The Bermudez Triangle Read online

  The

  BERMUDEZ

  TRIANGLE

  The

  BERMUDEZ

  TRIANGLE

  A NOVEL BY MAUREEN JOHNSON

  The Bermudez Triangle

  RAZORBILL

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © 2004 Maureen Johnson

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Johnson, Maureen, 1973-

  The Bermudez Triangle / by Maureen Johnson.

  p. cm.

  Summary: The friendship of three high school girls and their relationships with their friends and families are tested when two of them fall in love with each other.

  EISBN: 9781101578735

  [1. Lesbians—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Coming out (Sexual orientation)—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J634145Be 2004

  [Fic]—dc22

  2004005093

  Printed in the United States of America

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  For the other sides of the hexagon:

  Shannon Skalski, Peggy Banaszek, Alexis Fisher,

  Laurie Sharp, and Dr. Kirsten Rambo

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks are due to Leslie Morgenstein, Ben Schrank, Josh Bank, Claudia Gabel, and Liesa Abrams. Special thanks to Eloise Flood, whose faith and enthusiasm made it all happen.

  For their insight: Elizabeth Freidin, Megan Honig, and the always-gracious Alexander Newman. For Kate Schafer, who has an uncanny ability to solve every crisis.

  And to Jack Phillips, for putting up with me. Someday I’m going to get you that pet monkey I’ve been promising for so long now.

  Table of Contents

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  45

  1

  The host stood at his podium under the pink-and-yellow neon arch and surveyed the three girls who had just come through the door. Avery Dekker stepped forward and gave him a huge smile.

  “Bermudez,” she said. “Two o’clock birthday party.”

  He looked Avery over, taking in her fishing hat and her For Good Luck, Rub My Belly T-shirt. His eyes passed to the two girls standing behind her. First they settled on the petite, pale redhead in a denim skirt and a pink tank top. Then they fell on the tall, cocoa-colored girl in a red summer dress and matching flip-flops. This girl looked around in bafflement.

  They were not the five-year-olds the host had been anticipating.

  “Just the three of you?” He looked expectant, as if he was hoping that Avery was about to produce a small child from the pocket of her oversized cargo shorts.

  “Just us.”

  “And who’s the … birthday girl?”

  “Right here.” Avery reached behind and grabbed the girl in the red dress by the hand. “This is Nina Bermudez. She knows the drill. She had every single one of her birthday parties here from the time she was eight until she was eleven. Didn’t you, Neen?”

  Nina was still looking around her, staring into the huge room that was just beyond the archway—at the video games, the indoor playground, the stage, and the costumed characters that mingled with the hordes of children.

  “Okay …” He sighed while grabbing a boxful of small party bags. “Come this way.”

  He led them through a sea of small running bodies to a booth, cheerfully decorated in red and blue streamers that were covered in pictures of a smiling cartoon mouse. At each place setting there was a festive party hat and a decorative plastic cup. Avery jumped into one of the seats happily.

  “Here are your tokens,” the host said, hesitantly giving them each a small yellow mesh bag. “You also get your picture taken in the ball pool. And you get a birthday show. Do you want that before your pizza or after?”

  “We don’t need to have the show,” Nina said. “It’s not even my birthday. My birthday’s in March, on Saint Patrick’s Day.”

  This was totally unnecessary information, but when Nina got nervous, she tended to give too many details.

  “It’s kind of the rule,” the host said apologetically. “You got the party package.”

  “Oh.” A rush of pink crept into Nina’s cheeks. “After, I guess.”

  “After.” He wrote this down on his pad. “Okay. Your pizza will be out in about half an hour. This is your … playtime.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Nina whispered across the table as soon as he was gone.

  The mechanical mouse behind Avery’s head started playing a song. Avery did a little seat dance.

  “Death, Ave. And they will never find your body.”

  “It was Mel’s idea too. We wanted to give you a proper send-off to camp.”

  “It’s precollege, not camp,” Nina said with a grin.

  “Whatever,” Avery replied, with a flip of her hand.

  Mel took the small conical hat from the table and planted it on Nina’s head, stringing the elastic over Nina’s Princess Leia buns, her signature hairstyle.

  “Oh, yeah.” Avery snickered, taking in the effect. “That is sexy. Sex-hay!” Avery looked around with an expression of undiluted pleasure on her face. She pointed to the play area, with its tangle of bright cubes and tubes and plastic webbing. “Everything is as good as I remember it. There’s the net where Mel got her hair caught and star
ted crying. And up there in the crawl tube, where those little yellow peepholes are, that’s where Sarah Nickles accidentally kicked me in the nose with her heel and I started to bleed. Good times. Why did we stop coming here?”

