Eureka nodded. “He offered to give me a ride, but I wasn’t going to—”
“No way.” Cat understood the impossibility of riding shotgun in Cory’s truck. She shuddered, shaking her head so that her braids whopped her face. “At least Crash—can we call him Crash? Least he gave you a ride.”
Eureka tugged her shirt over her head and tucked it into her shorts. She started lacing up her running shoes. “His name is Ander. And nothing happened.”
“ ‘Crash’ sounds better.” Cat squirted sunscreen into her palm and brushed it lightly across Eureka’s face, careful of her scrapes.
“He goes to Manor, that’s why he drove me here. I’ll be racing against him in a few minutes, and I’ll probably suck because I’m not warmed up.”
“Ooh, it’s sooo race-y.” Suddenly Cat was in her own world, making big hand gestures. “I’m seeing the adrenaline high of the run transforming into burning passion at the finish line. I’m seeing sweat. I’m seeing steam. Love that ‘goes the distance’ ”—
“Cat,” Eureka said. “Enough. What is it with people trying to hook me up today?”
Cat followed Eureka toward the door. “I try to hook you up every day. What’s the point of calendars without dates?”
For such a smart, tough girl—Cat had a blue belt in karate, spoke non-Cajun French with an enviable accent, got a scholarship the previous summer to a molecular biology camp at LSU—Eureka’s best friend was also a horn-dog romantic. Most kids at Evangeline didn’t know how smart she was because her boy-craziness tended to obscure it. She met guys on her way to the bathroom at the movies, didn’t own a bra that wasn’t full-on lace, and really was trying to fix up everyone she knew all the time. Once, in New Orleans, Cat had even tried to put two homeless people together in Jackson Square.
“Wait”—Cat stopped and tilted her head at Eureka—“who else was trying to set you up? That’s my specialty.”
Eureka pressed on the metal bar to open the door and stepped out into the humid late afternoon. Low, green-gray clouds still coated the sky. The air had the smell of aching to be a storm. To the west was an alluring pocket of clearness where Eureka could see the sun sneaking lower, turning the sliver of cloud-bare sky a deep shade of violet.
“My wonderful new shrink thinks I have the hots for Brooks,” Eureka said.
At the far end of the field, Coach’s whistle drew the rest of the team together under the rusted football upright. The visiting team from Manor was gathering in the other end zone. Eureka and Cat would have to pass them, which made Eureka nervous, though she didn’t see Ander yet. The girls jogged toward their team, aiming to slide in unnoticed at the back of the huddle.
“You and Brooks?” Cat feigned amazement. “I’m shocked. I mean, I’m just—well, stunned is what I am.”
“Cat.” Eureka used her serious voice, which made Cat stop jogging. “My mom.”
“I know.” Cat enveloped Eureka and squeezed. She had skinny arms, but her hugs were mighty.
They’d paused at the bleachers, two long rows of rusty benches on either side of the track. Eureka could hear Coach talking about pacing, the regional meet next month, finding the right position at the starting arc. If Eureka were captain, she’d be talking the team through these topics. She knew prerace drill backward in her sleep, but she couldn’t imagine standing up there anymore, saying anything with certainty.
“You’re not ready to think about boys yet,” Cat said into Eureka’s ponytail. “Stupid Cat.”
“Don’t you start crying.” Eureka squeezed Cat harder.
“Okay, okay.” Cat sniffed and pulled away. “I know you hate it when I cry.”
Eureka flinched. “I don’t hate it when you—” She broke off. Her eye caught Ander’s as he was coming out of the visitors’ locker room on the other side of the track. His uniform didn’t quite match the other kids’—his yellow collar looked bleached; his shorts were shorter than those worn by the rest of the team. The uniform seemed dated, like the ones in the fading photographs of cross-country teams of yesteryear that lined the walls of the gym. Maybe it was a hand-me-down from an older brother, but it looked like the kind of thing you picked up at the Salvation Army after some kid graduated and his mom cleaned out his closet so she’d have more room for shoes.
Ander watched Eureka, oblivious to all else around him: his team in the end zone, pregnant clouds pressing closer in the sky, how peculiar it was to stare like that. He didn’t seem to realize it was unusual. Or maybe he didn’t care.
Eureka did. She dropped her eyes, blushing. She started to jog again. She remembered the sensation of that tear gathering in the corner of her eye, the astonishing touch of his finger against the side of her nose. Why had she cried on the road that afternoon when she hadn’t been tempted to cry at her own mother’s funeral? She hadn’t cried when they’d kept her locked up in that asylum for two weeks. She hadn’t cried since … the night Diana had slapped her and moved out of the house.
“Uh-oh,” Cat said.
“Don’t stare back at him,” Eureka muttered, certain Cat was referring to Ander.
“Him who?” Cat whispered. “I’m talking about Sorceress over there. Don’t engage and she might not see us. Don’t look, Eureka, don’t—”
You can’t not look when someone tells you not to, but one swift glance made Eureka regret it.
“Too late,” Cat mumbled.
“Boudreaux.”
Eureka’s last name seemed to shudder like a shock wave across the field.
