My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters (17 page)

"All guys do that kind of thing."

"I doubt it." I couldn't imagine Tyler belching and farting in front of everyone. Would Gideon? No way. Too polite. Finn may have looked like an Adonis, but he acted like a barn animal.

"Finn is truly hopeless," I said. "My parents are going to have to send him away to some kind of training program for beastly brothers before any respectable woman will date him."

Megan raised her eyebrows at me and smirked. No one needed to remind me that plenty of girls—respectable and otherwise—had already dated him.

"Pick someone else," I said.

We spent the rest of the game rating the players on various skills and qualities: Looks Best When He Runs (Mike Johnson); Best Butt Even in Ugly Nylon Shorts (#23 on the opposing team); Most Active Sweat Glands (poor Thomas Mason); Best Legs (#16); Loudest Grunter (#15); Nicest Smile (Ian Allen); Best Nose ("That's totally weird, Jory." Silent vote for #7); Best Sportsmanship (#5); Best Hair (Luke); Best Overall (Megan insisted it was Finn, but I gave Luke my vote).

After the game, we waited while the coach talked to the players, and Mom and Dad celebrated with the other parents. Luke and Finn kicked the ball back and forth. When they kicked the ball out-of-bounds, I picked it up and tossed it back, aiming right at Finn.

Wham.

The ball hit Luke in the back.
Oh, God. Just kill me now before I die of embarrassment.

"Hey!" Luke sounded all offended, but he tossed the ball back to me.

"Throw it back to him," Megan whispered. "Now."

I faced Luke, let the ball fly, and watched it wobble through the air and land right in front of Finn.

"So that's the story, is it?" Luke ran up to Finn and stole the ball from him, kicking it so that it landed in front of me. I tried to kick it back but missed.

"Very funny," Luke said. "Kick it right here." He pointed to the ground right in front of him.

I pulled my leg way back. Connection! The ball lofted in the air and sailed right to Luke.
Yes! I'm a soccer goddess—

Wham!

Luke doubled over in pain. I stood there, mouth gaping, face blazing, not sure what to do.

"Oh, my God, Jory." Megan gasped. "You've put him out of commission. Maybe forever!"

What should I do? I cant exactly run over there and comfort the guy, right?
Luke moaned and rolled on the ground.

"Nice one, klutz." Finn ran over and patted Luke on the back. "You okay, buddy?"

"I am so sorry!" I called out before running to the car, planning to peel out of the parking lot like a hit man in a mobster movie, forgetting that Mom had the keys.
Omigod. I've maimed the hottest guy at Reno High. Current chances of dying a virgin: 99.9 percent. And that's being charitable.

Megan caught up with me. "Now
that's
what they mean by a ball breaker."

"Do you think I should apologize to Kayla?"

I meant it seriously, but Megan doubled over laughing. "Dear Kayla, I'm sorry to have ruined all your hopes for senior prom night. But think of all the benefits of castration." Megan laughed harder, making me laugh too.

"I don't think she'll understand
castration,
" I said. "How about 'imagine a picnic without balls to play with or a wiener to roast.'"

Megan laughed until she couldn't breathe.

"It's not funny," Finn said in an angry voice as the door to the minivan slid open. "It hurts. Bad."

"Now I've blown it too." Megan held her lips closed for a split second before laughing again. Finn glared at her.

"Judith Hearne, here we come!" I yelled.

"To good old Judith." Megan high-fived me. "A bottle of whiskey is the only man we need."

In the rearview mirror, we saw Mom furrow her brows, but that just made us laugh until we snorted.
Everything is okay between Megan and me!
I felt as light as angel food cake.

SECRETS

The warm morning air blew through my shirt as I zipped around the speed bumps on Cashill, down Skyline, past the castle house and the golf course onto Arlington. All downhill: piece of cake. Pun intended. I dreaded the ride/walk while pushing my bike uphill at the end of the day in the hot, freckle-producing afternoon sun—pretty soon I'd look like a poppy seed cake. Katie had asked me to come to work early so I could drive out to the distribution place and pick up supplies.

SIX EASY STEPS TO PICKING UP SUPPLIES, JORY STYLE:

1. Park
near
loading-dock area but
not
near gigantic semi trucks. Smile when gum-snapping Warehouse Guy tells you to
back up
to the dock (even though you technically failed this portion of your driver's-license test).

