In My Shoes (13 page)

“They must be worried. It’s not like me not
to answer or return calls. I can’t imagine what they are
thinking.”

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to take a
chance making a mistake. We haven’t really even discussed your
friends. I mean, I think I know who most of them are, but I don’t
know much of anything about them. I don’t know how you talk to
them…”

“It’s okay,” I interrupted. “You probably did
the right thing. We’ve been so busy, I honestly haven’t thought
much about my friends. We need to fix that, though, so they don’t
start worrying or getting suspicious.”

I grabbed my purse from the floor where Jake
had placed it, and I pulled out my cell phone. Ten missed calls and
voicemail.

“Do you know how to check the voicemail?”

“I didn’t know your password.”

“You don’t need a password. All you have to
do is hold this button down and it will log you directly in to the
voicemail. The voice prompt will give you options after each
message.”

I listened to the messages and relayed them
to Jake. “First message was from Saturday. Caryn called to see if I
was feeling better and said that she, Jessica and Meredith had a
good time at her house Friday night. We do that a lot of the time
on Fridays. We take turns staying at each others’ houses.

“Second message was from Jessica. She called
on Saturday to say she was on her way to drop off my homework.”

“Which she obviously did,” Jake
interjected.

“Third message was from Jessica again. She
called Saturday afternoon asking me to call her to let her know I’m
okay. Does this qualify as okay?” I asked smiling, waving my hand
between the two of us.

He laughed. My laugh, but different. “Not my
idea of okay, but I guess we’re okay by her standard.”

“Maybe so,” I replied. “Fourth message was
Jessica again. Saturday night. She’s definitely worried.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t call your
house.”

“Well, we don’t really use our house line. We
all have cell phones, so the house line doesn’t really get called.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t have the number.”

“Okay, but wouldn’t she come by your house if
she were really worried?”

“She did, though. Did she leave my homework
with you or my mom or at the front door?”

“I don’t know. Your mom put it in your room.
She didn’t say how she got it.”

I checked the last message. “Okay, Jessica
called again and said she’s coming back over if she doesn’t hear
from me by Sunday afternoon. She left that about an hour ago.

“You’re going to need to call her now,” I
continued. “Tell her you misplaced your phone and just found it.
Apologize for making her worry. When she asks where you’ve been,
remind her you weren’t feeling well. I have all of their numbers
programmed into my phone, so you just have to look them up by first
name.”

I dialed Jessica’s number and handed the
phone to Jake. He hung up the phone and looked at me. “I can’t. I
don’t know what to say!”

“I just told you what to say,” I said, trying
to sound patient.

“No, I mean I don’t know how you talk to
them. What to say to them is very different from how I say it to
them.”

“Just keep it short. Speak, not formal, but
close. I’m more grammatically correct with them, but sometimes we
are silly…less formal. You should be able to get a feel from them.
Once you apologize for not calling, and tell her you’re not feeling
well, she’ll let you off of the phone, or she’ll do most of the
talking. Either way...”

“Okay, I’ll give it a go.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”

Jake dialed Jessica’s number and waited for
her to answer. She must have started in on him right away because
he skipped the pleasantries.

“I’m sorry, I misplaced my phone, and I just
found it. I didn’t realize you had been trying to get a hold of me.
You wouldn’t believe the weekend I’ve had.”

He winced after he said it, knowing that
would prompt Jessica to ask what exactly happened this weekend. He
listened for a bit and then replied to Jessica’s questioning.

“No, no, I’m actually okay. I’ve just not
been feeling very well and I’ve been resting and trying to catch up
on my studying.”

I could hear Jessica talking in his ear. I
couldn’t make out the words.

“Mmhmm...no really, I’ll be okay.”

Silence.

“Yes, I’ll be at school. I’m sorry you
worried.”

More silence.

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. P.E., right,”
he said glancing my way. “Okay, bye.”

A new chill ran down my spine. I had managed
not to give much thought about P.E. since our last discussion.
Another thing we needed to discuss.

