by Beth Goobie
Kicking the stiffness out of my legs, I got up, stripped the sheets, and headed to the bathroom for a shower.
Chapter Seven
As I biked to Joc’s place the next morning, everything glowed, the houses wet and glimmering from last night’s rain, the trees a brilliant yellow gold. Everywhere the earth was giving out that sweet scent you get only in the fall, and the sky ached with a forever-going-on kind of blue. And I was pumped, my mind still full of what had happened to me the previous night, that new way of knowing and the feelings that had come with it. As I zoomed along, the entire world seemed to be in on the secret, trees nodding at me, houses smiling. Then I was pulling up in front of Joc’s place and the screen door bursting open as she came jogging across the lawn, jean jacket flapping over one of Tim’s old Metallica sweatshirts.
“Hey, Dyl,” she said. “I saved the last bite of my toast for you. Here, it’s loaded with strawberry jam.”
With a grin she held up the gooey bit of bread and the world lit up like a wish, my whole self living in my lips as she slipped the toast into my mouth. But if Joc noticed, she didn’t say anything, just slid onto the bike seat behind me. Then we were off, headed down the street, me trying to ignore the warm circle of her arms around my waist, then deciding not to ignore it at all. And that just made the streets sing by faster, the earth smell sweeter and the sky go a sheerer, more forever kind of blue.
Part of me shouted that I was a fool, best girlfriends didn’t fall in love, and I was setting myself up for kick-ass pain, but the rest of me kept pumping away at the bike pedals, knowing I would probably spend the rest of the day just thinking about the soft secret of Joc’s head resting against my back. Secret, because I couldn’t let on to her what it meant, couldn’t even let on that I’d noticed it, but still I could notice, and for the first time let myself feel it in the deep private parts of my soul.
“Finish your French assignment?” I asked, knowing it was a dumb question, a boring one, but if I didn’t focus on something mundane, I might suddenly start belting out “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman”—something obvious like that.
“Un petit peu,” murmured Joc, bumping her head slightly against my back, and I left it at that. I mean, Joc is très bien at French, a real conversationalist, and when she gets going, all I can say is, “Je suis stupide. Lentement, lentement, s’il vous plaît.”
So I concentrated on trying to pedal without moving my upper body so Joc’s head wouldn’t get bumped around, and then all too soon the Dief was coming into view and I was coasting slowly up to the bike racks. As I came to a halt, Joc slid off the seat and just stood for a bit, leaned against my shoulder. And in that little bit of time I felt the entire world come to a standstill, as if all of it, every last single part was focusing in on that small warm place where our shoulders touched.
“Coming to the game after school?” asked Joc, glancing at me with a dreamy expression on her face. Then she took a quick breath and glanced away again, her eyes scanning the crowd. “Dikker said he’d give us both a ride and put your bike in the trunk. If you want, that is,” she added, still scanning the crowd.
Dikker. When I heard her say that name, my heart gave an ugly thud and basically died for five seconds. Then it came miserably back to life, a life that sucked big-time.
“Sure,” I said, ducking down to lock my bike to the nearest rack. “No prob, that sounds great.”
“Okay,” said Joc. “Meet you in the student parking lot at three.”
Sliding my lock closed, I straightened to reply, but she was already gone, probably headed in a beeline for Dikker’s locker. And because I’d been such a fool, not shutting things down like I usually did but letting it all rise to the surface, the disappointment that hit me then was nuclear—an agony bomb, exploding in my gut. There was nothing to do though but let it happen, so I just stood by my bike, waiting as bits and pieces of me flew off in every direction. Then it was over and I was back in gear, one more body in a stream of kids headed for the nearest school door.
“Hey, Dyl,” said Dikker.
As he leaned against his car, he sent me a loaded grin. It was 3:00 PM, the student parking lot swarming with kids getting into cars and heading out to the football game. Hundreds of kids surrounded us, all of them hooting, hollering and revving their engines, but the second Dikker sent me that grin, the entire scene disappeared into the angry churn of my gut. I’ll admit it, my reaction was pretty much automatic. The moment I set eyes on Dikker, I morphed into one hundred percent bitch.
“In case you’re wondering,” I said, keeping a tight grip on my bike so I didn’t give in to the massive urge to chuck it at him. “Don’t take this personally or anything, but no, I don’t want to see it.”
