I nod. “Well, yeah, I do like the ritual. But I’m also just, like, curious.”
“Well, I’m not really sure,” she says. “I mean, we’re definitely friends with him. We text. We’ve shared orders of fries at the pool. We haven’t been to each other’s houses yet, though. . . . But I’ve been in his front yard.”
“I know!” I slump back in my chair. “It’s hard to invite a guy friend over. I don’t even know what we’d do. Why is this so hard?”
“Well, I mean, he is our friend, and I think we can cross it off the list, so try not to worry.” Ari adjusts her towel over her body, sits back in the Adirondack chair, and closes her eyes.
What is she doing? Doesn’t she know that she needs to be calming me down right now? She can’t just sleep.
“Ari!” I shake her a little. “Come on! We have to discuss tons of stuff. Do you see I am freaking out?”
“You’re always freaking out, Kay. You’ll still be freaking out in ten minutes when I wake up from my power nap!”
“Thanks. You’re soooo helpful.” I roll my eyes even though she can’t see me with her eyes closed.
I decide to power nap, too, but of course I can’t sleep. I just lie there with my eyes closed and feel the sun fade from my face.
Summer, don’t go!
I go back inside to get more snacks and find my mom sitting at the kitchen table, scrolling through my cell phone.
“Mom!” I shriek. “What are you doing?”
She stammers, pushing my phone across the table, like she’s in a game of hot potato. “Um, I was just deciding what to make for dinner. . . .”
“Mom! You were clearly looking at my phone!” I grab it off the table, about to shove it in my pocket, when I realize I’m only in a towel, so I just keep it in my hand. “You’re spying on me!”
“Kaylan, I just glanced at it,” she says, closing her eyes. “Calm down. Anyway, I pay for it! I can look at it!”
“Don’t be a snoop,” I say, grabbing a bag of popcorn from the pantry. I look back at her, all side-eyes. “Promise?”
“Promise,” she sighs.
I get back outside and rip open the bag of popcorn, seething that my mom was invading my privacy.
A few minutes later, Ari grabs my arm like she just remembered something super-important. She pops up from her lying-down position. “First-day outfits.” She turns to me. “We need to finalize.”
“Yes! I’ve been waiting for this!” I stand up and pull the towel tighter around my body. I debate telling her about the Mom Snooping. I decide to save it for later; she doesn’t need another thing to worry about.
We run up the stairs as fast we can.
When we make it to the safety of my room, Ari sprawls out on my bed, face into my pillows. Normally I’d say no wet towels on the bed, but we’ve been out of the pool so long our bathing suits and towels are completely dry.
“Are you okay?” I ask Ari.
She sighs. I have no idea what that means.
“What is it?” I press.
“I’m nervous, Kay.” She flops over. “So nervous. We don’t know this school at all. I know we went on that tour last May, but I forgot what we saw. I don’t know where the cafeteria is. And what if all those girls that Jules knows are actually really mean? She thinks they’ll want to be friends with me, but who knows? They could hate me! And what if Jason forgets all about us when school starts? And—”
I don’t know what to do about this, how to handle it. I’m the nervous one. Ari’s the calm one. That’s just how it is. I don’t like this. And shouldn’t Jules’s friends be my friends, too? Not only Ari’s. She can’t make new friends without me.
“Okay!” I put my hand on her back. It’s really rare for Ari to show anxiety like this. I’m getting nervous just watching it. “Let’s breathe.”
“You’re not nervous?” She shoots up. “Suddenly Miss Agita Kaylan isn’t nervous at all about middle school starting tomorrow?”
“Um.” I start laughing, half from my nervousness and half because Ari sounds so completely ridiculous right now. “Of course I am! But weren’t you the one who said we needed to calm down and make a plan?”
She sniffles and nods.
“So?” I zone out for a minute thinking about Jason and the whole can-we-consider-him-a-real-friend-yet thing. “I’ll be back,” I tell Ari. “I need to pee.”
The truth is, I do need to pee, but I also need to text Jason. And I know it’s gross to pee and text at the same time.
