This Is So Not Happening

by Kieran Scott

  “Wow, you’re in the spirit,” I said flatly.

  Annie’s brow knit. “And you are so not. What gives, Little Miss Frown?”

  “Tonight’s the big reveal,” Faith said, looking up from the spiderweb she was drawing on her little customer’s face. “Jake and Chloe … you know.”

  She rolled her eyes up at the kid’s mom, having enough sense, at least, not to mention what the big reveal was about.

  “Ugh. I’m so sick of those two making you look suicidal,” Annie said, earning an appalled look from the mom. She pursed her lips and studied me for a moment. “You know what you need? You need a random hook-up. A revenge hook-up. Square things up between you and Jake.”

  The little kid’s mother gasped and tugged him off the chair before Faith could finish her masterpiece. They disappeared into the crowd, the mom shooting dirty looks back over her shoulder. Annie didn’t even seem to notice.

  “Great! You just lost us two dollars,” Faith groused, throwing her hands up.

  Annie ignored her and started to turn in a slow circle, tapping her index finger against her chin. “Now, let’s see … who would be a good random hook-up for Ally Ryan …?”

  “Annie, stop. I don’t want a random hook-up,” I said, glancing nervously at Faith, who had one of the biggest mouths in Northern New Jersey. Neither of them knew I had already, briefly, psychotically considered a random hook-up with Lincoln. And neither of them would ever know that.

  “Yes, you do. You just don’t know it yet,” Annie said. She tilted her head as a pack of jersey-sporting football players strolled by. “Hmmm … Will Halloran’s kind of hot.”

  I gave Will the once-over and mentally agreed. Will had one of those compact, muscular, running-back bodies that made girls swoon whenever he happened to take his shirt off. Couple that with the warm brown eyes, the killer smile, and the genuine nice-guy attitude, and he’d be a good hook-up for anyone. Just not me.

  “Not my type,” I said, hoping she would drop it.

  As the football team headed toward the popcorn booth, Lincoln himself sidled up behind Annie. He had an eye patch over one eye and a red bandana tied around his head. Wisps of his red hair stuck out over his eyes and around his ears.

  “S’up?” he said, holding out his ever-present wax-paper bag. “Nonpareil?”

  Annie turned and slowly ran her eyes over him. I blushed. Hard. Suddenly I recalled the feeling of his arm around me, his thumb hooked into my waistband, and I could hardly look him in the eye.

  “How much sugar would you say you consume in one day?” I asked him, trying to be normal and pretend like I didn’t know my BFF was sizing him up for potential sexual relations.

  “It’s less if you take one.” He smirked and shook the bag in front of me. I rolled my eyes as I plucked a chocolate. Annie stepped behind him, checked out his butt, and gave me a thumbs-up over his shoulder.

  “Stop it!” I said through clenched teeth.

  “Stop what?” Lincoln looked confused.

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  I grabbed a handful of candy and stuffed it in my mouth. Annie stepped out from behind Lincoln.

  “I’m gonna go check on the ice-cream stand,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “Huge mistake assigning it to the jazz band. They’re eating the profits and then some.”

  As she walked off, taking slow, sideways steps, she lifted a hand next to her cheek to block her lips from his sight, and mouthed to me, “He’s cute! Do him!”

  I almost choked. Luckily, Annie had had enough with the torture. She whirled away, tulle spinning, disappearing quickly into the crowd.

  “So. Mrs. Thompson tells me I’m supposed to paint faces. Which is good because I rock at art,” Lincoln said, using his tongue to dislodge some chocolate wedged between his teeth and his cheek.

  “Really?” Faith said.

  “No.” He looked me up and down. “You don’t look busy. Wanna give me a goatee and a scar? Make me look authentic?”

  I swallowed the massive mound of melting chocolate and licked my lips. I felt hot from head to toe, and was glad to have something to distract me from thoughts of Lincoln’s butt. Was Annie right about its thumbs-up-worthiness?

  “Sure,” I replied, gesturing to the chair at the end of the table. “Have a seat.”