2. Inch. Inch. Pause. Check to see how close you are to semi trucks. Too close.

3. Ignore the truck drivers handing one another money (yes, they
are
making bets).

4. Bump into loading dock. Straighten wheels? Ignore gleam from shiny red semi truck mere millimeters away. Ignore laughing, betting truckers. Do
not
ignore guy yelling, "Your wheels are crooked and that's my rig you're about to scrape up!"

5. Allow frantic trucker to guide you: "Inch a little way that way, no, too far. Go back. Why don't you just let me do it? No! Just a smidge this way. Too far. Listen to me, girl. Stop!"

6. Don't park
anywhere near
gigantic semi trucks. Thank truckers waddling all the way out to van with heavy boxes. Ignore guy counting his money.

When I returned, Katie took one look at the boxes filling the van and muttered that she should have hired a man for my job. She kept asking me questions about why it had taken me so long. I swore that I hadn't gotten lost. Yes (nose growing), everything had gone well.

"It was really busy." I scratched my tingling nose. "I had to wait."

"Okay, okay. We'll manage, but we're kind of behind schedule. I've got to start baking so you're going to have to unload everything yourself."

I stared at the densely packed van. Several boxes had "Duncan Hines" printed in bold red letters.
Katie used a mix? If only all those brides knew!

Katie rubbed her temples. "Don't just stand there. Get the box cutter, and bring them in one at a time if you have to. Why me?" she muttered on her way back inside.

By noon, sweat poured off the tip of my nose. Any makeup I'd put on that morning had run down my chin. My hair clung to the back of my neck with sweat. As I bunched my damp curls into a ponytail and fanned myself, Tyler's Jeep pulled up to the curb. I straightened my shirt and patted down my hair even as I thought,
Why?

He pushed his sunglasses up. "Hey, Jory."

"I'm kind of busy." I hefted a bag of powdered sugar and carried it inside.

Tyler was leaning against the van looking down at his black loafers when I got back. He'd loosened his tie; it hung around his neck like a noose.

"I thought maybe I could take you to lunch." He looked up, then down at his feet again. "Maybe we could talk."

"I'm kind of in trouble for being so late today," I said, glancing back toward the kitchen door. "I'm not sure she's going to give me a lunch break." And what could he possibly want to talk to
me
about anyway? Finn?

"I could help with your deliveries then." He looked at me with those blue eyes. "Like last time?" His voice sounded so shy and quiet.

"Let me go ask." I walked back in to see Katie pouring a box of Duncan Hines cake mix into a bowl. In spite of all the fans running at full speed, the kitchen shimmered with heat.

"Now you know my secret." She flushed. "I add things to improve it."

"Hey, they taste great, right?" I smiled. "And look gorgeous. Can I go to lunch now?"

Katie made me promise to get back by one, no calls about car accidents or backing-up troubles. "Chuck called from the distribution center. Guess you made quite a scene." Katie smiled reproachfully and turned the mixer on low.

"I guess I should've said something right away."

Katie shrugged.

Tyler drove me over to JJ's Pie Company for pizza. We ordered slices and sat in the dark dining room, not really looking at each other. My sweat-soaked shirt felt chilly in the air conditioning, and I'm sure I smelled great too. I lifted my hair up and tied it in a knot while looking around at all the posters hanging on the walls. Zane Zimmerman smiled at me from the Reno High basketball schedule. Maybe I'd have to revisit my ZZ obsession. So what if he was moving to California for college? Maybe I could go to boarding school. Or just skip senior year. My new nose and I could take California by storm. I could model, act, and maybe get my own sitcom. We'd have a fabulous beach house and a pool with waterfalls.

"So, about the lake." Tyler pushed the ice in his Coke around with his straw. "Um."

I looked up at Zane as if he'd whisk me away that very minute to my fabulous California-swimming-pool fantasy.

"Megan told me about—" I took a sip of my Coke and choked. As I coughed, I waited for Tyler to say something.
Anything.

Tyler stared at me, making me nervous, so I stopped coughing and blabbed on. "We kind of—figured things out."

Even in the dark I could see Tyler blush deep crimson, but he still didn't say anything, so I blurted, "Megan kind of lost it, huh?"

Tyler stared down at the table. "About that."

"I know. It's so unlike her. I mean, if I had to vote for someone to be least likely to get drunk at work, it would be Megan, right? But I don't know why they had to go and fire her. Shouldn't they fire the perv who paid for the drinks?"

