Just Your Average Box Set (Just Your Average Princess, Just Your Average Geek, & Just Your Average Celebrity)

by Kristina Springer

  “Hey, B,” Missy says, lowering herself into a criss-cross applesauce next to me.

  And yes, Missy is the only one allowed to call me “B.”

  “Hey, Miss,” I return.

  “We’re practicing for that President’s fitness test stuff today.”

  “Oooh, fun.”

  Missy sets to work on gathering all of her hair into a ponytail holder, which does not look like an easy task.

  After attendance, Coach Brown tells us to take turns counting how many sit-ups we can do in a minute’s time.

  Missy goes first and I hold her feet. She finishes with an impressive fifty-two sit-ups.

  “Hey, Miss,” I say as we switch positions on the mat. I look around to see if anyone is within earshot. No one is.

  “Yeah?”

  “I was just thinking about BSC stuff. Do you swap a lot yourself?”

  “Heck yeah,” she says, pushing some stray hairs back behind her ears.

  “Really?” I say, a bit surprised.

  “Of course. I take full advantage of my membership.”

  “Well,” I begin, forming my next question carefully, “how do you go about swapping? I mean, have you ever gotten backlash from the girlfriend of the…swapee?” Is that the right term?

  Missy sits back on her knees and looks at me with her head tilted a bit. “Why? Are you thinking about it already?”

  “What do you mean, ‘already’?”

  “No…nothing really. It’s just, I didn’t really start swapping until my second year. When I was really sure of how everything worked.”

  “It seems pretty clear,” I say.

  “It is. You just have to be careful,” she says thoughtfully.

  Missy places her hands on my feet, to signal that I should start my sit-ups but I’m not quite ready to end the BSC talk.

  “What about your boyfriend?” I ask, laying back on the mat but not starting my sit-ups.

  “What about him?”

  “Does he go out with a lot of the BSC members?

  “Oh sure.”

  “And you don’t care at all?” I sit back up to look at her.

  “No, of course not.” She lets go of my feet and sits back on her knees.

  “How do you do that? Not care.”

  “I guess I’m just used to it. Brad is fun and cool to hang out with. More like a nice accessory, you know?”

  I raise one eyebrow at her.

  “You know,” she begins, “he’s kinda like, last year’s Coach bag. Yes, it matches a lot of your outfits and it is comfortable and familiar. And it is still in really nice condition—no frays or dents in the buckle. But, it isn’t so valuable that you wouldn’t let your best friend borrow it when she needed it.”

  Interesting. I never thought of it like this.

  “Besides,” she continues, “it is probably on sale in the outlets by now and not so rare that everyone can’t have their own anyway.”

  Okay. She lost me at the outlet talk.

  * * *

  PrincessBrooke: Hey Carter.

  Tinman99: Hey Brooke. How’s it going?

  PrincessBrooke: Pretty good — working on the project now.

  Tinman99: Me too. Guess what? Graves worked with the dude who wrote Lord of the Rings.

  PrincessBrooke: Wow! “My precious…”

  Tinman99: :-) Yeah. They were both professors at Oxford. Cool.

  PrincessBrooke: Interesting. Did you know he tried to kill himself? Over a woman he was in love with?

  Tinman99: I knew he attempted suicide—didn’t know the details.

  PrincessBrooke: Reading now… he loved her… she loved another guy… who loved another woman (brain hurting) so she tried to kill herself by jumping out a window and he jumped out another one after her. Aww…so sweet! Kidding.

  Tinman99: Wicked. We have to put that in the presentation.

  PrincessBrooke: Definitely.

  Tinman99: What time do you want to meet tomorrow?

  PrincessBrooke: Right after school? Want to meet @ the café in Bookends? That way we can get drinks while we work?

  Tinman99: Sounds good. See you then. And at school of course.

  PrincessBrooke: Later!

  Okay, coffee with Carter definitely counts as a date date, right? Maybe?

