Hilton nodded.
“Does Todd know?” Jill asked. “ ‘Cause I think he has art right now, so he’s like closer than all of us. Maybe he can save the tables.”
“Why’s Todd in art?” Lorylyn asked with a frown.
Jill shrugged and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know...he took history and geography both last year. So he never took art.”
“I think he knows,” Hillary said. “I think him and Dirk talked about it.”
“Okay, good!” Jill said. She looked at Hilton. “Do you have to keep the tables you get the first day?”
“I don’t know,” Hilton said with a shrug. “We didn’t do an experiment yet or anything, so you can probably change.”
“Guess what!” Lorylyn said. “I have chemistry with Brady! He didn’t take a science class his freshman year, so he’s a year behind! I’m so excited! We’re gonna be lab partners!” She giggled.
“Yeah, you have chemistry with Brady!” Hilton said, batting her eyelashes at Lorylyn.
Lorylyn giggled. “Shut up! You’re right though. I do.” She grinned, obviously happy about what Hilton had said.
Jill giggled, but her mind was already on her own chemistry class. She felt the same nervous feeling she’d felt yesterday about getting to lunch with the perfect timing. What if they weren’t allowed to switch tables after today?! She really hoped she and Hill would get to sit by Dirk and Todd. She knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate at all during French now, because she was already excited and anxious about the rush through the hallways to the chem room. Not only that, but she absolutely had to make sure she sat by Todd in computers, which meant she needed to make sure they walked together after chemistry.
Why don’t you just ask him to wait for you after chem, Jill? she asked herself sarcastically, mentally picturing herself smacking her own head. He is your friend; all you have to do is ask him to wait for you and sit by you...it’s not even a big deal. She smiled a little when she realized how much she was freaking out over such a small thing. But it really did matter a lot. Because if she didn’t sit by Todd, and then got stuck with the seat she was in for the whole semester or even for a month, she knew it would ruin the class for her, and ruin her whole day today too. It was only the second day of school, and she was already back in the habit of judging her day as good or bad based on whether it was a good or bad day with Todd...
***
It turned out Jill had worried over nothing. When she and Hillary got to chem, Todd and Dirk were both there already and had saved a table for Hillary and Jill. The teacher didn’t say anything about switching or keeping the same tables next time, so Jill thought they should probably hurry here again on Friday to make sure they got to sit together.
She’d also worried over nothing about walking to computers with Todd. The four of them all left the chemistry room together, and when Hillary and Dirk said they were headed to their lockers, Todd and Jill said goodbye to them and kept walking together.
“So, this class is gonna be a total blow-off,” Todd said.
“What, computers?”
“Hell, yeah. We have Kraft.”
“I know. I don’t know anything about him though.”
“He’s the soccer and swimming coach, so he’s just gonna be worried about that shit.”
“Good. I hope it’s a blow-off.”
Jill scanned the computer lab as they entered and was pleased to see only a few familiar faces, none of which belonged to close friends. She wanted this to be her time with Todd that no one else could interrupt or share. It looked like most of the kids were freshmen.
Jill and Todd took two computers next to each other and sat in the swivel chairs waiting.
“So have you decided if you’re gonna play basketball yet?” Jill asked.
“Nah, I don’t know. I didn’t think I was, but now I might. For one more year. I don’t know though.”
“That’s cool. It’d be fun if you played for one more year.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.”
“So is the driving test hard? I have to take it Saturday.” Jill wrinkled her nose.
“Nah, it’s not bad at all; it just takes forever ‘cause everybody takes it on the same day. Make sure you’re here like at least half an hour before it’s supposed to start. Then maybe you can be one of the first ones.”
“Man! That means I have to get up at like 6:30! And we have an away game Friday night. That sucks.”
“Yeah, but it’s better than waiting in line for four hours or some shit. And that way you’ll still be able to make the JV game.” JV games were always on Saturday mornings. Jill would be excused from this one since it was the only day the driving test was administered, but she wanted to go; she hated missing any time with her friends.
