Romeo & What's Her Name

by Shani Petroff

  “You know it’s going to be okay, right? You don’t have to hide from people,” he said, his gaze still squarely on me. He knew I was lying about the earring, and he didn’t care.

  “But I screwed up so bad. I ruined it for you.…”

  “No, you didn’t. I still got the extra credit. And, come on, it was kind of funny.” He nudged my shoulder with his.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “You know how to make people laugh,” he said. “It’s a good thing. The only thing more epic than today was your bat mitzvah party.”

  I cringed. I had forgotten about that. At the time, I thought a lip-sync battle would be fun, and for my turn, I put together a through-the-decades montage, which had me doing snippets of songs from the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, 2000s, and beyond, complete with outlandish costumes. “That was planned, though. It wasn’t acting.”

  “It was still pretty awesome. I was jealous I hadn’t thought of something like that for mine.”

  I definitely remembered his bar mitzvah. At the party, everyone was dancing as a group. Then a slow song came on. For a split second I thought he was going to ask me to dance; and if he didn’t, I decided I was going to ask him. But then Elyssa Drayer beat me to the punch, and they were together for two whole years after that. “Really?”

  “Yeah. And you’ll get through this unscathed, too. You know everyone likes you.”

  How was he always able to make me feel better? Maybe today wasn’t going as horribly as I thought.

  “And if it helps, you’re not alone. We’re in this together. Okay?” Then he gave me one of his little winks.

  I may have liked Wes before, but now I knew I loved him.

  “Now let’s get out from under here.” He crawled out and reached his hand out for mine.

  I was HOLDING WES ROSENTHAL’S HAND.

  Sure, it was just because he was helping me stand up, but who cared?! Did I have to ever let go?

  My moment of bliss didn’t last long, because my emergence from the protective layer of the tablecloth did not go unnoticed.

  “EMILY!” Jill’s roar came from about ten feet away.

  “Oh, God,” I said, half under my breath. I dropped Wes’s hand and clung to the table. Was it too late to go back under there?

  “How could you do that to me?” she asked, storming over.

  “It wasn’t—” Wes started to answer.

  “Wes,” Jill hissed. “This is not about you. Can you please give us a minute?”

  “It’s okay,” I said, and nodded at him to go. I wanted him to save himself; and he wasn’t stupid, he took off. If I could have escaped, I would have gone for it, too.

  “Jill, I am so sorry.”

  “And instead of just saying that, you decided to avoid me?”

  She was glaring at me, and I totally deserved it. She was right. “I didn’t know what to say. I thought maybe things wouldn’t look so bad tomorrow. I was planning to stop by your house before I went to work. I was even planning to bring flowers and ice cream—coffee toffee, your favorite.”

  “You can’t buy your way out of this.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “You PROMISED that you could do this. Did you even try to learn the lines? You knew how important this was to me, and now Ryan is going to lord this over my head forever.”

  “I know. I feel awful. I’m so, so, so, so sorry. Please, you have to forgive me. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to you. You have to know how bad I feel.”

  She didn’t say anything. She just continued to give me her signature don’t-mess-with-me stare, which I took as a sign to keep groveling. “I never meant to ruin everything for you. I tried to learn the lines. Really. But with that history project and those extra shifts at Northside so I could save up for a car, and Amanda making me her gopher, I just got overwhelmed. I swear, I never thought I’d wind up on stage or I would have memorized them. Even if it meant giving up sleep or car money. Please say something.” I grabbed her hands.

  She pulled them back. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “Because I’m an idiot.”

  At that point, Kayla joined us, and Jill pointed her finger at her. “Don’t think that I don’t know you were in on this. You could have warned me what was going on, too, you know.” Kayla’s eyes darted to the ground, and she started playing with the ends of her long, dark braid.

  “It’s not her fault,” I said. “She was just trying to help. I really thought I’d be able to pull it off.”