It was the first time we’d talked since Saturday, and the incident was written all over his face. Believe me, it wasn’t easy to look him in the eye. I mean, I knew Joc had told him what I’d told her about my storming off after him. And of course Dikker had chosen to believe what came natural to Dikker Preddy to believe. But my protesting or explaining would only make things worse.
“Pity,” he singsonged, faking a British accent. “Only in Canada you know.” Reaching for my bike, he heaved it into the trunk of his car. “There,” he said, tying it to the back fender. “I used all my Boy Scout knots, so it should stay put if I keep it to five, ten kays.”
“Will this help?” I asked, pulling a wad of Double Bubble out of my mouth. “Use it to stick the bike into place, and then maybe you can take it up to twenty.”
Giving me another loaded grin, Dikker took the wad of gum and popped into his mouth. “The closest I’ll probably ever come,” he sighed and blew a large pink bubble.
“You’ve got that right,” I said emphatically. I mean, Dikker wasn’t giving me much of a compliment—for him, come-on mode was automatic around anyone who looked remotely female, even his girlfriend’s best friend. So, giving him my disgusted back, I scanned the parking lot for Joc. As I did, a passing car braked, and Julie Crozier leaned out the passenger window.
“Coming to the game?” she asked. Beside her, Rachel honked the car horn and waved.
“Yup,” I said, trying not to stare at the olive eye shadow plastered on Julie’s eyelids.
“Want a ride?” called Rachel.
“I’ve already got one,” I said. “I’m going with Joc and Dikker.”
Julie’s eyes flicked to Dikker and she grimaced slightly. “Okay, see you there,” she said, then pulled back inside, and the car moved on.
Great, I thought. Just scored another point with the phone patrol. Dikker seemed to be on everyone’s dog list but Joc’s. Keeping my back to him, I scanned the parking lot again. Still no sign of Joc. How long was she going to leave me here, stuck in a one-on-one with the planet’s most neglected brain?
Still, neglected brain or not, I was being a royal bitch, standing there with my back to him like that. “Hey,” I said, turning to face him, and found him leaning against his car, still watching me with that loaded grin. “There’s something I want to ask you,” I added, crossing my arms and staring at him so hard, he absolutely had to look me in the face. The guy’s eyes had no morals. I mean, absolutely none.
“Holla, Barnardo,” grinned Dikker. Hiking himself onto the car hood, he dangled his legs and looked at me expectantly.
“What?” I demanded.
“Holla, Barnardo,” he repeated agreeably. “It’s one of my lines from Hamlet.”
I rolled my eyes. Of all the lines to quote from Shakespeare, he would pick something completely insignificant. “Very good, Dikker,” I said. “You’ve got that one down pat. Okay, here’s my question: Why do you want to be dead by thirty? You don’t get Alzheimer’s until you’re sixty, you know.”
A look of surprise crossed his face and he shrugged. “I don’t want to get old,” he said. “Gray hair, limp dick, Viagra. Just knock me off at twenty-nine, and I’ll reincarnate and come back in full glory.”
“Y
eah,” I said, “as a f lea. Or someone growing up in Afghanistan.”
He shrugged again. “Tell you what—I’ll give you a phone call when you’re seventy-five and living with your lawyer husband in a five-hundred-thousand dollar house on a zillion RSPs, and I’m fifteen and on my third time around, and we’ll compare notes. I bet you I’ll be having more fun.”
I rolled my eyes again. The problem with one-on-one conversations with Dikker was that he was so insane that every now and then he actually made sense. “You’re just looking for an easy way out of all the child support payments you’re going to get landed with,” I said. “You’ll have an easy dozen by the time you’re twenty-five.”
Dikker just gave me another shrug, then said calmly, “Ah, there has been much throwing about of brains.”
“Huh?” I asked, staring at him.
“Another line from Hamlet,” he said. “Only I don’t get to say it, Hamlet does. Anyway, for your information, since you seem to be so interested, I always use a safe. If I didn’t, Joc would pull one over my head.” He shrugged again. “Hey, I may not be able to think and piss at the same time, but I do know enough not to get my sixteen-year-old girlfriend pregnant.”
“Think and piss?” I said. I was really staring at him now.
“Haven’t you ever noticed?” he grinned. “Your bladder gets going and your brain shuts down. Must be something about the nervous system—can’t handle two jobs at the same time, I guess. Try it the next time you’re on the can.”
