Confessions of an Almost-Girlfriend (6 page)

Everything goes to hell before first period even starts.
Tracy and Stephanie and I are sitting next to each other in our
English room. Robert and Holly walk in. “Rose! Auditions are
coming up! Are you ready?” she calls over the very loud conversations of our classmates.
I shake my head vigorously to indicate that no, in fact, I am
not ready. I’m so far from ready it’s not even funny. I may have
been harmonizing to “Moses” over and over, but Patty Griffin
doesn’t exactly qualify as musical theater. I haven’t picked sixteen bars of my favorite show tune, and I haven’t watched the
video that the drama teacher posted so people could familiarize themselves with some basic dance steps before the audition.
In short, I’ve been putting off getting ready. I guess my plan
is to just show up and hope for inspiration.
Not the best way to achieve my goals.
As Holly is saying something about how she’s totally sure I’m
going to be great, Matt and Mike come in. Mike dives into the
first free seat, doing his best not to look at Steph, and Matt stops
in his tracks when he sees Holly. Robert sees Matt see Holly, and
he quickly leans over his desk and takes her arm, pulling her
gently backward. Holly, having no idea what’s going on, starts
explaining to Robert that they need to work with me after school
so that I can “totally rock” my audition. Robert is nodding as he
maneuvers her into a seat on the other side of him, away from
Matt, who is still looking at her like she’s edible.
“Who’s that?” Tracy asks.
“That’s Holly, Robert’s girlfriend.”
Tracy gasps, not even bothering to hide her shock. “Are you
kidding?
Where did she come from?”
“She moved here from L.A. Her dad is a
film
actor who’s teaching at Yale. She met Robert in the summer show. She’s nice,” I
grumble.
“Well, I guess you missed your chance,” Tracy teases, referring to the fact that Robert has been asking me out on a regular
schedule since the sixth grade. “Jealous?”
I am jealous, but not in the way that she means.
Holly’s hair is perfect, her skin is perfect, her face is perfect, her body is perfect. I bet she doesn’t hate mirrors. I bet she
doesn’t think about mirrors one way or the other. Life is probably
really different if you look like Holly Taylor. Or Stephanie Trainer.
A bunch of cell phones buzz and ding at the same time and
people quickly reach into their bags and backpacks to silence the
devices that we are supposed to leave in our lockers during the
day. Matt, still standing at the front of the room, manages to pull
his eyes off Holly in order to check his phone. When he looks up,
his face is weird. He turns to Tracy with a confused expression.
When they first got together in eighth grade, Matt looked at
her adoringly. Then last year he looked at her like she was a parasite he couldn’t shake. After they broke up, he stopped looking at
her entirely. Now he’s staring at her hard, like there’s something
he should say but he doesn’t know how to do it.
Something about his expression makes me very, very nervous
for Tracy. There’s no way he suddenly feels bad about what happened last year. Something else is going on—something that is
about to explode.
Yup, the fantastic potential of the first day of school.
Kristin—already dressed for cheerleading practice with her
ponytail swinging madly and panic in her eyes—skitters over
to Tracy and puts her iPhone on the desk.
“Just thought you should know about this,” she says, eyes darting around the room, taking in everyone looking at their phones.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Kristin feels bad about whatever she’s showing Tracy.
Matt ducks his head and takes a seat at the back of the room,
and I start to feel sick to my stomach. Tracy looks at Kristin’s
phone and freezes.
I lean over her shoulder and see a photo posted on a Facebook page. The photo is of a list of names written on a bathroom
stall door, and the date at the top is today’s. The words “Top Ten
Union High Sluts” are right underneath the date, followed by 10
names. Tracy, who has been with one guy in her entire life—one
guy who is currently sitting at the back of our classroom, unable
to make eye contact—is number 1.
I reach over and scroll up to see whose page it is. It belongs to
the YouTube stalker, who posted Tracy’s and Kristin’s humiliating
initiation dance after homecoming last year, but also captured
on video what, at the time, I considered to be one of my proudest moments in my life: knocking Regina down at track tryouts.
The YouTube stalker must be a girl, since the caption under
the photo reads, “fl. 3 stall 2 girls b-room.” Or maybe it’s a guy
who’s really crafty about getting into the girls’ bathroom, which
is creepy.
I find it ironic that the YouTube stalker needs a Facebook
page. I guess not all social media platforms are created equal.
Also, I’m stuck on how somebody could have written a list on a
bathroom stall that has already been photographed and posted
on Facebook. School hasn’t even started yet.
“You’re still coming to tryouts today, right?” Kristin whispers
with concern. Tracy can’t take her eyes off the phone. “We really
need you there.” When Tracy still doesn’t answer, Kristin exhales.
“It’s just a slut list. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Tracy turns to me, her mouth hanging slightly open. Then she
says, “Kristin, if it doesn’t mean anything, why did you show it
to me?”
Kristin gets a little defensive. “Like I said. I just thought you
should know.”
“That was
super
sweet of you. Did Lena think I should know,
too?”
Kristin looks guilty as she snatches up her phone, wheels
around and throws herself dramatically into an empty chair. “Just
come today, Trace, okay? We need you. You’re our best dancer.”
Tracy slowly twists around in her chair, fixing her most withering stare on Matt. He actually looks sorry, which surprises me.
She turns back and is about to say something to me when the
bell rings and the famously cute Mr. Camber ambles in.
Every year at least two or three girls and the occasional boy
get in trouble for writing Camber love letters on Valentine’s Day.
It’s sort of a Union High tradition at this point. Last year I heard
he got three, including a fake one that someone wrote him from
Ms. Maso, who everyone wants Camber to ask out because they’re
both really good-looking and would make a great couple.
To keep his distance, Camber is generally a total hard-ass who
doesn’t waste a second on being chatty or friendly. He cuts right
to the chase with us—no welcome speech, no “this is going to
be a great year, kids,” no nothing. As he writes his name on the
board, he leads off with, “If you forgot to leave your phone in
your locker, give it to me now or risk getting detention the second it rings. And I do mean the
second
it rings.”
When Camber turns around to grab a stack of books off his
desk, Tracy turns to me, wide-eyed. I mouth,
Are you okay?
She
mouths back,
Are you?
I give her my best confused look. She
gives me hers back. Then she points to herself and holds up one
finger, and points to me and holds up two fingers.
For a second, I have no idea what she means. And then, in a
moment of soul-crushing clarity, I do.
Number 2 on the Top Ten List of Union High Sluts?
Me.
Camber slams a book from the top of his stack onto my desk.
It’s called
As I Lay Dying.
My phone—which I forgot to silence because it’s my first day
with a cell phone in school—dings in my bag, alerting me to
the presence of what I am sure is a text from my mother supplementing the note she left me earlier, wishing me a great day.
Camber looks around for the culprit and seems surprised
when he sees that I’m the one with a guilty look on her face. “Off
to a fantastic start, Ms. Zarelli. See you after school for the first
detention of the year. Welcome back.”
Thanks. It’s just
great
to be here.