  Lincoln complied, dropping the wax-paper bag on the table and dusting some white sprinkles from his fingers. I picked up a black crayon and hesitated, looking him in the eye.

  Okay. No more butt-thoughts, but now I was looking right into his eyes. His intensely green, smiling eyes. And suddenly I realized there was no way to do this without touching his face. I’d been doing it all day. Holding the person’s chin, tilting the cheek, tilting it back again. Was I going to touch Lincoln Carter’s face right now? My pulse began to thrum in my ears. I could feel that I was blushing and I felt the sudden need to track down Annie and kick her in the shin.

  “Just be gentle,” he said seriously.

  I laughed nervously and rolled my eyes. “I promise.”

  As I leaned in to start his goatee, Faith eyed me curiously. I hoped she wasn’t putting two and two together—that she wasn’t thinking I was considering Annie’s suggestion. Because I wasn’t. Not anymore. Lincoln just had a flirtatious personality. That was it.

  Besides. I hadn’t thought about Jake and Chloe in two whole minutes. That had to be some kind of record.

  jake

  I was sitting at the huge table in the Applebys’ dining room, staring at this champagne pear salad thing that Mrs. Appleby could not shut up about, when Chloe’s fork suddenly clattered against her china plate.

  “Mom, Dad, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  My legs stopped bouncing under the table. “What, now?”

  We had decided to wait until after dinner. The plan had been hashed and rehashed fourteen thousand times. She couldn’t just ditch the plan. Chloe gave me an apologetic look and shrugged. I glanced at her father, who was slowly finishing his last bite, and my life flashed before my eyes, right down to my goldfish, Beckham, who’d died in the third grade. But I guess I saw her point. Sitting here knowing what was coming was torture. Might as well get it over with. I pushed my chair back a little bit, in case I had to run.

  “What is it, sweetie?” Chloe’s mother asked.

  She looked pale under her helmet of blond hair, and her hand fluttered up to fiddle with her pearls. For a split second I wondered if she already knew somehow. Woman’s intuition or whatever.

  “What’s going on?” my mother asked, smiling at me. Like she was expecting good news. What that could be, I had no idea. Maybe she thought Chloe and I were going to tell them we were a couple, which was what my mom had wanted all summer. Suddenly I felt sorry for her.

  Chloe laid her cloth napkin down flat on the table and pushed back too. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was—that we should have planned a strategic escape route. She’d told me she was going to be blunt, but what did that mean, exactly? I held my breath and prayed like I’d never prayed before.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said flatly. “Jake and I are …” She paused and shot me this pained look. Almost like she was apolo-gizing. “We’re going to have a baby.”

  Yep. That was blunt.

  “What?”

  That would be the four of them. At the same time. At roughly the same glass-cracking pitch. For a second there was silence, except for my heart beating in my ears, my eyes, my stomach, my toes. I glanced over my shoulder at the door.

  “Young lady,” Mr. Appleby said in a warning tone, gripping the edge of the table with both hands.

  But he stopped there. His words just hung in the air over the table while the candles flickered. A pear slice slowly slipped from the top of my mound of spinach to the edge of the plate. It knocked a walnut onto the white tablecloth, and a brown stain of dressing spread all around. It looked like blood seeping from a gunshot wound.

  “No,” my mother said, standing su
ddenly. “No no no no no no no. You two aren’t even … I mean, you haven’t even … You’re dating Ally!” she shouted at me accusingly.

  “This happened before … that,” I said.

  “Are you absolutely sure it’s yours, son?” my father said, his voice low.

  Chloe was taking a sip of water—probably to fight off a panic attack—and choked on it.

  “Excuse me?” Mrs. Appleby asked, lowering her hand from in front of her mouth for the first time in minutes.

  “Just so we’re clear, Graydon, are you calling my daughter a liar or a whore?” Mr. Appleby demanded, his face darkening quickly to a rank purple color.

  “Daddy!” Chloe wailed. Her water goblet clanged against the side of her plate.

