Major Crush

by Jennifer Echols

  Then there was the bra. I couldn’t wear a bra to bed. I’d suffocate in my sleep. But what if Drew got up and needed something during the night? I couldn’t let him see me without a bra. Finally I put on my bra and left it unfastened.

  I curled up on the couch in the living room, with the guest room door just down the hall. Drew’s cheek still burned a hole through my thigh, his hand through my knee. His thumb crested my fingertips and sank into the hollows between my fingers. The Weather Channel and the threat of a turbulent front on the way lulled me to sleep.

  The shower in the hall bathroom woke me. My mouth was wide open. Drew had walked across the hall from the gueşt room to the bathroom. He’d probably looked in here and seen me snoring.

  I jumped to the mirror above the fireplace to make sure there wasn’t any drool on my face, at least. Then I passed my hands across my cheeks and fingered my hair down where it stuck up in back.

  I never wore makeup, and my hair was short and easy to fix. There was no reason for me to worry about Drew seeing me when I first woke up. I didn’t look much different from how I looked at school. I worried anyway. I even thought about running to my room and changing into a tight T-shirt and jeans. But that might make it seem like I cared.

  Mom flowed downstairs in full makeup, with her hair already coiffed. My friends bought their mothers flowered robes and fuzzy high-heeled slippers for their birthdays as a joke, to wear when they broke out the toning masks and had spa day. My mother bought this stuff for herself and wore it every day, no joke. Every day was spa day at Chez Sauter.

  I followed her into the kitchen, set the table, and helped her start breakfast. Soon Dad sat down in his business clothes and a tie, ready to go to the hospital to make rounds.

  Then Drew, looking pale under his tan. He pushed the SA T book across the table to me. He must have gone out this morning and fished it from the car. Or maybe he’d retrieved it during the night and slept with it stuck to his forehead on the off chance some of it would seep into his brain.

  “Ignominy,” I said, crunching bacon.

  “I don’t know that one,” Mom said.

  “Dishonor,” Drew said.

  I flipped through the pages. “Nefarious,” I said.

  “I don’t know that one,” Mom said.

  “Wicked,” Drew said.

  “A trocity,” I said.

  “I don’t know that one,” Mom said. For being crowned Miss State of A labama 1982, Mom won a full college scholarship. She dropped out of college to get her Mrs. degree and work to put Dad through medical school. Since then, reading Vogue was the only exercise she gave her poor cerebrum. Possibly she only looked at the pictures.

  “A savagely cruel act,” Drew said. “Or something in shockingly bad taste.”

  I glanced up at him. He was eating, and answering these definitions without thinking. I examined the book closely to find a word that was both difficult and appropriate. “Opprobrious,” I said.

  “Disgraceful or shameful,” said Drew. “I thought we’d called a truce. You’re fighting with me with SA T words again.”

  “She’s not doing it for your benefit,” Dad butted in. “She’s doing it for mine.” He reached across the table, jerked the SA T book from my hands, and thumbed through it. “A ha. Vendetta.”

  “A long and bitter feud,” Drew said.

  “You know this stuff cold.” Dad handed the book back to me without looking at me.

  This time I had a word in mind. I’d thought about Dad when I came across it in English class. I looked it up, then read, “Mountebank.”

  “A quack who isn’t what he seems to be,” Drew said.

  Dad got up and took his half-full plate to the sink.

  Mom protested, “You’re not going to eat?”

  “Not hungry,” Dad grumbled, walking back upstairs.

  My mom gave me a disapproving look, but she didn’t say anything. She’d always stayed out of the fight between me and Dad, even though it had everything to do with her.

  Drew stared after Dad, then wisely changed the subject. Waving at a shelf full of trophies and sashes and pictures of me wearing makeup, he asked, “A m I hallucinating?”

  “No,” I said. “I was Miss Junior East-Central A labama 2004. I tried to throw all this stuff out, but Mom commandeered it and displayed it in her kitchen to spite me.”

  Mom said, “You don’t want to throw out all those good memories just because you’re going through a phase.”

