Hard to Get (11 page)

“She's got me slaving away at this mural outside, hours and hours every day, just so the place looks good when the big boss comes to inspect,” Adam said to us. “I'm, like,
dying
out there in the heat.” He looked over at Sarah, laughing.

She reached over and slapped his arm. “Yeah, yeah, cry me a river.”

“Is that the painting stuff we saw outside?” Becca sat down next to Sarah. I perched on the edge of another chair, trying not to stare at Sarah's perfect tan. It looked almost too good to be real, but she didn't really look like the type to go tanning. Too earthy-crunchy
for that.

Sarah nodded. “Right. Adam's doing this mural on the side of the building for his senior community-service project. It's also to spruce the place up. The building owner is coming for an inspection in June and I want everything to look really good. He's always threatening to shut us down.”

“I'm just a hair behind schedule.” Adam
slid behind the counter again and started unloading a small dishwasher. “I've never done a mural before, and it's taking me a little longer than I thought.”

“The juniors have to do a community service project too,” I said. “But I haven't thought of mine yet.” I tentatively took a sip of my foam-laden coffee and spluttered a little. It was boiling hot.

Sarah looked at Adam across the table and raised her eyebrows. He gave a little shrug and nodded. Sarah leaned toward me. “This might seem totally crazy, but would you consider helping Adam with the painting for your project? It would make the work go twice as fast.”

I blinked. “Um, well … I don't know.” I glanced at Becca. She was sitting very still. I saw her gaze travel from Sarah to Adam and back again. She seemed to be considering something. Then suddenly, she straightened up.

“Val, that is an awesome idea.” She banged her palm on the table. “You should totally do the mural here for your project!”

I kicked her leg under the table.
What are you doing?
I mouthed furiously when she looked over. She shot me a huge smile,
then leaned over the table toward Sarah. “This is just what Val needs—school's been kind of rough for her lately, you know what I mean?”

“Oh yeah? Well, it's really quiet here.” Sarah looked over at me.

“Uh …” I glanced at Adam. He was leaning back against the counter again, his face inscrutable. Did he even want my help? “Uh …”
Doing good, Val.

“Adam, Val's, like,
amazing
at drawing,” Becca said.

“Actually, it's painting,” Adam pointed out.

“Right, that's what I meant.” Becca didn't miss a beat.

“Um, but …, ” I sputtered.

Beside me, Becca was still chattering on merrily. “Okay, so what's your cell?” she asked Adam. When I didn't move, she poked me in the ribs. I jumped and pulled out my phone.

He gave me his number. I looked up and he held my gaze for a second. I felt my face grow warm.

“Okay!” Sarah stood up. “It's settled, then. Can you come on Wednesday, Val? That would be awesome.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“See you Wednesday,” Adam said cheerfully.

“Sure,” I mumbled. Leaving our almost-full coffee cups and pulling the smiling, waving Becca behind me, I somehow made my way to the door, trying to tamp down the rising sense that nothing that had happened in the last twenty minutes had been within my control.

“What was going on in there?” I exploded at Becca once we were safely ensconced in the BMW again. “One minute, I'm ordering coffee, the next I'm doing craft projects in hippie paradise. What got into you? Were you suddenly possessed by the ghost of Janis Joplin?”

Becca smiled beatifically as she steered us back toward home. “You know, that really did work out beautifully. I had no idea.”

“What worked out?”

She glanced over at me. “Look, don't you see how perfect this is? You need to get away from all those stupid guys at school if you want to keep the GNBP going, right? I mean, do you really want to work on that group food-bank project?”

“No, I told Mrs. Masterson to put me down for the individual option.”

Becca banged her hand on the steering wheel. “So? You can escape to Sternwell's. Really, you should be thanking me.”

“Oh yeah? How come working with this guy every day, just the two of us, wouldn't violate the GNBP?”

She waved her hand in the air. “You said yourself that you're allowed to
talk
to guys. Besides, one, he's totally with that girl Sarah. And two, when did you start going for guys with frogs on their shirts?”

“You really think he's with that girl?”

Becca cast me a sideways glance. “Duh. They might as well have had a poster: ‘Sexual Tension Here.' Anyway, who cares? That just makes it better for you.”

“Yeah, I know.” She was right, of course. So much better for the GNBP if Adam was attached already.

“Right. So there, it's settled.” She smiled.

“Wow, you're hard-core about this bet, aren't you? I don't know, I think you'd look kind of cute in the purple dress,” I teased.

“Very funny. It would go with Kelly's blond hair
so
much better.” She slowed for a red light. “Guess what I heard today?”

“What?” I rummaged through my bag, looking for a piece of gum.

“Mr. Solis is making the entire junior and senior classes take a ballroom-dancing lesson in the gym in two weeks!” Mr. Solis was our hideously enthusiastic new vice principal—the kind of guy you really wish would get a life so he'd leave yours alone.

“Are you kidding?” I scraped some lint from the lone piece of Eclipse I'd unearthed at the bottom of my bag. “Are we all auditioning for
Dancing With the Stars
?”

Becca shook her head. “It's to get ready for prom. He says he doesn't want us looking like a bunch of hooligans on the dance floor.” She guffawed.

“Wait, he actually said ‘hooligans'?”

“I know. He's hopeless.” Her brow was furrowed. “So how're you going to swing this one? It'll violate the GNBP to actually dance with a guy, right?”

“Um, yeah, I guess it would.” I clicked my tongue, thinking. “Okay, I've got it. Simple. I just won't go.” I popped the gum in my mouth and winced as I bit down. Definitely very old gum.

