UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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I have never cared so much about a chair. A battered wooden chair with red poppies on the cushion. It is right beside me, and it is empty. And nothing would make me happier than to see Luke sit in it. He said he’d meet up with us for the post-game victory dinner, but he still isn’t here.
The seats at our small-tables-pushed-together-to-form-one-long-table at Shorty’s pizza joint are filling up fast, and while it may seem like people are sitting at random, don’t be fooled. A strategic move for love or popularity is being made with each set of cheeks that hits the cheap plastic cushions. On my left, the empty chair, with my purse on the seat. On my right, Megan, guarding an empty chair of her own.
I grabbed her the second I got to Shorty’s, so I could explain what happened with Luke. But then a bunch of other people showed up, and neither one of us wanted to have that conversation in front of half the football team. Megan hissed, “It’s fine, Claire. Game on.” And we’ve been covertly guarding our chairs ever since.
“Hey, girl.” Britney moves toward Megan’s seat.
“Hey.” Megan puts her hand on Britney’s shoulder and whispers, “There’s an empty seat by Buck.”
Britney smiles. She sits across from us instead, with her chair angled in Buck’s direction. A bell jingles, and Megan and I both glance at the front door to find that this time, it actually is Luke. I move my purse as he approaches the table. Our eyes meet for a second. That’s when Megan makes her move.
“Luke! Come sit by me.” She pats the chair beside her.
Luke falters midstep. “Uh, sure.”
He takes the seat by Megan, and I have to give my empty chair to Amberly. We’re waiting for our food when Britney throws a fat envelope onto the table.
“I got my senior pictures back from Palmer’s Photography today. They’re awful.”
I pull the pictures from the package and flip through them one by one. They are awful. The poses and everything are overdone and unnatural, almost like those horrible glamour shots that were popular when Sarah was in high school.
“They are a little cheesy.” I pass them around.
“I think you look great,” says Buck.
Britney turns the color of marinara sauce.
“Mine are really bad too,” says Megan. “I cannot send pictures like that to my family and friends. I’ve got to get new ones.”
Britney nods. “Yeah, but where? Palmer’s is the only place in town.”
“I don’t know.” Megan rests her chin on her hand. “What about Claire’s mom?”
My breath catches in my lungs. I would be ecstatic if Mama wanted to take pictures again. After much deliberation over the years, Megan and I have determined that my mom is the key to fixing my family and that photography is the key to fixing my mom. We’ve had several fruitless plotting sessions on the subject, but this senior-pictures thing could really work. Leave it to Megan to come up with a life-changing idea while we’re this close to having a throwdown over a boy.
Of course, taking pictures would involve Mama leaving our house for something other than her support group. Only a few people at the table know about my mom, so I have to answer carefully.
“It’s been a while, and she never did senior pictures before, but I could ask her.”
“Maybe it could be good,” says Megan with equal care.
She means it could be good for my mom, but everyone else thinks she’s just talking about pictures. We have an entire conversation with our eyes before I nod and say, “Yeah. Maybe it could.”
Then the pizza and pasta come and break up the serious moment no one knew we were having, and the table is back to chattering about tonight’s football game and how Buck is the most amazing quarterback ever—blah, blah, blah. The amazing quarterback struts over to the drink machine to refill his Mr. Pibb. On his way back he “accidentally” knocks into Sam’s chair.
“Whoops. Sorry, lard-ass.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, thanks. Not fat anymore.”
“Ha-ha. Whatever you say, lard-ass.”
Sam sneaks a sideways glance at Amanda to see how she’s taking all this. To her credit, she actually ignores Buck. My opinion of her goes up a smidge.
“Be right back. Gotta hit the little girls’ room.” Megan squeezes Luke’s shoulder as she gets up.
I stab at my slice of chicken and artichoke, which is pretty delicious. Shorty’s has the kind of pizza that necessitates the use of a knife and fork. Luke slides over into Megan’s empty chair, causing me to inhale his scent of soap and something else I can’t place but I’m going to call hot boy.
“That looks good. Mind if I try a bite?”
I’m startled, but I manage to choke out, “Yeah, sure.”
Is it bad that I feel like I’ve had a lobotomy whenever I look at his eyes? Or his dimples? Or his biceps?