  “See?” I said. “My mother is the one hallucinating.”

  Mom huffed out a dainty sigh and stood, putting her manicured hand on Drew’s arm. “I’ll make you some coffee.”

  “What!” I exclaimed. “You don’t let me drink coffee.”

  “Drew is older than you,” she called from the kitchen.

  “He’s seventeen!”

  Drew smirked at me.

  “It’ll stunt your growth,” I told him.

  “I’m six foot two. So, you don’t get along with your dad?”

  “Perspicacious,” I said.

  “Having keen insight.”

  I glared at him.

  “Oh,” he said. “You mean me.”

  “I liked you a lot better when you had a fever.”

  The doorbell rang, probably Drew’s father. Dad came downstairs again to answer the door. Mom floated in and handed Drew a travel mug.

  He thanked her so much for her hospitality, blah blah blah.

  A s he walked toward the door, Mom held me back. “He has very good manners. He seems like a nice boy,” she whispered, like I’d intended to bring him home to meet the parents.

  Of course he seemed like a nice boy. Mom would think Eminem seemed like a nice boy compared to Walter. Walter had perfectly good manners too, but Walter lived in a bus. It was hard for people to get past the bus.

  Out on the front porch Dad and Drew talked with Drew’s father. He must have come straight from the night shift at the mill. He was covered in a thin white film, and larger clumps of cotton stuck to the back of his hair and his work shirt.

  Drew motioned to his dad s car, and I followed him. He bent his head down close to me and said quietly, “Thank you.”

  “For what? Strep throat?”

  He frowned. “Why won’t you let me thank you? What s happened? A re you acting this way because I asked you about your dad?”

  There was no way he’d forgotten about what he was doing with his hand the night before. If I’d felt what I felt, he had to have felt something, no matter how out of it he was.

  I folded my arms on my chest. “Good luck.”

  He looked at me like he wanted something else from me. But I didn’t have anything more to give him just then. Except the SA T book.

  Dad,and I watched the car climb the brick driveway. Little cotton fibers hung in the bright, still air and glinted in the sun.

  “He seems like a nice boy,” Dad said.

  “He is not a nice boy. He just acted that way this morning because he’s delirious.”

  “You might give him a break. He’s going through a hard time with his family right now.”

  A hard time? Letting down the Morrow family drum major legacy? “What kind of hard time?” I asked. Then I remembered what Drew had told me on the bus about why he hadn’t bothered to figure out which twin he was dating. He was distracted by stuff going on at home.

  Dad shook his head. “If he hasn’t told you, I can’t tell you.”

  Drew ’s mother was Dads patient. Dad couldn’t give away his patients’ secrets. I considered all the things that could be wrong with Drew’s mother that would give Drew a hard time at home. Ovarian cancer. Breast cancer. I asked, “Is she going to die?”

  Dad blinked. “No. Just give him a break, would you? Forgive and forget?”

  Dad was asking me to give Drew a break. But I knew what he meant. Dad wanted a break for himself.

  Drew was out of school Monday and Tuesday. The Evil Twins were out too. I was very thankful I d
idn’t have to deal with them without Drew there to run interference for me. A nd I was glad they’d missed their hot date at the Rent 2 Own.

  But I was jealous of their germs. I wondered what Drew had done with the twins to give them strep, and when. Then I remembered that it had been going around school for weeks. A nd when Luther came down with it on Wednesday, I felt much better.

  Except that Drew was still acting like the whole hand thing hadn’t happened. He was nice to me like he was supposed to be. He even flirted with me a little during practice, and seemed hurt when I didn’t flirt back.

  I lived for him to flirt with me, and I wanted so badly to flirt back. I lived for him to touch me there and there when we practiced the dip.

  But I felt used. He still hadn’t broken up with the twins. What did he think I was, some trashy hand-slut? I felt like he’d taken advantage of me for a good time and then dumped me. But he hadn’t taken advantage of me. He’d hardly done anything. A nd I couldn’t decide whether that made it better or worse. Which made me even madder.

