by Jen Klein
Until close to the end of my lunch period, that is.
My chicken wrap is nothing but a ball of aluminum foil and scraps of shredded arugula when I unfold myself to rise from my little self-made nest. I wend my way back through the aisles, taking my time, breathing in the scent of paper, old and new. I’ve gone all the way through literature and am in the fine-arts area when I hear my name. It’s Hope’s voice.
“Lark! There you are.”
Hope is dressed in a white peasant blouse, faded jeans, and bright green peep-toe sandals with cork wedges. She’s standing at the end of the aisle, her hand on her hip. She looks exasperated.
“I’ve been looking for you all lunch period,” Hope says. “Who eats here?”
“It’s quiet,” I tell her. “No one bothers me.”
We both choose to ignore the irony of that last statement.
“Ardy says you’re a calculus rock star,” Hope informs me.
I don’t know about that, because—truthfully—Ardy kinda killed it during our study time yesterday. He understood everything. If anyone is the calculus rock star, it’s him.
Besides, Hope and I both know this is really her move to open a conversation. It’s a way to slide in, to get information. Obviously, after I left yesterday, Ardy ran right over to Hope and told her everything about our afternoon.
Because he tells her everything.
Because to him she is everything.
It’s the most important thing I need to remember.
“Do you want to hang out this weekend?” Hope asks in what, to me, is a shocking turn of events. Cooper and Katie ask me to hang out, but that’s it. Other people smile at me in the hallways and make casual conversation when I end up at their lunch table, but they don’t reach out. They don’t make plans. They don’t want to know me. Everyone’s aware that I have Cooper, Katie, and the boy of the week. There’s no room for more.
“I could use a manicure,” Hope continues, fluttering perfect fingernails in my direction. “Or we could see a movie. What do you think?”
“Okay…” The word trails out of my mouth, like it’s not sure where to land. Because I’m not sure where we are landing right now. Or what the playing field is made out of. Or what the rules are.
“Ooh, I know!” she says in a chipper voice. “We could get a group together and hang out on Friday night.”
“A group?”
“Ask Cooper and Katie,” she says. “I’ll bring Evan and maybe one or two of his friends.”
It’s all very casual and surprising, which makes me wonder what’s really going on. Surely it’s no coincidence that Ardy’s Hope is suddenly asking to hang out right as I’m trying to get to know Ardy. Does she actually want a friend, or is she trying to suss me out for Ardy, or is she trying to throw another guy in front of me?
What’s her endgame?
* * *
At first Cooper was like hell no when I begged him to come. “It’s hashtag Heaven,” I reminded him.
He glared at me. “Only if I can bring Ian.”
I said no, but Cooper wouldn’t budge, so I finally allowed it. Of course, when I mentioned that to Katie, she was not having it. “I’m out.” She shook her head. “No way am I fifth wheel on your Night of Weird.”
“I’m the fifth wheel,” I reminded her. “You’d be the sixth. We’d be like little training wheels joined together.”
“Nope.” She tossed her hair. “I’m going to the theater party with Neeley Washington, anyway. You could blow off your stupid thing and come with us.”
“I already said yes,” I told her, which is why I’m at a random diner by the mall on Friday night. And as it turns out, I’m not the fifth wheel at all. Or if I am, the training wheel I’m joined with is…Ardy Tate.
So maybe Hope is on my side after all.
The six of us are squished into one booth, and somehow, even though this whole thing started because Hope wanted to hang out with me, I’m not sitting next to her. Instead, I’m making an Evan sandwich with Hope as the other slice of bread. Ardy’s across from me, with Cooper next to him, and then Ian is on Cooper’s other side. We’ve been here twenty minutes and already we’ve heard about Ian’s little sister, who is in kindergarten and apparently hilarious, as well as Ian’s childhood interest in dinosaurs. The story included a fascinating account of the fossilized Diplodocus dung he once received as a birthday present. It basically destroys everyone at the table, and I join along with the laughter because I don’t want to seem like an asshat, but…really?
