Crushing It

by Joanne Levy

  My stomach rolled over at the thought of doing that. It felt wrong to dupe Tyler that way: It was one thing to coach her on how to impress him, but this felt kind of dishonest. “I don’t know, Livvy.”

  “Please, Kat. I need your help. I can’t do this on my own.”

  I looked out the window down to where she was now sitting at the table and saw her wipe her eyes. Ugh. She was starting to cry. If Tyler came back from the bathroom and saw her crying, he was really going to think she was bonkers.

  Speaking of him, another text came in.

  Tyler: what would she be nervous about?

  How cute you are? How she wants to go to the dance with you and you’re not taking the hint?

  Kat: maybe you thinking she’s not smart.

  Tyler: She’s not dumb, she’s WEIRD.

  Kat: she’s trying to make you laugh, I bet. She’s very funny.

  Tyler: ok, better get back.

  “Livvy?” I said into the phone. “He’s coming back.”

  “He is?” she said, looking around. And then she added, “How do you know?”

  Oops.

  “I mean, I assume he is. How long can a guy spend in the bathroom?”

  “Right. Okay, hold on,” she said, and I watched as she fiddled with her earbuds and pulled her long hair forward. She slipped the phone into her back pocket behind her. “Can you hear me?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Okay, shhhh,” she said. “He’s coming back.”

  Duh, Livvy, he can’t hear me, I thought but didn’t say.

  Tyler sat down across from her, and even from where I was, I could see that things were weird between them; they were both very stiff and had pinched looks on their faces.

  “So,” Olivia said while I was still trying to figure out how to fix what she’d messed up. “How was the bathroom? Anything new in there?”

  What? Ugh, Livvy, I thought. Tyler just stared at her, and I seriously wondered if he was going to get up and leave.

  But even Olivia seemed to figure out how lame she was being, because she cringed and blurted out, “I mean, not that I need to know how it was—just . . . uh . . . making sure you . . .” She trailed off, and her face got really red. “So all those dragons got killed, huh?”

  I exhaled in relief. Okay, so I could help her from here, now that she’d gone back to talking about Knights at Sunrise.

  Tyler wasn’t on board yet, though. “What?”

  I whispered into my phone. “Tell him you just read the part about the battle at Reignbough where the dragons were all slain by Glengarry. Tell him you didn’t see it coming when Glengarry found Diana.”

  “Okay, right,” she said, answering me before she turned to Tyler. Jeez, Livvy. I shook my head. “So I just couldn’t believe that Glengarry killed all the dragons at Reignbough!”

  Tyler frowned. “But you said before that—”

  She waved a hand at him and smiled. “I was joking before. Of course I know the dragons didn’t really go into the rainbows.”

  “Tell him that was a metaphor for them dying,” I said into the phone, sort of proud of myself for coming up with something so clever.

  “I mean,” she said, making her face very serious, “them dying was very sad, but they went up to heaven. Like they flew through the rainbows to get to heaven. That’s what I meant before.”

  “Oh,” Tyler said, nodding and half smiling. “Yeah, sort of.”

  “But then,” Olivia said, leaning over the table and making her eyes wide, “when Glengarry got together with Diana—I totally did not see that ship coming. But they make such a great couple!”

  “No!” I hissed loudly into the phone, unable to stop myself. “Diana is the magic bow of the huntress! That’s what Glengarry used to slay the dragons—it’s not a girl! It’s a weapon!”

  I looked down at them and watched as all the color drained from her face. I felt so bad—maybe I should have been more specific about Diana being a bow, but she’d said she’d read the book, and if she’d just stayed on script . . .

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said quickly into the phone. “Just tell him that every great warrior needs a powerful weapon and that of course Diana was his, and the way the bow fit into his hands, it was almost like a relationship.” It was a stretch, but . . .

