How (Not) to Find a Boyfriend

by Allyson Valentine

  Krista smirks at me.

  “What?”

  “Nora Fulbright, a chess geek,” she says. “The things you learn about a person when they come out of their cocoon.” She hooks her arm through mine and we run upstairs to the gym for one of the best practices ever.

  Afterward, I’m cold and wet, stuffing my gear bag into the backseat of my car when I spot someone in a purple rain poncho waving like mad from over by the after-school activity buses. The Teapot. She motions urgently for me to join her.

  I brave the monsoon and jog over.

  “How are you doin’?” she asks.

  I swipe rivulets of water from my eyes. “Wet. Very wet.”

  She replies in a theatrical voice quoting Portia from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, “The quality of mercy is not strained / It droppeth as the gentle rain.” She gives me a big, warm smile. Beneath her poncho hood, raindrops dot her cheeks like wet freckles.

  “You raced off before we ever got to shake our booties on the dance floor,” she says. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  I shrug. “Okay enough.”

  A bus roars into the circle. “Oh, shoot,” says the Teapot. “I’d like to chat more, but I’ve got to make my bus.”

  Around us, people jockey into position competing to be first onto the bus. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind missing it, but Tallulah’s waiting for me.” The Teapot holds up a bottle of glue. “She’s trying to make a collage with pictures of her in all her favorite roles for her new boyfriend, but she ran out of glue.”

  My heart attempts a standing double front somersault. “New boyfriend? But what about Adam?”

  The Teapot waves a dismissive hand. “Goodness, no. That little crush has been over for”—she checks the yellow smiley-face watch strapped to her wrist—“four hours. At lunch, right between nibblin’ her sandwich and chewin’ her carrot sticks, Tallulah got a drop-dead romantic text from a guy she met at her cousin’s wedding.”

  I blink. Twice. Everyone but the Teapot has boarded the bus. The driver revs his engine. She turns and shouts, “Hold your horses!” Then to me she says, “I love Tallulah and all, but if you ask me, Adam could do better than trying to play Romeo to her particular brand of Juliet.”

  “They never seemed like a perfect match,” I offer.

  She nods vigorously, causing raindrops to fly off her hood as she climbs aboard the bus. She pauses on the first step and turns back to face me. “Hey! Speaking of matches, there’s a chess match coming up. Little Nate is playing. So is Adam. Maybe y’all should bring your pom-poms and cheer on your favorite player?” Her wide eyes, lifted eyebrows and pursed lips speak volumes. She totally knows I’ve got it bad for Adam Hood. She gives me a frilly wave and says, “Ta ta!” as the bus driver shuts the door.

  I match her wave and call out, “Ta ta,” though I know she can’t hear me.

  I’m freezing. My clothes are soaked. My sneakers are wet through. But I feel great!

  Back at my car, I climb in and listen to rain pattering on the metal roof. There is no way that I would ever show up at a chess tournament in my cheer uniform and cheer on my favorite player. It would send completely the wrong message. But if my favorite player were to see me hunkered down at a chessboard annihilating the competition? What would he think of me then?

  Hmmmm.

  Seventeen

  TUESDAY AT LUNCH, IN HIS striped shirt, Eric is easy to spot in the burger line. Before approaching him I sneak a glance at his usual table. There are only a couple of empty seats. Adam is already there with the Teapot on one side of him and Little Nate on the other. Tallulah is nowhere to be seen.

  “Hey, got a second?” I ask Eric.

  He looks left, then right. “Me?”

  “You. Can we talk? Over by the tree?”

  “Talk? By the hippie tree?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Umm. Okay. Sure. I’ll see you over there.”

  I walk as invisibly as possible to the tree growing by the art wing stairs. All the kids stuck in the 1970s congregate here. A guy with a long braid, scruffy facial hair and tie-dyed yoga pants juggles beanbags. A girl in waif attire picks at a guitar. The air is thick with patchouli. No one would think of looking for either me or Eric over here.

