Perfect Couple (2 page)

For better or for worse.

Mr. Oakley looked straight at me. “Can you work this out yourselves?”

“Yes, sir.” My voice was drowned out by the bell ending the period.

As Mr. Oakley moved away and students gathered their books, Kennedy rolled his chair closer to mine and said in my ear, “Don’t raise your voice to me.”

Raise my voice?
He
was the one who’d raised his voice and caught Mr. Oakley’s attention.

The bell went silent.

Kennedy straightened. In his normal tone he said, “Tell Ms. Patel I’ll miss most of study hall. I’m going to stay here and get a head start on the other Superlatives pages, now that I know we’re in trouble.”

“Okay.” The argument hadn’t ended like I’d wanted, but at least he didn’t seem angry anymore.

I retrieved my book bag and smiled when I saw Quinn waiting for me just inside the doorway. His big grin made his dyed-black Goth hair and the metal stud jutting from his bottom lip look less threatening. Most people in school didn’t know what I knew: that Quinn was a sweetheart. We wound our way through the crowded halls toward Ms. Patel’s classroom.

“I overheard your talk with Kennedy,” Quinn said.

“Did you see his designs?” I asked. “I understand why he’d want to angle some photos for variety
if
the pictures themselves were boring. Mine aren’t.”

“He’ll change his mind when he sees the rest of your masterpieces,” Quinn assured me. “Speaking of the Superlatives, Noah said Brody’s been talking about you.”

I suspected where this was going. Noah and I hadn’t been as tight this school year, since I’d started dating Kennedy. In fact, if I hadn’t checked Noah’s calculus homework every day in study hall, we might not have talked at all. But last spring when we’d gone out, he’d told me what great friends he and Brody were. Brody’s dad had been their first football coach for the rec league in third grade. They’d played side by side ever since. Now Noah’s position on the team was right guard. His responsibility was to protect Brody from getting sacked before he could throw the ball. Friends that close definitely shared their opinions of the girl one of them had been teamed with as Perfect Couple.

Brody must have told Noah it was ridiculous that he and I had been paired. He would never dream of wasting his time with a nerd like me. I should have told Quinn that whatever it was, I didn’t want to know. And still I heard myself asking, “What did Brody say about me?”

“Yesterday in football practice,” Quinn said, “Brody told
the team that you two aren’t the Perfect Couple. You’re the Perfect Coup
ling
. And then he expressed admiration for your ass.”

“Oooh.” I was thrilled at the idea of Brody noticing my body and wishing he could have sex with me. But I quickly realized I was supposed to feel insulted. I turned that “Oooh” into a more appropriate “Ewww. He shouldn’t kid around like that. Somebody’s bound to tell Kennedy.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Quinn looked askance at me. “Do you care, after the way Kennedy treated you just now? Why don’t you stand up to him?”

“Kennedy has a point,” I explained. “He needs my pictures for the Superlatives. If I miss a deadline and make him miss his, it doesn’t matter why. An excuse won’t fix it. And he doesn’t want me to argue with him in class, because it looks bad to Mr. Oakley.”

We’d reached Ms. Patel’s doorway and stopped outside to finish our talk. Sawyer was in our study hall. Sawyer and private conversations didn’t mix.

Quinn put one hand on my shoulder, something Kennedy rarely did. “I’ve worried long enough about keeping up appearances. I’m done with that today.”

I nodded. Quinn was making a big announcement at the end of the period.

“Come with me,” he said. “Come into the light. Stop worrying about how things
look
.”

I frowned. “We’re not in the same situation, Quinn. And how things look—that’s everything I care about.”

“You’ll be sorry.” He spun on the heel of his combat boot and disappeared into the classroom.

Perplexed, I turned to frown at the end of the slowly emptying hall. My senior year was supposed to be the time of my life. Two weeks in, all I felt was anxious about my photo assignment. And thrilled that a random hot guy, who would never ask me out, had made a joke about hooking up with me.

Tia leaned against the lockers outside Mr. Frank’s room next door. Will propped his forearm above her and leaned down to say something with a grin. She laughed. I was glad they’d gotten together earlier this week. Will had just moved here from Minnesota. After a rocky start, he seemed to be adjusting better. And Tia, a comedian, finally was genuinely happy.

