“Great!”
“Thank you!”
“It’s really not a problem. Believe me!”
I follow him to his car, which looks a little dusty, but also like you might not want to wash it in case the dust actually is the only thing still holding it together. I stare a bit, and he follows my eyes.
“Uh, yes.” He scratches his head. “I should have mentioned. My car is a piece of crap.”
“It’s a car,” I object. “That’s more than I have. And I think it looks, um. Cool.”
“That’s really nice of you,” he says. “But you don’t have to say that. It’s my aunt Diane’s old car and if she hadn’t decided to retire it I wouldn’t have one, either. It might actually break down any day.”
“Meg’s car doesn’t actually look that much better than yours,” I assure him, even though that’s not really true. “I’ve seen worse.” That is definitely not true.
He looks pleased and gets in behind the wheel; I slip into the passenger seat. The car is old enough to still have a cassette player. In the open glove compartment, I even spot some cassettes.
“Welcome to the nineties.” He laughs, looking a little embarrassed as I pick up one of the tapes to read the writing on the little white sticker on it.
“Automatic for the People.” I grin as I’m holding up the tape. “R.E.M. You meant that literally about the nineties, didn’t you? This is my dad’s favorite album.”
“Hey, that’s a timeless classic!” He sounds scandalized.
“I don’t disagree with you,” I say, putting the tape back into the glove compartment. I just think you’re getting more and more perfect, I add in my head. “But do I have to relinquish my cell phone or does it automatically stop working in here?”
He shakes his head. “Oh! That reminds me. I’ve been meaning to ask you—um.”
“What?”
“Just—” He shrugs, hesitates. “I was wondering if I could maybe have your number?”
I … pause, think, say, “Oh.”
Meg has my number. Sophia has my number. Mom and Dad have my number. And that is the entire list of all the people who have my number. No one else has ever wanted it. This is new. Not unwelcome, but totally and utterly new.
“It’s just,” he continues, and I realize that I haven’t answered him yet. “Since we might have to be able to contact each other, you know. For the—uh, tutoring, just, if one of us is running late or whatever—”
“No, of course,” I agree. “Of course. That makes sense. Absolutely. Yes. Of course!”
“Good,” he says. “That’s—good. Yes. Okay. Good.”
I quickly fish my phone out of my bag and hand it to him unlocked, hoping he won’t realize how short my contacts list is. “Just type your number in?” I ask.
He hands me his phone in return. “Okay. And you know,” he says, “if I give you my number, you know you can totally use it, right? Like, if you ever need a lift home or anything. Please feel free to text me anytime.”
I know he’s just being nice and probably trying to make friends at a new school. But it still makes me smile as I enter my number into his phone.
Chapter 25
Meg
I AM NOT CERTAIN WHY, exactly, but after my day off on Monday the rest of the week goes by relatively quickly. Maybe Mom was right and I did indeed really need a day like that. Who knew? I didn’t wallow a whole lot, though. But I did think about Sophia. It made me sad, so I never did it for very long. But yes, I did think about her.
On Tuesday, we have a drama club meeting.
Of course Linus and I are the first ones there; Linus is always so on time it’s almost annoying in a very endearing sort of way. I immediately take a seat in the circle of chairs that’s already set up in the room. Linus hesitates.
“Shouldn’t we … wait? For the others?”
I roll my eyes at him. “Come sit down. Don’t just stand there.”
“What if they have assigned seats?”
“I guess then we can move,” I assure him.
He still looks a bit uncomfortable because he doesn’t like to do anything wrong, but he sits down next to me anyway.
Slowly, the room starts filling with more and more people, and the fourth or fifth person to enter after us is Danny.
“Hi,” I call out immediately, in case he hasn’t seen us yet, and his face lights up with a smile as he waves at us.
“Hi!”
He hurries over and right away takes the still-empty chair next to Linus. I’m very pleased with this development.
“Hey,” Linus says quietly, and Danny beams at him.
“I’m glad you guys could make it!”
I remember that Danny is new here as well and doesn’t really know anyone, and I do my best to keep up random small talk while the room fills with more people. Even Linus participates, and I’m so proud of him because I can tell that he’s nervous. This club isn’t really inside his usual comfort zone anyway, and now he’s also sitting next to the guy he likes. But in typical Linus fashion, he does his best to keep smiling and being polite. If Danny isn’t in love with him yet, I don’t know what’s wrong with him.
We don’t do anything much, just sit in a circle and go around introducing ourselves and discussing what we’re going to be doing this year.
Apparently our first project, to be put on toward the end of the year in December, is going to be a Sherlock Holmes play that some of the drama club people rewrote last year. Everyone seems really excited about it.
Our faculty adviser, Mr. Walsh, just sticks around long enough for us to elect a drama club president, and I don’t really get the dynamics of this club yet, but apparently everyone agrees that it should be this girl named Stella who already had the job last year. I just vote for her, too, to make things simple and because I don’t know any of them that well.
Stella then proceeds to explain that we’re going to start on the play next week, but that, in the meantime, we should already split into groups for all the backstage tasks, and promptly produces a list of all the extra work we’ll need done.