While I’m cutting off a bite, I debate on whether I dare feed it to him. I look over my shoulder and see that Megan is still in the bathroom. I dare. I spear a bite with my fork. With a hand much steadier than the rush of hormones I’m feeling, I bridge the gap between my plate and Luke’s mouth. Feeding someone a bite of food can be totally platonic or totally sexy, and Luke makes this a type-two bite exchange. He keeps his eyes locked on mine the entire time, while I slide the fork from his mouth, while he chews his bite of pizza, while he says with a mischievous smile, “That is good.”
Maintain eye contact. Do not blush. Do not blush. I can only hold out for so long, so I’m almost relieved when Glenn comes limping through the door and I can look away.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” he says. “Had to get this ankle checked out after the game. Don’t worry, it’s just a sprain.”
Everyone at the table visibly relaxes, especially the coach—the young one, Coach Davis, not the Rooster. The Rooster would never go out for pizza with us. He’s probably at home trimming his ear hair. Glenn plops down in Luke’s old chair just as Megan emerges from the bathroom with freshly glossed lips.
“Where’d my seat go?”
“Sorry, girl, this ankle is killing me.” He moves to get up.
“It’s okay. Maybe I can pull up a chair.”
She points a chair toward the six inches of space separating Luke and me.
“Oh, here. Let me make room for you.” I scoot toward Luke, leaving a bigger space on my other side.
Megan smiles sweetly. “You know, I don’t think there is room.” She squeezes between Luke and Glenn and hops on Luke’s knee. “You don’t mind, do you, Luke?”
Luke tenses and his eyes get big. “No, it’s fine.”
I can’t even compete with that. I think I’m being bold when I hold a fork in front of his mouth, and she goes and sits in his lap.
Coach Davis stands up and clinks his knife against his glass. “Hey, everyone. We played a great game tonight.” At this point I stop listening because all I can think about is Megan’s hand on the back of Luke’s neck (for balance, allegedly), but insert the lame-ass inspirational speech of your choice here. “If we keep this up, I think we’ve got a real good shot at state this year,” he says before sitting back down.
Amberly blinks at him like she’s got something in her eyes and flips a sheet of blond hair with pink highlights over her shoulder. Two months ago she had chestnut hair, and before that it was Jessica Rabbit red. “I really liked your speech.”
“Thanks,” he says. He smiles just a little too big at the compliment.
Ew. I mean, he’s in great shape and has a manly jaw, so he’s technically good-looking in a grown-man kind of way, but he’s twenty-three! I’ll have to remember to talk to her about that later, but for now I’m still stuck on the lovebirds snuggled up next to me. Luke’s hand has drifted to the small of Megan’s back. He looks at me over her shoulder, and I try to pretend I wasn’t staring. Sorry, he mouths. I smile and shrug like it doesn’t matter, but seriously, why does he have his hand there and why isn’t he moving it? Thankfully, the dinner is almost over, so Megan only gets to spend about ten minutes in his lap before people start trickling out the door and Luke needs his leg back. I find Sam at the end of the table, canoodling with Amanda Bell. Guess she and Cowboy Hat never worked out their differences.
“Are you about ready to go?”
“Um . . .” He turns red. “Is there any way you could get a ride home with someone else? Amanda and I wanted to go for a drive.”
Amanda giggles and squeezes his leg. Oh. That kind of drive.
“Yeah. Of course. You two have fun.”
What is the world coming to? Sam isn’t supposed to do stuff like go for drives. He’s supposed to be asexual like aphids or those lizards we learned about in bio. Luke taps me, and I jump because I didn’t realize he was at my elbow.
“If Claire needs a ride home, I can take her.”
He’s barely gotten the words out before Megan (who has also materialized out of nowhere) says, rapid-fire, “No-It’s-okay-I-can-drive-her.”
“It’s no trouble—”
“Claire lives right across the street from me. It’d be silly for anyone else to drive her.”
And with that she’s dragging me out the door by the wrist while I look helplessly back at Luke. Minutes later we’re alone in her car, snailing along down the poorly lit back roads because out here you never know when a deer might leap in front of your headlights. Megan hunches grandma-style over the steering wheel like she always does on our nighttime rides home.
“So, the stay-away-from-him plan worked out great,” she says with a hint of sharpness in her voice.
