Best Kept Secret

by Debra Moffitt

  I rode along, thinking of that last moment in his room. I had looked at the note on his pillow one final time and adjusted its angle. I’d folded it into a tabletop-football shape and labeled it “Ax-man.” I thought of how the note was resting there, waiting for Forrest to come home. I was happy that after Friday, I could finally stop wondering endlessly if Forrest liked me. I ached for his answer, a simple yes or no.

  Eight

  You know how the days pass so glacially slow when you are waiting for something to happen, like your birthday or Christmas? Well, multiply that times ten, and that’s how time moved for the entire week that followed the note delivery. I wanted to speed up life, just hit the fast-forward button. But whenever I tell my mom that I wish time would move faster, she always says the same thing:

  “Jemma, don’t play the ‘I’ll be happy when…’ game. Be happy in this moment. It won’t come again.”

  Can you tell she writes poetry, does yoga, and meditates? I thought so. You can probably picture her with dangly earrings and those half-glasses people wear when they start having trouble reading menus. Good old mom.

  But anyone who is young knows what I mean. Most days, nothing happens. So is it any wonder that I wanted to speed up time, especially if it meant not having to wait, biting my nails, for Forrest’s answer to my note? I wanted to scream: Which is it—YES OR NO?!

  A true gentleman would have given me his answer on Monday morning before school, so as not to let my heart twist into a pretzel. But no. Monday came and went. Forrest returned my nod in the hall as usual, and one time on the bus, but that was it. A nod, without words or anything special.

  Could the note have fallen off his bed or be somehow stuck between the bed and the wall? Or maybe he went to bed and never even saw it, and it’s now somewhere in his sheets? Or, even worse, if his mom took off the sheets to wash them, the note might have been reduced to flakes of wet paper snow.

  The bell rang, and I went off to algebra to count the fifty-three minutes until class would be over. Then I counted the fifty-three minutes of the next class, the next one, and the one after that. Then it was off to lunch, the one time all day I didn’t watch the clock.

  At our lunch table, we were still debating the Backward Dance. Bet was doing a survey, asking students if they thought the dance should go forward as planned. Ms. Russo and some others were pushing for a different format, one where everyone could just go on their own, no dates required. I hadn’t voted yet.

  “I love the idea of no dates,” Kate said. “No pressure.”

  “You love that idea because you’ll be there with Brett either way,” I said.

  “What about you, Piper?”

  She just shrugged.

  “Who’d you ask? You never told us,” I said.

  “I don’t want to tell you because … because you’ll be upset,” she said. Piper’s lips thinned to a straight line. She looked at me and then she looked off to the side, as if she didn’t want to meet my eyes.

  “I don’t have to approve your dates, Piper. Why would I be upset?” I said.

  “Because it’s … I think you…” Piper stammered.

  “The only person I would be upset about is Forrest,” I said with a laugh, truly believing that that was impossible.

  “I’m sorry, Jemma,” Piper said.

  That’s when everything—the Earth, the moon, the oceans of my life—changed completely. Up was down and down was up. One of my best friends was going to the dance with the love of my life.

  I left the lunch table in a blur. I abandoned my tray and my half-eaten food. I tried not to cry until I was in the bathroom, but I didn’t make it.

  “What’s wrong, Jemma? Jemma, are you okay?” various passersby asked worriedly, as I maneuvered quickly through the hall, tears streaming.

  I stayed there until Kate came.

  “Jem, are you in here?” she called.

  “Yes,” I said weakly.

  “I’m mad at Piper, too,” she said.

  “Did she … did she give a reason? Why him?”

  “She says she feels terrible, but they started spending time together because her mom is selling their house. I guess he … I shouldn’t tell you this. Forget it.”

  “No, tell me.”

  She paused and looked at me with such sweet concern that I almost started crying again.

  “First, just let me say that maybe this is a blessing in disguise. End the endless crush, maybe? You could ask someone else to the dance and actually have a good time. You know Jake likes you. You guys could go with Brett and me. We could go as a double date.”

