The Best Laid Plans

by Cameron Lund

  “Yeah, but they don’t matter to you like Danielle does. Even if it wasn’t a big deal for him, I knew you would—”

  “It was a big deal for him,” I say, letting out a humorless laugh.

  “It wasn’t,” Hannah insists. “That’s why I didn’t need to tell you. It would only have made things worse, like it is now—”

  “He’s in love with her,” I say, letting the words finally tumble out of me.

  “What?” Her face is pale.

  “He told me last night.”

  “But that’s not . . .” She brings a hand up to her hair and pulls it out of her face, back into a bun, like she means business. “That’s not true.”

  “They’re going to prom together,” I say, as if that settles it.

  “I thought . . .” She trails off again and I can see the wheels turning. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “He’s going to tell her he loves her at prom.”

  “But,” Hannah says. She reaches behind her and unzips the zebra dress. “But they don’t even know each other.”

  “Of course they know each other. We’ve been going to school together for like ten years.”

  Danielle moved to Prescott in fourth grade, a month after school had already started. Even at ten years old she had the same thick dark hair, high cheekbones, and commanding personality that promised more to come. Even then, everyone wanted to be along for the ride.

  Andrew and I had been sitting together in the back of the bus when it pulled up to a new stop and Danielle got on. With a school as small as ours, new kids could never slip by unnoticed; they were an event, one of the few exciting things that ever happened. She hadn’t looked nervous, hadn’t shuffled around looking for a place to sit. Instead she’d walked up the steps, skinny legs under a bright turquoise skirt, hands looped through the straps of a fire-engine-red backpack, and twirled. I was fascinated—who was this girl who looked like she’d come off the set of some Disney Channel movie, whose clothes were as bright and bold as she was—who looked like she wanted to stand out, wanted attention the way I had always wanted to blend in? Danielle became the sun around which all of us rotated, and she’d done it within thirty seconds of stepping onto the school bus on that first day. But just like the sun, we could never get too close, could never stare too long or we’d get burned. Because Danielle could burn. That hadn’t taken long to figure out.

  Maybe Andrew had noticed her even then, had been fascinated by her like I had, but in a different way. Maybe he’s been drawn to her sunlight for years, has always been rotating in her orbit.

  “Of course they know each other,” I repeat to Hannah.

  “No,” Hannah says, her voice insistent. “They don’t. They only know, like . . . the polished versions of each other. But that’s not really knowing someone. Party Andrew isn’t really Andrew—you know that. You guys know each other without the bullshit. What Andrew and Danielle have is all bullshit.”

  “But isn’t that what keeps it exciting?” I ask. “The not knowing?”

  “Maybe it’s exciting, at first,” she says. “It’s the thrill of the chase, the thrill that someone might like you back. Getting that attention from someone is a rush. But that’s not love. Love is when your weirdness matches up with someone else’s weirdness. When you’re comfortable being exactly you.” One of her hands falls to her neck, to the spot where Charlie’s necklace used to be, and she drums her fingers softly, absently, against the hollow of her throat.

  “Yeah,” I say, turning back to the mirror. I feel weirdly like I might cry, which makes no sense at all. I take some deep breaths, turning away from Hannah so she can’t see. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

  “Are you getting that dress?” Hannah asks. “You look amazing. What’s Dean wearing?”

  “I’m not sure,” I answer. “We haven’t talked about it.”

  The dress feels important all of a sudden, something I need to get right so that the rest of my night with Dean goes the right way too. But how am I supposed to know what Dean wants? I don’t even know his favorite color.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE NEXT MORNING at school, I spend most of my energy Not Looking at Andrew, which is next to impossible because he seems to be everywhere. I’ve never noticed how much of my day I usually spend with him, how I’m always aware of him in my peripheral vision the way I’m aware of my feet and hands and nose.

