Kate in Waiting

by Becky Albertalli

  He shows up five minutes later with Noah, who immediately hops out to offer me the passenger seat. “Little Garfield, your chariot awaits.”

  “You know, you don’t have to switch—”

  But then Ryan rolls down the back window, and out pops Camilla’s giant floofy head.

  “Actually, yeah, you take the back,” I say, practically dive-bombing the passenger seat. Within minutes, Noah’s got Charles perched on his shoulder and Camilla sprawled in his lap, both of them determinedly licking either side of his face. “Okay. Wow. Yup. Thank you.” He twists his face away from Camilla.

  I grin. “You okay?”

  “Good. Great. Never been better.”

  I turn back to Ryan. “Thanks for picking me up.”

  “Sure—worked out great. We were just heading to Dad’s house.”

  “Okay. Camilla. Blech. That’s my mouth.”

  I glance up at the rearview. “Getting some action, Noah?”

  “Don’t be jealous, Little G.”

  “Jealous of you or the dogs?”

  “Well, this just got weird,” says Ryan.

  “Don’t look at me. I’m not the one getting to first base with Camilla.”

  Noah sighs. “And second base.”

  “Wow.” I twist around in my seat. “If you and Camilla need some privacy, let us know. Wouldn’t want to block any touchdowns.”

  “Okay, first of all, gross,” says Noah. “Second of all, please tell me you know touchdowns aren’t what comes after second base.”

  I wave my hand dismissively. “Obviously. You’ve got to get through third base and fourth base first—”

  “KATE. NO. That’s not—”

  “But if you get to fifth base, that’s, what, a three-point touchdown? So by now, the point guard’s pretty much begging you to join the MLB—”

  “Kate?” Noah says. “You’re a disaster.”

  “Says the guy making out with a Labrador retriever.”

  “And a dachshund,” chimes Ryan, and we exchange a quick fist-bump.

  Noah splutters. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Oh, he’s definitely on my team,” I say. “He plays quarterback and outfield—”

  “Okay, you know what, hot shot? Your reign of ignorance is over.” Noah leans forward, reaching past Camilla to rest his hand on my seat. “You’re going to the game. This Friday—” I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off, grinning. “Nope, this is happening. Just you wait, Little G. You’re gonna know so much about football.”

  “Yeah, no. I’m not going.” I shrug. “No way in hell.”

  Scene 53

  “So, why are we going to a fuckball game?” Raina asks on Friday, peering up from my bed.

  We’re at Dad’s house—just the girls, since Andy’s got a voice lesson. But even Andy keeps sneaking texts in. Outfit updates please!!

  Funny how Andy’s squad FOMO flares up right when Matt’s heading out of town. According to Andy, Matt’s visiting his dad in Alabama. Not gonna lie, the thought of Andy being so casually, intimately looped into Matt’s plans stings a little. Maybe more than a little.

  “So how did Noah Kaplan talk you into this?” asks Raina.

  “He didn’t,” I say loftily. “I decided completely independently of Noah. I don’t even know if he’s going to be there.”

  “Of course he’ll be there. Fuckboys always go to fuckball games.” Raina leans flat on her back, resting my teddy bear Ember on her stomach.

  “Okay.” Brandie emerges from my closet, holding my brown ankle boots in one hand, and an armload of my shortest skirts in the other. “So, Kate, for you, I’m thinking skirt, boots, tights, and a jacket?”

  “No shirt?” Raina asks. “Nude on top?”

  “And a shirt,” Brandie says. She starts laying clothes out on the edge of my bed. “All right, what about this combination with your jean jacket?”

  Raina sits up halfway, surveys the outfit, and then collapses back down again, raising two thumbs. “I dig it.”

  “Put it on so I can take pictures,” says Brandie. “Andy needs to approve this.”

  “He did not say that. Approve my outfit?” I snatch Ember away from Raina. “No. Text him right now and tell him we are not acting out some Gay Best Friend teen movie nonsense.”

  “Okay, but he’s gay . . . and he’s our best friend,” Brandie says.

