“Brianna just moved here from Florida over the summer,” Jeremy said.
“How do you like it here so far?” Natalie asked as they headed toward the cafeteria.
She nodded. “I like it. I miss home a little—and all my friends.”
“Why don’t you eat lunch with us today?” Natalie suggested.
“Really?” She seemed surprised.
“Sure,” Jeremy chimed in. He slid his hand into Natalie’s.
“You guys are the first people who have asked me to eat lunch with them. I usually just go to the library and study so I don’t have to look like a total loner.” Hearing that made Natalie sad. She put herself in Brianna’s shoes. She couldn’t imagine leaving Jo and Vincent. Even the thought of leaving Jeremy made her feel a little heartsick. Just because she had doubts about him as a boyfriend didn’t mean that she didn’t care about him. She wanted him in her life no matter what.
“It must be hard to move so far away from all your friends. I would’ve been scared,” Natalie said.
As soon as they found their lunchtime hangout, Natalie introduced Brianna to the group. Between Jeremy and Natalie they had a big group of friends, and their posse usually took up the whole left corner of the quad. Of course there were Matt, Jo, and Vincent. Jo had all her friends from the dance committees that she worked on. Vincent had various friends from his drama and art classes. Vincent was the type of person who made friends everywhere he went, and he was always hitting it off with shy classmates who found it hard to fit in. Everyone loved Vincent. Then there were all of Jeremy’s friends from baseball and the ones he skateboarded with. Brianna seemed to fit in well. Natalie caught glimpses of her chatting with some of the guys, and she overheard Jo telling her about the best places to buy shoes in the area.
Natalie had packed her lunch in haste, and it consisted of a Diet Coke, a string cheese, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She only bought lunch on pizza day. The cafeteria food was just too greasy and questionable for her. She always ate her lunch next to Jeremy. They’d perch up on the quad wall and after they finished eating, they’d hop off the wall and mingle with friends.
As soon as Natalie had thrown out her trash, she delivered the disk to Matt. She figured that the best time to hand it over was when a ton of other people were around. That way he couldn’t ask her how the column was going. She didn’t really want to tell him that she couldn’t come up with an answer to the question he’d given her that day in the driveway. The author of the quiz would be no secret, as the column was. Her byline would go beneath the quiz, so it was safe to discuss around their friends.
He was munching on a bag of chips and set them down to take the disk.
“It’s just the quiz. I’ll try to give you the rest tomorrow.”
He perked up. “Great. I can’t wait to read the rest. I’m sure it’s great.” He tucked the disk into his backpack. “So, I was walking my dog last night and the Scary Neighbors asked me if I’d seen you.”
“Get outta here,” Natalie said, and smiled.
“No, seriously.” His expression was flat and for a moment Natalie thought he might be telling the truth. “They said they wanted you to come back and clean up your dog poop. They know where you live.”
“Matt, this is so not funny. You better be kidding.”
He chuckled. “No. I didn’t see the Scary Neighbors. But I made a point to walk on the opposite side of the street just in case my dog had to lay one on their lawn.”
The bell rang and Natalie said good-bye to Matt. She was grabbing her backpack when Brianna approached. “Thanks for inviting me today,” she said.
“Sure. Where are you headed?”
“The E building. I have English now.”
“Cool. I have art in the F building. Let’s walk over there together.”
Jeremy gave Natalie a quick peck on the lips before he headed to PE. “I’ll call you after school,” he said. “Maybe we can grab a Cold Stone.”
“Sounds good,” she said.
The campus was always a bit messy after lunch. Trash cans were filled and the occasional breeze sent empty lunch bags and food wrappers flying. Natalie avoided stepping in a puddle of soda near the end of the quad. Fliers for the dance covered nearly every square inch of free wall space.
They chatted about some of Natalie’s friends. Brianna had questions about who was dating whom. She seemed to really like everyone.
“This was the best day I’ve had at this school so far,” Brianna said
“I’m glad,” Natalie said.
“You should come to the costume shop again.” Brianna ran her fingers through her hair. “I can give you my employee discount. I’m only supposed to use it for two costumes, but seeing as how I probably won’t have a date to the dance, you and Jeremy can use it.”
“That’s really sweet of you.” Natalie barely avoided stepping in gum. “But we’ll find you a date. Jeremy has a million cute friends to choose from.”
Brianna shrugged. “They are cute. But I’m so new. No one knows me.”
They reached Brianna’s building first and said good-bye before parting ways.
Just as Natalie was nearing her class Matt came running up from behind. “Hey, Nat,” he said. “Do you want to meet at Denny’s tomorrow to discuss the rest of the stuff for the paper?”
She smiled. “Sure. I’d love to.”
“I have to pick up my brother at football practice. So let’s say four?”
“Sounds good.”
As he walked away she tried to tell herself that she wasn’t excited.
Eleven
Matt was waiting for her at Denny’s when she arrived. He’d already ordered a basket of cheese fries and two drinks.
She slid into the booth across from him. “Thanks for all this,” she said.
“I figured you’d be hungry. And you deserve it after picking up all that extra work. I think this issue of the paper will be one of the best since I started working on it last year.”
