Perfect Couple

by Jennifer Echols

  The bell rang. Kennedy and I faced off, with the rest of the class circling us. I wasn’t backing down, but the bell seemed to go on forever.

  Finally it ended. I grabbed my bag and hurried for the door.

  “Harper!” Quinn called, but I made my way to Ms. Patel’s room without him. He was the one who’d told me to stop worrying about appearances. And now that I’d stopped—boy, had I stopped. I was already going over and over my public screaming match with Kennedy in my mind, wishing I could take it back.

  At least, the part where I quit.

  Brody looked more than ready for his daily catnap, arms folded on his desk, chin propped there. He looked so sleepy that the dark circles under his eyes made sense for once. He was watching the door for me, though. When he saw me, he grinned and sat up. “Did you do the deed? Uh-oh, what’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said, unpacking my camera. “We’re out of time to take our Superlatives picture. Spend study hall in the courtyard with me.”

  After the bell rang, we stepped into the empty hallway. As we walked together, I said quietly, “I can’t go to Quarterback Club with you tonight. I’m really sorry.” I explained that Kennedy had changed my deadline and threatened to fire me.

  “Kennedy can’t fire you,” Brody protested. “Students can’t fire each other.”

  “We can in Mr. Oakley’s class.”

  “But did you complain to Mr. Oakley?”

  “He’s driving to the Georgia game to see his son play. He won’t be back until Monday.”

  “Oh, right.” Brody nodded. I didn’t think he’d ever had Mr. Oakley as a teacher, but he must have played on the team with Mr. Oakley’s son before he graduated.

  “And even when he gets back, I can’t complain. He’s told us we’re supposed to settle our differences ourselves.”

  “This isn’t what he meant,” Brody said firmly. Then his face softened, and he touched my elbow. “You should have let me come with you when you broke up with Kennedy. If I’d been there, he wouldn’t have gone ballistic on you.”

  “The next time you offer to strong-arm somebody for me, I will totally let you,” I said. “Anyway, Kennedy won’t be able to jerk me around like that again, because I told him I’m quitting after I turn in the Superlatives photos.”

  “Quitting as yearbook photographer?” Brody sounded astonished.

  “I mean, it’s high school yearbook photographer,” I defended myself, gesturing with my camera. “I’ve already made a couple hundred bucks for college from the photo in the paper and my pictures from the 5K finish line. I don’t need to be yearbook photographer.”

  Brody nodded. “You’ll regret it, though. Didn’t you apply to be yearbook photographer? You submitted a portfolio, the same way Kennedy had to be chosen for editor, right? You earned that position, just as much as Kennedy earned his.”

  “Yeah.” Unfortunately, I saw his point.

  He pushed open the door for me and followed me into the courtyard. “It’s not the end of the world, sure, and it’s not making you any money, but I’d think about the decision to quit if I were you. It’s part of your life. You’re throwing away the position because you’re mad at Kennedy, which means he’s still got control over you. Is that what you want? You’re only in high school once.”

  We were alone in the concrete space dotted with palm trees in planters. I sure hoped the last few Superlatives showed up for their photo sessions, or I was going to miss my new deadline tomorrow. After twelve years of school with Xavier Pilkington, Most Academic, I’d never been so anxious to see him.

  “Stand over here, please.” I pulled Brody under a palm tree and snapped a few shots of him, then looked around and moved him to a spot where the light was more muted and his green eyes stood out in the photos. He was smiling self-consciously, though, like he was posing for the football program that the student council sold at games. To distract him, I asked, “Are people talking about me behind my back because I got contacts and I’m dressing differently?”

  “No,” he said. “Well, no more than they talked about you before. You’ve been a favorite subject of the football team since school started this year. Though, come to think of it, maybe that’s my influence.”

  “That would be very sweet,” I said, “except that discussion is about my fine ass.”

  “Not just your fine ass,” he corrected me. “You have many quality features. I used to look up from the table in the lunchroom and see you and say, ‘Harper looks hot.’ Lately I look at you and say, ‘Hey, a new hot girl. Oh, wait, it’s Harper!’ ”

  “Okay,” I said, laughing. I was capturing handsome photos of him laughing too.

