“Excuse me?”
“I’m getting a bird’s-eye view and probably breaking some school rule and the chirping will be a sign that someone’s coming. So I don’t get busted.”
“Why don’t I just yell if I see someone?”
“The chirping is more covert. Just chirp.”
I look around as a couple of people exit the front doors and head toward the parking lot. I chirp. Once.
Ben’s holding the camera with one hand, his other deathgripping the pole as he takes the photo. He doesn’t seem to hear my chirp.
I chirp louder. And again.
Ben slides down the pole. He hands the camera back to me and starts laughing. “I cannot believe you chirped. Those people are totally staring at you like you’re a freak.”
I smack him on the arm. “I hate you.”
“Hatred makes the heart grow fonder.”
“No one said that, ever.”
• • •
“Just one shot left,” I say nearly an hour later, sitting on the edge of the gym stage. “The inside of the gym storage room.” I hop off the stage and cross the gym floor to the storage room. One of those plastic wedges holds the door slightly open.
Ben grabs the door handle and holds it open for me. The door clicks closed behind him. The air is a mix of rubber and mildew and the room is dark, the only light coming from the little window to the left of the door, which lets in a yellowish hue from the fluorescent lights in the gym.
“What’s the deal with the Millers anyway?” he asks, referring to Mr. and Ms. Miller, the two PE teachers. “I’ve never seen such storage-room control freaks. Mr. Miller practically moonsaulted me when I tried to put my volleyball away.”
“He practically what-ed you?”
“Moonsaulted. You know, WWE style.”
I shake my head.
The middle of the room is packed with those metal cages filled with basketballs, volleyballs and utility balls. The walls are lined with skipping ropes hanging from hooks, nets and volleyball poles.
“You think this is Mr. and Mrs. Miller’s secret love haven and that’s why we’re taking the picture?” Ben asks.
“Ew. What? They’re brother and sister.”
“No way. I thought they were married.” Ben grabs a basketball and starts dribbling it.
“They look totally alike.” I lean against the door.
“Ohhhh,” Ben says, tossing the basketball in the air and catching it. “I thought they were like one of those old married couples that starts wearing orange fleece and Tilley hats and end up looking alike.”
“They’re more like the man-twins from the bus.”
“So … if this isn’t the spot for Miller Time, what’s so great about this room?”
“Well, it is hook-up central, just not for the Millers. I figured you’d know.”
Ben gives me the side eye. “I’ve only been here a semester. Besides it’s not like I’m hooking up with every girl,” he says. “Or, like, any girls.” He shoots the basketball and it lands in the cage. “So what are you thinking for the shot?”
I look around. “If you’re gonna do it in here, where’s it happening?”
Ben winds his way through the cages. “Back here, on the mats. Check it out.” He looks around, then grabs a rope mop from one of those yellow cleaning bins. It’s dry and he lays it on the floor, the rope splayed at the top of the mat. Then he lies down and wraps his arms and legs around the mop in a tender embrace. “How’s this look?” he asks, looking back at me, raising his eyebrows a few times.
“Like you’re making out with a mop,” I say, moving around to get an angle that might work. “Maybe I can mess with it in Photoshop, blur it out a bit and make the mop look like a human?”
“Matilda. Just don’t do anything to her hair. She paid a fortune for her blonde highlights.”
I snap away as Ben plays to the camera. “OK, wanna get out of here?” I shove my camera in my bag, as Ben gets up and heads for the door.
“Uh oh.”
“What?”
“It’s locked.”
“But there’s a wedge in the door.”
“This one?” He bends down to pick up the chunk of brown plastic.
“Maybe this is why students aren’t allowed in the school on parent-teacher night.” I pull out my phone. “I’ll text my mom. I’m sure someone in the office can open the door.”
“Good thing I brought snacks.” He pulls a mangled granola bar out of his coat pocket, and we settle down on the floor, leaning against the cages.
“How long has that been in there?”
“Well … I got it out of the vending machine at the bus terminal.”
