Just Friends

by Elana Johnson

  I was tired of watching out for Drew. Tired of listening to Holly play the piano.

  “I can’t keep doing this,” I said, looking my father right in the eye. Dad put his arm around my shoulders and steered me down the hall behind the stairs and into his office. He closed the door, something he always did when he wanted to have a private conversation. No one entered Dad’s office when the door was closed.

  I breathed in the smell of leather and popcorn. Dad liked to snack while he filled out his reports for work. In fact, I spied the remains of his nightly snack on his desk. I felt removed from my life, the same way I had that day in the cafeteria when I watched everyone living around me.

  “What’s going on?” Dad asked again.

  “Drew,” was all I could manage. My cell phone buzzed against my leg, and I wanted to throw it out the window because it was probably Omar.

  “What about Drew?” Dad asked.

  I looked up from my lap. Dad sat at his desk, his hands folded in front of him and his full attention on me. Something inside broke, probably a lot the same way something had cracked inside Holly this morning.

  “She’s dating my friend,” I said. “And I hate it.”

  Dad nodded as if he understood completely, but I wasn’t sure he did. I proceeded to tell him everything about Drew and Omar that bothered me. Dad listened as I talked, and while I felt like I spoke for hours, when I finished it had only been a few minutes.

  “We agree that Drew is too young to date a senior,” Dad started. “But Drew is… extraordinarily opinionated.”

  “No kidding,” I muttered.

  “We always encourage you kids to bring your dates here,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Which is why Drew is only allowed to see Omar here at the house—or with you.”

  “Dad, you know she sees him more than that.” There was six hours of school where they could see each other. “And I don’t want my little sister tagging along with me all the time.”

  “Perhaps you still see her as a child,” Dad said. “I assure you, hardly anyone else does.”

  I thought about her “ladies,” as Lance called them. I knew she wasn’t a child. “I don’t want Omar touching her, or kissing her, or talking about her. Ever.” I felt the desperation rising, and I didn’t know how to stuff it down inside myself.

  “Well, he already has. What are you going to do about it now?”

  I looked at him, trying to find an answer in his face. I couldn’t. “I don’t know,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Exactly,” Dad said. “There’s nothing you can do. So is it worth fighting with Drew over?”

  “No,” I unclenched my fists and forced my fingers into a more relaxed curl.

  “Let us worry about Drew and Omar,” Dad said.

  “But you asked me—”

  “I fear I’ve put too much pressure on you, Mitch, always asking you to keep an eye on Drew. You’ve done an excellent job at making sure she’s safe and where she should be.” Now sadness infiltrated into his tone. “All we can hope is that you guys will act in accordance with what you’ve been taught.” The tightness around his mouth suggested that he worried more than he let on.

  I nodded, sensing this conversation was nearly done. I was hoping, because the ten minutes of talking had drained me. He got up and so did I. He squeezed me in a hug and said, “I love you, Mitch.”

  I told him I loved him too, and then I went onto the front porch to call Lance. I didn’t think the house could hold the venom in my voice, but outside, it bled into the neighborhood along with Holly’s piano music.

  “Homecoming?” I asked.

  “Are you asking me out, Mitch?” Lance laughed. “I’m not really into guys.”

  “Never mind,” I said, ready to hang up.

  A heartbeat of silence was quickly followed by, “Wait. I’m… sorry, okay?”

  I knew it took a lot for Lance to apologize. He played the jerk, and he didn’t hold anything back—at least in public. I thought I was friends with the real Lance, the one who worried about school, who trained obsessively, who had plans for his life. Maybe that’s why it bothered me so much that he didn’t like Jade, or that he’d stopped talking to me over a girl. Heaven knows I could’ve done that to him a hundred times over.

  “Mitch?”

  He didn’t apologize for being and acting exactly how everyone thought he should. He was apologizing to me, because I knew he wasn’t really a jerk. “I’m here,” I said. “I’m just absorbing those words.”

  “Shut up,” he said. “And seriously. I don’t care who you date.”

