Best (Boy)friend

by Melissa J Morgan

  “The up is that Jordan wants me to be his girlfriend,” Priya said, without taking a breath, without giving herself time to wimp out. “So what am I supposed to do?”

  Natalie raised her eyebrows. “Well, what do you want to do? Do you want him for a boyfriend or—”

  “No. No, no, no. Never in a million years,” Priya interrupted. “He’s like my brother. Almost.”

  Natalie held up both hands like a traffic cop signaling cars to a stop. “All righty then. Question answered. Now I have another one. Did he come right out and tell you he wanted to be your boyfriend?”

  “Not exactly,” Priya admitted. “I hinted around—’cause I had to, had to, had to know or I was going to go insane. And he hinted back. But it was totally clear.”

  “Totally clear hint. Mmm-hmm,” Natalie repeated. “Did you hint that you wanted to be his girlfriend?”

  “Wait, here he comes.” Priya watched as Jordan headed toward them.

  “Want me to save you a seat in the back?” Jordan asked her.

  “No. Nat needs some advice. I better stay here,” Priya said. She hoped that by the time Simon wanted his seat back, the seat next to Jordan would be filled. Then she could sit—anywhere that wasn’t near Jordan. “Sorry,” she mouthed to Natalie as Jordan walked away.

  “So, did you give him any kind of indicator of how you felt?” Natalie asked when Jordan was out of earshot.

  “I don’t know.” Priya frowned. “I tried not to give him any indicators of anything.”

  “Head count complete,” Becky called.

  “Let’s roll,” Evan, the counselor for Bunk 4D, told the bus driver.

  The front door of the bus wheezed shut. It sounded like the bus was giving a huge sigh, the kind of sigh Priya felt like she had trapped inside her. “So what am I supposed to do now?” she urged Natalie.

  “You’ve got to tell him the deal. Flat out. No hinting,” Natalie answered firmly. “Jordan’s your friend. You owe him that. Don’t let him suffer.”

  Priya stood up. She realized she hadn’t needed a self-help book. Or Dr. Phil. Or Natalie. She’d known what the right thing to do was all along. She just didn’t want to do it. It was too hard.

  But she would. Like Nat said, she owed Jordan the truth.

  “So you’ll do it, right?” Natalie looked Priya in the eye.

  “Yes. Definitely. Just not on the bus. It’s a conversation where you gotta have some privacy,” Priya explained.

  And a conversation where you needed some time to figure out exactly what to say. And even more time to find the guts to say it.

  She shot a super-fast glance at the back of the bus. No open seats next to Jordan. Yes!

  Priya spotted an empty place next to a cooler full of drinks. Perfect. She didn’t want to talk right now. To anyone.

  “Don’t you think it’s weird that they call it a mall?” Priya asked Jordan as they pedaled their mountain bikes down the trail that ran beside the Potomac River. “I don’t see one Cinnabon place or a multiplex or anything.”

  She knew she shouldn’t be rambling about proper word usage or whatever. But she didn’t think she should tell Jordan that she didn’t like him like him while he was on a moving bike. He might crash. He was wearing a helmet. Everyone on the Sites on Bikes tour had to wear a helmet. But still . . .

  “Yeah. Mall. That’s weird,” Jordan answered, without looking at her. Not like you usually looked at the person you were talking to when you were riding bikes. But he hadn’t looked at her when they were picking out the bikes and putting on the safety gear, either. He’d mostly talked to the ground.

  Priya and Jordan pedaled in silence for a few moments. She wished they’d stop somewhere, so she could just tell him and get it over with. This was worse than waiting to get a cavity filled.

  “Three points if you sit on Lincoln’s lap when we get to the memorial,” Jordan burst out.

  Hey! That was so the old Jordan. Even though the boy on the mountain bike next to her looked like the new Jordan. Well, except for the shoes. He was wearing his old sneakers for the bike ride, although they looked a lot cleaner than usual. Priya thought he might have actually used shoe polish on the white parts. Shoe polish. On sneakers. That was so wrong.

  Priya shook her head. “Can’t. Becky would probably lock me in the bus until it was time to go back to camp if I tried scaling Lincoln.”

