“He’d want you to be in school by now,” she says.
His throat starts to tighten, but thankfully, the timer dings again, popping the bubble of tension that always seems to be floating somewhere in the air around him.
She sighs again and takes the plate out, but it’s too hot. She winces, plops the plate down on the counter, and shakes her hand.
“I’ll get it.” He stands up to get the plate while she runs her fingers under cold water, then goes to the table and starts in on the mashed potatoes.
Aunt Nora dries her hand and leans back on the counter. “It won’t always be like this. She’s getting better.” And then she smiles again, but it’s a whole different kind of smile than the one she gave him after his phone call. It’s a better smile. Nicer, somehow.
And then—Dude, he thinks, a better smile? What’s he doing? Turning into Mabry or something?
“What’s funny?” Aunt Nora asks.
“Oh,” he says, surprised, realizing that he’d just snort-laughed out loud. “Nothing, really.”
She tilts her head, looking so left out.
So he says, “Did you know there are like a hundred and twenty-six kinds of smiles?”
“No, I did not know that.” She laughs. It makes him feel that soft, melty feeling toward her again. “Is this what you’re learning in online school?”
“No,” he laughs. “Just from some girl.”
Some girl. The words that fly out of his mouth feel wrong somehow. Some girl doesn’t sound at all like Mabry. But, he reminds himself, that really is what she is. Some girl he knew in fourth grade. Some girl who has a stupid, pitiful belief in quote-unquote love.
“Just some girl, huh?” Aunt Nora says.
And he takes another bite of mashed potatoes and says, “Yep.”
Just some ridiculous girl.
yo bailo
tú bailas
ella baila
nosotros bailamos
ellos bailan
That night, I get out of the shower to find that Nicolás has called twice in a row!
He must be deeply in love! Desperate with love!
The icon on my phone shows two voice mails! I check the first. I can barely hear him, it’s like he’s talking underwater. GAH! He could be professing his limitless love—little gems, little gifts of words and thoughts. How frustrating it is that I can’t hear him!
The second message is no better. Maybe something about a “sandwich bag.” Or could I have heard that wrong?
It’s so upsetting. What am I supposed to do? Call him and ask him to repeat everything he said? What if he’s also getting ready for bed—brushing his teeth, maybe? I can just imagine. It won’t be the same. He’ll be like, I don’t remember, exactly. I was basically talking about how you were the most amazing, gorgeous person in the whole wide world and something about the cockles of my heart, and—Hey, can you hang on for a sec? I gotta spit.
I try calling Sirina once again, and she finally picks up. But before I can really tell her about the voice mails, I have to cut her off.
“HE’SCALLING!!I’LLCALLYOUBACK!”
It’s him! My Nicolás! I click over and try to subdue my excitement, for Thad’s sake, if nothing else.
“Hel-looo?” I say. I try to make it both womanly and nonchalant.
“Oh, hi, Mabry,” he says. Like a man in love. Humbly, sweetly, and slightly embarrassed at the depth of his poetic emotions, I’m sure.
“Hi,” I greet him again.
He does one of those laughs that isn’t really a laugh. It’s like when you’re supposed to laugh, but all you can do is make that awkward huh-huh-huh sound. And then he asks, “So, what, uh, are you up to?”
“Oh, I’m just…” I can’t tell him what I’m really doing, which is listening again and again to his voice mails, trying to decipher the messages, with both purpose and passion. So I think, What would Mariela be doing? I picture her dancing. She is wearing a red sleeveless dress. She turns toward the camera, her gaze serious, a rose between her teeth. “Getting ready for salsa,” I say.
And he says, “Oh, I like salsa.”
I knew you were the Man of My Dreams, dear Nicolás. My Nicolás. It’s a month into the future. We are at the Cotillion. He takes my hand and leads me to the dance floor. The song starts, our feet move, first forward then back, but our eyes stay connected in a passionate gaze—I can feel his love and devotion oozing through his pupils. The other dancers step back, in awe, just taking in the pleasure of our dance—which is more than just a dance, but an expression of our true, undying love.
