None of the Regular Rules (4 page)

“It’s not Yale,” Johnny said archly, putting his finger in the air. “Madison is not Columbia. Therefore it’s not a real school and it was not a valid choice.” He paused and muttered. “Doesn’t really matter, at this point. The time for that argument has passed.” He threw a few more rocks into the lazy waves, then turned one over in his hand, considering it. Eventually he walked over and handed the rock to me. “This is a good one.” He glanced at the rock I was sitting on, then reached his hand out and traced one of the red lines that ran along the surface.

I let the small black stone he’d handed to me rest in my open palm, marveling at its perfect oval shape. It had a vein of yellowish
green running through the center. It was one of the prettiest rocks I’d ever seen on the beach.

When I turned to say something, to thank him for the bizarre gift, I realized Johnny was gone. He was scrambling back up the hillside, without another word.

CHAPTER
FOUR

“When did the love of my life start wearing polos?” Ella linked her arm through mine as we walked toward my locker a few days after school started. “I swear to God, Sophie. That ugly, collared shirt is pink.
Is
it pink? Do you think Peter’s dad buys his clothes for him? Or maybe his mom gets a special deal if she buys father-son matchy-match accountant shirts? Do they have daddy-and-me deals at Costco?”

Ella craned her neck, trying to get a better view of Peter Martinson, who blended into a pack of guys from the football-slash-hockey-slash-baseball team. Well, Peter
mostly
blended—everything except his shirt, which did appear to be pink. Not cute pink or ironic pink, but salmon pink.

“Peter and his dad are about the same size, aren’t they?” I asked, trying to keep pace with Ella, who was hustling along to subtly keep up with the sports pack. “Maybe they just share clothes?”

“He used to be so cool,” Ella sighed. “Now he’s just another pretty, preppy jock.”

“Nothing’s changed,” I said. “Peter’s always been a pretty, preppy jock. It’s just that the pink polo makes him stick out like a sore thumb.”

“I feel like we must have had something in common, once.”

“Yeah, you did,” I agreed, spinning the dial on my locker. I hardly had to pay attention to our conversation. I knew exactly how the script went. This was the same conversation Ella and I had almost every year in the first week of school.

I popped open my locker to grab my lunch, then looked up as someone started humming beside me. Once again, I was lucky enough to have Andy Eisenberg as my locker neighbor. Andy was one of the quirky theater guys, a pack of interesting misfits that alternately intrigued and irritated me. Last year Andy left the same salami sandwich in his locker all year, as an experiment. Once a week he would wave me over to show me what fascinating fur had grown on his “food installation.” He called it that—a “food installation”—like it was some kind of art or something. I didn’t want to think about what strange project Andy was going to host in our bank of lockers this year. It always amazed me that he could get so much pleasure out of something so stupid.

I turned around to look at Ella. “You and Peter did have something in common once. You shared spit in middle school. That’s it.”

Ella huffed, then flopped against the locker on the other side of mine dramatically. Her yearbook-issued camera knocked against her chest. “Why me?” She leaned down to tug up her paisley tights, tights that had been washed so many times they were no longer stretchy. But she loved those tights so much that I knew she’d never part with them. Ella was the kind of person who would probably turn the tights into a purse before she would actually throw them away. She was big on reduc
ing
, reus
ing
, and recycling—including guys. “Why can’t I make myself believe he doesn’t exist, and find another guy to go after?”

I glanced over just in time to see her lightly place the back of her hand over her straight auburn bangs. It was her woe-is-me pose. “You
can
do that. Grace and I have been trying to make you forget about Peter for
four
years. You just need to tell yourself that it’s time to move on already, and realize that Peter Martinson is a pink-polo-wearing jock who is absolutely not right for you, regardless of what may or may not have happened between you at the end of seventh grade. Or you’ve got to go for it. I vote for that, just so you can know, once and for all. It’s time to kiss X.”

I swiped some grape lip jam across my lips, checked my ponytail for lumps, and slammed my locker closed. I was mildly annoyed that we were still having this conversation. “Let’s make this a new year, okay?”

“Okay,” Ella grumbled. “The thing is…” She gave me a halfhearted smile.

