How was Prague?
Aw, man, it was great. Prague was great.
Yeah?
Pause.
Pause.
Pause.
Crickets chirping.
Well…that’s great!
I knew things would be better when we saw each other in person, but until the actual moment of “better” occurred, I was stuck stressing about it. And to make matters worse, my way of responding to stress—any stress—was phenomenally self-defeating.
First, I’d get totally freaked out about whatever it was: in this case, going back to school and seeing Lars again. Then I’d think way too hard about how I was going to handle it: in this case, what I was going to wear and how I’d do my hair and whether I’d go for makeup or not. Blah blah blah. And finally I’d get disgusted with myself for being such a freak, and in my brain I’d be like, “Ah, screw it.” I’d decide to not even bother, which would feel good at the time, but would leave me in the lurch when the actual scary pressure moment arrived.
As it always did.
Curse the onward marching of time! Curse Cinnamon’s adorable gauchos and clingy white cami! And curse curse curse my boring jeans and “Candyland” T-shirt! The look I was going for was Girl Who Is Above It All. The look I’d achieved, I now realized, was Girl Who Belongs Back in Pre-School.
“I should have worn a panty liner,” Cinnamon said, still dwelling on her female problems. “Or at least jeans, which are so much less likely to let anything show. Why oh why didn’t I wear jeans?”
“Because unlike me you wanted to look cute?” I said.
“What are you talking about? You look cute.” She gave me her full attention, for the first time actually registering what I was wearing. She lifted her eyebrows.
“Uh, Winnie?”
“I know. I know! Let’s not dwell on it, ’kay?”
“Guys!” Dinah called, puffing up the hill in high-waisted khakis and a tucked-in pink Polo. “Hi! Omigod, you both look so great!”
Cinnamon smiled and waved. “You, too!” she called gaily. To me, she whispered, “Okay, guess what? I’ve decided you look fine. At least you’re not dressed like the president of the P.T.A.”
I laughed, then immediately felt guilty. But it was part of our dynamic that sometimes Cinnamon would make fun of Dinah, and sometimes I would laugh.
“Don’t be mean,” I told her. That, too, was part of our dynamic.
Dinah reached us, flushed and beaming. “Yay! I am so glad to see you guys!” She bounced on her heels. “I can’t believe we’re eighth graders. I can’t believe it!”
“It’s going to be a big year,” Cinnamon said. Down by the junior high’s main entrance, more and more kids poured from their parents’ cars. There was squealing and hugging among the girls; among the boys, knuckle punching and high fives. From our hilltop vantage point, everything was muted and only remotely threatening.
Hello, little ant children, I said in my head. And then my stomach tightened, knowing I’d soon be joining the ranks.
“Winnie, look,” Dinah said, pointing. “There’s Amanda.”
I slapped down her hand. What if Amanda had seen? Amanda was doing the all-black thing, I noticed, and I could see even from here that she was still in her heavy eyeliner stage.
“And oh, look, there’s the lovely Gail,” Cinnamon said. “Did you guys hear? She’s a model now. She did the back-to-school issue of the Sears catalogue, whoop-di-doo.”
I groaned. “Great, her ego’s going to bounce right out of her head.”
“I know,” Cinnamon said. “But Sears?” She laughed. “It’s hilarious when you think about it. It’s like being a model for Kmart.”
“What’s wrong with Kmart?” Dinah asked.
Cinnamon tilted her head.
“I’m serious!” Dinah said. “I like Kmart. This shirt came from Kmart!”
Cinnamon clucked her tongue, like the girl will never learn.
I spotted Malena-of-the-boobs emerging from her father’s Lexus, and I jerked my head to alert Cinnamon and Dinah. Malena wore a V-neck tank and a miniskirt that just barely met the dress-code requirements, and when she lifted her hand to wave at Amanda and Gail, the heads of every single male turned in gawking appreciation.
“Did you hear?” Dinah said. “She fooled around with a guy from a brand-new Disney Channel show. It was during her family’s beach vacation in L.A.”
“Nuh-uh,” Cinnamon said.
I was skeptical, too. Seriously, a sitcom star? And how would Dinah know?
