The Boy Problem

by Kami Kinard

  So now I have until tomorrow to A) convince Mom to buy baking supplies and let me mess up the kitchen and B) come up with something better than cupcakes to do our probability project on.

  * * *

  My prediction: Our project is going to stink!

  Got through the whole day without seeing Malcolm. I’m DYING to explain why I wasn’t there Sunday, but

  Why didn’t we exchange phone numbers? Then I could let him know why I didn’t show up from the safe distance of my cell!

  As soon as I got home I attacked my cheek with Clearasil. Then I called Kara to tell her about the algebra disaster.

  Me: I got the worst partner for my algebra project.

  Kara: Who? Not Maybelline; she took it last year with me.

  Me: Worse.

  Kara: No one’s worse than Maybelline.

  Me: At least she’s cool.

  Kara: You mean at least she thinks she’s cool. So who do you have for your partner? Not James? That’d be awkward.

  Me: I’d prefer awkward to what I got.

  Kara: Who is it already? Spill.

  Me: Priyanka Gupta.

  There was a long pause, like Kara was trying to think of what to say.

  Kara: What’s wrong with her? She seems nice.

  Me: Hmmmm. I guess. But she wants to use our probability project to predict the most popular flavor of cupcake.

  Kara: Chocolate.

  Me: I know, right? I told her that. So what’s the point predicting something everyone already knows?

  Kara: Don’t worry too much, Tabs — she’s really nice. I’m sure you can talk her out of it.

  Me: Got any ideas? She’s coming over tomorrow to bake cupcakes and talk about it.

  Kara (laughing): Well, you could always try to predict which flavor soil earthworms like best.

  Me: Ha. Didn’t that project already fail for you?

  Kara: It was an F-plus! (laughs) But it was for a different teacher, anyway.

  Me: Well, thanks for the suggestion, but I’ll try to come up with my own idea.

  Kara: If I think of anything, I’ll call you.

  Me: Good. Do that. I’ll be waiting for your call.

  Still waiting for Kara’s call.

  The good news is that my cheek looks almost normal today. Almost.

  It still has a spot on it as red as a bull’s-eye. But at least the spot is like the plains instead of the mountains. I mean, today the concealer actually concealed it … almost. So I put extra makeup on, including mascara to draw attention to my eyes, and lip gloss to draw attention to my lips, hoping that all the attention my eyes and lips will get means the shrinking spot on my cheek will be ignored.

  I came to school with a three-point mission.

  Seek Malcolm out.

  Explain why I wasn’t there Sunday.

  Arrange another skate-park “date.”

  Unfortunately, I only accomplished one of those points. I absolutely positively couldn’t wait until band to talk to Malcolm, so I walked around campus trying to find him before the first bell.

  I found him, all right. Leaning against a locker with his arm around The Vine!

  Kara and I call Gina Johns The Vine because she’s always clinging to some guy. This time, she was clinging to the guy I had predicted would be Mr. Right. My Mr. Right. Suddenly everything seemed wrong.

  Was Malcolm dating The Vine? If so, how long had they been going out? Before he asked me out? Since yesterday? I didn’t know. And I didn’t really want to find out.

  I abandoned my three-point mission and texted Kara while hurrying off to class.

  Me: Malcolm was w/The Vine!

  Kara: As in?

  Me: Leaning on locker, embracing

  Kara:

  Me: Should I tell him bout Sun?

  Kara: No. Blow him off

  Me:

  Kara: Yr only choice

  Me: I dread band

  Kara: It will b okay

  This time, I hope Kara is right.

  My prediction: When baking cupcakes with Priyanka is the only thing you have to look forward to, it’s going to be a rotten day.

  Managed to get through band without looking at, talking to, or otherwise interacting with Malcolm. That’s what he gets! But still it makes me sad.

  The cupcake-baking session didn’t go as badly as I expected, although at first it was a little awkward. When I opened the door for her, Priyanka was her usual bouncy self, wearing a bright yellow shirt that said Make Cupcakes, Not War.

