“Oh, Flora, that’s great!” he said, locking onto my waist and spinning me around in a circle (and almost making me lose my lunch). “You’ll see. We’re going to have an excellent time.”
All I can say is, the boy doesn’t lie. Because right there on the sidewalk, he delivered on his promise with a passionate full-on French kiss that made me tingle in places I didn’t even know existed. I guess the failed tonguing in front of Yummies must have been a fluke, because instead of taking a bite out of him, this time I just wanted to devour the boy whole.
Eleven
DESPITE the fact that I’d spent all day Sunday filling Jessie in on the Lars situation, she was still hungry for more details come Monday morning. But the problem was, I was out of juice. Unless I started making stuff up, she was going to have to settle for an already embellished version of the truth. I mean, it wasn’t my fault her love life was so—how can I put this nicely—pathetic.
“That’s it. I swear. Nothing else happened,” I insisted for the umpteenth time. For some odd reason, though, Jessie didn’t seem to believe me.
“Are you sure?” she continued to pester, as the bus hit Punxsy Middle for the pipsqueaks. “Because I heard…”
“Oh, just leave her alone, would ya?” Carla interrupted from the seat in front of us. I guess she was as sick of the inquisition as I was. “It’s none of your business.”
Okay, maybe that was a little uncalled for. But I had a feeling Carla was just venting her own frustrations on my behalf. After all, she must have noticed all the hushed whispers and abbreviated conversations everywhere she went. I’m sure she wanted to tell every nosy bastard in sight to mind their own damn business. I mean, she was pregnant. So what? Why did everyone on earth get to have an opinion about it? If I were her, I would have snapped already for sure. As far as I was concerned, the girl had the patience of a saint—if not the sexual habits.
“It’s all right,” I said, defending Jessie’s over the top nosiness. “She’s just, uh, trying to protect me.”
Jessie rolled her eyes. “Actually, I’m trying to find out exactly what happened, because people are saying things. Excuse me for caring.”
Carla shook her head and went back to her own universe, leaving Jessie and me to sort things out on our own.
“What do you mean? Who’s talking about me?” I asked.
Jessie twisted her lips and pointed at Lars with her eyes. Honestly, she must be joking. Was she really suggesting my new boyfriend was spreading lies about me? About things we’d done? Sexual things? I mean, what would possibly motivate such a jackass move? Last I checked, the boy was pretty infatuated with me. I doubted he’d risk our blossoming romance to spread a little cheap dirt.
I shook my head. “Come on. You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish.”
We were only a few minutes from school, so I needed Jessie to spill it—and pronto. “Will you just tell me what the hell you’re talking about?” I said, agitated. “If someone’s spreading rumors about me, I have the right to know.”
“I guess. But you’re not gonna like it.”
“Try me.”
Jessie glanced at Lars one last time before she dropped the bomb. “He said you guys did it.”
“What?!”
“Lars. He said you had sex with him,” Jessie said again, cringing as she delivered the news.
I, for one, wasn’t buying a word of it. “He said what? To who?” I asked, trying to figure out where this psycho rumor had originated.
“It was online last night,” Jessie continued. “I was Facebooking Elmer about this hideous Latin project we have to do, and I noticed Lars was his friend. So I, uh, went on Lars’ profile.”
“And…”
“Well, there wasn’t really anything good on there. I think he might be scamming his parents with a fake page or something. It was sooo boring.”
“I thought you said…”
“It wasn’t on his page,” Jessie interrupted. “See, there was this totally gorgeous guy, Sven. He’s one of Lars’ friends from Iceland. I decided to check him out. Anyway, I saw on his wall that Lars said you guys had you know.”
WTF? No way. Utterly impossible. “That makes no sense,” I said, dumbstruck. “What’s this guy’s name? Sven? Sven what?”
Jessie bit her lip. “Don’t bother. It’s gone.”
“Huh?”
“I went back to like print it out for you or something, and it had disappeared. I almost didn’t tell you, but I thought you’d want to know. It’s not true, right?”
