by Nina Beck
“I’m sorry, it’s just…you’re such an adult, y’know?”
“Yeah, well, not that much of an adult, I guess.”
Samantha patted her bedspread and Andrew came over and perched awkwardly on the edge of her bed. After readjusting several times, he finally settled in.
“There is this girl at school. She’s an artist.”
“Wow.”
“And a poet.”
“Ah.”
Andrew grimaced. “Anyway, I wanted to ask her out but wasn’t sure how to do it.”
“Oh, Andrew, I’m not sure I’m going to be of any help.”
“You’re a girl. How would you want a guy to ask you out?”
Samantha thought for a moment and then answered as honestly as possible. “I’d want it to be as simple and as straight-forward as possible. I think I’d like the guy to say, ‘Hi. I really like you, I think you’re smart and funny and pretty, and I’d like to spend time with you.’”
Samantha was really proud of herself; that sounded like good advice.
“That sounds…lame.”
Samantha choked. “Um, I guess. But it’s what I want to hear. And I think that if someone is interested in me and they were able to be that brave to say so…I’d respect that.”
“Oh.”
Samantha smiled.
“Still lame,” he said.
“Fine, then I have a question for you.”
“So…there is this guy…” And Samantha told him about her plan to ask D to the dance. “So, should I call him?”
“He should call you.”
Samantha frowned. “He doesn’t have my number.”
“If he was interested, he could get it.”
“You give crappy advice.”
Andrew laughed. “Call if you want, but…”
“Thanks so much.”
Andrew got up and walked toward the door. “I think guys are way easier to figure out. If we like someone, we pursue them, if we don’t—we don’t.”
“And you know this about all men because…”
“Because I am one?”
“Right, get out.”
“Are you going to—”
“None of your business!” Sam cried, hurling a pillow at Andrew while he was halfway through the door.
“Touchy…”
But he singsonged a “good luck” before shutting the door behind him.
Samantha pulled the phone out from under her other pillow and propped the pillow against the headboard of her bed. She scrolled through the contacts until she found THEBOY and, after a couple of moments of hesitation, hit the CALL button.
It rang twice before someone picked up the phone and, in a very annoyed voice, snapped, “Hello.”
“Um, hi, may I speak with…um, Michael?”
A heavy sigh was on the other end of the receiver, “This is he, who is this?”
“Um, hi.”
“Hello?”
“Um, yes, hi, it’s Samantha. Riley’s friend?” Samantha wanted to just hang up—this wasn’t going at all the way she had hoped it would go.
“Oh, hey. Sorry about the way I answered, I was expecting someone else.”
“Oh.” Another girl? Was he expecting another girl to call? Samantha felt like a complete idiot. “Well, I don’t want to keep you if you are expecting a call—we can talk tomorrow at school.” More like Sam could now avoid D as much as he was avoiding her, so he would never see how embarrassed she was to have made such an idiot out of herself.
“No, no,” he said quickly. “Please. So…what do you want to talk about?”
Samantha belatedly realized that having made the effort to actually call a boy, she didn’t exactly have a plan beyond what would happen if he picked up the phone.
She babbled for a few minutes about nothing. About the weather (wasn’t it so cold!) and about school (wasn’t it so boring!) and about life and parents (weren’t they such a chore!). And then out of nowhere, Sam blurted, “Have you been avoiding me?”
She heard a really deep sigh and silence.
“You have, and then I called you. Wow, this is awkward,” Sam said.
“No, it’s not,” he replied.
“Oh no, it’s definitely awkward.”
“I don’t want this to be awkward.”
“Too late. It’s awkward. Awkwardness abounds. I’m immersed in awkwardness.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of awkward,” D said.
“Absolutely.”
“Anything I can do?”
“A swift kick to the head would probably work.”
“How about this: Hang up the phone.”
“What?” Sam asked.
“Just hang up the phone.”
“Um, OK…bye?”
“Bye.” And the line disconnected. Sam stared at it for a moment before getting a little upset, but before she could really react (and this was a good thing), the phone started buzzing in her hand. The display said THEBOY, and Sam smiled and hit the CALL button again.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Now I called you,” D said on the other side of the line. “No longer awkward.”
Sam laughed and snuggled into her pillows, the phone tucked under her left ear, while she concentrated on the cuticles of her right hand. “Actually, I was going to call you,” she said.
“Oh? What a coincidence.”
“Yes, I was going to see if you wanted to do something this weekend.”
“Um…well, I actually…” D stuttered. “I have plans, but…”
“No, no, it’s fine!” Sam said, burying her face into her pillow. The phone smushed against her shoulder, so she could only grasp fragments of what D was saying. But none of it sounded too good.
“…but want to…after school…free…”
“No, no, it’s fine!” Sam repeated, feeling extra stupid. Of course she should have waited for him to ask her. Since he hadn’t, he obviously didn’t want to go out with her. How could she have been so dumb? “Actually, I have to go.”
“Sam…”
“Really, I have to go.”
“OK, if you really have to go.”
