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“Dad, why are you smiling?”

5
    Walking through the cafeteria, Eli Nash was thinking about Lise, whom he’d known since she was bucktoothed and round as a tennis ball. She’d grown into the teeth, but not all the way, and the overbite made her look older, like her new body did, like everything did. She’d been one of those baby-fatted girls who laughed too loudly, covering their mouths, squealing. Then, at some point, overnight, she’d done something, or God had, because she was so pretty it sometimes hurt to look at her.
    It felt like, whatever happened now, Lise was maybe gone. That maybe it’d be like his friend Rufus, who’d hit his head on the practice rink last year and who seemed okay but never laughed at anyone’s jokes and sometimes couldn’t smell his food.
    â€œEli,” his dad had said, finding him before calculus. Wearing a funny smile like the one he’d have after Eli had had a rough game, a cut over his eye, a stick across the face. “Can you do something for me?”
    He said of course he would.
    Right away, he spotted Gabby in the cafeteria’s far corner, where she always sat, usually with his sister, their heads together as if planning a heist.
    Gabby was the one all the girls puppy-dogged after at school, the kind other girls thought was “gorgeous” and guys didn’t get at all. Or they got something, which made them nervous. Made him nervous.
    All the stuff that had gone down with her family, it seemed to give her this thick glaze, like the old tables in the library that shone golden-like, with dark whorls, but when you got close and touched them, they felt like plastic, like nothing. All they did was push splinters into your hand.
    Eli didn’t much like sitting in the library either.
    She was spinning a can of soda between her palms, that girl Skye lurking behind her, the one with all the bracelets and heavy skirts, the one who got suspended once for coming to health class with a copy of the Kama Sutra, which she said was her aunt Sunny’s, as if it were something everyone had at home, like the dictionary.
    â€œGabby,” he said, tapping her shoulder.
    Gabby’s head whipped around and she looked at him, eyes wide.
    â€œOh!” she said. “Eli. You scared me.”
    Skye was looking at him, her eyes narrow, and Eli removed his fingers quickly from Gabby’s shoulder.
    â€œSorry,” he said. “Can I talk to you for a second?” He looked at Skye. “Alone?”
    â€œOkay,” Gabby said, slowly. “Sure.”
    They walked over to one of the far tables. Gabby was almost as tall as he was and had a big heap of hair on top of her head, like Skye and so many of the other girls seemed to be copying. Sometimes they’d put their hair in heavy braids they’d wrap across their heads and he didn’t get it but figured it was a fashion thing beyond his grasp.
    â€œDeenie’s at the hospital,” he said as they sat down, “with Lise. Something happened to Lise. I figured you might not know.”
    â€œI didn’t,” she said, shaking her head.
    Three tables behind, Eli could see still Skye, her ringed fingers clawed around her phone, head bowed, typing something.
    â€œI mean, I didn’t know Deenie was at the hospital,” Gabby said. “Or that Lise was.”
    He didn’t think he’d ever sat so close to Gabby, her skin pale and that serious expression she always wore. He had the sense of so many things going on behind that face.
    â€œYeah,” Eli said. “They had to call an ambulance, I guess. She’s there now.”
    Gabby’s phone buzzed slightly on the table. They both looked at it.
    â€œSo, what happened? Is it…” Gabby started. “Is it mono again?”
    Eli paused, licking his lips.
    â€œI don’t think so,” he said.
    *  *  *
    Once she got behind the double doors, Deenie had no idea how to