I guess I’ve already done that in a way by cutting off my family and being reserved and standoffish to almost everyone. But there really is something in me that wants to run along the sand and feel again. Grandma brings that out in me. So does David Sherman. Maybe I could bring that out in Amy if I worked hard enough at it.
I closed my notebook and turned around to see someone standing behind me. It was a girl named Avery; I think she has a crush on David. She was looking at me with a funny expression on her face. I was embarrassed to be caught reading out loud.
“Hi,” I said, shutting my locker and sticking the notebook into my bag. There sure were a lot of people hanging around the school late today! Then I saw that she had some copies of the school paper in her arms.
She saw me looking at them. “Do you want one?” she asked in her brusque, take-no-prisoners voice. “We just finished printing them and I’m on my way to the newsroom to get them ready to hand out for tomorrow.”
“Sure,” I said. I took a paper from her and added it to my bag, then slung it over my shoulder. “Thanks,” I said.
“Same to you,” she said, which caught me off guard because it didn’t make any sense. She walked away down the hall, her boots making a marching cadence as she went. I started walking in the opposite direction, and I found my stride matching hers in spite of myself.
Chapter 14
February
David Sherman
Absolutely ridiculous, you are. That’s what Yoda would say if he had seen me flailing through this dating debacle. And no, I don’t make a habit of thinking about what Yoda would say, although my younger brother, Eric, does. Eric is thirteen and he seems to be bordering on the obsessive with his Star Wars knowledge and interest. The fact that he often breathes in the same asthmatic wheeze as Darth Vader might be the first clue that he was pretty into it. The fact that he named his cat “Chewy” would be the second clue. I would worry about when Eric heads to high school in a year or so, but he also happens to be very tall for his age and plays football, so I think he’ll be all right.
What’s even weirder than Eric’s Star Wars obsession is that he was a big help in my asking Andrea to go out on a date with me. Not just any date. I asked her to go to the ballet with me.
I got the idea when I heard her and Amy having a really animated conversation in tutoring about how no one does anything romantic anymore or classy on dates. They just go out for burgers or see a movie, weekend after weekend. I remembered how Andrea once told me about going to see the Nutcracker ballet at Christmas with her grandmother every year and how much she loved it.
But when I checked to see how much tickets were for the Pacific Northwest Ballet, I realized that there was no way that was going to work out, barring a large windfall coming my way. I don’t have a hundred dollars to spend on a date—even for Andrea Beckett—not with my mission coming up so soon. I’ve been working extra hours after practice at the sports store at the mall to save money for my mission and college. I knew there was no way I could justify spending so much.
That job at the store has turned into a lucky break for me. Not only is it helping me save some cash for my mission, but it also helped me get up the courage to consider asking Andrea out on a date in the first place.
A couple of days ago I was at work and some little kid came in wanting to buy a baseball glove. He was going to start practicing with his dad so that he could play Little League in the summer. Well, that’s the kind of customer I like best and so I was helping him find the right glove and talking to him about how much fun it was going to be.
There was a little old lady following me around and watching me and she looked really familiar. When I’d rung the glove up for the kid and sent him on his way, the old lady marched over to the counter where I was clerking. It was then that I remembered where I’d seen her before. She was Andrea Beckett’s grandmother. They’d come in together once around Christmastime, and besides, there was no mistaking that perfect posture. It must run in the family.
Apparently, bluntness also ran in the family. “I need to buy a Nike Windbreaker for my grandson and you are going to help me,” she said without preamble.
I went over to the running section with her and helped her pick out a Windbreaker for Ethan. Apparently his birthday was coming up. She made her decision and I carried her purchase to the front of the store. As I was putting it in a bag for her, she said the magic words that made me think I really could ask Andrea out.
“You are a nice young man,” she declared. “I think you should take my granddaughter on a date.”
“Do you think she’d say yes?” I asked, surprised and interested.
“Oh, yes,” she said and picked up her bag. “Thank you for your help, young man. I think Ethan will quite like this.” And she was gone. My own fairy god-grandmother.
Anyway, Eric wandered in just as I hung up the phone with the Pacific Northwest Ballet. I was muttering about how much tickets to the ballet cost, and he said, “Isn’t it free?”
I said, “No, it’s not free, it’s fifty dollars a ticket! And that’s for the balcony seats where you can’t even see anything!”
“Why would anyone pay fifty dollars to see Addie dance?” he asked.
I realized that he had handed me the perfect solution. Addie is our eleven-year-old sister, the baby of the family and the only girl, so my mom has enrolled her in everything possible that is girly. Ballet is one of those things.
“Does Addie have a ballet recital coming up?” I asked.
Normally, we all—except for my mom—avoid Addie’s recitals like the plague. And that includes Addie. The great tragedy of Mom’s life is that her only daughter came last, not first, and has been turned by her older brothers into a tomboy who hates ballet and pink and dolls. The only reason Addie is still taking ballet is because Mom promised her a snowboard next winter if she keeps dancing until then. Addie’s sick of using my old one. It is pretty beat up.
