The Boy Next Story

by Tiffany Schmidt

  “Why else would he . . .”

  “Why else indeed? Follow your instincts. You’re almost there!” She drummed her fingers on the desk behind her. It felt like the buildup to some big announcement, like I was supposed to punctuate her drumroll with some genius-level breakthrough.

  Instead I sighed and mumbled, “Thanks. I’ll see you in class.”

  “Anytime. And, Aurora, I don’t want you getting discouraged. If this book isn’t you, we’ll find one that is.”

  I waved limp fingers and left, but it was nice to know that Ms. Gregoire made mistakes too. She’d meant to say, If this book isn’t for you. Whatever, it was a minor one-word difference, but it was something and I’d take anything at this point.

  Especially since I arrived in art to discover that someone had slid a piece of paper on top of mine in the drying rack. I’d think it was accidental—that someone had put their own painting in without noticing mine was already there—except the paper that had hopelessly smeared mine was blank.

  I blinked and blinked. Like that would change what I was seeing or help me hold back tears. Someone bumped my shoulder and I turned with murder in my eyes—not that there was anything left to ruin on the painting in my hands.

  “Whoa. Rough Monday, Campbell?” Huck took a step back and held up his hand. “Holy Warhol! What happened to that painting?”

  “This class happened to it! Everything I do here gets knocked or dropped or . . . this!” I crumpled the paper and tossed it in the trash. “It’s fine. I’ll start again. It wasn’t that good.”

  Huck’s eyes were wide and full of questions, but my own were still glistening, so he intelligently zipped his lips—literally mimed using a zipper like in kindergarten—and grabbed me a new paper. He clipped it to my easel, then dropped his pencil bag on the easel next to mine.

  “I thought you were a potter,” I said. He’d told me so on Saturday. How he couldn’t wait to get on the wheel on Monday.

  “Not today,” he answered.

  That class no one jostled my easel. Probably because whenever anyone came near me, Huck would call them out by name. “Hey, Jocelyn, what are you doing back here?” “Craig, do you want to get by? Let us know if we need to move out of your way.” “Need something, Oliver?”

  “How do you know all their names already?” I asked Huck.

  He tapped his temple. “Steel trap . . . but also, I’m making some of them up.”

  I laughed and joined in. “Hey, Nadia. Those are some kicking boots.” I still wasn’t sure if “kicking” was cool, but my use of its double meaning was intentional, because Nadia had aimed them at me in the past.

  Huck offered me a discreet low five when she mumbled something and walked away. I beamed at him, feeling he was very much the guardian angel his dimpled smile mimicked. You know, if there wasn’t so much mischief in that grin.

  It was effective but not productive. Regardless, I was feeling good about art for the first time in weeks. Or, at least I was until Mrs. Mundhenk stopped by to check on us. “Oh, Aurora. When are you going to show me what you’re capable of? It’s so much more than this.” She looked at my paper again and sighed.

  After she walked away, Huck tried to joke. He even broke out knock-knocks, but I cut him off. “I’m better than this.”

  “I believe you,” he said.

  “No, I really am—I just—I just need to show it.” But the thing about desperation and creativity is they’re not compatible. They can’t coexist in the same person—at least not when that person is me. Instead of being brilliant or even decent, I spent the last five minutes undermining everything I’d started. I ended the period the same way I’d begun, by crumpling my paper and tossing it in the trash.

  Things finally got interesting in English class that day. We read more aloud and learned why Gatsby had all those lavish parties—Huck was right, he didn’t like them. We also learned why he was fixated on the green light he could see from the end of his dock. It was a light on Nick’s cousin Daisy’s house.

  And Gatsby—he was in obsessive love with Daisy.

  His mansion. His wild parties. They were for her. It was an elaborate setup, because Gatsby wanted her attention . . . and her affection.

  “Now, I’m sure some of you have done some pretty wild and maybe ill-conceived things to try to win the heart of your crushes, but no one pines quite like Gatsby,” said Ms. Gregoire. “Or do they?”

  She stumbled slightly and hip-checked my desk. But when I looked up from her feet—which didn’t seem even slightly wobbly in her four-inch red heels—she winked.

