Maine Squeeze (36 page)

And that stuff about Beth going out with Dave? That would never happen. Paranoid, jealous, hateful. I resolve not to go through life like that. Beth would never go out with Dave; she doesn't like being more than 10 seconds away from the guys she's seeing, for one thing. For another, he's so annoying—and she isn't. I love Beth. I trust Beth.

And I want to embrace life. Not kick its ass.

I hate when I'm self-critical. Like in what I wrote yesterday. So what if I hate things? I can't like everything. Not even close.

So I might as well not hate myself, right?

And Beth is acting suspicious. She hasn't made a move on anyone in the past month that I know about. Which must mean
something
.

Okay, so I sort of formalized this pledge today and I guess I should write it in here. It's going to sound so predictable when I write it down because it's something I've believed for a really long time.

So here it comes: I am not going to get involved with anyone my senior year. No guys. No girls, either. Don't get me wrong. I'm not giving up on guys
completely
. I just don't want to get involved with anyone senior year because we'll have to break up at the end of the year, apparently that's the way it's done and I was a fool not to realize it earlier.

“Just do what I do! Don't get serious with anyone,” Beth said.

“But I don't work like that,” I told her. “I'm a very serious person.”

“You're serious,” she said. “About being serious?”

“How can you doubt me so much?” I asked her. It's okay for me to doubt her. She's the one showing up in my dreams.

So once I made this decision, I had to tell Jane, too. We were sitting in French class. Jane actually looked
un peu
French with her new glasses and haircut. I scribbled her my decision and asked her to sign the piece of paper, as a witness. She signed it and wrote, “This is so perfect!”

“
En français
,” I wrote back, as a joke. But then I realized what she'd just said. My life being ruined for an entire year, sitting home alone, night after night, was “perfect”?

“Were you jealous of me being with Dave or something?” I asked her after class.

Jane was so excited about her idea, she didn't even hear me. “If you are absolutely sure you're not going out with
anyone
this year, it means
you
can run for vice president! You can make our senior year great.”

There's this sudden vacancy in the student council spot because the vice prez, Jennifer Scher, used to go out with the prez, Tom Delaney, last year before they were elected. The Tom is very good-looking and has gone out with at least half the girls in this school. Including Beth, naturally. He has this irresistible quality, according to Beth, you don't know when it's going to hit you but it does. He's the kind of guy who uses flowers and jewelry as weapons, if you know what I mean. He also dresses really well, like, all the time. He wears all this Tommy Hilfiger stuff as if he's the Tommy who designed it.

Anyway, it looked like he had sort of settled down with Jennifer, they went out for like 6 months. Then as soon as they started student council this year, Tom had a fling with the secretary and totally upset Jennifer. Does he quit? Resign? No. He makes Jennifer's life so miserable that
she
does.

Just like a guy. Just like a president.

So all of a sudden our class projects are going nowhere, because Jennifer was like the driving force behind everything.

“Okay. I'll think about it,” I told Jane. It's not like I have anything else to do with my time. Besides, being on student council would look good for my law school applications.

What am I going to do next year, anyway? Go to college, duh. But where? Should I try to go where Alison went, make it a Smith Family Tradition? The Stafford brochure said something about “producing great men and women for over a century.” Like it's a factory, like we're shoes.

My wish list for the future:

go to a good school

make sure Dave is not at that school

make sure Beth and Jane are within driving distance

unless it's an incredibly long drive

then I'll fly

get into law school—Ivy League

sue Dave for emotional distress

become a righteous prosecutor in tradition of Marcia Clark, only win cases

then go on to become CNN commentator like her

but with better makeovers

Talked with Grant after Life Issues today. We spent half an hour learning ways of coping with change and making lists to help us cope. It all boiled down to the fact that you basically just have to change, you won't like it, and you can forget about coping with it. Anyway, after spending all that time listening to people talk about their big life changes (switching cell phone companies, dealing with new hairstyles, etc.), I was suddenly desperate for that info on Dave that Grant kept trying to tell me. I had to know if he's as miserable as I am. But at first Grant just said he had a “great” roommate and really liked his “great” dorm and his classes were all “great.”

Excuse me, but that's a little too perfect. It has to mean Dave's lying. He probably
told
Grant to say all that stuff.

So then Grant asked how I was doing. I started telling him. I wanted to give him a perfect story for Dave. About how fabulously I was doing, about how I had a fabulous new boyfriend and had actually been recruited by three fabulous colleges. All of them in Boston—no, Europe.

But the next thing I knew I was pouring out my guts to Grant, telling him gruesome details that no boy should know, like about how I couldn't sleep at night and how I had started watching
90210
reruns instead of nature shows, and right now the only ones on were from back when David was nerdy and short and Kelly slept around.

“God, why am I telling you all this? I'm sorry,” I finally said. “I should go.”

“No, don't,” Grant said. “I mean, it's okay. I understand.”

“You do?” Somehow I doubted that. Had he gone out with Dave for a year? And if he had, did I want to know that?

“Sure. I haven't been there, but it has to be really hard, breaking up with someone after so long. I bet, actually, that it really sucks,” he said.

