Chapter Thirty-Six: Mia

On the way to school on Wednesday, Camila told me on the bus that she was going to break up with Marcus as soon as she got the chance, that she couldn't stand being "his lady" anymore. That he was absolutely smothering her with demands on what to wear and what to do and not once in the six weeks that they had been dating had he ever asked her about her thoughts or opinions on anything and it was just me, me, me with Marcus and everything that they did or talked about and he was stuck up and self-centered

When Camila got started complaining it was, like, she couldn't stop. She complained about Marcus' ego and how she was tired of hearing about how much money he was going to make playing pro football and basketball and how hard it was going to be to juggle both sports at the same time, that somebody named Bo Jackson had done it and so could he..."no sweat." She said if she heard him say "no sweat" one more time to her, she would scream. Camila went on and on, and I thought, well, she and Marcus lasted six weeks, that's not bad; I wasn't sure they would last a month, and I knew it would be over between them in two months. But I didn't need to tell Camila all that, she had figured it for herself and that was good. Hannah, who was sitting behind us, was listening the whole time, and she said maybe Camila could give Marcus one more chance, and both Camila and I glared at her at the same time, and Hannah didn't say one more thing about second chances.

Then Camila told me that she needed to find a guy like Luke, that she really liked the way the two of us operated together, and that we were a "really cute couple." I told her that Luke and I weren't a couple, that we weren't dating, that we just hung out together. And Camila said, "Oh, please, everybody can see you two are a couple, and the way you smile at each other all the time." Then she said, it was just a matter of time before Luke and I started to date, probably our sophomore year when my parents said I could date. All I said was that I liked Luke a lot, and he was very sweet and we talked all the time.

I didn't want to say anything more, but I have to tell you that I've been thinking more and more about Luke and I going out on our first date and how great it would be. And I know it won't be until next year, but I confess that I worry some too that my poppa won't like me going out with a boy who's not Hispanic. I don't know how Mama would feel about that, but I think she would take my side if Poppa was against it. I wouldn't ever want to disobey my parents, but if I explained to them how sweet and wonderful Luke is, I think they would understand...at least, I hope so.

Wednesday during lunch after we had gone through the line and gotten our food, Elly came up to us and asked if she could sit with us—that her "lunch bunch" of Paige and Mary were off sitting with their boyfriends. Of course we said sure— I really like Elly and would like to get to know her better. Paige wants to sit with Allen, and Mary sits with Ian and Paul and some of the other football players and Elly really didn't want to sit with a bunch of upperclassmen and their girlfriends. Then Hannah said she had heard that Elly had gone out with Paul over the break and asked how that had gone, and Elly groaned and said "don't ask," so we took it that she didn't particularly have a grand old time. So we went back to discussing what we had been talking about all through the lunch line, Camila's soon to come breakup with Marcus, and Hannah asked Elly what she thought, and she said now was not a very good time to ask her about dating and boys. That her first date, though she couldn't say it was "the pits," it really wasn't what you would call a "night filled with glamor."

We all laughed at that, and it was right after that that Marcus came by our lunch table, and what happened next wasn't pretty. First, Marcus, asked why Camila wasn't wearing his sweater like he had asked, and Camila said she hadn't worn it yet. Then Marcus asked if she wanted to go out to Pizza Hut with Joshua and his girlfriend after the basketball game Friday night, and all Camila said was no. Then Marcus asked why not, and she said could they go somewhere and talk in private. Then Marcus got mad and said Camila could say whatever she wanted to say in front of us.

I had never seen Camila act smart-alecky toward anyone before, she's really polite, but she said really sarcastic-like that she was glad he had finally given her permission to say something and what she wanted to tell him was that she was breaking up with him. He got this really shocked look on his face, and I thought he was going to try to talk her out of it at first, but then he said, "no sweat," there were other fish in the sea, and there were lots of other girls in this school that would love to go out with him. And he just turned and walked away.

Elly then said if there was big-time drama like this every day at our table, maybe she had better go somewhere else to sit. And we all laughed, and I told Camila I was proud of the way she handled the whole dumping the guy thing, and even Hannah said that Camila could do better in the man department. Elly said we should celebrate our new quartet and Camila being single again with chocolate ice cream cones, which seemed like a pretty good idea to all of us. There's nothing better than chocolate when you've had a tense day.