“It’s true,” Dinah said, reading our expressions. “Louise told me. I ran into her at Bennigan’s. Malena met this guy, I think his name’s Gage, on the beach in L.A. And they totally fooled around. And now Malena IMs him, like, every day, and she’s hoping to be an extra on his show! If they need extras, which Malena thinks they will.”
“What a slut,” Cinnamon said.
“Cinnamon!” Dinah scolded.
“It’s true! And why should girls like Gail and Malena…why should they be the ones who get to be in Sears catalogues and kiss movie stars? Why not us?”
“Do you want to be in the Sears catalogue?” I asked. “I thought you said it was hilarious.”
“Still.”
I gave her a subtle once-over. Yes, she was adorable in her gauchos and cami, but it was also true that she had a bit of tummy poking out. It was a cute little roll above her waistband. She’d had it since we first met. I didn’t mind it at all. But I kind of didn’t think she was model material, even for Sears.
The bell rang announcing homeroom.
“Oh, crud,” Cinnamon said. “It’s time.”
“Yikes, yikes, yikes!” Dinah said, smoothing the pleats on her khakis. “I really want this to be a good year. The best year ever!”
Cinnamon lifted her chin. “Ready, you guys?”
“Ready,” Dinah said.
“Winnie?”
I closed my eyes, instructing myself to be calm and confident and fabulous. And witty, if possible, but not in a show-off-y way. And kind. Always kind, which meant no more making fun of Dinah behind her back—or going along with Cinnamon when she did.
“Winnie?” Cinnamon repeated. She jabbed my arm with a series of impatient pokes.
I opened my eyes. “Let’s do it.”
I didn’t see Lars and I didn’t see Lars and I didn’t see Lars. And why? Because he was in high school now—duh—and the high school buildings were in a different part of the campus than the junior high. It was unnerving to think of him out there in high school land, doing high school things with other high school kids. High school kids like my very own sister, Sandra, who was a senior now, which blew my mind.
Not that Sandra and Lars would move in the same circles. To us lowly eighth graders, the ninth graders were hot stuff. But to the seniors? They were nothing but lowly freshmen, just as the seventh graders, to us seasoned eighth graders, were nothing but scrawny, trembling newbies.
But the junior high and the high school shared the same cafeteria, and depending on which lunch you had, it was possible for an eighth grader and a ninth grader to cross paths. That’s what I was hoping for, and that’s what I got. I passed Lars as he was exiting the cafeteria, and he grinned at me and saluted. Saluted! So cute!
And oh my God, he’d only gotten more gorgeous since the beginning of the summer. His dark hair was longer, and his shoulders were broader. He was a total guy in his slouchy jeans and untucked button-down, and I had the crazy thought that I didn’t know him anymore, this world-traveler-stud-boy with squinty hazel eyes. It threw me into a state of panic, no doubt because of too much nervous anticipation for this very moment.
“Off to class?” I managed, moving out of the throng of lunch traffic so we could talk.
“Nah, I’ve got a free,” he said. He paused, too, but his eyes followed his buddies as they headed out the door. He focused back on me.
“Going to hang out on the quad?” I said. “Soak up some rays?”
“You know it.”
“Nice.”
He glanced at the door. “Well…”
“Well…”
“Guess I’m out of here,” he said. “Enjoy the fried chicken.”
“Yessir,” I replied. He grinned, and my heart soared.
When I caught up with Dinah and Cinnamon, I told them they had to eat fast so we could get to the quad before Lars’s free period ended. They were dear darling sweeties and complied, scarfing down their chicken in record time while I nibbled a few bites of my own and tried to think of clever conversation openers. We put away our trays, made a speedy bathroom pit stop, and headed outside.
“There he is!” Cinnamon squealed, spotting him under a tree with his best friend Bryce and two girls I didn’t recognize.
“Yes, I know,” I said. “Time to hush now.”
“Geez Louise, when’d he get so tall?” Dinah asked.
“Shut up shut up shut up,” I said under my breath.
“Crap, Winnie, he’s, like…gorgeous,” Cinnamon said.
“Is there something about ‘close your pie hole’ that you don’t understand?” We were within yards of him. My palms grew sweaty.
