Well, That Was Awkward

by Rachel Vail

  RILEY: ???

  me: sorry. dropped my phone.

  RILEY: Do you think he likes me?

  me: how would I know?

  RILEY: You seem pretty tight w him lately. Right?

  me: I guess? do I?

  RILEY: I mean, u r basically friends with everybody, boys included. But, like, not in the mix? YK? Like, not tryna get fixed up with anyone yourself. So, yk, like, a neuter.

  me: a neuter? yikes.

  RILEY: YK, like Switzerland?

  me: ah. sure.

  RILEY: So—maybe you could ask him for me?

  me: ask him out for you?

  RILEY: NO!!!! Gak. Gracie. Just, yk, find out . . .

  me: if he . . . likes you?

  RILEY: BE SUBTLE THO!

  RILEY: ???

  RILEY: Gracie?

  RILEY: Also maybe you could ask Sienna if it’s okay?

  me: if what’s okay?

  RILEY: Good point. Maybe don’t say anything to Sienna yet?

  me: um okay

  RILEY: Promise me you won’t tell anybody.

  me: okay but then how will I find out?

  RILEY: I mean don’t tell Sienna.

  me: oh um okay.

  RILEY: Just see if you can find out who AJ likes?

  RILEY: If anybody?

  RILEY: Maybe don’t even mention my name.

  RILEY: Any names.

  RILEY: Gracie?

  me: sorry yeah sure why not sounds good gotta go

  RILEY: U r the best.

  me: yass that’s right me and Switzerland the best evah

  6

  UNHURTABLE

  All day I tried to figure out how to get into a conversation with AJ so I could casually bring up the question of if he likes Riley.

  I was starting to consider going to the nurse, because something was obviously deeply wrong with me. And I don’t only mean that I was sweating even more than yesterday, but also that it was surprisingly hard to figure out how to form words. I’m normally even better at talking than breathing. Until recently, both have been reliable skills of mine.

  When Sienna has strep throat, she can’t talk.

  Maybe this was what strep throat felt like?

  Or stage two of the zombie thing?

  Or maybe it was because, when I think about it, I haven’t actually had a conversation alone with AJ since, like, second grade, when we had our one playdate at his apartment, during which I accidentally kicked my foot through his window. Which fully wasn’t my fault.

  It was AJ’s idea to play Ninja Samurai Dragon Cookers that day—I’m almost positive. Okay, maybe it was my idea. Who even remembers? AJ loved Ninja Samurai Dragon Cookers too; it wasn’t like I forced him or anything. Let’s not play the blame game. And sometimes, if a dragon is chasing you, you have to kick it through the window before you can cook it. Obviously.

  “Hey, remember Ninja Samurai Dragon Cookers?” I blurted out, there in the cafeteria at the tail end of lunch. What? I don’t even know what the conversation I was interrupting was, didn’t attempt even a lame excuse segue. I just blurted.

  “No,” Riley said impatiently. “Anyway . . .”

  “You weren’t here yet,” Emmett told Riley, coming to my rescue as usual. “Ninja Samurai Dragon Cookers was the best!”

  “Right?” I asked. “Anyway, sorry, what were we—”

  “Wasn’t that the game where we basically just flung ourselves all over the place, trying to do flips and smashing into walls?” Sienna asked, her small mouth full of sandwich.

  “Yes!” AJ said. “I totally remember that!”

  “Remember that?” I asked. Unnecessarily. He had literally just said, I totally remember that! “Great game,” I mumbled. Is it possible to literally sweat to death? Would they put that on your death certificate? Gracie Grant, age almost fourteen, died of an unfortunate sweat attack in her middle school’s cafeteria today. . . . Please send donations in her memory to the Deodorant Association of America. . . .

  “That’s when we figured out that Gracie was basically a superhero,” AJ said, interrupting my internal self-eulogy. “She kicked out my bedroom window!”

  “Did I?” I asked innocently, or my best imitation of innocently. My hair was getting damp from underneath. Maybe I actually was cooking up a fever. He remembered.

  “Yes!” AJ said, and smiled at me. “You totally did! And bounced right up!”

