Swoon at Your Own Risk (15 page)

"Yeah, if it's
you!
" Kipper bites her lip, as if worried about my reaction.

I take a deep breath. "Not anymore. That's over. Way over."

"Doesn't seem like it. Have you read Sonnet's blog lately?"

"Well, Kipper, give your sunglasses a good polish, because it's so over—like two boyfriends ago over."

She shrugs. "Rebounds."

The last thing I want, need, or can even remotely handle is Kipper Carlyle analyzing my love life. "Kipper, dear. Sawyer likes you. He wants me to see if you're into
him
. That's why I'm the roving deputy today."

"Omigosh!" she squeals. "Really? But he's a senior! I mean, I know I'm going to be a junior now, but—Omigosh." She grins down at me. "His hair is, like, so blond."

"Yup. And his eyes are green."

"So green!"

"Okay, well, why don't you mosey on over to the corral there and ask to call your sister, and you can maybe chat a bit, and who knows?" I tilt my head to indicate the future flirting,
dating, making out, wedding plans, whatever, maybe 2.1 disgusting kids.

"Polly, you're the best. No matter what everyone says. I can't believe he likes
me
."

My stomach lurches as if I've eaten a stack of day-old rejected hamburgers heaped with extra humiliation. "I'll take your spot while you're gone."

Kipper flips open her phone as she jumps from the lifeguard chair. "Guess what? Oh? That's great! It's a boy? Fabulous. Amazing! Guess what?"

Yeah, she's as deep as the puddle I'm standing in. Maybe it was just another one of Sawyer's malapropisms. He didn't mean
deep
; he meant
dumb
. I wasn't dumb enough to be his girlfriend.

I'm standing in the middle of Splash Pasture, blowing my whistle every few seconds, surrounded by squealing kids having a huge water gun fight, and feeling really, um, lonely.

Over by the Lazy River Sawyer flirts with Kipper. Xander gives me rides but ignores me. And I don't want to like him. I can't! Especially since skateboarding has started to look like an appealing form of transportation (no gas, no pricey repairs, no Dad issues). Jane's officially going out with Rowdy, if hanging out in the basement counts. Mom works a ton of extra shifts
at Hamburger Heaven. Grace has practically moved in with Amy. Dad hasn't answered my e-mail about the cabin. And by the time I return home Grandma will probably be dating the dishwasher guy. I'm going to hand wash all my dishes as a matter of principle!

Why won't all the noise push the thoughts from my mind?

I'm not finding the positivity.

Somehow, being surrounded by so much laughter, joking around, happiness, just makes me feel that much worse. It's as if everyone else in the world has figured out how to enjoy life, even the smallest toddlers who giggle as they splash around in the shallow water together. All the moms sit around in groups of friends. No one wants to be my friend. Jane acts completely sick of me. Sawyer just used me to get close to Kipper.

"Ugh! I can't believe I did that!" I blow my whistle just to tell my thoughts to stop!
Warning to self: you're violating all of your rules!

I look at a Band-Aid stuck to the bottom of the pool and wonder what kind of wound has been left gaping open. I look up to see Jack ambling toward me holding Buster's leash, and a girl's hand.

"Hey, Pol. Buster looks great. Thanks. You're a sweetheart."

The girl smiles at me in a way that shows that I'm not the least bit threatening to her. Buster wades over to me in the pool. Several kids shriek, "Puppy!" I know I'm violating several health department codes and Sawyer's going to explode if he ever stops gazing into Kipper's vacant blue eyes, but I can't help but wonder why
this
girl didn't watch the dog.

Buster splashes back to Jack's actual girlfriend. "I would've loved to baby-sit little Buster-wuster." She pouts, patting Buster's head. "But my mom is so anal about her floors. I'm, like, really."

"Yeah, really."

"So, P.M., think you could drop Buster's stuff off at my place tonight? We're going out," Jack says.

"My dad's company picnic." The girl sighs dramatically. "Like, really."

"Really." I'm like one of those scratched DVDs we watch in science lab. Stuck. "I'm actually—"

"A total pal. Thanks." Jack smiles.

I'm not anyone's pal! If he thinks I'm going to deliver his dog's slobbery dishes, stinky food, and stained pillow to his house while he's off with his girlfriend, he's killed too many brain cells playing video games! Does
she
even know how he enticed me to dog-sit by using his ... his lips?

