Rule of Thirds, The (4 page)

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
12 DAYS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT

“So what do you think about Callie? Do I need to worry?” I ask Dace as I toss my bag in my locker and pull out my books for first period.

Our lockers are in the main hallway—and it’s no fluke they’re side by side. It took three days and seven chocolate bars to get Hanif Jaffer to trade me lockers. Hanif’s a sophomore, and he loves Dace. But not more than he loves Kit Kats.

“Cafeteria Callie,” Dace says sympathetically, clucking her tongue. She grabs a tube of Kiehl’s lipgloss from the organizer on the top shelf of her locker and stuffs it in her pocket. “Gorgeous black hair? Curvy in all the right places? Good nail beds?”

“Yes, yes and really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Dace shrugs. “I always notice nice nails.” She inspects her own for a moment, then snaps her fingers. “Callie Garcia. You know Breanne with the glasses, on the basketball team? Callie’s her older sister. She graduated the year before we started. Yeah, she’s hot.”

“That
really
makes me feel better.”

“Who cares if she’s hot? He has good taste. And you know he’s not gay.”

“Part of me would rather he was gay than straight and not like me.”

“That’s ridiculous. As long as he likes girls, you have a chance. And who cares if she’s his girlfriend? That’s nothing that can’t be changed.”

“Oh no. Remember the rule about stealing boyfriends?”

THE RULE ABOUT STEALING BOYFRIENDS

1. Don’t.
   

“That’s your rule, not mine,” Dace says, fixing her hair in her locker mirror. “And anyway, this isn’t at all like last time.”

Oh, the last time. Thanks for bringing that up, Dace. So my only (sort of) real boyfriend so far was Reggie Stevenson in freshman year. Oh, Reggie, with his Brillo-pad hair that looked super cute but was super scratchy whenever his head rubbed against my face. He had a lot of zits but he also had a lot of freckles so they all just blended together and I really didn’t care because he was so awesome. He would put little notes in my locker between classes and call me before he went to sleep and, OK, also I just really wanted a boyfriend. I actually thought we might be together forever, things were going so well, even if they didn’t start out in the most ethical of ways.

Reggie Stevenson was Mariella Rocca’s boyfriend. They’d already been going out before they even started at Spalding. But then, in the middle of freshman year, she got to do an exchange in Italy for the winter term and Reggie came into Scoops the day after she left, which was the day after Christmas. Which Dace said was so obviously a sign. Because no one had been in Scoops all week. Because it was DECEMBER and freezing and no one wanted ice cream. He came in every single day over the break, and by New Year’s Eve, we were making out in the freezer. I felt totally guilty until he told me he broke up with Mariella and he asked me to be his girlfriend instead. Dace convinced me Mariella was probably off making out with the Justin Bieber of Italy and was all like, “Reggie who?” For months it was all butterflies and unicorns. I even believed Reggie when he said the reason he wanted us to keep our relationship a secret was because it gave us a special bond that no one could break.

We almost
did
it
. I wanted to wait until March—three-month rule—but we never lasted that long.

Because guess what?

Turned out Reggie never broke up with Mariella. It was all a big fat lie. On the first day back after spring break—after he spent the whole week making out with me not only in the walk-in freezer at Scoops but also in my bedroom and his—there she was, back from Italia, and he went right back to being her boyfriend and it was like there had never been anything between us at all. And because I’d been a fool and believed that crap about our “special bond” no one but Dace knew we’d hooked up. So even if I’d tried to tell Mariella that she was dating a slime-ass, she probably wouldn’t have believed me. And I didn’t want to be
that
girl or make it look like I in any way wanted him back. Because I certainly did not. All I can say is that three-month rule really saved my butt. Or, more accurately, my virginity. And also, another reason I’m glad I quit working at Scoops at the start of last summer and am never going back.

Still . . . it was totally humiliating. But now that I’m over it, I’m glad the whole thing happened because I’m a lot less gullible.

Dace shuts her locker and leans against it. “So bottom line: you think Callie is his girlfriend because he punched her in the arm? Did I miss the status update on how punching someone in the arm means you want to get in their pants?” She punches me in the arm and grins.

“So you think it’s nothing?”

