Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel (7 page)

It’s a new day at school and Ashley is sitting in Robert’s lap on an alcove bench, marking her territory like a conquistador with a flag to plant. Apparently things heated up between them at Lisa’s party after Greg and I left. Already I’m sick of them together. I’m not heterophobic or anything. I just wish I didn’t have to watch them express their lust for each other
all
the time.

Ashley twirls a lollipop in her mouth, and I see Mr. Carr out of the corner of my eye, quickening his step down the hallway, clearly pretending not to see them. Mr. Carr has never been good at dealing with teenage hormones. He never wants to chaperone dances and have to break up dirty dancing.

“Hey, Leila.” Greg walks over to the bench I’m sitting on, and I’m relieved to have someone to commiserate with. “What’s going on there?”

“I guess she’s moved on from Mr. Harris.”

“Don’t tell me you believe that rumor?” Greg says as he continues to watch the new couple. “You just hate science class. He’s not so bad. Wow. If Ashley ever becomes broke she could sure work as a stripper.”

“Study up on strippers much?” He blushes and I don’t know why I said that. It was supposed to be funny, but obviously it challenges his manhood or something. “I’m going to study with Tess again if you want to join us.”

He raises an eyebrow at me and folds his arms. “Tess didn’t need any help at all. In fact I think she wrote the textbook under a pen name, she knew the material so well.”

“I thought you might be good study buddies!”

He looks down at his shoes for a minute before making direct eye contact with me. “I get that you and me aren’t going to happen, but you don’t have to pawn me off to your friend.” Why did I ever try my hand at matchmaking? And I thought we were over talking about the prospect of “us.”

“That wasn’t why I . . . Tess is cool and so are you and I thought—”

He cuts me off. “I’m sure Tess is cool, but just let me figure that out in my own time, okay?”

I stand up and look him right in the eye. “I will stay out of that department. I swear on our copy of
Zombie Killers Part II
.” It’s the best installment of the Zombie Killers franchise, at least as far as Greg and I are concerned. This loosens him up and he relaxes his shoulders. I extend my hand for him to shake. He laughs and shakes my hand firmly.

“Well, what have we here?” I hear Saskia’s voice a moment before I feel the sting of her smack against my butt. I shriek in surprise and she laughs at my reaction. “Leila, it’s just me.”

“Sorry, I’m just a little jumpy today.” And every day when you grab my ass.

“It must be Greg’s effect on you. And I can see why.” Saskia winks at Greg and he blushes. “Are you two going out this weekend?”

“No!” I say more adamantly than I should. “I don’t have any weekend plans yet.”

“We’ll have to remedy that then, won’t we, Greg?” Greg blinks at Saskia like he’s just seen a meteor shower. She really is that breathtaking up close. Saskia links her arm in mine and drags me away from the school hallways.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“We’re pulling a Ferris.” A what? Saskia leads us out to the parking lot, a sly grin on her face, and unlocks the door to her brand-new BMW.

“I’ve got a science test! And we have play rehearsal,” I protest.

“You worry so much, Leila! You’re going to get frown lines.” Saskia looks out toward the bleachers at the side of the parking lot and rolls down her window. “What’s your friend’s name over there? The one smoking?”

I look and see Lisa, alone and staring out at the empty concrete.

“Lisa Katz.”

“Yoo-hoo! Lisa! ” Saskia waves Lisa over. Lisa puts out her cigarette and jogs over to the car. “I’m sorry to bother you, but do you have an extra cigarette?”

Lisa fumbles in her coat pocket for her box of Marlboro Menthols.

Saskia giggles. “How can you smoke these? They’re so minty!” She brings out a Zippo lighter engraved with her initials. “Lisa, what are you doing now?”

Moments later Saskia and I sit in the front of the car, Lisa sits in the back, and Saskia has the windows down. The wind and smoke blow in my face. We’re driving into downtown Boston and part of me feels intoxicated with a newfound feeling of rebellion; part of me is just freezing in the wind. Saskia and Lisa are talking about Monte Carlo and how they both find it to be very overrated. I just look out the window and hope Saskia will turn on the heat at some point.

“You’re awfully quiet, Leila. Not having fun?” Saskia asks as she flicks her cigarette out the window and changes the radio station.

