The (Almost) Perfect Guide To Imperfect Boys

by Barbara Dee

  “Uh-huh. Finley and I talked to him at lunch. He still had to hear from Fisher-Greenglass, but—”

  “And did he still have all those gummies hanging out of his—”

  “No,” I said. “He didn’t.”

  “But wasn’t he, like, kicked out of school for life?” Hanna asked.

  “Apparently not.” Maya shrugged. “Oh, and by the way, he’s totally hot now. Ask Finley.”

  Hanna and Olivia looked at me.

  “Yeah, I guess he’s cute,” I said, as if it had never occurred to me before right this second. “Cuter than he used to be. Taller. His hair covers up his ears and everything. But really, you guys, he’s still Zachary.”

  “Although Finley is convinced he isn’t,” Maya said. “She thinks this new-improved version is an imposter.”

  “I was just joking, Maya, okay?”

  “What do you mean, an imposter?” Olivia demanded. “You mean like those high school kids who got paid to take that test?” At Fulton High a bunch of kids were caught cheating on an SAT, so we’d been hearing about it nonstop from Fisher-Greenglass. Every Thursday this semester she’d been lecturing us in an assembly called Transitioning to High School, except all she ever talked about was cheating, identity theft, plagiarism, hacking, and other fascinating felonies.

  “Actually, that would explain things,” Maya was saying. “Maybe Zachary paid Imposter Boy to take his place.”

  “You think Imposter Boy would take my Spanish test tomorrow?” Olivia said.

  “Sorry, he’s busy,” Maya said. “He’s already taking Zachary’s.”

  Okay, this conversation was officially becoming weird now. “Can we please talk about something else?” I begged. “Anyhow, who cares about Zachary Mattison?”

  “Not Finley,” Maya said. “Because she has a functioning brain.”

  “Not Maya,” Hanna teased. “Because she’s totally in love with Dylan.”

  “Untrue, actually,” Maya said.

  “Maya is over middle school boys,” I explained.

  Olivia laughed. “What does that mean?”

  “No comment,” Maya said, squinting off in the distance.

  Olivia and Hanna turned to me, like I had some big insight to contribute here, but I just shook my head. Because, honestly, I didn’t.

  “So, Maya,” Olivia teased, “then in that case I guess you don’t care that Dylan says he’s coming to Chloe’s party.”

  Maya glanced at me. “What party?”

  “Oh,” Olivia said. “You guys all know about it, right?”

  “Remind us,” I said.

  “The one this coming Saturday night?” Olivia was smiling, but her eyes were panicky. “Chloe invited like the entire class.”

  “Right, that one.” I gave Maya a look. “Yeah, it sounds sort of fun, but, unfortunately, we can’t make it.”

  “Oh no! Why not?”

  “Maya’s brother is having this other thing, and he said we could come. So.”

  Maya’s cheeks splotched pink. Her brother, Nick, was in eleventh grade at Fulton High, but all he ever did Saturday nights was play video games. So obviously he was not having this other thing, and even if he were, there was no way we’d be invited.

  “Cool, a high school party,” Olivia said, a little too enthusiastically. I could tell she didn’t believe me.

  Then Hanna’s cell rang, some kind of Mozart-sounding ringtone. “Right, I’m on my way,” she mumbled into her phone. She slipped the cell into her bag. “Sorry, you guys. Gotta go.”

  “Already?” Olivia said, pretending she was surprised Hanna was leaving.

  “Major lesson. We’re performing on Sunday, so I guess I can’t make Chloe’s party either.” Hanna said it like she was apologizing to us, which was slightly, um, awkward. And not even necessary, since Hanna never went to parties. At least as far as I knew.

  “Too bad,” Olivia told her. “Well, have fun . . . practicing.”

  “I wouldn’t call it fun,” Hanna said, but she was smiling when she said it.

  We watched her get into her mom’s car. Mrs. MacPherson waved at us, we waved back, and then she drove off to Hanna’s major lesson.

  “The girl is obsessed,” Olivia commented. “Obsessed.”

  That was when we heard Chloe’s laugh, and saw her bursting out of the building with the following entourage: Jarret, Kyle, and Sabrina Leftwich. Jarret and Kyle were practically glued to her lately, and Sabrina was her newest lapdog. Maya and I knew that Olivia had been Chloe’s top lapdog just a few weeks ago, and that she and Sabrina were now competing for the so-called honor.

