How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend

by Janette Rallison

  During lunch on Thursday I brought up this subject with Daphne. “Is there something wrong with me?” I asked as I sat down at our table. I’d just been through the lunch line, where despite a lot of smiling on my part, the guys in line had shown as much interest in me as they might to a nun in full habit. “It’s the biology break-in, isn’t it? Nobody wants to take a criminal to prom.”

  Daphne let out a sigh and twirled the end of her straw in her mouth as though unsure whether to tell me a secret or not. “Actually, Jesse told all the guys he knows that they’d better not ask you out.”

  “What?” I looked around the lunchroom, searching for Jesse so I could, I don’t know, pelt him with carrot sticks or something. “He can’t do that. We’re not dating anymore.”

  Daphne nodded sympathetically. “I know. It totally violates the rules of breakup procedure, but obviously he’s not over you yet.”

  Raine bit into a chip. “Or he wants to make you suffer.”

  I ignored her. “He told guys not to date me? He actually had the nerve to do that while he and Bridget have been traipsing around the school like a pair of magnets?”

  Charity watched me, her eyes turning sympathetic. “It sounds like the two of you need to sit down and talk things out.”

  I picked up my utensils and cut into my salad with more force than was necessary. “Yeah, the last time we talked things out I ended up in an agreement where I may have to eat my shoes.”

  Raine shrugged. “You could always start hitting on the freshmen. I bet Jesse didn’t threaten any of them.”

  Daphne leaned across the table as though she had the answer and it was already settled. “You need to meet some guys from Swain Academy. I know tons of them. I can set you up.” Daphne’s flitting between social groups didn’t stop at Bickham High’s doors. She also frequented parties from Bickham’s only other high school, Swain Academy.

  I pushed a tomato chunk back and forth between two pieces of lettuce. “I don’t know. Blind dates never work out.”

  “Who says?”

  “Anyone who’s ever been on a blind date before.”

  “That’s because they’ve never been on one of my blind dates.” Her eyes narrowed, considering me. She leaned back in her chair. “You’re on the quiet side, so you need someone who’s outgoing, someone who knows how to have fun.” Her head tilted and she looked into my face with the intensity of a fortune-teller gazing at a crystal ball. “And yet you’re half Italian, which means you’ll need someone with an untamed, passionate side as well.”

  I didn’t contradict her, even though the only thing really Italian about me is my name. I’ve never been to Italy and know approximately twelve words of the language—and all of those are curses I picked up from Grandma Petrizzo.

  Daphne gave me a motherly smile. “And yet you’re in a fragile state of mind, so he’ll need to be gentle and understanding too.”

  With her elbow on the table, Charity rested her chin in her hand. “Does this guy really exist? Because if Giovanna doesn’t want him, I do.”

  Raine nudged her. “You can’t date until you’re sixteen. I claim the leftovers.”

  “I’m almost sixteen,” Charity said. “July isn’t that far away.”

  Charity skipped a grade back in elementary school. The downside of being this smart is that when you reach your junior year, you still can’t drive. Plus, Charity’s parents have a no-dating-until-you’re-sixteen rule. It’s partially due to her religion, and partially because Charity’s dad has counseled too many teenage boys over the years.

  Also, if you’re a petite blond with an angelic face, like Charity is, people tend to mistake you for a freshman and volunteer to show you where your classes are.

  “So do you actually know a guy like this?” I asked Daphne. “You know, an outgoing, fun, passionate, understanding guy?”

  “I know several,” she said.

  Which should have made me suspicious right then. I mean, there are probably only several outgoing, fun, passionate, understanding guys on the whole planet. What were the chances that Daphne knew all of them? But you know, a woman in the desert longs for water, and I’d been parched all week.

  “I guess I wouldn’t mind you setting me up then,” I said.

  “Are any of those guys over six feet?” Raine asked. “Because if they are, I think you should throw one my way.”