Detention is supposed to be forty-five minutes, but when
Camber holds up my phone and asks me—the only student in
all of his classes who managed to get a detention on the first
day of school—why I brought “this stupid thing” to class, I explain that I’ve never had a cell phone before and I’m not used
to Union High’s rules. He hands the phone back to me and tells
me I can go.

“I hear good things about you, Ms. Zarelli,” he says, sounding drill sergeant-y, just in case I might think he’s being nice to
me. “I hope they’re true. See you tomorrow.”

It
is
the nicest thing anyone has said to me today. Of course,
that’s no surprise, given that I’ve been called “Slut #2” multiple
times by Union High’s most notorious jerks—with the exception
of Matt. Matt has been strangely silent and unwilling to make
eye contact with me or Tracy, which, as far as I’m concerned,
means that his girlfriend, Lena, is behind the list.

The thing is, Kristin actually has a point—it
is
just a slut list.
Every high school has them, and they hardly ever have anything
to do with reality. They’re usually written by girls who are trying to ruin other girls’ reputations, or trying to break up a couple by making a guy think that his girlfriend is messing around
with the whole football team. Don’t get me started on that double standard. Guys get to do whatever they want but a girl gets
called a slut for, well, in my case, kissing.

I’m sure Lena put me on that list for all the wrongs I committed against Regina. Although really, she should be thanking me.
I’m the reason she’s the captain this year. Without me, she’d still
be just another cheerleader.

