Tate Prep has this Valentine’s Day delivery service, run by the seniors. Everyone walks around all day with armfuls of flowers. Flowers in mail cubbies, flowers on desks, flowers delivered during class by cute senior boys. Lectures are constantly being interrupted by the entrance of someone or other with an armful of roses.
On February 14, a day on which I had no expectations of getting flowers from anyone but Meghan, I was sitting in Am Lit when Jackson walked into the room with a bouquet of twelve white carnations.
Everyone looked up when he walked in. Everyone meaning not just me but Kim, Cricket and Nora, too.
He caught my eye and headed over.
My stupid heart leaped, seeing Jackson with twelve white carnations, extending them to me.
I took them and read the card—“Hugs and Happiness! Nora”—and my eyes filled. Partly because no, of course they weren’t from Jackson, and partly because I knew Nora wished she could take them back. Wished she’d never bought them. Just like the flowers I’d sent her, they’d been ordered when we were friends. Now they didn’t mean anything at all.
“Thank you,” I mouthed—but she turned her gaze away.
Even though Jackson was delivering flowers to people all across school—all the seniors were—Kim stared as he left the room with a look of shock and hurt in her eyes. I saw Nora whisper in her ear, probably explaining that those weren’t from Jackson, they were the carnations she had sent me, though of course I hadn’t deserved them after all.
My sessions with Doctor Z came to a standstill. I couldn’t finish the treasure map. I couldn’t talk to her. I couldn’t listen to anything she asked me.
A typical session went like this:
Doctor Z: How are you feeling today?
Me: Okay.1
Doctor Z: Do you want to elaborate on that?
Me. Um. Not really.2
Doctor Z: All right. Well, I’m here and ready to listen.
Me: Okay.3
Doctor Z: (silence)
Me: I don’t have much to say, that’s all. I’m fine.4
Doctor Z: (silence)
Me: (silence)5
And that would be it.
So I wasn’t getting anywhere in therapy, and the fact that I couldn’t talk to my shrink was obviously taking its toll on my mental health. The panic attacks increased to the point where they made my life hell at least four times a week.
Only now, no Nora came to put her arm around me.
In early March, Spring Fling was announced at assembly. It was scheduled for April 6. Every year the dance takes place on a mini-yacht; there’s a band and some punch and cake, and it’s supposed to be a really romantic evening—much more so than prom, which is all about graduation and never has an amazing view or anything.
This year, I had no plans for going. I mean, what were the possibilities?
• Finn. Yes, he’d brought sample ninja brownies and lemon bars to us at the CHuBS table, and blushed, and convinced half the boys’ soccer team to bake things, but it would have been social suicide for him to take me to a dance, given that he was Kim’s ex.
• Jackson. We were on friendly terms; in fact, he had been sweet to me lately—but with all our bad history and the waves of hatred coming from Kim and her friends, no way.
• Gideon. Nora had no doubt told him I was evil. Besides, college boys never want to go to high school dances.
• Noel. Couldn’t stand me.
Everyone else single was either Jackson’s friend, Ariel’s friend, a complete Neanderthal or unlikely to risk the horrible gossip that would circulate if they asked me to the dance—even if they imagined that by taking the school slut they’d probably get lucky.
The first mentally deranged thing about the whole situation was that I even wanted to go to Spring Fling. One formal dance I’d been to had been really awkward. The other had been a complete nightmare. There was no reason to think I’d actually have a good time, and if I’d been sane I just would’ve forgotten the whole dance was happening and gone about my roly-poly business. Except—
I heard Katarina, Ariel and Heidi in line for lunch, talking about dress shopping together over the weekend and how they thought wearing black was over and this year they wanted pastels. Heidi and Katarina were going with senior basketball muffins. Ariel didn’t have a date yet, but she was thinking of asking Noel. “Or I bet I could get Sam Williams to ask me, don’t you think?” she said, thereby illustrating the fundamental difference between me and her, as I was completely unable to conceive how on earth a girl would “get” a guy to ask her to a dance if he didn’t want to take her already.