“So, that seemed to go okay,” he said,
hanging up the phone.

“Good. So, she’s calling off the dogs?” I
asked.

He laughed. “Yeah, she seemed fine when we
hung up. She said she’d see me in P.E.” His, well, my face turned
red.

“Yeah, Jake, about P.E. We still need to work
that out.”

“Work what out? There’s not much we can do
about it.”

“Well, maybe we could just skip P.E. until we
switch back.”

“You’re not serious, are you? I mean, we have
no way of knowing how long that could be.”

“No, you’re right, but we can’t just go in
and shower with each others’ friends. I mean, it’s bad enough you
get to see me naked. I’m trying my best not to freak about that.
But, to see all of my girlfriends naked isn’t right.”

“Maybe not, but that’s the way it is. Don’t
worry, it’s not like I’m going to be staring, and it’s not like I’m
going to be taking pictures. I think you are making a bigger deal
of this than it needs to be.”

“Well you may be comfortable with this, but
I’m not. I don’t even like showering in the
girls’
locker
room, but to just march into the boys’ locker room and pretend all
is well…”

“Look, you just need to mind your own
business. If you pretend you belong there, you’ll be fine. Just
make sure you don’t stare.”

“Oh please! As if I’d stare.”

“Then you should be fine,” he comforted.

I didn’t know what to say. I figured I was
fighting a losing battle on this one. Please, please, please let us
be changed back tomorrow.

“So…we still haven’t talked about how last
night and this morning went.”

“This morning went fine,” he said. “I’ve
never been to church before. Even with what you told me yesterday,
I still didn’t know really what to expect. I was a little nervous
at first, but everyone was so nice, and I liked the music. I did
have a little problem with the songs.”

“What kind of problem?” I asked.

“Well, at one point your dad leaned over and
asked me why I wasn’t singing the songs. I didn’t know how any of
them went. Are you a good singer?”

“I guess. I mean, most people compliment my
singing.”

“Yeah, well that didn’t seem to come over in
the transfer. I tried singing after your dad asked me why I wasn’t
singing, but I didn’t know the songs or the words. I’m sure I was
terrible and your mom and dad were looking at me funny. So, I just
stopped and motioned that my throat was sore.”

“It sounds like you handled that okay. We can
work on that later, but that’s a low priority. Just don’t sing in
the meantime.”

“Got it. I’m not really a good singer, so
you’ll have your work cut out for you,” he offered.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine but, like I said,
it’s not really a priority. How did last night go?”

“Well, I was saving that for last.”

“Why?” I asked in a nervous tone.

“No, nothing too bad. I just felt awkward. I
don’t think your parents think I’m, oh I don’t know, like another
person,” he said smiling, “but they looked at me a few times like
they were trying to figure me out. Like I didn’t belong.”

“What did you do last night?”

“We did everything you said. Your dad came up
to your room and told me it was time for dinner. We had dinner and
cleaned up the dishes. After that, we went to the family room and
watched
Twilight
.”

“Did you guys talk at dinner?” I asked.

“Yeah, your mom and dad both asked me about
my day. Your mom asked about my new friend Jake.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked if
you
were the same person
that
I
had gotten in the argument with the other day. I told
her you were and that I decided to try to get to know you.”

“And?”

“And I told her that she was right…you really
are a great guy…and I thanked her for her advice.”

I rolled my eyes. “Way to work it a little
for your favor,” I said smiling.

“What? You know, I happen to think I am a
good guy,” he said defensively.

“Yeah, I actually think you’re a good guy,
too. I’m just sorry we started off the way we did. I should have
been nicer to you.” Maybe then we wouldn’t be in this mess.

He smiled at me.

“So, how did the movie go?”

“It went fine. I didn’t sit next to your dad.
I sat down in one of the chairs and he brought me a blanket. We
watched the movie, and talked for a few minutes after the movie.
Your dad didn’t really like the movie, because he didn’t think it
represented the book very well. Your mom didn’t think they did too
bad with the movie. She seemed to like it alright.”