“Lars, hi!” Cinnamon called out. “Long time no see!”
Lars glanced up. A smile stretched across his face. Bryce looked up, too, as well as the two girls, who must have been sophomores or even juniors, because I really think I would have known them if they were freshmen. I would have at least seen them in the junior high halls last year.
“Sinful Cinnamon,” Lars said. “What’s up?”
“Winnie just told me to close my pie hole,” she tattled.
“Cinnamon!” I whacked her.
Bryce laughed, and Cinnamon puffed with pleasure. Bryce, too, had gotten cuter over the summer. I could see Cinnamon taking him in.
“Sit, sit,” Bryce said expansively, gesturing with his arm to show that there was enough grass for all of us.
We sat, me next to Lars and Cinnamon next to Bryce. Dinah hesitated, then plopped down on the outer edge of the circle.
“So anyway,” the unknown girl closest to Lars said. She widened her green eyes, giving him her full attention. “Prague versus Paris.”
“You can’t go wrong with either one,” Lars said with the confidence of someone who’d been to both. He launched into an analysis of street life, cafés, and cappuccino—(cappuccino? since when did he drink cappuccino?)—and I studied the girl he was talking to. She had shiny red hair to go with her green eyes, and her skin was winter pale. She wasn’t gorgeous, but there was something very…high-school-and-not-junior-high about her. A silver hoop glinted in her left nostril.
She must have felt me staring at her, because she turned and looked at me. Yes? she seemed to say with an arch of her eyebrows.
I blushed. Lars turned to look at me, too, and I wanted him to put his arm around me, to show her that I belonged. That I wasn’t the interloper here.
“Have you been to Europe?” I asked. See? I was being polite. Mature. Marginally functional despite my lowly eighth-grade status.
“Me?” she said. She made it seem like a dumb question, which it wasn’t. It wasn’t dumb to ask someone if she’d been to Europe if Europe was what everyone was discussing. “No, I’ve only traveled to the Americas.”
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t even know what that meant, “the Americas.” Was she making fun of me? Or was she talking about Brazil or something?
Her friend snorted, which solved the mystery. She was making fun of me.
“I’ve been to Europe,” Cinnamon interjected.
“No, you haven’t,” Dinah said.
Cinnamon laughed. “Okay, you got me. But I want to.”
“Don’t we all?” the friend of the girl with the nose ring said. She was Indian, with super glossy black hair, and now, because she was being nice, I wondered if I’d misinterpreted her snort. Maybe I’d also misinterpreted the redheaded girl’s “Americas” remark?
I wished I could be easy and unabashed like Cinnamon. I wished I could just laugh at myself, instead of getting so anxious about everything.
Lars still wasn’t treating me any differently than anyone else in the group, and I felt like I should stake my claim a little.
“Tell them about the singing barista,” I said, nudging his knee with mine. “The one who only sang Britney Spears songs. The one with a really thick accent.” Lars had e-mailed me about her from a cyber café. He’d typed, “Oops! She’s doing it again!”
“Well, there was a singing barista,” Lars deadpanned. He adjusted his position so that our knees didn’t touch. “She had a really thick accent, because guess what? She was from Prague.”
The others laughed, including Cinnamon. Dinah smiled, but her eyes, when they met mine, were uncertain. I laughed to show her it was okay, though it wasn’t. Lars was the one who told me the singing barista story. He told me because he thought it was funny, so why was he turning it around so that I was the one who was funny—and not in a good way?
I should have left. I should have strode haughtily away with a cutting remark, or at least a withering glance to let Lars know I wasn’t someone he could treat like this.
But I stayed. I stayed and forced my face muscles into appropriate expressions as Lars, Bryce, and the high school girls held their conversation, and inside, I felt hot and quivery and wrong. I fought hard to keep it under control…but what would happen if I didn’t? If I burst into tears and said, “Lars, why are you being a jerk?”
Was this what getting older meant? Getting better and better at hiding your true emotions?
Eventually, Bryce slugged Lars’s shoulder and said, “Dude, let’s do it.” To the girls, he said, “Physics. Dr. Teaseley.”
