The Stranger Read Online Free Page B

replaced? “Hi, Christo,” she said. He had not even noticed how she skipped a beat before answering him.
    The teacher had visited England last year and, sad to say, taken along his camera and several million rolls of film. Today he had yet more slides of where famous English authors had lived and gone to college and gardened. It was the gardening that most amazed Nicoletta. Who could possibly care what flowers bloomed in the gardens that no longer belonged to the famous—and now dead—authors? In fact, who could possibly have cared back when the famous authors were alive?
    Nicoletta sat quietly while the teacher bustled—fixing his slides, flipping switches, lowering screens, focusing.
    Christo murmured in her ear. “Nicoletta?”
    His use of her whole name startled her. She turned to look at him, but his face was so close to her they touched cheeks instead.
    “There’s a dance Friday,” whispered Christo. “I know it’s late to be asking, but would you go with me?”
    Nicoletta was stunned. Christo? Who showed affection to everybody equally? Christo, who never appeared to notice whether he was patting the shoulder of Nicoletta or Rachel or Cathy, or—now—Anne-Louise? Christo, for whom girls seemed to be just one generic collection of the opposite sex?
    Christo. Who was certainly the best-looking and most-yearned-for boy in school.
    She absolutely knew for a fact that Christo had never had a date.
    One of the things Madrigals spared you was dating. You had your crowd; you had your portable group. You had people with whom to laugh and share pizza. Rarely did any of them pair up, either within or without the group.
    On the big white screen at the front of the class, appeared a dazzling slide from inside a cathedral. Great gray stones held up a gleaming and terrifying stained glass window. The glass people were in primary colors: scarlet arms, blue gowns, golden heads. If Jethro were hers, she, too, would be as vivid as that: Together they would blind the eye.
    If I go to a dance with Christo, how can Jethro ask me out? Nicoletta thought. I want to be with Jethro.
    Christo’s hand covered hers. She dropped her eyes, and then her whole head, staring down at his hand. His hand was afraid. She could feel uncertainty in the way he touched her. Christo, who touched everybody without ever thinking of it, or knowing he was doing it, was fearful of touch.
    The slide changed and a gargoyle appeared on the screen. Carved stone. An unknowable man-creature stared out from oak leaves that were both his hair and his beard, which grew into him and, at the same time, grew out of him. It’s Jethro, thought Nicoletta.
    “That sounds wonderful,” she murmured, mostly to Christo’s hand. “I’d love to go. What dance is it?”
    “Fund-raiser,” said Christo. “It’ll be at Top o’ the Town.”
    A famous restaurant where in years past her father had taken her mother for special occasions, like Valentine’s Day or their anniversary. Nicoletta had never been there. It was not a place that people wasted on children.
    I’m not a child, thought Nicoletta. I’m a young woman, and Christo knows it. Christo wants me. He doesn’t want any of the others. Not Rachel or Cathy. And not this Anne-Louise. But me.
    She looked nervously at Christo in the half-dark of the classroom. He was truly nervous. His easy smile puckered in and out. He had needed the dark to do this; he had chosen a place where they could not possibly continue the conversation or else people would hear, and because lights would come on in a moment, and the teacher would begin his lecture.
    She was amazed at the discovery that Christo was afraid of anything at all, let alone her.
    But when she looked at him, she still saw Jethro.
    Who is Jethro? thought Nicoletta, that he has consumed me. Who am I, that I am letting it happen? Mother is right; daydreaming and fantasy are silly and only lead to silly choices. I’ll stop right now.
    Then came chemistry.
    Then came