  “I like surprises.” He tilted his head and considered me. “You should wear your glasses sometimes.”

  “Really?” I could not have been more astonished that he’d said this.

  “Yes, really. You look sexy in those glasses. Wear them and surprise me when you’re gunning for a little something extra.”

  “Noted. Okay, you’re done.” I attached my camera to my tripod and set it to take five photos. Then I took my smaller camera out of my pocket and posed where Brody had been standing. Now I had a picture of me taking a picture.

  I scrolled through the view screen, then showed Brody. “Here’s what I was thinking of for the yearbook. We’ll use this one of me, side by side with this one of you.” I flipped back to the best photo of him grinning, on the verge of cracking up. “Before, we weren’t a couple. The joke in the picture was going to be that we looked like one. Now we are a couple. The joke in the picture is that we’re separate.”

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  Xavier Pilkington arrived in the courtyard. We gave him a lukewarm welcome, then eyed each other again.

  “I know this is your last day to take these,” Brody said. “And Lord knows you don’t need another guy making trouble for you.”

  “Thanks for recognizing that.”

  “I’m just saying, if I had my choice for this picture, we would be together.”

  * * *

  I stayed up the entire night perfecting the Superlatives photos. Mom knocked on my door around midnight and told me with a yawn to go to bed. I lied and said that I would. Six hours later, I showered and schlumped over to the B & B to help her with breakfast. By the time I got to school, I was completely brain dead. This must have been what it felt like to be our classmate Jason Price, who came to school stoned.

  Lucky for me, the beginning-of-school testing frenzy had died down. I was able to stare into space through my first three classes and avoid Kennedy by sleeping through journalism, since my work there, at least for the yearbook, was done.

  I woke, slowly realizing that people were shifting their chairs and talking more loudly in anticipation of the ending bell. As I sat up, blinking, Quinn turned around in his seat, watching me.

  “You finally stood up to Kennedy, like I told you,” he whispered. “Congratulations!”

  “And this is what I have to show for it,” I said, yawning.

  “Plus Brody,” Quinn pointed out.

  “Plus I quit the yearbook.”

  “That’s where you went wrong,” Quinn said. “I told you to stop worrying about how things looked. You only quit to save face.”

  Had I? My brain wasn’t working well enough for me to remember clearly what I’d been thinking.

  “Come on.” He put his arm around me and half dragged me to study hall. I muttered a hello to Brody in the desk across the aisle from mine and folded myself onto my desktop, Brody style.

  “Are you going to make it?” he asked. I felt him fingering strands of my hair away from my face.

  “Mmmm,” I said. “And I’ll be at the game to watch you play, but I’m afraid I can’t go out with you after. Bedtime. Catch up with you Saturday.”

  He chuckled. “That’s fine.”

  When I woke, the bell was ringing. It wasn’t the end of study hall, though. I’d slept right throug
h lunch. Ms. Patel’s classroom was dark and empty. A salad, a container of yogurt, and a drink sat waiting for me on Brody’s desk.

  13

  I RODE WITH TIA AND will to the game that night. Brody couldn’t take me because football players didn’t go home on game days. They stayed at school until the game was over. And after Will heard why I wasn’t at lunch, he told Tia not to let me drive myself. He insisted that driving while sleep-deprived was like driving drunk. The way I felt, I believed him.

  Much as I longed for bed, I tried to enjoy my last game on the sidelines. Since I’d quit the yearbook, Mr. Oakley would revoke my press pass when he returned on Monday. For now, I snapped the best photos I could and kept my eyes on the game.

  In the first quarter, the visiting team ran some trick plays and got down to our ten-yard line. Alarming! Mr. Oakley had taught me that the first team to score had the advantage, because morale was on their side after that. To stop the other team from getting on the scoreboard first, our defense had to prevent them from making a touchdown for three more downs.