It sucks to be on the list. It’s already generated a nickname
that could potentially stick with me for the rest of the year. But
to be honest, after being called “911 Bitch” for half of last year
and seeing it written on every desk I sat at, hearing “Slut #2”
in the halls a few times doesn’t really feel like a big deal to me.

Tracy spent the day with her head held high, ignoring the
chant of “Number One! Number One!” that followed her through
the halls. But I did take her into the bathroom a few times to
cry. And when I tried to tell her that the list doesn’t matter, she
freaked out, saying, “Of course you think it doesn’t matter, Rose.
You haven’t slept with anyone. If you had, you’d be way more
upset, trust me.”

I have no idea if that’s true or not. Maybe it is. Or maybe my
perspective is just different because of what I went through last
year. But either way, I decided to keep my mouth shut for the rest
of the day. I didn’t even jump for joy when she said that there was
no way in hell she was going back to cheerleading now.

I turn on my phone as I leave Camber’s room and see a text
from Tracy telling me to meet her at the car if I want a ride home
after detention. I head to the stairs, and through the huge glass
window, I see the playing fields beyond the tops of the teachers’
cars, impossibly green and covered in sports teams. I see the
cross-country team running warm-up laps around the track and I
wonder if maybe I’m supposed to be out there—if my dad would
want me out there, especially since I didn’t make it last year.

I feel a twinge of guilt about the fact that I’m not running anymore, and then I think of Vicky’s email wishing me good luck
on the first day of school. “Be what you want, not what anybody
else wants,” she wrote. At the time, I figured it was just cheesy
advice she’d gotten from the inside of a first-day-of-school Hallmark card. But I kind of get her point now. It’s easy to keep doing
things just because other people want you to, even if you don’t
want to anymore.

I can’t stop looking at the emerald-green fields. They look like
they should be in a movie about the world’s most perfect high
school. The people on them are living perfect high school lives,
in their perfect-fitting team uniforms. They are exactly where
they are supposed to be, doing exactly what they are supposed
to do. And me? I already had my first detention of the school
year
and
made the slut list. What is it exactly that
I’m
supposed
to be doing?

