I really thought Jackson liked me. I was so sure he and Star were history, an ugly blot on the timeline of the past. But there he was, hugging Star and barely glancing at me.
I hope he chokes on his pretzels.
The rents are waiting for me when I walk in. Mom’s pixie nose turns up, and I know it’s because I smell like the shaggy dog they’d never let me have for a pet when I was a kid.
She takes a step back. “Your brown sweater! What—? How—? I loved that sweater. Mary Jane, what happened to you?”
“Diet Coke,” I answer.
"But . . . how . . . ?”
All I want to do is take a hot shower. And never come out. “Long story, and I’m beat. I’m just going to turn in early.” I start to walk past them.
“Now? Tonight?” Dad asks. “Isn’t there a game tonight?”
I’m surprised he’s in tune enough to know this, but I nod. I find that it takes all my energy reserves to move my head up and down.
Mom takes over the interrogation. “So why are you staying home?”
I’m thinking I can’t win. They were crazy when I came in late, and they’re crazy when I’m early. Rents. “I have homework ?” This is not a lie. It also has nothing to do with why I’m staying home.
I start to push past them again, but they’re not done.
“Mary Jane,” Mom says without looking at me, “we need to talk.”
I’m getting the distinct feeling that there’s more going on here than my cola-soaked sweater and an early Saturday night appearance. I don’t know what’s coming, but it’s been the kind of day that could bring anything. I realize that I need to brace myself, to buck up. But there’s nothing left in me but wet fuzz. I may be the daughter of the Queen of the Bucker-Uppers, but I’m no princess. She didn’t pass me that particular DNA. I wait.
“The phone’s been ringing all day,” Mom says.
Then I get it. The calls didn’t stop just because I wasn’t home. Stupid as it was, I guess I’d hoped it would all go away, that the rumor would be as dead as my relationship with Jackson House. “Sorry?” I say weakly.
“Living room,” orders my dad, a man of few words, except when he’s in court, which is what this is starting to feel like. “Now.”
The three of us sit together in the living room, and I try to remember the last time we gathered like this. I think it was right after Alicia and I made crank calls to our neighbors accusing them of shoplifting, only they all recognized my voice and told my mother.
Dad begins for the prosecution. “Your mother says you’ve been receiving a large number of phone calls, all of them from boys. What do you know about this, Mary Jane?”
I don’t know what to say, so I repeat. “A large number of phone calls? From boys?”
“A very large number of calls,” Mom confirms. “All of them from boys.”
I nod, taking in this information and buying time. I could make up something. I’m pretty sure I could get Dad to believe me. It’s a science experiment. It’s our communications assignment.
“Well?” My dad can say more in that one word than most people can in entire speeches.
Mom’s sitting on the edge of her chair. “Something is very, very wrong here. I can feel it. Is there something you need to tell us, Mary Jane? Why are these boys calling you?”
This is beyond embarrassing. How do you tell your rents that every guy in the school is calling you to have sex? Probably. Or at least some form thereof. And if you do tell them, how do you convince them that the only reason guys think this is because of a measly missing four minutes?
Dad comes over and sits beside me on the couch. “Mary Jane, what is it? You can tell us.” His voice is calm. It makes me want to confess, but there’s nothing to confess. He should be a priest.
“I didn’t do anything.” But I can’t look at them, so I doubt I’m believable. I stare at my hands as my fingers nervously pick brown fuzz from my sweater. “I swear. I haven’t done anything wrong. They just think I did. Or will. Or would.”
“Are we talking about slander, Mary Jane? Is someone spreading rumors about you to these boys?” My dad has turned back into Thomas Ettermeyer, Attorney at Law. I think he smells a lawsuit. “I want names.”
Even if I wanted to supply this information, I can’t. I believed Jackson when he said he hadn’t made up anything to anyone about our four minutes together. Then again, I believed him when he said he and Star were as good as over.
“I don’t have names, Dad,” I plead.
I watch his face collapse. For an instant, he thought he could fix all this with a solid defamation of character suit.
