Authors: Mar'ce Merrell
Wicked Sweet (2 page)
Reality Check
.
.
I
should have started preparing Chantal sooner. If my upgrade from a one-piece upsets her this much, a meet-up with guys could end in a meltdown. I convinced myself that the subject matter, our all-A’s physics study group, would put us in Chantal’s comfort zone. Now I know she’s not there yet. But time is running out, next year we’ll be seniors.
should have started preparing Chantal sooner. If my upgrade from a one-piece upsets her this much, a meet-up with guys could end in a meltdown. I convinced myself that the subject matter, our all-A’s physics study group, would put us in Chantal’s comfort zone. Now I know she’s not there yet. But time is running out, next year we’ll be seniors.
In ninth grade the “no guys” rule made sense. I mean if you had a mother like mine who popped out boy babies every time a new guy text messaged her, you’d tell your best friend you didn’t want to have a boyfriend, either.
But you grow up. At least I did. A couple months ago I was coming out of Cooper’s grocery store carrying three heavy bags, struggling not to drop them, when I heard a voice.
“Need some help?” A deep voice with an accent, maybe French or Italian.
I didn’t turn around. I mean, we’re a tourist town; nearly every girl in my class has a story about an older guy hitting on her. Last year a guy who was old enough to be my father stopped to ask for directions to the farmers’ market. I helped him and I was about to leave when he put his hand on my shoulder and asked what I was doing
later. I still remember his slimy palm. Girls don’t forget their first encounter with slime.
later. I still remember his slimy palm. Girls don’t forget their first encounter with slime.
So that’s why I didn’t turn around. But I dropped a grocery bag. And Mr. So-Not-What-I-Expected picked it up and followed me to the minivan. He was young. Like, my age. With shocking dark hair. And great teeth.
Hockey equipment fell out when I opened the trunk. As we piled it back in, I snuck looks at him and I caught him doing the same to me. I imagined him asking what a hot girl like me was doing in a grocery store parking lot in the middle of nowhere. I was about to say
something
, suggest we go for coffee even, when I realized he was staring into the grocery bags. Diapers. Formula. Baby wipes. He looked up at me and tilted his head. I guess he was a Mr. Right for a few seconds.
something
, suggest we go for coffee even, when I realized he was staring into the grocery bags. Diapers. Formula. Baby wipes. He looked up at me and tilted his head. I guess he was a Mr. Right for a few seconds.
“Thanks for your help,” I said. I slammed down the hatch door.
“Yeah, no problem,” he said in his sexy accent. He was gone before I could give him one last look of longing.
I made a critical assessment of myself in the rearview mirror. My knotted hair was pulled back in a light gray headband bleached out from being washed in hot water with crib sheets. No makeup. I wondered if my breath smelled like the only thing we had left for breakfast—peanut butter on leftover garlic bread. And still, he saw something in me. I needed to refine the something. And get away from the teen-mommy image. Fast.
I haven’t told Chantal about this turning point because she’d call me out as shallow. I’m still trying to figure out if that’s what it is—my shallow, vain side trying to edge out my common sense side. And I guess I thought this meeting with Parker and Will would be a good test.
I know they aren’t interested in us, really. We’ve known them since grade school and even if Parker is one of the hottest guys in our class, he’s been Annelise’s boyfriend forever. I must have imagined the chemistry between Parker and me when he said he wanted
to meet up today; I thought he checked me out and that our eye contact was longer than usual. The guys say they want to talk about our study group and it’s possible that’s all it really is.
to meet up today; I thought he checked me out and that our eye contact was longer than usual. The guys say they want to talk about our study group and it’s possible that’s all it really is.
I knew I was guilty of a minor case of best friend betrayal when I carried the bikini into the changing room. But shallow girls don’t get top grades in physics, I need to remind Chantal. And potential neurosurgeons can have fun, too.
Crushing on Abnormal
.
.
“S
o …” I unzip my backpack; take out my spiral notebook and pen. “Summer projects.” I turn to the first clean page. This is the best part of the first day of summer, meditating on the productive potential of free time. Brainstorming ideas. Harmonizing options. Making the list. Happiness dances in my brain while buttercream frosting slides on my tongue.
o …” I unzip my backpack; take out my spiral notebook and pen. “Summer projects.” I turn to the first clean page. This is the best part of the first day of summer, meditating on the productive potential of free time. Brainstorming ideas. Harmonizing options. Making the list. Happiness dances in my brain while buttercream frosting slides on my tongue.
“The lake. Parties. Camping.” Jillian doesn’t even sit up. She just calls them out.
I write her words. The dance music fades. Our projects are about investigation, exploration, and self-improvement.
Our
self-improvement. Jillian knows I hate camping. “Well … these seem more like events, not projects. And … there is no way I’m going to convince my mother to let me go camping, unless it’s in your backyard.” Ever since we suggested hiking for a summer project a few years back, my mother started building a file of news stories about campers getting attacked by black bears, grizzlies, and cougars.
