That Girl, Darcy

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That Girl, Darcy Page 23

by James Ramos


  “English, I think.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. Now, how about this: let’s take the top three schools you’ve chosen and work on fine-tuning your applications. How does that sound?”

  Honestly it sounded . . . painless. Like something I could actually do. “Alright,” I told her.

  By the time I left Mrs. Haggerston’s office we’d come up with a list. The first thing I needed was a few letters of recommendation. I already knew which teachers to ask for those. I felt weirdly . . . excited. Maybe this whole post-graduation thing wasn’t going to be the disaster I always pictured it to be. One thing was for sure, I was definitely starting to like Mrs. Haggerston a tiny bit more.

  * * *

  Maybe I was starting to solve the college puzzle, but I couldn’t solve the Darcy puzzle fast enough. We couldn’t talk much in English; Mr. Williams had buried us under so much classwork that I burned through a dozen pencils in a few weeks’ time. It was the same for Theater Arts. Out of consideration for Jake—and distaste for Calvin—I didn’t sit at Darcy’s table during lunch. We only sometimes bumped into each other during passing time. I had never tried this hard to understand someone. And it had never been this difficult.

  I had looked forward to that Friday before the way people look forward to having a root canal. The end of the semester was fast approaching, and with it not only the play, but the Winter Formal. I took it as a sign when Jake sent me a text that morning to tell me he wasn’t coming to class because of some bad tofu he’d had the night before. Which meant that maybe I could sit with Darcy at lunch. If I could stomach the company of her friends.

  Darcy wasn’t on my avoid-at-all-costs list anymore. Actually, she hadn’t been on that list in a long time. But several others had taken her place. Chief among these was Christian. So naturally he was always there when I wished he wasn’t. Like today, when I spotted him in the hallway after my free hour with a group of underclassmen he’d taken under his wing, doling out advice and giving them tips on how to properly navigate “not just high school, but life.”

  “Frankly, you should really consider learning to play an instrument, Jaimie,” he was saying. “You need to sharpen that mind of yours. I recommend the piano. Alex, what have I told you about slouching? Confidence is projected with the shoulders. Stand like you mean it.”

  I tried to get past without him noticing me, but of course, I failed.

  “Elliott, there you are. I was about to send Dennis to fetch you. Have you seen Darcy?”

  Be nice, I reminded myself. “No, Christian. I haven’t.”

  He looked at me like he was surprised. “Oh? Odd, I assumed you would know where to find her. We have important things to discuss.” He gestured to the water fountain across the hall, where Andrew was doubled over trying to drink from it. “I’m playing the matchmaker, you see, between Darcy and my brother. He’s a junior, true enough, but I think they would complement one another rather well. Don’t you?”

  I watched Andrew struggle with the fountain for a few more seconds before he gave up. Christian waved him over, and as he came toward us he sneezed, showering an unfortunate group of passersby with snot.

  “He has such terrible allergies this time of year,” said Christian, “But he’s brilliant. He plays the cello, you know. How many football players have you heard of who play the cello? See what I mean, Jaimie?”

  Jaimie nodded.

  “You know something, Christian, I think you’re right,” I said as I watched his brother shove a finger up his nose. “I’m sure Darcy would just love to go to prom with Edward Booger-hands. I’ll be sure to mention him the next time I see her.”

  Christian’s face turned bright red all the way to the roots of his hair, and I left before he could say anything else.

  When lunchtime arrived I hovered by the cafeteria entrance until I saw Darcy come in, alone, and joined her in the a la carte line. “Busy day, huh?” I asked.

  She picked up a tray and twirled it. “I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

  “Stressed?”

  “Bored.”

  “Oh.” We bought our lunches and came back out into the cafeteria. “Mind if I sit with you today?”

  She glanced behind me. “I think your friends might take offense.”

  “My what?” I turned around to see Kyle and Mark at our usual seats, flagging me down. “They’ll get over it.”

