Love and Other Unknown Variables (3 page)

1.5

I
’ve spent today deflecting James’s repeated pleas for me to join forces with him to start the war against the English teacher.

In computer programming, he gave a moving speech about brotherhood and camaraderie. He spoke of the oncoming tide of literature, and how we could stand by and be crushed by it or rise up and defeat it. He even tossed in a “Semper Fi.”

At lunch, he tries to make me his superhero sidekick.

“You have to help me pull off at least a few stunts. What would Batman be without his Robin? Superman without Lois Lane?”

“I’m a Marvel fan, dumbass. And did you just call me a girl?”

He’s quiet the rest of lunch until I cave and ask, “Why do you care?”

His eyes kind of light up like coals burning low. “It’s a chance to leave a legacy.”

“But I’ve already got a legacy. It’s called being the valedictorian.”

Greta scoffs. “You wish, Chuck. I’ll be the one delivering that speech, thank you very much.”

James sighs and traces the letters of the “why” on the apple tree plaque. He’s not in the top ten of our class. He’s number eleven, and not because he isn’t brilliant, but because he has other priorities that Greta and I don’t, like spending time with his sisters. I sometimes feel like I only think about my sister when she’s right in front of me, but James is always thinking about his—whether they are safe, did they eat their lunches at school, what they got on spelling tests…

“Fine, then,” James says. “It’s not about the legacy. It’s about us doing something together this last year before we all go to college.”

Greta’s smirk falls away.

James’s father passed away six years ago when James was eleven. Greta has explained to me that James’s frustration over people leaving him (both actual and hypothetical) can leak out in strange and surprising ways—like, if he could trap us all in a biodome to keep us together forever, he would. I guess this need of his for us to band together against the English teacher is another of those ways.

Greta squeezes his knee. “We’ve still got all year together.”

“Yeah, man. A year is a long time,” I say, trying to be encouraging. “Twelve months, fifty-two weeks, three hundred sixty-five days, eight thousand seven hundred sixty hours—”

James holds up a hand to stop me. “But this would be something that when we’re old we could look back on and laugh about. Together.”

Greta’s eyes soften. “I’d make a pretty kickass Batwoman, don’t you think?”

James’s face brightens with the smile he gives her.

I snort, and Greta raises a brow at me, daring me, as always, to challenge her. I stuff my trash in my lunch sack and mutter, “I’m no Boy Wonder.”

1.6

I
take my seat beside Greta in English and glance at my phone: 2:59:21 p.m. I’ve got bigger worries than James now that I’m about to face Ms. Finch. I’m afraid of what Charlotte may have told her about me.

Hey, I met one of your students yesterday, sis.

Oh, which one?

Charlie Hanson molested my neck in the Krispy Kreme and then told me hope doesn’t exist.

I don’t want to give Ms. Finch the chance to engage in some parameter-setting discussion involving Charlotte. A discussion like, “Don’t ever touch my little sister again.”

That’s why I timed my arrival for thirty-nine seconds before the bell.

I shouldn’t have worried about a lecture though, because Ms. Finch isn’t even here yet.

2:59:45 p.m. and James hasn’t showed up, either. James is fifteen seconds from being tardy.

At 3:00:52 p.m., Greta looks at me like I’ve done something wrong. “Where is he?”

Just then, the English teacher walks in, cup of coffee in one hand and a paperback in the other. Technically, she’s late, but not as late as James.

Ms. Finch takes in the room with one long, sweeping glance and instructs us to, “Shut your traps and listen up.”

Greta looks stunned for a second before Ms. Finch smiles.

“It’s what my dad used to say each night before he’d read a bedtime story to my sister and me.” She opens the paperback as I try to ignore the unbidden vision of Charlotte in lingerie looming in my mind’s eye. I calculate square roots to squelch the boner threatening to embarrass me in the middle of English class.

3:01:14 p.m. and still no James. This is remarkable. For a millisecond, I think maybe he’s hurt. Maybe he went to the restroom between classes, slipped on someone’s misdirected piss, and knocked himself unconscious on the lip of the urinal. It could happen.

3:03:32 p.m. He’s three minutes and thirty-two seconds late. James is dead in a boys’ restroom.

Greta grasps my arm and squeezes, hard. I look up from the phone and see James strolling into the classroom at 3:03:36 p.m.

He’s smiling at us, but as he enters his face shifts, jutting out his chin and cocking one eyebrow into an impressively high arch. Greta groans. “Oh. Dear. Lord.”

