If You Only Knew (9 page)

“No?”

“Well, not too personally.”

“Listen. Can I be totally honest?” Morgan asked. She leaned toward me with her gentle brown eyes focused on mine.

“Uck,” I answered. “If you have to be.”

Morgan took a deep breath and said, “Look what you’re wearing.”

I crossed one arm protectively over my chest.

“That’s not fair,” CJ protested quietly.

“Sorry,” Morgan said. “But she’s one of my best friends, I owe it to her. All I’m saying is, don’t you think maybe you were, a little bit, asking for it, too?”

“I don’t know.” I pushed my sandwich away. I couldn’t eat any more. My crossed arms weren’t having much success squishing my bust back into my body. “I didn’t mean anything.”

CJ touched my back gently. “Maybe you should tell him that.”

“You think?” I felt too confused to have opinions of my own, right then. I just wanted to go home and hide in Big Blue.

“You don’t want him to hate you, do you?”

“Definitely not.”
In fact, I want the opposite.
“So I should what? Apologize?” I was sure she’d tell me not to be ridiculous.

CJ nodded. “Yeah.”

“I agree with CJ,” Morgan said.

Olivia shrugged. “I’m not really friends with them.”

“If you’ll come with me,” I bargained. I wasn’t sure at all what I would be apologizing for. I’m sorry everybody is mad at me, maybe.

“Of course,” Morgan said. We all stood up and crumpled our lunch things. Morgan pitched my bag into the trash can. She has a very good arm.

“You sure?” I looked at CJ. Going over there to apologize was about the last thing in the world I wanted to do, but I wanted to make things OK again—with Tommy and also with them. Obviously I’m clueless on social problems, suddenly.

CJ smoothed my hair and whispered, “Mmm-hmm. Don’t worry. We’re right behind you.”

fourteen

T
he boys stood behind him and
the girls stood behind me. It had taken about a month, it felt like, to cross the room to his table. I touched the side of my hair—still up. Too bad, because I could’ve used something to hide in, especially since I could feel dampness spreading cold under my arms. Please don’t let me look like a total lunatic, I prayed, but, taking stock of what stood there in front of the boys, I felt pretty doubtful—sweat stains, tight shirt, pointy boobs, pens in my hair. How attractive.

“So, um . . .”

Tommy squinted up at me like he was surprised to see me standing there or like I was blurry.

“Sorry,” I said.

He gave me one of his
don’t be an idiot
faces. “For what?”

“For threatening to rip off your, you know, thing.”

Some of the boys laughed. Tommy’s fist splayed out to the side and caught Gideon in the belly. They stopped laughing.

We all just waited. I finally shrugged and started to turn away. If he doesn’t forgive me, what can I do? I apologized. That would have to be good enough. I can’t force him to like me. Obviously. Unfortunately.

Tommy’s voice stopped me. “It was the part about stapling it to my head that got me.”

I turned back around to see him grinning.

“Yeah, well . . .” I smiled, too.

He stuck out his hand and said, “Truce.”

I shook his hand. It was a little clammy. “Truce,” I agreed.

CJ, Morgan, Olivia, and I went outside and sat under the chestnut tree to go over what had happened. We tried to remember every word and figure out what he meant by it, and what the other boys were thinking, and if they all thought I was coarse or not.

“Probably they think she has a lot of class,” CJ said. “Coming over and apologizing like that.” She smiled at me.

Olivia picked up a chestnut and rubbed the smooth concave part with her thumb. “I think he should’ve apologized, too.”

I shrugged, just relieved I did it and hoping nobody would be mad at me anymore. I didn’t need an apology.

“He took it really well,” Morgan said, ignoring Olivia.

“Yeah,” CJ agreed. “He didn’t make a big deal, you know? He handled it like it was nothing, almost.”

“You like him, don’t you?” Morgan asked.

CJ buried her head on her knees.

“Don’t you?” Morgan repeated.

CJ lifted her head just enough to let her eyes peek out, then hid again, and, without looking at us, nodded.

“I knew it!” Morgan said. “You can’t hide anything from me.”

I pushed CJ on her shoulder. “I knew it, too!” I wore a big smile. That’s great, if she likes him. She’s cute; he probably likes her, too. How nice.

Meanwhile, CJ wouldn’t pick up her face. We all pushed her until she toppled over and, giggling, said, “OK, OK! I admit it!”

We tightened our circle to talk strategy.