“At Port Authority?”
“No, in Spalding. On Saturday when I was—never mind. Want half?”
“This past Saturday? Why were you at the bus terminal on Saturday?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” His face reddens.
“You’re acting weird.”
“It’s because I’m hungry. I have to eat every two hours or I get cranky. Remember New York?”
“You did eat a lot.”
He unwraps the bar and breaks it in two. He gives me the smaller half. “Sorry, but I need the fuel.”
I take a bite. “Wow. Wow. This is terrible.” For a split second I consider documenting the reverse Food Alert. Then remember there’s no point. I push thoughts of Dylan away and pass the last bite to Ben.
“I guess that’s what you get from a bus station vending machine.”
“Yeah,” I say slowly, trying to process what he didn’t say.
“We’ve come a long way, huh Pip?” Ben says, wiping his hands on his jeans. “You can actually tolerate me. Maybe you do get a second chance to make a first impression.”
I study his profile. “Actually, my first impression of you wasn’t bad at all. Not that day you walked into the photocopy room.” The sight of him leaning against the doorjamb pops into my head. I still remember exactly what he was wearing, the way his hair brushed across his forehead, the way his feet were crossed at the ankles.
“Really? What was it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say quickly. “Just—maybe first impressions aren’t everything.”
“Maybe. I remember you that first day.” He catches my eye and holds my gaze a split second longer than necessary.
“You do?” I say.
“Yeah.” He leans closer to me, our bodies touching. I’m surprised, but I let him, feeling his warmth next to mine. Then his hands are on my face, pulling me in. I close my eyes as his lips meet mine. The kiss is soft, warm, and I wait for the butterflies, but they don’t come. My stomach feels heavy and I remember our disastrous kissing session in Dace’s room at her pool party. Him calling me “babe.” Me not feeling 1% of the chemistry I have with Dylan. Had with Dylan. I open my eyes for a second, then close them again. It’s no use. The kiss feels awkward, weird. I pull away just as the door opens.
“Well, well, well …” Mr. Miller says.
“We were taking photos,” Ben says. “Except—not like that! For the alumni event. It’s legit.” Ben scrambles to his feet and pulls me up.
Mr. Miller doesn’t seem to care what our excuse is, he just wants us out. I grab my coat off the ground and rush past Mr. Miller, Ben right behind me.
CHAPTER 21: THE DAY I’M SUPPOSED TO BE OVER HIM
When Dylan and I got together, I didn’t really do that thing where you think ahead to special occasions—Will you be together on a birthday? Will you make it to Christmas?—because we were so in the moment. I don’t know if I ever thought we wouldn’t be together, or what, all I know is I just didn’t think that far ahead. I wasn’t worried. But since we broke up, there’s been this voice I couldn’t get rid of, even though I tried to ignore it, that would tell me, Maybe you�
��ll get back together by Valentine’s Day. Give it time. Maybe by Valentine’s Day …
Even though today’s the day I’m supposed to be over him. Even though we hadn’t spoken, hadn’t texted, hadn’t seen each other since the breakup, I still couldn’t help thinking: Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. But now, it’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m supposed to be lighthearted, carefree, able to move on. But I feel stuck. And my heart still feels broken.
The part of me that keeps thinking maybe he’ll text today is screwed, because I left my phone in the storage room four days ago in my rush to get out of there, and the gym has been off-limits to everyone except teachers and the dance committee ever since with all the dance décor prep. No PE, no intramurals, no phone rescue. No pleading has changed that: the dance committee had already covered over the storage room door with a huge poster that the senior art class painted. They refused to remove it because they claimed it would rip, and Mr. Miller said I’d have to wait until the dance was over to get my phone back, which was totally an unofficial punishment for being in there in the first place. It’s been a pain for sure, but at least I’ve been getting to test Mom’s “out of sight, out of mind” theory. I really, truly need to get over Dylan, especially since kissing Ben did nothing to distract me; instead it only triggered those feelings for Dylan that I’d been trying to quell.
