Dating Sarah Cooper

by Siera Maley

  “What, that you’re smart?” I guessed. “That you’re pretty and popular?”

  She forced a laugh. “Not exactly.”

  “Then what?”

  “That I sleep around with a lot of guys.” She looked away from me, and the silence that followed her statement ate at my chest. I chewed at the inside of my cheek. “That I’m a slut, a skank… that I use people. That I need to pick a side, that I should stop whoring myself out, that I must be a freak in bed, that I can’t possibly have a brain and must only be getting good grades because I’m screwing teachers. And most of that stuff was said before this whole thing started with us, but it’s only gotten worse since.” She shook her head. “So I guess maybe there was a part of me that knew what Sam was like all along and just realized we’d be a good fit. A guy who doesn’t want to settle down and a girl no one believes can.”

  I wanted to tell her, right then in her car, that she wasn’t any of those things. Every word was on the tip of my tongue, and I knew how to comfort her if I’d chosen to. I’d say that she wasn’t a slut just because she wasn’t a virgin, and I’d point out that I wasn’t a virgin either. I’d tell her that teenagers are shallow and judgmental and that most of our peers were too stupid to look beneath the surface and realize she was more than just her looks. I’d tell her any guy would be lucky to be with her, not the other way around, and I’d tell her she was smart and funny and kind and that I loved everything about her; that she was the one flawed person I thought was perfect anyway.

  But I was awkward and scared and confused and lacking the confidence to say any of those things to even my own best friend – the girl I should’ve trusted most to accept them from me – and so I didn’t.

  I didn’t, and she was back in Sam’s car the next afternoon.

  Chapter Ten

  After that day, Sarah and I made up publicly. We’d perfected it by now, the art of acting like a happy couple no matter how complicated things were behind the scenes, but it helped that a day after our conversation in Sarah’s car, I opened my locker to dozens of National Coming Out Day stickers that’d been modified with sharpie to say, rather un-cleverly, “National Dyke Day”. Brett Larson didn’t hide the fact that they were from him; there was also a little folded note that simply had a smiley face drawn on it with his signature at the bottom.

  Sarah helped me throw all of the stickers away, and then, in a show of confidence meant to dissuade Brett and any of our other classmates from trying anything else, she kissed me at my locker for so long that I wound up with day-long butterflies.

  I knew, after that, that if I didn’t find a way to change things, I’d wind up being the loser girl who fell for her straight best friend. And I did not want to be that girl. I’d watched over half a season of The L Word and a couple of gay movies by then; I knew what happened to that girl. She wound up sad and rejected, and then – only if she was lucky – with an eventual new love interest who was actually into girls.

  So I tried to put Sarah from my mind, as hard as that was given that I saw her on a daily basis, and I let her keep doing whatever it was she was doing with Sam. And I was perfectly content to stay ignorant about whatever that was.

  She missed a club meeting two weeks later to hang out with him, and Jake announced his next new project to us that day.

  “The Winter Formal’s coming up in about five weeks, and Principal Crenshaw just released the ticket prices. Twenty dollars per person, or thirty for a couple.” He paused. “Couples, however, are restricted to a heterosexual definition.”

  “Are you serious?” Hattie asked. “That’s so not fair!”

  “I’ve already tried to talk him into changing his mind. I spoke with him today,” Jake said. “But he said that he doesn’t want to leave the opportunity for friends to say they’re a couple just to save money.”

  “But what about girls and guys who are just friends?” Henry cut in.

  “Well, exactly. Obviously it’s a double-standard. But I thought of a way to show him we won’t let him forget that real gay couples do exist at this school and deserve to be treated the same as the rest of the students here.” He paused again, this time for dramatic effect, and then declared, “We’re going to get a gay couple nominated for Winter Formal King and Queen. Or should I say: Queen and Queen.”

  And then, abruptly, everyone’s eyes were on me. I looked around at them all, baffled. “Wait… me and Sarah?”