“No, I’m having fun. Just a little cold, I guess.” Lisa throws out her half-smoked cigarette and rolls up her window while Saskia continues to fiddle with the radio, wind blowing through her hair.

When we get to Forever 21, Saskia is on a mission to find me a perfect bra, and she insists on paying for it. The saleswomen at Forever 21 seem to know Saskia pretty well and show her different colors and patterns while Lisa and I stand awkwardly to the side.

“Why does she care so much about your boobs?” Lisa says, flicking the tags hanging from clothes on a nearby rack.

“I don’t know. She just likes doing stuff like this, I guess. She’s always up for adventure, you know?”

“I hardly call hanging around boutiques on Newbury Street an adventure.”

“Yeah, but it’s better than school.”

Lisa shrugs in agreement as Saskia approaches us with three saleswomen in tow.

“We’ve found you a few options! Let’s go try them on!”

I take the bras and walk into a dressing room, nearly closing the door on Saskia as she enters.

“After all that work, I’m certainly not going to wait outside!” Saskia says. “Take off your shirt and try the red one.”

I just stare blankly at the red bra in my hand and then at Saskia.

“Oh, come on,” she says playfully. “Don’t be shy. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I have a pair, too. Not as big as yours of course, but same idea.”

I turn my body into one corner, my back toward Saskia, take off my shirt, and unclasp my bra. I quickly throw the red straps over my shoulders, fiddling with the back hooks. Saskia’s hands touch mine and she does my bra for me, her fingers making tracings on my back. I might die if I hold my breath any longer.

“You should really do something about the blemishes on your back. I have a cream I can lend you.” Thanks? I would be offended if I wasn’t so nervous about how close she is. She swings my body around and backs away from me, inspecting me in the bra. I cover my stomach with my arms and hope this won’t last much longer. Saskia opens the dressing room door and motions for me to come to the doorway.

“What do you think of this one?” Saskia asks the three salesladies as she nudges me into the hallway of the fitting area. Oh my God. Talk about mortifying. Lisa looks at the ceiling, probably embarrassed for me.

The salesladies scrutinize my body as I worry about what they must be thinking. My face is already scorching when a little girl walking past the dressing rooms yells out, “Mommy! Her boobs are huge!” The mommy hushes the girl up, and the saleslady suggests with a fake European accent that I should try on a bigger size. Saskia asks for a few more bras and pulls me into the dressing room.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” she says, holding my face in her hands. “I’m jealous of your boobs! They just scream sexy.” She kisses me on the cheek and my mood lightens immediately.

I find one that works in the next batch. At last the humiliation is over. I thank Saskia for the bra she bought me. I fold my arms over my chest for the rest of our walk on Newbury Street, during which Saskia buys herself a clutch at a price that I’d rather not think about. Lisa manipulates mannequin arms into lewd positions whenever she has the chance.

“Don’t you just love shopping?” Saskia asks, swaying her shopping bag from side to side.

“It’s cool,” I say, and Lisa gives me a look. She definitely remembers how much I hated clothes shopping with my mom when we were younger.

“How about we go somewhere else?” Lisa suggests. “Want to check out the aquarium?” I will have to remember to thank her later.

I haven’t been to the New England Aquarium in years, but it’s just as I remembered it. The inside of the building is dark, with the blue illuminations of the tank brightening the faces of the little kids who are plastered against the glass, trying to spot fish their friends haven’t seen yet.

“It smells like fish in here,” Saskia says, gazing past her reflection at a tiger shark.

“What else would it smell like? It’s an aquarium,” I manage while making blowfish faces through the glass.

“Still, you’d think they’d be able to do something about that. Maybe a few air fresheners.” She crinkles her nose at the smell, and then nods her head toward Lisa, who is over at the railing, looking down at the penguins. “She’s an odd one, isn’t she?” Saskia asks.

“No, she’s just going through some stuff right now.”

“Who isn’t? We’re supposed to. It’s that coming-of-age thing, right? I’m going to have a cigarette. Let me know if the fish do anything other than swim around in circles.” I watch Saskia walk away and make my way over to Lisa.

“Are you a penguin fan?” Lisa asks as I stand next to her.

“Of course,” I admit like a nerd. “They don’t restrict themselves to gender roles, you know.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, the female emperor penguin lays the egg, but the male has to sit on it, waiting for it to hatch while the female goes off to forage for food. Very progressive.”

