The Boyfriend Game

by Stephie Davis

  He finally gave me a real smile. “You bet you will.”

  I nodded. “Now that we’ve both acknowledged how I’m always right, stop talking so I can concentrate on the game.” I rolled my eyes. “Boys just talk and talk. Never shut up. How’s a girl supposed to watch a game, huh?”

  He laughed and leaned back against the couch, and I could tell that things were right between us again.

  Or as right as they could be, given that I now realized I liked him, and I could never, ever, EVER admit that.

  7

  Sara and Beth were waiting for me on the school steps when I got there the next morning. Sara was checking her makeup in a compact, and Beth was munching on a bagel. They both jumped to their feet when they saw me climb out of my mom’s car.

  I’d been so miserable this morning that my mom had offered to drive me the short distance to school when she couldn’t convince me to tell her what was wrong. As if this were the kind of thing I was going to tell her!

  “You look awful,” Sara exclaimed as I walked up. “Are you sick?”

  “No, but thanks for making me feel better.” I hadn’t slept all night, I was freaking out, and I didn’t know what to do.

  “Sit, sit.” Sara shoved me onto the steps and opened her makeup bag. “You are in desperate need of concealer, my friend. You talk, I’ll fix.”

  It was too much effort to keep her off me, so I gave in while Beth plopped herself next to me, munching away. “So? What happened?”

  “Look up,” my personal makeup artist ordered.

  I inspected the sky so Sara could massage the concealer into the black pits beneath my eyes, and I filled them in on how the evening had worked out. I kept my voice low, so all the kids filing into the school wouldn’t hear what I was talking about, not that they cared. It seemed like everyone else was loud and laughing and in a grand mood.

  “So, that’s good, then, right?” Beth asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not? You got him back on track, right? You guys are back to the ‘we don’t notice the opposite sex’ thing, and all?”

  “She’s upset because she still likes him,” Sara said. “Close your eyes.”

  I closed them, then winced as I felt something hard on my eyelid. “Tell me you’re not putting eyeliner on me.”

  “Oh, shush. It’s about time you started wearing makeup. How else is Graham going to realize that he likes you?”

  My eyes snapped open, and Sara nearly poked my eye out. “Trisha! Don’t do that!”

  “What did you just say about Graham liking me?”

  Sara set her hands on her hips. “Oh, you look great now,” she complained. “Nothing like a streak of eyeliner up into your eyebrow to make the boys fall for you.”

  “Sara!” I grabbed the eyeliner out of her hand and held it between my two fists. “I’m going to break this in half if you don’t tell me.”

  “No! It’s my favorite!”

  She lunged for it and I jerked it out of her reach. “Talk, girlfriend.”

  “Fine.” She pulled out a hairbrush and ran it through her hair. “All I meant was that it’s obvious he likes you, but he just doesn’t realize it yet. You know, because he’s all anti-girl and stuff, it’ll take time for him to realize it. So by making you look like a girl, maybe he’ll notice that you are one.” She fluffed out her hair. “Clearly, having you make googly eyes at him is not the way to approach this.” She tossed the brush back in her makeup bag, then held out her hand. “Give the eyeliner back so I can finish making you look halfway decent.”

  “Googly eyes?” I slapped the eyeliner back into her hand. “I didn’t make googly eyes! I was spacing out! Big difference!”

  “Not to a guy,” Sara said. “Close your eyes and don’t open them until I give you permission.”

  I did as she instructed and tried to calm down. “Graham doesn’t like me.”

  “Give it up, Trisha,” Beth said. “Sara’s the guy expert. If she says he likes you, then he does.”

  “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to tell Ross you like him,” I blurted out. I instantly felt bad, but I couldn’t take one more minute of them telling me Graham liked me, when I knew he didn’t. I knew it down deep in that black lump of tar in my gut.

  “Fine. Be that way,” Beth said.

  I felt Sara rubbing on my brow, no doubt trying to erase the random streaks across my face. “So, if you refuse my help in getting him to notice you’re a girl, what do you want from us?” she asked.