“You know what’s the best thing about that story?” Cooper asks.
That it’s over?
“That everyone else would think that’s a terrible childhood memory, but to you”—Cooper grins at Ian—“it’s like your glory days.”
Ian nods. “True.”
“Worst childhood memory,” Hope says, leaning over Evan so she can poke me. “Go.”
“What?” Hope couldn’t possibly know it, but this is an impossible question for me to answer. I’d rather go back to talking about dinosaur poo.
But, of course, I don’t say that. I merely cock my head and look up at the ceiling tiles of the diner. Like I’m thinking really hard. “Give me a second.” It means I don’t have to meet Cooper’s gaze, because I’m aware that he knows the real answer to the question. When you have parents who take every opportunity to throw verbal weaponry at each other, it’s impossible to find the safe places between the fights. So you stop pretending they’re there. And you start pretending about other things instead. “There was that time Elijah Ridley saw my panties on the jungle gym in second grade,” I say.
There’s a round of boos. Evan sticks his finger in his glass and flicks a drop of water at me. “Weak,” he says. “We’ll come back to you.”
A temporary reprieve. I’ll take it.
“I’ve got one,” he says. “When I was nine, I walked in on my parents having sex.”
I groan, Hope squeals, Ardy laughs, and Ian basically doesn’t change expression. Cooper makes a face like a cartoon detective and leans across the table toward Evan. “What position?”
“Gross!” Hope flicks a piece of ice at him (a gesture she and Evan have in common). “Nobody wants to know that!”
Ardy nods, agreeing with her. “Parental sex was not mentioned in the invitation,” he tells Evan.
Ah. That makes sense, then. Evan’s the one who invited Ardy, which must mean he’s onto Ardy and Hope. He’s thrown by them, he’s worried about their “friendship.” Which means he’d love to get me together with Ardy because it would rip Ardy away from Evan’s girlfriend. Hope’s boyfriend is smart.
And, however screwed up it is, our interests align.
Our server shuffles over with a tray of milk shakes and fries and—kill me now—a salad for Hope. He wobbles away, and as Hope steals a couple of fries from Evan (thank goodness for that!), I look at Cooper. I happen to know that he has the world’s best/worst/most hilarious childhood memory. It’s about when he was in kindergarten and he had this horrible habit of licking things—water fountains, stair railings, and once the hinges on a public bathroom door. It caused his parents all kinds of angst and embarrassment until, thanks to a pushy friend, they had him tested by a doctor. It turned out he had a mineral deficiency. They started giving him supplements, and voilà! No more licking. At which point in the story, Cooper would normally give a sly look and say, “Until now…”
But he’s not telling the story, and I know it’s because it’s way too interesting and flamboyant for stupid Ian to handle.
Ugh.
On the other side of Evan, Hope lets her fork clatter to her ceramic plate. “I French-kissed my dad once,” she says casually.
Evan does a spit-take, Cooper squeals, and even Ian reacts by clapping his hands over his face. Ardy looks at me. Wait for it, he mou
ths across the table.
“We can never be intimate again,” Evan proclaims.
“No, listen.” Hope grins, giggling a little. “It was in ninth grade—”
“Oh God, that’s worse!” Cooper says.
“Than what?” asks Evan. “What is that worse than?”
“Shh!” Hope taps his arm. “Let me preface by saying this: historically speaking, we are a lip-kissing family.” She looks around the table. “Anyone else?”
Evan raises his hand. So does Ian. Ardy and Cooper and I do not.
“See, totally normal,” Hope says. “Except this time, Dad and I were on the porch—”
“Wait, which Dad?” Evan asks.
“Daddly,” she tells him.
“What?” I say.
“I call them both Dad,” Hope explains. “But when I’m trying to differentiate, the one named Christopher is Daddipher and the one named Bradley is Daddly.”
“That’s so cute, it’s painful,” I tell her.
