“What?” she says. “You did!” She turns to Chase. “Her mother is worried that her math mind can only go so far, so she’s trying to turn her into the bard.”
“Really?” Chase asks.
I give Claire the evil eye. “My mom wasn’t thrilled with my English SAT score. She wanted me to be more well-rounded before I’m off to college.” I spoke coherently! I’m so totally proud of myself, and it didn’t sound forced either. I gather up a little confidence.
He nods. “That’s cool. I had to ace the math portion too. Math is so important if I’m going to fly someday.”
“Daisy’s a walking calculator. You know how Spanish people think in Spanish and translate? Daisy thinks in numbers and turns them into words. She’s great to shop with—she can tell you what 30 percent off of anything is.”
“I’ve always loved your memory for numbers, Daisy. What’s my phone number?”
“555-4988.”
He shakes his head. “Totally amazing.”
Not really.
“So you’re going to learn to fly?”
“In a plane, Daisy. He hasn’t sprouted wings over the summer,” Claire says. “I have to get to Cooking class. Meet you out front at lunch, Daisy. Chase, good luck with that flying thing. I hear it’s been great for Superman.” Claire stomps off once she’s lobbed the last word.
“I do hope I’m not going to be reciting emo poetry by the end of the day.” I pray that more than the spider nose ring has vanished from Claire’s summer of doom and conscience.
“What?” Chase asks. “Who’s emo? Is anyone emo anymore?”
“No, no one’s emo. I’m talking to myself—out loud.”
“What do you have first?” Chase asks. Apparently, I don’t answer soon enough because Chase asks again. “Daisy? Which class do you have first?”
“This is going to end.”
“What?”
“We’re going our separate ways.”
“I can’t keep up with you in the education department. I need to have a plan and get out of school.”
“Sure, that’s the point of school, right?”
He leans in and whispers in my ear. I feel the tickle to my toes. “I’m not a different person. It’s still me, Daisy. I know you’ll never forget my number, so you have no excuse not to call me in the future.” He kisses me on the cheek, just like he did in kindergarten.
I look down at my cheap shoes and see a pair of heels in my line of sight. They’re black, strappy heels, and the bearer has perfectly painted toes with a glitter flower on the big toe. The shoes stop beside me, and I let my line of sight follow the long legs up to long, blonde tresses and a smooth, china-doll face, absent of flaws.
“Hi, Chase!” The singsong voice of Amber Richardson hits my ears like nails on a chalkboard. She looks down at me from her lanky, mile-long body with her big head perched on top. “Claire.”
“Daisy,” I correct her. “Claire’s my best friend.”
“Are you talking to me? Because I think you’ve confused me with someone who cares.” She fake laughs before checking Chase’s reaction. “No, I’m totally kidding, don’t look at me like that!” She shoves her wrist to my face. “Look what Chase bought me over the summer.”
“Well, I didn’t actually buy it,” Chase says. “I negotiated it for her in Guatemala. We were there on the church mission trip,” he explains.
Amber smirks at me. “How come you weren’t there, Daisy? Don’t you care that people don’t have a church building to meet in? I mean, it’s totally tragic!”
“I had to work all summer. I need a car for college.” That sounds so much better than “my parents wouldn’t let me do God’s work alongside boys,” and besides, it’s true.
Amber is that girl who has it all: rich parents, cool clothes, perfect hair, student body something-or-other. Is it wrong to want to see her fall flat on her face? I’m thinking it is, since Jesus wouldn’t want that, but whatever, it’s still true. I’d still love to see that bleach-blonde hair splayed out on the concrete and her face looking up as though to say, “What happened?” Sort of like when your Mii is crushed after a Wii game. I want that look. So wrong, I know. I feel guilty, like I said, but I can still see her tresses in a splattered sunburst along the floor. I’m just not proud of it.
