Parties & Potions #4 (18 page)

“Finishing homework. Are you almost done with your sister? Want me to come over for an hour?”

“Oh! I can’t. We’re not done yet.”

“What? Sorry, I can’t hear you. There’s lots of static.”

Ya think? It’s not like I’m in another country and on top of a mountain or anything. I lurch to the right, in case it helps, and then yell, “I said, we’re not done yet!”

“With math?”

Sure, why not? “Yes, with math.”

“It’s still … ’aticky Let me call you … on your land-line?”

No! “I can’t talk now! I’ll call you later!”

“What?”

“I’ll call you back when I’m home! I mean, when I’m done. Yeah, done.”

“Okay. Have fun.”

“You too! Love you!” I say.

And then I realize.

Did I just say that? I did not just say that. I did not just tell Raf Kosravi that I love him. I didn’t mean to say that. Now what?

I press the End button.

Omigod. I just hung up on my boyfriend. Right after I accidentally told him I loved him.

Crapola.

Aaaah!

What do I do now?

Maybe he didn’t hear. Reception is terrible; he said so himself. But what if he did hear? Did I mean it? Do I
love
him? I know I always joke that I
love
him, but do I really?

Sure, he’s sweet and funny and adorable. And he makes my heart go all fluttery

Why did my mom have to tell me she loved me on the phone? I had love on the brain.

Maybe I should call him back. And do what? Tell him that it was a mistake? Is it a mistake? It’s all his fault, anyway. He started it with the whole love-in-the-card thing.

Aaaah!

“Rachel!”

I stumble at the sound of my name and drop my phone in the snow. Great.

I look up to see Adam approaching me. “Ready to hit the slopes?”

I pick up my phone and jam it into my pocket. I’ll have to deal with this later. “Hi! Ready!” I pull down my goggles (aka transformed sunglasses).

“Then let’s go!” He pushes off toward the top of the mountain. “I’ll race you.”

I turn back to see Miri deep in conversation with Corey. I guess she can take care of herself. I spot the triplets and the others already flying down the hill. Not flying, obviously. Skiing really fast. Okay, fine, Glamour Triplet might be flying.

I hang back on top of the run.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

It looks kind of steep. “I haven’t been skiing in a long time.”

He laughs. “It’ll all come back to you. It’s just like riding a broomstick.”

“Ha-ha. All right. I’m ready.” I push off, and while I’m a bit shaky, I’m actually quite good. I can slalom! I can turn! I can—

Smack!

—fall on my butt.

I push myself back up. Ouch. That is gonna sting in the morning.

“You okay?” Adam asks, swishing up beside me.

“Just rusty. Ready to race? On your mark, get set, go!” I take off. I’m a bird! I’m a plane! I’m Rachel the skiing witch! He’s right behind me, and then he’s next to me, and then I pull ahead again. We pull up together at the bottom.

“What a rush,” I say. “Again! Should we use the go spell to get back on top?”

“Nah, I’m tired of Appearing in bathrooms,” he says.

I giggle. “You’ve noticed that too?”

“Yeah. Let’s take the chairlift like normal people. It’ll be fun.”

We hold our poles in our hands and look behind us to catch the incoming chair. “I haven’t done this in a while,” I say.

“You’ll be fine. Here it comes,” he says, and then, swoop, we’re sitting!

As we rise up the hill, I spot the triplets skiing down below. I wave but they don’t see us. Beyond the run, our chair glides over a patch of forest that separates two trails.

I soak up the view. The sky is blue, the air is crisp … it’s all so pretty.

Creak. The chairlift grinds to a stop.

We sway back and forth, back and forth. “I hope this thing is sturdy!”

“I’ll protect you,” he says, casually putting his arm around my shoulder.

Uh-oh.

He leans in to kiss me.

It’s a Small World

Should I? Do I? No!

I pull away about a half second before his lips touch mine.

“Adam,” I say. “I have a boyfriend.”

Did I just almost kiss one boy less than ten minutes after telling another boy I loved him? What is wrong with me?

“I’m sorry,” Adam says. “I thought … I thought you felt the same way. I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. I—I think you’re really cool, Rachel.” He covers his face with his gloves. “I’m sorry.”

“I …” I’m not sure what to say. “It’s my fault. I should have told you.” I don’t know why I didn’t. Okay, I do. ’Cause I didn’t want him to know. ’Cause I might like him.

