by Sheri Duff
CHAPTER FIVE
Lunchtime on a Tuesday, Vianna, Natalie, and I sit at the metal table outside the commons in front of the school. My jacket covers the steel so I don’t burn my legs. Nobody has reminded Mother Nature that it’s time for a cool down. My father’s truck is in the student parking lot, which means he’s taken the day off work and is hanging out with the football coaches. When I see him walking out of the building, I rethink my choice to sit outside. I should’ve known better. The athletic wing is too close to the commons area, and to this part of the outside seating.
My dad spots us and walks over to our table. He sits next to me. He relaxes his forearms on the hot table, elbows and all. “Ladies. Couple more weeks until the big game. Let’s fill those stands.” He fist-pumps the air, then relaxes his arms back on the table.
“We will, Mr. Trask,” Vianna answers him.
I kick at her under the table, but I miss. My father is the lineman coach, and during the fall he spends more time at my school than I do. It sucks. At least it’s a short week. The freshmen started yesterday; the rest of us came to school today.
My father keeps talking like he’s part of our group. “Alicia’s best friend from high school moved to Pine Gulch with her husband. She has a brother your age staying with them.”
Why is he telling me this? I know I want him to pay attention, but he really needs to learn when it is appropriate. When I’m at school, it isn’t appropriate. One would think he would learn something from his young wife.
At least he’s not going to give me the details about the honeymoon. Not that he would. Guys don’t do that sort of thing. Honeymoons are girlie stuff.
Besides, my father doesn’t know how to have a conversation unless it revolves around football. When he talks about football, he doesn’t leave a detail out. Dates, times, who ran the winning play at the third game of his second year of coaching flag football at the recreation center—he’ll pause to get every detail correct even though I don’t care.
My father keeps moving his mouth. “Kotenko is his last name. Alec—no, Jake—no, Jackson. I can’t remember his first name. I told Alicia you would watch out for him. Maybe show him around the school?” Now he’s looking at me instead of all of us.
Great, the second day of school and I’m supposed to watch out for the new kid who can’t make friends by himself? I don’t think so. Not going to happen, Dad.
“He plays football too.”
Oh, joy. Definitely not going to happen, Dad.
Football. Always football. What, is he trying to find me the perfect suitor? Before my father left my mom, he didn’t want me dating anyone. And now he’s picking out my boyfriends. What does he think this is, the late eighteen-hundreds in England, and football is some sort of social class?
My father’s not the king of anything.
“Dad, I gotta go.” I wait for him to say something: Bye, I love you, I miss you, anything. But he’s not paying attention to me. He’s scoping out the kids hanging outside, probably scouting more players. I leave the table. “Love you too, Dad.”
I don’t look back.
Natalie and Vianna follow me. Vianna says goodbye; Natalie doesn’t.
“He starts next week.” My father’s voice echoes after me.
Natalie and Vianna follow me through the front door of the school. When we hit the halls, we take a right toward the theater department. We have twenty minutes before class starts, so we head back outside to another seating area and secure a table just past the theater department, where my father will not find us. The football coaches never pass this side of the building, and neither do the jocks.
Natalie dumps her bag of polish on the table and searches for the perfect color. Vianna pulls out a notebook and last year’s yearbook for ideas. This year she’s the editor. I can’t focus on anything so I stare at the mountain range. Pikes Peak has a dusting of snow, even though we haven’t seen any in Pine Gulch. By tomorrow the sun’s rays will melt the snow and it will disappear like it was never there.
Kind of like my dad.
Natalie raises her left hand, scrutinizing the pink polish, which matches her cropped top. “My dad called me last night to see if I could watch Annabelle Moo-Moo,” she says.
“Why do you call her that?” Vianna asks. .
“Call who what?” Natalie asks.
“Your sister. Why do you call her Moo-Moo?” Vianna says.
“Half-sister. And because it annoys his wife. Who names their daughter after a cow, anyway?” Natalie turns her hand toward Vianna.
“Annabelle is cute.” Vianna squints, and then shakes her head at the color choice.
“I know, I know. The only problem is she’ll turn into her mother when she grows up. That’s what my mom says, anyway.” Natalie grabs the polish remover. “I can’t handle a bitch stepmom and a nasty little half-sister at the same time."
“That’s mean. She’s only, what, like five or something?” Vianna says.
The sad thing is even if Natalie wanted to like her baby half-sister or her stepmom, she couldn’t. Natalie’s mom took the divorce hard. Ms. Young locked herself in her room for the first month. When she finally came out, Natalie’s dad announced his engagement. That’s when Ms. Young stopped eating and lost a ton of weight. The first few pounds were fine. She looked healthy. But she wouldn’t stop the extreme workouts, and then she would only eat diet shakes, which made her lose her best qualities. Her high cheekbones caved in, and the muscles on her arms were replaced with skin that hung. She tried to flaunt her new body, especially after Natalie’s stepmom became pregnant. Now she hides her body. She can’t figure out why she still has the flab. Gaby says, “Skin isn’t flab, it’s skin—fill it in.”
“Who knows, maybe Annabelle will take on more of your dad’s traits,” Vianna says.