Our
self-improvement. Jillian knows I hate camping. “Well … these seem more like events, not projects. And … there is no way I’m going to convince my mother to let me go camping, unless it’s in your backyard.” Ever since we suggested hiking for a summer project a few years back, my mother started building a file of news stories about campers getting attacked by black bears, grizzlies, and cougars.
“We could tell her we’ll be in my backyard.” Jillian’s words come out practiced.
“But we’d go … ?”
“Where everyone else is.”
I think I get it now. She doesn’t want a summer project. She
wants me in a bikini on a towel next to her or in a tight T-shirt at a bonfire party or in the front seat of a car with a guy while she’s in the back with someone else. I always knew that one day she’d insist we do the usual high school girl stuff. She’s told me over and over I need to get out more, take a risk. But why would she pick today? The best day of my summer?
wants me in a bikini on a towel next to her or in a tight T-shirt at a bonfire party or in the front seat of a car with a guy while she’s in the back with someone else. I always knew that one day she’d insist we do the usual high school girl stuff. She’s told me over and over I need to get out more, take a risk. But why would she pick today? The best day of my summer?
I reach for another cupcake, strip off the paper wrapper and shove half of it in my mouth. The frosting globs onto my uvula and gets stuck on my tonsils. The metal taste is overpowering now. With each breath in, I exhale a smaller amount until, the cake gone, I am trapped in my own air. I need to exhale. I start to gasp.
“Chantal? Are you alright?” Jillian slaps me on the back. “Breathe.”
“I can’t be allergic to cupcakes. I can’t.” My hands form a parenthesis on either side of my head. I get like this sometimes, all worried, and I think I’m going to have an asthma attack. Although the doctor says I don’t have asthma I’m just waiting for the right trigger.
“You’re not allergic. You’re just …” She hands me her water bottle.
“I’m neurotic.” She doesn’t say it, but she must think it, because this is part of who I am: Chantal, girl with anxiety attacks. I silently thank her for understanding.
She waits for me to recover. We watch a swarm of junior high kids swim out to the dock in the middle of the lake, cover it with so many bodies we can’t see the wood planks. Their shouts bounce off the mountains that surround us. “Do you ever wonder if we’re missing out?” Jillian asks.
“On?”
“Fun.”
Crud.
I want to eat more cupcake, but I’m sure I’d end up in the hospital. “Our summer projects are always fun: you loved the krumping video, didn’t you?”
I want to eat more cupcake, but I’m sure I’d end up in the hospital. “Our summer projects are always fun: you loved the krumping video, didn’t you?”
“I hated flatland synchronized swimming.”
“It would have been better if you knew how to swim.”
“Remember my brothers booed us?”
“And threw pinecones at us!”
Jillian retells the horror of flatland synchronized swimming from the beginning: the research phase; our flatland adaptations; and how we wore earplugs, swimming caps, and flippers because we wanted to evoke water. I reminded her how hard we were laughing when we performed—so hard our cheeks were still sore the next day. Lifelong learners like us find inspiration everywhere.
“We were such nerds back then,” Jillian says.
“It was only last year.” We laugh like we love to laugh. My sides ache with happy pain.
“You’re the greatest,” Jillian says.
“You, too,” I say.
“But I’m not flatland synchronized swimming this year.”
“Only in my memories,” I say. As I’m about to suggest creating a private fashion show for a summer project—thereby combining Jillian’s need to make me over and my need to plan the next eight weeks of my life—Jillian interrupts.
“So … who was in the bathroom anyway?”
I pause.
“The girls’ bathroom. Today. The whole he-dumped-me drama. What girl?”
“Annelise. Can you believe it?”
“Parker broke up with her? After three years?” Jillian picks up her cupcake and, finally, takes a decent-sized bite. And another one.
“Apparently he wanted to be free for the summer.”
“You’re sure?” Chocolate crumbs cling to her bikini top.
“Annelise’s whine is unmistakable.”
We don’t say anything because we both know what the other one is thinking: we don’t need that kind of drama. We have goals. Priorities. While Jillian appears to sleep, I watch the action.
Bikini girls hook thumbs into guys’ waistbands—a three-legged
race in slow motion. Flip-flop dust flies. They must not know how ridiculous it looks, how dangerous it is. Those girls daydream about some guy; their biggest goal is to change their Facebook status to include him. They think it’s going to make them happy, but I know for a fact it won’t. Goals keep girls like Jillian and me focused so that ten years from now we’ll be finishing med school.
race in slow motion. Flip-flop dust flies. They must not know how ridiculous it looks, how dangerous it is. Those girls daydream about some guy; their biggest goal is to change their Facebook status to include him. They think it’s going to make them happy, but I know for a fact it won’t. Goals keep girls like Jillian and me focused so that ten years from now we’ll be finishing med school.
