Surfacing Read Online Free PDF Page B

Paranoid Hearing.
    A mother’s hearing
, Mrs. Paris would snap back.
    But Maggie could remember when Mrs. Paris would drop everything to be waiting by the front door when Leah’s school bus hissed to a stop in front of the house. As soon as Leah walked into the house, Mrs. Paris would offer her something to eat and then ask a million questions while she nibbled on Goldfish or cut-up apples.
    How was your day? How was the bus ride? Did you get your spelling test back yet? Didn’t you have gym today?
    And Maggie would sit at the counter dreaming about the day that she and her big sister would get off the bus together and she would come home to yummy snacks and someone rifling through her knapsack, asking questions.
    “How was practice?” Mrs. Paris went back to her carrots but didn’t expect or wait for an answer. “We’ll be eating in about half an hour, OK?” And that was it.
    “Sure, Mom. I’ll be in my room.”
    For a while, Maggie focused on algebra and her history paper on the Second Congo War, until the urge to check her Facebook grew too strong. She went on Matthew’s page, clicking on his friends, studying the photos, referencing and cross-referencing. She would go back to reading about Zaire, but Maggie’s mind kept returning irrationally to Matthew, over and over. Like the pull of the moon on the tides of the ocean.
    So Maggie picked Nathan.
    She picked him because he looked nice, and from what Maggie could tell, he
was
nice. He was a junior, a year older than she was. He wasn’t on the wrestling or football team; he wasn’t popular, but he wasn’t
un
popular. He had dark, wavy hair and was tall and thin, borderline skinny — nothing like Matthew James. He didn’t have a girlfriend. He worked after school. He didn’t look like the big drinking type, though who could really tell?
    And the first thing Maggie decided to do was to leave a flower on Nathan’s car as a kind of subliminal message (another reason she picked him — Nathan had a car, which seemed integral to her plan). If all went well, by Thanksgiving break Maggie would no longer be a virgin. Matthew would reap the benefits, and beyond that she hadn’t really thought it out all that well.
    “Why are you buying flowers?” Julie asked. “I thought you didn’t like strong perfumey smells. Lilies smell like crazy, you know.”
    “Just one,” Maggie said. The drama club had a table set up in the hall for their annual Blossoms for Off-Off-Broadway fund-raiser. Cari Stone was manning the table. “It’s for a good cause.”
    Julie looked skeptical, but Cari nodded enthusiastically.
    “It is,” Cari said. “We’re doing
Twelve Angry Men
this fall. Only we don’t have enough boys trying out, so we’re changing it to
Twelve Angry Jurors
, but it’s going to be great.”
    Cari was always enthusiastic. It was her most annoying quality.
    Last year in the girls’ bathroom, and in the time it took to stand side by side at the communal sink washing their hands, Cari had told Maggie her life’s story.
    “I’m an actor, and actors have nothing to hide. That’s what being a good actor is all about,” Cari said, and then proceeded to explain to Maggie why she didn’t want anyone to know that her grandmother was such-and-such famous movie director, because then everyone would think that’s why she got the best parts in the school plays. Maggie wanted to tell Cari that everybody already knew that and that it probably
was
why she got all the best parts, but it didn’t seem to matter.
    Because now all Maggie wanted was to buy a flower. It was step one of her plan.
    “That’s five dollars, please.”
    “For one flower?” Julie asked.
    “Well, it
is
a fund-raiser.”
    Maggie reached into her coat pocket and took out a ten-dollar bill. “Want one?” she asked Julie.
    “Sure,” Julie answered.

    Nathan never got the flower — not that he would have known what it meant if he had (subliminal message notwithstanding) — because Maggie