James’s normal gait disappears, too. He is now walking like his left hip is dislocated and swinging his right arm at an awkward angle. He swaggers past Ms. Finch’s podium and comes down the center aisle, nodding greetings at the gaping students all around him, even holding his hand up for Tobias Quartell to slap him five. I’ve never seen anything like it. Neither has Tobias, whose mouth is as wide as Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

I can’t help noticing, too, that everyone’s eyes travel back and forth like a tennis match from James’s strange display to me. Like I’m somehow in control of him. Like if I think it’s cool that he’s acting like a wannabe thug from the suburbs, then we should all support him in his stupidity.

Throughout this bizarre scene, Ms. Finch doesn’t stop reading. James makes a huge production of scraping the legs of his chair across the floor and dropping his textbook-laden bag on the desk with a thud. Still no response from Ms. Finch.

Defeated, James flops into his chair. Moments later, Ms. Finch finishes the passage she’s reading. I glance at my phone. 3:05:06 p.m.

“Mr. Hanson?”

I freeze. Twenty-two sets of eyes burn into me.

“Please be sure your phone is on silent and put away. I believe that is the policy at Brighton?”

I look up in shock.
This
is the issue she’s choosing to address? I catch Tobias’s curious expression and think I’ve found an ally until he gives me a sly grin and a nod. What the hell?

I shove my phone in my bag and mumble a “yes, ma’am.” Heat pulses through my ears like a heartbeat.

James drops his head into his hands like he’s disappointed his stunt didn’t get a reaction, but the rumbling chuckles that follow tell another story.

After class, I walk silently beside Greta as she shreds James for his “asinine, embarrassing, culturally deplorable display of stupidity.”

“Maybe if some
one
had helped.” James gives me a light shove, toppling me into a locker.

“Easy, man.” I rub my elbow and jog to catch up, but Greta stops mid-step and I have to sidestep to avoid crashing into her, essentially throwing myself into another locker. James grins.

“I’m still not convinced this is the best way for us to spend our senior year, J,” Greta says, ignoring me as I rub my elbow
and
shoulder. She places one of her small hands on James’s enormous bicep and looks him in the eye. “There are plenty of other ways to spend quality time together.”

I clear my throat. Without turning to look at me, Greta snaps, “Don’t be a perv, Chuck.”

I shake my head and stalk off. I don’t need this aggravation. “What I can’t figure is why his stunt got no reaction, but I get busted for checking the time.” I glance at my phone, 4:01 p.m.

Greta and James catch up, flanking me. “She’s showing us her A-game,” Greta says. “Nothing’s going to get past her. She may teach English, but she’s no dummy.”

I laugh, but the look on Greta’s face tells me that wasn’t a joke.

Tobias closes his locker and steps in front of us. “So this is on, right?” He looks from me to James. “Time for a little mayhem?”

Greta crosses her arms over her chest, and I instinctually lean away from her.

James is about to answer, when I hold up a hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

Tobias studies my face, which I try to hold perfectly still, but he somehow manages to read something there that he likes. I see it the moment his brows jump up and his pupils dilate. “Got it,” he says, nodding as he backs away, holding a finger up to his lips.

“Seriously,” I call out, but the crowd has already swallowed him.

1.7

D
inner is at James’s house. He informed us at lunch that he’d put a pot roast in the slow cooker this morning. Who does that?

Before I left for his place, I got a text from him asking if I’d pick up a fresh loaf of “nice, crusty bread—maybe sourdough?” I don’t know what that means, so I’m wandering the bread aisle of the grocery store, reading the packaging. I’m about to give up and grab a package of hot dog buns when I glimpse a familiar head of black curls walking perpendicular to the aisle.

Is it the girl with the tattoo? My whole body feels jittery as I speed walk toward the end of the aisle and peek around the corner, just in time to see her turn down aisle twelve. It’s her. It’s Charlotte.

Now what? Do I find her and say hello? Did she see me? Do I pretend to bump into her and act like I’m surprised to see her?

Just knowing she’s two aisles over is messing with my body’s cooling system. I’m sweating even though the air conditioning is going full blast. I’m just about to make a dash for the front door when someone taps my shoulder.

I whirl around to face Charlotte, smiling in this crooked way. “Thought that was you,” she says. “Charlie, right?”

“Other Charlie,” I mumble, shoving my hands in my pockets.

“Nah, just Charlie. I’m Charlotte now, remember?” She pushes a curl off her forehead. “Are you shopping?”

“Uh, bread.”

