Confessions of a Not It Girl (3 page)

"Uh, I think he is," I said. "I mean, I think he's, you know, cool." Richie was already walking into the building. "I mean, I don't know him that well," I shouted at his back.

"Okay," he called over his shoulder.

"Well, I gotta go," I yelled at him. Considering Richie was already inside the building, it wasn't exactly clear why I was telling him this.

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I didn't hear what Richie said as he disappeared, but it sounded like,
"Bonne chance."

"Ha ha," I yelled back, even though he was gone.

Then I headed over to the computer lab, trying not to think about all the insanely dumb things I had said and done in the last two hours.

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CHAPTER THREE

I could hear Mandy Johnson giggling even before I walked into English class the next morning. Rebecca and I were standing in the hallway right outside the door, trying to decide where to meet for lunch, when all of a sudden there was this squeal from inside the room. Literally a squeal. Like the violent death of some animal. Rebecca mouthed, "Nice laugh," and headed to her English class on the third floor.

After all that squealing I wasn't exactly surprised to find Mandy sitting on Josh's desk when I walked into the room; the only thing that surprised me was that she wasn't sitting in his
lap,
which was obviously where she wanted to be.

I must have dropped my backpack onto the desk a little harder than I meant to because it made a terrifically loud thump, and Josh looked up at me. I had planned on saying something casual yet significant about my babysitting Hannah, like, "Hey, catch you later," or maybe, "I guess you were wrong about spending Friday nights all alone," but instead I just looked away. Apparently people who say opportunity only knocks once know what they're talking about.

Mr. Kryle walked in just as the second bell was ringing,

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looking, as usual, like he'd slept in his clothes the night before. Mandy miraculously managed to find the inner fortitude to peel herself away from Josh and go back to her seat. She was wearing tight capri pants and a tiny tank top, and she twitched her skinny little Mandy butt all the way over to her desk. In spite of my repeating
Please trip please trip please trip
over and over again in my head, she made it safely across the room and slithered into her chair.

"Hi, everyone," said Mr. Kryle, taking some books out of his briefcase.

We all kind of grunted hello, except Mandy, who said, "Hi, Mr. Kryle," in her cheeriest
Entertainment Tonight
voice. Do teachers actually fall for that crap?
Hi, Mr. Kryle! Have a great weekend, Mr. Kryle! I like your tie, Mr. Kryle. That was a very interesting reading assignment, Mr. Kryle.

"So, let's talk about the essay." Everyone groaned. "Well, if no one wants to talk about the essay, I could always hand out
The Sound and the Fury
and give you a nice, fat reading assignment for tomorrow."

"Oh, can we please talk about the essay?" asked Mark Jacobs, folding his hands together like he was begging.

"Why, Mark," said Mr. Kryle in a chirpy voice, "what an excellent idea. I'm so glad you suggested it." He looked around the room. "Who's started working on the essay?"

"I
thought
about it," said Mark. "Does that count?" Everyone laughed except Mandy. She squealed.

"Well, I'd say that's about as good a place as any to

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start. An essay of a thousand words begins with a single thought. Anyone else find yourself
thinking
about the essay?"

Mandy raised her hand, and Mr. Kryle called on her. Before she answered, she flipped her bangs out of her eyes and said, "Well," in this really dramatic way. I imagined pulling her frosted blond hair out strand by strand. Would her squeals of pain sound more or less like a dying animal than her laugh? I thought about what she would look like bald.

"...which is why I like that, Mandy," said Mr. Kryle. I had been so busy imagining the look on Mandy's face the first time she was forced to confront her bare, red scalp, I had completely missed what she said. When Mr. Kryle complimented her, she looked over at Josh, but Josh was looking at Mr. Kryle.

"Any other ideas?" He looked around the room. I thought he hesitated when he got to me, but I pretended to be studying the cover of my book extremely carefully. After all, he was the one who'd gotten me into this mess. Lorrie Narkin, whose wardrobe this year consists entirely of clothing that has the word harvard stenciled on it, raised her hand, and Mr. Kryle called on her. I looked up and saw Josh looking over in my direction. For a second my heart started to beat faster, but then I remembered there's a clock right above my seat.

The Gardners live only about five blocks away from me, so I was a little early. Hannah answered the door, and as I stepped inside she threw her arms around my legs and

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started singing a little song that just went, "Jan Jan Jan. Jan Jan Jan." It was pretty cute, and it made me feel bad for how annoyed I get whenever she wants to play.

