“So did you kiss him?” Joni asks first thing. It never takes her very long to get to the point. She’s going to ask all the questions about Noah that I’m not going to ask about Chuck.
Now, I am not one to kiss and tell, but Joni’s heard about every single boy I’ve ever kissed. Sometimes I’ve told her two minutes after the fact; other times it’s come up years later, as my way of proving she doesn’t know everything about me. From my first spin-the-bottle kiss with Cody to the final, conflicted kiss-off kiss with Kyle, Joni’s been the one I’ve shared the stories with. So it comes as no surprise to have her question me now, on the phone, fifteen minutes after I’ve come home from Noah’s.
“That’s none of your business,” I say.
“Is that a ‘none of your business’ yes, or a ‘none of your business no?’”
“I don’t want to tell you.” So it’s no.
I don’t know how to explain it to her. It’s not that I didn’t want to kiss Noah. And I think he wanted to kiss me. But we left the moment to silence instead. The promise of a kiss will carry us forward.
Since I don’t say anything more, Joni lets the subject drop. Much to my surprise, she picks up the subject of Kyle instead.
“Has Kyle spoken to you?” she asks, in a way that makes it clear that Kyle has spoken to her.
“Does saying hi in the halls count?”
“Well, it’s a step.”
Joni always liked Kyle. She liked his confusion, his woundedness, his bafflement … the same things I liked about him, as well as his natural charm and his sincerity. When these things turned against me, I think Joni was almost as hurt as I was. She’d trusted him with me. He let both of us down.
The thing is, Joni got over it easier than I did. I guess hurt is essentially a firsthand emotion. When Kyle started talking the straight-and-narrow, she was willing to believe him. Sure, he’d started dating girls—but those relationships rarely lasted longer than a PSAT prep course. After they broke up, they never stayed friends.
“I think he wants to talk to you. I know he wants to talk to you.”
“What could he possibly want to talk about?”
“I think he feels bad,” Joni tells me.
I wonder what feeling bad means in this particular situation. I can’t imagine it’s the same feeling bad as when you lend your boyfriend your favorite ultra-comfortable sweater and then find him wearing it as he says that the only feeling he can muster toward you is annoyance, and then wearing it again a week later as he walks past you in the halls, pretending you don’t exist as he flirts with the one girl who had been after him the whole time you’d been going out. It can’t be the same feeling bad as knowing that the sweater—the sweater you looked best in, the sweater you felt best in, the sweater you now fear he’ll be wearing when you see him in between classes—is sitting at the bottom of a closet, where he doesn’t give a damn about it, or has been given away to some other person he’s pretended to love.
Perhaps I need to polish my vindictive streak, but I don’t want him to feel that bad. Because I’ve seen him—I’ve seen the loneliness behind his eyes, the way he’ll stop in the halls unsure of where to make the next step.
Since he made me feel invisible, I spent months wishing he’d disappear. Now it feels like I’ve gotten half my wish. His spirit has gone. His body remains.
“How’s he doing?” I ask Joni, despite my better instincts.
“I don’t know if he’s happy. But he’s got a cat.”
“A cat?” As far as I know, Kyle hates animals.
“He took in a stray.”
“How ironic,” I say, even though I know Kyle is one of the few people in our school who doesn’t do irony on a breathing basis.
“Chuck has a cat, too,” Joni volunteers.
Which is, of course, her way of saying she wants to talk about Chuck.
I brace myself.
“He’s really not that bad,” she says.
“Who? Kyle?” I’m not going to make this easy. That’s my right as her best friend.
“No, Chuck. I really like him.”
“I’m sure if I spent more time with him, I’d get to know him better,” I say, choosing my words very carefully.
“And I’m sure I’ll like Noah,” Joni replies.
I freeze for a moment, afraid she’ll propose a double date. Instead she says that she, Chuck, and I should head out to lunch together tomorrow.
Because she’s my best friend, I say yes.
