A Match Made in High School (9 page)

She looked at the money like it was about to burst into flames in her hands. “You’ve already started the babysitting job?” Todd and I nodded. “How did it go?” She looked back and forth between us like a Labrador retriever at an egg-toss. I figured Todd would take this opportunity to suck up, and he didn’t disappoint.

“It went very well, Maggie,” he crooned. “She’s a sweetie.”

“Fiona is?”

Todd snorted and bent double like it was so funny it hurt. “
No
. The
kid
. The kid is a sweetie.”

I opened my mouth to say something back, but Maggie Klein cut me off. “Okay, well, still quite encouraging.” She plucked out one of the identical pens she kept in a clean terra-cotta flowerpot on her desk, and scribbled in our file.

“I’ve made a note that you’re the first couple to turn in some income. Well done. Just don’t forget to get a note from the parents validating your payment. You can turn that in with the budget at the end of the month. And how is the theoretical earning of the income divided? Do you both work? One of you?”

“I’m the one with the job,” Todd said. Maggie Klein gazed at him like a teenage groupie after her first beer. “Oh, Todd, I figured as much,” she lilted.

I pretended to cough.

Todd scooted up in his seat. “Yeah, I like to take care of my woman. Keep her at home. Barefoot in the kitchen, where she belongs. I’d say barefoot and pregnant, but unfortunately, my wife is frigid and infertile.”

96 Kristin Walker

I kicked Todd in the shin. “You are such a jackass.”

“Fiona!” Maggie Klein exclaimed.

“Me?” I cried. “Aren’t you going to yell at him?”

She tilted her head at Todd and giggled. “Well, we know he’s kidding.”

“Oh,
do
we?” I said.

Maggie Klein sighed. “Fiona, you must get in touch with your partner’s personality. His quirks and foibles.”

Todd muttered, “Yeah, Princess, you should touch my quirk.”

I gagged loudly, but Maggie Klein ignored Todd’s lewd innuendo. “Now, what about the shared activity? Any news on that front?”

“We haven’t started it yet,” I said, glaring sideways at Todd.

He put his finger in the air, “Actually, Maggie,” he said,

“cheerleading tryouts start today after school.”

I swiveled. “Tryouts? Why do I have to go to tryouts?”

Todd mocked sipping through a straw again. “We might get thirsty, Water Girl.”

“Don’t call me Water Girl.”

“You’re right. Your name is Princess P—”

“
Shut up
.”

Maggie Klein shot up out of her seat and yanked open her office door. “Okay, it looks like our time’s up. You may return to class. Don’t forget to write in your journals and work on your budget. ’Bye now.”

We stood up and filed out of her office. I peeled off

without a word, but Todd called after me, “Don’t forget. Football field. Three o’clock. See you there, Princess.” I gave him an over-the-shoulder-finger. He chuckled and walked away.

My only consolation was that this was going to make one hell of a college application essay. “How I Learned About Diplomacy from Señor Shitslacks, the No-Necked Neanderthal.”

AFTER SChooL I CALLEd My MoM To LET hER kNow

I’d be late, and then I headed down to the football field for the cheerleading tryouts. The official cheer coach was this ancient history teacher named Mrs. O’Toole. And I don’t mean the history was ancient; Mrs. O’Toole was. She started coaching cheerleading at ECHS in the late 1950s when cheerleaders wore those bowling-style shoes and said things like

“peachy-keen.” But as the decades passed, she couldn’t get on board with all the new mounts and skills that evolved, so her coaching became less and less hands-on. Now, she mostly just sat somewhere and snoozed through tryouts or practices. I guess the administration didn’t have the heart to fire her after so many years. Or maybe she hadn’t thought to ask for a raise in half a century, so her “coaching” was insanely cheap. At any rate, for tryouts Mrs. O’Toole did nothing more than sit at the end of the football stands with an umbrella over her face for shade. Whether she was awake or asleep was anyone’s guess. Hell, she could have been dead and no one would have noticed until the flies started swarming. I sank down onto one of the bleachers and opened my copy of
P&P
. I was just at the part where Mr. Darcy first