  No. Not cool. If I pined like Gatsby, well, that was my own private humiliation. I didn’t throw parties to broadcast my unrequited love, or ask his friends to set us up, or change my name and the way I talked, or any of the charades that Jay Gatsby was neck-deep in. Not that Daisy had noticed—she hadn’t come to any of his parties, so what good were all his efforts?

  Ms. Gregoire tapped a happy beat with the pads of her fingers on my desk. I wanted to squash them with my book. “Pair up!” she called, and I’m sure there were words after that, but who ever heard anything over the roar of partner-work panic?

  “I was thinking,” began Clara as she wound her arm around mine and used that to pull my desk toward hers. “This could be the solution to your little neighbor problem.”

  My desk tilted as Huck sat on the opposite corner, almost tipping it over. “What neighbor problem? Is it like the art class problem?”

  “Aurora, are you three working as a group, or are you still choosing a partner?” Ms. Gregoire asked.

  I said, “No,” at the same time Huck and Clara both said, “Yes.” Though it wasn’t quite clear what any of us were answering.

  Ms. Gregoire nodded sagely. “Good. Carry on.”

  “What does she mean? What problem are you having, Campbell?”

  “She is named Clara,” said the girl still attached to my arm. “And she doesn’t know why you’re interrupting our group. So, goodbye.” She waved her hand and turned back to me, like Huck would disappear from the front of my desk if she stopped watching.

  Clara was usually the opposite of rude, but she’d been trying to corner me to talk about Toby all day. Maybe she wouldn’t if he was here?

  “Be nice,” I said. “Huck and I are friends. He’s in my art class.”

  “See?” He shrugged. “We’re friends. And by ‘neighbor problems,’ do you mean May?”

  I groaned and Clara let go of my arm to throw up her hands in exasperation. “Yes! You know about her epic, lifelong crush on Toby?”

  “Clara!” I hissed, looking around the room and only exhaling once I saw everyone else was too busy doing the assignment to overhear her declaration.

  “I do now,” said Huck, but with such obvious dimpled glee that she smiled at him. “Campbell, you were holding out on me. This makes so much sense. So, Clara, you’ve got a plan? Because I’m thinking”—he dragged his desk over and then sat backward on its attached chair—“that Rory should go full Gatsby on him.”

  She gave a crisp nod, the kind that would earn her props in cheerleading. “Exactly.”

  “I liked you better when you were strangers,” I mumbled. Clara patted my hand and Huck rolled his eyes. I wondered if I should excuse myself to go drown in the closest water fountain or toilet. Did that require a bathroom pass? “I want nothing to do with a plan about him.”

  “Him, Gatsby? Or him, Toby?” asked Clara.

  “Shhh!” Objectively I knew that no one else in this room cared. No one was sitting on the edge of their seat waiting to hear about my pointless infatuation, but I’d held this secret close for years and had zero desire for it to be public.

  “So what’s your current plan?” asked Huck.

  “Seriously, you too?” Why was Ms. Gregoire spending so much time talking to Keene and Dante instead of noticing that we weren’t working? Normally she was all over me like dog hair on black pants. “My plan is to not do anything.”
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br />   “But Gatsby doesn’t sit there and passively wait for Daisy to find and fall in love with him. He’s chasing her. He’s doing everything he can think of to get her back—the parties, the plotting. He’s not leaving anything to chance,” said Huck.

  “Exactly!” said Ms. Gregoire. She’d approached our group from behind, making me jump and so glad she hadn’t arrived seconds earlier. But something about the way she said “Exactly” felt personal. It made my toes curl inside my yoga flats.

  Clara had started speaking, probably making a brilliant point—one that was teacher pleasing and not about my nonexistent love life—but I interrupted to ask Huck, “You’re saying Gatsby makes things happen so that he’ll see Daisy?”

  “Well, yeah. He’s spent the past five years reinventing himself into someone he believes would be worthy of her—he’s not going to leave the rest to chance.”

  “Oh.” Because I was. I was expecting some magic trick where Toby woke up one day and saw me differently and forgot everyone else.