  I could only sigh. Going with Jake would be fine, like getting one scoop of vanilla ice cream. Forrest was a triple chocolate sundae with rainbow sprinkles.

  “Tell me what you were going to say about Piper and … Forrest,” I said. It hurt to say their names together like that, to link them in a sentence as a couple.

  “I’ll tell you because I want you to just let it go, okay?” Kate said. “Piper said she knew she liked him when he played a song for her on his guitar.”

  Nine

  Dear PLS,

  I hope you can help me. You see, one of my oldest and best friends has just stolen the guy I’ve been in love with FOREVER. Please give me some ideas on how I can keep from hating her for the rest of my life.

  Thanks,

  Buzzy

  In my anger—and it was extreme—I decided to send Piper a very clear message. It was her job to go through all the questions the PLS received, so, just like any other girl, I sent my question in to be answered. I would have loved to have seen her face when she read that one. At the next day’s PLS meeting, I folded my arms across my chest and asked which questions we’d be answering.

  “A girl who’s worried her parents might be getting a divorce. A boy who’s asking what to do when he gets really angry at his parents,” Piper said.

  “Nothing else?”

  “Jemma, come on,” Piper said. “Let’s not fight.”

  “I’m not fighting,” I said. “It’s just that we’re supposed to serve girls in need. I’m now a girl in need and I’d like someone to answer my question.”

  I stared at Piper intently, detesting every inch of her—her freshly highlighted hair, permanently glossed lips, perfect teeth, and super-cute outfit. She wasn’t just pretty, she looked like a woman, with a woman’s body and curves. I was not Flatty McFlat Chest anymore, but I was no Piper Pinsky.

  “Let’s just work, okay?” Piper said, looking more upset than I imagined she’d be. Her pity-me look made me press further.

  “I’m ready to work, but will you please take my question, the one about the backstabbing friend? I really need an answer.”

  “Ugh,” she said, rolling her eyes and looking at Kate for advice.

  Kate shifted in her seat on the couch, pulled an apple out of her backpack, and took a bite.

  “Jem, here’s the thing,” Piper finally said, chewing on her manicured thumbnail for a moment. “I gave you a whole week after Forrest broke up with Taylor. ‘Go for him,’ I said. Kate told you, too. And you didn’t do anything.”

  I just glared at her and I could feel a lump in my throat, but I refused to cry.

  I did do something. I left the note, and Forrest still has three days to answer me.

  I wondered what he’d say now. Would he just ignore me entirely, figuring that I’d know Piper is his date?

  Kate, reading my mind, answered for me.

  “She did do something, Piper. Remember the note?”

  “Yeah, I know you said that, but I’m not sure she really did it, because Forrest never said anything about getting any note.”

  “Like he tells you everything now Piper?” I asked angrily. “And Kate, I never said you could tell her about the note.”

  Kate looked hurt. I hadn’t ever talked to her like that before.

  “I thought we were all friends,” Kate said.

  “Not anymore,” I said. “Piper, don’t
talk about me to Forrest, not ever, okay? I don’t want to be laughed at like I’m some dork. Please, can you do me that little favor, since you’ve ruined everything else?”

  I took her silence as a yes and wondered if it was the last friendlike thing she would ever do for me.

  “Umm, not to change the subject on purpose, I swear, but we just got another one of those weird e-mails,” Piper said, spinning the pink laptop toward Kate and me.

  Dear girls,

  You must really stop now. I know you mean well, but you don’t know what you are getting yourselves into. Take my plea seriously this time!

  A Pink Friend

  Ten

  By Thursday, I was a wreck. Forrest hadn’t responded to my note, and I now knew there was no reason for him to respond since he already had a date. Piper started avoiding me entirely. The only person who seemed to be paying me any attention was Forrest’s younger brother, Trevor. Every morning that week, he showed up at my locker with some silly remark.