The summer after the ninth grade we were here with Jillian’s mom in her long skirts and her brothers the Hat Trick (the triplet boys), the Double Minor (the twin boys), and her mom’s then-boyfriend. We made flower wreaths from daisies and dandelions and put them in our hair. It was the summer of friendship bracelets. Jillian and I already had twenty-five on each arm and we were tying our newest ones onto the boys. A group of tourists stopped to take pictures of us. Amid all this flowery love, Jillian’s mom left us, saying she and the boyfriend were going to get us some ice cream. They’d been gone more than an hour when one of the boys messed in his swim diaper. Jillian had to go to the car for a clean one. She came back empty-handed and furious, but she wouldn’t tell me why. When her mom showed up with her hand shoved in the back pocket of the boyfriend’s jeans (and without ice cream), Jillian grabbed my arm and pulled me toward an empty picnic table where no one could hear us.
“She was never even planning to get us ice cream,” she said, her body vibrating with fury. “Promise me we’re never going to end up like her.”
And that’s when we made the pact: friends first, grades second, boyfriends not on the list.
I don’t know how, or if, I should remind Jillian of the circumstances of our pact. Jillian’s mom is better than she was that summer, I think. She’s had the same boyfriend for over two years now and Jillian even likes him. But you have to be careful with your best friend, even when you have a good reason to tell the hard truth.
Jillian’s hard truth must be that I need a bikini because she says,
“Don’t you think we could still be hot even if we weren’t looking for boyfriends? We could like, be hot, just for ourselves.”
“Don’t you think we could still be hot even if we weren’t looking for boyfriends? We could like, be hot, just for ourselves.”
Not again.
“Our own personal satisfaction?” I hadn’t really thought of it that way.
“Well, I’m saying it’s possible, don’t you think, to look hot and not have a boyfriend or be on the lookout for one?”
“It might be … counterproductive.”
“Huh?”
“Time. Money. Unwanted male attention.”
“Not unwanted. Unreciprocated.” It’s strange to be on the opposing side of one of Jillian’s debates. “It’s about choice.”
Jillian sits up, looks down at the watch I gave her last Christmas. It’s only 2:45. The hour we have left leaves us lots of time to plan our summer project. She takes off her sunglasses, scans the hill, and then turns to me. “Chantal, we’re number one and two in the class. We spend our summers on projects that are, let’s face it, pretty lame. I think we need to do what the other seniors are doing.”
“Joust with swim noodles in the hallways? Catch a goose and drop it into the cafeteria? Dress up like gorillas and chase people dressed up like bananas?” While I list all the things that the students in our class have done this year that we think are stupid and would never be part of, she alternately looks at her watch and then at the lake. My listing trails off when I see the catastrophe coming our way: two guys, Parker and Will.
Parker is shirtless and it’s clear he’s been doing more than studying. His shoulders have grown wider and he’s bleached his hair. He is far from the nerdy A student he was in junior high. Will hasn’t transformed much. Still average all around, still Parker’s sidekick. He, too, is shirtless. Parker waves to someone at the top of the hill. I notice movement from my periphery, of sunglasses being lifted, a raised arm, and a hand waving back.
“Jillian?”
“He wants to talk about physics. The study group. That’s all.”
“I … I … School’s over.” I squint at the bottom of the hill. Parker and Will are taking the long way up, along the beach and up the other side of the hill. So they can show off their biceps and abs. I need a cupcake, but I can’t eat in front of
them.
them.
“He specifically said physics.”
I give her the look that says, do I appear to have a brain malfunction? Didn’t I just say that he and Annelise broke up?
“Okay,” she concedes. “It’s probably not about physics. He was sort of checking me out. But, really, they just want to talk to us. It’s talking.”
“I knew something was up with the bikini.”
“Chantal. I still want to do a summer project. Look, we can plan it after they leave. We can raise money for Africa. That would be fun.” When she smiles, I feel like I’m at the doorway to her exciting life and she’s handing out charity.
“As a favor, you mean?”
“I mean I still want to do a summer project,” she repeats. “But … next year we’ll be graduating … and, we’re going to need a date for prom, right?”
“Prom?” I thought we’d decided to stand against the consumerism of prom. And no guy would see me as a potential date, not today. I didn’t shower, my hair is in a frizzy ponytail, I’m in my practical one-piece, and I have never waxed. Anything. I can’t be the best at fashion and looking hot and still be the best at grades. I don’t have the time. And neither does Jillian. I grab my backpack, search for my shorts.
“I wasn’t trying to surprise you. I wasn’t. I didn’t even know, for sure, that Parker and Annelise broke up. They’re just coming to talk to us.”
“Will picked his nose and wiped his snot on my arm.”
“In the third grade.”
“He tripped me in gym, almost every day …”
“In fifth.”
“He put the fetal pig heart from seventh grade dissection in a box and gave it to me. Pretended it was a Valentine’s gift. I hate him.”
“He does stuff like that to lots of girls.”
“No, Jillian.” I want to tell her that girls who want guys to like them are like moths flickering toward a light, that third-degree burns and scars are inevitable. I want to remind her that Parker was the one who sent Annelise to the bathroom. I want to tell her that earlier this year, Will grabbed my left one while I was standing at my locker. When he’s near me I fall apart inside and not in a good way. But I haven’t told anyone, because it’s weird. It doesn’t make sense.
The guys are now five rectangles of towels and two circles of umbrellas away from us. And I don’t have a plan.
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