Later, after their friends had gone home, it was just Landon and Genevieve by the pool.
“I told you not to go there, Landon.” Genevieve threw her hands in the air and did a can opener into the pool.
Landon sat at the table beneath the wide, green umbrella with his math homework spread out. Genevieve surfaced and he shouted at her, “I didn’t go there. I didn’t go anywhere!”
“Then why are you sulking like that? You haven’t said a word since they left.” Genevieve popped up out of the pool and stood dripping on terrace stones until she swiped a towel off the chair next to Landon.
“Because multiplying fractions stinks!” He realized he was shouting.
Genevieve’s face turned sad, and she put a hand on his cheek, which he shrugged away. “I get it, Landon. She’s beautiful and she’s so nice.”
“I don’t care about all that.” Landon tried to focus on the problem in front of him. “Brett is my friend. My only friend. Even if I liked Megan, I’m not going to do anything stupid if my only friend likes her too.”
“I tried to warn you, Landon. I saw that look on your face. I saw you thinking about her like that and I told you, don’t do it.” Genevieve tossed that grenade at him, and then she bounced off the end of the board and did a swan dive, slipping into the water with barely a splash.
Landon tried to ignore her and instead focus on the fractions in front of him. Genevieve climbed out of the pool, wrapped herself in the towel, and sat down across the table from him. Sunshine poked pinpricks through the wide, green umbrella above. A slight breeze carried with it the ripe promise of fall.
Landon looked up and saw her staring at him. “I’m doing my homework.”
“You can’t blame anyone,” she said. “With people like Megan and Brett, it just happens. They’re together with a common cause and they realize they like each other. And their common cause is you, so you can’t feel that bad.”
“I. Am. Fine.” Landon banged a fist down on the glass tabletop, snapping the pencil in his hand. “Now see what you made me do?” He didn’t take it back, but he said, “How the heck can you multiply something and it gets smaller, huh? What’d Mom call that? An oxymoron? I’m an oxymoron. No, I’m a just plain moron.”
Genevieve stared at him for a moment. “You can’t blame yourself, either. I shouldn’t have said, ‘I warned you.’ Everyone’s in love with Megan. She’s gorgeous. She sweet. She’s smart. She and I are probably going to be co-captains of the soccer team. She’s got it all.”
Landon checked his answer against the key in the back of the book. He had 3/16; the book said the answer was 1/8. He scribbled and scratched at his answer, blotting it out until nothing remained but a horrible mess and a small hole in the homework sheet.
Genevieve got up and peeked over his shoulder. She tapped him. “You added the numerators. One plus two equals three, but you were supposed to multiply them. One times two equals two. Then two over sixteen reduces to one over eight. You’re close.”
Landon made an arrow on his paper and wrote in the correct number above sixteen: two. “Yup, just like me and Brett and Megan. There’s no room for three, just two.”
“That’s not true. There’s room for all of us: four friends.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Hey.” Genevieve grabbed his cheeks. “I know that I’m the luckiest sister in the world. You’ve got so much, Landon. You’re just a late bloomer. When you come into your own, all kinds of things are going to happen.”
Landon wanted to cry. “I don’t know if that’s even true, but in the meantime, I feel like I need to make myself as small as I possibly can, and that’s not easy, Genevieve. It’s not easy at all. Look at me.”
“Well, stop making yourself small,” she said. “Stand up for yourself. Don’t worry if people notice you.”
He wanted to agree with her. Instead, he hugged his little sister, wishing he was half as strong as she was. “I gotta go get my stuff ready for practice.”
“I’ll help Dad with dinner,” she said. “I’m sure he needs it. He doesn’t get off that computer, you know? I wonder if Mom will make it home.”
Landon hesitated. “Do you think Brett was right? Do you think everything will be like . . . normal with Skip and everyone at practice tonight?”
“I think he gave them a lot to think about,” Genevieve said. “I think if Brett wants things to be like nothing happened, they’ll count themselves pretty darn lucky. Also, I think he and Megan being an item takes a lot of the pressure off of you.”
A spark of hope glowed in Landon’s heart. “Do you think that’s all it is? Him and her helping me?”
“No, Landon.” She shook her head sadly. “I think they’re just both nice and they like each other. Just enjoy being friends. They like you. We don’t need other friends if we’ve got Brett and Megan, and we can just be ourselves around them.”
“And who are we?” Landon made a crazy face and wiggled his fingers.
They laughed and went inside together.
After dinner, Landon’s dad dropped him at football practice. Landon did his thing with the water and the running, never taking his helmet off, and Brett was right. It was like nothing had happened. It made the whole first day of school seem like some dream, or a TV show that Landon had seen and not been a part of.
Landon got to math class early the second day of school, and before class started he politely explained to Mr. Mazella that he needed to see what he was saying to fully understand. Mr. Mazella not only told him it wasn’t a problem, he also instructed Landon to remind him if he forgot, by simply rapping on his desk. So Genevieve had been right about him.
When he saw Skip or his buddies in the hallway, even though his stomach knotted up waiting for something to happen, nothing did. That didn’t mean Landon could shake the sense that they were planning something, because he couldn’t. His instincts told him the feud was far from over, but he also had to admit that he might just be paranoid after a lifetime of problems with other kids.
At lunch, he ate alone again. He could handle that, though. It took him nearly the entire period to finish everything anyway, and Landon didn’t need a ton of friends. He just needed people not to be mean.
After day two ended without a hitch, he dared to hope that life in Bronxville—with Genevieve, Brett, and Megan to rely on—might shape into something that he’d never experienced before.
But the very next day, he came out of the bathroom right before gym class to find Mike leaning against a locker, watching him. Landon looked around. There were only a dozen or so students in the hall because the first bell for the next period had already rung, so it wasn’t hard to pick out Xander loitering outside a classroom also, pretending to be tying his shoe. Landon stiffened, immediately sensing trouble.
He started down the hall away from Xander, hugging the lockers on the opposite side of the hallway from Mike. The coach’s son didn’t move, but his eye, peering out from beneath his dark flopping hair, locked on Landon, and he wore an evil smile. Landon glanced back. Xander was on the move now, heading his way. Landon picked up his pace, glancing back and forth between the two of them and expecting Skip Dreyfus to pop out up ahead of him at any moment to cut him off. The other kids in the hall seemed to sense trouble too. Landon was aware of their nervous looks and their rush to get out of the area.
As Landon passed the spot where Mike leaned with his arms folded like a tough guy, he hurried his pace and glanced nervously ahead. Two more steps and he’d reach open hallway. He could run if he had to.
He had nearly made it past when Mike lunged.