“It’s nothing. I’ve kissed guys who weren’t my boyfriend and it’s meant nothing. A punch in the arm is about as romantic as coughing at someone.”

“Well, I wish he would’ve coughed at me.”

“Oh you’ll get your germs soon enough, my friend. And if by chance it’s something more, who cares? In fact, we
want
Callie to be his girlfriend.”

“We do?” I say as Emma passes us on her way to her locker, three down from Dace’s.

“Cute warmers,” I say. Emma always wears legwarmers to school, which is the easiest way to tell her apart from her identical twin sister, Gemma. When it’s warm, like today, she just wears them over bare legs. Today’s are mint green and purple striped.

“Girlfriend is too strong a word. But maybe a girl that he’s interested in. Or
thinks
he’s interested in, until of course, you prove to him you’re the one. Listen, Callie’s probably more into Dylan than he is into her. So what you have to do is kill her with kindness. You know the saying: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

The
last
thing I want to do is have to fake niceties to someone I can’t stand. It’s so not me. And Dace knows it. I offer her a pained look, just to drive home the point.

“Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do for the ones we love,” Dace declares, then tells me she’ll see me in History. I ask Emma if she’s ready to go. We’re in homeroom together.

Emma lets out a huge sigh and slams her locker. “I can’t find my iPod.”

“Maybe you left it at home?” She shakes her head as Ben passes us. He glances over, notices me and gives me a wink.

“We’re on for lunch, right?” he asks, as though we have a date, and not a photo club meeting with four other members. Still, I feel myself blushing as I nod.

He keeps walking and I turn back to Emma, who’s staring at me. “What was
that
all about?”

I just smile.

• • •

Can I see your shots?” Ben asks. I’m sitting in the photocopy room next to him at lunch, waiting for the photo club meeting to start. I hand over my camera. He studies one of my recent pics of Dace: she’s in her bedroom getting ready to go out. I love the way the late afternoon sun hits her hair, making it look like ribbons cascading over her bare shoulders.

“Is that in sepia?”

“Yeah, I shot it that way. Shoot don’t ’Shop,” I add, then blush. Total nerd moment.

“Is that your motto?” he teases. He pulls his chair over so he’s inches away from me and looks me right in the face with his big blue eyes.

“I know, it’s kind of lame, but I’d rather get it right when I’m shooting than have to manipulate the image in post to get what I want.”

“A girl after my own heart.”

“Really?” I’m surprised. “Not many people feel that way. Especially now that it’s so easy to alter them after. Like on Instagram. Everyone’s a photographer.”

“You’re not on Instagram?” he asks in disbelief.

“Yeah I am, all I mean is . . .” I trail off.

Gemma rushes in, her tight black curls springing up and down, followed by Brooke, a sophomore who joined the club this year. We get started showing photos for this week’s theme. Arlan goes first, since he chose the theme—Gray—and I follow next, plugging my flash drive into the computer that’s connected to the projector and bringing up the photos. I’m pretty pleased because all three are gray naturally—not just shot in black-and-white, which I think is sort of taking the easy way out. First up is the album page at the garage sale, then my gray Tisch sweatshirt, tossed over the back of my white desk chair. The final one is from a rainy day last week. I’d framed the shot to capture the horizon where the gray sky met the river, my white bedroom window frame creating a border around a single oak tree. The entire shot is in shades of gray, giving it depth and nuance.

Jeffrey has a shot of a mitten (big surprise) but it’s lying in the middle of an asphalt street. He shot in color but the result is entirely gray and really works. Gemma’s photos are all shot in black-and-white. I tell her I like the shot of her white Pomeranian sitting on the couch, and suggest that if she’d found a gray blanket as a backdrop she could’ve shot in color for a stronger effect. We discuss whether shooting in black-and-white is really capturing gray as a theme, or if it’s manipulating the theme.

Ben pipes in to agree with me, saying that we should be using our eye, not technology.

“Yeah but if you’re purposely looking for shots that are gray, you’re manipulating what could otherwise be a great shot, before you even take the picture,” Jeffrey argues, despite the fact that two of his three shots are true gray shots.

“Sounds like you’re being defensive,” Ben retorts.

“Why don’t you go next?” Jeffrey challenges him. I’m about to say that Ben doesn’t have to go if he’s not prepared, but he stands up and plugs his iPad into the computer.