“That’s good to hear.” She hoped he wasn’t too disappointed to learn that she hadn’t completed all her responsibilities.
“Love the quiz,” he said. “It’s great. Everyone is going to love it.”
She felt proud and was relieved that he liked it. Writing anything always made her feel a little vulnerable and self-conscious, and his opinion was especially important to her. “How’d you score?” she asked.
“I could’ve gone a few different ways, but in the end I had the most for dressed to impress. It was only questions two and three that put me in that category.”
His response caused her to gasp and she began choking on a cheese fry. She didn’t know what she wanted more—to live or die—as she reached for her throat and tried to dislodge the fry.
“Oh my God, Nat. Are you okay?” He jumped from the booth, and knocked over her Diet Coke in the process.
He slapped her back and she felt her eyes watering.
She hadn’t expected his quiz results to instigate the Heimlich maneuver. She so didn’t want to be choking. Not just because she didn’t want to die on a Denny’s floor in Oak Canyon, but also because it was the most unflattering look in the world. She could just feel her face growing beet red and her eyes uncontrollably welling up with water. And what if the cheese fry popped from her throat and landed on Matt?
“Help!” he called.
From out of nowhere, the largest woman Natalie had ever seen in her life appeared. She wore a Denny’s uniform, and each boob alone looked bigger than Natalie’s head. “Meaty” came to mind. This full-figured superhero grabbed her like a Barbie, put her in a backward bear hug, and squeezed the living daylights out of her. A gnarled-looking cheese fry landed on the table, and Natalie was just thankful it hadn’t landed on Matt’s shirt.
By now the entire east section of Denny’s was watching her.
“You all right?” Matt asked as he placed his hand on her shoulder.
“Fine,” she croaked. But Helga the Heiml
ich Hero kept on squeezing. Natalie’s feet dangled above the ground like two little puppet legs.
“Get it out. Get it out,” the waitress said.
“It’s out.” Natalie gasped. “You can put me down now.”
Helga gave her one more squeeze and Natalie felt her hair flopping in all kinds of directions.
“Thanks,” she managed to say as Helga set her down. “I think you saved my life.”
“You won’t be the first,” Helga said, before offering to bring her another drink.
Natalie’s voice was hoarse when she spoke. “I’m so embarrassed,” was all she could muster.
“It’s okay,” Matt said. “You sound like a rock star with that voice. Like you’ve been partying all night. It’s kinda cool.”
She couldn’t help but smile. It was very nice of him to see the good in this horrifyingly shameful experience. And to be a rock star in his eyes, no less. She’d felt like a freak of nature. She slid back into the booth and waited for her new Diet Coke.
“I don’t know what happened. I guess I just breathed the wrong way.” I guess you just shocked me nearly to death when you told me we scored exactly the same on the quiz, she thought. Exactly the same.
“I’ve done that before. It was in a Chinese restaurant—beef with broccoli. The beef almost did me in.”
“Really?
“Yeah, you know how beef can sometimes get stuck together with one thin string of meat?”
She nodded even though she didn’t want to talk about choking anymore.
She hoped the sooner she got them off the topic of choking, the sooner he’d forget about Helga waving her around like a rag doll. She cleared her throat. “Let’s talk about the quiz.”
“Oh yeah. I showed it to Mr. Moore, who, by the way, loved it. He thought it was a really fun idea. And he scored dressed to dream.”
“Mr. Moore? Who woulda thought?”
Matt nodded. “I know. I mean, I never would’ve imagined that balding little Mr. Moore with his pencils in his front pocket has Jack Sparrow inside him—just waiting to swashbuckle.”
She laughed, and the laughing made her dry throat coarse. She began to cough. “What is swashbuckling, anyway?” she asked in between coughs.
He shrugged. “No clue. Just thought it sounded appropriate.”
“You know he recites lines from the movie in front of the mirror every night.”
Matt burst out laughing. “That’s a pretty funny thought.”
They joked about their journalism teacher a little more before Natalie retrieved a disk from her backpack.
“Here’s the costumes column.” A busboy set her Diet Coke on the table and Natalie thanked him. “And…I didn’t quite complete the…other…column…yet.” She explained, “I just, I don’t know. I couldn’t seem to come up with an answer to fit the question. I didn’t think it was fair to make something up.” Natalie shook her head. “Maybe you can come up with something better.”
She slid the disk across the table. He looked at the envelope, then back at her. He was quiet and she wondered if he was disappointed. She continued explaining. “But I just…this one was hard. It’s not that I don’t think I could ever come with an answer, but the right one just hasn’t hit me. If you want to tell Mr. Moore and he wants to give me a bad grade, fine. But I feel too weird giving this person advice when I don’t even know if it’s good advice.”
He nodded. “I understand. And I appreciate your honesty. It’s okay, Nat. I won’t tell Mr. Moore. I’ll tell him you’ve done a great job. And that’s the truth.” She sensed that he was a little disappointed that she hadn’t completed all her work. He was diligent and passionate about the newspaper and his writing. She hated to let him down, but in her heart she knew she was doing the right thing. “I guess it would be hard to find an answer for that one,” he mumbled.
