“Open mine!” Lorylyn cried. Brady passed the sack down to Jill.
Jill pulled the tissue paper out and removed a black piece of fabric. It looked too small to be a shirt. She unfolded it. “Aaaahhh! It’s a Central Perk apron! It’s just like Rachel’s! Oh my gosh, Lorylyn, where’d you get this?!”
Lorylyn smiled happily. “My mom made it. She’s like a really good sewer, you know? It’s not quite like Rachel’s is on Friends, but we tried to make it as close as we could. It’s painted, instead of the decal. My mom watches Friends too, so she knew what it looked like.”
“Oh my gosh, I love it! Thank you so much!”
“It does look a lot like the real thing,” Todd said seriously, and all the girls laughed at him. He actually had started coming over to watch Friends with Jill every Thursday night. The first time he’d said afterward, “Huh. That was actually a pretty good show. I might have to start watching that with you.” Jill had given him some of her tapes, starting with season one, so he could catch up. She had never missed taping a new episode, and she loved watching them over and over again when she was bored.
“I thought you could wear it next year with your costume,” Lorylyn said.
“Hell yeah!”
“Brady didn’t get you anything,” Lorylyn said, wrinkling her nose at him.
“Hey, all of us guys are buying her dinner,” Brady said.
“Yeah, when you put all your money together that’ll be like two bucks apiece. Order a lot, Jill.”
Jill giggled. “It’s okay! I wouldn’t expect you guys to get me anything.”
She opened the rest of her presents. Kelsey got her some candles, and Hillary got her two Nora Roberts books.
“You’ll love them, Jill. I just started reading them like a month ago, and I’ve read three already. They’re so good. And I thought it’d give you something to do at your grandma’s.”
“They look good,” Jill said, reading the back of one. She was surprised Hillary had gotten her books; Hillary only read occasionally.
“Open mine now,” Hilton said, shoving it toward her.
Jill pulled the tissue paper out of the sack. It was a bikini, lavender with big dark purple polka dots on it. “For Florida,” Hilton said with a smile.
“Oh, yay! I love it!” Jill reached over to hug her.
“Are you going this year too?” Hillary asked in surprise. “That’ll be so fun!”
Jill froze. She hadn’t told Hillary she’d invited Hilton to Florida this year instead. She’d just figured Hillary would realize Jill wasn’t inviting her back, after how horrible it’d been last year, with them getting in that huge fight…
“Are you going too, Lorylyn?” Hillary asked.
“No, my family’s going on a cruise,” Lorylyn said, but Jill thought she looked confused at not having been invited. Jill made a mental note to explain to Lorylyn later what had happened. But then what if Lorylyn was still upset that Jill had invited Hilton instead of her?
“Aww, that sucks. But we’ll still have so much fun! How will we all fit in your minivan though, Jill?”
“Um...I hadn’t even thought of that,” Jill said.
“Oh well! It’ll be tight, but it’ll just be a fun road trip!” Hillary said.
“Hey, what’s that other present?” Hilton asked, and Jill gave her a quick look that said, Way to change the subject. Hilton just smiled and looked away, not wanting Hillary to notice.
“Oh, yeah, that’s mine,” Todd said. “I didn’t know about the whole buying your dinner thing, so...” He looked embarrassed.
“Oh, that’s okay!” Jill said, reaching out her hands for the sack. “I don’t mind extra presents!” She wondered what Todd had gotten her. Probably something his mom picked out, but she was still excited he’d gotten her a present when none of the other guys had. She reached into the bag and pulled the tissue paper out. It was a pair of Hooters boxers. Jill burst out laughing. “What the hell?!”
Todd grinned. “Well, you guys usually wear boxers for gymnastics, so I thought those would be funny.”
“Oh my gosh, Todd, I love them! That’s hilarious! Thank you.” Jill giggled.
“That is awesome! I so have to get some now so we can be matching!” Lorylyn cried. “Coach Tanner’s gonna love that. Brady, can we stop at Hooter’s after this and buy me some? Jill, let’s wear them to practice tomorrow!”
“Okay!”
