Getting Over Garrett Delaney (19 page)

“Oh, that sucks.” I head for our usual spot under the far tree — sunny enough to get some tan on our legs, shady enough for those epic games of Connect Four we used to play or, today, to cool down after all that manual labor. “Every minute probably counts, before he goes away, I mean.” I settle on the grass.

Kayla nods slowly. “I’m not thinking about it.” She gives me a weak smile. “Otherwise, I’ll just get sad and mopey for the rest of summer.”

“Denial: the ultimate coping tactic.” I grin and clink my glass to hers in a toast.

We stretch out, relaxing beneath the sun-dappled canopy. It’s one of those perfect cloudless summer days: cool breeze rustling the leaves above us, the distant comforting hum of a lawn mower somewhere down the block. I slowly relax, feeling a strange sense of belonging to be back here with Kayla after so many years.

“Can I ask you something?” I prop myself up on one elbow to look at her.

“Sure.”

“Don’t take offense or anything, but I’m curious… .” I bite my lip, trying to find the right way to ask. “What is it you see in Blake? I mean, I don’t know him all that well,” I add quickly. “I’m just wondering. Most people our age don’t make those kind of plans.”

Before, I always figured Kayla was being naive and predictable, thinking she could make the high-school golden couple thing last in the real world, like those prom king and queen couples who get hitched after graduation and start having kids right away. But now that I’ve spent time with her, I just can’t make those pictures gel. Kayla is smart and sensible — not the kind of girl to buy into that happily-ever-after vision of romantic perfection.

Kayla stares into the canopy, as if organizing her thoughts. “I don’t know how to describe it, but we just fit. He’s my best friend, and I … I can’t imagine us not being together.”

“But tons of people date in high school and then split up,” I point out. “I’m not saying you will. It’s just that you seem so certain you won’t.”

She gives a small shrug. “He knows me better than anyone. It wasn’t love at first sight or anything,” she continues. “I mean, when we started dating, it was just fun, you know? Movie dates and parties and making out in the back of his truck.” She laughs, but then something else drifts across her face, something more somber. “But when my dad got sick, Blake was just amazing about it —”

“Wait. What?” I sit up in surprise. “When was this?”

“Last year. We didn’t tell anyone,” she explains, “and he’s in remission now, so …” She trails off. “But Blake, he was, like, a rock. I expected him to back off, you know, because I was being all emotional, but he was so supportive.”

“Really?” I suddenly feel bad for all the times I wrote Blake off as a dumb jock with zero depth.

“I know he doesn’t seem like it,” Kayla adds, as if reading my thoughts. “But away from all the guys, he’s really sweet. He dropped all that player crap, was there whenever I needed to talk. Or just cry. That’s when things got real.” She smiles — the calm, secure smile of a girl in a long-term relationship. “I knew I could count on him.”

“That’s great,” I say quietly.

“He even did a stupid home karaoke version of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ on my birthday, to cheer me up,” she adds, grinning at the memory.

“Like in
10 Things I Hate About You
?” I laugh. “I haven’t seen that movie in … I don’t know, forever!”

“What?” Kayla cries. “You were the one who made me watch it every month all through sixth grade.”

“You’re exaggerating,” I tell her, then crack a smile. “It was every other month.” I pause. “You know, I bet I still have all that stuff stashed away,” I say, leaping up. “Come on!”

We head back inside, this time going to the storage closet under the stairs, aka the Cupboard of Doom.

Kayla blinks as I tug on the overhead bulb, illuminating approximately ten years of clutter crammed into boxes, spilling off every available shelf.

“Whoa. Hasn’t your mom cleared this out yet?”

“It’s her guilty little secret,” I answer, scrambling up onto a broken chair and reaching perilously for the back of the top shelf. “Every time she opens the door, she chickens out.” I stretch as far as I can, fingertips nudging a shoe box closer. “OK, got it!”

I clamber down, holding my trophy aloft.

“What’s in there?” Kayla asks.

“Only every teen movie we ever used to watch.” I grin, pulling off the dusty lid. The DVD boxes are stacked inside, remnants of my childhood I packed away when Garrett came around and deemed them teen-girl trash:
Josie and the Pussycats, Clueless, Bring It On
…

“What are they doing locked away in a dark corner?” Kayla demands. “These are classics! I have them out on my main shelf.”

I laugh. “I’m sorry. I was wrong to deny myself all these years.”

“Hell, yes, you were.” Kayla pauses. “You’re free tonight, right?”

“I guess… .”

“Perfect! How about a sleepover movie marathon?”

“Sleepover movie marathon?” I repeat slowly, as if it’s a foreign phrase, but Kayla only beams at me.

“Trust me, this is going to be the best!”

What does he hate? What stuff makes him rant or rage or just curl his lip in disdain? Books, music, TV shows, food? The collected works of Amanda Bynes, peanut M&M’s, fries with mayonnaise?

Go out and try it all — everything and anything. Fill your world with the stuff you’ve been avoiding to keep his good opinion. It might suck, just the way he always said, but it might also be made of awesome.

Embrace the teen movie experience. Bring on the peanutty candy joy! He has crappy judgment about suitable romantic matches, so why trust his taste in anything else?

Six hours, two bags of chips, and a quart of rocky road later, I’m kicking myself for having put away my childish things for so long. Sure, the movies I watched with Garrett may have been insightful meditations on the nature of the human condition, but they were severely lacking in spirit fingers, and while those dour black-and-white Swedish films may win all kinds of prestigious awards, they don’t leave you with a radiant glow of possibility and girl power the same way the kick-ass story of a wannabe roller-derby girl does.