  “Great, because I’ve never lectured you about your…” I gestured into the night, unsure what to call Lance’s women. They weren’t girlfriends, that was for sure. “You know.”

  “Just your presences is a lecture, dude,” he said.

  “That’s not true,” I said, hurt if he really thought that, and trying to make sure that pain didn’t register in my voice.

  “Okay, it’s not.” He sighed. “We’re good?”

  “Yeah, we’re good.” I inhaled deeply. “So, Homecoming?”

  “I’ll go, but I don’t have a date.”

  I looked into the night sky, wishing on every star I saw that my next words wouldn’t trigger the apocalypse. “How about you ask Holly?”

  “My parents would like you to come to dinner tonight.” Jade’s words entered my ears before English lit, and they made sense. But my vocal chords couldn’t form an answer.

  She laughed while I figured out how to breathe again. For an involuntary action, it sure was hard.

  “You should see your face.” She giggled, and my body flooded with heat. The first time I’d heard her laugh like that, I’d decided I needed to ask her out. That had happened on yearbook day last year, when Jade was hanging out with her friends in the student lounge. It had only taken me a whole summer and then a few weeks of senior year get up the nerve to ask her out. Even then, it had happened by accident.

  “It’s fine, Mitch. My parents are cool.”

  Cool like her dad went hunting every weekend and had a gun cabinet in the living room? Or cool like they set the temperature at 65? Or cool like they knew what music teens listened to and talked with their daughter about her boyfriend? Of course they talked to her about her boyfriend. She’d dated Durango—and that was years ago. I suspected I was in for some heavy parental involvement when it came to Jade.

  I didn’t care. I wanted her to laugh like that again, and I wanted to learn everything I could about her. “Okay,” I said. “Tonight?”

  “6:30,” she said just as the bell rang and Mrs. Nordstrom trilled that we’d be moving on to To Kill A Mockingbird.

  Six-thirty came way too fast. I barely remembered the rest of English lit, and I had no recollection of AP biology. All I could think about was Jade. How put together she seemed to be. She was always smiling, and always had her homework done, and had her future planned out.

  At home, Drew had mocked me when I spent a few extra minutes in the bathroom, trying to get my uncooperative hair to lie down. She said I was trying too hard with the slacks, and I’d changed into jeans despite her smirk.

  Dad had smiled and waved goodbye, and Mom’s only words were, “Be home by ten. It’s a school night.”

  I now sat in the car in Jade’s driveway, trying to swallow through a really narrow throat. How could I force down food? Then the front door opened, and Jade stood there smiling, and I got out of the car and walked toward her.

  “Hey.” She took my hand and squeezed it. “Relax.” The last word was a whisper, and I nodded.

  She led me into her house, and I was right about the coolness factor of her parents belonging to the thermostat. It was easily below 68 degrees in there. The Montgomery’s had a formal living room with dark wood floors and expensive-looking furniture—but no gun cabinet. Glass and china figurines sat on the tables.

  Jade must have thought my house was a dump. She led me into th
e kitchen, where granite countertops covered mahogany cabinets and stainless steel appliances were standard. Her mother stood at the stove, her sleek black hair pulled into a bun on the back of her head. She turned as we came in.

  I could see where Jade got her exotic looks. A smile spread across Mrs. Montgomery’s face and she wiped her hands on her apron. “Mitch, hello.” She moved toward me and swept me into a hug with the grace of someone who had been practicing such moves for years at high-society social functions. She smelled like garlic and flowers.

  “This is my mom, Gemma,” Jade said as her mom stepped back. “Dad’s not home yet. But we can wait, right?” She looked at me as if I might die of starvation right then and there.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. “Thanks for inviting me to dinner.” I glanced at Jade. “Yeah, we can wait, no problem.”

  Jade’s mother moved back to the stove. “Jade tells me you have spaghetti every Thursday. So I thought I’d stick to that tradition. Make you feel at home.”

  “Oh, great, thanks,” I said lamely. I felt more than Jade’s eyes on me. In the hall, two girls stood watching me. The littlest one smiled, and I couldn’t help returning it. Jade watched me, and she turned toward her sisters.

