“But Megan and I are trying out for the school play today,” I remind her. “It starts during last period but it always runs another hour after school ends.”
“So you’ll still be able to get to my house by four, right? Okay, then, done deal.”
Well, what could I say to that?
Zoey narrows her eyes at Katy. “What’s been going on with you lately? It’s not like you to organize something and forget to tell us.”
“Nothing,” she says, pulling a peach from her bag. “Why would you say that?”
“You seem out of it,” Megan says. “Last night you were supposed to call me and you forgot. You never forget.” Megan then looks pointedly at me. “What do you think, Josie?”
I chew thoughtfully on my burrito. I don’t want to question Katy in front of everyone so I say, “She seems fine to me. Except for that whole note thing.”
“What note thing?” Megan asks, leaning forward. She loves gossip, even when it’s about her friends. Maybe especially when it’s about her friends.
Katy looks at me pleadingly. We’ve been friends for so long that
I can pretty much read her mind. It’s clear she doesn’t want me to say anything, even though I’m not sure why. The lesson on improvisation in drama class kicks in, and I decide to practice my on-the-spot acting skills. “Oh, it’s just some note we found in the gym locker room and Katy said we shouldn’t read it. But I was like, sure we should, finders keepers, so we read it and it was all about ‘I like this guy but he doesn’t like me, I’ll just die if he doesn’t ask me to the Spring Dance, boo hoo.’”
Katy has a half-amused, half-grateful look on her face. Megan’s eyes widen. Zoey stops mid-bite and, mouth full of burger, asks, “Who wrote the note?”
Katy kicks me under the table before I can respond. She says, “Sadly, that part was torn off.”
“I bet it was that girl Alyssa —” Zoey begins, then suddenly stops talking and jumps up off the bench. She points across the lawn. “Oh my god, Sherri Haugen is finally going into labor!”
We all whirl around. Sure enough, a whole crowd has formed around the blanket where Sherri Haugen always sits with her crowd of friends.
“Give her room,” one of her girlfriends yells. “Everyone clear away!”
No one moves. “Get out of the way!” a louder voice calls out. It is Nurse Sanders. She huffs and puffs through the courtyard. Two of the school security guards scurry behind her, carrying a stretcher.
“How’d they find out so fast?” Megan asks without turning her head away from the action.
“Maybe they were watching from a window,” Katy suggests. The crowd parts and we watch them lift Sherri onto the stretcher. They must be strong, because she is huge. She’s the only pregnant person I’ve ever seen close up, so maybe it’s normal to be so huge. She must weigh two hundred pounds, though. By this time an ambulance has arrived and they carry her toward it. Her girlfriends surround her on both sides, smoothing her hair and holding her hands while she whimpers.
“Where’s her boyfriend?” Zoey asks.
We look around. Usually Bobby’s not more than a foot away from her at all times. We don’t see him anywhere.
“I hear she’s giving the baby up for adoption,” Megan whispers. Katy shakes her head. “I heard she’s keeping it and getting married.”
We sit back down and resume eating. I have no idea what I would do in Sherri’s place. I intend never to have to find out. At that moment the always-annoying Missy Hiver leans over from the next table. “You guys don’t know anything,” she says. “Sherri and Bobby broke up last week.”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
She purses her lips. “Despite what you might think,” she says, “I’m not stupid. I hear things just like everyone else.”
“I never said you were stupid.”
“Right,” she says. “Whatever.” With that she turns around and keeps her back to me.
“What was that all about?” Megan asks. “What does that girl have against you?”
“I have no idea.” I hate to admit it, but it’s starting to bother me. As much as I don’t understand why people
do
like me, it still annoys me when they don’t.
“Well, we all love you,” Zoey says, patting me on the back. “Even if you do closely resemble a dead fish!”
I look up from my root beer and see to my horror that Zoey is holding up my license so the other three can see it. All at once they cover their mouths and laugh. Zoey must have snuck it out of my bookbag while we were watching the Sherri saga unfold. I make a grab for it, but she holds it high above her head.
“It’s not so bad,” Katy says. “Hey, and now you can drive for the scavenger hunt this afternoon.”
“Are you kidding?” I tell her, making another grab for the license. “You want me to drive all over town on my very first day behind the wheel?”
“She’s right, Josie,” Megan says. “We need someone on the team with a car. We could always ask Missy, she has her license and I bet no one else wants her! How ’bout that?”
