Chasing Boys

by Karen Tayleur

  Chasing Boys

  karen tayleur

  For Toph

  A boy who chased me until

  I caught him

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Acknowledgments

  “I know what you want,” said the sea witch. “It is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, though it will bring you much sorrow, my pretty one.”

  —Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

  1.

  Coop told Kelli Luong who told Meg Piper who told Desi Walczak who told me—Eric Callahan was going out with Angelique Mendez.

  Definition of a rumor: when someone tells someone who tells someone else who tells someone else something that you may or may not want to hear, something that may or not be true.

  2.

  If I were talking to Leonard, which I’m not, I would ask him a question.

  “Leonard,” I would say, “what sort of person makes up a rumor for the sheer pleasure of making someone else unhappy?”

  Then Leonard would look at me and clear his throat and do that tapping thing with his foot and I would get so annoyed that I wouldn’t stay around for his answer.

  That’s the trouble with Leonard. He’s just so damn annoying.

  3.

  It is true.

  My trusted source, Desi, has confirmed that Eric Callahan is going out with Angelique Mendez.

  And why wouldn’t he?

  See, there are two kinds of girls in this world. There are the in girls and there are the rest of us.

  Angelique Mendez is an in girl. She has long black hair that could star in its own shampoo commercial.

  Angelique Mendez has the body of a model, the voice of a rock star (she’s always the lead in the school play), and the brains of a surgeon.

  Angelique Mendez is the girl voted most likely to do whatever the hell she wants to before her twenty-first birthday.

  Angelique’s dad is a journalist and word is that Angelique is hoping to follow in his footsteps. No one doubts she will get there.

  It had only been a matter of time before Eric and Angelique collided like two shiny comets in a galaxy of drab dead planets. I’m just surprised it took them so long.

  It is Angelique and Eric.

  Eric and Angelique.

  I always hoped it would be Eric and El.

  4.

  I met Eric on my second day at Blair High School eighteen months ago. I was at Blair because my mother couldn’t afford my old school. I don’t know why she bothered to find a new school. All I wanted to do was stay in bed with the comforter over my head and listen to music.

  Mom had chosen Blair because of its good reputation for twelfth-grade results. If you knew Blair you’d wonder how this miracle occurs. It’s a school built for six hundred students and bursting at the seams with just over twelve hundred. There are temporary classrooms everywhere. There is a temporary classroom perched on the edge of the track. The outside basketball court has been completely taken over by them. There are classes held in rooms that should be condemned. Some of the desks still have inkwell slots. And the school is Multicultural with a capital M.

  At my old school, Regis, you’d find me listed under “exotic,” because of my Mediterranean background. Dad’s parents were Italian. My grandpa died before I was born and I can barely remember Nonna, who lived with us when I was really little. My sister, Bella, remembers her more. She says I have Nonna’s dark eyes. So there I was, exotic girl at Regis and just another one of the crowd at Blair. I haven’t bothered to count the number of different nationalities here—there are too many.

  With the lack of facilities, it’s hard to believe Blair is one of the top ten public high schools, but there you go. Maybe the teachers are really dedicated. Maybe someone is fudging the twelfth-grade results.

  Anyway, Mom did her homework and I ended up here.

  I was standing in the hall trying to work out the timetable, annoyed that I was going to be late for class. The last of the stragglers bumped past me like I was a piece of furniture. I didn’t belong. My state-imposed uniform was so new it still had its original package creases. I traced the line again from 1:40 p.m. across to math.

  “Lost?” someone asked behind me.

  I turned to see Eric Callahan. I didn’t know it was Eric then. (Later, when I described him to Margot, she said, “Oh, you’ve met the school hottie.”)

  “I think I’m supposed to be in 34C—wherever that is,” I said. I tried to sound like I didn’t care, but the tremble in my voice wrecked the effect.

  “New girl.” He smiled.

  I nodded.

  “You must be,” he said. “I know all the girls worth knowing at Blair.”

  Part of me was pleased that he thought I was worth knowing.

  He herded me up one hall, then another. We didn’t actually touch, but I could feel his presence.

  “I’m never going to remember my way around,” I said to ease the tension.

  He touched my shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”

  Then suddenly we were standing in front of a door. 34C. It was shut.

  “Great!”

  Eric peered through the hall window into the class, then opened the door and walked in.

  I followed behind like a puppy.

  “A lost student for you, ma’am,” he said.

  He gave me a smile that warmed me down to my feet and then he was gone. The entire female population of the class sighed. Possibly not only the females.

  And that’s when I knew—you know—that it was him. He was the reason I was going to get out of bed each morning. He was the reason Blair wouldn’t be such a dud. He was the one who could make my day right, just by seeing his crooked smile at the lockers.

