How (Not) to Find a Boyfriend

by Allyson Valentine

  “Yeah, I just saw him.”

  As we head to our table, I spot Adam in the sandwich line, where the Teapot is laughing as Tallulah, in cowboy boots and supremely short shorts, playfully lassoes Adam with her long, ropelike braid. Where’s a red-hot branding iron when you need one?

  When we reach our table, Jake is already there. I slide into a seat across from him, and Krista slips in beside me. I open my tub of yogurt, then push it away. How am I going to pull off the swap with Swordhands? I can’t eat. I can’t look Chelsey in the eye.

  Krista whispers, “You okay?”

  I nod. I am a liar. A rat. A snake.

  Chelsey dominates the conversation, griping relentlessly about her Hamlet paper. “I wanted to write about how different it would have been if they’d just given Hamlet Prozac, but Mr. Pawlosky was totally not into it.”

  Jake lightens things up with some jokes that are pretty funny despite the fact that they’re like the ones you’d find printed on a Popsicle stick. He tries a couple of times to lean in for a one-on-one conversation with me, but each time, we’re interrupted. First by Chelsey, who moves on from Hamlet to discuss the party she’s hosting after homecoming. Then Gillian goes on and on about how she’ll wear her hair. Becca and Jazmine pull out their phones and have a show-and-tell with pictures of the dresses they’re considering.

  Homecoming. It’s less than a month away. Last year, Krista went with Dex, and I went with a bunch of JV gymnastics girls. We danced in a group. We drank countless cups of punch. And we watched the Riverbend High glitterati flit across the dance floor. Even as juniors, Chelsey and her fellow Monarchs ruled the day. This year I want to be right there with them. Me and Adam. I will be dazzling in a dress that says, “I want you more than you could ever know,” and Adam will be heart-wrenchingly gorgeous in his tux. We’ll have our pictures taken beside the ice sculpture of a trout in a football helmet. The DJ will spin something slow and tender. Adam will cup my chin in his hand. Our eyes will meet and he will see the depth of my yearning.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he’ll say. He’ll pull me in close. His breath, sweet and warm, will mingle with mine as there, beneath the disco ball, we share our very first kiss. The first of many.

  I sigh, and smile dreamily at dust motes dancing in the air above my untouched yogurt. Something touches my foot. My eyes jerk into focus on Jake, who is across from the table absorbing my smile like there is weight to it. Oh my god. He thinks my smile was for him! Again, his foot caresses mine. His foot caresses MINE! He reaches across the table and, before I get what is happening, takes my small hand in his giant one. God, is it true that there is a correlation between the size of a guy’s hands and his—?

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about,” he says.

  Oh, crap! I freeze.

  “It’s about homecoming,” he says.

  Oh. Bigger pile of crap!

  Krista, despite the fact that she is turned away from me, fully engaged in a conversation with Becca, elbows me in the ribs. Meanwhile, Gillian puts the finishing touches on a hairstyle she’s testing out on Chelsey that involves braids and gel. Chelsey opens a makeup case and admires Gillian’s handiwork. “Yup,” she says. “This will be a homecoming we’ll never forget.”

  I try to swallow, but my throat has gone on strike. Nora, what is wrong with you? Going to the homecoming dance with Jake Londgren would have been a dream come true last year. Hell, it would have been a dream come true a little over a week ago.

  Despite the noise and activity, there is no way anyone can miss the hands commingling in the middle of the table.

  Brrriiing! I am literally saved by the bell.

  “I’m so sorry, but I really need to get to class.” I tug my hand away and scramble from the table like it’s a capsized boat and I must swim to shore before the sharks smell blood.

  “Um, sure.” Jake’s left bicep bulges as he pushes himself to standing.

  Oh, if only he had blatant dandruff or an oozy eye infection. It would be so much easier to reject him!

  “Later?” he says.

  I give him a panicked smile and run.

  “What’s the rush!” Krista chases after me. “Did you see that? Jake Londgren was holding your hand!”

  I stop and face her. “Did I see it? Uh, yeah. It was pretty hard to miss—seeing how it was my hand he was holding. Look, I’ve really got to go. I need to find a seat in my new history class.”