I let the satisfaction seep into my voice. “So, what are you doing?” I ask, making my voice sound warm and succulent, like Mariela’s—like a papaya that’s ripened on the tree.
“Not much. I just wanted to say sorry about those calls. My phone was in my back pocket and those, uh, those were butt dials.” Then a little panting chuckle.
“Oh!” I say. How disappointing is that? His butt called me. His butt!
“Yeah, sorry.”
I think about saying something like, So, is that it? It didn’t need anything else, did it? But I think about Mariela, who would never be engaging some potential suitor about his butt cheeks.
Anyway, none of that matters. He likes salsa dancing! He was made for me! “It’s quite all right,” I say in my new, ripe-fruit voice.
“Hey, Mabry?” His voice cracks a little. For a second he sounds too young. Too adolescent for my fruity richness. But then I blink and the thought goes away. It’s just Thad getting into my head. He’s like a virus. Thaddeus vulgaris.
“Yes?”
“I wanted to say—well, thanks for interviewing me for that article and everything.”
“Oh. Sure.”
“You’re real—” Huh-huh-huh. “I, uh—”
What, mi querido, what???
“Yes?”
“Just, nothing,” he says. “Just that you’re a cool girl.”
My heart levitates. It soars. It’s like a hot-air balloon destined for forever.
But I hear his mom’s voice in the background—she’s calling his name. “Well, I gotta go,” he says, cooling down my hot, floating joy. “Guess I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”
He guesses. He guesses? Oh, he better bet his sweet phone-happy butt cheeks he will. But I just say, “I guess you will,” in my best red-mango tone.
I call Sirina the second I hang up.
“Sorry about that! Turns out they were butt dials,” I tell her.
“Yeah, you kind of freaked there a little bit.”
“Guess what else?” I say.
“What?”
“He called me ‘cool.’ He said I was a ‘cool girl.’”
“Okay, you zoid. But don’t forget you still have a heart to break.”
“Calm down. No one’s forgetting anything. That’s still the plan,” I say, doing my best to sound convincing.
She just makes a skeptical hmm sound.
“Anyway,” I continue. “I tried calling you earlier, but it rang like you were on the other line. Who were you talking to?”
“La policía,” she says casually. “To see what their report says about the window incident.”
“What? You actually did that?”
“I told you I was going to.” She sounds a tiny bit annoyed.
“So what did they say?”
“Pretty much? After calling around for an hour? Nothing. Nada. Squat. They said I have to call back tomorrow.”
“Ugh,” I say.
“Exactly,” she says back.
A few minutes after we hang up, I get her text. Good night, my three-toed scuba diver.
Good night, my bassoon-lipped heartworm, I write back.
But I get one more text from her. Remember what has to happen.
I know! I write back. But I kind of feel like a kid whose mom has let her have ice cream before dinner based on the promise that she’ll eat liver and onions afterward—every bite of i
t. But I’m still in the ice-cream phase of this deal, so any thought of liver and onions can wait.
THE VINDICATOR
The Official News Blog of Hubert C. Frost Middle School
* * *
Spiritleaders Place Second in Sideshow at County Goat Show
On Wednesday, the Frost Spiritleaders competed in the first “America’s Goat Talent” Sideshow at the Annual County Goat Festival, but didn’t win. and came home with a second-place trophy. They competed against four other middle-school cheerleading teams at the event, as well as a comedy duo from Briggville, and an old guy a gentleman playing kazoo. mouth harp.
“We’re all excited,” said Mrs. Cassidy, English teacher and Spiritleader sponsor. “It’s quite an honor.”
The team performed a dance-cheer routine to the song “Let It Go,” from the soundtrack of the movie Frozen., which probably wasn’t a good choice after all, because Paysley Cornwell did actually let go of Sophia Allen’s foot during a move dubbed “the Spirograph.” She said it was by accident, but there is talk about Sophia stealing Paysley’s boyfriend, Chat Coddington.
