Going Vintage (14 page)

Got frustrated. Talk to me, babe
.

“Please tell me those aren’t from Jeremy.” Ginnie tries to grab the card, but I shove it down my shirt.

“These aren’t from Jeremy.”

“Really? Who are they from, then?”

“Jeremy.”

“Ha-ha. Of course he’s trying to save face. He’s super in love with his face.” Ginnie readjusts her sweaty ponytail. Her
T-shirt is still wet from her league soccer practice, not to be confused with her school soccer practice, or off-season soccer practice, or camp soccer practice, or future Olympian soccer practice, all in older age brackets. Sometimes she comes home from athletically annihilating her elders and thinks that talent gives her a right to be a snark-face to her older sister. “You two better not have made up. I’ll disown you.”

“Of course not. Gross, I stink.” I wash my hands in the sink. “I’ll never understand why people pay money to keep a storage unit, but let the stuff in there get so dirty. And attics! All that filth just floating above you?”

“You’re avoiding my question. Why did he send you flowers?”

“Peace treaty.” I wipe my hands on a dish towel. “He wants to talk.”

“Are you going to?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a yes.”

“No, it’s an ‘I don’t know.’ I just got the flowers two minutes ago. I need to figure out what this is about.”

Ginnie opens the fridge and rummages around until she finds a half-empty orange Gatorade. She finishes it in one long gulp and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Fine. We’ll discuss the flowers later. So instead, can you tell me why Oliver Kimball called you?”

“What?” The hairs on my arm stand at army alert. “He did? When?”

“Right before I left for soccer. I left a Post-it note with his
number on your desk.” Ginnie hops onto the counter. “If you had a cell, you would know this by now.”

“So he called our home phone number?
I
don’t even know our home number.”

“He must have asked Jeremy. You know, his cousin. The one you dated.” Ginnie looks at me expectantly. “Details?”

“He wants to be president of pep club,” I say.

“We are talking about the same Oliver Kimball here. Senior, too cool for school, pretty eyes.”

Well. I haven’t noticed his eyes. “The one and only.”

“So he wants you.” Ginnie pulls the cookie jar closer and shoves a gluten-free cookie into her mouth. “Wow. And so Jeremy sends flowers to mark his territory. Better than peeing in a circle around you. Looks like you’re not going to have a problem finding a steady.”

“Stop it. Oliver doesn’t want me. He’s joining because he needs another extracurricular for college.”

“But maybe
you
are Oliver’s next extracurricular.” Ginnie glances down at her phone and scowls. “This is the fifth text today from Bennett Williams.” Her frown deepens. “You don’t think he’s asking me to homecoming, do you? I don’t want my first real date to be with him. Although, list-wise, I guess one of us should go to homecoming.”

That’s right. I no longer have a date. This is the first event in over a year where I will be boyfriendless at a time when having a boyfriend comes in handy. And now the chances of me finding a date, even with a guy friend, are minimal. I have to sew and wear a dress to the dance. Alone.

I find one of Ginnie’s organic burritos in the freezer and stick it in the microwave. “This might be perfect. Now Bennett Williams can be your steady.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Now, Ginnie. Give it a chance. He has nice hygiene and he’s very passionate about … about life. And! He told me that he reads crime novels to his grandpa every Tuesday.”

“
Why
were you talking to Bennett?”

Oh. Oops. “Hmmm? Oh, we just ran into each other after school. He’s really a sweet guy. One shopping trip and he would be solid.”

“Bennett Williams told everyone that he made out with Gina Fitzpatrick in middle school and it was a total lie. He’s toolier than Jeremy.” Her phone buzzes with another text. This time, her mouth goes from a frown to a snarl. “Wait, Bennett gave you a ride home today? And you talked to him about homecoming? What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

I take a step back. “That’s not the romantic gesture I told him to do.”

“So you
did
?”

“He asked about you and I said you like guys who are persistent.”

Ginnie slaps her hand on the countertop. “Mallory! This is my first high school dance. I don’t want to go with Bennett! And I have to say yes because he’s the only guy asking me. Late, by the way. Why didn’t you talk to me about this first? What is wrong with you?”

“He asked me a question, I answered. And this isn’t just
about you. Someone has to find a steady. Think about The List.” I open the microwave and grab my burrito, ready to retreat to my bedroom.

“You want me to think about your list? Fine!” Ginnie steals my plate and holds it up in the air. “You just used a microwave. People didn’t have microwaves in 1962.”

“Stop being a brat.”

“You wanted my help, you got it.” She takes a big bite of my burrito. “How does it feel to be ‘helped’? Maybe you could stop helping my love life too,
helper
.”

“Grow up.”

She smiles and takes another bite of my burrito. My stomach growls. Did they have pizza delivery in 1962?

I grab my bouquet of flowers, resisting the urge to slap my sister. Sure enough, there’s a bright pink Post-it note with Oliver’s number in my room. I pick up the home phone and consider calling him. What would we talk about? I’m too exhausted to get into the logistics of pep club tonight. I need a shower, I need to do my homework, and I need … I take a sniff of the flowers. Lilies. My favorite. Jeremy remembered.

If a guy messes up one time, one
epic
time, does that mean he’ll always be that way, or can he change? Bennett Williams might have said something stupid in middle school, but that doesn’t mean he’s not right for Ginnie now, right? And Jeremy could possibly …

I rub Grandma’s necklace. No. Forget it.

