“Pays off the barista,” Graham suggested.
“Or threatens them,” Viv muttered.
“But why?” I said. As far back as I could remember Amanda had it out for Viv, but my recollection of Conner in grade school wasn’t so sinister. I remembered Conner letting me win at tetherball the day I returned to school after my grandfather’s funeral; Conner being one of the only boys to give Valentines to every single kid, not just those who were his friends.
“Why does a scorpion sting?” Graham asked. “It’s in his nature. Last week he left a flaming paper bag of dog crap on the band room’s doorstep while the Brass Bandits were practicing. He’s a pathological bully.”
Viv’s free hand riffled through her purse. “Usually this would bum me out, but today it seems pathetic that he went to the trouble.” She freed a purple Sharpie, uncapped it, and scribbled on the cup. Then she traded hers for mine. The Nobody was blacked out, and IV was penned beside it. “Voila,” she said, “no more Icky, Nobody, Dr. Spectasaurus, or Rags. We’re the Order of IV.” She continued on with the boys’ coffees. “The Roman numeral is more badass, huh?” It was.
The simple, penned IV blunted Conner’s insult. We ate our cronuts, our only care in the world getting equal parts raspberry filling and chocolate ganache with each bite. Those IVs were beacons reminding us we had a secret.
I carried our secret with me like a shield all day. When Conner rapped his knuckles hard on my desk as he passed in third period, just like he did almost every day, I didn’t startle. When his best friend, Trent, who sat to my right, leaned over and chortled, “Hey, Icky, how was Cup of Jo?” I smiled and said, “Super.” When I wanted to speak in class, I did, unafraid of Conner’s or Trent’s usual barks of “Icky.”
We ate lunch on the rectangle of lawn between the band room and the auto shop. Other small groups ate there too, but like us, they were peripheral. Not outcasts per se, just gathered in the hinterlands where the lunch real estate wasn’t as contested as the courtyard.
Viv had a smattering of plays around her, picking them up at random, reading a few pages and tossing them to the grass with a disappointed groan. She was looking for a perfect audition piece for the autumn performance.
A sketch pad was open on my lap, ready for me to tackle the first plein air assignment of my first-ever art class. Instead of capturing the shimmer of light playing on the trees, the tip of my pencil was working on Graham, shading in all the shadows in his wavy hair. I’d already finished Harry bent over a textbook. He often worked on homework at lunch because a few afternoons a week he had shifts pushing carts and bagging groceries at Hilltop Market. I wished for my Polaroid, which was funny because I never felt comfortable enough at school to bring it along. Photos taken on my cell weren’t the same; they came out too forced and posed; they could be easily deleted.
Once I finished Graham, I planned to sketch Viv into the picture too. She was hard to get right; there was too much going on in her eyes and she was too pretty.
She looked up like she’d read my mind and craned to see the sketch pad. “You’re getting really good.”
I rotated the pad. “You were looking at it upside down.”
“Still. It looks just like Graham and Har.”
Harry closed his astronomy textbook. My cheeks were warm as I showed him. “I like it,” he said.
Graham tore his eyes from his book. “Remind me why you’re taking art this year?”
I frowned. “Because my transcript needs to be more well-rounded.”
“Said your parents,” he replied.
“Actually, it’s a direct quote from the school counselor. My electives are always history and gov.”
He held up one finger. “Those are your interests. They’re academic. Art is . . .” He waved his hand airily.
“Fun—which is what electives are supposed to be,” Viv said. She yanked on a fistful of grass and tossed it in Graham’s direction.
He watched the green confetti fall on his pant legs. “It’s not too late to drop art and transfer into Mrs. Fisher’s genre seminar. This semester it’s Society and the Mystery Novel.”
I arranged my pencils in their case. “I’m going to stay in art.”
“You used to be obsessed with mysteries,” he said, growing more adamant.
“Used to being the operative phrase,” Harry said.
Graham pointedly ignored Harry. “But I think you still are, Izzie. It’s only because of the rock and what you—”
“Stop being bossy,” Viv told him, slapping his hand out of the air. He frowned but swallowed the rest of what he wanted to say. Graham knew why I’d stopped liking books with detectives and mysteries and crimes five years earlier. Books like that asked what if and how and why. Those questions were too real after Goldilocks. Someone should have been asking them about her and no one was.
Viv lifted the hair from her neck and fanned herself. “It’s as hot as July. Bring me one of those big mint chip ice cream sandwiches from work tonight, Har.”
“You guys want them too?” Harry offered.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Yeah.” Graham pulled a twenty from his pocket and handed it to Harry. “I love those.”
“I’ve got them,” Harry said. Graham watched the bill flutter in Harry’s hand for a second before accepting it back. Graham probably would have tried insisting, but a silhouette cast a shadow on the grass.
“ ’Sup, Rags and Riches,” Conner Welsh said.
The greeting managed to transport me back to middle school, the turning point in Conner’s evolution as a bully. Amanda and Conner lining kids up against the fence for social sentencing. Amanda declared us Rags or Riches; Conner pelted us with balls either way. If Amanda thought your sneakers looked shabby that day, you could have a pony at home and she’d still proclaim you Rags. But Harry, whose family rented a house that Conner’s parents owned, was consistently sentenced.
“Rags,” Conner said, squatting beside Harry, “I got a problem. I’ve got this lunch tray and it’s full of soggy beef nachos and tofu curry that smells like old man runs. Take a whiff.” He raised the tray. Harry’s expression went flat. “I hit too many balls at the range last night. My arm’s trash.” He crooked his neck and grimaced. “I think I might drop the tray, spill the nacho cheese on the walls, and the tofu shit on the floor. But fuck, Rags, if that happens, who’ll clean it up?” His mock concern shifted to a sadistic smile. There was a thin scab on his bottom lip. Conner Welsh, always looking for an excuse to fight. “Oh wait, it’s your dad’s job to clean up my mess.”
“Harry’s father is the school groundskeeper,” Graham said sternly.
“Janitor,” Conner countered. “Or do they go by custodian now? All that PC shit. Can you help me out, brother?” I was sick knowing exactly what was coming. “If you take this tray off my hands, I won’t have to drop it. Your dad with his gimp leg won’t have to crawl onto his hands and knees to clean it up. Or should I say fuck it?”
Graham was up on his feet, reaching for the tray. “I’ve got it,” he said. He’d done that once before; the tray ended up in his face, chili dog mashed on his shirt, one spectacle lens broken.