“Huh. I just like them because they run like you do,” she says with a straight face. The penguins waddle off the rocks and into the water. When the last one glides under the surface, Lisa turns to face me. “Thanks for today, Lei. I really couldn’t deal with school.”

It’s good hearing Lisa talk about her feelings. I press my luck. I don’t know why, maybe it’s just curiosity or a guilty feeling that I haven’t been a better friend, even if it was she who pushed me away. “How are you, Lisa? Really?”

Lisa gnaws on her lower lip. “I feel like I can’t handle anything. But I can’t . . . I don’t want to talk about it. Not today.”

I try to remember what I used to say to make her feel better when we were kids, but it feels like forever ago. “Don’t thank me for today. It was Saskia’s idea. I should be thanking
you.
If it were up to her we’d be shopping all day.”

Lisa stops worrying her lip and is back to her stoic self. “Yeah, that was annoying,” she says. “What’s her deal?”

That’s weird. I thought they were getting along.

“You don’t like shopping? Won’t Ashley be upset if she finds you’ve changed your tune?”

“I don’t really hang out with Ashley’s group much outside of school. They’re kind of mean,” she admits, pulling on her bangs.

“You think?”

She flashes me a smile. “Okay, okay. I guess I just never noticed it before. Or maybe I did, but then I figured out that being mean is kind of exhausting.”

“Ashley must be really tired then.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine. She snorts Adderall, so she has loads of energy.”

“Jeez.”

“Yeah. She thinks it’s cool or whatever, but she ends up getting blue boogers. Still, she says when she’s on it she and her boyfriends mate like rabbits.” The penguins are back on the rocks, waddling around, bumping into one another and jabbering and yelling over one another. “They look like high school students,” Lisa says.

“Want to go see the sea turtle?” I ask. “It just swims around and around, but I love it.”

Lisa smiles and we walk up the ramp to the top of the tank.

We drive back to school and some new pop star’s song full of sexual innuendo comes on the radio.

“Ahh! I love this song!” Saskia screams. Lisa flicks her cigarette out the window and they both start to sing. I’m in the backseat this time, where I can I sit back and watch them fling their hair and mock the sexy dance moves from the video. They’re both pretty and free, and I’m almost in awe of them.

As we pull into the school parking lot, I notice my mom’s car parked crookedly in a handicapped spot up front. Busted.

Mom doesn’t speak to me on the way home. She drives slowly, and I don’t dare look at her because then I’ll see that her jaw is still clenched and that the vein in her forehead looks like the Amazon River. When the school called her to see if I had left early, she panicked and called my cell phone thirteen times. Of course, I’d left my cell phone in my locker and didn’t think to get it when Saskia whisked me away. Unable to find me, my mother called the police, but they informed her it wasn’t a missing person’s case since I’d only been gone for three hours. They told her I was probably cutting class, which she didn’t like one bit. Back at school she tracked down as many kids and teachers as she could think of who might know something, including Mr. Carr, Tess, Greg, Ms. Taylor, and Mr. Harris, who informed her that I missed an important test. Always helping out the kids, Mr. Harris.

When we got back to school, everyone breathed with relief—and then they freaked out. Mr. Carr told Lisa her mom was deeply upset but couldn’t be there since she had a pilates class. Saskia’s parents were in Prague or somewhere. I don’t even think they were contacted. No wonder Saskia didn’t care about ditching school—she’s the only one who couldn’t get in trouble with her parents. And you know what? This new bra is too tight.

“I just don’t know what you’re thinking anymore,” Mom says as I stare at the floor mat of her Mercedes. Its crevices are filled with sand and dirt, and I feel like I should be there with it. “You used to tell me everything. And now you don’t tell me anything. It’s like you . . . I don’t know. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what’s upset you.”

“Sorry.” And I was. And this time it was definitely my fault.

When Dad got home, Mom surprised me by not mentioning anything about my skipping school to him. I don’t know why not. Maybe she didn’t want him to freak out, or maybe she was just doing me a favor, but it seems like a hopeful sign. I’m not ready to make any sudden confessions to her, but it’s good to know that there are things about me my mother doesn’t necessarily feel she has to share with my dad.