  “He’s our best friend who’s gay, not our Gay Best Friend. And we don’t do outfit approval.” I give Ember an emphatic head squish.

  “Hey, you know what else we don’t do?” Raina counters. “Sports games.”

  “I know! I know. But don’t you think it could be interesting?” I say. “Anthropologically speaking.”

  Brandie laughs. “So it’s research?”

  “Roswell Hill High School football,” says Raina. “A groundbreaking exploration of fuckboys in their natural habitat.”

  “We should take field notes,” I say. “Oh my God. I should put a bodycam on Ryan tomorrow—I think Chris Wrigley’s having a keg party. With two kegs. Imagine that cursed footage.”

  “I just love how up-to-date you are,” says Raina. “Queen of the f-boy party scene.”

  Brandie plops down beside me. “Speaking of tomorrow. Are you around, like, morning-ish? I was thinking maybe we could run through ‘Normandy’ before next week.”

  Raina bites back a smile. “Y’all are so cute, planning a rehearsal for your rehearsal.”

  “Works for me,” I say. “Hey, are you guys getting dressed or what?”

  Brandie and Raina have their own duffel bags of clothes, which is how we generally handle group fashion consultations. We’re not the kind of friends who share clothes. For one thing, our shapes are all totally different. Raina’s drapey tank tops would be corsets on me, and, like, bras on Brandie. And we have totally different aesthetics. Raina’s so minimalistic and casual, and Brandie basically lives in boho sundresses. As for me, I’m wearing a flippy blue skater skirt, black tights, brown ankle boots, and a gray sweater cropped right at the waist of my skirt. If I were an f-girl, or even Raina, I’d be all in with that crop top. But since I’m me, I’ve got a white T-shirt tucked in underneath. Raina says that’s acceptable and I look hot and I should let my hair down.

  But I think I want to pin the sides back.

  The doorbell rings. And a few seconds later, my dad yells, “Peapod!”

  Weirdly, my first thought is Noah. Even though he’s been letting himself into our house and up to Ryan’s room for years. I mean, if it weren’t for the formality of the doorbell, I’d just assume it was Andy getting out of his voice lesson early.

  No matter who it is, I better intervene before Dad hits some new great height of awkward dadness. I race downstairs, my boots clapping on the hardwoods. Entering the foyer, I feel strangely winded. Maybe just breathless.

  Maybe some part of me knew.

  Matt Olsson’s supposed to be in Alabama, but he’s not in Alabama.

  He’s in my doorway.

  Scene 54

  He’s nervous. I can tell from the way he’s pacing. And the way he keeps smiling and then unsmiling and then resmiling. “Do you have a minute?” he asks.

  “Oh! Um. Brandie and Raina—” I start to say, but when he looks over my shoulder, I realize they’ve started following me down.

  “Hi,” Raina pats Brandie’s elbow. “We were heading right back up to Kate’s room, weren’t we, B?”

  “Right,” says Brandie.

  “Uh. So. Brandie and Raina are here.” I smile sheepishly, and then turn back to Matt. “But what’s up?”

  Matt starts to step toward me—but he seems to change his mind partway through, leaning back against the doorframe. “I should go,” he says finally.

  “Wait. What?”

  “I don’t want to intrude on your girl night.”

  “You’re not intruding! We’re just getting ready for the fuck—the football game. The football game. Sorry.” I blush. “You’re totally invi
ted. I thought you were going to be in Alabama for some reason.”

  “No, I am.” He pauses. “I’m driving there now, but I just thought—I have to tell you something.”

  My heart’s thudding like crazy. Matt has to tell me something? Something worth derailing his trip to Alabama? This couldn’t—

  This couldn’t be a love declaration, right?

  I mean. Wow. Wow. I kind of thought that was more of a movie thing than a real-life thing. In real life, you just kind of flirt and touch and keep maneuvering to be together, until you’re either drunk or sleepy enough to hook up, and then you sort the terms out later. But I could almost swear Matt’s about to flip that script completely. He’s got that Fitzwilliam Darcy look on his face. Or even that Eugene Fitzherbert look. Definitely a Fitz look.

