Frogs & French Kisses

by Sarah Mlynowski

  The crowd goes wild. Senior girls whisper to their friends, and the juniors lucky enough to be invited send frenzied text messages to their posses. Oblivious, Will squeezes my shoulder. “Want to see what’s happening upstairs?”

  I’m still reeling from the G-word. I am a girlfriend. I am a girlfriend! I’d love to plaster the slogan on a T-shirt: I, Rachel Weinstein, freshman nerd, am the (temporary) girlfriend of the student council president! Wow. Awesome.

  I nod, and Will takes my hand—yes, takes my hand in front of everyone—and we pass a still-in-shock London on our way upstairs. I resist the urge to stick out my tongue at her. (Fine, I do it, but I stick it out only an inch and Will doesn’t see.)

  When we get to the second-floor living room, Bosh, a senior, high-fives Will. “Hey, dude.” Bosh is on the student council with Will. Even though he’s the treasurer, he was definitely not voted in because of his math abilities. He’s one of those straight-to-fraternity guys who live in sports jerseys and baseball caps, look like teddy bears, and are loved by everyone. You can almost imagine him growing up to be Norm from Cheers. I assume Bosh is his last name, but I’m not sure. That’s all he goes by, like Madonna.

  “Bosh, do you know Rachel?” As Will introduces us, his eyes stay firmly planted on my face. I’m like a potato chip. He just can’t get enough of me.

  Bosh high-fives me. “By name only, dude. Will hasn’t stopped yammering about you all week.”

  “Would you like a piece of licorice?” Will asks, and pulls a small package out of his pocket.

  “Sure,” I say.

  He rips off a piece and hands it to me. “I always have it on me. I’m a total sugar addict.” He takes a bite off each end of his piece and blows through it like a straw.

  He’s so cute.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t loving this. The news of our May-December relationship is spreading faster than the flu. People are knocking me over with their pointing.

  “Hey, Rachel,” says Mercedes Redding, senior and former cohead of the fashion show with London. “How are you?” Mercedes has not spoken to me since the disaster. But I’m now back on the radar, baby!

  Wahoo to the power of two!

  I happily meet the rest of Will’s posse. (As if I didn’t already know who they are. Hah!) There are Jerome, Nelson, and Schumacher. One was in the fashion show, and two are on the basketball team. All three are A-list. Obviously.

  As I prance around the room, I’m the queen on the arm of my king. No one will ever be mean to me again. How can they when I have been deemed dateable by Will? I’m finally out of the doghouse!

  The tugging of my heavy purse on my shoulder reminds me that it’s not for long, though. I’m supposed to spray him tonight and reverse his heart. And then I’ll be the girl Will dumped after one day. It doesn’t matter. It’s Raf I like, anyway, not him. I stuff my mouth with licorice and analyze my dilemma. The sooner we end it, the better.

  Speak of the devil. I nearly choke on the red candy. Raf is sitting on the couch with Melissa on his lap.

  Are they dating? No, no, no! What on earth does he see in her? She laughs at something he says and throws her long, glossy red hair behind her shoulder. She’s wearing a tight sky-colored off-the-shoulder top to reveal her lanky body, big boobs, and baby blues. Show-off.

  How did she finagle her way in here, anyway? This is a senior A-list party, and she’s only a meager freshman.

  Will wraps his arm around my waist. Raf looks up. Our eyes lock.

  I’m going to be sick. I quickly look away. How can he do that? He knows how awful Melissa was to me. What a jerk. I need to get out of here; I can’t watch Raf and Melissa be all touchy-feely. The walls start to close in as images flash through my mind. Raf and Melissa holding hands in the hall. Raf smiling at Melissa the way he used to at me. I’ll be watching from afar, alone again. Alone as usual. I wish someone would turn on a fan. The air in here is spongy and too thick to breathe.

  “Wanna go eat now?” Will asks, reading my mind.

  “Yes! I definitely do.” I trail behind him like a depressed puppy as he says his good-byes. I’ll spray him as soon as we’re outside. No need to waste his time on dinner. What’s the point? I might as well get it over with. My heart sinks as we close London’s door behind us. I have nothing to look forward to. Raf is falling in love with Melissa, and London will make my life even more miserable when she finds out Will dumped me. It’s a return ticket straight back to Loserville.