  “It’s your fault I started liking him, because you both kept talking about how hot he was, so you have to undo it. Make me not like him.” That was the best plan I’d been able to come up with during my sleepless night. I hadn’t been able to stop myself from liking him, so it was their problem to fix.

  They didn’t reply, but I could hear them whispering.

  “Hello? Didn’t you hear me? Fix it.” I wanted to open my eyes so badly, because I had a feeling they were having a silent discussion, but I didn’t want to sit there at Sara’s mercy any longer than I had to. No need to drag it out by forcing another misguided streak of eyeliner. “Guys?”

  “All done.”

  I opened my eyes as Sara stepped back. She grinned. “Nice.”

  Anything that was “nice” to Sara meant I needed to find a mirror as soon as possible to make sure she hadn’t made me look like a clown.

  Beth stood up and moved next to Sara, wrinkling her nose as she peered at me. “Well, that was stupid.”

  Sara and I both looked at her. “It doesn’t look good?” I knew it!

  “You look amazing,” Beth said.

  I raised my brows at Sara, and she shrugged. “So, why was that stupid?”

  Beth shot Sara a look of pity. “Because you like Kirk. You were just starting to make progress with him, and now you go and make Trisha look even better than she does already?”

  I immediately frowned. “I don’t want Kirk. I don’t want any guys. I just want to play soccer!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Beth said. “Kirk won’t notice Sara unless you’re out of the picture. Not with you looking like that.”

  Sara and I looked at each other, and she shook her head. “No, because Trisha likes Graham. You’ll tell Kirk tonight at Pop’s, won’t you? That you like Graham?”

  “No way! What if it got back to Graham?” I got cold at the thought. “He’d stop practicing with me in a heartbeat.” And I needed him in my life for soccer, even if there was nothing else. Besides, as a friend, he made me feel good and I wasn’t willing to give that up. To keep him as a friend, I would get over the fact I liked him. I shivered. Just thinking those words made me get all wigged out. I liked Graham. How stupid was I?

  Sara’s mouth tightened and her eyes got cool. “You won’t do it for me?”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “I just, well, if you’d seen the look on Graham’s face last night…”

  She held up her hand to silence me. “Forget it. I understand. You’ll put soccer over me, your best friend.”

  I jumped up. “No, I’m not! This is your fault, anyway! If you hadn’t convinced me that I liked Graham and made him go all wacky on me last night, maybe I could pull off a lie to Kirk and then explain to Graham I was saying I like him just to help you out, but you already messed that up and he’d never believe me. So it’s your fault I can’t do it! Besides, it’s not like I’m doing anything to try to get Kirk to like me, so don’t be mad at me!”

  Beth cleared her throat and moved between us. “Okay, you guys, chill out….”

  “I disinvite you tonight,” Sara said. “Don’t come. You’ll just mess things up with me and Kirk.”

  “I don’t want to go, anyway! You think it’s fun for me to sit there and watch you making an idiot of yourself over him?”

  Beth winced. “Trisha—”

  “An idiot?” Sara gasped. “I’m an idiot? What does that mean?”

  “Because you get all flirty and ditzy and weird! Did yo
u even consider that maybe the reason Kirk likes me is because I’m normal around him? You fondle his coat and get all girly on him. Why don’t you try being normal? Maybe he’d like you then!”

  Her face twisted. “I am normal!”

  “Not when you’re around Kirk,” I said. “I don’t even like you when you’re like that. And neither does Beth.”

  Sara sucked in her breath, her eyes wide with shock. “What?”

  “She didn’t mean that,” Beth interrupted. “We both love you.” Beth glared at me. “Take it back, Trisha.”

  “Too late,” Sara hissed. “I’m out of here.” Then she shoved her makeup kit in her backpack. “Don’t come tonight.” She turned away, ran up the steps, and let the doors slam shut behind her.