I look up into Chase’s gorgeous eyes, and he’s watching princess cheerleader blather on about something. Blah, blah, blah. Amber goes to our church, and she’s in the popular group there too. I know there aren’t supposed to be popular groups or cliques at church, but welcome to the real world. I’m a nobody at school, and surprise—I’m a nobody at church too. God may not care that my jeans aren’t designer, but his teenage people sure seem to.
“OMG!” princess cheerleader shouts, breaking me from thought. She actually says O-M-G like she’s Hannah Montana or something. “I totally have History first too!” She shakes her paper like it’s a winning lottery ticket. Knowing Amber, she probably hacked into the school computer and listed all the guys she wanted to “own” that year, and stalked their classes. Chase has been “mine” all these years—well, with the exception of sharing him with Miss Nelson. Completely off the radar of cool girls like Amber, and now he goes and grows like a stalk of corn over the summer, and suddenly he’s visible to girls.
Life is so not fair. I mentally list the other four guys on my prom list. It doesn’t have to be Chase. It doesn’t! But he’s not going with Amber either. As God is my witness, I will protect him from those manicured claws.
My chest deflates over the fact that Chase and Amber have homeroom together, not that it was all that inflated in the first place, but it looked more inflated in that Abercrombie shirt, which is now with the angels. Or back at Goodwill, depending on if my mother felt strongly enough to “spare” another family the trouble.
The silence grows, and the three of us shift, wondering who is going to break the unbearable “third wheel” scene. Naturally, it’s Amber.
“So Claire, you, like, totally grew too. I think you’re taller than last year, if that’s possible, but I don’t think you gained a pound. Oh my gosh, you could almost be a model for, like, one of those concentration camp pictures.” She flips her hair. “I’m so jealous!” She presses her bulbous, red, glossy lips together. “Your hair got bigger, though! No blonde highlights or tan?” She manipulates her head to stare at the back of mine. “Gosh, that makes me so sad. Where’d you have to work? The freezer at Safeway?” She laughs again and touches my wrist. “I’m totally kidding, but it’s like you got no sun. You’re like my Q-tip after I’ve taken my mascara off with it. Black, wild head, but still as albino as before summer.”
I will myself to keep silent on the fact that Q-tips were invented in 1923. It will only give Amber more ammunition. Chase doesn’t seem to notice any of Amber’s barbs. What is with guys? They want to believe a beautiful girl’s heart is just as pretty as the outside. Don’t they have mothers?
“Daisy’s lucky. She can eat anything she wants and keep that body,” Chase says with a smile. “Her complexion has always been like that.”
My hand immediately flies to my forehead, and I know he’s given Amber more to run with. I’m not good at the kind of conversation that involves a deeper level, meant to sabotage your every word. Where is Claire when I need her?
And then, one of my horrible facts comes spilling out of my mouth. It’s like I can’t help myself, I need the attention—but bad attention is not a good thing. “Did you know Kraft makes enough Cool Whip every year to fill up the Grand Canyon?”
“Fascinating and yet so very pointless. Chase, we totally have to get to class. Well, see ya, Claire.”
“Daisy,” I say halfheartedly.
“Right. I keep forgetting. You girls are so alike!” Amber clutches Chase’s arm again, but he wrangles out of her grip. “I’ll catch up with you in class, Amber. I had something I wanted to ask Daisy.”
“Oh, right, sure,” she says, but she doesn’t move.
“Chase,” she says in baby talk, while walking her fingers up Chase’s arm. “I wanted to talk to you about the Air Force Academy. Remember we talked about Daddy giving you his recommendation.” She turns to me. “My dad is a senator, you know.”
“Mine dresses like a duck.”
“What?” Amber’s face screws up. “Okay, whatever. Chase, my dad totally wants to meet you. After he found out what you did for me in Guatemala, he was totally into the recommendation.” Amber looks at me again. “You know, you need a letter of recommendation from either a senator or a representative.”
“I didn’t know that. It’s forever implanted up here now, though,” I say, tapping my temple. I’m filing it under skeevy.
Chase gives me an apologetic smile. “You don’t mind, do you, Daisy? It wasn’t important, and this is the final thing I need.”