  Chapter 18: Love You, Love You Not

  There. Done. I’ve finished my part of the presentation and I’m ready for my study date with Carter tomorrow. Now to get ready for my date with Chris tonight. Since we’re going to an art show, I should probably dress up. I pull on my long-sleeved brown dress and a pair of tights. I zip up my brown boots and tie my BSC pink scarf around my neck for a splash of color. Technically I don’t need to wear the scarf on our date, since I doubt we’ll run into other BSC members at a Community Art Show, but it looks really cute with this outfit.

  I walk into the kitchen to see what Mom made for dinner. Tonight is her book club and she left early for it, mumbling something about having to pick up coffee cakes on the way. I take the waiting plate out of the refrigerator and look at it. Chicken Broccoli Alfredo. Not in this dress. I need something less messy to eat. I put the plate back in the fridge and get to work making a PB&J.

  Sigh. I’m having the worst time trying to muster up some enthusiasm for this date with Chris. I know I’ve been distant with him lately but who could blame me? I’m totally pissed at his behavior. More pissed that I was wrong about him. I thought he was so faithful. Ha! And having to keep up this whole “everything is normal” routine is freakin’ hard. I wonder if Chris is completely clueless or if he feels me pulling away? He acts totally normal so I’m leaning toward the clueless theory. He’s probably so preoccupied with trying to find ways to see Cassie without getting caught that he doesn’t even realize that I already know. Or maybe Cassie told him that I knew and I was cool with it? That would be right up her alley. So help me if Chris asks me to do a manga tra…manage twa…whatever it’s called.

  Ding dong. I open the door and Chris is standing on my front porch in dark brown cords and a navy sweater that makes his gorgeous blue eyes somehow even more gorgeous. He gives me one of his hello-the-love-of-my-life smiles and my heart beats faster. Why does this have to feel so familiar and wonderful? Before I can even say hello, he pulls one long-stemmed red rose from behind his back and hands it to me.

  Ack! Away from my frozen heart with your hammer and chisel, you! Too late.

  “Ohhhhhh Chris! It’s so beautiful! I love it!” I hear myself gush. I’m such a girl.

  Chris steps into the house, closes the door behind him, and wraps his arms around me. I tilt my head back to look at him and he gives me a long, slow kiss. We stand like that in the front hallway, kissing, for another couple of minutes until he finally breaks it up.

  “Are you ready to go, Babe?” he asks.

  I nod my head yes, still dizzy from the kiss. He helps me on with my jacket, takes my hand, and we walk out into the night.

  * * *

  The art show really isn’t bad. I mean, I envisioned that it would be far sillier than it actually turned out to be. I didn’t imagine the Rosehill community having a whole lot of artistic talent but some of these pieces are pretty good. Especially the paintings that Mrs. Donnely did. She has six on display at the show, each one depicting a different part of the enormous family farm she grew up on. Looking at them lined up next to each other is cool, like a super wide picture. When Mrs. Donnely spots Chris and me she gasps and claps her hands together. She races over to us and throws her arms around me. I can tell she’s proud of her paintings and happy we’re there showing support.

  After we spend a sufficient amount of time looking at Chris’s mom’s paintings and pretending to talk about color and lighting, which neither of us has a clue about, we take a complimentary small paper plate of cheese and a Dixie cup filled with a red punch-looking liquid. Both the cheese and juice are warm and we dump them at the nearest out of sight trash can. We walk around the rest of the show checking out the
wide variety of things on display—everything from a giant ear-shaped collage of what looks like five hundred photographs of different people’s ears entitled, “We All Have Ears Here” to a large doll house made entirely of cut up books, right down to the tiny little furniture. We round the corner into a big room marked “Sculptures.”

  “Looks like my mom’s meatloaf,” Chris announces as we approach the first in a row of sculptures.

  I giggle.

  “This one looks like my mom’s meatloaf, too,” he says as we walk past another sculpture.

  “Chris,” I hiss, looking around to see if anyone else heard him.

  We approach a third sculpture. “Now this one looks like my mom’s meatloaf after I’ve thrown it up,” he says, pointing his finger. An older woman with big wire glasses and thin orange lips looks at us and frowns.

