by Coco Simon
Or did I? A familiar lump started rising in my throat, the same lump I’ve learned to swallow for years.
I turned to Michelle. “Hey, Michelle, are you going to the field hockey game this Saturday?”
Michelle nodded happily. “I need to take some photos for the school website.”
“Maybe I’ll join you,” I said. “I think it would be fun to sketch some of the players in action.”
“Hold up,” Lindsay said. “I thought you were on still objects. When did you graduate to sketching people… in motion?”
I could tell there was a little shade in her tone, like she didn’t think I could do it.
“You don’t learn unless you try,” I said, leaving it at that.
Lindsay gave me a long look, then opened her mouth a bit like she was going to say something else. But she stopped herself and instead shrugged and took another bite of her sandwich.
I didn’t get into the deep conversation I’d had with Matt at our last campfire night before camp ended. Or the countless hours I’ve started to spend lately in my room obsessing over every feature of my photography subjects, studying anatomy and sketching different body parts over and over, eyes, legs, collarbones.
At first, my subjects looked like aliens with gangly arms and oversize heads. Now my human sketches were finally starting to look amazingly… human.
I was just about to bite into Lindsay’s turkey sandwich when I heard a familiar voice behind me.
“So what do we have here?”
I didn’t have to turn around to know whose voice that was. My face went hot.
“Hi, girls. Hey, honey,” my mom said.
“Hi, Assistant Principal Peters,” said Michelle.
“Hiya, Mrs. Peters!” Lindsay called out.
“Hi… uh,” I said, still not sure what to call her.
“I see you girls are still sharing your lunches. I’m sorry to rain on your parade, but your pastime of swapping food is not permitted at Bellgrove Middle School. With so many food allergies going around these days, school administrators decided it’s better to be safe than sorry. As you may remember, this was discussed at orientation.”
“Oh, I forgot all about that,” said Lindsay.
“But we aren’t allergic to anything!” I protested, surprising myself with my own loudness.
One… two… three… four… inhale. One… two… three… four… exhale.
“It’s in the school handbook, Casey. There are no exceptions,” Mom said with one of her sharp looks that let me know she meant business.
With that, Lindsay took my half of her sandwich from me, gave me back my half, and continued eating.
But I was furious.
“But Mom!” I wailed.
Some boys at a nearby table turned and laughed.
“Rules are rules,” Mom said, before walking away.
“It’s okay, Case,” said Lindsay.
She patted my shoulder and struck up a conversation with Michelle when she saw I wasn’t saying anything.
Fuming, I ate in silence for the rest of lunch period.
When lunchtime was over and I stood up, the boys at the next table mimicked, “But Mom! Mom!”
I ignored them, wondering how I was going to draw some boundaries at school between me and my assistant principal mom. Because this wasn’t going to work.
Ugh. This sort of thing was everything I’d ever feared. I couldn’t wait for this day to be over.
Chapter Six Boys Are Clueless!
Later that night, after I finished all my homework, I was alone in my room, staring at my cell phone like all the answers to my questions were locked inside.
Mostly, I was thinking about Matt.
What’s he doing right now?
Is his home life crazy or what?
Is there something or someone new taking up all his time?
Another girl, maybe?
Doesn’t he miss me… even a little bit?
I had sent him a sketch of the campfire at camp that afternoon, hoping that it would warm his heart and maybe jog his memory of the long talk we had in front of it.
Even though I hardly heard from Matt, I was constantly being reminded of him. I mean, I couldn’t even walk past a pack of marshmallows in the grocery aisle without some memory awakening. Like the night he toasted marshmallows for me by the bonfire. He didn’t even like marshmallows, but he knew I loved them.
“I’ll cook, you eat,” he said, roasting each one to crispy perfection before handing off the stick to me.
I also remembered the night he inspired this fire drawing of mine. The first thing I noticed about him at orientation was a black notebook he was carrying around. It reminded me of my own trusty sketchbook. In fact, almost every time I saw him, he was holding that black notebook.
After weeks of friendship, I finally had the courage to ask him what was inside it. The bonfire was blazing that night. It was mesmerizing, how the flames licked the night sky.
“Oh, this?” he said. “I’m just writing the story of my life.”
I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but not that. I laughed, and his face changed into a defensive mask.
Matt had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, and I kind of liked this about him, because I did too.
“What’s so funny about writing down some of the details of what happens in my life?” he asked.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at your hobby. I think it’s actually kinda cool,” I said, and I meant it.
“First of all, it’s not a hobby, and I’m not doing it to be cool. I’m doing it to stay sane,” he said. Then he looked at my sketchbook. “So…what you got going on over there?” he asked.
“I hear you,” I said. “Meet my therapist, Ms. Sketchbook.”
Matt laughed and flashed a sly grin.
“Can I get a peek? Come on! Let’s swap notebooks,” he suggested.
That stopped me in my tracks. I’d never shown anyone my notebook before, not even Lindsay.
