“You didn’t do anything wrong, and you don’t have to go.”
“Yeah,” she said, eyeing my dad chewing out my brother. “I think I do. Besides, I have a hot date with Ferris Bueller in my room tonight.”
I said something about hanging out the next day, and at Dad’s obvious insistence, Jeremy came back and offered the barest of apologies.
Jolene backed out the door, opening it just enough that she could squeeze through it sideways. “Don’t think twice, Jeremy. It’s understanding that makes it possible for people like me to tolerate a person like yourself. Bye, Adam.”
I ducked my head to hide a smile, then walked into my room without glancing at Dad or Jeremy.
IN BETWEEN
Adam:
Hey.
Jolene:
Hey. This is new.
Adam:
What are you doing?
Jolene:
Trying to figure out how to talk to you off hours.
Adam:
Off hours?
Jolene:
Yeah. Strictly speaking, we’re not on the clock.
Adam:
So?
Jolene:
So, what if you’re even weirder in your real life?
Adam:
That answers the question if you’re meaner.
Jolene:
You don’t really think I’m mean.
Adam:
You don’t really think I’m weird.
Jolene:
If I kind of do does that mean you kind of do?
Adam:
Yes.
Jolene:
I’m stymied here.
Adam:
So...
Jolene:
Why are you texting me?
Adam:
Felt like talking to you.
Jolene:
Adam, are you trying say you miss me?
Adam:
I wouldn’t go that far.
Jolene:
I bet you’re blushing. Send me a picture.
Adam:
See? It’s not that different.
Jolene:
Where’s my picture?
Adam:
Camera’s busted.
Jolene:
Liar.
Adam:
Are you at home?
Jolene:
Yeah, you?
Adam:
Look out your window.
Jolene:
You don’t know where I live.
Adam:
Took you too long to text back. You totally looked.
Jolene:
Only because you have very clear stalker tendencies.
Adam:
Says the girl who broke into my bedroom.
Jolene:
Says the guy who keeps taking pictures of me for his mom.
Adam:
You caught me.
Jolene:
I bet you have a big heart-shaped collage of me taped to your ceiling.
Adam:
It’s inside the door to my closet.
Jolene:
It’d be cool if you lived nearby.
Adam:
Yeah.
Jolene:
Or you weren’t so pathetically still fifteen.
Adam:
Remind me how old you are again?
Jolene:
Fifteen is only pathetic when you’re a guy.
Adam:
That’s unfair.
Jolene:
But true.
Adam:
It’s weird that part of me wishes it was next weekend already.
Jolene:
You miss me being mean to your face?
Adam:
Yeah.
Jolene:
That is weird.
Adam:
Maybe you’re not that mean.
Jolene:
Maybe you’re not that weird.
Jolene
I ducked to avoid getting hit in the face by a soccer ball as I left my house on the Saturday morning of my second non-Dad weekend of the month. It still clipped me in the shoulder, which was apparently good enough for Cherry and Gabe to high-five each other from where they were standing in front of their minivan. The glint of brilliantly white teeth, the kind that only the kids of two dentists could have, contrasted against the deep brown of their skin as they grinned.
“Awesome,” I said without smiling. “That never gets old.”
“Then be on time,” they said together, then scowled, because they hated when they inadvertently spoke in unison.
Cherry caught the ball, which I’d thrown back at her, and tossed it to her twin before focusing her attention back on me. “Are you ready to fight?” She held a hand to her ear. “Are you ready to win? Are you ready to make those Elkins Park girls wish they’d never been born?”
“Yes!” I jumped off the last step on the porch, and Cherry met me for an impromptu chest bump. We double high-fived before pulling back. She linked her arm around my neck in a half headlock and shoved me toward the front seat.
I was smiling. I was in a half headlock, and I was smiling. It was a side effect of being around Cherry, one I’d taken full advantage of since my parents’ divorce. Cherry and I had been friends before then, but we’d been more like the kind of friends who said hey to each other when we bumped into each other outside school. Now we were the kind of friends who asked each other for deodorant checks, which Cherry did then, given my proximity to her armpit.
“You smell like a meadow made sweet love to a bottle of mouthwash,” I told her.
“Yeah?” Half of her mouth kicked up as she opened the sliding passenger door. “Awesome.”
“Hey, Teen Spirit,” Gabe called from the driver’s seat. “Let’s move.”
“Thanks again for the ride,” I told him, hopping into the front seat.
Cherry rolled her eyes. “He’s such a loser. All I have to do is shake the keys from anywhere in the house and he comes running.”
Gabe started the car with a wild grin that reminded me he’d had his license for only a couple weeks. Music was soon blasting, vibrating through the back of my legs and making it impossible to hear what Cherry was saying. She was talking, her violet-glossed lips opening and closing like a fish out of water. She leaned forward and clapped Gabe on the shoulder and then pointed to the stereo.
He turned the music up so that the beds of my nails seemed to thrum with the beat. Cherry rolled her eyes at me and doubled her efforts on her brother’s shoulders until he lowered the volume.
