The Cupid Chronicles

by Coleen Murtagh Paratore

  We made money last night, more then we expected. And everybody had fun. Maybe we can do more events like that. Stella can’t object to saving the library. And I’ll have all those chances to be with JFK. That’s it. Yes. Thank you.

  I sprint around the tip of the spit. The strong ocean currents converge with calm bay ones here, making a dangerous whirlpool. A boy drowned here once. I turn left, in toward the bay side. There’s the spot where JFK and I sat that day we walked together. He kissed me quickly on the cheek. He smelled like peppermint gum.

  “Caw, caw.” A gull swoops in and another takes off like a relay. I head back down the beach. I saved the best part of lunch for last. Sam’s famous chocolate-chip cookies with toffee-candy-bar chunks. Mmmm.

  There’s a patch of rugosa by the stairs. The sweet cinnamon-smelling pink beach roses grow wild all over the Cape. I pick one, probably the last of the season, and stick it in my hair. I wonder what JFK is doing today?

  CHAPTER 10

  Ruby’s Revelation

  The web of our life is of a mingled yarn,

  good and ill together.

  —Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well

  It’s an “outie,” out-of-uniform day, in honor of the annual student-faculty soccer game. Outie days are causes for great rejoicing at Bramble Academy. We get a chance to dress like ourselves and ditch the drab uniforms.

  I put on orange Bermudas and my favorite striped rugby shirt. I grab a juice and a cranberry muffin and bike to school early. No one is in the hall when I tie the five-pound bag of candy on JFK’s locker.

  Dear Joseph,

  I meant to give this to you at the party. Thanks for coming. It was fun.

  Willa

  At lunch I tell Tina about my idea to hold events in the inn barn to raise money for the library. Tina doesn’t care very much about the library, but she doesn’t need two invitations for fun.

  “Fun, fun, fun,” she says.

  “Tanner McGee’s a jerk,” Ruby announces, slamming down her books so hard my vegetable soup sloshes on the table. “Lana Sharkey can have him.”

  Lana Sharkey is a junior and the head of the Bramble Burners.

  “Tanner was just sitting there on a log all by himself …”

  I look to see if Tina is jealous—just two weeks ago she was making a list of all the ways she and Tanner were compatibly perfect—but no, Tina’s stabbing her salad bowl. “They’re so stingy with the cheese around here,” she says.

  “… and all I did,” Ruby rolls on, “was sit next to Tanner and ask if I could roast him a hot dog or something and then, all of a sudden, Lana Sharkey comes running over all crazy and whispered something really mean to me and then they got up and walked off together. Tanner didn’t even wait for his hot dog.”

  I’m dying to make eye contact with Tina, but she’s still searching for cheese. Clearly she’s over Tanner McGee. I guess it’s all about Jessie now. Good. Jessie and JFK are friends. Maybe the four of us can—

  “Anyway,” Ruby says, folding her arms, “I thought about it all weekend. And I decided that Tanner was just using me to get back at Lana for flirting with that new transfer kid, Chris Ruggiero. Wow, have you seen him yet? What a beamer …”

  I keep sipping my vegetable soup, not nearly as good as Sam’s but I’ll deal, nodding like I’m listening, eyes on the door for JFK.

  “At first I was hurt,” Ruby says with a sigh. “But then I said to myself, ‘so what, let it go,’ or as Yogi Senile would say, ‘breathe and move mountains, breathe and move on.’ So I said to myself, ‘what’s more important, Ruby Sivler? Fighting over a boy or being a Bramble Burner?’ I don’t need Lana Sharkey mad at me. She’s actually adding one of my moves to the new halftime cheer …”

  I keep watching the door for JFK. I wonder what he thought of the candy. I wonder what his favorite candy is. I wonder what—

  “… and so I decided …” Ruby’s still talking. Tina clicks open her mirror and puts on lipstick. Ruby is annoyed that she doesn’t have Tina’s full attention. She clears her throat, loudly. “So, like I was saying. I decided Lana can have Tanner McGee. I’m going back with Joey Kennelly.”

  “What?” Tina and I say together.

  “What do you mean you’re going back with Joey” Tina says, looking quickly at me. “When were you ever with Joey?”

