Just Like the Movies (10 page)

“Some of it. Some of it's just extra stuff for the newspaper.”

He shakes his head. “I can barely keep up with my classes and here you are taking on
extra
work. If you need some more, you can always have mine.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I say, shaking my head. “I'm already almost drowning in loose-leaf paper and textbooks.”

We lapse into silence and I start working on my trig homework. Or pretending to work on my trig homework, that is. I can't think when my heart is beating this hard—it's like attempting to do math during an earthquake. When the whole world is shifting around you, you're lucky if you remember your own name, let alone how to work out complex equations.

“Are you taking trig too?” I finally ask Joe. He makes a face.

“Precalc. For the second time. I suck at math.”

“Math isn't so bad,” I counter. “I mean, it's exact—not like English or music or something artistic. I hate when there aren't right answers.”

“Well, I'm terrible at it, exact answers or not.”

I cock my head and look at him. His mouth lifts up into a half smile.

“What?” he asks. “You're looking at me like you want something.”

God, how am I supposed to respond to
that
?

Instead, I scoot my chair out and walk toward Mr. Marsden. He yanks out an earbud and glares at me.

“Miss Spencer?”

“I was hoping you'd let me help Joe out with his math homework. I'm really good at precalculus.”

Mr. Marsden leans back in his chair and narrows his eyes. Then he shrugs.

“As long as you are working, I suppose it's okay.”

I beam at him. “Thanks.”

I start back toward my desk and look at Joe, who's gaping at me.

“How did you know I have precalc homework?” he asks, sounding amazed. “Are you psychic or something?”

I laugh. “No, but I've taken the class. Ms. Owens is brutal, and she gave us homework every day of the week—even over weekends.”

“Sounds about right.” Joe nods. He reaches behind his chair and unzips his backpack, then pulls out his math book and a spiral.

It occurs to me that I didn't even ask him if he
wanted
help—maybe I'd offended him or something.

“Sorry, I probably should have asked you if you even wanted help.”

“Are you kidding? Hell yeah, you can help me out—I've got to keep my GPA up for motocross. Otherwise I can't compete.”

“Well, okay then,” I say, pulling my graphing calculator out of my bag. Then Joe scoots his desk closer to mine, effectively blocking me in with his body.

“Thanks for this,” he says quietly. I meet his gaze and it's as soft as his voice. “It's kind of embarrassing to be this bad at something. Especially when you're repeating the class.”

I swallow hard and force myself to shake my head.

“It's no big deal.”

Before I realize what's happening, Joe reaches out and tweaks one of the curls close to my face. When I look at him again, he grins.

“It's a big deal to me.”

Just call me Matchmaker Marijke.

Okay, don't call me that.

But still—I am
so
good at this already. Getting Lily stuck in detention was easy. The assistant principals are always prowling the halls after the bell. Getting Joe there, though, was harder. I pulled a
Steel Magnolias
and pretended I'd lost a contact on the floor and, chivalrous guy that he is, he'd done his best to help me find it. Of course, that meant he was late to third period and got a one-way ticket to Marsden's Detention Den this afternoon.

I decide to swing by the third floor and see if my grand plan is working before I head down to the track. Even though we don't have official practice again until next week, my muscles are pretty unforgiving when it comes to impromptu vacations. I have to keep them stretched and ready to
support my leaps and bounds, whether I'm technically supposed to or not.

But I let myself stop on the way outside and watch through the little glass window in Mr. Marsden's classroom door. I can barely see Lily, hunched over a desk, with a math textbook next to her. Joe is poring over a book of his own, then looks at her and says something. She reaches over and points at something in his book, then points at his paper. He nods and starts writing.

Seriously?

This is how she flirts—by
tutoring
? I get them stuck in a room together and the only thing she can think of doing is
homework
?

I groan aloud, then shake my head. Clearly I'm going to need to spend more time explaining to Lily that math is the furthest thing from sexy and no one ever caught her dream guy by working through equations.

Minutes later, I'm tightening my shoelaces and then peering out at the hurdles, trying to erase the distractions from my brain. All day long, I've been thinking about what movies to use, what scenes would work best, and how I can get Tommy to say that he loves me.

Now I shake my head. If I'm going to run my event with any kind of confidence, I've got to find a way to compartmentalize. I need to separate my running from my relationship. Closing my eyes, I imagine the shotgun start and I
bolt forward. I attempt to pull the magic act that always works best for me—dividing myself into two people. One Marijke who runs with the wind at her back and one Marijke who pauses to consider her options.

Today, it's just not working. I leap over my hurdles with a sort of resignation.

For the first time in—well, ever—running feels less like freedom and more like a job. Every hurdle is like an item on a checklist and not a single one feels like a priority. I've got to get things moving with Tommy so I can go back to being the kind of girl who moves forward, not backward. And Lily is the key, with her organized ideas to get the movie plan rolling full force. She's like some kind of smart, curly-haired secret weapon.

But I don't see Lily again until lunch on Tuesday. When she comes up to me, though, her eyes are bright and full of something like ideas.

“Say anything,” she says.

I squint up at her, now leaning over me with both hands on her hips.

“Huh?”

“Say anything,” she repeats.