  Eric arrives balancing a tray with a burger, fries, a chocolate milk and nine little bowls of ketchup. We sit on the low concrete wall that circles the tree. I jump up and grab a chair for him to set his tray on.

  “So, what’s up?” he asks. “Need help with a chess puzzle?”

  “A chess puzzle? You could say that.”

  He dowses his burger with three of the ketchups. “Seriously?”

  “The puzzle is that I want to play in the chess tournament posted down on the student activity board, but there are no slots left.”

  He lifts the burger but doesn’t take a bite. “Wait. You want to play in a chess tournament? I don’t know when the last time was that you played in an actual tournament, but these days you’re not allowed to knock over your chair and quit halfway through a game.”

  My face warms. “I got stressed out that night at Chess Kings. I didn’t think I wanted to play chess again, but things have changed. I want to get back into it—to make it all the way through a competitive game. May I?” I gesture toward his fries.

  “Sure.”

  I sweep a fry through some ketchup and pop it into my mouth. “Look, there are two weeks till the tournament. I know a lot of people on that sign-up sheet have played forever, but if I play nonstop between now and then, I think I’ll be able to hold my own. I was actually a pretty good player when I stopped.”

  “Pretty good?”

  “Excellent, actually.”

  Eric takes a bite of his burger, then chews, nodding thoughtfully. “Why’d you quit?”

  I look up, into the tree. It’s amazingly healthy for something that’s being forced to live totally outside of its element. “Look, I don’t really want to get into it. But I know I could get up to speed enough to at least make it through the first round.”

  Eric dunks a fry into ketchup as he considers. “You could sign up to be an alternate. If anyone drops, you take their place.”

  I shake my head. “Not good enough. I want to be in the tournament. It means a lot to me.”

  His eyes wander to the guy in a chain-mail shirt giving a shoulder rub to a girl in a velvet cape. “You’d need to persuade someone to drop.”

  I pull from my book bag the packet of red licorice twists I picked up this morning at the school store and place it beside his spent ketchup bowls.

  He laughs, then his face goes blank. “Wait. You want me to drop?”

  I nod, my confidence waning. I tighten my lips, trying hard not to show it.

  “That’s nuts. I’m the top seed,” says Eric. “And no offense, you may be a cheerleader and all, but in the chess club, you’re a nobody. I can’t just swap places with you.”

  The word swap clangs around inside my head, bruising my sensibility. No more swapping. NO MORE SWAPPING! No more dates, for me or anyone else. Unless—is it possible to do a trade where everyone truly wins?

  Nearby, an iPod cranks out a tinny mix of Grateful Dead tunes. I make my pitch. “If you help me by giving me your spot in the tournament,” I say, “maybe there’s something I could do to help you. Maybe I could, I don’t know, coach the kids at Chess Kings and give you a night off.”

  Eric picks up the packet of licorice and examines it. He taps his foot rapid-fire on the floor. His cheeks puff up trumpet-player style and he blows out a breath. “Okay, yeah. There’s something I want, and maybe since you’re a cheerleader, you could make it happen.” He licks his lips, looks at his tray, then rubs his fingers over his mouth as he tells me what he wants. “I, uh, mmrph mivveph mmt.”

  I lean in to better hear him. “What?”

  “I, uh, I would—” He speeds up the end of his sentence so I can barely make out what he’s saying. “I want to be the mascot at a football gam
e.”

  Who would have thunk it? “Seriously?”

  An eruption of sweat leaves Eric’s face clammy. “Yeah. Okay, never mind. It was stupid.”

  “No! It isn’t stupid. You would make a terrific mascot. Look at how you cheer on all the kids at Chess Kings. They love you. You make them feel really special. Really smart.”

  Patches of pink bloom on his cheeks.

  “You would be awesome,” I say. “I just need a second to think about how I could possibly make this work.”

