Playing Cupid

by Jenny Meyerhoff

  “Right. Just until your friends show up.” He looked at me curiously then, like he wanted to ask me another question, but wasn’t sure what it was.

  “We could have a snowball fight a different da—” I started to say, but at that moment, a blue minivan pulled into my driveway and Logan, Connor, Eli, and Ryan spilled out. Logan instantly grabbed a handful of snow and lobbed it at me. It mostly hit my right elbow.

  “Hey,” I said, brushing the snow from my arm as the minivan pulled away. “Don’t we have to wait until everyone’s here?”

  Another minivan, this one belonged to Emily’s mom, pulled up in front of my house. Emily, Alivia, Kacy, and Danielle climbed out. None of the other girls except Emily were wearing hats. Alivia’s hair was hung in big, soft curls. It looked really pretty, like she’d had it specially done.

  I pulled my hat off my head and shoved it in my pocket.

  “Does anyone know where Mateo is?” I asked. Everyone shrugged. Then Kacy said, “Wait. There he is.” She pointed across the street.

  “Who’s he with?” Alivia asked, wrinkling her nose at the girl in the green ski suit.

  I froze. He was with Sofia. What was going on?

  “Hey, you guys,” Mateo said after the two of them crossed the street. “This is Sofia. She used to go to school with me and Clara. She lives right across the street, so I thought it would be nice to ask her to join us.”

  “Great!” I said, pretending like I really felt it.

  Sofia looked at the ground. “Thanks,” she said.

  Alivia gave me funny look. I shrugged.

  “I was thinking we’d split up into teams of two,” Mateo said, and then started explaining how each pair would build their own fort and stockpile of snowballs.

  But I couldn’t focus on the rest of his rules because Sofia was standing in my driveway with all my friends from my new school. Sofia! Not to mention the fact that Joey had been watching the whole thing and now he was slowly backing his way up onto his own porch. My eyes flicked back and forth between Joey and Sofia but finally stuck on Sofia.

  “Okay,” Alivia announced. “I’ll be with Logan.” Logan went to stand next to Alivia. She flipped her hair back over her shoulder.

  “I call Danielle,” Connor said. Danielle smiled and gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Kacy, think fast.” Ryan tossed a snowball in Kacy’s direction. She caught it. “Want to be a team with me?”

  “Sure,” Kacy smiled. Ryan was the tallest boy in our grade.

  I looked around our group. Emily, and Sofia, and I still didn’t have partners, but Mateo and Eli were the only boys left. Everyone seemed to notice what I’d just noticed at the same time. Suddenly there was a lot of awkward shifting. Alivia leaned over to Logan and whispered something. Then she said, “Eli, you should be partners with Sofia. Don’t you think so, Logan?”

  “Oh yeah. Definitely,” Logan agreed.

  Eli looked at Sofia like he wasn’t so sure. “You ever been in a snowball fight before?” he asked.

  Sofia looked at the ground. “I don’t need a partner,” she said. “I’d be happy to sit on the steps and watch. I’m not really a—”

  “I’ll be partners with Sofia,” Mateo said. My heart twisted a little bit. Why would he want to be partners with Sofia? Was he trying to be nice to her for my sake? Because we used to be friends? I’d rather just have him be my partner.

  “That’s silly,” Alivia said. “Eli totally wants to be her partner. You be partners with Clara. Emily can sit out.”

  Emily and I both looked at each other. I could see the red splotches working their way over the top of her puffy blue collar.

  “Oh, um, yeah,” she said to me, taking a step backward. “I don’t mind sitting out.”

  I didn’t want to make Emily sit out, but I wanted to be partners with Mateo. I pictured us huddled close together behind our fort, both of us out of breath from the fight. It was too romantic to pass up. I looked at Alivia, unsure of what to do.

  “There’s no other solution,” Alivia pointed out. “It wouldn’t be fair to make Emily be a team by herself, and it wouldn’t be fair if one of the teams had three people.”

  Alivia was right. That did make sense. And Emily would understand why I had to be the one partnered with Mateo. After all, she’s the one who figured out he liked me in the first place!