  “Hi, Tabs!” she said.

  I cringed inwardly. I mean, Tabs is what Kara calls me, but no one else. I didn’t think I could handle being called Tabs by Priyanka. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I ended up going with the brutal truth.

  “Um, no one calls me Tabs but Kara. It’s kind of a best-friend nickname,” I explained as nicely as I could.

  Priyanka’s smile dimmed the tiniest bit, but it was still bright as day. “Okay, Tabbi,” she said. “But you can call me Pri. It’s what my friends call me.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her we were project partners, not friends. The brutal truth can only rear its head so often.

  “Great,” I said, showing her into the kitchen.

  Mom surprised me by enthusiastically agreeing to let us use her spotless kitchen to bake. She set out big bowls, wooden spoons, measuring cups and the mixer, along with flour, sugar, salt, vanilla, and butter. She’d even printed out a recipe for us to try.

  I handed it to Pri. She looked at it and wrinkled her nose. “It’s plain vanilla.”

  “I know. Supposedly, it’s hard to mess up plain vanilla.”

  “Well,” said Pri, “let’s start with this recipe, then add a little of this and a little of that. It’s what makes baking fun … you know … not being able to predict exactly how something will turn out.”

  “I thought the whole point of this project was to predict exactly how something will turn out.”

  Pri shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Sure, but that’s a boring way to bake, and since we’re baking for inspiration, let’s just tweak when the inspiration hits!”

  “Okay …” I said. “But you’ll have to do most of the tweaking. I haven’t baked much before.”

  “Poor Tabbi,” said Pri, patting my shoulder. Her big brown-black eyes were full of pity.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  Pri’s huge smile reappeared. Her eyes twinkled. “Ha-ha-ha! I was kidding. But you’ve been missing out on all of the fun!”

  So we got busy making the batter. Then Pri added an extra half teaspoon of vanilla to the bowl. No big deal, I know. But after we poured the golden batter into the cupcake liners, she did something far less predictable. She grabbed a bag of snack-sized Oreos and shoved one right down into the batter of each cupcake!

  “We’ll call this recipe Oreo Surprise,” she said. “Wait. No. That name would ruin the effect.”

  I had to laugh. Pri can be really funny! And she was right about one thing: I had been missing out on all of the fun.

  Here’s what one of the cupcakes we made looked like when we finished:

  It tasted as good as it looked!

  But here’s what Mom looked like when we she saw the kitchen:

  I guess we shouldn’t have left those batter-covered dishes in the sink.

  I’m sure when Mom cools down, sees how great I cleaned the kitchen, and tastes the Oreo Surprise cupcakes, she’ll get over the mess.

  Mom is not over the mess. When I asked if Pri could come over again tomorrow she said NO without even letting me get the whole sentence out of my mouth. Obviously she hasn’t tasted those delicious cupcakes yet.

  She was in such a bad mood that I came up here early. Being around Mom was bringing me DOWN!

  Anyway, despite Malcolm dumping me before we could even go out, Mom being in a rotten mood, and Pri and me still not having a probability project, I’m in a strangely good mood! Maybe it has something to do with having that yummy smell
back in the house.

  I flipped open my algebra notebook, hoping a project idea would leap off of the pages and into my brain. And that’s kinda what happened when I read this sentence:

  When Mr. Gheary told us this, he explained how some companies use probability to improve business. They study the buying patterns of people, and then use the data to predict which products will lead to increased sales.

  Well, I don’t need to increase sales. I need to increase my chances of finding a boyfriend. But … what if instead of studying consumer buying patterns, I studied teen dating patterns? If I did that, I could use the collected data to increase my chances of finding a boyfriend! Why can’t we do our probability project on something like that? Hey — it worked for Kara last year. She basically used a science project to find Chip! I could use a probability project to solve my boy problem!

