12
Making the Call

Nomura, Ira, and I eat our lunches on the roof playground, looking down on the shops of Montague Street while a bunch of sixth graders play handball behind us. Last year, the three of us were obsessed with handball, lining up along with every other guy in our class for a chance to take on the champion (usually Trevor or Greg Vargas, and every once in a while, Nomura, who sports a wicked backhand). Now, the sixth graders look silly for being so into it. Why do they care so much about such a stupid game?

We peer through the bars of the rooftop fence, and I tell Ira and Nomura everything that happened at the park.

“She really kissed you?” Ira asks, eyes bugging.

“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, it happened pretty quickly. But … yeah.” Was it a “real” kiss, though? When you’ve never been kissed before, it’s hard to know.

“You don’t sound so sure,” Nomura says. “Was it on the lips, or was it like the type of kiss your grandmother would give you?”

“Gross!” Ira says, and we all laugh.

“No lips, just a kiss on the cheek,” I say. “But she did it twice.”

“For real?” Ira says. “Twice?”

“Yeah.” I remember the way she turned each cheek toward me, like she was offering me a small gift. And I remember the smell of her, like flowers, and almonds, and shampoo.

“Why would she kiss you twice, though?” Ira asks.

I shrug. Once, twice, who cares? But I hope there are more kisses in my near future. I hope not for two, but for two hundred, two thousand, and beyond.

“I wouldn’t get too excited about it,” Nomura says. “It’s probably what everybody does in Haiti. You know, to say hello and good-bye.”

“Could be.” I hadn’t thought about that before; it could only be a custom. Does that mean it was no big deal for her to kiss me? It definitely felt like a big deal to me.

“That’s how the French do it,” Nomura says.

“ ‘Do it,’ ” Ira repeats, making it sound dirty and weird.

“Shut up,” I say, punching him in the arm. “Don’t talk about it like that.”

“God,” he says, rubbing the sore spot. “You didn’t have to hit me.”

“Sorry,” I say. “But can you please try to be cool about this?”

Ira doesn’t say a thing, and I can tell he has no idea what I mean. Asking him to be cool is like asking him to speak fluent Mandarin; it’s a skill he simply doesn’t have.

I turn to Nomura. “The French kiss on both sides of the cheek, every time they say hello and good-bye? That sounds like an awful lot of work.”

He shrugs. “It’s just the way things are over there.”

“Doesn’t ‘French kiss’ mean you use your tongue?” asks Ira. We ignore him.

“During the kiss,” I remember, picturing it in my head, “she kind of rested her hand on my shoulder.”

“Huh? How do you mean?” Nomura asks.

“You want me to show you?”

“Umm, no, not really!” Nomura laughs. Then he pushes his glasses up higher on his nose and says, “Do you mean she kind of leaned on you for balance?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I hate how he breaks everything down until it sounds so practical and rational. In his way of looking at things, the kiss didn’t mean anything. But it did mean something to me, and now I feel like my best friend is taking it away from me.

“Listen, Mr. Logical,” I say. “I was there. You weren’t. There was a … feeling. She felt so … close to me.”

“You should have grabbed her and French-kissed her right there!” Ira yells. Before I can even think of punching his arm, he holds up his hands defensively. “Sorry, sorry!” he says.

I shake my head. When’s he going to grow up?

“So, when are you going to ask her out?” Nomura asks.

“What? You mean, on a date?” I say.

“Of course, on a date. What else?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think—”

“Trust me, this is the move now.” Nomura is in full-on expert mode. Where does he get this stuff? “This is what you have to do.”

“Like you’ve ever gone on a date. Or even asked for one. You’re giving me the same advice that you’ve seen best friends give in every bad romance movie you’ve ever seen.”

“I don’t watch romance movies.”

“You totally do! You cried at the end of The Notebook. Which sucked, by the way.”

“I’ve never even seen that movie.”

“Right. I’ll bet you could recite it line for line.”

“Anyway, none of this changes the fact that my advice is a hundred percent sound,” Nomura says. Now he’s cramming his face with Fig Newtons. It annoys me how casual he is, as if we’re talking about a homework assignment. It’s my life we’re discussing here.

“And now’s the time to act. I mean, just call her.”

“But I don’t have her number.”

Nomura sighs like a bored teacher, tired of explaining the same concept for the thousandth time. “Of course you do.”

“Uh, no. I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

“Alex,” Nomura says, “aren’t Ira and I your best friends?”

Ira looks over at me, wondering if it’s still true. “Yes,” I say, and he smiles, happy to be reassured. “Of course.”

“And as your best friends, don’t you think we’re going to do everything in our power to help you out?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. But … how?”

“We got her number.” Nomura looks superproud.

“Really? How?”

Nomura laughs and reads it to me. “I’ve got my sources,” he says, by which he means Mary Agnes, I’m guessing. “Now it’s your move.”

“Go for it,” says Ira.

At home, all I can do for an entire twenty-five minutes is stare at the phone. Am I really going to call? It’s a bold move, and one that could easily backfire.

I look at my phone as if seeing it for the first time. The cleanly polished surface, with my own reflection staring back at me. The shiny power button.

Twenty-five minutes can sure go slowly when you’re trying to make a decision.

I go to the kitchen and make myself a chicken sandwich. I spread the mustard as slowly as I can, trying to buy time, trying to think. I put on lettuce and some sharp cheddar. I cut the wheat bread into halves with a knife with teeth on it.

I pour myself a Pepsi from the bottle and drink it.

Then, I think, Why not a cup of tea? Even though I never drink tea. But drinking tea is good for thinking and making decisions, so I let it brew, nice and slow.

I think about calling Nomura but decide not to.

I check the time. It’s 3:59. Dolly could be home any minute, and as soon as she is, it’s going to be tough to find the privacy to call. If I go to my room, I’ll have to close the door, and if I close the door, she’ll ask me what I was doing in secret. And if she starts grilling me for answers, she’ll wind up guessing what I’m up to. It happens every time.

Ack, I should just call! Bijou’s just a person, like me.

It’s 4:11. I should call, already.

Calling is something the old Alex Schrader would never dream of doing. But maybe it’s time for a new Alex, I think, a more courageous Alex who doesn’t let his mom buy his jeans for him. Who talks to a girl off the top of his head instead of looking at notes on index cards. Who actually, in Ira’s words, goes for it.

At 4:17, I punch in the number:

718-555-6566

I stare at it for a full sixty seconds, knowing that as soon as I press the button, my life could drastically change again within moments. I feel like the president of the United States, with my hand hovering over The Button, wondering whether I’m really ready to set this chain of events in motion.

I press call.