“See?” Todd said. “I’m so good. I knew that was the perfect present.”
***
“Um, hey guys,” Jill said to her parents when she got home. They were watching TV in the living room. “Thanks for the surprise. I’m really excited Hilton’s still going to Grandma’s!”
“Well, you don’t have to thank us. It was Hilton’s surprise,” her mom said.
Jill shrugged. “So, about Florida...um, do you think there’s any way I could take two friends?” She smiled brightly.
Her parents gave her a look. “What’s going on?” her dad asked suspiciously.
“Well, I sort of...never told Hillary I invited Hilton, and Hillary still thinks she’s going. I mean, I just figured she’d know she wasn’t invited again ‘cause we fought so much last year! But tonight when Hilton said something about Florida, Hillary was like, ‘Oh, you’re going too?’ ” Jill gave her parents a “please don’t be mad” look.
“So you actually want Hillary to go?” her mom asked.
“Well...I’m sure it’d be fine. I mean, we’re not as close as we used to be, but we haven’t fought lately at all. Plus I’d have Hilton.”
Her parents looked at each other. Finally her dad spoke. “Well, if you really want her to go...I just don’t want you to invite her because you feel like you have to, and then have a bad time. What about Lorylyn? Won’t she feel left out now?”
“No, her family’s going on a cruise,” Jill said. “And she knows what happened; she knows I didn’t actually invite Hillary.” Jill had made sure to tell Lorylyn in the bathroom before they left Don Pablo’s. Lorylyn had widened her eyes and giggled, and Jill was relieved she didn’t seem offended that Jill had invited Hilton instead of her.
“Okay, well...” Jill’s parents looked at each other again. “I guess that’s okay then,” her dad said. “We didn’t tell you yet, but we decided to fly this year. We just booked our plane tickets this weekend, so we’ll just have to try to get another one. We’ll have to call Hillary’s parents and make sure they don’t mind paying for that.”
Jill jumped up and down and clapped her hands. “We’re flying?! That’s so awesome! How come?”
“Well, we’re just pretty much sick of driving. It’s such a long haul. And by flying out Friday night and coming back Sunday morning, we’ll actually have more time on the beach, ‘cause even though we won’t get the first Friday afternoon, we’ll have the whole last Saturday. And Mom and I will only have to take five and a half days off work instead of six and a half.”
“That’s awesome! Yay, I’m so excited! Can you call Hillary’s parents right now? ‘Cause I wanna go call Hilton and tell her!”
***
At gymnastics practice the next day, Jill and Lorylyn wore their new matching Hooters boxers.
“I hope you understand you’re never wearing those at a meet,” Coach Tanner said.
“Oh, we won’t,” Lorylyn said with a giggle.
When Jill and Lorylyn left to get a drink, the JV basketball team was practicing on the other side of the gym. Dirk saw the girls and motioned to Todd, who’d decided to play basketball one more year since all his close friends played.
“Hoooterrrrs!” Dirk called out, and he and Todd laughed and high-fived. Bennett looked over too, and Lorylyn stuck her butt out toward the boys and slapped it.
Jill giggled. She loved when Todd saw her at practice because she thought she looked cute in her leotard and boxers. Hopefully he noticed....And she loved wearing something that had been a gift from him.
***
On t
he way to Schaumburg on Wednesday afternoon, Hilton listened to her CD player and slept, and Jill read one of the Nora Roberts books Hillary had gotten her.
“Hilton!” Jill said as soon as they were in their room at Jill’s grandma’s house. “They have sex scenes in them! No wonder Hillary likes them!”
“Ooh, I wanna read!” Hilton cried. “Can I read your other one?”
“Yeah!”
Jill couldn’t wait to finish the one she’d started. She hoped there were a lot more sex scenes. She felt like she’d already learned a lot just from the one she’d read, and she couldn’t wait to find out more. She was going to have to ask for some more of these books for Christmas.