  “Do you see any of the rest of us winning?” Jessa asked, raising an eyebrow. She had a point, but I still wasn’t as confident as Jake seemed to be.

  “I don’t think we could win, either,” I admitted. “Who would vote for us?”

  “Everyone gay, tons of gay-friendly students, and you’d also get the prankster vote and the vote of anyone who just doesn’t want the same old jocks and cheerleaders winning it,” Jake pointed out. “You two would basically sweep the ‘other’ vote, and you’d get votes from your social circles and your supporters.”

  “Supporters,” I echoed, feeling overwhelmed. “Okay?”

  “I want to get started on campaigning as soon as possible,” Jake declared. “Nominations are in two weeks. Principal Crenshaw will try to put a lid on this, I’m sure, but he can’t ignore hundreds of nominations.”

  “He could,” Violet pointed out. “So we have to not let him.”

  “Exactly,” Jake agreed. “So let’s make this happen, guys. Let’s show them that just because they ignore us doesn’t mean we’ll go away.”

  “So what’d I miss today?”

  I put my phone on speaker, and set it down on my bathroom counter as I straightened my hair.

  “They’re trying to get us nominated for King and Queen at the Winter Formal.”

  Sarah let out a light laugh. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “How do they plan on doing that? I thought only straight couples could be nominated.”

  “Well, that’s obviously not very fair, so they’re gonna fight it and see how it goes.”

  “Huh. That sounds kind of cool. We’d look cute in our little crowns up on stage.”

  “Yep.” I ran a few strands of my hair through the straightener and watched steam rise toward the bathroom ceiling.

  “What are you doing?” Sarah asked. “I keep hearing a weird noise.”

  “I’m straightening my hair,” I told her.

  “Why? You don’t have a date, do you?”

  “I don’t see why I’d have to tell you if I did.”

  On the other end, she let out a heavy sigh. “Wow, we almost went two whole minutes without getting snippy. A new record.”

  “I wasn’t being snippy, Sarah. I’m just saying. I don’t ask about you and Sam; you don’t ask about my love life. I thought that was what we were doing.”

  “I can’t ask as your best friend and not as your girlfriend?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s been a little hard to tell the difference lately.”

  She was quiet for a moment. And then she sounded a little defeated as she replied, “Okay, fine. Bye.” She hung up the phone and my throat tightened. I felt tears pricking at the corners of my eyes and hastily wiped them away.

  When I was finished with my hair and I’d spent a few minutes staring at my glassy-eyed reflection in the mirror, I went downstairs to meet with my parents, who were already ready to go. They shared a smile as I descended the stairs, and my father offered me his hand. “You look gorgeous tonight, Madame.”

  “Shut up, Dad,” I said, forcing a laugh and smacking his arm. Mom grinned at the both of us as we walked out to the car.

  It was a tri-monthly tradition of ours to go out to a nice family dinner together. Like, a really nice dinner, with several courses and waiters in tuxedos. We weren’t as well-off financially as Sarah’s family, but we held our own, and this was a luxury we could afford four times a year.

  We had reservations at the restaurant, so we were seated right away, and as Mom and Dad ordered appetize
rs, I looked around at the other patrons. Most of them were couples, and all of the couples were straight. I noted the latter fact almost subconsciously, and then wondered when I’d started paying attention to the fact that everyone around me was straight. Was that a side-effect of questioning one’s sexuality?

  Mom went to use the bathroom right around the time we were being brought our drinks, and Dad cleared his throat, setting his appetizer aside for a moment and telling me, “So I was thinking for your next birthday that your Mom and I should repaint your room for you. I know you’ve always hated the color.”

  “Really?” I asked, sitting up straighter in my seat.

  “Yeah. We were thinking a mix of six colors. Just a giant rainbow across all four walls.”

  “Jerk,” I shot back, throwing my napkin at him as he chuckled. “You got my hopes up just to make a gay joke.”

  “And it was worth it,” he declared. “Anyway, I haven’t seen any girls over lately. Not even Sarah. Your mom’s gonna want grandchildren, you know.”