I turn to Katy. “You knew I’d have to drive when you signed us up, you bad, bad friend.”
“Cheer up,” Megan says. “If we get killed, at least we’ll all die together.”
“I can’t die on my birthday anyway,” I mutter under my breath. Although I can still be maimed and bruised.
“Here,” Zoey says, “you can have this back.” She holds out the license and I grab it. “We’re not really making fun of you. We’re just jealous.” Before I push it far down into my bag, I take one last look and shudder. When I turn back to my burrito there’s a candle in it. The three of them break into the happy birthday song. I’m about to blow out the candle when I see Rob and his girlfriend, Anne, hurrying across the lawn to his car.
Our
car now. Anne is a few steps ahead of him. I turn back to the candle and briefly consider wishing that someday I’ll be the one stealing away to kiss someone in the Shark. In the end I decide to wish that a magic bubble would form over the heads of everyone I love to protect them from things that fall from the sky.
I pull the candle out of the burrito and stick it in the side pocket of my bag, where I find the second muffin my mother gave me. It’s still fairly intact.
“I forgot, my mother made this for you.” I hold the muffin out to Megan with the least-crushed side facing her.
She eyes it hungrily, but in a split second her expression changes to one of horror. “Do you know how much butter is in a homemade muffin?”
“A lot?”
“Belle would never eat that.”
“But Belle loved a beast,” Zoey says. “She doesn’t care about things like outside appearances.”
Megan nibbles on her cucumber slice. “Yeah, but you didn’t see her complaining too much when the beast turned into a handsome prince.”
Katy reaches across the table and takes the muffin from my hand. “Anything your mom makes is bound to be good.”
“Such a suck-up,” Megan mutters.
Katy grins with the pieces of muffin stuck all in her teeth.
The bell rings and I stuff the last bite of the burrito into my mouth. I think I could live happily on Taco Bell forever. After agreeing to meet at Katy’s house for the Scav, Megan and I head off to world religions class. It finally hits me that she’s wearing an extremely Juliet-like peasant blouse.
I turn to her. “You’re still trying out for the nurse, right? Not
Juliet?”
She nods. “Absolutely. This was just the only clean thing I had.” When we pass the bathroom, Megan tells me she has to go and that she’ll meet me in class.
“I’ll come with you,” I offer.
“That’s okay. I’ll just meet you.” She pushes the bathroom door open before I can answer.
She probably has a stomachache and wants privacy. When I get to the classroom I help move the desks into a circle the way Ms. Connors likes it. Suddenly a thought hits me like a ton of bricks — Megan goes to the bathroom an awful lot. Is she throwing up her lunch? She barely ate anything to begin with. When she gets to class I examine her as closely as I can without being obvious. Her face is a bit flushed, but that could be from hurrying to class. Couldn’t it? I’m going to have to pay closer attention.
Once again, I’ve forgotten to tell Katy about Jeff Grand’s prom invite. Argh.
12:30
P.M.
– 1:20
P.M.
Danny Daniels watches his friend Rob hurry into the cafeteria. “Wait up, ol’ chap!” he calls out. Rob doesn’t hear him, or pretends not to. He’s too focused on finding Anne. Even though Danny likes Anne, he doesn’t like having to share his best friend. Plus, Danny thinks that having a girlfriend is more trouble than it’s worth. You have to buy them things, take them to dinner, tell them that their new jeans don’t make them look fat, and you can’t look at other girls while they’re around. Anne’s probably outside with her friend Sherri, the one that quiet kid Bobby knocked up. It’s always the quiet ones. Yet another reason not to have a girlfriend.
Danny catches up with Rob and they sneak up on Rob’s sister, Josie. Danny thinks Josie is cool. He read once that all little sisters have a crush on their brother’s best friend. When he can’t pick up the quarter he feels like an idiot. He shouldn’t have tried for it, it’s just that every cent counts these days. His father shouldn’t have backed out of his offer to send him to England this summer to visit him and his new wife. Danny is determined that he’ll get there on his own. He doesn’t know that the reason his father cancelled the trip was because his new wife hadn’t told her family that Danny’s father had been previously married. Danny will work double shifts at The Gap for the next four months before he finds out the truth. He’ll pretend it doesn’t matter, but after that he will no longer say “pip pip” or “jolly” anything. Six years later he will go to graduate school outside London and will look up his father’s family. He will learn he has a half brother. Danny’s father will introduce him to his new family as “a second cousin from the States.” Another six years will pass before Danny forgives him.