  Eric Callahan was mine.

  Until Angelique.

  5.

  When Desi confirms the rumor about Angelique and Eric we are in the library. We are in the self-help section for a change. I am looking for a book that will help me survive the whole Angelique and Eric thing. Desi has left to look for some tissues. She is taking it really badly.


  I like to hang out in the library in winter. The winter wind blows at a 45-degree angle through the school’s asphalt alleyways. It kicks up skirts, messes with your hair, and hacks at your bones like a blunt kitchen knife.

  And summer isn’t that much better.

  Last year the school board ordered all trees—in fact, anything with foliage—be cut down to make way for more temporary classrooms. A small courtyard with a canvas roof is our only shelter from the sun during the recess and lunchtime breaks. Unfortunately, twelve hundred–plus sweaty kids crammed into an area meant for fifty doesn’t work well. Math genius Eric Callahan could tell you that.

  Eric Callahan is so good at math that he actually tutors other kids. He is like a roving Mr. Math Fix-it.

  Am I talking about Eric Callahan again?

  I usually hang out in the nonfiction area of the library with my best friends, Margot and Desi—usually around the biography section, because no one ever shows up there—and we try and keep it quiet until the end-of-lunch bell rings.

  Keeping quiet is not always easy.

  6.

  Margot Blackman was the first person to talk to me at Blair. (The school secretary doesn’t count.) I was sitting outside the office on a step, waiting for the morning bell to ring, when a girl with hard blue eyes and straight black hair marched up to me. I thought maybe I was in her spot or something, but she just glared and said, “Ariel Marini?”

  I nodded.

  “Mrs. Mackay told me to find you. You need to come to the main office for locker assignment. So we can do that. Or we could skip school and take in a movie at the mall. Your choice. I’m Margot,” she said.

  And somehow I just knew we were going to be friends.

  Margot is tall and fragile-looking, like her bones might break if she bent the wrong way. In reality she’s as fragile as a pit bull terrier. Her lips are a constant thin horizontal line. Margot never raises her voice above a bored monotone. Her best friend until I came to Blair was Desi—Desiree Walczak. (Desi’s mother hated it when we shortened her daughter’s name. She chose the name from some TV soap and thought it sounded very exotic.)

  Now Desi is my best friend too. Unlike Margot, Desi can get quite excitable. She describes herself as a passionate person, but Margot says Desiree Walczak is a maniac, with bipolar tendencies. (Margot uses words like this when she wants to impress people. I was impressed, anyway.) It is true that Desi is either desperately happy or desperately sad, but I don’t think that she’s any different from other girls I’ve met. She’s also quite pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way.

  If we can keep Desi under control, the biography section of the library is ours. Apart from its being warm in winter and cool in summer, it’s easy to smuggle in food, phones, and music.

  Today is the first student newspaper meeting. The sign on the library door reads “Blair Newspaper—All Invited.” Under the sign is a short paragraph: “Want to be part of the next school newspaper? Feel free to drop by. Meetings Mondays at lunchtime in the library conference room. Or give me a call.” There is a phone number and a name. Angelique. Award-winning journalist in the making.

  The glassed-in conference room is bursting with earnest-looking do-gooders, though not many earnest good-lookers. There are eight girls and three guys. None of the guys is Eric. I’ve seen a couple of the girls before. One of them is in my science class—Kat, I think her name is. Another, Meg Piper, is in my homeroom. I don’t know two of the guys, but the third is a star on the school’s basketball team—Coop. Angelique’s newspaper group is made up of a Group of Nice Young People. This is what my mom would call them if she ever met them.

  “Why don’t you make friends with that Group of Nice Young People,” she’d say.

  Mom often capitalizes words.

  It’s not that Mom doesn’t like Margot and Desi, but she’s worried that I’ve only made two real friends at Blair in the last year or so. It’s just that I don’t see the point. I’m not staying here long. As soon as our finances get sorted out, I’m back to my old school. The one with the grass. And trees. Lots of trees. Angelique Mendez would not stand out at my old school.

  Desi still hasn’t come back with the tissues, and my bet is she’s been distracted and is doing something else. I check out some books with one eye on the student newspaper session while I wait for her. Margot finds me sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by books like Self-Help for Nightmares and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to a Healthy Relationship and 123 Robotics Experiments for the Evil Genius.

  “So,” says Margot.

  “So,” I say.

  “It’s not like the guy dumped you,” says Margot.

  This is what I like about Margot. She’s the kind of friend who’ll tell you how it is—even when you don’t ask for it.