  Will is holding my hand, silently helping me down the stairs. He’s probably realized what a pathetic person I am and overthrown the spell all on his own. To add insult to injury, he’s going to dump me even before I get to spray him. When we’re on the street, I reach into my purse. Not that there’s a point. He’s already all pale and queasy looking.

  He coughs twice. “I need to say something.”

  I don’t believe it. My horribleness has actually broken the spell. I’ll break up with him first. “I don’t think it’s—”

  “Would you like to be my date for prom?”

  Oh. My. God.

  Prom? As in the senior prom? A freshman going to prom? That would so make up for all the dances I missed this year, since it’s the mother of dances. The climax of all teen movies. Crinoline, limo, corsage . . .

  I’m going to prom! If I don’t spray. But then what about Raf? Raf, prom, Raf, prom. As I weigh the two on my imaginary scale, my hand still gripping the spray bottle inside my purse, Will leans over and kisses me.

  Yum. (Three kisses in one week! I’m on a roll.) He looks a lot like Raf. So cute. Only taller. And older. And he tastes like licorice. And Raf wants nothing to do with me. He’s probably kissing Melissa at this very second. Maybe, I think, as Will’s tongue does this cool semicircle thing, this new relationship will help me forget about my last love.

  I drop the heart reversal back into my purse. Well, why not? Prom, kisses, getting off the loser list . . . What else could I ask for? I pull back and smile.

  “I thought we could go to Spark’s,” he says. “Is that cool? Do you eat steak?”

  Moo.

  9

  And the Oscar Goes to . . .

  “Lookin’ hot, Rache,” says a random junior.

  Bosh gives me a high five. “What up, dude?”

  “Are we in an alternate reality?” Tammy asks.

  I give a half wave to my subjects. I’ve been working on it all morning. Kind of like a Miss America wave with a touch more flutter in the fingers. “Weird, isn’t it?”

  It’s not even nine a.m. on Monday, and word has gotten around fast. Once again, I have reached the pinnacle of high school society. All I have to do is date the king and everyone pretends they like me. It’s faker than London’s boobs. On the plus side, I’m going to prom! In other good news, classrooms are back to their non-doubled-up capacity. Construction guys have been working overtime—not sure (gulp) where the money is coming from.

  But neither the adulation nor the solo desk is the best part of the day. Oh, no, the true prize is that Tammy is back. She surprised me at my locker this morning. I fully attacked her with hugs. Aaron, unfortunately, is still in bed. Seems his case is much, much worse. “I don’t even remember what he looks like anymore,” Tammy complains. “My moms haven’t let me even visit him yet! They’re afraid I’ll have a relapse.”

  I feel bad and all . . . but this way I get Tammy all to myself!

  Even though I warned her that Will and I are an item, she was not prepared for the sudden worship of our peers. It’s like I’ve just won Best Director and now everyone wants to be in my movies. And this time, I’ve learned my lesson. I am not, I repeat not, ditching Tammy for the A-list. If they want to adore me, they’ll have to adore Tammy, too.

  Case in point: we walk into math, and Doree and Jewel are sitting in the back.

  “Hi, Rachel!” Jewel says. “I saved you a seat.”

  Doree pats my chair like a throne. “Come sit with us.”

&nbs
p; I give them the half wave.

  Tammy sighs. “Go sit with them if you want.”

  As if. “Are you kidding?” No way am I giving those girls a second chance. Or in Jewel’s case, a third chance. “Let’s sit here,” I say, pointing to two empty seats in the front row.

  Tammy gives me her scuba OK and smiles.

  “Thinks she’s too good for us, does she?” Doree huffs.

  Yes. Much too good.

  We’re on our way out for lunch when two large sexy hands cover my eyes. “Guess who, gorgeous?”

  Obviously the spell has made Will blind. Cute, yes. Pretty, maybe. But gorgeous? I wish.

  I untangle his hands and kiss his cheek. “Hi, Will.” My entire class is staring.

  He leans against my locker. “What are you doing now?”

  “Going for lunch.”

  “Want to come hang out with us instead?”

