Pride & Popularity (10 page)

Collin looked at me—really looked at me for the first time that night—and then smiled. I could almost see the imaginary wheels turning. Suddenly, visions of repeated date nights just like this one popped into my head. Briefly, I contemplated causing Taylor bodily harm. Taylor patted Collin on the back like he would one of his buddies. Clearly proud of himself, he beamed right at me.
Why stop at bodily harm?

Believe it or not, after that the date was even more boring, primarily due to Collin’s excessive compliments of a certain “local celebrity” that I had to hear. To add insult to injury, after I had finally finished my meal, that little rat Taylor had the nerve to send over our bill, paid for by him, with a little note attached to the receipt that read: “We hope you enjoyed your romantic evening as much as we enjoyed ours. Love, Kylie and Taylor.”

After church I pulled out my homework again and hit the books. I already had an essay to complete for English class, plus two paragraph worksheets for World History. I turned on my radio to a soft-rock station and plopped onto my bed. About forty minutes into ancient Rome, I had almost finished my second worksheet when Mom called me down to dinner.

My parents asked 101 questions about my date with Collin the night before. Talk about awkward. I mean, how do you tell your mom the guy she set you up with was a total pathetic loser, one who wouldn’t even look twice at you until some popular jerk basically told him to? The worst part was that by the time Collin dropped me off he had almost convinced himself we were in love.
Good grief.

Anyway, my family’s dinner conversation went something like this:

MOM: So, how did your date with Collin go last night? DAD: Yeah, how did that go?

ME: Uh, go? What do you mean?

MOM: Do you like him? Does he like you?

ME: What? No.

DAD: Why doesn’t he like you?

ME: No. I mean, he likes me and all, he just doesn’t
like
me. MOM: Oh. So what did you talk about?

ME: Not much.

DAD: How much did the meal cost?

MOM: Honey, don’t ask her that!

ME: I don’t know.

DAD: A-ha! A good guy. He wouldn’t let you see the receipt when he paid for it.

ME: Yeah, a true good guy. You have no idea.

CLAIRE: So was the food good?

ME: The food?

CASSIDY: Yeah. What did you order?

ME: Order?

CLAIRE: I bet it was awesome.

ME: You know, I can’t remember . . .

MOM: There you go. If a girl can’t remember the next day what she ate at the Lion’s Den, then—

DAD: Then it isn’t worth going there.

MOM: No, then she’s in love.

ME: I am not in love! Eew. Look, can I go to my room now? I have a lot of homework.

MOM: Sure, honey. I’m glad you had a great time.

Had it not been for Blake’s phone call that evening, I’m not sure I would’ve poked my head back out of my room until the morning. As it was, Blake completely cheered me up and brought me out of my grumpy mood.

“So, did you miss me while you were on your date last night?” he asked.

“Uh, what do you think?” I grinned.

“Yes. Definitely yes.”

“Then you would be right.”

“I would, huh? So how did it go?” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Awful.”

“Awful?” He sounded pleasantly surprised.

“Yes! Completely, totally, and utterly awful.”

Blake chuckled. “So you missed me bad?”

“I was so desperate for conversation I would’ve talked to my fork. Except then people would’ve heard me talk to it.”

“So you’re saying the guy never talked to you?”

“No. It was so immature. All he did was play with his fancy Google phone.”

“He’s got a Google Nexus 5? Wow! What does his look like?”

What is it with guys and gadgets?
“Blake, focus.”

“Sorry.” He sounded so sheepish I forgave him instantly. “So, you were saying you had a horrible date. How can I make it up to you?”

Ask me out on a date again
. “Uh, I don’t know.”

“How about I take you somewhere amazing, somewhere really fun?”

I’m hooked. Seriously, is there a sweeter guy in the world?
“Okay. When? Where?” I giggled.

“After four-wheeling Wednesday night? I already have that day off.”

“Um, okay. I just have to be home by ten 10:00.”

“Oh, yeah, you have a curfew,” Blake said. “I forget that you’re younger than I think you are.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. You seem older to me, you know?”

Oh my gosh, he’s so awesome.
“I wish I was older.” “How old are you, anyway? Eighteen? Nineteen?” “Really?” I giggled again. “I’m seventeen, weirdo.”

He laughed his deep laugh. “Oh, someone just walked into the hotel. I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you Wednesday then, okay?”

“Yep. It’s a deal. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye.” He sounded rushed.

“Bye.”
A guy totally called me from work. How romantic is that?

LIFE GOES ON

By Monday it was official. School was now in swing. It was a full-fledged spiral of activity. The initial shock of the new school year was over—as far as teachers were concerned, that is. By the afternoon my homework load had doubled. It was all I could do to finish in time to make it to the dance studio a bit early.

My first class started at 5:00. I had hoped to get there at 4:00 to review a bit before the students came. As it was, the earliest I could get there was 4:30, which gave me just enough time to stretch before a little girl came in.

