Just Friends

by Elana Johnson

  “What’s going on?” Mom asked, coming into the living room. “Did Omar leave again?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He said something about yard work.”

  Mom frowned. “Why’s Drew all huffy?”

  “Because I called her a skank,” I said without thinking.

  “Mitch,” Mom said, and that was enough. She didn’t have to ask a question, and she wouldn’t. Her tonal quality said it all. This time she was saying, Tell me what I need to know or I’ll whap you with this wooden spoon.

  She twirled the utensil-turned-weapon between her fingers, waiting. The bottom half of the wooden spoon was stained orange from spaghetti sauce, though it could’ve just as easily been blood.

  “Her shirts are too low-cut,” I finally said. “All my friends are slobbering over her.”

  Mom squinted at me, as if trying to read tiny print. “Omar?”

  “Definitely Omar,” I said.

  “Which shirts?” she asked.

  “All of them.”

  “That one she had on just now? That one we got at the mall?”

  I nodded, though I had no idea where that shirt had come from or even what color it had been. I shifted from foot to foot, waiting for Mom to release me to the shower.

  “She wears a tank under it, right?” Mom asked.

  “No.”

  “That blue one? The V-neck?”

  “I guess,” I said, wishing the floor would develop black hole qualities and suck me down.

  Mom’s eyebrows pinched together, she tossed the wooden spoon from her left hand to her right, and turned toward the stairs. “Drew! Come down here, please. Mitch, you can go shower now.”

  I scampered upstairs and ducked into the bathroom just as Drew opened her bedroom door. The overhead fan and the shower couldn’t completely drown out the “discussion” that followed.

  6

  I cant hang out tonight, I texted Jade from the safety of my bedroom after dinner. Somehow Mom had communicated everything about Drew’s fashion choices to Dad before he’d made it home from work, and he didn’t have anything funny to fill the silence with.

  Drew wolfed her spaghetti casserole while wearing an old Snoopy T-shirt and asked to be excused before Mom busted out the s’mores.

  I’d been forced to talk a little about homework and track. Each word felt like the breath was being ripped from my body, and when Mom rolled her eyes, I asked to be excused too.

  Lance had texted that he’d been pulled over on the way home from track. He’d avoided the ticket because of Holly. His exact text read I told the cop it was our first date, and I was trying to impress her with the speed of the stang.

  That worked? I’d texted back.

  I added a “Help a brother out, man,” at the end and gave him my best I’m-trying-to-get-her-to-like-me-and-a-ticket-would-really-ruin-that smile. He took one look at her and gave me a warning.

  I hadn’t answered. I couldn’t help wondering what Lance saw—and if the cop saw it too—when he looked at Holly.

  Holly’s phone had buzzed as I climbed the stairs. In the almost-twilight of my bedroom, I swiped it on to sift through it. As I read her texts, a squirmy feeling settled in my stomach. I reminded myself that she gave me her phone all the time, and that I’d always been able to scroll through whatever I want and read whatever I want.

  Her texts with Greg bordered on gag-inducing, and there was nothing worth seeing in the strings to her mom, dad, or brother. I noticed that she didn’t text anyone else—besides me. No girlfriends, not even a single text to Drew. Maybe she’d deleted those threads, but for some reason I doubted it.

  “Holly has friends,” I muttered as I continued to stare at the sparse text threads. Surely she’d just deleted them, but at the moment I couldn’t name a single one. I stabbed at the home button to close her texts. I didn’t want to think that she didn’t have anyone worth talking to.

  I played my word in Scrabble, postponing the time when I’d open the Post-It notes. Her email was empty, and my thumb hovered over the icon for the Post-It note app. Finally I let it drop, pressing a little too hard and yanking my finger away when the app opened.

  Three of them, all purple, had my name on them. I clicked the first one, suddenly wishing I’d just dumped the phone in Holly’s mailbox right after Greg left.

  Mitch, Jade Montgomery is asking about you. Is she A. possible homecoming date? B. girlfriend: potential, wishful thinking, or otherwise? C. strictly platonic? D. do not wish to discuss.

