Not That I Care

by Rachel Vail

  “See ya soon, then?”

  “Yeah, I guess. See ya.”

  I borrowed CJ’s new Fair Isle sweater, which she said brought out my dark eyes and hair really well. She French braided my hair for me, which felt so nice on my head I almost fell asleep while she did it. I remember asking her if her mother worked on her hair every morning. She said yes, and I said with my eyes closed that it must be so annoying. I doubt my mother even knows how to French braid. She doesn’t have time to fuss with me in the mornings; she has to be at work by seven-thirty.

  We stole some lip gloss from Mrs. Hurley’s bathroom to give my lips a wet look. When I looked in the mirror at myself with my hair all pulled back like that, I looked a lot like my dad. I didn’t have zits on my forehead at that point, so I didn’t have to worry about hiding behind my bangs.

  It took me a long time to walk all the way to Tommy’s, since I didn’t have my bike. I walked there slowly, humming a romantic song I was making up, feeling all soft-focus and like I should have a bouquet of flowers or at least white leather gloves, instead of fuzzy mittens. I was nervous but in a good way; even the snow seemed romantic. I imagined a spotlight following me.

  When I got there, Tommy was sitting on his front step, making snowballs and chucking them at the mailbox. His aim was decent; there was so much snow caked around the flag, you could barely see it. I made a tight ball, said a little prayer, and let it fly. I hit the mailbox so hard, it wobbled. When I looked at Tommy, he was grinning that grin of his that got me in the first place. “Good shot,” he said.

  I shrugged, not wanting him to know how nice it felt to hear that. “What happened to the snow fort?” I asked.

  “Jonas is reading.”

  “Oh.”

  He picked up another handful of snow and asked, “You want to see our tree house?”

  “Sure.” Following him around the side of the house, I felt like I should say something. “My dad always meant to build us a tree house. There’s a whole pile of lumber in our basement.”

  “Maybe this spring,” Tommy suggested.

  “He moved to L.A.,” I said. He didn’t say anything to that. A girl would’ve said something in a high voice: Sorry, oh, my gosh, Los Angeles? I followed silent Tommy to the little cabin in the middle of his yard. “It’s not in a tree,” I observed.

  “That’s just what we call it,” he said, ducking inside. I stepped in behind him and tried to think of something nice to say, because my mother says when you go to somebody’s house, find something to compliment. But before I could say nice walls or something, Tommy asked me, “Did you ever kiss anybody?”

  I looked out the window of the cabin toward his house. I couldn’t see anybody looking out at us. “Besides family?” I asked.

  “No, your grandmother.”

  “I was just kidding,” I said. I didn’t want him to think I was a baby or a prude, so in one motion I turned around, grabbed him, and started kissing.

  I tried to do it the way CJ and I had been joking about—you know, rocking your head left and right, put your hand in his hair. I wanted to do it right.

  I scared him so bad, kissing him like that, he yanked his head back. “Um, want some hot chocolate?” he asked, and before I had a chance to answer, he left the tree house. He practically ran across the yard. I think I was still puckered when he got to his back door.

  I walked home, which took an hour. I punched myself in the stomach the whole way. Jerk, jerk, foolish jerk.

  I called him to break up as soon as I got in my house, before I even took off my jacket. Jonas answered the phone.

  “Can I talk to Tommy?”

  “He’s sick,” Jonas said.

  I had actually made him sick. I sat down on the floor, still in my jacket and boots, leaning against the front door.

  “Morgan?” Jonas asked.

  “Just tell Tommy I don’t want to go out with him anymore.”

  “OK,” Jonas said. “See you in school tomorrow.” And that was the end of that. I put the box of red-hots in my desk drawer next to the wadded-up thermometer and left it there unopened, to remind myself of the difference between girlfriends and boys. Also to torture myself. Tommy was out of school sick for a few days, but when he came back we barely looked at each other. I’d already told everybody I’d broken up with him because he was such a horn-dog, kissing me so hard out in his tree house.

  fifteen

  I touched his hair. Oh, jeez, it tortures me just to think of it, and there he is up in front of the class, finishing his Bring Yourself in a Sack, and I still think he’s so cute, which I would never admit. I scare myself sometimes, my hand in his hair and my eyes closed, him pulling away and looking all frightened, me smooching away clueless, making him sick.

