First Time

by Meg Tilly

  “Lynn,” I say, as we make our way through the hordes of fleeing students. “You know, I was thinking, maybe we should...” We emerge through the back doors of the school, the sunlight bright in our eyes. “...go somewhere else. He’s not going to be there.”

  “How do you know?” Lynn says, cutting across the pathetic strip of lawn.

  “He hasn’t been there the last five times we’ve gone.”

  “We’ve just got to figure out what his hours are. What days he works.”

  “But why?” I’m getting impatient with her. “I mean, really, if he wanted to get in touch with you, he would have called. Not to mention, I’m getting pretty sick of ice...”

  “Hey!” someone shouts. “Watch out.” I leap to the side. Thank God I have good reflexes because I barely avoid a head-on collision with that pain in the ass, Justin. He’s trying to impress his stupid gaggle of groupies, that follows him around the school, by doing wobbly figure eights on his unicycle.

  “You watch out!” I snap. I mean, God. Give me a break. I run to catch up with Lynn, who has already reached the edge of the parking lot. But that isn’t a good move because I almost smack into the back of her. Not my fault, of course. She was walking regular speed when all of a sudden she stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Haley,” she says in a half whisper, clutching my arm. “He’s here! Oh my god, he’s here at our school!”

  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out who she’s talking about. There’s Chad, with a group of guys, admiring some-one’s chromed-out motorcycle. But even worse, Chad’s butt is resting up against the passenger side of Lynn’s car.

  “It’s fate,” Lynn breathes. “This is my chance. How do I look?”

  “You look great,” I say, even though I don’t have a good feeling in my stomach. What’s this guy doing at our school? He graduated. Why’s he hanging around in our parking lot with a bunch of twelfth graders?

  Lynn digs around in her purse for her car keys, her good-luck talisman. “Here they are,” she says, scooping them out, casually twirling them on her forefinger. She’s obviously been practicing this move a lot. She’s got it down good.

  “Let’s go,” she says, and we head toward her car. “So, Haley, where do you want to go?” Lynn asks nonchalantly, in a slightly louder voice than normal.

  I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to answer this one. Is it a real question? Am I supposed to tell the truth? Or lie and say Dairy Queen?

  “How about Dairy Queen?” I’m speaking a little louder than normal too. I don’t want to, but I am her friend.

  “I could do with a Dilly Bar.”

  “Nah.” Lynn tosses her head. “I don’t feel like Dairy Queen today. How about Starbucks?” Starbucks my ass!

  “Sure,” I say. “Starbucks sounds good.”

  “Excuse me,” Lynn says to Chad, nudging him with her elbow. “But she has to get in here.” Like I’m a two-year-old and can’t speak for myself.

  Chad looks up. Obviously I don’t register. Lynn doesn’t either, until she does that swirl thing with her keys on her forefinger, and his eyes follow the swing of the car keys around to her face. I can see him trying to put the pieces together. Pulling her face up from the doubtless hundreds of girls that he has logged into his brain.

  “I know you,” he says, catching her finger, her keys in their mid-circle swirl. Their eyes catch too. “Where was it?” he says.

  Lynn smiles, bites her lower lip slightly, releases it. “I don’t know,” she says, sounding truly perplexed. I had no idea she was such a good actress.

  “Thetis Lake maybe...this summer?”

  “No...I don’t think so.” She shakes her head like she’s confused.

  “Andrew’s party last weekend?”

  “Um...”

  “Dairy Queen,” I say, cutting through the bull. “You met her at Dairy Queen.”I’m surprised at how loud my voice sounds. Loud and flat.

  “You think?” Lynn says, looking dubious.

  “That’s right,” Chad says. “No, she’s right. That’s where I remember you from, Dairy Queen. You came in, what, a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah, you gave me your number.”

  “Oh...Oh yeah.” Lynn smiles. “I remember now. You look different in your regular clothes.”

  “Yeah, that uniform is pretty bad.”

  “Yeah,” Lynn says, laughing with him. “Poor you. Oh well, it’s a job.”