“Who’s your boyfriend?” he asks. “Do I know him?”

“No. He’s not a warlock. He doesn’t even know about”—I motion around me—“any of this.”

“So it isn’t serious?”

“No—it is.”

“Doesn’t sound serious,” he mutters.

Hey! “I heard that.”

“Well, he doesn’t know anything about you!”

“Yes, he does.”

“Not the most important part. Don’t you want to date someone you have more in common with? Someone who gets what you’re going through?”

“I …” My voice trails off.

As if this moment can’t get any more awkward, my cell phone starts to ring.

I know it’s Raf without even having to look. Stupid in-tuition. I let it ring. And ring.

Adam doesn’t comment. And neither do I.

I have got to get out of here. Why won’t this stupid chairlift start working?

“Chairlift, start to run,

’Cause this awkwardness is no fun!”

The chairlift jerks to a start.

I arrive home feeling lousy. Partly because of the Adam incident, partly because Raf has called three times and I haven’t picked up, and partly because my butt hurts from my tumble down the mountain. Also, I’m almost out of go spell. I need to make more of that stuff pronto.

Miri, on the other hand, is on cloud eleven.

“We took the chairlift up together!” she tells me while we get ready for bed. “He put his arm around me! Did you see him board? He was even worse than I was! Tee hee! I had to show him how to turn. It was so cute! He’s so cute! And then he—”

I zone her out, a pit growing in my stomach. Adam didn’t say one word to me after the chairlift debacle. We quickly joined up with the rest of the group and then froze each other out.

I wait until I’m in bed before calling Raf back. I hope he didn’t hear what I said before. You know, the L word? I really, really hope he didn’t hear. There was static! Lots of static. I’m sure he didn’t hear.

“Hi,” I say, my heart pounding.

“Hi,” he says.

He did not hear. I’m sure he didn’t. “Sorry it took so long to call you back.”

Silence.

He heard and he doesn’t feel the same and now he’s going to break up with me. He heard and he somehow knows that I almost let another guy kiss me and now he hates me.

“About what you said before …,” he begins.

I hold my breath.

“I love you, too,” he says.

I drop the phone but then quickly pick it back up. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Another silence.

He said he loves me. The boy I’ve been crazy about since the first day of freshman year just told me he loves me.

Raf Kosravi loves me. Officially.

I should be thrilled. I should be dancing up and down. Fine, maybe not dancing. I don’t want to scare the neighbors. But I should at least be shaking my arms with joy or cartwheeling.

But instead, my eyes prickle with tears.

“Cool” is all I can choke out.

“And I’m so happy you said it. You’ve been acting kind of weird lately and I was worried that… I don’t know. That you didn’t, you know, like me anymore.”

“That’s crazy!” I say. “How could you even think that?”

“Well, you didn’t want to meet up with me when you were shopping and then you fell asleep when I was over and you kind of blew me off today….”

My heart sinks. “I’m so sorry. Honestly. I’ve just had a lot going on. You know. With family and stuff. None of my weirdness had anything to do with you. At all. Really. Nothing makes me happier than having you as my boy-friend.”

“Good,” he says.

“Good.”

We talk about classes and school and his jackets, and when we finally get off the phone, I hug my pillow to my chest, tears in my eyes.

’Cause I love Raf. I really do. And yeah, he said “I love you,” and he might even believe it, but it doesn’t mean much if he doesn’t love the
real
me. It’s no better, no more
real
than him being enchanted with me because of a love spell.

I sigh. And the next time he feels like I’m distracted … what happens then?

“So,” I say when I sit down in homeroom, “how was your weekend?”

Tammy turns to me, her lips quivering.

And I know. “Omigod, you broke up!”

She nods.

I leap up and hug her.

“It was tough, but I think it’s the right thing to do,” she tells me.

“You broke up with him?”

“Kind of. I think it was mutual. I know people always say that, but this time it really was. We care about each other, but we’re just in different places. We’re still going to stay friends, though.”

“When did it happen?” I ask.

“Last night.”

“You should have called me!”

“I would have, but we got off the phone at like three in the morning and I figured it was too late.”

“It’s never too late when it’s that important!”

“I was going to text you but I was too drained.” Her eyes tear up. “But thanks, Rachel. I know you’re here for me.” Then Tammy says she’s sick of talking about her and Bosh. “Your turn to tell me what’s been bugging you lately.”