“We’re all deaf now, Gabe.” Cherry sat back with a huff. “You probably blew the speakers out, too.”
“My car, my rules.”
“Mom’s minivan, you’re pathetic,” Cherry said, echoing the rhythm of his words.
I tried to choke back my laughter, but Gabe saw me and barked out his own laugh. “Jealous, baby sister? Uh, yeah,” he said, starting to sing. “You are jealous of a minivan, jealous of a minivan.”
“You are tragically uncool.”
“Says the sixteen-year-old without a license. Burn!” He covered his mouth with one hand and held up the other for me to slap.
I eyed Cherry and tapped Gabe’s hand as lightly and quickly as possible. “What? He’s voluntarily driving us an hour early to our soccer game. He’s getting high-fived.”
By way of answering, Cherry narrowed her eyes and showed me the side of her short, bleached afro.
“You need to quit being stupid,” Gabe said to his sister. “Get your grades up and Mom and Dad will get let you get your license.”
That sounded cruel on the surface, except both
Cherry and Gabe were super smart. I’d never seen Cherry get less than an A-on any test she’d ever taken. She just didn’t like homework. I couldn’t believe a driver’s license wasn’t motivation enough for her, but there we were, nearly a year since her parents had laid down the law where her grades were concerned, and she was still coasting on test scores alone. I, on the other hand, planned to spend my sixteenth birthday at the DMV if I had to walk there myself.
“Hey, hey,” Gabe said, lightly smacking my arm a few times. “What did you think of the song before the uncultured among us made you turn it down?” He narrowed his eyes at his sister through the rearview mirror.
“No way!” I turned the sound back up—though not to the same eardrum-bursting volume as before—and listened to the song.
Now that I was paying attention, I could pick out Dexter’s gravelly voice and Gabe’s deeper harmony. It was my turn to smack his arm and grin. I normally didn’t go much for alternative rock, but Venomous Squid was the exception. I was obviously biased, because I was friends with all of them, but even Cherry admitted they didn’t suck. The new song was one I’d heard a stripped-down version of when Grady, the lead guitarist, had been working on the melody while I shot B-roll footage for their first music video (which had turned out way better than I was expecting, as I’d never made a music video before). But that had been without lyrics. As I listened to the song, which was about a guy having to watch the girl he loved choose someone else, I started seeing the couple in my head, the close-up shots I’d start with and then how I’d slowly zoom out from her throughout the song, ending with an extreme long shot showing that distance she’d put between them as I choked tight on him.
“Whoa, are you crying, Jo? Man, I’m good.”
I laughed a little and blinked the moisture from my eyes. “Yeah, it’s good. I was imagining the video I could make.”
Gabe grinned. “Hell yes. We’ve got over thirty thousand views on the first one. We might even be able to pay you with more than free-hug coupons for this one.”
“Send it to me—” I pointed at the speakers “—and I’ll start working on it.”
“Awesome,” Gabe said. “Thanks.”
“You know, I could walk to the game faster than this,” Cherry said, leaning forward to rest her chin on the back of my seat. “Just saying.”
Gabe sped up, then came to an abrupt stop when we reached the school, causing both Cherry and me to jerk forward against our seat belts before slamming back.
Cherry smacked him and he groaned much louder than the hit required. I wasn’t the only one who noticed the difference. Cherry and I turned to see what her brother was looking at, and I had to hold back my own groan.
Cherry’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Meneik, was strolling toward us, right arm swinging like he was listening to music only he could hear. Even when she hated him, Cherry always said Meneik had mad swagger. He also had rich dark skin, a lean, muscled physique, and cheekbones so chiseled that they’d landed him a few modeling jobs. Plus, he was a senior and had had his own car long before Gabe got minivan privileges.
I never saw the appeal beyond his pretty exterior—okay, and maybe the fact that he could drive us places—but Meneik didn’t look so cute when he was yelling at Cherry for not answering his texts fast enough or laying down the mother of all guilt trips when she wanted to hang out with her friends instead of spending every night with him. He never got violent or cheated or anything, but he manipulated and isolated and tried to control every aspect of her life. She had no choices, no freedom, no support. He made sure the only thing she had was him, and he somehow managed to convince my funny and fearless friend that she didn’t want anything else. At least, not when he was around.
Their latest breakup had been the longest one yet, after Meneik lost it when Cherry had visited her grandmother in the hospital instead of going to his basketball game. He flat out told her that her grandmother’s hip would still have been broken after his game. No amount of backpedaling and telling her that he needed his lucky charm had worked, which had given me one blissful, Meneik-free month with her that I’d thought would last. One glance at the smile spreading across Cherry’s face was all it took to show me they were back on again.
She burst out of the van and ran to him, jumping onto him and sealing her mouth to his and I accidentally slammed my elbow into the van’s horn while twisting around to grab Cherry’s and my soccer bags from the back. If I were Meneik, I’d be able to sell that story. Since I was not, I was treated to a disbelieving glare and one artfully arched eyebrow.