  I had to smile back.

  Oh. Oh no, no, no.

  I am obviously a terrible person. I not only flirt with the guy I’m trying to fix up with a (distant? but still) friend, but I also have to throw myself a tiny secret ceremony of rejoicing when he smiles at me as a result.

  “Oh, I kind of do remember that,” I managed. “But anyway—”

  “She completely shattered the glass, and not a scratch,” AJ told Riley, all impressed. “That’s what she said, second grade: ‘Not a scratch.’ I remember that.”

  “You do?” I asked. “You remember that?” Oh, for goodness’ sake. Stop.

  “Shattered it?” Riley asked skeptically.

  “Completely,” AJ said.

  I did a pretend hair flip, humbly. “Not partially,” I said.

  “I don’t see how she wouldn’t have needed stitches,” Riley said. “If she really shattered a window.” Like I’d purposefully not gotten cut, as a second-grade Ninja Samurai Dragon Cooker, just to mess with my fixing her up with AJ, all these years later.

  “It’s a conspiracy theory,” I said to her.

  Emmett laughed.

  “Gracie’s made of Teflon,” Sienna said quietly, meanwhile standing up and pitching her lunch trash into the basket.

  “Yeah,” AJ agreed. “You’re right. She totally is. It’s her superpower!”

  “Teflon and conspiracy theories,” Emmett said, getting up too.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “Ask him,” Riley hissed at me as we followed them out toward the multipurpose room. We get, like, seven minutes to eat, and then we have to go do gym activities.

  “I’m trying,” I said. “I’m working toward it.”

  “Yeah?” she asked. “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “Subtlety,” I whispered. “It’s my other superpower.”

  “Wait!” Riley yanked me back. Speaking of subtlety.

  “What?”

  “Maybe ask Emmett instead.”

  “You like Emmett now?”

  “Ew, no.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Emmett is the best. Ew?”

  “He comes, like, up to my nose.”

  “You come up to my nose,” I said.

  “So? I’m not tryna be your boyfriend, so what does—”

  “Darn,” I said. “I thought maybe I had a shot with you.”

  “What?”

  “Kidding. There are so many reasons you can’t be my boyfriend. But what does height have to do with it?”

  “There’s, like . . . It’s obvious. You can’t go out with a boy shorter than you.”

  “Or what?” I asked. “You get suspended?”

  Riley rolled her pretty eyes. “You just can’t.”

  “So I basically could go out with Ricky Wu or, well, AJ. My only choices.”

  She groaned. “Literally every time I see Ricky Wu, he offers to show me a magic trick. It’s so annoying.”

  “Some people probably think that’s cool.”

  “Ew! Gracie, I’m serious. Can you just? Just ask Emmett who AJ likes. Okay?”

  “So Emmett could only go out with, like, Beth Ng or Dorin Baker?”

  “No loitering,” Mr. Phillips barked at us, complete with snapping fingers, so we hurried into the multipurpose room, where we had to line up for relay races. No Ninja Samurai Dragon Cookers
in eighth grade.

  When did we stop just playing? All we do is activities now.

  7

  TOTALLY NOT WORST IN GYM ACTIVITIES, SO AT LEAST THERE’S THAT

  Dorin Baker hurried over to stand in line right next to me. Poor Dorin. She laughs way too much at her own boring stories. She really is sweet and tries so hard to be friends with everybody. The problem is, if I’m nice, she follows after me for the rest of the day, nodding and laughing, agreeing enthusiastically with any random thing I say. And then she launches into long rambling nothing stories about how adorable her little half brother is, and then self-laughs very loud. And I am a terrible person with limited patience.

  “How’s it going?” I asked her in the gym line though, because, be a person. And also, I have hair that’s a lot too. So, #sisterhood.

  “I like your . . .” She hesitated. Hadn’t thought it through, I guess. “Sneakers.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Yours are cool too.”

  “I’m getting new ones today,” she said. “Maybe. I might get ones like yours.”

  “Cool,” I said. “We’ll be twins.”

  She laughed. “Okay!”

  We shuffled forward. I was next up.