  “Dad,” I whined, pulling a face. “We are seriously not having this conversation right now.”

  “What about Sarah?” Mom cut in, retaking her seat on my other side. “I heard her name.”

  “I was just asking Katie if they were gonna give us grandchildren.”

  I pressed my hand to my face as Mom shot Dad a disappointed look. “I hate to break it to you, Jeff, but I don’t think that’s how procreation works.”

  “I hear they’re working on the technology for it, now,” Dad pointed out.

  “God, I am not having kids with Sarah,” I sighed out, eager to change the subject. “We’re not even really talking much right now.”

  “Why not?” Mom asked, jumping on that immediately. I was grateful; anything beat grandkids.

  “Because she’s still hung up on that guy, even after I told her he was using her. I heard him say he wanted to try and juggle Sarah and this other girl he likes, but she just said maybe they were a good match anyway.” I shrugged my shoulders, my mood dampening. Maybe this wasn’t such a good topic of conversation after all. “Anyway, that was about two weeks ago, and I haven’t heard much from her about it since then, but I haven’t really been asking.”

  Mom and Dad exchanged looks, and then Mom put down her silverware and moved her hand to place it over mine on the table. “Katie, you have to remember that Sarah has had a very different upbringing from you.”

  “What does that have anything to do with this?” I asked.

  “Well, she doesn’t have the same relationship with her parents that you do,” Mom elaborated. “You’ve had your tough moments growing up, sure, but do you remember when you were struggling with self-esteem issues in middle school and you had your father and me there to support you? Imagine if you hadn’t had us. That’s what life is like for Sarah.”

  “But Sarah has us,” I reminded them. “We’re like her second family.”

  “It’s not the same, honey. I wish it were. I wish she was over at our house constantly rather than being holed up alone in hers, but sometimes you just can’t make someone stay for dinner.” She hesitated, and then continued, “Sarah has always been a very driven girl, and I think that comes from having parents who could only be impressed when she was really, really impressive. And sure, having parents you feel like you need to impress by getting A’s might make you get A’s, but it can also make you feel like if you don’t get A’s, you aren’t good enough. And I think there are probably a lot of times when Sarah didn’t feel good enough.”

  I had no idea what to say to that. Sarah always seemed so carefree. She was always having fun, and she’d always seemed to like not having her parents around. I’d never really seriously considered the downsides. “But she’s still a good person,” I said, getting a little defensive, and Mom nodded her agreement.

  “Of course she is. But I’m not so sure she knows that.”

  Violet tapped me on my shoulder at my locker the next day, and when I turned around, she had a stack of fliers in her hands and was grinning widely at me.

  “I have news from Jake,” she said. “About the Winter Formal.”

  “Okay. What’s up?”

  “So Principal Crenshaw found out we wanted to get you guys nominated, and he totally panicked and pulled the ‘straight couples only’ rule from the ticket pricings. Which means gay couples like you and Sarah can get in for the discount.”

  “That’s fantastic,” I told her, genuinely surprised. “Awesome!”

  “It gets better. He did it so that we’d back off on the whole ‘Queen and Queen’ plan. Only we’re not going to.” She smirked. “And there’s nothing he can do about it unless he wants to blatantly discriminate against gay people and deal with us raising a big stink over it. So not only did we get the discount… we’re gonna help you guys snag the crowns, too.”

  She offered me one of the fliers in her hands, and I stared down at it for a moment, not quite sure what I was looking at at first. Then, slowly, I smiled, and glanced back up at her. “Wait… this is Sarah and me.”

  “Yeah.” She looked down at one of the fliers still in her hands, and I stared at the one she’d given me. There were two pictures at the top of the flier, one above the other. The first was one that’d been taken of us in elementary school, when we were both tiny and gap-toothed. I remembered it; we were at Six Flags and Sarah had a giant stuffed animal in one of her hands. Her other hand gripped mine, and we were both smiling so widely I was surprised we weren’t in pain.