The A-List, a cheerleading team from Mary Anning Middle School in Fossilton, carried off the first-prize trophy. [click for more]
IN OTHER NEWS…
* * *
Seventh-Grade Teacher Declares Class “the Smartest Ever”
Teen Life teacher Mr. Ricardo declared his current fourth-period class to be intellectually superior to any class he’s ever taught. “You guys are the smartest ever,” Ricardo boldly stated, after a successful class project involving macaroni and cheese. However, Truce Mayhew, who was a student of Mr. Ricardo just last year, alleges that Ricardo made the very same declaration to them, and an anonymous high-school senior, who had Mr. Ricardo five years ago, stated that [click for more]
yo toco
tú tocas
ella toca
nosotros tocamos
ellos tocan
I’m sitting at Macho Nacho with Thad. He is staring at the wreck-age of his burrito and is starting to eye my chimichanga, which I’m finishing up. I have only recently discovered the delight of the chimichanga—a fried, more compact version of the monstrous burrito, one that you actually are expected to eat with a fork and knife.
I’m telling Thad about the butt dials.
“Wow, it sounds pretty serious,” Thad says with a straight face.
“Ha. Ha. Anyway, he called again. For real. Him, not his butt.”
“And what did him-not-his-butt say?”
“Well, that I was a ‘cool girl.’” I feel both defensive and a little embarrassed. “And he seemed interested. He asked what I was up to.”
“Yeah, what did you tell him?”
I sigh. “I did the Mariela thing. I told him I was getting ready to go to salsa. And guess what? For your information, he likes salsa, too!”
Thad stops chewing. Then he breaks into a zoo-like laugh.
“What?” I ask.
“Dude.” He looks amused. Strongly amused. “What exactly did you tell him?”
I feel like I’ve been holding on to a gift that is about to be taken away. “I told him I was getting ready for salsa lessons.”
“No, exactly. What did you say? Did you actually say lessons?”
I think back. Maybe not. Okay, probably not. I’m getting ready for salsa.
Crap. Definitely not.
“He thought I was talking about this?” I ask, sweeping my hand toward the little cup of red sauce.
He just laughs in his wild way, and then eyes my plate and asks, “Hey, can I get a hit of that ’chong?”
It takes me a minute to realize he’s talking about my chimichanga.
“Go ahead,” I say, dispirited.
He takes it from my Styrofoam plate with his fingers, takes a bite RIGHT OFF OF IT, and places it back on the plate.
“Just finish it,” I tell him, now that I don’t want to touch the thing.
“Are you sure?”
I look down at the remains and see Thad’s crescent-shape bite taken right out of it. “I’m sure.”
Thad quickly takes another bite of my chimichanga. “Okay, look, Collins. Maybe the guy does finally like you. You’re welcome, by the way. And maybe he is going to ask you out.”
Do you really think? I feel myself inflate with hope. Then I remember that Thad’s probably going to take my hope away, like he normally does.
But he says, “So, fine. Go out with him. Go discover another flaw. Or three.”
“Really?” I ask.
“Yeah. Fine. Go. I think we have him where we want him at this point. I mean, that stupid dance is coming up soon, right?”
I nod. “It’s not just a dance,” I remind him. “It’s the Cotillion.”
“Well, if he doesn’t ask you, he’s going to ask someone else. So you might as well go out with him now, because if he ends up going with someone else, the whole plan is flushed down the toilet. You can’t stand up someone else’s date.”
“Right. Good point.” For a second, I’m impressed with myself. If I ever want to act in a telenovela, I’m certainly getting some practice. Because there’s something else that happened today, something I’m not telling Thad.
Nick and I ended up walking down the same hall on the way to fifth period. It’s not too unusual, because we have a similar commute at that time. But today, somehow, we ended up side by side. And his pinkie grazed mine. And he didn’t yank his hand away. It was, I’m sure, a Deliberate Dangle, and our hands and fingers collided three more times before I got to Spanish. I felt a little like Dylan the worm—each time our hands grazed and collided, I felt the beating of many tiny little hearts in each finger.