“Okay, but seriously just for a minute!” I said.
It was going to feel like showing someone my heart and soul, but at the same time I was dying to get a peek into this boy’s world.
“Okay, bet,” said Matt. “Book swap, go.”
Opening Matt’s writing notebook felt like falling into a Netflix series. His handwriting was really hard to read, so I had to squint a lot, and I didn’t always know who or what he was talking about, but in that endless minute I was shocked to learn that a boy my age could go through so much and have so many feelings.
I was amazed by how many pages he filled with up with life stuff. My life was nowhere near as interesting. I wondered if I would ever be added to his pages, if I would ever be a supporting character.
After a minute we traded books again.
“So what did you learn about me?” he asked.
His face looked almost… nervous.
“That I’ll need a magnifying glass to decode that chicken scratch of yours!” I blurted.
He laughed, looking relieved.
“You know,” he said, watching me in a new light, “I’d secretly guessed that you were really good at something. I was right.”
“Oh, you’re just saying that,” I said.
“Hey, if your drawings weren’t amazing, I wouldn’t say anything. But they are just that good,” he said. “What inspires you?”
“Photographs,” I said. “I draw off photographs that I take of everyday things.”
“That’s cool,” he said. “Hey. Have you ever frozen a memory in your mind? When I write, I paint the memories with words. Sometimes I want to explain a scene exactly as I remember it, like how crooked someone’s smile looked, or how wild the sunset was the day my uncle died. Description is not my strong point, but I’m getting better at it.
“I bet you could do something similar for your drawings. Then you wouldn’t need photographs as inspiration.”
“How do you… freeze a memory?” I asked.
“Well, what I’ve had to learn to do is basically pay attention to everything!” Matt said with a laugh. “And every now and again an image will come my way and I just know it’s something that I’ll want to remember for the rest of my life.
“That’s when I take a mental picture. I look at it with my full concentration, tuning out everything else around me. I just focus and snap the picture. Then I keep remembering it over and over again. That’s how it begins to freeze.”
“Wow” was all I could say.
This sounded complicated, but I wanted to give it a try.
“Okay, let’s make that our homework from camp. Let’s choose something from this scene to take a mental picture of to draw or write about. Deal?”
“Deal,” I said.
So for the rest of our time by the fire, I tuned out everyone else around us, since some of the remaining campers were still milling about in groups and clusters, roasting marshmallows and the like.
My eyes kept going back and forth between the fire and Matt, the fire and Matt, wondering which mental picture would come out the clearest.
Fast-forward to this afternoon, weeks later, back in Bellgrove, in the grocery store with Mom. I came across a bag of marshmallows and of course thought of him.
I sent Matt a sketch of the campfire when I got home and texted him.
Remember this? You cook, I’ll eat.
It took him hours to respond.
Coolio.
He’s truly the king of one-word responses.
What irked me the most was that I knew Matt could write. When I looked at his notebook, I could tell he noticed details most people didn’t.
So how could a boy who knows how to capture a moment so perfectly with his words, not have anything perfect to write back to me?
I couldn’t help but feel that there was some kind of miscommunication happening. Just like with everyone else in my life.
I was scrolling through our old texts when Gabby breezed into my room, holding up two dresses. She had just come home from dance practice, looking so carefree and happy. I took a mental picture.
As a dancer, Gabby’s bun game was always on point, and her long neck didn’t hurt that elegant dancer image. Since our white mom had curly hair and our black dad had straight hair, our hair texture was destined to have an identity crisis. Most days, I couldn’t put my hair into a neat bun to save my life, so I resigned myself to making the messy bun work for me.
“Okay, which one?” she asked, holding up the dresses. “For the party this weekend.”
One dress was a deep sapphire blue with an empire waist, and the other one was classic black with an asymmetrical hem.
Something I appreciate about my older sister is how much she appreciates my fashion sense! My mood lightened as I envisioned my sister at the party in each dress.
Though Gabby can never go wrong with black, I preferred the way the sapphire blue brought out the deep brown tones in her skin. I decided not to tell her this, because Gabby feels some kind of way about being the darkest girl in every classroom and at every party. I actually admire Gabby’s mocha skin, and she just happens to be the most beautiful girl anywhere she goes. Some guys get it, and some don’t.
“I’d say go with the blue,” I said. “I like them both, but unless you wear a lot of funky accessories with the black, it might seem a little too dressy, like you’re trying too hard.”
Gabby studied both dresses for a moment, then nodded at me.
“You’re right—as usual. Blue it is! Thanks.”
She was about to leave when she took another look at my face.
“You okay?” she asked.
I glanced at my phone again and sighed.
Gabby was no stranger to the universe of boys. They’ve been giving her grief for a long time. This made her super easy to talk to about this stuff.
“Are all boys clueless?” I asked.
Gabby laughed.
“Pretty much,” she said. “Why do you ask? Is there one actual boy making your life miserable?”