Only seniors are allowed to leave campus for lunch, but that doesn’t stop the rest of us from going out anyway. Our principal’s wife owns the sub shop down the street, and I think she’d be out of business in a second without the support of cafeteria-fleeing sophomores and juniors. The seniors can manage to drive somewhere better, but the underclassmen basically have two walking-distance choices.
Whenever I go out, I skip the sub shop and head to the Veggie D’s on the other side of the street. The Veggie D’s used to be your usual processed-slaughterhouse fast-food joint, but a few years ago a bunch of vegetarians launched a boycott and soon the chain lost its link. A local food co-op took over the building, keeping all the fixtures intact. They even made the workers keep the uniforms, only with a leaf pinned where the corporate logo used to be.
Since Joni can drive, we could conceivably go somewhere else. But I want to be within departure range this time, just in case Chuck makes me want to go away.
What I really want to do is, of course, spend as much time as I can with Noah. This is sudden and unusual for me, but I decide to ride it. I want to know more. I tell him this when I see him at his locker before first period. He tells me not to worry about lunch—we have a whole weekend coming up, and all the time it offers. Without saying a word, we arrange to pass notes between each class. Between first and second, we meet at my locker. Between second and third, we head to his. And so on. Reading about his boredom in math class, or the dream he had last night about penguins, or his mom’s phone call from some indistinguishable airport lounge, I begin to learn about him in the first person. I try to write back in the same way, giving a little clue to myself in every sentence. For him, I recall my grandmother’s smile, the time Jay and I dressed as each other for Halloween (none of the neighbors got it), Mrs. Benchly’s words on my kindergarten evaluation. It’s all very random, but that’s what my thoughts are like. I can tell from Noah’s notes that we have a compatible randomness.
I’ve told Joni to meet me (with Chuck) in front of my locker. In retrospect, this is a stupid, stupid decision. Because as soon as they show up, Infinite Darlene walks past, clicking her tongue and swishing away. Then, even worse, as Chuck and I are nodding hey, Ted appears behind him. He stops for a second and takes a good look at what we’re doing. He, too, walks away irate, betrayed. I feel like a dust mite. And I still have to get through lunch.
Chuck is a short guy but he works out a lot, so as a result he’s built like a fire hydrant. Most of the time he acts like a fire hydrant, too. Conversation is not his strong suit. In fact, I’m not sure it’s a suit he owns.
So it’s Joni and I who chat the whole way to Veggie D’s. I doubt Chuck is very happy about our destination—he strikes me as a carnivore—but he doesn’t really protest. I find myself liking him okay when his mouth is shut.
After Joni orders a VegHummus and a six-piece Tofu Veg-Nuggets, Chuck and I both opt for the Double Lentil Tempeh Burger with a side order of fries. I get a smoothie, but Chuck goes for a VegCola.
“I don’t like fruit,” he explains. “No offense.”
Only his “no offense” offends me.
But because he’s my best friend’s new boyfriend, I let it slide.
(For now.)
Eating makes Chuck talk more. He and Joni are sitting across from me, holding hands while they chew. They are exactly the same height.
Since Chuck’s a sporting guy, I think it’s only fair that I keep score of his conversation.
“So I hear you’re planning that dance?” he says. (Five points: He’s showing an interest in me instead of prattling on about himself.)
“Well,” I reply, “Lyssa Ling’s planning it. I’m merely the architect.”
“Whatever.” (Minus two points.) “If you want to sneak in a keg, my dad knows a supplier and I can probably get you one cheap.” (Plus three points for helpfulness, minus two for inappropriateness.)
“Chuck’s dad has the biggest liquor collection I’ve ever seen,” Joni chimes in.
“But he doesn’t drink any,” Chuck continues. “He just likes the bottles.” (Plus three for an interesting father.) “How lame is that?” (Minus four for not realizing it.)
“How’s football going this year?” I ask.