“Um . . . anything?” I try, attempting to follow her clearly insane logic.

She rolls her eyes and plops down on the ground next to me. I decided to bypass my usual lunch table today in favor
of the spring air. That, and I know that Posey's boyfriend, Jeremy, asked her to prom at last night's tennis match—I heard something about him spelling out “PROM?” in plastic cups pushed through the chain-link fencing around the courts. It's a cute idea, really—I just can't really handle hearing someone else's adorable prom proposal story today.

Lily drops a DVD in my lap.

“
Say Anything
,” she repeats. “The movie. That's how you're going to get Tommy's attention.”

I look down at the case. A young John Cusack stares up at me.

“Of all the movies on the list, you had to choose the only one I haven't seen yet?”

“Trust me,” she says, tapping the plastic box, “this movie is a classic. And it's got the most iconic display of true love that's ever been in a movie.”

“Iconic?”

“Yeah, iconic—well-known, major, important . . .”

I snort. “Overdramatic much?”

But Lily's shaking her head. “No, seriously—you've probably seen it before. John Cusack standing outside a car, holding a boom box over his head. The song ‘In Your Eyes' blasting from the speakers. Ringing any bells?”

I shrug. “Maybe. I'm not sure.”

“Well, if nothing else, just check out the boom-box scene on YouTube. It's epic.”

“Okay, okay.” I tuck the movie into my bag. “Speaking of epic, how was detention with Joe Lombardi yesterday?”

Lily's normally pink complexion deepens into a blush. “How did you know about that?”

I grin. “Let's just say I had my reasons for making you late to class yesterday.”

Lily blinks at me, her gaze blank. Then her eyes widen.

“You did that on purpose?”

“Maybe . . . ,” I say coyly.

Her face morphs from shocked to sort of impressed.

“Wow. I might actually hate you a little less now. How did you get him there too?”

“Same way, really. Made him late because he was helping me find my contact lens.”

Lily peers at me. “I didn't know you wear contacts.”

I shrug. “I don't.”

“Right. Of course you don't.” She shakes her head, then she sighs.

“Detention was . . . nice, weird as that sounds. Talking to him was nice and sitting with him was nice and everything was really . . .”

“Nice?” I offer. She leans back on her elbows and looks up at the cloudless sky.

“I just don't know how to be anything else but a tutor or the SGA secretary or a school newspaper columnist. I don't know how to make people see me as something other than . . .”

“A nerd?” I supply. Lily gives me a dirty look.

“Stop finishing my sentences. And no, not a nerd. More like a . . . a resource. I don't want to always be
that
girl, the one who's just there to help.”

“So then, what did you guys talk about in detention?” I ask. She bites her lip.

“I, uh, helped him with his math homework.”

“Exactly—and you wonder why he only sees you as a walking textbook? It's because you make yourself one. Come on! You've got to put yourself out there!”

“Marijke, it was
detention
. We weren't supposed to talk at all. The only way I could was if we were doing something academic.”

I sigh, zipping my backpack and sliding it over my shoulder.

“Okay, okay—so tell me about this
Say Anything
scheme. What exactly would I have to do?”

“Is that your way of telling me you aren't going to watch the movie?”

“Maybe.”

Lily groans.

“Fine—in the movie, this guy Lloyd wants to get this girl Diane back after they broke up, so he stands outside her window with a boom box and blasts a superromantic song. So I'm gonna run to the A/V office to see if I can snag one of those portable iPod docks they use in the auditorium. The ones with the Bose speakers? I think that would be perfect for this.”

I blink. “Wait—you seriously want me to hold a speaker dock up in the air, outside Tommy's house, with music blasting?”

“Well, unless you have a boom box and it's really 1985, then, yeah, I think the iPod dock is probably our best bet.”

“I—I guess I thought the scene wouldn't be so . . . I don't know, totally mortifying?”

Lily stares at me.

“Was that not clear about this being the most romantic scene from the most romantic movie ever? You would kick total cinematic ass if you pull this off!”

“I guess so,” I say, swallowing. I pause for a second. “Look, the only way I'm doing this is if you do something for me.”

“Oh yeah? What is that?”

I cock an eyebrow at her and grin. “You're going to be my wingman.”

A good-size iPod speaker dock, with high-quality speakers and a remote control costs hundreds of dollars.

I know this because Mr. Dylan, the teacher in charge of the audio-visual department, told me no less than four times in the ten minutes I was in his office.

“Now, if I let you borrow this,” he said, “I will expect it back within twenty-four hours and in perfect condition. These things cost hundreds of dollars, you know.”

“I think you mentioned that,” I say dryly.

“Well, all right then.” He slaps the thighs of his jeans and stands up, peering at the shelves lining the room. “You said it needs to be battery operated, right?”

“Yes, please.”

He yanks a sleek black unit down off an upper shelf and sets it on the table in front of me. Quickly, he points out the
basic anatomy—where the iPod goes, how to control the volume, how to switch or shuffle songs. When I finally manage to get out of there, it's with one more warning about being careful and I'm already ten minutes late to fifth period. Fortunately I weaseled a late pass out of Mr. Dylan—no more detention for me, thank you very much.