Swoon at Your Own Risk (7 page)

"I just mean that I'm over Hayden—and he's way over me. He's the one who broke up with me, remember."

Jane opens the kennel door. "Oh, I remember. So does my GPA."

The pug still won't do his business. "Come on, you little beast." Yeah, so I begged Jane to come over and study for the AP Bio final, and, you know, listen to me rant about how men should be classified lower than single-celled bacteria. We did study! She resents the fact that I outscored her, despite being an emotional wreck and everything. I couldn't sleep, so I studied—I
asked
her to stay up with me.

A few minutes later Jane emerges with a pair of angry-looking rottweilers that match her mood. The pug immediately squats and goes. I look down at the nasty little pile. "Um, Jane?" I nod toward the stinky heap. "What now?"

She glowers at me like
I'm
the big pile of crap. "You pick it up. That's what the plastic bags are for."

"Oh." I practically gag on the stench and the texture of the stuff as I scoop it into the plastic bag. I hold it away from me as the pug makes a beeline for the kennel door.

"Bring out the Lab next. Be gentle. He was just neutered."

The pug jumps into his empty wire cage before I can get the leash off. Part of me feels like joining him. Dogs do have that sixth sense thing, right? Jane is not in best friend mode. She's looking to pick a fight. I should've stayed home, even if it meant succumbing to a lascivious Xander Cooper fantasy. The black Lab starts wagging his tail as if he's been waiting all day for me to arrive. I've always been a sucker for dark hair, I think, unlatching the cage—and light hair and medium light hair and not-quite-so-dark hair. Maybe I'm just a sucker. I've got to make Jane understand.

The black Lab yanks me through the door. "Jane. Let's start over, okay?" The Lab pulls me across the lawn, breathing heavy with enthusiasm. "I'm not interested in Hayden
anymore. And I'm trying to avoid all contact. That's why I left early."

Jane shakes her head. "Oh, so that explains why he gave you a ride home?"

"How—?" I wasn't about to get into that whole situation. Just stick to the facts. The bare minimum of facts. "He insisted."

"And you, with your expanded vocabulary, forgot the word
no?
"

"Expansive. I have an expansive vocabulary. Besides, I did say no. About three times. But he made me get into the car."

The rottweilers nip at each other's ears, and maybe they're playing, but it's not reassuring. "Made you?"

The friendly Lab flops on the ground, rolling over for a belly rub, and I oblige. "After I, you know, almost got hit by a truck."

"God, Polly! Can't you drop the drama queen act for one night?"

"I was just walking home. Like
you
told me to."

Jane doesn't look one little bit guilty. Her lips pull back into a snarl. "Oh, so you didn't even think for one moment that Hayden would shoot out of his seat as soon as he found out precious Polly would be walking home all alone?"

"No! I'd been walking for almost an hour before he offered me a ride. I figured he stayed until the end of the movie."

"No. He spent that hour driving around trying to find you. He practically put out an AMBER Alert." Jane yanks a rottweiler away from a dried piece of crap. "He kept calling Rowdy to see if I'd heard from you."

"Really?"

"Really. So, my evening was completely ruined."

"It's not like I planned for that to happen. I was leaving you alone like you asked." The Lab leans against me. "Besides, you've seen that movie so many times."

"It's not about the movie!" Jane sounds so exasperated that the rottweilers both look up at her. "I wanted to spend time hanging out with Rowdy, but instead I ended up involved in yet another big Polly drama."

I'm sorry.

"I'm not sure that's enough anymore." Jane leads the dogs back into the kennel. A bunch of angry barking ensues. I focus on the black Lab. Not the bad feelings welling in my chest, threatening to pop out in a burst of embarrassing emotion. I pat the Lab on the head. "What's the secret to happiness, little buddy, huh? Maybe I need to get neutered like you."

Jane comes up behind me, almost smiling. "Believe me,
I've thought about it." She's carrying one of those froufrou dogs that seem incapable of self-ambulation. "Polly, the way you were acting, I figured you were still into Hayden."

"I'm not." I bite my lip so it won't tremble. "I'm really trying to focus on
not
having a boyfriend, because I totally suck at it."

Jane sets the tiny dog on the grass. "Can't argue with that."