"I'll be ready in a second," Sarah called down. "I made a
tragic
fashion decision about fifteen minutes ago."

Hannah took me into the kitchen, where she was finishing her dinner, and started telling me all about the class rabbit. The house didn't look different even though Josh was living there now. There was a new DVD player in the living room that might have been his, but maybe they'd gotten it before he came. It had been a while since I'd baby-sat Hannah.

"Finally.
" It was Sarah.

When I was little and read books like
Peter Pan,
where the mother is described as sweeping into a room on a cloud of perfume and ermine, I never knew what it meant. My mom doesn't wear perfume, and even though I don't know exactly what ermine is, I'm pretty sure she doesn't have any. But the real reason I couldn't picture what the author was describing was because I couldn't exactly see my mom
sweeping
anywhere--she's more likely to clomp than sweep. But when Sarah walked into the kitchen and said,
"Finally,"
there could be no doubt this was exactly how Mrs. Darling
swept
into the nursery to kiss the children good-bye before
sweeping
off to some fancy London party.

"Mommy, you look pretty," said Hannah. And she did. Sarah was wearing a silky gray top and dark blue pants that flared at the bottom.

"Thanks, sweetie. Mommy's still recovering from an

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earlier incident with Anne Klein separates." I told her she looked pretty, too.

"So
tell
me about
school
this year. Is the whole college application thing just absolute
hell?"

"Pretty much."

"Details,
please."
She started transferring stuff from a big black bag to a small beaded clutch the same color as her top.

"Well, for one thing, the guidance counselors tell you to be creative and to try to express what makes you a unique applicant, but they don't really mean it."

"How so?"

"Like, there was this question on one application, 'What would be on page 275 of your autobiography?' So I wrote it as if I were this really dumb woman whose only claim to fame was having a series of famous men as lovers and husbands. It was all"--I adopted a breathy, slightly accented voice--"'After the devastating collapse of my third marriage, I escaped the fishbowl of Manhattan to recuperate in solitude at my snug little hideaway in the south of France, where Carlos and I had enjoyed such wonderful times together.' But my guidance counselor totally vetoed it."

Sarah was laughing. "Why?"

"He kept saying the essay had to show something about who I
really
want to be and how there's clever and then there's
too
clever. He wants me to write it like I discover a cure for cancer or something equally cheesy."

"But then
you'll
sound like all the
other
applicants."

"Tell me about it," I said.

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"How about Josh? How does he seem to be doing?
Whenever
I ask it's always,
'Oh, Mom.'"

"Um, he seems to be doing okay. I think he's, you know, making friends and stuff." Actually, I didn't really know if Josh was making friends, but I figured he probably was, since Richie wanted to invite him to his party.

"Well, maybe
you
two will be friends."

"Maybe," I said. I was glad she picked that moment to check her lipstick in the mirror so she couldn't see I was blushing.

When Sarah left, Hannah and I went up to her room to play. She wasn't that into playing with Barbie anymore-- she wanted to play school. She was the teacher and I was the student, and I kept doing bad things and getting in trouble. Every time she said, "Go to Miss Kay's office!" (Miss Kay is the head of the elementary school at Lawrence), she would laugh until she practically fell over. By the time she had to go to bed, I'd been sent to Miss Kay's office roughly fifty times.

Once Hannah was asleep, I wasn't sure what to do with myself. It was only about nine, and I knew Sarah wouldn't be home until at least eleven. I figured there was no way Josh wouldn't be home before then. I kept calculating what time he'd get home if he'd just gone to practice, what time he'd get home if he'd gone to practice and then out for dinner with the team, what time he'd get home if he'd had a game and not a practice. No matter how generous I was in my calculations, I was sure he'd be home by ten. Which left me at least another hour with nothing to do.

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The Gardners have cable and we don't, so normally when I baby-sit, I channel surf until I find some stupid movie I would never bother to rent or go to. Only tonight I wasn't exactly dying for Josh to come home and find me fixated on the climactic scene in
Save the Last Dance.
I considered watching a sporting event because it seemed like he was really into sports, but Rebecca would kill me if I pretended to care about soccer or basketball just to get some stupid guy to like me. Our utter lack of athletic ability was one of the things we first bonded over when we became friends back in the second grade. Plus what would I do if Josh asked, like, what my favorite team is? I practically haven't heard of any team except the Knicks, and I always confuse them with the Nets anyway.

I decided I'd do homework, since school was something we had in common. I could see it now:

(Sound of keys. Front door opens. Josh enters.)