  “First stop, coming up,” their tour guide, Amber, called out. “Park your bikes in front of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.” Sophie and Kenny, the counselors chaperoning the trip, repeated the info until they were sure all the campers who’d signed up for the tour heard it.

  “We won’t be able to get off our bikes at every monument and memorial in the Mall,” Amber said when she had the group gathered around her, “but you need to pay a visit to Mr. Lincoln. Let me tell you a little bit about the memorial before you go up.”

  Amber swept her arm out, grinning proudly, like she had sculpted the marble statue of the president herself. “Henry Bacon, the New York architect who designed the memorial, modeled the building that surrounds the statue after a Greek temple. There are thirty-six columns, one for each state that was in the Union when Lincoln died. Parts of the memorial are made from limestone from Indiana, granite from Massachusetts, and marble from Colorado, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. Using materials from all these different parts of the country symbolizes Lincoln’s preservation of the Union by bringing together resources from the North, South, East, and West.”

  The tour guide kept talking. But even though the facts were pretty cool, Priya couldn’t pay attention. It was time to step up. She hadn’t wanted to tell Jordan how she felt when they were on the bus. Or while he was operating a bike. But there was no reason not to tell him while they climbed up the stairs to the memorial. It wouldn’t be that hard to make sure no one was listening. And even though the steps were big and made of stone, it’s not like Jordan was going to be so shocked that he was going to lose control of his feet and go falling down them. Plus, Honest Abe would want me to do it here, Priya thought. ’Cause of the Honest part.

  Jordan waved one hand in front of Priya’s face. “You waiting for Abe to send down an invitation?”

  Uh-oh. Priya realized that Amber had wrapped up her spiel. “Nope, not waiting for anything,” she told Jordan. “Let’s go.”

  Everyone else was already climbing, except Amber, Sophie, and Kenny, who were staying behind to guard the bikes. This is good, Priya told herself. It’s the perfect time to tell Jordan how I feel without anybody from camp eavesdripping. That’s what her aunt always called it—dripping. It sounded a lot nastier than dropping, somehow.

  “I keep thinking about . . . about what we were talking about last night in the kitchen,” Priya said as they started up the stairs. “About the liiiiking. Maybe without all the iiii.”

  “I keep thinking about it, too,” Jordan admitted, eyes on the steps, as if he was talking to them. “It’s all I think about.” He finally looked up and pointed at her. “Don’t laugh.”

  “I’m not laughing,” Priya promised. She so wasn’t laughing.

  “There’s something I have to ask you,” Jordan said, eyes on hers.

  Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. She couldn’t let him. He was going to ask her to be his girlfriend. And that was going to make it so much worse for both of them.

  “Wait. I have to tell you something first,” Priya nearly shouted. “I—”

  “Too bad. I started first,” Jordan interrupted. “Will you help me get Brynn to be my girlfriend?”

  Priya stumbled, almost fell off the step and onto the one below it.

  Wh-what?

  Brynn? He liked Brynn? This wasn’t the conversation she’d prepared for. Priya felt as if the neurons in her brain were overheating and sending out garbled messages. Brynn? Had he said Brynn?

  “Brynn?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” Jordan’s eyebrows came together. “What? You don’t like her?”

 
This conversation was so out of control. “No. Yeah. Sure. I like her.”

  “So, come on. Help me,” Jordan said.

  “How?” Priya’s brain continued its meltdown.

  “Talk to her for me. Tell her I like her. Tell her that I think she’s pretty,” Jordan answered in a rush.

  Priya didn’t think she could. How could she tell Brynn anything? Priya now had a puddle of goo inside her skull instead of a brain.

  Priya concentrated on pumping her legs and watching where she was going. That’s about all she could handle right now. That was all the goo could handle.

  Amber called for another stop at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. She started talking about how there were three separate parts to the memorial—the wall, the statue of the three service men, and—

  Jordan started whispering to Priya before she could hear the rest. “I changed my mind. Don’t tell Brynn that I like her or that I want her for a girlfriend, okay?” He rubbed his hands on his khakis and streaks of sweat came off on the tan cloth. “Just find out what she wants in a boyfriend, okay? That would really help, because I’ve never, you know, liked a girl before. And I don’t know what I’m doing, okay?”

