The Boy I Love (11 page)

At lunchtime Allie, Tim, Devon
, and I headed to the park across the street from school. We walked by Jesse Gill on the way. I'd just found out that he'd signed up to be a techie for
Finian's Rainbow
, and I hoped that would help him make a couple of friends. Allie and I both said hey to him as we walked by, and then Tim did too, but Devon just ignored him.

Really only seniors were allowed to leave campus during the day, but nobody said anything to us as we walked through the parking lot. One thing I noticed was that almost everyone said hi to Tim. Back at Cutty River, there had been so few of us that there weren't real distinct groups. Sure, there were people who were more popular than others, but it wasn't like here at Williamsport High, where you were either a jock or a theater person or a loner or a freak (or some combination of the last two). Though Tim was one of
the rare people who fell into both of the first two categories, or maybe because of that, he seemed to float above it all. Everybody liked him. Everybody felt like if they said hi to him, he'd say hi back.

We sat at a picnic table in the park, Allie on one side with Devon and me and Tim on the other. Now that Allie was being friendly again, I knew I should tell her about everything that had been going on at home. But no way was I saying anything in front of Devon about how my whole family was going down the tubes. I watched Allie unpack her lunch, if you could call it that: an orange, an apple, and a teensy container of yogurt that might feed a baby. “Is that all you're going to eat?” I said.

“I'm on a diet,” she said, and I laughed. Allie had eaten like a horse her entire life but always looked like a reed. “No, really,” she said. “I've got to keep my weight down if I'm going to photograph well.” She told me she'd seen a casting call on Craigslist, for extras in a movie. “It's on Friday. I'm skipping school and going down there,” she said.

“Your parents are letting you?”

“What they don't know won't hurt me,” she said, almost challenging. Devon laughed. Then Allie surprised me by asking, “Do you want to come with?”

“But what will you do if you get cast?” I said, ignoring the invitation for the moment. “Won't you have to have your parents' permission?”

“I'm thinking if I get cast, then I can talk them into it. And if I talk them into that, then I can talk them into the next step, and Brindle and Stirling here I come.” Brindle and Stirling was the name of the agency the modeling scout worked for, the one who'd had given Allie her card. Devon grinned and put his arm around the back of Allie's chair. You could tell he loved the idea of having a model for a girlfriend. I didn't know much about movie casting, but to me “extra” sounded like people who should blend into the background, and it was hard to imagine Allie blending in anywhere. I felt a pang—I sure hoped she wasn't setting herself up for another fall.

“Shoot, I'd love to come with you, but I can't skip school,” I said, finally answering her question. “I already missed a whole week when I hurt my hand.”

“I'll go with you,” Devon offered. Allie smiled at him but sent a wistful little look toward Tim. Devon didn't seem to notice anything, because then he asked me if I knew what I was going to do for my history project.

“Not yet,” I said. Ms. Durand had assigned us a research paper on Williamsport history. It was a full-term project, one that we were supposed to work on while we studied all the different eras. We could choose any time period we wanted as long as it was before the year we were born. I dug into my brown bag for my lunch.

“I'm going to do the Ku Klux Klan,” Devon said,
sounding so happy with himself, it made me think he'd only asked what
I
was doing so he could say what
he
was doing. Like he thought this topic would just be the most cheerful thing in the world. “My father says that most of the buildings at the university are named after families that belonged to the Klan after the Civil War.”

I felt a stirring of butterflies in my stomach, along with a sudden rush of gratitude that there was no Piner Hall on campus.

I did not mention this out loud. It felt so good to be back on friendly terms with Allie—like something that had gone very wrong was suddenly righted—that I didn't want to jinx it. A couple of other people showed up, football friends of Devon and a cheerleader or two, and I wondered when he'd told them we'd be hanging out at the park. We had to scrunch way down the bench to make room. This guy named Jay sat across from me. I don't know anything about football, but as soon as I saw him, the phrase “middle linebacker” popped into my head. He was very wide, but muscular, with a friendly face. Allie looked happy to be with this particular bunch.