The guy at the counter called my name, and I jumped up to grab our slices. Tyler's silence freaked me out. Usually he was the one joking around, flirting. I glanced up at a beer poster with a busty girl in a swimsuit. Pre—Fourth of July Tyler would've been making jokes about how he'd once dated her.

"Do you think Megan said anything at work—when she was drunk?" Tyler spoke so softly I had to lean toward him to hear.

"No. She totally covered for that jerk! As if the whole margarita incident were her idea. The guy actually keeps girls' bikinis in his condo. Can you believe it? I can't believe she found
anything
attractive about that guy. He seems so slimy."

Tyler looked up. "Did she say anything about
me?
" He hadn't even picked up his pizza.

"Why would she say anything about you?"

"Isn't she freaking out because of—?"

"Oh." I held my pizza slice midair. "She really liked you." My turn to blush as I took a bite of my pizza; the cheese felt rubbery in my mouth, so I set the rest of it down.

"Yeah. Right. I guess I kind of led her on. She's really cool and everything and I—" He put his head in his hands. "I'm such a screwup." His shoulders shook. Was Tyler crying?

I sat there like an idiot, not knowing what to do.
Say something comforting!
"Hey, look, lots of girls liked—like—you. You're really charming and cute, but—"

"Completely uninterested."

"But nobody really knows that."

"And they can't. Jory, they can't." He stared at me with wet eyes, twisting his napkin in his hand. "You've got to tell Megan that she can't say anything."

"Don't worry—" I reached out and touched his arm.

"Don't worry? If Megan starts telling people and my dad finds out, I'm over." A couple of girls at the table next to us turned their heads. Tyler glowered at the girls and leaned in closer. "
Over.
"

"I'm sure your dad would understand. I mean—"

A flicker of panic crossed his face. "Jory, he can never know. He'd kill me. I'm not exaggerating. He'd rather see me dead than have a g-gay son. I've heard him say it."

I watched Tyler with his magazine-model face, thinking how he looked like the ideal son, the ideal boyfriend, the kind of guy always cast in ads and movies. I'd always thought his life was perfect: rich parents, nice car, gorgeous, popular, athletic. Tyler leaned toward me, picked up my hand, and squeezed hard.

"No one can find out," Tyler said in a low growl. "Ever."

He looked at me with an intense expression. An older woman passing by to pick up her order glanced at me with an ahh-young-love smile, as if I were having a romantic lunch with my boyfriend.

"I won't say anything." I tried to pull my aching hand away. "And I don't think you have to worry about Megan." I'd call her the minute I got home and make her promise not to do anything mean or stupid.

Tyler closed his eyes, nodded, and finally let go of my hand.

Questions whirred in my mind as if whipped by Katie's high-speed mixer. How did he know?
When
did he know? Why did he date that McQueen girl? What about Rachael Beal? Was he a hundred percent sure? Was he maybe just confused? Maybe it was a phase, like one of Mom's diets. No, that's stupid! Kids have killed themselves rather than admit that they're gay.

Tyler looked at me with wide eyes as if he were watching the questions churn in my mind. I reached over and touched his hand—quick—and he exhaled like a deflating balloon.

Neither of us finished the pizza or said much on the way back to Katie's. But later, when I left work and unlocked my bike, Tyler was there to give me a ride home.

DOLDRUMS, DELIVERIES, AND A DATE?

My nose twitched with pollen as I helped Katie sort new flowers into the black buckets in the cooler. A rose pricked my finger, and I sucked on it. Maybe it was a magic rose that could transport me back to the beginning of summer, back when everything and anything seemed possible. Back in June I'd had several new-nose possibilities picked out; Tyler Briggs had touched my knee, and that was just oh so close to other devirginizing areas; and I was going to become a hip film critic and hang out with famous intellectuals and movie stars. Yeah, right!

The phone rang and Katie went to take the order. I dropped a bunch of white carnations into water then opened another box of blooms. More roses. I drew in their deep, sweet scent. Who could I fantasize about now? Tom? I had managed to run into him twice, but he never seemed interested—just another flirt. Gideon? He wouldn't do anything for my social standing at school. Was I the dorky-rebel type? Wouldn't fit my new nose, for sure. He
did
make me feel kind of good about myself, though. I pushed the pink roses aside and placed the yellow roses next to them.