“Yup,” Eric said. “Next weekend. She’s been complaining about it forever. How did you miss that?”
Because I’ve had my head in the clouds thinking about Andrea Beckett, that’s why.
Now that she does peer tutoring during her free hour like me, I see a lot more of her. I’m getting better at talking to her, but it is still going to be emotionally scarring to ask her on a date. But I have to do it. If I don’t, I’ll always wish I had and time is running out. The school year is flying by faster than you can say “decapitated Skipper.”
“Eric,” I said, “I think I might bring a date to Addie’s recital. Do you think Addie’d care?”
“I don’t think she’ll mind at all. Mom will pass out with joy. But it’ll be a pretty short date. Addie’s recital starts at seven so it’ll be over by eight for sure.”
“I’ll think of something else to do after,” I said.
“You could have hot chocolate in the tree house by candlelight,” suggested Eric.
I paused, thinking it through. “Where did you come up with that? The tree house is freezing this time of year!”
“Not if you put a space heater up there. Don’t you remember how Dad would let us do that sometimes when everyone lived at home and we wanted to pretend we had our own room for a couple of hours? I’m sure we still have the heater and the cord.”
I gave him a bear hug. Eric is going to do just fine in high school. Maybe I should hire him to do the asking out for me as well as planning the date.
•••
I ran the idea by Avery Matthews the next day in journalism. Avery knows that I’ve been working up the courage to ask Andrea out for a long time. Say what you like about Avery’s take-no-prisoners approach, it’s sometimes helpful to know exactly what she really thinks about any given topic.
“What do you think?” I asked. “Does that sound like a decent date? Do you think she’d say yes?”
Avery gave me a considering gaze. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”
“Y
up,” I said. “More than I’d like to admit.”
“When are you going to ask her?” she asked. “It’s Tuesday. Plus, it’s Andrea Beckett. You’d better ask her today if you want to have a prayer of her being free on Friday. I’m sure guys are asking her out in advance all the time. When will you see her next?”
“We’ve already had peer tutoring today, but she’s in English across the hall right now. I usually see her in the hall after class,” I said.
“Ask her out then,” Avery said.
“In public? In front of everyone?”
“This isn’t that big of a deal,” Avery said. “If someone hears you, so what? It’s not that weird to be asking in the hall. I hear people asking other people stuff like that all the time.”
“Everyone will hear if she rejects me!” I said as the bell rang and Avery and I gathered up our books.
“She won’t reject you,” Avery said. “Believe it or not, Sherman, I think she’s kind of intrigued by you. You’re a different breed than the guys she usually dates.”
“I still can’t do it,” I said. We both caught sight of Andrea as she walked out the door. I waved at her and she waved back, and I stopped in the hall. Avery ricocheted off my backpack and sighed in annoyance.
“Ask her out, you freak,” she hissed, and shoved me into the stream of people. I squished through them, a fish swimming against the tide, and made it to Andrea’s locker.
“Andrea,” I blurted, “are you busy this Friday?” Oops. Not very subtle. Maybe a little preamble would have been better. A little conversation and then a segue into the asking out. Too late now.
“No,” she said. “I’m not.”
“Do you want to go to the ballet with me and then have hot chocolate?” I asked her in a rush.
She didn’t say anything. All she did was look at me in perfect silence, a look of absolute surprise on her face. I waited for a second, or maybe it was a year, in that excruciating silence, and then I panicked. “That’s all right,” I said. “Pretend I never asked.” I patted her on the arm in a kindly manner—like a little old man in our ward or something!—and headed for the doors. I walked fast and with purpose, as though I had lots of places to be and lots of things to do and this rejection was no problem at all, just a little annoyance in the grand scheme of things.
I was partway down the hall when Avery caught up to me, running. She moves pretty fast, even though she’s always wearing those clunky combat boots of hers. One of her friends called to her, but she said, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, I’ve gotta go.” Then she grabbed me by the arm and made me slow down. She couldn’t stop me, though, and I kept heading for the doors.
“What happened?” she asked. “It looked like it was going fine and then all of a sudden you started sprinting down the hall.”
“She didn’t answer me,” I said. “I asked her and she just stood there. I couldn’t take it, so I left.” I started laughing in spite of myself even though it still didn’t feel funny. “If I can’t even ask a girl on a date without bailing, what on earth am I going to do on my mission when I have to wade through worse than this? I can’t run out every time there’s an awkward silence or I don’t get the answer I want.”
We were in the parking lot by then. “I know what you’ll do,” said Avery.
“How do you know?” I asked. “I don’t even know what I’ll do.” I felt disgusted with myself.
“You’ll keep trying until it works out,” she said. She turned me around, just in time to see Andrea coming out of the doors of the school. She was walking straight toward us.
“Let me know how it goes later,” Avery said. “Now . . . march.” And, for the second time in under an hour, she gave me a shove. This time it was a little shove, and then she was gone.
Once an object is in motion, it stays in motion until something—like Andrea Beckett’s eyes—stops it. I stopped.
“Hey, David,” Andrea said.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry for taking off so fast.”
