Thirteen

by Lauren Myracle

  “How about Esme?” Sandra said.

  “Ew,” I said.

  “I kind of like Esme,” Mom said from the counter, where she was peeling a peach.

  “I vote ‘no’ on Esme,” Dad said. “How about Peach?”

  “Yeah!” Ty said.

  “I vote ‘no’ on Peach,” Mom said.

  “Why not?” Dad said. “It’s cute. Peach. And if movie stars can name their babies ‘Apple’ or ‘Pilot Inspektor’ or ‘Chutney,’ then why can’t we name ours ‘Peach’?”

  “Because we’re not movie stars, thank goodness,” said Mom. She opened the freezer and drew out a bag of frozen blueberries.

  “How about Mary, like Jesus’s mom?” Ty said. We’d put out our crèche the night before, so Mary was on his mind.

  “Mary Perry?” I said. “Blech!”

  “Well then how about Terri?” Dad said. “Or Kerri? Or Terri-Kerri?”

  “Terri-Kerri Perry?” I said.

  “Loud noise coming,” Mom warned. She pressed down on the plastic top of the Magic Bullet, which was an early Christmas present from Dad’s parents, and a violent whirring prevented further discussion. The Magic Bullet was a high-powered drink blender, and when Mom first opened it, she laughed. But now she loved it. She made smoothies with it every morning because it was such an easy way to get vitamins and nutrients. Vitamins and nutrients were very important to her these days.

  The whirring stopped, and Mom poured and distributed our blueberry smoothies.

  “I know! Blueberry!” Dad said. “Blueberry Perry. It’s perfect!”

  “Enough,” Sandra told him. “If you’re not going to say something productive, don’t say anything at all.” She took a swig of smoothie, then bared her teeth, knowing they’d be flecked with blueberry skin. We’d quickly learned that of all the fruits, blueberries were the most tooth-sticky-ish.

  Ty giggled.

  Mom said, “Sandra, must you?”

  Dad, of course, insisted on bringing the conversation back to him. “I can’t believe you called me unproductive. Just because you don’t like every suggestion I make, that doesn’t mean it’s not productive. It’s called brainstorming!”

  “No, it’s called a waste of time,” Sandra said. “And some of us don’t have the time to waste.”

  “Hey!” Dad protested.

  We regarded him, all four of us. He was alone in the wilderness on this one.

  Although to be honest, the truth of Sandra’s proclamation went beyond Dad’s particular brand of annoyingness. The Name Game was fun, but normal life galloped along as well, and we all had plenty else on our minds.

  For Sandra, it was the stress of college applications, which were due in one week. Technically, the deadlines weren’t until the middle of January, but Westminster required the seniors to turn in their completed forms before they went on break. Then Westminster would mail them out, after making sure that all the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed. This wasn’t normal procedure, I knew. This was hardcore private prep-school procedure, and it had Sandra pulling her hair out.

  Ty had a lot on his plate, too. He was the copresident of a new club at school called the Bad Scary Dry Cleaners, and he had a lot of responsibilities, like chasing girls around the playground.

  “What do you do if you catch them?” I asked when he first told me about this. I vaguely remembered a similar chasing game from last year, when the first grade girls tried to kiss the first grade boys.

  “Nothing,” Ty said. “Then they chase us, and we scream, like this.” He emitted a sonar-high squeal. “Did I sound like a girl?”

  “No, you sounded like a boy, because you are a boy.” He was always trying to “scream like a girl” these days. I was determined to ride it out. “Why do you call yourselves the Bad Scary Dry Cleaners?”

  “Because we run around and scare people.”

  “But why the Dry Cleaners?”

  “I don’t know. And that might not be it, but something like that.” He exhaled loudly. “You can see why it is a lot on my plate.”

  Well, sure. ’Course I could.

  Mom and Dad were wrapped up in boring Mom and Dad stuff, that’s what kept them busy, and for me, there was the great and daunting task of completing my Christmas list. By that, I meant making my list of what I wanted to get for everyone, not what I wanted for myself.

