Snitch (8 page)

On Monday when Kate got back to school, I was spending more time sitting with Liz than with the guys, and that was when I decided on the ultimate challenge. I was going to get Kate to talk to me and then take the plunge and ask the question I thought I already knew the answer to. The first few times we sat together she wouldn’t even meet my eyes and only would speak to Liz. But then one day she surprised me.

“What size shoe do you wear?” Liz was asking, lining up her foot with mine. As soon as she put her arm around my shoulder to keep her
balance, that old, wonderful, familiar jolt of electricity ran through my body again.

“Thirteen,” I said. “I might even be a thirteen
-
and
-
a
-
half in some shoes.”

“I didn’t know they made them that big!”

“They can be hard to find. But athletic shoe stores usually have them.”
Enjoying the
Liz-
tricity
that
was still flowing,
I compared
her
small foot next to mine
.

“How tall are you?”

“Six foot.
I’m not done growing. I want to be six-two.”

Liz grabbed my arm and held it out. “These are some long arms, aren’t they, Kate?”

Kate looked at me for probably the first time and surprised me by giggling. “I know the whole team calls you Andy-O
, but I think of you more as a s
paghetti-O.”

Liz burst out laughing and so did I.

And
again Liz was right: once Kate relaxed, she could be funny.

The weirdest thing was that without me realizing it, Johnny and Kate actually became friends. Talk about two opposites! I didn’t think it could happen, but somehow it did. I noticed it one morning when I was sitting
over at Liz’s table. Across the cafeteria half the basketball team was eyeing us
,
making kissing sounds
and
smacking each other’s backs
. Several of my
“
friends
”
were busy
drawing little hearts in the air, snickering the whole time.

At first I was embarrassed, but then I was just glad Liz couldn’t see the whole thing because I didn’t want to deal with her whole anger issue again. That’s when I realized Kate was aware of the whole thing
,
and she was smiling. She tried to hide it by putting her hand in front of her mouth, but it was too late; I saw it. Suddenly, I felt a shadow standing over my shoulder
,
which turned out to be Johnny.

“The boys and I were wondering why you were keeping all the pretty ladies for yourself.” He smiled as he grabbed a chair and plopped it between Kate and me. Johnny was working his impish smile girls couldn’t resist. “Don’t you think you should be kind to your friends and share?”

Normally Johnny is smooth, but this
time something went wrong. His
foot wrapped around the chair leg, or maybe he tripped over it. Any way it happened, it resulted in the chair tipping over and Johnny almost falling into my lap.

I pushed Johnny up and away from me. Now I was embarrassed.

“Geez!
Walk much?”

“You didn’t know I cared so much did you?” he said, trying to find his footing. “Actually, I don’t think I knew it either.”

To my surprise Kate didn’t shy away. Instead, she let out a loud laugh.

Johnny righted his chair and sat down. “Glad I could be the morning entertainment,” he said, still smiling. Now, everyone was cracking up.

Dang, Johnny was good. I would have been plain embarrassed; Johnny used his clumsiness as a pick-up magnet. After that
,
Kate and Johnny talked
—not
like they were best friends or anything, but it was as if Kate suddenly felt as comfortable with Johnny as she did with me. There were even a couple of times when Liz and I went out, and Kate and Johnny tagged along
—not
that they were going out or anything. Johnny still had his eye on
Tammera
.

I was glad this payback thing between Kate and Seth seemed to have died down, because I wanted to concentrate on having a real girlfriend and I wanted Liz to concentrate on me. There was still a whisper here and there, but hallway gossip isn’t very interesting for too long, and since there’s always something new to talk about I figured Kate would become old news and some other poor soul would become the person of interest.
I tried to convince myself Seth and
Chrissy
had moved on just like the rest of Jameson High had.

Besides, my life was getting good. On Thursday nights Liz was in the stands cheering me on. It was a proud kind of feeling, having a beautiful girl who watched you as you ran a lay-up or scored a basket, but it was a pressure I hadn’t felt before. I didn’t want to screw up. Not in front of Liz.

“You’re falling in love,” Johnny teased me one night in the locker room after the game.

“I’m not. She’s just…”

Ben slapped me on the back. “
Lov
-e-
ly
,” he teased.

The boys made little bird coos and put their hands over their hearts.

“Andy-O’s a goner! He’s a man in love!” Charlie sang.

“I never even see him anymore,” Johnny complained. “He’s always with his
sweeeet
Lizzie.”

“Not true,” I said.

“Then what are you doing this weekend? Wan
t to
hang with us? Charlie, Ben, and I are going to the mall for some…shopping,” Johnny laughed.

“What are you shopping for?” Wes asked.

“Something soft and warm,” Johnny said, raising his eyebrows. “They hang out at the mall. Wan
t to
come?”

“No, I can’t,” Wes said. He lowered himself to the bench in front of the lockers. “Didn’t you see my brother grab me at the game?”

Obviously we had. Nick was the larger half of Wes and senior starter on the football team. Like I said, those boys are big.

“Dad sent Nick to tell me the truck wasn’t running right again. I’m
go
ing to
spend my weekend under the hood of that piece of shit.”

I was surprised. “You know how to fix cars?”

