Take Me There (6 page)

The bell rings.

“Not that it matters,” Nicole grumbles on her way to the back of the room. She always sits in the back and I always sit in the front. Unless we have assigned seats. She likes to do that so she can spy on everyone and write down story ideas without them knowing. “I didn’t get any of the other ones, either.”

“You’re coming to tutoring, right?”

“I’m not sure.”

I’m a peer tutor for math on Tuesdays. Nicole comes almost every week. I like explaining math to people. I’m into the finite rules and organized methods. I guess that’s why I rock at math. Which is weird, because you’re not supposed to be good at both math and artistic stuff. But making numbers work has a calming effect on me. Plus, everyone knows that colleges will reject you if you don’t have enough activities. It’s so they know you’re not just some antisocial brain in a jar.

I sit down. Keith is staring at me. He waves.

I wave back. I still haven’t told him no. For some reason, I lied to James yesterday and told him I already did.

“Good morning, leaders of tomorrow!” Mr. Farrell shouts. “Who wants to put number thirty-two on the board?”

I look back at Nicole. Her eyes say,
See?

“Nicole?” Mr. Farrell says. “Thanks.”

“But I didn’t—”

“And who wants to do thirty-three?”

Nicole sighs this long, dramatic sigh. She pops open her binder. She lifts her homework pages out like they’re made of lead instead of paper.

“Okay, Jackson,” Mr. Farrell decides. Jackson always looks like he’s about to bust a vital organ over the chance to put a problem up.

Then Mr. Farrell sits on top of his desk to take attendance. He’s wearing his math tie with the neon numbers and a white shirt and his brown cords. He has this habit of wearing the same pants every Monday for some reason. They look like they’ve seen better days. And his scuffed brown loafers don’t really go with his pants. They’re different shades of brown.

Nicole is putting the problem up. Mr. Farrell finishes attendance and turns around to watch her. I catch him looking at her butt for a few seconds. I look around to see if anyone else caught it. But the class is dead. It’s always like this at the end of the year. Especially on Mondays. We have these state tests coming up called Regents Exams. You have to pass all of the ones you need or you can’t graduate. The Regents are less than a month away, but no one stresses until the night before. Now we’re just killing time. Stuck in faux-education limbo.

A police siren screeches by outside.

Nicole puts the chalk down. The problem is only half done.

“Not so fast, Nicole,” Mr. Farrell says.

“But I didn’t get this one.”

“You need to at least try.”

“I did. I got half of it.”

“You need to try harder.”

Nicole sucks her tooth. She picks up the chalk.

Everyone’s waiting.

“Like she’s ever gonna get it,” Gloria informs the room.

Nicole freezes up. She doesn’t turn away from the board.

“Can I explain mine?” Jackson begs.

“Not yet.” Mr. Farrell holds his hand up in a you-must-chill gesture. “Let’s give Nicole a chance to finish.” Then he darts an angry look at Gloria.

But Nicole just stands there. I send her a telepathic message to hang in.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Mr. Farrell announces. “Why don’t we start this worksheet—no, stay where you are, Gloria, you’re working individually—and that way I can walk you through it, Nicole. Okay, who—thanks, Jackson, you can have a seat, we’ll go over that one later—who wants to pass out the worksheet?”

No one raises their hand. Someone yawns rude loud.

“Do we get participation points?” Gloria demands.

“Sure.”

Gloria gets up to pass them out. She snaps her gum. The snap sounds like a firecracker.

“Gum, Gloria,” Mr. Farrell warns.

She’s like, “Sorry.” Even though you can tell that she’s totally not. “It won’t happen again.”

“I know. Because you’re going to throw your gum out.”

Gloria glares at him. He should know better by now.

Gloria is one of those girls whose purpose in life is to give teachers a hard time. And also all of us, for extra fun. Girls are petrified of Gloria, because she’s totally gorgeous and can have any guy she wants. And every guy she wants is coincidentally already someone’s boyfriend. Not that she cares. If you give her attitude or even look at her wrong, she’ll get you back. And it will be ugly. Or sometimes, she’ll just decide she wants what you have and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Like in ninth grade? Our social circles actually intersected for a little while at the beginning of the year. Back when I thought we were friends. And our mutual friend Sheila was having a movie-night party at her house (it was Reese Wither-spoon screening night), where six of us got together to eat pizza and watch movies and do the old-school sleepover thing. So we were playing Truth, and I said how I liked this boy Emilio and I could tell he liked me, too.