  “Because we started wearing bras and going to high school?” Nina offered, adjusting the thin elastic string that was digging into her chin.

  “Sarah gave us the name when we were here,” Mel said. “That was good.”

  “That’s right,” Nina said. “Because she was jealous that we were only playing with one another.”

  “Yeah, she was comparing us to some kind of evil vortex.”

  “It was still a good name,” Mel protested.

  The host returned with what he called a “bottomless” pitcher of soda. Avery tapped the base and glanced at the host suspiciously as she accepted it.

  “That’s going to be you in about three hours,” Nina said as he hurried away. “Just keep that in mind when one of your customers gives you attitude.”

  “Attitude?” Avery said, widening her eyes. “Moi?”

  Mel started filling all their cups with soda, trying hard to make sure everyone got the same amount of ice.

  “You’re going to call me every night, screaming.” Nina grinned. “I know it.”

  “We’re going to be waitresses at a high-class restaurant for adults,” Avery said with dignity as she tried to affix her party hat to her fishing hat. “P. J. Mortimer’s Fine Food and Drinks Emporium. Conveniently located in the same shopping center as Wal-Mart and Home Depot. The best Saratoga has to offer.”

  “We have to wear tweed caps,” Mel said, passing Nina the first cup. “And green shirts with shamrocks on them.”

  “And suspenders,” Avery added. “We can’t forget the suspenders.”

  A girl about their age with two long blond braids and a Polaroid camera came over to the table. She had a stiff, straight smile that must have come from endless hours of being around swarms of screaming children—the kind of smile that looked like it might require muscle relaxants to uncurl.

  “Ready for your picture?” she asked cheerfully.

  Avery bounced out of her seat and hurried toward the giant pen of colored balls. Mel gave Nina a gentle nudge out of the booth. Avery was already sitting on a plastic tree stump, pulling off her red Chuck Taylors. Mel untied her white-and-pink Pumas. They both stepped over the short wall into the balls. Nina went to follow, but the girl with the camera stopped her.

  “You have to take your shoes off,” she said.

  “They’re just flip-flops,” Nina replied.

  The girl pointed to a sign that read: BE COOL, NO SHOES IN THE POOL!

  “I have to go in there with bare feet?” Nina asked.

  “That’s the rule!” The girl smiled brightly at this, as if she were telling Nina that she’d just won a pony.

  Nina kicked off the flip-flops and stepped gingerly into the pit, feeling the cool tarp under her toes. The balls came to a spot halfway up her thigh. Since she was wearing a dress, it was very difficult for her to move and keep her balance. She had to lean forward, holding her arms out in front of her, mummy style. Mel was having similar problems in her skirt (though she did have the advantage of small socklettes). Avery was having no problems at all. She had gone in deep, almost to the far side. A few children glanced at her with baffled expressions, wondering why their zone had been invaded by this older person.

  Nina waded a bit farther in toward her, cringing with every step.

  “I feel something wet,” she whined.

  “Probably just soda or something,” Avery said with an evil grin.

  “Since I’m in here, we’re doing Triangle Power!” Nina shouted.

  “I am not doing Triangle Power.”

  “We’re in a ball pool, and now you’re worried about looking stupid? Triangle off!”

  Avery sloshed her way over. They arranged themselves in a triangle pattern and took hands.

  “Okay,” Nina said, looking at each of them. “We need the power to get through ten weeks apart. I need the strength of mind to get through this program and kick ass. Mel, what do you need?”

  “Well,” Mel said, biting her lip, “I’m going to miss you, so I need some help with that. And this job requires a lot of talking to people, so I can’t be shy.”

  “Good.” Nina nodded. “Avery?”

  “Let’s see,” Avery said. “It probably would be good if I didn’t kill any customers, so I need some help with my people skills.”

  “All right,” Nina said, “so we call on the power of the Triangle. Everybody say it with me.”

  Even though they hadn’t chanted it in years, no one needed reminding of the words:

  Look at us, we are the three

  Nina, Mel, and there’s Avery

  Shout it loud, then shout it louder

  Shout it out, Triangle Power!

  “Okay!” the girl said. “Everyone ready?”

  “Do it!” Avery called.

  “Smile and look at my hand!” She had put on a mouse puppet and was holding it next to the camera.

  “Beautiful,” Avery whispered.

  The Polaroid coughed out a picture. The girl quickly inserted it into a glossy card with four punched-out corners. Nina carefully made her way back out of the pit.

