Lux: The New Girl Page 5

  Lux looked down at Lillia instead of at her father. The kid got even cuter when she wasn’t screaming. “We both got lucky with pretty cool moms, huh, kid?” she whispered. Lillia cooed, and Lux glanced up at Penny. “Thanks,” she said before going to her room.

  * * *

  After finishing her homework, Lux checked her phone. She was surprised to see a message from Danika. It read, Have you seen this?

  Lux clicked the link and saw another video. It had to have been recorded a few weeks ago, because in it, Simone still had two black eyes and a bandaged nose. Her bruises were fading, but as Lux looked at the damage she’d caused, it made her stomach drop.

  “You see this?” Simone said into the camera. She leaned closer, showing off the bruised and swollen parts of her face. “My parents are thinking about pressing charges, but we haven’t decided yet. We have all the proof we need: pictures, medical bills, and eyewitnesses. But they don’t know if it’s worth the money to go to court. I think it is. I mean, I could have been a model before this, and now—”

  Lux swiped the video away. She didn’t bother messaging Danika back.

  Her dad might have known she’d gotten into a fight, but she didn’t need him (or anyone else) to be able to see exactly what she’d done. And the threat of a lawsuit made Lux feel faint. He already didn’t trust her, so she knew Luke wouldn’t listen if she told him what really happened with Simone. He cared more about how things looked than the truth. And this looked bad.

  If her parents found out about the videos, it might be enough to convince them that she should have gone to military school after all.

  The next week, Lux still felt antsy after seeing Simone’s video, but when Noelle said hi to her first thing Monday morning, some small part of her relaxed. She’d been eating lunch with the girls every day now, and she almost felt like she could be her real, complete self around them. She tried to focus on how well things were going instead of her one constant worry: that they’d find her out.

  “So I think,” Noelle said, walking with Lux down the long main hall of the school, “you could use some noodles.”

  Lux frowned at her. “Noodles?” she asked.

  “Noodles,” Noelle said. “And also maybe some dumplings. Perhaps an egg roll to round it out, and an egg tart for dessert?”

  “What are you talking about, Noelle?”

  Noelle stopped her from walking. “I know you always go to the library after school.”

  “Oh yeah. My dad’s wife just had a new baby and she cries a lot. Libraries are quiet.”

  “Right, but libraries don’t have delicious Chinese food. My grandparents’ restaurant, on the other hand . . .”

  “You’re inviting me to your grandparents’ restaurant?” Lux asked. Noelle nodded. “Why?”

  “Oh my God, do you think I’m going to murder you or something? Are you going to come or not? Tobyn and Micah will be there, too, but I’m not going to beg.”

  Lux squinted at Noelle like she could see through to her motives if she looked at her hard enough. Maybe she did just want to hang out. Lux wasn’t sure how she should feel, but she reminded herself that she wanted this.

  “Okay,” Lux said.

  “Cool.” Noelle smiled. “The girls will be happy you’re coming.”

  * * *

  Noelle’s grandparents’ restaurant was squeezed between two apartment buildings. So many signs and menus covered the glass door so that you couldn’t see inside.

  Noelle had asked Lux to come by but hadn’t said why, and as the day went on, Lux began to worry it might be about the newspaper—that she’d found out Lux wanted to become a member of the staff and planned to confront her about trying to take her position.

  Lux slipped inside and sat at a table near the front windows. She didn’t see Micah or Tobyn anywhere, but she had gotten there early. Before she’d even taken her backpack all the way off, Noelle appeared wearing a green T-shirt that said LEE’S DUMPLINGS. Lux looked around the restaurant and saw a few young white couples eating and a half dozen older Chinese customers, too. They were the only black girls, and Lux felt completely out of place. She wondered if Noelle ever felt that way, even though she was half Chinese.

  Lux said, “Hey,” but Noelle didn’t.

  “So, I’ll be honest with you. Micah and Tobyn aren’t coming.”

  “Okay . . .” Lux squirmed in her seat and glanced around the half-empty restaurant again. “So why am I here?”

  “My friends like you,” Noelle said. “And before we tell you about the next prank we’re planning, I need to know we can trust you.”

  So this was gonna be about the paper, then. “Look, Noelle,” Lux started to say, “I wanted to tell you—” But Noelle pulled out her phone and cut Lux off.

  “Is this you?” she asked. She held out her phone, and on the screen, Lux saw a video of her fighting Simone. It showed a different angle from the one she’d untagged last month. Her twists swung from side to side, but even from this angle, her face thankfully remained hidden. She frowned.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Lux said. “You think I’d risk messing up my hair, or more importantly, my nails, fighting?” She must have pulled off looking completely confused, because Noelle laughed.

  “I had a feeling it wasn’t you.” Noelle pocketed her phone, looking relieved. “It’s just that I saw it a while ago, and the girl who posted it goes to your old school in Brooklyn. The hair looks exactly like yours and you’d just shown up out of nowhere. I don’t know. I had to ask because we can’t risk this kind of sloppiness with the stuff we do. A video that got posted? Can’t happen. My parents would kill me if they ever found out about the stunts we pull.”