  I bit my lip and suddenly felt like crying. How had that happened? I hadn’t meant to say that, but it had slipped out. But she’d made me so mad! It was her fault I was in the mess with Graham, and all she wanted to do was make it worse by having me start rumors that I was dating Graham.

  Beth picked up her backpack, her face tight. “Well, now I have to go convince her that I don’t think she’s an idiot around him. How could you say that? Like she’s not already nervous enough around him, without you telling her that?”

  “But it’s true. If she acts the way she normally does, Kirk might like her. I was just trying to help….”

  “Well, don’t try to help, then.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and ran into the school, leaving me out on the steps.

  I bit my lip and sat back down. I should go after them, but I didn’t dare. I was so upset, I had a feeling I would just make things worse. I mean, how else could I screw up things with the only people in my life I cared about?

  This is why I liked soccer. It was about the ball. About sweat. Not about all this other stuff that was so confusing. I mean, I was just trying to get things right and now everyone was mad at me!

  I sat there by myself, watching kids walk into the school, all chatting and happy, until the first bell rang and I had to go in. By the time I started up the stairs, I’d realized that due to Sara and Beth being mad at me, and Graham being afraid of me, for the first time ever, I didn’t want to go to soccer practice this afternoon.

  And that was the worst part of all.

  That evening, at seven o’clock, I was sitting on our family room couch, wrapped up in a pink bunny comforter I’d found at the bottom of my closet. I’d left my soccer ball one on my bed. After my terrible practice, with Sara refusing to talk to me, and Beth being all uncomfortable between us, I’d wanted nothing more to do with soccer. So I’d told Graham I was feeling sick and I’d bailed.

  Although he’d expressed a little concern that I wasn’t permanently disabled from my bout with the pizza cheese, he hadn’t seemed particularly bummed that I was ditching soccer with him, which made me feel worse.

  So I’d come home, taken a package of Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies out of the kitchen cabinet, and settled on the couch with my remote at five o’clock.

  And now, two hours later, I still wasn’t feeling any better.

  “Trisha?”

  I muted That ’70s Show and looked up at my mom. “You need me to set the table?”

  “No, actually, I wanted to talk.”

  “Oh.” I sighed and tossed the remote on my lap. “It’s about Dad, right? You’re worried that I’m going to develop some sort of complex because he never keeps our Friday night date?” I thought of Graham’s explanation about my dad just being busy, and felt better about my dad, and worse because it made me think of Graham. “I’m fine with it.”

  My mom was still wearing her gray pantsuit from work at the law firm, but that didn’t stop her from climbing onto the couch with me and sliding under the comforter, like we used to do before I got too busy with soccer and she got too busy doing the single-mom thing. “What’chya watching?” she asked.

  “Reruns.”

  “Fun way to spend a Friday night.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, wicked fun.”

  She put her arm around me and pulled me next to her. “So, if it’s not fun, why aren’t you doing something more fun? I haven’t seen much of Sara and Beth lately.”

  I bit my lip and said nothing. What was there to say? Instead, I snuggled against her and rested my head on her shoulder. I know, totally babyish, but I couldn’t help it. I needed my mom right then. I needed someone who wasn’t mad at me.

  “How’s the extra practice going? Is your game improving?”

  My throat tightened up. “I guess.”

  She was quiet for a moment, drumming her fingers on the top of my head. “So, how was the game last night? With Graham?”

  “I burned the roof of my mouth and accidentally dropped pizza on his carpet.”

  I felt her smile. “Well done, Trisha. There’s nothing like making a mess to impress a guy.”

  “But I wasn’t trying to impress him!” I wailed. “I don’t want to like him! I just want it to be like it used to be, before Sara messed everything up!”

  “How did Sara mess everything up?” Her voice was so calm that I couldn’t hold back anymore, and the whole story came pouring out. Everything. “So now Sara and Beth hate me and I can’t go to Pop’s with them tonight, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, but I can’t and—” I paused to blow my nose in the fiftieth tissue I’d used since I started talking. “And I didn’t even go to practice, and he didn’t even care!” I started to cry again and my mom hugged me.