  “Ohmigod,” I whisper and bury my head into his shoulder.

  Chris just laughs and wraps his arms around me. He steers me away from the sculptures and into the next section. Quilts.

  “You’re so bad,” I say, pretending to protest even though I’m actually having a lot of fun.

  “The worst,” he replies and kisses me on the tip of my nose. I wrap my arms around his waist and lean into him as we continue walking.

  We step up to examine the first of a long hallway of hanging quilts. It consists of a ton of blue, red, and purple triangles that form bunches of stars on a cream background.

  “This one’s pretty,” I say.

  Chris moves us closer to the quilt, looks it over, and then kneels down to read the card at the bottom. “‘Stars’ by Betty Smith. This quilt took Betty two years to complete,” he reads. He straightens up and looks at me. “Now that’s just stupid.”

  I give him a quizzical look. “What is?”

  “Spending two years making a blanket. Hasn’t Betty ever been in a Bed, Bath, & Beyond before? She probably could have picked up something similar for thirty bucks.”

  I shake my head at Chris but I’m laughing too. I’ve got to get him out of here before we’re thrown out.

  “You want to get going?” he asks.

  “You read my mind,” I answer affectionately.

  We stop and say goodbye to Chris’s mom and she gives us each a hug and thanks us for coming. I’m really glad we did this. Tonight reminded me of how much I still do love Chris…how funny he is…how loving he is…how nice his butt looks in dark brown cords.

  The sounds of “We Are the Champions” via Chris’s cheesy ringtone fills the air. Who would be calling him now?

  Chris checks the phone number on his display, flushes a bit, and then takes a few steps away from me to answer. He has never stepped away from me to take a call before.

  Grrr. Cassie.

  I can feel the pissiness rise in my chest and I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hand. Ouch! I open my hands and rub them together to get out the nail marks I just left.

  Chris steps back toward me and puts his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “Hey, you said you had a class thing to work on tomorrow after school, right?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Just scheduling some band practice with the guys,” he says.

  Band practice. Yeah right. “Oh really?” I say, feeling anger swelling up in me.

  “Yeah, really,” he replies giving me a strange look. Like I’m nuts or something.

  I take a deep breath because I feel like I’m about to scream at him, and I know I can’t. I mumble, “Whatever,” and turn around to face the opposite direction, like a painting on the wall is suddenly so fascinating that I just have to look at it. My eyes are feeling teary and I’m so not about to cry in front of him. I can hear Chris walk away to make his plans.

  Ugh. My mood plummets as low as it can possibly go and my heart aches. I’m always hearing TV doctors talk about how yo-yo dieting is bad for your health—I wonder what the verdict is on yo-yo loving?

  Chapter 19: Chatting in the Girls’ Room

  I am a woman on a mission: win Carter Jones’s heart. And today is the day. I’m pulling out all of the stops. The Turbolifter 3000 is freshly washed and doing its part in the lifting and pushing department. I was up until eleven last night researching Bukowski (whom I figured out is Charles Bukowski, a poet from California) and picking out a couple of lines from one of his poems. Which I then put in super cool white and silver lettering in Photoshop, printed on some special iron-on paper, and ironed on to a black, low-cut v-neck shirt. Yeah, yeah, I realize I’m just north of crazy stalker girl, but I have to get Carter to go on a real date with me and I have to do it today. I am so pissed off with both Chris and Cassie and I want Cassie to feel my pain. Now.

  I walk into the band room and Lizzie is slumped in her chair with her feet up on her tuba case. She briefly looks up at me, tilts her head with a puzzled look on her face (most likely due to today’s clothing choice), and then drops it back onto her chest. Lizzie has given me loads of puzzled looks since I joined Boy Swap so that is nothing new, but the depressed head slumping is. I rush over to her seat.

  “What’s wrong?” I kneel down in front of her.

  She looks up at me with teary eyes and whispers, “He dumped me.”

  “He did what?” I ask loudly, scanning the room for Jacob.

  “Shh…God Brooke. I don’t want everyone to know.” Lizzie stands up and walks quickly out the door. I follow her.