  She laughed, although it sounded pretty fake. “I’m kidding. Ha-ha! I mean, of course Diana is a bow, but—”

  “You’re right, though,” Tyler said, leaning over the table, suddenly looking excited. “After Imogen was kidnapped by Kendrake, Glengarry said he felt like he’d lost a part of himself, and when he found Diana in the cave, he said he felt strangely whole again. I love that you picked up on that. I’ve read the book so many times, but I never really looked at it that way. Wow, Olivia.” And then he smiled at her while he pushed his hair back off his forehead.

  Then the strangest feeling came over me. As I stared down at the two of them, I suddenly felt a little . . . mad. And sad at being left out.

  Then Tyler said, “I wish Kat was here; she loves talking about this stuff. I bet she’d love your take on Glengarry finding Diana too.”

  “No I wouldn’t,” I muttered.

  “No she wouldn’t,” Olivia repeated, as though I’d meant for her to. Tyler tilted his head and looked at her, but she didn’t seem to understand the funny expression on his face.

  “Anyway,” she said. “Kat’s not here. It’s just you and me.”

  “Right,” I said drily.

  Olivia cleared her throat. “Like I said, just you and me.”

  “I’m going to hang up, Livvy,” I said, suddenly not wanting to be involved in this anymore.

  “You can’t!” she said. Tyler must have given her a weird look, because then she started to stutter. “I-I mean . . . you can’t be done telling me about all the stuff you’re into. What’s the last movie you saw?”

  Tyler started talking about these new samurai movies he’d just gotten on DVD—ones that I actually hadn’t seen—and when I told Olivia in her ear that I couldn’t help her, she managed to get Tyler to offer to lend them to her.

  Something in my heart twisted at that; he hadn’t even offered them to me yet.

  I whispered in Olivia’s ear that I needed to go help my mom with the rest of dinner (mostly because I wanted to return the key back to Ms. Watkins before she came looking for me and blew my cover), so she told him she had to go home. I heard him say that they hadn’t even worked on the math assignment yet and that maybe they should get together again tomorrow after school too. He didn’t even sound upset about it.

  That’s when I knew that the plan was working even better than either she or I could have hoped.

  We were doing it: We were getting Tyler to like her. Project Ty-Livia was well on its way.

  Awesome.

  Chapter 7

  I WASN’T EVEN HALFWAY HOME when Olivia texted me to let me know she was leaving the school and asked if she could come over. I panicked, worried that her gazellelike legs would help her catch up with me and she’d figure out I hadn’t gone straight home from school. So I told her I was busy, but if she wanted to come over after dinner, that would be okay.

  Luckily, Dad wasn’t too late that night, so by the time Olivia knocked on the door, we were done eating. I’d just closed the dishwasher after loading it.

  I could tell by the way she was acting all jittery that she had news for me. I led her up to my bedroom and closed the door, but before I could even turn back around, Olivia had thrown her arms around me.

  “Thank you so much!” she said, squeezing me so tight I was worried she was squashing my organs.

  “Urgle . . . ,” I muttered. “Let me go, Livvy.”

  She did, so suddenly I almost fell over. “Oh, right! Sorry.” She grinned at me, bouncing on her toes. “I’m just so excited. It went really well, and we’re meeting again tomorrow!”

  “I heard.” I smiled at her because I couldn’t help it. She was obvious
ly really happy, and her excitement was contagious.

  “And don’t worry: You won’t have to help as much as you did today. I really do need help with that math assignment, so we can talk about that and then maybe he’ll ask me to the dance.”

  Wait. What? “What do you mean I won’t have to help as much?”

  She looked at me like I wasn’t speaking English. “Well. Because we won’t be talking about all that boring stuff, like the books and the movies.”

  “Right,” I said. “The boring stuff.” All the stuff Tyler likes. All the stuff I like.

  “But you’re going to have to still be on the phone with me. Obviously,” she said with a smile. Like maybe I wanted to do all this.

  “Livvy . . . I don’t think so.”

  Her face fell, and her eyes filled with tears. “But . . . but . . . what if he wants to talk about that stuff?”

