Of All the Stupid Things (10 page)

“Oh right, sorry. Yeah, it’s David. Hi.” He rocks back and forth on his feet. Any minute now he’s going to wet himself.

I pick up the nacho tub and throw it at Riley.

“Lay off David and lay off Brent, you ho.” And I storm out of the cafeteria.

That Riley is going down. And I’ll make sure it gets done.

Pinkie

I MATCH UP THE CORNERS PERFECTLY AS I FOLD THE napkins into triangles. It’s been well over a week since the lecture and I haven’t seen or heard anything from Nash. I’ve asked a couple of the other kids in the club, but they haven’t heard when we’re having our next meeting. I’ve driven by Le Bon Fromage a few times (okay, before and after school every day of last week). Sometimes his car is there and sometimes it isn’t. Which means he’s not working all the time, so he must have some free time to return calls. I’m so desperate to know what’s going on that Whitney Blaire’s spying idea is starting to sound good. But no, I won’t. What I really need is someone who knows what guys think.

“Hey, Pink,” David says.

“What?” I look up from the napkins. “Sorry, did you say something?”

“I asked till what time we have to be here today.”

“Three. Two if we clean up fast,” I answer quickly while my mind stays on Nash and his broken dialing finger. I finish with the napkins and move on to restocking the tea basket.

Being youth leaders at our church means that David and I do anything anyone tells us to do before or after the service or at any charity event. Even though it’s a Saturday, we agreed to help for a special service. Whitney Blaire calls it slave labor, but it gets us in free to any of the youth events. Besides, colleges like to see a lot of volunteering and active members of the community on the applications.

I look up, suddenly realizing the Nash answer might be right there in front of me.

“David, can I ask you a guy question?” I reach into the big box of teas and refill the basket with Earl Grey and Passion. The church always runs out of Passion the quickest.

“Sure, as long as it’s something you can say in church.”

I roll my eyes as I try not to blush. Jeez, where had he come up with that idea? But the more I try not to think about what David had said without actually saying it, the more heat I can feel rising on my face. Argh! It’s the Passion herbal tea I drank earlier, I know it. “No, it’s nothing like that, it’s—”

I quickly grab the bag of cookies and organize them on a plate: chocolate, vanilla, chocolate, vanilla. This is so stupid. I’m almost seventeen years old and I still blush like I’m Angela’s age whenever someone, especially a boy, makes any kind of joke like that. Besides, he’s not a real boy, just David. I’ve known him forever. Our mamas used to throw us in the tub together. Great, Pinkie, you just have to go and remember that. Now you’re blushing more than ever. I take a deep breath. It shouldn’t be any different than talking to Tara and Whitney Blaire, except he would know what guys think.

“Okay, say there’s this girl,” I start, but I say it more to the cookies than David. “And she calls you a couple times. But you don’t call her back. Why not?”

“You’re asking why I wouldn’t call a girl back?” He lifts up a glass to see if it’s clean. “Oh, I get it. You want to know why some guy hasn’t returned your call.”

“No, not me,” I correct quickly. “It’s purely a hypothetical question, for a friend. Why don’t guys call girls back?”

“I don’t know. Is she pretty?”

“Normal, I guess.”

“Maybe he lost the number.”

“I leave it every time I call, and sometimes say it twice.”

David looks at me with his eyebrows raised. “How many times have you called?”

“A couple times.” I can feel David still staring at me. I fumble with the cookie bag. “Okay, I’ve called nine times, but I’ve only left three or four messages. And the last time I called him at work, but he didn’t come to the phone even though I didn’t say who I was.”

David shakes his head. “Pink, you’ve got to give the boy a break. You’re scaring him away.”

I think about Nash, the smartest person I know, being scared of a girl calling him. “Would getting lots of calls from a girl scare you?”

“If it was Whitney, first I’d be psyched out of my mind, then I would think that someone was playing a sick joke. If it was anyone else, especially someone I didn’t like, then yeah, I think I’d be a bit weirded out, thinking that she was obsessed and desperate.”

I let that sink in. I know I come across as a bit obsessive (but really it’s just me being genuinely concerned), and when I don’t hear back from people, I always imagine the worst. I don’t want to be this genuinely concerned, but it’s very easy to imagine people dead. Especially since people die all the time.

But desperate? I’m desperate to know why he’s not calling, but I’m not desperate for him, am I? Is that what Nash thinks of me? Some desperate high schooler who thinks getting winked at and kissed in parking lots means something? Or maybe he thinks that I’ll think he’s desperate if he calls back quickly? Is that why it’s taking him so long?

“Stupid.” I rearrange the cookies when I realize there are more vanilla ones than chocolate. Now the pattern goes chocolate, vanilla, vanilla, chocolate. “I think if you like someone and want to talk to him, you should. Why wait for a later time when some unwritten law says it’s okay to call? I mean, the other person should be flattered that you were thinking about him and that you didn’t want to wait another moment to talk to him.”