“Cherish,” Meneik said, tugging her back to him for one last kiss. “It’s all good.” He told “Baby” he’d call her later before striding back to his car as I joined Cherry. I guess she was expected to be at all his games, but the same rule didn’t apply to him.
“What happened to ‘I don’t want to waste another second of my life on that jerk?’” I asked in a tone that sounded more weary than angry.
Cherry took her bag and turned toward the field without meeting my gaze. “Don’t give me a hard time, okay?”
“Hey,” I said, matching her stride. “I’m only quoting what you said to me. But come on, he’s not worth it. You agreed, and—”
Her eyes flashed as they finally met mine. “You need to stop.” Then she sighed and shook her head at me. “See, this is why I didn’t tell you. You don’t get it. You’ve never been in love.”
My cheeks flushed hot. No, I hadn’t, but I was a walking, talking casualty of it, and that was reason enough not to want any part of it. Love—the romantic kind—existed only in Nora Ephron movies, and we didn’t get to live in those.
“Meneik and me? We’re always going to get back to each other. You either get that—” she lifted her bag over her shoulder “—or you don’t.” Then she sidestepped me and jogged across the parking lot to where the rest of the team was waiting.
Cherry and I both moved through the game without our usual trash talk and laughter. Our teammates noticed and started asking what was up, but neither of us answered.
Without discussing it, after the game, we put on a show of normalcy for her parents, but on the drive home Cherry turned the music all the way up the second Gabe started the engine.
ADAM
“Hey, Adam. Got a minute?” On Monday afternoon, Erica Porter waved me over to her table in the cafeteria, eliciting a few grumbled comments from my friends Gideon and Rory. As I headed toward her, Rory muttered, “Lucky bastard,” and I couldn’t help but smile. Apart from being valedictorian, being noticed by Erica Porter was the epitome of my high school aspirations.
My heart started pounding as I drew closer to her table, so much so that I was sure she’d see it through my shirt. Erica wasn’t just beautiful, with her honey-blond hair, hazel eyes, and flawless tan skin, she was the kind of gorgeous that made it hurt to look at her for very long. Seeing her was like staring at the sun. Sure, there was a chance that you’d go blind, but she was so brilliant, you risked it anyway.
“You guys all know Adam, right?” Erica looked around the long rectangular table as heads nodded. I did know most everyone. A few other cheerleaders; their boyfriends; Erica’s younger brother, Peter; and her two best friends.
“Hey,” I said.
“So,” Erica said the second I slid onto the bench seat next to her, “you probably know why I called you over.”
I had a split-second thought that she found my uncontrollable blushing as “adorable” as Jolene did, because I could feel myself turning red as a tomato. “You’re after my pudding cup?”
Erica laughed and the sound, so close to my ear, sent tingling goose bumps all over my skin. “I was thinking more of a preemptive partnering up for the Beowulf project in British literature.”
I thought I could maybe die happy, knowing she had looked at me like that once in my life, as if I, and I alone, had the power to d
o something for her. “Oh yeah, sure.”
And then she hugged me. “Adam, you’re the best.” She released me before I worried she’d feel the copious amount of sweat my body decided to start producing. “I hate these group projects. I always end up doing all the work, and people who do nothing get the same grade.” She stabbed a strawberry with her fork. “I refuse to do it again, you know?”
While I hated that, too, my mouth was going to agree with anything she said. “Yeah.”
“Anyway, we have the two highest grades in the class, so I figured if we partner up, I won’t end up doing the report and the presentation by myself again. Oh, and I promise I’ll pull my weight.”
I’d gone to school with Erica since the fifth grade, and she’d always been one of the smartest people in the class. I wasn’t worried about her being a slacker, I was worried my brain would cease functioning if I sat close to her for too long. “I’d love to work with you, but Mr. Conyer always assigns partners. I don’t think we’ll get to pick.”
Erica chewed on her strawberry and held up a finger. “I’ve got that covered. He always pairs us based on who’s sharing a desk, so as long as you don’t mind sitting next to me...” She smiled, because even she knew that wasn’t a possibility.
“For a good grade, I think I can suffer through it.”
Erica grinned at me. “Great.”
* * *
I had to wait for Jeremy in the parking lot after school. I didn’t have a key to unlock the car, so I stood shivering outside for a good ten minutes before he strolled up. As soon as he started the car, I turned the heater on high.
“You get cold like a little girl,” Jeremy said. “It’s ’cause you’re so skinny.”
“Not everyone comes equipped with the natural insulation that you have.”
“Someone’s feeling cocky.” Jeremy’s smile was tight, but I’d been expecting a quick slam of the brakes or a sharp turn as he backed out of the parking lot. Something to bang me around or smack my head against the window in response to my insult. A smile of any kind was unnerving. “That have anything to do with your lunch date?”
Every Other Weekend Page 8