*   *   *

“You know, it's funny that you and Allie were best friends,” Tim said later that afternoon, as we sat together in the very last row of the auditorium during rehearsal, watching Woody and Sharon, the two characters who fall in love and live happily ever.

“What do you mean were?” I asked, though I knew exactly what he meant. “We're still best friends.”

Tim ignored this and said, “You're just so different. Everything about you is different. The things you like. The way you act. The things you're interested in.”

I thought about this for a minute. Nobody had ever said anything like that before. Allie and I had been best friends for so long, it was a simple fact of life. And she didn't used to seem so different from me. It was only lately, with the clothes and dating Devon. She was still the same Allie inside. Except for when she thought I got something she wanted.

Still, now that she and I were on a bit better footing, I didn't want to dwell on that. So I told Tim, “It may seem like that to you. But Allie and I like some of the same things.”

“No offense, but as far as I can tell, all she cares about is guys and clothes.”

Poor Allie. Really she was only interested in one guy—Tim—and all the clothes and makeup were just to impress him. She had no idea she'd gone exactly the wrong direction. Then I reminded myself that no matter what direction she'd gone, she wouldn't end up with Tim liking her the way she wanted him to. And I sure knew how that felt.

“Here's something Allie and I have in common,” I said. It came to me all of a sudden. It was something I'd heard my mom say, and I had never thought much about it, but
suddenly I realized it was true. “We were brought up the same way,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“Well, both of us have parents who don't think money is super important. And they think everybody should be treated the same.”

“They're
liberal
,” Tim said.

“I guess so,” I said, but that sounded too simple.

He nodded, and then went back to watching the play. Suddenly there was a ringing sound, and the action onstage stopped. Everyone started looking around to see who the culprit was, including me, until I realized the ringing was coming from my book bag. I grabbed it and ran outside as fast as I could, but not before Ms. Winters called out, “Cell phones
off
, Wren.”

“Dad,” I said in a mad whisper, even though by now I was standing all the way outside on the walkway in front of the theater. “You got me in trouble! We're in the middle of rehearsal.”

“It's not my fault you didn't turn off your phone.” Then he told me that they would pick me up after rehearsal. We were having dinner at the Indian restaurant by Allie's new house.

“Is Holly in town?” Holly is the one who always wants Indian food. Personally it makes my nose itch.

“She is,” Dad said. “She says she has a surprise for us.”
I could tell from his voice he already knew what the surprise was. I hoped against hope that she would announce her wedding with James was back on. And it would be all owing to me! Well, me and Caroline Jones.

*   *   *

When Dad was in grad school, before my grandparents left him the farm, Mom used to teach riding lessons at a private school up north. At dinner, before Holly let us in on the big surprise, she and Dad told Mom this idea they had about how she could do the same thing after the farm was foreclosed and all our horses had been given away to undeserving owners.

“There are no schools with riding programs around here,” Mom said. Usually she scarfed down Indian food, but tonight she just sat there, picking up her fork and then putting it down again without eating. They had ordered a ton of rice and Indian bread and all these spicy, saucy dishes that I wouldn't touch. Instead I ordered the plainest thing on the menu, tandoori chicken.

“Who says we have to stay around here?” Dad said. “There's nothing holding us anymore. If you got a job at a boarding school, that would take care of a place to live until we got our credit back together.”

“Um, hello?” I said. “To answer your question, I say we have to stay around here.”

Holly and Dad looked at each other. I hated the air they
had these days, like they were so happy it didn't matter how Mom and I felt. Suddenly I didn't feel like hearing Holly's announcement about how she and James were getting back together. Like it would be this big surprise anyway, when I could see plain as day she had on her diamond ring again. I pushed my plate away. It was mostly empty anyway; unlike Mom, I can eat no matter what's happening.