I hate how it looked like I went for Luke first after agreeing not to. “I’m really sorry. He just showed up and sat by me at the game. I didn’t ask him to.”
“Where did y’all go at halftime?”
“He asked if I wanted to go to the concession stand with him. It would have looked weird to say no. Nothing happened,” I add. Yet.
Megan seems satisfied with this answer. She shrugs. “It’s fine. I wasn’t going to be able to stay away from him either.”
I’m relieved that she isn’t mad at me, but it still doesn’t solve our problem.
“This almost wrecked our friendship last time,” I say softly. I stare out the window at the skinny pine trees spiked into little cliffs of red Georgia clay. “I know it would be better if we both backed off. But I don’t think I can.”
“Me neither.”
For a while, the only sound is the hum of Megan’s engine and the scrape of her tires on the less-than-recently paved road.
“What if we let Luke decide?” I ask.
“Luke?” she says, like we’ve just discovered he actually has a say in all this.
“Yeah. We can flirt all we want, but he has to initiate the first date or kiss or whatever, and no matter who he picks, we’ll both be okay with it.”
“I can live with those rules.”
“Then it’s a deal.”
I’m happy. Because I know Luke will pick me. And because (stupid me) it never occurs to me Megan will fight dirty.
When you’re in eighth grade, kissing is fraught with peril. First of all, you have to hide your emotions, because the earth would fly off its axis if anyone figured out who you have a crush on. Acting logically, say by walking up to the boy you like and telling him you like him, is a big no-no. So you have to resort to the most infinitesimal of hints and hope that in some sort of dating butterfly effect, you’ll land a boyfriend and have a regular kissing partner.
And second, even if you do have a boyfriend (like me!), you’re in eighth grade, which means you have absolutely no privacy. Seriously. Eric Masters has been my boyfriend for one month, two days, and four hours, and we still haven’t kissed! (We had one nanosecond alone, and I totally choked.) But that’s all about to change.
Amberly and I talk kiss strategy while we sit in mismatched lawn chairs on the back porch of her trailer. She has to babysit, so we watch her little brother and his best friend play a redneck version of clay shooting with a BB gun and some empty beer cans.
“My parents won’t let me go on a real date until I’m sixteen,” I whine.
“Lame.”
“I know. And it’s not like we can drive, so that eliminates most of the normal places and situations where you might have a first kiss.”
“There are lots of places you can kiss,” says Amberly. “You just have to get creative.”
“Like where?”
She twirls a strand of espresso-colored hair around her finger. That girl is always dyeing her hair. “Like . . . behind the equipment shed near the football field. Under the stage in the assembly room—Glenn loves that one. In the girls’ bathroom on the back hallway—just use the handicapped stall; no one will ever see you.”
“Amberly!” My face flushes even though hers doesn’t.
“What? I like kissing.”
“I’m sure the handicapped stall is a great place to kiss. But I really wanted my first kiss with my first real boyfriend to be special. I don’t want it to feel like we’re sneaking around or doing something dirty.”
“Why not?” Amberly giggles when I make a face. “Kidding.”
We go back to watching “clay shooting.” Every few minutes one of the kids yells “Pull!” even though they’re just throwing the cans in the air for each other.
“Hey.” Amberly’s eyes light up. “What do you mean by ‘real date’?”
“I can’t go anywhere alone with a boy. Until I’m an old maid. Ugh.”
“But what about if other people are there?”
I frown. “I think that’s okay. We went to the football game with his parents last Friday. They were watching us the whole time, though,” I say like it was an atrocious invasion of privacy because, you know, IT WAS.
Amberly shrugs. “Course if it was me, I’d just have Glenn come home from school with me and make out. My mom drops him off at his house when she gets back from work.”
“I can’t believe your mom doesn’t care if you have a boy over when she’s not home.”
The look on Amberly’s face makes me wish I’d just shut up. “Not everyone’s parents are like yours,” she says quietly.
For a few minutes, we listen to the ping of steel pellets meeting aluminum.
“Oh! I have the perfect plan.” Amberly sits up straight in her lawn chair. The wild grin on her face makes me nervous, but I need to get kissed already.
“Tell me.”
“Glenn lives up the street from you, right?”
