That night Mr. and Mrs. Rodowsky were home by nine-thirty as they’d promised, and Mr. Rodowsky drove me home. I checked my watch the moment I got in. It was 9:38.
“Mom?” I called.
“In the kitchen,” she replied.
Mom was unloading the dishwasher. “Hi, sweetie,” she said. “How are you?”
It was the first time I’d seen her since that morning. She wasn’t home when I returned from school because she works at Bellair’s department store as a buyer, selecting items for the store to sell.
“I’m fine,” I replied. “Did Ethan call?”
“No.”
Good. I hadn’t missed him. I was eager to talk to him. I hoped that this time the strange, awkward thing between us would be gone.
The phone rang. I lunged for the cordless on the kitchen wall. “Hello?”
“Hi, Stace, it’s me,” Ethan said, recognizing my voice right away, just as I knew his.
“Hi. What’s happening?” I asked, wandering out into the dining room.
“Nothing much. I just got in from the gallery. It was really busy. People ask about the paintings and I have to keep finding out all sorts of information, including the prices. Then they leave and don’t buy anything.”
“I’m not surprised,” I commented. The artwork at Ethan’s gallery costs hundreds, even thousands of dollars.
“Then why do they ask?” he complained.
“Maybe they’re just hoping they can afford it,” I suggested.
He sighed. “Maybe.”
I waited for him to say something more. I suppose he was waiting for me, because neither of us spoke.
“I can’t wait to see you Saturday,” I said finally.
He didn’t say anything. Warning bells rang in my head.
“You’re coming, aren’t you?” I asked.
“I need to talk to you about that.”
“What?”
“Tonight someone I work with asked me to cover for him this Saturday,” Ethan told me. “I had to say okay.”
“Why?” I demanded angrily.
“Because he’s covered for me twice already.” “I couldn’t tell him no.”
“But you can tell me no? His feelings are more important than mine?”
“No way. But it wouldn’t have been right for me not to help him when he’s already helped me twice,” Ethan replied, his voice rising.
“I knew it,” I said. I’d wanted to believe he was coming, but, deep down, I hadn’t believed it would really happen. I was disappointed and angry, but not shocked.
I was suddenly struck with a terrible thought. Ethan and I sounded just like my mother and father before they divorced. My father was always saying the three of us would do something on the weekend, and then he would cancel because of work. His job was always more important to him.
What a depressing thought. Was I living a version of my parents’ relationship? It seemed like a silly thing for someone my age to feel. Should I be worrying about this kind of stuff at thirteen? I didn’t think so.
Deflated, I asked, “What’s going on with us?”
“I’m not sure,” Ethan answered.
I sunk a notch lower. I’d wanted him to assure me that my worries were silly, that everything was fine.
“It’s not going to be easy to see each other this semester,” he went on. “I have a heavy course load, I have to work at the gallery, and now this Sunday class.”
“So, what are you saying?” I asked slowly.
“Maybe we should cool things down.”
Suddenly, my chest felt tight.
“Maybe we should,” I replied.
I gasped sharply, in a small burst. Had I really meant to say that? Well, I’d said it, hadn’t I?
Tears pooled in my eyes.
We both hung on the phone, neither one of us speaking.
“Okay, then,” he said sadly after a moment. “I’ll be talking to you.”
“Wait!” I cried. “Wait. Did we just break up?”
“No,” he said quickly. “No. We’re just … changing things.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. I didn’t believe his answer. This was a breakup. In my heart I knew it.
“We’ll still see each other,” he said.
“Okay,” I agreed in a choked voice.
“Okay, ’bye,” he said.
“ ’Bye.”
I clicked off and sat just at the table. Mom came in. “Honey!” she said, seeing my eyes. “What happened?”
“Ethan and I broke up,” I told her, wiping away another tear. “At least, I’m pretty sure we did.”
She sat beside me and took hold of my hand. I wiped my eyes again but no more tears came.
“The horrible part,” I began, “is that I don’t think this would have happened if we lived closer to each other. I still care about Ethan a lot. And I think he cares about me too. It’s just too hard to get together.”
Mom looked worried.
“I’ll be okay,” I told her.
“I think you’ll be okay too,” she said, giving my hand a squeeze. “You should get to bed. Will you be able to sleep?”
“Yeah,” I said, standing up. “Good night.”
But I did have a hard time falling asleep. People’s faces and their words kept swimming through my mind. I pictured Claudia talking to Jeremy. I saw Rachel. And I heard Ethan’s voice on the phone.
But mostly I thought about Jeremy.
If it hadn’t been so late, I would have called Claudia to tell her about Ethan. Instead, I hurried to her locker first thing Wednesday morning.
She wasn’t there.
I sat on the floor in front of her locker and tore a piece of paper from my spiral notebook. I wrote:
Hi, Claud —
Guess what? Ethan and I broke up last night. Are you shocked? I was. Sort of. Abby was right about long-distance romances. It’s just too hard. I was bummed last night, but I’m better today. Sort of. Write back. S.
I folded the note, stood, and tried to slide it into her locker. Then I pulled it out again. She wouldn’t get it until after lunch and I didn’t want to wait that long.