“I can’t believe I like him, he’s so sarcastic and obnoxious, but I do, I really like him,” CJ whispered. “What should I do?”

Our foreheads were practically touching. “We have to plot,” Morgan said.

“Right,” I agreed.

“You really like him?” Olivia asked. “Because he definitely is obnoxious.”

“Not all the time,” I said. “But sometimes. Often. He is.”

“What are you saying?” CJ asked me. “I shouldn’t like him?”

“No,” I said. “I’m just, weird.” I pulled the plastic piece off the tip of my shoelace and chewed on it to keep from talking.

“What should I do?” CJ asked me.

I tried to think of what a best friend would say. “Um,” I said. It felt like a big responsibility. I wanted to be a best friend to her. “You want me to do something?” I offered.

“No! No, no, no. Oh, promise me you won’t tell him!” CJ’s pale cheeks flushed and her green eyes bored right through mine. “Seriously. What if he said he doesn’t like me? I’d die.”

“OK,” I agreed. Fine by me. “You can trust me.”

CJ nodded seriously. “I know I can.”

“We won’t tell anybody,” Morgan said calmly. “But maybe Zoe’s right. She could sort of hint to him, and then he could, you know, think of it himself, and ask you out.”

We looked at one another. Nobody came up with an objection to that plan. Except me, one little point. “Me?” I asked.

Olivia shrugged. “You got him to ask out Morgan last year.”

“You’re best friends with him,” Morgan said.

“I am not!” I wanted to be clear. “He’s not my best friend.”

“Whatever,” Morgan said. “You’re better friends with the boys than anybody else, so . . .”

“Don’t do it unless you want to,” CJ said. “She doesn’t have to.”

“No.” I smiled. “I want to. It’s just, you know, if he thinks I’m coarse, you might not—”

“Oh, no,” Morgan jumped in. “I don’t think he thinks that. That’s history. Everybody’s over it. Right?”

“Right,” CJ assured me.

“And maybe then,” Morgan said, bringing her knees up to her chin like CJ, “maybe you could ask Jonas about me?”

“I knew it!” CJ said. “Excellent!”

I smiled and nodded. Excellent.

“But be subtle,” Morgan added.

“I’ll try.”

For the rest of lunch we talked about how fun it would be if CJ and Morgan were going out with Tommy and Jonas.

fifteen

W
hen we got in to English, there
was a paper lunch bag on each desk. I sat down and opened mine—nothing inside. I looked up at Mrs. Shepard to see what was going on. She has a reputation of making people cry, but I really like her. She’s about four feet tall and built like she was put in a trash compactor. She takes no crap. Some people call her the Sadist but I feel like, hey, at least she believes we’re capable of actual thoughts.

She stood in front of the class tapping the pointy toe of her shoe, touching her tongue to her upper lip. Devin said when she was in seventh grade, she never heard Mrs. Shepard yell, all year. She could kill you with a lifted eyebrow.

We quieted down pretty quick. “Your homework over the weekend . . .”

A few people groaned. I knew better; my sisters had all warned me.

“Is there a problem?”

Lou Hochstetter raised his hand. She didn’t call on him, just looked surprised in his direction. “Usually teachers give us the weekend off.” When she didn’t look any less surprised or more angry, Lou went on. “To recuperate.”

Mrs. Shepard raised one eyebrow at him. I think she melted him because he shrank in his seat. He sits right in front of me, and I swear, he contracted.

After about a minute, Mrs. Shepard said, “Well, Mr. Hochstetter, welcome to the seventh grade.”

We all sank a little lower in our seats.

She waited another minute. The clock in her room ticks incredibly loud. “Your homework for this weekend,” Mrs. Shepard said again, exactly as she had said it the first time, no added anger or stress, “is called Bring Yourself in a Sack.”

Nobody was budging so she went on. “I’d like you to gather ten items, over this weekend, which will all fit into the bag on your desk, and which, combined, will represent you in your many aspects.”

I looked at the bag on my desk. Put myself in it? I tried to think of what could represent me. Big Blue? My sisters? My framed certificate from being sixth-grade class president? All too big. Hey, maybe Colette’s brown T-shirt. It was a small lunch bag, but the shirt was feeling pretty microscopic. I tugged to stretch it. No, this shirt is not me at all.

