked it off so it wouldn't get into his contact lenses. ”I deserved the orange soda.”

”Yeah. You did.” She crossed her ankles, swung her feet a bit under the bench.

”I can't believe you threw it at me, but I deserved it.” He glanced sideways at her. ”Carissa tell you to do that?”

”No.”

Sean shrugged. He wore the blue long-sleeved s.h.i.+rt she had bought him for his birthday at a ski shop near her house. She remembered holding it up against the boy working there to make sure it would fit him. She tried not to notice how good it looked on Sean, how the slim bones of his wrists peeked out beneath the cuffs.

He leaned in to her a bit, his shoulder brus.h.i.+ng hers. She could smell his shampoo, spice and citrus. He said softly, ”It was actually kind of hot.”

At first she thought he meant the s.h.i.+rt, that it was too warm here in the sun-drenched gardens for long sleeves. Then she realized he meant her. The drink in his face. Jerk.

”Where's the b.o.o.b Job?”

He sat up straighter. ”You know you and Carissa really shouldn't call her that. She didn't have a b.o.o.b job. It hurts her feelings.” His words forced sudden distance between them, a brick wall of Easter air. No more brus.h.i.+ng shoulders.

”I wasn't aware androids had feelings. She must be a hybrid.” Jessa kicked her legs a bit harder, imagined kicking Sean, hard, in the s.h.i.+ns and running away, the way she did to her cousin Warren at Easter when she was six and he took her red egg. Another Easter kick for good measure, ten years later.

Sean planted his hands on either side of his legs on the bench. ”You know, she's actually going through a really tough time right now. Her parents are blasting each other in their divorce. Her dad took off and she doesn't know where he is and she hasn't seen him for more than five minutes in months.” He stopped, catching his breath. ”Forget it. This isn't about Natalie.”

Jessa hated the way her name sounded in his mouth. The way he almost breathed it, like it was something gossamer, something with wings. ”What's it about then?”

He put his hand on her leg, just a little higher than her knee, and she knew her jeans must be singed, that a big black burn mark must be appearing beneath him. ”I miss you, Jess.”

Using what must only be superhuman strength, some sort of superhero power deep inside in her cells from a former cape-wearing life, she stood up, knocking his hand from her leg. Her jeans were fine. No burns.

”You don't get to miss me. Besides,” she pointed across the gardens to where Natalie stood in a white tank top talking to a boy from the other group, the boy who had kissed Madison inside the Pantheon. Jamal, his name was-a basketball player with the easy charm of a movie star. The blonde girl from the Pantheon whose name had turned out to be Cheyla, sauntered up, whispered something in his ear, then wandered away.

”Isn't your girlfriend waiting for you?” Jessa spit the word girlfriend. She knew it sounded petty and mean, knew her eyes were shooting microscopic knives into Natalie from afar, but she didn't really care.

Sean looked like a four-day-old balloon deflating there on the bench. ”I just thought...forget it.” He shook his head, turned, and walked away.

She watched him go to Natalie, wrap his arm around her waist. Natalie laughed at something Jamal said but turned and kissed Sean, was still kissing him when Jessa turned and walked slowly back to her friends.

That night, Jessa leaned on the sill of her hotel window and gazed out at the lights of Florence. Tomorrow, they would leave this place and travel to Venice. She'd miss this city with its rich frescoed walls and cobbled streets, with its fat, churning river. She watched a couple walking on the street below her. Something in the way the woman held the man made Jessa think of the painting she'd seen earlier in the palace, a Rubens painting-The Consequences of War. Venus trying to stop Mars from going to war as a Fate pulled him closer, the pull of destiny. The man and woman rounded the corner of a building, pulled toward their own fate.

Fate. What if Sean was supposed to kiss Natalie? What if Fate pulled him into the costume barn, pulled Jessa toward the door, opened it right at that moment? What if she was supposed to be in Italy alone watching the night sky through a hotel window?

Down on the street corner a figure emerged from the hotel, talking quickly, heatedly into a cell phone. The glow of a streetlamp cast her suddenly into a yellow-white light, and Jessa saw it was Natalie, gesturing wildly with her free hand.

