The Julian Game (11 page)

I took my hand off my locker. Was she actually smiling? Was she honestly
offering cookies
, after what she’d said to me last night on the phone?

“And I hope I didn’t call too late.” Ella’s voice was bakery sweet.

“No. I mean, it was no problem.”

“Then . . . are we good? About Julian? Because after our chat, I realized that you hadn’t directly answered me. About, you know. Keeping a distance from him.”

“Sure. Sure, we’re good.”

Ella rewarded me with a sly, cat smile. “You’re the best. I’ll see you around. Don’t forget. Cookies in homeroom. Here, a sample.” She loosened the wrapping and handed me one.

“Oh. Thanks.”

After she’d gone, I set it on the radiator. Eating it somehow implied I was telling Ella the truth.

When in fact I’d just lied my ass off.

When in fact I was seeing Julian this very afternoon after school, meeting up with him at MacArthur to check out how things worked at
The Wheel
. He’d texted my phone this morning. He didn’t have lacrosse practice, and he wanted to use the afternoon to show me his new layout proposal.

Brutal as Ella’s warning had been, it couldn’t compete with Julian’s invitation.

She can’t scare me away from my life,
I told myself.
And she’s insane to think she can.

The factor that Ella couldn’t possibly understand was that Julian and I just clicked. The fact that we were both newspaper managing editors, and both considering careers in journalism, was something I’d known about from Facebook. What I hadn’t known, until Julian told me, was that as a kid he’d also created homemade newspapers for his family, and he’d also been a loyal
Meet the Press
fan since sixth grade.

the longest running show on tv
, he’d noted.

Ella just didn’t get it. Julian and I had connected. Intensely.

But I should have spoken up for myself. Explained it to her. Scary as it would have been, what could Ella do? She didn’t make the laws. She couldn’t just exile Julian from my life.

After school, I walked over to our meeting point outside MacArthur’s Squash Pavilion. It was a perfect spring day. The sky was a clear blue panorama, the dogwoods were blooming, and the hopeful newness of it all, coupled with the anticipation of seeing Julian, almost burst my heart.

And then, there he was.

“You keep checking over your shoulder,” he noted as we walked around the path that led into campus. “What’s the deal? You got a boyfriend coming to pick you up?” He was looking especially cute in his uniform chinos and V-neck undershirt, no tie or blazer and his school shirt unbuttoned all the way. Then again, Julian undoubtedly had looked hot in his grade school Power Ranger Halloween costume.

“No. Sorry, I’m being rude.”

He laughed. “There you go again.”

“There I go again where?”

“Something I’ve noticed about how you talk. ‘Sorry, I’m being rude.’ You’re definitely a straight shot.”

“My mom was from Minnesota,” I told him. “People shoot straight there.”

“You said
was
.”

“She died four years ago of breast cancer.”

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Guess it’s my turn to shoot straight. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. Sometimes it was a mouthful of words. Other times it was like permanently blocked sunlight, and I was aware of this physical weakening in me, the lasting result of Mom’s relentless absence. My mother had died. Four years ago. She was still gone. I moved my gaze to a median point. “So, where are we going?”

“The paper’s headquartered in Wilson Hall. Can I take you on a tour first?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

Like Luddington, this afternoon was turning out to be another almost-if-not-quite-date as Julian took me around campus. Giving me his private scoop on MacArthur’s history—mostly of its pranks. Like when some seniors sneaked a dressed-up mule into the headmaster’s office. Or how last spring, he and a few friends rearranged the chapel’s organ pipes so that it belched the alma mater on Alumni Day.

The campus was busy with after-school activities. I sensed the slide of guys’ eyes over me, checking me out and pretending not to.

“All boys, no girls. MacArthur is Fulton’s parallel alien planet,” I said as Julian showed me into the media room in Wilson Hall. “I’ve almost forgotten how to live in a coed world.” Although the all-male world of MacArthur seemed equally, similarly unnatural.

“I never knew anything except this,” Julian remarked. “But if you were in any of my classes, it’d be way distracting for me.”

And then it was perfectly natural to be standing in the middle of the room kissing Julian Kilgarry in a moment so intense that any lingering memory of Ed Strohman’s kiss melted away quicker than ice in coffee. How could someone’s neck and breath and hair smell so guyish and ordinary and be so uniquely powerful?

“Too bad you’ve got your reputation,” I mentioned when we pulled apart. “I’m almost starting to take your attention personally.”

“Reputation?” He pretended to be shocked. “What’s this slander?”

“Like you don’t know. Everyone talks about your love life all the time.”

“Name a name.”

“Mia McCord. Tiffany Roekus.” That story was legend. Tiffany and Julian had gotten together last spring break when she was a junior and he was a freshman. It was an almost unheard-of age difference. “You got lucky at Club Med Ixtapa.”

“Hey, what happens at Club Med Ixtapa . . . Tiff’s a sweetheart, and it was an escape.”

“Escape from what?” I had to laugh. “From Club Med?”

Julian’s face clouded. “A little more than that. On the first night we checked in, we had this nice, family paella dinner and at the end of it, Dad said, ‘Enjoy this week, everybody, because it’s our last vacation for a long time. The dealership is going under.’”

“That really sucks,” I said. “I had no idea.” Which wasn’t true. Of course I’d known about his dad’s business. Everyone did. But I hadn’t anticipated that Julian would confess it.

“You look cute when you’re all serious,” he said, and kissed me again, his hand slipping under my uniform kilt’s waistband, nudging up the fabric of my shirt so that his palm pressed bare against my skin.

“I’m usually not,” I said, laughing shyly as he bent and brushed his nose in an Eskimo kiss against mine. “Serious, I mean.”

