Emma Jean Lazarus Fell in Love (3 page)

“Hey, Nancy Drew,” he said. He often flattered her with this reference to the fictional detective, whose powers of observation and analysis were almost as keen as Emma-Jean's.

“Hello,” said Emma-Jean, her mouth strangely dry despite the drink of water she had taken just minutes before.

“Heading to a meeting of the genius club?” said Will.

“I was not aware that there was such a club at our school,” Emma-Jean replied.

Will laughed and patted Emma-Jean on the head.

“You're hilarious,” he said, waving good-bye as he jogged away.

Emma-Jean had not meant to be humorous—hilarity was not in her nature. But it was gratifying to make Will smile. She followed behind him, her scalp tingling from his touch, her ears echoing with his pleasing laughter.

She stood at the windows, her heart beating with alarming vigor, and watched as Will jogged to the pickup lane and hopped into his father's truck. She waited as the truck sped away, and then stood there for a few moments more, her hand resting lightly on her head, her eyes glued to the place on the pavement that Will's sneakers had last touched.

W
hy did everything good turn bad? That was the story of Colleen's life.

Maybe she should write a song about it, which would go something like this:

 

 

The song was playing in her head during fourth-period Spanish when Colleen took a bathroom pass and went to flush her note down the toilet. She was standing there in the girls' room stall, all set to send the note down the drain. But then she remembered when Brandon Mahoney tried to flush his Benedict Arnold report (he'd gotten a D) and there was a flood and he got in huge trouble. That's all Colleen needed, for her note to float down the hallway for everyone to see, and besides, that wouldn't be fair to Mr. Johannsen, who would have to mop up the mess.

No, flushing wasn't the right thing to do.

She should just throw it away.

Or . . .

She could keep it.

Colleen wasn't sure.

Because even though Colleen was positively absolutely certain that Emma-Jean had written the note, there was, buried deep in her heart, the idea that maybe a boy had actually written it. That was how it always was with Colleen: No matter how sad she felt, there was always this little bit of hope—like a speck of glitter caught in your eyelash—that never went away, no matter what.

It was that tiny sparkle that made Colleen put the note back in her pocket. She kept it there for the rest of the afternoon, her secret. At the end of the day, she was supposed to go to math extra help with her friends. But instead Colleen went looking for Emma-Jean. She looked in Emma-Jean's usual hangouts, Ms. Wright's room and Mr. Johannsen's workshop and the dictionary table in the library. Finally she found her in the front lobby, staring out the windows with this fascinated look on her face, like a herd of zebras was galloping through the parking lot.

“Hey!” Colleen called, hurrying over.

“Hello,” said Emma-Jean in her usual voice, like she wasn't so thrilled to see Colleen, even though Colleen had learned that this was just Emma-Jean's way, and it didn't mean anything at all, or anything Colleen had to worry about.

“Um . . . Emma-Jean . . . I have to ask you a question. Don't be surprised because it's a little . . . odd.”

“I will not be surprised,” Emma-Jean said. “You often ask me odd questions.”

Colleen had to admit this was true. Like just that morning in language arts, they were reading about Cyclops, the Greek mythology monster with the one huge eye, and Colleen had leaned over to Emma-Jean and whispered, “Don't I look like Cyclops?” because that morning she had woken up with the biggest pimple smack in the middle of her forehead.

She was trying to be a little funny, but Emma-Jean had stared at Colleen for what seemed like forever and then said, “Oh yes, I now see what you mean about your blemish,” in her usual serious voice, which wasn't what Colleen had in mind, but what did she expect?

Colleen unfolded the note, took a deep breath, and handed it to Emma-Jean.

“So, I got this yesterday,” Colleen said. “I found it in my locker. And well, I'm just wondering, did you write this, Emma-Jean?”

Emma-Jean read the note and handed it back. “No, of course I did not. My handwriting looks nothing like that.”

“You didn't?”

“No,” Emma-Jean repeated.

“Are you sure?” Colleen said, putting her hand on her chest because a heart attack was a definite possibility.