I feel as jittery as that little froufrou dog shaking on its pencil-thin legs. "I want to be a better friend, too."

"Yeah, well. Maybe you could start with telling me stuff. I feel like I barely know you these days. One minute you're rushing off to stock car races, the next you're obsessed with video games—"

"You don't need to go on." The Lab lies on the grass with his head resting on my feet. I wonder if I can convince my mom to get us a dog. Dogs = love (the safe, unconditional kind).

"I don't even know where you're applying for college."

My stomach flutters like a thousand unopened credit card bills. "I'm probably just going to the U," I say. "Stick close to Grace and Mom and stuff."

Jane looks like I've just suggested we feed the frou-frou dog to the rottweilers. "But you've always talked about getting
away
from your mom and Grace."

I shrug. I haven't even told her about Mom's new job at Hamburger Heaven; it's just too humiliating. Jane's mom does volunteer work and stays home, making crafts and preparing delicious meals, because her dad owns a successful accounting firm.

"The U's really strong in science." I have no idea if what I'm saying is true. But we've dropped the college talk at home, and Dad avoids the subject like e-mail spam, so I've stopped thinking about it.

Jane rolls her eyes. "You know you have the grades to go anywhere. And Grace doesn't need you, she's got your mom and Amy, right?" Jane scoops up the little dog's microscopic doo-doo.

"Why didn't you let me walk that one?"

"Come on, Polly. I thought we were both going Ivy League? That's been the plan since, what, seventh grade?"

"Yeah, I guess, but..." I scratch the Lab's belly again. "Hey, where are
you
going to apply?"

Jane takes my lead like a retriever chasing a ball. I listen, nodding, making funny quips and serious comments in all the right places. That's what good friends do, right? Jane keeps up the college discussion until we've finished feeding and watering the dogs. She locks the clinic door and smiles. "So, now that I'm not completely pissed at you anymore..."

"What?" I'm hoping she'll suggest we go to her house to hang out and let her mom make us salads for lunch; all that's been served lately at my house are Hamburger Heaven reject orders.

"My night wasn't totally ruined."

I find my inner Labrador and fake enthusiasm. "Oh, really? Details, please."

"So, after Hayden called to say he found you and everything, Rowdy pulled me aside and said that maybe we should finish watching the movie together sometime. Just the two of us! Omigod, I almost died." Jane touches her hands to her cheeks. "But I totally channeled you—and acted all coy and said maybe I'd think about it. It worked! He looked about as hungry as those rotties!" Jane starts laughing. "He's already texted me three times this weekend. You totally know how to hook 'em." She giggles. "Maybe I can figure out how to actually keep them."

"That's a compliment, right?"

Jane shrugs. "If you think so."

Dear Miss Swoon:
I really hate my friend's boyfriend. I don't see what she sees in him or why she chooses to spend time with him when
she could be spending time with me. How can I make her see that I need her too?
—My Friend Is Blind

Dear Blind:
Are you sure that you're seeing 20/20? Jealousy could be clouding your vision. Time to focus on
yourself.
—Miss Swoon

My voice cracks as I scream at kids to stop: spitting, running, pushing, shoving, splashing—basically violating every single Wild Waves rule and inventing new ones like seeing how fast ice cream melts in pool water.

"Where do you think you're going?" I say to a kid about to take a corn dog on a ride through the Lazy River. "No food allowed in the pool."

The kid looks at me like I'm a big loser; he's even younger than Grace. His eyes fixate on my plastic sheriff's badge. "You're not a real sheriff. That's so fake."

"Well." I hate myself for feeling intimidated by this kid. "My authority is real."

The word
authority
means nothing to him. He takes one more bite of the corn dog, tosses it toward the nearest trash
can, misses, and walks into the pool. My face turns the color of the ketchup now dripping from my hand as I pick up the disgusting, half-eaten, nitrate-filled food product. I'm seriously considering becoming a vegetarian—simply because Hamburger Heaven doesn't seem to have any vegetables on the menu and Mom might be forced to, you know, buy something at the grocery store. I half expect her to make us shampoo with Hamburger Heaven washroom soap.

I spot a kid about to snap a girl's swimsuit straps. "Hands to yourself!" The kid looks at me with wide-eyed innocence. "Yeah, well, I saw you!" Little perverts like him should be branded so girls like me won't try to date them in high school. I'm sure Kurt snapped swimsuits!