“OK, OK,” Mr. Alderman says, trying to quiet everyone down. But it’s impossible. It’s always like this on Valentine’s Day—on account of the val-o-grams and the match-o-grams. For a dollar, you get to fill out a personality questionnaire with multiple-choice questions like, “The best thing you have going is: gut-splitting humor, super style or incredible intelligence” or “When you open your locker: it is tidy, there’s a bit of clutter or it pours into the hall.” The questionnaire is half the fun, and finding out who you’re matched with is the other half. The only question it doesn’t ask is about your gender and sexual preference; last year my tru lurve was Dace—which is way better than getting, like, Reggie. But sometimes you get matched with someone you actually like, and it ends up being just the push you need to talk to that person. That’s what happened with Brendan and Abi last year, who both work on Hall Pass.
For another dollar, you can buy a val-o-gram, a chocolate heart taped to a note. You fill out the To and the From, and bam, your crush knows you like him or her.
Then, first thing on Valentine’s Day, the student council drops off the match-os and val-os to every homeroom and they get distributed.
Mr. Alderman opens the bag and starts calling out the match-o-grams first. Dace always gets a ton of matches. You can kind of rig the match-o-gram if you think of the person you like when you fill it out. But while it worked out with Brendan and Abi, it never works out for any guys and Dace, on account of her ban on dating guys who go to our school. But she looks nervous as she opens her match-o-grams, because this year, she cares who she’s matched with. Her regret over dumping Juan hasn’t subsided one bit, and she shows me her card—his name isn’t on it.
I get four matches—Jeffrey, from photo club; Ricardo, this new student who just moved here from Mexico City; Gemma and Ben. Ricardo sits in the next row over, so it’s mildly awkward when we look at each other, but then I see he’s got at least a dozen matches, so it’s not like it’s that awkward. I show Ben’s name to Dace. “What do you think it means?”
She gives me a look. “That algorithms suck?”
I laugh.
Gemma, Emma and Dace all give me val-o-grams. I sent one to them too, plus Lisa, since she’s the editor at the paper, and Jeffrey, just because last year I was in homeroom with Jeffrey and he didn’t get a single one, and I made a mental note to send him one this year, just because it would suck not to get any.
Dace gets 27 val-o-grams, including three from Hanif Jaffer, who reluctantly swapped lockers with me at the start of the year so I could be next to Dace. He’s never recovered. But there’s only one val-o-gram that has Dace blushing. Actually getting red in the face. She shows it to me. It’s from Juan.
Then my name is called again. Alderman gives me an overly friendly smile, which he’s been doing since he discovered my mom is his long-lost high school sweetheart, as he hands me the chocolate. I wait until I’m sitting to open the card.
To Wilbur. From BOB.
• • •
It was one thing to have a communication ban with Dylan for two weeks, but functioning without a cellphone for even a day, let alone four, is a lesson in how the world used to work. Or not. I leave Ben a note on his locker telling him to meet me in the gym at 6 to hang the mural. I’m late for third period after waiting at Dace’s locker for her, to make sure we have a plan for the dance tonight. Then I set up the real plan for tonight: I hunt down Juan, spot him heading into the boys restroom after lunch, wait for him outside, then grab him and tell him that he clearly likes Dace and Dace likes him and that he has to show up at her house and take her to the dance. Instead of refusing, he looks like I’ve just made his day. And then asks me for reassurance that this is something she wants.
“Everyone keeps telling me not to bother with her—that she’ll never date a guy in high school, let alone one that’s younger than her. That she has a rule?”
“So that’s why you’ve been so weird?” I say.
“Self-preservation. But I couldn’t help myself with the val-o-gram.”
I assure him he made the right move and that it was all a misunderstanding. He looks genuinely relieved. And for a split second, I feel like, Wow, I am accomplishing stuff without a phone. It’s a small miracle.