  My chest felt like someone had kicked me. This note bled Holly. I’d answered so many of her multiple choice questions over the years, I was surprised I didn’t talk that way out loud.

  If I gave her too much information, she’d pull out the Molasses Mitch comments, asking me if I’d kissed Jade yet, and how fast things were going. I could already see the multiple choice list: A. held hands? B. gazed longingly into her eyes? C. asked her out exclusively? D. professed your undying love? E. none of the above because I’m like molasses when it comes to girls?

  Holly always said that. I usually ducked my head, because she was right.

  “Not everyone can be a ladies man,” I’d said once. Another time, I’d argued, “Girls are scary.” Holly had made zombie moaning sounds and chased me around her house. And once I’d challenged, “So I’m slow with girls. So what?”

  “So nothing,” Holly had said, slugging me in the arm. “It’s cute.”

  I knew she’d been teasing me, but I also knew if I talked about Jade I’d see the word molasses come up in our Post-It note discussions soon enough. But I wanted to talk to Holly about Jade. I craved it.

  I typed below Holly’s note: E. not sure at the moment. What is she asking, exactly?

  I never chose one of Holly’s options, always creating one of my own. This was law. Below that, I typed Okay, maybe a little of D too. What do you think?

  My phone whistled, the alert that I’d gotten a text. Jade had sent a in response to my message saying I couldn’t hang out tonight, and I silenced my phone. I wasn’t sure what to say to Jade, in person or via text. Hopefully Holly would answer fast.

  As soon as I thought that, I knew she probably wouldn’t. Although if Greg saw I was talking about another girl, maybe he’d take the glaring down a notch.

  Her next Post-It was the one that said Mitch we need to talk about with nothing else. I wrote unicorns! underneath and clicked out to the third message.

  Mitch—I’m sorry about Greg.

  I stared at those words for the longest time, not sure what to write in response. What did she have to be sorry about? That she had a boyfriend? Someone who worried about her, and told her she was pretty? Or was she sorry she was dating him at all? Or that he’d been a jerk to me? Or what?

  I swallowed through a too-tight throat, my fingers hovering over the keypad. I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make me sound like a bigger jerk, or a baby-whiner, or like I couldn’t get a girlfriend without her.

  I typed: I miss you.

  Before I could think too long, or erase what I’d written, I climbed out the window, leapt the five feet to Holly’s roof, and knocked on her window. I set the phone down on the sill and had one leg through my window again when she said, “Thanks.”

  The next morning, I stood in my bedroom, listening to the faint sounds of the piano. Holly had chosen a new piece to rehearse, and it sounded like screeching cats.

  Holly played the piano for the same reason I ran: To escape. I’d listened to her memorize a Bach cantata just after she moved here, and the summer her grandmother died, she’d been on a Handel kick. I didn’t recognize this composer, but I felt the anger in her notes. They sang in my head as I drove to school.

  Four girls loitered near the entrance, and I recognized all of them from last year’s choir.

  “Mitch, are you trying out this year?” Leslie Hopkins talked with her hands, almost hitting me in the face.

  “Is Holly going to be your partner?” Miranda Baum
had a great personality to make up for her acne.

  “If she’s not, I’d love to rehearse with you.” Charity Williams. Beautiful eyes, beautiful smile, tall and slender and mysterious.

  “You know the sign-ups go up at lunch, right?” Rose Pellin hadn’t made the show choir team last year, but she might this year.

  Of the four of them, I preferred Charity. She could sing and dance on Broadway one day, and if I auditioned with her, we’d both make it for sure. I smiled at her, and she returned the gesture, tossing her assortment of braids over her shoulder.

  “I’m going to try out,” I said. “Sign me up with you, okay, Charity?”

  “So you’re not auditioning with Holly,” Miranda not-really-asked, pulling her hair into a ponytail and securing it with what looked like fishing line, complete with a lure at the end, which she stabbed into the knot she’d created.