Samantha’s eyes stung. “Yeah, I really have to go.”
“Bye, Samantha.”
“Bye, D.”
Samantha hung up the phone and threw it to the other edge of the bed and then buried her face into the pillow. Tears filled her eyes. She had never been so humiliated in her life and she had never wanted to disappear quite like she did just then. She sniffed, her nose running.
Well, Samantha tried to tell herself, that was the first time she ever asked a boy out and the first time she was ever turned down. She supposed it had to have happened sometime. Maybe it was better to have it happen now, with D. Because now she wouldn’t be waiting around for him to call, and wouldn’t be looking for him at school. In fact, she was happy he said no. He was way too…something.
It was going to be humiliating at school tomorrow.
Andrew stuck his head back in the room. “How did it go?”
“Ugh!” Samantha said, throwing herself back on her pillows.
“Is the wound too fresh to say I told you so?”
Sam threw her other pillow at her brother. He laughed, closing the door once again.
Sam picked up the phone and texted Riley:
He said no.
Riley texted back:
That idiot.
And her phone started ringing a second later. “I’ll kill him!” Riley yelled when Sam answered.
“No, no, it’s fine!” Sam said, wondering when she started to sound like a broken record.
“It’s absolutely not fine. If I didn’t know that he felt—”
“Riley, I just want to forget this night ever happened,” Samantha said. “I’m completely embarrassed and I don’t know how I’ll face him tomorrow at school.”
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about! And if that turd doesn’t want to be your date to the dance, we’ll just find you anot
her date. Someone more worthy of your attention.”
“Yeah, I thought of that,” Sam said. “I need help…”
“I am so there. We’ll figure it out tomorrow. Just try and get some sleep and wear something extra cute tomorrow, OK?”
Sam sniffed and swallowed hard. When she got off the phone she took a deep breath and threw it on the floor, and tried her best to get some sleep, like Riley suggested.
D CHANGES HIS MIND AND TRIES TO ASK SAMANTHA OUT
The next morning D left home early. He had barely slept the night before, tossing and turning and trying to figure out why he hadn’t just told Sam that he had sworn he’d stay home all weekend working on his applications. It made him sound like he didn’t want to go out with her, when he really did want to go out with her. But this was an easy enough fix, D figured. He’d just get to Starbucks early, before even Riley got there, and he’d ask Sam out. For real.
But he was too early and was nervous to boot, so he took a walk around the block (like four times), so that he wouldn’t look like he had been standing on the sidewalk freezing his ass off (for thirty minutes).
How would he explain all this to her? D didn’t know. He’d just figure it out when she showed up…if she showed up. And if he was really lucky, she’d be so happy that they were actually going out, he wouldn’t have to explain his foul-up on the phone.
But unfortunately for D, Samantha showed up right on time, with Riley Swain.
“Damn,” D muttered under his breath, watching the two walking up the street together, their heads bowed near each other’s like they were sharing some sort of secret. Riley was talking and Sam was shaking her head. D smiled at the pair; they looked like friends should look.
And then D’s stomach clenched. Maybe they were talking about him—maybe Riley was warning her away from him—would she do that? Probably not. Maybe Sam was telling Riley what an ass D had been on the phone last night and then Riley would tell Sam about all the girls D had fooled around with in the past, all the girls he had blown off, and Sam would blow him off too.
Because, and D could tell, Sam was a “good girl.” Riley had been absolutely right about that, Sam wasn’t the kind of girl you should toy with. You were either serious about her or you weren’t; if you were—well, great, but if you weren’t and you respected her, you should stay away.
When he decided to ask her out…he had been thinking (the night before, while he tried not to think about her—again) about the things that she might like to do. He’d like to show her the city, maybe bring her to a museum, maybe out to dinner or a Broadway show. He thought she’d like that. Or maybe to a comedy club to see some bad jokes being told. She’d laugh, and D had smiled at the image.
But standing there on the sidewalk watching his best friend and the girl he was starting to think of as his friend walking up the street, he was a mixture of nervous and anxious—unable to quite pinpoint why he felt the way he did.
And it was too late to take a walk around the block once more, so he stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and waited. Both girls, coming upon him, looked a little shocked to see him.
He gave Riley a kiss on the cheek, as was their custom, and then—awkwardly looked at Sam. He leaned over to give her a friendly kiss too. She put out her hand to shake, jabbing her fingers into his sternum. They both jerked back, and then to cover it up, both jerked back together again, him with his hand up, her going to kiss him on the cheek, and he was pretty sure he brushed against her breast that time.
She flared red, and D took her by the shoulders and pulled her closer, fast, and when she went to kiss him on the cheek and he went to kiss her, he ended up kissing the corner of her mouth instead.
They both stood back.
“Well, that was interesting,” Riley said. “Want another go? I can take a walk…”
“Shut up, Riley,” Sam said.
“Yes, please do,” D said.
Riley just laughed. “I’m going to go get my non-coffee. You two?”
“Yes, I’m going to get my non-coffee too,” Sam said, walking in behind her.