“Yeah . . .”
“So, I’ll spend the night at your house this Friday, and Eric will spend the night at Glenn’s.”
“And how does this translate to me kissing Eric?”
“We sneak out.”
“Are you crazy?! My parents are like ninjas. We’ll totally get caught. The stairs are super creaky, and the alarm system will beep if we open the door.”
“Okaaay. So, we tell your parents we want to have a campout, and we pitch a tent in your backyard. We’ve done it before. Then Glenn and Eric will do the same thing.”
I’m totally panicked, but I blurt out, “That could work. That’s genius.”
Amberly smiles. “I know. But the key is you don’t tell your parents the boys are camping out too. Otherwise they’ll know something’s up.”
So far, the plan is working. Our campout sleepover is set. So is the boys’. Amberly and I can’t look at each other on Friday without giggling. It’s all we can talk about at lunch, and we rattle on and on until Megan and Britney look seriously annoyed.
After school, Amberly and I walk to the turnaround to meet my dad, staggering under the weight of our book bags. The teachers at our school give so much homework you’d think they were part of a worldwide conspiracy to give eighth graders scoliosis.
“Ohmygosh,” I say. “Guess what Eric just said to me.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘See you tonight,’ and he winked at me.”
Amberly grabs my hands, and we jump up and down screaming.
“This is going to be the best night ever!” she yells.
I see my dad’s green SUV and shush her.
“Hey, Daddy.”
We climb into the middle seats that make me feel like an airplane pilot.
“Hey, Claire-Bear. Look in the bag.”
I rustle around in the canvas grocery bag at my feet. “Bananas and guacamole?”
He laughs. “That’s for your mom. The other bag.”
The other bag contains hot dogs and everything you need to make the perfect s’more.
“Thanks, Mr. Jenkins,” says Amberly. “I am sooo excited about the campout.”
She bursts into a fit of giggles, and I kick her.
“What are the bananas and guacamole for?” she asks.
“Mama has cravings.”
“They get weirder every month,” says Daddy. “But as long as she doesn’t dip the bananas in the guacamole, I’m okay with it.”
We pitch the tent as soon as we get home. We borrow Sarah’s because it’s purple and has a ceiling fan (she refused to go on family camping trips until my parents bought it). My dad sets up the fire pit and repeats fire-pit safety instructions I’ve heard, like, a hundred and fifty times. Roasting things on sticks only keeps us occupied for so long, though.
“Is it midnight yet?” whines Amberly.
“Um, no. It’s still daylight.”
“Ugh. I cannot wait to make out with Glenn.”
The boys are under strict instructions not to come within ten feet of my house until midnight, when we’re pretty sure my parents and Glenn’s will both be asleep. We change into our pj’s, me into a fitted tee and soccer shorts, Amberly into a low-cut tank top and Soffes rolled over at the waistband until they barely cover her butt. We take magazine quizzes to find out which Hollywood starlet we would be BFFs with and whether Glenn and Eric are our soul mates. Libby storms the tent and tries to join our sleepover, but I banish her to the house, and then my parents make me apologize for making her cry.
“Little brothers and sisters are so annoying.”
“Tell me about it,” says Amberly.
“I can’t believe my mom is having another one. And she’s forty-one! I don’t want a smelly little brother to babysit.”
“It’s the worst. All I ever do is babysit.” Amberly flips her magazine shut and tosses it back in the pile. “What time is it now?”
“Nine forty-five,” I reply. “Hey, we could write notes to them while we wait.”
“Yeah. Let’s do that,” she says, so I run to my room to get stationery and markers.
“‘Dear Glenn,’” Amberly reads aloud as she writes in blue marker with her bubbly handwriting. “‘I can’t wait to make out with you in two hours and fifteen minutes. XOXO, Amberly. P.S. I think you’re hot.’”
My letter to Eric is not so bold:
Dear Eric,
What’s up? NMH. Amberly and I just finished making s’mores, and now we’re counting down the hours till we get to see you.
Claire
After we finish writing, we spend huge amounts of time putting on lipstick and making kiss marks. We practice on a blank piece of paper to make sure we get them just right. Amberly has Angelina Jolie lips, so her kisses look like they could eat mine.
“Ew. Don’t open your mouth so big on your kisses.”