  But after the next play, I couldn’t focus on the excitement. My attention was drawn to Brody not acting excited, not even watching.

  He sat alone on the bench, feet spread in front of him, arms slack by his sides with his palms up, eyes closed. Underneath his jersey and pads, his chest expanded in long, deep breaths. Another player walked by and socked him on the padded shoulder. He didn’t move or even open his eyes.

  He was relaxing like I’d taught him. I only hoped this was the answer he’d been searching for.

  When the screams of the crowd let him know our defense had held and the visiting team’s chances had run out, Brody jumped up. He pulled on his helmet as he ran for the field.

  By the end of his first play, I could tell something was different from the last game. Relaxed and in the zone, he managed to complete pass after last-second pass. He waited until he was about to get sacked to toss the ball to our star running back or bullet it to a fullback. With every play, he proved why the local newspaper had fawned over him during the summer.

  Brody Larson was back.

  And I had helped.

  “Harper,” called a young woman’s voice. I turned around. Brody’s sister stood on the other side of the fence, holding one of the chain links. I remembered her vaguely because she’d been a senior when we were sophomores, but I would have known who she was anyway because she looked so much like Brody, with light brown hair and clear green eyes.

  She grinned. “I’m Sabrina, Brody’s sister.”

  “I can tell!” While she was still laughing, I asked, “Does he know you’re here?”

  “Yeah. It was a last-minute thing. I’m driving back to Gainesville tonight. I have to be at work on campus tomorrow morning. I just wanted to see him play.”

  “So far, so good.”

  “Yeah! And I wanted to meet you.” She put her hand over the fence. I detangled one arm from my camera to shake hands with her. “He’s been texting me about you ever since yearbook elections. I can’t believe you’ve started dating. That’s so romantic!”

  I shrugged and smiled, because I wasn’t sure what to say. Honestly, I was flattered that he’d told her about me at all, and floored that he’d been talking about me since the election, weeks before we got together. My hopeful daydreams about him hadn’t been one-sided after all.

  “When I was a senior,” Sabrina said, “a guy and a girl on the track team were our Perfect Couple That Never Was, and they hated each other. You can see them in the yearbook turning up their noses at each other. What are the chances that you’ll actually get along with the person your senior class picks out for you?”

  I grinned at her for a moment, letting her words and the warm fuzzies that came with them wash over me. Then I asked, “Can I get a few shots of you cheering Brody on? He would love to see that.”

  We didn’t have to stage anything. I caught the cutest images of her holding the fence with both hands and screaming at the top of her lungs for her little brother.

  Then she returned to the stands. I still snapped photos, but the end of the game had taken on a dreamlike quality. Every time I blinked, I felt like my eyes had been closed for two minutes. And when our team finally won, I didn’t realize what had happened at first. I wondered why all the players and cheerleaders had suddenly rushed onto the field. I should have been taking pictures of the melee, but I needed to lie down.

  Brody burst out of the crowd, looking huge in his uniform and pads, carrying his helmet. He glanced around at the sidelines and spotted me. Grinning, he dashed straight for me. Recalling how I’d been afraid he would make me drop my camera if he ran into me at the 5K, I removed the strap and packed everything away just before he reached me.

  He dropped his helmet on the grass, grabbed me, tilted my body backward, and captured my mouth with his.

  I was vaguely aware that some football players and a few kids in the stands were hooting at us. Maybe this kiss looked wildly inappropriate to some people in the crowd. To others, I imagined it looked a lot like a certain sailor grabbing and kissing a certain nurse in Times Square. If two of my friends had kissed like this instead of Brody and me, I would have made sure I got the shot.

  But if the purpose of a picture was to capture the memory of a moment, I didn’t need one. I would carry this feeling in my heart forever. For once, I honestly didn’t care how this looked. I put my hand in his wet hair and kissed him back.

  He broke the kiss, then thought better of ending it and kissed me again. He rubbed the tip of his nose against mine and said, “Harper. Thank you.”

  I giggled. “No, thank you.”

