Boy Swap

by Kristina Springer

  I nod. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Just scheduling some band practice with the guys,” he says.

  Band practice. Yeah right. “Oh really?” I say, feeling anger swelling up in me.

  “Yeah, really,” he replies giving me a strange look. Like I’m nuts or something.

  I take a deep breath because I feel like I’m about to scream at him, and I know I can’t. I mumble, “Whatever,” and turn around to face the opposite direction, like a painting on the wall is suddenly so fascinating that I just have to look at it. My eyes are feeling teary and I’m so not about to cry in front of him. I can hear Chris walk away to make his plans.

  Ugh. My mood plummets as low as it can possibly go and my heart aches. I’m always hearing TV doctors talk about how yo-yo dieting is bad for your health—I wonder what the verdict is on yo-yo loving?

  Chapter 19: Chatting in the Girls’ Room

  I am a woman on a mission: win Carter Jones’s heart. And today is the day. I’m pulling out all of the stops. The Turbolifter 3000 is freshly washed and doing its part in the lifting and pushing department. I was up until eleven last night researching Bukowski (whom I figured out is Charles Bukowski, a poet from California) and picking out a couple of lines from one of his poems. Which I then put in super cool white and silver lettering in Photoshop, printed on some special iron-on paper, and ironed on to a black, low-cut v-neck shirt. Yeah, yeah, I realize I’m just north of crazy stalker girl, but I have to get Carter to go on a real date with me and I have to do it today. I am so pissed off with both Chris and Cassie and I want Cassie to feel my pain. Now.

  I walk into the band room and Lizzie is slumped in her chair with her feet up on her tuba case. She briefly looks up at me, tilts her head with a puzzled look on her face (most likely due to today’s clothing choice), and then drops it back onto her chest. Lizzie has given me loads of puzzled looks since I joined Boy Swap so that is nothing new, but the depressed head slumping is. I rush over to her seat.

  “What’s wrong?” I kneel down in front of her.

  She looks up at me with teary eyes and whispers, “He dumped me.”

  “He did what?” I ask loudly, scanning the room for Jacob.

  “Shh…God Brooke. I don’t want everyone to know.” Lizzie stands up and walks quickly out the door. I follow her.

  We go to the nearest girl’s bathroom and into the last stall. Lizzie finally turns and looks at me, totally crying now.

  “Oh Lizzie,” I say. “I’m so sorry. What did he say?”

  “H-he said it was just ph-physical. That we never really h-had a connection,” she sobs, grabbing at the roll of toilet paper.

  I quickly unwind a pile of paper and hand it to her. I’m not sure what to say to this since I kind of guessed the same thing. I mean, their relationship has been moving at the speed of light. So I wait and see if she’ll continue.

  “H-he said it was f-fun for a while.” She dabs at her eyes and sniffs hard. “But he wants to ask out A-Angela so he can’t hang out with me anymore.”

  “Our friend Angela? He told you that? That he wants to ask out Angela? Oh my God, what a jerk.”

  She nods and sits down on the toilet.

  “I’m so sorry Lizzie, is there anything I can do?”

  She shakes her head no. “God, it’s going to be so sucky in b-band now. How am I supposed to play and not be upset each time I see him? Or what if Angela does go out with him? Then what? How am I supposed to see them together?”

  Eh, you get used to it, I want to say. Though I don’t. And I know that isn’t really true. It still stings each time I think about Chris and Cassie together.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “But if it helps at all, I really don’t think Angela will go out with him. She’s our friend. She wouldn’t do that.”

  Lizzie nods and rips some more toilet paper off the roll next to her and wipes at her face for a few seconds. Poor thing. She’s a blotchy mess.

  “Let’s do a girls’ night this weekend,” I say. “Just me, you, cheesy movies, and ice cream. Sound good?”

  She nods.

  “Good, we’re on then. Let’s get back to band before we’re too late.” I grab some more toilet paper and wipe mascara off her cheek. “There, you look fine now.”