  “I can set you up too,” Daphne said. She straightened up in her chair. “I can be a matchmaker to all of you, no problem. But first we’ve got to find a man for Giovanna.” She smiled, obviously pleased with herself. “It shouldn’t take too long. After all, Gi is loyal, kind, and gorgeous.”

  See, that statement should have been my second clue that Daphne wasn’t the best one to set me up. I mean, the girl obviously hallucinates. I could believe “pretty” on my good days. You know, the ones where I actually have time to do my hair and makeup, as opposed to most mornings, when I simultaneously try to do my hair, apply mascara, and eat toast.

  Still, instead of seeing any red flags, in my head I was all, “I’m gorgeous. Daphne says so, so it must be true. Daphne can find me a guy and solve all my problems.”

  As if finding a guy to solve your problems isn’t a contradiction of terms.

  Chapter 6

  I’ll skip a long, drawn-out account of the two dates that followed over the weekend, because frankly, that would be too painful, but I’ll give you the highlights.

  Date number one: Dave picked me up Friday night at Grandma Petrizzo’s house. Grandma’s house had become my dating headquarters, since I was grounded for three weeks, although technically I was only grounded from going out with Jesse, which I totally wasn’t doing.

  Still, I knew Gabby wouldn’t see it that way, because anyone who grounds their daughter from seeing her boyfriend for three weeks, just because she went to the mall when she wasn’t supposed to, is completely evil. So of course I didn’t mention to my parents that I’d broken up with Jesse, and I made Dante promise not to tell them. Then I went to spend the weekend at Grandma’s. Gabby couldn’t veto that, since Dad always encourages Dante and me to spend time with Grandma.

  In case I haven’t said it before, Grandma is the reason we moved to Bickham, Texas. When Dad’s company offered him a job transfer here, he took it, because Grandma is nearly eighty and should be near family. Grandma is getting “eccentric,” as my father puts it. Gabby uses other, less flattering adjectives. Anyway, Gabby didn’t want to leave California and thought if Grandma got too eccentric to live on her own, then we should put her in a nursing home. This, I can tell you, did not go over well with Grandma.

  Out of the blue she will launch into speeches about how in the old country children take care of their parents. They show respect. They understand the sacrifices a parent makes for a child, and they don’t forget.

  Grandma could develop full-blown amnesia and I bet she’d take one look at Gabby, raise a finger in accusation, and say, “In the old country . . .”

  So basically Grandma and I had bonded over our mutual dislike of Gabby, and Grandma was more than willing to help me subvert my punishment by letting me go out with guys while I stayed at her house.

  While I put on my makeup, I told her I’d broken up with Jesse and so Daphne was setting me up. She nodded, mulling over this information, then said, “I know a nice young man from church—Gary Gunther. He’s out of high school but still lives with his mother. Just down the street. Such a nice boy and always helping his mother. Mows her lawn every week. I sit by him at bingo. I bet he’d be interested in meeting a beautiful Italian girl.”

  “Out of high school? He sounds too old for me, Grandma.”

  Grandma waved a hand in the air. Half her language consists of hand waves. I’m really not sure she’d be able to talk at all if someone tied her arms down. “I’m not suggesting you date Methuselah. He’s a young fellow. He still has all his hair.” Grandma leaned in close to me to emphasize her next point. “And he’s nice to his mother. Y
ou can always tell how a man will treat his wife by the way he treats his mother.” Which of course was the perfect introduction to the “In the old country” speech.

  The doorbell rang. “That’s probably Dave,” I told her, and I headed to the living room.

  She followed after me, still talking. That’s the thing about Grandma. She really misses having company around, and so when someone comes to visit, she gives them all her pent-up conversation whether they’re listening or not. “Your mother, God rest her soul, would never have suggested a nursing home. Your mother, she was a saint. Not like this new wife. I told your father to find a nice Catholic girl, and the first time, he listened to me. But the second time—ai—you see what comes from not listening to your mother.”

  I answered the door. A guy tall enough to make Raine happy stood on the doorstep. He was cute, not as cute as Jesse, but I suppose that would have been asking too much. One can only expect a guy to have so many good qualities, and I’d already chosen outgoing, fun, passionate, and understanding.