“Miss Chloe,” she exclaimed as she ran to throw her arms around my knees. “You’re back!”

It was the first welcome I’d had, since Ms. Chavez’s class had already started by the time I showed up. I leaned over and hugged Gracie. “Hello, Gracie. I’ve missed you. How are you, sweetie?”

She ignored me completely as she turned back to face her mother. “See, Mom! I told you Miss Chloe would come back. I told you.”

Mrs. Littleton chuckled. “Yes, you did. Glad to see you’re back, Chloe. Gracie has really missed you.”

“It’s good to be back.” I grinned. “Okay. Come on, missy. Let’s get those slippers on.”

“I’ll be here in about an hour,” Gracie’s mom said.

Gracie and I told her goodbye before we hurried over to the bench to get ready.

Thank goodness my first class was a small, beginner one— there were only six children in the class. I actually got to review with them. By the time class was over, I had a rough idea of how I wanted to teach the intermediate class. They had continued on without me during the summer, so I used their hour to evaluate their skill levels.

Once 7:00 rolled around, I began to wonder why I had ever left the studio. The children from both classes were so excited to see me, it was like I was a celebrity or something.

The classes went by much faster than I expected them to. Before I knew it, it was time to go. I walked through the room and picked up a few stray items of clothing, then put away the stereo and the classical CDs. I grabbed my bag and put my jeans and T-shirt on over my tights and leotard. Next, I slipped my feet into my Vans and switched off the lights. I waved goodbye through the window to Mrs. Chavez as I passed the room where she was teaching adult tap dance. She quickly returned my wave.

As I walked toward the Volvo, I felt as if I had just started a new chapter in my life. I couldn’t explain the feeling other than it was like a routine had just begun.

And begun it had. I had forgotten how busy life was when I had a job. The days and weeks passed unbelievably quickly, blurring together in a sort of pleasant monotony. I mean, there was an odd day here or there, like on the Wednesday when Blake took me dancing after four-wheeling. We didn’t go anywhere— he just turned on his headlights and cranked up the radio. It was so wonderful to dance with him under the stars, even if it was on uneven ground and we laughed more than we actually danced. We stumbled and pitched into each other the whole time. It was a lot of fun and way more than made up for Collin’s attempt at a date. Other than that, due mostly to conflicting work schedules, Blake and I hadn’t been on a date again. And it was already October.

Even Taylor felt the stress of our senior year, and he buckled down more and actually completed his artwork on time. Of course, that didn’t stop him from still, well, being Taylor. Apart from the initial tease session I knew was due on that first Monday after Collin’s date, Taylor basically stopped taunting me and started boring us by bragging about Kylie Russell. But as much as that annoyed me, it was better than when he turned his attention toward me. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until plans for our annual Halloween party were announced that Taylor really remembered that Madison, Alyssa, and I existed, other than to act as the audience to his B-rated soap opera.

The Halloween party was all my friends and I could think about. We had lost track of time due to our hectic schedules—my dance classes plus filming and sending off my ASU admission DVD, Maddi’s volleyball practice and games, and Alyssa’s orchestra practice. So we only had a week to get the invites out or there wouldn’t be enough notice for people to make it.

Not to brag or anything, but our Halloween parties had become a bit of a legend over the past few years. Well, in our crowd, that is. I’m sure none of the top tier of high school social hierarchy would’ve had much fun. Our parties are never something a reality TV show would be interested in filming. We’re normal teenagers, okay? Normal teenagers whose parents would
kill
us if we dared to throw a party like that.

So, way back when I first moved to Farmington, Maddi, Alyssa, and I waited and waited to be invited to one of the cool parties. All summer long we waited. And then it was like a light bulb went off and we decided, why wait for something that may never happen? Why not host our own amazing party for everyone the popular crowd did not deign to invite to their parties? It was like an underground resistance—a boycott of the “in crowd,” if you will—proof that you didn’t have to be the coolest kid in school to have fun. Thus our annual themed Halloween party was born, and we’d had one for the last three years. One year, we all dressed up as pirates and went in search of real treasure. Madison’s father had us split into teams and follow clues around the city. It was so cool. We got a lot of funny looks, but we didn’t care. Maddi’s father actually buried the treasure in the sand at one of the parks and we had to find it. Crazy, huh?

This year our theme was favorite vintage TV shows, and everyone was supposed to dress up as a character. We planned to have a lot of different games and contests that would revolve around the theme.

Since the party was at my house this year, it was my turn to make the invites. I had made a sample that looked just like a vintage TV. I brought it to show the girls in art so we could have time to really look it over and decide what needed to change. After Ms. Bailey called roll, I presented it with a flourish,

“Ta-da,” I exclaimed as I dramatically dropped my attempt at a TV-shaped invitation on the table.