The Secret Recipe for Moving On

by Karen Bischer

  Willow, thankfully, had zoomed in on Rashad for most of the interview, so I’m only shown when I ask a question. Montague bursting into the scene is totally obvious, however. I can hear some of my homeroom mates giggling and ohmygod-ing over it and I’m afraid to turn around to count just how many are joining in. Of course they’d wake up and stop studying now. Of course.

  I squirm through all two minutes and twenty-eight seconds, even if my screen time is minimal. Rashad, for his part, is great. He could totally be interviewing on ESPN in a few years, he’s that at ease in front of the camera.

  “We’re going to tear them apart,” he says finally, and that’s when the camera zooms back and I’m suddenly smiling at the camera, all, “And it seems Montague would agree!”

  And that’s when my class, seemingly holding in their laughter till now, all start roaring. And not in a “Ha-ha, Robot Girl’s got a scoliosis brace” sort of way, but in a “That was actually funny” sort of way.

  “That was awesome,” Tom says, tapping me on the shoulder again with his pen.

  “Seriously, Montague was so loud!” Julia Ashito says next to me. “How did you keep your composure through that?”

  “I honestly have no clue,” I admit, and both Tom and Julia laugh.

  Later in the morning, I get a text from Alisha, responding to a “get well soon” basket of cookies I’d sent her:

  Thank you for the sweet eats! I’m feeling a lot better now, especially with the aid of cookies. Heard you kicked ass in your interview with Rashad. When I’m back, we’re going to the diner to celebrate! Welcome to RHHS TV, Ellie!

  The relief I feel over Alisha still wanting to be my friend is enough to power me through the day, but then there’s the added bonus of kids in my classes coming up to me and saying how much they loved the interview. And here I’d thought that no one even knew who I was for the last nine months.

  I mean, even in home ec, Rebecca Rizzo, who’s part of Jared’s family, is like, “Montague’s so freaking crazy. It’s a major feat holding it together like you did.”

  I’m about to say “Thanks!” when Jared gives her a dirty look, probably for fraternizing with the enemy. His group is only ten points ahead of ours, so that could be why.

  “What’s a major feat?” A.J. asks, returning from the pantry with a box of tinfoil. We’re making cinnamon toast, and he’s in charge of lining our cookie sheets.

  “Ellie’s interview,” Isaiah says. “Did you see it this morning?”

  “I did,” A.J. says. “I thought Montague was going to eat you guys.”

  That he doesn’t make a snarky comment about the interview is a compliment in and of itself, so I take it.

  I feel someone staring at me, and when I glance up, I notice Hunter look away. I wonder how much of that conversation he’d heard. I also suddenly ache inside, wondering what he thought of the interview. And then I kind of hate myself, because of course, like anything TV-station-related, he’d probably think it was dumb.

  This seesaw of emotions I have for him is never-ending.

  “Maybe you could interview Montague next,” Luke says. He’s standing across from me, digging out oven mitts from our drawer. “You seem pretty good at charming people, so a psychotic dog should be nothing.”

  I narrow my eyes at him, thinking he’s being sarcastic, but he smiles. “Nice work, Agresti,” he says, and pats me on the shoulder with an oven mitt as he makes his way over to the oven.

  I accidentally make eye contact with Hunter then. He quickly turns his attention back to washing dishes, but not before I can note the slightly wounded expression on his face and his slouching shoulders. I think he, dare I say it, might be a bit regretful.

  I suddenly want to give Montague a big pat on the head.

  CHAPTER 11

  Over the next few days, the sight of Hunter and Brynn doesn’t send me into a tailspin. In fact, aside from one teary moment at Cityscape Shoes when a friend of my mom’s came in and asked if I was still seeing “that boy with the hair who sings,” I’ve been holding it together. Funneling all my feelings of sadness and anger into beating them in class—we’re currently trailing his group by five points, and it’s super irritating—seems to have been the cure-all.

  I still go out of my way to avoid their haunts, though. And that’s how I run into Chris, when I’m taking the long “actively avoiding the cafeteria” route to my homeroom.