  Cinnamon and Dinah were easy: I was going to get them both “Life Is Good” shirts. So cute. I’d picked stuff out for Mom, Dad, and Sandra as well; as for Ty, his present was already bought and wrapped. It was an iridescent green lizard stuffed with rice or beans or something. Whatever it was, it made it super heavy. I imagined Ty draping the lizard over his shoulders and walking around with it. I knew he’d get a kick of it.

  But Lars…ack. What to get for Lars? It needed to be special and romantic and awesome, but not too special and romantic and awesome. Not overly so. The point was for him to love it, not for him to get tense and think, you know, that I thought we were more than we were.

  Whatever that was.

  And in addition to Christmas pressure, there was the question of me and Lars that kept my brain spinning. There was something wrong between us, much as I hated to admit it. Or maybe not wrong, but…not right. What was it?

  The Lars who lived in my brain had such potential. He was the perfect boyfriend: funny and sweet and charming and kind. And the real Lars had all that inside of him, too, I knew he did. But sometimes it got stuck, somehow.

  Or maybe the problem was me, and the fact that I worried about it too much. Why couldn’t I just open my heart to him and love him the way he was?

  Love. Eeek. Big scary word.

  I would never say that word to Lars. Cinnamon said the L-word to Bryce, after they fooled around in her bedroom one day when her dad was late getting home from work. But he didn’t say it back. Her explanation was that boys take longer with that stuff, but I didn’t know. I worried for her.

  However, I had a date with Lars tonight—he was coming over to watch a movie—and I was determined to let go of my tightness and just have fun. That was the best way to make things work between us.

  To do that, I needed to be my most relaxed, and to be my most relaxed, I needed to feel confident and beautiful and all that. Which called for a nice, long bubble bath. And a book! A lovely, delicious book which would fill my mind with ideas completely separate from my pathetic concerns. And then I’d be more interesting, and Lars would like me better. And maybe I’d like myself better, and all would be good.

  I downed the rest of my smoothie, took my glass to the sink, and headed upstairs. I had a lot to accomplish: it was time to get cracking.

  By six-thirty, after a spa day of my own making, I was as good as I could be. Well, almost. I leaned toward my bathroom mirror and put the finishing touches on my makeup, which meant a dab of lip gloss, the tiniest bit of blush, and mainly a whole lot of staring at my reflection.

  I looked okay, I decided. Glossy hair, pretty eyes, clear skin. I’d gone for a jog after my bath (which was stupid, as it meant a whole ’nother shower), but on the plus side, I felt healthy and strong. Even though, to be honest, it was more of a jog-walk-slog, complete with huffing and puffing and hatred of the many neighborhood hills. But I was exercising, that’s what counted. I was a liberated, focused, exercise-loving girl. Yeah!

  By seven, which was when Lars was supposed to be here, I was chilling on the sofa with Ty, watching Hannah Montana and working on the ironic smile I’d flash when Mom ushered Lars in. I know, I know, my expression would say when his eyebrows lifted at our choice of shows. But what can I do? He’s in second grade!

  I’d work in mention of my jog, too. Like, maybe when Miley was onstage strutting her stuff, I could say, “God, that’s got to be such a good workout. And speaking of workouts…” Something like that?

  By seven-thirty, I was ready for Lars to be here already. Why wasn’t he? Had he gotten a flat tire? Ty and I were on our second episode of Hannah
Montana, and it was nerve-racking staying so chill and relaxed. I did a quick dart to the bathroom to check my lip gloss, then scurried back to my hanging-out pose on the couch.

  “Watch it,” Ty said. “You almost made me spill my chocolate milk.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  By eight-o-five, Lars still wasn’t here, and Ty had switched the channel to TBS so he could watch Full House. He loved the littlest sister, Michelle, and fine, I did, too. She was cute, that single melded version of Mary-Kate and Ashley, who would later morph into gaunt, spooky club girls.

  But an ironic smile could only stretch so far, and Lars catching me watching Full House was most likely beyond its limits. So I picked up the phone and called him, knowing it was the right thing to do, even though it made my palms sweaty.

  “Um, hi, Mr. Mitchell,” I said to his dad, who scared me. “Is Lars there?”

  Mr. Mitchell didn’t say “hello” back, but just put the phone down and bellowed, “Lars!” Which told me that Lars was there—der—and which made me abandon my flat-bike-tire theory. I gripped the phone.