Emma-Jean frowned a little. “Quite sure.”

Colleen threw her arms around Emma-Jean, but then let go right away because Emma-Jean wasn't the huggy type.

“Oh my gosh, Emma-Jean! You know what this means? That a boy likes me! Don't you think that's what it means? That he likes me? And he wants me to know it? And, well, the Spring Fling is coming up and I think maybe he wants me to ask him!”

Emma-Jean looked out the window and didn't say anything. For a second Colleen thought Emma-Jean had forgotten all about her, that her mind was off thinking about something Emma-Jean-ish, like tree bark or soup.

But then Emma-Jean looked back at Colleen. “Your theory is logical.”

“It is?” Colleen said, not caring that her voice was all squeaky.

Emma-Jean nodded.

Colleen wanted to do a round-off back handspring, back handspring, back handspring, back flip down the hallway. But since she could barely do a cartwheel, she decided it was smarter to just jump up and down some more.

Out of all the girls in the seventh grade, a boy liked Colleen.

Colleen, who wasn't the prettiest girl in the seventh grade, or the smartest, or the funniest; Colleen, who wasn't first violin or in high math or travel soccer. A boy liked Colleen, because she was Colleen, because that was enough.

Now all she had to do was figure out who he was. And that would be a cinch!

“You'll find him for me, won't you, Emma-Jean?”

“What did you say?” Emma-Jean asked.

“You'll find out who wrote this? You'll figure it out for me!”

Of course Emma-Jean would. Because Emma-Jean was a genius. And she was Colleen's friend.

Colleen felt like singing.

C
olleen was speaking loudly, and leaning in so close to Emma-Jean that her daisy and bubble-gum scent tickled Emma-Jean's nasal passages. Even so, Emma-Jean was quite certain she had misheard Colleen's question.

“You are asking for my assistance?” Emma-Jean said.

“Yes!” sang Colleen. “I am!”

Emma-Jean studied Colleen closely. “Do you not recall what happened the last time I assisted you?”

Emma-Jean remembered, in painstaking detail, how just eleven weeks earlier she had discovered Colleen sobbing in the girls' room, distraught over the news that she would not be joining Kaitlin and her family on an annual February ski trip to Vermont. For four consecutive years, Colleen had accompanied the Vogels on this trip. But this year, Laura Gilroy had used her considerable powers of manipulation to induce Kaitlin into inviting
her
instead.

Emma-Jean had attempted to assist Colleen. And her plan—carefully conceived and meticulously executed—had been successful. But it had triggered a chain reaction of unintended consequences: Laura had turned vengeful. Colleen had been overwhelmed by anguish. Emma-Jean herself had fallen out of a tree.

“Oh no!” Colleen said, waving her hand as if to erase the unpleasant images from Emma-Jean's mind. “This problem is nothing like last time. This is so simple!”

Emma-Jean knew this could not be true. If there was one thing she had learned through her close studies of her peers, it was this: Nothing was simple in the seventh grade. The most routine interactions—a joke whispered in the bus line, an offhand remark about new sneakers, a request for gum in the hallway—could turn into dramas of Shakespearean complexity, with ruthless villains, sudden plot twists, and tragic endings.

Emma-Jean was fond of her fellow seventh graders. She believed that there was no finer group of young people than the 103 boys and 98 girls with whom she shared her school days. And she was particularly pleased to have her four new friends. But her peers were irrational, and as a result, their lives were messy. In the aftermath of her fall from the tree, Emma-Jean was more determined than ever to keep out of their problems.

She opened her mouth to explain this to Colleen. But then Colleen looked at Emma-Jean in a way that conveyed that she was not exactly
asking
for Emma-Jean's help. Colleen was
expecting
Emma-Jean's help, humbly, as a flower expects the sun to shine. Colleen's eyes were wide open, filled with hope and trust. One did not often see such a look at William Gladstone Middle School.

