Gimme a Call (11 page)

“I’ll see you at our table at lunch!” Karin calls out to me in the hallway before fourth period. Yes! Guess I won’t be sitting alone after all.

After finding a seat in French, I zone out, thinking about my new life. Before today, my lunches were normally spent at Subway, where Bryan and I sat at the table by the far window. Bryan ordered extra mayo. I ordered extra mustard and usually got it on my shirt. And his shirt. Or we took his car through the drive-through at McDonald’s and got two Happy Meals, extra ketchup for the fries. Or sometimes, if my mom happened to make something good the night before, which was rare these days, I’d pack up two portions and we’d eat them outside on the wooden bench. Our bench. He even carved our initials into it freshman year.
BTS + DAB
. He always included our middle initials, since without his, his initials are BS. Hah. It was always just the two us.

Bryan had strep throat for a week sophomore year. I sat with Karin, Joelle, and Tash on Monday and Tuesday, but by Wednesday, it was awkward city and I ate by myself in the library.

I was so pathetic.

We both were. He stayed friends with Jerome, and still played ball, but mostly it was about me.

Last summer his mom made him go on a ten-day cruise through South America for his grandparents’ fifty-year anniversary, and all the cousins and aunts and family members were invited. Wives and husbands and fiancés. Everyone official. Everyone except me. He spent the whole trip in the computer room IM’ing me. Afterward, Bryan’s mom said that she was never doing that again. That he was a walking misery the entire time. She said next time they went on a family vacation, they were either bringing me along or leaving him at home.

I briefly close my eyes. Guess he’s over that now. I bet in this new reality, he had an amazing time on the cruise. Devi who?

I twirl my pencil between my fingers as class drones on and on. It’s a good thing classes don’t count at this point. Stupid State—aka Stulen State—has already accepted me. Not that that’s an achievement. The acceptance rate is 100 percent—they’ll take anyone.

Hmmm. Maybe I don’t have to go to Stulen. Frosh helped me get rid of Bryan and reconnect with my friends. Maybe she can help me get into a better college too….

When the bell rings, I pack away my books. In the hall, I pass the committee selling tickets to “Wild West Senior Prom—next Friday!” I look away as fast as I can. But then I look back. I know I’m not going to prom with Bryan … but am I going at all? Maybe I’m going to prom with someone else. Harry, maybe? Or maybe we’re going all girls! Four best friends in a limo. No dates. Who needs dates, anyway? How to find out without appearing like I’ve blacked out for the last six months? I need to check my social networks and e-mails. There must be some info in there about this. Prom is in less than two weeks! I dump my books into my locker.

As soon as I step into the caf, I look for my friends. My new/old BFFs. Instead, I run smack into Harry Travis. Oh, God.

He looks just like I remembered, before I learned that we made out. Dark-haired. Still hot. Stubbled. He gives me an intense gaze and then puts his hand on the small of my back, in a much-too-familiar way. “Hey, babe,” he says.

Harry Travis is touching my back! In school. In the caf. “H-hi. Harry.”

Is he going to try to kiss me right here? Oh. My. God. He can’t. My face is still raw. Anyway, Bryan could see. Not that Bryan would care. This Bryan. Old Bryan would have punched his lights out.

But still! This is weird! Really weird! Why is he groping me in the middle of the cafeteria? He’s invading my personal space. Oh, God, I don’t even know what we did. Did we just kiss? Did we do more? His hand is currently rubbing my back—a back he seems awfully familiar with. What else is he familiar with? I think I’m going to be sick.

“Want to take a drive?”

“Um … I can’t. Sorry! I actually have to go,” I mumble, squirming away from his grasp and hurrying diagonally through the cafeteria and out the door into the yard, where I spot the wooden bench. My bench. Our bench.

I drop to the seat of the bench and it still feels safe. Safer than the cafeteria. My fingers roam the wood to see if Bryan’s carving is still there, but the bench is smooth. I swallow the lump in my throat. Will it ever completely go away? What’s the point of getting rid of my entire relationship with Bryan if my chest still feels like a block of cement is pressed against it?