  Maya gave me a pleading look.

  “Well, so I guess we’d better take off too,” I said casually.

  “Really?” Olivia’s eyes darted over to Sabrina, who was shaking her dark red hair and laughing way too loudly. “I think I’ll hang out here another minute. I need to ask Chloe something.”

  “Hey, don’t let us stop you.” Maya yanked my arm. “Come on, Fin, I’m freezing.”

  “Don’t forget, Finley, you’re taking my picture tomorrow,” Olivia called.

  “Right,” I answered. “When you aren’t looking.”

  She stuck her tongue out.

  “No really, I’m serious,” I called over my shoulder. “It’ll totally capture your essence.”

  • • •

  Maya and I slogged through some grimy slush for about two blocks, not saying anything, my peacock-blue Keds getting soaked, my toes getting numb, my nose starting to drip.

  Finally, Maya said, “So. Chloe’s having a party.”

  “Yeah,” I answered, sniffing. “Apparently.”

  “And apparently she invited, like, the entire grade.”

  “You don’t know that, Maya.”

  “She invited Dylan, didn’t she? Even after What Happened?”

  Maya said this like I knew exactly What Happened, even though technically I wasn’t there. Sure, I was at Chloe’s day-after-Thanksgiving party, but when What Happened happened, I was sitting on the flowered sofa watching Ben Santino play Xbox. The truth was, parties like that had been excruciating for me ever since I fell out of crush with Kyle Parker. So I’d decided that maybe I wasn’t giving certain boys a chance. Maybe it wasn’t fair to remember them peeing on the rug in preschool or picking their noses on the school bus. Maybe I was doing that Fulton thing of focusing on one stupid detail from someone’s personal ancient history, and then writing them off forever. I mean, boys were supposed to evolve, weren’t they? That was the whole point of the Amphibian Life Cycle.

  So there I was squished next to Ben Santino, trying to convince myself that he was a Croaker verging on Frogdom, that his hair wasn’t greasy and he didn’t still tease me about the way-too-short-bangs disaster and that he could possibly have a conversation about some topic other than the Green Bay Packers when suddenly we heard Chloe shriek.

  Because (for some unknowable reason) she’d decided to step into the laundry room, where Maya and Dylan were sitting on a stack of towels, talking.

  What Maya told me was that Chloe yanked the towels away and yelled specifically at her about respecting people’s property—which probably meant the towels, because if it meant Dylan, that would just be too twisted. Because how could Chloe imply that Dylan was her personal “property”—even if, according to Olivia, she’d had a “secret crush” on him since sixth grade?

  Anyway, the moral is, that was the last Chloe party we were invited to.

  “And why am I being punished but not him?” Maya demanded. “How come she invited Dylan?”

  “This is Chloe we’re talking about, so who knows,” I replied. “And don’t forget, she didn’t invite me, either.”

  “She didn’t invite you only because of me.” Maya tugged at the fringes of her scarf. “Chloe doesn’t care about you, Finley. It’s me she hates.”

  I sighed. “She doesn’t hate you, Maya.”

  “She does. She absolutely does! You heard how she blamed me for tha
t Spanish test tomorrow!”

  “Yeah, that was unfair. And really unfair of Señor Hansen.” Which made me sound like Zachary Mattison today at lunch, when he’d heard we had Hansen again for Spanish. Not fair, he’d said in an almost Tadpole way.

  I immediately changed the subject. “And by the way, I can’t believe you told the class about me taking photos.”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Maya argued. “I think it’s awesome.”

  “But I have zero interest in boring yearbook photography! I mean, other than doing yours. And besides, I’m still learning how to work the camera.”

  “You’re doing amazing with the camera! Remember that cartwheel shot you took at lunch?” Maya wiped her nose with a crumpled wad of tissue. “And anyhow, how did we get on this topic? We were talking about Chloe, and how she’s trying to ruin my life.”

  A Fulton Middle School bus roared past us, spraying slush on all the cars. Out of an open window some fifth-grade uber-Tadpole was yelling, “YOU SUCK, SUCKBRAIN!” And then another one stuck his head out and yelled, “SO DO YOU, SUCKBUTT!” Ah, boys that age. How charming.