  How had he suddenly come into the picture? I didn’t even realize he went to this school. He must have just started as a sixth-grader. He looked a little like Forrest, but he was even shorter than me. And he looked like he still let his mom pick out his clothes.

  The dance was almost a week away, and I had no date and no plan. Add to that, the dance itself was in question because of the Sadie Hawkins backlash. Part of me wished that it would be canceled entirely. I wanted it all to go away. Bet was hot on the story, as I found out that day at lunch. She brought her shiny black lunchbox to our table and took a seat.

  “Hey Jemma, would you be willing to do an on-camera interview about the Backward Dance?”

  “I don’t really have an opinion.”

  Piper looked like she wanted to crawl under the table, so tired was she of this subject.

  “Everyone has an opinion,” Bet said, smiling like she does, making herself so hard to dislike. “You’re one person I know who hasn’t asked anyone yet. Are you holding out because you object on feminist grounds?”

  “No—not that I understand what feminist grounds are.”

  “She’s up in the air about who to ask,” Kate said, trying to save me.

  “I am?”

  “See, this is perfect,” Bet said. “Pleeeease consider being interviewed?”

  I wanted to say no, yell it even, stand on the cafeteria table and holler in the direction of Forrest McCann’s lunch table. But instead, because she’s Bet, I said OK.

  “Splendid! After school, meet me in the video room. I think we’ll film outside. It’s such a crisp, autumn day. My father can take you home after.”

  Fwap!

  Just then, Piper was hit smack in the forehead by a flying grape. I almost enjoyed her embarrassment until I saw Forrest from across the row of lunch tables. He stood up and said, “My bad, Peas. Sorry!” Then he sat down and the guys at his table laughed uproariously.

  Our school forbids throwing food, but Forrest and his friends were always breaking this rule. They ran the Catch-It-in-Your-Mouth Olympics, an unofficial, unauthorized competition that happened whenever the cafeteria served something that was catch-in-your-mouth-able. Grapes were naturals, as were olives and berries of any kind.

  There it was before my eyes—Piper and Forrest’s connection. It followed along the invisible flight line of an airborne grape, but no one could deny it. Not even me.

  “See you after school, Bet,” I said quickly, gathering my stuff and getting out of there.

  * * *

  I envied Bet a little. She had been at the school only a few months and already had her thing. That was even more obvious when I saw her in the video room after school, focused intently on a video screen. I cleared my throat and made noise on my way in, but she didn’t look up until I called her name.

  “Oh, Jemma! There you are,” she said.

  She explained that she was editing her piece on the dance and there were so many sides and so much to consider that she was getting herself mixed up.

  “I mean, on one hand, Ms. Russo makes a great point. Aren’t we just continuing traditions that tell girls that guys are in charge of everything?”

  I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I was just a girl who liked a boy and wanted to go to the dance with him.

  “I don’t know Bet,” I said. “Maybe the Backward Dance helps girls because it shows them they can go after boys they like?”

  “That’s an important angle,” Bet said. “I wish I had the camera on for that.”

  Yeah, but that didn’t prevent Piper from getting to Forrest first.

  “I’m not sure that’s what I really think,” I said.

  “Well, what do you think? The camera’s on now.”

  I looked into the big eye of the video camera lens, and my true feelings bubbled up. I couldn’t answer any questions. First, I bit my lip, and in a minute, I was crying—on camera.

  Bet dropped the camera to the table.

  “What happened? Are you okay?”

  That’s when I told Bet the whole story about Piper and Forrest. As I told it, Bet herself started crying.

  “I’m sorry Jem. I’m one of those people who starts [sob] crying when other people cry. I also [sob] throw up when other people throw up.”

  Something about that struck me so funny that what was left of my tears turned to nearly pee-your-pants laughter. Bet started laughing, too. My stomach was hurting by the time she told me the story of how, back in Thailand, she threw up at school during a health movie. The movie was about alcoholism, and it showed someone throwing up after drinking too much.