JAN:
(Looks up from the book she is carefully studying.)
Josh, I didn't know you'd be home so early.

JOSH:
(Puts down his bag.)
I raced home as fast as I could. I had to see you.

JAN:
(Confused, but slowly understanding.)
You mean...

JOSH:
(Walking over and taking her in his arms.)
Yes, my darling. I can't stay silent any longer. I love you. I've loved you from the moment I first laid eyes on you. And now I must make you my own....
(They embrace.)

CURTAIN

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It's embarrassing that my romantic fantasies are more soap opera than Shakespeare but, sadly, not as embarrassing as what actually ended up happening, which is that I fell asleep. And I don't mean curled up on the couch with a slim volume of poetry in my hand looking cute and soft like a Katie Holmes character. No, I mean sitting at the kitchen table with my head on my calculus textbook, drooling onto the page like Homer Simpson.

It went like this.

Having carefully put myself where Josh would have to see me when he came home--in the kitchen--I started doing my math homework. At first I kept thinking I heard someone coming down the block or fiddling for a set of keys. I was completely alert. I had put some lipstick on, and I was being careful not to smudge it. I was even sitting up extremely straight so my chest stuck out a little. In addition, I was armed with numerous funny, flirtatious conversation openers that I kept running over in my head so I wouldn't forget them.

As it got later, I started to slouch. Slowly, calculus worked its soporific magic, aided by the grandfather clock in the hallway ticking out,
You are getting sleepy. Very sleepy. Your eyes are getting heavy. They are closing.

The next thing I knew, someone was touching my shoulder really gently and going, "Jan. Jan." And to kick off my campaign of seduction, I responded to his touch by batting his hand away, and then--just to make the moment absolutely perfect--I snorted.

Please do not let this be happening. Please do not let this be happening.
I shook my head in a doomed

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attempt to clear my brain and rubbed my face where it hurt from falling asleep right on the edge of the book. I could feel a deep crease running across the middle of my cheek.

"Hey," said Josh. He went over to the fridge. "You want some water or anything?"

"Um, yeah. Thanks. What time is it?"
Do not panic. Do not panic.

"Almost eleven."

"Oh. Really." He brought me a glass of water.
Wake up! Wake up! Say something!
"How was practice?"

"Actually, we had a game."

"Oh. How was that?"

He rummaged around in one of the cabinets, took out a bag of pretzels, grabbed a handful, and came over to sit in the chair next to mine.

"We won."

"Great." Even when I'm not half asleep, I have no idea how to talk about sports. Like, are you supposed to ask what the score was, or is that bad in case they only won by a little bit? "I guess you must be pretty psyched."

"Actually, I kind of wish the season would end already." He popped a pretzel in his mouth. "Last season I was really into playing, but now--I don't know. I'm kind of over it."
This is good. He's opening up about his feelings. Encourage more of the same.

I racked my brain for a sports-related question.

"Was your team in Seattle good?" He was wearing a Lawrence Academy sweatshirt and a pair of Lawrence Academy shorts. When he'd leaned over to pour my

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water, I'd noticed he smelled really good again, not like shampoo, but like outside, like fall. His hair was all messy, and there was some dirt on his cheek.

"It was all right." He smiled his slow smile at me. "How was your nap? You were pretty out of it, there." He reached over and kind of tousled my hair.

Miraculously, I did not respond to his touch by fainting. "Yeah, well." Was that all I could come up with?
Yeah, well. YEAH, WELL?
This was not the witty banter required to supplement my casual, outdoorsy look.

"Don't feel too bad--I've had the same problem with calculus myself." Josh got up and went over to the counter. "You want some pretzels?" He took another handful.

"No thanks." I could just see myself trying to talk and spraying him with a mouthful of pretzel crumbs.

He brought the water pitcher over to the table and refilled his glass. "So," he said, sitting back down, this time across the table from me, "here we are."

I nodded. "Yup, here we are." This was not witty banter--it was an echo.

"What's the deal with Richie's party next Saturday," he asked finally. "Are you going?"

"Yeah, I'll probably go." We looked at each other across the table. His eyes were enormous, and they were very dark green.
Please please please please understand that I am not just deaf-mute-pseudo-nature-girl. Please.

He smiled at me. "I'll probably go, too."

Here it was. Our big scene.

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josh:
(Reaching across the table and taking Jan's hand in his.)
I'll probably go because I love you, Jan.

(They stare meaningfully into each other's eyes and then--)

"Hello? Anybody home?" It was Sarah. Josh looked up as she came into the kitchen.

CURTAIN

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