So what else have I been missing out on? Inspired, I spend the next week devouring Kayla’s movie collection, and soon I’m hungry for more.

“What else?” I demand from LuAnn, wielding my pen and a growing list of new must-sees. I’m using a lull at work to assemble a new curriculum: the education of Sadie going full-speed ahead.

“Um …” She considers. “How about some TV shows?
Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, The Vampire Diaries
…”

“Do they have makeovers and spontaneous musical numbers?” I ask hopefully.

She laughs. “No, but they’re good — trust me.”

“Ooh, have you got
Empire Records
down?” Aiko asks, clearing the next table. “It’s way old, but great.”

“Yes!” LuAnn cries. “And read Elaine Dundy, and Lorrie Moore, and Emma Forrest, too.”

I make diligent notes as they banter suggestions back and forth. It’s not that I like everything I’ve seen — the appeal of teen horror movies goes way over my head. Same for macho sports movies, and that whole “she takes off her glasses and suddenly is the most popular girl in school” thing — but the point is I’m
trying
it. If I’ve learned one thing from this crash course in mainstream culture (besides the fact that smushing marshmallows into vanilla pudding is all kinds of delicious), it’s that appearances can be deceptive. Don’t write off a book (or person, or movie) just because it has a pink, sparkly cover.

Soon, I have pages of suggestions from everyone — all of them just dying with jealousy that I get to experience these wonders of the world for the first time.

“All of the
Battlestar Galactica
reboot? Aww, man …” Jules says wistfully. He pushes a handful of shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. His face is dusted with three-day-old stubble. “I spent some of the best years of my life with that show.”

LuAnn and Aiko join me at the table for our traditional downtime break. “My feet are killing me,” LuAnn moans, sinking into a chair next to me. The lunch rush is over, and now there’s just a smattering of students and our usual WiFi leech camped out around the room, sun filtering through the slatted blinds.

“That’s because you wear heels.” Aiko grins, sticking her sneakers in the air. LuAnn pushes them away.

“But these shoes are so pretty… .”

We all pause to admire the strappy sandals, adorned with little red bows. “They are cute,” I agree.

“Beauty is pain.” LuAnn sighs. “Oh, well.” She pushes a plate of smushed pastries toward me. “Eat.”

“What are you, my mother?” I laugh. LuAnn is like my personal Goddess of Nutrition, always insisting I’m but one skipped meal away from wasting to nothingness.

“Were those actually broken?” I ask, surveying the plate of suspiciously fresh goods.

“They are now!” Aiko pops a chunk of double-chocolate cookie in her mouth.

I pause. “Guys … I can’t get in trouble with Carlos again. I’m on permanent probation after my meltdown.”

“Relax.” LuAnn laughs. “Like he cares about a few crumbled cookies. As long as nobody drags him into work — ever — he’s happy.”

Aiko nods. “Anyway, he’s been in a weirdly good mood recently. The other day he wandered in and announced coffee on the house, because his song got licensed for some car commercial again.”

“Which song is it, anyway?” I ask.

“You know,
I’m feelin’ free
… .” Aiko hums a few bars.

“No way! That’s him?”

“Yup.”

“Wow.” I pause. “What’s he doing here then? Instead of out in Hollywood or something?”

She shrugs, pulling out a sketchbook. “Says he hates the industry, it’s full of snakes and liars.”

“He just wants to find a girl,” LuAnn adds, her voice syrupy with sarcasm, “spit out a few kids, and live in a cabin in the woods somewhere. Rock ’n’ roll.” She pushes her half-eaten salad toward me. “Here. Greenery. Vitamins. Try them.”

“This has fruit!” I say, holding up a blueberry as evidence.

“You’ll get scurvy.”

“Patronizing, much?” I retort.

LuAnn shakes a carrot stick at me. “I think I liked it better when you were a scared li’l newbie, kid.”

“Yeah, well, those days are gone.” I smile, getting up to go deal with some new customers. “Deal with it.”

And they are. As I bustle around behind the counter — fixing teas, whacking the Beast into submission — I can’t help feeling a warm glow of contentment. The easy banter I have with LuAnn and the others isn’t something I can take for granted just yet, but I’m more relaxed with them now. I thought it would never happen, back when I was bumbling around doing everything wrong (and leaping three feet into the air every time Garrett texted me), but finally I feel like I’m really part of the group and not a scared newbie outsider.

Imagine, me with actual (cool, stylish, awesome) friends! There I was thinking that missing out on lit camp was dooming me to a summer of depression and loneliness, when really, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Just think what I would have done if I’d been accepted: absolutely nothing at all. Nothing new, I mean — just the same mix of pining after Garrett and burying myself in thick old books, only this time, in some forest up in New Hampshire. No coffee shop, no hanging out with Kayla, and definitely no
Bring It On
(1, 2, 3, 4,
and
5).

“Hey, Sadie,” Josh calls from the kitchen. I poke my head around the corner and find him balancing four different plates on the tiny countertop, his hat askew. “Can you do me a huge favor?”

“That depends… .”

“Grab the trash for me? Pretty please? I’m nearing a disaster of epic proportions.”

I look at the bins, piled high with gross remains. “What’re the magic words?”

“Cinnamon rolls.” Josh grins at me. I laugh; his rolls are legendary. He bakes them from scratch, only on Mondays, and by nine a.m. every last one is sold out.

“OK, OK.” I wrinkle my nose and reach for a garbage bag. “But I want two. Fresh from the oven!”