Black and White and Gray All Over

by Rachel Wise

  “Then why are you smiling?” I asked. I couldn’t believe I’d actually said that aloud.

  “Oh, just thinking.”

  “How is it with, uh, Kate Bigley?” I asked.

  Michael’s brows knit together the way they always do when he’s searching for the right thing to say. I gulped while I waited, wishing I’d never asked. Finally he said, “Uh, let’s just say you two have very different approaches to journalism.”

  “That’s all?” I pressed.

  “Pretty much all I can say at this point,” he said, looking away.

  “Is it going well?” I asked. I’m a fool. Why did I even want to know?

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. It’s going pretty well,” he said. But he wouldn’t look me in the eye!

  Either this guy was in love with Kate Bigley, or things were going terribly. I couldn’t tell, and it was going to drive me crazy.

  “Okay. Any big weekend plans?” I asked. I had to know if he was going out with her or something.

  “Nah,” he said. “It’s Jeff’s birthday, so his mom is taking us to paintball on Saturday.”

  “Fun!” I said. It actually sounded like torture to me, but I know boys love that sort of thing.

  “Yeah! Anyway, that’s about all. So . . .”

  “Yeah. So. I need to get going to class. So bye!”

  “Oh, okay. Bye,” he said. But I walked away first.

  I don’t know why, but I was confused and kind of sad as I walked away. I felt like there was so much being unsaid, and from his side I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad.

  In the newsroom there were lots of other kids working on stories, so I couldn’t look for new Dear Know-It-All letters. I’d e-mail Mr. Trigg and ask him to check for me later. I hoped there’d be something superjuicy for me. If nothing else had come in, I’d have to go with what I had, since I’d need to write the reply on Sunday in order to hand it in on time next week. None of the choices were that great, but I’d have to make do. I was looking forward to Sunday, actually, because I had a lot of parts of the school uniforms article. On Sunday I’d tie it all together in a draft, then finalize it on Monday. I was also looking forward to the sleepover with Hailey. She could set up a survey on Buddybook for me tonight to poll who was for and who was against the idea. I always like going to the people on things like this, even if it is a little skewed toward those who favor social media.

  After school my mom took me and Hailey to the grocery store to get stuff for Make Your Own Sundaes. We were going to get pizza at the mall and then see the movie and have dessert at home later. My mom refuses to pay movie theater snack prices. We got all kinds of awesome toppings: crispy chocolate shell, dulce de leche, marshmallow cream, waffle cookies to crumble over the top, and three flavors of ice cream. Hailey was in junk-food heaven since her mom is a health nut. As we piled the stuff in the basket, we howled with laughter at the possible combinations, jokingly pointing to other stuff on the shelves that we could add and making up funny sundae names. My mom was just shaking her head at us, smiling, as we reached the end of the aisle to get on line, when who should we see up ahead but Kate Bigley!

  She was heading toward the checkout line with her own mom, and we called out to her. She smiled and waved, so we went to stand behind her and there were introductions all around. Her mom was pretty and chic, in very trim, fitted clothes that were simple but stylish. She and my mom chatted while we showed Kate all the junk food we’d bought, but I was feeling terribly guilty. I wished there was a way I could have a telepathic conversation with Hailey that Kate couldn’t hear. I wanted to say, I feel bad for Kate and feel like we should invite her, but I don’t want to share my special evening with you with her, too! I thought about the shoe being on the other foot (shoes again!), and how I’d feel if I were Kate, and that’s when I decided to invite her. Only, to my surprise, Hailey beat me to it.

  “Hey, why don’t you come with us? You could come to Sam’s, then the movie, and sleep over afterward with us!”

  Kate’s eyes lit up at the invitation. Hailey looked questioningly at me to see if I was on board and I nodded. “Yes, please come! It will be fun!”

  “Oh, that’s so sweet of you,” said Kate. “And I wish I could, but my parents are having some dinner guests I’d really like to meet, so I’ve got to stay home, you see?”

  “Ooh! Who are they?” asked Hailey as I stared daggers at her. She can be sort of clueless, like not realizing it’s sort of an impolite thing to ask someone that.