D watched the girls walk into the shop, and then groaned loudly and rubbed his hands down his face. This was going to be impossible.
They walked slowly toward school with their drinks in hand. D took small sips of his coffee and listened in on their conversation—which neither made an attempt to include him in on.
D was a little peeved—he had been Riley’s morning “coffee date” for the past four years and now he was being excluded unceremoniously. He tried to tune the girls out and pretend he had better things to think about than whatever they were discussing, but when the word “date” came up and burned into his conscious brain, D started paying attention.
“Well, the Spring Fling is held every March, and that’s coming up really fast. If we are going to find you the right date for that…” Riley was saying. Samantha was nodding.
“…so…” Riley continued, “I think that we can whittle down the list to just a couple—”
“A couple?” D cut in.
“Like three or four,” Riley said over her shoulder.
D was obviously eavesdropping by this point, and feeling slightly guilty about it, despite the fact that they shouldn’t have been talking about this in front of him if they didn’t want him to hear. Or maybe they did want him to hear?
“I was thinking of Trey Parker,” Riley said.
Riley shot D a look and he deadpanned his face, raising his hands in the air as if to say he was innocent.
“And Martin Ford.”
D snorted.
“I also think you’d like Jordan Laermer,” Riley said, before flashing D a death stare because he started laughing.
“What is this for?” D asked.
“I told Samantha I’d help her find a date to the Spring Fling,” Riley said calmly, daring D to laugh.
“And these are the guys you want to send her with?” D said, almost shouting.
“What’s wrong with them?” Riley shouted back.
“Are you trying to turn the poor girl off men entirely?” D asked once he could catch his breath. Samantha’s eyes volleyed between the two friends. “I mean, Jordan Laermer?”
“Jordan is a very nice boy,” Riley said, making a face.
“Jordan still carries around his retainer.”
“So?”
“He stopped using it in the eighth grade,” D said pointedly.
“Oh, gross,” Riley said. She turned to Samantha. “I didn’t know that.”
“Of course not,” D said, puffing up his chest. “There are some things you just won’t know.”
“That’s all right, Riley,” Samantha said. “I think anyone you choose will be fine.”
“Thanks, Sam.”
D looked at both of them incredulously. “How about me?” he spit out before he had a chance to really think. Both girls looked at him as if he had grown a second head. And he coughed a little. “I mean, first of all, Riley’s taste in men is somewhat suspect.” (Riley coughed and sputtered.) “Two, the guys from Curtis Prep are somewhat suspect and there are things about them that you girls would never, ever know.”
“What do you suggest?” Riley asked, arching her eyebrows.
They had arrived at the school and D stood on the step, watching the crowd of students swarm in. He nodded to a couple that said hi to him and to the girls, and then said, “Well, why don’t you just run any potential candidates by me?”
At this, Samantha shot him a death glare of the first order. If her eyes had been attached to any type of laser beams, D would be in a death glare puddle right now.
But Riley was looking at D, assessing, before saying, “You think this would be better by committee?”
“Two heads are better than one, Riley darling.”
If Samantha was going to be going on dates, and there was nothing D could do to stop her, at the very least he could make sure he knew who she was going out with and maybe…control the damage. Th
e idea of her going out with someone who she actually could and would like made him feel slightly sick, and if he had more experience with the emotion, D would have realized that he was jealous.
“Dating by committee?” Riley asked.
Sam started to shake her head at the same time Riley broke into a smile and cried, “Brilliant!”
And D wondered what he had gotten himself into.
SAMANTHA LETS OTHERS FIND HER A DATE (SINCE SHE OBVIOUSLY CAN’T GET HER OWN) (GOOD WORK, D)
Marley & Brendan are meeting us in the library after school, 3:45. x Riley
Samantha walked into the library holding her notebook and calculus book across her chest like armor. She had never felt so intimidated entering a library before, and she wasn’t sure she liked the change.
She walked past the row of students sitting in the reading room and past the AV equipment until she hit the stacks, and in the back there were five chairs pulled into a smooshed little circle. There sat Riley, sitting primly on a chair, wearing small reading glasses that Sam knew weren’t hers (especially since they didn’t have any lenses), while leaning over her iPhone.
Sam recognized Marley from lunch and another boy, who Sam assumed was Brendan. They were all pointing at whatever Riley had on her iPhone and were arguing animatedly about whatever was written there. D was standing in the back, leaning against one of the tall shelves of books, pursing his lips in a very not-amused manner.
Sam was just nervous.
“Hi, everyone,” she said, when she realized none of them would notice her entrance.
Riley looked up and gave her a big smile, D nodded in her direction, Marley gave her a glance, but Brendan jumped up and gave her a big hug. She liked him right away, even though his short, spiky hair poked her annoyingly in the nose when he hugged her. He was short, even though his dark hair was gelled so high that it gave him an additional inch or two.
“OK, can we get this over with?” Marley asked. “Some of us have lives to get back to.”
“Really? Like who?” Riley asked.