“True. Hey, who are you sitting with at lunch today?”
“Um, I don’t know. I know Bennett’s in our lunch, but that’s the only person I’ve talked to.”
Jill felt a flutter of excitement. “Well, Lor and Brady and Hilton all have our lunch too. You should sit with us.”
“Yeah, we might. That’s cool.”
Just then the bell rang, and Jill glanced around the classroom again. Still none of her or Todd’s close friends. She didn’t even know the people sitting on either side of them. As she turned to her computer to log on like Mr. Kraft was asking them to do, she smiled happily to herself.
chapter 2) the email thing
“What, we have a freaking convo?!” Hilton said in SRT that afternoon. “Last year the convo was just for the freshmen!”
“I wonder if it’s the whole school this year or what.” Jill didn’t mind the convocation, because now maybe she’d get to see Todd this period. He and Bennett had ended up sitting with them at lunch, and Jill’s day was just about perfect so far.
“If we get the damn ‘this is what we expect of you at BCHS’ speech again this year, I’m gonna shoot myself,” Hilton said dryly. “How annoying.”
“No shit,” Jill giggled. “They better not give that to us every year!” As they left their classroom and headed down the hallway, Jill scanned the crowd. “Look, there’s some freshmen. It must be the whole school.”
“Or maybe just us and them. Our class probably sucked it up so bad last year they wanna give us the speech again.”
Jill giggled again.
Both girls scanned the students as they walked, but they didn’t see any juniors or seniors, or any of their close friends. They chose a seat near the back of the auditorium and sat down. Jill was still scanning the crowd, hoping to see Todd as he came in and get his attention so he’d come sit by her. Finally she spotted him several rows in front of her, surrounded by a group of guys. She couldn’t tell who they were from the backs of their heads, but she was at least glad he wasn’t sitting with a girl.
The principal, Mr. Madden, suddenly tapped the microphone and began speaking. “Hi, everybody. Good afternoon. If you’re in here, you should be a freshman or sophomore. We’ll be calling the juniors and seniors down later. We have a couple of things on the agenda today. First we’ll be explaining the new student email accounts. Then the sophomores can leave, and we’ll talk to you freshmen a little bit about BCHS and our expectations for you here.”
Hilton and Jill rolled their eyes at each other, then giggled.
“So,” Mr. Madden continued. “Each of you will have, or actually already has, your own email account within the school’s email system. You’ll be able to use this to email your teachers and classmates for questions on and help with homework and other assignments. I’ll show you a demonstration here on the screen in just a moment. Now, this is set up so that you’ll log in to any computer in the building under your student ID, just like you do now, then be able to sign in to email using your email address and password, and then you can compose a new message to any student or faculty member by just typing in their name, or by looking them up in the directory. Here, let me show you...”
“This could be kinda coo
l,” Jill whispered to Hilton. “We can email each other at school now!”
Hilton shrugged. “Maybe. If we can get on the computers in any of our classes.”
“Well, I have class in the lab!”
“Lucky! I wish we had more computers in our SRT room. I wonder if Mrs. Sellers will let us get on them.”
“I hope so!”
“Yeah, I hope SRT doesn’t suck as bad as last year. I mean, it was fun passing notes and stuff, but we couldn’t do anything.”
“I know!”
“Well,” Hilton said, stretching her legs out in front of her and yawning, “maybe this email thing will change our whole school year.” She looked sideways at Jill and flashed a wry smile, and both girls giggled again.
***
The next Thursday in computers, Jill had just finished her daily assignment and logged onto her email account when her computer beeped and a little red flag popped up in her inbox. She grinned. It was from Todd. Without looking at him, she opened it and read the message.
My birthdays on Sunday and my mom wants you to come to dinner w/ us on labor day for it
Jill’s mouth dropped open. She glanced at Todd, but he was looking at his computer screen. So Jill hit the Reply button and typed back.
Who’s all going? Where you going?
