Absent (Katie Williams)

the sweater I’d used to cushion it.
    Wes slid two more cigarettes out of the pack, offering one to me.
    “I don’t smoke.”
    “Why not? It gives you superpowers, you know.”
    “What? Like cancer?” I said, then grimaced. Everyone knew that Wes Nolan’s dad had died of stomach cancer freshman year.
    But if my comment bothered Wes, he didn’t show it, saying, “Enough chemo, and you’ll glow like a superhero.” He tucked the cigarette back into the pack and nodded at my project. “What’s in the box?”
    “You want to hear about my physics homework?”
    “I’m here smoking. You’re here not smoking. Why not pass the time?”
    “It’s an egg drop.”
    “Like the soup?”
    “Like you drop an egg off the roof, idiot,” I said, and he grinned wider at the insult. “We had to create an enclosure for the egg using stuff from around the house, and today we’re going to drop them from the school roof. If it doesn’t break, you pass.”
    “And if it does break, you make egg-drop soup.” He blew out a plume of smoke. “Can I see it?”
    “Only if you promise not to pretend to drop it as a joke.”
    “You know me only too well, Paige Wheeler.”
    He turned the gift box around in his hands, studying its tiny springs (pilfered from three remote controls), peeking under the lid.
    “How does it work?”
    “The springs are hooked to a Ziploc bag full of shaving cream, and the egg is in the middle of the bag.”
    “Kind of a like an airbag in a car. Clever.” Then, of course, he pretended to drop it.
    “Does everything have to be a joke to you?”
    He grinned. “Why not?”
    “Because not everything’s funny.”
    “What? Don’t you like to laugh?”
    “Of course. Who doesn’t like to laugh?”
    “You, maybe. You always scowl at me.”
    “Say something actually funny, and I’ll laugh.”
    “Knock, knock,” he said.
    “Who’s there?” I asked reluctantly.
    “Me,” he said.
    “Me who?”
    He grinned. “Just me.”
    “That’s the joke?” I asked. “Knock, knock, who’s there? Just me. That’s not a joke. That’s ridiculous.”
    “Ah, but you’re laughing.”
    “Yeah. At its ridiculousness.”
    He was close enough that I could smell the cigarettes on him and, under that, another even smokier smell, like burnt leaves. One of his eyes was squintier than the other from the unevenness of his grin, but both eyes were the same warm brown. If there’s anyone whose smile would be asymmetrical, I thought. But it must have been the kind of smile that made you want to smile back because that, I realized, was what I was doing.
    I pulled away so quickly that my head clocked the tree trunk behind me. “Lucas helped me with it,” I said, pointing to the project still in his hands.
    “Lucas, huh?” Wes grunted, his smile dropping so fast I half expected to hear it shatter on the ground. “As in Lucas Hayes? As in the person you’re not waiting for.”
    “I told you. I’m not meeting anyone.”
    Wes handed me back the box, then he flipped his cigarette onto the ground, stubbing it out with his heel, and walked to the edge of the burners’ circle. But just before leaving, he turned around. “You know, if you were meeting me, I’d make a point of being here.”
    “And I’d make a point of losing track of time.”
    The grin was back, like I had complimented him instead of insulting him.
    “Why are you smiling?” I asked.
    “Because,” he said, “that was funny.” He tipped a salute and disappeared with the faint call of the school bell.
    I’d waited another ten minutes for Lucas. He never came, and that, not hair or homework and definitely not Wes Nolan, was why I’d been late to physics.
    Back on the roof, Usha’s interrogation about my lateness was interrupted by a burst of talk from Kelsey and her ponies. The ponies were examining Kelsey’s new piercing, a diamond stud in place of a beauty mark.
    “. . . brought a picture”—the wind caught Kelsey’s voice—“so it’d be just like Marilyn’s.”
    “Marilyn Manson’s?” I said loudly.
    Kelsey turned and wrinkled her nose. “No. Marilyn Monroe. The piercing artist said that I resemble her. Crazy, right?” The ponies circled up, probably to assure her that it wasn’t crazy, not the slightest bit.
    “Oh, that’s right,” I said to Usha. “Marilyn Monroe had a bunch of plastic surgery, too.”
    “Geez, Paige.” Usha socked me in the arm. “Fight in your own weight class.”
    “Ugh. She thinks