“I'd like to be excused,” I said.

“Excused?” Dad said. “What are you talking about, excused? We're in a restaurant.”

“I can go over to Allie's.” She lived just two blocks away.

“But Holly hasn't even—”

“Right, the big news. Congratulations, Holly, I'm real happy for you and James. Now I'm going, if that's quite all right with everyone.” I stood up and threw my napkin on the table.

Dad opened his mouth, obviously about to say it was not one bit all right. But without even looking up, Mom said, “Just let her go, Joe. Let her go.” Then she said, “Not long, honey. We'll come get you on our way home.”

I wanted to say good-bye to her, but that would seem like I was saying good-bye to Dad and Holly, too. And I didn't want to say anything to them. Yes, I felt plenty glad Holly's heart wasn't broken anymore. I just wished Mom's and my hearts didn't have to break so hers could get fixed.

*   *   *

I walked past the elementary school where Allie might've gone if she hadn't started out living in Leeville. I tried to think what my life would have been like if Allie's parents had always lived in town. Maybe I would just have met her when I came to Williamsport High, and we wouldn't even have known to be friends. She would have just been some tall, fancy girl in my American history class. I never would have known about the Allie who didn't bother washing her hair or mind wearing ripped T-shirts. Then I remembered that without Allie, I probably wouldn't have gone to Williamsport High at all. I would have just stayed at Cutty River. But then I never would have gotten to sing the “Necessity” song in
Finian's Rainbow
, which had pretty much been the highlight of my life so far, even before the actual performance. And I never would have met Tim.

I wished I were walking over to his house instead of Allie's. With him I wouldn't have to explain nearly as much, plus he'd never been mad at me about anything. All of a sudden I realized that lately Tim had become my best friend instead of Allie. It felt weird how obvious this thought was, not surprising in any way. It was just how things had turned out.

By now I'd come to Allie's street. It was a nice street, with big old houses and oak trees. But it didn't have anywhere near the wild, tangled, Spanish moss feeling that my part
of Leeville had. Except for the heat it could have been anywhere in the world, whereas when you walked up to my house you just knew you were in the South. I tried to imagine moving from there to here. I did not try to imagine moving up north. That possibility I could not consider for even a second.

I turned on the street before Allie's house so I could go through the alleyway and into her backyard. I thought I might find her sitting on her back stoop, watching her sister play on the swings. And in fact, that's exactly where I did find her, though unfortunately, who should be sitting right beside her but Devon.

I know it's ridiculous. But I felt this flash of jealousy. Not that I wanted Devon for a boyfriend—no way—but that maybe he had become Allie's best friend instead of me. Of course this wasn't fair at all, given as how I'd just been thinking the same thing of Tim. But in my experience jealousy doesn't generally care about fair, it just rears up its ugly head and makes you feel sick right between your heart and your stomach.

“Wren!” Sylvie yelled. She jumped off her swing and ran over to give me a hug. I hugged her back, and Allie waved to me from the stoop.

“Hey, Wren,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“My parents are having dinner at the Indian restaurant,” I said. I didn't say anything about Holly, because I didn't
want to have to fill Devon in. “I finished early, so I thought I'd come over and say hi.”

Allie and Devon took up the whole stoop, so I couldn't sit down with them. I just stood there like an idiot, grateful that hugging Sylvie gave me something to do.

“Anyway,” Devon said, like he was changing the subject, even though we hadn't really been talking about anything yet. “I'd better get going.” He kissed Allie and then stood up. “I'll see you, Wren,” he said.

“Bye.”

He walked around to the gate and left without bothering to say good-bye to Sylvie, who trotted on into the house, almost like she'd been chaperoning and now her job was done.

When I turned back to Allie, she was watching him go too. Her eyes were kind of narrow, and her forehead was all scrunched up. The gate clanged shut behind him, but she didn't say anything until we heard his car engine start.