  My father stood up from the table, his knees knocking against the edge, rattling every piece of crystal and silver. “I’m sorry, Charles, but this isn’t the kind of thing a kid can leave to chance,” he said, flattening the front of his wool dinner jacket. “I’m sure you’ll understand if my wife and I request a DNA test.”

  Across the table Chloe started to shake. I got up to go over to her, but her father stood up too, and I knew there’d be no going around that end of the table.

  “Get the hell out of my house,” he thundered, his jowls trembling as he faced my father. “Get the hell out of my house now!”

  Mrs. Appleby started to cry into her napkin.

  “Clarice,” my mother said imploringly.

  For whatever reason, the sound of her own name made Mrs. Appleby wail even louder. She got up and fled the room. As soon as she was gone Chloe started crying too.

  “Are you people going to go or am I going to have to make you go?” Mr. Appleby said. He took a menacing step toward us and I swear I almost peed my pants.

  “No need. We’re gone,” my father replied, raising his hands. He turned around and strode out of the room.

  I looked at Chloe. She looked so fragile and scared and sad. This had not gone anywhere close to what I’d hoped.

  “Mom,” I said. “Shouldn’t we stay and, like, talk about this?” As much as I wanted to escape, I didn’t want to leave Chloe behind. But I couldn’t exactly take her with us either.

  “There’s no need for that, Jake,” Mr. Appleby said. “I can take care of my own daughter just fine. In fact, as of this moment, you are no longer welcome in this house. Chloe, you are forbidden to see this boy, do you understand me?”

  That got Chloe out of her chair too. She ran out the same way her mother had gone, her hair streaming behind her. I heard her footsteps pounding up the stairs, and a moment later, a door slammed.

  So I guess our parents weren’t going to help us figure out what to do.

  “Let’s get out of here,” my mother said, her voice cracking. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My shoes felt like they were encased in medicine balls. “Jake? Let’s go.”

  She grabbed my arm and pulled, tripping me sideways toward the exit that led to the foyer and the front door. Toward freedom. Kind of, anyway. The worst part, I guessed, was over. Chloe’s dad knew, and I was still alive.

  I looked back over my shoulder one last time to see Mr. Appleby glaring down at the table, tugging his napkin between his two hands over and over again. I had no idea what kind of lecture waited for me at home, but I had a feeling that whatever was going to be said inside the Applebys’ house was going to be a hell of a lot worse.

  november

  Did you guys see Chloe in gym this morning?

  Uh, yeah. What is with the man sweats?

  And did you notice her, um, gut?

  Looked more like a bump to me, if you know what I’m sayin’.

  No. What are you saying?

  A bump. You know. Like a baby bump?

  No!

  YES!

  Shut up! Are you serious?

  Who do you think the father is?

  Hammond Ross. It’s gotta be.

  I dunno. I’ve noticed Will Halloran

  watching her from afar with his mope on.

  Please. Like Queen C would ever allow a Norm to enter her crystal palace.

  What about Jake Graydon?

  What? No.

  You said it yourself. They have been spending a lot of time together.

  OMG, poor Ally!

  You mean poor Chloe.

  Right. Her too.

  ally

  “It’s official,” Chloe said. “I’m going to have a baby.”

  Never had those words been uttered in such an unenthusiastic tone. Chloe sat down at the end of our lunch table, bringing with her a cloud of her rose-scented perfume, and placed a stack of lavender envelopes down in front of her. I closed my laptop, which was open to my mom’s latest ten bridesmaids dress options, and looked at Jake. Shannen and Faith went silent. At the far end of the table, the Idiot Twins, Connor, and Josh were too distracted by their game of “can you squeeze juice out of an apple by wedging it in the crook of your arm and flexing superhard?” to overhear.

  “Um, I thought we already knew that,” Jake said.

  Chloe hooked her bag strap around the back of the chair. “Yeah, but now it’s definitely happening. My parents are one hundred percent against abortion, which I was dreading anyway, so … it looks like I’m about to get seriously fat.”