  “Ellie!” I hear him call. I peer over my shoulder and see Chris waving at me from the open doorway of the TV studio. “Hey! How would you like to do another story for us? Alisha’s got a doctor’s appointment this week and we need help.”

  “What kind of story?” I’m worried he’ll make me investigate the teachers’ union or something that would require me to be sneaky.

  He takes a long sip from his iced coffee before finally saying, “We’d like to do a piece on Luke Burke.”

  Of all twelve hundred Ringvale Heights students he could’ve named, that is the last person I expected to hear him say. He takes my furrowed brow for confusion, because he goes on to explain, “He’s, like, this huge competitive stunt biker. He just won a local competition last weekend. And there’s talk he could make it into the X Games in a few years.”

  I must be wearing an expression of complete shock, but Chris is all, “So do you know him?”

  “I do. I had no idea.”

  Chris’ brow furrows. “You guys aren’t close, are you?”

  Weirdly, I feel my face flush. “No! He’s just in my home ec group.”

  “Okay, I just don’t want this to be a conflict of interest or anything. Anyway, you and Willow could go down to where he trains and interview him, ask him a few questions about his training, you know, stuff like that.”

  I mean, it’s too weird for me to be interviewing Luke, right? What if I screw up and make him look bad in front of the whole school? And then we have to spend the rest of the year together in the same “family”? But I can’t tell Chris about my paranoia.

  “Um, okay,” I say.

  “Good,” Chris says, walking away. “We’ll need it for Tuesday’s broadcast, so if you can get it in by Friday, that would be awesome.”

  “I’ll ask him today,” I say, and he gives me a peace sign over his shoulder as he heads for the cafeteria.

  This should be easier considering I already know Luke.

  So why is there a giant knot forming in my stomach right now?

  * * *

  The prospect of asking Luke for an interview looms over the rest of my day and the knot in my stomach just gets bigger and tighter. I mean, we’ve talked in class, but I realize we’ve never had an actual conversation, hence why I didn’t know about his successful biking career. It’s going to be completely strange for me to be all in reporter mode and to talk to him as if I know anything about him or something.

  My hands literally sweat as I wait for the last bell to ring—I figure I can ask him after class, aka when there’s less of a chance of anyone seeing him laugh in my face and turn me down.

  You’re not asking him out, I think as I watch the classroom clock. This is to publicize himself.

  When the final bell rings and Luke exits the room, my heart starts to hammer.

  Calm down, I yell at myself. You wore his sweatshirt for crying out loud.

  I jog to catch up to him as he hits the main hallway.

  “Hey, Luke,” I say, taking a deep breath to try and slow my pulse. “Can I talk to you about something?”

  Luke stops and narrows his eyes, almost like he’s afraid of what I’m about to say. “Uh, sure.”

  I just blurt it out. “RHHS TV wants me to profile you.”

  Relief floods his face and he stands up a little straighter. “Me? Really?”

  “Chris Phan told me you won some kind of biking competition last weekend?”

  Luke shrugs. “It was just a local thing.”

  “Still. How come you didn’t say anything?”

  “I don’t know,
” he says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “It’s not like we share everything with the group, you know.”

  He has a point. “Well, maybe now more people will be aware of it.”

  Luke rubs his chin and seems to think it over for a long time. Finally, he says, “If you promise not to make me look like a douche, I’ll do it.”

  “Huh? You’re like an anti-douche.”

  Luke laughs. “That’s probably the best compliment I’ve ever got.”

  I feel the tips of my ears burning, making it obvious I’m delighted this exchange has turned out better than I thought.

  “Do you train somewhere near here? Maybe I can interview you there?”

  “Sure,” he says. “How about tomorrow? The skate park is over on Hampton Avenue, about five minutes from here.”

  “It’s a date,” I say, instantly feeling ridiculous. I feel the red creep from my ears to my entire face.

  If Luke notices, he doesn’t say anything. Instead he’s all, “Cool, see you tomorrow.”

