by Amy Spalding
“No one said you were.”
“If I were That Guy…” Reid shakes his head. “Everything would be different.”
“Okay,” I say because Reid is making this all about him, and I do not like it. “Anyway—”
“Like, how did he do it?” He grabs my hand and scrutinizes the ink that lightened but didn’t disappear in the shower this morning. A scientific person might hypothesize I covered it with a shower cap, but luckily Reid is, in addition to not being That Guy, not a man of science.
“I literally just told you how he did it.” I wait for him to ask if I’m going to call him, if I’m interested, if I safely wrote the number down already, how it made me feel to have That Guy show me he’s interested.
“I would already be going out with Jane if I was That Guy,” he says.
“Maybe Jane’s not into That Guy.” I’m not sure I’m into That Guy, after all.
“No, every girl’s into That Guy,” he says, as if he speaks for all of womankind.
“What guy?” Lucy walks up to us like she’s been part of the conversation all along.
“I have to go,” I say, even though Reid and I are walking to the same place. I walk past Garrick, but I don’t know what to say thanks to Sydney Jacobs, so I just fake a smile and keep moving.
“Hey.” Reid catches up with me. “What’s up?”
“You devoted, like, a fifth of the pages in the Passenger Manifest to one interaction with Jane,” I say. “And you can’t even pretend you’re interested in this?”
It’s a way more honest thing than I planned on saying.
“Shit,” he says.
It makes me giggle because Reid hardly ever curses.
“Sorry,” he says.
“No, it’s okay. Do you think I should call him?”
“Yes,” he says, with conviction.
“Really?”
“Ri, yes. Even if he’s the worst person ever, you get to call That Guy.”
He’s right, and I know it, so after a respectable wait after school (two hours and twenty-seven minutes) I call.
“Hello.”
“Hi, is this Milo?” It’s kind of a dumb question because I can tell it’s him and also who else would it be?
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“This is, um…” And if you’re going to stumble over anything, really, your own name? “Riley. We met yesterday at—”
“Giving up that album that easy?”
“No way,” I say really quickly.
“I didn’t peg you as a girl who would hand over an awesome album. So, you maybe want to hang out sometime?” he asks.
I try to think of a subtle way to ask how old he is.
“Maybe,” I say, stalling. Also because it’s true. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. Crap, I sound like the Riddler. Only in my head, but that is bad enough. “How old are you?”
That is the least subtle way possible.
“Eighteen,” he says. “You?”
“Sixteen and a half,” I say, because totally mature people still use halves.
WHY DID I SAY THAT?
“Okay then,” he says.
“You can laugh,” I say. “That was weird.”
“We should hang out,” he says. “What are you doing Thursday?”
“Band practice,” I say. “Friday?”
“Band practice,” he says, and my heart blossoms into ten million vases of the most beautiful daisies. “What do you play?”
“Drums.” I picture us loading up our music-playing babies into an old VW bus and touring the country like the Partridge Family, which I definitely don’t watch on TV Land whenever it runs, no way, not me.
“Yeahhh,” he says, like an endorsement.
I decide it can only mean that he too had flashes of 1970s musical-family togetherness.
“What about you?”
“Tuba.”
What is he talking about? “What?” The idea refuses to gel in my head.
“Marching band practice,” he says.
“Oh.” I try my best not to say it like a beloved family member just kicked the bucket.
“Marching band’s cool,” he says. “C’mon. The tuba is awesome.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. Milo, don’t think I’m a jerk! It’s just that you look way more like a guitar than a tuba!
“You just have no idea,” he says.
I can tell through his voice that he’s smiling, so I guess he doesn’t mind that I laughed. “How about I call you on Saturday, see how the weekend looks. Cool?”
“Yup,” I say, which means we’ve spoken twice, and I’ve yupped twice. Guh-reat.
But it’s not like Milo’s exactly as cool as he seems, either.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Reid’s Advice for Girls on How to Get Guys to Like You
Listen to good music.
Don’t be ugly.
Don’t spend a lot of time complaining publicly. It’s grating.
Flirt with me, but not too much or it’s suspicious.
Understand that guys have no idea what they’re doing so just go with it.
Don’t act like my mom.
Don’t ask me to dance.
Riley’s Advice for Guys on How to Get Girls to Like You
Listen to good music.
Don’t be boring.
Have good hair.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I forget to turn my phone on vibrate during practice on Saturday, and between songs I hear it ring. I’m sure it’s Milo, and it’s like a straight shot of caffeine. Once we’re onto the next song, I throw some showy stuff into my last run-through of the new fill. My sticks pummel the snare, capped off by a few extra accents on the sixteenth notes. It ends in a buzz that vibrates my teeth.
Reid notices, because Reid notices everything you don’t want him to.
“Fancy,” he says once the song’s over.
So, “Fancy,” I chipmunk back at him.
“Do you need to check that?” Lucy says because outside of the matter of honesty she’s the nicest person in the world.
“No, it can wait,” I say with as much Most Casual Attitude Ever imbued into those four words as I can manage. “We need to really nail ‘Riverside Drive.’ The fall formal is, like, any day.”
“Riley’s right,” Nathan says.