“Yeah, but you’re the brains of the Group,” he said. “Am I right? They must be so glad to get their hooks in you—I think everyone but Faulk is failing one subject or another.” He kissed me again, but now I was distracted, stumbling over his words. Julian had automatically thought I was in the Group—why? Because I was at Meri’s party, most likely. Or maybe because he’d never paused to consider the girls outside the popular clique.

Would it matter, when he learned that I wasn’t one of them? His hand was inching upward. I pulled back slightly.

“This feels kind of public,” I whispered.

“Yeah, yeah. So let’s do something this weekend,” he said, his hand pausing but not retreating, his fingers spread over my ribs. “After I get off work. My mom’s got this store—”

“I know. It’s down a few blocks from my dad’s,” I said. What I didn’t mention was how a few months ago Natalya and I had paid a visit to Avenue Cheese. We’d wanted to get a real-live look at Julian Kilgarry’s mother, who turned out to be this rosy hippie type, nothing like Fulton’s designer gym-rat moms who picked up their daughters in lift-and-tuck jeans and teeny sports cars.

Natalya and I had ended up ordering an eighth of a pound of farmhouse cheddar and a box of crackers that we couldn’t afford. Even after scrounging our pockets, we’d come up thirteen cents short. Julian’s mom had let it go.

“Why don’t you drop by Saturday afternoon?” Julian suggested. “I work from ten to six. We could do something after.”

“Sure. I work for my dad Saturdays, too.”

“Isn’t that cute of us? We could be clones. Except that you’ve got way longer eyelashes.” As he caught me casually by the elbow and then twisted me around so that we ended up wrapped back up in each other, kissing again. The sun was setting and the window glass sparkled rainbow prisms, as if a magazine stylist had crept in from the sidelines to feng shui up the moment.

Which ended all too soon.

Julian’s ride home was with his friend Jeff Calderon, who’d had a late study session and could give us both a lift. His Nissan smelled like damp dogs. Julian sat up front, but since the car was a two-door, he hopped out when we pulled up at my house.

“Sorry if I went confessional back there. About my dad and whatever.” His hand dragging through his hair. “Must be my response to your Minnesota streak. I feel like I can trust you.”

“You hardly even said anything,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to start a pity party.”

What he meant was he hadn’t liked to let down his guard, even for a second. It seemed like he was being extra-sensitive about this. “Please. I already forgot about it,” I told him, which seemed so uncaring, but I had a hunch that’s what he wanted to hear. Still, Julian looked regretful, and I didn’t know what else I could say that would make him feel better.

Jeff raised the radio volume. “That’s your Wrap It Up music playing,” he called out.

“See ya,” Julian said, moving away from me with a blandly awkward two-fingered salute that wasn’t quite as soft a landing as his signature
, and of course didn’t come close to being as good as another kiss, but it would have to do. After all, this was just the beginning. I hoped.

Avenue Cheese Café was picturesque, with a striped aw
ning and window-box ivy out front. But as soon as I pushed open the door, I wanted to turn and run. I hadn’t expected there’d be so many people here, including three other girls jammed at one of the tiny café tables, all nibbling on croissants. Not Fulton girls, but they were definitely, gigglingly here for Julian, who stood behind the glassed-in deli case, in rolled-up sleeves and a long white apron, a pencil stuck adorably behind his ear.

He looked up. “Raye. Cool.”

Those two words were all I needed. I stepped all the way inside. But it still felt awkward. “Should I come back later?”

“No, no. You’re right on time. We’re closing.”

Three sets of displeased eyes cut over at me. “Hey, Julianna,” said one of the girls, raising her silver table creamer. “You look busy—can I go back there to refill this myself?”

He shook his head. “Are you deaf, Alexa? I just said we’re closing.” But his tone was a tease—leading her on, in my opinion—so I couldn’t really blame Alexa for jumping up anyway. With a lot of hip and butt wriggling, she pushed around behind the counter into his domain. He tried to stop her with a hand, and then with his whole body, squaring off against her and hardly three inches between them.

“Baby, you’re impossible,” he said.

Whatever she answered was too soft for me to hear.

Luckily, at that moment Julian’s mother wheeled out from the kitchen, and in two hand claps, sent Alexa scurrying back around to the table.

“Okay, girls,” she said to the table. “If you could take care of the check? We’re closing out.”

Five minutes
, Julian mouthed at me, starfishing his fingers as the other girls watched. I nodded, savoring the vibe of Alexa’s jealousy. They were all so irritated by my presence, and I felt victorious. Everyone might love Julian, but only I would be around in five minutes.

I drifted to the grocery aisle, breathing in deep the cheese and coffee, cocoa and cinnamon smells of the shop. I slid a cookbook off a shelf and browsed soup recipes as I listened to the girls flirting their good-byes while Julian’s mom rang up the last straggling customers.

“You didn’t abandon me, did you?” Julian called a few minutes later.

I shelved the book and joined him up front where he’d just sat himself at a table and was drinking a Snapple. From right behind the swinging door to the kitchen, I could hear his mom on the phone. “Not even.”

“Good. I need to cut loose. All I did today was make sandwiches.”

“Anything good?”

“Let’s see. A photo-worthy Muenster on rye for my friend Henry, and eight Italian subs in less than five minutes for some Pee-Wee league kids. They even timed me, the rugrats.”

“Nice job.”

“Yeah, except I’d rather be shooting goals in my backyard. I never get in enough practice on weekends.” For a second, Julian looked exasperated and very tired. He closed his eyes for a minute and rubbed his forehead. “But I’m cool now that you’re here.” As his hand dropped, his smile fell back on his face.

Acting like everything was fine, all the time, was something I’d begun to notice about him.

“You have a very intense desire to be Mr. Nice Guy,” I blurted. “But I can hang tough if the moment calls for Oscar the Grouch.”