  Now I’m aware of his presence in a different way. Every time he comes into a room, I can feel myself tense, like the wires inside of me have been pulled tight and electric. When he walks into study hall and sits down at my table, I flinch. I force myself to look up at him and try to smile. I can be a normal, functioning human. I have to be, if I want my friend back.

  “Hey,” I say, tapping my pen against the top of my desk.

  “Hey,” he says back. He’s wearing a dark green shirt that brings out the green in his eyes, and I shake my head, feeling stupid for noticing his eyes at all. Friends don’t notice the color of their friends’ eyes. Especially not the eyes of friends who are in love with Danielle Oliver.

  “How was the rest of your weekend?” he asks.

  “It was fine,” I answer.

  “I’m so tired.”

  “Monday sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  Great, now we’re talking like strangers.

  Every time I look at him, the events of the weekend come tumbling back to me: the feel of his lips against mine, the condom in his hand, Danielle’s fingers running through his hair at dinner, Danielle smirking at him, pouting her lips. Danielle, Danielle, Danielle.

  He loves her. Right now, slumped at his desk and complaining about Mondays, he loves her. He’ll love her when he raises his hand for attendance, when he walks down the hall on the way to lunch. It’s a constant—an underlying buzz that will never go away. Danielle is part of him now. Isn’t that what love is? Another person attaching themselves to your brain, eating away at your heart, your soul, consuming you entirely? Love is just a parasite.

  I realize I’m staring at him and I look quickly away, pretending to rummage through my bag so I look busy. He turns away from me and starts drumming his pencil against the top of his desk.

  I’m worried Danielle is going to turn him into Party Andrew forever, that she’ll take the parts of him that make him unique and interesting and wonderful and ruin them, that she’ll flatten him under her power. But I have to accept it. I have to let them be together if that’s what he wants. It’s just going to take a little while to get used to.

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  “Did you and Andrew get in a fight?” Hannah asks me later on the way to lunch. “You guys have been acting so weird.”

  Andrew is behind us at the end of the hallway with Chase, and he hasn’t called out to say hello to us, hasn’t even acknowledged he’s seen us. I feel guilty I haven’t told Hannah I went through with the Plan, but I try to push it aside.

  “We’re fine.”

  “Is this about the Danielle thing?”

  “It’s just weird now,” I say. “You won’t tell her, will you? That he loves her?”

  “Of course not!” Hannah says. “That’s his situation.” She peers back over her shoulder to where Andrew and Chase are laughing about something. “If Andrew’s in love with Danielle, I don’t know why he’d be friends with Chase.”

  It didn’t occur to me until now that Andrew might have been upset at his party when Chase got with Danielle. He was so flustered when Danielle apologized to him at school. I guess Cecilia was his second choice that night. Someone else got the girl he wanted and then he got in trouble. But people don’t just stop being friends with Chase Brosner, not even over a girl.

  Well, he has the girl now. Or, almost. He just has to tell her.

  Danielle and Ava are already at the lunc
h table, matching green cups of coca-kale-a in their hands.

  “That was so fun Saturday night,” Danielle says when Hannah and I sit down. “James Dean is très chic.”

  “You guys hung out on Saturday?” Ava asks. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “It was a double date,” Danielle answers. “You would have been an odd number.”

  “I could have found a date. I’m not a leper.”

  “Hey, lepers can still find love,” I say.

  “Lepers in Love,” Hannah says. “I would so watch that reality show.”

  “Sure, Ava. I’m sure you could have found ten dates,” Danielle says. “That’s your specialty.” She rummages through her bag for her phone. “But not everything revolves around you. Maybe Collins and I wanted to hang out together.”

  A small mewl escapes from Ava’s mouth, like she’s an injured kitten, and she leans back in her chair, crossing her arms.

  “It was last minute,” I say, trying to make her feel better. “We kind of just bumped into each other.”

  “But Dean got us wine,” Danielle says, her eyes twinkling. “We went to Giovanni’s.”