  He kissed me one more time, then set me on my feet. “See you tomorrow.”

  “See you then.”

  I watched him jog back to the players on the field and slowly ascend the stadium steps with Noah. Unlike last game, this time they were laughing.

  A few minutes later, I sat in the back of Will’s ancient Mustang in the school parking lot, transferring the night’s pictures from my camera to my laptop. I was so sleepy I could hardly remember my own password. I’d be gone to dreamland as soon as he and Tia took me home and I caught sight of my fluffy bed. But I wanted to get these pictures uploaded. Then I could e-mail Brody the cutest one of Sabrina, my way of saying Great job and Have a good night and Thank you for that kiss, which made my senior year.

  Tia and Will were busy clunking their snare drums into the trunk, then peeling off their band uniforms to reveal their shorts and T-shirts underneath, then tickling each other, it sounded like. I was concentrating on sending an e-mail to Brody that didn’t seem high. Tia and Will’s voices suddenly became hushed and concerned. The change hardly registered with me until Tia appeared in the open door.

  “Did you see Brody?” she asked.

  I didn’t understand what she meant. “Did I see Brody? You mean right after the game? Oh, boy, did I. We were making out, I tell you, and not just a little.”

  She tried again. “Did you see Brody leave?”

  “Did I see Brody leave?” I hadn’t, and I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.

  “Is there an echo?” Tia asked, exasperated. “Brody just drove off with Grace.”

  Brody just drove off with Grace. Brody just drove off with Grace. I’d heard Tia, but what she’d said did not compute.

  She called to Will, “Did you know Brody was going out with Grace again?”

  “No.” Will rounded the car to stand with her and peer inside at me. “That’s shocking. I don’t understand why he would do that.”

  “You warned me about him,” I said quietly.

  “Yeah,” Will admitted, “but . . .” He stared up at the sky. He couldn’t think of a but. “Yeah,” he repeated.

  Tia could think of plenty to say. She was asking me questions about Brody, bad-mouthing him, and grilling Will about how he and Brody could possibly be friends. I didn’t really hear her. I was remembering the first time Mom had fou
nd out about my dad cheating on her. I was very little. She had told me, “I don’t know why that girl thinks he’s going to stay with her. If he cheated on me with her, he’s just going to cheat on her with the next girl.” And he did.

  Once a cheater, always a cheater.

  Tia clapped her hands, looking irate. Apparently she’d been trying to snap me out of my daze for a while. “Here’s what you’re going to do. See that truck over there?” She pointed across the rapidly emptying parking lot.

  “Sawyer’s truck?” I asked.

  “Exactly. You’re going to march right over there and get in the truck with Sawyer. You’re going to drive around town until you find Brody and Grace, and you’re going to make out with Sawyer right in front of them.”

  I squinted at her. “Is that going to help somehow?”

  “No,” said Will.

  “Well, it’s sure as fuck going to make me feel better,” Tia said. “How could he do this to you?”

  I was having trouble holding my eyes open, and I felt dead. But somewhere deep down, I was almost as angry as Tia sounded. I’d attracted Brody in the first place by wearing a bikini like Grace. Now, acting like Grace to get revenge on him made a perverted kind of sense. “Okay.” I started to tumble out of the car, then paused. “Should I take my laptop and shit or leave it here?”

  “Leave everything in Will’s car. People are in and out of Sawyer’s truck and it can get sticky.”

  “You don’t have to do this, Harper,” Will told me. “I vote no.” He said to Tia, “I don’t see what this is going to solve.”

  “We’re not solving at this point,” she said. “There’s nothing to solve. We’re getting even. Maybe you don’t have revenge in Minnesota, but this is how we roll in Florida.” She turned to me again. “Let’s go, girl. Vámonos. We’ll be right behind you.”

  I stumbled off the seat and staggered toward Sawyer’s truck. The floodlights far above me seemed brighter than they should have been, and the night was blacker. A sudden stiff breeze rattled the fronds of the palm trees scattered around the parking lot, reminding me that a hurricane still barreled toward us.