The Green (6 page)

“Oh, I asked him about that. He said she was
a creeper and he said yes, but called her later and cancelled.” I
chuckled.

“She is totally a creeper. I mean, she’s
kinda pretty, but kinda scary at the same time. That’s why I was a
little surprised that that’s who he chose to be his rebound
girl!”

Ugh, I got a bit of a sick feeling in the pit
of my stomach. What if I was the rebound girl? Oh god. But then
again, I guess I still had NO proof whatsoever that James even
wanted to date me or found me remotely attractive.

Luckily the warm-ups were starting and we had
to take our places around the gym to cheer. The teams did a lap
around the floor before starting a lay-up drill. James caught my
eye a few times as he ran by and gave me a smile. My heart
melted.

Get your shit together, Ariceli, I told
myself. The night would not end well if I threw myself at James
only to find out he just wanted to be friends. I couldn’t live down
that embarrassment. Besides, that would look way bad to Naomi. I
needed to give it some time for something to work out with her and
someone else. I just hoped Dean Trento was that somebody. Otherwise
this could take awhile.

The game passed in a blur of sweaty boys and
echoing voices. James looked great on the floor, every bit the
star. After the final buzzer, I said goodbye to Naomi and wished
her luck with Dean. I threw my cheer jacket on over my uniform,
grabbed my bag from the locker room and went to wait out in front
of the boys’ locker room for my ride to Village Pizza.

James strolled out about fifteen minutes
later, his hair still wet from his shower and smelling awesome. He
wrapped me in a big hug.

“Awesome game man!” I shoved him playfully
with my elbow as we walked out to his car.

“Well, I wouldn’t have played so well without
all that awesome cheering.”

“Laaaaaame!” I said.

“No, I’m serious. What guy can’t get pumped
up to be good when there are a bunch of hot chicks in short skirts
screaming his name?” he asked.

“Um, I don’t recall ever screaming your name,
unless it’s Cambridge High,” I teased.

“In my head you were all screaming my name.”
He winked at me and flashed a dimple.

“Ugh, you’re so gross. Next time I’ll be sure
to scream someone else’s name, just to distract you.”

“Ow, Ari, that hurts. Would you mind pulling
the knife out of my back?” He bent forward and reached around,
struggling for the invisible knife.

“God, you’re such a baby!” I slapped his arm
playfully.

“So, are you ready for some nice greasy
pizza?” He wiggled his eyebrows and held the door open. I slid into
his silver Honda. He quickly rounded the car and dropped into the
driver’s seat.

“Mmmm, yes please. It sounds so good right
now. You’re lucky I’m here—I had another invitation tonight.” We
were so close the sleeve of his letterman’s jacket brushed against
my arm. I mentally willed him to put his arm around me. No such
luck.

“What? Some hot date you forgot to mention?
Typical.” He snorted, but I was pretty sure he was joking. The car
purred to life and he maneuvered out of the parking lot and onto
Main Street. We drove past shiny shop windows towards Village
Pizza.

“Yes, typical. I always have multiple
gentlemen offer to take me out in one evening. And no, idiot, it
wasn’t some hot date. Naomi wanted me to go with her to Claire’s
party.”

“Yeah, I heard she was having a party
tonight. You couldn’t pay me enough money to hang out with that
girl. I don’t know if you know this or not,” he took a quick glance
around and whispered, “but Claire is kinda, um, pardon my French, a
bitch.”

“That’s definitely not French, but I
agree.”

“I seriously don’t understand why people hang
out with her. I guess because she’s pretty and has money.” He
stopped the car at a stoplight. The streets were empty. Very few
people were out this cold evening.

“I can definitely say I don’t like her at
all. And being pretty and having money only makes her worse.
Besides,” I took a quick look around and whispered, “I think she
hates me ‘cause I’m brown. She may be a racist.” I laughed.

“Wait, you’re brown?! Nobody told me!!!” He
looked over at me once or twice with a mock-shocked look on his
face.

“Very funny!” I rolled my eyes.

“Ahhh, Village Pizza. It’s like I’m home!” He
pulled into the parking lot of a giant old-looking barn. Putting
the car into park, he turned to look at me.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. Claire is just a
hater because you’re all like exotic and different and she can
never be beautiful like that.”