“Then you understand?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
They talked about the paper a bit more. Then conversation drifted to topics that were non-school-related. Talking to Matt was almost like talking to Jo or Vincent. She had the right vibes with him. They saw eye to eye on almost everything. She would get so excited when he would share a similar like or dislike because some of the things he said were words taken from her own mouth. He liked to write too, which was a bonus because she didn’t know anyone else who shared the same passion.
“I just wrote a short story,” Matt said.
“That’s so cool. What’s it about?” She took a sip of her soda.
“It’s kind of scary. And it’s true.”
“Now I’m intrigued.”
“I wrote about how I was camping with my brother and my dad over the summer. We were fishing way out in the middle of nowhere and we decided to head back to our campsite kind of late. It was getting dark and there wasn’t a single solitary soul around. And we were walking along and there was this guy just sitting there on a rock. It was almost like he’d been watching us before we even saw him. It kind of gave me the creeps. You should’ve seen where we were. I’m talking pine trees taller than skyscrapers in every direction for miles and a windy trail at least five miles from the highway.”
The waitress came to check on them and Matt paused. Natalie felt a little freaked out already. “What happened?” she asked as soon as the waitress was gone.
“We started talking to him and he was nice. He said he was looking for his horse. He didn’t have a fishing pole or even a backpack. Instead, he carried this old-looking saddle. His clothes were Western style and they seemed old too. I’ve never seen anything like his cowboy hat or boots before. And then in the middle of our conversation we heard rustling in the bushes behind us, and when we turned to look, there were two deer.” He paused to pop a cheese fry in his mouth.
“That’s cool. It’s not often you see deer right next to you.” Natalie remembered the time she went to Jackson Hole with her family and they saw a moose standing right on the side of the road. It was so close she could’ve reached out and touched it. “So, what happened with the man?”
“Well, this is the freaky part,” Matt continued. “When we turned around, the man was gone. Nothing—no sign of him. We were really quiet and we didn’t even hear footsteps. He just vanished. And this is the scariest part of all. When we got back to camp, we told one of the guys who worked at the campground about it and he said horses aren’t allowed on those trails. He hadn’t seen a horse in more than twenty-five years.”
Chills ran up her spine. “You think you saw a ghost?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’d feel like a total nut telling most people that, but I swear even my dad, the most levelheaded person in the world, thought it was eerie.”
“That’s freaky, Matt. Really, that is scary.” She took the last sip of her drink and the last drops of liquid running up the straw sounded like a garbage disposal.
“I haven’t told many people about it, but I think I want to put the story in this issue of the paper.”
“It’s perfect for this issue of the paper! And what better story for Halloween? Even if I tried to imagine a story better than that I couldn’t. Why didn’t you tell Jeremy and me this story before?”
“I don’t know. Jeremy would probably laugh. And I didn’t want people to think I was crazy. It’s so weird, you know?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I totally believe you.”
He reached inside his backpack. “Will you read it for me? You have such a good eye for detail and I need an honest opinion.”
She was flattered. “Of course. I’d love to. As long as it doesn’t scare me to death. Is this going to keep me up all night?”
He shrugged and grinned mischievously. “It might.”
After the fries were finished, they headed out to the parking lot together and Natalie began to think about how each time she was with him she wished it would last a little longer. Then that horrible conflicted, guilty feeling sunk in, and she told herself that
maybe she shouldn’t have any more meetings with Matt. Really, it was probably best if she just stayed away from him.
“Nat?”
She swung her head around to face him.
“I just said your name twice and you didn’t even hear me.”
“Really? I just spaced out, I guess.”
“You realize that you did that last time we were here too?” The wind rustled tree branches behind him.
She remembered the incident in his car.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe I’m going deaf. Sorry.”
Maybe I’m going deaf? Where did she come up with these things? Sometimes she thought her mouth acted before her brain.
“What’s up with you these days, Nat? You don’t seem like yourself.”
“Really? I mean, nothing really. I just have a lot of homework. And with Jeremy’s birthday planning and the Halloween dance coming up I’ve been overwhelmed.”
“You sure you’re just overwhelmed? You seem, I don’t know, kinda sad or something.”
“Just overwhelmed.” She nodded. “I’m sure.”
A silence followed, and she sensed that he knew she was lying. Their eyes locked and something about the way he looked at her made her feel like she could spill. She just started talking. She couldn’t help it.
“Well, I guess things have been a little weird. I just feel so conflicted all the time, like I’m trying to make everyone else happy and I’m not doing what I really want to do. Do you ever feel that way?”
“Maybe a little with my parents. I mean, when my mom used to make me put on dorky Christmas sweaters for church on Christmas.”
He didn’t get it. There had been a moment when she thought he’d understand, but her problems went deeper than Christmas sweaters.
Then he changed his tune. “But no, I see what you’re saying,” he said. “When I was a freshman, my parents wanted me to take all these math classes. I think they were really hoping to prepare me for a different path. They went to MIT. It was sort of hard for them to understand that I hate that kind of stuff. I love writing and books. They even asked me what I was going to do with writing, as if writing was a really stupid career path.”
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