Kim was going with a guy she knew from crew team; Cricket had asked a senior she’d befriended in Drama Elective. Nora didn’t have a date yet.
And neither did Noel. But then, last year he’d gone solo, so maybe he wouldn’t ask anyone.
Anyway, I wanted to laugh with Meghan (who was no doubt going to end up going with some candidate for Operation Sophomore Love, though she hadn’t decided which one yet). I wanted to worry about shoes and whether I’d kiss my date. I wanted to order a boutonniere and buy a dress with my Birkenstock money. I wanted to try on makeup in department stores and slow dance at the end of the night.
The second mentally deranged thing about the situation was that I was waiting for someone to ask me. Obviously, this is the twenty-first century, and as I’d told Nora, girls can ask guys out. We should ask them out. There is no reason to sit around being passive and hoping that someone will ask you to a dance when you can easily invite the person you want to go with. How are women going to become president and win Oscars for directing if we sit on our butts waiting for things to happen?
I know this. I believe it. But I still wanted someone to ask me to the dance. Yes, like it was 1952. Yes, like Gloria Steinem never existed. Yes, idiotically, yes.
I don’t know where all the dance fantasies came from. But there they were, these stupid retro dreams, and here I was, without them coming true.
A week and a half after Spring Fling was announced, Meghan met me by her Jeep in the parking lot holding a foil tray of brownies.
“Those look like ninja brownies,” I said to her. “Are those ninja brownies? Because if they are, I need to have one now.”
She didn’t seem to be listening to me. “Roo, I have something I want to ask you.”
“Actually,” I said, “I don’t care if those are ninja brownies. I’ll take any brownie I can get, if the truth be known. My mother is making carrot-pecan burgers for dinner.”
Meghan handed me the tray of brownies and got into the Jeep, unlocking my side. “Take whatever you want.”
“But don’t we need to save them for Parents’ Day on Friday? Why is Finn giving them to us now, anyway? They’re going to get stale.”
Meghan started the Jeep and pulled out of the Tate parking lot. “They’re not for Baby CHuBS, Roo. They’re for me.”
I choked on my mouthful of ninja deliciousness. “Finn made these for you?”
Meghan nodded. “That’s what I wanted to ask you. Finn invited me to Spring Fling and I said yes. So I was wondering if you wanted me to see whether he has a soccer stud-muffin manly baking friend who could take you.”
Oh.
All that blushing Finn did in the B&O Espresso. And the baking.
And the recruiting of soccer players. It wasn’t for me. It was for Meghan.
And I must be an egotistical wench, because even though I should have been happy for Meghan that she was going to the dance with a great muffin who obviously liked her if he made her ninja brownies, some part of me still thought, Wait, he’s liked me since second grade! He’s mine! You’re not allowed to steal him even if I do think he’s a muffin, and another part thought, It’s so unfair that Meghan has a real romantic date when she’s been flitting around planning Operation Sophomore Love, and I have nothing and nobody and all I’m trying to do is be a good person.
However, I am at least sane enough that I didn’t
say any of that out loud. Instead I asked, “What about Dan and Dave and Don and Mike and Mark?”
Meghan shrugged. “They’ll survive. They’re way too young for me, anyway, even if they are tall. I mean, I don’t think I can fall in love with someone who hasn’t even taken the PSAT.”
“It must be love if Finn is making you brownies.”
That made her smile. “Nora and I went to the B&O two days ago to do homework, but she could only stay for an hour, and I stayed until six, which is when Finn got off work. Then he asked me if I wanted to go walk down Broadway with him and look in Marco Polo, you know, the travel store? So I did, but then I had to go into Rite Aid, so he came with me.”
“And?”
“He asked me to Spring Fling and I said yes and then I kissed him in the middle of the drugstore!”
“You were still in the drugstore?”
“Yeah. I was just buying Noxzema. Not anything personal,” Meghan said.
Ag. I would never wander the aisles of a drugstore with a potential boyfriend. It’s like a minefield in there. Tampons! Zit medicine! Dandruff shampoo! Condoms! I don’t know how we’d look each other in the eye after parading past all that stuff, much less start making out in an aisle full of diapers.
