Crush

by Gary Paulsen

  “And you know this because …”

  “I like fresh bread.”

  “And this applies to the Welsh girls how?”

  “Alexandra is blue, Annabeth is pink, McKenna is purple and Meghan is red. Alphabetical by name and color. Brilliant, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.”

  “Okay, gotta go, Kev, you let me know when you’re ready to get on a team and I’ll make it happen.”

  “You bet.” I’d tried hockey once when I was five. Fell down in all my gear. Couldn’t get up. Felt like a turtle. Got skated over by peewees screaming for blood. Decided other sports were for me. Like bullfighting or storm chasing, things that aren’t as dangerous and scary.

  The Zamboni chugged onto the ice just then, and all the skaters glided off to huddle around tables in the lobby, gulping water and chewing protein bars. The Welsh girls had a table to themselves, and I headed over to make their lives richer and more fulfilling. If I could only think of how to explain my plan for them to date the hockey team without sounding deranged.

  “Hey, aren’t you Sarah Spencer’s brother?” Blue jacket. Alexandra.

  “Yeah.” She looked happier asking the question than I did answering it.

  “We met when I was over at your house a few months ago. Sarah and I volunteer at the hospital together.”

  “Oh, sure, of course.” I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “I swung by the rink on my way home to congratulate you and your sisters on making it to junior nationals and to wish you luck.”

  “That’s the sweetest thing,” Alexandra said.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Pink Jacket, Annabeth, said.

  “Aren’t you a nice guy.” Purple Jacket. McKenna.

  “Wow, thanks, we’re really nervous.” Red Jacket. Meghan.

  I had to take a step back from the barrage of answers. And color.

  “Oh well, uh, sure, no problem.”

  “And you must be thrilled that your brother’s team made it to the final round of play-offs.”

  They did? I wondered when that had happened.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “The whole family’s … um, giddy about it.” I was sure some family was, just not mine, but details like that wouldn’t help my plan. “In fact, we’re having a little celebration this evening. Nothing fancy, just uh … light refreshments. The family and Daniel’s team and all that. How about you girls stop by after practice? And bring the Connor sisters too.”

  “You really are the nicest guy,” Red Jacket said, “to include them in honor of their good showing at regionals.”

  “We’ll be there. Thanks a lot!” Pink Jacket.

  “Can we bring anything?” Purple Jacket.

  Other than everything, you mean? “No, of course not. Just yourselves. And the Connor sisters. Six girls. Six hardworking, successful skating girls. That’d be perfect.”

  “We skate for another hour and then we’ll head over, okay? I remember where you live,” Alexandra said.

  “See you then,” I told them, crossing my fingers they’d still be wearing their identifying warm-up jackets when they arrived, and I jogged across the lobby to the other ice. I spotted Daniel, put two fingers in my mouth and gave an earsplitting whistle. He skated over, backwards because Daniel is such a show-off on skates.

  “Kev. What’s up?”

  “What’s up? What’s up, he asks! Only congratulations for um, for …” Dang, what had she said? Winning, placing, advancing? I really had to start paying better attention to my family. Maybe we could post announcements on the fridge once a week. “Uh, you know, congrats, man, for everything.”

  “Thanks. We’re pretty stoked.”

  “Mom says to be sure to get the guys to our house by nine for the celebration.”

  “What celebration?”

  “The celebration in, uh, celebration of, uh, the thing.”

  “Oh yeah, right. Okay, we’ll be there after the scrimmage. Will there be food?”

  “Will. There. Be. Food. Of course there’s going to be food. Look, bro, I gotta motor. Catch you at home.”

  “At the celebration.” Daniel looked really happy and skated back to his buddies. I heard them cheer when he told them about coming over.

  It’s a good thing that I am a very social person, that I think on my feet and that I do not panic under pressure.

  As I left the rink, I speed-dialed my dad.

  “Papa Bear here. Speak, youngest cub.” My dad is so lame. But I needed his help, so I played along. A little.