“I know, right?” Hope shines her high-wattage smile at me. “Anyway, I was waiting for carpool and I was trying to tell him something and he was trying to tell me something else and we were both talking over each other. The lady driving carpool pulled up in front of the house and honked her horn. I was trying to finish my sentence and Dad was trying to finish his sentence, too. I grabbed my backpack, turned to kiss him good-bye, and…we were both still talking. And our tongues were out.”
We all erupt in “No!” and “Gross!” except for Ardy, who shakes his head, smiling. I zero in on him. “You’ve heard this story before?”
“A couple of times,” he admits.
The admission drains the laughter out of me because of course Ardy has heard it before.
Ugh.
“Poor Daddly was appalled,” Hope says. “He was way more embarrassed than I was. All the lip-kissing stopped after that.”
“Good, it’s not hygienic,” Cooper says. “And family members should be kissed on cheeks only. The mouth should be reserved strictly for romance.”
“Like this,” Evan says, pulling Hope in for a kiss. I forget to check for Ardy’s reaction because I’m busy watching Ian. Who, if I’m reading the situation correctly, is barely—just barely—leaning toward Cooper, grazing my friend’s shoulder with his own. I watch Cooper’s cheeks turn rosy red, and I know I’m not imagining it. Which makes me feel slightly better about Ian.
“Your turn,” Evan says to Ardy, now that everyone’s stopped whooping it up over Hope’s comic genius, because of course, on top of everything else, the girl has a knack for storytelling! “Worst childhood memory.”
“My dad died,” Ardy says. “That sucked.”
His words elicit shocked silence from four people at the table, and an audible squawk of laughter from one person: me. Which I immediately choke back when I realize I’m laughing into the void. Ardy is staring at me. No, I take that back. Everyone is staring at me.
Which is awful.
I’m mortified, I’m a terrible person, I’m the worst of everything in the world. I’m laughing at Ardy’s father’s death. Even Cooper looks reproachful.
Except then I realize that tiny lines have appeared at the outer corners of Ardy’s eyes. His mouth is tensed, like he’s trying to control himself…
…and he bursts out laughing, which only sets me off again. I wad up my napkin and throw it across the table at him. “Jackass!”
He ducks, still grinning, as the others try to catch up. Ian looks from Ardy to me. “Wait, your father didn’t die?”
Ardy shakes his head. “Nope, he did.”
“He super did,” I say at the same time.
Which makes Ardy and me laugh all over again.
* * *
Later we’ve meandered up Delaware Road and are headed down Third Street toward the recreation center. We’ve naturally split into pairs to accommodate the narrowness of the sidewalk, so I’m walking with Ardy. The other four are ahead of us, both couples seemingly engaged in sparkling dialogue, but Ardy and I are quiet. Usually I don’t have a problem making conversation with boys. Usually I excel at it. But with Ardy I’m oddly shy, maybe because I feel more like myself. Like who I really am, way down deep. The girl who someday could have the courage to use her voice to express real opinions.
That’s the girl I hope to be, who I could be someday. Ardy makes me want to be that girl right now.
I just don’t know how.
Or why.
He nudges me as we walk along. “Hey, I forgot to ask—how’d you do on the calculus test?”
Finally. A topic.
“A-minus,” I tell him. “How about you?”
“A-minus.”
“Really?” Because I’m going to take that as the universe telling me that we’re perfect for each other.
“No.”
Stupid universe.
Ardy flashes me a sideways smile that is so distractingly cute it makes me want to hug him. “B-plus. But a really high B-plus.”
“So, practically an A-minus?”
“Practically.”
It’s midautumn, so the days are still long. There’s a little pink left in the sky when we reach the grassy edge of the rec center property and cut up the paved walkway winding through it. Crossing over the pavers by the phallic war memorial (sorry, but it is), we head toward the center of the park. The sky is darkening, but the streetlights are bright enough to shine our way to the playground.
