Freshman Year (2 page)

She heads toward the wide open jaws of the nearest department store, and I dutifully follow.

We start at Kohl's, where I'm supposed to be looking for a “supertight shirt that matches my eyes and gives the illusion that I have boobs,” but while Kate's distracted by the towers of jeans, I sneak out my notepad and work on my list:

4.
Buy ultradry deodorant and new socks.

5.
Make up a catchy cool saying.

6.
Practice speaking Spanish.

I peek over a rack of shorts and see Kate scrutinizing a pair of jeans. They're pink corduroy, and the short zipper makes it easy for me to determine how much of my butt cheeks will be hanging out if I actually sit down while wearing them. I think we should all say no to crack, but the fashion gurus have a different idea. I send a telepathic message to Kate to put them down and walk away, but she adds them to the mound of clothes in her arms that I'm going to be forced to try on.

“It's time,” she yells in my direction.

I have never met a fitting room I liked. First of all, fitting rooms are made for normal-sized people, not freakishly tall people like me. Because I'm five nine and a half, it feels like my nearly naked body is visible to everyone as they walk by. Plus, I always whack my funny bone on the stupid hooks protruding from the wall, which are placed at the most inconvenient level for Amazons like me. The worst part has to be the full-length mirror and bad lighting. I usually try not to look too closely, but today I glance over before slipping on one of the outfits Kate's picked out for me. I hate what I see: me standing there in my boring cotton undies and bra, with my bland face and scraggly long blond hair. The mirror seems to elongate my twiggy arms and legs more than ever, making me totally look like Elastigirl, minus the sexy thigh-high boots, secret identity, and boobs. I flash a fake smile at myself because my smile is the only thing I like. That and my inherited blue eyes, but neither are making me feel better at the moment.

“We don't have all day, Abbey,” Kate says outside the door. “Come on. I promise I won't say anything mean.”

“Yeah, right,” I say and quickly put on the pink pants and the tight white shirt. I look slightly okay, but Kate will have the final word on that. I open the door and wait for the bullets to hit me.

“Oh my God, you look like a giant cricket. What's with your legs for days?”

This goes on for about fifteen more outfits, and then I change into the last one, open the fitting room door, hold out my arms, and do a slow 360 for Kate.

She looks up from texting and throws up her hands. “Why is it that we're the same damn size, and everything looks good on me, but you manage to look like a mutant?”

These comments used to bug me, but now I just shrug and let them go. “It is one of life's great mysteries, I guess. Can we go eat now?”

“God, you're such a freak, Abbey. We might as well just get a bedsheet and throw it over your head.”

“I know, I know,” I say, as I quickly strip and jump back into my comfy clothes. Before exiting, though, I add:

7.
Buy new underwear and bras.

to my list. I don't dare tell Kate because she would have a heart attack from excitement and then drag me to Victoria's Secret for thongs and lacy push-ups. I'm only fourteen and I still like cartoons, so I'm not quite ready for sex-kitten status yet, but I may be ready for a bra with a little bow in a color other than nude.

As we slowly make our way to the food court, Kate alternates between texting Marisol and Sarah, gagging at how bad I look in the other outfits I try on along the way, drooling over the guys on the Abercrombie posters, and trying on every scented lotion at The Body Shop. Then she starts in on her “we are almost women, hear us meow” speech.

“I mean, Abbey, look at us.”

I scan myself, then her, and see the obvious: Sure we're the same height and same pant and shoe size, but her long wavy brown hair and other parts of her do this supermodel sway when she walks. Her teeth and skin glow, just like the TV ads say they should. Plus, she knows how to apply makeup and waltz like a graceful dancer on her extra-long legs. My stride resembles Shaggy's from
Scooby-Doo
.

“We're practically women,” she says and then glances over at me. “Well, at least, for the most part.”

I cross my arms over my chest and remind myself that there's a lot more to her than finding the perfect pair of jeans and scamming on guys. She was there for me when I lost my dad. It was Kate who sat next to me at his funeral, and it's Kate who lets me talk about him whenever I need to. She's a good listener when it matters most.