  “Well, it’s . . . my mom’s actually a writer, and it’s her editor and his wife, who’s an agent. I think they’re neat because they know all sorts of famous literary people and they like to talk books all night long and gossip about authors!”

  “Wow!” I breathed. I couldn’t imagine a night like that. “That’s so cool that your mom is a writer. What does she write?”

  “Oh, fiction. Short stories. She’s had a novel published. She writes for British Vogue sometimes and Tatler, which is a magazine back home.”

  “That’s so cool! How come you never said so?” I asked. I was actually kind of hurt that she hadn’t shared that with me at lunch the other day, or ever.

  Kate shrugged. “It’s . . . I don’t know. It’s her gig, you know?”

  “Is she famous?” asked Hailey, her eyes agog.

  Kate laughed. “To a very small group of people, yes.”

  “Wow. Cool,” said Hailey. “I can’t imagine wanting to write.”

  “Hailey, come on!” I said.

  “Ready, girls?” asked my mom. “Is Kate coming along?”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Martone, but I’m going to stay home tonight. Sam and I have plans for tomorrow, though. Have fun, girls!”

  “You too! Take notes!” I said.

  “Ugh! Notes! My least favorite thing about journalism!” Kate laughed. “Besides research!” She laughed again.

  “Bye!” we said.

  Outside, Hailey and I were quiet as we put the bags in the car and climbed in. After a minute, my mom laughed. “Cat got your tongues back there, girls?”

  I realized it was quiet. “No. I was just thinking. It’s weird that Kate hates notes and research and she’s a journalist, right?”

  “Why?” asked Hailey. “I hate them, too.”

  “Because those are like two of the main things about being a journalist, along with interviewing people and writing. That’s pretty much it. It’s just weird that you’d hate fifty percent of what you do.”

  “Some people hate more than that,” said my mom. “And they get up and go to jobs all day long where they hate seventy-five, eighty, one hundred percent of what they do.”

  “That would stink,” I said.

  “Yeah,” agreed Hailey. “Almost as much as having a friend who makes all kinds of plans with other people without telling you.”

  “What? Hails! Come on!” I laughed. “Are you mad I’m doing something with Kate tomorrow?”

  My mom turned up the radio to give us some privacy, and she began singing along, loudly and with the wrong words. I cringed and wished Hailey weren’t mad right now so we could share a look and giggle about my mom. Insane Mom Thinks She’s Hip: Top 40 Her Ticket to Loony Bin.

  But Hailey shrugged and looked out the window silently for a moment.

  “I asked you first!” I protested.

  “You just have so much more in common with her,” said Hailey. “I just know you’re going to end up liking her more and dump me.”

  I swatted her. “Don’t be ridiculous! No one could ever replace you! And anyway, how do you think I feel with you hanging out with Jenna all the time?”

  “I only started hanging out with Jenna because you were with Michael all the time,” said Hailey.

  I wanted to giggle at the expression “got Jenna,” but I knew it wasn’t the right time. It would only make Hailey madder. She gets self-conscious if she thinks I’m teasing her for being dumb (which she isn’t and I never do). “Well, as long as we each know w
e come first,” I said. “Deal?” I put out my hand for her to shake.

  She looked down at it like she wasn’t going to take it; then she quickly spit into her palm and held it out to me.

  “Eeeewww!” I screamed, slapping her hand away, and just like that, we were back. If only it were that easy with Michael.

  Chapter 9

  ALLIANCES SHIFT AS NEW BATTLE LINES ARE DRAWN!

  Hailey and I had a blast at the mall. Pizza was fun: We ran into a bunch of girls we’re friends with from school, and we all sat together and checked out some accessories they’d bought with their babysitting money.

  The movie was good. It was a romantic comedy, and everything about the couple reminded me of me and Michael. I cried when they broke up and cried when they got back together and all around loved it.

  Back home we chowed our sundaes—even Allie and my mom made their own—and then we headed upstairs to “settle in,” as my mom calls it.