  Soup is swirling in my stomach. It’s not Joey. It’s JFK. And he’s mine.

  “Oh, come on.” Ruby squints at Tina. “Don’t you remember? Joey and I had a good thing going before he moved to Minnesota. We had some nice times together.”

  What good thing? What nice times? Potatoes and carrots and celery are swirling. “I’m definitely ready for older guys,” Ruby says. “But Joey is so sweet and shy.” Ruby twirls a red curl and giggles. “He’ll be like my training wheels.”

  My ears are burning. My lips are frozen. Training wheels!

  “What nice times?” Tina asks. Thankfully, her lips still work.

  I’m going to puke. Here come the carrots. I hate you, Ruby Sivler.

  “Well, it was after you moved to Maine last year Willa …”

  Thanks, Stella. Always messing up my life …

  “Joey and I were Spanish partners and had to write a skit for Cinco de Mayo …”

  I’m having a sinking feeling of déjà vu. Ruby somehow managed to be JFK’s Spanish partner in seventh grade too. What is wrong with you, Willa? Why didn’t you switch to Spanish then? Who cares if you’ve had six years of French? Spanish is a perfectly good language. Half the country speaks it. How hard can it be? Maybe I can still—

  “… and Joey would come over to my house just about every day after school so we could work on the skit. Day after day, we’d be sitting side by side at the computer, all alone, down in the basement …” Ruby looks like she’s blushing. She twirls a red curl. I’d like to rip that curl out by its roots.

  “… and then one afternoon Joey just leaned over and …” Ruby pauses for maximum dramatic effect.

  My head is spinning, the soup is rising.

  “He leaned over and what?” Tina demands.

  “Oh …” Ruby tilts her head and twirls another evil curl. “I can’t say.” She’s smiling as innocently as Little Red Riding Hood. “It’s sort of our secret.”

  The cafeteria’s crashing in on me. I turn to run.

  “Willa, wait,” Tina calls.

  The bell rings. Ironically I’ve got French.

  Mademoiselle Ferret looks especially constipated today. That lady never cracks a smile. “Pop quiz,” she announces, gleefully Pop quizzes are Ferret’s idea of fun. She really ought to take up fossil collecting or something.

  “Willafred?”

  I hate that. Ferret insists on using my full name. Stella used to do that too, back in the BS, Before Sam, days. Imagine having to endure “Willafred” when you could be “Willa, like a willow tree” instead?

  “Oui, Mademoiselle.”

  She tells me to please stand and conjugate the verb “to love.”

  Love? Do ferrets have sick psychic senses or what?

  I stand, fighting back tears and soup puke.

  “J’aime.” I was beginning to love JFK.

  “Tu aimes.” You might not believe it, but I thought he liked me too.

  “Il ou elle aime.” Now, I find out, he loves Ruby and she loves him.

  “Nous aimons.” We could have been a great couple …

  Last period is Freshman Class Meeting. We’re voting on our community service project. I’ve forgotten all about the library. All I can think about is JFK.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Hot, hot, hot”

  The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,

  Sing all a green willow;

  Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,

  Sing willow, willow, willow.

  —Shakespeare, Othello

  Come on, Willa. Get a grip. You’ve got a job to do. Think how you love that library. Just tell them the plan a
nd you can go home, crawl into bed, and cry.

  I sit with the other class officers up front. Ruby and the Burners aren’t here. Good. JFK is sitting on the couch in the back corner with his headset on and his eyes closed. His lips are moving as fast as an auctioneer’s, his curls in sync with the beat. “Rap,” he said, “it’s like poetry except it’s music.”

  Our class president, Gus Groff, the smartest kid in Bramble, keeps us on schedule. We decide on important issues we want to tackle with the administration. More “outie” days. Less homework. Important issues.

  “Willa, you’re on.” Gus nods to me.

  When I take the podium, JFK takes his headset off.

  Be brave, Willa, be brave. I smile and he smiles back. He pulls the five-pounder out of his backpack, unwraps some candy, and gives me a thumbs-up sign.

  Ha-ha, Ruby, so there.

  “Willa.” Gus taps his watch.

  “Thanks, Gus.” I’m feeling more confident. “Hi, every—”

  The door plunges open. Ruby and the other freshman Burners gush in, giggling. Ruby plops down on the couch next to JFK. The other Burners squish in beside her, sandwiching Ruby closer and closer, until she’s practically on JFK’s lap.