She noticed me watching them and must have read the expression on my face. She stuck out her bottom lip in sympathy.

I shook my head—
nothing was wrong
—and dove into Ms. Patel’s room.

“Hey, girlfriend.” Brody grinned at me as I walked toward him between two rows of desks. His green eyes were bright, but the shadows underneath were visible despite his deep tan. He’d always had the circles under his eyes. When we were in kindergarten, Mom had wondered aloud whether he was getting enough sleep. In middle school, guys had teased him about being a drug addict. Now the shadows seemed like a part of him, permanent evidence of his rough-and-tumble life—and love life. He held up one fist toward me.

I fist-bumped him. “Hey, boyfriend.” The way we’d reacted to our Superlatives title underscored how different we were, and how imperfect a couple we would have made. I never could have admitted this even to Tia or Kaye, but I’d puzzled endlessly over what our classmates saw in us that led them to think we’d be good together.

In contrast, Brody called me his girlfriend and teased me. The “Hey, girlfriend” and the fist bump had been going on for the full two weeks of school. Every time we did it, I was afraid someone would mention it to Kennedy. He would pick a fight with me because I looked like I was flirting behind his back.

Brody didn’t seem concerned that someone would mention it to his girlfriend, Grace. The idea of me threatening their relationship was that far-fetched. Although—and
this thought had kept me awake some nights—Brody never called me his girlfriend and fist-bumped me when Grace and Kennedy were around. He did it only in moments like this, a period without Grace, with Kennedy missing. Aside from twenty other students and Ms. Patel, we were alone here.

And if Brody had progressed to telling my ex-boyfriend, Noah, what he’d like to do with me when we were
really
alone, he was getting too close for comfort.

After dumping my book bag beside my desk, I asked Brody quietly, “May I talk with you?” I nodded toward the back of the classroom.

His eyebrows rose like he knew he was in trouble—but just for a moment. “Sure.” He jumped up with a jerk that made the legs of his desk screech across the floor. Four people in the next row squealed and slapped their hands over their ears.

He followed me to the open space behind the desks, next to the cabinets. In the sunlight streaming through the window, I noticed his slightly swollen bottom lip and a faintly purple bruise on his jaw. He must have been hit in the mouth by another football player—or punched by an irate girl. Leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, he was back to looking as flaked out and heroin-chic as usual. I almost laughed, because he was so handsome and he’d said something
so stupid to get himself in hot water—except that the person he’d said it about was me.

“I heard you were talking about me in football,” I began.

He gaped at me. I couldn’t tell whether he was horrified that I’d found out, or fake-horrified. He didn’t say anything, though. He eyed me uneasily.

“What if Grace hears?” I asked.

He gave the smallest shrug as he continued to watch me, like he hadn’t considered the possibility and couldn’t be bothered to care very much.

Well, here was something
I
cared about. “What if Kennedy hears?”

This time I got the reaction I’d been dying for, though I would never admit it. Brody narrowed his eyes at me, jealous of Kennedy, frustrated that he couldn’t have me for himself.

Of course, I could have been interpreting his expression all wrong. But in that moment, the rest of the noisy classroom seemed to fall away. Only Brody and I were left, sharing a vibe, exchanging a message. His green eyes seemed to sear me. He was gazing at me exactly the way I felt about him.

2

BUT THE NEXT SECOND, I decided I’d been mistaken. He blinked, and the mad jealousy I’d seen in his eyes looked more like sleep deprivation. He shrugged again. The move gave way to a stretch as he raised his arms behind his head and clasped both hands behind his neck.

He wasn’t preening for me. Hot athletic guys purposefully showed their bulging triceps to cheerleaders like Grace, not geek bait like me. The message to
me
was,
If Kennedy confronts me, I will squash him like a bug between my thumb and forefinger.

Frustrated, I whined, “Brody!” just like I had, and every other girl had in kindergarten, when he tickled us and made us giggle during quiet time or dabbed paint on our noses just before our dramatic debut onstage in the class play.