  “Winnie, hey!” Lars said when he picked up. He sounded absolutely normal: not sick, not wounded, not the slightest bit apologetic about not being here. Not even aware, as far as I could tell, that he was supposed to be here.

  “Um…” I cleared my throat. “Weren’t we…weren’t you…”

  “Oh, crap,” he said. I could practically see him hitting his forehead, like someone on a sitcom would do. Like Miley’s dad on Hannah Montana had in fact done only minutes ago, when Miley confronted him about an unsigned permission slip. Miley hadn’t gotten to go on her field trip, all because of him.

  “Winnie, I suck,” Lars said. “I got busy on the computer and I completely spaced. I suck!”

  “You don’t suck,” I said automatically. But in my brain, I thought, You got busy on the computer?!

  “We’ll catch our flick another time. Next weekend, okay?”

  “It’s only eight,” I said.

  “You’re sweet. But nah, I’m not going to do that to you.”

  Do what to me? “I don’t care. Just come over.”

  “How about Saturday? Saturday for sure.”

  I felt lost. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it—I didn’t want to act desperate—but I didn’t understand. Didn’t he want to see me? Would he seriously rather kill time on the computer then sling his arm around me on the basement sofa and crack jokes about the ridiculous things the characters in the movie did?

  “Okay,” I heard myself say, because what else could I say? But he had let me down, again. And I wondered, as he told me I was the best and then got off the phone, when I was going to do anything about it.

  The next morning, Cinnamon called in tears.

  “Bryce broke up with me!” she wailed.

  “Oh, Cinnamon!” I said. “No!”

  “One week before Christmas,” she said. “One week before Christmas. And I just bought him that sweater, that one from Abercrombie! And he was going to love it, he was going to look so good in it…” Sobs caught in her throat.

  “Did he say why?” I asked. “Did you guys have a fight?”

  “He did it on Facebook,” she said. “That’s how I found out. All of a sudden his status is listed as ‘single,’ and when I called him, he was like, ‘Yeah, I wanted to tell you in person. Sorry.’”

  I felt it like a blow in my gut, and I knew Cinnamon must be feeling it ten thousand times worse. “That is so lame,” I said. “That is so low.”

  “Will you come over? I need you to come over.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  I brought her a raspberry mocha from Starbucks—tricky to keep from spilling while on my bike, but that’s the kind of stud I am—and I listened as she went over it again and again: how stunned she was, how shattered, how broken-hearted. How she hadn’t seen it coming. How she would never fall in love again, never ever ever.

  Dinah came over, too. She rubbed Cinnamon’s back and said, “Maybe he’ll realize he made a mistake.”

  Cinnamon gazed at Dinah with overly shiny eyes. Her lashes were damp with tears. “Do you think?” She turned to me. “People don’t always mean it when they break up, do they? People get back together all the time!”

  “Um…” I said. I wasn’t sure how smart it was, encouraging this line of thought.

  “Maybe he’ll realize he had a temporary burst of insanity,” Dinah said.

  “Or maybe he won’t,” I said.

  Cinnamon made a sound of indignation.

  “I don’t think you should falsely get your hopes up, that’s all,” I said.

  “Not falsely,” Cinnamon argued.

  “Not falsely,” Dinah agreed.

  I gave Dinah a hard look, and she lifted her shoulders, like, What am I supposed to do? This is our friend. She’s hurting.

  “I just think…” I started.

  “Yes, Miss I’m-in-a-Perfect-Relationship?” Cinnamon said.

  I bristled. This wasn’t about me. She shouldn’t make it about me. But for her sake, I squashed my irritation.

  “I just think you’ve got to believe a person when he says something,” I said. I told them the whole story of last night and how Lars got too busy on the computer to come over. I offered it as a gift, to prove that my relationship with Lars wasn’t perfect.

  “But he said he’d make it up to me, so what was I supposed to do?” I finished. “I could harp on him and make him feel bad, or I could believe him and be like, ‘Okay’.”

  Dinah seemed puzzled. “What does that have to do with Cinnamon and Bryce?”

  “Are you saying I harped on him?” Cinnamon demanded. “And that’s why he broke up with me?”