  Ms. Gregoire put a hand on my chair and one on Huck’s, creating a bridge for the static electricity that crackled across my skin. “I like the way you’re complementing each other’s discussion—building a shared comprehension. It’s very Nick and Gatsby, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t know. Was it? I thought Gatsby already knew it all. But if he had, he wouldn’t have needed Nick’s help to get access to Daisy.

  I waited until Ms. Gregoire walked away to join Elinor and Gemma’s group, then turned to Clara and Huck. “Fine. Help me. Tell me what to do.”

  12

  Clara and Huck’s strategy session was full of bickering and brainstorms that made me want to hide under my desk or escape out the window.

  “We’re not giving her a makeover,” Huck said firmly. “She doesn’t need one.”

  “Fine,” snapped Clara. “But some things aren’t about need, they’re about fun. We’re agreed about the rest of the options, yes?” She waited for his nod before they both turned to me. “So you have three choices, Rory. Pick one and we’ll launch our plan of attack.”

  “We are not attacking anyone,” I answered, my head spinning with pictures of me post–horrific makeover being twirled like a top and thrown at Toby. All three of their plans sounded equally disastrous. The first required me to ignore Toby, which I didn’t think I was capable of. The second, to act like a mini Merri, which I couldn’t pull off. And the third was absolutely a no-go . . . I just wasn’t that good an actor.

  “Figure of speech.” She waved off my concern. “We’ve got that Knight Light meeting after lunch—that’s your deadline.”

  Huck rubbed his hands together. “Project Green Light has been green lit.”

  “Don’t call it that,” I protested. Attacks? Deadlines? “This is such a bad idea.”

  They laughed like I was joking. I drew panicked doodles all over my notebook, carving my pen into the red cardboard cover until I revealed the white fibers underneath.

  The Knight Light mentor meeting was directly after lunch, which meant I was too nervous to eat, so I talked Huck into heading to the art room.

  “Only if we work with clay,” he answered. “C’mon, it’s like grown-up mud pies.”

  I wondered if he joked to distract from his talent, because if I had any question why he was in Advanced Art, it disappeared within minutes of him sitting down at a potter’s wheel. I chose to sculpt free-form and had barely begun planning and pinching off pieces before it was time to clean up. In the same amount of time, Huck had managed to make his lump of clay bloom from an orange into a graceful melon-size bowl. It had a narrow base, then tapered out in thin, even walls. While I watched, he used a flat tool to add a perfect wide brim. He slowed the wheel, then grabbed his wire tool and deftly cut it off. Covering it loosely in a bag labeled with his name, he tucked it on a high shelf in the drying room. I wanted to fast-forward to when it had reached leather hard, when he’d flip it upside down and put it back on the wheel to trim and cut a foot. I wanted all his secrets and skills.

  “Five minutes,” Huck called, and I finished rearranging the other pottery projects so mine was hidden in the back. I didn’t label it. Maybe if no one knew it was mine it would escape destruction?

  While I scrubbed clay from beneath my nails, Huck told me updates he’d gotten from his Ohio friends over the weekend. I suspected he knew I wasn’t really listening, but he was chatting at me to calm my Knight Light nerves.

  It was Hero High’s mentorship program—each sophomore chose a freshman or transfer student to “adopt” for events and activities throughout their first year. Merri had been Toby’s first choice, of course. But she’d already paired up with Hannah Kim, so she’d forced him to take me as a consolation prize. I’d been waiting and waiting for this first meeting, but now I stood frozen outside the door to the dining hall.

  “Come on,” said Huck with a gentle poke in my back. “Let’s go in.”

  Instead of entering the lunchroom, we took the stairs up to the Knight Light Lounge. Some fancy alumni had donated the room. It was large enough to hold the whole freshman and sophomore classes. The lighting was all exposed Edison bulbs and the walls were dusky purple; seating was high stools, low couches, and floor pillows. There was a tiny stage—a black painted platform the size and height of a double bed’s mattress—and on it was a single stool. The program’s motto was painted in block letters on the wall above: Knight Lights—they guide your way. It looked like the sort of place that would be famous for latte foam art and slam poetry nights, but instead of beverage service we had Mr. Welch, who taught media classes. He was sitting on the stool with a clipboard, checking everyone off as they entered. He nodded at us and Huck gave him a tongue click, double-fingergun combo that made the teacher chuckle.