  “Who were you on a date with?” I can tell Ava’s warring between her frustration with Danielle and her curiosity. “One of Dean’s friends? Wait, was it Cody?”

  “Hey, guys.” Andrew pulls out the chair next to mine and sits down. Danielle is texting on her phone and she barely spares him a glance. I know it’s one of her tactics, one of the moves she tried to teach me when I first met Dean.

  “How come you guys aren’t eating outside?” Andrew asks. “It’s so nice out.”

  Great. We’re talking about the weather. Has it really come to that?

  “We’re trying to keep our coca-kale-a out of the sun,” Ava answers. “It gets so gross when it’s warm.”

  “It’s gross when it’s cold too,” Hannah says.

  “Fair enough,” he says. He looks over at Danielle. “Hey, Danielle.”

  She sets down her phone. “Oh, hey, Drew.”

  “How was the rest of your weekend?”

  “Uneventful.”

  I think about what Hannah said—how they don’t actually know each other. In this moment, it seems kinda true. But then again, maybe they’re nervous. Maybe Andrew feels uncomfortable he admitted his secret to me, that he knows I’m watching their interaction and I know.

  Ava studies Andrew for a second and then looks at Danielle and then at me, glancing between all of us so fast she looks dizzy.

  “Is this the guy you went on a date with?”

  “I’m the guy,” Andrew says.

  Ava clicks her tongue. “Of course you are. I should have known.” She stands and picks up her empty tray and cup of sludge. “Nobody tells me anything.”

  After school on Thursday I have work with Dean—the first time I’ve seen him since the double date from hell—and weirdly I’m kinda calm about it. It’s a relief not to feel nervous every time I see him now, especially since I’ve become an anxious mess around Andrew.

  Now that it’s May, the weather is suddenly warmer, the air in the store heavy and stagnant. Summer is right around the corner, the end of the school year so close I can almost taste it.

  Like everything else, the heat looks good on Dean. He has a fine sheen of sweat on his arms and forehead that makes him glisten.

  “Does this place have any air-conditioning?” I ask, waving my arm in front of my face to cool off. I drop my backpack down on a chair in the break room and come back out, acutely aware of how sticky I am in all of the most unflattering places.

  He smiles his aching, lopsided grin and shrugs.

  “There’s a fan in the back room, but personally I think you look pretty good all flushed.” At his words, my face gets even hotter and I know it must look bright red. But I forget to feel self-conscious when he grabs my butt and pulls me forward into his heavy embrace. He kisses me, leaving his hand there and squeezing. I can’t believe his hand on my butt feels normal now. I feel like I’ve come a million years from the girl who was nervous when his knee touched mine.

  I let all of my worries fade away, let my mind melt into a puddle from the heat, from his kiss, my chest fluttering with practiced excitement. This is what I need more than anything. Why did I let myself get so anxious about Andrew?

  “Did you have fun on Saturday?” I ask, pulling away.

  “It was fine,” he says.

  Oh. Of course. Cue anxiety.

  “Fine?”

  “I mean, your friends are . . . just . . .” He trails off, not finishing his thought. Instead, he turns back to the counter and begins fiddling with some wires attached to the speakers. “I’m gonna find us an awesome soundtrack for today.”

  “My friends are just what?” I ask, my voice sounding sharper than I intended. He plugs his phone into the speakers and shuffles through it.

  “I mean, they’re just so . . . high school.” He clicks a button, and blaring trumpets and violins fill the room, triumphant. “John Williams.” He closes his eyes, letting the trumpets wash over him. “This guy has written, like, every single famous movie theme of all time. The man’s a genius. He takes good movies and makes them great; makes them fucking memorable. This one’s—”

  “Jurassic Park,” I say. “I know. And what’s that supposed to mean? We are in high school.” I don’t like reminding him, but something about his tone is making me defensive.

  “Rad,” he says. “Here I am trying to teach you what you already know.” Picking up his phone, he switches to another song, this one low and menacing. Ba dum. Ba dum.