“And drive them too,” Seth said appearing out of nowhere. He gave a look to Wes that I couldn’t figure out and probably wasn’t supposed to.

“Heck, I’ve been driving since I was twelve. Only on the farm roads, but it’s a big place so both my brother,
N
ick
, and I learned early.”

“How did you learn?”

“Dad threw the keys at me one day when one of our cows was having a hard time calving. He told me to drive to the house and call the vet. I did.” Wes laughed. “I took out a fence post, but I got to the house.”

“Was your dad mad about the fence post?”

“He made me put it back in the next day. That sucked.”

We roared. Wes could be so funny without knowing it.

“So,” Johnny said
,
sitting next to me, “are you in for the mall?”

“Actually,
yes.
But I won’t be with you.” I took a breath and avoided Seth’s eyes. “I’m meeting someone. She’s helping me shop for Liz’s birthday.”

“You can’t blame the boy,” Seth said. “He’s finally getting some, aren’t you?”

He smiled, but his eyes were menacing. Even though the boys
laughed
and slapped each other on the back, all eyes were on me.

“Shut up, Seth.” My eyes were just as steely as his. Right then I decided one thing: I may have had to play with Seth, but I didn’t have to be friends with him.

I noticed Charlie turn away from me. I guess it was obvious who I was meeting, but Seth didn’t have any right to pick my friends for me. I had hoped this whole thing between Kate and Seth was over, but the silence in the room and tight feeling in my shoulders let me know that it wasn’t.

I took a breath and diverted everyone’s attention. “I don’t know what to buy a girl.” It was true; I didn’t. And I wasn’t going to screw up.

Suddenly a hand clapped me on the back. “Then we’ll see you there. Maybe we’ll still be ‘shopping
’ when you’re finished shopping,
” Johnny
said. My shoulders loosened up. It was good to know who your real friends were.

***

Kate met me at the
f
ood
c
ourt Saturday morning where we started our adventure with a cup of coffee. I’ve been addicted to this stuff ever since a Starbucks opened near our school. Morning means coffee, and even
though
mall coffee is
usually
watered down and bitter, I needed it.

“What do we do next?” I asked, stirring in just the right amount of cream and sugar.

“Do you have any ideas?” Kate asked.

“Nope.”
I studied Kate who was staring off in the distance, looking at the surrounding stores, her soft, blonde hair so light, it was almost white. Her grey eyes were soft and kind instead of nervous as they flitted from one store window to the next. I couldn’t decide if it was the makeup she wore or the fact that she wasn’t
all
stressed
out
like she was
in
school.
W
hen
she smiled her face lit up, and she looked like any other pretty girl. If only she relaxed in
class
the way she was relaxed with me right then and maybe talked a little more, it would make life a lot easier for her.

“What?” Kate asked. “You’re staring at me.”

“I’m not,” I lied. “I’m just thinking.”

“Oh,” she said relieved, her hands instinctively smoothing her hair. “I need to tell you something.”

She swallowed and met my eyes. “I want to thank you for standing up for me with Seth and
Chrissy
.
I know you have because Liz told me.
” She stared at the cup of hot chocolate she held and then looked up.
“
I do think what they did to the sub was mean, but I didn’t tell. I
honestly
don’t know why they picked me to blame.”

“Are you still having problems?” I asked. This whole thing made me very uncomfortable.

Kate shrugged.
“Yeah.
Mostly in the hallway or at lunch.
Chrissy
just won’t let it go.” She worked her hands, twisting them together in her lap. “It gets pretty intense.”

“Some people need to get a life.”

“I hate high school. I keep telling myself it will get better, but I don’t fit in.”

“No one does.”

“You know what I mean. I can’t be
like
Chrissy
.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to.”

“I meant her confidence. I can’t talk to people like she does. Besides, I thought she was your friend.”

I was taken aback. “
Chrissy
? No way
. Why
would you even think that?”

“You always hang around with her.”

“No, trust me
,
I don’t. She hangs around
us
because of Charlie.
Chrissy
bothers me as much as she bothers you.”

Kate rolled her eyes.
“I doubt
that.
”

She was right;
Chrissy
bothered her much more than she did me.

“I don’t know why
Chrissy
and Seth picked me. They just did.”

She paused, pain leaving her face for a moment
.
“I have to admit, I laughed just as hard as anybody when Seth flipped Johnny off.”

A sad smile played in the corners of her mouth as she
recalled
Seth standing on his chair
,
telling Johnny
exactly
what he thought of him. Then her smile flattened and the pain, plain and simple, returned. It hurt to know she hadn’t done anything to deserve the ridicule she faced every day, and that gave me even more reason to hate both of those losers.

I leaned forward planning to change the subject to something lighter and accomplished it by knocking over my coffee cup.

“Geez, you
are
a spaghetti-O.” Kate jumped up and grabbed about a hundred napkins.

“Did I get you?”

“No, I’m good.” She mopped up the table and threw a wad of napkins on the floor. “You really know how to impress a girl, do you know that?”

I smiled. Liz was right; Kate was easy to get along with and funny at that. While I mopped up the floor, she threw
wads of
dripping paper into a
nearby
trashcan.