  I started wondering … what kinds of things can a girl do to increase her probability of finding a boyfriend? Would wearing more makeup help? It seems to work for Maybelline. Does getting in touch with him through texting or Faceplace help? Do your chances of finding a boyfriend increase if you act a certain way?

  I don’t even have time to write down all of the questions crowding into my head. It’s too late. The sky is like black velvet now, providing a perfect background for the hopeful light of the stars to twinkle against. If I leave my bedroom curtains open, maybe one of them will shoot across the blackness, and I can make a wish on it before I fall asleep.

  In an effort to cheer me up, Kara showed up at school with her own (lame) version of the love-predictor cootie catcher.

  It had these serious statements on it, like “Your crush looks deeply into your eyes when he talks to you,” and “Your crush doesn’t mind when you spend time with your friends,” and “Your crush is kind to his mother.”

  Seriously? I’m having a hard time just meeting guys, never mind meeting their moms to see how they’re treated!

  “The problem with yours, Tabs, was that your choices were superficial,” Kara explained. “You can’t base a relationship on someone’s eye color.”

  “I wasn’t basing a relationship on that; I was using eye and hair color to make a prediction!”

  She gave me that look. The one that said same thing. Then she held out her cootie catcher toward me. “Go ahead,” she said. “TRY it.”

  I tried it. Kara wrote down my results and handed them to me:

  I looked at the piece of paper in my hand. “How am I supposed to find this guy, huh? Nothing here gives me a clue as to what he might look like.”

  “That’s the whole point!” said Kara. “You have to get to know someone before you can tell if this prediction is true or not. But if you find a guy like that, he’s a keeper.”

  “This guy sounds a lot like Chip.”

  Kara swatted my arm with her duct-tape handbag. “Don’t even think about it!”

  Because we’re BFFs, I didn’t tell her not to worry. There’s not a chance that I’d ever think about Chip as a potential boyfriend. He’s nice but too goofy! LOL!

  We had a sub last period, so I sat in Maybelline’s usual seat behind Kara. (Maybelline moved next to Alex B, of course.)

  I showed Kara the notes I made last night for a boyfriend probability project.

  “I like the way you’re thinking!” she said. “You might discover that something totally within your control, like sending a text, can seriously increase your chances.”

  I nodded, hoping it really would work that way. “Should I try to get more information by doing some sort of survey like you did last year?”

  “Sure. Why not?” said Kara. So we started making up a survey to post to Faceplace, instead of reading about photosynthesis.

  I can’t wait to see how girls answer! Kara said she’d show me how to upload the survey to Faceplace this weekend. This will make an awesome probability project! I was so excited, I sent Pri a text:

  Me: Have great idea 4 prob proj

  Pri: ??????

  Me: Boys!

  Pri: ???

  Me: I’ll explain later

  Pri: Let’s bake together again, then decide

  Me: Okay

  Hmmm. Maybe Pri is trying to stall me — like I was trying to stall her. I’m sure when I explain how awesome this can be, she’ll get excited about it, though, like she does about everything!

  Just when I had a plan to forget Malcolm and move on with my probability prediction, he called me over to him during band. He was tapping his drumstick casually on the snares. My heart was tapping, not so casually, in my chest. “Where were you Sunday?” he asked.

  I couldn’t believe it. Maybe I should’ve explained where I was, but his question caught me off guard. Instead, I blurted out, “When I saw you in the hall with Gina, it didn’t look like you missed me on Sunday.”

  He smiled. His smile was really nice. Nice and mysterious. His green eyes peeped at me from beneath his hang-bang. I felt a rush of excitement. Maybe The Vine was his cousin or something! Maybe he was being a supportive family member. Maybe there was still a chance that he was the one! Maybe my boy problem was about to be solved.

  But then he said, “Well, she was there Sunday and you weren’t.” What, exactly, did that mean? If I had been there, would his arm have been draped over my shoulders instead of The Vine’s? Is that all that relationships boil down to — being in the right place at the right time? I was too stunned to reply.