“Why?” She looks at me slyly.
“I don’t know. It looks slutty or something.”
“Because it looks like a blow job?”
“Amberly!” I pretend to be scandalized, even though I secretly want to know anything she has to tell me.
“Have you ever given one?” she asks.
“No. And I never would!”
“I would. I’m going to let Glenn touch my boobs tonight.”
I gasp. “Over the shirt or under?” The nuances are very important here.
She shrugs. “We’ll see.”
We can’t bear to wait until midnight, so we tiptoe out of our tent around eleven, hop the fence in my backyard, then sneak along the other fences until we get to Glenn’s. Leaves and twigs crackle and snap under our feet as we creep up to the boys’ tent. I can see Glenn’s brown curls and Eric’s copper-colored shag through the triangle of light that makes up the tent’s doorway. They sit hunched over handheld video games with their backs toward us. All that zapping and beeping covers the sound of our approach. At the last second, Amberly and I rush the sides of the tent and pound against them with our fists.
Swearing fills the tent and the boys stumble out. We exchange awkward hi’s all around.
“So, we just wanted to give you these,” says Amberly.
“We better go in case my parents check on us.”
We hand them the notes before scurrying back into the woods.
Ten minutes later, the boys are at the door of our tent with notes of their own. We grow braver and braver with every note swap. We stray farther, stay longer. We don’t know this is practice for the nights we’ll sneak out Amberly’s window and steal her mom’s beat-up Volkswagen for a joyride. Amberly gets bored with writing and wants action. So at the bottom of the next note she scrawls, P.S.—Meet us behind Claire’s dad’s shed at 12:07.
“But it’s twelve o’clock right now,” I say.
“Exactly. We better hurry.”
We tear through the woods to the boys’ campout, hopping fences and tripping over tree roots in the moonlight. When we reach their tent, we chuck the notes inside, giggling, and run away. We don’t stop until we’re back in my yard, where we lean against the shed and wait, panting and whispering.
My heart races—from the run and because of what I hope will happen next. After a few minutes, we hear leaves rustling by the fence. Amberly squeezes my wrist and grins.
“Claire?” Eric’s whisper winds through the trees.
“We’re over here,” I say back.
Eric and Glenn start to take shape in front of us.
“Hey, girls,” says Glenn. “What’s the urgent meeting about?”
“Come inside the shed with me, and I’ll show you,” Amberly says in the low, sexy voice she uses in front of boys. “See you guys.”
She winks at Eric and me and drags Glenn through the door into the shed. I’m glad it’s dark tonight, because I can feel my cheeks turning bright pink, partly because of Amberly and partly because I am alone with Eric for the first time.
“Hey.” I kick at the dirt with my Pumas.
“Hey,” he says back.
A giggle echoes inside the shed, so we walk farther into the backyard, and I lean against my pear tree. My parents do this thing where they plant a fruit tree each time they have a kid. A Shenandoah pear for me. A Belle of Georgia peach for Sarah. A Hollywood purple-leaf plum for Libby. I like to think our trees mean something. Peaches are fussy trees that require lots of care. Pears are easy to grow. Strong and resilient.
Eric takes a step closer. So close I can see his green eyes have a gold ring around the edges. This is it! I must look scared, because he says, “I won’t kiss you if you don’t want me to.”
Isn’t he the sweetest? “I don’t mind,” I say.
I know, I know, I’m dying for him to kiss me, but I’m trying to play it cool, okay? Apparently that was all the encouragement he needed, because before I can blink, we’re kissing. And it is. The. Best. Kiss. Ever. It’s my first kiss with any feelings behind it. And now all the anticipation leading up to this moment and all my feelings for Eric flow through our open mouths like it’s some kind of emotional energy transfer. It’s a rush that spreads to the tips of my toes. After that first kiss, we kiss again and again, each time creating another jolt of magical energy. They say people in France call French kisses soul kisses. I am certain by the way he is kissing me that Eric is kissing me with his whole soul.
Later, when the boys are gone and we’re tucked into our sleeping bags, Amberly pounces on me. “How was it?”
“Amazing.”