  “This is going to be the best homecoming ever!” Krista calls after me.

  AP US history. What was Adam thinking? What was I thinking? Numbers and scientific theories are my friends. We can chat for hours. In binary. But memorizing names and dates? What do I even remember from other history classes? As I jog down the hall, I move imaginary pom-poms through the air:

  Columbus sailed the ocean blue

  In fourteen hundred and ninety-two

  That’s all I know from history class

  This AP stuff will kick my ass

  The classroom is still half empty when I arrive. The teacher isn’t even here. I drop the transfer slip from Ms. Ostweiler onto Ms. Harrington’s desk and scan the room. People are either looking at their notes or talking to the person next to them. In the front row, one girl explains to another some details about a worksheet.

  Where will Adam sit? Are seats assigned? Even if they’re not, after a week of classes everyone has most likely slipped into a routine of sitting in the same place. I hover close to the sidewall, pretending to study a Bill of Rights poster, but subtly watch as people file into the classroom. When Adam sits down, I’ll zoom to the closest empty desk. Beside him, behind him, even in front of him will do. I just want to be close enough for random moments of idle chitchat. Maybe we’ll build up to note passing. Maybe someone will try to kick me out of “their” desk when I sit. Maybe Adam will tell them to get lost.

  Chairs fill up. I move from the Bill of Rights to a series of world maps where the country sizes are adjusted to show income, population and age of death. I saunter past a cheesy poster dotted with photographs. It’s a Periodic Table of the Loved and Admired, which is conveniently hung beside the Periodic Table of Dictators, Despots, and the Despised.

  Finally, Adam arrives. As he enters the classroom, a girl just ahead of him drops her planner. Adam stoops to pick it up, taps her shoulder and returns it. She gushes about how sweet he is. It’s a planner, for crying out loud! It’s not like he picked up her nasty, soiled handkerchief. And it’s not like she didn’t drop it on purpose. In response to her over-the-top praise, Adam swivels his chin in an it-was-nothing gesture. She grins like a baboon and wrinkles her nose at him. I roll up my sleeves—the competition in here is going to be fierce.

  I wish Adam would just sit down! Instead, he stops and says something to the girls still hovering over a worksheet in the front row. The three of them laugh.

  Come on, Adam, find a seat! The bell is about to ring, a final wave of people will rush in and there will be no chance of our sitting near each other. In the front row, one of the girls slides out of her desk and motions to it with her hand, and Adam settles in. What the huh? The girl sitting to Adam’s right flips her perfectly highlighted hair, allowing it to cascade halfway down her back.

  I want her seat! I want her hair!

  Okay, Nora. Move into action. Highlights is to Adam’s right. Some nondescript guy is to his left. The seat behind him is free. I move toward it. But then I notice that the flirt who just gave Adam her chair is messing with papers on the teacher’s desk like she owns the place. She’s alarmingly cute. Pointy chin. Bobbed blond hair. Excellent clothes. She picks up my transfer slip and shoves it to the other side of the desk. My transfer slip! Who does she think she is?

  “Excuse me.” I wave my arm. “Please don’t mess with that—it’s for the teacher.”

  The classroom sounds like a laugh track for a lame sitcom. People turn to see who made the hilarious joke—I am the only one who doesn’t get it.
Adam’s eyes connect with mine and he stops laughing. It’s a toss-up as to which of us looks more confused.

  The girl at the teacher’s desk smiles and glances at the transfer slip. “Nora Fulbright?”

  I cross my arms. “Yes.” I flash her a wanna-make-something-of-it look.

  “Kathleen Harrington,” she says. As in Ms. Harrington. As in the teacher. Oh, US historical crap! She must have gone to college when she was thirteen! “Come on up and let’s find you a place to sit,” she says.

  I join her at her desk. The bell rings. “Everyone, go ahead and pull out the worksheet you did over the weekend,” says Ms. Harrington. “I’ll just be a minute.” She pulls out a chart with rows and columns, lines and arrows, crisp lettering. There is a perfect little square labeled “Adam Hood.”

  “It’s a pretty full class,” says Ms. Harrington. I look back at the classroom, avoiding Adam’s gaze, and notice the desk right behind him is still empty. I point it out.