  My hands are shaking. Maybe my whole body’s shaking.

  “Okay, so—”

  Something crashes in my room, followed by Raina’s voice through my door. “Oh my God, ignore us! Brandie, you—” The rest is muffled with giggles, but Matt’s already reaching for the knob. “I don’t want to keep you from the game,” he says quickly.

  “What? No. You’re not—”

  “We’ll talk later. I should head out anyway.” He hugs me tightly. “I’ll see you on Tuesday, okay?”

  I nod, dumbfounded. I can’t quite catch my breath. I don’t know what’s more astonishing—the fact that he left so abruptly, or the fact that he was here in the first place. I can hardly wrap my mind around it. Matt Olsson was here, and he wanted to tell me something. He had to tell me something.

  But then he yanked it right back.

  Scene 55

  Andy picks us up for the game after his voice lesson, and he’s got this jittery, backstage-on-opening-night sort of energy. He keeps glancing sideways at me in the passenger seat like he’s trying to read my face. I don’t quite know what to make of it. Anderson knows Matt came over—Brandie and Raina didn’t hesitate to blurt that out. But the whole Matt encounter was so quick and confusing that it’s hard to pinpoint how I feel about it—much less how Anderson feels about it.

  We pull in around seven, about a half hour before the game starts, and the parking lot’s already packed. Even though the sun hasn’t quite started setting, the air’s crisp, almost chilly. It’s sort of nice, because it gives an excuse to huddle up. Always best to maximize body contact with your friends to fend off the terror of walking into a football stadium.

  It’s not that football games are strictly f-boy dominated zones. There are a lot of little kids here, too, and old people, and teachers, and pretty much everyone. I used to come to the Roswell Hill home games all the time when I was younger. We even used to have bake sales here for middle school honor chorus, and once they did this whole bouncy house community fundraiser thing with professional Elsa and Anna character actors. Raina still has a selfie with Elsa as her phone background, Harold be damned.

  Still, there’s no denying the very real f-charge in the air.

  “I guess we’re playing Lassiter,” says Brandie, taking note of the bold letter signs in the away section.

  “I hate Lassiter,” Andy says, so emphatically that Raina bursts out laughing.

  “Since when do you have sports opinions?”

  “It’s not a sports opinion. They fucked us over in the one-act competition freshman year. Remember?” Andy shakes his fist. “I will never forgive.”

  “So it’s a revenge thing. You want our fuckboys to beat their fuckboys.”

  “Our fuckboys are gonna destroy their fuckboys.”

  We head up into the stands, settling in near the marching band, a verified safe space for theater kids. There’s a pregame performance by the color guard, which Brandie actually joined for a year until it conflicted too much with play rehearsal. She’s still friends with a lot of the guard girls though. I always feel like drama club, marching band, and color guard are secret allies, who will one day join together and overthrow the f-force.

  “Hey,” Anderson says, scooting so our bodies are flush together. He hooks his arm around my shoulders. “You look really pretty tonight.”

  I smile. “So do you.”

  And somehow, even though we’re at a fuckball game, I feel completely at home. Which is a feeling I only really ever get when I’m with Anderson. It’s one of those things I can’t say out loud, because people will just think I’m in love with him or something. But it’s not a romantic feeling at all. I think it’s more like how some people feel about their parents. Not that there’s anything wrong with my parents. It’s just hard to feel like home with them when everything’s split in two. But Andy’s like this little island between them.

  Which makes the Matt thing so much harder.

  I keep expecting Andy to bring the topic up somehow, at least to ask about Matt’s visit to Dad’s house. It’s kind of weird that he hasn’t. A month ago, we’d be sitting here obsessively analyzing every detail of an encounter like that. I’d be diving deep into the nuances of Matt’s facial expressions, so we could breathlessly decode them. But all of that feels so far away. I can’t imagine mentioning Matt right now, rubbing the whole encounter in Anderson’s face. But you’d think Andy would at least be curious about it. Especially with the weird vibe he’s been giving me all night. I mean, I know he’s curious. But it’s like he’s pretending it never happened.