Yet Emma-Jean had seen it before, when Colleen and Kaitlin and Valerie and Michele caught sight of each other in the crowded hallways and hugged hello and whispered their secrets. It occurred to Emma-Jean that it was this special trusting look—more than saved seats and beaded ankle bracelets or notes signed with hearts and exclamation points—that conveyed the strength of the girls' friendship, the mysterious force that bonded them together.

Running footsteps could be heard in the hallway, and Kaitlin, Valerie, and Michele appeared around the corner.

“You won't believe what I found in my locker!” Colleen called to the girls, holding the note over her head.

The girls encircled Colleen, who held up the note for their eager eyes.

“Now do you get it? You are the best!” Kaitlin said, wrapping her arms around Colleen's shoulders and kissing her cheek.

“You have a secret admirer! You have a secret admirer!” Valerie chanted, pumping her fist into the air.

The girls smiled and swayed as though Colleen's happiness was their favorite song.

“But he won't be secret for long!” Colleen said. “Because Emma-Jean's gonna find him. Right, Emma-Jean?”

“Find him?” Kaitlin said.

The girls all looked at Emma-Jean, and she took a step closer to them.

“Yes,” Emma-Jean said. “I will find him.”

L
ike a voyager returning from a faraway kingdom, Emma-Jean walked through the front door of her house with a grateful sigh. She enjoyed her time at school, but after the day's excitement, she was relieved to return to the comforting rituals of her home.

She was greeted by a framed photograph of her father, Eugene Lazarus, which hung on the wall of the small entryway. He had died two years, six months, and two days ago, in a car accident on I-95. There was not a moment in the day when Emma-Jean did not miss him. But very often she could sense her father around her, his voice whispering in the wind, his shadow dancing behind hers on a sunny day, his sparkling green eyes smiling up at her from a fresh puddle of rain. She certainly felt him in every corner of this house. She reached out and let her fingers hover over his picture. As usual he seemed to give her a reassuring nod.

Emma-Jean went to her bedroom to put away her book bag and to get Henri from his cage. Then she followed the delicious smell of sautéed garlic and curry to the kitchen to say hello to her friend Vikram Adwani, the doctoral student in immunology who rented the sunny third floor of Emma-Jean's house.

Vikram was standing at the counter, his lanky frame bent over the cutting board, his sleek black ponytail swinging rhythmically across his back as he chopped a red pepper into perfect squares. Emma-Jean was pleased to note that he was wearing the fine cotton sweater that Emma-Jean's mother had knitted him for his recent birthday. It had been Emma-Jean's idea to create a design with thirty-two stripes, one for each year of Vikram's life.

“Hello my friend,” he said, smiling. “You are looking well.”

“Thank you,” Emma-Jean said, admiring her reflection in the shiny metal lid of Vikram's rice pot. She looked quite healthy and vigorous, no doubt due to her balanced diet and bracing daily walks to and from school.

She stood next to Vikram as he chopped, relishing his familiar kitchen sounds—the whisper of the gas flames, the gentle rattling of the simmering pots, Vikram's soft humming of a jazz melody he and Emma-Jean's mother particularly enjoyed.

Henri fluttered up from Emma-Jean's shoulder and settled on the top of Vikram's head.

“You had an interesting day at school I hope?” Vikram said, offering the bird a small square of pepper, which was accepted with an enthusiastic peck.

“Of course,” replied Emma-Jean, who found every day with her peers interesting. “There is a dance coming up. It is causing a great deal of commotion among my friends.”

Vikram turned and looked at Emma-Jean, his thick eyebrows raised inquisitively.

“Will you be attending?” he asked.

Emma-Jean's stomach lurched. She hesitated for just a moment before answering.

“No,” she said. “I will not.”

Vikram nodded as he lifted his cutting board and slid the peppers into a simmering skillet of ghee.

“I regret that I never had the opportunity to attend a dance,” he said.

Emma-Jean was not surprised to hear this. There had been little money or time for recreational pursuits in the Adwani household in Mumbai, India. Vikram's parents had banked every spare rupee so that their hardworking son could realize their shared dream that he become a professor at a prestigious American university.