***
Jill’s family and Hilton went shopping on Michigan Avenue on Saturday, just as they had the year before, and Jill picked out her birthday presents. Jill’s fifth-grade brother Aaron, her dad, and her grandpa hated shopping, so they decided to do their own thing. Everybody met back up for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, and on Sunday, Jill’s actual birthday, they went out for brunch before Jill, her parents, Winnie, Aaron, and Hilton had to head back to Indiana.
While they were at brunch, Jill’s dad dug a small box out of his pocket. “I have one more present for you, Jill, besides the ones you picked out yesterday. I picked this one, so I hope I did okay.”
Jill grinned and grabbed the box, thinking it looked like jewelry. Maybe he had gone to Tiffany’s yesterday! It was a special birthday, after all....She opened the box and pulled the stuffing out. She stared at the small silver and black key blankly for a moment, then her eyes widened as she looked up at her dad.
He was grinning. “It’s a Plymouth Breeze,” he told her. “A ’95. Green. It’s not dark green, more like an ocean greenish-blue, but more green than blue. I think you’ll like the color. Aaron and Grandpa helped me pick it out yesterday. It should be at Grandma’s when we get back. We thought you could drive home with Hilton, and Mom or I could ride with you, since you don’t technically have your license yet.”
“Ahhhh!” Jill screamed. She stood up and ran around the table to hug her dad. “Thanks, Dad! I love it! Thanks, Aaron! Thanks, Grandpa!”
“Well, you haven’t even seen it yet.”
“But it sounds so awesome! I’m so excited! Thank you so much!”
When they got back to her grandparents’ house, the car was sitting in the driveway. Jill loved it at first sight. She jumped out of the minivan and ran to try the key. She slid into the driver’s seat and reached over to unlock the passenger door for Hilton.
“This is so awesome!” she cried, looking around at the radio, the heating controls, the steering wheel, the backseat, everything.
“Why don’t you girls take it for a spin around the block while we run in and get our bags?” her dad asked with a smile. “Just be careful, ‘cause one of your parents is supposed to be with you.”
“I wanna go!” Winnie cried eagerly.
“All right, honey, get in the back,” Mr. Sherer said.
Jill started the car and carefully backed out of the driveway while Hilton searched for a radio station.
“This rocks, Jill! This is an awesome car!”
“I know!” Jill said gleefully. “I love it! I so wasn’t expecting this, like at least till I got my license, ‘cause my dad had said something about going to look at cars over Christmas break. He totally got me.” She laughed giddily as they drove off down the street.
***
When Jill got home that evening, there were three messages for her. Hillary and Lorylyn had both called that afternoon to say happy birthday. The last message, to Jill’s surprise, was from Todd.
“Hey, I was just callin’ to say happy birthday. Hope it was fun. Tell your family I said hey. Later.”
Jill smiled, touching her hand to her heart. “He is so cute,” she moaned to her parents.
“Well, it seems like it was a pretty good sixteenth birthday,” her mom said with a smile.
“It was! Thanks, you guys, so much!” Jill gave both of her parents hugs, then ran up to her room to call Lorylyn and Hillary and tell them about her car.
chapter 6) no one else
A couple weeks later, Jill’s mythology class finished early, so she got on one of the computers at the back of Ms. Kirkwood’s room to check her email.
“Hey, Jill, how’s it goin’?” Brooke asked, sitting down beside her.
Jill looked over. “Hey. I’m good, how about you?”
She and Brooke still sat next to each other in myth and at lunch, but Jill didn’t join in the conversation at the lunch table much, and they never did any type of partner work in myth, so she never talked to Brooke much in here except for small talk at the beginning or end of class. Plus, there were other girls in the class besides Jill with whom Brooke was casual friends, so if class ended early, Brooke usually talked to them.
Back around the time Lorylyn had checked Brady’s email, Jill had hoped to hear some interesting conversation at lunch, or just anything Brooke might say about Brady that Jill could tell Lorylyn, but the only time Brady’s name had even come up at lunch was the day they’d talked about Homecoming Court. Brooke didn’t talk about Matt much either, other than when his name came up in some story that involved something crazy and fun she’d done over the weekend, but it was never anything like, “Matt’s so sweet, guess what he did?” She never really talked about their relationship, but she seemed happy.
