The Dating Deal (3 page)

“Well, see ya.”

I staggered to Chemistry class, wounded.  It seemed the other day Raven had given me a dirty look as well.  But it had happened so quickly and unexpectedly, I hadn’t been quite sure.  I had pretty much decided it was just my imagination.  But this time I was positive, she
scowled
at me.  Why?

Today was turning into a total trauma fest. 

It hurt, you know, finding out I was even
more
unpopular than I’d thought.  (And believe me, I’d had no delusions of being Miss Popularity.)  It hurt learning people found me
annoying
, that they fully disliked me.  Sure, there was Laura and Aspen.  I’d known about them.  They despised me.  No joke.  But Raven?  What was that about? 

And it sure didn’t sound as though Caitlin liked me either—and she didn’t even know me, at all.  What was the
matter
with me?

When I got to Chemistry I didn’t have time to think about it anymore because we had to get into groups of three for our lab assignment.  For some inexplicable reason, Jasmine Chase chose to be in mine and Nina’s group.

“We’re pretty lost in this class,” Nina warned her. 

In all honesty, that wasn’t
exactly
true.  We could hold our own in the theory part.  It was when it came to actually mixing chemicals that things habitually went wrong.  Very wrong.   Needless to say, neither Nina nor I held out much hope for becoming great scientists.  We just crossed our fingers and prayed for a miracle, to pass the class.

But Jasmine didn’t seem to mind.  In fact, she seemed to have absolutely no problem with our lack of chem-skill.  In fact, unfortunately for her, she fit right into our group, and we bonded.  Because when it came to chemistry, we soon learned, the three of us had something in common—confusion.

On our first assignment, Jasmine gave our experiment a tentative whiff as she held our test tube over the Bunsen burner.  “Yuck!”  She wrinkled her nose.  “It stinks.”

We were supposed to be making banana oil.  But it had turned dark purple, almost black, not at all like the other students’ in our class.

“Well, it says here,” I stated, quoting the lab manual, “the musk is supposed to be clear and sweet smelling, like a banana.”

“Well, it’s not clear,” Nina observed.

“And it doesn’t smell sweet,” Jasmine said. 

She furrowed her brow.  “We did something wrong.”

I laughed.  “You think?” 

Of course then we had to do our usual write up—the infamous “Results of Shame.”  Admit we screwed up, yet again.  Sad, sad, sad.  But mostly because it took our new lab-sister, Jasmine, by surprise.  She was woefully hopeful. 

“We could just
write
that it worked out, that it turned clear and sweet smelling like a banana.”

Nina and I looked at each other.  Poor Jasmine.  She didn’t get it.  Guess we should have warned her:  She was working with “Goodness and Light.” 

“We
could
do that,” I admitted, “only, we can’t.”

Nina and I knew it was routine (even customary) for the class to fudge on experiment results.  We saw it done all the time.  And I have to admit, sometimes it was sorely tempting, especially because our teacher, Mr. Gregg, often used our results for comic relief.  But you know, the musk just didn’t turn clear
or
sweet smelling.  Or anything remotely close.

So, after comforting poor bewildered Jasmine, we penned our usual messed up results and moved on to our next assignment.  It was the Mormon way.  (We’re sturdy, stalwart people—even in chemistry.)  Carry On, Carry On, Carry On!

During the entire period Nina and Jasmine gabbed non-stop about Trent taking me to the dance, which could explain why we botched each and every experiment.  Hearing their excitement made it hard for me to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.  It was weird.  One moment I was having anxiety attacks, the next I was delirious with excitement.  But I tried to keep my excitement in check, at least I gave it my best shot.  After all, it was just a “deal,” right?  And I’d gone over it a hundred times, Trent wasn’t someone I could date.  No matter how cute or surprisingly nice he was, it didn’t change anything.  He was still Trent Ryan, Mr. Party-Guy.  Mr. Heartbreaker.  He just wasn’t someone that would be good for me, at all.  He was the total opposite. 
But still, I couldn’t help it, my heart sped up every time I thought about him.  He had come to my rescue twice today:  during class, and then again in the cafeteria.  And he had been so sweet and his eyes had looked so sincere and, I couldn’t help it, I felt delight/excitement/delirious-bliss thinking about him taking me to the dance, taking me into his arms.  It had my heart galloping like a racehorse. 

“Oh this is bad,” I told myself.  “This is very, very bad.” 

*  *  *  *  *

After school, Brian was waiting for me in the choir room, just as he had promised.  Seeing him at the piano, I gave a sigh of relief.  Sometimes it was hard to get him to come—even with the incentive of cookies.  However, I had to admit, lately he was really good about showing.  Thank goodness.  I guess he was getting into the spirit of things. 

See, Brian was my duet partner in honor choir.  Lately, I had been forcing practices on him like a mad woman.  The thing was, it was important to me that we win this semester’s duet competition.  Embarrassingly important.  Okay, I admit it: I had no life.  No social life anyway.  All I had these days was music.  Music, music, music.  And a drive to win this semester’s duet competition. 

The competition was a regional thing.  Last semester Hailey Sheets, from Roosevelt High, won.  But that was only because Brian got sick.  At the last moment I was stuck pairing up with Phil West.  Phil West!  Grrrr.  He’s a nice guy, the best.  But the boy can’t hold a tune.

Anyway, I couldn’t let Hailey win this semester.  I couldn’t.  Not again.  I had gone to elementary school with her, and even back then she was so smug about her singing.  She got the lead part—Dorothy—in our school’s production of
The Wizard of Oz
.  I was her understudy but ended up going on as a munchkin.  The last night of the play she said I couldn’t have “held up” as Dorothy anyway.  Whatever that meant.

