Perfectly Dateless

by Kristin Billerbeck

  “That’s not the reason,” Angie says. “It’s the fact that she cannot keep her mouth shut about how many hearts an octopus has and other encyclopedic facts.”

  I stand up. “Come on, it’s time for lunch assembly. We get to go into the popular world for assembly in the gym.”

  “We can be fashionably late,” Claire says. “Those assemblies are lame anyway. We’re seniors. We know the rules by now.”

  We all stare at one another after this assessment. “But we always go to the assemblies,” I say.

  “So today, we’ll do something different,” Claire says.

  Angie, the optimist of us, speaks up. “We did do something different. We’re not completely the same. Claire got a better haircut. Sarika’s face cleared up, and Daisy, you grew five inches at least.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Claire says.

  “I’m not the same person I was in Chorale,” I say.

  “No, now we see your clothes,” Claire quips. “Lucky us.”

  “That was cold,” Angie says.

  I look down at my “uniform” and suddenly feel empowered. “No, she’s right, Angie. I look exactly the same.” I shake my head. “You don’t get it. You’re all going out into the great, wide world and I’m going to Bible college.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Bible college,” Sarika states, which is easy to say since she’s going to Stanford.

  “I’ve been in Bible school kindergarten through senior year. Is it wrong to want something different? Where are you applying, Claire?”

  She shrugs. “The UC system.”

  “You need that extracurricular for San Diego or Berkeley,” Angie tells her. “Good thing you’ve got tennis.” Then she looks at me. “They count work experience, Daisy. For kids who had to work instead of play.”

  All three of them look at me. “Seriously, I would consider Bible college if my parents’ goal wasn’t to get me married off to a preacher.”

  “You’ll get into any school you want,” Claire says. “No preacher would marry you. Don’t they know about your Tourette’s with facts? You’d empty the pews in no time.”

  “Let’s go. We’re going to be late for assembly.” I sling my backpack over my shoulder and start walking. Angie and Sarika pack up, and Claire finally gives up and throws her empty Slim-Fast can in the bag.

  “Don’t you want to go out with a bang? Be remembered for more than—I don’t know—sitting here on the grass by ourselves?” Claire asks. “There’s a big world out there!” She stretches her arms out.

  “A big, bitter world that’s told us we don’t matter,” I say. Why mention I have the very same goal? Then it wouldn’t be Claire’s idea and I wouldn’t have her full cooperation.

  They all shake their heads in unison. “I can’t wait to get out of here,” Sarika says. “I’m sick of high school. I am tired of people who care about what clothes you wear more than your accomplishments in life.”

  “I agree. I can hardly wait to get out,” Angie says.

  “That’s because you all have a place to go.” Unsaid: Hello? What about me?

  “You’ve earned the money to put yourself through school. You’ve hoarded everything you’ve earned. And it’s not like you won’t work during college. You know how to juggle both already.” Claire sniffs.

  I don’t mention that I’ve applied to Pepperdine’s prestigious business school and my “hoarding” barely covers books, much less tuition.

  “You could have afforded to dress well if you wanted to,” Sarika says.

  “It doesn’t seem very responsible to choose clothes over college.”

  “Don’t bother with her, girls, she’s convinced she has to save every penny she earns. She has an answer for every one of your suggestions. If she breaks into the piggy bank now, everything is doomed.”

  Claire just described my parents, and I scramble to remember why I save everything. “Um, junior college, my parents . . . living at home. Should I elaborate?”

  “Oh, right,” Angie says.

  Just the way she says it is depressing. Like everyone knows my parents are the strictest. Sarika’s parents want to choose whom she marries, and Angie’s want her to become a doctor before she’s married, yet they’re all mourning my life. That’s just sad.

  “So are we going to try to fit in once before we leave?”

  “I don’t care if I’m popular,” Claire states. “You can’t be popular and cheap, Daisy. You can’t pay for college and dress like Amber Richardson, so why compete on a level like that? Don’t you watch The Hills? That crowd is vicious. You’re the smart girl, Daisy. Just accept it.”