  “Roar. Look, Dad, can you come get me at the rink? Better yet, I’ll start walking and you drive toward me and we’ll meet on the road—that’ll save time. And then can you take me to the grocery store and buy chips and soda and maybe a cake? Or three?”

  “Do I even want to know what this odd request is in service of?” Dad’s been around when some of my other plans have hit the fan, so I can’t blame him for his suspicion.

  “Can you do it?”

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “But I expect an explanation when I get there.”

  “No sweat.” I actually meant that. On my way out of the lobby to the parking lot, I saw some fluorescent-green flyers congratulating my brother’s team for advancing to the final round of the divisional championship series. Dad would be so proud. He wouldn’t know what it meant, either, but he’d be proud. Dad is like that.

  I handed the flyer to him after we spotted each other on the street and I hurtled across the tarmac and flung myself into the front seat. I explained that soon our house would be overridden with hungry divisional championship hockey players and junior national–bound figure skaters, as well as two girls who had placed well in regionals but were still deserving of light refreshments. As predicted, he was a great sport, and he did spring for the snacks. The pastry gods were with me, because there were two sheet cakes in the grocer’s bakery department. One said “Congradulacions” and the other one had a Barbie on it. But I wasn’t fussy and I knew the hockey team and skaters wouldn’t be picky about free cake.

  We stocked up on soda, chips, pretzels, ice cream and a veggie tray the size of a twin bed.

  “Mom’s working late and Sarah’s at Carrie’s studying for a test,” Dad told me as we were putting all the snacks on the kitchen counter. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn this celebration looked planned.

  The hockey players and skaters started arriving, and after congratulating them “for, uh, everything. Good job, guys. And, uh, ladies, well done,” Dad headed to the basement with his briefcase and a chunk of cake.

  The Welsh girls had their warm-up jackets on and the Connor girls had their names embroidered on theirs. So I handed them cups of soda and introduced everybody.

  Then I sat back and watched. They mingled. Chatted. Mutual congratulations flew as the cakes shrank on the platters. I stood off to the side and watched things fall into place.

  Finally.

  At last, I was gleaning some meaningful information from observing guys and girls together. I heard giggles and saw hair tosses, I watched guys suck in their guts and stand up straight, I smelled love—and frosting—in the air. It was a magical thing. I felt tingly all over. Success. About time.

  But then again, I’ve found that hockey players and skaters are very hardworking and eager to please. Their coaches can be fierce—no surprise, given they have knife blades on the soles of their feet—so skaters get good at figuring out what’s expected and living up to those standards.

  I went to bed happy. Finally, I’d observed a favorable outcome to an experiment.

  The Scientific Mind Studies Truth vs. Theories

  ’d learned a lot from setting Daniel and his teammates up on Tuesday night. But on Wednesday I was struggling with a fact that every good scientist knows: results only count if you can replicate them. I needed another test subject.

  I also needed to take my mind off the fact that I wanted to punch Cash Devine in t
he gut and then bury him under twenty cubic tons of waste at the Amalgamated Waste Management site.

  I’d arrived at the cafeteria in a good mood. Until I’d looked up from my tuna noodle casserole and had seen Cash reach over and fix Tina’s hair. Tina’s hair is flawless, there’s not a single strand that ever needs adjusting; he was just using that as an excuse to touch her.

  I turned away from Cash and my mental images of him covered in coffee grounds, snotty tissues and used cat litter, and thought hard about my next romantic experiment.

  Goober!

  It’d have to be a blind date, though; no way was I going to convince any girl who’d actually met Goober to go out with him. Good, I was adding challenge to the task. That was smart.

  Goober is JonPaul’s cousin, a student at the local college. I guess you can call him a student, since he lives on campus and his parents pay tuition; I’m not so sure he qualifies as a student if you think about the scholarly part. He’s … kind of light in the intellect department. And the hygiene department. And the quick-on-the-uptake department.

  But he’s a guy and he’s single, and as soon as I was on my way home from school on Wednesday, I called him.