“Let’s see . . .” He opens a folder labeled
Gray
, then starts his slideshow of more than a dozen photos.

The first is a guy sitting on a bench outside a rundown old gas station. Then a single white orchid blossom against a gray sky. A gray shower curtain in a white shower. Gray boots at a front door. A street scene with one light burnt out amid a row of glowing lampposts.

They’re
good.
He totally has an eye for both angles and details. This is just what I need—he’ll push me to be better. Except, the last thing I need right now is more competition for Vantage Point. Only the top two spots in each region go to Tisch Camp.

“Where’d you take the pic of the old guy?” Jeffrey asks Ben.

Ben shrugs. “My dad and I took a road trip last summer. Somewhere on Route
66
. Don’t remember which crappy little town. They all blended together after a while.”

“And the lamppost? That looks familiar.”

“A burnt-out lamppost looks familiar?” Ben laughs. “Dude, relax.”

I ask if anyone has a suggestion for next week’s theme, Ben’s pictures still flittering through my internal viewfinder.

“What about groups of three?” Ben pipes up.

“When you say three, do you mean three, or do you mean
17
or
12
or
82
?” Jeffrey grumbles.

The rest of us agree to the theme being Threes and as the meeting breaks up, Ben approaches with a sly smile. “Want to shoot together till the bell rings?” My stomach flips—does that qualify as being asked out?

• • •

“Glenys wants to see you,” Hannah says as soon as she sees me. She’s behind the nurses’ station, stacking supply boxes onto a dolly.

“What? Why?”

“Her office is on the third floor,” Hannah says.

“But do you know why?”

“Pippa, her office is on the third floor.”

Code Greene! Busted? But for what? I haven’t done anything wrong! I’ve only been here for one shift so far!

Right. There is
no
way I’m going to Glenys Grange’s office. I’ll just leave. I’ll quit before I can be fired. I’ll sneak out. I’ll . . .

“Hey, hold up,” Hannah says. “I need to take these boxes to the third floor and they won’t all fit on the dolly. Carry these two?” She nods at the boxes remaining on the floor. I follow Hannah to the elevator.

“Put those on the counter,” Hannah says when we’ve reached the third floor nurses’ station. “And Glenys’s office is that way.” The nameplate on the door says
Glenys Grange, Volunteer Coordinator
.

I cross my fingers then knock on the door. It swings open.

Glenys Grange looks me up and down. She has poufy gray hair, brown bushy eyebrows. Clear plastic glasses sit on top of her head like a headband. She’s wearing a bright pink T-shirt that says
I’m So Hip I Needed a Replacement.
Maybe she has a sense of humor? Laugh lines furrow the skin around her eyes, but she’s not smiling now. “You must be Philadelphia. It’s so nice to meet you in person.”

We do the usual adult-teenager meeting mumbo-jumbo. Shaking hands and all that. She gets a few points after I call her Ms. Grange and she tells me I can call her “Glenys.”

“Want to grab a seat?” Glenys points to a chair beside her desk. “I just wanted to check in and see how things are going?” she says in her high-pitched voice.

“Really?” I say.

“Yes. Hannah said she saw you yesterday, sitting in the hallway with your head between your knees.”

“Ah.”

Busted.

Glenys’s eyes are wide. “She was worried about you. Some people just can’t handle hospitals, Philadelphia. So how are you doing?”

You know what? If another person asks me how I’m doing I’m going to—well, I don’t know. Something. Something crazy.

A rustle of paper. Glenys is going over a file folder on her desk. My handwriting’s on it—the form I had to fill out after my volunteer assessment. Then she scans a different paper, something with a Spalding High School crest on it. My school file? Does it mention my panic attacks? My heart starts to pound faster. Deep breath.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m great. I’m really enjoying working here. The people are really nice.”

Well, Dylan McCutter is really nice.

“Philadelphia. Philadelphia Greene,” says Glenys. “Have we met before?”

“I don’t think so. You know, about that fainting thing?”

“So you
did
faint?”

“No. Well, yes, almost. But it was, I have this blood sugar thing?” Totally made up. “And I just needed a glass of orange juice. I was fine after a glass of orange juice.”