The Boy Next Story

by Tiffany Schmidt

  26

  On Thursday morning, I arrived at art to see Mrs. Mundhenk had written Snipes Nominees on the chalkboard. One of Boy Byron’s paintings was on an easel in the front of the room. It was the one he’d worked on next to me. A Snipes reproduction—which, thinking back, had been pretty popular. The obsession over the contemporary art folder suddenly made sense. Well, if copying a Snipes painting was a requirement, then I’d disqualified myself and I didn’t have to stress anymore. My footsteps were lighter as I hung up my coat, adding my congratulations to the tide launched at Boy Byron.

  He preened like the peacock in his painting—a cubist rendering of Vanity, Captured. “Is it too early to start worrying if I’ll get picked?”

  Instead of attaching myself to the group around him, I continued to the back corner where my painting in progress waited on the drying rack. I’d salvaged the rain boots. Maya’s paint water added a dingy gray overlay, which worked with the mood of the piece.

  Huck was already setting up on the easel beside mine. “I’m fuming it’s not you. He’s good; you’re better.” He paused and reclipped his paper so it hung straighter. “In case you were wondering how I felt about this whole thing.”

  “Noted,” I answered with a laugh. “But I’m fine.”

  “Okay, class.” Mrs. Mundhenk came out of her office, clapping to get our attention. “As you can see, I’m ready to announce my nominees for the Snipes workshop. Now, there’s no guarantee that either of these artists will be chosen, but they’re both worthy. As are many others in here. This is a very talented group, but”—she paused to grip the back of a chair—“many of you did not qualify. Any artist who would tear down or sabotage another artist’s work in an attempt to get ahead doesn’t deserve this opportunity and couldn’t handle the supportive community Ms. Snipes builds within her workshops. The art world is too difficult for artists to view each other as competitors or enemies. Look for chances to lift each other up—like Ms. Snipes has with this workshop—not tear each other down.”

  Throughout her speech, I watched my classmates do one of two things: look away or look at me. Those who lowered their eyes were ashamed and apologetic. Those who glared were pissed.

  Basically, by being here I’d disqualified the bulk of the class. I’m sure that wouldn’t make them at all resentful and that my popularity award would be arriving in the mail any day.

  “Now, you all see Byron’s painting up here. Let’s give him a round of applause for being our first nominee.”

  The class clapped, but it was aggressively brief. The impatience in the air felt thick, humid enough to curl the sketch paper on our easels.

  “Our second nominee, well, isn’t going to surprise anyone. It’s Aurora Campbell.” The roar of panic in my ears drowned out any clapping. I wanted to hide behind my easel and never come out. My shoes were lead as I shuffled them and tried to make myself smaller. I flinched when Huck patted my back.

  “Congratulations to Byron and Rory. Both of you come see me to sign forms. Everyone else, get to work.”

  I didn’t go see her during class. I waited until after the bell had rung and the coatroom had emptied. “You said you had paperwork for me to sign, but—”

  “Here it is. Look at it carefully. There are a lot of places to initial and date. I’m using your painting of Tobias as your entry—but like I promised, no one here will see it.”

  “Are you sure you wanted to nominate me? It’s not because I got picked on, is it?”

  “Do you honestly think that?” Mrs. Mundhenk put down the pages she’d been passing me one at a time. “My only reservation was if you were ready, maturity-wise, after that whole party scandal in September. The workshop will skew toward upperclassmen. Freshmen can be nominated, but at teacher’s discretion.” She pointed to another place I needed to sign and I scrawled my initials. “You would get so much out of this experience.”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled and pointed to one last line. “I’m crossing everything that you get picked.”

  As Mrs. Mundhenk stacked the papers, I hesitated. “One last question.” I bit my lip, because this was a deal breaker. “How much does it cost?”

  She tapped the paperwork to align the edges. “Did you miss the part about the grants? You just signed it.”

  “You were talking . . . I couldn’t read and listen.”

  “There are grants for students who need them—so, don’t worry about that. Stay focused on your exams.”