  Everyone was back at school on Friday, in time for homecoming. Sure enough, A llison was a candidate for Miss Homecoming/Miss Victory.

  So was Tracey Reardon.

  I couldn’t believe it. People hated the twins. Or maybe they just hated Cacey. But as I asked around, I found out that one or both of them had run a one-woman or two-woman public relations campaign of their own. They got some credit because they dated Drew, who was high profile. Plus, lots of boys apparently thought the mean A vril-Lavigne-on-steroids attitude was a turn-on.

  The announcement came at the end of my English class, just before lunch on Friday. A llison got the most votes. She was Miss Homecoming.

  Tracey was next. She was Miss Victory.

  A t the bell I rushed out of the room and down to the lunchroom, where I always met A llison. She waved and grinned at me from way down the hall. Then, as I watched, one of the twins stopped her, said something to her, and flounced away.

  A llison didn’t react. She started walking again as if nothing had happened. A nd then, when I reached her, I saw that her eyes were hard.

  “What did she say to you?” I breathed.

  A llison shook her head. “I hate this town, I hate this town, I hate this town.”

  “Oh, God, A llison. What did she say to you?”

  A llison licked her perfect lipstick. She said woodenly, “‘Tracey Reardon isn’t going to be Miss Victory. A white girl doesn’t have to take a black girls leavings.’”

  I went cold in the crowded, muggy hallway. A ll I could think of to say was, “Ick!” Then, “She’s Miss Icktory.”

  A llison didn’t laugh. She still looked stunned.

  I pushed her into the lunchroom and through the line. I even loaded her salad plate for her, avoiding the beets. A t one of the tables Drew laughed with Luther, Barry, and the other trombones. I shoved A llison along in front of me and sat her down there.

  This was partly chance. There happened to be a couple of empty seats at the end of their table, probably because everyone was afraid of the trombones poking fun at them. But I also wanted Drew to know what his twins had done. I told the whole table what had happened.

  “She said that?” Drew asked incredulously.

  Luther reached across the table and whacked Drew on the arm. “You’re dating a racist.”

  “You don’t know that.” Drew turned to A llison. “Which one of the twins said it?”

  She shrugged.

  “Why does it matter which one said it?” I asked him. “What will that tell you? You don’t even know which one you’re dating.”

  “I do know which one I’m dating,” he said triumphantly. “I figured that out this morning in homeroom. I know I’m dating the one who isn’t on the homecoming court. I’m dating Cacey.”

  The trombones clapped for him.

  He turned to A llison again. “What exactly did she say?”

  I had been worried about A llison, but now I felt better. She came back to life and got angry. Her voice louder with every word, she repeated,

  “‘Tracey Reardon. Isn’t going to be. Miss Victory. A white girl. Doesn’t have to take. A black girl’s. Leavings!’”

  “A bjure,” I said under my breath to Drew.

  He didn’t look at me, but I knew from the way his jaw tightened that he’d heard me.

  “If she said Tracey Reardon,’ then she must have been Cacey,” Luther pointed out. “Drew, you have to break up with—” His voice trailed off.

  My heart beat faster at the thought that Drew was going to break up with her. He was finally going to break up with her! He was as good as mine!

  Then I saw that Drew had borrowed Mr. Rush’s brain-melting stare and was giving it to Luther.

  “It wasn’t necessarily Cacey,” Barry joined in helpfully. “It might have been Tracey. She could have referred to herself in the third person like small children do. Like Elmo on Sesame Street.”

  “Right. Let s think about this scientifically,” said Luther. He instructed Barry to get out his notebook and draw a grid. Then he asked A llison,

  “What was she wearing?”

  A llison closed her eyes. “Jeans and one of those new school spirit T-shirts.”

  “They both are,” Drew muttered. The furious look in his eyes had faded. But he was avoiding everyone’s gaze, examining the water-stained ceiling.

  “How about something else that distinguishes them from each other?” Luther prompted A llison. “Earrings, or shoes?”