“No, I’m sorry. I gave you the wrong impression. The absolute wrong impression. I was surprised and I didn’t react fast enough. I didn’t think you would want to ever ask me on a date in the first place. In the second place, I couldn’t believe you were inviting me to do something so . . . thoughtful.” She smiled at me a little bit uncertainly. “I’d be happy to go with you, if you still want to.”
“Of course,” I said. Then I paused for a second. “Why would you think I wouldn’t ever want to ask you on a date?”
She looked embarrassed. “Oh . . . because of the whole Homecoming night incident. Or because I’m not really active in the Church. Or because you like girls who are funnier and more . . . alternative, like Avery Matthews. There’s plenty of reasons.”
I shook my head. “You shouldn’t worry so much.”
“Neither should you,” she said. There was a pause while we looked right at each other. I didn’t flinch; she didn’t either.
“What ballet are they performing?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “We’ll have to ask Addie, my sister. She’ll know because she’s in it.”
“Your sister is a ballerina?” she asked. “Isn’t she really young?”
“She’s not a professional ballerina,” I said. I realized I’d better clear up right away that we would be watching Addie and her dance class, not Baryshnikov. “She’s just a kid in a ballet recital, but I think it will still be pretty good. Every ballerina has to start somewhere, right?”
Andrea gave me one of those measuring looks that she does every once in a while. They used to terrify me because I felt like she was holding up the person or thing to some impossible standard, judging it, and finding it inadequate or disappointing. Lately those looks haven’t scared me as much because I’m starting to realize that she’s just thinking about and analyzing things, not necessarily judging them. Still I worried that the analysis of this potential date might not come out in my favor.
“It sounds perfect,” she said. “What should I wear?”
“Anything’s fine,” I said. “Jeans and a sweater, whatever. It’s just a kid’s ballet recital.”
“I think we should dress up,” she said firmly. “It will show Addie that we took it seriously.”
“Okay,” I said. “Can I pick you up at about six-thirty?”
“That sounds fine. I’ll be at my dad’s this weekend, though. I’ll write down directions to his apartment for you tomorrow during tutoring.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll see you at track later.”
She nodded and was gone. I turned toward my car door to hide the grin on my face as I opened it to get my track bag. No one was going to be able to catch up to me in workout today, not even Ethan Beckett, because I was going to fly through those intervals like a man possessed. I threw my bag over my shoulder and headed toward the locker room.
Chapter 15
February
Michaela Choi
It sounds like a question someone might ask theoretically to make conversation at a party or something: Which hurts more, a broken heart or a broken leg? After this month, I know the answer. A broken heart, hands down. Although a broken leg isn’t a piece of cake, either.
At the beginning of the month, I felt as though I had a lot to look forward to—the indoor track meets, hanging out with Ethan and (probably) going to the Valentine’s Dance together, things like that. At the beginning of the month, it looked like it was going to be the best February on record, and I was on top of the world.
February is usually the worst month of the year because it’s still gray and cold and everyone is really sick of winter by then. And then there is Valentine’s Day: the most tortuous holiday imaginable for a single teenager. This time, I thought, it was going to be completely different. I was actually looking forward to February.
The month had barely started when things began to go wrong. I don’t know what the groundhog saw when he came out on Groundhog Day, but I think w
e both wished we’d stayed in our burrows before too much time had passed.
Ethan went to his dad’s new apartment in Bellevue for the first weekend of the month but he came home early for some reason. I was surprised because his dad had just moved back into town and I’d thought Ethan would want to stay the whole weekend, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it.
That Saturday night we all went bowling and he gave me a ride home afterward. Usually, Saturday nights are the ones I look forward to all week. We hang out with everyone, but our eyes are always meeting, we find ways to sit right by each other, we always laugh and flirt. We’ve been good about trying not to steady date, but everyone knows there’s something there and that’s more than okay by me. But something was off all night long. I couldn’t tell what it was because Ethan was perfectly nice to me, but it was there. So when he offered Julie a ride home too, I was a little apprehensive.
Things seemed okay on the way to Julie’s house, but I could still feel that underlying tension of something wrong under the surface of our conversation. We were talking about an article that had been published in the school paper that week by Avery Matthews, a girl in Ethan’s and my English class. She had interviewed someone from most of the major religions represented at Lakeview High. She interviewed Elizabeth Andrade to represent the Mormons. Elizabeth is in my early-morning seminary class and she did a good job explaining our religion. She also did a good job describing early-morning seminary and why we bother getting up so early.
Julie was really excited about the whole thing and was going to show it to her parents. I had been happy with the article too, but it was hard to generate much enthusiasm about it right then when I was so worried about what was going on with Ethan.
After Ethan dropped off Julie, we were both quiet as he drove to my house. We made a couple of filler comments that I forgot as soon as we’d made them. He pulled into the driveway and looked over at me. The light above our garage flipped on (thanks, Dad!) but that didn’t seem to bother Ethan. He was taking his time about saying something. I’m usually good at filling the silence, but this time I couldn’t do it. My mind was misfiring, I guess, because nothing I could think of seemed to make sense, so I stayed silent.
Yearbook Page 13