But I think the reality is sinking in that even a class action against my class wouldn’t help.
I’m starting to feel sorry for him.
“What can we do then, honey? Those boys can’t just say things like that, can they? Can you tell your principal? We can’t let them ruin your reputation.” Mom appears to be a mascara-laden eyelash away from tears.
I glance from Mom to Dad and back. And I know it’s up to me. This is my problem.
“Don’t worry about this, okay?” I say, and my voice raises an octave. “I didn’t do anything, and all I have to do now is tell kids the truth. It might take a couple of days. But everything will blow over. The truth will out.” I rack my brain for more clichés. “This too shall pass.” I realize I’m making about as much sense as my rents do when they attempt to advise me in matters of life and love. I feel as if I’m tossing peanuts to starving pigeons. But my rents are starving, and they’re taking the pigeon feed. They’re buying it because they need to. The carved channels in their faces are returning to lines.
“Really?” Mom asks.
I nod as if I’m positive. “Stuff like this happens all the time. Not to me,” I add quickly. “It’s probably over already. But you better let me field the calls this weekend, just in case. Anyway, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“I don’t know, Mary Jane,” Dad says. But he leans back and appears to be breathing normally again. “I could make some calls, file a complaint. . . .”
I manage a smile, an actual smile. “That would make things worse, Dad. Let me handle it, okay? Thanks for the concern. Seriously, I appreciate it. It was good to talk things out and all. And you’ll be the first to know if I need a lawyer. But it’s all going to be okay.”
I get up from the couch and head for the stairs. They don’t stop me. My rents have believed me. True, they’ve believed me because they wanted to, needed to. Rents have an irresistible need to believe that everything is hunky-dory (their words, not mine) with their kids. I don’t believe me. I wish I did, but I don’t. And yet I have just pulled off an amazing thing.
I have bucked up.
Mary Jane Ettermeyer may have gotten the Bucker-Upper gene after all.
15
Midnight Madness
I shower the Diet Coke off of me, put on my comfiest nightie, then lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling, fighting off images of Star and Jackson. In my mind, they turn into Barbie and Ken, then back again. I see them in their khakis and matching white shirts on the cover of Teen Idols, their back view on the back of the magazine, his arm around her waist, her thumb hooked in his belt loop.
The voice of M.J. in my head wishes Star’s middle finger would get slammed in Jackson’s car door. It wouldn’t get broken, but Star would definitely have to wear a splint on it. And everyone would see the kind of girl she really is.
I must have fallen asleep, because I jerk myself awake to the national anthem. It’s the tune I picked for my cell. Besides the fact that nobody else has it, I figure if I leave my cell on in class and get a call, the teacher may be less likely to yell at a real patriot.
It’s pitch dark in my room, so I have to grope for the phone. I pick up just as it’s switching to voice mail. “Hello?” I sound like I have a mouth full of brown fuzz, which is exactly what my mouth feels like. I didn’t brush my teeth before I fell aslee
p.
“Mary Jane, I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?”
The cobwebs in my head clear instantly, and I sit bolt upright. It’s Jackson.
“Jackson? What time is it?” This is the least of the questions swirling in my head, but it’s the first one to pop out.
“After midnight. I know. It’s late. I just needed to talk to you.”
“Talk to me?” Again with the repeating.
“Yeah. Can we talk?” He pauses. “Please, Mary Jane?”
“Why would I want to talk to you?” I demand.
“Because I’m asking you nicely,” he answers.
I should hang up on him right now after all he’s put me through.
“Because I won’t sleep until you let me talk to you,” he continues.
“Why would I believe a word you say?” I’m trying to stay totally angry with him. But I can’t stop picturing his brown eyes red and bloodshot . . . because of me.
“I don’t blame you for not wanting to hear me out,” he says. “But I’m asking you to anyway. Please? Five minutes. Give me five minutes?”
I listen for the voices in my head and wonder if they’re still asleep.
“I’ll do anything, Mary Jane,” he pleads.