“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that attendance
with
a partner is mandatory.” Becca
glanced over at me, her face anxious. “You'll think of something, won't you, Val?”

“Watch it! You almost hit that garbage can.” Damn. Damn, damn, damn. I cleared my throat. “Of course I'll think of something. And it'll be a brilliant solution. Did you forget who you're talking to?” I grabbed my bag as Becca pulled up in front of my house and mustered the strength to wave cheerfully until the Beemer had disappeared down the block. Only then did I let my hand wilt and my shoulders slump. This was just great. Now, on top of the whole mural situation, I had to figure out a way to go to this stupid lesson with a partner who wasn't a date.
And
the Saab was in the driveway, which meant Mom was home.

“Hi,” I called softly as I opened the front door. Maybe she'd be busy in the studio and I could just slip upstairs. It wasn't Mom in particular, I just didn't want to talk to
anyone
right now.

“Hi, honey!” Mom called from the kitchen. “Come in here and tell me about your day.”

I let my shoulders sag, and my book bag fell heavily to the floor with a thump. I slowly headed for the kitchen. Mom was
whisking around between the counters and the stove, throwing carrots and potatoes into a pot of boiling water. She wiped her forehead on a dish towel as I came in and sat down at the table with a sigh of relief. “Oof. My feet.”

I opened the refrigerator door and examined the contents.

“Don't eat!” Mom ordered. “Dinner in twenty minutes.”

“Mom, I'm starving.” Withered green peppers, banana bread, plain yogurt, leftover spaghetti. I took out a tub of hummus and rummaged in the cabinet for pita chips. “Just a little.”

Mom patted the seat of the chair across from her. “So, how was school?”

I shrugged, leaning back against the counter, and scraped up some hummus with a chip. “Okay. It was kind of a rough day.”

“How come?” Mom looked concerned. “Is it that American history test?”

I sighed. It would be nice to confess everything that had been happening, but really, I didn't want Mom to have a stroke or something. My problems were so, so much more complicated than an American history test. “No, it's not that.” Seeing her mouth
open to follow up with another question, I hurried on. “Hey, Becca took me to this coffeehouse after school, Sternwell's?”

She nodded. “Is that area safe for you alone?”

I tried not to roll my eyes and almost succeeded. “I was with Becca, okay?” I stuffed another chip into my mouth. “Anyway, Becca and I started talking to this girl Sarah, the manager, and then the next thing I know, I'm signed up for my community service project there, with this guy I don't even know!” I poked my hand in the bag for another chip, but Mom rose crisply and whisked it away.

“So you finally have a project! Isn't the deadline tomorrow?” She capped the hummus and stuck it back in the fridge, then peered at the boiling carrots. She unwrapped a tray of cubed beef and slid the meat into the water. “I'm so glad you finally chose something.”

“But I didn't really
choose
it,” I protested. “I just got roped into it. And I don't even know this guy!”

“What is the project, anyway?” Mom asked, stirring the pot with a big wooden spoon.

“Painting a mural!” I flung my hands out at my sides. “See? There's no way I can do it—I don't know anything about painting.”

Mom put the spoon down and turned to face me. “Val, you need a project. Here is one.” She put her hands on her hips. “Go get the form.”

“But, Mom—”

“Go get it.” She turned back to the stew.

I dragged myself to the hall and returned with the form, which had been folded up in my calc binder for the last two months. I spread it in front of me on the kitchen table. “I don't have a pen,” I tried.

Without pausing from her stirring, Mom stuck her hand in the junk drawer and tossed over a green Magic Marker.

I was distinctly nervous as I filled out the different blanks describing the type of project, duration, location. I mean, aside from the party and seeing him that afternoon, I barely knew Adam. Who says he even wanted me there, anyway?

Even so, after dinner that night, I retreated to my room and shut the door behind me, muffling the sound of Mom and
Dad laughing over their glasses of wine in the kitchen. I flopped onto my bed, yanking my anatomy workbook and facedown copy of
Hamlet
out from under me,
and pulled out my phone.

It wasn't like I had a whole lot of other options.
Hey. Everything's set,
I typed.
See you on Wednesday.
I stared out the window next to my bed. This could actually work out fine. I could get away from the stalkers at school, the work would be easy, and nice, friendly Adam wouldn't distract me from the main goal: the successful completion of the GNBP.

At school that week, Willy seemed sufficiently depressed by the cookie incident to stay away. But Kevin had developed the disconcerting habit of leering at me in the hallway every morning when I passed him on the way to anatomy. I started going outside the building and coming in the gym doors just so I wouldn't have to see him. After a long conversation with Brian North outside the lunchroom one day, in which I explained no less than six times that I
could not
go to his youth group dance, Sternwell's was seeming more and more like an oasis shimmering on the horizon.

When Wednesday afternoon arrived, I put on an army green T-shirt, my oldest
jeans, and a pair of flip-flops and gingerly drove the Saab over to Old Court. The neighborhood seemed seedier than I remembered—broken glass glinting on the sidewalk, honeysuckle and scrubby mulberry trees pushing through the crumbling asphalt in the vacant lots. Tall, narrow brick buildings crowded close to the sidewalk, six or eight long windows in front. Peeling advertisements for cell phones or pizza delivery services were painted on the windowless sides. A brown bottle with a faded Colt 45 label rolled away from my feet as I got out of the car, and a beetle scuttled out of the mouth.