The girl with the nose ring groaned. “I had Dr. Teaseley last year. He is so unbelievably strict.”
The Indian girl said, “Didn’t he used to be in the military?”
“He thinks he still is,” the nose-ring girl said. “Plus, he’s got the worst coffee breath. You don’t want him getting in your face.”
“Man likes his joe,” Lars said.
I shot him a look, not that he noticed. Man likes his joe?
The guys got to their feet. The high school girls followed suit.
“See ya,” Lars said to me, because apparently he was big enough to at least say good-bye.
On the inside, I was thick, black sludge. On the outside, I was nothing. Blank.
“See ya,” I replied.
Mom took Ty and me to Baskin-Robbins to celebrate our first day of school, since of course I had so much to celebrate. Whoopee! Mainly I let Ty do the talking while I sat there and nudged my spoon around my cup of chocolate chip mint. Mom looked at me funny a few times, but didn’t bug me about it. Maybe she understood the whole moodiness thing, being pregnant. Although in her case, it didn’t affect her appetite. She finished her own two scoops of rocky road and then gestured at my cup.
“May I?” she asked.
I pushed it toward her.
“And that’s a whole ’nother thing that’s different,” Ty said, continuing his monologue: Second Grade: A Whole New Ball of Wax. “Silent. Reading. You heard it here first, folks. For an entire half hour after lunch! Right at the sleepiest time of day!”
“That doesn’t sound like good planning,” Mom said.
“No, it’s not,” Ty said. He turned to me. “Winnie, did you have silent reading when you were in second grade?”
“Huh?”
He stared at me. Then he focused back on Mom. “And Cody cried because Hank made fun of him for picking his nose.”
Mom dragged the spoon around the ice-cream cup. “Well, Hank shouldn’t have done that. But I’ve always told you kids not to pick your nose, and that if you do, someone’s bound to notice.”
“Mo-o-om, I sneak it,” Ty said.
I took in his face, the mustache of ice cream above his upper lip. He was such a messy eater. When he was five and
I was eleven, Sandra had a job here at Baskin-Robbins, and Mom used to drop the two of us off for free babysitting. This was where Sandra met Bo, actually. I had a crush on him. I used to make him show me his scooper’s muscle.
Anyway, Ty was messy back then, too. Odds were he’d be messy his entire life.
Me, on the other hand. I reflected on my eleven-year-old self, so filled with importance at being at the ice-cream store without Mom, and thought, I am not that girl anymore. I will never be that girl again.
Ty downed his Dixie cup of water and looked at mine. “Can I have a sip? I promise I won’t backwash.”
Yeah, right, I thought, knowing he’d return it milky with French vanilla. But I passed it over anyway, because what did it matter?
By the time we got home, it was starting to get dark. Mom stopped the car at the base of the driveway and said, “Winnie, will you please hop out and get the mail?”
“I will,” Ty said, already unbuckling. He opened his door, and his voice changed pitch. “Hey, look—it’s Lars!”
I snapped to attention. “What?”
Ty waved in the direction of the house. “Hi, Lars! We’re here! Winnie’s here!”
I saw Lars rising from one of the red chairs on our front porch, and my heart jolted into overdrive. My sweat pores, too. I scrambled out of the car.
“I’ll be inside in a minute,” I told Mom.
“That’s fine,” she said. “I wondered if something happened between you two, if that’s why you’ve been acting poky.”
“Nothing happened. I’m not poky. Bye!”
I fast-walked up the drive, sliding my palms down my jeans. Lars shifted his weight.
“Hey,” he said when I reached him.
“Hey,” I said. Was he mad at me? Was I mad at him?
“So…how’d the rest of your day go?” he asked.
“It was good. Yours?”
“Ah, you know.” He did this cute thing with his eyebrows—quirky, like a puppy—that I didn’t know how to interpret. Mom’s Volvo zoomed up the driveway, with Ty and the mail included. When they were safely past, Lars grabbed my hand.
“C’mere,” he said. I resisted for a second, then let him pull me toward him. His arms circled my waist; my knees knocked against his legs. I breathed in his smell. I felt grateful, so grateful.