  “Hey, Daisy!”

  I look behind me and shield my eyes against the sun, and Greg Connolly (#3 on my list) is walking toward us. “Hi, Greg,” I say, while desperately gulping the remaining PB and J in my mouth. Dang. I’m a spaz. I remind myself to offer no facts. Prom princesses do not know that Greg’s height could merely be a malfunction of the pituitary gland.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” Greg asks, looking at the rest of my friends. “Alone?”

  “Sure.” I could swear Claire scowls at me, but I follow Greg. “What’s up?”

  Greg looks like Orlando Bloom and dresses like a J. Crew ad. No, he dresses like a J.Crew catalog! I whip my head around toward Claire, with her sweater thrown leisurely over her shoulders in a knot and her hair pushed back by a plaid headband, and suddenly the ground feels a bit shaky. Why do I remember random facts but don’t see what’s right in front of me?

  He looks around me, back toward the group, and my fears are confirmed. “Claire’s not been coming to youth group at church. Was she gone this summer? She didn’t even come for food-pantry stocking. She always comes to that.”

  Because I drag her!

  “No, her mother and father have been away. They don’t like her to leave the house at night when they’re gone. The maid gets afraid. But I haven’t been coming either.” Implication: did you notice my absence, Greg?

  “Oh,” he stammers, and kicks his toe into the grass.

  “Is there something you wanted to ask me about Claire, Greg?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. I thought we’d . . . I don’t know . . . connected over the summer. Earlier, at the club. Now she doesn’t talk to me.”

  “She’ll be at youth group soon.”

  I walk back to my friends, and Claire has one eyebrow raised. I can’t help but feel slightly betrayed. I would have never written Greg’s name in my prom journal had I known they were a possibility. “You don’t tell your friends when you’re flirting with intent?” I ask her.

  “What?” Claire asks.

  “He asked about you, Claire. I didn’t ask you anything about the goth phase, just let it slide, but if this J.Crew phase has anything to do with Greg, I’d wish you’d said something.” I settle back into our dysfunctional circle as we walk.

  “Me? Why on earth would Greg ask about me?” She places her hand on the knot of her sweater.

  “I can’t fathom,” I say with a smirk.

  The gym is packed when we get inside, only because attendance is mandatory. The only seats that remain are in the front, next to all the freshmen.

  “I told you we’d be late,” I say.

  “I told us not to come,” Claire says. “No one takes roll.”

  We pile into the available seats in the second row, and the overhead lights dim. The school band plays some praise song that is unrecognizable with the blare of the horns and off-key, out-of-practice musicians.

  Principal Walker, looking tidy and uptight in his gray suit, knocks on the microphone, and the band quits as they see fit. The speakers overload, and the students groan.

  “Good afternoon, students of St. James Academy. It’s been a fine year so far, but we’d like to keep it that way throughout the year. One of the things we pride ourselves on here at St. James is the quality of peer communication and the lack of bullying that goes on in our hallways.”

&
nbsp; “Yeah, if you’re the principal,” I say.

  “Today we are very fortunate to have a group of guests who have come to teach us what can happen when there is no respect in the hallways. Bullying is not tolerated in our school, nor should it be in any Christian environment, but this is one more way we’d like to drive the message home. Please help me welcome Mr. and Mrs. Crispin and their troupe as they act out ‘Pretty in Peer Pressure.’”

  My face goes white, and I do believe my PB and J is backing up on me. My friends look at me, and I shrug and shake my head. Please, please, let it be another Mr. and Mrs. Crispin. Surely I have some long-lost relatives in the area.

  The music starts with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” and my mother bops out dressed as Cyndi Lauper, twisting her skirt with zeal as she skips across the stage. It might even be her hideous, hot pink dress from prom. Only now it’s just a skirt, because let’s face it, my mom is no girl, and her dance could easily be confused for the dry heaves.

  I shut my eyes, hoping it will be over soon, but I hear the word puberty, followed by purity, and then the roar of laughter in the audience. My face is hot, and I sink as low as I can into my chair without sliding onto the wood floor.