  But we weren’t going to settle immediately. There was a Buddybook survey to set up first. We got in our pj’s and brushed our teeth; then Hailey pulled up her page and helped set up a little poll for me. It basically asked if kids were for or against school uniforms. We didn’t make it specific to Cherry Valley Middle School, since it would be too hard to control for the answers, and anyway, since it wasn’t up for real as a possibility, it didn’t even matter. Hailey said she’d check it again for me tomorrow morning and tomorrow night, and I’d run with whatever the final tally was tomorrow night.

  After Hailey did that, we decided we’d better look at Michael Lawrence’s page. He doesn’t have a photo up of himself—just a photo of his dog, Humphrey, who is a basset hound and really cute; even his dog is cute!—but a lot of times people tag him and their photos appear on his page. As we poked around his wall, Hailey suddenly gasped and pointed. I looked closely, and it was a tiny photo of Kate Bigley: her profile picture next to her name. She and Michael Lawrence were Buddybook friends! And not only that, they were playing an ongoing game of Words with Pals!

  Alliances Shift as New Battle Lines Are Drawn!

  Hailey and I looked at each other in shock; then I dropped my face in my hands and wailed. “I knew it! I knew they’d end up together! This is just like in the movie tonight when the guy meets the new girl!”

  “Okay,” said Hailey, trying to click on the link to read the thread of the game, but it was locked. “Listen.” She grabbed me by the shoulders and made me look at her. “Just because they’re playing some kind of dorky online Scrabble thingy doesn’t mean they’re dating.” Then Hailey muttered, “Why anyone would waste their time practicing their spelling online is beyond me . . . .”

  I had to laugh. “It’s not just spelling, Hails!”

  “Oh, whatever! You know what I mean. Let’s look at her page and see who she knows, okay?”

  Hailey did some clicking and we were on Kate’s page, but it was locked.

  “Should I send her a buddy request?” asked Hailey.

  I thought about it for a minute. “Nah. Not tonight. I’m not in the mood to know any more anyway.”

  “O-kayy . . . ,” said Hailey. “But if you change your mind . . .”

  “Okay, I changed my mind. But you know what? Send it tomorrow after you leave. She knows you’re sleeping over, and it’ll look like we were Buddybooking all night long, checking her out and stuff.”

  Hailey looked at me. “But we are.”

  “Duh!” I laughed. “But she doesn’t need to know that.”

  We tried Googling her next, but nothing came up, except about some Kate Bigleys who were obviously older and not her.

  “Whatever. This is boring.” I looked at the clock. An hour had passed. “And a total time suck, as usual. Will you please check the survey before you log out?” I asked.

  Hailey checked. “Wow. Already a lot of replies. Seventy-three for it, twenty-two against.”

  “Huh. It’s totally weird, Hailey, but that’s about the ratio I got when I interviewed people outside school the other day.”

  “Should we tack on a question about what the uniform should be?” asked Hailey, squinting at the comments on the screen.

  “Nah. Thanks, though. With Pfeiffer’s take on it all, I don’t think anything will come of it anyway. Why make extra work for ourselves?” I said.

  Hailey shut down the computer, saying, “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  After we got into our beds and turned out the lights, everything was quiet, and then Hailey said, “Sam? If you like Michael, why don’t you just tell him? There’s always all these misunderstandings between you two, and it’s because you don’t talk! For journalists, you’re not very good at communicating.”

  “Maybe I should write it down.” I yawned. There was no way I was going to tell him anything of the sort.

  Hailey left early for her watercolor field trip the next morning, but not without checking Buddybook for me.

  “First of all, Michael hasn’t replied on Words with Pals, just FYI.”

  “Thanks. That is the important news, after all.”

  “Second of all, the current polls are in and it’s two hundred and thirty-four for to fifty-nine against uniforms.”

  “Wow! People really have no life!”

  “I know. It’s sad.”

  “Imagine the losers who write these polls,” I said, grinning.

  “They must be total dweebs,” agreed Hailey, laughing.

  “Have fun today, Hails,” I said, standing up and giving her a big hug in her chair.

