When It Happens

by Susane Colasanti

She was definitely staring at me. Again. I’ve caught her doing it every day since I talked with Laila. And girls tell each other everything.That was part of the plan.

  I think she likes me. And I think Dave is turning out to be less than all that. So why should I wait until we’re partners to do something when I could be finding out how she feels right now?

  CHAPTER 17

  the problem with popularity

  october 4, 7:11 p.m.

  I have nothing to wear.

  I’ve already tried on everything in my closet at least twice. Nothing looks good. Tonight we’re doing a double date with Caitlin and Matt. Nothing I have even remotely resembles the insanely stylized world that is Caitlin’s wardrobe. I’m sure that shirt she was wearing yesterday was more expensive than all of my clothes put together.

  I’m huffing and stomping around my room in a frenzy. And then I remember. Mom just got this fierce halter top. She was trying to show it to me when she was in a rare good mood the other day. At the time, I was too fixated on the eventual return of her typical nasty mood to care that she was treating me like an actual human being for two seconds. But now I want that shirt.

  I turn the doorknob and pull my door open slowly so it doesn’t make that sticking noise. Sounds of a low grumbly voice and ridiculously outdated music and Mom’s fake laugh all mean one thing.

  Howard is here.

  Howard is Mom’s current man. She calls him her boyfriend, but I think calling him her boyfriend somehow negates the reality of his wife.

  I hate Howard. And I hate the way Mom acts when he’s around.

  As I’m sneaking down the hall to her room, the floor creaks. There’s this one creak that’s impossible to avoid. It shouts me out every time.

  “Sara!” Mom screeches. “Come say hi to Howard!” So now with only like fifteen minutes left to get ready, I have to go deal with this.

  He’s sitting on the couch drinking wine. She’s sitting on the rocking chair drinking wine. By the time Dave picks me up, the wine will be finished and they’ll both be in her room. Which means I really need to get that shirt now. She won’t even notice me leave with it on. Then I can put it back tomorrow with no problem.

  I peer around the corner into the living room. “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi there,” Howard says. “How’s it going?”

  I look at the floor.

  Mom clears her throat.

  I mumble something that may or may not pass for “fine.”

  “What’s new at school?” Howard says.

  The sad part is, he really is this clueless.

  “Nothing,” I tell the floor.

  “Why don’t you talk to Howard?” Mom says. I can hear the fake smile she has plastered on her face. They both make me want to scream. I get so furious that I’m forced to be nice to this guy or the guy before him or the guy after him. What’s the point of getting to know someone who’s going to disappear from your life when you least expect it?

  “I’m done talking,” I say. I head back to my room. I’ll try for the shirt again in a few minutes.

  As I’m about to close my door, Mom smacks it open. She follows me into my room and slams the door.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she hisses.

  “What?”

  “Why can’t you ever be nice to Howard?”

  “Um . . . let me think about that.”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “My problem?” I say. “Are you serious?”

  Mom crosses her arms. She glares at me. It’s obvious that she doesn’t really like me. She just keeps me around because she has to.

  “Maybe it’s that I want some privacy,” I say.

  “Privacy is a privilege,” Mom says. “You don’t earn it by being rude to guests.”

  “Guests? Is that what you’re calling them now?”

  Mom’s eyes narrow at me. She’s giving me that look she gets right before she starts yelling. But she’d never yell at me while he’s here. It’s like she needs him to think she’s a good mother. Which is a game I don’t feel like playing.

  “I have to get ready,” I say. “You can’t just barge in here and start ramming into me.”

  Mothers aren’t supposed to act like this. All uncaring about their kid. Only concerned with the way things look to everyone else. And I’m not sympathetic just because she’s had a hard time.

  Mom had me when she was sixteen. After my dad moved away, she dropped out of school and got her GED. Now she sells real estate and complains about how fucked-up her life is. She yells at me how I’m the reason she’s so miserable. Like it’s my fault she didn’t use birth control. So now Mom is angry at the world and angry at me for stealing her childhood, and she’s angry every single day. I don’t think she’s ever going to stop blaming me for something I didn’t even do.