  She put her hand on her stomach under the table. She was wearing a cable knit tunic and leggings, which had become kind of her signature look lately, and she, of course, rocked it so well that some of the underclassmen were now mimicking it.

  I stared at Jake, frozen. His right eye twitched, and from what I could tell he wasn’t breathing. Did this mean …? Was she saying she was going to keep the baby? I had this awful feeling I was about to see my boyfriend faint or explode.

  “Wow. So … wow,” Jake said, lowering his fork. He’d already wolfed down half of his cafeteria mac and cheese and looked to be regretting it.

  “Don’t worry. I’m giving it up for adoption,” Chloe said. “My mom’s interviewing agencies today, actually.”

  I blew out a breath and Jake did too. I saw Shannen and Faith exchange a relieved look. Talk about burying the lead.

  “Oh, thank God.” Jake exhaled, collapsing forward so fast his head almost hit the table.

  “Wow. Tell me how you really feel,” Chloe said with a touch of sarcasm.

  “Oh.” Jake blinked, sitting up straight. “Sorry. Are you … I mean, you’re not upset, are you?” I saw him swallow when she didn’t say anything, his Adam’s apple bobbing over the collar of his rugby shirt. “Are you?”

  “Yeah, I mean … this is a good thing, right?” I said, trying to help him out. “Some couple will get a baby they really want and it’ll have a good home.”

  “Yeah, I guess. It’s just so weird,” Chloe said. Her eyes unfocused as she stared at a random point on the table. “The first baby I ever have … and it’s not going to be mine.”

  Her hand was on her stomach again and I felt as if my own organs were turning to rock. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be inside her brain, inside her body. Not even the tiniest bit. I looked over at Shannen, and Shannen looked from me to Faith. Clearly none of us had any clue what we were supposed to say.

  This was one of those rare moments when I completely forgot she’d gone after the guy I liked and I just felt bad for her.

  “But at least I get to stay in school,” Chloe added. “My parents wanted me to drop out and get a tutor and try to keep the whole thing a secret, but I said no. I’m not ashamed,” she said, her eyes shining. “And I’m not gonna miss my senior year.”

  I swallowed hard. I always knew Chloe was brave, but this was a level of strength I hadn’t seen before.

  “So. What’re those?” Faith asked. She pointed at the envelopes, effectively changing the subject.

  “Oh, invites to my birthday,” Chloe said, slipping a few from the top of the pile. “I don’t feel like having one, but Mom and Dad are all about keeping up appearances, so it looks like I�
�ve got a party to plan.”

  She placed an envelope down on the table near the top of my tray and I picked it up with both hands. She’d written our names out in swirly cursive with a pink glitter pen and stuck a rhinestone star in the corner. It seemed so wrong. So incongruently optimistic.

  “Oooh! Pretty!” Faith cooed, tearing into her envelope and pulling out a sparkling pink card.

  “Your dad’s renting out the Hayden Planetarium?” Shannen asked, looking up from her own invite.

  “Yep. The theme is ‘Catch a Rising Star!’” Chloe said, spreading her fingers wide with a bright, fake smile. “Like I said, appearances.”

  “Do you need any help?” Jake asked, tucking his invite away without opening it. “I mean, I know how you guys plan parties. It’s like a full-time job. And your doctor said you should be resting as much as possible….”

  I looked down at my congealing macaroni and cheese and my eyes blurred. Why? Why did I suddenly feel so sad? I should say something. Offer my help too. But I felt like Chloe’s invitation had wedged itself inside my throat, preventing speech. From the corner of my eye, I saw Hammond approaching our table—something he hadn’t done once this semester. His timing couldn’t have been more awful.

  “Thanks for the offer, but I had to beg on hands and knees just to be allowed to invite you,” Chloe said.

  “Aren’t you grounded, anyway?” I said quietly. Jake hadn’t been able to so much as go out for a run since they’d told his parents about the baby, so I wasn’t sure how he was supposed to help out with the party of the century.

  “Right,” he said reluctantly. “Forgot about that.”

  “It’s okay,” Chloe assured him. “Honestly, I think the less my parents see of you right now, the better.”