The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions)

by Amy Spalding

  At lunch he’s already at the table when the rest of us arrive with our food. His eyes are focused straight down at the tabletop, even when Justin and Sadie start tossing Skittles back and forth. Em pushes half of her sandwich toward Alex, but he shakes his head. Even Sadie’s lunchtime poll (this one is a new question: “Which fruit looks the weirdest?”) doesn’t get an answer from him. (The rest of the responses are fairly evenly split between star fruit and kiwi, with one vote for dragon fruit.)

  I’d feel sorry for Alex if I thought he was someone still deserving any of my nice emotions.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I don’t go out on Friday night because our first chance to take the SAT in senior year is first thing on Saturday morning. Of course, I took SATs last year and got great scores, and I’ve been taking more practice tests since then. There’s no reason based off my current scores that getting into Brown shouldn’t be a reasonable possibility, but I can always aim for better. Of course, there are also my essay answers, which I’ve been rewriting whenever I’m caught up on homework and the Crest duties, and my letters of recommendation. Mr. Wheeler still owes me his—and considering he’s overseen me as a staff member of the Crest throughout high school, his seems extremely important—but I’ve already secured letters from Ms. Guillory and Mr. Cagan, who was my social sciences teacher last year, plus Santiago and Tricia’s boss at Stray Rescue. The Brown website’s frequently asked questions state that if your counselor and teacher letters are submitted, it’s not necessary to send any others unless they show unique knowledge of strengths and skills. But there’s nothing I do at school that’s like my work with the dogs, so I figure that it can’t hurt.

  I’d feel settled about all of these facts if not for another one: Brown University takes only 8.6 percent of its applicants. And of course I work hard, all of the time, but so do a lot of people. Just in our school, I know off the top of my head that Natalie, Thatcher, and Carlos work as hard as I do.

  So I’m not worried about the test when I show up, because even if I can’t raise my scores, I know I’m already in a great place. And maybe because I practiced so much since last year, or even because I’ve always been decent at taking tests, it goes just like I’d hoped—even more smoothly than last year. My scores are barely on my mind as I finish and leave the school for a later-than-usual shift at Stray Rescue. At some point soon I’ll have that final number. And hopefully by then I’ll have Mr. Wheeler’s recommendation letter—not that I think that’ll happen without some hounding on my part. Everything will be lined up and ready to submit online and through the mail.

  And then I just wait, for six or seven terrible weeks, until I find out. There are other schools on my backup plan, but I’ve wanted it to be Brown for as long as I can remember.

  Yes, it’s Ivy League, and if I’m honest with myself, that means something to me. But at Brown, I’ll be responsible for helping to shape my own future. I’ll have to design my own undergraduate program—with help from professionals, of course—and I’ll make sure everything lines up so that I learn how to lead others and achieve goals. I like that a school as historic and respected as Brown also respects its students that way. I’m ready for more responsibility, and to carve out the tracks toward the future I’ll have.

  Last year, Mom and Darcy took me to Rhode Island to tour the campus, which was a big deal not just because it was Brown, but because we don’t get to take a lot of family trips thanks to Darcy’s job. They stayed at a bed-and-breakfast they still occasionally rhapsodize over (apparently the brunch was superb), but I got to stay on campus, in a sleeping bag on a dorm-room floor.

  In some ways, being on campus reminded me a lot of being home. The girl who hosted me, her roommate, and their friends seemed fun and laid-back in a way that wasn’t so different from my group of friends. They’d earned it, though; they’d already achieved so much by being there. And our conversations weren’t about weird fruits or which sodas were the worst. We talked about life and our futures and the kinds of change we hoped to see in the world. Now, of course, it sounds cheesy, looking back on it, but I have a feeling that Brown is the kind of place where I can give rousing speeches and get away with it.