Okay, that was it. Jessie had known me forever. If Lars and I had done the deed, she would’ve been the first to know (well, technically she would’ve been third, but still).
“Of course not,” I said, insulted by the suggestion. I was barely over Mick. “I’m not a slut, you know—contrary to what people seem to think about me around here.”
While the freshmen and sophomores filed off the bus, Lars tried to catch my attention with a perfect glowing smile. Apparently he wanted to walk me to class.
“Jess,” I whispered at the last second. “Are you sure? Maybe…”
Instead of answering me, Jessie just nodded with determination, which made my heart sink. Because now I was in a predicament: Either my best friend was lying to me, or my boyfriend was stabbing me in the back. How swell.
Lars tailed me off the bus like he was a hungry dog and I had a pocketful of treats. And normally I wouldn’t have minded such blatant admiration from an exotic hottie, I really wouldn’t have. But until I could clear up this nasty rumor situation, a black cloud hung over our relationship. An ugly, vile black cloud I was stuck pretending didn’t exist.
“Good morning, beautiful,” Lars said, hanging his arm around my waist and pecking me gently on the cheek.
I looked over my shoulder, but Jessie was already gone. “Hi,” I blurted, a little too fake-peppy. But Lars didn’t seem to catch on.
“You’re doing well this morning, I see,” he said with a chuckle.
I gave him an uneven little half-smile and planted a soft kiss right on his lips. What can I say? I guess all the sex talk—as off base as it had been—had gotten me in the mood. I’m only human, after all.
In front of Mr. X’s room, Lars and I prepared to part ways. “So I’ll see you at lunch?” he asked.
“Yeah. Lunch. Hey, what are you wearing?”
Note to self: When you randomly change the subject of a conversation, expect a misunderstanding. As if I’d suggested he’d committed a fashion crime, Lars checked himself from head to toe. Meanwhile, I stifled the giggles.
“Not your clothes,” I clarified. “I mean, what are you wearing for cologne? You smell so good.”
It was no lie. There was something intoxicating—biologically intoxicating—about him. All of a sudden, I felt like a wild animal. Hell, if the boy smelled that good all the time, I might just let him have his way with me sooner rather than later. And nobody would blame me either. He was irresistible.
An impish grin crept across his lips. “Oh, that,” he said coyly. “It’s just a touch of aftershave. It is appealing, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.” In fact, it was so appealing I risked one last peck on the lips. “Adiós,” I purred, finally tearing myself away from him.
With a wink, he said, “Hasta luego.” Then he was gone.
And by the time homeroom was over, I’d convinced myself that the sex rumors about me and Lars were nothing more than a colossal misunderstanding. I mean, there were a million ways Jessie could’ve misinterpreted what she’d read. And since the offensive material had disappeared without explanation, I was willing to give Lars the benefit of the doubt. After all, there was no real evidence he’d done anything wrong. Zip. Zero. Nada. As far as I was concerned, he was in the clear.
“Settle down, folks! Chop, chop!” Miss Jillian chirped. For some unknown reason, her laid-back hippie attitude had morphed into a sick version of buzz saw meets Marry Poppins. And be
fore we could even respond to the lunacy, she plowed right ahead with her jarring, hyperactive rant. Perfect.
“Can anyone guess what I have here?” she sputtered, waving a handful of papers around like she was swatting flies. “Anyone?”
Of course, nobody responded.
“I have here a number of beautiful, complex, evocative photographs. No, no…I take that back,” she said, shaking her head. “More like works of art.”
Okay, so the psycho fit was at least good news anyway. That was unusual.
“And here,” she said, stabbing a finger at a stack of papers on her desk. “Here are the entry forms for the Robert F. Plante Memorial Photography Scholarship,” she informed us. “Does anyone know who Robert F. Plante was?”
Well, that was a silly question.
She tried again, “Nobody?”
Affirmative silence.
“Robert F. Plante was a celebrated portrait photographer who lived and worked in Philadelphia in the early 1900s. He photographed, well, nearly every influential person of his time—this side of the Mason-Dixon Line, at least,” she said, pausing for the astonished oohs and aahs. But, as usual, we disappointed. “And juniors and seniors in Pennsylvania are eligible to submit up to three photographs each year to the scholarship competition. The grand prize is five thousand dollars.”