  I followed Darcy over to her table, which was so far still empty. “Where’s Bridget today?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” she said, and it sounded like it bothered her. “Where’s your cousin?”

  “Same answer.” I didn’t bother mentioning the tofu. She took her usual seat, and I sat diagonally across from her. “Do you know what you’re doing for break?” I asked her.

  “Not yet,” she said as she took a tiny bite of an apple. “I’m thinking about going back home.”

  “To visit, or permanently?”

  She laughed. “I’d have to come back, obviously. We still have a semester to go.”

  Relief flooded through me. Of course she’d come back. But the thought of her leaving in the first place made me a little nauseated.

  The nausea was only compounded when I saw Calvin sauntering toward us. Today the rooster had a messenger bag over his shoulder, which he made a point of slowly setting down on the table. As usual, he sat right next to Darcy. The way he looked at her made my stomach twist into a painful knot. Somehow, I managed to keep my simmering anger to myself, but I couldn’t help staring daggers at him as he carefully removed an iPad from his bag.

  “What are you reading these days?” he asked Darcy.

  “The same book I was reading when you asked me last night,” she said without looking at him.

  He nodded, and went back to whatever it was he had pulled up on his iPad. At least, he did for a while. “I’m reading Lord of the Flies,” he said proudly.

  Darcy said nothing. It made me smile.

  But Calvin wasn’t giving up. “I think I’m becoming quite fond of the written word. Just yesterday I wondered if maybe I should write a book myself.”

  I rolled my eyes. Of all the people I’d heard say they wanted to write a book, I was one hundred percent sure that Calvin was the least likely to actually do it.

  “I’ll admit, my personal library’s a bit lacking,” he continued. “It’s nothing like the collection you’ve got in your room.” He was still talking to Darcy, and she was still ignoring him. “I think everyone should have a book collection. At least the classics.”

  “What do you mean by classics?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  Calvin looked at me as if he’d forgotten I’d been sitting here the whole time. “Well, you know, the classics. All of them, really.”

  “Italo Calvino said that it’s up to each of us to create our own ideal library of classics.”

  I waited for Calvin’s response, confident that he had no idea who Italo Calvino was or what to say next. I enjoyed calling his bluff.

  What I said seemed to catch Darcy’s attention, because she looked up at me and cocked her head to one side. “He also said that your classic is a book that you cannot remain indifferent to, that helps you define yourself.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Exactly. So really, we all have our own idea of what makes a book a classic.”

  “Although, there are some books that almost universally regarded as classic,” she said.

  “Well, sure, you’ve got the Moby Dick’s or the Wuthering Heights, or the—”

  “Frank Herbert’s Dune,” she added.

  “You know what that is?”

  Darcy smiled. “Mythical model, remember?”

  “You’ve read it?”

  She nodded. “Fairly recently, actually.”

  “Yes, yes, all those books,” said Calvin as he shoved his iPad back into his bag.

  “Y
ou want to know a secret?” I asked Darcy.

  She raised her eyebrows invitingly.

  “I’ve never finished Moby Dick.”

  “You haven’t?”

  I shook my head and laughed. “Nope. Ashamed as I am to admit it. I’ve tried to get through it twice, and every time, I just lose interest about halfway through.”

  Darcy laughed, and it didn’t feel like she was laughing at me. It was a laugh that made me laugh, because it felt like we were sharing the same joke, even though I was serious about having never finished the book.

  Darcy brushed aside a strand of hair that had fallen across her brow. “Don’t feel too bad about it. I’ve never read The Great Gatsby.”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “No way.”

  She grinned. “Honest. Never even started it.”

  “I thought they made you read that in school.”

  “Not the schools I’ve been to.”

  I laughed. “Guess that makes us even, then.”

  “Yes, I guess it does.”

  Her eyes lingered on mine, and even though I could feel the blood rush to my face, I couldn’t look away. The smile faded from her face, replaced by another expression, one I was starting to recognize, though I couldn’t begin to guess what it meant. It was the same expression she’d had when we were at the museum.