She heard Todd’s computer beep. He was still for a moment, then he began typing. A few seconds later, another red flag popped up on her screen.
Bennett and you, we’re going to olive garden i guess
Jill grinned. She knew it probably was his mom who’d made him ask her, but she didn’t care. That meant his mom really did like her, and plus, she got to spend Todd’s birthday with him now! Everyone at the restaurant would probably think they were a couple.
Sure, I can go.
She clicked on Send, then looked over at Todd with a laugh. He smiled back at her and rolled his eyes, probably embarrassed because his mom was making him ask. Jill giggled. She loved Todd’s mom. This was going to be so much fun.
***
Todd’s parents picked Jill up at five on Monday afternoon. They were going all the way to Logan, since Brinkley didn’t have an Olive Garden. Todd had told Jill that things had seemed better between his parents the last month or so, and he was hoping they’d be able to work things out after all. It was the first time Jill had ever met Todd’s dad or seen his parents together, and they seemed like any normal married couple to her. Todd’s dad was friendly and funny, and Jill joked around with Todd’s mom just as she had when she’d eaten dinner at Todd’s house.
“So, Jill, Todd said you have lots of classes together this year?” Mrs. Blake asked during dinner.
“Yeah,” Jill said as she twirled fettuccini around her fork, trying to get a good bite prepared. “We have like...three together, I think.” She had pretended to have to think about it and count in her head, even though she could’ve said it in a split second.
“That’s good. So how do you like your classes?”
“Oh, they’re all right so far. I really like mythology a lot. And computers.” Jill shot a sideways glance at Todd and laughed.
“Oh, yeah, computers is great,” Todd said. “Me and Jill just sit there and email each other all the time.”
“Hmm, sounds productive,” Mr. Blake said with a laugh. “How are your classes, Tyler?”
“Oh, okay. It sounds like I should’ve taken computers though.” Bennett laughed.
“When do you two turn sixteen?” Mr. Blake asked.
“November,” Jill said, smiling happily. “I just took my driving test last weekend, and it was so easy.” She’d been nervous as hell at the time, but now it felt good to minimize it.
“March for me,” Bennett said.
“Sucks to be you, dude,” Todd said, and Jill smiled. She loved how laid-back the conversation was with Todd’s parents.
“So Bennett and Jill used to go out last year,” Todd said suddenly, a mischievous hint to his voice.
Jill whirled around to look at him. Todd never looked up from his food. He continued shoveling it in his mouth, but Jill could see a smirk around the corners of his lips. She glared, knowing he was trying to get her back for making fun of him with his mom last time.
“Oh, really?” Todd’s dad looked up with interest. “What went wrong?”
Jill looked at Bennett, completely humiliated. She had no idea what to say. Um, he wasn’t even like a real boyfriend and I wasn’t attracted to him; when he kissed me I just wanted to squirm away? Yeah, that’d sound great.
Bennett looked at Jill too, obviously just as embarrassed as she was.
“Jill liked me,” Todd cut in. “That’s why she broke up with him. But I mean, who can really blame her?” He finally looked up from his pasta, lifting his napkin off the table to wipe off his mouth and grinning broadly at them all.
“Dude, shut up,” Bennett said with a laugh, just as Jill choked out, “Todd! Shut up! That’s so not true!”
Jill looked at Todd’s parents helplessly, hoping they couldn’t tell how right on Todd’s little joke had been. They were both smiling. Jill turned back to Todd with a glare. He was still grinning. “Yeah, well at least Tyler and I dated each other,” she said. “You’re the loser who didn’t even have a girlfriend last year.” She raised her eyebrows at him with a small satisfied grin curling the corners of her lips.
“Oh, she got you there, Todd,” Mr. Blake said, smiling at Jill as he lifted a forkful of spaghetti to his mouth. “She definitely got you there.”
***
“I can’t believe you went out with Todd for his sixteenth birthday!” Lorylyn squealed in French the next morning. “That is so awesome! Did anything happen?”
“No, we were with his family! And Bennett!”