  “Little G, you made it!” I glance up, and there’s Noah, looking so pleased, I can’t help but smile a little.

  “I guess my reign of ignorance is over.”

  “Oh, well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” He plops down on the bleachers, hugging me sideways. Then he leans forward, beaming down at the squad. “Sup, my buds?”

  “Your buds?” Anderson says, but Noah’s already turned back to the center aisle, waving down my brother.

  “Hey,” Ryan says, scooting in next to Noah.

  “Okay, eyes on the field, Katy. I’m gonna walk you through the rules.”

  “Nah, I’m good.” I tilt my head. “You sure you don’t want to sit with those guys?” I gesture across the aisle, where a group of boys have taken over. It’s not even that many of them—maybe a dozen or so—but the manspreading’s so intense, they practically take up a whole section.

  Noah shakes his head vehemently, without even sparing them a glance. “No, I hate them. I hate those guys.”

  “Pshh. You don’t even know who I’m talking about.”

  “I don’t need to know.”

  Raina snorts. “I officially like him,” she says, leaning forward. She points to Noah. “You’re the only f-boy I accept.”

  “Thank you!” says Noah.

  Ryan squints. “Did you just say f-boy?”

  “It means fuckboy,” says Raina.

  Brandie freezes, eyes comically huge, while Andy and I clap our hands over our mouths. F-boys can’t know that they’re f-boys. It’s like the fundamental rule of being an f-boy. But Raina just did that. She made the f-boys self-aware, and I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel about it.

  It’s f-ception.

  “I’m a fuckboy?” Noah asks.

  “Eh.” Anderson tilts his hand back and forth the way French teachers do when they say comme ci, comme ça.

  Raina leans over and points to Noah’s phone screen. “Are you or are you not about to Instagram a grainy-ass picture of the field with the hashtag ‘FNL’?”

  “Um—”

  “Caption: ‘whatta night.’”

  Noah turns his phone facedown.

  “Fuckboy,” says Raina. “I rest my case.”

  Scene 56

  Ryan’s up early on Saturday, zoned out with his phone and a literal mixing bowl of Frosted Flakes. But as soon as I settle in across from him, he looks up.

  “So.” He sets his phone down and stretches. “I guess your friends think I’m a fuckboy.”

  My mouth falls open. “No! Absolutely not.”

  He shoots me a look that’s equal parts skeptical and amused.


  “You really think I’d let anyone call you an f-boy?”

  He leans back in his chair. “So they don’t think I’m a fuckboy? Or you won’t let them call me a fuckboy?”

  “Both. Because you’re not one.” I bite back a smile. “Not exactly.”

  He takes a bite of cereal. “So how do you know if you’re a fuckboy? What are the fuckboy identifiers?”

  “Okay, no.” I blush. “You’re taking this too seriously. It just means someone’s a jock. It’s not personal. It’s like a shorthand we use. It’s dumb.”

  “So fuckboys are just jocks.”

  “Yes.”

  “And all my friends are fuckboys.”

  “Well, sometimes we call them f-boys if we’re feeling classy.”

  “Whoa, that is classy,” says Ryan. He pauses for a moment. “But I’m not sure I get it.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Like, how am I not a fuckboy?”

  I narrow my eyes. “Do you want to be one?”

  “It’s just a question.”

  “I think the real question is, why are you friends with fuckboys,” I say breezily.

  Except it doesn’t come out breezy. It lands like an anvil.

  Ryan just looks at me.

  My cheeks go warm. “Sorry. Yeah, that was a shitty thing to say. I shouldn’t police your friends.”

  “No, I get it—”

  The doorbell rings, and I practically leap from my chair. “Oh! That’s Brandie.”

  “Just Brandie? Where’s the rest of the geek squad?”

  “Geek squad?”

  He tilts his palms up, spoon in hand. “What about g-squad? Is that classier?”

  Normally Ryan’s got this magic trick where he vanishes into thin air whenever my friends show up. But when Brandie and I swing back through the kitchen, he’s right where I left him.

  “Okay, Tony Tiger,” I say, “we’re heading up to rehearse.”