  “How did you get so good on the wheel?” I asked to distract myself from Clara and Huck’s looming deadline.

  “I’ve been throwing since I was . . . I dunno, maybe eight? My mom’s a hobbyist potter. I spent a lot of weekends at craft fairs before I started playing lacrosse. If I had to be there, I figured I might as well have my own stuff to sell. It’s fun.”

  “I hate the wheel. I feel like all my instincts don’t work there. I get too tense and end up collapsing anything I throw.”

  “And the master becomes the student.” Huck flopped down onto one of the giant foam-filled cushions, then grabbed my elbow and yanked me down next to him. “Don’t worry. I can teach you. And I won’t make it all Ghost for you, because, you know . . . platonic.”

  I shook my head. “Not following.”

  “Wait a minute.” He leaned up on one elbow and stared at me. “Your sister, the one you described as a rom-com queen, has never made you watch Ghost?”

  “Um . . .” I didn’t really hear the question, because the rom-com queen had walked in. It wasn’t her who distracted me. Nor Eliza, Sera, or Hannah. It was the fifth member of their small pack—the guy who should have been looking for me but was instead glued to her side. I leaned closer to Huck and forced a laugh. It wasn’t premeditated, it wasn’t even a full thought, but when Toby did remember I existed, I wanted him to—

  “Okay, serious question,” said Huck. “Is this how we’re going to play this? You’re choosing option C? Jealousy? I need all the necessary info, Campbell, if I’m going to be an effective boy-faux-rend.”

  “Um—” My cheeks flamed as I scooted back a few inches and my eyes shot to Toby. Not that he’d noticed me yet. Not that he’d even looked. From all appearances, he was still entranced by whatever story Merri was telling.

  Clara paused behind us and hummed the Jeopardy theme song. I reached up and whacked her leg. “Fine. Plan C.”

  “Oh!” I’m not sure which of us was more surprised, but she recovered first. “Okay then, I’ll get out of your way, lovebirds.”

  “May is an idiot,” said Huck. His voice was uncharacteristically quiet as he pulled me closer. “And I am so here for this scheme.” He brushed a piece of h
air off my cheek as he leaned down and whispered, “But you’ve got to pinkie swear you won’t fall for me. I know my animal magnetism is intense, but resist.”

  I laughed when he held up a pinkie, but he raised his eyebrows and waited until I hooked my own around it.

  If this were one of Merri’s books, this would be the moment when I’d feel a frisson. The music would slow down, we’d get all caught up in intense eye contact, and I’d realize that my new friend was the one who gave me tingles. Instead I looked in Huck’s face and grinned. “You have Doritos breath.”

  “Cool Ranch, baby.”

  Over laughter and joined fingers I saw Toby glance in my direction. He started to turn away, then did a double take. Abandoning my sister and her story, he headed my way.

  13

  “Today Knight Lights and their adoptees will be doing get-to-know-you surveys,” said Mr. Welch. He waited out our collective groans. “I know. They were cheesy in elementary school and haven’t gotten less so. Sophomores, you survived this last year; I have every confidence there’ll be no fatalities this time either.”

  “Unlike Gatsby.” Huck leaned close and whispered in my ear, “Sorry, spoiler.” He and I were still on the same floor cushion, but now Toby was sitting on a stool behind my shoulder. Huck’s Knight Light, Curtis, was sitting next to him, swinging his flip-flopped feet so that his brown toes passed just inches above our heads. Fatalities? Gatsby? Was Jay going to pine to death? Ugh, if so I wanted a new ending pronto.

  Toby nudged me with his sneaker and I looked up at him. He put a finger to his lips, and I felt like a toddler getting a scolding. I shifted on the pillow, trying to sit up straighter, but Huck poked me in the side and I collapsed half on top of him. He settled his arm around my shoulder and tipped his head to lean on mine as he whispered, “Don’t blow it now—he hasn’t looked at the teacher once.”