The New Guy (16 page)

“That was a… strong reaction,” Alex says. I search his voice for his laugh, but it’s not there.

“You’re the enemy,” I say. “I’m your enemy.”

“You’re just Jules,” he says. “To me. That whole thing…
made me feel pretty shitty. My last girlfriend… she’d get super embarrassed whenever Chaos 4 All came up. It made me feel terrible about myself. And this? Just felt a lot like that.”

“But you know we’re secret! I literally just explained all of this! Why would we be secret if you thought things would be okay in public?”

We keep walking because of the dogs, but now it feels less like an afternoon in the sunshine and more like the first Stray Rescue shift after we broke up. It’s dog walking in tandem by necessity.

“I’m doing that for you,” he says. “I know you felt better that way. I don’t love it, but it’s what you wanted. Hearing all of that, though? Shit.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Please don’t hate me. I just need to save the paper for next year. Okay?”

“I don’t hate you,” he says, but we don’t hold hands on the way back to my house, and I’m worried if it’s possible to lose something in such a short amount of time.

Again.

I sit down next to Thatcher in fourth period the next day and give him a look I trust says all that’s needed to be said.

“Really,” he says. “No one cares.”

“‘No one cares’?” I ask. “As in
people know
?”

“I forgot I have to be so careful with how I phrase anything to you,” he says. “No one would care. I know, and I don’t care. Others’ feelings would reflect my own.”

“Not necessarily,” I say. “And I want you to know that this won’t affect how I lead the team. The
Crest
is everything to me and—”

“‘Everything’?” he asks.

“It’s a priority,” I say. “You know that. And we’re already talking too much about this.”

“Fine.” Thatcher sighs. “Jules, what’s your endgame?”

“We save the paper,” I say. “The
Crest
doesn’t shut down next year. You know that.”

“So then you can… go public about all of this? This is going to stay a big secret until—”

Carlos sits down behind us. “What’s the big secret?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Thatcher’s being overdramatic. You know how he gets.”

Carlos cracks up. “Sure. You guys have something amazing planned against TALON or something?”

“Not yet,” I say, as I’ve read you should never say you don’t have an idea, even when you’re blank.

“I… may have something,” Thatcher says.

“Thatcher!”

“Jules, calm down,” he says. “No, I’ve got something good on Natalie but… I have to implicate myself in it too. It’s why I’ve held off.”

“Did you go out with Natalie?” I ask, even though I can’t imagine Natalie going out with anyone. To be fair, a couple of months ago I couldn’t imagine it of myself either.

“
No
,” he says. “I’ll run home between meetings today and get it to show everyone. Carlos, you’ll have to hack—”

“
Access
the system?” Carlos asks.

“Right,” Thatcher says.

I bet Carlos would be really great at a secret relationship if he had to be. He could be having one now for all I know.

“Yes, I can access the system.” Carlos nods in a manner I can only interpret as
with pride
. “Whenever I want.”

“Question,” Thatcher says. “Last year, was that your—”

“Do not answer that,” I say. “Carlos, you’re great, but I don’t want to know about your butt.”

I stand outside Carlos’s before our secret meeting starts. Everyone says hi and walks past me, until Tessa walks up.

“I can’t let you in,” I say. “Unfortunately there’s no way to know that we can trust you again.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and I can tell she’s about to start crying again. I hate to see anyone cry, but I will not let it deter me. “I won’t talk to Natalie again. Mr. Wheeler and I had a long talk and…”

“And?” I ask.

“And I’m sorry,” she says again.

“I believe you,” I say. “But I unfortunately still can’t let you in. You’ve betrayed all of us, Tessa. You let your own team down.”

“I won’t have a ride home,” she says in a wavering voice. “Amanda’s my ride.”

“That’s not my problem,” I say, and let myself into the house. Since I’m not a monster, I let Amanda know what’s going on. Considering we have to wait for Thatcher to retrieve whatever he needs to from his house, I tell her she can take Tessa home now if she wants.

“All right,” Thatcher says when he finally arrives, holding a DVD. “Carlos, can you fire this up?”

Thatcher makes a noise, somewhere between a sigh and a groan and a weird mumble. “I can’t even ask all of you to respect me after this. So if you don’t, I get it.”

The video is of a dance recital. The little kids aren’t really dancing, per se, just singing and performing choreographed movements. No one’s particularly
good
, because they’re probably four or five years old, but two kids stuck at the very end are particularly bad, and that’s where the camera focuses most.

“Oh my god,” I say aloud. “That boy is you.”

“I wanted dance to be my calling,” Thatcher says. “Alas.”

“How can a kid be so bad?” Carlos asks. “Usually kids are at least cute. You look…”

“Angry,” Marisa says. “You look angry. It’s like dance is making you rageful.”

“That girl next to you is worse,” I point out, though picking on little kids feels mean, even during wartime. “That girl’s terrible. Oh my god!”

“Yep,” Thatcher says.

“Oh my god,” I say again as it dawns on me.

And then Carlos and I say it together: “That girl’s Natalie.”

“Whoa,” Marisa says. “I’ve never seen Natalie be bad at anything. Much less…”

“
So
bad,” I say.

“We’ll play it on Friday,” Thatcher says.

“It doesn’t have to be Friday,” I say. “Right? Can’t the system be accessed whenever we want?”