Ah! He did NOT just say that! My heart
pounded in my chest and my cheeks burned. He got out of the car and
came around to let me out but I beat him to it.

“Aww, are you calling me beautiful?” I looked
him in the eyes, trying to decide if he was just kidding.

“Guilty as charged!” He bowed slightly.

“Again, you are indeed the lamest.”

“Which makes me so happy to sprinkle you with
compliments when you accuse me of lame-ness. Next time I’ll just
say you look like a garden gnome or something. Then maybe I won’t
be so lame!” He pouted.

“I DO NOT look like a garden gnome!” I
protested and shoved him.

“So YOU think!” He raised his eyebrows again.
Man, he was scary cute. Like a model or something.

After a few pizzas and pitchers of pop with
Dave and Declan from the basketball team, everyone’s favorite
gossip Gina, and two girls from the swim team, it was time to head
home. I started to get nervous. I just had to remind myself to play
it cool. If anyone was going to make a move, it had better be him.
I was shaking in my frickin’ boots, not that I had them on, of
course.

Most of the ride home was spent giving him
directions from Cambridge to Slate Park.

“You’re going to the National Honor Society
meeting tomorrow, right?” James asked as we turned down my street.
“Ugh, what is with the Saturday meeting, anyways?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan. I guess everybody was
too busy to meet during the week. Anyway, I have to get up way
early to drive my mom to work so I can use her car.” I picked at
the trim on my cheer bag.

“Well, if you wanted, I could pick you up, I
mean, now that I know where you live and all.” I looked over and he
gave me a sideways glance as he attempted to keep his eyes on the
road.

“Whoa, and you thought Mandi Johansen was a
creeper??? That sounded SO stalker-ish!” I laughed. I was slightly
worried this would turn awkward, but so far, so good.

“Eww, I am so NOT Mandi! But at least you
wouldn’t have to get up so early. That’s definitely worth it, no?”
he asked.

“That’s a good point. But are you sure? It’s
not like it’s on your way to school or anything. And no practice
tomorrow?”

“We have it early. And then I have an hour to
kill before the meeting, so I can come pick you up. See, I’ll
already be up anyways and I will have nothing to do. Is this it?”
He pointed to my apartment building.

“Yes, that would be home sweet home. Thanks
for the ride,” I added as we pulled into the drive.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around
eight-thirty then.” He put the car into park.

My heart started racing. Nothing had
happened. But was it going to? Oh god, I had to get out of this car
before I did something embarrassing.

“Um, okay, well thanks for the ride and I’ll
see you tomorrow morning.”

We both looked at each other and then away.
Neither of us moved. Awkward. Awkward. Awkward.

I grabbed the door handle and started to get
out.

“Bye Ari!” he said, his voice sounding just
like always and not at all awkward.

Okay, so maybe it was only awkward for me. I
was hopeless! I let myself into the building. I was such a dork.
BUT he did totally offer to go out of his way early in the morning
and pick me up for NHS. I didn’t imagine that. What the hell did it
mean though? That he liked driving to Slate Park? Or that he liked
me. Ugh, my head spun. I really needed to get a grip and stop
over-analyzing. It wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

I turned on the TV to chase away the silence
in the apartment. I left Mom a note telling her not to worry about
the car and crawled into bed. I tossed and turned as everything
swirled around my cranium like a freakin’ hurricane. So much for
getting any sleep tonight.

I woke up after the weirdest dream. For some
reason, there were chickens in my apartment. I had a huge stash of
pot in my room and the chickens burst through the door.

“Give us the pot!” They clucked at me, making
motions with their claws. Not wanting them to ruin my hair or
scratch my eyes out, I made them little packages of pot, tied up
with Christmas paper and ribbons and they took off. I chased them
out of the apartment and down the street, where there were oddly
enough no cars. Then James was there with his car.

“Ari, do you need a ride?”

And then I woke up. What the hell? That’s
what I got for eating greasy Village Pizza so late and then going
to sleep. Or maybe I was just really stressed out. I thought really
stressed out made a lot more sense. I got ready and was waiting
when James pulled in the driveway. I tried not to think about the
fact that I was going to be getting my first pot-dealing lesson
later.