  Beneath that photo was a second, much more recent one that’d been taken by Hannah using Sarah’s cell phone at lunch, right around the time we’d started pretending to date. My cheeks were flushed but I was smiling, and Sarah was right beside me, her cheek pressed to mine and a matching smile on her face. Beneath the photos was a statement encouraging people to nominate us.

  “Where did you get those pictures?” I asked eventually, looking up at Violet.

  “Sarah,” she said. “Aren’t they adorable?”

  “Sarah gave you these?”

  “Yeah. She said they were her favorites.” She grinned at me, almost conspiratorially.

  Then, without any warning, we suddenly had company in the form of Christine Goddard, and Violet was struggling to press the fliers to her own chest even as Christine shot us both and the fliers a condescending look all at once.

  “Cute,” she deadpanned, and her eyes snapped to me. “Hi. Katie, right? I have an important message I need you to deliver, okay?” She didn’t wait for a response before continuing, “Tell your little girlfriend to stay the hell away from my boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend?” I asked dumbly. When had that happened?

  “That’s right.” She smirked. “As of last week, Sam and I are dating, and last time I checked, Sarah was supposed to be with you, so there’s really no reason I should be finding her driver’s license in Sam’s car.” She retrieved the card in question and shoved it into my hands. I glanced down at it, inwardly groaning. It was, in fact, Sarah’s. “Oh, and by the way… don’t even bother running for King and Queen, or Queen and Queen, or whatever. Because Sam and I are going to win.”

  She stalked off without another word, and I wrinkled my nose as I watched her go. “Well, I guess we definitely can’t run now,” I told Violet. “Not since Queen Christine told me not to.”

  “What was Sarah doing in Sam Heath’s car?” she asked me, looking slightly amused.

  “They have a class together,” I answered. “They’ve got a study group going. Christine’s just paranoid.”

  “You seem fine,” Violet observed. “Although I guess with pictures like these, there’s not really any reason to doubt your relationship.” She tapped the fliers and smiled at me. “Anyway, gotta go to class. I’ll see you around.”

  “Bye.”

  Violet left, and I stared down at Sarah’s drivers’ license, then let out a sigh and stuffed it into my pants pocket with a shake of my head. I wasn’t ev
en sure I wanted to know what she was getting herself into at this point, but, knowing Sarah, it was going to be messy.

  I presented Sarah with her license near the end of lunch, and she was surprised to see I had it. “Where’d you find this? I’ve been missing it for, like, two days now.”

  “I’ll tell you later,” I mumbled. In the midst of our friends wasn’t exactly the best place to bring up Sam.

  “Oh, so I forgot to mention: I’ve been seeing fliers everywhere today,” Dina announced, shooting Sarah and me a knowing look. “You guys didn’t tell us you were running for Winter Formal Queens.”

  “It’s more Jake pushing it than anything,” I admitted. “You know, to make a statement.”

  “Well, I’m voting to nominate the two of you, if it’s any consolation,” Graham cut in. “Better you guys than the same old popular kids. No offense, Hannah.”

  “Don’t worry; I hope they win, too,” Hannah agreed, smiling. “Christine deserves to be dethroned for once. I hear she’s running with Sam Heath.”

  “Yeah,” Sarah confirmed. I held back my surprise as she added, “They’re, like, together now or whatever.”

  “Won’t they be tough to beat?” Josephine asked. Bonnie nodded beside her, seemingly wondering the same thing. “They’re both really popular.”

  “Jake says we have the ‘other’ vote,” I said. Then I started to get out of my seat. “I’m gonna go put my tray back. Sarah, walk me?”

  She shot me a questioning look, but stood up anyway, and we walked across the cafeteria to dump our trays together.

  “So Christine found your license in Sam’s car and told me to tell you to back off, but something tells me most of that isn’t very shocking to you,” I sighed out. “What are you doing?”

  “I thought we agreed not to talk about it,” Sarah countered. “Wasn’t that our agreement? You don’t talk about your dates, and I don’t talk about mine.”

  “Hooking up in his car doesn’t really seem like a date. More like a booty call.”