  I sighed. “Fine. But you have to promise to read the books and watch the movies; he’s going to figure it out after a while if you don’t.” Plus, I didn’t want to be stuck doing this forever.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll read the boring books and watch the dumb movies this weekend. I just need your help tomorrow. I was so nervous he was going to want to keep talking about that stuff that I made my mom pick me up from school instead of letting him walk me home, which would have been way better. But I couldn’t risk it, you know? I wish there was a quick way to learn all these things! It’s going to take so long. . . .” She frowned and looked up at the ceiling, which I knew meant she was thinking. “Unless . . .”

  “What?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “Maybe you can make me a list of everything.”

  “Everything?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Yeah, you know, all the stuff about the books and movies and what he likes and doesn’t like.”

  “But I told you all that stuff. About Knights at Sunrise and Zombie Slashers and that his favorite food is hamburgers and—”

  “Hamburgers?” Olivia said. “I thought you said tacos.”

  “No. I would never say tacos, Livvy.”

  “See?” she said, her eyes getting glassy again. “This is why I need your help!”

  Without another word I grabbed a notebook out of my backpack and ripped out a blank page.

  “But make it small,” Olivia said. “So I can put it in my purse.”

  I stared at my cousin, biting my tongue because I was starting to feel a little crabby at everything she was making me do. I didn’t want to help her with all this stuff. I mean, if she couldn’t even remember details about him—important details—why should she get to go to the dance with him? I knew everything about him! Then again, that didn’t matter, because he’d never like me that way.

  She must have heard my angry thoughts, because she smiled at me and said, very sweetly, “Please.”

  I sighed. As much as I wanted to say no, I could tell that this really meant a lot to her. Plus, I was doing it for both my best friends, right? And kind of for me, too, because if I got them together, Tyler and I could go back to how we were before the summer, when things were easy and normal. It was a good plan for them to be together; they just needed (a lot of) help to make it happen.

  Just then I had an idea.

  “Wait here,” I said, leaving my room and heading down the hall to Laura’s. I knew I’d get in trouble for rooting around for something in her room, but I really hoped she wasn’t there, because she’d been extra snotty at dinner and I totally wasn’t in the mood. As soon as I knocked, I realized I wasn’t that lucky.

  “What?” she barked.

  “Can I come in?”

  She let out a huge sigh before she said I could.

  “What is it? I’m doing homework,” she said.

  She was sitting at her desk in front of her computer with a bunch of words on the screen. Maybe she actually was doing homework—she hadn’t played any video games since starting ninth grade this year, but I’d assumed that was because she was too busy with her new high school friends. Maybe school was more important for her this year. I wasn’t about to ask, especially since I was there for a reason and needed to get back to Olivia. Not that Laura ever wanted to talk to me anyway.

  “Do you have any of those little cards?” I asked.

  She made an eye-rolly face. “What little cards?”

  “The ones you used last year for your speech. Remember?”

  “Index cards?”

  That’s it! Index cards. I nodded.

  Her eyes narrowed at me. “Why?”

  Ugh. What did she even care? “Laura, I just need them, okay? Can I just have some, please?”

  “I’ll give them to you if you tell me what they’re for.”

  If I’d been smart and my sister hadn’t been completely staring me down, I would have just said it was for school, but instead I stumbled over my words and said, “For something I’m doing with Olivia.”

  She swiveled back and forth on her desk chair, making it squeak annoyingly. She was someone who thought everything was annoying these days, but somehow that didn’t seem to bother her.

  “What kind of something?”

  I was tired of all her questions, so I just broke down and told her the truth. “She likes Tyler and I’m writing down things about him for her.”

  Laura screwed up her face again. “Like cheat sheets about him?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “She’s not exactly his type, is she?”

  I shrugged again. I wasn’t going to say anything bad about her. “Can I have the cards now?”