  “Don’t you have class?” Freshmen and sophomores have lunch from eleven to eleven forty-five; juniors and seniors have it the following period.

  “Yeah, I want you to come to physics.” He laughs. “No, Sock gets freshman/sophomore lunch period off in order to work.”

  I must look confused.

  “Sock is student council.”

  “Why do you call it sock?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s because you can’t really pronounce S and C. So we added a vowel. And O is better than I or U. Anyway, we have an office downstairs. Coming?”

  I guess it’s soc and not sock. If I were them, I would have gone with sac or sack. Who wants to be associated with feet? Sac at least makes me think of a purse. And everyone likes purses. “I can’t. Tammy and I are going for pizza.”

  His face falls. “Can’t you both come? Please?”

  Tammy pops up behind me. “He did say please.”

  “So let’s hear your suggestions,” Will says to us. “We need to come up with a theme. Prom is May twenty-seventh—in three and a half weeks.”

  What I need to come up with is a dress. A gorgeous princess, where-did-she-get-that stunner.

  I’m lying on a pink sofa, my feet up on the school president’s legs. I’m not sure what’s more amazing: my access to school couches or my access to a boy’s legs.

  The room is small but cozy, filled with couches, posters, and a stocked fridge. Who knew? It’s like a college dorm room in the school basement.

  “Vampires?” says the soc secretary, River Eugenicks, an über-cool senior. He’s the only person ever to be able to get away with having four eyebrow rings yet wearing a bow tie to school every day. I mean, come on. Those two styles just don’t go together. Unless, like River, you’re A-list, super-smart, and an intern at MTV.

  “Black attire only,” he continues, munching on a piece of red licorice Will handed out at the beginning of the meeting. “And the lightbulbs in the gym would all be red. All we need is a smoke machine and we’re golden.”

  At least no one has mentioned the possibility that the gym won’t be cleaned up in time for prom. Because it has to be. Having the prom in the gym is a JFK tradition, just like the fashion show is traditionally a prom fund-raiser. The ten thousand dollars raised at the fashion show is to be used for decorations, food, and music.

  “Shall we call it Night of the Dead?” Kat, the VP, says, laughing. Her full name is Katherine Postansky. Her beige capris and hoodie sweatshirt, pale face, and mop of straight black hair make her look like an ice cream cone. And she keeps a purple pen behind her ear, like a sprinkle. She’s about my height, probably five foot one, and a size small. And she smiles a lot—for good reason. She’s adorable and A-list. She was one of the few juniors invited to London’s party on Saturday. Never mind she’s the only girl in the soc (in soc? on the soc?), hanging out with these cool guys every day.

  The only other people in the room are Tammy and Bosh, and they’re sitting together on the third couch. I’ve been noticing that every few minutes Bosh inches his way a smidgen closer to Tammy. Maybe he’s developing a crush! Imagine if Tammy found a new boyfriend in the soc. How cute would that be? I mean, I like Aaron—he seems harmless—but I can’t exactly double with them. The president of the student council wouldn’t want to be seen with a lowly freshman. Besides his girlfriend, of course. And his friend’s girlfriend. And this way Tammy and I can go to the prom together. We’ll go dress shopping, rent a limo, smile at each other as we’re locked in our partners’ embraces. I can’t believe I was considering breaking up with him! Was I crazy? Blind to the possibilities?

  Oh, I think I am blind. I just noticed that there is someone else in the room: Jeffrey Zeigster, who’s sitting in the corner, doing his science homework. His brown hair looks painted on with gel, and his glasses are so thick that they look like bulletproof windowpanes. Hello, has he not heard of contacts? He’s part of the soc but the only person not elected to it. He was appointed by Konch because of his high GPA. Apparently, he sees this meeting as more of a study hall than an opportunity to help improve the quality of student life at JFK.

  “Let’s just hope the gym is ready in time,” Will says. “We’ve already scored some major donations from alumni for repairs. The administration put the money toward the classrooms first. But the gym and cafeteria have to be completely redone and are going to cost a ridiculous amount of money.”

  Oh yeah. I’ve been meaning to follow up with Miri about that. Unfortunately, I’ve been a little preoccupied with the whole Will love spell stuff.