“And that would be so much better?” Natalie scrubs the polish off with a cotton ball. She digs into her skin like she’s removing an ink stain that won’t go away.
“Did you babysit her?” I ask.
“No. They won’t even pay me.” Natalie scrubs deep into her cuticles.
“It’s nail polish, not tainted blood.” I try to pull the cotton away from her.
I think about my dad and his new wife. What is next for them? Alicia isn’t too old to have kids. My father is a different story, but lots of old guys have second families. Natalie’s dad did. “I wonder if a new baby will replace me.”
“The question should be when, not if Alicia will replace you with her child.” Natalie says, matter-of-fact as she paints her right hand sparkly cobalt.
I can deal with a girl sibling. She, like me, would madden my father with more girl stuff: dolls, tutus, pink everything, and kittens. I’d tried to make my dad proud. I could throw a perfect spiral with a pigskin at the age of eight. I even played flag football. He was my coach. But by the time I was ten I wasn’t any good. I quit. My dad kept coaching.
I know my father secretly desired a boy, and I can never, no matter how hard I try, fulfill that need. Now he has a new wife. I’m sure a baby will follow soon. He still has time to shoot for his male offspring.
I pull a bottle of tea out of my backpack and pop the top off, then read aloud the words on the on the cap: “The human brain takes up two percent of your bodyweight.” Facts and quotes, I can’t get enough of them.
“Vianna’s stepmom’s boobs take up ninety percent of her body weight.” Natalie holds out her hands in front of her chest, showing the enormity of the fake boob job.
“There’s no energy left for her brain, that’s why she’s not very smart.” Vianna flips through last year’s yearbook.
“Tyler asked me to the Sweethearts Skate Night at the Fieldhouse.” Natalie pulls the yearbook away from Vianna and flips through the pages. Tyler has liked Natalie forever, I think since elementary school. Tyler is a good guy. But Natalie doesn’t think she deserves a good guy.
The three of us planned a girl’s night for that night since none of us had bo
yfriends. Because we don’t need boyfriends, right? I keep telling myself I don’t want Blake back. Even after the hundred text messages telling me how much I mean to him—okay, I could be exaggerating, but it was at least ninety-nine. He also left pink roses on my porch, and now that school has started, desperate tweets for the entire world to see have appeared:
this is killing me @massietrask
I miss the way my sweatshirt smells after you give it back @massietrask—what kind of boy says this?
why can’t I stop thinking about you…@massietrask
my heart hurts @massietrask
Our girls’ night was supposed to consist of movies, ice cream, manicures, and tons of gossip. Even if Natalie goes with Tyler, at least I’ll have Vianna with me. I don’t need Blake. I wonder about Mr. Do You Want To Dance.
But I’ve probably messed that up.
“You should go with Tyler.” Vianna turns to the page in the yearbook covered with Tyler’s face; it explodes on the page. And it is not a good picture. “He looks way better this year than he did last year.” She slams the book shut.
“Ouch! That was my finger.” Natalie pulls the yearbook away from Vianna. “Skate night is kinda lame anyway.”
I say, “For once, Natalie, don’t worry about what everyone thinks. Unless you’re doing something that is completely and utterly wrong. Like going out with that pig Colby.”
Colby goes to Northridge High and Natalie thinks she likes him. Natalie needs to forget Colby and go out with Tyler. Period.
“Tyler, sweet Tyler. Bright-eyed Tyler. Six-foot-tall, clumsy-on-his-feet Tyler. Ruffled, soft brown hair…you should definitely go out with Tyler,” Vianna says.
Natalie actually looks like she’s pondering the idea. Then she blurs out, “Colby also called me last night.”
So much for pondering.
“Ew.” Vianna covers her face. “He’s like the stuff they use in hamburger. The leftover parts of the beef they use to make the hamburger go further. Fatty portions and connective tissue heated up, then sprayed with ammonia gas to kill bacteria before it’s added back into the meat.”
“How do you know about crap like that?” I ask.
“My mom was researching it for her latest book,” Vianna says. Vianna’s mom is an author, she writes thrillers. I don’t want to know how she is going to use the “slime in the hamburger” stuff.
Natalie opens the yearbook again, scrutinizing Tyler’s class picture. I’m hopeful until she asks, “What’s wrong with Colby?”
“Basically he’s a dick, and you’re lame.” I pull the book from Natalie. “Tyler doesn’t even look like this anymore.” I look at the picture, hoping it’s not bad.
It’s horrible. His hair, it either needs combing or cutting. I swear it looks like he rolled out of bed and went in for his student ID, forgetting that the picture would also end up in the yearbook.
“I’m gonna tell Tyler no.” Natalie allows her face to fall into her hands.
Vianna grabs the book and storms back into the school.
“What?” Natalie shrieks. “I said I wasn’t going.”
“That’s the problem,” I say and follow Vianna back into the school.
Natalie chases us. “What? Tyler’s sweet, but…”
I hold up my hand, refusing to listen anymore. Natalie annoys me. I love her but she drives me absolutely insane. Not like I can talk, because obviously when it comes to making “smart choices,” as my mother would say, I suck when it comes to boys. Maybe I’ll have better luck at the skate night. We obviously aren’t going to be painting our toe nails and watching Pitch Perfect.