recognizes his feelings for Elizabeth. I didn’t get very far, though. I couldn’t help daydreaming that I was Elizabeth and Gabe was Mr. Darcy, fighting against his blossoming feelings for me. Discovering that his passion was beyond his control and finding me more and more desirable each time we met. I, of course, was coy and witty and said all the right things at all the right times and filled out the top of my empire-style dress quite nicely. I played the pianoforte as he listened and watched me with sultry eyes. It was a love that would grow despite the denial of both parties. Despite the opposition of others. It was simply irrefutable. But we would have to wait for it. Wait. Because you can’t hurry love. You just have to wait. Love don’t come easy. It’s a game of give and take. Oh, dammit. Now I had a song from one of my father’s crappy old vinyl records stuck in my head.

I set my book down and watched Todd, Amanda, and a whole gaggle of girls squawk around. There were even a couple of guys waiting to try out, too. I guess Todd had degeeked cheerleading enough for them. Or maybe the whole

“looking up girls’ skirts” thing had finally caught on. Jamar Douglass was there. And Oskar Leahy. And who was the guy on the opposite bleachers? Was it . . . ? Hold the phone. I jumped up and “casually” strolled a bit closer. I blinked my eyes in the sun. It couldn’t be, could it? But it was. Gabe.

Why was he here? He couldn’t be trying out. He was just sitting there. Watching. With sultry eyes like Darcy’s. And suddenly it hit me. The girls. One of the girls was the one he was dating. Had to be. Then Amanda went over and sat 100 Kristin Walker

next to him, and I did a mental head-smack. Of course. He was only there because they were fake-married. That was it. Right? But there was a girl, somewhere, who he was seeing. Maybe she was here. Wait a minute; did he just smile at Sonja Pressman?

“You know, if you’re going to stalk someone, you should be less obvious.”

I wheeled around. It was Todd. He’d snuck up on me. He said, “For starters, try not standing in the middle of a field, gawking at your prey,” he said.

I kicked at a dusty clump of grass. “Gawking? I . . . I’m . . . not gawking. I was just watching your girlfriend putting the moves on someone else. Jealous?”

“Of Gabe Webber?” Todd laughed. “Uh . . .
no
.”

I shielded my eyes from the sun. “Why? What’s wrong with Gabe Webber?”

“Nothing. As in, there’s nothing there. He has the personality of dry toast.”

How dare he insult my Gabe? “Oh yes. I forgot. You prefer the company of assholes and jerks. As they say, ‘Birds of a feather . . .’”

“That must be why you hang around.”

I opened my mouth to come back with a zinger, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Blank. I just stood there with my yap hanging wide open.

Todd smiled and shook his head. “Ya got nothing?”

I did the only thing I could. I shut my mouth, shrugged my shoulders and said, “Nope. Nothing.”

Todd laughed again. A real laugh, though. Not an evil one or a suspicious one. A real, hearty-type chortle with his face all loose and bright. “Give it time. You’ll think of something,”

he said. He started walking back to the crowd, but said over his shoulder, “I’ll wait.”

I stood rock-still in the field as tryouts began. The sun scorched the top of my forehead, but I didn’t budge. I needed every ounce of energy in my body to figure something out. Something was familiar. Something about the way Todd looked at me and spoke to me reminded me of . . . what?

Then it clicked.

My parents. The verbal sparring. That’s what they did. They liked it, but why?

Because it was exciting. And Todd probably liked it for the same reason. That was why he hadn’t really freaked out at the dance. And why he’d come over to Sam’s. It was fun for him. He liked fighting. But what was worse was that he seemed to like fighting with me. Oh, barf. I slunk back to the bleachers and sat with my head between my knees. I felt a light tap on my shoulder, and looked up. “Mar! Johnny?

What are you guys doing here?”

“We have an hour to kill before dance class,” Mar said. (Mar had gotten to pick their shared activity. Ballroom dance lessons. All I could say was, poor Johnny.)