Chuck’s eyes light up. (Joni would be lucky if the mention of her name ever got such a response.) “I think we really have a chance to take State. Watchung is weak, and South Orange’s best player graduated last year. Livingston’s best player is on the verge of indictment, and Hanover hasn’t fielded a decent team since their coach was a player. Caldwell’s the one to watch, but I feel like we could take them if we keep our guard up. Our practices have been so rockin lately. We’re tight, you know. Real tight.” (Ten points for passion. So what if it’s football he’s talking about—if you can be so engaged and excited by the thing you do, you get points.)
“The only problem,” Chuck continues, “is our goddamn quarterback. He’s totally psycho.”
Minus twenty points. Chuck knows I’m friends with Infinite Darlene. So why is he slamming her? Doesn’t he know any better?
He goes on. “He’s more worried about breaking his nails than throwing the pigskin.” (At the sound of the word pigskin, half the Veggie D’s customers turn around and give us a nasty look.) “He should just enter the beauty contests instead of heading onto the gridiron, if you know what I mean.”
Oh, I know what he means. He means: I had a crush on the quarterback and she didn’t have a crush back, so now I’m going to bad-mouth her since I can’t undo the crush I once had. I can see right through every word he’s said, because I’ve witnessed Infinite Darlene on the football field. When she is on the hundred yards, she is all business. She will break her nails and blotch her mascara and sweat and grunt and shove and do whatever it takes to get to the end zone. She is all precision, no distraction. It’s probably what attracted Chuck in the first place.
I stop keeping score, because in my book, Chuck’s already lost the game. I look over to Joni for confirmation … but she just smiles at me. As if to say, Isn’t he cute?
Chuck asks me about movies, because Joni must have told him I like movies. But he only asks me about the movies he’s seen, so he can give his own opinion. Opinions like “That helicopter chase was intense” and “She can’t act, but she sure is a babe.” I look over at Joni again.
She’s nodding along.
She’s not saying much.
She holds his hand and looks happy.
Part of me wants to scream and part of me wants to laugh, both for the same reason: This is an impossible situation. Joni doesn’t need my approval, but she wants it, in the same way that I would want hers. But if I approve, I’m lying. And if I don’t, I’ll be shutting myself out of a major part of her life.
“I really liked that article you wrote for the paper about the hate crimes law,” Chuck is now saying. Does he realize he’s lost me? Is he trying to win me back? That effort alone would count for something, if not a lot.
I usually think our thirty-four-minute lunch period is too short. Now I feel it’s just right. We sort and throw out our garbage, then head back to school. Since it’s Friday, we talk about our weekend plans. For some reason, I decide not to mention Noah. In contrast, every plan Joni and Chuck mention starts with the word we. Usually Joni and I would plan a point to connect over the weekend. This time, neither of us makes that move.
I notice this. I wonder if she does, too.
In between sixth and seventh periods, before I get a note from Noah, Ted comes right up to me and calls me a traitor. Now, I’ve never felt any allegiance to Ted before. In fact, I was usually a big fan when Joni decided to dump him. But today it feels different. Today I do feel like a traitor, although maybe the old Joni is the one I’ve betrayed.
“You’re taking sides,” Ted spits out at me.
“I’m not,” I try to convince him. “And I thought you said you didn’t care.”
“I don’t. But I didn’t think you’d be supporting her stupid decision, Gay Boy. I thought you had some sense.”
I can’t tell him I agree, because then word will get back to Joni and she’ll know how I really feel. So I stand there and take his wave of anger. I make it clear I don’t know what to do.
He stares me down for a second, says “Fine,” then heads off to his next class.
I wonder if it’s possible to start a new relationship without hurting someone else. I wonder if it’s possible to have happiness without it being at someone else’s expense.
Then I see Noah coming over to me with a note folded in the shape of a crane.
And I think, yes, it’s possible.
I think I can fall for him without hurting anybody.