This was big news and I wanted to share it with my best friend as soon as possible.
I stuffed the note into my jeans pocket and waited until we saw each other in the hall between homeroom and first period. I passed it to her then.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Read it and you’ll see.”
She stopped right then and there — in the middle of all the kids rushing past us — and unfolded it.
“Oh, no!” she cried as she read. “Are you all right?”
“I think so,” I said.
The hall had quickly become empty as kids disappeared into their classrooms. We couldn’t stand there any longer. “I’ll write you back,” she promised, hurrying down the hall. “Are you really okay?”
I nodded. She was a great friend.
Then Claudia turned and ran back to me. “I almost forgot. I already did write you.” She pulled a folded note from inside a book. “Here,” she said, handing it to me. “But I’ll write you another note about your note.”
She ran off again.
I ducked into my classroom and slid into my desk just as our teacher was shutting the front door. The first thing I did was unfold Claudia’s note. Then I sank low into my seat to read it.
Claudia is the most horrible speller on earth. But, since I’ve read a million of her notes, I can understand what she means.
Dear Stacey,
I just now left Jermy at his loker. I like him so much. You were write! Were purfect for each other. Do you think he likes me to? Say yes! Pleeeeeeeese! I hope so. I cant tell tho. Wat do you think? Your hopelesly in love friend, Claudia.
Slowly, I refolded the note.
Claudia liking Jeremy wasn’t a surprise.
What did surprise me was that her note annoyed me so much.
When was she going to learn to spell, anyway? It suddenl
y bugged me incredibly that she couldn’t spell. How could an eighth-grader still spell like a six-year-old?
What was going on? I’d never cared how she spelled before. I was probably feeling crabby because of Ethan. After all, who wants to hear about a friend being in love when you’ve just broken up with your boyfriend?
I wanted to talk to her before lunch, but my last class ran long. I didn’t get to the lunchroom until all my friends were seated.
And Jeremy was with them.
It’s funny how sometimes a thought just pops into your head all at once.
That’s what happened to me as I stood on the lunch line, looking over at my friends and Jeremy.
It came to me suddenly.
I had a major crush on Jeremy.
That was why Claudia’s note had bothered me. It wasn’t her spelling. It was the fact that she liked Jeremy … and so did I.
I realized I had lost my appetite. If I hadn’t had to eat, I’d have left the line and forgotten about lunch. Instead, I moved along in a kind of trance, barely noticing what I was choosing.
If I didn’t sit with my friends, everyone would know something was wrong. I had no choice but to join them.
When I reached their table, Claudia smiled at me. “Hi, how are you?” she asked. All my friends looked at me with concern. Claudia had obviously told them about Ethan.
“I’m okay,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” Jeremy asked. (Clearly, he’d been kept out of the loop.)
“Oh, nothing important,” I told him.
“Those long-distance things don’t work,” Kristy commented. She directed her next remark to Jeremy. “You don’t have a girlfriend back in Washington, do you?”
I could have died! She can be so direct — too direct — sometimes.
But he didn’t seem to mind the question. “Not anymore,” he replied. “We broke up when I found out I had to move.”
“See? That was smart,” Kristy went on.
“Sometimes things don’t work out even when two people live close to each other,” Mary Anne added.
“Yeah, but they never work out long distance,” Kristy insisted.
“I think if you’re older and you can drive and take planes and all, you might have a chance,” Abby spoke up.
“Maybe,” said Kristy. “But not at our age.”
This conversation went on for another five minutes but I tuned out. Once again I couldn’t take my eyes off Jeremy.
I noticed that he ran his hand through his hair and narrowed those beautiful eyes when someone said something I didn’t agree with. I thought that meant he didn’t agree either. It proved we were on the same wavelength.
The scraping sound of moving chairs snapped me from my daze. Lunch was ending.
“See you all later,” Jeremy said as he stood up, taking his tray with him. Mary Anne, Kristy, and Abby left too.
As I got up from the table, Claudia clutched my arm.
“Stacey, you have to help me,” she said, sounding desperate.
“Help you do what?” I asked. (I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to hear it.)
“Help make him like me. I can’t think of anything else but him.”
“But what do you want me to do?”
“Talk to him. Find out what he thinks of me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can. Oh, please, Stacey. You’re my best friend. You’ve got to do this for me. I’m losing my mind.”
This was horrible. I couldn’t do what she was asking. I was not going to do it.
“What do you say?” she asked.
“All right,” I agreed.
What else could I say?
By Thursday morning I’d made an important decision. I’d worried all Wednesday night and I finally knew what I had to do.
I had to choose Claudia over Jeremy.
Claudia had been my best friend for a long while. I’d just met Jeremy. Besides, I had no reason to think Jeremy even liked me. Just because I had a crush on him didn’t mean he had one on me.
“Okay, Claudia,” I said that morning before class. “You have to get away from your locker now.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Doesn’t Jeremy come by to talk to you in the morning?”
“Not every morning. And I don’t know if he actually comes to see me, or if he’s just passing by and I’m here so he stops to be friendly.”
