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“This is it, right?”
“Yes.” Silence. “So, when did Bobby Passeo skate over Peter’s fingers?”
“I don’t know. Two years ago, I guess.”
I can’t believe he still remembers where we live.
“Wait, you had your license two years ago?”
He shakes his head and leans back against his door, looking at me with those perfectly hazel eyes that make me nervous.
“You okay?” he asks, a cloud passing across his face. His question and dark expression catch me off guard, as I’m still thinking about him driving without a license. A thousand people have pissed me off by asking that question in the past few months. But I don’t seem to mind it when it comes from Jamie. “I’m sorry. About your dad,” he says.
I nod, but that’s all I can do. I’m not going to risk crying in front of Jamie. I can’t really predict when I’m going to cry, but when I do, it involves a lot of snot. “Well, thanks for the ride,” I say, reaching for the door handle.
“Rose,” he says. “You know my name, don’t you?”
His name? He thinks I don’t know his name? The idea that I’m so in my own universe that I haven’t heard Angelo call him “Jamie” and “Jame” every two minutes in study hall—that I wouldn’t know his name, that I wouldn’t know who he was after watching him play hockey all those times—is crazy. But should I admit that I know his name? If I know his name, will he think I…like him?
“Um…” I say.
His expression quickly goes blank. He turns back toward the steering wheel and puts the car from Park into Drive as if he were planning to gun it the second my feet hit the pavement.
“Jamie,” he tells me as he stares straight ahead, waiting for me to leave.
I’m an idiot. But if I now say, Of course I know your name, I’ve always known your name, he won’t believe me. “Thanks again for the ride,” is all I can manage.
I get out as fast as I can, and he takes off, leaving me standing in the street, feeling like a complete loser for pretending not to know the name of someone who just went out of his way to be nice to me, who seemed genuinely sorry about what happened.
Nice going, Rose. Way to make friends. Keep up the good work.
belligerent (adjective): inclined to hostility or war
(once again, see also: me)
3
A FEW HOURS later, I’m in my usual Friday-night spot, sprawled on Tracy’s bright orange shag carpet that we got at Target, waiting for Robert and Matt to show up so we can go to Cavallo’s for pizza. I am very carefully not talking about Jamie, although I feel like I’m going to explode if I don’t. He was being so nice, and I messed everything up. I want to ask Tracy if she thinks he actually likes me or just feels sorry for me, but I can tell she doesn’t like him by the way she looked at him in study hall today. It’s easier just to say nothing.
Tonight, predictably, Tracy and I are covering three topics during our session in her room: her virginity, Robert and her cheerleading tryout. To be honest, I can’t believe Tracy is going out for cheerleading at Union High. First of all, our cheerleading team is not one of those amazing, superathletic competitive teams—there are no backflips off crazy-high human pyramids at halftime. The most acrobatic thing that goes on here is a synchronized hair flip. And being on the cheerleading team at our school isn’t like being a cheerleader at the private school in Union— Here, it doesn’t mean you’re at the top of the food chain. Yes, some of the cheerleaders are beautiful and go out with hot jocks, but some are average-looking girls who just happen to know how to dance. Some are smart, some not. Some have money, some don’t. In other words, not all of them are popular. And to top it all off, Union High cheerleaders have kind of a slutty reputation on the whole. At least, that’s what I heard Peter say once.
So even if Tracy does make the team—and I kind of don’t think she will—she’s not automatically granted access to the top tier of Union High popularity. But I’m not about to tell her that. She’ll just accuse me of being a snob. And in some ways she’s right—after all, I think Union High’s brand of cheerleading is a waste of time and teenage girls.
But I’d still rather talk about cheerleading than virginity.
“I don’t think fifteen is too young to lose it, do you?”
I hate this part of the conversation. “I don’t know,” I mumble.
“You always say that.”
Well, what do I know? I can’t really imagine letting a guy see me naked, never mind letting him do that to me while I’m naked. So I don’t really know what to think. I don’t want to think about it at all, most of the time. Which makes me think that fourteen is probably too young. And is fifteen really that different from fourteen?
“Maybe I should go on the pill,” she says.
I nearly fall through the floor. I suddenly feel like she’s thirty and I’m still in nursery school.
“Tracy, you can’t go on the pill.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not. You have to use condoms. It’s too dangerous not to,” I say.
“You’re so paranoid about sex, Rosie. You always have been. You better relax.”
She’s right about this, too. I am paranoid about sex. Maybe it’s because I have an older brother who decided to tell me all about the dangers of sex the night before he left for college. I’m not sure why Peter was so worked up about the whole thing, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was because he felt he had to fill the parental void. Since Dad died, Mom hasn’t exactly been “available” or “present” or whatever you say, which is kind of ironic, since she’s a shrink. Who specializes in adolescent psychology. When she does talk to me these days, she uses her therapy voice, which makes me go deaf almost instantly.