  My throat clenches. Forget about her, Willa. “As you know, we need to decide on our community service project. Some way in which our class can make a better Bramble. I have a suggestion, but I’d like to hear other ideas.”

  No one says anything. Just as I expected. Nobody else wanted this job. “Okay, then.” This should go smooth as taffy. “You’ve probably heard about—”

  “Let’s get some decent vending machines,” Luke calls out.

  “Yeah, that’s good,” Emily says, and several girls nod.

  “Okay” I write “Ideas” on the board and then #1 Vending Machines.

  “And a new sound system for the gym,” Jessie says. The Buoys are on a roll.

  “Nice one,” Tina says, smiling at Jessie.

  Hey, Tina, you’re on my team. And it will take more than a new sound system to make the Buoy Boys sound better. But Sam says that when you’re brainstorming, you’re just supposed to let people be creative and get all their ideas out. You write down everything everyone says without trashing it and then you go back and talk about it later. If it comes to a vote though, Tina, you better pick me. Ice cream or not.

  “Good, number two, sound system.” I write it on the board. “Anybody else?”

  The room is silent. “Okay, then, if no one else has any ideas, I have a sugges—”

  There’s a mumble from the back.

  “I’m sorry,” I say “What was that?”

  “Vanity lights,” Ruby shouts.

  The Burners giggle. JFK smiles. He must think this is funny.

  “What do you mean by vanity lights?” I’m breaking the brainstorming rules, but that is a stupid idea. If looks could kill, Ruby would be “roll over, Rover, you’re dead.”

  “Well, it’s no secret we need better lighting in the girls’ locker room,” Ruby says, like she’s done extensive research on this crucial crisis.

  “That’s right,” the Burners say.

  “So we can see ourselves better,” Ruby says, puffing up like a peacock.

  “That’s right,” the Burners agree.

  “It’s impossible to put on mascara, or curl your lashes, and you might as well forget about eye-liner—”

  “That’s right.” The Burners are outraged. These are horrible hardships indeed.

  Ruby marches on like she’s giving a campaign speech,“… and so, in conclusion,” Ruby poofs her red curls and bats her eyelashes fast as a hummingbird—“I say better lights for a better Bramble.”

  The Burners cheer, “hot, hot, hot.”

  Ruby has got to be kidding. This will be easy. I look at JFK. He winks at me. “And you think this is an important cause?” I ask, standing up on my soapbox, the scales of truth and justice on my side. “You want to make a better Bramble by buying new lights for the bathroom?”

  Gus and his chess club friends crack up. The Latin club kids do too.

  Ruby’s cheeks turn red as her hair.

  “Okay” I say turning toward the board, feeling a tiny bit bad for being so mean, but only a really tiny bit. “Fine, number three, vanity lights.”

  When I turn around, Ruby’s on the rebound. She sits back down on the couch, skin close as she can to JFK. “Oh, and …” Ruby pauses. She turns and looks at JFK with a mischievous smile. “I don’t want to discriminate against boys or anything.” Ruby keeps staring right at JFK. She puts her hand on his arm. Someone says “ooh-ooh,” and the Burners squeal.

  “Not that I’ve ever been in the boy’s locker room before …”

  The swim team guys slap their elbows together and bark out their seal call, urgh, urgh, urgh….

  JFK looks flustered.

  “… and so I’m not exactly sure how dark it is in there …”

  The Burners sing, “hot, hot, hot.”

  The whole room is laughing. Now JFK is redder than Ruby’s hair. Is he embarrassed or guilty or what? My head is spinning. Breathe, Willa, breathe. I turn back to the board and pretend I’m fixing a word that’s smudged. Tears are stinging my eyes. Is there something I don’t know? Did Ruby and JFK kiss in the locker room? Stop it, Willa. Get a grip. Don’t you dare cry. Do you hear me?

  “Willa,” Gus calls. “There’s another hand.”

  I force the tears back in and turn around. It’s JFK. He’s waiting for me to call on him. I nod and turn back to the board so I don’t have to see his face. I write “# 4.”

  “What about you, Willa?” JFK says.