But now I'm in a dressing room at Forever 21, and I hate her. The miniskirt she's making me try on makes me look like a sex worker who might be found strolling down Miracle Drive. I tear it off like it's contagious and come out dressed as myself. Before Kate has a chance to protest, I say, “No way. Not now. Not ever.”

After two hours of dressing room torture, we finally arrive at the food court, and the first thing I notice isn't the group of guys Kate is trying to get me to see by stabbing her sharp elbow into my side. What I notice is we've missed a thunderstorm, and I'm bummed. See, in Tucson it can go from a hundred degrees to flash floods in a matter of minutes. The storms are so awesome and loud car alarms go off all over the neighborhood when the thunder rumbles. I love the power the monsoon storms pack.

Even though Kate and I are behind a wall of windows, I can smell the damp creosote bushes and clean asphalt. I close my eyes for a second, inhale, and think of the trips my dad and I took into the desert to record bird songs and collect rocks for the biology classes he taught at the University of Arizona.

Kate looks at her cell phone for the hundredth time today and then turns to me to deliver one last bit of advice. “Abbey, don't you think it's time you stop caring about the weather and start caring about something that really matters?”

I smile but keep quiet because there have been a lot of other things on my mind lately, things I think about way more than the weather. But they are things I can't ever tell Kate about, at least not yet. Sure, we've shared death, but I'm definitely not ready to tell her I enjoy the posters at Abercrombie as much as she does, but not because of the hot, barely clothed
guys
.

Kate gets a text from Jenn, her older sister and her ride home. “Well, hasta la pasta, girl,” she says and gives me a quick hug. “I guess we'll have to hit the stores again tomorrow. Same time, same place?”

I look at my watch and don't respond, hoping that I can later say, “I never agreed to go to the mall with you,” but Kate knows me too well and forcibly nods my head up and down with her hands.

“Great! See you tomorrow.”

After Kate leaves, I look around and evaluate the food court lines. I nearly join the crowd in front of Eegee's, but the line at Hot Dog on a Stick is free and clear, so I beeline it over there instead.

I stand a little ways from the counter and gaze up at the menu to figure out what I want. Ordering french fries isn't normally a challenge for me, but I guess riding my bike fifteen miles in the hundred-degree heat and baking under the fluorescent lights in the fitting rooms like a Big Mac has sizzled my brain.

I have a bad habit of twirling my hair when I'm thinking, so that's what I do, as I stand there, spacing out at the menu like a moron.

Then a straw wrapper sails through the air and hits my gaping mouth.

And standing behind the counter, twirling a clean straw between her fingers, is a girl in her red, yellow, blue, and white striped polyester tank top with a whole lot of black hair stuffed under her matching striped paper hat. I have always loved those outfits, especially recently. I used to think it was because I associated the outfits with food, but now I'm definitely beginning to wonder if it isn't something much more involved than that.

“Is the menu too complicated for you?” she asks. She's smiling, and her teeth are bright against her cocoa-brown face. It's a smile I feel like I've seen before.

I feel my face turn red like an instant sunburn, but then I do something I've never before done to a girl like her: I smile back. Then I stammer, “Uh, sorry. I'll have a regular fry and a small lemonade, please.”

I watch her peck my order into the register and see that her fingertips on her left hand are rough with calluses. My dad's fingers looked like that because he played guitar all the time. He was really good. Mostly he played the Beatles, which is why he wanted to name me “Abbey Road” Brooks, after one of their later albums. My mom said no way, of course, because she's a total bore. So, instead, they named me plain Abbey Brooks. But now that Dad's dead, Mom calls me Abbey Road. I'll never get her.

Now I'm wondering how long the girl with the nice smile has been playing guitar and where the heck I know her from. I try to look at her name tag, but it's hiding in a fold of her uniform and I'm afraid if I look there for too long it'll look like I'm checking out her boobs, which I'm currently not doing. I mean, not really.

“That'll be six dollars and twenty-five cents,” she says.