  The music of the first act wilts, and my father appears on stage, dressed as Elvis. His sideburns are a rich, glossy black, and I can only pray the kids think it’s part of his costume.

  “We need a volunteer!” my dad bellows.

  To my horror, I hear my mom shout, in her Cyndi Lauper voice, “Chase Doogle, why don’t you come on up?”

  I turn to see my crush running toward the stage. It’s all very surreal, as though I’m in a bad nightmare and I’m suddenly going to wake up to find it was all my imagination—my terribly vivid, perfect, spot-on, searing imagination. I shut my eyes tight, hoping when I open them, this will all go away.

  “Chase,” my mother says to the audience, “has known my daughter since kindergarten. Daisy, stand up and say hello.”

  I keep my eyes shut. Spontaneous human combustion. Dickens said it happened in Bleak House. It could happen. Or the Rapture, that could happen, and I’d float away happily, never looking down.

  “Yoo-hoo! Daisy, wake up!” my mother calls.

  I am slunk down as far as I can be without being on the floor. I open my eyes and shoot her the stare of my life. Please, Mother. I’ll never ask for anything again.

  “Our daughter Daisy . . .” My father continues in his Elvis voice with his tilted lip and popped collar. He’s the old Elvis. The fat one who OD’d, who is hardly the model for a talk on self-restraint. Or bullying, or whatever this hot mess is about. “She says no one at this school knows her, but that isn’t true. We all feel like we don’t fit in, and it’s hard to trust those around us. That’s why we wrote this play about the trials of peer pressure, so you could know you’re not alone.”

  My mom meets my gaze again. “You’re not alone.”

  I may not be alone, but how I wish to high heaven I was at this juncture.

  My dad rips off his Elvis jacket, slaps on a baseball cap, and flips it backward. My mother rips off her red wig. She’s wearing some form of Lego hair that appears snapped onto the top of her head. She flicks her suspenders on her shoulders, and they’re joined by two young break-dancers in saggy jeans. Rap music pulsates throughout the gym. Chase backs away slowly.

  “Yo! Yo!” my dad chants directly at Chase. “I may not be cool or dress like you, but I got deep feelings roiling round in me too.” He hammers his hands toward the ground and back at his chest. “Yo! Yo! Don’t want to be a label sleaze. Hear me out, I dress as I please. Don’t judge me by my size, shape, or color. I am the way God made me.”

  “I’m so tall!”

  “I’m too short!”

  “My face is a wreck!”

  “I might as well be invisible!”

  “That’s how we roll. That’s just how we roll!” the chorus goes.

  It continues, painfully, for a full ten minutes. I can’t watch! All I can remember is something about getting jiggy with it and how we roll.

  When it’s over, I’m numb.

  Claire grins. “Well, you’re not invisible now. Be careful what you wish for.”

  “Are they kidding me? I can’t go to a dance, but my parents can sing in front of the entire school and get jiggy with it?”

  Sarika shrugs. “That’s just how we roll.” She starts to laugh.

  I rush out the door, but I’m surrounded by students and get stopped in the crowd. There are so many talking at me, I get only tidbits.

  “So cool!”

  “That rocked!”

  “I wish I had parents like that!”

  “You’re so lucky!”

  I scramble away with Claire next to me. “Did you hear that? I’m lucky to have deranged parents? Are they kidding?”

  Claire’s expression turns somber. “In some ways, you are. It wasn’t that bad, Daisy. It was kind of cute.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Seriously, it was. Besides, no one knows who you are. What are the chances they know you’re their daughter?”

  “Daisy!”

  “Shh!” I snap at the sound of my name. “People will know who I am!” I turn to see a guy following us out of the gym. “Do I know you?”

  “Your parents just pointed you out,” he says.

  My life is over.

  “I don’t think so.” Suddenly I’m Peter denying Jesus, and the guilt overwhelms me. “Yeah, I’m Daisy.”