“What? Me? Nothing’s bugging me; why would you say that?”

She shrugs. “I can tell when something’s bothering you.”

I swallow. Now she’s going to be mad at me too? “I just have a lot going on right now.”

She studies me. “Anything bad?”

“No,” I say quickly.

“If you need someone to talk to, you know I’m always here to listen.”

“Thanks,” I say, and my head pounds.

Why does everything have to be so complicated?

Reading
The Crucible
doesn’t put me in a better mood.

Do you know what happens in
The Crucible?
Do you know what they do to alleged witches in that book—no, that horror novel? They take them to the gallows—i.e., they hang them.

I rub my neck as I read.

This is exactly why I can’t tell anyone my secret. What if they tell someone who tells someone who tells someone and then people try to kill me?

Fine, they probably wouldn’t send me to the gallows per se, since New York doesn’t have the death penalty.

But they could still do bad stuff! I’ve seen high school mobs and they’re usually evil.

Case in point:

The next day, Tammy and I are on our way to chemistry when we spot Wendaline.

“Hey, Wendaline,” we both say.

Unfortunately, our greeting is followed by “Weeeeendaliiiine. Weeeeeennnnndaliiiine. Weeeeeennnnndaliiiine.”

It sounds like the wailing of a ghost, but as far as I know, JFK is not haunted. Instead, it’s Cassandra and her posse chanting my friend’s name.

Her cheeks bright red, Wendaline is staring at Cassandra. She tugs a lock of her short hair behind her ear and then fidgets with the shirt I bought with her.

“Weeeeeennnnndaliiiine.… Weeeeeennnnndaliiiine…. Weeeeeennnnndaliiiine.”

“Why are they doing this to her?” Tammy asks, fists clenched around her notebook. “I’m going to tell them to stop.”

I grab hold of her arm. “Don’t.” I don’t want Cassandra going after Tammy, too! I’ve been the target of the A-list, and it’s no fun. “She can handle it.”

“What kind of a name is Wendaline, anyway?” Cassandra says. “Sounds made up to me. Just like your story about being a witch,
Weeeendaliiiine.
”

“This is ridiculous,” Tammy mutters.

I keep shaking my head. I want to tell Cassandra off too, but I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t be too obvious! I can’t have everyone staring at me.

“Do you know what they used to do to witches?” Cassandra continues. “They used to throw them in the ocean to see if they would use magic to float. Maybe we should take you for a swim in the Hudson?”

I think I’m going to be sick. It’s
The Crucible
come to life!

“That’s it.” Tammy slips out of my grasp and storms across the hall to Cassandra. “You better shut up,” she orders.

Cassandra laughs. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll report you to Mrs. Konch for threatening the life of a student.”

“Oh, really?” Cassandra says, crossing her arms. Her curls stick out at jagged angles like weapons. She’s like Medusa.

Now Tammy crosses her arms. “Really. Then you’ll get expelled.”

What is Tammy doing? She’s going to get
herself
thrown into the Hudson. And that’s a polluted pool of water that even she wouldn’t want to explore. I press my back against a locker and try to be invisible. Not really invisible, obviously, ’cause that would really be giving myself away. Or not. I’m confusing myself.

“And why would anyone believe you?” Cassandra snaps.

Tammy juts out her chin. “Who do you think they’re going to believe? A sophomore with a 4.0 GPA or an ob-noxious fashion show poseur?”

Ouch.

Cassandra narrows her eyes. “You better watch yourself.”

“You don’t scare me,” Tammy says, grabbing Wenda-line’s arm and leading my flabbergasted friend into the bath-room.

The chant begins again immediately: “Weeeeeennnnndaliiiine. Weeeeeennnnndaliiiine. Weeeeeennnnndaliiiine.”

I keep my head down and hurry into the bathroom behind them. I had no idea Tammy was so strong. Wow. I’m both incredibly impressed and incredibly terrified. Tammy and Wendaline are both holding on to the sinks.

“Are you crazy?” I ask Tammy. “Now you’re on her hit list too!”

“I’m not afraid of her,” Tammy says, but the trembling of her legs gives her away. She turns to Wendaline. “You okay?”

A wide-eyed Wendaline nods.

“I need to sit down,” Tammy says breathlessly “Coming, Rachel?”