The Forever Crush (6 page)

PIPER
: THAT MEANS HE KISSED YOU!

No, Piper. It doesn't.

My cell phone sprang to life in my hand. It was Piper, calling.

“Okay,” she said. “You need to spill it.”

“Um, no I don't,” I said.

“You're no fun.”

“What did you think about the library club? It could be someone who's in it.”

“Sure,” Piper said sarcastically. “Let's bring them all in for a lineup.”

“You're not taking this seriously.”

“You're taking this too seriously, Jem.”

“Well, it is serious. Someone's threatening us. Saying we're, you know, bad influences or something.”

“I always try to let that stuff roll off my back. Hey, I called because I heard something and just wanted you to know.”

“What?”

“Some girls were talking at cheerleading and they were being mean about you and Forrest. It was Taylor, Clem, and that group.”

“What did they say?”

“They were just like, ‘I don't know why he's with her and blah blah blah,'” Piper said.

Yeah, me either. Oh, wait, he's actually NOT.

“I don't want to upset you, Jem. I just wanted to let you know. I was like, ‘Duh, Clem, they were just both at your house for dinner and a movie.' He obviously likes you, Jem,” Piper said in a happy voice.

“Obviously. Right,” I said.

I ended the call and the whole thing hit me in waves.

First wave: I thought Clem might have actually been my friend now, so it hurt to have her talking behind my back. True, she paid me no attention before the other night. But I thought it might be different since then.

Second wave: I was horrified that people were picking me apart—and more importantly, picking apart my “relationship.” It was like I was a criminal and they were sniffing me out, saying to themselves: This just doesn't quite add up. Forrest and Jemma do not make sense. He is too good for her.

Third wave: If these girls are saying mean stuff about me, they are probably saying it right to Forrest's face—after all, they barely talked to me until I started going out with Forrest. I worried he'd break up with me. Why? Because he wouldn't want to be seen going out with someone who was, let's face it, not nearly as beautiful and popular as his recent girlfriends.

I wished I could take some kind of medicine or potion that would make me grow up faster
right away
. I was still shorter and less grown-up-looking than all of my friends. Was there a magic product like, say, Boobtastic, that could make my molehills grow into mountains? I could see the infomercial for that. Anytime I complained about this to Kate or Piper, they'd say I was “cute.” Why did that always sound like second prize?

Personal progress was happening, but it was achingly slow. I had gone up a bra size or two. And I had some signs,
if you know what I mean,
that my period would arrive sooner rather than later. These were good signs that I was, indeed, growing into an actual woman. But I wished it would all happen overnight and I would wake up looking like the grown-up, ready-to-conquer-the-world me. Then maybe Forrest would keep me as his pretend girlfriend and, eventually, want me as his real one.

Seventeen

Welcome to my bewildering, pink world. Here are the first three PLS messages Kate, Piper, and I opened today in our dark, dusty school basement headquarters.

Message 1:

Dear PLS, I heard that if you whisper the Pledge of Allegiance every night before bed for 28 days, then on the 29
th
day, you'll get your period. Is that true?

Signed, A Late Bloomer Who Loves Her Country

Message 2:

You are a link in the pink chain. Have you ever run for class president? If so, then you might want to thank Jeanette Rankin. In 1916, she was the first woman EVER to win a seat in the U.S. Congress. After serving, she dedicated her life to promoting peace all over the world. Remember, you are a link in the pink chain!

Message 3:

I've asked nicely but time is running out. END THE PLS NOW! This stuff just shouldn't be up here. It's privit. From Your Worst Enemy

So there it is, we have a classic period question (Answer is No! BTW), we have an encouraging pink chain message (Go, Jeanette!), and another lovely anonymous threat with its telltale mispelling. Contrary to the message, the threat-sender did
not
ask nicely before. She called us “trashy,” but whatever. I was getting fed up. Can you tell?

“Maybe whoever is writing these pink chain messages could ease up on the history lessons and help us get rid of this stalker,” I told Piper and Kate.

“Oh Jem, that person's not stalking us. It really could be just prank stuff,” Kate said.

Piper asked what I was so scared of. Maybe she was right and it was just some jokester in library club. She had a point, but I did, too.

“It's no joke that this person is leaving anti-PLS bookmarks in the library,” I said.

“True,” Kate said.

“Okay,” Piper said. “Let's ask Russo to get us some backup here—and to see about getting back our old office.”

“Like that will happen,” I said.

“Well, as my mom says about selling houses, ‘If you want something, you gotta ask,'” Piper said.

Piper pushed us back toward our regular business. While we had answered a bunch of easy questions in the last week (bra-size issues, leg-shaving dilemmas), neither Kate nor I had answered our more complicated questions. That is, I hadn't answered the weight question and Kate hadn't answered my pretend boyfriend question.

“I'm ready to go on that one,” Kate said. “I'm going to tell her to come clean to her friends and to break up with the guy.”

I held my breath.

“What if she doesn't want to?” Piper asked. “What if she likes being in a fantasy world, pretending that she's this guy's real girlfriend?”

“Right,” Kate said. “It could be hard for her. But you can't live a fake life with a fake boyfriend and mislead your friends.”

I cleared my throat. They both looked at me, waiting for me to say something. But I just smiled meekly and looked back at my notebook, where I pretended to write something down.

“Onward then,” said Piper. “Jemma, what have you got on the Fat or Not thing?”

I gave them my recap, saying that I now understood what BMI was. I talked with Bet and I asked both the school nurse and Mr. Ford.

“It's complicated, but basically BMI is a number that tells whether you're underweight, at a good weight, or overweight. You put your height and weight in a formula and it gives you your number. You can do it online,” I said.

“That's good,” Kate said. “We can just put the link in there so she can do it herself.”