Mitch Hurley watches Josie as she stands by the door of the courtyard and looks around the cafeteria. She’s trying not to be obvious, but he knows whom she’s looking for. You always know who the girl you like likes. Mitch is glad that Grant will be graduating this year. The guy’s a jerk but he tries to act like he’s not. Even though Mitch’s mother made him take down the pictures of Josie, he still likes to think he knows the location of all the freckles on her face. He’d bet his left arm that Grant doesn’t even know she
has
freckles. When Mitch is nineteen and home from college for the summer, he will find himself at the same pool party as Josie. By that time, he’ll have a girlfriend named Marcy who has heard all about his childhood crush. Marcy will bet Mitch that he’s still too chicken to approach Josie. Mitch proves he’s not by marching straight up to Josie and saying hello. Josie will welcome him with a big hug and Marcy will fume in the corner of the hot tub for the rest of the party.
Grant parks in front of the lawyer’s office. He turns to Bobby and asks, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Without hesitation, Bobby says, “Yes. Sherri and I really think this is best for everyone.” He pauses for a second and then says, “You can wait in the car if you want.”
“No, I’ll come in.” He never thought he’d be accompanying Bobby to sign a form that would release a baby for adoption. He never thought Bobby would get anyone pregnant. He never thought Bobby would ever have a girlfriend. Bobby was always quiet and kind of dorky, really. Grant has only been friends with him all these years because their mothers play bridge together. He was surprised that Bobby had asked him to come, but he knew his mother would be pissed if he said no.
Bobby scribbles his name at every
X
without even reading the document. He knows he won’t have to put down the final signature until after the baby is born in a few weeks. He also knows that Grant is only here out of a sense of duty. Bobby couldn’t care less; he just needed a ride. He sold his car six months ago to help Sherri pay for doctors and stuff. Her parents’ insurance didn’t cover everything. He guesses he’s pretty lucky that her father didn’t come after him with a shotgun and demand they get married. Once Sherri decided she didn’t want to have an abortion, they agreed that giving the baby up for adoption was the best option. This way a family who really wants a baby will get one.
Zoey and Megan arrive at the lunch table at the same time. “Did you ask Dennis about the beer yet?” Megan asks.
“I thought we were getting blackberry brandy.”
“Whichever.”
“I saw him on the lunch line and told him. He said he’d give us one bottle, but it’s a big one. He has a whole case of it under his bed.”
They take turns glancing up to see if Josie is coming. “Have you tasted it?” Megan asks.
Zoey nods and crinkles her nose. “It’s pretty nasty.” “We’ll only need a little.”
Sitting cross-legged, Sherri Haugen lifts the box of Junior Mints to her mouth and shakes it a bit. As she tastes the chocolatey goodness of the first mint, she is suddenly aware of a drip of water between her thighs. By instinct, she squeezes them closer together. This whole peeing-at-random thing is one of the worst parts of pregnancy. Then again, the humiliation of being a statistic, the farting, and the getting fat aren’t so great either. At least it’s almost over and then her life can get back to normal. She shifts on the blanket and feels even more moisture between her legs. Squeezing her legs isn’t working. The drip has turned from a dribble to more like a gush.
“Um, Sherri?” her friend Val says. She points to a wet spot on the blanket next to her that is growing bigger and bigger. “Is that normal?”
“Oh my god,” Sherri says, staring at the puddle. “I think my water just broke.”
“But your due date isn’t for another two weeks!” Val squeals, jumping up.
“Tell that to the baby,” Sherri replies, her voice quivering. She reaches for her pager and types in
SHERRI 911
. The message immediately goes out to three preprogrammed numbers.
Nurse Sanders is just about to take the first sip of her strawberry-banana smoothie when her beeper goes off. She yanks it off her hip and squints to read the message. She tosses the beeper on the desk and makes a call to the two security guards on duty. Two minutes later she is clearing the crowd away from the lawn. She had warned Sherri that young girls often give birth a few weeks early, but Sherri insisted on staying in school until the last minute. When she reaches Sherri, Nurse Sanders can see that her water has broken. Sherri looks at her with a wide-eyed panic usually reserved for tornado warnings. Her girlfriends clearly don’t know what to do either. She is lucky her friends have stood by her. When Nurse Sanders was growing up, if a girl got in the “family way,” everyone steered clear of her like it was contagious.