“No, sure. You can’t be a flyboy without that.”
“You rock.” Amber starts walking away, which forces Chase to run after her in some lame attempt to make it appear he’s making an awkward play for her stone-cold heart. “Amber, wait up!”
I’m still watching when the bell rings. “Shoot! Now I’m dissed and late.”
He left. With her! Amber, one. Daisy, zero.
5
Prom Journal
September 9
177 Days until Prom
Fact: Susan Boyle, with the voice of an angel, still plucked herself bare and bought lipstick before her next appearance.
If at first you don’t succeed, you probably need a makeover. My mom says I’m getting vain. The makeup argument continued when my third eye refused to disappear. Contraband Amazing Base saved me. I believe in its power.
My mom recited the “beauty is fleeting, charm is deceiving” proverb while I tried to fix my bangs to cover the boil until I got to the school bathroom. I would totally believe that proverb if the male race believed it, but it seems someone forgot to tell them. The guy’s version would be, “Beauty is fleeting, so you want to grab it up now, before the next guy gets it. The prettier she is, the more points for you. Go!”
I am becoming neurotic. This much is true. Maybe I always was and just put my neuroses into schoolwork, and now that I’ve slacked off a little, all that neurotic energy has to go somewhere. School was so much easier because I could actually succeed at that, but being known, getting a guy to notice me as more than his math tutor . . . that’s a whole ’nother story. Here’s the rundown.
1. He’s dating Heather Wells, and judging by where I saw his hand today, he’s no longer an option.
2. Steve Crisco. He’s in my Calculus class, which he wouldn’t be in if it weren’t for me. He sat right next to me to assure himself a good grade. So he’s moved down the list. Is it rude if I ask my date to take an IQ test? Tired of surfing stories already.
3. Greg Connolly. Still doesn’t know I exist as a female. Told him that there were more than 80 recorded spellings of Shakespeare’s name in English and he stared at me funny. Like I might snap at any moment. Hello? Were we not in English Lit? Totally relevant?
4. Kelvin Matthews. I think the gel hands are going to get to me. Why am I so shallow?
5. Chase Doogle. I’ve saved the worst news for last. He did call me. Because he was working at Claire’s club at the end of the season. He found my sweatshirt in the lost and found, and rather than give it to Goodwill, he brought it home. I haven’t quite given up on the fact that he was trying to stake his claim for prom. I mean, he could have told me about the sweatshirt in front of Amber.
My mother’s homemade sweatshirt reads, “Made with love by Molly Crispin,” and then my name is sprawled beneath in red Sharpie. It had my name ironed in the collar, like I was four. So humiliating. I would have totally lied and said it wasn’t mine, but tell me, what choice did I have? He’s going to bring it to school for me.
While I’m dreaming of our perfect prom photos, which I would show to our grandchildren, Chase is thinking, “Even with her lame label, Daisy can’t keep track of her clothes. And it’s not like she has a lot of them—isn’t that the same sweatshirt she wore for three years?”
Chase is working on making “Top Gun” his future, and I’m still trying to get “plays well with others” under control. Daisy Doogle is a distant dream. I don’t know, maybe that’s a good thing, but right now, as Amber makes her latest spidery move, I must say, it sucks to be me.
Dates turned down: 0
Dates offered to turn down: 0
Most embarrassing random fact I blurted out during Physics:
Count von Count of Sesame Street is based on the legend that throwing seeds at vampires wards them off. Vampires were compelled to count the seeds.
Like I said, sucks to be me.
When I was in elementary school, there was this red line painted across the blacktop. If you were in the third grade or below, you couldn’t cross that red line and descend into the big-people world of the fourth through sixth graders. The magical mystery of what lay beyond that line mesmerized me, like if I could only step into that world, as if pixie dust were suddenly under my feet, I would ascend into a different hemisphere.
Naturally, when I got to fourth grade, I saw that things looked exactly the same on the other side of the line, but it was the intrigue of the unknown that made it so off-limits and terrifyingly fascinating.