What now? I should call Frosh. I told her I’d call her at lunch. I dial my number, but it goes straight to voice mail. What is wrong with her? Why isn’t she answering? Oh, crap. She has freshman/sophomore lunch, which is over. This is junior/senior lunch. I can’t do anything right.

I pull out my phone and type in Hi! Sorry I missed u. Will call u after school! XO me.

It might be weird to send myself hugs and kisses, but I deserve some love. Some non-Harry-Travis-personal-space-invading love.

“Hey, Dev,” I hear. My heart stops. Bryan?

I look up. It’s Jerome Cohen. Just Jerome Cohen.

He’s wearing a green T-shirt for his band, the Spanks. He plays the drums. When Bryan and I first hooked up—when Jerome was with Joelle—Bryan was thinking about taking up the drums too, but that never happened. He was too busy with me. “Can we hang here?” he asks.

“Who’s ‘we’?” I ask quickly.

“Just me and Sands.” He swings his lunch bag in circles, to whatever rhythm is in his head.

I jump off the bench like it’s on fire. “All yours. I need to … do stuff. Bye.” I hurry back inside like I’m trying out for the track team. I spot Joelle and Tash at the table beside the window. A primo table. Not bad, girls. I sit down beside them. I’ll get something to eat in a minute.

“What just happened?” Joelle asks me.

“With what?”

“With Jerome! I saw you talking to him outside. Did he say anything about me?”

I shake my head. “Sorry.”

She shrugs. “You really should have come with me to the show last night. He rocked the guitar.”

Huh? “Isn’t he the drummer?”

She gives me a weird look. “Noooo. Bryan Sanderson’s the drummer.”

“Since when?” I shriek.

“Since … always? I don’t know. You’ve been to their shows. Don’t you remember? That’s where he and Karin first hooked up.”

Way too much information. “Where is Karin?” I ask, trying to keep this morning’s Kogurt Juice down. “She said she’d meet us here, right?”

“She has cheer at lunch on Mondays.”

“She’s a cheerleader?” I ask. “Since when?”

They both look at me strangely. “We’ve only gone to all of her games,” Joelle says.

“We have? I mean … we have! Of course! I’m just kidding. Ha-ha.” My mind is racing. Karin did not used to be a cheerleader. This I would have noticed. This change has got to be Frosh-related.

My stomach growls, and I order and eat a slice of pizza—upside down, of course—all the while wondering what Frosh said to put this in motion. We’re about to pack up and head back to our lockers when I spot Karin bounding toward us, her ringlets flying.

“Hi!” she chirps. “Wanted to check in with you ladies before the bell rang.” She flounces down beside me.

I stare. She looks … different from this morning. What’s going on?

She smiles and grabs one of my fries.

She’s eating fries?

What is it about her that’s off? Has she changed her hair or something? I give her the once-over. Her arms and legs aren’t as brittle-looking. They have more meat on them. Like they used to when we were freshmen. And they’re tanned. Very tanned. It’s sunny outside, but not
that
sunny. “How come you’re so … tanned?” I ask.

“I’m so not,” she says, shaking her head. “I was just thinking that I need to pay the tanning salon a visit. Anyone wanna come with me after school?”

“No. I’ll pass,” Joelle says. Tash and I shake our heads.

But there’s something more. Karin’s face looks different. Rounder. Her cheeks are fuller. She definitely looks healthier. But that’s not it.

“Karin!” I scream. “Your nose!” Her nose is perfectly straight. Perfectly. Straight. And narrow. What happened to the curve? What happened to the wideness?

Her fingers flutter to her face. “Did something happen during cheer? Tell me no!”

“Nothing happened,” Joelle says. “It looks fine.”

“It just looks so straight,” I blurt out. “And narrow.”

She removes her hand and laughs. “Good. It wasn’t cheap.”

Oh. My. God. I steady my hands on the table. “Karin, remind me, when did you get it done?”

“My sixteenth birthday. Remember? You brought a cake to the hospital.”

“Right,” I say. How thoughtful of me.

“Dr. Honig is the best,” she says. “We booked him for my graduation present too.”

“Your what?” I have a bad feeling about this.