  What did it mean?

  “How much do you lift, Evan?” asked Calvin.

  “His name is Elliott,” Darcy snapped. “How long have we all known each other?”

  Calvin looked like he’d been slapped. “My mistake. How much do you lift, Elliott?”

  I wanted to tell him some large-but-still-believable sum, but instead I said, “I dunno.”

  “Care to arm wrestle?” He held out a hand in challenge, and waited.

  Ordinarily I would never agree to something so stupid, so obviously meant to impress Darcy.

  But that was exactly what I wanted to do. So I didn’t hesitate to lock hands with him. Calvin’s hand was clammy and huge; it felt like I was grabbing a moist baseball mitt. His fingers curled around my hand, and a grin spread across his face. Calvin was bigger than I was, and much more muscular. It dawned on me that this probably wasn’t one of my better ideas, but it was too late to change my mind now.

  “You might want to scoot over a bit,” he told Darcy.

  “No thanks,” she said in reply.

  “Are you sure?”

  “There are only two reasons why you’re doing this. Either this is a pissing match, or you’re trying to impress someone. If it’s a pissing match, then I’m not in the way, so it doesn’t make sense for me to move over. If you’re trying to impress someone, either myself or some other girl, then I’ve got a prime view right here.”

  I felt my cheeks prickling up and prayed she didn’t notice. Knowing Darcy, she did. Not much got by her. Even Calvin seemed surprised.

  Darcy laughed. “What, did you think I don’t notice these types of things? Just because I’m not drooling over some guy like he’s a piece of chocolate doesn’t mean I don’t have an appreciation for good muscle tone.”

  Calvin’s grip on my hand weakened. He was staring at her with his mouth dangling slightly open, like he’d never in a million years expected to hear Darcy say something like that. I knew I hadn’t. She met both of our gazes with a pleased smile and said, “Feel free to continue whatever it is you’re doing.”

  “On second thought,” said Calvin, letting go of my hand. “I don’t think it’d be that fair of a match. I mean, I’m at least twice your size.”

  “Size isn’t everything,” I said defensively. “The secret’s in the wrist.”

  “Elliott’s not all that small,” Darcy pointed out, and it made me blush even more.

  But Calvin couldn’t be swayed. “Maybe some other time,” he grumbled.

  After lunch ended we cleared our trays and joined the crowd as we all piled out of the cafeteria. To my surprise, Darcy nudged her way toward me. “So there’s this thing called a mud run,” she said as we walked nearly shoulder to shoulder. “They hold them every year in Lake Elsinore. It’s like a marathon, except you have to trudge through an obstacle course that’s full of mud.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “Yeah, I’m thinking about entering. It’s not for a few months yet, so that gives me time to get back in shape.”

  “You seem in shape enough to me.”

  She gave me a quizzical, surprised look. “How would you—”

  “You aren’t the only one who’s got an appreciation for good muscle tone.”

  A slow smile spread across her face, and we laughed together.

  Chapter 24

  I had passed all my classes, but I had failed in my mission to figure Darcy out, even if I’d made some progress. And now I had to wait two whole weeks before I’d get another chance. I was more pissed off about it than I thought I’d be.

  After school I stopped by Jake’s house. Before he’d gotten sick, we’d had plans to go skating this evening. The weather was getting cooler outside, cool enough that we didn’t have to worry about keeping to the shadows for fear of spontaneously bursting into flame. This was my favorite time of year. It was true that in Phoenix it never snowed and we didn’t get the autumn leaves changing colors and falling off the trees stuff, but while the rest of the country was inundated with snow, we could go outside with shorts on and have barbecues in the middle of December.

  When I got to Jake’s house I found that he had no intention of cancelling our plans.

  “Aren’t you sick?” I asked skeptically.

  He waved me off and started fiddling with his skateboard. “That was hours ago.”