St. James Academy has that line too. I’ll call it the PE (popular equator), only it’s invisible and causes strange happenings of polar proportions. It’s like Lost for the high school set. It takes a certain kind of person to venture into the realm of popular kids. Haven’t figured out what kind of person that is, I only know my group isn’t that.
Those of us on the other side of the equator are not privy to the conversations about upcoming events and certainly are not on the guest list for the parties. Like being on the wrong side of the blacktop, we are left to wonder about the magical happenings yonder.
“Four days of school down,” Claire says. “How many to go, Daisy?”
“Not counting weekends or vacation days, 176.”
“The home stretch.” Claire laughs and tosses her lunch onto the grass. Our ragtag group of friends is back together, having lunch on the back lawn, sitting crisscross-applesauce in a circle, like we always have.
A mere four days into the school year, Claire is completely over her summer goth stage and is now very J. Crew-looking. The hallway light didn’t do her makeover justice. Her hair is back to brown with salon caramel highlights in a wedged bob, and her nails are manicured and painted an electric blue. She pulls her lunch out of the sack (a can of strawberry Slim-Fast) and toasts us. “To us! Seniors at last.”
“To us,” we echo.
“To my friends,” I say, lifting my Snapple. “People who understand my need to share random facts.”
“I wouldn’t say we understand it, I’d say we deal with it,” Angie says. “It’s weird to us too.”
There are four of us altogether. Claire and I met the other two as freshmen in Chorale. “We’ve come a long way since Chorale,” Claire says. With our choir robes and red, rubber headbands, we had no idea that only freshmen nerds joined the a cappella choir.
“Oh my gosh, had we known,” Angie says with a laugh. “Remember how we walked out all proud of our choir robes, only to be met by the dance team in the Dancing with the Stars hot chick outfits?” Angie laughs.
“It seared our friendship,” I say.
“And our reputations,” Claire adds.
“Always the pessimist,” I tell her.
“Realist.”
“Pessimists always call themselves realists,” Angie says.
Angie Chen is first-generation American, which explains why she didn’t know choir was a pseudonym for nerd.
(Still wondering what my excuse was. Too many seasons of American Idol, perhaps?) Angie’s parents are from Shanghai, so she goes to Chinese school on Saturdays, plays the piano like Mozart, and has less of a social life than me. Chorale hardly cramped her style, but the great thing about Angie is she never cared. She’s too practical to worry about prom or high school crushes. Oh, that I could be like her.
“Claire calls herself whatever she likes. You’re never going to enlighten her about a thing,” Sarika says, and because she rarely says much, her comment stops Claire cold.
Sarika Singh was born in southern India but moved here in high school. Her parents (dad Indian, Mom white) run a church and minister to those from the Hindu faith. Her father also owns some high-tech business and imports Indian engineers like souvenirs. Her family is vegetarian, which I could totally do if my mom cooked like hers, but alas, turmeric is not a spice used in our home. Salt is considered living on the wild side and is not added without my father’s cholesterol number being announced aloud.
“Do you think we’ve come a long way?” Sarika asks. “I was just here thinking we are exactly like we were four years ago. I want a boyfriend this year. You know how when a guy goes off to war, he wants someone waiting? I feel that way about college. You can’t be marriage material unless you’re involved.”
“What?” I shout. “You want a boyfriend? Oh my gosh, that’s so completely normal, Sarika. I thought I was the only one of us.”
“Seriously, when you’re attached, it makes you unattainable. My dad says guys love that.”
“Your dad wants you to have a boyfriend?” I ask her. “That does not sound like your dad.”
“No, he wasn’t talking about me! But you girls. You should get a boyfriend before you go to college. That way, you can trade up.”
“He’s not a used car,” I say.
“You mean I can’t kick the tires?” Claire jokes. “You would have a boyfriend, Daisy, if you’d stop dressing like the girl all men over eighty fantasize about, who brings them their orange juice.”
Perfectly Dateless Page 5