  “So, Goob, how’s the love life?” Best to get right to the matter at hand.

  “Bummer, man, none of the chicks on this campus appreciate the Goob.”

  “Shocking. I might be able to help with that. You busy right now?”

  “No, little dude, I’ve got class, uh, science, social studies, psychology—something—but I can blow it off.”

  “Okay, come on over, and bring an open mind.”

  “On my way.”

  I was eager to find out what Goober was looking for in a girl. I’m not sure why I bothered; I didn’t have that many candidates in mind. Or any.

  I was waiting for him on the front step when he ambled up the sidewalk.

  “Who’s the fox?” he whispered as we passed the kitchen on the way to my room.

  “What fox?”

  “The chick with the books.”

  “That’s my mother.”

  “An older woman. Goober likes.”

  “No, Goober doesn’t like. What’s wrong with you? She’s my mother, she lives here, she’s not here to meet you, you moron.”

  “She available?”

  “No! Stop looking at her like that, because you’re creeping me out, not to mention offending her and the sanctity of my entire family structure.” I dragged him to my bedroom and stood between him and the door to protect Mom. I also sent her a silent message: LEAVE THE HOUSE IMMEDIATELY. I made a mental note that our family should do some work on developing our extrasensory perception. It would be really helpful to add that to our collective skill set.

  “Sorry, dude. You said to keep an open mind; I thought maybe you meant you were going to hook me up with an old lady.”

  “She’s not an old lady, and we’re not talking about her anymore. We’re here to talk about what you find desirable in the opposite sex.”

  “I’m telling you, your mom checks all the boxes on Goober’s list.”

  “And I’m telling you: I’m going to punch you in the head and tell my father, who will also punch you in the head, if you keep talking about my mother that way.” I took a deep breath. “You need to focus on why you’re here and what I can do for you. I want to know what kind of girl you’re looking for. Let’s start with physical attributes: do you like tall girls or petite ones?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether she’s hot or not.”

  “Okay. Define ‘hot.’ ”

  He made a gesture with his hands that prompted me to jot down curvy in my notes. I nodded professionally, hoping to move this along. “That’s a start. Hair color?”

  “Nah, man, as long as she’s stack—”

  “Right, no preference on hair or height, got it. Let’s move on from the physical and get to the intellectual.” I took another look at Goober and scratched that off my list. “Uh, yeah, okay, never mind that—what about hobbies and interests?”

  Goober perked up. “NASCAR, hunting, heavy metal rock bands, video games, extreme bike tricks, ice fishing, greyhound racing, muscle cars and kung fu movies.”

  “Um, not so much.”

  “What’s wrong with all that stuff?”

  “Nothing. You’re just not in touch with your feminine side, the kind of things girls like. Like, um, walks on the beach and going out to dinner and visiting museums.”

  “Nope.”

  “Which might be part of the reason you’re still single. Could you try some new things if it got you a date with a hot girl?”

  “Yeah … I guess … but you’re gonna hook me up with someone who’ll do the kinds of things I like too, right?”

  “Relationships,” I said as if I knew what I was talking about, “are about compromise. You give a little, she gives a little. You’ll see—you just have to be flexible and you’ll be surprised at what a great time you have.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Okay, look: how about if I com-pro-mise”—I could tell this was probably Goober’s first time using that word—“on the hobby thing but you make sure she’s really hot.”

  “We’ll see about that.” I wasn’t about to promise anything. In fact, the more Goober spoke, the less I felt I could fix him up with anyone.

  I sent him away so I could think. A little Goober goes a long way, and I wasn’t going to be able to sell him as a great date if I spent much more time with him.

  I racked my brain trying to think of the right girl, and then, out of the blue, the perfect idea came to me. It was what scientists call deductive reasoning. And what I call a stroke of genius.

  Betsy Putnam.