Immediately, quite a few hands shot up. It was the first sign anyone in the room actually had a pulse. When you think about it, though, teenagers are pretty money hungry, so I guess it made sense.
After basically repeating every single word she’d already said, Miss Jillian finally came out with the important information: She’d handpicked a few shots she figured had a chance at winning the five grand. And as they circulated, I instantly recognized one of them as mine: a portrait of the gorgeously pregnant Carla Pearson.
“If your work has been highlighted here, bravo!” Miss Jillian squealed. “Your talent is leaps and bounds beyond my wildest expectations. Please see me after class to fill out the Robert F. Plante Memorial Scholarship application. And everyone else—good effort. Please take a moment to examine the work of your peers as the photographs make their way around the room. I fully expect to see photography of this caliber from all of you by the end of the year.”
Great. Just what I needed. More pressure. I mean, what if I’d just gotten lucky? The thought alone made my stomach churn.
As soon as the bell rang, I shot to the front of the class and scribbled down the key pieces of information Miss Jillian wanted. And I was this close to escaping under her radar—I really was—when she cornered me by the door.
“Excellent job, Flora,” she cooed. She draped her spindly fingers over my shoulder, leaned in, and whispered, “I think you’re going to win.”
“Oh…thanks,” I muttered. Then I twisted from her creepy grip, stepped sideways between two football players, and fled to AP U.S. History.
And, thank God, the rest of my morning classes stuck to their normal, drama-free scripts, which meant that by lunch, I’d pretty much recovered from the Photography ambush and the Lars sex rumors.
When I got to the cafeteria, Lucy Tate and Jimmy Bickford were already nestled in at our new table. Ugh. Honestly, I didn’t know how much more of their sickly sweet love-fest I could take. I mean, Jimmy used to get on my nerves before he hooked up with Lucy, but now they made my skin crawl.
“Hey,” Lucy said half-heartedly, as I slid in beside them with my tray of chicken nuggets.
“Hey.”
I jerked my head around, searching for Lars, or Jessie, or even Carla, since she’d taken to sitting with us lately. Because someone had to save me from the Lucy-loves-Jimmy show—and fast. Unfortunately, though, the chances of such a fortuitous rescue seemed bleak, until…
I felt his warm hands on my shoulders before I even realized he was there. “Hello, baby,” Lars breathed in my ear.
Practically yanking the boy off his feet, I ordered, “Sit down. You can have my lunch.” I pushed my tray in front of him. “I’m not hungry.”
Eventually Carla escaped the lunch line and took a seat on the other side of Lars. And not to be rude or anything, but man was she getting huge. Remind me to never, ever in a million years get pregnant. Seriously. As far as I’m concerned, reproducing is way too dangerous.
“So when are you due?” I had the nerve to ask Carla once she’d settled in.
Everyone at the table but her froze.
“Well, my doctor says December thirteenth—based on the sonogram. But it could be like a week either way,” she said, shoving a chicken nugget into her mouth whole.
“Are you nervous?”
She just shrugged. “Nothin’ I can do about it.”
Well, I guess that was true. Like Mr. Tightwad says, you can’t unring a bell.
For once, the lunchtime conversation had gotten so intriguing I’d almost forgotten about Jessie. That was until I noticed her beelining it in my direction with the most bizarre look on her face. It was like she was sending me a message with her eyes, but her body had been taken over by aliens. Creepy, to say the least. So creepy, in fact, I hopped up from the table just in case I had to perform an emergency exorcism. And I was almost there; I’d almost made it to her, when…
In slow motion about ten steps behind Jessie, my sweet, sweet Mickey D sauntered into the Punxsy High cafeteria, bringing my entire world to a heart-stopping, brain-wrenching, God-save-me halt.
Twelve
I DON’T remember much after my eyes met Mick’s, except that my blood went icy cold and the room started to spin. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the nurse’s office with a throbbing headache and a pressing urge to vomit.