  “No, that seat is assigned, but the student who sits there is absent today.” She taps one of just two empty boxes on her seating chart. Both of them are in the last row, about as far from Adam as I could possibly be. What to do, what to do! I scratch my left foot with my right.

  “I’m not sure what I should do,” I say. “I have a really hard time seeing things unless I’m in the first couple of rows. How about if I sit there for today, and then tomorrow we can ask”—I peek at the seating chart—“we can ask Zeke Shinebock if he’d mind moving.”

  “Hmmm.” She scans the classroom. “Class? Nora needs to be close to the front. Could I impose on someone in the first few rows to switch to the back of the room?”

  It is a test of will to keep from rolling my eyes. Sure, I might get into the second row, but what if I’m all the way at the other side of the room? I look beseechingly at Highlights.

  In the end, it is Adam, of course, who leaps to his feet. “You can sit here, Nora.”

  “Thanks.” I groan under my breath—the sound of a plan backfiring.

  “No problem,” he says as he shuffles his papers into his courier bag. He smiles at me like he has just offered me his spot in a lifeboat. We pass close to each other as I make my way to his seat, and he heads to the back of the classroom. “How crazy that you’re in two of my classes,” he says, shaking his head. “What are the odds, right?”

  “Yeah. Crazy.” I cannot believe I am going on a date with Mitch for this. I plop into the chair that is still warm from Adam’s body, and that thought, his body heat warming mine, makes a lopsided wave roll through my abdomen. I reach into my bag for a notebook and see that I am still carrying around Dad’s chess book, with the bookmark poking out at Ben Franklin’s “On the Morals of Chess.” So much for foresight, circumspection and caution.

  Ms. Harrington suggests I get notes from another student for the days I missed, and gives me until Thursday to complete the worksheet the rest of the class is handing in today. Settled in, I glance around the classroom. Geoff, the mascot, sees me and waves. He’s a pretty sweet guy. He practices with the cheerleaders once a week and he’s like everybody’s favorite teddy bear. He’s wearing his home jersey from last year, from before he got injured and switched to a fish suit instead of shoulder pads. I was so fixated on sitting with Adam, I didn’t notice him. Or that he’s sitting with a couple of the Cabbage Whites. Vanessa smiles. Simone nods. I nod back.

  Huh. So Vanessa and I are not the only cheerleaders taking AP classes. But Vanessa is the only cheerleader Chelsey makes life difficult for. So is it not just about the fact that Vanessa takes AP classes? Is Chelsey’s problem that she takes AP classes and she’s a lame cheerleader?

  I make a mental note to suggest to Vanessa that she blame the AP classes on her mother. And who knows? Maybe I could help her with some cheer technique.

  After fifty-five minutes of lecturing, Ms. Harrington says, “All right. Let’s chat a little bit about your biography projects.” There is a bowl on the table behind her desk filled with names of characters from early American history. Each of us is to pick one. For the next three weeks we’re to learn everything about that character and prepare a presentation that accurately demonstrates that character’s attitudes, attributes and interests. Then we’ll have debates in which we’ll dress as our characters and argue everything from abortion to zoology as though we really were that person.

  She points out a row of biographies and autobiographies lined up on a shelf by the door. “After you choose your character, you’re welcome to take one of these books or visit the library to find source material to get you started.”

  Someone complains about having to choose a character from the bowl. Ms. Harrington explains that last year she had eleven Thomas Jeffersons, which got a little boring during the debates. She fields a few more questions about the biography project.

  Highlights kicks my foot. “He’s going to notice if you keep staring at him,” she whispers.

  “What?”

  “Come on, it’s obvious. You’ve totally got it for Adam. I know that’s why you wanted to sit up front.”

  “No. It’s because I have a hard time seeing.”

  She looks at me incredulously. “You seem to have a pretty easy time seeing the back of the classroom.”

  I squirm in my seat.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not after him,” she says. “I’ve already got a boyfriend.” She takes a quick glance over her shoulder. “I can see why you like him. He’s nice. He’s cute. And really smart. I heard a rumor that he already has, like, twenty credits toward medical school and spends his summers dissecting monkey brains searching for a cure for cancer. Did you know he performed CPR on some girl who had a heart attack in the commons?”