“There is no thing,” I said. “No. Thing. It’s silly to keep dwelling.” I was as guilty as anyone of dwelling. But it was ridiculous that we kept rehashing the same crap, year after year.

“At least you and I are single together,” she said hopefully and wiggled her hips. “All the single ladies!”

“Yes,” I mumbled. “There’s that.”

Peter and his friends strolled by us moments after Ella started dancing. Ella stopped moving and looked down. “What’s up, Erickson?” Peter called. One of the things that bugged me about Peter? He called people by their last names. I sometimes wondered
…i
f he was making out with someone, would he stop and moan
her
last name? I’d like to think not. But maybe Ella would be able to tell me someday.

“Not much, Martinson,” I answered. Ella scrunched down and pretended to tie her boot. Once Peter was past, I nudged her
leg
with my foot and said, “Your boots don’t even have laces. Just say hi to the guy. You’ve gotta start somewhere.”

“I can’t,” she whined. “I’m sure all he thinks about every time he looks at me is what a bad kisser I am.”

I bit my lip, trying not giggle. But it was impossible to contain it, so I started laughing and dragged Ella down the hall. “It was four years ago, El!”

To most people at East Central, Ella appeared to be one of the most self-confident people in school. She dressed in elaborately creative clothes, marched through the halls with her chin held high, kept a camera lens between her and everyone else most of the time, and she had a reputation as kind of a badass. (Also, she had editorial control over the candid pictures that made it into the yearbook, which was a position that came with power.) Even though she actually wasn’t at all badass, people kept their distance. She was a little scary if you didn’t know her. But I knew she was just playing a part for everyone, like we all do. Everyone has something they’re hiding or scared of or disappointed about, even super-cool Ella.

“Want to stay at my place tonight?” I asked as we settled in under the big maple tree outside the math wing. The leaves were still a perfect pear
green, not a single touch of brown or red or orange, which reminded me that it was technically still summer even though we were back at school.

“For sure,” Ella said. “Is Gracie coming?”

“I asked her. She was going to check with Ian.” Once school started, we always had to schedule time to see Grace. Between student council and sports and orchestra and Ian, she didn’t have a lot of free time. She was like a cautionary tale for everyone who’d ever thought about getting involved in school—it looks good on your college apps, but you have no time to just relax. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to run from this to that to the other thing without a break to just sit under the tree and stare at nothing. My favorite nothing was the sky, with its ever-changing personality that people were willing to accept and admire without comment.

“Oh, God, has that started? She ‘checks with Ian’ before committing to things these days?”

I smiled. “Seems that way.”

“Have you noticed something strange about him this year?” Ella lay back, resting her head against a giant root that protruded from the ground. A piece of moss had crawled onto the root over the summer, making it the perfect pillow. “Something physical.”

“No.”

“Think about it,” Ella prodded. “It’s super obvious, if you just look at him for a while.” She tapped her camera. “You see things when you’re behind a lens.”

“I don’t know, Ella. Did he get a haircut?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”

“The hair on his face got a trim.”

“Like, he started to shave? I’m sure he had to shave before senior year, El. No matter how runty the guy might seem, there’s no way he was still hairless.”

“Oh, Ian is not hairless,” Ella said, snorting. “Not his beard. But you’re getting closer.”

“You’re really mean. I don’t know where you’re going with this, but it’s mean. Whatever it is. Poor Ian.”

“Oh poo. Don’t ‘poor Ian’ me. He’s an arrogant jerk. He deserves it.” She opened one eye and squinted at me. “His brows,” she mumbled. “He started waxing his brows.”

“He did not!” I screeched.

“It’s true. You’ll notice that his face is much more sculpted and streamlined this year. He’s had a brow artiste shape his furry curtains into submission.”

“A ‘brow artiste’? You’re so odd.”

“You scoff, but you’re going to notice that Mr. Eyebrow Attack has normal brows this year. Take a peek, next time you see him.”

“I’ll do just that. But you better not let Grace hear you. She’s going to think you’re picking on her boyfriend.” I gestured to where Grace had emerged from the side door, in a serious conversation with Ian. They were always serious together, which seemed so sad. Grace acted like a real dip around Ian. Together, they were just plain Not Fun.