  The nicest girl I know. She’s in college too, and lives a couple of houses down. She was home from school for her grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary party—I knew because our family was invited. Betsy volunteered at the library all through high school and was voted most popular, most likely to succeed, homecoming queen and prettiest smile. Her part-time job is giving skating lessons to special-needs kids, so someone like Goober might not seem like such a challenge to her—she’s very patient and understanding. And she’s so popular that I wouldn’t, as Sarah and her friends warned me, “traumatize” her by setting her up with Goober. In fact, I told myself, he might be a nice change of pace from all the Captain America, Big Man on Campus, Mr. Perfects Betsy probably dated.

  But could I do that to her? Set her up with Goober? That didn’t seem fair.

  Then I remembered that love is blind. Or is that justice? Maybe I was getting Cupid and the blindfolded lady with the scales mixed up in my head.

  I was desperate; I had to find someone for Goober so that I could study the effects and outcome of a guy and girl interacting in a date setting. And it was only a date, not an arranged marriage. I took comfort in the temporary aspect of that thought.

  Now I had to figure out the best way to get a guy like Goober to appeal to a girl like Betsy. This was going to call upon all my powers of description and diplomacy. There was a time when I would have lied. But that had been a horrible disaster. So I’d go with the truth. I walked right over to Betsy’s house before I chickened out.

  She answered the door.

  “Kev! Great to see you. What brings you by?”

  “I need your help.” I figured Betsy was the kind of person who would be touched by a blatant appeal.

  “Oh, honey, sure. Anything for you and your family. What do you need?”

  “I have a friend and I’d like you to go out with him. On a date.”

  “Hmmm.” She studied me. “Normally, I’d say no, because I’m not a big fan of blind dates, but if my mother asks me to fill one more swan-shaped helium balloon or speak to the caterer one more time about the texture of the crab cakes, I’ll lose my mind. She’s going crazy with this party for my grandparents and making everyone around her nuts too. Can the date be this very minute?” She pra
ctically ran down the steps toward the sidewalk.

  “Uh, sure, yeah,” I panted, jogging to catch up, “if that works for you. I’ll just, uh, call Goo—the guy and see if he can meet us at, um, the Juiceteria? Feel like a smoothie?”

  “Always.”

  Yeah, me too. I wondered what I could put in Goober’s smoothie to de-Goober him and make him seem like a great guy. But then again, Betsy was looking for any excuse to run away, so anyone might seem good in comparison to what she was running from. Timing really is everything in matters of scientific research. I’m sure Alexander Graham Bell, in retrospect, was glad he’d spilled acid on himself just before he called Watson. Made that first phone call in history more exciting than just “Can you hear me now?”

  I texted Goober as Betsy and I walked to the Juiceteria, and he replied that he’d be “rite their.” Oh, great. A spelling whiz.

  Betsy and I were sitting at the table by the window, sipping smoothies, when Goober rolled up. He’d gotten dressed for the date. He was wearing a white T-shirt with a picture of a tuxedo on it and, from the sound of things, he had on tap shoes.

  “Are you wearing tap shoes?” I asked after I’d introduced them. Betsy, to her credit, hadn’t flinched or pulled away.

  “Yes. I thought I’d do a little routine for the lady.”

  “You thought tap dancing would make a good impression on a girl? Really?”

  “Yeah, I’m great. Besides, I thought I should tap into my feminine side.”

  I pretended to laugh.

  “I’d love to see you tap-dance,” Betsy told him. I was sure she had a brain freeze from the smoothie, because what girl in her right mind wants some scruffy-looking guy dancing—loudly—for her in public?

  Well, Betsy did. Even Betsy doesn’t have good enough manners to fake the enthusiasm she demonstrated as she clapped for Goober.

  He was pretty good. I was grinning and clapping along with Betsy. And the employees and customers of the Juiceteria.

  “How do you do that?” I asked as his feet became a blur.

  “I’ll show you. Stand up. You too, Bets.”

  “Bets” leapt up and pulled me out of my chair. “Come on, Kev! Let’s do it.”