But if a singer only sings when no one is listening, is she really
a singer?
I go down the stairs and push the door open just in time to
see Jamie and Regina heading through the teachers’ lot to the
mall parking lot—together, again. Frustration washes over me—I
haven’t heard from Jamie since he showed up at Tracy’s.
There have been about fifty different moments in the past few
days when I was going to text him. But I worked super hard to
distract myself, and I didn’t do it. If Jamie wants to take me out,
he’s going to have to call me and tell me what the plan is.
I watch as they stop walking and face each other. It used to
be that when I saw Jamie and Regina together, I would get so
jealous I couldn’t even see straight. And I do still get jealous, but
it’s different. Because something about Regina is different. She
seems…defeated or something. She can still kick ass and intimidate people, but I can tell something is wrong.
At first, it looks like Jamie and Regina are laughing together
and I almost turn away. But they’re not laughing—they’re arguing.
Then I realize something else. I’m not the only one watching them.
Conrad is so engrossed in what’s going on between Jamie and
Regina that he doesn’t notice me standing ten feet away, watching him watch them. He crouches down and gnaws on a fingernail as bits of their conversation drift over to us. It’s just a word
here, a word there—not enough to figure out what they’re actually talking about.
Regina takes off in the middle of something Jamie is saying,
stomping through the lot and up the hill to the mall, leaving
him standing there. His hands ball into fists and he looks at the
car next to him as if he’d like to punch it. I wonder if Anthony
is up there, waiting for Regina, and it’s driving Jamie crazy with
jealousy.
But that doesn’t feel right, either—jealousy is not what I’m
seeing. I wait to see if he goes after her, but instead of going up
the hill, he turns and heads toward the fields. I know he’s not
going to practice, since he was officially banned from all Union
High sports teams two years ago. I have no idea where he’s going.
I look at Conrad again, and I see that he’s watching Jamie, not
Regina. I expect Conrad to follow him, maybe give him a few
choice words, but he stays right where he is until he can’t see
Jamie anymore, and then he stands up and leans back against
the car he was hiding behind. He closes his eyes, drops his head,
takes a few deep breaths and then starts in my direction, toward
the pool. I duck down and he walks right past without seeing me.
Conrad looks like a different person than the one who was
scowling and spewing venom in the back of Tracy’s car the other
night. He’s wearing blue jeans, a blue T-shirt and red Converse—
nothing that would call attention to himself in any way, like fancy
loafers. And he looks so sad, it’s almost painful.
Maybe he’s worried about what’s going to happen when he
shows up late for practice on the first day of school. To be honest, I’m sort of impressed that he’s going. I don’t think I would,
after what happened at the party.
I wonder what Jamie’s relationship with Conrad was like when
he was living with the Deladdos. Conrad was pissed at Jamie
the other night, but Jamie took it like it wasn’t a big deal, like he
knew he just had to wait it out. Maybe Jamie is like a big brother
to Conrad, and it bums Conrad out that Jamie and Regina aren’t
together anymore.
Once Conrad is out of view, it takes me about half a second
to make the decision to go after Jamie.
“Jamie,” I call, out of breath because I ran to catch up to him,
and I haven’t run anywhere since spring. When he turns, he
looks angry at first, then his face sort of relaxes and he smiles.
He actually smiles. The bright sunlight picks up the gold in his
hair and his eyes, and I imagine I can burn the image of him
into my memory and look at it whenever I want.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say back. “Happy first day of senior year.”
“Thanks,” he says, sort of surprised, like the fact that it’s his
senior year hadn’t occurred to him.
His eyes wander over my face, taking me in, and it makes me
think about what it felt like when he pushed me up against his
car to kiss me. I shake my head to clear the thought, worried that
he can tell just by the look on my face that I’m thinking about the
sexiest thing that has happened to me in my entire life thus far.
“Um, I saw you and Regina back there. It looked like you were
having a fight.”
“Just talking,” he says after a pause.
“I didn’t…hear anything. If you’re wondering.”
He doesn’t tell me whether he’s wondering or not.
I think maybe it’s time to start using the direct approach with
Jamie Forta.
“What’s going on with her?” My phone dings in my bag.
“Sorry,” I say as I grab it and look at it quickly. It’s Tracy. Gotta
tlk 2 u
.
I stuff the phone back in my bag. Jamie looks around
like he doesn’t want anyone to hear us. I lower my voice. “You
don’t have to tell me now, if you don’t want to. You can tell me
on Saturday.”
I could punch myself in the eye. I wasn’t going to say
anything
about Saturday—not a single word. Now it sounds like I was reminding him. Or fishing for information.
“Rose, look…I gotta work on Saturday.”
The disappointment that settles in my chest is heavy. I’m not
sure why my first instinct is to pretend that I don’t care, to act
like he didn’t just bail on me—again. I think about all the truthtelling I’m learning how to do in therapy and I wonder why the
hell I can’t apply that here.
“You have a job?” I ask as casually as I can manage.
“Yeah. And I gotta work almost every night for a while. But
I’m gonna get a Friday or Saturday off soon.”
I look down at my feet, squeezed into my flats, and imagine
that if I’d just worn my boots, this wouldn’t be happening. As