I’m standing on the concrete at the edge of the sand, trying to decide if I want to take my shoes off, when hands descend on my shoulders. For the slightest second, I think it’s Ardy—that he’s weirdly choosing this moment to make a move—but then, from the corner of my eye, I see delicate fingertips. I smell orange blossom shampoo, and I know it’s Hope. I spin to see her smiling up at me. “You’re it,” she says.
I blink at her. “What?”
“You’re it.” And then she’s off and running. “Tag!” she yells back at me.
I turn to look at Cooper so I can roll my eyes because what are we, children, except he’s gone, too. All five of them have scattered over the sand like marbles dropped on a table. Even Ian is running, tripping and slipping his way in and out of the shadows.
And if Ian can play tag, then—for the love of all that is holy—I can play, too.
I kick off my Vans and charge into the fray. Ardy and Evan are climbing to the top of a pile of fake rocks, Hope appears to be trying to hide behind a small yellow spring rider shaped like a duck, and the last thing I want to do is catch Ian, so I sprint toward Cooper. He’s attempting to scramble up one of the hard plastic slides when I reach him. He should abandon his plan and vault over the edge to relative safety, but he doesn’t. Which means it’s easy for me to leap up and tap him on the ankle. “Coop’s it!” I yell to everyone else, before taking off across the sand.
The game goes like that for a while. Cooper tags Hope. Hope tags Ardy, who tags Ian. Ian tags Cooper. From where I’m standing, it looks like Coop threw the game to give Ian a break—or maybe for an excuse to get Ian’s hands on him—but whatever. Cooper then darts after Evan, who immediately bolts off the sand and into the park. “Cheating!” Cooper yells, but no one pays attention. To be fair, it’s not like we ever established boundaries.
Evan’s move is a game changer, and now everyone’s following his lead. I vault over the sidewalk and onto the park grass, remembering far too late that I’m barefoot. Hopefully, I won’t step in something gross.
Speaking of gross, I myself have become somewhat gross. I’m sweating and breathing hard as I circle a bank of tangled Brickell bushes, slowing to a walk to give myself a chance to recover from the exertion. I slide the ever-present elastic band off my wrist and reach up to wind my hair into a messy bun. I have no idea where the others are as I round a cor
ner on the path, dart into the shadow of a tree, and slam straight into someone.
I jerk backward, opening my mouth to scream, when slender fingers catch around my arms and—“Whoa”—Ardy’s voice floats, soft and soothing, from the darkness above.
The normal thing to do would be to step back, to push away, to return to the game…but I don’t do any of that. Instead, I freeze.
Ardy’s hands loosen on my arms as he gently turns me to face away from him. Behind me, his head dips down until it’s hovering next to mine. We’re looking in the same direction, and even though we’re not touching, I can feel the warmth of his skin. “There,” he whispers. I follow the stretch of his arm, pointing into the murkiness…to Evan.
Evan, who obviously didn’t dress for a night game, is wearing a bright white soccer jersey, which makes him visible as he tiptoes down a path on the other side of the Brickell bushes. He’s looking for either a person to tag or a place to hide. Neither of which I’m interested in providing him. “We should have designated a safe zone,” I whisper back to Ardy. “Like a home base.”
“We didn’t exactly put a lot of forethought and planning into the finer points of the game.” His mouth is very, very close to my ear, and I resist the sudden urge to rise up on my toes so I’ll be in contact with him. He’s not holding on to my arms anymore, but I wish he were. I wish we were touching somewhere, anywhere. I’m hyperaware of his body, behind me and so close to my own. And of the starlight. And the leaves rustling above us. Everything is suddenly romantic. Everything is suddenly charged.
It’s not just a game.
Any of it: this game of tag or the one that Cooper and Katie made up.
I might like this boy.
I might actually like him.
Crap.
* * *
We’re walking back to the diner parking lot when Evan offers up a new game. “That man in the guidance office who always wears a bowtie, the guy who mops the gymnasium floor, and Kelli from the football team.”
Yes, we have a girl on our football team. And, yes, she is awesome.