At the very least, I could hear him out, then demand that he call every boy in Attila Ill in a massive un-gossip campaign.
“Just five minutes?” he begs.
I sigh into the phone. I’ll hear him out. What can it hurt? “Okay. You’ve got five minutes.” I look at my watch, but it’s too dark to see the minute hand.
“Great! I’m outside. Hurry, okay?” And he cuts off.
“Outside?” I reach behind me and pull back the curtain on my only bedroom window. Jackson’s Jeep Cherokee is sitting under our half-bare maple tree. He’s outside!
For a second I stay where I am. Then I grab my blue, wooly robe, step into the matching fuzzy slippers, and barrel downstairs at the speed of light, tying the robe’s belt as I clear the last step. Only after I shut the front door behind me and take a hit from the icy wind do I hear the cacophony of voices in my head:
Plain Jane: This is crazy, even for you! He made his girlfriend choice in the mall—Star Simons. What could he possibly have to say to you now?
M.J.: Give the boy a chance to explain. Maybe he’s come to his senses.
Plain Jane: Hello? You’re wearing your bathrobe! Your hair is a mess. AND . . . you’re not wearing a bra!
M.J.: You’re not wearing a bra! Ah, the freedom of it . . .
Somehow, my fuzzy slippers keep moving down the sidewalk toward the familiar black Jeep Cherokee. My breath comes out in frost clouds. I dig my hands into the pockets of my robe and feel crumpled Kleenex.
Why didn’t I pull on clothes? Or brush my teeth? Plain Jane’s right. This is pretty whack. Jackson chose Star over me, and that’s that. I have no business coming out here in the middle of the night. I can’t even imagine what the rents would do if they saw me. They’d lock me in my room, and through the keyhole Mom would give me the entire birds-and-bees talk all over again.
I slow down as I near the car. The passenger door opens, and Jackson sticks out his head. “Thanks for coming, Mary Jane. You’ve got to be freezing.”
He’s right. I am freezing, although I hadn’t noticed it before now. I slide into the front seat, tucking my bathrobe under me. It’s warm inside, and I see the motor’s running. I almost apologize for looking like this, but I catch myself. I’m not the one who should be apologizing. I stare straight ahead, chew on the inside of my cheek, and wait for him to speak.
“Listen,” he begins. “Thanks again for coming out in the cold. I just had a craving for a pretzel and—”
I have one hand on the door. Plain Jane was right all along. He’s making fun of me. I am so out of here.
He takes hold of my arm. “Wait! Mary Jane, I’m just kidding. I’m sorry. Please! Let me start over.”
Plain Jane is screaming at me to keep going, to step away from the car and not look back.
But M.J. is whispering about Jackson’s forest smell and how good his hand feels clamped around my arm.
I stop struggling, but I refuse to look at him.
Jackson starts over. “I know this is crazy to get you out here in the middle of the night, Mary Jane, but I wouldn’t get any sleep if I didn’t see you first.”
I take a deep breath and turn to him. There’s only a sliver of a moon in the sky, but it’s enough to throw light across Jackson’s face. His brown eyes are intense. I don’t think I ever noticed how perfect his ears are.
“I didn’t handle that very well in the mall today,” he begins.
I don’t argue.
“When Star asked me to meet her at Mahoney’s, she didn’t say you’d be there. I agreed to see her because I wanted to talk to her. Then when I saw you at the table . . .Well, like I said, I didn’t handle it very well. And I want to apologize.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” I say, not meaning it. “I’m not your girlfriend.”
No kidding, Plain Jane murmurs. Like his girlfriend would be caught dead in a fuzzy bathrobe and slippers.
And braless, M.J. adds cheerfully.
His hand is still on my arm. It moves up to my shoulder, and I shiver.
“I’m trying to break up with her, Mary Jane. But when I told her that things weren’t working for us anymore, she wigged out on me. I just need a little more time.”
I want to believe him. It’s not hard to imagine Star wigging out. But I don’t want to be wrong.
“Mary Jane, why do you think I kept coming by the Pretzel Twister today?”