• • •
Apparently half the dance committee wanted Winter Wonderland and the other half wanted Walk Down Memory Lane as the theme for the dance, so they compromised on “Winter Walk Down Memory Lane.” The gym, as a result, is filled with miniature evergreens adorned with fake snow. White lights are strung from the ceiling, creating a snow/starry night effect, and the walls are covered in drapey white fabric. Ben’s in the middle of the gym, holding a huge cardboard tube under his arm. A disco ball overhead speckles his body with swirling stars. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since getting his val-o-gram and I’m not sure what to say. Things have been kind of awkward since the kiss—I kept thinking he’d bring it up, but he never did, and I certainly wasn’t going to. The dance doesn’t start for another hour, and the dance committee is bustling around. Ben’s in a black suit and white shirt, open at the neck—his hair’s slicked back and his eyes are kind of sparkling—but he doesn’t look hot, just handsome. The feels, they just aren’t there.
“You look great,” he says, his tone friendly. “Shall we hang this sucker?” he says, pointing to a space on the wall the decorating committee left bare for us.
“Yeah,” I say, distracted. He lays the roll on the ground and pulls the mural out.
I bend down, glad I opted for the dress I did—it’s short, but stretchy, like one big teal tube top to mid-thigh, and then has this flowy, gauzy silvery overlay, so it’s not at all scandalous, and I can actually move in it. I grab one end of the mural and hold it down as he unrolls it. We apply the adhesive strips, then move it over to the wall, fasten it and then stand back to see if it’s straight.
“Wow. It looks better than I thought it would.” I laid it out, so it’s not like I haven’t seen it before, but at this size, it’s impressive.
“You did a kick-ass job.”
“We did.” I smile at him.
“Yeah, yeah. Hey,” Ben says, looking around. “So, I don’t really know how to bring this up. But we haven’t talked about what happened the other day, in the … uh, storage room, and I know you have that whole equation thing, and I wanted to make sure I gave you time to get over Dylan. But I just didn’t want you to think that it was just this random kiss, or whatever. I guess that’s why I sent the val-o-gram.”
“Oh,” I say. “I didn’t think it was rando
m. And um, thanks?” I’m about to apologize for not sending one to him, but it would be the wrong message, and I’m psyching myself up to be totally honest with him about how I feel.
“OK. Good.” He runs his hands through his hair, messing it a bit. “So, where are you on the equation timeline?”
“Today’s supposed to be the last day. I’m supposed to be over him now.”
“Wow, that’s some timing.”
“Yeah.”
“So, are you?”
I bite my lip. “No.”
Ben doesn’t say anything for what seems like forever. Then he shoves his hands in his pockets. “OK.”
“I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear this, but I do want to be friends. If we can.” I search his eyes and wait for him to say something.
He nods. “Friends. Sure. I’m a parakeet. You’re a parakeet. Remember?” He grins.
I laugh. “Really?”
But a second later, his face changes, like he can’t pretend not to be disappointed. I’ve got gut-rot—that feeling you get after eating too much candy—but in this case, it’s not too many Runts. He scratches the side of his face.
“The thing is, you’ve kind of become my best friend, Pippa. And I don’t want to lose that. I feel like we have come a long way. And I really do like you, as a friend. But yeah, I guess there’s no denying I have … some other feelings for you. So it’s probably going to be a while before I’m ready to hear the details of how you and Dylan get back together.”
“There it is!” a voice booms behind us. Principal Forsythe has his hands on his hips, taking in the mural. “This is impressive. Impressive.” He gesticulates at it, peers in for a moment, leans back again and then holds out his hand to shake mine, and then Ben’s, and then he’s skittering away.
Ben and I look at each other, bewildered by our preoccupied principal, and burst into laughter, the tension between us forgotten, at least for now.
• • •
I meet Mom by the staircase where the Glee club is singing love songs. She got her hair cut and colored after work today and her makeup done and she looks more dolled up than she has since before Dad got sick. She’s wearing a really flattering green dress that matches her eyes.
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