  What could Priya say? The guy was still her best friend. “Okay,” she whispered back.

  chapter FIVE

  Brynn gave a double bounce on the big bed closest to the window. It was hard enough to make Alex, who was lounging on the bed, bounce, too. “This mattress is a billion times softer than the ones at camp,” Brynn declared. “It’s going to be like sleeping in heaven!”

  “Sleeping in heaven—wouldn’t that mean you’re dead?” Valerie asked from the other double bed in the hotel room that she was sharing with Sarah. Priya and Sophie had gotten stuck with the rollaways. Sophie had volunteered. She probably figured as a CIT she should set a good example. Priya had lost a marathon game of rock, paper, scissors. She didn’t really care. Lots of times she and Sam—and sometimes Jordan—camped out in the backyard or just in the living room after watching scary movies. She was used to a sleeping bag with no mattress.

  “Who cares?” Brynn gave another bounce as she answered Val. “Who cares if I’m dead when I’m this comfy-cozy?”

  Priya looked at her. The girl Jordan liked. How had it even happened? He didn’t even know Brynn, really. Was it her red hair? Or her green eyes? Or was it the way she sang? Or the way she somehow made you look at her when she was onstage? How did it happen to Jordan? Did he just wake up one day and feel it? Or did it happen a little at a time?

  Val stood up. “Well, Brynn, if you’re dead and all—” She backed up a step, moving toward the bathroom door. “Then you won’t care—” Another step. “If I take the first turn in the big—” Another step. “Non-mildewish—” Another step. “Lots of hot water—” Another step.

  Brynn hurled herself off the bed and raced toward the bathroom. But it was too late. Val spun around, whipped open the bathroom door, and darted inside. “Non-shower bathtub!” she cried as she slammed the door shut behind her.

  Priya laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Brynn grabbed a pillow off Valerie’s bed and threw it at the bathroom door. “That was very sneaky!” she complained.

  “You can use some of the bubble bath I stashed in there, Val,” Sophie called as the sound of running water came from the bathroom. “Note I said some. Not all,” she teased. “You can all use some,” Sophie added. “It’s yummy. Coconut and mango.”

  “I wonder who got the first bath in the other 4C room,” Alex said.

  “Gaby probably pouted until she did,” Sarah answered.

  “And the rest of them were probably happy to get rid of her for a while,” Priya added, trying to sound normal. Trying to participate. She didn’t want to have everyone asking her what was wrong. Not that anything was wrong. Except that if Jordan and Brynn became boyfriend and girlfriend, Priya would probably never see him again.

  Brynn would be the one Jordan spent all his camp free time with. And back at home, he’d probably be IMing her every second. That’s what boy/girl pairs at her school seemed to do, anyway.

  So that was it. Nothing big. Just the complete and total loss of her BBFF.

  “Hey, let’s check out the view. I bet the mall looks cool at night,” Sophie said, probably because their CIT didn’t want them to spend any more time dissing Gaby.

  Brynn leaned over and pulled open the curtains. “Awesome. All the monuments are lit up.”

  “Is it just me, or does the Washington Monument change color?” Alex asked. “From light gray to dark gray, about a third of the way up.”

  “It does,” Sophie answered. “Priya and I found out why on our Sites on Bikes tour this afternoon.” She looked over at Priya with a tell-them expression. The thing was, Priya couldn’t. Priya hadn’t heard what the tour guide, Amber, had said about the Washington Monument. Basically from the moment Jordan dropped his confession bomb, all she’d heard when Amber opened her mouth was, “Jordan likes Brynn, Jordan likes Brynn, Jordan likes Brynn.”

  Priya realized Sophie was still looking at her. “Oh, uh, you tell them, Sophie. You tell stories better than me,” she said quickly.

  “It’s not a big story or anything. But it’s sort of interesting,” Sophie said. “The quarry they were using to get granite for the Washington Monument ran out, and they couldn’t get an exact match. That’s why it’s two different colors of gray.”

  “This coconut-mango stuff is amazing. It’s like I’m taking a bath in warm fruit punch. But in a good way,” Valerie called from the bathroom.

  “Fine. Gloat. Go ahead,” Brynn called back.

