Take Me There (27 page)

Normally the ivy outside my window is just a bunch of dead branches in a twisty pattern. But now the leaves are thriving. It’s like the ivy has finally come back to life. Just like me.

Nicole flops onto my beanbag chair and says, “I love me some Friday.”

“I feel you,” I say. This week could not have been longer. I’m looking forward to the dance tonight. But I’m not looking forward to seeing Steve and Gloria there. Just because I’m moving on doesn’t mean I don’t still feel hurt.

“Wasn’t Danny awesome?” Danny’s speech is, like, the only thing Nicole’s been talking about for the past hour. And yeah, it was amazing. He’s totally winning the election. But I’m getting over it already. Especially since James was even more awesome.

I swear, the National Honor Society kids get away with everything. Just because James is this physics/calculus/engineering genius and like second in our class and all the teachers love him, he got away with it. It’s amazing. If anyone else even looked at the principal wrong, they’d get detention for a week (citation: inappropriate facial expression). But James barges right into the principal’s office and admits he did it, and they don’t do anything to him. Incredible. But it was still amazing for him to do that. No one told me that was how I wouldn’t get in trouble.

“Yes. Danny was awesome. Now can we change the subject?” I sit down at my desk and open my lists journal. I read over the list I made last Saturday. The one called “Top Five Things I Miss About Steve.” It feels like I wrote this a million years ago. As I read it, I realize that all these things aren’t about who he is, they’re about what we did together. Things that I could do with someone else who will actually feel lucky to be with me.

Nicole’s like, “Can I just say how proud I am, and go you?”

“And add it to the five million times you already told me?” Nicole has not stopped raving about how awesome the sidewalk-chalk thing was. Even though it didn’t work out. That’s not what matters. What matters is that I did it. And in its own way, it rocked. “Okay!”

“So was that the first thing you ever did that wasn’t scheduled in your day planner like a week in advance?”

“No!” I huff. But of course it was. I’m proud of me, too. Proud and mortified.

Snickers walks onto Nicole’s stomach and purrs like an airplane engine. He starts digging his claws into her shirt.

“Ow ow
ow
!” Nicole tries to pry his claws out. “Get him off!”

“Snick!” I pick him up, his claws still sticking into her shirt. She yanks her shirt back down.

“Can you believe it about Gloria?”

“Only because you were there.” Nicole ran into Gloria in the bathroom and she was actually
crying.
Like a real person or something. “I almost feel bad for her.”

“Please. That girl is getting everything she deserves.”

“I know but . . . maybe we shouldn’t have done it. It’s just, everything was happening so fast yesterday. I didn’t have time to think.”

“Yeah, that’s the point. You were being impulsive! Isn’t that how you said you wanted to be?”

“Maybe but . . . if being impulsive means ruining other people’s lives, then maybe I should just stay the same.”

“Or maybe you should be who you want to be and stop making excuses.”

I don’t want to get in a fight. I know she’s right, anyway. Which is annoying. So I go over to my iBook and click on my day-planner widget. I have to get my life back on track. Order as an antidote to chaos. Calm after the storm.

“Ree,” I hear from the beanbag.

“Yeah.”

“It’s Friday night. There’s a dance. Can you chill with the anal-retentive tendencies for one night, please?”

Of course she’s right. I’ve been an organization freak my whole life, and where did it get me? I thought I had control over something that went crazy. I thought following a straight road would lead me right to my destination. Like the road would just take me there because I was following all the rules. And if the road curved, I couldn’t be sure about where I was going. But look where it got me.

Maybe it’s time for a detour.

Everybody’s at the dance. Some dances turn out to be lame, but half the school is here. They’re playing some dead house music, though, so not a lot of people are dancing. But then the Gorillaz come on and “Dare” is playing and everyone pours onto the dance floor. All the boys are grinding against all the girls. The chaperones don’t even try to break it up, because how do you break up an entire gym of horny, grinding kids? So they look anywhere but at the dance floor, pretending it’s not happening.

And then Tony starts doing this crazy dance he invented in ninth grade that he busts out at every dance and party. Random people are yelling at him.

“Aw,
hell
no!”

“Tony! You’ve been with that dance for like three years!”

“He wildin’!”

“Dude! Get a new dance!”

“Try some Chicken Noodle! It just came out in Harlem!”

I like watching everyone going crazy. All free and uninhibited and not caring how they look. Just having fun.

And then I see Jackson over by the snack table. I didn’t get a chance to tell him how sorry I am that he got caught up in the middle of all this. We had a test in English and he bolted after. I feel so bad. Worse than bad. I should go over to him and apologize for being such a loser.