  We step out of the bathroom stall and head for the door. Then I spot Caitlyn Ray applying lipstick in the mirror.

  “Hi, Brooke,” she sings. “I thought that was you. Got a minute? I have a question about our French quiz to ask you.”

  Hmm…well somebody has been studying my schedule. But I don’t have any classes with Caitlyn.

  “Sure,” I say slowly and then turn to Lizzie. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

  “Quelle est votre question?” I ask.

  “Huh?” she says.

  “I asked, ‘what’s your question,’” I say.

  “Oh,” she giggles at my little joke. “I don’t really have a French question.”

  Duh.

  “I was just hoping we could chat for a minute.”

  Hmm. I haven’t chatted with Caitlyn since that time we had coffee at Bookends and she told me what a fantabulous job I was doing at letting girls flirt with my boyfriend.

  “Sure. What’s up?” I say, looking at her reflection in the mirror while she fixes her hair. This should be good.

  “Oh, I just wanted to see how things are with you.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Well, that was painless. I’ll just be going…

  “I also heard that you were trying to make a swap,” she says before I can make an exit.

  “Where did you hear that?” I ask.

  Cailtyn waves off the question with one perfectly manicured hand. “You know how girls talk. Just around.”

  “I might be,” I say, getting a bit louder. “But I’m abiding by the rules so I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “Oh, Brooke, Sweetie, relax,” Caitlyn says. She turns away from the mirror and leans against the sink. “There isn’t a problem.” She tilts her head and gives me what appears to be a sweet, concerned friend type of smile. “I just wanted to make myself available to you for any questions. Swaps can be tricky when you first get started.”

  Hmmm. Interesting.

  Just then the automatic air freshener fastened to the wall goes off and pumps a lethal amount of freesia into the air. My nose begins to burn and I rub at it.

  “Thanks for the offer, Caitlyn, but I think I have everything under control.”

  “Are you sure?” she says, taking a step closer to me, apparently unaffected by the freshener from years of dousing herself with buckets of Glow by J. Lo. “I’m an expert at swapping so I could give you some tips. Who’s the guy you’re going after?”

  Right, like I’m going to answer that! Cassie totally sent her to mess with me. “Not sure you know him,” I say. “And I really have to run—I’m so late for band. See you later!” I head for the bathroom door before she can stop me.

  “Just be careful, Brooke,” Caitlyn says to my retreating back. “You don’t want it blowing up in your face.”

  The bathroom door swings closed with an ominous squeak.

  Chapter 20: Talk Poetry to Me

  If Cassie and Caitlyn think they can play mental games with me to get me to stop going after Carter they are so wrong. I’m even more determined to get him now. I check my phone for third time since I sat down in the café. 4:05. Where is Carter? I’m going to kill Cassie if she detained him somewhere to keep us from meeting. Yeah, I’m trying to score a date, but I’m also trying to score a good grade on this presentation. We reconfirmed our meeting during English class this morning so I’m positive he didn’t forget. I also caught him checking out my t-shirt during class. Or my boobs. Whichever.

  I take a tiny sip of my latte and check the door to the bookstore again. Yay, I see him. He made it and sans Cassie this time, thank God. Carter pushes through the double glass doors and smiles when he sees me. I wave and wait for him to walk around the patro
ns and shelves of books to our table.

  “Hey, Brooke, sorry I’m late,” he says, dropping his backpack and slipping into the seat across from me. “I would have been here earlier but Cass’s friend Caitlyn was tearing through my truck in the school parking lot. Said she dropped her cell phone in there but I haven’t seen it.”

  “No worries.” I give him the most understanding smile I can and briefly touch his forearm. Okay, this might be a little forward of me but he doesn’t shrug me off or anything so I’m taking the opportunity. “I went ahead and got you a drink too. Do you like chai lattes?”

  His eyes brighten and his mouth slightly opens, like he’s taken aback. “Yeah. Love them actually.” His eyebrows scrunch together like he’s trying to figure out how I knew his favorite drink.