  After she left, I had some time to look at the Dear Know-It-All letters again. Mr. Trigg had e-mailed me back last night to say that there weren’t any more letters so I’d better just go with something I had, assuming there was something good enough.

  Sadly, there was something good enough, but it wasn’t what I needed. I needed better than good enough. I needed awesome! I decided I’d go with the “I miss my friend” letter, since it hit home the most for me. I started mapping out my reply, listing all kinds of things I could suggest they do together, like “Take a class,” “Go paint pottery together,” “Play Words with Pals” (aaargh!), and more. I’d write a little about the importance of shared interests and how they could keep friends united, and about making an effort to plan social outings and sleepovers and stuff. I had quite a lot of material by the time I’d completed my brainstorming, and I knew I could keep coming up with more. This column would be a blockbuster. A friendship 101 guidebook (or guide column—I was getting carried away!).

  When I finished, an hour had passed and it was time for me to go meet Kate at the mall. Where before I’d been really looking forward to our outing, now I was kind of dreading it. I knew the subject of Michael would come up. How could it not? But what would I say? Ugh. I had a stomachache just thinking about it.

  “Sam!”

  I turned to see Kate waving heartily at me from the Starbucks at the end of the mall.

  “Hey!” I called in reply, and picked up my pace to meet her.

  She started chatting as soon as I was within earshot. “Oh, I was so nervous you wouldn’t come! New-girl jitters and all that. Like maybe I’d misunderstood, or gotten the time wrong or something.”

  “Am I late?” I asked, feeling bad suddenly. I looked at my watch. Three minutes to spare.

  “No, I’m just pathetically early because I had nothing else to do.”

  “Oh, what did you get?”

  “A strawberry Frappuccino and a cupcake. It’s divine right now, but I’ll probably feel ghastly once I’ve finished it.” Kate grinned. “It’s a lot of sugar!”

  “I’ll get the same.” I went to order while she saved a seat for me at the counter that paralleled the line. While I waited, I saw a girl from my homeroom and we waved at each other; then my friend Tricia’s mom walked by and we said hello. Finally the barista was the girl who’s always there on the weekends, which is the only time I go, and she knows my name because they need it to write on the c
ups for our orders. I know hers (Tara) because she wears it on her name tag. We greeted each other by name and had a little chat about the weather or whatever, and after she gave me my change, I went to perch on the stool next to Kate until they called my name.

  “You must know everyone in here!” Kate exclaimed as I sat down.

  “What? No, not really,” I said.

  “It seems like it. This is really your hometown. You’re lucky.”

  “I’m sure it would be the same for you in your hometown,” I offered generously, but Kate shook her head.

  “No. We’ve moved three times in the past four years. My mom is trying to get a teaching post at a university, and if you’re not offered tenure after the first year, you move on. So now I never know anyone anywhere.”

  “Bummer,” I said. “Or maybe it’s really freeing? You can do whatever you want, wear whatever you want, and no one will hold you back or call you out on it.”

  “I guess. I just miss my old friends. And a few recent new ones, too.”

  “Oh, do you keep in touch?” I asked, thinking of Buddybook.

  “A little, on Buddybook.” She paused. Then she said, “Hey, how come you’re not on it?”

  I was surprised. “How did you know?” I asked. And, of course, right then they called me for my Frappuccino. “Hang on.” I got it and came back.

  “Because I tried to buddy you and you don’t exist there. I wanted to play Words with Pals with you, once I knew you were a wordie like me.”

  Aha. And like Michael Lawrence, obviously!

  “Oh. So . . . um, who do you play with?” I asked.

  “I play mostly with my pals from home. Though I started a game with Michael Lawrence, and he never makes his moves. It’s awfully frustrating, but then I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Oh?” Every nerve in my body thrummed as I waited for more information from her. “Why?”

  Kate sighed in exasperation. “He’s probably working too hard to bother with a silly thing like that. He’s such a perfectionist! Always wanting us to check every little fact, do more research, call one more person. He’s kind of a tyrant. I don’t know how you put up with him,” she said. “Oh, but actually I do. Because you’re perfect!”