  “You can come out,” she said. The older one I’d seen around school. Her name was Fiona or Felicity or something that started with an F. I thought Drew said she had a class or two with her. The youngest sister looked like she was only nine or ten.

  “Mitch, you might have seen Felicia—” I knew it started with an F! “—around school. And this is my youngest sister, Hannah.” She smiled as Hannah hugged her. “She’s in third grade.”

  “Hello,” I said. I had no idea how to talk to third graders. “Don’t you have a brother too?”

  “Yeah, Nathaniel’s in college,” Jade said, smiling at me like I’d remembered her birthday. It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know when her birthday was. Shouldn’t I know that by now?

  “When’s your birthday?” I blurted out.

  “Mine?” Hannah asked, beaming at me. Apparently girls of all ages liked talking about their birthdays.

  “Sure,” I said, looking at her and then Jade.

  “February 21,” she said.

  “And yours?” I asked Felicia.

  She stared at me, this strange look on her face like she thought I was crazy. “That’s personal information,” she said. “You could use it to hack into my email account.”

  I laughed. “Fair enough.” I looked at Jade. “Is your birthday your email password?”

  She glanced at her mom, who still stood with her back to us, stirring something on the stove. It smelled vaguely of spaghetti, but not the kind my mom made.

  Before Jade could answer, the back door slammed into the wall. Hannah shouted, “Dad!” and chaos took over the conversation. I hung in the background, aware of how Mr. Montgomery sized me up. He was as tall as me, with deep black skin and a booming laugh. It was easy to see why Hannah was enamored with him, and why Jade rolled her eyes when he called her “baby.”

  Dinner was awesome, with easy conversation and the most amazing spaghetti I’d ever eaten. I asked Mrs. Montgomery for the recipe, and when dinner ended and Jade took me into her backyard, she said, “Nice move with the recipe.”

  Her backyard looked like an island oasis, with a fountain in the corner and neat rows of corn against the fence. A deck jutted out from the first floor, and I imagined eating on a picnic table up there in the summer. Though the sun was down, she would’ve had plenty of shade and we ended up settling on the grass—way greener than mine—under a tree that was far enough away from the house that her parents couldn’t eavesdrop.

  “What do you mean? It was good spaghetti. I’ve eaten a lot it; I should know.”

  “She’ll love you forever now,” Jade said, lying down and closing her eyes. “She’s a compliment whore, especially when it comes to her cooking.”

  I laughed, even as a vein of discomfort trickled through me. “A compliment whore? Wow, way to talk about your mom.”

  Jade slipped her hand into mine and laughed. The word whore felt weird coming out of my mouth. I didn’t talk like that. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Jade did—she dated Durango. I hated that I couldn’t get that thought out of my head. She probably thought I was such a moron, having taken over a month to kiss her. Who knows what else I should’ve done by now.

  I closed my eyes, and the world felt like it was spinning really fast, but also super slow. The sound of Jade’s laughter faded into the wind, and I finally relaxed.

  “Where’s your mom from?” I asked.

  “Jamaica,” she answered. “She said she’d take me when I graduate.”

  “Jamaica? She doesn’t talk with an accent at all.”

  “What? You think all Jamaicans go around saying, ‘Want some weed, mon?’”

  I laughed, playfully slapping her arm. “No.”

  “You do too,” she said, giggling with me. She reached for my hand, and we threaded our fingers together. I sighed, loving that I could joke and laugh with Jade. I also liked that we could exist in silence without it being weird.

  “My birthday is January eighth,” Jade said, breaking the quiet between us.

  “Good to know,” I replied, though I worried that I’d never be able to afford a gift worthy of Jade Montgomery. Her house screamed wealth, and her dad probably flew her to Paris for her birthdays.

  “How come you don’t have a car?” I suddenly blurted out. I opened my eyes and turned my head toward hers. Her parents were filthy rich, and it made no sense that she wasn’t the one driving us around in her fancy SUV.

  She kept staring into the sky. “I do.”

  “But you ride your bike to my house,” I said.