  I don’t care if he thinks I’m a slut, kissing him like that. He’s so full of himself, he probably thinks I just couldn’t resist him. He’s got that smirk on, as he pulls a tiny toy dinosaur out of his bag and explains that the Tyrannosaurus rex represents him not just because he’s so tough, but also because he has been teaching his little cousin about dinosaurs and being a good older cousin is important to him.

  I turn to CJ and roll my eyes, thinking I should get her to break up with him, she’s much too good for a jerk like Tommy Levit. She’s not looking at me, though. I’ll write her a note. I’ll apologize for being so moody this morning. When she tried to tell me she wasn’t really best friends with Zoe, I walked away, telling her Olivia was waiting for me. That had to hurt. Olivia’s mother and CJ’s are best friends, so CJ’s always getting compared to Olivia at home, never quite measuring up, of course. I, of all people, know how that feels—if you ask my mother, I don’t measure up to anybody. I am such a bad friend, to shove Olivia Pogostin at CJ, who was only trying to explain that she’d never betray me.

  I pick up my pencil and write quickly: Sorry I’m such a moody mess. Tommy thinks he’s so great. Ha! I have to tell you something URGENT Your best friend, Morgan.

  I haven’t thought of anything urgent, but there’s still a lot of time left; English/social studies is a double period, which is endless. I’ll come up with something. I press down to pull the paper off neatly at the perforations, leaving the raggedy part gripped to the spiral wire. I never get caught passing notes. I take my time, carefully. Folding the note slowly, I look across the row at CJ.

  She’s passing a note to Zoe.

  Zoe catches the note, reads it quick, smiles, and touches her friendship ring with her thumb. CJ touches hers, too, then darts her eyes over at me. She frowns, caught. She covers her friendship ring with the other hand, under her desk.

  As if I would care or something.

  sixteen

  The spatula is sticking out of my bag. It’s too big. It doesn’t fit. It was a stupid thing to choose; it doesn’t define who I am. None of this junk does, really. I don’t even know if this is the exact spatula I split my brother’s head open with. There are a few spatulas in the drawer. Same as that day I chucked it at Ned when he told me about the tooth fairy, I just grabbed one. This spatula could be as distant from any meaning in my life as any random fork in the kitchen. Unless of course I now chuck it at CJ. Which I’m considering. I start to crumple the note I wrote to her, but instead I tap Olivia on the shoulder.

  “Cornelia Jane Hurley,” says Mrs. Shepard.

  Olivia turns around. I hand the note to her as CJ takes a deep breath. Too bad, CJ. You just lost me.

  Olivia looks surprised. She’s opening the note. I wish I could grab it back from her. I lower my eyes, down to my bag. A stick, I have here, a Barbie head, an eraser, and now I’m passing notes to Miss Perfect saying she’s my best friend? When she has all interesting, perfect things in her Sack. I have a twig from the cherry tree. Well, at least I chose one thing that makes sense. This dead twig is totally me.

  seventeen

  The first day of sch
ool this year I stood at my new locker. Me, CJ, Zoe, and Olivia were joking about the puny sixth graders, but really we were sizing one another up. Zoe was tugging at her T-shirt; I think she’s embarrassed that her hips grew already. Olivia, who looks like a fourth grader at most, has the locker between me and Zoe, and she was huddled on the floor, organizing it. I looked down at her perfectly straight part, her dark hair tugged tightly to the sides into two pigtail braids. I don’t think she grew over the summer at all. She probably stayed inside the whole time diagramming sentences. Her family is best friends with CJ’s, and although every mother in Boggs thinks Olivia is the perfect child, Olivia totally worships CJ.

  Tommy Levit passed us, yelling, “Wait for you by the wall!”

  “They’re coming?” I asked Zoe, looking at CJ and shaking my head. Zoe hadn’t even asked me and CJ if we minded if the boys joined us, going to get school supplies at Sundries. We had made plans, me and CJ, and we were nice enough to include Zoe. Now the boys were already waiting for us out by the wall.

  “If that’s OK,” Zoe answered, tucking her hair behind her ear.