I really don’t understand a lot of it, except that it’s obviously expected of all of us to help out with something behind the scenes as well. Unless you’re playing a lead role—in that case you don’t have to because you have more lines to learn or whatever.
I volunteer for props and costumes since I don’t expect to get a lead (and I don’t want one anyway). Linus volunteers with me, and I’m glad because I don’t want to be stuck in that group by myself, even though the girl in charge of it, I think her name was Alyssa or Alicia or Alison or something, seems really nice and smiles at me excitedly when I raise my hand for her group.
This club is going to be more work than I thought it would be. But at least the people seem really nice. And when I look over at Linus and Danny, they’re actually talking, so I smile to myself and decide that yes, this is absolutely worth my time.
* * *
Friday night, Linus comes over for a Star Trek marathon. I’m pretty sure this project will keep us busy until we both go off to college, and I like that thought.
I am aware that once I get him a boyfriend, it will slow our project down considerably. But that’s fine. I probably ditched him a lot, too, without noticing when I was dating Sophia.
He’s busy clicking through the DVD menu when I walk back through into the living room, carrying the obligatory bowl of popcorn.
“Hey,” he says, without looking up. “I just noticed. You put an awful lot of Deep Space Nine on your episode list.”
I frown. “Not that many!”
“I just thought that Captain Picard was your favorite.”
I put the bowl down, drop onto the sofa next to him heavily enough that he bounces a little. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing, I guess,” he says. “I just noticed.”
“Your favorite is Janeway and you still put more Next Generation than Voyager on the list,” I poin
t out.
“You counted?”
“Apparently, so did you.”
“Okay, okay.” He laughs. “For the record, I still think we could have come up with a more sophisticated system for the rewatch than merely sorting them chronologically.”
“What’s wrong with watching them in the right order?”
“Doesn’t it just seem unimaginative?”
“No,” I disagree. “It seems sane and like it makes a lot of sense.”
“I guess you’re right.” He sighs.
I pull up my legs and debate whether or not I want to ask this; we are on a kind of tight schedule here. But I’m just way too curious. “How was tutoring today?”
He keeps his face too carefully neutral. “It was okay.”
“You guys met up three times this week,” I remind him. “And he sat next to you the entire time during that drama club pre-meeting thing on Tuesday.”
“Are you trying to demonstrate that you can count?” he asks. “Because we established that literally half a minute ago!”
“Was it his idea or yours to meet up that often?”
He pauses, gives me a long look from the side. “… His. He asked to meet up more often. He said he really needed the extra help.”
“Ha!” I shout. “I knew it!”
“Knew what? That he needs help with math? That’s not a secret, you know.”
“Linus, darling,” I say. “He is making up excuses to spend time with you!”
“He is not! He needs help with math!”
“Why can’t you just trust me on this?”
“Because I have actually spent time with him and you haven’t,” he points out. “It is all very innocent. Please. Believe me.”
At that moment, his phone makes a noise on the coffee table and he picks it up, his face getting these red spots it gets when he’s excited or very embarrassed about something.
“Is it Danny?” I ask smugly, picking up the popcorn bowl and hugging it to my chest.
“No,” he says.
“Are you lying to me?”
“No.”
“Then who is it? Your other secret boyfriend I don’t know about?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” He sighs, looking oddly guilty. “It’s just … Mom. I, uh, I guess I forgot to take the trash out—”
“She texts you because of that?”
He shrugs. “Apparently.”
“Weird.” I sigh. “Mothers, right? Should we just watch the episode? You can’t do anything about the trash right now anyway.”
He keeps looking at me for a moment, then quickly leans over to give me a hug. Just a brief one, and I don’t really know what it’s for, but hey, free hugs. Not gonna turn them down. “Of course,” he says. “We can do that.”
He’s still a little twitchy and keeps shifting in his seat and makes a point of seeming really busy with the DVD menu, which makes me think that it probably was Danny who just texted him. And that he’s embarrassed to admit it. Maybe he wants to spare my feelings because he has a cute guy texting him while I just got dumped. Maybe he still just doesn’t believe that Danny might actually like him. Either way, Linus is such a terrible liar. He gets so nervous.
While he fiddles with the remote, I discreetly watch him out of the corner of my eye and think. I really love hanging out with him, but it’s Friday night and he’s spending it with me watching TV. While I am one hundred percent certain that he could be just as well spending it with a really cute guy who I am sure really likes him back.
So I know what I have to do. Because at least one of us will be happy. And I have had my turn. Now it’s his.
Chapter 26
Linus
SO, AS MUCH AS I’M aware that it means absolutely nothing, I still have a boy’s number in my phone now. The number of a boy I really, really like, which is even better. This has never happened before. I’m glad about all of this, but I’m also confused. Especially since Danny actually keeps using my number, which I didn’t expect and never dared to hope for. But he does text me, and most of it isn’t tutoring-related.
Meg is over on Saturday so we can study together and afterward continue our Star Trek marathon, when my phone vibrates on the table.