  “Okay.” I nodded. “French today, math tomorrow.”

  “Bonne chance,” called out Mrs. Mundhenk. Good luck.

  I’d need it.

  27

  Toby’s knee hadn’t stopped jiggling since I’d opened the passenger door Friday morning and he’d skipped over “Hi” or “Good morning” and gone straight to “How are you feeling about your math test today?”

  “About the same as when we finished tutoring last night.” Like passing wasn’t impossible, just improbable. Made more so by the cumulative lack of sleep I’d gotten all week.

  The benefit of stress and exhaustion was that I was too busy trying to remember formulas to swoon. Turns out that while being tutored by my crush had been helpful, being tutored while not thinking about how badly I wanted my tutor to kiss me—much more helpful.

  “You’ve got this. You know you’ve got this, right?” Toby asked me for the millionth time in our five-minute drive.

  I smiled into my travel mug, the scent of peppermint tea curling up around my cheeks. “Well, the first seven times I agreed with you were all lies, but since you asked again . . .”

  “Sorry.” Toby’s grin was sheepish. No one did sheepish quite as adorably as Toby. Or mischievous. Or impishly apologetic. Not that I was noticing. Nope. I was pulling out my math notebook and focusing there instead. And it was getting easier.

  Without looking up from my notebook’s spiral binding, I asked, “Is there a reason you’re so invested in my math grade? Do you have money riding on my exam? At least I know you bet I’d pass.”

  “I heard about the Snipes thing.”

  “What about it?” My voice had gone sharp, because if he’d seen my painting, I was going to throw myself out of this car and pray the one behind us ran me over.

  Toby glanced at me as we paused at a stop sign. “Lynnie in my music class was talking about it. Her twin, Byron, is the other nominee. She said he was freaking out about midterms because there’s a GPA requirement.”

  “A what?” I really should’ve read those forms. Mrs. Mundhenk’s warning to stay focused on my exams suddenly had a whole new significance. My grip on my notebook tightened, like I could absorb formulas through my fingertips. “Do you know what it is?”

  He shook his head. “I thought you knew. Sorry.”

  My stomach clenched, my breathing going fast and shallow, my notebook slipping to the floor. How humiliating would it be when my nomination had to be pulled because I couldn’t pass math? My fingers scrabbled for something to hold on to. My right hand clamped around the door with white knuckles, but before I could reach for my backpack strap with my left, Toby’s fingers closed over mine and squeezed. “But it doesn’t matter, because you’ve got this, Roar. I know you do.”

  Could I get a poster with those words and his face on it, please? It’d be way more motivational than all the cookies, kittens, and flamingos on Mrs. Roberts’s wall. He squeezed my hand again before letting go to flick on the blinker and turn into the school lot.

  “I’ve got this,” I repeated in a whisper.

  He looked at my pale face and groaned, then pressed a button on his phone. “Here. Batman theme. It’s my go-to song for when I need to get pumped. You’ve got this.”

  He was right about the song. I just hoped he was also right about the test.

  All week I’d debated telling Clara about Toby’s Fall Ball request. I wanted her advice . . . but only if it matched my get-over-him vows, and she was more likely to shriek “Say yes!” and co
me up with a scheme about a magic, perfect dress that would win him over.

  By the time I reached the art studio, I was worn down by lack of sleep, math test anxiety, new GPA-nomination worries, and the echoed sensation of Toby’s hand on mine. It was too much to contain—I was like a shaken soda, I needed to let off some pressure and tell someone. Lucky Huck. He put his pencil down to listen, but I told the story while facing my easel, my paintbrush moving in frantic swoops and jerks. “. . . And then he asked me. In the parking lot on Wednesday.”

  “Great. But it’ll have to be Clara dress shopping with you. I don’t do ‘Does this look good on me?’ Own the fact that you’re gorgeous—wear whatever you want.”

  “Um, thanks?” I think there was a compliment in there. “But I wasn’t asking that. Will you go with me? I told him no.”