  “Oh, and did you catch all that cutesy ‘I hate you’ stuff with Olivia?” Maya asked, completely ignoring the display of gross Tadpole manners. “Since when did Olivia start talking like Chloe?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They do hang out together, Maya. Like all the time these days.”

  “Which is insane! I mean, come on, Olivia isn’t blind. Can’t she see how nasty Chloe is? And spiteful? And power crazy?”

  I shrugged. Because I’d learned that when Maya started ranting about Chloe, she wasn’t really looking for answers. And truthfully, I’d never understood the whole Chloe mystique, anyway. So I’d never understood why Olivia had traded us in for Chloe.

  When we got to Maya’s street, she said, “Okay, Finley. So what about Saturday night?”

  “What about it?” I asked doubtfully.

  She smiled. “Are we going, or aren’t we?”

  “To the party?” I stared at her. “Of course not! We weren’t invited.”

  Her smile shrank. She didn’t answer.

  “Maya,” I said. “We weren’t. And really, why do you even want to go? It’s just going to be the same people, the same food, the same music—”

  “The music isn’t the issue, Fin.”

  “So what is? I mean, you really want to stand around eating cold pizza and watching Chloe spy on Dylan?”

  This was kind of harsh on my part, but I was starting to feel nervous. “Besides,” I added, “didn’t you tell me at lunch today, ‘Oh, I’m so beyond middle school boys, lalala’?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Finley, you knew exactly what I was saying—I’m just sick of all the immaturity. And the point is, who’s Chloe to decide what I do or don’t do on Saturday? Who gave her that power?”

  You did, I thought.

  We crossed the street, where they hadn’t picked up the garbage yet, so between the slush piles and the trash cans it was incredibly tricky to walk. Finally, we ended up in front of Maya’s driveway.

  I cleared my throat. “Um, listen, can I just say something?”

  She shrugged one shoulder.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said. “But seriously, Maya, nobody else makes you feel this bad. You’re an incredibly strong person. So if Chloe tortures you all the time, why can’t you just—”

  “Look, it’s a little hard to talk about.”

  This surprised me, because talking was always easy for Maya. Especially on the subject of Chloe. “So say it fast, all right?”

  She didn’t. She just stood there biting her chapped lip.

  “Is it about What Happened with Dylan?” I asked.

  “Not just. I really . . . don’t think I can explain it very well.”

  “Come on, at least try.”

  “No,” she said, squinting down the street. “What I mean is, I can’t explain it to you.”

  Okay, maybe I wasn’t hearing this right. Maybe there was some extra earwax in my ear. Also, I was wearing a thick wool hat. So possibly that was interfering with my ability to follow this conversation.

  “Why not?” I asked, forcing a laugh. “Why can’t you explain it to me?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Because it’s about boys,” she blurted.

  CHAPTER 5

  At first I did a did you really just say that? snort of disbelief. Then I managed to say, “Excuse me?”

  Because you just don’t let someone say that to you.

  Not even your best friend.

  “I’m so sorry,” Maya said, touching my jacket sleeve. “I don’t mean you don’t get boys in general. Just that, you know, since you’ve never had an actual date . . .”

  Unlike her, she meant. And Chloe. The only girls we knew who’d gone on official date-dates.

  Even though Maya’s barely counted, because the “dates” happened over the summer at gymnastics camp, and consisted of walking into town for ice cream like maybe four times with a ninth grader named Bryce.

  A.k.a., Bryce Cream (my secret name for him).

  But now Maya’s actual date comment felt like a slap. And by the panicky look on her face, I was pretty sure Maya knew it.

  So I decided to turn it into a dumb joke. “Acchhh,” I said, frowning. “Vut iss dis date zink you speak of?”

  “Ha ha.” She wasn’t smiling, though. “You’re not mad at me for saying that?”

  “Why would I be? I mean, hey, compared to you and Chloe and your vast dating experience—”

  “Shut up.” She was splotching pink, but giggling now.

  “Because really, how could I possibly comprehend—”

  “Okay.”

  “—the whole concept of boys in general—”

  “Okay, Finley. I apologize. It came out all wrong, it wasn’t what I meant, and you know I’d never, ever think that about you. I’m just upset about this stupid party.”