  “Our teacher said, ‘Bet, what did you drink with lunch?’ ” she told me, wiping the last, giggly tear from her eye.

  After all the crying and laugh-crying, I felt better. Bet was a good listener. It also probably helped that she hadn’t heard all this stuff a zillion times before like poor Kate had. After I exhausted the Forrest topic, Bet told me about a boy she left behind in Thailand.

  “Not much chance he’d be able to make it to the Backward Dance,” she said.

  Then Bet told me about some upcoming reports she was working on. She was looking into all this nickname business and how nicknames can be fun but sometimes hurtful. (Just ask “Iron Mouth” and Mark Sheehan aka “SheMan”). Hmmm … I wondered if “Buzzy” qualified as a mean nickname.

  But even more intriguing, Bet said she was looking more deeply into the history of the PLS and what happened to shut it down in the 1970s. She told me only that it had something to do with Title Nine.

  “That cute clothing catalog?” I said.

  “No, Title ‘I’ ‘X,’ ” she said, stopping to write down the Roman numerals that stand for nine. “It’s a law that requires girls and boys to have equal access to stuff like sports. For instance, way back when, there was no girls’ volleyball or girls’ track team. And even when girls could play sports, they didn’t have real uniforms.”

  A team without uniforms seemed sad, like something in a movie.

  “How’d you find all that out?” I asked.

  “Research, my dear. The answer is always research.”

  I almost told her right then about how we had restarted the PLS. But I stopped because I worried she wouldn’t be able to resist reporting about it. And, with her knack for uncovering secrets, I figured it was just a matter of time before she found out herself.

  In the girls’ bathroom, we splashed cold water on our faces and decided to get back to work before her dad arrived. Bet had moved our interview outside so I could sit on the low brick wall outside of school. The autumn sun was shining on my face from a low point along the horizon. Cleansed by the crying and laughing from my heart-to-heart with Bet, my view of the dance had finally crystallized.

  “My opinion is that it doesn’t matter what you call the dance,” I told the camera in a clear voice. “As long as girls know they can ask someone or just go with friends, it will be successful. But no one should feel like they have to stay home.”r />
  This interview felt a little like when I answered questions for the Pink Locker Society. I could imagine what I said helping other girls. But this time, my words happened to apply very directly to me.

  Eleven

  Friday came and I felt better than I had all week. It was clear Forrest was not going to answer. I could analyze that all day, but in the end I needed a new plan. Bet and I decided we’d go to the dance together (without dates) and hang out with other friends once we got there. Brett and Kate would be there. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle Piper and Forrest, but I reminded myself that he’d be performing, so maybe that wouldn’t give them much chance to be a couple there.

  On Friday morning, Trevor McCann was once again awaiting my arrival in front of my locker. Today he was also holding a single red rose wrapped in plastic, the kind they sold at the Toot-n-Scoot. My heart stopped for an instant. Was he delivering it on Forrest’s behalf?

  “Jemma, I just want to say thank you, but I can’t go to the dance with you.”

  My head was swimming now.

  “You … what?”

  “I know you’re probably upset. But I asked the principal and the assistant principal and both of them said there are no exceptions. Only eighth-graders can go to the Backward Dance. Even when I told them I’d be helping set up for my brother’s band.”

  “Right,” I said, totally confused, waiting for more explanation.

  None came. I noticed that one of his shoes was untied. With time to consider it, I estimated he was a foot shorter than me. I had to step back a bit to look him in the eye.

  “So I brought you this rose. Maybe some other time?” Trevor said, handing me the flower.

  I took the rose without saying thanks and he walked away, a bit dejected. As I started gathering books from my locker, I heard him stop in his tracks a few paces down the hall. Then, he turned around and asked: “Hey Jemma, why did you call me Ax-man?”

  “What?” I said, still whirling in my own thoughts.

  “In the note,” he said. He cupped his hand to his mouth and stage-whispered, “The note you left on my pillow.”