  “You love us,” Avery said, jogging over and throwing her arm over Nina’s shoulders.

  “Remember, Ave.” Nina was getting caught up in all the nostalgia. “The last time we were here, we were playing Spice Girls. That was our girl-power mantra.”

  Avery narrowed her eyes. She prided herself on her taste in music and hated to be reminded of things like that.

  “I was a juvenile then,” she said. “My record has been cleared, and the spirit of Jack Black has purified my soul.”

  “Be good or I’ll tell everyone how you used to do that dance to ‘Spice Up Your Life.’ I’ll bet the guys at the vinyl store would love to know that.”

  “At least you got to switch,” Nina said. “I always had to play Scary. Make the girl with the curly hair play Scary.”

  “Ave switched too.”

  Avery was still very consciously not acknowledging this conversation.

  “She was better as Posh,” Nina said to Mel. “It was embarrassing to have a Sporty Spice who couldn’t do a cartwheel. But she could do that little Posh walk.”

  “I don’t remember any of this,” Avery said. “You must be thinking of someone else.”

  “If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends …” Nina sang.

  “It’s going to be so sad when you leave.”

  “You miss me already,” Nina said, throwing her arms around Avery’s neck. “Don’t you?”

  Even the joking about Nina’s leaving was too much for Mel. She got out of the ball pool.

  “See what you did?” Avery said, though she didn’t really look so happy herself. “Don’t you know she’s going to be crying on my shoulder for the next ten weeks? You’re going to have to stay.”

  “It’ll be nothing,” Nina said, continuing her careful walk across the frightening tarp. She couldn’t let herself get upset. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

  Two hours later Nina was back in her room at home, gazing at the suitcases sitting open on her bedroom floor. She double-checked the color-coded Post-it notes that lined the edge of her desk, each one detailing a certain type of item: exercise clothes, casual clothing, dress clothing, sleepwear, underwear, sheets, towels. Everything was accounted for and had been packed in space-saver bags in between layers of dryer sheets. All of her toiletries were sealed up in Ziploc bags.

  She poked into her carry-on and examined her computer and cords, her phone, her charger, her MP3 player, Starbursts to chew on takeoff and landing, the photo from the ball pool that afternoon. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be, just like the last four times she’d checked.

  Nina sat on the edge of her neatly made bed and looked around her room. She di
dn’t want to touch anything, as she’d spent several hours cleaning and arranging it so that everything would be in perfect order on her return. She had Endusted, vacuumed, and Windexed. Her bamboo shades were lowered, making the room dark. It was as if the place had been prepared for some stranger who was coming to stay.

  There was a knock on her door. Her mother poked her head in.

  “All right,” she said. “You’re confirmed. The flight’s on time.”

  “Great.”

  “Nervous?”

  “No,” Nina lied.

  “Ready to go to dinner?”

  Nina nodded. It was all happening now. An early dinner. A flight from Albany to Newark, where she’d get on the connecting flight that would take her to San Francisco. Once there she would have to find her contact from the program at the airport. She’d planned for this moment for months, yet she felt like it was sneaking up on her now, tearing her away from her mother, her bedroom carpet, her bed, and her friends. She wouldn’t have a kitchen to raid whenever she felt like it. She wouldn’t have a private bathroom. She wasn’t even going to know anyone.

  She wished her dad could be here, but he was traveling on business. Her brother, Rob, was an intern at Boston Medical and never had time to sleep or eat, much less come all the way to Saratoga Springs to help his little sister get on a plane. And Avery and Mel were at orientation for their new job.

  You’re being such a baby, Nina told herself. Everything’s going to be fine. It’s just until August.

  She stood up, pulled on her denim jacket, and grabbed the second suitcase.

  2

  The Emil Watts Summer Program for High School Leaders wasn’t actually run by Stanford University, it was just attached to the school during the summer. The students lived in Stanford dorms and used Stanford classrooms and the Stanford library, but the program’s organizers constantly made it clear that Stanford was merely the host—as if the EWSPFHSL (pronounced “Oohspuffhisill”) was some kind of parasite living in the belly of this great center of learning.

  There was an unceasing cycle of orientation activities—lectures, a library tour, a mass trip to the bookstore for textbooks, well-organized games of Twister in the dorm lounge. Every morning the students took statistics and microeconomics, the mandatory college-credit classes. Every afternoon was spent in a rotating series of seminars and discussions on government, multicultural issues, leadership techniques, current events, and effective writing skills.