  Ms. Harrington claps. “Okay, so come on up and pick your biography character.”

  People race to the bowl at the front of the room. It’s like a piñata has burst and everyone is battling for the best candy. Adam somehow gets there ahead of me. He closes his eyes and fishes around in the bowl. I hurry to get next to him, and when I arrive, he holds out his open hand, with two folded slips of paper.

  “I took the liberty of grabbing one for you,” he says, with a smile that’s pushed a bit off to the side.

  I take one from him. “Thanks.”

  He looks intently at my left eye, and then at my right. “I hate to bring it up, but if you have trouble with your eyes, that could explain why you almost ran into that guy in your car. Have you thought about glasses?”

  Highlights reaches into the bowl. “Glasses. There’s a concept.”

  “Well, I’m glad I was in the front row so I could give you my seat,” Adam says.

  I swallow my disappointment.

  “Let’s see who we picked.” Adam unfolds his paper and smiles. Not at me, at the paper, but close enough. “George Washington.”

  George Washington. I think of the chess pieces sitting on their black and white squares back at the house where the king is a little statue of George Washington. I can so picture me as Martha Washington and Adam as George, debating the ethical use of slaves as spies during the Revolutionary War. Wait—at least I think they had spies. Did they have slaves? Or was that just the Civil War? This class is going to kill me.

  “Adam, the first man, gets to be George, the first president,” I say. “From fig leaf to powdered wig.”

  He laughs. “Let’s see who you got.” He moves in closer. I’m acutely aware of the sound of his breath. The warmth of his proximity. The fact that he towers over me, making me feel delicate more than short. I fumble with the paper. Please be Martha Washington. Please be Martha Washington. On the day we do our presentations, I would look so cute in a Martha Washington dress. I unfold the paper. We read the name together. My shoulders sag.

  Adam grins. “It’s not so bad. Benedict Arnold was a really good guy. Until he messed everything up.” Adam’s smile is easy and relaxed. I could swear his dimple winks at me. This is why I am so insanely into him—moments like now, wh
en conversation flows and I feel like we are, cliché as it sounds, made for each other. When he sees me as the girl he met that first day, not a ditzy cheerleader. But the moment doesn’t last.

  Geoff snatches the piece of paper out of my hand. He barks out a laugh. “Nice! You get to be the bad guy. Check it out.” He hands me his slip of paper. Geoff will be Martha Washington. Sigh.

  “Sweet, huh!” he says.

  I force a smile. “Sweet.”

  He laughs, starts to walk away, then stops. “Oh, by the way,” he says. “Jake was looking for you. He wants to ask you something.” Then, Geoff turns his back to us, wraps his arms around himself so that his hands grip his own upper back and makes loud face-sucking sounds. “Oh, Jake,” he moans, in his best Nora Fulbright voice.

  Vanessa and Simone, who have joined us, crack up. Simone, wearing a CHEERLEADING IS MY LIFE T-shirt, squeezes between me and Adam and drapes her arm over my shoulder. Her fingernails still alternate purple and gold from the mani-pedi convention the day before school started. “Isn’t Geoff funny?” she exclaims, looking from me to Adam.

  My face is on fire.

  “Hysterical,” says Adam. And with his hands buried deep in his front pockets, he moves toward the books and away from me and my fellow cheerleaders.

  I want to hit Simone! And strangle Geoff. I’m finally having a semi-normal conversation with Adam and they come along to remind him: Nora is a lame-o cheerleader who only hangs out with other lame-o cheerleaders and jocks. Worse, between Jake’s thundering on the car roof, his massive presence in the pizza line, and now Geoff’s improv Nora-Jake make-out session, Adam probably thinks that I not only hang out with jocks—I’m dumb enough to be in love with one.

  My stress attack is interrupted when Ms. Harrington calls out, “It looks like everyone’s gotten a name. So, on your own, you’ll get to know your characters—their background, their ethics, their morality. Then, in class, we’ll work with a partner to come up with a set of debate topics that’ll allow your character to really stand up for what he or she believes in. So while you’re still out of your seats, take a minute now to choose partners.”