We decide to run the video on Thursday, to hopefully give people a full twenty-four hours to talk about Natalie’s performance before TALON’s next episode. If we were dealing with anyone else, I know that this wouldn’t be a very big deal; most kids have done something silly in public that they’ll wish they could take back later. But this is
Natalie
.

I didn’t tell Darcy and Mom exactly how late my meeting would last, so when we head out for the night, I drive to Alex’s instead of my house. He’s waiting outside by the time I pull up, and any residual thoughts about the
Crest
evaporate when he sits down in my car.

Alex directs me to take a couple of turns and then to park on a semi-empty block. I give him what I hope is a cute and quizzical look, and he responds by climbing over the console into the backseat.

Oh my god. We are old-school
parking
.

I’m not sure I can gracefully hurtle the console, so I go the old-fashioned way by getting out of the car and then getting into the back. I never thought that the backseat of a Toyota Camry would be the most romantic setting I’d ever encountered, but it turns out that it’s a very good place for kissing someone in the moonlight.

“The weekend after next,” he says later, while I’m driving the few blocks back to his house, “my parents are going to some huge banquet for my dad’s department.”

“Cool,” I say. “Is it all about mathematics or—”

“Jules.” He cracks up. “The department rents a bunch of
suites at a hotel near the convention center. They’ll be out most of the evening and all night.”

“Next weekend?”

“The weekend after next.” He kisses me again. “Two weekends from this one. I just thought you should know.”

I know very quickly what he means, though even with a boy I kiss in cars, I hadn’t thought that sex would be a thing I’d have to think about this year. It was something else I figured that I’d worry about in college or even grad school.

But now that it’s been implied, I realize I’m not having a knee-jerk reaction against it. I’m not having any reaction against it.

“Okay,” I say. I worry Alex thinks I’m just affirming that I understand which weekend he’s referring to. “We can definitely have sex that night.”

“I—” He laughs again. “Okay. We definitely can. Write it down in your organizer.”

“Don’t joke about my organizer. It keeps me very—”

Now he’s kissing my neck and it’s very hard to concentrate on speaking.

“Organized?” he says finally.

“You’re mean,” I say, and kiss him again. “You’re the meanest.”

“And you’re the most organized.”

Sex, or at least the very real fact that it may soon be a very real part of my life, is unfortunately still on my mind when I get
home. I’d hoped for some time off to help Mom with dinner, get through my homework, and talk to Sadie for long enough to make up for turning off my phone last night. But I’m in the midst of chopping veggies in the kitchen when it’s all back, at full volume, in my head.

“Um,” I say. “Can I go to the doctor?”

“Oh no,” Mom says, dropping her meat tenderizer onto a pile of chicken. “Are you feeling sick?”

She washes her hands while I try to make the rest of my thoughts come out, but it’s too late. She’s already checking to see if I have a fever, as if mom hands work better than thermometers. When they’re both home, it’s even more annoying.

“Not that kind of doctor,” I say.

“Like a therapist?” Mom asks. “Of course. This year’s been so stressful for you, and with your worries about college… I know Joe’s been concerned—”

“Alex and I are… sort of… I…”

“Having sex?” Mom asks.

“No,” I say. “Not yet. But maybe. I don’t know. It’s like now it
exists
.”

Mom nods. She doesn’t look horrified or disappointed or, really, any different than usual.

“Obviously, of course, I knew it
existed
,” I say. “But…”

“Of course, Jules,” Mom says. “But I didn’t even realize you and Alex were that serious—”

“This has been a strange week,” I say. “Please don’t tell anyone. I know you’ll tell Darcy, but, no one else. Please?
We aren’t officially… anything. With everything going on between TALON and the
Crest
, it’s better if people don’t…”

“Sadie doesn’t know you’re back together, is what you’re saying.”

“Well, Mr. Wheeler doesn’t either, and he’s my advisor for the
Crest
, and I know how you guys like to have weird conversations with him all the time.”

Mom sighs loudly and goes back to pounding pieces of chicken for our chicken piccata. “Jules, I know it continues to be hard for you to believe, but Joe is our neighbor and friend, and we have what I believe to be
very normal friend and neighbor
conversations. I certainly don’t tell him every time someone in the house goes to the gynecologist.”

“
Every
time?”

“
Any
time,” Mom says. “Do you want me to take over on the zucchini?”

“No, I can handle it. I’m fine.” I start chopping again. “Wait, do you think I need therapy?”

Mom laughs. “Only if you want to go. But, honey…”

I stop chopping. She stops pounding. I wait for it, the sex lecture I should have seen coming.

“I think Darcy and I are both worried about what will happen if you don’t get into Brown,” she says.

“Well, me too!” I quickly see from her expression that it was the wrong answer. It’s funny how I have none of her DNA but we’re both terrible at hiding our emotions in such similar ways.
Darcy’s better, because you can’t be a successful attorney without a good poker face. “Hopefully I’ll get in, and it won’t matter.”

“If you don’t, do you promise me you’ll talk to someone?”

I nod.

“Hey,” Darcy says, walking in. “Oh, god. Why do you both look like someone’s died? Who died? Did someone die?”

“Apparently just my sanity,” I say, and it wasn’t supposed to be a joke, but they both laugh, and that’s probably for the best.

When I go upstairs to my room later, I do open my organizer. I’ve already written in the box for two Saturdays from this one, the same thing I’ve written in every Saturday’s space.
8
AM
Walking dogs at Stray Rescue
.

I draw a heart in the remaining space.