  “You can be in the next snowball fight,” I told Emily.

  “Okay. Yeah.” Emily took another step backward, not really watching where she was going. It was like she just wanted to get as far away from the situation as possible. She took another step back, tripping over the edge of the driveway and plopping down, bottom first, in the snow. Behind me, I could hear everyone burst into laughter. I sprang forward to give Emily a hand up. When I reached her, I could see the tears shining in her eyes. Then I saw Joey, walking up behind her.

  “Hey,” he said. “Could I be your partner? At least until I have to leave?”

  I looked at Joey, swallowing the urge to shout, “NO!” It didn’t make any sense. I should be happy that Emily had a partner.

  Emily turned to him, her shiny eyes crinkling in a smile. “Sure,” she said. “Thanks!”

  Everyone agreed to this plan, and we all got started building our forts along the outside edges of my yard. The center of the yard would be no-man’s-land. The forts were really just short walls of snow we could huddle behind with our snowballs. And I couldn’t really tell if there was a way to win the snowball fight. Mateo’s rules were a little hard to understand.

  I got to work scooping and patting snow into a semicircular wall, but most of my attention was on Joey and Emily. Their wall kept falling down, but they didn’t seem to mind. They were cracking up. When my wall was about a foot high, I suddenly realized I was the only one on my team working on it. Mateo was staring across the front yard at Sofia and Eli.

  “Hello?” I said, nudging him in the ribs. “I thought we were a team.”

  “Sorry.” Mateo shook his head and looked down at me.

  “Our fort’s done!” Ryan called out.

  “You’re all going down!” Kacy shouted.

  “No way,” Connor yelled. “Attack!”

  Seconds later, snowballs pelted down on us, and Mateo and I had nowhere to hide since our wall crumbled instantly.

  “Where are our snowballs?” I asked him, looking around frantically. “We have to defend ourselves.”

  “I forgot to make them,” he said, laughing. “I think we just have to wing it.” Mateo grabbed an armful of snow, then rushed out into the center of the yard. He threw all the snow in the air, which did nothing except get himself covered in snow. All the other teams were making and throwing snowballs as fast as they could. I quickly ran behind a nearby oak tree so I’d have some protection and started making and throwing snowballs while Mateo stayed in the middle of the yard drawing almost all the snowball fire. It wasn’t much help offensively, but at least it meant I wasn’t getting hit by snowballs anymore. So much for my plan of Mateo and me snuggling together behind our fort!

  After what felt like forever but probably wasn’t actually that long, Evan Cho’s car pulled up onto the street in front of Joey’s house.

  “Hot chocolate break!” Mateo announced, and everyone except for Joey and Emily rushed the hot chocolate table.

  Joey said something I couldn’t hear that made Emily laugh. Then they actually shook hands, and Joey headed to Evan’s car. I watched his shoulders as he went, hoping he’d turn around so I could thank him and say good-bye, but he hopped in the backseat and drove off without looking back. Emily headed over to the hot chocolate stand with a secret half smile flitting on and off her face, and a little pang of something hit my chest.

  “I’m freezing,” Alivia announced. “Can we go inside and watch a movie or something?”

  “Uh, sure,” I said. “No problem.”

  “Clara makes the best popcorn!” Mateo told everyone.

  “You’ve watched a movie at he
r house before?” Alivia asked, raising an eyebrow at me. I felt a smile tug at the corner of my mouth.

  “Uh, yeah,” Mateo said, looking at Sofia. “On the snow day.”

  “I call that everyone sits with their partners for the movie!” Alivia said. “Sorry, Em. You don’t mind do you?”

  Emily’s face was as splotchy as I’d ever seen it, but she just shrugged and looked at the ground. “Why would I mind?”

  I squeezed her hand and mouthed the word thanks. Then I imagined all the awesome matchmaking possibilities of a movie: Mateo’s arm around my shoulder, Mateo holding my hand. I took a deep breath and decided to be my own Cupid. “You guys can have the sofa and the floor pillows. Mateo and I call the loveseat.”

  Emily didn’t show up to the Cupid Clara booth on Monday morning. I hoped she wasn’t sick. She hadn’t texted me or anything.