  I’m tired of this. I need to feel like someone wants to be with me.

  By the time Dave and I are walking from the parking lot to the mall, I’m over it. The nervous excitement in my stomach goes into overdrive mode. Even though I’ve hung out a few times with Dave’s friends, this is the first official double date we’ve been on. And part of me still worries that I’ll do something dorky.

  We’re meeting Caitlin and Matt out front. It’s really nice out. It makes me feel like I can hold on to summer for a little longer. Which somehow exacerbates my nerves instead of helping me relax.

  “Cool pants,” Caitlin says when she sees me. “Where’d you get them?”

  “They’re just these random painter’s pants,” I say. “I don’t even remember.”

  “That’s hot,” Caitlin says.

  This astounds me. Now that I’m sort of popular by default, the cool kids suddenly like my style. The same style they’ve totally ignored for the past three years. I feel like that guy in Can’t Buy Me Love who pays the most popular girl in school a thousand dollars to make him popular. All he has to do is hang out with her, and suddenly everyone thinks he’s the hottest thing since TiVo. Watch my discount pants turn out to be the latest trend.

  “So,” Matt says. “What are we doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Dave says. “Did you guys eat?”

  “I’m starving,” Caitlin says.

  “Let’s eat,” Matt says.

  We go inside and walk around the first floor for a while. I feel like I’m all that. Hanging out with the most popular kids in school. The same as every other Saturday night.

  Caitlin pulls a pack of Orbit out of her bag. “Gum?” she says.

  “No, thanks,” I say. I don’t get the point of gum. You just chew it? I mean, I can see if you’re having a breath issue. But recreational chewing? And then there are those girls who cram a whole pack of grape Bubble Yum into their mouth and chomp it all loud with their mouth smacking open like a cow. Like Caitlin’s doing. It’s beyond repulsive. But she’s Caitlin, so she can get away with it.

  When we get to the escalator, I miss the first step and stumble.

  Matt goes, “That walking thing’s still a challenge for you, huh?”

  Everyone laughs. I laugh with them. But I don’t mean it.

  Standing in line at the food court, I try to be myself. But I forget how I usually stand when I’m myself.

  Caitlin gets a salad. This is apparently what size-zero stick-figure cheerleaders eat when they’re starving. I really want a cheeseburger and onion rings. But so I don’t look like a whale I get a salad, too. As if I can eat anything being this nervous.

  “Oooh!” Caitlin squeaks. “And I love your shoes! Where’d you get them?”

  She’s talking about these bootleg discount striped shoes I found in a clearance bin. It occurs to me that maybe she’s been making fun of me ever since we got here.

  “Uh,” I say. “Some random clearance bin.”

  This wipes the smile off her face instantaneously. I wait to see how she’ll handle this tacky bit of information.

  “Oh! Funny!” She laughs. She has this annoying squeaky laugh
to match her annoying squeaky voice. “I thought you were serious!”

  I crunch on my salad.

  Dave and Matt totally ignore us. They’re talking about basketball and video games and how they’re going to make loads of money after college being stock-market wizards. Then Caitlin joins in, and they’re all talking about something that happened last year that was apparently so funny root beer is coming out of Caitlin’s nose.

  I glance at the next table. It looks like a bunch of good friends, all comfortable in jeans and T-shirts. I’m sure none of them had to try on fifty different outfits before they felt even remotely acceptable to go out. The way I have to every time I go out with Dave. Everyone over there looks like they’re having the best time. Over here it’s like no one can risk busting a brain cell by talking about anything important. Now they’re all making fun of people. It’s like the Evil IQ-Under-100 Club.

  I go, “Why did he do that, though?”

  Dave’s like, “You had to be there.”

  They continue to screech about the incident I wasn’t there for like I’m not even here now.

  I crunch on my salad some more.

  Before this happened, I would have given anything to be here. But now that I am, I so don’t want to be.