Ari is totes freaking out about 1st day of school tomw. Advice?
Jason responds in three seconds—definite sign of true friend.
Everyone freaks b4 1st day of school. It’ll be fine. We’re in it together. Later, Terrel. Going to get burritos.
Now I know for sure we’re real, true friends. He called me by my last name. Done. Solved. In my head, I’m singing, Kay has a boy friend. Not boyfriend. But boy friend!
I leave the bathroom and head back to my room.
“It’s settled,” I tell Ari.
“Um.” She lifts her head up just the tiniest bit. “You just left the bathroom, so I’m a little nervous about what you’re about to say. . . .”
I crack up. “Okay, that’s fair. But no—I texted with Jason, and don’t be grossed out because I was in the bathroom. I washed my hands, whatever. But anyway, he responded right away. And get this—he called me by my last name!” I screech out the last part.
“Whoa,” Ari says, pretty much the opposite of enthusiastic.
I wait for her to say more, but she doesn’t. She just throws her face back into my pillow.
Her negativity and her agita is bothering me. Ari’s not the one who gets agita—I am.
“Ari,” I say, and rub her back. “It’ll be fine. We’ll figure everything out. You had fun on the Hebrew School trip, and you didn’t know a lot of the kids there.”
She sits up, finally. “I did, by the fourth day. But the first three days were hellish. I didn’t know where to sit for meals. Most of the kids were, like, BFFs. I don’t know how, but they were. Tamar barely talked to me! She was sitting with the bikini boobage girls because they were all on the same teen tour earlier in the summer! Jules was okay, but even she had good friends there! My bunkmate was this new girl, Eve, who ate seaweed for snacks and snored so loud!” She pauses, sniffling. “I felt so homesick. I hated it.”
“You did?” I ask. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“I wasn’t allowed to have my phone so I couldn’t text you! By the fourth day, I was having fun,” she admits. “But the beginning was terrible. And Tamar and I are definitely not friends anymore. I think she forgot we were ever friends.”
I glance around the room, trying to find some inspiration or a way to cheer her up. “Sorry about Tamar.” I pause, feeling the tiniest bit happy but also really guilty for feeling that way. “I guess the main takeaway here is that the beginnings of things are bad?” I offer. “And then they get better?”
She lies back down, face into the pillow. I think she may be crying for real now. I can’t tell.
I should know how to calm someone down, since I’m nervous every second of the day. But I just don’t know what to say.
“So, first-day outfits . . .” I start talking and wait for Ari to sit up, or at least acknowledge that she’s listening. “They need to be something cool, unique, something that accentuates our features. But they can’t be too memorable. They can’t make it look like we’ve tried too hard. Ya know?”
“True,” she mumbles.
“Perk up!” I yell. “Come on, Ari. We can’t be like this on the night before the biggest day of our lives so far. We can’t let our nerves control us!”
I grab her arms, and gently pull her off the bed. She flops onto the floor, and I scroll through my music and turn on some Katy Perry.
“Dance!”
It takes a few seconds, but soon Ari and I are dancing around my room in our bathing suits. I make sure my door is
locked. My mom usually hates having locked doors, but this is a special circumstance. We need our privacy. We need to feel free to release our anxieties.
“‘I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter,’” I sing. “‘Dancing through the fire.’”
“‘’Cause I am the champion,’” Ari sings into my hairbrush.
“‘And you’re gonna hear me roar!’” we scream-sing together.
I start kicking my legs out to the side, and Ari joins me, and we put our arms around each other’s shoulders like we’re in a Rockettes routine. This song is powerful; it makes me feel like I can handle anything.
Out of breath, we flop back on the bed.
“I feel better,” Ari says.
“Me too.”
“Shoot!” Ari says. “I was supposed to be home twenty minutes ago. My mom has this whole thing about us all eating dinner together, ya know, and especially before the first day of school.”
“Of course she does.” I roll my eyes but then feel instantly guilty. It’s a nice thing that Ari’s mom tries to do. I don’t know why I’m rude about it.