  I’m so confused. What is he doing? Who does he like, Ruby or me?

  “You said you had a good suggestion.”

  I can’t speak.

  “Yeah, Willa,” Tina chimes in. “That’s right. What’s your idea?”

  “Willa?” Gus prompts, nodding toward the clock. “We’re out of time.”

  For a few seconds, I’m frozen. But then I picture the green ivy waving on that old brick building, the whale spoutin’-fountain, Mrs. Saperstone all excited, handing me a book … all of those rows of beautiful books.

  I take a deep breath. This is bigger than a boy.

  “Well, I don’t know how many of you have heard the news,” 1 start in a shaky voice, “but the town council is closing the Bramble Library….”

  Somehow I manage to finish. Nobody looks very interested. The bell rings. Kids are leaving. Gus says “maybe we should table the vote.”

  “Hey, wait,” Tina shouts, rushing up front to join me. “Willa’s right, everybody. And maybe we can get on television, one of the morning shows or something. You know, saving the poor old library. And we won’t do fund-raisers, we’ll do FUN-raisers. Fun, fun, fun.”

  “Sounds good to me,” JFK says louder than I have ever heard him speak. He walks up to stand by me and Tina. “Count me in. I vote for the library, too.”

  My heart is pounding. My head is spinning. A volcano is erupting inside.

  “Joey’s right,” Ruby says, coming up next to him. “I vote for the library, too.”

  Gus calls for a vote. “It’s unanimous.”

  I run off gasping for air.

  The faculty-student soccer game is after school.

  All I want to do is go home, lock my door, and collapse, but I’m one of the best strikers in our class, and if we win, it means no homework for the weekend.

  JFK and I are both forwards in the fourth quarter.

  “Willa,” he calls over to me. I can’t look at him.

  The ref calls “two minutes.” We’re tied with the teachers. I trap the ball and dribble down the field. JFK is shouting, “Willa, I’m open, pass, pass.” I can’t look at him. My head and my heart are colliding. I charge on and slam in that ball so hard, poor goalie Dr. Swammy makes a suicide dive that sends his turban sailing. Sorry, Swammy.

  “Willa!” JFK shouts as I blast away on my bike. “Wi
lla, wait. What’s wrong?”

  CHAPTER 12

  “Oh, Jo-e-o, My Jo-e-o”

  I’ll not budge an inch …

  —Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

  The front door slams behind me. The Blazers look up from their Monopoly game. They are in the midst of a serious real estate transaction, but they manage smiles as I pass. Monopoly is fun, but I’m more of a Scrabble girl.

  Stella calls to join them in the kitchen. She’s chopping basil and tomatoes. Sam is slicing baguettes. Garlic is sizzling in the frying pan, Gorgonzola waiting on the counter. The famous Bramblebriar bruschetta food critics rave about. Mmmm. Yum.

  “The Blazers spoke with me today,” Stella says, “about your Halloween party.”

  Oh, gosh, the money. “Yes, we owe them change. I’ll go find them right now.”

  “They didn’t say anything about change,” Stella says, still chopping, “but they did say they had a wonderful time and they want to dance again when they come back at Thanksgiving. The barn will be cold, but Sam said he could bring in some space heaters and …”

  While Stella talks, I keep thinking about JFK and how he kept calling to me after the game and maybe, just maybe, Ruby was making the whole Cinco de Mayo and locker thing up … and what should we do next to raise money for the library … maybe something for Thanksgiving … another dance in the barn … and JFK will come and—

  “Willa,” Stella says. “Are you listening to me?”

  “I’ll do it!” I say.

  “Do what?” Stella looks confused. Sam nods patiently, like it’s okay, go on.

  “To raise money for the library, we want to have dances and other events here at the inn, in the barn, something at Thanksgiving, then—”

  Stella starts in with questions, but Sam says, “it’s nearly six o’clock, Stell.”

  Way to go, Sam.

  Stella looks at the clock and jumps up. “We’re late. Open the bar, Sam. I’ll be right there.” Stella sprinkles Parmesan cheese on the bruschetta, quickly checks her face in the mirror, then, just when I think I’m good to go, Stella turns and says, “I’m not agreeing to anything at this point, Willa, except a Thanksgiving dance for the Blazers.”