  “Well, don’t be,” I said. “Because it’s just a stupid party.”

  “I know, I know! And I shouldn’t obsess about Chloe, but . . .” She raised her eyebrows and clasped her hands in front of her mouth. “You forgive me, right?”

  “Yes, of course.” I grabbed my camera out of my jeans pocket and zoomed in on Maya’s face. And . . . click.

  She laughed. “What was that?”

  “Your yearbook photo. You had a really interesting expression.”

  I showed it to her. It was a cross between hopeful and embarrassed, which was not a look she had often. Also, her hair was shiny.

  “Kind of cool,” she admitted. “Though maybe not for the yearbook. But thanks, Finley.”

  “You’re velcome.”

  She threw her arms around me, squeezed tightly, and ran inside her house.

  For a few seconds I just stood there, replaying the weirdness that had just happened.

  Never mind, I finally told myself. Maya wasn’t accusing me of boy illiteracy. She knew I was just sick of all the Tadpoles and Croakers we’d been dealing with since preschool. She was sick of them too; that’s why she’d told me she was giving up on middle school boys.

  And of course, Maya and I were doing the Life Cycle together, so it wasn’t like she was noticing more boy stuff than I was. Frankly, lately I’d been writing most of the entries, doing the upgrades, keeping the chart in order. So she couldn’t say I wasn’t paying attention. Or that I didn’t understand what I was seeing.

  Also, she didn’t mean she and Chloe were competing about boys. I was sure of that—Maya was smart and athletic; she had much better things to compete about. And competing about boys (even Froggy ones, like Dylan) was pathetic. And stereotypical. And a little bit twisted, too, if you asked me.

  I slipped my camera in my pocket and began the slushy walk home.

  • • •

  When I opened the door, the front hall was crunchy. By that I mean that when I took off my Keds, I felt tiny, gritty chunks of
something attaching themselves to my feet.

  “NO!” I heard Addie shout from the kitchen.

  “Just one bite,” Mom was pleading.

  “Nonono,” Addie answered.

  “But, Addie, you like this cereal!”

  “No,” Addie said. “Hate dis cereal!”

  Silence.

  “Okay, Max, then what about you?” Mom asked. Now her voice was perky and pretend-cheerful; she sounded crazed.

  “NO,” Max yelled. “BOOM!” Something clattered on the tiles, possibly a plastic sippy cup, which last week Addie had confirmed was tantrum safe.

  I tiptoed past the kitchen, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the Terrible Two. But in addition to being “highly opinionated consumer experts” (Mom’s phrase), my two-year-old twin siblings had superhearing.

  “Finneee!” Addie yelled. A different yell, a happy one. “Fiiinneeee!”

  “Finley, is that you?” Mom called desperately. “We’re in here!”

  Dang.

  I went into the kitchen. Max and Addie were sitting in recycled-plastic toddler seats shaped like cars (spearmint green for Addie, stop-sign red for Max), tossing fruit-sweetened Smiley-O’s all over the tiles.

  “Hey, guys.” I kissed Addie’s wispy hair and Max’s sticky cheek. “How’s the research going?” I asked Mom.

  “It’s not,” she said, rubbing her temples.

  I picked up three sample-size boxes of cereal, which had obviously been hurled from the plastic convertibles. “You shouldn’t throw things, you two. Now look at the floor.”

  “Foo-wer,” Addie agreed. She gave me a dimply smile.

  Max hooted, steering his plastic wheel. “Gogogo!” he yelled so loudly I pulled my hat over my ears. “ZOOOM!”

  “No yelling!” I yelled. As long as I was channeling Señor Hansen, I added the unibrow. But it just made the twins laugh hysterically and start pelting me with Smiley-O’s.

  “They’re so fickle,” Mom said. “Yesterday they ate nothing but Smiley-O’s, and today they’re just flinging it around. I don’t know how I’m supposed to write a coherent review.”

  “You could say results were mixed,” I suggested, removing half a Smiley-O from my big toe.

  “Yeah, I guess I could, but readers like yes-or-no opinions. Should I buy this overpriced product or not.” She laughed tiredly. “Oh, and before supper I have to finish that podcast about double strollers; then I’m supposed to be taping an interview with the crazy anti-diaper guy. And how was your day?”