  We go to the nearest girl’s bathroom and into the last stall. Lizzie finally turns and looks at me, totally crying now.

  “Oh Lizzie,” I say. “I’m so sorry. What did he say?”

  “H-he said it was just ph-physical. That we never really h-had a connection,” she sobs, grabbing at the roll of toilet paper.

  I quickly unwind a pile of paper and hand it to her. I’m not sure what to say to this since I kind of guessed the same thing. I mean, their relationship has been moving at the speed of light. So I wait and see if she’ll continue.

  “H-he said it was f-fun for a while.” She dabs at her eyes and sniffs hard. “But he wants to ask out A-Angela so he can’t hang out with me anymore.”

  “Our friend Angela? He told you that? That he wants to ask out Angela? Oh my God, what a jerk.”

  She nods and sits down on the toilet.

  “I’m so sorry Lizzie, is there anything I can do?”

  She shakes her head no. “God, it’s going to be so sucky in b-band now. How am I supposed to play and not be upset each time I see him? Or what if Angela does go out with him? Then what? How am I supposed to see them together?”

  Eh, you get used to it, I want to say. Though I don’t. And I know that isn’t really true. It still stings each time I think about Chris and Cassie together.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “But if it helps at all, I really don’t think Angela will go out with him. She’s our friend. She wouldn’t do that.”

  Lizzie nods and rips some more toilet paper off the roll next to her and wipes at her face for a few seconds. Poor thing. She’s a blotchy mess.

  “Let’s do a girls’ night this weekend,” I say. “Just me, you, cheesy movies, and ice cream. Sound good?”

  She nods.

  “Good, we’re on then. Let’s get back to band before we’re too late.” I grab some more toilet paper and wipe mascara off her cheek. “There, you look fine now.”

  We step out of the bathroom stall and head for the door. Then I spot Caitlyn Ray applying lipstick in the mirror.

  “Hi, Brooke,” she sings. “I thought that was you. Got a minute? I have a question about our French quiz to ask you.”

  Hmm…well somebody has been studying my schedule. But I don’t have any classes with Caitlyn.

  “Sure,” I say slowly and then turn to Lizzie. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

  “Quelle est votre question?” I ask.

  “Huh?” she says.

  “I asked, ‘what’s your question,’” I say.

  “Oh,” she giggles at my
little joke. “I don’t really have a French question.”

  Duh.

  “I was just hoping we could chat for a minute.”

  Hmm. I haven’t chatted with Caitlyn since that time we had coffee at Bookends and she told me what a fantabulous job I was doing at letting girls flirt with my boyfriend.

  “Sure. What’s up?” I say, looking at her reflection in the mirror while she fixes her hair. This should be good.

  “Oh, I just wanted to see how things are with you.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Well, that was painless. I’ll just be going…

  “I also heard that you were trying to make a swap,” she says before I can make an exit.

  “Where did you hear that?” I ask.

  Cailtyn waves off the question with one perfectly manicured hand. “You know how girls talk. Just around.”

  “I might be,” I say, getting a bit louder. “But I’m abiding by the rules so I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “Oh, Brooke, Sweetie, relax,” Caitlyn says. She turns away from the mirror and leans against the sink. “There isn’t a problem.” She tilts her head and gives me what appears to be a sweet, concerned friend type of smile. “I just wanted to make myself available to you for any questions. Swaps can be tricky when you first get started.”

  Hmmm. Interesting.

  Just then the automatic air freshener fastened to the wall goes off and pumps a lethal amount of freesia into the air. My nose begins to burn and I rub at it.

  “Thanks for the offer, Caitlyn, but I think I have everything under control.”

  “Are you sure?” she says, taking a step closer to me, apparently unaffected by the freshener from years of dousing herself with buckets of Glow by J. Lo. “I’m an expert at swapping so I could give you some tips. Who’s the guy you’re going after?”

  Right, like I’m going to answer that! Cassie totally sent her to mess with me. “Not sure you know him,” I say. “And I really have to run—I’m so late for band. See you later!” I head for the bathroom door before she can stop me.