So while Thad gobbles down the rest of my ’chong down in his usual disgusting manner, I check my phone, hoping to hear from Nick, and not just his butt cheek.
“Put that thing away. That’s your assignment for the day.” Thad says. He wipes his hands off on a napkin, still chewing. His chair scrapes against the tile floor. “Come on, just forget about that chump for now. Let’s do something fun.”
I stick my phone back in my pocket. The suspicious eyebrow-threading lady tries to lure me over with promises of a pain-free experience. Thad starts to get distracted by the waft of Sbarro, unbelievably. And me, I can’t help myself. I pull my phone out again. Maybe I’ve lost service. I need to check.
“You’re failing this assignment,” Thad says. “Put it back in your pocket and keep it there.”
As much as I hate to, I do. But I say, “For your information, I was checking to see if Sirina called.”
He smiles. “I don’t even care. Take a break from it. All of it.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and steers me forward.
We stop in front of a Brookstone and he pushes me into the massage chair. The store clerk waits a minute, then walks over. “That’s not a toy,” he says to us.
“Yeah!” Thad says. “Not at thirteen hundred dollars it ain’t.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the clerk says. He points to a handwritten sign taped up near the chair that reads: Please no unaccompanied minors.
“That’s okay,” I say. “It feels like a robot is jabbing at me with sticks anyway.”
We scurry out of the store and I follow Thad to the escalator. “Let’s go upstairs,” he says. Except that he’s at the wrong escalator. The stairs are coming toward us. “You ever done this?” he asks. Based on the look on his face, we might as well be at Disneyland.
“No!” I say. “How do you do it?”
“Just run up really fast. Faster than it comes down. Come on!”
“What if someone gets on?”
“Yeah, no biggie. Then you just ride it down.” He jumps three steps up and starts scrambling toward the top. “Come on, Collins!” he shouts. And it does look fun, so I hop a few steps up, but I’m not fast enough. I’m carried to the bottom, backward. Thad’s nearly made it to the top.
I take a deep breath
and try again, but I aim too high and my knees buckle, and I tumble onto my butt, and am delivered to the floor like a factory reject. Thad looks down at me, victorious, from the second floor. And then…
Whiiirrrrrrrr.
It’s Captain Jerry.
He sighs. “Are you hurt.” It sounds more like a general disappointment than a question.
If I was, it’s clear that I wouldn’t get any sympathy from him. “No,” I say, pushing myself up. “I’m fine.”
He takes his ticket tablet out of his pocket and scribbles something on it. Then he rips it off and hands it to me. “Now, first time is a warning. But the next time I catch you playing on the escalator—AND THIS CAN BE A DEATH TRAP—your parents get a call. Third time?” He whistles and points his thumb over his shoulder with a sweeping motion. “Kicked out. Barred from the mall. How do you like them apples?”
Then he spots Thad at the top of the escalator. “You!” he yells, and Thad runs off. Thankfully, he doesn’t skate away. I don’t think Captain Jerry could handle that right now. He gives me a threatening look and whirs off again.
I look around the mall. It’s pretty quiet. There are only a few people walking around and most of them seem to be employees. The only sounds are a few shoes shuffling on the floor, the distant whir of Captain Jerry’s Segway, and the hum of the escalator. And then Thad appears, lying lengthwise on the handrail of the down escalator. It looks dangerous. But it also looks fun. “This is actually much harder than it looks,” he tells me.
“You’re so stupid sometimes,” I say, but I can’t help smiling.
“You and me both,” he says. Okay, I can’t argue with that one.
And then my phone buzzes. I frantically grab it out of my back pocket. It’s a text from Nick. FINALLY!
“Loserboy?” Thad asks.
“If that’s what you want to call him,” I say, hiding my excitement.
“What’s he want?” Thad asks.
It’s just one word. One lovely little word. Hi.
“He’s saying ‘Hi.’”
“Lame,” Thad says. “Don’t write back.”
How to Break a Heart Page 14