  Then I see Robert Garten and Joe Zedepski sit down a couple tables over. I’ve seen Caitlin and Matt pick on them enough times to know that I shouldn’t say hi. But I practically live with Joe at school, and Robert and I are acquaintances. So I say, “Hey, guys.”

  Joe waves. Robert looks scared.

  Everyone at my table stops talking.

  “What are you doing?” Caitlin says.

  “Just saying hi.” I look over at Dave for support. He knows I’m friendly with those guys. But Dave doesn’t even turn to say hi to them.

  “Ohhh-kay,” Caitlin says. She rolls her eyes at Matt.

  Matt scrunches his straw wrapper into a ball and throws it at their table. Then he says, “Losers.”

  And Dave laughs.

  I can’t believe he’s such a follower.

  When we’re walking to the movie theater, Caitlin has a cow in front of this way-too-expensive store. “Ehmagod!” she squeals. “We have to go in!” She yanks my arm and pulls me toward the door.

  “Yeah,” Matt calls after us. “We’ll be down here.”

  “Oooh!” Caitlin yells. “Come look at this!”

  I reluctantly walk over.

  She goes, “Can these pants be any cooler?”

  “Not really,” I say.

  “Feel how soft they are!”

  But I already know how soft they are. I felt them a few weeks ago when I came in here to pretend that I could afford to buy whatever I wanted. What’s it like to be able to go into any store and get whatever you want and not even care about the price tag? Of course the price tag is the first thing I look at and I already looked at this one and that’s how I know these pants are a hundred and ten dollars and there’s no way.

  I feel them. “They’re so soft,” I say.

  “I’m getting them,” Caitlin says. She flips through the rack and extracts a size that would be too small for Barbie. “Aren’t you trying them on?”

  “Nah,” I say. “I already tried them on last week. They make my butt look big.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, well, come on!”

  When we get to the dressing rooms, I look around for a chair so I can wait. But Caitlin grabs my hand when the door opener isn’t looking and pulls me into the dressing room with her. She throws the pants on the bench and rummages through her bag. Then she pulls out a mint tin.

  “Want one?” she goes.

  “Sure.”

  But when she opens the tin, the mints look kind of weird.

  “What kind of mints are those?” I say.

  “Oh!” she laughs. “These aren’t mints.”

  I look more closely at the pills. They have weird symbols on them. It reminds me of the scene where everyone gets high in Garden State.

  “Uh . . . I’m all set,” I say. “Thanks.”

  Then Caitlin knocks her bag over and everything spills all over the floor. I bend down to help her pick stuff up. Including Heather’s credit card.

  “That’s just . . . she lets me borrow it sometimes,” Caitlin says.

  “Don’t you have your own credit card?”

  “I’m . . . yeah . . . just not on me.”

  It’s obvious she’s totally lying by the way she can’t even look at me.

  “Actually,” she says, “I don’t really need these. Let’s go.”

  By the time we find the guys snorting over porn magazines, I’m wondering what exactly I’m doing here. And what I saw in Dave that made me think he could be my ideal boyfriend.

  CHAPTER 18

  better for her

  october 7, 12:40 p.m.

  “Man,” Mike says, “I have never seen you this hooked on a girl.”

  We’re having lunch at the diner. Josh decided to stay in the caf to scam on some sophomore.

  Mike is trying to get the ketchup to come out of the bottle. He shakes the bottle over his cheeseburger like he’s trying to strangle it.

  “Tell me about it,” I say. “We finally talked yesterday, but it’s not enough. She’s still going out with that asshole.”

  Mike sticks a knife into the ketchup bottle. "Dude,” he says. He shakes the bottle over his plate. The ketchup spurts out everywhere. But Mike doesn’t see this because he’s looking at me and saying, "Maybe you’re making it—”

  “Watch it!” I point at his plate, most of which is now covered with ketchup.

  “Shit!” He starts scraping ketchup off his cheeseburger. “Do I want some fries with my ketchup or what?”