I can’t even tell you how shocked I was when Gloria totally went after him Monday at school. She seemed completely trustworthy and sympathetic at the sleepover, all listening to everyone’s secrets and giving advice. And then she went and did that? I totally didn’t see it coming. Neither did the rest of the girls who were there. They all heard me say how I liked Emilio, and they all saw how Gloria stole him away from me. So of course we all iced her. A couple of the girls told the whole school what she did. And even though it was embarrassing, I wasn’t that mad. Because then Gloria got this immediate reputation as a skanky boyfriend-stealing chickenhead.

It’s not like I didn’t confront her. I did. And you know what she said? She was all, “But you never went up to him.”

And I was like, “But you knew I liked him.”

“You don’t even know for sure if he liked you,” Gloria said. “You just thought he did.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Because he
did
.”

Then she was like, “There’s no law against talking to people. That’s all I did. He was the one who asked me out.”

Yeah. That tends to happen when you rub your ginormous breasts up against some boy’s arm.

I take out my red mechanical pencil that I always use for math. Red goes with math. I click it twice and wait for my worksheet.

Gloria holds a sheet out to me. But when I reach for it, she drops it on the floor.

“Oops,” she drawls. “My bad.”

She doesn’t pick it up.

I reach down to get it. My binder slides off my desk and crashes to the floor.

“Oops,” she says. “
So
sorry.”

Apparently, Gloria still blames me for when all the girls stopped talking to her. Like her lack of morals is somehow my fault. It’s so
stupid.

I start the first problem. I show my work for cross-multiplying. I try to concentrate. This is one of the few rooms with ventilation, but there’s still not enough air in here.

Steve and I usually sat together at lunch, but I’ve been sitting with James since The Incident. I wonder if I should try and sit with Steve anyway since he said let’s be friends. Or maybe I should wait until after school, when I can talk to him alone.

Mr. Farrell is still helping Nicole with the problem. Which is weird, because he never helps us put up homework problems. It’s either sink or swim in here. But maybe he feels bad for her, because even though she works really hard, she’s still barely passing this class. Or maybe he feels bad about what Gloria said.

I’m trying to figure out what I should say to Steve later. Should I be like how I miss him and I forgive him? Or would that make me look desperate? Or maybe I should wait for him to come to me instead. . . .

When Mr. Farrell tells us to pass our papers up, I’m still on the first problem.

I hate days like this.

Like when one minor thing happens but it gets all huge in your head and ends up bothering you for the whole rest of the day. I can already tell the thing with Gloria is like this. The entire day is going to suck now.

But then I open my locker. And there’s a bunch of flowers sitting there, right on top of my books.

They’re not just any flowers, either. They’re spray roses. I love spray roses because they’re smaller than regular roses, so there are a few different buds on the same stem. And they smell just as pretty.

I lift out the roses carefully and hold them up to my nose. I love this. And I love what this means.

There’s only one person who knows how much I love spray roses.

This must be his way of saying sorry. But maybe he’s not ready to talk about it yet. He probably just wants me to know that he’s thinking about me and that he still loves me and he realizes that he made a huge mistake and he totally misses me.

I love days like this.

At lunch, I sit with James.

Steve looks at me from across the cafeteria.

My heart forgets how to beat.

He smiles at me.

I smile back.

And then James shoves his chair back and gets up.

I’m like, “Where are you going?”

He says, “I’m done.”

It’s obvious something’s wrong and he doesn’t want to talk about it. And it isn’t the first time he’s shut down. It’s how James deals with stress. Especially when he has a ton of stuff to do and no time to do it. I know he needs space right now.

So I go back to sneaking looks at Steve. He smiles at me again.

I’m so psyched that even the grungy Hot Pockets taste good.

By the time the last bell rings, I know exactly what I’m saying to Steve. I worked it all out during the mind-numbing dreck that was eighth period. And I’m sure he’s been waiting for me to talk to him ever since I found the flowers.

I’m putting my stuff in my bag and trying to smooth down my out-of-control curly and out-of-control frizzy dark brown hair. Which is a pointless struggle, but we try. I have a really big Italian last name. Ferrara. I also have really big Italian hair to go with it. Everyone loves my hair, but I hate it. It’s wild. It doesn’t fit into my ultra-organized life. It extends beyond the borders, freaking out whenever it feels like it.

But my first name is way more interesting. Mom got the idea from an old Fleetwood Mac song, which was this major group in the seventies. Back when my parents were these people I would never recognize today.

The halls are emptying fast. No one wants to stick around for tutoring during the last week of May when it’s sunny and seventy out. Maybe Mr. Farrell will tell me I only have to do another week of tutoring. There’s Regents later, but the one for this class is a joke. I heard it’s not because the test is that easy, but the grading scale is way lax.

I go down the back staircase in case Steve already went to his locker and he’s on his way out. I need to tell him this now. When I’m about to walk down the hall to where our lockers are, Nicole comes running around the corner and slams into me.