  “Do you know how much they cost?” Dorin asked me. “Your sneakers?”

  “No,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Okay. Or do you know where you got them?”

  Emmett crossed the line, slapping my hand, and I took off like a shot, or as much of a shot as I could manage. A slow-motion shot of something not very fast to begin with. One time in sixth grade I’d heard Riley say to Sienna, “Baboom baboom,” as I’d run past them in gym. I’d pretended not to hear her. I never said anything about it to anybody because, really, she was right—so what was there to say?

  Other than, to my mom, on our way home, that maybe I needed a sports bra.

  She took me straight out shopping, without even going home first. She didn’t ask why I suddenly needed a sports bra. She just said, “Oh, okay,” and we went right to Modell’s. I get a pretty big zone of privacy. Sienna is always impressed by that. Sienna’s mom always asks, “What happened?” and fully wants to know. My mom just wants me to be home. She likes having me around, she says, so I feel guilty if I sign up for an after-school activity. I don’t have to fill her in on all the details of my friends or school or my thoughts. I just have to be there. Alive.

  That day at Modell’s she bought me two sports bras and one sports cami, even though they weren’t on sale or anything. I was so relieved she didn’t take me to the Town Shop. Emmett’s mom took Daphne to the Town Shop for her first bras. Their mom was born in the Philippines, but she grew up on Eighty-Fourth and Riverside, so she got her first bra at the Town Shop too. It’s been there since, like, Colonial times.

  They feel you up at the Town Shop. For generations, the first time most girls in Manhattan have gotten to second base, it’s with some heavyset older Eastern European woman in the dressing room of the Town Shop. Daphne told me that one night while she was babysitting for me and Emmett, and I never forgot it.

  I still have never been to second (or first or up to bat, honestly), but I have a whole new batch of sports bras now, and I wear them every day because otherwise baboom, baboom, just walking down the hall. But especially when you’re running against AJ, who sprints as if gravity doesn’t yank down on him as much as it does other people. I finished behind AJ and slapped Dorin’s outstretched hand.

  Sienna was on the other team and, having been hand-slapped by AJ, was already heading sleekly back toward us while Dorin ran toward the far wall, arms flailing and lower legs splaying out to the sides. Like four whirligigs combined into the world’s most dysfunctional windmill.

  “Not looking good for B team,” Emmett muttered beside me.

  “Don’t see how we make it to the world championships this year,” I said.

  “Breaks my heart,” he said.

  I smiled. Emmett cares as little as I do if the team we’re on in gym wins or loses. We often end up on the same team, somehow, which is nice. We always talk about whether we’re likely to make it to the world championships this year in whatever—relay races or rope climbing or the sit-on-scooters floor hockey game I think Awesome Ms. Washington made up. If we win whatever stupid gym thing we’re playing that day, Emmett and I are always like, We’re probably heading toward world domination. If we lose, we’re down in the dumps.

  Some days I think if Emmett were ever on the other team, gym would be even less fun for me.

  “A Team wins!” Awesome Ms. Washington announced. AJ high-fived Sienna.

  “There goes my day,” Emmett said. “My career in relay racing is shot.”

  “I’m quitting school and joining a pack of washed-up ex-relay-racers.”

  “Good call,” Emmett said. “There’s really no other way to move on.”

  When I looked over at the A Team, AJ flashed me a happy smile. Wow, he has ridiculously white teeth.

  “Do you know if AJ likes anybody?” I whispered to Emmett. “You know, likes likes.”

  Emmett shrugged and shook his head.

  “Could you find out?” I whispered as we headed up the stairs.

  “Does somebody like him?”

  I nodded.

  “Who?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “If you tell me who likes him, I can find out if it’s mutual,” Emmett said.

  I shook my head.

  “And there’s a better chance he’ll say yes or no than come up with a name himself.”

  “You know I can’t.”

  We trudged up another flight and then another without talking. As we got to the science lab, Emmett stopped short and turned around. I crashed into him and started to laugh, but his face was serious.

  “Is it you?” he asked.

  “What?” Too loud. Ugh.

  “Is it?” he asked quietly. “You can tell me.”