David finishes setting up the cups and leans against the table. “Who’s this guy anyway? Maybe I’ve heard something or can ask around.”

“Uh.” I slip a broken cookie into my mouth. “I don’t want to say.”

“You’re not like Whitney with this weird denial thing for Brent, are you?”

I almost choke on the cookie. “Eww, go—gosh no! Gross.”

“All right then, just making sure. So who is it?” he insists as he helps himself to a cookie from the plate. I replace the one he took so that the pattern isn’t broken.

“No really, I can’t.”

“It’s Nash, isn’t it?”

I don’t answer and I know that tells David everything.

“But why?”

“Why what?”

“Why Nash? Is it because he’s older?”

“No, of course not,” I answer quickly. But then I realize that I’m not fooling either one of us. “Okay, maybe a little, but it’s mostly because he’s so amazing. He’s really smart and knows so many things. He’s funny, he gives great hugs.” And his kisses are out of this world, but David doesn’t need to know that.

David shakes his head like he doesn’t believe me. Or doesn’t want to. “You can do better. Nash is a phony.”

“He is not!” I say, and then wonder whether he really could be a phony.

“He is. He gives us all this advice on how to get into universities and stuff, but look at him. He’s in his twenties and has never been to college. I bet he never applied to Yale or Oxford, or wherever he claims he’s going.”

“Harvard. And of course he did! He’s just saving his money. He works so hard, you should see him.” Okay, I admit I’ve never seen him work, but that’s because Le Bon Fromage is a really expensive restaurant and they don’t let kids in without their parents. But he works hard for the Honor Society. It can’t be easy setting up and organizing all that information for our biweekly meetings.

David tidies up the table, putting away the supplies we don’t need and throwing away the trash. “If he works as hard as he says he does, he could make it work at Harvard. They have scholarships, you know. Hasn’t he spent hours telling us about all sorts of grants, loans, and internships you can apply for? So why hasn’t he done the same? I mean, he claims he’s smart enough. I say he’s chickenshit. Afraid that he won’t get in and then what? Have to admit to everyone that he couldn’t hack it.”

I don’t know what to say about David’s comments. And I certainly don’t want to think about it, which of course only
makes
me think about it. No, it can’t be true. David is putting him down because he doesn’t like him. But I don’t know why David doesn’t like him. Everyone likes Nash. Or at least they should. “Are you saying this to be mean?” I ask.

David looks like I’ve insulted him. “No, I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Part of me wants to point out all the things that are wrong with his theory. After all, Nash has almost perfect SAT scores, the acceptances to the best schools, but the minimum wage he earns and the high cost of living make college a distant dream. But I’ve never actually seen the results, the letters, or his wages. I know what he has said and what Google has told me. I can only go by the fact that the school hired him as the advisor to the Honor Society, so surely they must have checked his credentials. “David, I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Fine. Who knows, I could be wrong.”

“You are,” I confirm. I’m tempted to call Nash and ask him if he’s a phony. I don’t believe David, not at all, but I want to hear it from Nash. But I won’t call Nash, at least not today. I don’t want to seem desperate. Because I’m not. Desperate.

Whitney Blaire

I FEEL LIKE SHIT. IT’S 11:15 ON A FREAKING SATURDAY morning. For what feels like the last hour, my darling mother has been nagging me through the intercom to come downstairs. Why doesn’t she just let me sleep? What’s her problem? I’m not at her beck and call. I have my own life, even if that just means sleeping. She doesn’t control me.

I roll over but then I hear Father say my name through the intercom.

Swear, grumble, sigh. I get up and shuffle down to the kitchen.

Mother’s fussing over something. She likes to pretend she does useful things around the house when really it’s Carmen that takes care of everything. Mother has a hard time figuring out the dishwasher. I have no idea how she completed a PhD.

“Oh, darling, there you are. I’ve been calling you forever. I had to get your father to try. Didn’t you hear me?”

I shake my head. “Were you outside my door?”

“Of course not, silly, I used the intercom. That’s why we got it.”

I shrug. “I didn’t hear a thing. The system must be broken.”

Mother sighs. “Again? They promised me it was the best but it’s been nothing but faulty. I’m glad I paid for that five-year guarantee.”

I don’t say anything as I head to the espresso machine. I wonder if David or maybe even Pink can dismantle the intercom completely. They’re supposed to be smart; it shouldn’t be too hard for them.

Father walks in then. He glares at me over the old-man glasses perched on the end of his nose. I shift away from his espresso machine. I pretend I was reaching for hot chocolate instead. He’s still staring at me.

“Good morning,” I say.

“Morning,” he replies. “How are your grades so far?”

“A’s, top of the class.”

“Good. That’s what we like to hear.” Then he picks up
The New York Times
from the breakfast table and returns to his study with it.

I go back to the espresso machine.