  I gaze up into the branches of the tree as I give the situation a little foresight and circumspection. I’d need to get Geoff to buy in, which will no doubt require another trade. Eric probably needs to sign some kind of liability form saying that if he bends, folds or mutilates himself while running around in a fish suit the school is not liable. And what about caution? Is there any potential for disaster? If I can even get through the first round of the tournament, I have to believe that Adam would regain some respect for me. If I get trounced, I will only confirm what he already believes—that Nora Fulbright is a freak show. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  I stand and brush dust off the back of my skirt. “Let me see what I can do. So just to make sure we’re both clear—if I can get you a gig as the mascot at one of our football games, you’ll see to it that I get your slot at the chess tournament?”

  “Yes,” he says. I follow his gaze to his usual lunch table. Little Nate is thumb-wrestling the Teapot. Adam, his elbow on the table, his head resting in his hand, is reading a book.

  “The chess club guys are not going to like this,” says Eric.

  “Don’t be so sure. For the first and only time, someone other than you gets a shot at winning, right?”

  His head does a little bobble-head thing. His smile broadens. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe. Although Adam—he’s got a shot at top dog even if I play. The guy is pretty amazing.”

  We both glance over at Adam. He’s amazing, all right.

  “One more thing,” I say. “Can we keep this between us? I don’t want anyone to know until the day of the tournament.”

  He pops one last fry into his mouth and wipes a little dab of ketchup from his lip. “You’re crazy, you know.”

  “Perhaps I am. But crazy or not, I’ve got to go. I need to go see a man about a fish suit.”

  From the hippie tree I head toward the football section of the commons.

  “Nora!” Krista, sitting beside Dex, waves me over. Across from them, Chelsey uses a plastic knife to cut the crusts off a sandwich. Fluffy feeds the crusts to Jake, who quacks like a duck. I join them and Krista offers me some smoothie. “Strawberry banana,” she says, and points to an empty chair. “Why don’t you sit?”

  I inhale some smoothie. “No time. I’m on a mission.”

  Krista’s jaw tightens. “Please—don’t tell me you’re going through with this chess thing.” I revealed my plan to her last night over the phone.

  “Chess thing?” asks Dex.

  “Don’t ask,” mumbles Krista.

  “Totally going through with it.” I scope out the neighboring tables. “I need to talk to Geoff.”

  “The fish?” asks Dex. “He’s right over there.”

  “Don’t help her,” says Krista.

  I take another sip of smoothie and hand Krista her cup. “See you guys later.”

  “Nora! Do not do something you’ll regret later.” Krista jumps to her feet.

  I beeline for Geoff’s table.

  “Good luck,” Dex calls. I turn and wave as Krista hits him on the head with her notebook.

  Geoff is at a table with the Riverbend High defensive line. He crams a wad of sandwich wrappings into a brown paper bag as I reach his table.

  “Hi, guys.” I receive a half-dozen grunted variations of hello in response.

  “Geoff, can I steal you away for a minute?”

  Geoff looks at the other guys for permission. Some primitive form of communication takes place between them and he says, “Sure.”

  I motion for him to follow me away from the table. “The bell’s about to ring,” he reminds me.

  “I know. I’ll cut right to the chase.”

  I consider the elaborate ruse I’ve worked out about my friend who’s got cancer, and whose dying wish is to have Eric be the mascot at a football game. But before I open my mouth, I reconsider. It’s like all the lies I’ve manufactured so far were made in China—cheap imitations of the truth, and quick to fall apart. No more lies. “I have a friend who wants to wear the fish suit at a football game,” I tell him.

  He laughs. “And what would I wear on the field? My tightie whities?”

  Perish the thought—although it would be fascinating to observe a pair of underpants that large in their natural habitat. “No. What I mean is that this other person would actually be the mascot for a day. He would wear your fish suit, and get out there and dance around and do all the things you usually do during the game.”

  “Why would I let someone else be the mascot?”

  “Because there’s a really nice guy who would be extraordinarily happy if he could have a shot at being the catch of the day. And if that’s not good enough, then you tell me. What would it take to get you to give him a shot?”

  His eyes drift to my chest. I cross my arms. “Aside from that.” Ben Franklin would applaud my foresight.