  “Jaws,” I say automatically. He lets it play behind us, building and building.

  “I mean, when I’m with you, I just want to be with you. But your friends are just so involved. They want to know things. They want to feel like they’re a part of everything, when really it’s none of their business. I mean, the first time you came over you brought a whole squad. That’s what’s high school about it.” He taps on his phone and the music turns back into blaring horns. “If you don’t know this one, it’s just criminal. As store manager, I honestly don’t think I could let you work here, if you can’t name this—”

  “It’s obviously Star Wars,” I say, shaking my head. “Okay, but your friends are involved. What about Cody?”

  “But you don’t see me bringing Cody along with us to dinner. I’m not gonna invite Cody in the room to watch us make out.” He smirks. “Unless you’re into that.” He scrolls through his phone again.

  “I’m not . . . I didn’t,” I stammer. The Star Wars theme still blasts triumphantly behind us. “You invited us all over after Giovanni’s. I thought we were having fun.”

  “We were,” he says. “I’m just saying, it doesn’t have to be so complicated. Life isn’t that dramatic. It’s just life.” He smiles, shaking his shoulders and arms like he’s letting the tension out of them. “Just let John Williams soothe you. Close your eyes and listen to the master.” He turns on the theme from Schindler’s List, which feels out of place in our hot, sunshiny little store.

  Maybe he’s right and friends just complicate things. Andrew certainly has. Maybe it’s better to keep friends and relationships separate, like food on a tray that can’t spill over. One section for peas, another for mashed potatoes. Maybe that would keep my life from getting so messy.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I NEVER THOUGHT I’d be thankful for finals, but suddenly it’s the last two weeks of school and everyone is so busy that all of the drama gets pushed to the side. I finally force myself to finish my history project, and then spend every night for the rest of the week making flash cards and studying for Greek mythology and French.

  By the time the last day of school arrives, I’ve forgotten to worry about it. But when I walk out of my last test of the day, I’m hit with a wave of sadness. It�
�s funny how you can hate high school so much when it’s happening, but start to miss it before you’ve even left. All of a sudden, I’m hyper-aware that everything I’m doing is for the last time. The last time I’ll have to lean my shoulder into my locker door to get it unjammed, the last stale slice of cafeteria pizza, the last hours I’ll spend staring out the window, counting down the minutes until it’s all over. Somehow, even though every class seemed to last forever, the end has come way too fast.

  It’s been a Prescott tradition for as long as anyone can remember for all the seniors to meet at the lookout point by the lake to take pictures and then pile into limos to go to the prom. Usually prom is a little farther away, but the Walcott is only about twelve minutes down the road on the other side of the water. Still, we’ve still rented limos because we don’t want to miss out on anything.

  Danielle is having a party the last day of school—the night before prom—something she’s coined “the last supper” because she wants to cook for everyone and, in her words, every party needs a good theme. She’s invited the whole class, even Ryder and Simon Terst, who she’s been mad at for weeks. Now that school is over, it’s like all the arbitrary social boundary lines that have kept us all segregated don’t even exist. My cousin Beth, who is seven years older than me, told me it would be this way: that just a few months after high school ended, we wouldn’t care about who was popular, or who hooked up with who, or who we were supposed to hate. I didn’t believe her at the time, but now I do. It already feels like high school was ages ago even as I’m still cleaning out my locker.

  Just like we planned, Hannah and I get into her Jeep with the top down and scream as we race out of the parking lot. We put “Free Bird” on her stereo and blast it as loud as it’ll go, rolling down the windows and laughing, pointing our middle fingers out to the sky. It’s bittersweet to be here without Andrew. In the movie version of today—the one I planned in my head—the three of us were together, laughing and speeding away from Prescott, the same trio we were at the beginning of ninth grade now at the end of twelfth. But I saw him leave earlier with Danielle and I didn’t even say goodbye.