  As the stranger approaches, I see he’s about the same height as me, maybe a tad shorter. He’s tanned like a Spanish warrior with dark chocolate eyes, cropped hair, and seriously cute dimples. He has a regal, Spanish-royalty look to him, and I could easily picture him in a brightly colored uniform with gold buttons.

  “Did you know dimples are actually a birth defect? The result of a shortened muscle.” I did not just say that.

  His hand covers his left cheek, and I feel Claire slap my back.

  “Hi, I’m Claire.” She thrusts out her hand, but I push it away.

  “Isn’t Greg looking for you?” I ask her.

  “Excuse my friend, she spouts useless trivia when she gets nervous. Which I take to mean she finds you cute. If she starts talking numbers, I’d run. See ya.” Claire bops off like the traitor she is. Chase is standing by the gym doorway staring at us. He shakes his head and disappears back into the gym, fighting the exiting students like a salmon swimming upstream.

  I look back at the dimples in front of me.

  “You’re blushing.” He laughs, and his dimples appear in full.

  I feel my cheeks. “Too much sun, I guess.”

  “I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Max.” He rakes his hand through that gorgeous black hair. “I wanted to say that no one knows me either. So now we know each other. I thought maybe that would do us both good.”

  “Well, Max, maybe I can show you the ropes of being an unknown. I assume you’re at least new?”

  “Yeah.” He looks back toward the gym. Chase is standing beside Amber—who is pointing at me and laughing. “Maybe your days of anonymity are over. I wanted to say ‘hey’ before that happened.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that.” I keep talking to Max, but I can’t take my eyes off Amber’s flirtatious stance. “Good things don’t happen to me.”

  “What?” Max asks.

  I meet his deep brown eyes to force my attention away from Chase. “Do you ever feel like the Lord uses you for comic relief? I’m an understudy.” I’m talking to myself more than Max, but he lifts my chin with his thumb so my attention is fully on him.

  “Only Satan would make you believe such a thing.”

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “The public school down the street. They didn’t offer AP History and I need it for my major. I’m going to pray for you, Daisy. You’re not looking at the right things.”

  “They have that accent at the public school?”

&
nbsp; “Oh, you meant where did I originally come from.” He laughs. “Argentina. I’ll catch up with you later. I just wanted to introduce myself before you disappeared into the crowd.”

  That. Is. What. I. Do. Best.

  He starts walking across the quad. “I have to get to wood shop.”

  “Wait, Max! What’s your last name?”

  “Diaz!” he yells back. “And I find you cute too, Daisy Crispin! Save a few random facts for me, okay?”

  6

  Checks R Us is a check-printing company, and my employer has a horrible track record for quality. The employees screw things up in the factory. I get yelled at in the office. Interesting system, but it pays well. Banks, customers—pretty much anyone who needs to vent—has my number and an issue. It’s good practice for school since no one seems to notice I’m an actual person there either. Until today, when I’m an actual person with parents who rap. Oh, the shame of it!

  When I started this job, I seriously thought about not going to college rather than pursuing my mother’s dream of me marrying a preacher. Then I did the math of listening to cranky bank tellers until I was sixty-five, and my head about exploded. So I applied like a madwoman for any and every college that would accept me.

  My co-workers are still on the phone, taking their own rash of crap. The thing about people yelling at you? They don’t want to be put on hold while they scream because they might lose momentum, and they’re like a torrent of steam or a freight train that will bear down on you. Not pretty. There’s usually some coarse language involved and lots of soothing words on my part. I might consider a career in wild animal training.

  I adjust my headset and answer the phone. “Checks R Us, this is Daisy speaking. How may I help you today?”

  “Daisy, this is Bev at Wells Fargo. Our customer received an order with someone else’s address, and this is not the first time it’s happened.”

  Nor will it be the last, Bev. Apparently you’re not familiar with our company. “Bev, I’m terribly sorry about that. There must have been a mix-up in the plant. Let me get that reordered right away.”

  Everyone’s off the phone at this point, staring at me while I finish. We’re at our ancient metal desks, arranged in foursquare order, and the phones have died down. Friday afternoon at the banks has started. Very few of the banks complain on Friday because they’re too busy to call us.