  Kat nods along with Will’s every word, her head like a bouncing ball. “Until you hear anything, let’s hope for the best.”

  “All right. Any other ideas? Costume party?” Will suggests. “Is that lame?”

  “No,” says River. “But I doubt London Zeal and her posse will want to dress up.”

  Most of the room laughs. I perk up. It seems not everyone is her biggest fan.

  “Maybe she’ll come as a witch,” Kat says. “She wouldn’t even have to put on a costume.”

  Funny as that is, witch jokes make me a wee bit uncomfortable.

  “She’s not that bad,” Will says. “She’s a friend of mine.” Such a politician—he’s friends with everyone.

  “What would you be?” I ask Kat, anxious to change the subject. But I like Kat. She’s funny, and her anti-London politics make her a potential mentor. I resist the geeky urge to beg her to be my friend.

  She shrugs. “I don’t get to go. I’m just a lowly junior.”

  “Let’s keep brainstorming, people,” Will says.

  That is so sad. She comes up with the ideas and then doesn’t get to go?

  “What about Atlantis, dudes?” suggests Bosh. “You know? The lost underwater city. I took some great pictures when I was scuba diving last month.”

  Tammy’s eyes light up. “You dive?”

  Bosh straightens his posture. “Yeah, dude. Why, do you?”

  “Of course! I live for it.”

  “High five!” he says, and they slap hands.

  Did Tammy just blush? They are so going to fall in love, get married, and have scuba babies.

  “I hate the water,” River says, fingering an eyebrow piercing.

  “Whatever you say, River.” Kat laughs. “Let’s think of something else.”

  Tammy clears her throat. “What about an Oscar night?”

  Bosh gives her a scuba OK. “You could have a red carpet leading up to the gym.”

  “We could give out random mini Academy Awards,” River says quickly. “You know, for best mustache.”

  Weird, but funny. As long as it’s not for best beard.

  The idea seems to be rolling around Will’s brain. “I like it,” he says. “We could project old black-and-white movies on the wall.”

  “The photographer could stand outside snapping photos like the paparazzi!” Kat suggests.

  “All in favor,” Will says. We all raise our hands. All except Mr. Studious in the corner. Will peers at him over the back of the couch. “Jeffrey? You in?”
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  Startled, Jeffrey drops his pencil. “In where?”

  “Oscar theme for prom.”

  His eyes squint in mystification. “Prom?”

  “End-of-year dance. Prom. Oscar theme.”

  “All right,” he mumbles, and then goes back to his work.

  “He’s shy,” Kat whispers to me.

  “So we’re done,” says Will, and squeezes my knee.

  Kat raises an eyebrow. “What about Amy?”

  River snorts. “If she’s too busy with her boyfriend to make it to meetings then she doesn’t get to vote.”

  I forgot about Amy Koppela. She’s in the soc too, supposedly in charge of prom. Very tall, very skinny, very blond, and very A-list. Apparently too cool to come to soc meetings. “Who’s she dating?” I ask.

  “Some NYU guy,” Will answers. “She spends both first and second lunches in his dorm. We’ll count her as pro-Oscar. So six votes say yes. Oscar theme it is. Thanks, Tammy.”

  I give Tammy a thumbs-up. I know in underwater language it means something besides good job, but she gets the idea.

  Tammy and I head to English on cloud nine. If we were floating any higher, we would hit the ceiling. As soon as class starts, I slip a note into her copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Shakespeare play about love spells gone amuck. How fitting. Should I be concerned about what’s going to happen when I’m a sophomore and we study Macbeth?

  My note: Awesome ideas!

  She blushes happily as she reads my scribble and then tosses a note back to me: I can’t believe you get to go. So lucky.

  I write back: You might get to go too. Bosh was drooling over you.

  And then I get: ☺

  Me: What does that mean??? Do you like him?

  Tammy: I already have a boyfriend, remember? I can’t go to the prom with Bosh! Does he even have a first name?

  Me: No clue. But maybe they’ll let you go since you came up with the idea.

  Tammy: No way. They won’t even let Kat go.

  Me: Crazy, huh? I like her. She’s so sweet for someone A-list. Did you like her?

  Tammy: Yup. She was nice, considering . . .