“Hi!” Grace called to us when she saw me. “Wait for me!” I don’t know where she thought we were going, since it seemed fairly obvious that Ella and I weren’t moving anywhere quickly. When I waved back, I noticed that Ian did, indeed, look a little more streamlined than he had the last time I’d really taken a close look at my friend’s boyfriend.

“You can see it, can’t you?” Ella mumbled, giggling. “Browsy McBrowerson isn’t quite as furry anymore. Think Grace said something?”

I squinted at her. “No, I do not. I think Grace is much nicer than that. Than you.”

“I’m not mean. Just honest.”

“Yeah, super honest,” I muttered.

“What? You think I’m not honest?” Ella sat up. I could tell she was ready to get defensive. I didn’t like to fight with Ella, but sometimes it was necessary or she’d walk all over you.
That was
the way things worked in her family—Ella had been trained to fight back. Unfortunately she never won at home, so she’d just try to boss Grace and I around. Sometimes we let her, since she had to get it out of her system somehow. “Why aren’t I honest, Sophie?”

I waited a beat, then said, “College. Have you talked to your mom yet?”

She wouldn’t look at me. “Maybe.”

“It’s your life.”

“Not really.”

I sighed. “It’s just that you can’t go to a college your mom wants you to go to if you’re just going to be miserable. If nothing else, it’s a huge waste of money. I know you know that, but one of these days you have to tell her what you really want. She’s been saving every dollar of child support for you to go to college, and it’s not fair to keep her out of the loop.”

Grace wandered up and plunked down, staying politely silent until she could seamlessly insert herself into the conversation.

Ella closed her eyes, refusing to look at either of us. “So I’m supposed to tell my mom that I want to make nothing of myself, and expect her to get that?”

“You don’t want to make nothing of yourself,” I said, not for the first time. “You want to travel. Explore. It’s a different kind of education.” I envied Ella for many things, one of which was her confidence in her unplanned future.

“It’s not like I have to figure it out this second,” she snapped. It was obvious she was finished with the conversation.

We all sat there, none of us saying anything. Sometimes Ella would get in a funk when we talked about college, and Grace and I knew to just wait it out. She’d move on. We had to wait for her cue, or it was like feeding ourselves to a cage of rabid raccoons. (Raccoons aren’t the most ferocious thing in the world, I know, but they’re seriously creepy, the way they stare at people with those beady, black little eyes. And I hear they’re insanely fierce when they’re mad. Kind of like Ella.)

“Maybe we should cut off all your hair for Locks of Love tonight, Sophie,” Ella said, finally. She was playing with a hole in her tights, and her yellow fingernails shone through the thin fabric. “Number
t
hree on Suzy’s list.”

We’d decided to do the things on the list in order, as much as possible. Without discussing it much, we’d conveniently skipped over
n
umber
o
ne, for now. I’m sure my friends realized I was going to need to warm up with a few other things on Suzy’s list before I would be ready to leap off a cliff.

“We already did one thing,” Grace said, obviously trying to save me from having to cut my hair. “We changed a tire. There are only fifteen things left on the list. We have all year. Why rush it?” She waved to a car full of girls who drove past—I recognized Madison Chan and the other Ella in our class, but couldn’t see whoever was in the backseat. It could have been anyone. Grace knew pretty much everyone. She was that girl that everyone in our class knew, but no one really
knew
. Okay, so I guess there were a few of us, since Ella and I probably fit into that category, too—just to a lesser degree.

“I think we should just watch a movie tonight,” Grace said with a yawn. “I sort of told Ian I’m super-tired from the week and bailed on him already.”

I was ready to agree. When Grace and Ella and I hung out, a movie at my house was our usual. Sometimes we’d go to someone
else
’s house, or maybe go out to a movie. Every once in a while, we’d have a bonfire on the beach by my house or meet some other people from our class at the big beach. But that wasn’t enough. This was senior year, a year of Important Changes and Fresh Starts and The Beginning of the Next Chapter of our Lives (per Grace). Things were supposed to be different.