“That’s great,” I told Meghan.
“So do you want Finn to find you a date? I’m sure he would.”
Suddenly, I didn’t want to go to Spring Fling. Not with someone who was only escorting me as a favor to his buddy from the soccer team. Not with some bland muffin I didn’t even want to talk to, much less slow dance with.
“Nah, that’s okay,” I said.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You know you have to go dress shopping with me anyway.”
“Of course I will.”
“Thanks. Oh, and I have news of Noel,” Meghan said, almost like it was an afterthought.
“What?” My heart jumped. Maybe he wasn’t mad at me anymore. Maybe he was sorry he’d assumed I was a giant slut instead of believing what I told him about Jackson. Maybe he’d decided he loved me even if I was a giant slut. Or maybe, at the very least, he’d been asking about me.
“Nora asked him to Spring Fling,” Meghan said, crinkling her nose. “And he said yes.”
1 Inside my brain: I can’t believe your boyfriend calls you Schmoopie. Schmoopie Schmoopie Schmoopie Schmoopie!
2 His feet are so disgusting. How can I tell my problems to someone who hangs around all day with a horrible foot smell?
3 I mean, that was some really weird fungus Jonah had going on there. It’s enough to make me doubt your judgment.
4 Because if you feel like those are normal feet, Doctor Z, I can’t possibly trust your evaluation of whether my brain is normal.
5 I can’t tell you anything I’m thinking because I know you’ll be offended that I thought your boyfriend had freakishly repellent feet; it’s not the kind of thing you can actually say to anyone, much less your shrink, whose personal life you’re not supposed to know anything about.
I Fight the Tyranny of Cute
parents’ Day, Meghan and I got to the Baby CHuBS table by seven-thirty a.m., when the baked goods were scheduled to start arriving. Later on in the day, Archer and some other senior girls from CHuBS would take over sales; then Finn and some soccer muffins were doing the late-afternoon shift; then we closed for the teacher presentations in the auditorium. Meghan and I were returning for the hour after the presentations, when people would be milling around shaking hands in the main lobby. That was also when Jackson would be paying out to the people who’d bet on the winner of the Parents’ Day Handicap.
We’d painted fresh Happy Paws signs, plus one that said DELICIOUSNESS! and one that said TATE BOYS BAKE. I had made little stickers to put on wrappers of things brought in by the guys: “100% Boy Baked.”
The more breakfasty items were for early morning: ginger scones, chocolate chip muffins, oatmeal-raspberry bars, sour-cherry squares, cream cheese coffee cake. The serious dessert items we had scheduled for later delivery. Meghan was in her element, flirting with the soccer boys and any other male who was bringing in supplies, asking their advice on pricing, licking her lips provocatively whenever anything good came across the table.
Me, I was keeping track of how much attrition my roly-poly slut reputation had caused us. Nora, who hadn’t shown up for anything Baby CHuBS-related since I’d gotten caught kissing Noel, did deliver her promised molten chocolate cakes and a tray of coconut-chocolate squares, because she’s never been the sort to back out on a charitable commitment. Besides, she was still friends with Meghan. Varsha Lakshman and the girls I knew from swim team brought their stuff, as did Finn and the soccer muffins. But Ariel, Heidi, Kim and Katarina—all of whom had signed up to bring things because it was Nora’s project—not one of them delivered what they’d promised. Neither did several girls who knew Nora from basketball. Neither did Ariel’s crew-team cronies.
And neither did Noel. He was supposed to bring his pain au chocolat first thing in the morning, but he never showed up.
Not really a surprise.
Still, I did feel proud looking at the long table all spread with deliciousness, knowing I had been a big part of making it happen and that we’d raise a lot of money for Happy Paws. Parents started trickling into the main hallway about ten minutes before first period would normally begin. More moms than dads. Dads in suits or khakis and cheerful sweaters; side-parted hair; checking cell phones. Moms with blond streaks or well-cut bobs, expensive jewelry and deceptively casual jeans. The lawyers, doctors and stay-at-home parents of Seattle.