  “Was a job,” Chad says, smiling ruefully. “I got fired.” I’m tempted to say, No wonder all our trips to Dairy Queen turned out a bust. But I don’t. Instead I stand there smiling as if this is fun for me too.

  “This your car? Or your parents’?” he says.

  “It’s mine.” Lynn runs her hand along the roof. “All mine.” And the way she says “All mine,” it’s as if her words are dipped in honey, coming out all slow and sweet and full of promise.

  “Cool,” Chad leans forward, setting both his hands on either side of Lynn’s shoulders, resting on her car. “You got your own wheels.” He smiles at her like she’s all that matters. “Wanna take me for a spin?”

  “Absolutely,” Lynn says, giving her hair a slow toss. Her eyes, a dare.

  And that’s it. He hops in the front passenger seat. Lynn gets behind the wheel, and she pulls out, tires spitting gravel and dust.

  “Guess you aren’t going to Starbucks,” one of his friends says with a smirk.

  “Oh, shut up.” I don’t even look at him, just fling the words over my shoulder as I start the long walk home.

  Chapter Six

  Mom pokes at the gloop in her bowl.

  “How on earth did you manage to burn the chili? That’s like burning soup, for crying out loud.”

  “Your girl has real talent,” Larry says. They are both laughing, like I’m such a funny little girl. And it pisses me off, how they’re being so condescending.

  “If you don’t like it, then why are you eating it?” I mutter under my breath.

  “Haley.” Mom sounds shocked. “Don’t be rude.”

  Rude? I’m being rude? I’m supposed to sit here and suck it up? Them talking about me like I’m not even here? Like I’m a two-year-old or something? I’m supposed to be polite to this donkey’s ass just because she likes him? And the memory of seeing his dick lying in his hand, the expression on his face, makes something in me snap. The next thing I know I’m standing up.

  “Look,” I shout, slamming my hands on the table, “I didn’t mean to burn it, okay! It’s not like I did it on purpose. It’s not like I said, Oh, I’m going to go through all this trouble of making a nice dinner for everybody and then I’m going to burn it because that will be fun! Jeeze, Mom, what do you think I am? Some kind of idiot?”

  “Haley!” Mom says, her eyes flashing daggers. “That’s enough.” Like Larry’s feelings are more important than mine.

  “You’re right. It’s enough!” I’m crying now too, which really surprises me. I mean, it’s only stupid chili for God’s sake. But it’s like someone is taking over my body, and I can hear my voice scream, “I’ve had it. I’ve had it up to here! I’m done. Make your own damn dinner from now on.”

  Mom might be answering now, but if she is, I can’t hear. Whatever. I storm out of the kitchen, and when I get to my bedroom, I slam the door hard. Grab my calculus book off the bed and hurl it at the door. It makes a satisfying thunk.

  “Stupid bitch!” I say, which feels good, but it’s a mixed sort of good. It’s freeing, sort of, to use that word about my mom. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it makes me feel guilty too. Even though she deserves it.

  Chapter Seven

  Mom didn’t come up. She always comes to my room after we fight. Always. We talk and sort it out and apologize. And we don’t just talk about the fight and what happened and what was said. We talk about everything, life, what’s going on at school, me and Lynn, her friends at work. We always do this. I don’t understand why sh
e didn’t come up. It’s not like I called her a stupid bitch to her face. I said it behind her back, and quietly too. There’s no way she ever could have heard me.

  I figured for sure she’d come up after Larry left. But she didn’t. Just went into her bathroom, ran the water for a while, brushed her teeth, washed her face. I thought about going in there and telling her to turn off the taps because there is getting to be a real water crisis in the world. But she’d take it wrong. Anyway, it isn’t up to me to make the first move. It was her fault, making that rude comment about my cooking and then letting Larry dis me as well.

  I can’t believe she hasn’t come up. She has always had a rule about not going to sleep angry. Sometimes I’ve thought it was a stupid rule, but now I’m used to it.

  And while I was sitting in my room, waiting for the sound of her footsteps, I thought over what had happened at dinner. Mom and Larry were rude, but I over- reacted too. I wanted to tell her that. Maybe I’d even tell her about what happened with Lynn and Chad in the parking lot today. How she drove off without me. Didn’t even call me later to apologize or explain.