Flowers or not, I’m staying strong.

Chapter 11

Top five favorite bobblehead dolls:

1. Willie Mays: legendary All-Star from the 1962 Giants. One of the first, the finest bobblehead ever
.

2. Derek Jeter: even his bobblehead is good-looking
.

3. Mike Schmidt: I used to get this Phillies’ third baseman confused with the old actor Chuck Norris because they both have red beards
.

4. Evan Longoria: found this at a thrift store. I know nothing about him, except that he’s hot. Noticing a trend in my collection
.

5. Brian Wilson: he wore a spandex tuxedo to the ESPY Awards one year. Now that I’m single, I think I shall marry him
.

I wake up the next morning to a rainbow of Post-it notes splattered around my room. There’s one on my bobblehead shelf. No, what
used
to be my bobblehead shelf, before my amicable athletes were bobblenapped. All that remains is Willie Mays and a note:

Most of these guys weren’t alive in the sixties, and if they were, they were in diapers. Willie Mays in the only exception. You’re welcome. I know this isn’t technology, but I’m seizing the opportunity since these guys always freaked me out.

NOT AUTHENTIC.

And another Post-it note where my alarm clock used to be.

LED digital alarm clocks weren’t available until the mid-seventies, and they sure didn’t have docking stations.

NOT AUTHENTIC.

Ginnie’s handwriting is on another note on my now computer-less desk.

Personal computer? Please.

NOT AUTHENTIC.

My sister, my insane sister, has removed every bit of technology not available fifty years ago, which basically is
all
technology in my room. Like my phone. Not my cell, but the cordless landline. Now I have no contact with the outside world.

I flip the light switch in my bathroom and see my blow dryer. Ginnie’s note says:

Your model is obviously too modern, but there were home hair dryers as early as 1920, so I’ll give you a pass. Also, your hair frizzes when you air-dry. You could always ask a salon to give you a beehive. Ha!

You’re welcome.

SEMIAUTHENTIC.

“Ginnie!” I pad down the hallway and throw open the door to her bedroom. “What the crap is this?”

Ginnie rolls over in her bed and pries open one eye. “Bennett asked me to homecoming last night after you went to bed. So I decided to ‘help’ you some more with your stupid project. Don’t pimp me out again.”

“Where is all my stuff?”

“I’m selling it online. I need the money to buy a dress.”

I yank her comforter. “Go take it offline. You’re not selling my computer!”

“Oh, lighten up.” Ginnie stretches her arms and yawns. “I’ll give it back to you when you’re done being retro.”

“Ginnie, my alarm clock? How am I supposed to wake up? And what about my little LED reading light?”

“Get a flashlight.”

“It’s not enough light!” I cry out in despair.

Ginnie covers her mouth with her hand, but a giggle escapes.

I ball my hand into a fist and slap at my thigh. “Do you know how hard this is? I’m already completely isolated from my friends—I don’t know what they’re doing during the day, I have no clue what’s happening online. My reputation is going up in flames and I can’t even watch it play out. And now my room is prehistoric.” I flop down on the bed.

“So basically I gave you exactly what you asked for.”

“I hate you.”

“You’re welcome.”

I wrap Ginnie’s covers around my head. It was easy for Grandma to live like this because the technology wasn’t there to miss. But there’s all this networking and connecting floating around me, and I’m not a part of it. No one but Ginnie knows Jeremy sent those flowers or Oliver called my house. Normally I would spend hours dissecting those advancements with my friends.

Maybe the communication isn’t all real, maybe those online personas are facades, but even if it’s 30 percent truth, that’s still more than the big fat
Zero
I was getting now. What was I supposed to do, bike over to my friend’s
house? Paige lives two miles away. No wonder all those small-town teens used to spend the weekends driving up and down Main Street—it was the only way they could find their friends.

The fact remains that I need to create a space that was as close to sixteen-year-old Vivian’s as possible if I really want to know what her life was like. No one ever said The List would be easy. Probably because no one else knows The List exists.

“Fine. Thank you. No more helping, though,” I say.

“Agreed. And no more helping me find a steady, either.”

“You could tell Bennett no.”

Ginnie swings her legs over the side of her bed. “I don’t know. He gave me a basket filled with those organic peanut butter cups from Whole Foods that I love and wrote,
You butter go with me to homecoming
. Peanut butter, Mal. That’s special.”

“Wait, you
want
to go with him now?”

“The dance is next week. No one else is asking me. I think I was building up the first-date thing too much. Bennett will be good practice.”

I clench my fist again, this time with the intent to punch Ginnie. “Then why did you go dark ages on my room?”

She reaches down and unclenches my hand. “Because I care. And if you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it right.”

“You’re evil.” I rub my eyes. I need to get ready for school. My electronic toothbrush was probably confiscated too. “Even
if you took my phone away, I’m still going to see Jeremy at school, you know.”

“You can see him, just don’t forgive him, all right?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I follow Ginnie to the kitchen, passing my room as we go. I do a double take. “Ginnie, the flowers.”

She gives me a quick peck on my cheek. “In Mom’s office. If you sit and stare at them all day, you’ll give in.”

I motor through my morning routine, grateful that showers made the authenticity cut. Ginnie’s blow dryer is roaring, so I hurry down the hall to Mom’s office. It’s not like I need the flowers, but I need to assert some dominance over my little sister or else she’s going to think she’s the one running the show, whatever show this is.