“It was so hot making out in the shed. I mean, the saws and drills and axes hanging from the walls kind of made me feel like I was in a horror movie, but when Glenn pushed me on top of your dad’s workbench, it was awesome. For a second I thought he was gonna screw me, and then my life would be over—”
“What?” I’m not ready to even think about doing anything but kissing. Okay, maybe I sometimes think about things, but I would never, ever do them. Plus, it sounds like she doesn’t think she has a choice in the matter. “Do you want to have sex with him?”
“No.”
“Well. Then, why would you? I mean, you don’t have to.”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m worried he’ll break up with me if I don’t. I feel like I have to do stuff with boys or they’ll leave me . . . but they always end up leaving me anyway.”
She doesn’t add like my dad, but I know we’re both thinking it.
Amberly shrugs. “So, how were things with Eric?”
I lie back against my pillow and gaze dreamily at the purple ceiling fan.
I’m addicted to kissing. It’s all I want to do—every second I’m with him. And when I’m not, it’s all I can think about until the next time we’re together. The average person spends 20,160 minutes of their lifetime kissing, and I swear Eric and I are trying to squeeze all those minutes into a few weeks. We try lots of Amberly’s suggestions. Now that the first kiss is out of the way, I’m not particular. We even find a few places of our own.
“Amberly, you have to try the stairs that lead down to the gym,” I say, as soon as I squeeze into a chair beside her at lunch. “No one is ever there if you get a hall pass at the same time and meet up.”
“Score. Maybe I’ll take Glenn there this afternoon.”
Megan rolls her eyes when she thinks I can’t see. She and Britney don’t have boyfriends right now.
“Can we puh-lease talk about something else besides kissing?” she asks.
Jealous.
“Isn’t he your first boyfriend?” Britney looks sideways at Megan. They’ve been thick as thieves since I started going out with Eric.
I pretend not to notice her tone. She’s been nice to me ever since I officially became a Crownie, but every now and then a sharpness slips into her voice. “Yeah. He’s great. I’m so lucky we found each other. He’s, like, the perfect guy.”
Megan sighs and pokes at her salad.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
She doesn’t look fine. Maybe she’s really bummed about not having a boyfriend right now. I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with Eric—she’s always seemed so okay with him being my boyfriend. Or maybe she’s been fighting with her parents about school again. Bs are unacceptable in the McQueen family.
Toward the end of lunch, Eric stops by our table and gives me a back rub. My chewing slows until I’m holding a Tater Tot almost stationary between my back molars. I totally can’t eat while he’s touching me.
“How’s it going?” he asks Megan.
“Good. Everything is really awesome.”
She smiles at him, and they talk about how his big brother went to the carnival last night.
After school, Britney and I hang out at Megan’s house because Britney is spending the night with her. Megan is back to normal—for a while.
“We have to ride the Ferris wheel when we go to the carnival tonight,” says Britney.
“Oh! You guys are going to the carnival. That’s so cool. I want to go.”
Megan raises her eyebrows at Britney.
“Do you want to go all four of us?” I ask.
Megan picks nonexistent lint off her lavender bedspread. “Um. Let me go ask my mom.”
She shuffles to the door and leaves the room as slowly as humanly possible.
“I’m sure she’ll say yes,” I tell Britney. “This’ll be awesome.”
The carnival is one of those caravan ones that come to town every year with dilapidated rides held together by paper clips and a prayer. Everyone knows someone whose cousin’s friend’s nephew died in a tragic accident on one. And there are weird things like pig races and stands selling cotton candy and funnel cakes. I can almost taste the powdered sugar and fried batter.
Megan’s door opens again, but she just stands there like she doesn’t want to enter the room. “Um. My mom says I can only have one friend come to the carnival with me and spend the night. So, I guess it’ll just be me and B.”
She says all this with her eyes fixed somewhere around my chin. A tense and awkward silence follows.
“Oh. Um, okay.”
I think it’s weird for her mom to make such an arbitrary decision—plus, I thought she liked me. I think it’s weird that Megan is sitting on her bed looking guilty and uncomfortable instead of storming around the room calling her mom a controlling witch. I think it’s weird that this all feels very personal in a way I can’t pinpoint.
“Well, see you guys later,” I say. “Have fun tonight.”
Megan still can’t seem to look me in the eye. “We will,” she says quietly.
I trudge home with the nagging feeling I’ve missed something important.