  Jill was seriously fuming. I wished I had a cute kitten or Seth Werner, Jill’s current crush, to distract her. I seriously considered yelling out to see if Seth was in the room. But without those options, I decided to just spill it all. “I didn’t want to disappoint you—or lose the extra credit points,” I cringed at my confession, “so I had my lines on my phone. But it died. And I thought I might have had them memorized. I spent all day trying. Really. But then”—I saw we had a few spectators, so I lowered my voice—“he winked at me, and I looked at the crowd, and there were so many people. And I couldn’t breathe in that dress. No offense, Kayla. And then I just tried to salvage the scene the best way I could, which I know didn’t work.

  “Jill, tell me what I can do to make it up to you,” I pleaded. “I’ll do it. I’m serious.” I raised my right hand. “I, Emily Stein, solemnly swear to do whatever Jillian Frankel wants until she forgives me. Anything. Babysit your sister for you. Create you the best web page ever. Make you my super-duper everything-and-more chocolate-chip cookies. You know no one bakes like I do.”

  She just shook her head at me.

  “Tell me what I can do to fix this.”

  She didn’t say anything. We just stood there in silence. It was probably only for fifteen seconds, but it felt like fifteen weeks.

  “I’m so sorry,” my voice came out as a whisper, and my head was swimming. It was bad enough I looked like a colossal fool in front of a good portion of the town, but if I lost one of my best friends because of it, too, I’d never forgive myself. “I will make this up to you. Honest.”

  Her expression softened ever so softly. “You could have told me the truth.”

  “From now on. Always.”

  “Me too,” Kayla piped in.

  “Please forgive me,” I begged some more.

  “Well,” Jill said, a small smile forming on her face, “it’s not like I would have won best director with you as my Juliet anyway. You never really had a chance to work on the scene.”

  “Does this mean we’re okay?” I asked.

  She paused and then nodded. “I’m still mad, but we’re okay-eth.”

  “Really? Thank you,” I said, and gave her a huge hug. Kayla joined in, too.

  “I guess after the humiliation you suffered today, I could give you a break,” she said, and shook her head. “You outdid yourself this time, Em. That was the biggest train wreck I’ve ever seen.”

  “But it was funny,” Kayla added. “My favorite was, ‘A book-eth where-est I can recite-eth beauteous words.’” She started laughing, and it was kind of contagious.

  Jill broke into a wide, toothy grin. “That was painfully wonderful.” She shook her head at me. “Or when Kayla flung the script at you and that look on your face. Or when you fell on top of Wes…”

  She burst into such hysterics she couldn’t even get out any more words.

  “That humming,” Kayla jumped in, she herself doubled over in laughter. “‘Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm. Romeo, Romeo, Romeo.’ That was awesome.”

  “Glad you both find my humiliation so humorous.” But I was laughing, too. Everything was good again. Sure, I made a complete joke of myself in front of the whole school, but I had my two best friends by my side (I was 100 percent going to make it up to Jill) and the boy of my dreams saying we were in it together. All in all, it wasn’t such a bad day.

  “Let’s get out of here. I’ll give you guys a ride,
” Jill said, and put one arm around me. Kayla did the same on the other side. Then they gave each other a look, and somewhere between laughing fits, they started humming.

  I was serenaded to a chorus of “hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, Em, Em, Em” as we made our way to the car.

  15

  “Emily,” my mother called up to me.

  I rubbed my eyes and looked at the alarm clock. It was nine thirty in the morning. “I’m sleeping,” I yelled back. I was on vacation. February break meant sleeping in. And it was my last chance, too. Tomorrow was back to school.

  “You used up all the milk.”

  Shoot. I had been up all night making Jill I’m-so-sorry cookies. I know she said she forgave me, but I was serious about making it up to her. I had already taken over ice cream and that new dystopian book she had been dying to read. Cookies were just the next step in my plan.

  “I’ll get it later. I promise,” I called down to the kitchen.

  “I need it now.”

  Why now? It was early. I dragged myself out of bed and made my way down to her. “I’m tired. I’ll go at one.”

  “And how am I supposed to make this?”