“What about you? Did you like it?”

“Yeah, I thought it was good, but I saw it in
the theaters, so this was my second time seeing it. I haven’t read
the book, so I don’t know how it compares.”

“Oh, you should really read the books,” I
said. “If you liked the movie, you’ll love the book.
Breaking
Dawn
was my favorite of the four. I have them in my room, if
you want to read them.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” he
said.

“So, anything else I should know?”

“No, that’s pretty much it.”

“Good. See, I knew you could handle it. Okay,
so it occurred to me that we have a problem.”

“What kind of a problem?” he asked
nervously.

“It occurred to me last night that we have no
idea how to pull off each others’ handwriting. I don’t have any
clue how you write, and you don’t know how I write.”

He thought for a minute, processing what I
just said. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a problem. How do we fix it?”

“Well, I think we are going to need to spend
most of today working on it. We can start by doing our own homework
in the classes we have together. Then, we can start trading.”

“Okay, but wouldn’t it be better to just
switch cold turkey?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you do your homework in your
handwriting, and then I go into class tomorrow, and I can’t
replicate it, we have a problem. But if we work on each others’
handwriting from the start, and then I do your homework and you do
mine, if we are questioned about it, at least we will be able to
duplicate what we did in our homework.”

“I didn’t really think of that. But, they are
going to notice that our handwriting doesn’t match what we’ve
handed in previously.”

“Well, we can just say that we’ve been trying
different writing styles out. We are both really good students. Do
you really think teachers are going to question us that much?”

“Jake, I’m impressed! That’s pretty good
reasoning.”

“You sound surprised.”

“Maybe I am, a little. Mainly, I’m just
disappointed I didn’t think of it.”

“You can’t think of everything,” he consoled
me. Apparently he’s right about that, too.

We arrived at my house, ready to get to work.
My mom and dad were both home, so we went to say hello. My dad was
in his office. I motioned to Jake for him to do the talking.

“Hey, Dad!” he said.

“Oh, hi Pumpkin. What’s up?”

“Not much. We’re going to go upstairs and
study.”

He looked at me with an awkward, fatherly
smile. I’ve seen it before, and it usually corresponds to me
bringing any guy, friend or more, to my house.

“Hello. You must be…Jake?” he said, hoping he
was assuming correctly.

“Yes, sir!” I said. “It’s nice to meet
you.”

“Please, call me Keith.”

“Keith,” I repeated.

“So,” he continued, “you have been studying a
lot this weekend.” There was something underlying in what he said,
like ‘Why are you
really
spending so much time with my
daughter this weekend?’

“We have,” I confirmed. “I think we’re both
just trying to catch up from a crazy week, and since we have a few
classes together…”

“Oh really? What classes do you share?” he
asked.

“We have English…well, actually it’s AP
Literature and Composition, and then we have physics right after
that.”

“Hard classes. Are you a good student,
Jake?”

I think he’s a good student, but I didn’t
exactly know. Fortunately, Jake chimed in. “Uhh…he’s an A/B Honor
student, aren’t you Jake?”

“Well,” I said hesitantly, “yes, that’s
true.”

“And modest,” my father said with
approval.

“Thank you,” I said. “Well…it was nice
meeting you, Keith.”

“Nice meeting you too, Jake.”

We found my mother in the family room
reading.

“Hi Mom,” Jake said.

“Oh, hi Nikki. Hello Jake,” she said turning
her attention to me. “More studying today?”

“Hello, Sara. Yes, lots to work on this
weekend.”

“Okay, well enjoy your studying kids.”

We went upstairs and headed into my room.

“You know,” Jake said, “I don’t think your
parents like me a whole lot. I mean, they’re being nice to…well,
you, but…”

“Yeah, that’s interesting since I’m you. I
think they are just curious because you’re a guy and I don’t bring
guys over to my house this often. Hmm…maybe we should spend the
next couple of days at your house, just so they don’t get the wrong
idea.”