Where could I have met someone cool like her? It's not like I go to concerts or coffee shops or wherever cool people hang out. Then I notice she's reaching for another straw and I snap out of it. At that exact same moment, her name tag is finally revealed, but it's plastered with stickers from Chiquita bananas.

As I reach into my backpack for my wallet, I can't hold back a goofy smile. See, my dad used to put Chiquita stickers on my nose every time we shared a banana, and I've spent the last five years sticking Chiquita stickers all over my wallet to keep that memory close.

The girl, I'll call her the Hot Dog on a Stick Chick, notices our shared affinity for bananas. “Nice wallet.”

“Thanks.” I smile bigger, if that's even possible. “Nice name tag.”

I've only been around her for about two minutes, but I think…no, I
know
, I want to be like her and near her. She seems so confident, like she knows what she wants out of life and how she's going to get it. I wonder how people get that way.

She repeats my order to the guy working the fryer and then says in a voice that's cooler than the frigid mall air conditioning,
“Y, apúrale, gringo.
Tenemos una morra bien loca que tiene mucha hambre
.
”

With my junior high Spanish skills, I know she's just said I'm crazy and really hungry, which is pretty much true. I smile again and then sneak a peek at her eyes while she gets my change. They're brown with tiny flecks of gold sprinkled in like glitter.

She asks for my name and I panic before I realize that it isn't for any special reason; it's so she can call me up for my order.
“Tu nombre…?”
she asks again and poises her finger over the register keys.

I open my mouth with every intention of telling her my name, but all I can think of to say is Chunks. “Um-uh,” I say to try to buy time, but she's already typing something on the keypad.

The name
Amara
illuminates on the screen.

“Okay, Amara, I'll call you in a sec.” Then she turns away to get my drink and…
did she just wink at me?
Whoa
,
this is definitely a first
, but then I get a reality check and convince myself that she just got some lemon pulp in her eye.

I sit down at a nearby table because, for some reason, my knees are shaking and I feel like I might collapse. I want to look at her a little longer, but instead of staring at her like a hungry puppy, I count the Nikes walking by. A minute later the Hot Dog on a Stick Chick calls
Amara
on her loudspeaker, but I don't make the connection because I'm too busy trying to count the Nikes walking by and trying not to obsess over how she is making me feel. Then she says it again, follows it with a laugh, and I finally realize she's calling me.

I bolt up to the counter, but then slow down so I won't look too desperate for the french fries or to talk to her again.

She slides the tray to me and flashes her stunning smile again. “Here you go, Amara. Enjoy.”

I look down at my tray because she makes me feel so shy. Then because I'm a professional idiot I say, “Oh, uh, I paid for a small lemonade, not a large. I mean, I don't want you to get in trouble,” and pick up the drink to hand it to her.

She takes it, but puts it back onto my tray. “Sure, Amara, the lemonade police are going to bust through the door to take me away for giving you a bigger size.” Then she laughs and winks again, and this time I'm almost sure she winks on purpose.

I laugh, too, because I don't know what to say or do with myself. I'm on uncharted ground, so I stand there, hold tight to the tray, and wait for my brain to send the message to my feet that it's time to go.

Just as I'm about to finally make my escape, she puts her hands on my tray, her right index finger nearly touching my left pinky. “Hey, Amara,” she says easily, as if this new name is the one my parents had finally decided on.

I don't dare move an inch. I'm sure if our fingertips touch I'll implode.

She leans across the glossy red counter. “Come here. I've got some advice for you.”

I move in a little closer, but I can't speak or even blink. I reach for my ponytail to twirl but force my hand down and wait for her next words.

“Amara, the next time you are given more than you expect, just say thank you and walk away.” Her voice is heavy and sweet now, like cold maple syrup.

Then the Hot Dog on a Stick Chick just looks at me, and something about the way she does this activates a memory I didn't even know I had. She's
that
girl from elementary school. I still can't remember her name, but I know she's at least three grades ahead of me. She was the one who beat every boy at tetherball, and she never wore socks or hair bands that matched her outfits. And then I remember how she ate her string cheese very carefully, tearing each strip with the precision of a surgeon, unlike me who would just bite into it like the ogre that I am.