  On Monday, Mr. Wheeler doesn’t say a word about “Want 2 B Ur Boy” during fourth period. Tuesday’s class passes without incident too. At this point, more than a full week has passed since the keyboards incident, and more than a full weekend since the boy-band one. It makes sense that we’re in the clear. If this were another teacher, every moment since Natalie’s face cut into Alex’s singing might be packed with the scariest type of anticipation. But Mr. Wheeler and I walked by each other several times over the weekend in the neighborhood, and I didn’t even feel mildly nervous.

  “So, guys,” he says once everyone has arrived for our Tuesday after-school meeting, “let’s talk about what happened Friday.”

  I do my best not to look guiltily around the room. Has Carlos concocted a cover story? Technically we’ve never discussed the specifics, and outside of him assuring me that retribution would be taken care of, I have no details. I have no proof. It’s almost as if I could claim ignorance to the whole matter.

  Almost.

  “What happened Friday?” Marisa asks in a very good innocent tone. I make a mental note to work on cultivating one myself.

  “Let’s cut out the shenanigans, guys,” he says. “I waited until after school so we could discuss this freely.”

  “Discuss what freely, Mr. Wheeler?” Carlos asks. His innocent voice is far more sarcastic than Marisa’s, and I worry the whole operation’s going down.

  “Never mind.” Mr. Wheeler shakes his head. “I hope someday you guys all look back on this and see how silly you were being. There are so many great ways to use your time and efforts and brains!”

  “I think the Crest is a great use of our time, efforts, and brains,” I say, and even though I was striving for sincere, my voice rings out with just a little sarcasm. People laugh, so I’m a little glad it happened. Maybe more than a little.

  “Everyone, just get to work,” he says. “Jules, come on up.”

  I take over to organize this week’s stories and photography assignments, and already it feels like a regular week again. Everyone snaps into action because, TALON or no TALON, we’re professionals.

  We run out of printer paper while we’re passing around student submissions for the guest column, and since I don’t think it’s fair for a leader to escape all administrative duties, I volunteer to get a new box.

  The light’s on in the supply room when I walk in. It isn’t a surprise, because other groups need things in here too. But the fact that the other person is Alex, well, that part’s a surprise.

  It isn’t just that I’ve hated all the surprises this year: Natalie’s departure from the Crest, TALON, and Alex. I’ve never been a fan of surprises. On my tenth birthday, we went over to Sadie’s for what I was told was just a regular dinner, and everyone I knew leaped out of the dark and yelled Surprise!

  I spent the next hour of the party curled up on Sadie’s bed between my parents. Crying.

  “Hi,” Alex says. “I’ll get out of your way as soon as I can. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I say, and lean against the wall while he collects dry-erase markers from a bin. Whoever orders the markers dumps all of them in one plastic bin, so you have to be really careful you’re grabbing something erasable, and not a permanent Sharpie or a highlighter. I can tell Alex hasn’t been informed of the dangers of this bin. Obviously many of my goals this year revolve around TALON’s destruction, but I don’t mean their whiteboards. So I step over to help him.

  Our hands keep accidentally touching as we’re digging through the bin. I laugh to myself that if this were a movie, we’d start making out. But then my fingers entwine with his while we’re after the same red Expo marker, and fingers entwining is basically holding hands, and then—oh my god. It is like a silly movie because then we are making out.

  “I miss
ed this so much,” I say, of course, because when have I managed to keep a thought from Alex once kissing’s involved?

  He reaches past me to lock the supply room door, and I take advantage of how close and overlapping our bodies are to pull him back toward me. It’s a move I seem to have borrowed from a slick sophisticated movie character.

  I don’t move to kiss Alex immediately, because I just want to look at him while he’s so near to me. Everything’s the same, of course. His brown eyes radiate gold in their magical way, he’s gotten a haircut, but that wavy lock still flops down perfectly, and I’m convinced, the longer I know him, that I will eventually be able to read his mind via his eyebrows. His eyebrows are everything.

  Jules, don’t say “Your eyebrows are everything” aloud in this moment of weakness.

  “Do you know when I knew I liked you?” Alex slides his hands down my sides, holding me where my waist curves in. “My first day. When your skirt got stuck in the door.”