  I hadn’t talked with Holly about show choir. We’d auditioned together last year, and we’d been partners for the show season. I had overheard Greg complaining to her about it, and a line from his text history swam to the front of my mind.

  I don’t want u to be his partner.

  “Not this year,” I said, and the words hurt coming out. Holly and I did everything together, and the things I was doing on my own now only reminded me of her absence.

  Charity squealed and grabbed me in a hug. “Great! I’ll sign us up. We can work out a time to rehearse after school.” She pulled back and held out her hand. “Do you have a phone?”

  I passed it over and waited while she entered her number into it. “Call me after school, okay?”

  I promised I would, and thankfully, Lance saved me from any more awkward hugs or having to walk with a gaggle of girls all the way to Senior Row.

  “That looked fun,” Lance said sarcastically. “You’re having a close encounter with Charity Williams?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Because I wouldn’t blame you if you did. She’s hot.”

  “Show choir,” I dead-panned.

  Lance grunted, which was about as excited as he got about show choir. Walking away from the girls and the thought that Holly and I wouldn’t be partners this year, and a grunt was all I could manage too.

  I sat behind Holly in AP history, but she didn’t turn around and she didn’t ask for my phone. I knew she’d gotten my messages, but she was real good at drawing the line between us when she had to. I’d gone through this with Dave Grunander and Trevor Kimball.

  Back then, I didn’t think much of it. I was dating Kelsey Theurer when Holly was with Dave, and I didn’t really notice that we didn’t hang out as much. With Trevor, I was a sophomore and must not have cared as much as I do now. Or something.

  “I heard you pounding on the piano this morning,” I said. “Everything okay?”

  “Absolutely fine,” Holly said over her shoulder, which meant it was anything but fine.

  “What did I do wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Holly said. The bell rang, ending our conversation. I spent the hour listening to Mr. Thompson lecture about the pilgrims and religious freedom. I even took notes as a distraction method.

  “Essays are due Monday,” he said four seconds before the bell rang. “We don’t have class until Tuesday, but that is—”

  “Irrelevant,” the class chanted.

  I rolled my eyes. Mr. Thompson was hard core, that’s for sure.

  “One page on the pilgrims, then,” he said. “Don’t wait until the last minute.”

  It was only Wednesday, but he probably thought we should’ve started the essay this morning, even though we didn’t know the topic. Holly probably had. I almost made a joke to her about it. Just as quick as I inhaled to speak, I swallowed the words.

  She shouldered her backpack and turned toward me. She held her phone out to me, and I took it.

  “Essays this weekend?” she asked. “You know I can’t do mine without you.”

  “Uh, I got a ten and you got a fourteen. I think you have that backward.”

  A muscle in her jaw worked. My gaze skimmed over the spattering of freckles on her nose as I tried to figure out what I’d screwed up.

  “Your phone?” she asked. “I need it.”

  “Need it?” I asked stupidly. Students for second period were starting to come into the classroom.

  “It’s my turn in Scrabble.”

  I handed her my phone, somehow thinking Scrabble wasn’t the reason she needed my phone. She flashed a smile that felt cold and shoved my phone in her back pocket. As she joined the stream of students in the hall, I noticed her hips for the first time.

  Holly Isaacson has hips. I imagined putting my hands on them, moving her body closer to mine, dancing to low music in my dimly lit basement. Last time I’d touched her like that, we were twelve and the music wasn’t low, it was pounding out a beat against the concrete walls of my basement while the sun shone brightly. Back then, we’d danced and laughed, carefree and easy.

  Now, standing against the wall, I realized Lance was right. Holly wasn’t ten anymore.

  I tried to check the Post-It note app on Holly’s phone as I navigated to metal shop, but the halls were treacherous enough while looking. After I’d nearly been knocked down for the third time, I put her phone away and walked faster.

  Lance met me at the door to the shop. “So Drew is pretty pissed at you,” he said.

  “Do you even go to first period?” I asked, pushing past him and into the motor-oil-smelling classroom. “How do you have so much time to talk to her?”

  “We have our ways,” he said.