  “I didn’t notice,” A llison said, putting her hand to her forehead. “I was kind of preoccupied with this girl questioning my right to breathe her air.”

  Luther moved closer to her. “This is important. We may be able to track her if we can figure out that, say, Tracey carries a pink bag and Cacey carries a red one.”

  “They both wear bad blue eyeliner,” I offered, “but I think it’s Cacey who sometimes experiments with green.” I was making this up.

  “That’s good,” Luther said, pointing at me. “Barry, write that down. A llison, did her eyeliner jump out at you?”

  I asked, “How could it not?”

  “Now you’re being captious,” Drew said to me.

  “Don’t you dare excoriate me,” I said. “You’re the one with the nefarious girlfriend.”

  Craig Coley and some of the other trombones at the end of the table talked low together, looking up often at Drew.

  Drew’s eyes focused on me like he wanted to say something else to me. Then his glance slid off me to Craig. “What, Craig? Bring it on.”

  “You’re the leader of the band, Drew,” Craig said. “Not just the half of the band that’s white.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” Drew said.

  “Drew, you have to break up with her,” said Luther. “Serious.”

  “Back off,” Drew told Luther. He turned to me. “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m not loving what she did to A llison. Where is your girlfriend, anyway? Why don’t you go find her? Why don’t you go comfort her in this time of great sorrow for her and/or her sister?”

  “Good idea.” He got up, towering over the table, and walked across the lunchroom. He stopped at the table where both twins in their matching school spirit T-shirts sat with some of their friends.

  A ww, man! I hadn’t expected him to take my suggestion. But I should have known he’d want to discuss the situation with the twins like responsible adults.

  I turned to A llison to see if she was feeling better. But she was watching Drew. So was Luther. The whole table watched Drew as he bent to talk to the twins with his arms crossed on his chest.

  “When he comes back,” Luther said quietly, “I’d advise you ladies to cool it a little. We know Drew isn’t a racist. He’ll do the right thing. He just doesn’t want to break up with her on hearsay. But he’s under a lot of pressure right now. If you push him too hard, he’s liable to snap.”

  He snap
ped his fingers.

  I insisted, “I am not going to tiptoe around Drew Morrow just because he wants to hang on to long hair, big boobs, and her sister.”

  Drew walked back toward us, arms crossed, and didn’t uncross them until he pulled out his chair and sat down. He hardly glanced at me as he announced to the table in general, “She said she would never make a comment like that.”

  “Which one?” I asked.

  Barry and Craig and the other trombones snorted with laughter. Luther gave them a warning look.

  Drew glared at me. “Both of them.”

  “Well, one of them is lying,” I said. “Or A llison is lying. Who do you believe?”

  He looked over at the twins’ table, where the twins and all their friends were watching our table. Then he turned to A llison, as if he were really pondering the question: A llison versus Evil Twins. “Everyone is attacking me when I didn’t do anything,” he said, again to the table instead of me. “It’s not fair.”

  “How do you think A llison feels?” I asked.

  A llison raised her carefully shaped eyebrows at him.

  He reached across the table, covered her hand with his hand, and squeezed. “I know,” he said. “But you’re acting like I did something awful, when I didn’t.”

  “Ouch ouch ouch ouch!” she squealed, pulling her hand from under his and shaking it out. She examined her manicure.

  “Sorry.” He finally turned back to me. “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t do something like that, and neither would Tracey.”

  “You’re dating Cacey!” called the table.

  His jaw was set. “I said back off.” Luther sat up straight and clapped his hands. “Drew says back off. I trust him to investigate and to do the right thing.”

  “You didn’t trust him a few minutes ago when you had Barry charting the twins’ wardrobes,” I said. “You’re going to let Drew get away with this just because you’re afraid he’s going to blow?”

  “Back. Off,” Drew told me.

  “Me! Why don’t you tell the twin to back off A llison? What do you see in that racist, anyway? Why don’t you break up with her?”

  “Virginia,” A llison said in warning.

  Drew shouted at me, “Don’t tell me what to do!”