  “The knife technique apparently works.”

  “Right.”

  “Maybe I’m making it what?”

  “Huh? Oh. Well . . . maybe if you’re making it too easy for her, she won’t feel forced to do anything.”

  "Yeah....” This is way too complicated. I can’t figure out how to get her to see that I’m better for her than he is.

  “I have this vague recollection of you in your prime,” Mike says. “Back when you had balls.”

  I throw an onion ring at Mike’s face. It hits his left ear. Then I take another onion ring and dip it in mustard.

  “Never attack your master planner,” he says. He takes a huge bite of his cheeseburger.

  “Yeah, but your first plan sucked,” I tell him.

  “You’re just pissed because you fucked it up. You must have looked really good falling up those stairs.” Mike laughs. “Man, I wish I’d been there!”

  “Hey! She talked to me, didn’t she?”

  “I hate to be the one to tell you, but that was out of pity.”

  “I don’t know. . . . Talking’s not enough. I have to do something drastic.” I dip another onion ring in mustard. “Suggestions?”

  “You need me to wipe your ass for you, too?”

  “How much am I paying you for this advice again?”

  “What about gym?”

  “You know gym doesn’t count. All we do is run together. ”

  “You just need strategy.” Mike thinks for a minute. “Does Sara ever see you with other girls?”

  “Like who?”

  “Like anyone. It doesn’t matter. If she sees you with another girl, she’ll think there’s competition. Girls always like guys more when they’re less available.”

  Suddenly, I have my own plan. "You’re a genius,” I say.

  "What?” Mike says. "You just realized this now?”

  Our plans have been known to suck. But this one is pure brilliance.

  That night, I don’t speak during dinner. I’m still in planning mode.

  After dinner, Dad and I do the dishes. It’s my turn to dry. Mom’s upstairs. She has a headache. So at least we don’t have to listen to Simon & Garfunkel or Cat Stevens or any of her other hippie
jams. James Taylor’s cool, though.

  Dad washes the last dish. “Have you given college any more thought?” he says.

  All anyone’s been talking about at school is college applications. Mike is so frantic he’s scaring me. Even Josh is buying into the hype.We have to work on application essays, like, every day in English, which is seriously cutting into my lyric-writing time. And Ms. Everman cornered me in the hall the other day. She apparently thought it was possible to convince me to apply between third and fourth periods. Even Mr. Hornby wants me to apply to Manhattan Music Academy, where he went. And Sara’s in the top ten of our class. If I ever convince her to be with me, why would she want to get serious about someone who’s not even applying to college?

  "Your future depends on your education, Tobey.”

  “Dad. I know.”

  I bang a glass down in the drainer too hard. But it doesn’t break.

  “No,” Dad says. “You don’t know. If you knew, you wouldn’t be sitting around.”

  “I’m not sitting around.”

  “I don’t know what to do with you anymore.”

  “Well, it’s your lucky day, because in only eight short months I’ll be in New York. And then you won’t have to be embarrassed about your loser son anymore.”

  “Tobey. It’s not like that.” Dad sits down at the table.“I’ve been trying to get you to understand for...You weren’t like this when you were younger.”

  “That was before I got a life.” I wipe my hands and throw the towel on the counter.

  “Yeah, it’s important for you to be your own person. But part of achieving balance in life also involves being a responsible person.You’re responsible for your future.”

  “I know that. Don’t you think I know that?”

  “You don’t—”

  “Okay. Dad? This has nothing to do with you.”

  “It has everything to do with me!” he yells. He rubs his hands over his face. I can’t remember the last time I heard him yell.When he looks up at me, it’s like he’s going to cry or something.

  I sit down across from him. “Why do you keep trying to change me?” I say.

  “This isn’t about change. It’s about who you are. Who your mother and I raised you to be.” Dad leans forward in his chair. “You’re brilliant, Tobey. But that intelligence doesn’t mean squat unless you use it to create the best possible life for yourself. Being smart and not using that gift is a waste of your life.”