  I want to tell Mom that I looked this Chad guy up in my old yearbook, and the whole thing doesn’t make sense. He wasn’t just a hotshot, he was the hotshot. He was Mister Everything. Which is fine on its own, but the thing that has me concerned is that in practically every picture of him, he’s got his arm around a different girl. The guy’s obviously a player. I want Mom’s advice as to what I should do.

  Maybe I’d even find a way to mention that Larry flashed me. It was probably an accident. But just in case, shouldn’t she know? I don’t know what to do. She really likes this guy. I don’t want to cause trouble. Maybe I should let it go, put it out of my head, because there is no easy answer, and it hurts my stomach every time I think about it.

  I wish it was the old days and I could talk with Mom the way we used to. But I can’t. She was too busy with her sleazy boyfriend, and then she went to bed. Couldn’t care less that I was upset.

  I glance over at the clock. 1:47 the digital red numbers glow back at me. I’m never going to get to sleep. It doesn’t matter how hard I try. My mind’s leaping around like a gymnast on speed. I shake my thoughts away from Lynn, only to have them land on the argument with my mom. Shake them off my mom, and there’s Larry’s stupid face smirking at me. Life sucks. It really does.

  Chapter Eight

  It’s raining. The cafeteria is jam-packed. Lynn and I are huddled at the end of a table, sharing a seat. The cafeteria generally smells, but on really rainy days, it’s always worse. It’s the combination of old wet sneakers, bo, the crush of bodies, the grease from the fryer, school lunches mixed with people brown-bagging it, pickles and stale peanut butter sandwiches on day-old bread. There’s such a crush of humanity in here. The windows are fogged up, droplets gather, swell and then burst and morph into tiny rivulets that trickle down.

  “Chad is amazing! This guy is a god.” Lynn hasn’t stopped talking since we met at her locker. “I can’t believe he was right there in the parking lot. Standing by my car. What are the odds of that?” I open my mouth to answer, but there’s no need.

  “About one in a million,” she prattles.

  “A billion even. And yet...there he was!”

  She hugs herself happily. No “Sorry I ditched you, Haley. Sorry, I didn’t call.” It’s like it didn’t happen.

  “And you know what I was thinking?” I don’t even bother to open my mouth this time. “I was thinking that maybe... just maybe...he lost my phone number but remembered me from last year, and so he came by the school and hung around the parking lot in the hopes of maybe running into me.”

  She pauses to draw in a breath and I leap into the gap. Thanks to my yearbook perusal, I’m prepared. I have plenty of ammunition.

  “Lynn, he wouldn’t have remembered you from last year. He wouldn’t have even noticed you.”

  “He might have,” Lynn says, a trifle defensively.

  Now, normally, I might let Lynn spin her fancy fairy tale, but I don’t feel like it. Not after the way she ditched me in the parking lot. Besides, this guy’s a player. So if you look at it that way, I’m actually being noble.

  “Nope,” I say cheerfully. “Wouldn’t have given you the Kleenex he blew his nose on. Number one, he was the top scorer on the basketball team. The team that finally pulled itself together and actually made it to the B.C. championships. Number two, I don’t know if you remember correctly, but he was still working his way through the female population of the senior class. Every once in a while he would indulge in an eleventh-grade girl, but he never got around to tenth.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Come on, Lynn. Look in last year’s yearbook. There’s only a million pictures of him strutting around the school, his arm flung around a multitude of girls. And last but not least, we get to number three. The salient fact that, last year, you were not quite the girl that you are today.”

  “What do you mean?” Lynn asks angrily.

  I know I’m being smug, but I can’t help it. I figured this whole thing out last night. Funny the things that fall into place when you can’t sleep. “Let’s just say you’ve gone up a few bra sizes and you’ve lost the braces, not to mention you are the brand- new owner of a pretty nice car.”

  “Chad’s not like that! He doesn’t like me because of that. You’re just jealous because he likes me better than you.”