“We came down here to give you some moral support,”

Johnny said. “Or extra spit in their water. Whichever.”

A light breeze blew down the football field. “Thanks,” I said. I scooted to my right and pulled Mar over for a bit of 102 Kristin Walker

privacy. “I need to talk to you,” I whispered. Johnny must’ve gotten the hint, because he sat down a few feet away, pulled out his MP3 player, and popped in the earphones. Mar sat. “What’s up?”

I took a deep breath. “I have a problem. I think Todd actually enjoys my company.”

Mar reached out and fiddled with a curl at my hairline.

“And that’s a problem because . . . ?”

“Because all this marriage has to go on is our hate for each other. That’s our one thing we have in common. Unwavering mutual disdain.”

She set her hands neatly in her lap. “But you just said he liked you.”

“No, I said he enjoys my company. That is, he enjoys hating me. Or pretending to hate me. I don’t know which. But I’m finding it difficult to completely dislike someone who gets pleasure from having me around.” The breeze died down and I felt sweat collecting under the nosepiece of my glasses. A dribble of it also ran down my cleavage. I dug in my backpack and got my clip-on sunglasses and a tissue. I snapped the sunglasses on my glasses and shoved the tissue down my shirt. Mar made a face, of course. But I didn’t care; I’d rather be comfortable.

“So he likes being mean to you,” she said. “And you like that he likes being mean to you.”

“And I like being mean to him, too, don’t forget.”

“Of course not. Pleasure from meanness. There’s a name for it: sadomasochism.”

CHAPTER 12 103

“Thanks a lot,” I said, pressing my stomach in with both hands. “That’s just what I need. A mental picture of Todd Harding laced up in a black leather bodysuit with a whip in one hand and his wang in the other.”

“I hope he’s hitting you with the
whip
.”

I smacked her thigh. “I’m serious, Mar. I don’t know how to act around him now. I can’t be nice, because he’ll hate that. But I can’t be mean just to be nice.”

“You really need medication.”

“I’m in a quandary. A catch-22. I’m screwed. Help me, Mar, please.”

Marcie lifted her hair off the back of her neck for a few seconds and then let it fall. “Okay, you like fighting with him too—you said so yourself. So keep fighting with him.”

I shook my fists at her. “How?”

“Look, you don’t love the guy. There are plenty of reasons to hate Todd Harding. Pick one.”

“Yes.
Yes
,” I said. “I just have to find one thing. One thing about him that I hate and focus on that. But what?”

Marcie glanced at the cheerleading tryouts. “How about his taste in women?”

I looked over to where Amanda was hooked onto Todd’s middle with her arms wrapped around his waist so tight that he actually crimped over sideways. “Brilliant, Mar,” I said. “I’ll funnel all my dislike for Amanda into Todd. You’re a genius. It’s refreshing to see you using your psychology skills for evil as well as for good. It adds character.” I stood up. “Wait here. I’ll be back.”

104 Kristin Walker

I waltzed over to Todd and Amanda. Without releasing her death grip on Todd’s waist, Amanda sneered at me and said, “Hello, Water Girl. Or should I say, Water Bitch?”

I completely ignored her. Instead I addressed Todd, but tipped my head to indicate Amanda. “You know, you really should see a doctor and have that thing removed. It’s getting pretty nasty-looking.”

Todd’s eyes narrowed. His lip curled up and he said,

“And you should get that ugly thing cut off your head, too. Oh, wait, it’s your face.”

Amanda snorted and guffawed. But I noticed Todd subtly remove her arms from his torso and step away from her just an inch.
Bingo.

I strolled back to the bleachers, looking forward to bragging to Mar, but she was gone. I reached over and plucked out one of Johnny’s earphones. “Where’d Mar go?” I asked. Johnny rubbed the back of his neck where it was pink from the sun. “She had to run inside for something,” he said. He scrunched up his face. “Uh . . . some kind of brilliant gloss or something? Said she’d be right out.” He pulled out the other earphone and set the MP3 player in his lap. I sat next to him. “Oh God, she forgot her Joico Brilliantine Spray Gloss? How can she possibly survive without it?”