  “Gas is expensive,” she said simply, which made me laugh.

  “Right,” I said, gesturing to the stars to indicate her life. “Because your family is poor.”

  “My parents are… weird,” Jade said, still speaking with her eyes closed. “They won’t let me have a job, because they want me to focus on school. But they expect me to pay for my own gas. I can’t really afford it, so I don’t drive very much.”

  “Huh,” I said. “What kind of car?”

  That got her to open her eyes and look at me. “You’ve seen it,” she said. “I used to drive it through the car wash where you worked last summer.”

  Shock traveled through me. “You did?” Why would she do that if she couldn’t afford the gas it took to drive the mile to my house?

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s a navy LandRover.”

  A LandRover. Those cost at least fifty grand. “Like I remember every car that came through the car wash,” I said, actually straining my memory to do just that. I’d never seen Jade while I was at work this summer. I would’ve remembered. After I’d switched my training route to go past her house, I’d seen her getting into her mother’s Mercedes. We’d locked eyes, but I was running, and three seconds later, I was past her house.

  “You’re cute in a uniform,” she said.

  Pieces clicked in my mind. “Are you saying that you stalked me at my place of employment?”

  “No,” she said, laughing. “I would never do that.”

  I liked the way Jade laughed. It sounded carefree and light. I squeezed her hand. “I think you did!”

  “Okay, maybe a little,” she said, and I felt lighter than I had in probably forever. Jade Montgomery had driven her SUV through the car wash where I worked just to see me. Me. Heat spread through my body.

  “Now, what about your college applications?” Jade asked.

  I mentally cursed her stubborn streak as I rolled onto my elbows and kissed her in response. I could be persistent about some things too.

  19

  I tried on my tux on Saturday morning, mostly because Mom had a mini-flip out session when I’d gotten home on Friday night and admitted I still hadn’t put it on. I was sure it was fine; she was sure she needed more t
han an hour to alter it if necessary.

  As I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, I knew I was going to have to eat major crow. The jacket sleeves were too short. With a belt, the pants would be fine, but unless I was going to wear four-inch heels—and I wasn’t—they needed to be hemmed.

  “Mom!” I called.

  She poked her head out of Drew’s room. She held two safety pins and had an assortment stuck to her apron. I gestured to myself, and she scanned me from head to toe before sighing. “Give me five minutes and I’ll come mark it.”

  “Sorry,” I said feebly, knowing it wasn’t enough. Ten minutes later, I’d repeated my apologies at least a dozen times. Mom kept a constant lecture going while I stood very still in case she became too animated with the pins.

  “Drew needs her hair colored too. Don’t know how that’s going to get done by three. Now this. Luckily these sleeves just need to be unpicked, and I can do a hanging stitch on the pants in a few minutes. Then I need to get Holly’s dress from her, and Drew wants pictures in the backyard…”

  “Holly’s dress?” I asked.

  “It’s too low in the back,” Mom said. “I’m sewing in a panel.” She looked over her shoulder as the doorbell rang. Before Mom could call for someone to get it, Holly’s voice reached us.

  “I brought my dress,” she called from downstairs. “Is it safe to come up?”

  “Yes!” Mom yelled as she drove another pin into the cuff on my pants.

  “Hey,” I said to Holly when she appeared. She carried an emerald green dress in a see-through bag and gave a half-smile when she saw me.

  “Hey,” she said. “Nice tux.”

  “He waited until now to try it on.” Mom grabbed the waistband of my pants and shook it. “These are way too loose.”

  “Mom,” I whined as she nearly pulled my pants down. “They’re fine. I have a belt.”

  “I can take them in.”

  “They’re fine,” I said as she continued to paw at me. “Mom, knock it off.” I suddenly felt weird standing there packed in the tiny bathroom with my mother while Holly watched. I shed the jacket and shoved it at Mom. “I’ll just take these off.” I slipped past Holly and into my bedroom. After delivering the pants to my mom, who had taken everything downstairs to her basement sewing room, I found Holly in the kitchen, pouring herself a bowl of Cheerios.