I tug my swimsuit up, shorts down. "Is there a single person here who isn't compelled to break the rules?" I say it too loud, and a couple of mom types glare at me like
How dare you talk about
my
snot-dripping cuties?

"What rule am I breaking?"

I spin around at the sound of Xander Cooper's voice,
not
that I recognize it or anything, but he
has
been bringing his niece and nephew here all week and I've heard him talking to them. This is the first time he's talked to
me.
He smiles with one eyebrow raised in a question. I look into his eyes—
big brown eyes—because he's not wearing a shirt. His lips curve into a smirk, and I realize that my witty response is way overdue.

I tilt my head. "I think you know."

That makes him laugh. "Yeah, but do
you
know?"

I gawk at him. My mind goes blank. My eyes flash down at his chest. No, not there. I look up at his hair. Not there, either. I focus on his wrist. How can a wrist be sexy? Fingers. Smudged with black ink. He's been writing in that notebook on and off all morning,
not
that I'm watching, but it is my job to patrol, or whatever.

"Do you?" he asks, touching inky fingers to his kinky-curly hair.

Yeah, I
do
know. He's broken the rule of standing so close to me that I can smell his sunscreen and see the mole on his left wrist, the chapped spot on his bottom lip, the reddish streak in his hair, the way his skin is the color of tea with milk. Grandma drinks a lot of tea. Thinking about Grandma is much preferable to thinking about—Wait! He's the kid who once ate an old piece of chewed gum from under my desk. I take a deep breath and draw myself up a bit taller, in spite of the way it makes my swimsuit pull downward.

"Oh, I think I do know." I resist tugging at my suit, my
shorts. "But you should know that I like to follow the rules." Rule number one: avoid guys!

I ignore a group of kids running past screaming, whacking each other with their towels, and clearly violating Wild Waves regulations one through three. Well, maybe they don't
all
have communicable diseases, but whatever.

Xander cuts his eyes toward them. "Clearly some rules are made to be broken."

Sawyer's whistle blows but who cares? I ignore the screaming, splashing sound echoing off the walls of the Lazy River. The whistle blows again. "Polly!" Sawyer screams. "Take action."

So I do. I look straight into Xander Cooper's eyes and say, "Don't mess with the deputy, Mr. Cooper." I head over to the melee in the pool, but over my shoulder I say, "Or I'll have to lock you up."

Now he's the one who's speechless.

I cannonball into the water—yeah, breaking the always-enter-via-the-stairway rule, but I'm an employee, right? And we have a situation. Plus, I need to cool my hot face, skin, hot all of me. I stay underwater for a few seconds, but Sawyer's still blowing that whistle, so I pop up, brush my hair back, and swim the few strokes toward the boys who've created an inner tube barricade under the Shot-Bucket Waterfall—about once a minute a gunshot pings, and the bucket dumps water into
the Lazy River. These boys have got a younger kid trapped, and they've decided it's funny to steer his head under the streaming water. I recognize Corn Dog Boy.

"Hey, you!" I try to blow my whistle, but it's full of water. "Stop right now!"

The victim gets dunked by another bucket of water.

I reach over and yank one kid's tube out from under him. "I said stop!" But of course, that kid doesn't hear me because he's under water. So I knock another kid off his tube. If they're all concerned with staying afloat, they can't torture their victim, right? With my foot I give the victim's tube a good shove so he drifts away.

The other kids have turned on me. One says, "Hey! I'm telling my mom you pushed me into the water!"

"I'm going to tell her that you were engaging in unnecessary roughhousing."

The kid looks at me like I'm speaking a foreign language. "My mom is going to be so mad at you! I almost drownded."

"The word is
drowned!
You almost
drowned.
I mean, not really. Argh!"

Sawyer blows his whistle loud. Right next to me. Deafening.

"Out of the pool, boys."

"Okay," Corn Dog Boy says. "But did you see what
she
did?"

"You're still in the penalty box." Sawyer points to the pool stairs. "Back to the twenty-yard line."

Now I look at him like he's speaking a foreign language, but the kids seem to understand his well-churned sports metaphor. And he thinks he can become an ESPN commentator!