  Lux smiled uncomfortably. “I get it,” she said. “My dad would flip, too.”

  “So we cool?” Noelle asked. “Yeah,” Lux said. “We’re good.”

  Noelle left the table and came back with a dozen dumplings, a heaping plate of noodles, and that egg tart she mentioned, but Lux didn’t have an appetite at all. She choked a bit of it down, then begged for a take-out box.

  “My dad loves Chinese food,” she said.

  Noelle grinned. “I mean, who doesn’t?”

  But as Lux said goodbye and headed home, her mind wouldn’t stop spinning. If Noelle had seen that video, Lux worried it would only be a matter of time before she found the other ones.

  At the art show, Lux couldn’t stop looking at Micah’s piece.

  She took dozens of photos of it. Micah had made a collage that incorporated black-and-white shots taken in parks all over the city, just like she’d described: the tops of trees, the reservoir in Central Park, the view from the top of the stairs of the biggest park in Fort Greene. Around and behind them, Micah had painted lush greenery, bright flowers, and blue sky in the shapes of buildings.

  Lux then moved around the rest of the show, taking photo after photo of sculptures, sketches, paintings, collages, light installations, and the kids who made them. There were even a few multimedia pieces with flashing laptops or monitors.

  She was actually having fun, and when Tobyn and Noelle arrived, the show got even better. Noelle seemed to be watching Lux closely, but then she came over and started asking Lux if she needed help.

  “I do,” Lux said, and without hesitation, Noelle started art directing. She told one fine-arts student to tilt his head a little more toward the light, and another one to kneel next to her creation. She’d look at the display on Lux’s camera to decide if she liked the shot and ask Lux what she thought, too. It felt a little bossy, but Lux knew by now that that was just Noelle. Tobyn laughed the whole time.

  Lux couldn’t decide how to tell Noelle that these photos were for an assignment from Ms. Reddy for the paper. She started and stopped half a dozen times, but every time she got close to saying the words I’m taking photos for the paper, she got too afraid of what Noelle might think
or say or do.

  At the end of the long exhibit hall, Lux found Emmett standing next to a series of his sketches. One showed a pair of clasped hands, another had two different ears sharing a set of earbuds, and a final one featured a girl’s long braids tangled in another person’s Afro. The series, according to a little paper sign next to him on the wall, was titled Closer. Lux swallowed hard as she clicked her camera and moved closer, like the sign read.

  “Hey,” she said. And she thought this might be the first time she ever spoke to him first.

  “Hi,” he said. “Where do you want me?”

  He must have been watching as Noelle walked with her around the show floor, telling people where to stand, how to move. But now Noelle stood over by Tobyn and Micah, talking.

  “I don’t direct,” Lux said. “Just act natural.” He had his glasses on, and it made the pit of her stomach feel heavy when he reached up to straighten them. She clicked her camera more.

  “I remember someone who looked a lot like you telling me not to smile on your first day here.”

  Lux smirked. “Touché,” she said. “Tell me more about your sketches.”

  He turned and looked at the wall like he’d forgotten why he was there. “It’s not that deep. It’s just about first love. The way it catches you by surprise. The way all you want is to be closer to that one person.”

  Lux lowered her camera and stepped up to the wall. “The finished products are gorgeous,” she said, and she meant it.

  “Thanks,” Emmett replied, and his voice sounded close.

  Lux turned around to see him standing right behind her. She hadn’t registered that he was so much taller than her, broad and big, but with gentle eyes.

  She cleared her throat and took a step away from him. She lifted her camera and captured the way he looked at her. She’d probably keep that photo for herself.

  It was getting harder and harder to keep her distance from Emmett Ortiz.

  A second later, he looked around her and squinted.

  “Is that Ms. Reddy?” Emmett asked.

  It was. Lux had the photos she needed, and she couldn’t wait to show them off to her, but she’d planned to bring them to the next newspaper staff meeting. She turned around to look for Noelle. But she was with Ms. Reddy, and the two were walking in Lux’s direction.

  “I’m gonna go,” Lux told Emmett. The sight of her teacher and her new friend walking toward her filled her belly with dread.

  He grinned. “Thanks for the pictures,” he said.

  Ms. Reddy and Noelle reached Lux before she could leave the room, and she heard Noelle say, “The girl’s got skills. You were totally right to assign her to this show.”

  Lux turned around to look at them. “You knew?” she asked, surprised.

  “Of course I knew!” Noelle said. “Ms. Reddy told us at the last staff meeting that we had a new student interested in helping out with the ‘photographic direction’ of the paper. I had a feeling it was you.”

  Ms. Reddy grinned. “I’m so glad you two are getting along! I asked Noelle to give you a few pointers, though I could tell from your album and our last conversation how much natural talent and vision you have for this kind of work.”

  “Oh,” Lux said. She let out a breathy laugh. “I was so nervous to tell you!” she said to Noelle. “I thought you’d think I wanted to steal your spot or something.”

  Noelle shrugged. “Nah. It would be worse to share the job with someone who sucks. But you’re cool.”