  “I know,” I say.

  “I mean, you’ve been dreaming about him since last year, El. You’ve had your chance to ask him out or something.”

  This is the thing about Eric Callahan—I never had any intention of being his girlfriend. Or holding his hand. Or asking him out. I just wanted to know that he was there and available. Eric was my dream guy.

  And I do dream about him. My daydreams have become pretty complicated. Sometimes they turn into different episodes where I leave off and pick up the story another day. Sometimes I change what happens in the end, sometimes the location, but always Eric is amazed that he hasn’t noticed me before and declares that he can’t live without me. It’s pathetic really, in an incredibly satisfying way.

  Of course, none of this makes sense to anyone else, so I just grunt like I agree.

  “Best-case movie scenario?” asks Margot, sitting next to me.

  This is one of our favorite games. Margot is convinced there is a movie scenario that fits every aspect of our lives.

  We shuffle through the possibilities. I end up choosing The Breakfast Club, a favorite of Mom’s. The story is about five high school students who meet one Saturday for detention. “A day that will change their lives forever.”

  “So you and Eric will hook up in detention one day, and he will finally see what he’s been missing out on all this time . . . and he’s gonna dump Angelique for you?” says Margot.

  “Of course.”

  “I see a major problem with this plot.”

  “You do?”

  “Eric Callahan will never get detention,” Margot says. “So you’re gonna have to find a different movie.”

  “That’s all I’ve got,” I say.

  “Maybe you could get Eric to tutor you in math?” suggests Margot.

  “We can’t afford it,” I say. “Besides, I don’t want him knowing how stupid I am.”

  Margot gives me a little push. “You are stupid, El Marini. Stupid for wasting your time. You spend your whole life dreaming. Maybe you should wake up.”

  Margot’s tough love is not what I need right now, so I pick up a book.

  Muted laughter rings out from the glassed-in meeting room.

  “Maybe you should talk to Leonard about this?” says Margot, more gently.

  I snort. Margot knows everything about me. Sometimes I wish she didn’t.

  7.

  Leonard is a person I don’t talk to once a week.

  I see Leonard once a week because of my father. My sister, Bella, says I have issues, but I don’t think so. I just hate my father. Bella says Leonard’s technically not a shrink, just some kind of “ologist,” as if that makes a difference.

  I spend my time in Leonard’s office not talking to Leonard.

  “Hello, Ariel,” he begins.

  When I don’t answer, he writes down a few sentences in his notebook, then he spends the rest of the time sitting, looking out the window. I wonder what he’s written, what he could write—Ariel Marini, still not talking.

  Leonard lives in a part of town that used to be rich. All the two-story row houses look tired and dirty. The things that made them beautiful are falling off, or fading, or have gone. The
street is narrow, built in a time where they could never have imagined the number of cars that would clog up the landscape.

  It is the strangest thing, not talking to Leonard. Most of the time it is nearly peaceful. But sometimes he does something really stupid, and I just want to be at home under my comforter.

  Two weeks ago, Leonard stopped looking out the window and leaned forward in his chair. “How do you feel, Ariel?” he asked.

  How do I feel?

  I’ll tell you how I feel, Leonard.

  I feel angry.

  I feel hurt.

  How do I feel?

  I feel like someone has zipped me open and grabbed out my heart and said, Well you won’t need that anymore.

  I feel like I can’t feel anymore. Like I’m walking and talking and sometimes even laughing, but inside I’m still and watching to see if I’m fooling anyone. Like I’m shoving food down my throat, but there’s no taste. Like I’m screaming, but there is no sound.

  Of course I didn’t tell Leonard this. I just leaned forward and looked deep into his eyes.

  “So, tell me, Leonard,” I said. “How do you feel?”

  He called Mom that night to say that we’d made progress. What a faker.

  I pretend going to Leonard’s is a game. I’m making up the rules as I go along. I am only seeing Leonard for now because Mom’s been grouchy lately and this keeps her happy.

  “Hello, Ariel,” Leonard repeats.

  I give him a short nod. Then I bang my school backpack—the one that Desi has graffitied all over with the name of our favorite band, Scheme—on the floor. Mom had freaked when she saw my schoolbag covered in writing. She didn’t understand when I explained that Desi was just expressing herself.

  “Maybe she could express herself on her own bag” was Mom’s reply. “That bag cost me fifty dollars.”

  But I like my bag. Scheme is awesome. They can be really loud and crazy, but their lyrics are amazing. They really get to where you live. I look down at my bag and wonder if I could sneak my earbuds in while Leonard isn’t looking, but figure I can’t.

  I flop down on my seat near the window and sigh.