  Since there was no one else to watch the shop, I closed up the Cupid Clara booth early. I had to go hand my signed test to Mrs. Fox, and I wanted to do it before anyone else was there. Now that I actually had to give it to a teacher, I could see that signing the test myself was one of the worst ideas I’d ever had. But I couldn’t erase the signature and ask my dad to sign it for real. The only thing to do at this point was turn it in and hope Mrs. Fox couldn’t tell it was fake.

  “Clara,” Mrs. Fox said when I walked through her door, “I was just thinking about you.”

  “Oh, um, okay,” I stammered.

  “I was going to call your father and recommend a tutor for you. Some of the concepts we study this year are quite complex, and a bit of extra explanation can sometimes make all the difference.”

  “No!” Mrs. Fox couldn’t call my dad. Then they’d both realize I’d faked the signature.

  Mrs. Fox blinked at me in surprise. “I’m sorry?”

  “I mean, a tutor sounds great, but my dad is really busy, he’d never be able to drive me. He doesn’t get home until late.”

  Mrs. Fox pursed her lips and studied me for a minute. It felt like she was probing my brain, and I was sure she’d give me a detention or send me to the principal or something. But instead she said, “There’s a student in my eighth-grade science class who might be able to help you out one day a week after school. I’ll speak to him this afternoon. Can you come back at the end of the day?”

  I nodded, relief flooding my body. “That would be great,” I said. “Thank you.”

  When the first bell rang, and everyone started showing up for class, Emily walked in, healthy as can be.

  “Hey,” I said. “Where were you this morning?”

  “I went to a Mathletes meeting,” she said. “Joey suggested I give it a try.”

  “Oh,” I said. “When did he—”

  “At your house. On Saturday.” Emily pulled her science book out of her backpack, opened it to a random page, and started reading.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked her.

  “Mmm-hmm,” she said, but she didn’t look at me. So I got out my book and started reading too.

  When I returned to Mrs. Fox’s classroom at the end of the day, I was surprised to see Joey standing in front of Mrs. Fox’s desk, and Mrs. Fox nowhere to be seen. I felt a flush rise along my collarbone.

  “Hi,” I said, pausing in the doorway. If I went all the way inside, Joey would realize that I was the student who failed the science test. Maybe I could pretend I was there for another reason. I didn’t want him to know I needed extra help. “Do you know where Mrs. Fox is?” I asked pointing at Mrs. Fox’s empty chair. “I needed to ask her something.”

  “Staff meeting.” Joey tapped his pencil on the science book sitting on Mrs. Fox’s desk.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, still pretending.

  “Tutoring,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you were a tutor.” I should leave. The longer I stayed, the more chance there was that Joey would realize I was the one who needed help, but I didn’t want to go. “That was nice of you on Saturday,” I told him. “Being Emily’s partner I mean.”

  “Well, somebody had to be nice to her.” Joey’s voice was short and curt. I cringed a bit. “It didn’t seem like you were going to do it.”

  I stepped back. It felt like Joey had just spit at me or something. He’d been annoyed with me before, and he’d teased me before, but I’d never heard him so disappointed in me. My whole body felt flooded with shame. I hung my head and mumbled, “You don’t understand. It’s complicated.” As the words left my mouth, I realized how silly they sounded. Of course to Joey it wasn’t complicated at all. He didn’t care what other people thought of him. “She wasn’t even that upset. You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

  “She acts like she doesn’t care, but deep down she does. It might seem like a small, no-big-deal thing to you, but how many no-big-deal things happen to her all the time?” he said. “She deserves better. And I thought you were better. I never figured you for a mean girl.”

  I swallowed hard to get the lump out of my throat. He was right. I took a step backward. I could see Joey didn’t want to talk to me or have anything to do with me. “I’ll talk to Mrs. Fox later,” I said.

  “Wait.”

  I stopped.

  “I’m supposed to tutor you.”

  Oh boy.

  There didn’t seem to be any way out of it, then. I set my backpack at a desk in the front row and pulled out my science notebook. For the next forty-five minutes, Joey explained Punnett squares and alleles and Mendel’s pea experiments with so much enthusiasm they actually seemed interesting. When Mrs. Fox came back to the room, I was surprised. It didn’t seem like that much time had passed.