  LUX’S JOURNAL

  —April 12—

  It’s spring break and I’m spending the whole week at Mom’s, making sure I steer clear of kids from my old school.

  Last night, me and the girls went to see Tobyn’s sister’s band play a show. The band is called Boys Behaving Badly, even though all five members are girls. Tobyn’s sister Devyn sings, and Tobyn was right when she said they sucked—her sister is really the only talented one.

  Tobyn’s girlfriend, Ava, came with us, and Micah invited her boyfriend, Ty. Noelle brought her boyfriend, Travis . . . and also invited Emmett, even though I asked her not to.

  No one called it a date, but at one point during the night, everyone paired off. Tobyn and Ava went to grab a soda, and Micah and Ty started kissing. Noelle pulled Travis up to the stage so they’d be closer to the music, and me and Emmett were left in the middle of the crowd alone.

  He asked how my studio photos were going, and I showed him a few I had saved on my phone. And when the band started playing again, he put his arms around my hips, and I didn’t move away when he started dancing with me.

  Finding Emmett wasn’t a part of the plan, but I’m so happy to have people I care about again.

  The night ended with all of us up on Micah’s roof. Tobyn and her sister sang whatever song we requested. Noelle pointed out different buildings in the skyline. I showed Micah how I did my twists, and she put a few in Ava’s hair. I watched while the boys played cards. I think I forgot what having real friends feels like.

  Her first night back at her dad’s after break, Lux walked into the apartment well before curfew but didn’t see anyone at home. She’d expected her father to be waiting up for her, since she’d been away all week, but he wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. Maybe he and Penny had dropped Lillia off at a neighbor’s apartment and gone out for dinner.

  Lux counted herself lucky to have the whole place to herself and sat down on the couch to scroll through all the photos she’d taken over break. There were shots from Micah’s roof and a ton from the Boys Behaving Badly show. She picked out a few of her favorites and started editing them on her laptop.

  She video-called Noelle for help with the editing software she’d just gotten, but as soon as Noelle picked up, she heard a bedroom door shut softly. And then her father appeared, and Penny stood right behind him. The second he saw her, his whole face twisted in anger.

  “I’ll call you back,” Lux said before Noelle even said hello. She tossed her phone and it landed near one of the throw pillows seconds before her father spoke.

  “You broke a girl’s nose?” he whispered fiercely. “And now her parents want to press charges?”

  Lux had seen her father annoyed. She’d seen him tired. She’d even seen him happy, or as close to happiness as he let himself show. But she’d never seen him this angry in her entire life.

  Lux was so surprised that she didn’t say anything right away. She looked desperately in Penny’s direction, but she didn’t come to her rescue this time. Lux hadn’t heard or seen anything about the potential lawsuit in weeks, but somehow he’d found out about Simone’s threats.

  “It was an accident,” Lux finally whispered back.

  “You’re grounded. You’re doing nothing but homework, school, and meals with Penny and me for the foreseeable future. I don’t understand why you do things like this. A fight is one thing, but breaking a girl’s nose and potentially getting involved in a lawsuit? You’ve been kicked out of three schools in the last year for fighting. I’d finally gotten over that, but now there’s this video? I thought you were doing so well. I just don’t understand where your mom and I went wrong. Why can’t you just be a good kid?”

  Lux could hear him whispering that last question again as he walked away, but it felt louder than if he had yelled. His eyes looked so disappointed, even though his words made it sound like he’d expected something like this from her all along.

  Lux felt it swirling, whatever it was that so often went wild inside her. She followed her dad into the kitchen and saw Penny heating up a bottle for Lillia; she looked at the black-and-white newborn portraits hanging on the wall, at his and Penny’s wedding photos. There were no photos of her here, like she didn’t even exist.

  And just like that, her mind took her back to her old apartment on the day he left, waking up and discovering him and everything he
owned gone. Tearing apart her room, looking for a note from him that she would never find. She didn’t understand then, but maybe him leaving without saying goodbye was the reason behind every mood swing she’d had in the last year. He left her and he didn’t even care until she’d gotten into enough fights that military school seemed like the only solution.

  Lux looked at her father and replayed all the ways he’d made her feel like she wasn’t enough. It made her want to destroy everything around her.

  “Why can’t I just be a good kid?” she shouted. “Maybe because you left me!” Penny dropped the bottle in her hand. From the other room, Lillia started crying, but Lux didn’t care.

  “Maybe because you love Penny and Lillia more than you love me! Maybe because you make me feel like crap all the time! Did any of that occur to you, Daddy?”

  She hadn’t said Daddy since she’d moved in, and she hadn’t realized it until that moment.

  Her father’s eyes went glassy, but Lux knew he wasn’t sad, just angry. Penny had to lead him back to their room. Lux realized then that her mother had been right all the times she’d said Lux got her temper from her father.

  * * *

  “So it was you. In that video.”

  The voice sounded low and seemed to be coming from under a pillow. When she pulled it away, Noelle’s face still showed on the screen.

  “You told us you came to Savage because your parents split up. But it was because of that fight.”