“But we didn’t decide on outfits!” I yell as she sprints down the stairs.
“Well, here’s a piece of advice,” Ryan says, walking past my room. “Don’t wear that.”
“Ugh!” I scream. “I hate you!”
“Ryan, don’t torment the girls,” I hear my mom say.
“You’re always blaming me!” He stomps down the stairs to the kitchen. “By the way, Mom, I did what you said. I asked Mr. Gracie if I could have a chance to audition again.”
“And?” my mom asks. My heart perks up a little. I guess it’s good we have such a small house—we can hear conversations taking place downstairs.
“He said, sure!” He pauses, and I feel a touch of relief. “In the winter! My chance for the fall semester is shot! He doesn’t care that I’m the best guitarist in the whole freakin’ school!”
“Ryan,” she says, and I hear the kitchen chair screech across the floor. “Sit down. Let’s talk.”
Ari looks up at me from downstairs as she’s getting her shoes on. “Ouch,” she mouths.
My heart feels like it’s dripping slowly to my feet.
FIFTEEN
“LOOKIN’ GOOD, KAYLAN!” MRS. ETISOF yells from an Adirondack chair on her front porch. I’m on my way to the bus stop on the first day of school. “Love the outfit.”
Mrs. Etisof isn’t exactly the most fashionable person in the world, so I’m not sure if I should take her word on how good I look. But, I mean, she does have eyes. And she reads a lot, so maybe she knows what’s in style.
“Thanks, Mrs. E.” I look up. “I better go; don’t want to miss the bus!”
“Have a great day.”
Even though Ari and I FaceTimed our way through final first-day-outfit decisions, I still feel unsure about my choices as I wait for the bus on the corner where my street meets Ari’s street.
I decided on my cuffed jean shorts with the gray V-neck and a navy boyfriend cardigan in case some of the classrooms are air-conditioned. Pair that ensemble with my strappy brown sandals and I’m set. I think. I mean, my legs are pretty tan, so that’s good, and so are my arms. And my highlights are really visible now because the sun has totally enhanced them. The stylist said that would happen.
I study myself in the reflection of a parked car as I wait for Ari to get here.
She’s late.
I can’t handle lateness on a morning as important as this one. I mean, what if she doesn’t come by the time the bus arrives and I have to tell the bus driver to wait? He probably won’t want to, and then I’ll feel weird, and have to beg him, and I may even start to cry.
New kids are going to be on the bus, kids I don’t know, and I need a guarantee that I’ll have someone to sit with. I need Ari. I keep shifting my weight from foot to foot. My cheeks feel itchy, but I don’t want to scratch them too much and end up with red blotches all over my face.
Ari. Get here already.
Finally, after I smooth the left side of my hair for the millionth time, Ari arrives, strolling to the bus, with her new paisley tote over her shoulder. She’s wearing what we decided on yesterday—a jean skirt and the polka-dot shirt she got last week. She wanted to go a little dressier than I did, which is totally fine.
“You look great,” I say. Truthfully, I’d say that even if she didn’t look great (which she does) because you need to feel good about yourself on the first day of middle school. There’s no debating that.
“Thanks.” She smiles and bounces on her toes a bit. “You do, too.”
Ari admires herself in the window of the same parked car, and that’s when Ryan and Tyler walk right up to us. Then they start fake-primping themselves, stroking their hair, and posing in hands-on-hips positions, trying to mock us, completely over the top.
“How do I look, Ryan?” Tyler asks.
“Oh, wonderful, Tyler,” my doofus brother replies. “I’m so glad we spent all those hours picking out our outfits.”
I burst out laughing. “Um, yeah. Your T-shirt has a ketchup stain and we haven’t had hot dogs in weeks. Your shorts have holes in them. And you’re wearing two different socks. Should I go on?”
“I think they’re kidding,” Ari whispers to me.
“I know that,” I sneer. “Go with it.”
“Your left sneaker lace is untied,” she tells Ryan. He bends down awkwardly to tie it.