  He grinned at me. “Howdy, I’m Dave.”

  “I’m Giovanna.”

  Grandma peered around my shoulder. “Are you Catholic?”

  He smiled back at her. “Not during Lent. Then I’m Episcopalian.”

  “Episcopalian?” Both hands went up. “No good will come from it. Mark my words.”

  Grandma said more, but it was in Italian, so we couldn’t make out the further pronouncements about our doomed relationship.

  I’m not sure which embarrassed me more, that she didn’t get his joke or that in the first twenty seconds of our meeting she’d managed to insult not only my date, but an entire religion as well.

  So anyway, that was the good part of the date. From there it went downhill.

  First of all, Dave drove ten miles under the speed limit at all times. In the beginning I thought he was just a cautious driver, but so many cars passed us, cutting around us and then back into the lane, that I grabbed my armrest, waiting for someone to sideswipe us.

  While he was telling me about his graduation plans, I was bracing for impact. After a couple of cars honked at us, he shook his head and said, “Some folks are in such a hurry.”

  “You like to take your time to get places?” I asked, wondering if this was a part of being outgoing, fun, or understanding.

  “Have you seen the price of gas lately? You can save yourself five or ten dollars a week by driving slower.”

  Or maybe he was cheap.

  In the end “cheap” proved to be Dave’s overriding quality—just barely beating out “boring.” We went to the dollar theater to see a movie, which I didn’t mind since hey, I go there with my friends all the time, but he also sneaked prepackaged popcorn and soda cans underneath his jacket.

  During the whole movie I was afraid someone from management would come and haul us both out of the theater for eating contraband snacks. Then after the movie as we got into his car he asked, “Do you want to get some ice cream?”

  “Sure,” I said. But this meant that he drove to a Circle K, ran inside, and came back with two Fudgsicles. We ate them while sitting in his car in the parking lot.

  It’s not that I wanted him to spend a lot of money on me. I always feel guilty when guys do that. But come on, don’t I at least rate a Dairy Queen drive-through?

  I kept thinking that if Dave and I went to prom, he’d probably get the flower for my corsage off of someone’s front lawn and want it back at the end of the night.

  So yeah, Dave was strike one.

  The next night a guy named Ronald took me out to dinner. I gave Grandma strict instructions not to mention religion, marriage, or how my date compared to the guy down the street. I’m not sure whether she followed my instructions, since she spoke nothing but Italian when he came to pick me up. She spoke a lot of that, though, in between hand waving and shaking her head in a disapproving manner.

  Ronald had just moved to Bickham from Boston, and it took me a few minutes to adjust to his accent. Like, I stared at him blankly when he told me that his, “Ca was pocked by the yad.” So then he stared back at me because I didn’t walk over to his car, which was parked by the yard.

  Well really, you couldn’t blame me. I’d spent the last three years living in Texas, a place which puts a lot of effort into saying their R’s.

  We went to a nice place for dinner, but I only have a vague recollection of it. You see, Ronald played on Swain’s football team. I know this because he spent approximately nine tenths of our date telling me about his team, his coach, the plays he’d messed up, the plays he hadn’t messed up, and the New England Patriots. I assume the Patriots are a football team. If Ronald took a brief conversational detour to discuss the American Revolution, I missed it because by that time I was running trig problems in my mind to keep my brain from exploding.

  So that was basically my second date. After Ronald took me home, I sat in the living room and talked with Grandma, although mostly she did the talking, and I wondered if I would ever find someone who I liked as much as Jesse. You know, someone who could stop time just by looking at you.

  Monday before school everyone on Dante’s campaign got together in the library for a strategy meeting. And this time Dante joined us. While we waited for Charity to show up, Daphne and Raine pumped me for details about my weekend. I told them a little about each date, enough to let them know why neither had worked out, and then added, “Maybe it’s me. I don’t think I’m good at blind dates.” I mean really, I bet no one would ever buy Daphne a Fudgsicle at the Circle K.