“But I'm worried that if she does that it will just spit out a number that says ‘You're fat,'” I said.

Kate winced a little, like she had just taken a punch. I needed to remind myself that this was a touchy subject for Kate, too.

“You're kind of plotting yourself on an X-Y axis, like in geometry,” I said. “Your weight, over time, are like points on the graph. If you connect the dots, they make a curve. That's why my doctor says I'm ‘consistent on the curve'—I've always been thin and though I gain weight I'm still in the same percentile,” I said.

“You're losing me,” Kate said. “What did the nurse say?”

“She said you can get your BMI number, but you need a doctor or nurse to really make sense of it all,” I said.

“And what about the losing-weight-fast part of her question?” Kate asked.

“Well, there's no simple answer there either,” I said. “People younger than eighteen shouldn't really diet. You know, like, eat only grapefruit or something crazy like that. At least that's what the nurse said.”

“So what's she supposed to do if she comes up fat in that formula?” Kate asked pointedly.

“I don't know, but the nurse did give me four tips,” I said.

I pulled out my notebook page, where I had them in a bullet list. I held it up for them to see.

•
Eat more fruits and vegetables

•
Drink water instead of soda and sugary drinks

•
Get an hour of exercise every day

•
Understand that it's normal for a girl's body to change during puberty. Hips get wider and figures get curvy.

“No offense, Jemma, but what's the difference between fat and curvy?” Kate asked.

I had no answer. I wondered if there would ever be anything curvy about my body. Kate continued. “Eat right. Get exercise. Everyone says that and it's not very easy to do,” she said.

“I'm sorry, Kate, if you can do better on this one, then go ahead.”

I was actually a little angry at Kate for how she answered my question about Forrest. That's probably why I was so snippy.

“Come on, you two never argue. What's up?” Piper said.

I was miffed at Piper, too, come to think of it.

No, Piper. I'm not living in a fantasy world by fake-dating Forrest. It's more than that to me.

Neither of us answered Piper's question.

“Jemma, I think your answer is good,” Piper said. “Kate, we can't spend our whole year on one question.”

“I-I'm sorry,” Kate said. “I got carried away, I guess.”

“I did the best I could, Kate,” I said. “That's all I ever do, you know that.”

I was worried I might cry, right there in the school basement, and admit everything to them both. But Piper put an arm around each of us and pulled us into a group hug.

“C'mon girlies, hug it out,” she said.

And we did.

Eighteen

We needed Bet, I decided. With her video camera and her inquisitive mind, I knew she'd have some good ideas for how to locate and stop our stalker.

That's right. I said stalker.

Again, I met Bet at Lucky's. We rode our bikes there, as usual, but the December weather was turning colder. It wasn't so bad when you were walking, but the wind whipped my face as I pedaled uphill into downtown. Well, it was “downtown” in our small town—a few restaurants, a hardware store, a drug store, a fancy dress boutique, and a place that made homemade ice cream in summer and boarded its front in winter.

Bet and I arrived within minutes of each other, hung our jackets on hooks, and settled into our back booth, red-cheeked. Mugs of cinnamon tea steamed below our noses.

“The bookmark bandit—I love it!” Bet said. She pulled out her notebook and settled into note-taking position.

“I don't love it,” I said.

I told her about my hunch about library club members and about the succession of threats, including how whoever it was called us “cheap and trashy.”

“Ugh. What does that even mean when you are in middle school? None of you guys are cheap or trashy,” Bet said.

“Well, thanks. I guess that's a compliment,” I said.

“I mean it's not trashy to tell girls about basic stuff that will happen or already has happened to them,” Bet said.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed.

“And this person is worried about boys seeing it? I really doubt boys are visiting the Pink Locker Society. I mean can you imagine Forrest surfing around on that girlie site? And even if he did, who cares?”

She was getting fired up now. This happened with Bet a lot. I laughed in a nervous way. Just the mention of Forrest's name could set me off.

“Forrest spends most of his time on his fantasy football Web site,” I said.

“Exactly,” Bet said.

I liked that Forrest had named his fantasy football team Six Strings after the six strings on the guitar he played. He was a guy who was a jock and played sports but was also an artist—someone who might sing me a song someday.

Oh, it was so tempting to just spill it all to Bet. She was a good listener and she would keep my secret. And she always wanted to hear both sides. I thought she might see some other way than the route Kate advised. I didn't want to break up with Forrest and admit the lie to everyone.

“So the trick will be to get the names of all the library club members. And some surveillance would be nice,” Bet said.

Bet thought the instigator of all this was clearly angry—why else go off and attack us personally? She also guessed it was probably a girl. I told her that Ms. Russo was friends with Mrs. Kelbrock, the librarian.

“Excellent—a great lead,” Bet said. Then she took a last sip of her tea and stared into the empty cup.

“Oh, Bet. I'm so sorry. I've been talking on and on about the Pink Locker Society and all our problems, and I haven't even once asked about your show.”

I had noticed that
You Bet!
had not been shown for the last few weeks. She did the hand washing show as requested but that was it. On the announcements, Principal F. said the show was going on a temporary hiatus and would be back with a “new format that I'm very pleased about.”

Bet said her report on the Fat or Not list was already prepared and ready to air, but Principal Finklestein said no. She said she had interviewed a bunch of people on the list, including Emma Shrewsberry.

“By the way, Emma said she did not write in about the Fat or Not list.”

I didn't blame Emma for denying it.

“And Kate?”

“I asked to interview her, but she didn't want to talk about the notebook, not even off the record. I told her I didn't think she was fat at all,” Bet said.

“So you'll never be able to show that report?” I asked.

“Principal F. wants me to make my show more lively and fill it with ‘good news,'” Bet said. She put up finger quotes around the words.

“That could be … okay, right? You'd still have a show,” I said, trying to be encouraging.