  I stopped and pinned him with my best big brother glare. “Your ways? Give me your phone.”

  “No way, man.”

  My overprotective streak reared. “Why are you even talking to my extremely underage sister? Omar is gonna kick your ass.”

  “After he kicks yours for ratting on Drew.” He slid into his seat and I wanted to wipe the smirk off his face.

  “I did not rat on Drew. You know my mom. When she asks, you tell.” I didn’t feel sorry about it. Omar had given Drew another ride to school this morning, but I was sure her shirt covered all the right parts. I’d heard Mom calling her into the kitchen as I left.

  Lance’s grin faltered. “Your mom is pretty scary.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You like it when she grills you about college and scholarships. Admit it.”

  “Shut up, man,” he hissed, glancing around like the five other guys in metal shop would care that he was scholarship-worthy and college-bound.

  “Well, you do.” I sat at my counter, hoping the bell would ring and end this conversation before Lance said something to set me off.

  “So maybe I do,” he conceded as he sat next to me. “So is Jade still in the picture?” He raised his eyebrows. “She has some amazing volume in her…” He cupped the air in front of his body. “…hair.”

  The bell rang, saving me from cuffing Lance on the back of the head. Mr. Roskelley boomed, “To the shop!” and I hurried away from Lance. Half the class period melted away under the roar of saws and getting the joints just right on my filing cabinet drawers before I remembered Holly’s phone.

  I checked it after class, before I joined the stream of students in the hall. All three notes had new comments. I clicked the unicorn one first, knowing it would be the safest. I smiled even as something heavy settled in my stomach. I missed the way we joked about stuff in real life. All I had was her smart-aleck comment about how unicorns were second rate because they only had one horn.

  The note about Jade only said F for fair enough. I think Jade’s nice, and you two would be good together.

  I smiled. We would be good together. Holly hadn’t said how I should go about getting us together, though.

  The one where I’d spilled how I missed her made me feel less like a loser.

  I miss you too. Youth group tonight?

  7

  Most people didn’t understand how Holly and I could be so close without being boyfrien
d/girlfriend. I didn’t understand how they couldn’t understand it. We were friends. Best friends. We’d sat on her roof and watched fireworks on the Fourth of July for seven summers, and she and her brother came over on nights when her mom had to work late. They’d been a constant in our house for years.

  My mom took Holly shopping for new contacts once when her mom couldn’t get off work and Holly couldn’t see. Dad helped install the Isaacson’s new fridge and worked on their car when they needed it. I’d helped the guys from our church chainsaw their tree to bits after a windstorm last spring, and Holly hung curtains in my room in seventh grade when I complained about the sun waking me too early.

  Omar and I slept on her deck for most of the summer between our freshman and sophomore years, and we all slept on Danny’s trampoline the summer after that. So she was a girl and I was a guy. That didn’t mean we were kissing secretly—or every second we were alone, as some people thought. Did they make out with all their friends? Of course not.

  These thoughts swirled through my head as I tried to remember what the youth group activity was for tonight. Maybe a service project, or maybe the trip to Pumpkinland. I couldn’t remember.

  “Mitch,” Ivy said, bringing me out of my head and into the lunchroom. “I saved you a seat.”

  She already had her tater tots piled on the corner of her tray and was holding the chocolate milk carton toward me. I took it, sat down next to her, and stared at what I’d picked up in the line. Chicken tenders and tots, the salad for Ivy, which she snagged and combined with hers, and pudding. None of it looked good. I put it in my mouth anyway, knowing that I’d pass out during track conditioning if I didn’t eat. Coach Braeburn wouldn’t be happy about my lack of fruits and vegetables either, but I had some apple chips in my track locker.

  I let Ivy talk about the meet this Friday, and where she wanted to go after. I nodded and contributed one or two words to the conversation if I had to. At the next table over, I saw a girl from my calculus class slide into a seat next to Lance. She sat tall and straight and brushed her hair over her shoulder. Lance smiled his I’ll-have-you-undressed-by-the-time-the-bell-rings smile and leaned toward her.