  I waited for him in the living room. “Planning on trying something new?” I asked, noting the smaller wheels he was tightening onto his deck. Those were his trick wheels, the ones he used when he felt like trying something exotic. It had been a while since he’d used them.

  “If the muse descends,” he said as he worked. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” I shrugged.

  He put his shoes on and gave me one of his famous I-don’t-believe-you looks, but he didn’t say anything as Aunt Gardiner came downstairs. “Here to recruit your cousin again, I take it?” she asked as she plopped down on the couch with a laptop.

  “Yep.”

  “What’s wrong? Are you sick too?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look sallow.”

  “I’m okay,” I told her.

  She gave me almost the exact same face Jake had.

  A loud pop followed by a hiss of water came from the kitchen. “Jake!” called Uncle Gardiner. “Got a minute?”

  “I told him he needed to hire a plumber,” Aunt Gardiner sighed.

  “Be right back,” Jake groaned. He kicked off his shoes and ran to the kitchen.

  “So what’s her name?” Aunt Gardiner asked as soon as we were alone.

  “Who’s name?”

  She wagged a finger at me. “I’ve been around long enough to know when a boy is thinking about a girl.”

  I’d forgotten how intuitive my aunt was. “Her name’s Darcy, and she’s just a friend.”

  “And Godzilla’s just a lizard,” she said with a laugh. “Let’s hear it.”

  I told her about Darcy, how much we couldn’t stand each other the first time we met, and how now it seemed like she sometimes wanted to be friends and that I couldn’t make any sense of her. I even mentioned her bad history with Gabby, though I didn’t go into detail about it.

  My aunt gave me a sympathetic look. “Sounds like you really like this girl.”

  “Does it?” I asked. “She’s really more of a friend than anything else, if that.” That was a total lie, but I didn’t feel like I could accurately explain what was going on between Darcy and me.

  “Elliott, for such a smart kid you sure can be dumb,” said Aunt Gardiner. “You just need to be honest wit
h yourself. And stop overthinking everything. It’ll all work out in the end.”

  Jake came back out, his pants rolled up past his ankles. “Sorry I took so long. Let’s go.”

  Aunt Gardiner’s words stuck with me all the way to the park. Be honest with yourself. Was I not?

  Runner . . . lost . . .

  Was being dishonest with myself part of that? Was I running from the truth?

  The park was crowded when we got there, like it always was on Fridays. I was glad to be on my board, with the breeze running over my skin and my beanie pulled low on my head, feeling the clunk-clunk of the wheels underneath my shoes as I weaved in and out. Here I was in my own element; here I had no worries. It was refreshing to not have anything to solve or figure out. Or run from.

  Jake skated beside me. “So I took this aptitude test in career development,” he said as we kicked and pushed around the course. “Turns out I’d make a decent veterinarian.”

  “I believe that,” I said. “You’ve adopted every animal known to man. It’s like Noah’s Ark at your place.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, well . . . what about you?”

  I paused, adjusting my beanie. “Still working on that.”

  “You know, you don’t have to get it right the first time,” Jake said. “If one thing doesn’t work out, it’s okay to try another. You’re not locked into whatever you choose forever if you don’t want to be.”

  His words gave me pause. I’d never thought of it like that before. But I realized he was right. Making a choice wasn’t an end-all be-all. There could be do-overs. I wasn’t signing my life away by making a decision. I hopped off my board and started for the bench to think it over, my mind heavy with this new knowledge.

  That was the exact moment that Liam, with his arm wrapped tightly around Gabby’s waist, chose to stroll onto the park. I froze. Our eyes met, and he too went still. His hand fell from Gabby’s waist, and she rushed away, her longboard—which, I couldn’t help noticing, was still in near perfect condition—in tow.

  A decision. I had to make one. Now. To turn around and leave, run from my problems like I’ve always done, or go out to meet them.

  I chose the latter, and made myself march toward the bench. Liam swallowed, and met me halfway. We sat on opposite sides, neither of us acknowledging the other for a full thirty seconds. Finally, he cleared his throat.

 

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