Sawyer's whistle blows, and he charges over like a rodeo steer. "Dog! That dog! You said—"

Jack tosses out an easy smile. "Relax, Sawman. It's all my fault."

"Out!" Sawyer leans over, catching his breath, panting, pointing to the exit. He looks at me with a mixture of surprise and disgust. "You're in—"

"The doghouse?"

He just looks at me. "Yeah." He holds his fingers an inch apart. "You're this close to losing your job."

"What else is new?"

A kid behind me starts wailing. I have to bite my cheek hard to stop my own tears from flowing. I brace myself for Sawyer's patented question of concern, but he's already walking toward Kipper. I can't lose my job. I need the money more than ever. But I could never tell him that.

I'm standing alone in the middle of everyone, tears escaping from my eyes, but no one even notices.

Dear Miss Swoon:
How can I stop saying yes when I want to say no?
—No Not Yes

Dear No Not Yes:
Tattoo it on your forehead and point!
—Miss Swoon

Not Shakespeare's Sonnet
Blond count: 7.5 (sick little twerp, sick!) Listmania!!!

Things You Should Never Do for an Ex:

1. Fix them up with someone (P.M., No!!!!!)

2. Lend them money (Like, hello, B.B.?)

3. Loan them your car (Two words, R.J.: Driving Record!)

4. Baby-sit their bulldogs (Come on, P.M.! You're on this list twice)

5. Believe what they say when they break up with you (Everyone!)

Your turn, folks! Let's make this list comprehensive.

Despite new affirmations—more like specific instructions about not making stupid mistakes, now written less conspicuously on my ankles in Sharpie marker—I found myself making yet another stupefying decision. It's those foolish affirmations. If I have loving and supportive friends, then I should go along with their plans, right? And if I have loving and supportive friends, then I should love and support them, even if that means hanging out with their doofus boyfriend late at night in an empty strip mall parking lot.

I should've gone to the bonfire party with Sonnet. So what if Xander Cooper told her about it? He hangs out with the hardcore partiers now, too? Sonnet made way too big a deal about how he'd asked her to tell me.

"He's so into you," Sonnet said. "Do you see the way he
stares? And he's always writing stuff in that little notebook. Probably odes to his Fair Polly."

"I'm sure it's just a grocery list or something. I think he uses a lot of hair product."

"You think you're so funny, but the guy seriously has his rhyme and meter going for you."

I rolled my eyes. "You make it sound so dirty."

"Oh, do I? Or is that the way
your
mind is going?" Sonnet flipped her hair. "What if I write a few sample Xander love odes for my blog?"

"What if I convinced every blond guy within a thousand metric miles to die his hair puke green?"

"Green makes me horny."

I pushed her off the Lazy River bridge in a totally illegal, bad-girl move.

Sonnet bobbed out of the water, cleavage quite exposed. "You could've just said no."

"No!" I'd screamed. "A thousand times no."

But now here I am standing under the yellow glow of the parking lot lights with my arms crossed. We've removed our shoes to create a slalom course for a grocery cart race. Why did I wear my newish sandals? The nerd patrol has rounded up two carts. One guy even went shopping with his mom so he
could hide the cart behind a Dumpster. That's the level of quality I'm dealing with.
Loving and supportive friends,
I chant to myself, ignoring the fact that Jane has barely acknowledged my presence. She's all over Rowdy, running up and down the shoe course in her bare feet, giggling as she rearranges our footwear. Really she's acting like she's been infected with some viral brain disorder.

We've divided into teams. As one of only two female specimens, I get to be a team captain. I only picked guys who would never in a geologic era appeal to me. One of the guys—he was in my AP Physics class—struts up to me. He reminds me of Buster, except without the, you know, musculature. "So, Martin," he says. He's trying way too hard. "We've got to work on achieving maximum velocity, don't you think?"

"Well, Akim—"

"Call me Razor—like Occam's Razor, Akim's Razor. Get it?"

"Okay. Whatever. Actually, um, Razor, I think we should focus on trajectory more than velocity."

Akim nods, all serious. One of my other teammates starts arguing with him, but I hear Akim whisper, "Yeah, but dude, I know she doesn't look like it or act like it, but she breaks the class curve every single time."

I roll my eyes, wondering how this guy knows anything about my grades. I keep that stuff low profile, but whatever. "It's just a grocery cart race, right?"