“Here you go, honey,” Nurse Strump fussed, repositioning a cool washcloth on my forehead as I pushed myself up on the sickie cot. “Take it easy now. You’ve been through a trauma. You need to rest. Just stay there while I get you some water.”
My guidance counselor, Ms. Aggie, sat down beside me and put her hand on my leg. “Is everything all right, Flora?” she asked in her best humor-the-nutcase voice. “What happened?”
“Uh…”
If there was one thing I knew for sure it was that I had to lie. Not because I cared what Ms. Aggie thought, but because I was so damn confused about the Lars/Mick situation that whatever bits and pieces of the story I could’ve managed to string together were bound to be incomprehensible.
Nurse Strump passed me a plastic cup, and, in tiny sips, I drank about half of the water while Ms. Aggie tried to read my mind with her super-intuition.
“I…uh…didn’t eat breakfast this morning,” I finally mumbled. “And I’ve had a headache all day. Do you have any Tylenol?” I asked Nurse Strump. “I think that might help.”
Ms. Aggie looked skeptical, but I could tell Nurse Strump was buying my wretchedly feeble acting job hook, line, and sinker.
“Why didn’t you have breakfast?” Ms. Aggie asked. “Have you been under any unusual stress lately?”
Well, that was putting it mildly.
“No. Nothing really,” I said.
“Are you sure? Because I’m here to help,” Ms. Aggie tried to convince me with her chipper little trust me facade. “It’s my job, you know.”
Nurse Strump slipped two Tylenol into my ready hand. “You’re not hypoglycemic are you?” she asked.
Hypo-what? I shook my head.
“Because if your blood sugar was low…well, that would explain why you fainted,” she said, offering me a chubby-cheeked, buck-toothed smile.
Bingo. Thank you, Nurse Strump. “Actually, yeah…I think my mother did say that, uh, she has low blood sugar or something. So maybe that means I have it too.”
To my utter surprise, there was no eye rolling, no head shaking, no lip pursing. I guess they must have believed me. How simple.
“Speaking of your mother,” Ms. Aggie said. “I talked with her on the phone just before you came to.”
“Uh-huh…”
“And she�
��d like to take you to the doctor for an evaluation, in case there’s any medical reason for your loss of consciousness.”
Had every adult within a five-mile radius of me gone insane? I mean, sure, I’d passed out. But I was awake now, and I felt fine. Mystery solved. Case closed. That’s all she wrote.
“Can you call back and cancel?” I pleaded.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Ms. Aggie said. “I’m sure she’s already on her way.”
Nurse Strump chimed in, “And you should be examined, just to be on the safe side.”
So that was it. I was doomed to spend a perfectly good afternoon in Dr. Ipcar’s baby-land, waiting for her to tell me what I already knew: I was peachy keen (other than my disastrous love life, of course). If it wasn’t for the fact that pediatric torture suddenly seemed preferable to facing Lars in Honors English, I probably would have put up a stink.
“Fine,” I whined. “Whatever.” I scanned the nurse’s office for my backpack. “Is my stuff around here somewhere?” I asked, annoyed.
Ms. Aggie gave me a disappointed frown. “Lars Johannsson offered to take it to the main office for you,” she said. “If Nurse Strump thinks you’re all right, I’ll walk you over to get it before you leave.”
“I’d just like to get a quick blood pressure on her before she goes,” Nurse Strump said, hauling out her inflatable torture device.
While she pumped away on that little rubber squeezy thing, I tried to think Zen thoughts so nobody would be forced to call an ambulance on my behalf.
And when my arm was just about to pop, Nurse Strump finally called out my lucky numbers. “One twenty-seven over eighty-four. Not too bad,” she announced. “Definitely not the cause of the fainting spell.”
On that informative note, Ms. Aggie ushered me to my waiting backpack and then to my mother’s pickup. And, of course, the Mental Hygienist made a huge deal out of the whole fainting thing. But since I couldn’t tell her the truth about what had happened, I was stuck playing along.
Film at Eleven Page 9