A wave of guilt about the jam-band thing washes over me. Ryan doesn’t know I had anything to do with it. I guess that’s a good thing. And he can try out next semester, so it’s not a totally lost cause.
“Losers,” Ryan says under his breath and walks to the other end of the bus stop. Tyler shrugs and walks away with him.
And yeah, Ryan may look like he just rolled out of bed and into a vat of ketchup—but Tyler, he looks like he tried. But just the perfect level of trying. Not like he tried too hard at all.
He’s wearing khaki cargos and they’re wrinkled, but the right amount of wrinkled. And he’s wearing a green polo. The collar is half-up and half-down, but it’s okay for some reason. His hair is just the right amount of gelled.
“Tyler looks so good today,” I whisper to Ari.
She glares at me. “What?”
“Tyler looks so good,” I repeat.
She pulls my arm and leads me off to the side. “I heard what you said. Now can you finally just admit what’s happening here?”
I nod. I kind of don’t want to, but I also kind of do. Admitting it means we can talk about it. Really talk about it.
“Kaylan.” She looks right into my eyes.
I nod again.
“You’re totally into Tyler. Just admit it.”
“Shhhhhh! He’ll hear you!” I need to accept this right now and embrace it and tell the entire world: I have a crush on Tyler.
My heart expands like an inflated balloon.
I have a big crush on Tyler Beasley.
It was always there, sort of lingering in my brain. Like the way your adult teeth are there, waiting to come out after you lose your baby teeth.
He just looks so cute. So painfully cute. And he’s a lifeguard—he knows how to save people’s lives!
Ari shakes her head. “The bus is here. Can we just get through the day and then sort out this crazy crush on Tyler later?”
I nod yes, but the thing is—I’m not sure it can wait. Now that it’s out in the open, it’s like I have to talk about it. Like it will burn a hole in my brain or something or just grow bigger and bigger unless I fully discuss it. Right now.
But I hold it in. I get on the bus, and Ari and I share a seat and I force myself to think about anything other than Tyler. I focus on the dried-up gum on the bus seat in front of us. I focus on how Ari’s hair smells like peaches. I focus on the fact that my pedicure is still perfect even though I got it done last week.
I text Jason: on the bus
And he writes back: C U SOON! 1st DAY! YAHOO
!
I show Ari the text. “He’s really perky.”
“You guys text way more than we do,” she says. And then she launches into some lecture about text etiquette that I can’t focus on. “Plus we live across the street, so we kind of just say hey from the front yards and stuff.”
I didn’t think it was a competition.
Jason. Tyler. Jason. Tyler. First day of school. My thoughts are like a pinball, bouncing back and forth in the machine.
“Are you in there?” I hear Ari ask, and then realize I’ve missed most of what she just said.
“Oh yeah.” I laugh. “I’m here.”
“I just asked you what you have first period. I know we’ve gone over the schedules a billion times, but I forgot. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” I take my schedule out of my backpack and show it to Ari. “Bixhorn. Math.”
“Math first period?” Ari shrieks.
“I know. Brutal. But at least I get it over with.” I put my schedule away, take a sip from my water bottle, and start to wonder how often I tell myself that I’ll just get things over with. Seems like I think that kind of a lot. “You have history, right?”
She nods. “I can’t pay attention to history first thing in the morning.”
“But you love history,” I remind her.
“I guess,” she mumbles.
I think Ari’s on the verge of tears. The only time I ever saw her like this was when she didn’t make the volleyball team last year. Crying on the school bus on the first day of middle school is absolutely not acceptable; it’s practically illegal, according to some middle school code of law. So I put an arm around her. “Ari, if you start crying, I’ll tell everyone that you were cutting onions for an omelet before school . . . and you’re having a delayed reaction.”
“Huh?” Ari cracks up. “That’s dumb.”
“It’ll distract people from your tears.”
“I’m not crying,” she says, laughing.
“After orientation, we’ll make a plan of where to meet for lunch?” I suggest. “Okay?”
She nods. “But we don’t know where anything is!”
“I know,” I say. “But we will probably get another tour.”
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