“I’m good,” Brooke said with a smile. “How’s gymnastics?”
“Good so far. Our first meet’s next Wednesday. How’s cheerleading?”
“Oh, pretty good. The basketball team’s good this year. It’s gonna be a good season.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jill glanced casually at Brooke’s computer screen, trying to see whom the messages in her inbox were from. She saw Matt Allan, Lindy Brooks, and a few other names, but none from Brady Cash. But his would be near the top, since the emails showed up alphabetically by the first name of the sender. She kept glancing over, trying to do it without Brooke seeing her. Once Brooke looked her way, and Jill quickly moved her eyes back to her own screen and started typing.
Just then Brooke got a new email. She scrolled up to find it, and Jill looked at her screen again out of the corner of her eye, trying to read the names that were flying by. The email was from Ashley. As Brooke double-clicked on it, Jill looked quickly away. There hadn’t been any from Brady.
***
Jill passed Lorylyn a note in Algebra II.
I saw Brooke’s email acct today in myth, and she didn’t have any emails from Brady. So they must not email anymore, cuz why would she delete them?
Lorylyn read it, then wrote something and passed it back.
She might delete them if Matt knows her password.
Jill thought for a moment, then smiled as she wrote her reply. She tossed it on Lorylyn’s desk.
She’d never tell him her password, are you kidding me!?!?!?!
Lorylyn read it, then she looked over at Jill and they shared a grin. Lorylyn folded the note and tucked it in her Algebra II book.
***
The following Wednesday, after their gymnastics meet, Jill and Lorylyn went to Jill’s house to watch that night’s episode of Dawson’s Creek, which Jill had taped.
“That was such a good meet!” Lorylyn said as she settled down on the couch. “Especially for the first one of the year. You totally nailed your beam routine. Your back handsprings were connected!”
“I know! Isn’t it weird how it happens for the first time in a meet? Your vaults were awesome too. I’m still doing a half-half. I never spend that much time on vault in practice. I need to work on my half-full.”
“Yeah, I think I wanna do two half-fulls next meet. I don’t like Yamis.”
“Are they worth the same?”
“I don’t even know. That was so cute that Todd came though! It was an away meet!”
“Yeah, well it was only like a half hour away. And he came
to some last year too. And Dirk and Landon and Brady were there, so they probably just all came to hang out with Brady.” Jill had gotten major butterflies when Todd had walked in though. She hadn’t known he was coming, and it had made her night. She loved watching him walk in and pretending he was her boyfriend and really was there to see her, like Brady was there to see Lorylyn.
“Whatever.” Lorylyn gave Jill a look. Then she asked, “Are you getting Todd a Christmas present?”
“I don’t know. I kinda want to, but I doubt he’ll get me anything, and he’d probably think it was dumb if I got him something.”
“No he won’t. It’s a girl thing. You get presents for all of us, so you might as well get him one too, if you want. He’s one of your best friends just as much as we are.”
“That’s true.” Jill was excited now. She couldn’t wait to go shopping and pick something out for him. And they only had two days of school left before break, which meant by the time she had a chance to go shopping, it’d be break already, so it’d give her an excuse to call him and get together. And maybe she could even give it to him on Christmas Eve or Christmas, and then she’d get to see him on a holiday, which would totally be a couple-y thing.
***
Jill was bummed on Friday morning because it was her last day of computers with Todd. They’d had so much fun emailing each other back and forth all semester, and it had been a total blow-off class. Next semester she’d signed up for jewelry, which she’d thought sounded fun, but had since heard was really hard.
I wish this wasn’t our last day of this class, she emailed Todd. The room was completely silent because the majority of the class was still working on the final. Jill and Todd had been among the first to finish. The good part about this day was that because they were on finals schedule, this class met twice, once for the two-hour final, and once for lunches and a study period before the gold day period two final this afternoon.
it’s not for me. i’m taking advanced next semester
what? i thought you were taking team sports
coach lever didn’t want me taking weight training and team sports both during baseball season, cuz he doesn’t want me using my arm that much. so i have to take team sports next fall instead. so i signed up for adv. comp.