  Daphne leaned across the table closer to us so Dante and his friends wouldn’t hear her. “Well, probably you should have tried to steer the conversation away from sports with Ronald. If you’re too shy to speak up, then guys only talk about their interests, and let’s face it, that’s not going to be anything you want to hear. Next time go with some subject matter in mind.”

  “Next time?” I asked.

  “I have another date set up for you on Friday.” She gave an airy laugh and shrugged her long blond hair off one shoulder. “Nathan called and asked if I could go out. I’m busy, but I told him I had this darling friend who was available. You’ll like Nathan. He’s hunky.”

  I would have turned the date down, but Daphne had already volunteered me. Besides, the word “hunky” kept repeating in my head.

  Hunky was good. Hunky gave me something to look forward to, and heaven knew I needed something to make it through another week of watching Bridget throw herself at Jesse.

  Finally Charity showed up. She dropped her book bag on the ground by the table and sank into a chair. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “You’re always late,” Dante said.

  “And I’m always sorry,” she said.

  He rolled his eyes and passed out signature sheets so we could collect the one hundred signatures we needed to put his name on the ballot. As Daphne tucked her petition into her books, she said, “We ought to have a party for the people who sign for Dante. You know, sort of a thank-you party.”

  Dante agreed without hesitation. “Great idea. We’ll hold it next Saturday night at my house. We should tell everyone to bring a friend too. You know, get as many people as we can to support me.”

  See, I’d have to ask permission before I announced something like that, but this was Dante. He could invite two hundred people over to our house for a party without getting in trouble at all.

  So with fifteen minutes left before classes began, we all headed out to different parts of the school for signatures.

  I walked to the school’s main staircase. Amid the flow of people, Jesse and Bridget stood together, clipboards in hand, talking to passing students. I hadn’t expected to see him, and for a moment the sight made my heart squeeze together in surprise.

  I turned away before he noticed me staring at him. Any time our gazes connected he felt the need to say something obnoxious, like, “Hey, nice shoes. They look tasty.”

  I walked down the hallway,
not really knowing where to go, then headed out the main doorway and onto the courtyard in front of the school. It was as good a place as any to bother people.

  Ginger and Erin, two girls from my Spanish class, walked toward me. They were just the sort I was looking for. You know, the kind of girls who’d been overlooked by the popular kids their whole life.

  “Ginger,” I called. “Hey, can you guys come over here for a second?”

  They ambled toward me, Ginger swinging her clarinet case, and Erin popping her gum.

  “My brother Dante is running for school president next year, and I’m collecting signatures to put him on the ballot. Will you sign for me?”

  Erin popped her gum a few more times. “I haven’t given any thought to who I want to vote for yet.”

  “You don’t have to vote for him. There’s plenty of time to decide that. This is just to put him on the ballot.” I held the paper and a pen out to her, but she didn’t make a move to take the pen. “We’re throwing a party next Saturday at seven thirty,” I said, still stretching out my arm. “And everyone who signs is invited. You can bring a friend. It will be fun.”

  Both girls looked at me and giggled as though I’d said something funny. I smiled back at them anyway. “Come on, say you’ll come.”

  “But then they’d miss my party.”

  I must have jumped six inches when I heard Wilson’s voice behind me. I mean, you’d think one of the girls might have clued me in that he stood right behind me. But no, they were probably waiting to see if I’d do something truly mortifying like say, “Sign Dante’s petition because everyone knows what a jerk Wilson is.”

  Which at the moment I almost wished I’d said. Instead, I dropped my pen, and the paper fluttered from my hand onto the ground. While I picked them up, Wilson moved in on the girls.

  “You know, I’m having a party at the exact same time as Dante’s, so it looks like you ladies will have to choose whether you want to hang out with Biker Boy or come to the mayor’s house.” He leaned in toward them, his smile going full blast. “The pool is heated, so bring your swimsuits.” He held out his clipboard to the group. “Speaking of swimsuits, you’ve lost weight recently, haven’t you? You look great.”