“The Twisted Pretzel,” I correct. Why he kept coming by there is exactly what I asked myself all day.
“I enjoy being with you, Mary Jane,” he says. “We have such a good time when we’re together.”
Good time? I picture the Mary Jane graffiti on bathroom walls. I shrug his hand off my arm. “Is that what you tell all the guys? Mary Jane is a good time?”
He pulls back. “I told you I didn’t say—”
“Well, somebody did! My phone’s been ringing off the hook. Every guy in Attila thinks Mary Jane Ettermeyer is just waiting to show him a good time!”
His lips twitch, and his eyes sparkle. He’s laughing, although he’s trying not to.
“You think this is funny?” I shout.
The smile vanishes. “I’m sorry, Mary Jane, but we haven’t done anything.”
“I know that! But nobody else knows it.”
He sits back in the seat and asks, “What do you want me to do?” He looks over at me, and I think he’s really asking, that he’s serious.
“Fix it!” I cry, exasperated.
He drums the steering wheel for a full minute. Then he says, “I’ll just tell everybody it’s a lie, that nothing’s happened between us.”
“You will?” I feel like I’ve been battling the whole school by myself, and the idea of having someone else on my team makes me want to cry.
“Absolutely,” he promises, not taking his gaze off me.
I’ve come to this car for a fight, but he’s making it hard to stay mad at him. “Everybody? You’ll tell everybody? How? How can you reach everybody?”
He appears to be thinking this over. Then he says, “Posters?”
The vision of posters proclaiming my innocence in the halls of Attila Ill almost makes me smile, but I keep the smile to myself. “Posters,” I say in the same tone my last science teacher used when I said I wanted to fly a kite for my science fair project. “What kind of posters?”
He wrinkles his forehead, and I try not to think about the fact that his face still looks great, even when wrinkled. “I’ve got it!” he exclaims. “NOT Wanted posters!” He grins, satisfied, as if he’s just solved the problem of world hunger. “We’ll put your face on the poster and a giant X over it! And below, it will read: MARY JANE ETTERMEYER: NOT WANTED.”
I can’t help myself. He’s making me laugh. I wa
sn’t sure laughter would ever be an option again, but here it is. And it feels pretty good. “It’s still not funny,” I insist, but I’m saying it with a stupid smile on my face.
He reaches over and touches my cheek. His hand covers the entire left side of my face, making it a thousand degrees hotter than the right side of my face. “I’m really sorry about all of this, Mary Jane. But we’ll make it right. We’ll fix it together. Okay?”
I can’t speak. I don’t want to risk jarring his hand from my face.
His fingers move under my hair, to the back of my neck. I can feel each fingertip. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Mary Jane.”
“It’s probably the robe,” I say, astounded that I can speak, when every neuron in my body is sending wild impulses to all its neuron buddies.
“The robe is undoubtedly part of the attraction,” he says, and the moonlight illuminates that dimple.
I can’t think straight. My ears are humming. Yet somehow, the voices in my head still manage to come through. So all I can do is repeat what they’re saying, more or less:
Plain Jane: Hello? You’re in your bathrobe! You shouldn’t be sitting here with him!
“Look, Jackson,” I begin. “I shouldn’t be sitting out here with you in my bathrobe.”
“With me in your bathrobe?” Jackson repeats. “Don’t think it would fit me. Besides, it looks too cute on you.”
Plain Jane: Now you know he’s lying! You look like an escapee from a mental institution. Your hair’s messed up, and you have no makeup. This fuzzy robe makes you look fat. You are so not cute!
“Jackson, my hair’s a mess. I’m not wearing makeup. And I look like an escapee from a mental institution. The last thing I am is cute.”
He scoots closer to me and angles around in the driver’s seat so we’re right next to each other. “Look at me, Mary Jane. I can’t stop thinking about you.”
M.J.: Yeah? And what about the Wicked Witch of the West?
"Jackson, I don’t get it,” I manage to say. “You’re still Star’s boyfriend. Until you break up with her, you and I can’t—”
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