“Yeah, your family’s one thing,” Reid says. “The whole school…”
The four of us stare at each other like we’ve just realized there are ten billion ways this could go wrong.
“Guys, we’re going to rock,” I say, like it wasn’t me who just started the HEY-LET’S-PANIC-THE-DANCE-IS-AROUND-THE-CORNER train speeding down the tracks. “The whole of Edendale High isn’t going to judge us, except on a scale of awesome.”
“I love the scale of awesome,” Lucy says. “Riley’s right. Let’s just get serious, and it’ll go great.”
“I’m always serious!” Reid says, which is true.
“It’ll be great. We can do this,” I say.
We play through “Riverside Drive” a few more times, move on to “Incandescent,” and finish up with our cover of Ted Leo’s “Me and Mia.” I try to put myself in the mind space of a typical Edendale student and take us in like we’re brand-new.
Reid’s bass is solid, an unrepentant throbbing rhythm pulling us all into a connection. More and more lately, the beats and the crashes and the thrum of my sticks sound bigger than me and also somehow totally me at once. Nathan’s and Lucy’s vocals are sweet and salty together, like maple bacon ice cream, somewhere between 1960s dreamboats and back when Jenny and Blake still happily sang together in Rilo Kiley and something that’s uniquely us.
After practice I discover something that ruins any chance of my new amazing casual attitude lasting any longer: the missed call and voice mail are totally not from Milo. They are from Sydney Jacobs–doer, Garrick, and I think of his shaggy hair and his science/kissing skills, and I smile, and then I think of Sydney Jacobs again, and I turn that smil
e upside down.
“That Guy?” Reid asks me.
“I wouldn’t say that.” I’m not going for vaguely mysterious but somehow pull it off anyway. I start to explain, but it’ll go into the Passenger Manifest later. So I wait until I’m alone in my car to listen to Garrick’s voice mail.
“Hi, Riley, it’s Garrick Bell. Your chemistry partner.”
HOW IS GARRICK A GENIUS WHEN HE SAYS THINGS LIKE THIS?
“I just wanted to see if you were doing anything. Probably you’re going to a cool underground secret show at the Smell tonight.”
HOW DOES GARRICK KNOW ABOUT THE SMELL?
“But if you’re free, I was thinking about hanging out, maybe seeing a movie at the Vista. Okay, talk to you later, or not, I guess see you Monday otherwise. Bye!”
I don’t know what this means. If this were a normal guy, I’d consider this an ask-out, which would make hanging out a date. But of course it seems I don’t even know any normal guys, because while I was figuring out if a scientific genius was an okay sort for a rock star (in training) to date, I was now struggling with figuring out if a lowly civilian was an okay sort for a celebrity-sex-haver to date. Or even just make out with.
After all, I still want to make out with Garrick. Even if Ted Callahan reigns supreme as the Crush and even if I might have plans at some point in my life with Milo, That Guy.
I call Garrick as I’m driving home.
“Hey, Garrick, it’s Riley.”
“Hi, did you just have practice? I remembered right after I left you a message.”
“Yeah, but it’s cool. When do you want to hang out?”
“I don’t know, soon? And great! Do you want to meet me here? My house, I mean. Or there? The Vista, I mean. You know what I mean, so I don’t know why I just explained both of those.”
“I can meet you at your house.”
“Great.” He sounds like he means that.
He lets me in right away when I get to his house, and his parents are clearly out, so instead of talking about chemistry or going to a movie, it’s an instant smush of our faces together, right there in the Bells’ front room, like we can’t wait a second longer. It always sounded exaggerated in songs, but now that I was in this moment, I couldn’t wait a second longer.
“Hey,” I say, because I feel there are matters to clear up, even though my hands are buried deep in Garrick’s perfectly shaggy and well-conditioned hair while his have settled at the small of my back, under my shirt, on my bare skin. I had no idea it could feel good for someone to touch your back.
“Sorry,” he says, professional and polite, pulling back from me.
I see that he thinks it has something to do with the skin-on-skin contact, and I want to fix that misunderstanding right away, but if I jump right back into kissing him there will still be matters to clear up.
“No,” I say, “it’s just, you know, the whole thing, is all, not you, not your hands, I mean, that’s all.”
Jeez, Riley, five billion vague phrases does not a sentence make.
“Are you okay?” He probably thinks I just had a stroke.
“I don’t smell any burnt toast, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Garrick stares at me as blankly as a boy genius can.
“You know, they say you smell toast if you have a stroke.”
MORE BLANK STARING.
“I didn’t have a stroke is what I’m saying.”
“I’m glad we cleared that up.” He laughs and goes off to get us some sodas. It’s fancy root beer made with real sugar, bottled in Mexico, where all the good sodas come from. “Are you okay?”
“I know about Sydney Jacobs,” I say.
“Oh, right. I guess I figured you would have already known. Anyway, it’s over between us,” he says, the way people talk on television when they’ve had Life Experience. “Were you reading Nick Gossip dot com? I heard that blog said something about Syd not ending things with ‘an old flame.’”
I picture Garrick as a candle in the wind, and I almost laugh, but then my gut registers the intimate Syd.