“Good morning, sunshine.” He greeted me as I
got in the car. “Man, can you believe that it’ll be Thanksgiving
next week?”

“Oh no! That means December first is coming
faster than I thought.” I groaned. “I need to get my college apps
done.”

“That’s right. I did mine last month, or more
like my parents made me do them last month,” he said.

“Yeah, my mom definitely doesn’t know the
first thing about applying for college.”

“Well, not that you need it, but if you want
someone to read your essays over, just let me know.”

“Thanks! I might just take you up on that. So
where are you applying?” I watched Slate Park slip by outside the
window. The trees were bare and a few of the apartments were
adorned with Christmas lights. What was everyone was in such a rush
for?

“Everywhere. My parents have me applying to
like eleven different schools all over. Yale, Stanford, Harvard,
Princeton, Northwestern, U of I, U of Chicago, University of
Pennsylvania, Duke, Cal Berkley, and Notre Dame,” he said, ticking
the schools off on his fingers on one hand.

“Wow, that’s a lot. And some major schools!”
I couldn’t even imagine what those application fees added up
to.

“What about you?”

“Uh, my list isn’t quite that impressive. I
do have Northwestern and maybe I’ll send one in for a couple of the
other local schools. I’m not sure.”

“So, you wanna stay close to home, huh?”

“Yeah, something like that.” I didn’t want to
tell him that it was really because I couldn’t even afford to
visit, let alone move to a university out of state. “What about
you? Which one is your favorite?”

“Well, Cal Berkeley is by far my fav, but I’m
not sure I’ll get in there,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get in.” I tried to hide
the disappointment in my voice. If he was going to move to
California, was there really a point in even going out with
him?

“But I also really liked the schools near
here. I guess I’ll just see who accepts me and make the decision
after that. What’s your number one?” he asked.

“Definitely Northwestern. Charlie Gibson, you
know, that famous newscaster? Well, he went there. That’s my dream
school.”

“Well, you definitely have the grades to get
in there.”

“Yeah, I sure hope so!” I decided to fidget
with the radio, but couldn’t find anything but commercials.

“I’d love to be a foreign correspondent,
seeing the world as my job, ya know?” he said.

I let myself daydream for a minute…Paris,
Africa, Dubai, China…how nice to get to travel to all those places.
My mind flitted a few pictures of James and me on the Eiffel Tower,
riding through the desert and on a safari…ugh! Snap out of it
Ariceli!

“So, what’s on the agenda for the NHS meeting
today?” he asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Oh, uh, we’re talking about our next service
project. We’re going to work in a soup kitchen twice a month.
Actually, the place is not too far from me in Slate Park.”

“Man, it’s always something, right? I’ve got
basketball and now I’ll have to fit this in too?”

“I know, I hear ya. I’ve got cheerleading and
class council and homework and now I’ve got a job.” Oh shit. Why
did I just say that? Now I’m going to have to tell him ‘what kind’
of job I have. Shit, shit, shit!

“I still don’t understand where you’re going
to find time for a job!” he said.

“Oh, well I, uh, it’s a family friend so he’s
cool about letting me work around my schedule.” Okay, that was easy
enough. And really I wasn’t lying. And it’s easier knowing that
James already knew I was working just in case this developed into
something further.

“What kind of stuff do you have to do?”

Double shit and a half. Okay, be calm. It’s
not that big a deal.

By the way, I am going to be dealing
drugs.

“He does deliveries and stuff, and I’ll just
be doing some office work organizing deliveries.” Lies slid off my
tongue too easily.

“Sounds pretty easy. Does it pay well?”

“Enough. Since my brother moved out, my mom
could use a little help, you know?”

I’m sure he didn’t know, as we sat in his
brand new Honda, with leather seats and a moon roof. He went home
to a nice house with two parents that could pay their bills and had
enough money to buy their son a brand new car.

“That’s nice of you,” he said.

“Nice? I know this might not make a lot of
sense, but it has nothing to do with being nice.” My voice was
sharp. I hoped he caught my dagger as I looked away.