“You know,” she says, and then lowers her voice. “My boobs.”

Oh, God. Oh, no.

“I have to get something from my locker,” I gasp to the girls, and then hurry out of the caf. Back at my locker, I slide to the ground, pull out my phone, and hit send.

It goes straight to voice mail. I hang up and type out a text instead.

Frosh! I write. What the @#%* did you do?

chapter fourteen
Monday, September 12
Freshman Year

I’m sitting on the bleachers in the gym with Joelle and Tash, watching Karin try out, when my phone rings. It’s my number.

“Hi!” I say. “I just turned my phone on. Did you forget about me at lunch?”

“I guess you didn’t—”

The rest of her sentence is drowned out by the tryees’ screaming at the top of their lungs,
“Went down to the river! And I started to drown! And I thought about the Florence Fins! And I couldn’t go down!”

Karin is kicking river butt. She’s definitely going to make the team. I’m a genius. “Repeat what you said!” I yell. “It’s loud in here!”

“I—”

“Said one, two, three, four, five, the Florence Fins don’t
take no jive, said six, seven, eight, nine, ten, let’s start this cheer all over again!”

I block the ear that doesn’t have the cell pressed against it. “Sorry, I missed it again. Repeat?”

“Where are you?”

“Cheerleading tryouts!”

“What? Why?”

“Actually—”

“Went down to the river! And I started to drown! And I thought about the Blue Hill Lions and I went straight down! Said one—”

“This is ridiculous!” she yells. “Go somewhere quiet!”

“Hold on, bossy-pants.” I turn to Tash and Joelle. “I’ll be right back.” I maneuver my way off the bleachers and into the hall. “What’s up? Where are you?”

“I’m walking home and getting some air,” she snaps. “Not screwing up the future like you.”

Uh-oh. “What are you talking about?”

“Did you see my texts?”

“No. Hold on a sec.” I pull the phone away from me and flip through. Two texts. The last one is not as loving as the first.

“Tell me what you did to Karin. And how cheerleading is involved.”

“I saved her!” I say. “Why? What happened? Did she hurt herself in cheer or something? She didn’t break a leg, did she?”

“Why are you even at cheer tryouts?” she asks. “I don’t understand what happened. Can you start at the beginning?”

I switch the cell to my other ear, take a deep breath, and report all that’s gone on from lunch until now.

“Well, she makes it,” Ivy says when I’m done. “She’s still a cheerleader.”

It worked! It worked! Wahoo! “That’s great! Does she still have an eating disorder?”

“Nope.”

Yay! I cured her! “What’s the problem, then? I did what I was supposed to do, didn’t I? Wait. Does she ditch us? Does she become all obsessed with her cheerleader friends and forget about us?”

“Also nope.”

“So why do you sound so annoyed?”

She sighs. “She got a nose job.”

I almost drop the phone. “Oh.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. I’m assuming it has something to do with cheerleading, though.”

“But she doesn’t have a big nose,” I say, still in disbelief.

“She always thought she did.”

“But she doesn’t!”

“Too late now!”

“I don’t know what to say.” I chew on my bottom lip. “But maybe it’s not too late. Maybe I can fix it. And anyway, a nose job is better than an eating disorder, isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” Ivy says. “Relatively healthier. Her body definitely looks healthier. Her skin doesn’t. It looks like leather.”

I pause. “I have no idea what that means.”

“She’s tanned. Fake tanned. It looks like she lives in a tanning booth.”

“That’s still better than being anorexic,” I say. “I still helped her. Didn’t I?”

“I’m not so sure. Guess what her parents are getting her for graduation.”

“A car?” How cool would that be? Maybe I’ll get a car too!

“A boob job.”

“What?”

“A boob job.”

I did not see that one coming. “Whoops.”

“Yeah. Whoops. Big whoops.”

“I swear I didn’t know that was going to happen,” I say.

“I’m sure you didn’t. And I understand why you stopped her from trying out for gymnastics. But from now on you should run any changes to the past by me first. And I think we just learned a bit of a time-travel lesson, don’t you? Trying to fix things can really mess them up.”