  Macaroni, butter, cheese, and a bunch of other things were spread over the counter. I forgot my parents had a potluck that night, and their contribution was Mom’s famous mac and cheese.

  Her hand was gripping the back of her neck. “Your father has the car. I have a conference call soon. I don’t have time to walk to the store and back, make this, do the call and still get ready.”

  “Fine. I’ll go now,” I said, heading her off before I got another lecture about responsibility and consideration. I grabbed my purse from the table and threw on my sneakers. “You can get ready and do your other stuff. I’ll even make it for you. It doesn’t take very long. Okay?”

  “Thank you,” she said, the muscles in her face starting to relax.

  “I’ll be back soon.” I opened the door to the garage.

  “Wait.” She looked me up and down. “You can’t go out like that.”

  I glanced at my reflection in the window. I wasn’t that bad. Okay, I wasn’t great. I had a serious case of bed head, the T-shirt I was wearing was too tight and had a golf ball–size hole to the left of my belly button, and my sweats were an old pair of my mom’s from before she dropped sixty pounds and were way too big on me. The crotch was basically at my knees. But I was picking up milk, I wasn’t trying out for America’s Next Top Model. I’d be in and out. My coworkers wouldn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t like I wore my Sunday best to work—not when I spent a good portion of my day in the storage room. And I didn’t care if a bunch of old people or new parents, who were pretty much the only ones shopping at this hour, thought I looked like a sewer rat. I was not Amanda. I didn’t need to dress to the nines just to make a five-minute stop. I wasn’t that vain.

  And if I didn’t care what I looked like, my mom certainly shouldn’t. “It’s nine thirty in the morning. Nobody I want to impress will be at the market.”

  “But, Emily…”

  “Do you want the milk or not?” I asked.

  She held up her hands. “Fine. Do what you want.”

  I jumped on my bike and headed to the store. It was a little chilly out. I should have put on a coat. If I had a car, this wouldn’t have been an issue. Days like this made having only one vehicle for the whole family particularly annoying.

  Fortunately, I didn’t live too far from the store, so I was there in less than fifteen minutes. I locked up my bike and went inside.

  Dhonielle was bagging groceries and waved at me when I walked in. “Nice hair,” she said.

  “Thank you, it matches my outfit. I call it euro chic grunge à la bed head.”

  “You may start a trend.”

  “That’s my goal.”

  Dhonielle handed two sacks to her customer, a woman in her sixties or so, and then turned back to me. “What are you doing here?”

  “What? Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “Always,” she said. “But I thought you worked last night?”

  “I did. I just need to pick up something for my mom.”

  Another customer began checking out, so I told Dhonielle I’d catch her on my way out and headed to the dairy section in the back.

  I just made it there when I heard the loudspeaker go off. It was Dhonielle. “Ms. Stein, please report to the office, stat. Ms. Stein, please report to the office, stat. Hurry.”

  Huh? I wasn’t sure if she was trying to prank me or what. I had just spoken to her a minute ago and said I’d be back. What could be so urgent? Then something caught my eye: the mirrored globe thing in the corner that covered the security camera. Someone was walking in my direction. And it wasn’t just any someone.

  It was Wes.

  Dhonielle was trying to get me into hiding because I looked like a goblin. She knew I’d freak out if I ran into Wes like this, and she was trying to protect me. I didn’t move fast enough, though. If I went to the office now, he’d see me. I had to go the other direction. I darted down the candy aisle and tried to blend in with the Jujubes, Kit Kat bars, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

  I texted Dhonielle. Help. In candy aisle. Is coast clear?

  I waited, but there was no response. I wasn’t sure what to do. I couldn’t stand there forever. I stuck my head out of the aisle to peek. Big mistake. Wes had been looking my way. I quickly jumped back to where I had been. Now what? I couldn’t stay there. I was like a sitting duck. I moved to the other side of the aisle and took a left. There was a huge cereal display. I just needed to hide behind it. I tried to wedge myself as best I could between the boxes and boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and the shelves.

  My phone buzzed. It was Dhonielle. Candy aisle safe. Stay there. He’s turning into aisle 9.