I’m making a pact with myself never to wear the flats again, Jamie’s hand comes into my line of vision. I feel his warm fingers
lifting my chin to make me look him directly in the eye.
“I gotta pay my dad back from when I got arrested.”
I wonder if my parents would make me pay them back if I
ended up in court for something. I also wonder what would
happen if I just kissed Jamie right now. Obviously, those two
thoughts have nothing to do with each other. I’m finding it very
difficult to work my brain because my skin is still buzzing from
where Jamie is touching me.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Wow, two apologies in four days.” I’m trying to channel that
sassiness I found the other night, but it’s not easy in the light of
day. I feel like I’m trying too hard. “To be honest, I didn’t really
think we were going to have dinner, anyway.”
“I just need a few weeks,” he says.
My phone dings again. “I have to go.” Half of me wants to take
the words back—Jamie interactions are infrequent enough that
I almost feel like I shouldn’t cut it off first. The other half of me
is proud of myself.
Jamie nods. “See ya, Rose.”
I walk away from him before he can walk away from me, and
as I go up the hill toward the student lot, I make myself count to
thirty before I turn around. He is walking past the far side of the
track, where Regina and I had our showdown last year. Thanks
to him, I didn’t get suspended. Thanks to her, I have scars on
my forearms and shins.
When I get to Tracy’s car and there’s no Tracy, I text @ the car,
and hop up on the hood. As I’m waiting, I hit “Photos” on my
phone—my brain needs a distraction from trying to figure out
what just happened. I’m now more than halfway through deleting my brother’s pictures. When I first started, I really looked at
each photo but now I just fly through them. Delete, delete, delete.
I’m just about to delete number 503 when I pause, unsure
about what I’m actually seeing.
In the photo, Peter and Amanda lean over opposite sides of
a coffee table with straws in their hands, like they’re about to
start drinking out of the same glass. Except there’s no glass, and
the straws are half as long as they should be. It’s not really clear
what they’re doing—their faces are partially covered by someone’s arm reaching into the photo—but anyone who has seen a
movie or two can fill in the blanks.
Without even stopping to think about it, I call Peter. I’m
freaked out and worried, and I need to hear his voice. The phone
rings and rings, and right before it’s about to go to voice mail,
Amanda answers.
“Hi, Rosa, it’s Amanda! How
are
you?” she gushes. I can hear
Peter in the background, telling her what my name is. “Ooh,
sorry. Rose. What’s up, cutie?”
God, I hate this girl. I try not to hate people, but I
hate
her.
“Can I talk to my brother?”
“He can’t really talk right now,” she lies.
“He’s right there. I can hear him.”
The phone gets all muffled for a second, like she covered it
with her hand. I hear them laughing, and then, there he is. It’s
weird to hear his voice after not talking to him for a while.
“Hey, Rosie.”
I suddenly don’t know how to bring up the photo. I want to,
but the words just won’t come. What if I’m not seeing what I
think I’m seeing, and I make a total ass out of myself?
Amanda is singing along to something that I can’t make out
in the background. She’s off-key, of course.
“How’s it going?” Peter asks. He’s talking carefully, like he’s
trying hard to sound normal. The phone gets a little muffled
again, and then I hear him exhale and say, “Thanks, babe.” He’s
smoking something.
“First day of school,” I blurt out, for lack of anything else to say.
“Oh, right. Awesome. Amanda, it was her first day of school
today,” he says to her, and she makes that annoying “Awwwww”
sound. “How’s it going?”
“Um…it’s over. It was fine.”
“Cool.”
I don’t know why I need courage to talk to my brother about
this. I wonder what my dad would want me to do. He’d want me
to just say it out loud, just ask Peter what is going on. I’m about
to, I think, but Tracy is suddenly in front of me, bouncing up
and down with excitement. Her happiness is confusing since I
saw her cry more than once today.
“Who are you talking to?” she asks.
“Peter.”
Her eyes get huge and she grabs the phone out of my hand
before I can stop her.
“Peter! It’s Tracy!” she squeals. I can hear him laughing, which
makes her laugh. “Oh, my god, it was the craziest first day. You
wouldn’t even believe what happened.” She keeps giggling as
Peter says something, and she takes a few steps away from me
and walks in a little circle as she plays with her hair. Then she
looks up at me. “I will, I totally will. But she’s good. You don’t
have to worry about her—or me—anymore. We’re sophomores
now. Although we
were
both on the slut list today.”
“Tracy, why are you telling him that?”
“It’s totally fine,” she adds, ignoring me, “because I have a secret weapon. I can’t tell you what it is, though. You’ll find out
soon enough. Okay…okay, bye, Peter.”
She finally hands my phone back to me.
“Hey,” I say again into the phone. “Peter?” There’s no one there.
“Oh, sorry, Rosie, were you still talking to him? I think he
thought you were done.”
I should call him back and ask him about the picture, but I
can’t. I just can’t. Because what would I say? What would he say?
And if he told me the truth—which he probably wouldn’t—then
what would I do?
Tell my mother?
Tell Tracy?
I don’t want her to think less of him.
I
don’t want to think less of him.
“What were you talking about?” I ask her.
She holds up her phone and shows me what looks like a fashion website. Across the top, it says, “The Sharp List.” Underneath
that is a super-glam picture of Tracy that I’ve never seen before.
“What is that, Trace?”
“It’s the project you’ve been helping me with. And it’s going
to launch my fashion career.”