“Here’s my plan,” I told her. “If I’m standing here and you’re not, Jeremy and I can both wait for you. That will give me a chance to talk to him about you.”
She thought about this for a moment. “Should I show up after awhile?”
“No. Because you might arrive before I have a chance to learn anything.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll grab my books and go.” She pulled what she needed from her locker. “I’ll be at Mary Anne’s locker if you have anything important to tell me.”
“I’ll pass you a note if I don’t get the chance to come to Mary Anne’s —” I cut myself short. I’d spotted Jeremy at the other end of the hall. “Quick, get out of here! Go.”
Claudia hurried away from her locker. I leaned against it, trying to appear casual as Jeremy approached.
He noticed me and smiled. (There was that dimple again.)
“Hi, I’m waiting for Claudia,” I lied.
He seemed confused. “Didn’t I just see her leave her locker?”
Oops. Time to think fast. “Oh, yeah, uh … She went to get a book from Mary Anne. She’ll be right back.”
“I’ll wait, then,” he said. “I wanted to ask her something.”
Did he want to ask her out?
“How do you like Stoneybrook so far?” I asked.
“It’s all right. It’s kind of strange when you don’t even know where the mall is, but I’m used to moving.”
“Why have you moved so much?”
“Mom’s job. She opens new offices for this big corporation, and they keep sending her all over the country.”
“How long will you be in Stoneybrook?”
“Who knows? They told her this would be her last transfer. From now on they’ll let her fly from one city to another and then come home again. But they’ve said that before.”
I suddenly had a brilliant idea. “If you want to know where the mall is, Claudia and I can show you.”
“That would be great,” he said. “When?”
“How about tomorrow night? The three of us can be mall rats. We could eat there and see a movie.”
“Excellent,” he agreed. “I haven’t done anything fun since we got here.”
“I’ll give you Claudia’s phone number,” I said, ripping a sheet of paper from my notebook. “You can call her and —”
“But I thought she was coming right back.”
Double oops.
“I forgot. That’s right.”
He gazed around at the thinning crowd in the hallway. “It’s getting late, though,” he observed. “I’d better get to class. We can set it up at lunch, okay?”
“Perfect,” I said. “See you then.”
The moment he was out of sight, I dashed down the hall to Mary Anne’s locker. “IdiditIdiditIdidit!” I squealed to Claud and Mary Anne.
“Did what?” Claudia asked eagerly.
“I got you a date with Jeremy!”
The few kids left in the hall stared at Claudia as she let out a scream.
“What happened?” Mary Anne asked.
As I explained it, Claudia’s face fell. “But that’s not a date,” she objected. “You don’t have three people on a date.”
“I’m not going to be there,” I told her. “At the very last minute I’ll feel sick and cancel.”
“Ooooooohhhh,” Mary Anne and Claudia said in unison.
I didn’t see how it could fail.
Claudia pressed her lips together thoughtfully.
“What?” I asked.
“I wish he’d asked me out on his own. Then I?
??d know if he liked me or not,” she said.
“After you go to the mall together it will be settled,” I assured her. “Besides, he said he had something to ask you. Maybe he planned to ask you out anyway.”
“Or maybe he wanted to borrow a pen,” Claudia said with a sigh.
“Oh, don’t be silly. You’ve got a date with a guy you really like.”
“You’re right.” She was smiling again. “Thanks, Stacey.”
“No problem.” That, of course, was a lie. This was a big problem. Talking to Jeremy this morning reminded me how much I liked him. But I was proud of the way I was handling it. It made me feel noble and mature.
I turned to Mary Anne. “I won’t see Kristy or Abby before lunch,” I told her. “Would you tell them what’s going on so they don’t jump in and offer to come along too?”
Mary Anne giggled. “I can just picture them doing that and spoiling the whole plan.”
“So can I. That’s why you have to talk to them ahead of time.”
“Okay.”
Sure enough, at lunch Jeremy invited everyone else to go to the movies with us. But Mary Anne had done her job. She and Kristy and Abby thanked him but claimed to be busy. Jeremy, Claudia, and I arranged to meet at Claudia’s house.
So far, so good.
Claudia phoned me at six-thirty the next night, using the phone in her room. “He just got here; he’s downstairs,” she said in an urgent whisper, even though he couldn’t possibly have heard her. “Do you remember our other number?”
“Of course,” I assured her. “Go downstairs and I’ll call.”
I dialed the Kishis’ family line and Claudia picked up. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” I said. “You know … I’m sick … I have a terrible headache … blah blah blah blah.”
“Oh, that’s terrible, Stacey,” she replied in a voice that sounded phony to me. I hoped Jeremy hadn’t noticed. “Are you sure you can’t come? Maybe you’ll feel better if you take an aspirin or something.”
“No, I definitely can’t come … and so on and so on,” I answered.
Claud moved away from the phone. “It’s Stacey,” I heard her say. “She’s not feeling well and can’t come.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Jeremy replied.
Claudia returned to the line. “I hope you feel better, Stacey. I’ll call you when I get home to see how you’re feeling.”