“What is it?”

“This hair product she’s addicted to. Makes her hair shiny or polished or some such garbage. She keeps trying to get me to use it. She paid, like, sixteen dollars for one bottle. I told her I’d rather keep the sixteen bucks and spit on my own hair for free.”

CHAPTER 12 105

“You can spit on your own hair?” Johnny asked. I almost wasn’t sure if he was joking at first. But then he said, “Wow, you’re talented. Maybe you could join a carnival sideshow or something with that.”

I laughed. We didn’t seem to have anything else to say, so Johnny went back to his MP3 player, and I went back to my book. It was hard to focus on reading, though, with all the yelling and clapping coming from the cheery hopefuls bouncing around in the grass. They were kind of mesmerizing, really. I watched for a minute and then spotted Mar weaving her way back through the tryouts. Todd stopped her for a second before she came over.

“Todd wants to see you,” she said.

I slapped my book shut. “What for?”

“I dunno.”

I blew a raspberry, got up, and trudged back to the tryout area. Todd was standing next to this decrepit yellow water cooler the size of a small child. He patted it with his hand.

“Here’s your big jug, Princess.” He stroked his chin. “Unless you brought one with you already. Have you got any big jugs of your own?”

I sighed at his tone. “No.”

“No,” he said, staring directly at my chest, “I see that you don’t.” He laughed at himself. I ignored him in a dignified manner.

“Well, don’t worry,” he went on. “It’s not as big on the inside as it is outside. Here, check it out.”

I should have known better than to do anything Señor Shitslacks said. And any other time, I would have. But I was 106 Kristin Walker

thrown off by the eureka moment I’d just had when I realized that he might actually like me in a twisted, hate-filled way. So I stepped over to the cooler and lifted the lid. Inside was a wriggling mound of wet, green things. Frogs. Dozens of them. Big ones, leaping all over the place. I shrieked and jumped about five feet backward. Todd burst into hysterics. So did Amanda and the rest of the cheerleader wannabes, along with Todd’s bonehead buddy from the cafeteria (who, judging from the mud on his legs was the dickweed frognapper).

Crap, what about Gabe? Had he seen? He wasn’t on the bleachers anymore. Mrs. O’Toole sure hadn’t noticed anything. Maybe Gabe had missed it too. But no, there he was, walking on the sidelines less than thirty feet away. Laughing. Oh God, no. But then . . .

Gabe winked at me and gave me a little wave. I swear I didn’t imagine it. Gabe Webber winked at me.

Todd yelled, “What’s the matter? I thought princesses liked frogs!”

In fact, I hate frogs. I hate everything about them. Their bulgy eyes, the way they move. They’re like giant, live, jumping boogers. There was no way Todd could’ve known that, but I threw the lid hard at his stomach anyway. He caught it, pretending it knocked the wind out of him. He kept laughing. And after a sec I realized that, despite Gabe seeing it, the prank was kind of good. Pretty funny. So I started chuckling too.

Now, if everything had ended there, with all of us laughing, then things would’ve been just fine. But as soon CHAPTER 12 107

as Amanda saw that I was laughing along with Todd, she decided to change the game. She waltzed over to the cooler, hoisted it up, drew back, and heaved the contents directly at me. I only had a second to duck and drop and scream again before a mass of slimy bellies and webbed feet slapped and pelted my body.

“
Amanda
!” In a heartbeat, Todd grabbed the cooler from her. “What the hell are you doing?”