“Oh, well do you think anything’s gonna happen? Seriously, you guys need to get together!”
“I know! But what am I supposed to do about it?”
“Do you think he’ll ask you to the Homecoming dance?”
Jill groaned. “I don’t even wanna think about that yet.” She’d already been stressing over it for a couple weeks. She wanted to go with Todd even more than she had last year, and she was afraid of another horrible disappointment if she even started to think he might ask her. Last year when he’d asked her to go with Bennett and she’d thought he was going to ask her to go with him, it had been one of the worst moments of her freshman year.
“Well, I think you should ask him,” Lorylyn said. “Before someone else does! He’s hot; I bet a lot of girls wanna go with him.”
“I know, I know,” Jill moaned. “But there’s no way I could ever ask him! I need to get someone to talk to him or something, and see if he’s planning on asking anyone.”
Lorylyn immediately turned and looked at Hillary.
Hillary grinned. “I’ll ask Dirk. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Okay,” Jill said, excited but panicked at the same time. She was afraid if Hillary asked Dirk, Dirk would tell Todd, and then he would know Jill liked him. Or what if he told Dirk he was already planning on asking someone else? It was too much to even think about. Jill promised herself she wouldn’t worry about that unless it happened.
***
Two rooms down, Mrs. Martin was assigning partners for a Spanish II project. “I just went alphabetically by last names for this first project,” she announced. “So we have Adams and Barnes, Bigsley and Bryant, Carlson and Cash...”
Brooke turned around and grinned at Brady. “How convenient,” she said quietly. “I guess we’ll have to go over to each other’s houses to work, right?” Her smile widened.
“Yeah, we might have to do a little of that.” Brady grinned back, then pushed his black curl away from his eye. “How’s your boyfriend gonna like that?”
“Oh, he won’t care,” Brooke said innocently. “I mean, how can he; Mrs. Martin assigned the partners. It’s not like we picked each other. Plus, he doesn’t even know we ever hooked up. I think it
’s your girlfriend who might get mad.”
“How can she get mad?” Brady pushed the curl away again. “Mrs. Martin assigned the partners.”
They grinned at each other again, then Brooke turned back around in her seat before they attracted too much attention. How perfect. For once she was glad the teacher had assigned partners.
***
Brooke loved her SRT this year. It was with Mr. Grayson, and it was the first year where they were allowed to do pretty much whatever they wanted, including listen to headphones and talk or play cards quietly. Normally Brooke and Lindy sat in the corner of the room and talked or looked at magazines, but Lindy was absent today, so Brooke got on a computer in the back of the room. Because it was an English classroom, there were eight computers. Brooke picked the one on the end of the long table right by the wall and perpendicular to the others so that no one sitting next to her could read over her shoulder. And there was no room for anyone to stand behind her, because the wall was there. Matt sometimes sent her sexy emails, and she was hoping maybe he’d be online today so they could write back and forth and it wouldn’t be a horribly boring ninety minutes.
She logged on to her email account and was pleased to see she had a red flag by her mailbox. New mail. Hopefully from Matt. She opened her inbox. There was one from Matt and one from Lindy. She read Lindy’s first. Lindy said she’d been throwing up all morning but felt better now, and she hoped she hadn’t missed anything exciting at school. She said for Brooke to call her if Brooke had any good stories. Brooke quickly replied, saying it had been a fairly boring day, but she had to work with Brady on a Spanish project. She made a sad face in the email, wanting Lindy to think she was upset about having to work with him and didn’t want to do it. She smiled as she hit Send and closed out of the window. She was proud of herself for doing such a good job keeping her secret from Lindy.
As she opened Matt’s email, she noticed he’d sent it last hour. All it said was, Hey Brooke, miss you, can’t wait to see you. She’d already seen him since then, both at lunch and during passing period. She decided to look and see if he was online now. Just as she opened the Who’s Online list, her computer beeped and a flag popped up. She smiled when she saw who it was from. Brady Cash. She closed out of Matt’s message without replying and opened Brady’s.