We’re studying in the kitchen because it gives us the fastest access to fresh coffee whenever we require it.
She looks up from her notes, frowns. “Is that your alarm? Has it been an hour already? Does that mean it’s coffee break time?”
I can understand how she thinks that, as my parents are in the house and she is sitting right across from me. There really are not that many people who could be texting me on a Saturday afternoon. Or at all, really.
Well, Danny texts me, but it’s Saturday. I’m sure he’s out with friends or something.
And Sophia texts me. But it’s not like I can tell Meg that. I know she didn’t buy my excuse about my mom texting me, either, when I was over at her place last night, but I couldn’t come up with anything more believable that quickly. I just hope it’s someone else this time. I hate that I haven’t told her about Sophia yet. We don’t talk all the time, but she does text me to check in occasionally and it would just be impolite not to write back.
I pick up my phone to check it and quickly shake my head, can’t quite keep in the delighted expression. “It’s Danny!”
She perks up at that pretty much immediately. “Oh! What does he want? We can totally reschedule the rewatch and the studying if you have to go and meet him!”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Why would I run off to meet him? He’s just texting because apparently he just realized that he must have accidentally packed one of my highlighters after tutoring yesterday.”
“He texts you about highlighters?”
I let out a long, patient breath. “He knows how important it is for me to properly color-code my notes?”
She sighs, leans back in her chair, and says sarcastically, “How romantic!”
“He’s asking if he should bring it over.”
She nods knowingly. “Tell him yes! I can go! Or hide behind the curtains in your living room.”
“We have sheer curtains in the living room.”
“That is so not the point!”
“No,” I confirm. “The point is that I don’t need that highlighter today and if I do need one, I can borrow yours. I don’t need to make him drive all the way across town to give it back. Because that would be insane.”
“I think he knows that, too,” she says. “And he probably just wants to see you. It’s actually very cute!”
“No, he’s just really nice that way,” I try to explain, though I can tell that she doesn’t believe me. Just then, my phone buzzes again and I look down at it—and feel all the blood draining from my face immediately. It’s Sophia. Asking how it’s going in drama club. Which I know means she wants to know how Meg is doing.
“Danny again?” she asks, sounding way too pleased.
“I, uh, no, I—” I swallow, mind racing to come up with something believable. This just so doesn’t seem like the right time to bring up the fact that I’ve been talking with Sophia. How would I even tell her? Oh, by the way, ever since the beginning of the school year I’ve been chatting with your ex-girlfriend behind your back and I haven’t told you because I know you’re still hurt by her leaving and I didn’t want to be a horrible friend. Want another cookie? But oh my god I hate lying to her. I can feel my leg starting to bounce under the table. “Yeah, it’s Danny,” I say quickly, nodding furiously. “He, uh, yeah, it’s just—still about the highlighter. Just—yeah.”
“So ask him over,” she insists, tilting her head at me. I can tell she’s suspecting something, which isn’t surprising considering how very, very bad I am at making up lies on the spot.
I know I’m fidgeting like crazy but I can’t stop myself; this is all too much. I open and close my mouth a few times, trying to regain some control over the situation. “I’m sure he doesn’t have time. And besides, I don’t have tim
e, either. You know … homework. And stuff. Um.”
She huffs out a breath, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Why are you being so difficult about this?”
I stare at her, and I know I’m blinking a lot, which probably doesn’t have the desired effect of making my face look calm and neutral. “Why are you being so difficult about it?”
“Fine!” she exclaims, throwing both hands into the air in frustration. “But I do think you’re wrong!”
“I can pretty much guarantee you that I’m very, very right about this,” I say, doing my best to look as determined as possible.
She goes back to work while I make my sweaty, shaking hands text the nicest boy in the world to reassure him that my weekend is not ruined by the absence of my pink highlighter.
And then I text Sophia that I can’t talk right now, hoping she’ll understand.
Crisis averted. For now. I guess. Now I just need to wait for my heart rate to go back to normal. I’m seriously not built for this level of excitement and sneakiness. Good thing I’m not considering a career in politics.
* * *
After a nice and (at least mostly) relaxing weekend with a lot of Star Trek and hanging out with Meg, I’m actually looking forward to the start of the week.
Meg picks me up that morning so we can drive to school together. She’d been mostly okay this weekend, but I can tell today that she’s absentminded and distracted again. I worry about her a bit, but she won’t tell me what’s going on.
We don’t share the first two classes on Monday, but then we have chem together right before lunch and I can tell she’s still preoccupied as soon as she walks into the room and sits down next to me.
“Is everything okay?” I ask her, when she simply keeps staring out the window instead of getting her notes and pens in order on the table right before class the way she usually does.
She turns her head, smiles too brightly. “Yeah, just trying to make up my mind whether or not I want to audition for a part in the play,” she says.
“Okay…” I’m not sure why she’s so distracted by this. I think she should go for it and it doesn’t really seem like something she would worry about. I’m sure that she’s not telling me the truth and I don’t quite understand why she’s lying to me. But if she doesn’t want to talk about it, I’m not gonna pry.
Meg & Linus Page 11