Mrs. Shepard, sensing that nobody was about to ask any questions, continued. “This is the beginning of our first unit on creative writing. We’ll be exploring different ways of portraying characters. So, for today, I’d like you to split into pairs and interview each other. You’ll then write a newspaper-style article on your partner. Get details like significant events in your subject’s life, favorite foods, what nobody knows about the subject. . . . Be creative, ask probing questions.”

She stopped talking and touched her tongue to her top lip again. We just sat there. “Is there a problem?” she finally asked.

I wasn’t coming up with any complaints, that’s for sure. I looked over at Morgan, who was asking CJ to be partners. “OK,” CJ said, then turned and saw me watching. “Can you get Tommy?” she mouthed.

I doodled on my paper. People started pushing their desks toward other people. Tommy sits next to me, so I turned to him and said, “So?”

“Sure.”

We pushed our desks head-to-head and opened our notebooks. “You want to go first?” I asked.

“OK.” He poked his notebook with his erasable pen. “Hello. Name please?”

“Come on.” As if he doesn’t know my name.

He leaned forward and said quietly, “If the Sadist is half as rough as you, I’m not taking any more chances today.”

I shrugged. “Fine. Zoe Grandon.”

He wrote down my name. The Z looked like a big number three. “How much do you weigh?” he asked.

“Shut up.” Probably more than him. I crossed my arms over my bulging chest.

“I’m just trying to get the inside scoop, ask probing questions.”

“No comment.”

Under where he’d put down my name, he wrote, “Sensitive about her weight.” I can read upside down, although his writing is very pointy. I sank so low I was practically horizontal.

“How about we take turns asking,” I suggested. I didn’t think I could handle being on the spot without a break.

“Fine,” he said, grinning. “Ask me anything.”

I looked down at my paper and chewed on my pen, and without looking up asked, “Do you like anybody?”

“Almost everybody,” he answered.

I gave him a half-smile, like, cute. “But do you
like
anybody.”

“Oh,” he said. “Um, well, sort of. Yeah.”

I looked up at him. He looked down at his desk and sucked in his cheeks so his dimples showed. I wrote down,
Tommy Levit likes _____.
My writing is much rounder than his. I took a deep breath and asked, “Who?”

“My turn,” he said.

“OK.”

“Do you like anyone?”

“Yes,” I admitted. My legs both started shaking. “My turn,” I said, crossing my legs to keep them from slamming into anything. “Who is it?” I asked. “For you. That you like?”

“No comment,” he answered, crossing his ankles. “Who do you like, like?”

If you only knew,
I thought, but I whispered, “No comment, also.” We were both talking really quietly.

He licked his bottom lip.

I asked, “Is it . . . someone I know?”

He nodded and looked up at me without grinning. He had never looked at me quite like that before. We were staring at each other.

I licked my lips, too, but my mouth was suddenly so dry it didn’t help. I looked down at my notebook.
Mention CJ,
I told myself.
If you want to be a best friend, here’s your chance.
“Is it—” I couldn’t finish. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Don’t ask him what you’re really thinking. Don’t ask him,
Is it me?
Because if you ask, Zoe, and he says,
No way,
you will never be friends with him again.

He scuffed his sneakers against his chair and didn’t prod me to finish asking my follow-up question. I prepared myself for him to ask me if he knew the person I like. I clamped my mouth shut so his name wouldn’t pop out.

When I looked up, he was still staring at me. I flicked my eyes back down. Could he possibly be thinking of me? It felt like, suddenly, maybe.

I didn’t want to move for fear I’d find out it was a fantasy. I wanted to enjoy the possibility for one minute. But before I could lift my eyes to his again, I interrupted myself with reality.
He’d never like you,
I warned myself.
Boys don’t like you that way, remember? You’re not pretty; you’re just his friend. Go light. Give it up.

He didn’t ask me who I like. Probably wasn’t interested, I realized. I doodled the word
if
on the corner of my paper, then scribbled over it.

I cleared my throat. “What’s your favorite food?”

When he didn’t answer, I let my eyes wander up to his again. He blinked, looked down, and shifted around in his seat. “I don’t know. Pineapple upside-down cake.”

I smiled at him. That’s a normal Tommy answer, something weird and you can’t tell if he’s kidding. He wouldn’t look at me, though; he stayed slumped in his chair. I doodled circles on my paper, tight circles in the blank of
Tommy Levit likes _____,
so the ink got deep dark blue. I doodled in
CJ
and then on top of it a Z for me, but nobody could see because I was doodling circles on top of circles over the letters and between them, and the letters
M-A-Y-B-E,
also.