Abruptly, the call seemed to end. Natalie sat down on the dark curb, back into shadow, and buried her face in her knees.

”Jessa?” Erika stood in the doorway behind her. ”Ms. Jackson wants us all to come to the creativity salon now. She says we have to hurry while the other group's out dancing so they don't try to crash it.” She crossed the room and leaned onto the sill with Jessa. ”Wow. It's beautiful here, isn't it?”

Jessa pulled her eyes from Natalie's dark shape. She had never heard Erika call anything beautiful, had never heard much positive energy escape her black-lipstick mouth.

Erika tucked a lock of purple-black hair behind her ear. ”It's hard to believe that a place so beautiful could have such a dark history. I read somewhere that in the fourteen hundreds the Italians would publicly kill h.o.m.os.e.xuals.” Cla.s.sic Erika. ”They were drawn and quartered or burned at the stake. Right in the square for everyone to see.” She shook her head. ”Actually, it was Florence that was lenient for a while, I read. But then they had to start doing it too. For political reasons.”

”Where do you get all this stuff?”

Erika smiled at her. ”Gotta love the Internet.” She pointed at Jessa's wrist. ”Cool scar. Where'd you get that?”

”Oh, this.” Jessa considered the girl next to her, all that black and dark makeup, all that talk of vampires and burning at the stake and blood. ”Just stupid seventh grade. Bad year. I'm fine now.”

Erika nodded, lifted a section of her sleeve. A thin, spidery line was etched there in her right forearm. ”Sixth grade. Still not fine.” She smiled wryly, pushed away from the window. ”See you down there?”

Jessa frowned but found her journal with the poem she'd written there in case Ms. Jackson got the crazy idea to start calling on people to read at the salon.

When she looked to the street again, Natalie was gone.

Jade was playing one of her original songs, ”She's Not Me.” Jessa had heard it before, but suddenly it had a very different effect on her. Funny how music did that-changed on you. She would've actually thought Jade's song was a play-by-play of Jessa's love life, except she knew Jade wrote it last year-before costume barns and overzealous bra sizes.

Baby, she's not me. With her hair cut short, Standing by your car last night in the moonlight.

Baby, she's not me, she's just your last resort.

Why'd you tell everyone that we were through?

Why'd you drive her home, why weren't you true?

Jessa pressed herself back against the base of the couch, where she sat against Tyler's legs. Ms. Jackson sat across the room cross-legged on a blue ottoman, her head bobbing along with Jade's rich alto. The creativity salon had been Ms. Jackson's idea, to get them all together to share some of their creative work. It sounded kind of fun when she'd told Jessa on the plane. But now it was really more of a train wreck.

Ms. Jackson had ushered them into a little room off the lobby of the hotel, where they sat mostly on the floor, propped up against couches and chairs. It had started off OK. Lizzie and Maya had each read a poem, Lizzie's a funny pigeon's-eye view of Italy, Maya's filled with symbol and color. Devon and Tim had done one of their comedy sketches they'd been practicing in the hallway earlier. Something about a soccer player with no feet, which wasn't actually very funny, but they thought they were hilarious, so everyone else thought they were hilarious. Those two could really commit to a scene. Jessa tried to laugh, but she couldn't help feeling more like she wanted to run for the nearest exit.

Mr. Campbell seemed to be trying to look everywhere but at her. She'd been trying to talk to him all day, but he was like some sort of magician, always stepping from her presence into some unseen hidden paneling.

And now Jade had come up with that guitar of hers and picked that song: When you kissed her in the rain, Could you feel the pain drip down my face?

Disgrace...ooohhhhh...

Jessa leaned against Tyler's legs, lacing her finger through the fringe of one of the woven rugs. He squeezed her shoulder. Across the room, Sean and Natalie were practically plastic-wrapped together on a totally cliche pink love seat. He rubbed her back in slow, steady circles. Her face seemed pinched, but she kept rubbing Sean's leg, kept leaning back to give him tiny kisses, each one a dart on Jessa's target body. Jessa's chest strained, and she s.h.i.+fted beneath Tyler's hand, her head starting to pound.