Thanks to her job, we have enough books on teenagers in the house that I could find the answer to pretty much any question I might have, if I felt like looking. Which I don’t. Maybe that’s why Peter called me into his room to talk about sex while he was packing.
He was listening to Coldplay and I assumed he just wanted to dissect the album and explain why he thought Chris Martin was such a hack. But, no. “Never, ever let some guy talk you into sex without a condom,” Peter had said without any sort of warning. I froze in the middle of his room. “He’ll try to tell you that he can’t feel anything, and that it will be better for both of you if you don’t use one, but he’s just being a selfish asshole. You can get all sorts of diseases from sex. Girls can even get cervical cancer from sex. So don’t listen to some loser who claims he can’t get it up with a condom on. That doesn’t happen to guys until they’re, like, old. And don’t go on the pill for anyone. But you’ll learn all about this stuff in Ms. Maso’s class—she’s the bomb.”
Peter scared the crap out of me, even though I didn’t understand half of what he said. Or maybe that’s why he scared me so much. I barely know what a cervix is. For someone with the aforementioned abnormally large vocabulary, I can be intentionally dumb sometimes.
Tracy hops off the bed and goes to her full-length mirror to check out how her butt looks in her new Rock & Republic jeans—again. You’d think we were going to a fashion show, not out for pizza. I suddenly notice that all of her boy-band posters are gone. Her walls are blank. I can’t believe it, given the amount of time we spent decorating and redecorating our walls last year. I open my mouth to ask about the posters when she says, “Matt wants me to go on the pill.”
Peter’s words about guys who don’t want to use condoms replay in my mind, and I instantly want to punch Matt. “That’s insane, Tracy. Why?”
“How about not getting pregnant? The pill protects better than condoms, you know.”
“Not against STDs.”
“Rosie, Matt and I are both virgins. He’s not going to give me anything.”
Apparently I’m not the only one who is intentionally dumb sometimes.
The words form in my mind, and I know I shouldn’t say them out loud. But I kind of can’t help myself these days. If I want to say something, I say it, for better or worse.
“Do you really know he’s never done it before, Tracy?”
She turns from the mirror and looks at me suspiciously.
“Do you know something I don’t know?”
“No!”
“Because if you do, Rosie, you’d better tell me now—”
“I don’t! But I’m just saying, Trace, how do you know Matt is a virgin?”
“Because he told me so. And I trust him,” she says slowly, as if speaking to someone who doesn’t understand English.
I can already tell it’s going to take her days to forgive me for this one. “Okay, okay, sorry.”
She stares at me for another second and then turns back to the mirror, brushing her straightened brown hair so hard I’m amazed it stays in her head.
“And he’s not going to cheat on me, either.”
At least she’s thought about that possibility. That’s a positive sign, even if she is in denial.
“I’m just saying that things happen. And it’s never a bad idea to protect yourself.” I impress myself for a minute—I actually sound like I know what I’m talking about, which is ironic because Tracy is way more experienced than me, as she often likes to point out. Even if she did get all her “experience” this summer. Which was basically last month.
The doorbell rings downstairs, and Tracy’s mom calls up to let us know that the boys are here. Tracy finishes putting on more eyeliner and leaves the room without another word to me. I grab the bag she lent me when she insisted I’d look like an idiot if I brought my backpack, and I follow her. It’s definitely going to be one of those nights.
* * *
Cavallo’s is packed. Matt stops to talk to some of his friends from the swim team—they’re seniors and they’re huge. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were on steroids. But as I’ve noticed these last four days, there is a pretty big physical difference between a fourteen-year-old and an eighteen-year-old. It almost makes competitive sports in high school seem like a joke. The senior who held the cross-country team’s informational meeting the other day had legs that were at least twice the length of mine.
My dad would have told me not to worry. “It’s not the length of the leg, it’s the length of the stride,” he used to say. He was always telling me to take bigger steps when we ran together. Dad made the mistake of taking me to see a half marathon when I was nine, and right then and there I decided that I was going to run the race the next September. He said he’d train me, which basically meant he spent the summer being really late for work and running twice as much as I ever did. We’d go on runs early in the morning, before it got too hot, and of course it took him a while to get me out of bed, so we never started as early as he wanted to. And then, when we were running, I’d get slower and slower as the longer runs went on, and he’d have to double back for me. I don’t think it was much fun for him, but he was pretty proud of me when I finally ran the race at the end of all that. It took me forever, but I finished. I was the youngest girl running that year.
I haven’t run since he died. Peter pulled me aside this summer after Mom had asked me for the millionth time when I was going to go for a run, and he told me that I never had to run again if I didn’t want to. But I do. I will… I think.
Robert and I grab a booth, but Tracy hovers near Matt until she realizes that he’s not going to introduce her to the swim thugs. Then she comes over, trying to look fine but mostly looking mad. And sad, too.
“So, Rose,” she says. I know I’m in trouble when she calls me Rose and not Rosie. Well, that, and also the fact that until now she hadn’t spoken to me since we left her room. “I saw you with that guy today in the parking lot after school.”