“Yeah. All right. Fine,” I snorted. Then I turned and scanned the crowd again. As much as I was working very hard not to, I was starting to like the guy. It happened to me in brief spurts every now and then when Joc wasn’t around, and we were forced to actually engage in conversation. I mean, Dikker could be on the verge of interesting sometimes. You had to have some kind of smarts to be as deliberately stupid as he seemed to be.
To my relief, I spotted Joc on the far side of the parking lot, talking to someone. “There she is,” I said, waving madly at her. Lifting a hand, she waved back.
“What’s taking her so long?” asked Dikker. Jumping off the hood of his car, he peered over my shoulder. “Who’s that guy she’s talking to?” he asked, his voice suddenly irritable.
“Brian Cardinal,” I said, fighting a smirk. “They’re doing a presentation together in Geography. Didn’t she tell you?”
“Not yet,” scowled Dikker. Crossing his arms, he slouched against the car and sent a steady glower in Joc’s direction. As if on cue she laughed, slapped Brian’s shoulder, then turned and headed toward us. Several feet from Dikker, she launched herself at him, and they congealed into a tangle of arms, legs and smooching lips.
“What were you talking to Brian about?” grunted Dikker, his mood obviously improved.
“How much he’ll have to pay his sister to research a Geography presentation for us,” grinned Joc. “C’mon, let’s get going so Dyl can get a good seat at the game to watch her man.”
Opening the passenger door, she got in and plastered herself against the gearbox to make room for me. Dikker turned the ignition. The Honda’s engine kicked over with a mind-shattering roar, and he pumped it even louder, watching kids scatter in every direction.
“Respect,” he said. “You know when you’ve got it.” Blowing a huge bubble with my Double Bubble wad, he peered around it as he backed out of his parking space. This, of course, was Joc’s cue to pop it with her finger, then pull the wad out of his mouth and put it into her own.
“Mmm,” she said. “Dikker germs. Love bugs. My mother warned me about these.”
“You’ve got that right,” said Dikker. Giving her a wide grin, he winked at me. “Better watch out,” he said, glancing back at Joc. “They might make you pregnant.”
With a groan, I slouched down until I was nose level with the glove compartment. This afternoon’s football game was at Confederation Collegiate, which meant I was going to have to endure fifteen minutes, trapped in close contact with these two while we drove across town. Why hadn’t I just said I would bike to the game? On the other hand, because Joc and I were sharing the front passenger seat, her right leg was pressed flat against my left. If I just sort of relaxed and didn’t pull away, the sensation was kind of pleasantly distracting. It also made me remember the new policy I’d come up with last night, of letting my mind do whatever it wanted, instead of always putting on the brakes.
So instead of learning my lesson from what had happened that morning at the bike racks, I closed my eyes, shut out the idiotic banter going on to my left, and let my thoughts roam. Almost immediately I was hit with the same image that I’d gotten last night—Joc leaning over me, our lips touching, touching again. But this time the fantasy was so vivid, so just everything in my head, that I could have sworn it was actually happening between us, hot and heavy, right there in the car.
“Dyl,” said a voice in my ear, interrupting another long imaginary kiss, and a shoulder bumped against mine. “C’mon, we’re here,” the voice said impatiently. “What’s with you? You on something?”
My eyes flew open and I sat up, blinking stupidly in the afternoon sunlight. What’s going on? I thought, bewildered. Where am I? Wasn’t I just ki—
Remorselessly, Dikker’s car took shape around me—fuzzy yellow dice hanging from the rear view mirror, filthy dashboard and bug-encrusted windshield with a smeared view of Confederation Collegiate in the distance. Then, to add to the ambience, I was blasted by the scent of my Double Bubble wad, coming from Joc’s mouth as she stared at me.
“C’mon,” she said, bumping me again with her shoulder. “You moving any time this century?”
Without looking at her, I pushed open the door and half-stum-bled, half-ran from the car. As I put some distance between me and the Honda, the heat pounding through my body faded and my mind began to clear. Still disoriented, I wiped a hand across my mouth, and to my surprise it came away sweaty. Abruptly a sharp wind kicked up, cutting through my jacket, and I realized that my clothes were slightly damp. If this wind kept up, it was going to be a cold game.
“Hey, Dyl,” Joc called after me. “Where are you going so fast?”