  Laura rolled her eyes and then swiveled her chair all the way around so she could pull open her bottom desk drawer. She dug around for a bit and then pulled out a stack of cards secured with a rubber band. She held them out toward me, so I stepped deeper into her room to take them.

  But when I reached for them, she didn’t let go. I looked into her eyes.

  “Look,” she said. “She’s my cousin too, and of course I love her, but them together doesn’t make a lot of sense. Anyway, I always thought you had a crush on him.”

  I felt my face get hotter than the sun. “What? No! Of course I don’t,” I said automatically, tugging on the cards, but she wasn’t letting them go. “Can I have them, please?”

  She looked at me sideways. “Are you sure you don’t have a crush on him?”

  “I’m sure. Give me the cards, Laura!”

  “Why is your face so red?”

  “It is not! Give. Me. The. Cards!”

  Her eyebrows went up as she kept staring at me. I was just about to let go of the cards and run out of her room when she finally took her fingers away and swiveled away from me, back toward her computer.

  “Fine. Fool yourself but you don’t fool me.”

  Without another word I left her room. But I had to stop at the bathroom to calm down before I could face Olivia again.

  By the time we were done, I’d filled six of the cards—both front and back—with every single detail about Tyler: his favorite foods and drinks, his favorite sports teams, video games, color, season, and anything else I could possibly think of. Also on the cards were details about Knights at Sunrise (even though she promised she would read the book), Zombie Slashers, anime, and other random things he liked.

  “You sure do know a lot about him,” she said as she tucked the cards into her purse.

  I shrugged. “I know just as much about you.”

  “No you don’t,” she said. She didn’t sound mad or anything. Maybe she was right that I knew more about him, which was weird because she and I are cousins. And best friends. Best cousins.

  “I’ve known him practically my whole life. He’s almost like . . .”

  “A brother?”

  No. Definitely not a brother. “Maybe,” I said. Because I couldn’t explain to her why he wasn’t like a brother.

  I thought she was going to call me on it anyway, but she happened to glance at the clock, and jumped up when sh
e realized what time it was. “Uh-oh, my mom is probably downstairs in the car waiting for me. I’d better go. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” She gave me a quick hug before we left my room, and I walked her to the door.

  Chapter 8

  AFTER ANOTHER EPISODE OF KAT the Puppet Master, where I spoke into Olivia’s phone so she could impress Tyler with her (my) knowledge of all the things she (I) was into, I’d had about enough of Project Ty-Livia. In fact I was kind of tired of Olivia altogether, but we’d made plans for her to sleep over at my place that Friday because my aunt and uncle were going away for the night for their anniversary. So, after she rushed home after school to get her stuff, she showed up at my door.

  I let her in and led her into the kitchen for a snack, since there was no telling when Dad would get home for us to eat. But as we were rooting through the fridge, Mom came in and took pity on us.

  “Why don’t we just order pizza tonight?” she asked.

  “Really?” Mom almost never let us order pizza, even though it was my favorite.

  “Sure,” she said, nodding. “That okay with you, Livvy?”

  “That would be great. Thanks, Aunt Judy,” she said.

  I grabbed the pizza-place menu out of the cupboard and brought it over to the island, opening it up so we could decide what to get. After some minor arguing (I wanted pineapple; Olivia declared pineapple was a crime against pizza), we left Mom to order and went to the den to wait for it to be delivered.

  “So, I brought my makeup. Want to do makeovers?” Olivia asked as she dropped down onto the couch.

  Olivia had never been into makeup before, but suddenly, now that we were in seventh grade, she was all about her appearance. As far as I was concerned, makeup was only good for making fairy dust for a scavenger hunt. It sure couldn’t change a warthog into a gazelle.

  I shook my head. “I was thinking I could show you Zombie Slashers and teach you how to play.”

  “Gaming?” She made a face. “Really? Can’t we just find something on Netflix like we usually do?”

  I ignored the face and went over to grab the two controllers, handing her one as I sat down beside her. “No. And yes, really. This is Tyler’s favorite game.”