  CJ shrugged slightly. She checked her bun with her wiry, nervous fingers. I could tell she’d go along with whatever I wanted to do.

  “Fine,” I said. “I don’t care if they come.”

  “Me, too,” CJ said, and drooped over gracefully to retie her Keds. She doesn’t bend her knees. She got that habit from Fiona the Boring.

  Olivia slammed her locker shut and said, “Have fun getting school supplies.”

  “Have fun at the orthodontist,” Zoe answered.

  “That’s likely,” said Olivia. “Hey, you three want to come over, after? We could play pool. I should be done by four-fifteen.”

  We said sure. Nobody has anything against Olivia; she’s always sort of been on the outskirts of our group. She slammed her locker and ran to meet her mother, saying, “Wish me luck!”

  “Luck!” Zoe yelled in her booming voice.

  CJ whispered, “Olivia’s mother told my mother that Olivia thought she might not need braces.”

  We all shook our heads. Olivia has extremely crooked teeth.

  We ambled out into the heat of the afternoon where the Levits were sweating, kicking the wall, waiting for us. Jonas is in chorus with me instead of band with CJ and Zoe and Tommy, so he and I walked ahead, making up nasty lyrics to the ancient cornball chorus songs. I don’t know why I don’t like Jonas, I started to think—he’s a lot easier to talk to than Tommy.

  When we got to Sundries and started rummaging through the school supply area, Jonas threw a big gummy eraser in my basket. I threw one in his, too. Then I walked away, quick, over to CJ at the counter. I didn’t have enough money to buy more than a couple of things, anyway, and the gummy eraser was a dollar fifteen. I had saved my money all summer, but I was reserving eleven dollars for the Barbie doll whose head is now in my sack. Every time I start to save up, there’s something I suddenly get the urge to blow it all on.

  CJ was looking at friendship rings in the case, so we picked out the one we both liked. I was relieved she liked a sort of plain one, with just a simple knot in the silver. I’d never want to wear something all gaudy. Not that I could afford to buy it anyway, but still. I hadn’t told her about the Barbie I had put on hold, right there under the Sundries front counter. CJ has dozens; she wouldn’t understand why I’d waste my own money.

  We crossed our fingers and touched our noses. I’ve really outgrown stuff like that, but CJ hasn’t.

  After all five of us bought our stuff, we walked down the strip to the pizza place. Jonas slid in next to me on the bench, but I made sure not to look at his cute rosy cheeks too much, because I didn’t want him thinking I liked him or something. Tommy spent the whole time telling us about their little cousin, how he taught him all about dinosaurs over Memorial Day weekend.

  CJ and Zoe were leaning toward him, nodding and sipping their sodas through straws. All I could think was, How am I supposed to pay my share of this check? I’m not even supposed to go to the pizza place; we have no money to waste on extravagances. I held the new gummy eraser in my palms, rolling it between them, under the table. I didn’t need it; I mean, pencils have erasers built right in on top for free.

  Then Tommy jutted his chin toward me. I didn’t know what he’d just said, because I was mentally adding up what change I still had in my pocket, so I just looked away. We had finished the pizza, so it was time to put money on the tray. They probably all think I’m a cheap jerk, but too bad. I only had half a cup of soda and one slice.

  Mrs. Levit was waiting outside in her Audi. She waved to us as the boys climbed into the backseat with their school supply bags. Me, CJ, and Zoe walked to Olivia’s house to shoot some pool. CJ’s ballet classes hadn’t started up yet, so she had this one week to hang out.

  We chalked up the pool cues and chose sides—me and Olivia against CJ and Zoe. Zoe looked at me like ha, I’m partners with CJ! As if I would care. Just because Olivia is about a decade away from puberty.

  We got to talking about boys while we played, or rather while Zoe and Olivia played. CJ and I totally stunk. We were cracking ourselves up. You could see Zoe and Olivia were trying to be good sports, but the worse me and CJ played, the more we laughed, and then we could barely hit the white ball at all. It was funny, how uncoordinated we were, and how NOT seriously we both take pool playing. We were hugging each other, falling down laughing at what LOSERS we were. It was really fun.

  But then CJ started acting all cutesy, arabesquing toward me on her pool cue, asking me which I would kiss if I had to kiss one of the Levits. She was practically announcing she liked Tommy.