Then she got to sing the solo at our elementary school graduation, but the way she got it was so extremely cruel and unfair and … mean.  She started making fun of me during my audition.  She taunted me and giggled with her friends.  She made me so self-conscience that I could barely hold back tears, let alone sing. 

Then (hurray!) junior high rolled around. I found myself amazingly blessed. Hailey moved and went to a different school.  That’s when I started to blossom as a singer and in high school I fully bloomed. 

Blossomed, bloomed—ha! 

I thought, “Hey, I’m over my Hailey insecurities.”

But last semester, Hailey made a return, showing up at the regional competition.  And drat it all if she didn’t win, making her head three thousand times bigger. 

After the competition, she told me, “You have a sweet voice, Megan.”  Then she smiled her wicked, smug smile, “Maybe
too
sweet.” 

I vowed then and there I would win this semester.  And I was going to, even if I had to work Brian twenty-four hours a day to do it.

“Thank you so much for coming,” I gushed to Brian now, handing him his bag of cookies.  “Don’t you think we’re getting really good?”

“Yeah.  We’re great,” Brian said, munching on a cookie.  “Were going to win for sure.”

I bit my lip.  It wasn’t really “for sure.”  If it was, I wouldn’t be hounding him night and day to practice.  We were really good, though.  That
was
“for sure.” 

To be honest, I felt pretty confident we would win.  But that wasn’t good enough.  We had to win.  I had to—had to—for once in my life, beat Hailey.  I think I probably had something subconscious going on inside me, something to do with losing Conner.  It was when we broke up that I turned fanatical about the competition.  (And when I say fanatical, I’m not even slightly exaggerating—I was out of control.) 

However, I didn’t seek therapy about my compulsion (though, Brian probably wished I did), or dwell on my reasons.  All I knew was, I had to win.  And although Brian and I were sort of terrific, I still worried that something was missing.  Every day or so I added new steps to our number, and still, racked my brain for extra touches.  Mom helped me put together cute matching costumes.  Brian’s had suspenders and a straw hat.  We looked great, sounded great, but still …

Hailey and Todd had been partners forever.  Last semester, they had a great routine.  And they’d had all this semester to practice it, perfect it.

“Lets get busy,” I told Brian.

I felt slightly guilty about being so compulsive.  I knew Brian used to groan every time he saw me coming his way.  He’d whisper something to Raven like, “Oh no, here she comes.”  And they’d duck around a corner (as if that could stop me).

I knew I was asking too much of him—begging him to practice all the time.  After all, he had a girlfriend and a life.  Face it, he wasn’t obsessed with the competition.  He undoubtedly wished he had a partner that wasn’t either.

But today Brian surprised me.  He didn’t act impatient at all to get practice over.  In fact, afterwards he stood around talking with me.  Actually, he’d started doing that a lot lately.  I guess I was growing on him.  Or he was getting excited about the competition.  Or maybe a little of both.  Anyway, I was glad he wasn’t moaning about practices anymore.

Only, he was kind of a chatty guy.  And I wanted to leave.  But I didn’t see how to make a smooth getaway.  I mean, I’d made him take hours and hours out of his life to come to all of my rehearsals.  And I was making him do a dance now for the duet and wear a straw hat.  How could I cut his friendly chatter short?  I didn’t feel I could.  It didn’t seem fair, or polite.

So, with an inward sigh, I stared into his eyes, trying to appear deeply interested in the lengthy story he was telling me about the time he got lost while camping and tried to catch a fish with his bare hands.  I nodded my head, and gasped, “You’re kidding!” a lot as though I was fascinated, but through the whole, drawn-out, gabby tale I was speculating, “How can I get out of here?”

Finally, Raven came to my rescue.  She looked perturbed at seeing the two us together, giving me another dirty look as she linked her arm through Brian’s. 

“Are you done with my boyfriend yet?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said.   And I finally got it, what her dirty looks were about.  She thought I was scamming on Brian!

After duet practice, I was kneeling on the kitchen counter, getting out cookie ingredients when the phone rang.  I hopped down, wiping the flour from my hands onto my jeans before answering, “Hello?” 

“Hi Megan.”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach.  It was Conner. 

I stood frozen, unable to breathe.  He called.

I’d dreamed of this moment.  Dreamed of him calling.  Dreamed of me acting cool and calm and composed.  Only I didn’t feel cool or calm or composed.  I felt unhinged and unprepared and … sweaty.

But that wasn’t all.  Nothing went the way I dreamed of, or planned.  The first words out of Conner’s mouth were, “What are you doing hanging out with that guy, Trent Ryan?”

I paced around the kitchen, trying to gather my thoughts.  I was too unprepared for his phone call, for the question. 

“We’re … I mean, uh …”

Conner didn’t wait for coherence.  Instead he shot out another question, sounding just as accusatory.   “What about your only-dating-Mormons-rule?  What happened to that?”

I was about to tell him about “The Deal.”  I started to get the words out and everything.  But then I thought—
Hey
! 

The deal was working!  One little lunch encounter with Trent had Conner on the phone, dialing my number.  He hadn’t called once since we’d broken up almost two months ago.  But now, suddenly, he was all hot and bothered.

So, even though I hated him thinking less of me, thinking I lowered my standards, I didn’t blurt out The Deal.  Instead, I did this really brilliant thing that I do in times of crisis:  I didn’t say
anything
.  I just chewed on my lip.