  NO! Aisle nine was me. This was not happening. Why didn’t I listen to my mother? She would love to hear me say that. I tried to smooth down my hair, but I could feel the giant clumps. I couldn’t even get my fingers through them. All right. If I couldn’t fix the hair, maybe I could do something about the outfit. I pulled down the shirt, hoping I could tuck it in far enough to hide the hole, but the shirt was too small. There was no give. I loosened the drawstring on the pants and pulled them up higher. It covered the hole but also came up to my chest. I was pretty sure this looked worse. I was like the geeky dad in some old movie. I had to stop messing around. Wes was going to pass me any second. I needed to be still if there was any hope that he’d walk right by and miss me completely.

  Don’t breathe, Emily. Don’t move a muscle. You are one with General Mills. You got this.

  I closed my eyes and waited. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. If I could just get to sixty Mississippi, I’d be in the clear. He’d be long gone by then. At about thirty Mississippi, I opened my eyes to sneak a look.

  I wasn’t alone.

  “What are you doing?”

  Wes was standing there waiting.

  I had not expected to see him there. I hadn’t expected to see anyone there. And when you think you’re alone, and you open your eyes and there’s a person directly in front of you, you jump back a bit. Which normally would not be a big deal. However, when you are crammed next to a cereal-box pyramid, bad things happen.

  Dozens and dozens of boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios rained down on me. I kind of wanted to hide underneath them, but that really wasn’t an option.

  Wes’s mouth dropped open. And a few nearby shoppers gasped. “Nothing to see here,” I told them. “Continue shopping.”

  The loudspeaker went off again. It was Mark, another of my coworkers. “You’re cleaning that up.” I bet he and Dhonielle were gathered around the surveillance camera in the office watching me humiliate myself again.

  I nodded. Restacking the boxes was the least of my problems. I started putting them back on their stand.

  “Emily, what’s going on?” Wes asked. He picked up some boxes and handed them to me.

  �
�Was just looking for some cereal, and I slipped.”

  “What’s really going on? Why were you hiding from me?”

  “Hiding?” I scrunched up my face to try to show him I had no idea what he was talking about. “I wasn’t hiding.”

  “I know you saw me.”

  I shook my head.

  “Fine. Whatever you say.” He turned to go.

  “Wait.” I forgot I was a horrible actress. Of course he saw through my lie. We’d been getting along so great, I didn’t want to ruin it over something so stupid. “You were right. I was hiding from you.”

  He was waiting for an explanation, but I didn’t have one. I couldn’t say it was because I didn’t want him to see me looking gross. That would just draw even more attention to the rat’s nest on my head. And it might make him think that I liked him, and I couldn’t have that unless I knew for sure that he liked me, too. I needed something else. Something that would make him stop questioning me.

  “Tampons,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “I didn’t want you to see me buying tampons. I thought it would make for weird conversation.” Truthfully, I wouldn’t care if he saw me buying them. But I heard some guys get totally uncomfortable talking about that type of thing. I was hoping that he was one of them and that he’d drop the subject. But he was just looking at me like I made no sense, so I did the worst possible thing. I kept talking. “You know, tampons, maxi pads, tampons. Yep. Lots and lots of pads.” What was wrong with me? If the items themselves didn’t scare him away, then the weird girl who couldn’t stop repeating the names of feminine-hygiene products should have. But he didn’t seem fazed. I didn’t know what to do. I had dug myself into a hole. I would have to up my game and go all-in. “You know, when it’s that time of the month and all…” Seriously, Emily. Shut up. Please, shut up. You have major issues.

  “You’re not holding anything,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “You said you didn’t want me to see you buying tampons, but you’re not holding any—so there shouldn’t have been a problem.”

  Were we really having this conversation? Why couldn’t he act like an immature teenage guy just once? But no. He had to be all grown up and not even seem slightly uncomfortable talking about this. He was so freaking calm that he was catching everything. I felt like one of the guilty suspects on all those cop shows, who always get caught in their web of lies.