But then he walks toward me and my stomach does this nervous, fluttery thing. Will he give me back my note, or tell me he turned me in?

“If you do this, then we’ll call it even,” Jackson says.

“What is it?”

“Well, um . . .” He looks over toward the bleachers where some kids are sitting. “You know Heather, right?”

“Yeah. She’s my partner in Earth Science.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“No, I was . . . just checking.”

I wait for him to tell me. He looks miserable.

“Do you like her or something?”

He scuffs his shoe on the floor. It squeaks against the polish. He doesn’t answer me.

“So . . . what do you want me to do?”

“Could you just . . . like . . . go over and say I want to talk to her?”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. And then tell me what she says.”

“And if I do it, you won’t tell on me.”

“Right.”

“And I can have my note back?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Deal.”

Jackson puts his hand out and we shake on it.

“I didn’t mean to keep your note,” he says. “I just did it because I wasn’t sure if you’d help me with Heather without a reason, you know?”

“Oh. That’s okay.”

“Anyway . . .”

“So . . . I’ll go over now?”

“Okay. I’ll be over by the water fountain.”

“Okay. And hey . . . Jackson?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m really sorry about what happened. I never meant to . . . I didn’t mean for it to be anything bad against you.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. And, anyway, it got me noticed. Or I think it did.” He looks over at Heather again. I guess she talked to him today or something. Which just proves that even in a bad situation, there’s always a positive side. Even if you can’t see it yet.

An hour later it’s still a blast, with the music blaring and Nicole and Danny doing their corny John Travolta
Saturday Night Fever
moves, and even James seems into it. But when Steve and Gloria get here, it hits me all over again. I’m just not ready to see them together yet.

Nicole runs over to me. “Do you want something? There’s cookies.”

I just stand there, staring at them.

“Or . . . juice?”

I so want to be over it already. Too bad that can’t happen overnight.

Then someone’s arm is around my shoulders and I know it’s James. It’s amazing how he has this way of knowing right when I need him, even before I do.

“Hey,” he says. “Wanna go?”

“Yesterday, if not sooner.” I glance at Nicole. “Coming?”

“No, you guys go ahead,” she says. “I’m staying with Danny.”

I smile at her. “Oh?”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Ready?” James goes.

“Yeah,” I tell him.

James keeps his arm around me as we walk out. But when we get outside, Danny comes running up to us. “Wait up!” He looks back and forth between me and James. He’s like, “Where are you guys going?”

James shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess . . .” He glances over at me. “The pier?”

“Yeah,” I say.

Danny looks disappointed.

James goes, “What?”

“You guys,” Danny starts, “are always doing the same things. You go to the pier. You take walks. You play games. You get cupcakes.”

I look at James to see his reaction to all of this. I had no idea he told Danny everything we did.

“It’s time to break out of that tired routine!” Danny shouts. “Where’s the excitement? Where’s the spontaneity?”

I can’t answer him. I don’t know where those things are.

“That’s it,” Danny decides. “We’re going out.”

James is like, “We are?”

“Absolutely.”

“When?”

“What do you mean
when
? Now! Right now!
Carpe diem
, yo!”

“Where?” James says.

Danny flaps his hands around in front of his face. “Who cares? It doesn’t matter! What matters is that we take advantage of all of this and just
go
!”

“I’m in,” I decide.

James is like, “You’re
in
?”

“I’m in.”

“Sweet!” Danny says. “I’ll go get Nicole.”

By the time we’re at this rad bar that’s having an under-twenty-one thing, I’m having so much fun that I start to remember what it feels like to be happy. We’re all chilling on this comfy furniture and listening to this awesome band and drinking root beers. Although Danny somehow managed to score a real beer for himself. And I’m all squooshed up against James on this tiny love seat and for the first time ever, I notice he’s wearing cologne.

“Are you wearing cologne?” I yell.

“What?!” he yells back. Because you can barely hear a person talking to you right in front of your face, the music is so loud.

“Are you wearing cologne?!”

“Who’s Ramón?!”

I shake my head to forget it. It’s obvious that he is, anyway. He’s probably just too embarrassed to admit it.

So of course we still walk to the pier after. Nicole and Danny went somewhere else together. I’m all hyped up on the adrenaline rush from the bar and the music and just the whole night. Being wild and free. The city energy.

The moon is so bright. And the sky is really clear, so I can see some constellations. The stars make me feel better. They’re reassuring. I’m going to be okay.

I love how everything feels so perfect here. The pier. The view. The gorgeous night. The moon.