Maya Cayce had a voice as deep as a teenage boy’s—it could fool you until you caught a glimpse of her face. Some never fully recovered from that first glimpse. Maya Cayce was extraordinary, with thick, dark hair that hung in loose waves all the way down to her waist. She was notorious for her fast clip down the hallways at school, her surprising, slender grace thanks to legs that stretched for decades. Her smooth, bright skin bore ten of the most intricately beautiful tattoos Eureka had ever seen—including a braid of three different feathers running down her forearm, a small cameo-style portrait of her mother on her shoulder, and a peacock inside a peacock feather underneath her collarbone—all of which she’d designed herself and had done at a place called Electric Ladyland in New Orleans. She was a senior, a roller-skater, a rumored Wiccan, a transcender of all cliques, a contralto in the choir, a state-champion equestrian, and she hated Eureka Boudreaux.
“Maya.” Eureka nodded but didn’t slow down.
In her peripheral vision, Eureka sensed Maya Cayce rising from the edge of the bleachers. She saw the black blur of the girl taking long strides to stop in front of her.
Eureka skidded to avoid a collision. “Yes?”
“Where is he?” Maya wore a micro-length, flowy black dress with extra-long, extra-flared bell sleeves, and no makeup, save for a coat of black mascara. She batted her eyes.
She was looking for Brooks. She was always looking for Brooks. How she could still be hung up on Eureka’s oldest friend after they’d been out but twice last year was one of the galaxy’s most inscrutable mysteries. Brooks was boy-next-door sweet. Maya Cayce was spellbinding. And yet, somehow, she was deranged for the boy.
“I haven’t seen him,” Eureka said. “Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’m on the cross-country team, which is about to begin a race?”
“We can maybe help you stalk him later.” Cat tried to angle past Maya, who was over a foot taller than Cat in her six-inch platform wedges. “Oh, wait, no, I’m busy tonight. Signed up for this webinar. Sorry, Maya, you’re on your own.”
Maya raised her chin, seeming to weigh whether to take this as an insult. If you studied her small, lovely features individually, she actually looked far younger than seventeen.
“I prefer to work alone.” Maya Cayce looked down her nose at Cat. Her perfume smelled like patchouli. “He mentioned he might stop by, and I thought Freak Show here”—she pointed at Eureka—“might have—”
“I haven’t.” Eureka remembered now that Brooks was the one person she’d confided in about her agreement with Coach. He hadn’t told her he’d planned on coming to the meet, but it was a sweet gesture if he was. Sweet until you added Maya Cayce; then things soured.
As Eureka pushed past, something swatted the back of her head, just above her ponytail. Slowly she spun around to see Maya Cayce’s palm retreat. Eureka’s cheeks blazed. Her head stung, but her pride ached. “Is there something you want to say, Maya, maybe to my face?”
“Oh.” Maya Cayce’s husky voice softened, sweetened. “You had a mosquito on your scalp. You know they carry diseases, flock to standing water.”
Cat snorted, grabbing Eureka’s hand and pulling her down the field. She called over her shoulder: “You’re malarious, Maya! Call us when you get a stand-up gig.”
The sad thing was, Eureka and Maya used to be friends, before they’d started Evangeline, before Maya had entered puberty a dark-haired angel and exited an unapproachable Goth goddess. They used to be two seven-year-old girls taking theater at the university summer camp. They’d traded lunches every day—Eureka would swap Dad’s elaborate turkey clubs for Maya’s white bread PB&Js in a heartbeat. But she doubted Maya Cayce remembered that.
“Estes!” The shrill screech of Coach Spence—Eureka knew it well.
“Let’s do it, Coach,” Cat responded with zest.
“Loved your pep talk,” Coach barked to Cat. “Next time try to be a little more present for it?” Before Coach could rail on any further, she spotted Eureka at Cat’s side. Her grimace didn’t soften, but her voice did. “Glad you’re here, Boudreaux,” she called past the other students’ turning heads. “Just in time for a quick yearbook picture before the race.”
Everyone’s eyes were on Eureka. She was still flushed from her interaction with Maya, and the weight of so many gazes made her claustrophobic. A few of her teammates whispered, like Eureka was bad luck. Kids who used to be her friends were scared of her now. Maybe they didn’t want her back.
Eureka felt tricked. A yearbook picture hadn’t been part of her deal with Coach. She saw the photographer, a man in his fifties with a short black ponytail, setting up a massive flash apparatus. She imagined huddling into one of the lines alongside these other kids, the bright light going off in her face. She imagined the photo being printed in three hundred yearbooks, imagined future generations flipping the pages. Before the accident, Eureka never thought twice about posing for the camera; her face contorted into smiles, smirks, and air kisses all over friends’ Facebook and Instagram pages. But now?
The permanence this single photo would imply made Eureka feel like an imposter. It made her want to run away. She had to quit the team right now, before there was any documentation that she’d intended to run this year. She imagined the lie of her high school résumé—Latin Club, cross-country team, a list of honors classes. Survivor’s guilt, the one extracurricular activity Eureka was invested in, was nowhere in that file. She stiffened so it wouldn’t be obvious she was shaking.