My mother arrived, dragging my dad by the hand, wearing a black cotton dress over black leggings with her hair frizzing out in wild curls. She was holding a tote bag that read: “If it’s not a Great Dane, it’s just a dog.”
My dad, with gardening dirt still under his nails, wore a T-shirt that said simply: “The DogFather,” with a logo like the movie poster for The Godfather.
“That is what you wear to Parents’ Day?” I asked him, pointing at the shirt.
“We mail-ordered the both of them,” my mother said, indicating her bag. “They came this morning after Meghan picked you up.”
“Oh, Ruby, of course I’m your father too.” My dad put his hand on my shoulder and gazed sincerely into my eyes. “I’ll always be your daddy.”
“My father too? You mean to say that you think of yourself as Polka-dot’s dad now?”
Kevin Oliver looked at me with complete noncomprehension of the insanity of his statement. “He’s a member of our family group, Ruby. You know that.”
Mom said, “You shouldn’t be jealous because we’re celebrating Polka-dot. Polka-dot needs to be celebrated. Goodness knows, he never got any personal attention while he was living at Juana’s with twelve other dogs.”
“Do you think he understands that you’re celebrating him with T-shirts and tote bags?” I asked them. “How can he even tell?”
“Oh, he can tell,” Dad said. “He came over and sniffed the tote as soon as it came out of the package. He was looking at the picture and saying ‘Rock on, that looks like my brother!’”
“He did not say ‘Rock on,’” I told them, putting a sticker on one of Finn’s prewrapped lemon squares.
“He barked when Dad put on the T-shirt,” added Mom. “And you know he never barks. He was telling us how much he liked it.”
“Fine.”
“Ooh, what have we here?” It was Mr. Fleischman, waddling up to the counter.
“Emulsions!” I yelled, because I knew it would make him happy. “Lemon emulsion, sour-cherry emulsion, cream-cheese-frosting emulsion. Take your pick. They’re all made with science!”
He chuckled and rubbed his hands together.
“Mr. Fleischman,” I went on, “these are my parents, Kevin and Elaine Oliver.”
They all shook hands and Mr. Fleischman bought a sour-cherry square and a slice of carrot cake with three layers of c
ream cheese frosting. “Do you want anything from the bake sale?” I asked my parents.
My dad looked to my mom as if for permission. She gave a slight nod and he said, “Yes, I’ll take a coffee cake.”
“Two dollars. Mom, you want anything?”
“Nothing for me, thanks,” she said, patting her tote. “I have a dehydrated banana-barley cookie in here if I get hungry before lunch.”
Then, hand in hand, they wandered off in the direction of the art studio, where there was a display of student work.
“They seem like delightful people,” Mr. Fleischman said. “I always get along with dog lovers.”
Meghan sighed. “Your parents still hold hands. That’s adorable.”
“I’ll sell ’em to either one of you for a dollar fifty,” I said.
Meghan and I worked the bake sale table from eight to eleven and sold a ton. Finn’s lemon squares were seriously, seriously delicious, though he put me off my feed by French-kissing Meghan behind the Baby CHuBS table. The coffee cake sold out, and by ten-thirty we had nearly run out of other breakfasty stuff. We were expecting a new influx of more desserty things around eleven, and sure enough, on the dot Archer showed up to take her shift behind the counter.
Only, she was not holding a tray of deliciousness. She was holding a tray of marshmallow Easter bunnies and—I kid you not—Jesuses.
The Jesuses were built like snowmen, standing three mallows high and crucified on crosses made of sugar cookies with chocolate frosting. “I meant to bring these earlier,” Archer said, displaying them proudly, “but I had trouble getting the crosses to stand up properly. I stabilized them with clear gumdrops. I don’t think anyone will mind, do you? You can barely see them.”
Meghan and I looked at the bunnies and Jesuses. Archer had clearly spent hours on them. The bunnies had floppy ears made from strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups, tiny licorice-drop eyes, and tails made of white dinner mints. The Jesuses had hair and beards of chocolate, and each was dressed in a loincloth made from green Fruit Roll-Up. Yes, a loincloth, even though they each only had a single marshmallow at the bottom instead of legs.