  Geoff narrows his eyes. He absently picks at a little hole in the elbow of his Seahawks jersey. “Okay, if some other dude is out there in the fish suit, I want to announce the game.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” He perks up. “I’m gonna major in radio journalism in college. I did this internship last summer with KUOW and sometimes they let me make the day sponsorship announcement. Maybe you heard me?” He clears his throat, and says in a crisp, affected radio-guy voice, “Today’s day sponsors are Gustav and Lucretia Reisigdorf, celebrating twenty-five years of togetherness in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.”

  I stare at him. He looks embarrassed. “Sorry. I know you’re not the type who listens to public radio.”

  I laugh. “You’d be amazed. And you’d also be terrific at the football game!”

  He smiles. “You mean it?”

  “I do! But no promises until I see if I can make it work.”

  The bell rings, and we shake hands and head to class.

  After school I track down Stuart Shangrove in the front circle where he’s waiting for his bus, which, thankfully, is late. Stuart Little, as everyone facetiously calls him, is the only guy at the school taller than Dex. I’m out of breath when I reach him.

  “Stuart!” I pant and press my hand to my chest. “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure.”

  I introduce myself, my head tilted all the way back on my shoulders in order to talk eye-to-eye. I feel like a hobbit.

  “Come on, I know who you are,” he says. “You almost took me out with your car the first day of school.”

  Oh, right. That.

  “And I announce all the games,” he says. “Of course I know who you are.” He speaks into an air microphone in his announcer voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure, Nora Fulbright! The cheerleader who fell down.”

  “Very funny. How about, ‘Nora Fulbright, the cheerleader who got back up.’”

  “Yeah, that would work, too.”

  Around us, the crowd is growing impatient. “This sucks,” says Stuart. “It’s the third time this month that we’ve had to wait for the bus, and I’ve got a ton of homework.”

  Ah. I see a way in. “So, you don’t have a car?”

  “No. And it’s a pain in the ass.”

  “I have a proposition for you, Stuart.” My neck hurts from looking up at him.

  “A proposition?”

  “Yes. I have this friend who wants really badly to announce one of the football games—”

  Stuart starts to object. Something about needing to know football inside and out, needing to know the players,
but I keep going. “Hang on. Hear me out. I’m talking about Geoff.”

  “The fish?”

  “Yeah. And as you know, he played football until he blew out his knee his sophomore year, so he understands the game. And of course he knows all the players. Well, it turns out that he did an internship at KUOW and wants to study radio broadcasting in college, and he’d be super stoked to have a shot at announcing a game.”

  Stuart pulls back his head so that his chin all but disappears. “So why are you telling me this? If the fish wants to announce a game, he should swim over and ask me himself.”

  “Well, I’m the one arranging the swap.”

  “The swap?”

  “Yeah. Long story, but it’s sort of a specialty of mine. So here’s the deal: You let him announce a game and I’ll lend you my car.”

  The bus is still nowhere in sight.

  “A scary silver Honda as I recall,” he says. “Especially terrifying when it’s heading right for you.”

  I roll my eyes. “Do you want to use my car or not?”

  He looks at his watch, then at the empty bus lane. “Okay. One game for a month of car use.”

  “What? Anything more than a day and my parents would sort of notice that the car has gone missing. Here’s the deal, take it or leave it. Geoff announces one game, you get the car for one twenty-four-hour period.”

  Stuart strokes his chin as he considers. “Lori and I are celebrating our seven-month anniversary in a few weeks. It would be pretty sweet to pick her up and take her out. Maybe grab dessert someplace. Then we could drive over to the lake. How big is your backseat?”

  I kick his foot. “You’re disgusting! Not to mention that you’re like eight feet tall and my car is a Honda.”

  He laughs, but agrees to the deal. Geoff will need to meet with him ahead of time to go through the ropes and learn how to use the equipment—he’ll broadcast the last game of the season, a home game that we’re almost certain to win. I tell him that he’ll need to squeeze into a fetal position to fit in the front seat of my car, and that the deal prohibits more than one occupant in the backseat, especially when the car is parked. The deal is sealed with a handshake, and Stuart waves from inside the bus as it pulls out of the circle.