  Whoopsie. Did I go a step too far? I mean, it isn’t like I have his favorite pineapple and pepperoni pizza in a small collapsible cooler in my backpack for a snack when we get hungry. Okay, I do. But it isn’t like I’m going to take it out or anything. Not now, anyway.

  I wrap both of my hands around my latte and take a long sip, hoping when I pull the cup away from my face he won’t be giving me that inquisitive look any more. I put the cup down and he’s flipping through his notebook. Whew.

  We spend the next twenty minutes showing each other what we’ve prepared for the presentation and sipping our lattes. Every time Carter reads me something from his notes, I find myself studying him—the tiny brown mole a quarter inch below his ear, the way he pushes his longish dark hair off his forehead out of habit, the way he licks his red, very kissable lips after he’s been talking for quite some time, and those eyes. He’s got the biggest, sexiest, brown eyes I think I’ve ever seen. Like, he’s 75% Italian, 25% Buck. And he’s so, so smart. I wish I could overhear what he and Cassie talk about. Him: Literature, culture, politics. Her: New dance kicks, groundbreaking anti-frizz serums, and European seaweed wraps to make her thighs look even teenier.

  We’re working on the section of our presentation, “Graves’s Poems and their Meanings,” which Carter did the majority of the work on. He’s good with all of this poem interpretation stuff. He has lots of actual research from important critics to support his ideas, of course. We’ve narrowed it down to three poems to read and interpret for the class, one of which is Counting the Beats, the exact one he had posted in his blog. Which he still doesn’t know that I know about, nor that I check his blog religiously each night for updates.

  He is trying to convince me that I should read the poems and he should do the interpretation for each. But I’m trying to convince him that he has a much more dramatic and poetic voice for this kind of thing. We are taking turns reading each other lines from the poem.

  Me (in my best valley girl lost on her way to a mall grand opening and asking someone for directions):

  “Where shall we be,

  (She whispers) where shall we be,

  When death strikes home, O where then shall we be

  Who were you and I?”

  Carter is completely cracking up, so much so that his eyes are tearing and he wipes at them. “You can’t read it like that. You’re losing the meaning.”

  “Okay, your turn. Show me how to do it, Poet Master,” I say.

  Carter clears his throat, puts on a serious face, and looks down at his book.

  Carter: (in a much softer, slower voice, emphasizing key words)

  “Not there but here,

  (He whispers) only here,

  As we are here, together, now and here,

  Always you and I.”

  “Wow,” I let out an exhale. “That was really good. That settles it, you read the poems.”

  Carter shakes his head and laughs again but agrees to be the poem reader anyway.

  The more time we spend together, the more I find that talking with Carter is so easy and so right. I wonder if he is noticing this… this “thing” between us. I look at him and he has a huge smile on his face. I hold his gaze and return the smile. There. There it is again. There is that connection between us. The thing making my heart beat fast and my skin get all tingly—like if you lit a sparkler and held it a little too closely to your arm. Carter reaches across the table and puts his hand over mine. Okay, this is it. He’s going to mention that he has sparkler-tingly skin too. He’s going to ask me out.

  “I’m glad we partnered up on this project. You’re pretty cool, Brooke,” he says.

  “Me too. I mean the happy partnering thing. I’ve been having fun hanging out with you.”

  Okay, I should just go for it. Ask him out right now while he’s glad and I’m glad and everyone is glad to be together. It’s the perfect time. It’s…

  “I guess I should get going,” he says, pulling his hand back and interrupting my internal pep talk. He gathers his pens and books and shoves everything into his backpack.

  I’m completely frozen to my chair. Do it, do it, do it, I’m mentally chanting to myself.

  “Carter?” I ask as he stands.

  He looks down at me and smiles. “Yeah?”

  “See you tomorrow,” I say.

  “See you.”

  His smile is heartbreaking.