  “Oh my god.” I close my eyes and shake my head. “I felt like such an idiot.”

  “You made this amazing face,” he says. “Also you had, like…” He laughs softly. “Crazy underwear. I thought, there’s more to this girl.”

  “Oh my god, Alex!” I laugh against his chest. I haven’t touched him in weeks, but it’s like he’s all mine, again, already, immediately. “My mom bought me those.”

  “You’re ruining my fantasy,” he says, but I don’t think that’s true because he kisses me again. I hold his face in my hands because it’s hard to believe he’s real and that this is happening. In the movie of this moment, he’d be a close-up on the screen. On-screen for TALON he’s this bold and brave guy, but inches away from me he’s just Alex, and in the movie I’m imagining now he’s just Alex too.

  “How much time has gone by?” I ask. “I completely forgot that I came in here for a reason.”

  “A good reason,” he says with a grin.

  “Stop being cute,” I say. “I have to bring paper back to my staff.”

  “Your staff,” he murmurs in my ear. “You’re really powerful.”

  I don’t decide that the printer paper can wait, but I do wrap my arms around Alex’s shoulders again. I kiss his forehead and I kiss his cheeks and I kiss his lips over and over and over. I try to make up for lost time, kissing for all the days we didn’t. A montage plays in my head, all the moments without Alex that now I wish that I’d been kissing him again.

  “I have to go,” I say once the montage has ended and there’s, somehow, a break in the kissing.

  “Your staff,” he says.

  “They really are my staff,” I say, and he pulls me close, not into another kiss but a hug. I hug back with everything I have.

  “What are you doing after your meeting?” he says.

  “I have another—I have something else.” Oh my god, a few minutes of kissing and I’m ready to give away all of the Crest’s secrets. I’d never make it during wartime if captured by the enemy.

  “After that?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Can I text you? Can you drive yet?”

  “You can text me,” he says, “but, no. I can’t drive yet. You’ll have to come get me.”

  His voice sounds warm and husky on come get me, and I can’t help myself. I’m not sure how I’ll ever actually stop kissing him and leave this room.

  “Alex?” Someone pounds on the door. “Are you getting thrown by the Sharpies? Someone should have warned you!”

  “I’m good!” he calls, then drops his voice. “Text me later, when you’re done doing what you’re doing.”

  I hide in the corner until Alex is out of the room, and then wait a few moments before leaving the supply room. I try to rush back toward Mr. Wheeler’s classroom without looking like I’m rushing, even though there’s no one around.

  Until there is.

  “Hello, Julia.” If I hadn’t been focusing on the perfect non-rushing speed, maybe I would have noticed Natalie appearing seemingly out of nowhere. “I’m sure you’re very proud of yourself.”

  “For—” I cut myself off, even though it was on the tip of my tongue to say, For kissing Alex? “Wait, for what?”

  “For your little broadcast interference,” she says. “Targeting one of our staffers.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” I say as I remember what Mr. Wheeler was lecturing us about today. I think about Alex’s face on Friday and worry that he’s still wounded, but then it morphs into his close-up face from only minutes ago. I feel myself smiling with no chance of holding it back. Alex couldn’t mind too much if what just happened just happened.

  “You look very guilty,” Natalie says, which is true, just not of what she’s thinking. “We aren’t idiots.”

  “How did you know that I was in the hallway?” I ask, because even though I don’t think Alex would use me, the timing is suspicious.

  “I was on my way to the restroom,” she says. “I’m hardly stalking you, Julia. There’s no one on TALON who would find that worth the effort. While your ‘team’”—she uses air quotes—“spends their time and energy trying to keep us from being seen, it isn’t as if the student body and beyond can’t watch the entire extended broadcast on VidLook.”

  “Really?” I ask, trying to adopt an innocent tone. “Because someone thought it was ‘worth the effort’”—I use air quotes too—“to vandalize our keyboards, and that seems like it would take more time, energy, and planning than following me in the hallway.”