  “Are we taking the jealousy game too far?” Huck leaned back from his sketch and frowned. He switched from a 2H to a 4B, then used his gum eraser on the tip of the nose he was drawing. “There’s a fine line between making someone pursue you and making someone give up.”

  “I don’t want him to be jealous. I meant it, I’m over him.” Huck turned to me to confirm my words. I nodded. His lips pressed down with sympathy, but unlike Clara, he didn’t protest. “And you’re asking me?”

  “As friends.” Because of how Toby’s words had hurt me, I clarified. “I don’t want it to be a date, but I’m not ‘settling’ on you. You’re the person I want to go with, the one I’d have the most fun with. But if you have a date or there’s a guy or girl you want to ask, I get it.”

  “Nah,” he said, and I gripped my paintbrush painfully tight, not sure which part he was rejecting. “There’s no one I want to ask. Platonic prom partners it is.”

  “It’s not the prom,” I clarified.

  “Don’t ruin my alliteration, Clementine Campbell.”

  “If you change your mind, that’s okay too. I’m not super sure I really want to go to the dance, but—”

  “Let’s not go together.”

  I blinked at him. “But you just said ‘yes’?”

  Huck dimpled. “You hate things like this, right? So we could agree to not-go.” He paused. “Together. We’ll do something else that night.”

  “Oh, that’s a much better plan.” Just thinking about the dance had me sweating, and I swiped my hand across my forehead, leaving behind a blue stripe. “Though Clara might kill us.”

  Huck tapped his pencil while he schemed. “Agree to paint the photo backdrop. I bet if we recruit Byron to help she’ll get over it.”

  “Byron?” I glanced across the room to where his auburn head was bent over a drawing board, but before I could tell Huck to elaborate, he asked, “Will you be okay if Toby goes to the dance with someone else?”

  My stomach, heart, and thoughts knotted in that math-class panic feeling. And just like when I got called on in there, I didn’t know the answer.

  28

  I didn’t trust myself when it came to math. Had some of those exam problems actually been easy, and had others been in hieroglyphics? Because some I couldn’t wait to brag about to Toby, but others . . . I swore I’d never seen anything like them.

  Mrs. Roberts had patrolled the room while we tested, murmuring compliments and placing encouraging bookmarks on the corners of our desks. Sadly, mine was not Toby’s face but a paint palette with each word in a different color: Don’t decide you can’t before you discover you can. The kid next to me got Think you can written on a train. I saw his accidentally, but then spent ten breaths panicked that it looked like I was cheating.

  The gesture was super thoughtful—but also super distracting. And by the time the bell rang at the end of the period, I slid out of my desk boneless with stress and exhaustion.

  “I’ll have these back on Monday,” she reassured me. I squeaked in response.

  Merri was MIA all weekend. If she wasn’t at Eliza’s or Haute Dog, then she was sequestered in her room with her face buried in her laptop. When I dropped off lunch—because she was in forget-to-eat headspace—I asked what she was doing. She blinked like she didn’t recognize her room or her sister, then shushed and shooed me.

  “You’re welcome,” I snarked from the hallway, but she didn’t bother responding.

  Lilly was home though. She had her sidekick with her. I’d liked Trent from the moment Lilly introduced him to the family a few years back. Merri had not. And since Merri wasn’t exactly poker-faced, we’d all sat through many, many tense meals. But she and he had some bonding breakthrough recently—something about his time at Hero High or the time Merri now spent campaigning for his mom’s senate race—so she wasn’t hiding because he was here.

  I liked Trent because he was comfortable with silence. He did small talk too—better than I’d ever master—but he was cool with putting on a podcast or playlist and letting that be the backdrop while we drove somewhere or set the table or did the brunch dishes. All tasks he didn’t hesitate to volunteer for. That Sunday I was making a fruit salad and he was peeling eggs, a chore I hated and that would’ve fallen on me since Lilly was on the phone with their caterer and Merri was upstairs typing.

  “Thanks for doing that.” I pointed with my paring knife to the pot he was taking off the stove.

  “Sure!” His grin displayed perfect teeth. Trent looked like the king of Ken dolls, until he started talking and revealed his deep-seated geekiness. “I just watched this life hack video with a trick for peeling them all at once. Wanna try it?”