  “What? No! I never—”

  She tilted her head. “And Lars didn’t get sucked into the Internet, or whatever he told you. He was hanging with Bryce. Bryce told me.”

  “Oh,” I said. My heart did a flippy thing. “So…they both got sucked into the Internet. They were probably playing computer games.”

  “Nose-Ring Girl was there, too,” Cinnamon said. Her expression had a burning quality to it. “And her friend. Stephanie. They dropped by in Nose-Ring Girl’s MINI Cooper, Bryce said.”

  I tried to process this. Nose-Ring Girl? MINI Cooper? I’d seen her in it one day as she pulled into the high school parking lot, and it was blue and white, cute as a button. How was I supposed to compete with that?

  “Bryce told you about his night and broke up with you, all in the same conversation?” Dinah asked.

  Cinnamon raised her eyebrows. “Apparently so.”

  Tears sprang to my eyes. Lars had lied to me. He lied to me because he’d rather hang out with Nose-Ring Girl than me. You’re sweet, he’d said. You’re the best.

  “Oh, Winnie,” Dinah said, reaching over to rub my back.

  Cinnamon went from looking as if she’d won something to looking as if she’d lost it right back again.

  “Who knows?” she said dismally. “Maybe they’ll both change their minds.”

  On Monday, Dinah and I protected Cinnamon from the evil Bryce, and Cinnamon and Dinah protected me from the evil Lars. Except he wasn’t evil. He was Lars. And when he finally caught me on the quad without my bodyguards, he said, “Hey, babe. I looked for you after lunch. Where were you?”

  I shrugged.

  “I saved you this,” he said, pulling a cookie wrapped in a napkin out of his jacket pocket.

  “Gee, thanks,” I said. He considered a cafeteria cookie some great gift?

  “Aren’t you going to take it? It’s peanut butter. Your favorite.”

  “Peanut butter’s not my favorite. Chocolate chip is.”

  “Second favorite, then.” He tried to get me to make eye contact. “Winnie? You okay?”

  I shrugged again.

  “Win-nie,” he cajoled. He tickled my ribs, slipping his hand inside my jacket and finding my most tender spot.

  I pushed h
im away, but despite myself, I smiled. If only he weren’t so cute! It would be a whole lot easier to stay mad at him if he weren’t so cute.

  He saw his advantage and ran with it, ducking in to steal a kiss. “Are we getting hot chocolate today?” he asked. Sometimes we walked to 7-Eleven after school and got hot chocolate from the machine. In warmer weather, Slurpees.

  “I don’t know, are we?” I said. “Or do you have other plans, like maybe getting sucked into the Internet again?”

  Did I imagine it, or did he look nervous?

  He did. He glanced away and folded his fingers over the cookie, which by now was probably crumbled.

  Do it, I told myself. Confront him about Nose-Ring Girl. If you don’t, you’re a total wimp and should be lashed with a whip.

  “If you want hot chocolate, then I’m taking you out for hot chocolate,” he said. “My treat.”

  “Ooo, big spender,” I said. Hot chocolate from 7-Eleven was ninety-nine cents a cup.

  “Anything for my girl,” he said. He smiled, crookedly at first, and then with more confidence. He lashed me with the ol’ Lars charm.

  When I got home, full of hot chocolate but lacking a spine, I tried to figure out, again, why it was so hard to stand up for myself when it came to Lars. Was it because I liked him so much? Didn’t want to lose him? Didn’t want to be the girl who was dumped, like Cinnamon?

  I found Ty in the basement making trophies out of duct tape. He had a whole collection; he’d gone duct tape crazy after the taping-up-his-pants incident last year. He’d made himself a duct tape vest and a duct tape ball cap, both of which he occasionally wore to school. More power to him, I’d finally decided.

  “So how are things with Lexie?” I asked. I wanted to hear some good news in the realm of girl-boy relationships. More than that, I just wanted some sweet, innocent Ty love. Maybe that would make me feel less tainted. “Do you still like her?”

  “Yes, I am in love with her, and she is in love with me,” Ty said, intent on his trophy. He ripped off a piece of hot pink tape and wrapped it around the base. “But I do not like her friend.”