Yasaman take trapeze lessons in Rivendell’s PE room, which has been set up with basic trapeze equipment just for that purpose. It’s pretty much awesome sauce in a can … or rather, awesome sauce flying through the air with the greatest of ease! Only without splattering onto the floor, hopefully, because a) that would be gross, like vomit, and b) it could result in bodily harm.
No one splatters today. Yaz even pulls off a tricky level-three skill involving a reverse single knee hang followed by a double somersault over the bar. The hardest part about a double somersault, or a single somersault for that matter, is when it comes time to let go of the bar and land, not on your booty but on your feet. It’s hard because your brain gets confused when it does loop-de-loops, that’s Katie-Rose’s theory. Brains expect to be perched on top of necks, and they expect, in general, to stay up there and not go bouncing all around town.
But add in a somersault …
Suffice it to say that unlike Yaz, Katie-Rose has yet to master the single somersault dismount or the double somersault dismount. Oh well. Katie-Rose doesn’t care. She likes swinging on the bar best of all, anyway.
After the class ends, Katie-Rose jogs to catch Yasaman before she exits the building.
“Yaz, hold up!” she calls. “Where’s the fire?”
Yaz turns around. “Huh?” She looks from side to side. “Fire? Where?”
Katie-Rose says, “Oh, Yaz,” because she’s so funny, that silly girl. “There’s no fire, you goof. I just mean, why are you rushing out of here so fast?”
Yasaman tilts her head. She’s wearing her “sports” hijab, which is one solid color and made out of stretchy material. The hijabs Yaz wears during the day are long and flowing and made from beautiful, intricately woven fabric, and compared to them, her sports hijab is startlingly boring.
“I’m sure my mom’s waiting for me, that’s all,” Yaz says. “She doesn’t like me to keep her waiting.”
Well, yes, Katie-Rose does know that. Yaz’s parents are stricter than Katie-Rose’s. Stricter than the parents of any of the FFF’s. Still, Katie-Rose doesn’t want Yaz to go just yet.
“Nice double somersault dismount,” Katie-Rose says.
Yaz’s face brightens, and the before-and-after difference between Yaz’s two expressions makes Katie-Rose realize that Yaz wasn’t looking very sunshiny until now.
“Thanks,” Yaz says. “You did a good job, too, on your cutaway.”
Katie-Rose waves that off. “Level-one skill. A baby could do it.”
“Hardly. A baby would fall off.”
“My point exactly. I fell off.”
“But you got back on. You have to remember that. You can’t just focus on the bad stuff.”
Bad stuff. Huh. The phrase strikes a chord with Katie-Rose, and she uses it as an opening to get to what she really wants to discuss.
“Okay, true,” Katie-Rose says. “But speaking of bad stuff, do you feel like things are weird between us, Yaz? Not you and me, but all of us? Milla and Violet and you and me?”
“N-n-no,” Yaz says, but doubt flickers across her face.
“Because it was you who said that whole thing about secrets, at lunch yesterday. Are you telling me you don’t feel like everyone’s keeping … well … secrets from each other?”
A stronger emotion shadows Yasaman’s face. Yaz ducks her head and tries to pass Katie-Rose, but Katie-Rose grabs her. She stares deep into Yaz’s eyes. “Yaz?”
Yaz looks away.
“Yaz?” Katie-Rose steps to the side until she’s once again within Yaz’s line of vision. “Talk to me.”
“Did Violet tell you?” Yaz asks.
Yaz is flustered.
“Did Violet tell me what?” Katie-Rose repeats.
“Okay, listen,” Yaz says. “Maybe I do have a secret. Do you?”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” Katie-Rose says.
Yaz deflates. That’s what it looks like.
“Yes!” Katie-Rose says. “I do, I do. Will you tell me yours if I tell you mine?”
Yaz glances toward the main door of the building. “My mom’s waiting. I’ve got to go.”
“Milla has a date with Max tonight,” Katie-Rose says quickly. “A date date. Like, you know, smoochie-smoochie, and you know how I feel about all that.”
“I do?”
“Yes, that it’s gross,” Katie-Rose says. She sounds too forceful, even to herself, and for the barest flash of an instant, Katie-Rose glimpses her true secret, which is that she’s jealous of Milla and Max. Because until yesterday, when Preston made everyone laugh at her, she honestly thought he liked her. But no. Only Milla gets to have a boy like her. Not Katie-Rose.
Well, that line of thought isn’t going to get her anywhere. “They’re going to the Olive Garden, and I’m going to go, too,” she announces. “Only Milla doesn’t know.”