  “Oh, sweetie, you didn’t do anything wrong….”

  I pushed off her and blew my nose again. “But Sara’s still mad. It’s not my fault Kirk likes me.”

  She smiled and fluffed my bangs. “True, but that doesn’t make it any easier for her.”

  “She should get over it, shouldn’t she? Apologize?”

  “First I have a question for you.”

  I sat up and wrinkled my nose at her. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”

  She smiled. “You feel bad because you like Graham and he doesn’t like you back, right?”

  I picked a fuzz ball off my faded comforter. “Maybe.”

  “So, that’s how Sara feels with Kirk. She likes him, but he doesn’t like her back. She feels exactly like you feel with Graham, except it’s worse because her best friend is the reason he won’t like her.” She cocked her head. “How would you feel if you found out that Graham liked Beth?”

  “I’d hate her.” The words slipped out before I could stop them, and I made a face.

  But my mom just smiled. “See how she feels now?”

  I guess I did. “But if I go in there and tell Kirk I like Graham, then…”

  She shook her head. “No, don’t do that. Just go in there tonight and tell Kirk the truth. That you’re not interested in him as a guy.”

  “But I already told him that….”

  “Make him understand you mean it.”

  I groaned. “How? He’s totally thick.”

  She played with my hair. “Maybe tell him to look in Sara’s direction. Couldn’t hurt, right? And then you could coach Sara on how to be herself when she’s around him.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Why should I? She ruined my life by making me like Graham.”

  My mom arched an eyebrow. “I think you did that all by yourself, Trisha. And only you can fix it.”

  “Tell me how and I’ll do it.” Anything to stop me from liking him and screwing up the one good thing in my life.

  “Find someone else to like.”

  “Mom!” I wailed. “But I don’t want to like boys!”

  She smiled and ruffled my hair. “Oh, kiddo, I think it’s too late for that. You’re in the ball game now. It’s up to you to take control.”

  I pulled the comforter over my face. “I can’t.”

  She pulled it back down. “At the very least, you can get your fanny over to Pop’s and help Sara out. She’s your friend, and you should never let a boy come between you and your friends. Girl
s have to stick together. It’s the only way to survive boys.”

  “What if Graham’s there? He might be there on a Friday night. What am I supposed to do then?”

  She smiled and flipped the comforter off both of us, then stood up. “You’ll talk soccer and let the rest go. Be yourself. Things will work out.”

  I frowned at her. “Things will work out? That’s all the advice you have?”

  “It’s great advice.” She laughed. “Now get up and let’s go find something for you to wear that’ll knock Graham’s socks off if he happens to be there.”

  “But I don’t want to knock his socks off! And that’s a totally lame expression, by the way.” But a little part of me liked the idea. I mean, would it be so bad if he thought I was cute? If he noticed that I cleaned up okay?

  “All the more reason to do it.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me to my feet. “There’s a reason I always look nice when I go to work.”

  I kept a scowl on my face while she hustled me upstairs. “Because you’ll get fired if you look like a slob?”

  “Because, my little grouch, it makes me feel better on the inside if I like how I look on the outside.” She gently shoved me into the bathroom. “Get in there, wash your hair, and I’ll pick out some clothes. We’re going to make you look like the girl you are, underneath all that sweat and dirt.”

  “I like dirt,” I protested, even as I tugged my sweatshirt over my head.

  “Of course you do. And you’re welcome to roll around in the yard after we finish cleaning you up.” My mom pulled the door shut.

  “Promise?” I turned on the shower and shucked the rest of my clothes. “Because I will, you know.”

  “Oh, I know,” she called out from the direction of my bedroom, where I could hear her pulling open my drawers, looking for my outfit for the night.

  I grinned. My mom always looked awesome, and if she got on my case for tonight…well…I almost hoped Graham would be there.