TWENTY-EIGHT

GOLFY WRITES BACK A FEW days later. My heart pounds through my crewneck sweatshirt when I see the text.

Golfy: So sorry. I lost my phone. Just found it! Will be @ ur bbq

I don’t understand how boys can honestly be this bad with phones. I would have been freaking out if I’d lost my phone, and he’s all calm about it, like it was nothing.

Does he have any idea how hard it is to be chill when someone you love just disappears and you have no idea if you’ll ever hear from him again?

“Golfy’s coming to the barbecue!” I nudge Kaylan on the ride to school.

“You didn’t even tell me you invited him!”

“I know, because then what if he couldn’t come? He hadn’t even written back, so I figured he wasn’t into me anymore, and . . .”

“You keep secrets!”

“So do you!”

“I invited the lunch table girls, by the way,” Kaylan tells me, resting her knees against the seat in front of us. “That was the plan, right?”

I nod. “Yeah, totally. But we’re almost at school, and I need to ask you something, so . . . changing topic for a sec,” I whisper. “Do you think Mr. Gavinder is weird?”

“All teachers are weird,” Kaylan says matter-of-factly.

“No, but I mean, like, he never calls on the girls,” I say. “Have you noticed that?”

Kaylan shakes her head. “No, but that’s because I’m so completely lost in that class. I can’t understand a single thing that’s going on. My mom is going to call and see if I can switch back to regular math.”

“Please don’t switch,” I say. “And see if you notice anything in class this morning.”

Halfway through math class, Kaylan whispers, “You’re so right. He hasn’t called on a single girl this period! And Isabela raises her hand for every question.”

“She’s a genius,” I whisper back.

“Arianna and Kaylan. Stop talking.” Mr. Gavinder says, facing the board with his back to us.

“He notices we’re here, at least.” Kaylan giggles.

“If I hear you two talking again, you will go straight to the office.”

We sit up straight in our seats, covering our mouths to stop ourselves from laughing.

At lunch, everyone’s talking about the barbecue.

“It’s kind of late in the season for a barbecue, though,” Cami says, pulling apart her turkey avocado wrap. “You’re lucky it’s going to be so unseasonably warm.”

“Global warming,” Amirah explains.

“Probably,” June adds.

“Is your camp boyfriend coming?” M.W. asks.

“I think so.” I smile. I love how that sounds. Camp boyfriend. So happy. And summery. I picture flip-flops and splashing swimming pool water and sitting on the grass and a counselor playing guitar.

“Hello! Earth to Ari!” Cami taps me from across the table. “OMG. I am so excited to meet him.”

“Yay.” I go back to my daydream.

Cami turns to Kaylan. “What about you? Are you on again or off or in the middle again with Jason?”

She peels off a piece of her string cheese. I can’t even remember the last time we talked about Jason, or the last time I saw Jason. And he lives across the street from me!

“Who knows.” Kaylan rolls her eyes. “Boys! Who needs ’em?”

The whole table cracks up.

“She is honestly the funniest person in the world,” Cami declares. “How’s it going with that comedy troupe, Kay?”

“I’m gonna suggest it when they ask for club ideas,” she tells everyone. “I feel like that should be soon, no?”

“I think so,” I chime in. “Ms. Bixhorn was talking about it the other day during homeroom.”

There’s a lull in the conversation, so I turn to Kaylan and tell her I won’t be on the bus later because of my bat mitzvah lesson.

“Oh, okay.”

“Your bat mitzvah is so soon, right?” Cami barges into the conversation yet again.

“Yup. November third.”

“Insane.” Cami puts all of her lunch garbage into the brown paper bag. “Are you so excited?”

I nod. “Yeah, I am. I really like the learning part of it, actually. This is so weird to say, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like Torah portion applies to my life. I am just trying to figure out how, exactly.”

“I’ve literally never heard anyone say that before,” M.W. says. “I am so not into the actual prayer part of it.”

“Well, you still have a while, don’t you?”

“Yeah, true. Mine is in May, so I haven’t really started, but I don’t think I’ll be into it . . . I find it all really boring.”

Everyone stares at me after that, like I have to defend my position or something.

“Well, different strokes, different folks, ya know.” I laugh.

“But you’re not having a big party anymore, right?” M.W. says, not meanly or anything, but it still feels like she just threw some kind of toxic chemical all over the table.

“Um, well—”

“My mom ran into your mom at the grocery store,” she interrupts.

Cami interjects, “Wait, what’s going on?” and then M.W. starts to explain, but the lunch gong dings and it’s time to leave the cafeteria.

Thank God for that gong.

I feel like I’ve been through some kind of professional-level game of tennis, but I’m the ball.

Wasn’t it M.W. who barely talked last year? Now she’s like a Cami in training.

I don’t know what Kaylan could’ve done, but she just sort of sat there silently, picking at her string cheese.

I don’t think I can handle all of these intense, personal-discussion lunch periods every day.

Maybe I’ll have to switch into Marie’s Japanese class, just to stay sane.