Yasaman’s face changes. “Wait. First of all, I thought Milla wasn’t …” She shakes her head. “Never mind. What do you mean, you’re going to go, too?”
“Exactly that: I’m going to go, too. She’s not the only one allowed to go to the Olive Garden, is she?”
Yaz looks confused. “But … are you going because you want to? Or because Milla is?”
Huh? What kind of a question is that? Katie-Rose asks herself.
The kind you don’t want to answer, another part of her answers.
She pushes the issue aside and breezes on. “As soon as I get home, I’m going to beg and whine for toys, only instead of toys, I’ll say, ‘Please-oh-please can’t we go out for dinner at the Olive Garden? And have family time? Because family time is very-super-a-lot important to a young girl’s development of healthiness and self-esteem?’ And I’ll quote their slogan, which that chef dude says on TV: ‘When you’re here, you’re family.’”
Yasaman stares at her. “You’re nuts.”
“Well. Maybe.” Frankly, Katie-Rose thought Yasaman would be more interested in Milla’s date. “Anyway, that’s my secret. What’s yours?”
“I don’t think Milla’s going to be happy if you randomly show up at her date,” Yaz says slowly.
Katie-Rose groans. This is what Yasaman is going to focus on? This one small detail? “I’m not going to plop down in her lap, Yaz. Geez-o-criminy.” Her lips twitch. “That would be kind of awesome, though. Or if I plopped down in Max’s lap? Ha! ‘Hi, peeps! It’s me, Katie-Rose-o the fabuloso!’”
“I don’t think you should,” Yasaman repeats. “Plus, in terms of friend weirdness, that’s only going to make it worse.”
Katie-Rose hears something in Yasaman’s tone. “So you do think we’re having friend weirdnesses.”
“I didn’t say that,” Yaz says.
“But you didn’t deny it. Listen, Yaz. I told you my secret, so you better tell me yours. Now.”
“I said I maybe had a secret, but I don’t. Honest.”
“Does it have to do with me?” Katie-Rose says.
“Does it have to do with Milla? Does it have to do with Violet?”
“No,” Yaz says. “Stop asking, because it’s nothing. I mean, there is nothing. No secret.”
“There is, and it has to do with Violet,” Katie-Rose says, watching Yasaman’s face closely. She thinks back over Violet’s behavior this week. Her eyebrows go up. “Does it have to do with Hayley?”
“No!” Yaz says. “Shhh!”
“Are you jealous of Hayley? Is that your secret?”
Yasaman presses her lips together.
“It is!” Katie-Rose exclaims. “Omigosh!”
“I’m not jealous,” Yaz says. “I do, however, have to go. I’ll, um, talk to you later.” She strides toward the glass doors that lead to Rivendell’s parking lot, and sure enough, her mom’s car is the very first car in the pickup lane.
Yaz leaves the building. Katie-Rose follows on Yaz’s heels and waves at Yaz’s mom.
“One sec, Mrs. Tercan!” Katie-Rose calls. “I need to ask Yasaman a question about homework.”
Mrs. Tercan checks her watch. “It is late, habibti,” she tells Yasaman. “We need to make dinner for your baba.”
Katie-Rose holds up her finger and makes puppy-dog eyes. “One second? Please?” To Yaz, she says, “You were the one who first wanted to be nice to Hayley, remember?”
“I still do.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not jealous of Hayley,” Yaz insists.
Katie-Rose studies her. She takes in her pink cheeks, her downcast eyes, the way she clasps her hands behind her back. Katie-Rose takes all of this in, and although she was ready to gloat, she has a change of heart. It’s no fun to feel jealous of someone.
“Okay,” Katie-Rose says. “I believe you.”
Beep-beep. It’s Mrs. Tercan. “Yasaman, come along,” she says.
“I’ve got to go,” Yaz says. “Bye.”
Katie-Rose watches Yaz climb into her mom’s van. As soon as they drive off, doubt kicks in. Yaz, jealous? Of Hayley? It felt right for a moment … but surely not.
She might have stood there longer, wondering about Yaz and Hayley and who knows what else, but she’s pulled out of her reverie by the distinctive honk of her mom’s Volvo station wagon. It’s more of a henk than a honk, maybe because Volvos are Swedish.
“Hey, kiddo,” Katie-Rose’s mom calls. The driver-side window whirs down as she speaks. “We’ve got to get going. It’s five thirty, and I have yet to figure out anything for dinner.”
Dinner! Dinner. Right.
“Don’t you worry, Mom-babe,” Katie-Rose says. She walks around her mom’s car and climbs in on the passenger’s side. “I’ve got dinner all figured out.”
“Oh, do you?” her mom says, amused.
“I do, because yes, I am that awesome.”