  I’m about to head to my locker, when I hear, “Hey, Agresti!”

  I turn back around and Luke is smiling. “If you win a Pulitzer someday, I hope you remember this interview as the start of your success.”

  “You better be on in that interview, then,” I say.

  “Oh, I’ll be so on, you won’t know what hit you,” he says, pointing at me, then winking.

  I roll my eyes, but when I walk away, I feel myself smiling.

  * * *

  “So what’s Luke’s deal?” Willow asks as she drives us toward the skate park the next afternoon.

  “He’s apparently really good at bike tricks and stunts,” I say. “He won a local competition last weekend.”

  “Well, that explains him being with Greta. She’s really good at snowboarding, so I guess the extreme sports connection makes sense.”

  “A real power couple,” I say, forcing a laugh. Even the thought of Greta makes me nervous. Her larger-than-life personality must extend past the school’s walls.

  “Yeah,” Willow says. “But my ex-girlfriend was in her math class, and she said Greta’s supposed to go up to Canada for Olympic trials training sooner or later. I can’t imagine Luke’s going that way for college.”

  I don’t have a response for that. Despite our friendly exchanges of late, I’m not exactly one to be weighing in on Luke’s relationship. Still, I’m not sure how long-distance relationships work, especially when someone’s in another country.

  “This must be it,” Willow says, turning the car into the parking lot of the Ringvale Heights Indoor Skate Park and Biking Facility.

  Willow lugs her camera toward the building and I carry her footstool for her. There are two scrawny-looking kids, wearing pants and shirts that are way too big for them, standing on the ramp leading up to the building. They’re both holding skateboards, and when they see us coming, they eye us up and down.

  “Hey,” the kid wearing an orange hat drawls.

  “Hello, ladies, you coming to film me?” his green-hatted counterpart asks, cocking his head at us. “I’m the best thing you’ve ever seen.”

  “What are you, twelve?” Willow asks, looking more amused than annoyed.

  “Age ain’t anything but a number,” he says, winking.

  Willow rolls her eyes. “Glad to see they’ve added charm classes to the middle school schedule.”

  “I’ll be your Prince Charming if you’d like,” orange-hat guy says, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “Agresti! Willow! You beat me here!”

  The four of us turn around, and I see Luke riding toward us on his bike. The boys’ faces both fall.

  “Hey, Luke,” I say, waving and trying not to laugh.

  Both boys stand up straight. “Hi, Luke.”

  Luke looks from the boys, back to Willow and me.

  “These guys giving you a hard time?” he asks. “They’re in my beginner BMX class and I’m not above making anyone run suicides as a warm-up.”

  “No, Luke,” the green-hatted kid says. “We were just—”

  “—hitting on us,” Willow says matter-of-factly.

  Luke’s eyes widen. “Wow, you guys are a lot ballsier these days, huh? When I was your age, I wouldn’t even dream of looking at such enchanting women, let alone hitting on them.”

  Enchanting? I have to choke back a laugh.

  “We’re sorry,” the orange-hatted kid says. “We saw the camera and got excited.”

  “That’s understandable,” Willow says. “Everyone likes the idea of being on camera. Except for Ellie, of course, even though she’s pretty good at it.” She gives me a hip bump.

  The boys skate off and we make our way up the ramp leading into the building. Luke holds the door open for us. “Shall we?”

  I’m so close when I scoot past him that I can smell the woodsy fabric softener again, coming off his fitted, bright-blue T-shirt, which he wasn’t wearing in class before. “Enchanting?” I say, choking back a giggle.

  “What? You’re light years out of a seventh grader’s league,” Luke says with a smile. “Plus, they could use a good vocabulary lesson. The only word they know to describe girls is ‘hot.’”

  I start to laugh when a voice booms out, “Hey, man! Junior Vert Champion Luke Burke is in the house!”

  We both turn to see a grinning, skinny guy with a crew cut walking toward us.

  “Hey,” Luke says. “This is Willow and Ellie. They’re filming me for my school TV station.”