“I believe you,” I say, “and I wasn’t reading Nick Gossip dot com. Just—she’s famous.”
“Kind of,” he says.
“And I’m not.”
He cocks his head. “So?”
I can’t figure out how to say I’m a nobody without sounding like I want assurance that I’m not.
“Riley,” he says, like my whole name is a sigh.
“Let’s go to a movie,” I say finally.
“Great.” He seems relieved that I changed the subject.
“Sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay.” Garrick is suddenly made of kindness and understanding, in addition to shaggy hair and crazy good lips. “Ready to go?”
“Totally.” We walk over to Hillhurst and then down to the Vista and absolutely no more making out happens, not during the movie, not during the dark walk back to his house later.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Sad Animal Project, Continued, by Reid
I stop by Paws for People “randomly” (Jane had mentioned that her schedule rarely changes) and act like I’m surprised to see her there. I remember to give a lot of attention to the one-eyed dog supposedly meant for me. Jane asks me if I asked my parents about the dog yet, and even though I know I originally did say “parents” I correct her and say “my mom, actually” and tell her how my parents are divorced and my dad lives in Chicago now.
Jane looks really guilty she said it so I’m psyched I’m getting sympathy out of this!
She’s the only one working again, so I hang out with her and help walk dogs, and something really amazing happens. At one point she makes this sad face and I ask her if she’s okay. And she says the greatest thing a girl has ever said about me.
“I was just thinking once you bring home the dog you won’t come in to help me so much!”
So I tell her it might be a while after all before I can adopt the dog, and also maybe after I do I can still come by to help her out, or I’ll at least see her around. I tried to say it all smooth like “seeing you around” means “going out with you” but I’m not sure I did it right. I am not That Guy.
I stay until Paws for People is closed, and I ask Jane if she wants to hang out. She says she can’t because she made plans already. It’s pretty disappointing but I handle it like a pro. Actually I guess if the topic is “having girls make excuses not to hang out with you” I am a pro. But this time I don’t think it’s an excuse, I’m at least 85 percent sure it’s true.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Once I’m home that night, in my pajamas watching TV in the living room because Mom and Dad think it’s harmful to your brain development or your psyche or your vision to have a TV in your own bedroom, I listen to a new voice mail from Milo.
“Hey, Riley, it’s Milo. Call me. Later.”
It’s late—like, infomercials-are-playing-abundantly-across-multiple-cable-networks late—so I don’t, but after a weird night with Garrick, it’s good to have Milo waiting in the wings.
Wait. The wings? My life is a play with a bunch of dude understudies?
Actually that sounds awesome.
Dad walks downstairs into the room. “What are you still doing up?”
“I’m sixteen,” I say. “And it isn’t that late.”
“I guess not,” he says. “Want some popcorn?”
“We have popcorn? Yes.”
“I won’t reveal where,” he says, disappearing into the kitchen, “but I have a hiding place.”
I’m too lazy to get up, so I don’t solve the mystery of where in the world is the secret popcorn. Also this acne-treatment infomercial is finally starting to get interesting.
“Voilà,” Dad says, coming back into the room with a bowl of popcorn, yay, and a shaker of Parmesan cheese, double yay.
“Awesome.” I stare at the TV as teenagers get their lives back. Apparently there are no lives with zits. “Did you have a lot of girlf
riends in high school?”
Dad kind of laughs. “Well, yeah.”
Well, yeah?
“College, too.” He grins and takes a huge handful of popcorn. He needs sustenance to relish these lady memories. Ew. “Until I met your mom, of course.”
“Dad, I know.” I wish we could have this conversation without my having to think about Dad having dozens of girlfriends. “Just—that’s okay, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, I don’t know. Knowing a lot of people.”
“‘Knowing’? Or dating?”
WHY AM I ASKING MY DAD ABOUT THIS? “Never mind.”
“I’m just trying to figure out what you’re saying,” Dad says. “But of course it’s fine. As long as you aren’t in committed relationships.”
Committed relationships sound like they’re for people so old they worry about taxes and retirement plans and laxatives.
“Did you ever like three girls at once?” I ask, even though I don’t really want the answer.
“Well, yeah,” he says, again, “of course.”
OF COURSE?
Instead of dwelling on that, I turn my attention back to the on-screen teens and their miraculous better-skin miracles. And I decide I will call Milo tomorrow and see Ted Monday at school and figure out what the heck is up with Garrick and enjoy the fact there are suddenly so many options. I am not Reid with his weird rankings and back-up plans. I just like these guys.
* * *
There’s all sorts of noise in the background when Milo answers the phone on late Sunday morning.
“Hey,” he says.
“What’s going on there?” I ask. “Band practice?”
“Ha-ha,” he says. “I’m mowing the lawn.”
“You can call me back later if you want.”
“I’m talking to you now, right?” he says with a laugh. “What are you doing today?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I say. “What are you doing, besides lawn mowing?”
“I’m not sure yet, either. Want to hang out?”
I suddenly feel like it’s weird. I don’t even know this guy, other than his first name and his phone number and that he plays the tuba and has good taste in music and that he’s eighteen. And now we could just hang out?