Robert looks at me. The waitress with the crazy beehive hairdo arrives to take our order. She’s famous for demanding that kids pay before she puts their orders in—including tip. We must look trustworthy, because after we order our pizza and sodas, she just leaves.
“What guy?” Robert asks.
I’m staring at Tracy. So this is how she’s going to get revenge for me saying that Matt might not be her knight in shining armor. I realize that she has had this information about me since the afternoon and she’s been saving it. Clearly Tracy has been studying Gossip Girl, absorbing lessons in how to treat your friends like crap.
“Jamie Forta. You got in a car with Jamie Forta,” she says. How interesting that, when it’s convenient for her, she knows his actual name. Her eyes are glued to Robert’s face, searching for a reaction. He must look appropriately shocked or hurt because she appears to be very satisfied. I decide to focus on the blackboard menu above the counter, even though we’ve already ordered and I know the menu by heart.
“What the hell were you doing with Jamie Forta?” Matt asks as he finally sits down at our booth. “That guy’s such a loser. I hear he’s been trying to graduate from high school for, like, three years or something.”
I used to like Matt, way back in eighth grade. But something changed over the summer when he started preseason training with the swim team. He partied with them and now he thinks he’s such a big deal, it’s annoying. I started hating him the second I realized he was pressuring Tracy to have sex. But tonight, right now, I hate him for an entirely new reason.
“He’s a junior, Matt. And you don’t know anything about him.”
“There’s definitely something wrong with that guy,” Matt says. “He’s a moron.”
“Do you know him, Rose?” Robert asks.
The waitress drops off four sodas. Matt reaches for his wallet, but she still doesn’t ask for money. He looks puzzled. I sip my root beer and try to buy myself some time.
“Rosie?” Robert says.
“Yes,” I finally say, hiccupping because of the carbonation. “He was on the hockey team with Peter.”
“Peter knew him?” Tracy asks, blushing a little bit. Matt gives Tracy a sharp look. She’s had a crush on Peter since the day she became my best friend. Coincidence? Doubtful. But maybe that’s just my cynical side coming out.
“Jamie drove Peter home once, when Bobby Passeo skated over his hand.” I know that no one here could possibly know who Bobby Passeo is, but I figure he could work as a diversion from the current topic.
“Jamie’s weird,” Tracy says, ignoring Matt. “What did he want with you?”
So much for a diversion. “Nothing. He has a right to talk to me, Trace. He even has a right to offer me a ride home.”
“He’s a junior,” Robert says, sounding alarmed.
“So what? We’re not supposed to talk to people who aren’t in our class?”
“He must have wanted something from you,” Tracy says again.
“Nope.” I am determined not to give her anything. Two can play at this game.
“Fine. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to,” she snaps.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I snap back.
The guys are now watching our conversation like it’s a tennis match. Matt looks amused, Robert looks confused. Tracy is staring at me, hard, and then she plays her trump card. I don’t actually know if she knows it’s a trump card, but it is.
“He goes out with Regina Deladdo, who’s friends with Michelle Vicenza. They’re both on the squad,” Tracy says, using her favorite, extremely annoying nickname for the cheerleading team. “Michelle’s the captain. Regina’s her lieutenant.”
You’d have to live under a rock three towns over to not know who Michelle Vicenza is. She’s Union High’s prom and homecoming queen. It’s been that way for four years. She might have been born with those titles. Every girl in Union secretly—or not so secretly—wants to be Michelle. She goes out with Frankie Cavallo, who graduated two years ago and now runs Cavallo’s, which is his family’s place. Peter introduced me to Michelle last year at his graduation party—I thought she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.
But I have no idea who Regina Deladdo is.
Or why Tracy suddenly seems to know everything about Jamie Forta when she was calling him “that guy” just two minutes ago.
The waitress brings our pizza over and takes a moment to rearrange everything on the table so it fits. I’m glad, because I need a second to get over the fact that Tracy knows more about Jamie than I do. The way she’s doling out information tonight makes me want to kill her. How does Tracy already know that Regina Deladdo is dating Jamie? She must have been studying up from the moment we started school on Tuesday.
Jamie goes out with a cheerleader? My brain hurts.
I try very, very hard not to let anything show on my face.
“Wow,” Robert says. “I know who she is. She seems a little…” He takes a sip of his drink as he searches for the right word.
“Insane?” Matt says, shaking his head as he takes a bite of pizza. “Imagine screwing that harpy,” he adds. Robert nearly spits out his soda. Tracy stares at the table.
Matt, a virgin? Uh-huh. Sure.
“They’re perfect for each other,” he continues. “They’re both idiots.”
For the second time in one night, I know I’m about to say something I shouldn’t, but I can’t stop the words from coming out.
“Just because you got drunk with a few seniors over the summer, does that make you better than everyone now?”
Matt slowly puts his pizza down. “What’s your problem?”