  “Sweet,” the guy says, then bows. “I’m Vince, if you should ever want to cover BMXers who aren’t half as good as this guy right here.”

  Luke shakes his head. “Too bad you go to St. Mark’s.”

  I take a minute to scan the giant room. It’s like a gym, except there’s a variety of ramps set up at different angles all over the place. There are even stairs and handrails in the middle of the room, where this gangly blond kid is practicing jumps on his skateboard. At the far end of the ramp-riddled expanse is what looks like two giant ramps facing each other.

  Luke must be following my gaze because he’s like, “That’s a half-pipe. I’ll show you my moves on that today. Have you ever watched a BMX vert contest before?”

  Willow and I shake our heads.

  Luke smiles. “That’s okay, most people outside the extreme sports world don’t know it exists.”

  “Well, all of RHHS is going to know it after this!” Willow says.

  “He’s gonna blow your mind,” Vince says.

  Luke frowns. “Don’t set them up for disappointment, man.”

  Vince chuckles. “Are you kidding me, dude?” He shakes his head at Willow and me. “This guy right here is a machine.”

  Luke looks at the ground, but he’s fighting a smile, and I can tell he’s enjoying the praise. “So, how should we do this?” he asks, rubbing his hands together.

  Willow lifts her camera up. “Why don’t you show us some of your moves, then Ellie can interview you after.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Luke says, shoving a helmet on and squeezing some elbow guards over his arms. “See you on the other side.”

  “We can sit down there,” Vince says, pointing to the edge of the half-pipe. “He’ll only need the middle section.”

  “Great,” I say. “Maybe you could explain some stuff to me as he’s doing it.”

  “My pleasure,” he says, smiling. We climb to the top of the ramp and sit on the edge, our legs dangling. Willow positions herself across from us, with her camera trained on Luke, who’s at the far end of the half-pipe. He starts riding up one side of the ramp and the bike jumps in the air, turning slightly.

  “That’s a 180,” Vince says. “It’s a pretty basic move. He had that thing nailed like the first week.”

  “Have you known him long?” I ask, as Luke does another 180 on the other side, a little faster this time.

  “Since he started here when we were thirteen,” he says. “He’s a natural. I’ve been doin
g this since I was nine and I can’t do half the stuff he does.”

  Vince cups his hands around his mouth. “Stop being modest. Do your thing, dude!”

  Luke gives a thumbs-up and rides to the other end of the pipe, climbing up one side. He sets himself there, then rides down, up the other side of the ramp, going much faster and higher than he did with the 180.

  “Here we go,” Vince says, clapping.

  I’m holding my breath as he moves up and down the sides of the pipe, the bike climbing higher into the air every time he leaves a ramp. On each jump, he executes a trick, like a 180 or taking his hands off the handlebars as the bike flies upward. Half of me is terrified he’s going to come crashing down at any moment and the other half is in total awe. His movements are so controlled and fluid. Graceful, even. It’s like the juggling, only way more … masculine.

  When Luke finishes his last move, which involves his legs splaying out and the bike twirling underneath him before he catches it between his feet, I start clapping. I mean, there’s no other reaction one could have after seeing something like that.

  Vince just laughs and shakes his head. “I told you. He’s the real deal.”

  Luke guides his bike to the bottom of the pipe, where he removes his helmet and runs a hand through his hair. He’s breathing heavily when he looks up at us. “What did you think?” he calls.

  I struggle to find the right words to describe it, and end up blurting out, “That was totally hot!”

  Vince literally falls over laughing when I say this and I feel my face start flaming.

  “No, not in that way. You know, like the moves were awesome, you know ‘hot.’” I say quickly, with air quotes and everything, but Vince laughs even harder. Luke’s face is red, but it’s probably because he was just defying gravity a moment ago and the blood had no other place to go. I’m relieved that he’s smiling.

  “I’ll take hot,” he says, riding over to us. “Hot is good.”

  Willow, mercifully, doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, she runs over and high-fives Luke. “That was awesome. Maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever shot!”