My protest snapped him out of his jock act. He held
out his hands, pleading with me. “Harper, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. You know me. I just blurt shit out sometimes. Or, all the time. The guys on the team asked me about the Superlatives thing. In football, when somebody asks you how you feel, you answer with a sex joke.”

“I see,” I said. “What you told the guys was a more offensive, more personal version of ‘I would totally hit that.’ ”

Grinning, he pointed at me. “Yes.”

I tried an even better imitation of the assholes on the team. “ ‘I would hit that
thang
.’ ”

He patted me on the head, possibly mussing my careful French twist. “The guys are pretty taken with you. They think the idea of you getting with an idiot like me is hilarious. They’ll keep teasing me about you. I’ll keep making sex jokes. I’m just warning you.”

“Are you going to keep adding that bit about my ass, too?”

He wagged his eyebrows.

“Fine,” I said over the bell that started our half-hour study hall. We headed for our desks. To keep up the facade that I thought the idea of us getting together was hilarious too, I made small talk. “Ready for the game tonight?” I hoped he wouldn’t give me a detailed answer I couldn’t follow and force me to expose my ignorance about football. I’d never been interested in sports. Over the last few days, Mr. Oakley
had given me a crash course in what I hadn’t absorbed while dating Noah, so I’d know enough about the rules to catch the important plays through a camera lens. Ideally.

But I did want to know how practice had been going for Brody, and how he felt about the pressure he must be under before the game. I’d been part of the crowd at parties at his house a couple of times recently, but we’d never had what I’d call an in-depth conversation. I knew more about his football career from the local newspaper than from him. Seeing the game through his eyes would help me capture a star quarterback’s perspective and immortalize it in the yearbook.

Plus, I enjoyed the way he looked at me. I wished he would give me that narrow-eyed stare again, no matter what emotion was behind it. I might have had a boyfriend, he might have had a girlfriend, and the idea of us getting together under any circumstances might have been ridiculous, but I wanted his attention a little longer.

He stretched his arms way over his head again. Sitting this close to him, it was hard to get perspective on how much taller than me he was, but I never forgot. Then he settled himself across his desktop, arms folded, head down, and closed his eyes. “Don’t I look ready?” Conversation over.

Ms. Patel eased into her chair at the front of the room and pulled a stack of papers out of her desk drawer. The people
who’d been milling around the classroom slid into seats and hauled books out of their backpacks or, like Brody, settled down for a nap. Ms. Patel had said she didn’t care what we did in study hall as long as we kept the noise down to a dull roar.

I pretended to check Noah’s calculus homework while gathering the courage to ask Brody about our yearbook photo together.

I was on deadline. Taking the easy route would be smartest. I should schedule a meeting in the school courtyard like I’d arranged for most of the other Superlatives. I could set up a tripod and program a simple picture on a time delay, then dive into the frame with Brody before the shutter opened. But that wouldn’t be cute. It wouldn’t be original. It wouldn’t contribute to the portfolio I needed to get into a college art program next fall.

And it wouldn’t put me in proximity to Brody for as long as I wanted.

I raised my eyes from problem number five on Noah’s homework and considered the close-shorn back of his head. If Brody and I discussed the photo here, Noah would hear me. I could say one wrong thing and let on that my weird pairing with Brody had developed into a crush, and Noah would make sure the whole locker room knew what was going on. That would
definitely
get back to Kennedy. Noah
wasn’t one to keep his mouth shut about other people’s business. His own business, yes. Mine, no.

Quinn sat in front of Noah. He would overhear the conversation too. He wouldn’t spread the gossip like Noah, but when Brody slighted me, Quinn would feel sorry for me, just like he had when Noah broke up with me. That would be worse.

And in front of Brody sat Sawyer. He didn’t have it in for me, as far as I knew, but if he overheard my awkward request, he would retell the story in the funniest way possible, which would make my life a living hell. That’s just how Sawyer was. He might have been asleep, though. His white-blond head was down on his arms, and he hadn’t moved since I’d entered the classroom. As our school’s mascot—he dressed up like a six-foot pelican at the games—his first act of bringing about student solidarity had been to pass out from heat exhaustion at a practice on the football field last Monday. He probably was resting for his debut at the game tonight.