  “It’s a pretty cheap tactic to attack the personal life of one of our staffers,” she continues as if I haven’t spoken. “Of course a boy band is easy to laugh at, but Alex achieved a great deal at a young age. That’s hardly comedy.”

  “I didn’t say that it was. Or that it’s probably an even cheaper tactic to destroy school property, considering that now school funds have to be diverted to replacing keyboards instead of something your brand-new team probably needs.”

  Marisa walks up to us. “Mr. Wheeler sent me out to find you, Jules. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I say. “Natalie just wanted to lecture me about what comedy is and isn’t.”

  “That doesn’t seem like it would be in Natalie’s wheelhouse,” Marisa says.

  “There’s plenty in my wheelhouse,” Natalie says. “It’s very extensive.”

  “We don’t really have time to hear about your big wheelhouse,” I say. “We have important work to do.”

  Marisa and I walk back to Mr. Wheeler’s classroom, which is when it hits me how long I’ve been gone. “Sorry, it took a while.”

  “What took a while?” Mr. Wheeler asks. “Where’s the paper?”

  “Why are you all red?” Carlos asks.

  “Natalie intercepted her,” Marisa says. “But are they out of paper? There’s another stash in the admin office. Since I’m an aide, I can get some.”

  “Sure,” I say, letting Marisa run to another building because I was too distracted to do my job.

  “I forgot to say why I’m red,” I blurt out, as I try to come up with something reasonable. “I was just looking for paper so long. And getting stressed out. And that room gets warm.”

  Somehow the meeting ends, and then I’m in my car with freshmen, driving to Carlos’s. My phone is lit up with texts when I walk into the second meeting, and I’m afraid they’ll all be from Sadie or Mom or Darcy. Maybe Mr. Wheeler figured out that there was paper in the main supply room and I’ll get a lecture via text message about wasting student resources. I’m not sure that Mr. Wheeler has my phone number, but it seems possible.

  I deleted Alex’s number from my phone in what felt like a satisfying moment of closure, but I recognize these digits displayed repeatedly across my screen. These numbers might as well spell out A-L-E-X in their own special language.

  That was fun.

  I missed you.

  Somehow still managed to accidentally take a bunch of Sharpies and screwed up our board. You’re
distracting.

  “Jules?”

  I look up from my phone to see that everyone but Carlos and Thatcher is already seated, with snacks, and I’m standing facing the wrong direction in an odd corner of the room. How did I even get here?

  “How did you guys do it?” a freshman asks.

  “Can we hack into the TVs every week?” a sophomore asks.

  “Natalie was pissed,” says Ana Rios.

  “There’s no proof any of us did anything,” Carlos says with the ease of someone who hacks into school closed-circuit TV networks all the time.

  “Let’s get to work,” Thatcher says.

  “Yes,” I say, even though considering the events of this afternoon, I can barely remember what work is.

  “Do we wait for their next move?” a freshman asks.

  “No,” Thatcher says. “Remember, guys, this is war.”

  “Real war,” Carlos adds.

  “At first we just had to worry about getting up our readership,” Thatcher says. “But between the lunch poll and the guest column, we’ve done that. So now we need to take those guys down harder.”

  I let Thatcher talk while I think about the phone in my hand and the messages it holds for me. But, actually—

  “It isn’t just about shutting them down,” I point out. “People still aren’t reading the paper as much as they were last year. There’s still a good chance the Crest could lose funding for next year. The closest thing Eagle Vista Academy could have to journalism is watching Kevin point to the historic Trader Joe’s sign.”

  Most of the room seems to murmur what I’m taking as agreement.

  “Fine, fine,” Thatcher says, but he smiles. “Let’s get back to it, then. Jules?”

  As I talk I press my thumb to my phone’s power button. The room feels, figuratively, like mine again. “Natalie confronted me about the broadcast hack last week, but then she tried to act as if it didn’t even matter. She says people could watch the uninterrupted program on VidLook, as if that’s actually happening.”