A huge gulping breath came out of me, then another. As I stood staring at Confederation Collegiate, I realized that letting my mind go like that had been a mistake. The fantasy had been too vivid, too strong. It was one thing to play with it in my head when alone in bed, then give myself a full night’s sleep to get over it. But here, next to Confed’s football field and a milling crowd of kids, there was no way to release the feelings that had built up inside me. It was like being stuck inside another agony bomb, but one that was going off continually, over and over.
“Dyl,” Joc called again, nearer, this time. Joc—my best friend, Dikker’s queen, and I was her lady-in-waiting.
So I turned toward her, a forced smile on my lips and my eyes slitted so she was just a blur headed toward me, something I could see and not see, halfway between reality and dream while the wind sent another cold blast between us.
Chapter Eight
Cam and I usually had one date per weekend, though sometimes we saw each other twice if there was a sports event or something family-related going on. That Saturday I managed to wheedle two dates out of my parents, or rather two dates packed into one with an extended curfew, because the latest Disney movie had hit town and we were taking Keelie to the early show. Cam was great with Keelie and never seemed to mind spending time with her, and she adored him. When the doorbell rang at 6:15, she immediately dropped her spoon and squirmed down from her chair. Then she grabbed her Quidditch broom, which was propped against the nearest wall, and tore out of the kitchen screaming, “Cam’s here! Cam’s here! Watch out, Cam, Valdemort is going to get you!”
Cam must have heard her coming, because he didn’t wait for her to open the door. Right behind Keelie, I reached the front hall in time to see the door burst open and him swoop in on her short squealing figure. For the next few seconds
, everything was my boyfriend roaring into my little sister’s hair while she screamed with delight, and then the universe settled down again.
“Look, Cam, look!” shouted Keelie. Pushing her broom at him, she stood watching expectantly as he examined it.
“Ah, this is a great-looking broom, Keelie,” said Cam, shooting me a you’ve-got-to-help-me-here look. “Must be great for swee—”
With a massive scowl, Keelie yanked it out of his hands. “Not for sweeping!” she said sternly. “It’s a Quidditch broom.” Then she swung one leg over it and stood looking up at him. When he didn’t move, she said, “Aren’t you coming to play Quidditch with me?”
“Keelie, we don’t have ti—” I began, but Cam had already gotten onto the broom behind her and they were off, trotting into the living room. Except that with Cam being so much taller than Keelie, and Dad having sawed the broom to half-size so Keelie could manage it, Cam was hunched down and almost tripping over his feet in his efforts not to mash Keelie into the floor.
Abruptly she stopped, frowned up at him and said, “Get off, Cam. You don’t ride this broom too good. Your bum’s too big.”
“I’m crushed,” said Cam. Stepping off the back end, he watched her carry the broom to a corner and prop it carefully against the wall.
“Don’t feel bad,” I said. “She hasn’t even asked me to ride on it.”
“Me neither,” said a voice behind me, and I turned to see my father standing in the kitchen doorway, smiling broadly at Cam. “She must think of you as a second Harry Potter to let you on that thing,” Dad continued, stretching out his hand. He and Cam shook, and then Mom came out of the kitchen and gave Cam a hug.
“Good to see you, Cam,” she said. “Did you have dessert? We have ice cream.”
“Thanks, Ms. Kowolski. I already ate a ton,” Cam grinned.
Keelie wasn’t the only person in my family who adored Cam. Both my parents did too. More than that, they respected him. When we first started dating, they gave him the third degree, asking him about his interests, inviting him along on family outings and watching every breath he took, that sort of thing. But once they’d figured out what kind of guy he was, they relaxed. It wasn’t that they expected him to treat me like a virgin—after our fourth date, I’d gotten a carefully explicit condoms-and-safe-sex talk, along with a very decided sex-is-better-if-you-wait-until-you’re-older reminder. Still, it was obvious from the beginning that both my parents really liked Cam, so much so, that their entire bodies lit up in a smile when they saw him. Even Danny thought Cam was cool, and lived for the moments he was called over to sit with the senior jock crowd in the Dief cafeteria. Right now he was hovering behind Mom, watching intently as Cam gently worked Keelie’s squirming arms into her jacket, then knelt to do up her shoes. In the week to come, I knew I would see Danny go through the exact same routine with Keelie each morning, helping her into her jacket and shoes before she left for school.