"It's pride, man." They do an awkward chest bump. Works better with drunk football players than with sober members of the academic team. "And loser pays at Hamburger Heaven!"

"Oh. No. That's okay. Pride is just fine." I'm not showing up at Hamburger Hell with these lower life forms! Not on a Friday night. And then there's the whole Mom situation. I will not let the other team win! I will lie about my curfew!

"Okay." Jane bounces over to me with far too much enthusiasm.

"The course is ready. What do you think, Polly?"

I glance at the random placement of shoes streaming between the bookstore on the south end and the craft store at the north. "Let's just get this over with."

Jane's face falls.

"I've got to get home early."

She puts her hand on her hip. "But you're spending the night?"

"Oh. Yeah. Right." I really need to donate my brain to science, possibly as soon as tomorrow, so someone can figure out what went wrong. "Joking."

Jane shrugs her shoulders. "That was lame, even for you."

"I'm just trying to throw you off your game so we can dominate. Right, guys?"

We high-five each other, and I climb in the cart with Akim the Mighty Razor. I don't want to rehash the calculations based on weight distribution that went into
that
decision. Let's just say that I won't be fantasizing about any of these guys early in the morning. Not that I do that about
anyone
anymore. Not since Xander's skateboard passed my window this morning, anyway. So? It's a difficult habit to break!
No male contamination. No male contamination. No male—

"Ready, Polyamide?"

We all have new nicknames. So what if Helium (don't ask) wants to insult me by insinuating that I'm synthetic, as in "fake"? This is the first time we've ever spent more than a class period together. So what if I sometimes ask stupid questions or pretend to get a bad grade now and then? Guys love to explain things, not have them explained. After enduring a Polynomial versus Polyamide debate, I've also decided to name my future kids—not that I plan to mate with anyone—after an unpronounceable symbol.

Razor and I distribute our weight for maximum velocity. Helium and Sulu stand behind, ready to push. Jane sits in the
other cart with Rowdy; you can bet that decision was hardly based on a scientific formula. More like a hokey love potion. I'm totally not into this whole endeavor, but as long as I'm here, we might as well win.

"Go!" Campos screams. (These guys spend way too much time watching those
Fast and Furious
movies.)

My whole body jiggles as the grocery cart careens around the shoes, nearly tipping over. I'm thrown against Akim. "Distribute! Distribute!" he yells.

I start laughing. Jane and Rowdy's cart catches up with us. They aren't distributing anything except their hands all over each other! My boobs bounce all around, but Razor's too busy screaming instructions to notice. "Veer to the left. The left!"

Jane and Rowdy overtake us around a tight turn, tipping precariously to the side, which slows them down. Our cart shoots ahead following a straight trajectory.

We win!

Sulu, Razor, and Helium immediately call out Hamburger Heaven menu items—along the lines of "I'm getting like two shakes, dude, and cheese fries and a Devilish Bacon Burger."

I'm still feeling all light and giggly from the ride. "Let's do best two out of three." I grin at Jane. "You up for a rematch?"

"You're on!" Rowdy comes over and bumps his fist against mine. "Should we rearrange the course?"

I look over at my shoe, flattened by a speeding cart's wheel. Well, the sandals are kind of oldish. And it's not like I'm out to impress anyone. Ever again. "Only if you want to move my sandals away from the finish line."

Razor says, "No, the course stays the same to maintain the integrity of the scoring."

"You're quite right," I say. "We don't want anyone to invalidate our results." I sort of enjoy hanging out with these guys who've mastered their SAT prep words, scientific notation, and, you know,
Star Trek
characters. Apparently I'm smiling a little too much because Akim slings his arm around my shoulders.

I shrug him off. "We shouldn't mix business with pleasure, there, Occam's Razor. We've got a race to win."

He clasps his hands behind his back. "Oh, right. Right."

Yes. I'm in complete control. We climb into the carts again. As we start the second race, sirens blare and lights flash: the mall security truck rounds the corner, heading toward the far parking lot entrance.

"Cops!" Sulu just lets go of the cart, sending me and Akim careening toward the curb. Wham! The cart lands on its side.
I hit the pavement. Hard. I sit up, dazed. Droplets of blood bubble on my arm, but the pain hasn't hit yet. I've got a big rip in my shorts.