  “I had a feeling this would be a great pairing,” Mrs. Fox said, smiling at us. I looked down at the ground. We weren’t a pair. It didn’t even feel like we were friends right now.

  “I’d like you both to come back every Monday afternoon. Would that be okay? I can call your parents if you need me to.”

  “It’ll be fine!” I said quickly.

  “I can come,” Joey added.

  “Great. I’ll see you both then.” Mrs. Fox sat down at her computer and started working on something, so Joey and I both packed up our bags. We walked out of the classroom, down the hallway, and to the front door before I realized we’d have to walk home together too.

  Joey didn’t say anything for the first block and neither did I. I didn’t know what to say. There seemed to be both a million things I should say and also nothing that felt right.

  Finally Joey spoke first. “Are you going out with Mateo?” he asked.

  I stopped walking for a second and looked at him, surprised. “No. Why do you ask?”

  He hiked his backpack higher up on his shoulder and said, “I just heard a rumor, I guess. Plus you seem to be hanging out with him a lot lately.”

  We walked in silence past the next house. “He’s really nice,” I told Joey. “I know you probably don’t think so, but he’s been sending me all these secret letters and they just show that he’s not … he’s not like Logan, okay?”

  Joey shot me a frown. “His secret letters prove that?”

  Sheesh. Now what did I do? “I can’t show them to you. They’re private. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  Joey shook his head and gave me another disappointed look. “Your middle name is clueless,” he said sadly. “Clara Clueless Martinez.”

  My mouth hung open, but I couldn’t think of a reply. He’d been right about Logan, but he was wrong about Mateo. Mateo was a good guy. I could tell.

  Joey left me standing on the sidewalk as he went into his house. A breeze gusted up the driveway, and I shivered, wrapping my arms tightly across my chest. I jogged to my front door and the warmth of my house. As lonely as I used to feel at my old school, I never felt as hollow as I did watching Joey walk away.

  Inside, I started working on my Cupid Clara update paper. I probably should have been working on it with Emily, but I was a little afraid to call her. What if
she was even madder than Joey?

  Then my phone buzzed with a text. I grabbed it out of my bag, hoping it was from Emily. Maybe she’d let me apologize. But it wasn’t. It was a text from an email address I’d never seen before: reesesboy@email.com. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who it was, though.

  I read Mateo’s words again, and my eyes got slick and shiny. I knew Joey was right. I hadn’t been nice to Emily at the snowball fight. Mateo liked the pretend me. That was probably the only Clara anyone would ever like.

  The next morning, Emily didn’t come to the Cupid Clara table again. This time, though, she texted me.

  That was all it said.

  Working solo was tricky because I couldn’t man the table and pass out the Claragrams at the same time. Besides, I really missed Emily. I decided to be extra nice to her at lunch today. Maybe I’d even get back to work on finding her a boy. Maybe that was what was really going on. She’d been the only one at my house on Saturday who didn’t have a guy she liked. Maybe Eli would be a good match for her.

  When I arrived at our table in the center of the cafeteria, Alivia was sitting next to Logan, Danielle was sitting next to Connor, and Kacy was sitting next to Ryan. Mateo and Eli sat on the end, so I sat across from them. Emily wasn’t there yet. I made sure to leave enough room on the bench for her.

  Alivia was talking about the Hot Chocolate Social. During morning announcements, the principal had said tickets would go on sale tomorrow.

  “I had the best idea, you guys,” Alivia told us. “We should totally do it the way they do dances in high school.”

  I had no idea what Alivia meant. How could high school dancing be different than middle school dancing?

  “I love that idea,” Danielle gushed. “But, like, what does that mean?” I was relieved that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get it.

  Alivia spread her hands on the table. “Okay, so first we’ll all come over to my house to take pictures, then we’ll all go out to eat, then we’ll go to the dance.”

  “So fun!” Kacy said.

  “I guess,” Ryan agreed. “But I don’t want to go to some fancy restaurant. I want to go somewhere with good food.”