For some reason that made me laugh. “Yeah. It does. But I guess it's not the end of the world or anything.”

“So … have you guys talked to each other at all?” Grant asked. “Since then?”

“No. He said he'd call,” I told him. “And he does call. But he doesn't leave messages. And he always calls when he knows I'm not home.”

“I don't know, that's probably just a coincidence. Why don't you call him?” Grant asked.

“Because he said
he'd
call. And the one who gets broken up with can't call the breaker upper,” I explained.

“Oh.” He nodded. “I guess you're right.”

“He said we were meant for each other. What did he
mean
by that? People don't just say things like that and not mean them.”

Grant's face turned sort of red. “Well … yeah, Courtney. They do. A lot of guys do, anyway.”

“They do?” It was like I was doing an interview with a scientist about another species. Tonight on
Wild Discovery
: Males.

That's it. I'm through with boys. Until college, and that'll be far from here. I'll show
him
long-distance. “So when they say something serious to you … they really don't mean it. At all.”

He looked very thoughtful for a few seconds. “Some of them do. I do. Anyway, it's not just guys that lie. Girls do, too—a lot of the time.”

All of a sudden I got this very clear idea he was thinking about Beth when he said that. Like when they were making out and dancing that night, he'd said he really liked her, and he meant it. And she didn't. I was kind of shocked that it still bothered him.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. I was kind of uncomfortable about this conversation going any further, because then I'd have to defend Beth, and I didn't necessarily know if I could. “Well, I didn't mean to um … say that all guys were evil—”

“And I didn't mean to say anything about—”

“It's okay,” I interrupted him. “So, um, see you around.”

“Right. Sure,” Grant said. “And don't worry about Dave, because, you know, you're going to be okay.”

“I'll just use some of my new
coping
skills,” I told him.

Grant laughed, and I noticed he has this chip out of his front tooth. Either it's from ice hockey or it's from the getting-pummeled years. That's one thing I really like about him, you never know. “Go home tonight and make some lists,” he said. “I'm sure you'll feel a lot better.”

So here's my list based on the brilliant concept that “change is inevitable.” (Hold on, I thought that was “death.”)

Mr. Antero told us to ask ourselves: What can I do to deal with this inevitable change?

1. Hate Dave.

2. Try to move on by getting involved with other things. Which I am already doing by joining student council.

3. Stop obsessing about Dave. Which I will do this instant.

The Tom endorsed me today.

No, that's not new lingo for “hit on me,” although with the Tom you really never know.

He literally endorsed me, for vice president of the student council. Like, he put up these signs and posters advertising me as Tom Delaney's Choice.

Then again, I don't know why I'm surprised. I mean, of course he's going to endorse me, I'm a
girl
, and I'm the only girl running for the office, and I'm a girl he hasn't scored with yet. Big challenge there, winning him over.

But he's actually trying to be nice or something. He cornered me at lunch and said how I'm the best person for the job, and how I shouldn't listen to anything negative Jennifer says—if I get the job, I should take it.

Naturally I went and found Jennifer right away.

“I don't want to talk about
him
,” Jennifer said. “I'm moving on with my life.” She was cleaning out her locker at the time. Perhaps that should have given me a clue.

I begged her for details, so I'd know what to be prepared for. I told her I knew what it was like to have your heart broken, that I was going through the same thing.

But before we could really bond, her parents walked up and said, “Ready to go, then?”

Turns out she's transferring to another school—a private one, in another state. That's how much she hates the Tom. She started walking away, but then she stopped and came back to me.

“There are things you really need to know about him,” she said.

“Like never to say yes when he offers me a back rub?” I asked. (Beth told me that was Move 1.)

“Yeah. But it goes way beyond that,” Jennifer said. “You have to really watch him, keep track of everything he does—”

“Jennifer? Come on, we're double-parked,” her mother said. “And talking about that boy is just a waste of your time.” She pulled Jennifer away.

“Thanks!” I called. “For the warning!”

Like I needed one.

I wrote Alison an e-mail and thought it was so good I'd print it and paste it in here instead of writing:

Dear Alison,

Sure, you can laugh. You're living it up, going to frat parties every night. Me, I'm stuck here, bored out of my skull. When exactly am I coming for my prospective student visit? Let's make it October. No, wait—how about tomorrow?

Mom won't even notice I'm gone. She's too busy planning our Thanksgiving family reunion wagon train to Nebraska.
Already
. She told me you decided to go to a friend's house nearby instead of making the trek to the Von Dragens of Ogallala. How could you do that to me? Mom told me I'm in charge of “all the breads” for the meal. What does that mean?

If that isn't enough to make me crazy, then how about sharing a car with Mom, Bryan, and Oscar for 4 hours? Don't you love me anymore?

Courtney

The frat party thing was a joke. Alison's not really the kegger type. She has a bunch of friends from the music department, and they sit around practicing together. It would be annoying if she weren't so good. But then her being so good is annoying, too, in its own way. “Don't you have an instrument, Courtney?” all the teachers would ask when I came into their classes. After a while I just started holding up my pen.

Oops—she wrote back already! Here's her reply.

Dear Courtney,

You didn't mention anything about Dave. What's going on? Are you okay? Have you heard from him?