  “I don’t care whether Chad likes me or not. It’s you that I’m worried about.” But even as I say these words, I wonder if they’re true. Why am I pissing on her parade?

  Chapter Nine

  I call Lynn as soon as I get home. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what got into me. I know how much you wanted to see him again.”

  “It’s okay,” Lynn says.

  “Oh good.”

  “But he does like me for me you know.” Her words are sure, but I can hear the doubt in her voice, and I feel bad because I was the one who put it there.

  “I’m sure he does,” I say. “I was just mad because you ditched me after school.”

  “But it was Chad!”

  “I know it was Chad. I understand. It felt a little funny is all, watching you drive off with him when we were planning to do something.”

  “But we were planning to try and find Chad. What would be the point of trying to track him down when...”

  I finish the sentence for her. “He was standing right beside your car. I understand. It’s just I felt like I suddenly became invisible or something. Like I didn’t matter.”

  “You matter,” Lynn says. “You’re my best friend.”

  “Okay,” I say, smiling into the phone. I’m relieved that we’re having this conversation and sorting things out. “You want to do something?”

  “Of course,” Lynn says. “It’s Friday night, isn’t it? Shall we go to the rink?”

  “Sounds good. I’ll meet you out front, six forty-five.”

  “No, I’ll pick you up.” Lynn’s laughing.

  I start laughing too. “Oh yeah, I forgot, you’ve got a car! That’s so cool.”

  We get off the phone and I go upstairs to figure out what to wear. My outfit comes together pretty easily, quicker than I’d thought. Which is kind of nice for a change. I’ve got music playing, good and loud, plenty of time for my makeup.

  On my way to the bathroom, my foot bangs into my old Christmas stocking, which is still half-stuffed with things I haven’t gotten around to using yet. But instead of a bar of lavender soap or a still-wrapped toothbrush, a tube of glittery body lotion shoots out.

  I’m kind of surprised. I don’t remember seeing that when I opened my stocking. It seems like a sign or something, so I open it up and rub a little bit on my arms and on the exposed part of my chest. It smells pretty. Looks nice too. Gives me a little bit of shimmer and shine. It’ll look good at the rink under those fancy lights they have going for Teen Skate. I especially like how the Couples Only skate
portion looks. Not only do they have the special lights on, but they dim all the lights as well. It’s really romantic.

  Just thinking about it makes my belly race slightly. Maybe a cute guy will ask me to skate. “You never know,” I say to the mirror.

  I try to smile that mysterious, come-hither sexy smile the models in the hair and makeup commercials do. You know, that sort of half smile they have. I think it looks a little better than the one I do when I’m not thinking about it. My natural one is all teeth. There’s nothing about my regular smile that would make anyone say, “Who is that girl?” I’ve been practicing a little bit. Not sure if I have it down right, though.

  I apply a little blush, a brush of eye shadow, a dab of mascara, some lip-gloss. I brush my hair until it’s gleaming. Then I practice my smile one last time and give my hair a Charlie’s Angels toss.

  That’s when my cell phone rings. It startles me. I almost don’t answer it for a second. I don’t know why. I just stare at it ringing on my counter. It’s got to be Lynn. She’s probably calling because she got here early and is out in front of my house. My phone rings again. I grab it quick before it diverts her to my message box.

  “Hello?” I say, slightly breathless.

  “Hey, Haley,” Lynn says, super cheerfully, which immediately makes me suspicious. “What are you doing?” she chirps.

  “What do you think I’m doing? I’m getting ready. Actually, I’m pretty much ready right now. Where are you? Are you here already?” I ask even though I’m pretty sure she’s not. I can feel it in my gut.

  There’s a pause on the other end of the line.

  “Um...” Lynn says. “Haley?” She’s using that hesitant little-girl voice that might work on mothers and boys, but it definitely doesn’t work on me.

  “Please don’t tell me you’re flaking out on me,” I say.

  “It’s just...” She’s talking over me now, her words rushing out. “Chad called, and he wants me to go to a party with him. I mean, this is the first time he’s asked me out. Like to go somewhere...”