  “What did you three do while we were biking?” Sophie asked Alex, Sarah, and Brynn.

  “We were in the group that observed part of a session of the Supreme Court,” Sarah answered. “How completely cool is that? Just standing in the room. It gave me shivers.” She smiled. “Oh, wait. I forgot.” She pointed at Brynn. “That one’s the drama queen.” She pointed at Priya. “That one’s the tomboy. I’m the—hmmm. At school, everyone would say I’m the bookish, quiet one, but at camp I’m the jock. Well, I’m one of the jocks.”

  “So you’re a jook,” Alex offered.

  “A bock,” Priya suggested, trying to think if there was any way to get this conversation around to boyfriends and what they should be like. She had to get a list out of Brynn. Somehow. And it’s not like Priya had a lot of experience with conversations like that. Those were heart-to-heart girlfriend-to-girlfriend convos. She just didn’t have those.

  “Tell us more about the Supreme Court,” Sophie urged.

  “Wait. First you gotta tell us more about the Sites on Bikes,” Brynn told her. She shot a sideways glance at Priya. “Was Jor-dan on the tour?”

  “Why do you care?” Priya snapped, surprising herself. What was going on? Did Brynn already liiiike Jordan back?

  Makes your life easier if she does, Priya told herself. Makes your life suck if she does, she couldn’t stop herself from adding. There was definitely a little part of her—okay, maybe a not so little part—that was hoping Brynn would go “ewww, Jordan” when it finally came out that Jordan liked her. Because then Priya could have him back.

  “Have you forgotten already?” Sarah asked. “Brynn’s our drama queen. She’s not happy unless there is some drama going on. She has no personal drama at the moment, so she’s glomming on to yours.”

  “You’re like our own little soap,” Brynn told Priya. “We all saw the makeover. We all saw the staring.”

  The staring. The staring at Brynn. Suddenly, Priya got it. She just happened to be sitting next to Brynn at the campfire and that time in the mess hall when Jordan had been goggling. Jordan had never been staring at her. He’d been staring at Brynn.

  And the burping. He hadn’t wanted to burp at the campfire, because Brynn had said “gross” when she suggested it.

  And the laughing. The laughing at that stupid “yummy in the tummy” thing Brynn had said. Priya should have known
the truth right then. Right that second!

  “Now we need the next episode.” Brynn turned to Sophie. “So was Jordan on the Sites on Bikes thingie, as if we don’t know? And was there more staring? Or more, you know, more?”

  “He was there. And there was a little whispering between the two of them,” Sophie admitted. “But that’s all I’m saying.” She stood up and knocked on the bathroom door. “I’m giving you another five to soak, Valerie.”

  “Whispering.” Brynn opened her eyes wide in an exaggerated way, and Priya felt her neck get hot. She’d done more blushing in the past week than she had in the rest of her whole entire life.

  All right, Priya told herself. First thing I have to do is convince everyone that Jordan isn’t crushing on me. It’ll be easier to get the what-Brynn-wants-in-a-b.f. conversation going if I get that out of the way. Priya hadn’t told Jordan that pretty much everyone in her bunk had assumed he was crushing on her. Who needed that humiliation?

  “Okay. You got me,” she admitted to Brynn, her voice coming out louder than she’d planned. “Jordan and I were whispering. Do you want to know what we were whispering about?” She spread her arms out, including everyone in the question.

  “I do!” Valerie scrambled out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around herself. “I even got out of the tub early to hear!”

  No one called dibs for the next bath. Everyone looked at Priya. “I told Jordan that all of you goofs think he likes me. But he said he doesn’t. I mean, duh, he likes me. We’re best friends. But I was right all along. He doesn’t like me like that.” Priya sucked in a huge breath. “Which is good. ’Cause he’s not my type. Not what I’d want in a boyfriend at all. Uh, so what do you guys look for in a boyfriend?”

  Uh, so what do you guys look for in a boyfriend? Geez. Totally lame. Totally awkward.

  But at least she’d gotten something out. She’d made a start.

  Yeah, she’d made a start at helping her best friend not be her best friend anymore. And why? Because for right now, she still was Jordan’s best friend. So she had to do what he’d asked her to do.