Looking around us at the shelves full of bread, she laughs. “You’re getting warmer.”

What does this mean? Charlotte went out of her way to say hello to me and is now standing here bantering with me like we’re old friends. Maybe she’s just really nice. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything and I need to get over myself.

“James—my, uh, friend—needs bread. He’s making me dinner.”

Charlotte’s eyes widen a fraction. “That’s nice of him.”

“I guess. It’s pot roast.” Why am I telling her this? I pull out my phone for lack of anything better to say and show her the text.

She smiles as she reads it. “I was wrong. You’re ice cold.” She takes my forearm and drags me down the aisle. There is green paint under her fingernails. “You should be in the bakery.”

I follow her past the cheese and yogurts along the back wall, to the corner where the bakery sits with its glass cases full of colorful cakes. There are racks and racks of fresh baked breads too. A delicious, warm scent wraps around my senses as Charlotte deposits me in front of a wooden rack and points toward the bottom. “Sourdough,” she declares.

“Thanks.” I stoop to grab one and when I stand, she’s examining me like I’m a specimen in a Petri dish.

“How long have you known James?”

“Since freshman year.”

“What’s he like?”

I shrug. “I dunno. Tall, dark, and handsome, I suppose.”

“Handsome?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Tall like you?”

“About the same, but broader.” I squeeze the bread in my hand, wondering if it’s supposed to be so hard. “You saw him at the Krispy Kreme.” I touch the back of my neck in the spot that corresponds with her tattoo.

“The guy with the little redhead?” Her whole face lights up as she makes the connection.

“Yeah, that’s my friend Greta. They’ve been dating for years.”

“Dating?” Her thin, black brows are so high up they’re hidden behind the curls on her forehead.

“Yeah?”

Charlotte’s cheeks puff out when she exhales. “I thought—no, never mind what I thought.” She points at the bread I’m holding. “You’re so hot, you’re on fire.”

“Wait, did you think—”

“Nope,” she says, turning away, her cheeks going hot pink.

“You thought he was
my
boyfriend.” My voice cracks with surprise.

Charlotte has reached the produce section and grabs a few lemons from a teetering pile. “If it helps, I hoped I was wrong.” She smells one before beginning to juggle them.

It does help. Well, it would help if it’d bothered me to begin with. “How are you doing that?” I point at the lemons orbiting her head.

Charlotte shrugs. “I’ve had a lot of free time in the past.”

I set the bread down and grab my own lemons. “Teach me?”

She grins. “So you can impress your boyfriend?”

“So I can impress
you
. I’m not James’s type, which is a shame because Greta says he’s a great boyfriend. Very giving.”

Charlotte snorts and drops one of her lemons.

---

B
y the time I leave the grocery store, I can juggle three lemons for over a minute. Of course, that’s only if I turn away from Charlotte because one look at her face and I lose my concentration—and my lemons.

At James’s, I hand him his crusty loaf of bread and grab Greta’s elbow. “I’ve got a question.”

“It’s called a nocturnal emission and it’s completely normal, Chucky.”

“Grow up, Gret.”

“
You
grow up,” she says, her smile so wide it’s smooshing up the freckles on her cheeks.

James is busy plating dinner as his little sisters, Melody and Ella, dance around the table setting out the silverware. I tug Greta into the front hallway.

“How do I know if a girl is interested in me?”

“What girl?”

“Any girl.”

“Are you going to ask someone out? Is it Jenna?”

“No, now answer the question.”

“Okay, okay,” she says, shaking me off her elbow. “First, let me say that I think this is a great idea. Having a girlfriend will help you gain perspective, see that there is more to life than school and MIT and the future.”

I roll my hand to get her to move along.

“Fine,” she snaps. “If a girl is interested in you she might find little ways to touch you, like your arm or shoulder. She may compliment you, sometimes indirectly.”

“Would it be complimentary if she looked a little upset when she thought maybe I had a boyfriend?”

Greta begins to nod and then her brow furrows. “I’m sorry. What?” I can see she’s biting back laughter.

“Never mind.”

“Boyfriend?” A snicker escapes. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

James calls for us from the kitchen and my ears go bright red at the sound of his voice.

“Oh, shit, no,” Greta squeals. “James, you are never going to believe this.” She takes off down the hallway.

“Greta don’t—” Judging by the howling coming from James, I’d say I’m too late. I make a mental note to try to figure this stuff out on my own next time. Or maybe since James is supposed to be so
giving
, I’ll ask him first.