Moments later, someone was next to me, gently lifting me out of my cowering squat. For one sweet second, I thought it was Gabe. But it wasn’t. It was just Johnny Mercer. “Are you okay?” he asked. As he lifted me to my feet, his face was so close that I could see how long the lashes were on his deep-set eyes. I shivered at the frogs hopping every which way around me, but I nodded that I was all right. Johnny said, “Stay there.” He took the cooler from Todd, set it on the ground, and started scooping up the runaway frogs with his broad hands and putting them inside. “I’ll take them back down to the stream,” he said.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. But I did listen. To Todd reaming out Amanda. And she didn’t like it one bit. She referred to me as a few choice synonyms for the female genitalia and then stormed off the field. Todd went after her. Marcie came up behind me, tiptoeing over the few remaining frogs Johnny was chasing. She went to wipe some slime off my cheek but couldn’t quite bring herself to touch it. “I can’t believe she did that. That was
so
not cool.”

“That’s Amanda,” I rasped.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked.

108 Kristin Walker

I rubbed at a frog stain on my T-shirt, but it just smeared more. “I would have preferred it if Gabe Webber hadn’t just seen me get slimed, but other than that . . .” I sighed. “I’m fab.” A bigger sigh. “Hey, at least he winked at me. How about that? I got a wink ’n’ wave from Gabe.”

“Yeah? Great.” Mar yelped and jumped out of the way as a frog hopped toward her strappy hot pink sandals. “Um . . . are you . . . gonna stay here? Like that?” she asked. I figured I had no reason to stick around, since one, I was covered in amphibi-goo, and two, Todd and Amanda had left. Tryouts couldn’t happen without them—they’d been last year’s varsity co-captains, so they were guaranteed a spot, and they also judged tryouts. And I wasn’t about to hang out until they made up.

“Actually, Mar, do you think you and Johnny could drop me home on your way to dance class?” I asked. Mar managed to pick one wet blade of swamp grass off my shoulder. “Sure, Fee. No problem.”

Good ol’ Mar. I knew I could count on her.

Wednesday, September 25

I haven’t written in a couple of weeks, so I guess I’d better make this a good one. Todd and I have come to some kind of twisted truce wherein we hate each other but don’t. I’m not real y sure how it works, but basical y, we get done what we need to get done, but in a total y hostile way, which actual y isn’t hostile at al . (I just reread that and it makes no sense whatsoever. Oh wel .)

CHAPTER 12 109

Here’s an example. Last week we played against Fal brook. It was an away game and I, as water girl, had to fill up the ginormous cooler/thermos thingy (a new orange one—

not the frog pot). Except, the only place to fill it was from a spigot on the side of their lame-ass school about a mile around the corner from the football field.

So I’m hauling this thing, which now weighs a ton since it’s fil ed with water. And I can’t carry it that far. It’s too heavy. All the cheerleaders see me and start laughing because I’m having such a hard time. So I, of course, give them the finger. Then Todd says, “Come on! Lift! Use those pecs!

Maybe they’ll grow!” And then he pul s out the front of his uniform to make boobs. The girls laugh and go skipping over to the football field. But Todd comes over to me, picks up the cooler, and carries it the whole way to the bleachers for me. Doesn’t say another word. Weird, I know. But what was weirder was that the minute I saw him watching me struggle with the cooler, I knew he was going to help me with it. I don’t think this is what they call a healthy relationship. Not that anyone real y knows what one is. And yet, people still find each other. It’s a freaking miracle, when you think about it.

Take my uncle Tommy. We saw him last weekend when we drove up to visit Nana for dinner. During the appetizers she always serves—celery sticks and Little Smokies (Little Smokies, if you don’t know, are mini hot dogs in a pool of barbecuelike sauce. They look like a bowlful of little severed penises)—Nana announced that Uncle Tommy would 110 Kristin Walker

be joining us, and that he was bringing a friend. A good friend. She told us that Uncle Tommy had gotten his real estate license and moved into a new apartment, so maybe this woman would be the next step.

Anyway, the doorbell rang, and when Dad opened it, I did a total cartoon-style double take. It was Uncle Tommy, for sure, but he looked different. He looked
great
. His hair was combed. His face was shaved. He wore a dress shirt and khakis. But it was more than just improved grooming. He was like . . . shimmering.

Nana asked, “Where’s your friend?”

Uncle Tommy says, “Just outside. But first, I want to announce that we’re more than just friends. We’re together. We’re in love.”