  “You mean, who likes, you know?” How bad is it that I got light-headed anticipating whispering his name? “AJ?”

  Emmett just waited. Not smiling.

  “No! Me? Obviously not. Why? I don’t . . . I . . . Did he, I mean—why? Why would you think I . . .”

  Emmett turned back around and went to our lab table.

  I caught up with him and dropped my books next to his. “Seriously, Emmett. Come on. Why would you think, or ask, if I—”

  “If it were you,” he whispered, “who, you know, likes AJ . . . and if by some chance it isn’t mutual? I would . . . It would make a difference in how I told you the news. Is all.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thanks, Emmett. That’s nice of you.”

  “I’m a nice guy,” he said, peering into the eyepiece of our microscope at some pond scum.

  “The best,” I said.

  “Sure,” he answered without looking up. “That’s me. The best ever.”

  8

  NEED A MINUTE

  EMMETT: So, yeah, he likes someone.

  me: who?

  EMMETT: You sure it wasn’t you who you were asking for?

  me: y

  EMMETT: Y like yes or y like why?

  me: both

  EMMETT: He likes Sienna. Is Sienna the one who likes him?

  I turned off my phone. It was honestly pretty close to dying anyway, so. That could be why I had to shut it down. Maybe it shut down itself.

  Mercy rule.

  Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it all down. Shut everything down.

  Sienna is awesome. I would like Sienna if I were AJ. I like Sienna, and I’m me.

  So that’s great. He likes my best friend! Yay!

  I don’t think it’s petty and shallow that I need to not tell her yet. For a little while. A few hours. Maybe half an hour. If I keep the information to mys
elf and deal just for a little while, that’s not necessarily . . .

  Maybe it is. Let’s be honest. It’s petty and shallow.

  I’m petty. I’m shallow.

  And why? Why even bother being petty and shallow, really? What did I even think?

  Sienna and AJ would make a great couple. They totally should go out. It’s so obvious now that I think of it. Think of them together. It’s perfect! They are both so sweet and good-looking and sporty and just . . . plain . . . awesome. Not plain. That’s not what I mean. What do I mean? Flat-out awesome. Unblemishedly awesome.

  Beautifully awesome.

  How could AJ not like Sienna? AJ + Sienna. Sienna & AJ.

  Sienna is amazing. Adorable and strong, smart and kind. She’s never mean or catty or cutting at all, except, okay, occasionally about Riley, who deserves it. But mostly Sienna is just more . . . Like, she sees the beauty in the world. She always notices a new bird’s nest in a tree in Riverside Park when we walk down to do her volunteering thing, or how the light hits the building across the street at sunset and turns it pink. I see more beauty when I’m with her, because she points it out.

  And speaking of beauty, she is totally pretty without being into that about herself at all. She’s not always checking mirrors, like Riley does.

  And she’s athletic, like AJ. So they have a lot in common. Which is important in a relationship. If they end up having one. Which they fully should!

  Plus, she’s generous; she’s a good person. She does that thing where you pick up trash in Riverside Park practically every time it’s posted. She doesn’t complain that she could watch multiple episodes of something in those hours, even just joking, but she laughs when somebody else makes that joke every time. Well, me.

  Who wouldn’t like Sienna? That’s the real question.

  Sienna speaks Spanish fluently. She can do a cartwheel. She has a tiny adorable nose set just right on her pretty face. It scrunches cutely when she smiles. Which she does, at all my jokes, not just the complainy jokes.

  When I plan a bake sale to raise money for the tortoises at Turtle Pond in Central Park, she always, always comes through. Bakes big chocolate chip brownies or whatever and brings five dollars to buy the stuff I make, which I would fully give her for free but no. She gives her five dollars because it helps the causes I care about. Turtles and tortoises. And their health and protection. Or First Book for kids who need books. City Harvest so homeless people can get food, whatever. She doesn’t even insist we do the next bake sale for her favorite charity, the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club is her favorite because it supports protecting wildlife and wild places, not just because it looks like Sienna Club, which is what I thought it actually was, for, okay, longer than I am comfortable admitting.