  I started backing away toward my seat, but my heel caught the feet of the cymbal stand. I had a slow-motion moment.

  The cymbal made this obnoxious clattering noise as it fell over next to me on the floor. Like the universe clanging out a warning: He’s not the one! He’s not the one!

  To his credit, I guess, Malcolm offered a hand to help me up. But I was so mad, and so embarrassed, that I just glared at him and helped myself up.

  My head was reeling. And the silence in the room seemed to amplify this. It was a very loud silence, if you know what I mean — except for the ringing of the cymbal bouncing from the walls, signaling everyone to LOOOOOOOOOK AT TAB-IIIIIIIII-THAAAAAAA!!!!

  As for me, I didn’t look at anyone. I couldn’t bear for my eyes to see any smirking smiles or even sympathy. Plus, I was kinda afraid I’d start crying, because falling flat on your butt on the band room floor REALLY HURTS!

  So I held my head up high and strolled back to the flute section like nothing happened. But why does the flute section have to be all the way at the front of the class?

  When my face cooled off and my heart stopped racing, I asked for a restroom pass, which I used to escape into this closet-like practice room. I think I’ll wait until after the dismissal bell to leave … less chance of having to face Malcolm again!

  * * *

  My prediction: The Vine and Malcolm will only last as long as she doesn’t let him go to the skate park without her.

  It seems like the sky is the world’s largest mood ring and it’s currently displaying my mood to the entire world. Dark gray clouds are traveling across its light gray surface, and not a speck of sun is showing encouraging light. Mr. G said this was because the storm of the millennium was about to hit the United States.

  But he quickly clarified that it looked like the wind and rain were booking it to New England, so it probably wouldn’t affect us much since we’re basically a twelve-hour drive from there. In other words, I can’t count on school being canceled tomorrow, so I need to go ahead and do my algebra homework! Phooey.

  My day went from crush-dissing, cymbal-crashing, falling-on-butt bad to truly horrible. So horrible that I don’t even care anymore about the crush-dissing, cymbal-crashing, falling-on-butt day I had. So horrible that it made me realize I’ve spent WAY too much time worrying about things that really don’t matter.

  I realized this almost as soon as Mom came tearing into the house like she was the storm of the millennium. She flung her keys and laptop bag to the floor, then raced around looking frantic. When she started hur
ling sofa cushions across the room, I knew something was seriously wrong.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Looking for the dang remote! Why can’t you ever put it back where it belongs?” (When she said ever, she threw a pillow all the way into the dining room. I don’t think that’s why they’re called throw pillows.)

  I started looking around. I tried to remember who’d watched TV last so I could decide whether to blame Mom or slink out of the room. Then I noticed Mom’s tear-filled eyes. That scared me. I’d seen her cry a couple of times — when she and Dad were splitting up, and when our cat got hit by a pickup truck — but I’d never seen her cry over something dumb like a remote.

  I walked over and put my arm around her. “Why is the remote so important?”

  “Because of Uncle Mike.”

  “He’s on TV?” That was kind of exciting! I could see why Mom wanted to see her brother on TV, but not why she was so upset about it.

  Mom shook her head. “I hope he’s not on TV. I hope he’s safe at home. I mean not home. I hope he’s not at home, but that he’s safe.”

  She wasn’t making sense. I led her toward the recliner. Then I turned on the TV the hard way — with my finger! The screen flickered awake. “What channel?”

  “The Weather Channel,” said Mom.

  I pushed the CHANNEL button about forty times until I got down to channel eighteen. A man in a raincoat appeared. He was taking a real rain-and-wind beating. Mom scooted to the edge of her seat.

  “Mom, what’s going on?” I asked.

  “Shhhhhh.”

  Raincoat guy was reporting from a small town in New England. The one right next to the town where Mom grew up. I recognized the name because we pass through there every single summer on our way to visit Uncle Mike. He’s my mom’s only family.