I nodded. “My friend Matt from camp. When we were together, everything was so great. He’s cool and funny and we shared things. But since I’ve been home, I’ve gotten exactly three texts from him in response to my reach-outs. And they were exactly one word each. If you consider LOL a word.”
“Please tell me you didn’t torture him with any cat memes,” Gabby said.
I lowered my eyes.
“I couldn’t help it, it’s a reflex.”
“You and your BFF are the only people on this side of the planet who think those are actually funny,” Gabby pointed out.
“Hey!” I said. “I got an LOL, okay?”
“Ha!” Gabby laughed, and sat on the bed.
“Anyway, as I was saying… that’s the thing about camp: you’re far from everything and everyone that’s comfortable and familiar. So any real connection you make there is going to be super intense. You two shared stuff in common, right?” she asked.
I nodded and gestured to a picture of Matt, tacked to my bulletin board.
“He was new to camp this year, a scholarship kid. So that was different. But get this, he’s biracial too, except his dad left when he was two, so he doesn’t really know him,” I said.
“There you go! I’m sure that being so alike and also so different made your connection extra intense,” Gabby said, examining the picture. “He’s cute. And you both have the same skin tone, too.”
I nodded.
Matt and I both share that in-between skin color that some biracial kids have, somewhere between beige and brown.
“But since you mention it, I think it was our differences that made us tick. I’d never met anyone like him before, and he’d never met anyone like me… that’s what he said.”
“Yes, but now it’s back to reality,” Gabby said, “and he’s home with people and things that are really important in his everyday life. Like his friends, his family, heck, maybe even video games—”
“Video games?!”
Was she serious?
I didn’t remember Matt mentioning anything about video games being a passion of his.
Gabby laughed.
“Yeah, girl. Haven’t you ever met anyone who was a gamer? I made a pact with my heart to never get involved. Those guys can sit in front of a screen and it’s over—until the next meal or bathroom break. They are obsessed,” she said.
“Well… Matt did ask me once if I played Minecraft,” I said.
Gabby nodded.
“There you go. Your boy is probably glued to a video screen as we speak,” she replied.
I groaned.
“Well, if that’s true, and I’m not a hundred percent certain that it is, why doesn’t he just text me and say he’s busy doing that?” I asked.
“Says the world’s best communicator,” Gabby said.
She winked and I shut my mouth.
“I’m just teasing, but not really. Look, the bottom line is… he’s a boy. And boys are clueless,” Gabby continued.
And with that, Gabby hopped away to her room, leaving me to ruminate over what she had just said.
Was Matt really as clueless as the other boys in my grade?
Or was it me?
Chapter Seven Heart-to-Heart Talk With Dad
That Saturday my parents made their delicious hot honey shrimp and waffles to jump-start the weekend. I came downstairs to find them cooking up a storm.
Gabby sometimes joked that if Mom and Dad ever decided to ditch their careers to open up a restaurant, they would put the Park out of business. With Donut Dreams in the equation, I wasn’t so sure about that.
At the stove, Mom was sautéing shrimp in a skillet, and Dad stood at her side, in front of his old-fashioned waffle griddle.
I stopped in the kitchen archway, and before I knew what I was doing, I was taking a mental picture. It was a rear view of Mom and Dad standing hip to hip at the stove, laughing together at one of their many inside jokes. Watching them so in lov
e reminded me of something Matt said to me at camp after listening to me complain about my parents for over half an hour.
He shrugged and said, “Well they sound like angels to me. I haven’t heard you say a rotten thing about them yet. You just have no idea how good you have it, that’s all.”
I now understood what he meant, and it made me see my parents in a different light, a lucky light. I watched them work around each other in our homey kitchen like it was a dance they’d been practicing for a lifetime.
The way Mom could sense that Dad was going to reach around her for a dishcloth and leaned forward at just the right moment. How he opened the fridge to take out the fresh strawberries and left it, knowing she was going to close it with her heel. They each had their job and helped each other out without stepping on each other’s toes.
Hashtag cooking goals.
“Morning, Case. I’m on driving duty this afternoon, so you know what that means,” Dad called over his shoulder.
YES! That meant he was taking me to the field hockey game on his day off.
This was great. Mom and I could use a break from each other anyway. After weeks of being together on the way to and from school, only to see each other in school, and at home… well, as they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.
I laughed.
“What it means is, you won’t have driving duty later, so Mom will be the one taking Gabby to that party,” I said.
Gabby, who was still upstairs getting her beauty rest, is always going to some lake outing or party. That’s because she basically gets anything she wants from our parents.
Her secret is no secret at all. Gabby is so amazing at everything she does—dance, academics, her ballet bun—that our parents would feel bad for denying her anything.
Mom turned around and grinned at me.
“True story, Casey. Your dad made sure to negotiate that one first thing this morning!”
Mom and I laughed. We all knew Dad absolutely dreaded driving his gorgeous daughter to parties where boys were present. His overprotective dad side always kicked in and he always said he had to fight the urge to turn the car around and take Gabby home.