  Chapter 21: Return of the Sparklers

  What a freakin’ wimp I am! I totally had him right there—right in my hands. I can’t believe we were completely in the moment and I just let it go with a “See you tomorrow.” What was I thinking? Well, I know what I was thinking. I was thinking he’d ask me out, but that isn’t how Boy Swap works. The girls are the ones doing the pursuing. It’s not like Chris went gunning for Cassie. She relentlessly pursued him until he was too weak to resist. Well, that is giving him way too much credit. But she was the one to go after him. And that is what I need to do. I need to suck it up and ask Carter out.

  After the presentation, of course. That is taking up the majority of my thoughts while I should be listening to Mr. Shank’s talk about upcoming events and practices. I already know the important stuff—like there is no home game tonight and thus no band party. We have an all band/flags/dance early morning practice in the school gym Monday morning though. And we have an out-of-the-norm football game Monday night, which has never happened before, but I don’t need to get into the heads of the high school football scheduling people. I just have to show up, march, and play my flute.

  I wonder what Carter is wearing today? I spent a lot of time putting together my outfit for the presentation. I don’t know if other people are dressing up but I didn’t think it would hurt. I’m wearing a really soft baby blue sweater, my super cute denim skirt, tights, and my favorite brown boots. I added a splash of body spray in case Carter gets close enough to me to get a whiff. My pink scarf doesn’t match my outfit at all today so I’ve tucked it inside my left boot. I’m hoping no one says anything about it not being visible. It’s not like I haven’t worn the scarf enough in the last couple weeks for absolutely every BSC member not to know I’m one of them.

  Band ends and the room quickly becomes noisy with the sound of everyone chatting as they dismantle their instruments and tuck them away in their cases. I walk toward my locker to stash my flute before heading out to class. Chris grabs my waist and swings me around before I make it there. God, he’s irritating. I really don’t have time for this.

  “You look cute today,” he whispers in my ear. His breath is hot on my neck.

  “Thanks,” I say, trying to wiggle from his grasp.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Seriously dude, get a freaking clue. How about you’re dating someone else while you are supposedly in love with me? I am so over this crap. Not to mention your new frou-frou model boy shirt looks totally lame. Did Cassie pick it out?

  I feel myself glaring at him but I try to recover. “Nothing,” I say, finally getting him to let go of me. “You know I have that presentation next hour. I need to go.” I quickly walk away from him, toss my flute in my locker, and half jog/half walk to English class.

  * * *

&nbs
p; Carter is already there waiting for me. And okay, Carter didn’t dress up for our presentation (why did I think he would? He is after all a guy), but he looks extremely hot in his faded jeans and black t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders.

  “Ready?” he asks as I slide into my chair next to him.

  “Totally,” I say.

  “Should we go first?” he asks, obviously confident in our project.

  “Why don’t we wait just a few to see what other people do?” I suggest, suddenly feeling completely nervous. I cannot screw up our presentation or Carter will think I’m a major moron and never date me.

  Mrs. Miller begins class and the first three groups give their presentations. Not to be rude, but there is more sucking going on in this class than a tank full of algae eaters. Did anyone do research? These presentations are just bad, bad, bad. Which makes me feel totally ready to give ours. I look at Carter and nod. He raises his hand and Mrs. Miller gives us the go ahead.

  As I follow Carter up to the front of the classroom, I am momentarily preoccupied with my advantageous view of his very cute butt in his jeans. Cute butts are my kryptonite, I swear. I am jolted back to reality when we face the class and thirty sets of eyes fall on us, waiting for something interesting to come out of our mouths.

  “How many of you have been in love?” Carter asks the class.

  The students stir in their seats. About half the class raises their hands.

  “How many of you would do anything for your true love?” he continues.

  A little less than half the class raises their hands again. Absolutely everyone is paying attention, which is totally a first in this class. Even Mrs. Miller looks like she is enjoying Carter’s questions.

  “Now, how many of you would jump out of a third-story window right after you saw your true love jump out of a fourth-story window? And not because of you, but because she’s in love with someone else.”