  “As long as I don’t have to touch or eat them, absolutely.”

  He got out a plastic container and filled it with water before transferring the eggs inside it and fastening the lid. Switching on the kitchen radio, Trent began to shake the container to the beat. I bit my lip to try to trap my giggles. It didn’t work.

  “Oh, you laugh now, but wait until you see the end result,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.” I turned back to the pineapple. “You do you, Trent.”

  For the most part, his eggs came out perfectly peeled. One had broken in half, but he put it on his own plate. He came back in the kitchen and stole a piece of banana from the fruit salad. “We’re good—let’s call everyone in.”

  I’d known something was up all morning. Brunch was normally Dad’s domain—he manned the griddle or waffle iron—but today it had been all on Trent and me. Dad and Mom disappeared upstairs as soon as we got home from church. This week’s French toast, eggs, and fruit salad were way less extravagant than Dad’s usual spread, but he didn’t comment beyond saying, “Thanks for cooking.”

  Merri and Lilly exchanged glances. They exchanged them again when Mom said, “Girls, we need to talk to you about something.”

  I was tempted to interject, “Yeah, let’s talk about how Merri and Lilly don’t include me in their nonverbal communication.” But that made me feel even more pathetic.

  Merri bolted out of her chair, tipping her orange juice onto Lilly’s empty plate. “I don’t want you to get a divorce!”

  “What?” Dad patted her back. “No. It’s nothing like that, Mer-bear—why would you think that?”

  “Because she’s her,” I muttered, and Lilly kicked me under the table.

  Trent carried Merri’s cup and Lilly’s plate over to the sink. He dumped the juice back in her cup, rinsed and dried the plate, then returned them as Merri sat back down and said, “Gah. Sorry for interrupting.”

  Mom snorted. “Anyway—as we were saying.” She cleared her throat and studied the silverware. “Thanksgiving is in a few weeks and I know it’s the season for Christmas lists, but the holidays are going to be a bit . . . smaller this year.”

  “We wanted to give you a heads-up,” Dad continued when Mom’s voice trailed off. His eyes were fixed on the bowl of peeled eggs. “It’s just . . . between tuition and wedding expenses, things are tighter. We don’t want you to worry—” Only, telling me not to worry was like throwing gasoline on a bonfire. My anxiety flared and made it harder to hea
r his words. “Think about asking for one medium-size present this year. And treat your cell phones carefully, because we’re not replacing those anytime soon.”

  “Is everything okay at the store?” asked Lilly. She was holding Trent’s hand under the table—a benefit of him being a lefty and her a righty was they could do this while still eating—but I wondered if it was weird for her to have him hear this conversation. Trent’s family—like most of my Hero High classmates—was loaded. The only thing that would dampen the Rhodes’s Christmas was if his mom lost her senate reelection race next week.

  “The store is fine—maybe not competing as much as we’d like against the big-box store—but it’s holding its own. And the new shops opening in our plaza should increase foot traffic,” said Mom.

  All three of us opened our mouths with follow-up questions, but Dad cut us off. “That’s enough of that, let’s hear about your weeks. Trent, how’s your mom holding up through this final stretch? Merri, when’s your next meet? Rory, what have you been painting? Lilly, update me on wedding plans.”

  Trent looked to Lilly and I followed his eyes, catching the slight wince that flickered across her face at Dad’s question. Instead of answering, she said, “We have news. Trent and I have finished our law school applications.”

  My parents launched into congratulations and Merri questioned, “What if you don’t get into the same place? Or have different picks? Who gets to choose?”

  Trent pulled a quarter from his pocket. “If it comes down to two schools, we’ll flip for it. But we’ve applied in geographic clusters. I’m not worried.”

  Lilly was telling Dad about law libraries and “L-one course loads” and beaming in the way she did when Trent walked into a room. I hadn’t ever been that excited about school. Even in kindergarten I’d hidden in the painting corner and refused to join the class when they circled up for calendar time.