  “I hate them both,” I said.

  Zoe said she liked them both but just as friends, and Olivia said she wasn’t really friends with any of the boys.

  “I just think it was really selfish of them, not to offer us a ride,” I said, not getting out of Zoe’s way when it was her turn to shoot. Tough.

  Olivia accused me of still being mad about the tree-house kiss. I blew that off, joking about how he almost broke my jaw, kissing me. “I just think, common courtesy, they could’ve offered us a ride.”

  Zoe and CJ won the pool game. I was happy to be done with it. So boring. We went upstairs to eat ice cream in Olivia’s humongous kitchen. There was a round table in the eating area that would take up practically my entire living room, and then in the actual cooking area there was an island and a refrigerator the size of my room, next to a freezer equally huge. The cabinets were wood and glass, the countertops and table gleaming white. My mother would die for a day in there. Someday I’m going to get rich and buy her a house like Olivia’s.

  “You know what we should do?” I licked the ice cream off my spoon and waited for answers. Nobody came up with one so I said, “We should give the boys S.T.—the Silent Treatment. Teach them a lesson.”

  CJ was into it right away, so Olivia said fine, too; she’ll do anything CJ does. She just kept spooning out the ice cream, saying, “I’m not friends with the boys anyway.”

  Zoe looked at CJ, like it was CJ’s decision.

  “Don’t do it if you don’t want to,” I told her. “I just think we girls have to stick together.”

  “OK,” Zoe said. “I’ll give them S.T.”

  I probably would’ve had more respect for her if she just stuck to her own opinion. All of a sudden CJ is the decision maker of seventh grade?

  CJ’s mother beeped to pick us up. I’m the only one who thanked Olivia. She seemed sad we were leaving. Her brother, Dex, the hottest eighth grader, came out of the bathroom as we were on our way out their back door. I hadn’t realized he was home. I just heard the flush, so I turned toward it, and by accident I looked right into Dex’s eyes.

  He looked past me and said, “Hi, CJ.”

  “Hi, Dex,” she answered. They’re family friends. He does
n’t really know me, so I wasn’t upset or anything.

  In the car, Zoe was chatting with Mrs. Hurley, who looks down on me, so I stared out the window instead of talking to anybody. We dropped Zoe off first. Her pretty Tudor house sits in the crook of the bend on Woodsley Road, so that’s where everybody plays flashlight tag on late fall afternoons when it’s dark before dinner. Zoe is the fifth of five blond-haired girls, all tall and toothy, athletic, popular, superfriendly. Everybody in Boggs knows the Grandons. Everybody buys their bread and cakes at Grandon Bread, her big bear of a father’s bakery, and their cars at her always-smiling-mother’s dealership, City Motors, down in Springfield. The Grandons don’t lock their back door. Kids are always streaming in and out, and there’s always a plate of cookies or brownies cooling on the counter, and nobody gets yelled at for crumbs. They’re almost a town joke, the whole family is so perfect. My brother is in eleventh grade with Zoe’s sister Bay, and like Zoe, Bay is totally rah-rah, on three varsity teams, including starting singles on the boys’ tennis team. Ned went out with Bay when they were in sixth grade, but he has sunk way below her in social standing as he’s become weirder and pimplier. In his yearbook for accomplishments, they’ll probably list Once Dated Bay Grandon.

  Zoe ran around back, waving at us and smiling. I looked the other direction.

  When they dropped me off, I unlocked the door and yelled, “Hey, everybody! I’m home!” That’s my little joke with myself. Ned works at McDonald’s until seven, and Mom goes to school right from work, so she’s never home before eight, weekdays.

  I sat with the phone on my lap for a few minutes, then dialed my father’s California number. When his machine picked up, I was so relieved. “Hello, Dad,” I said. “It’s Morgan. Listen, can you send me money for new soccer cleats? They’re like fifty dollars and Mom is buying my sneakers, when she gets her next paycheck, but seriously, Dad, my feet grew two sizes and all I can fit into is my sandals.” I told myself to shut up and quit begging, I sounded so horribly pathetic to myself. “Anyway,” I added. “If you can. Call me. OK? ’Bye.”