The Forever Crush (7 page)

“I guess, but I'd rather report on things people actually care about. Do you really want to know more about Hangnail Awareness Week?”

“You made that up,” I said.

“Maybe so, but you get the idea. You're lucky, Jemma. The Pink Locker Society can just do whatever you guys want,” Bet said.

She was absolutely right and—lightbulb!—a fabulous idea was born.

Nineteen

Kate and I don't fight. Well … at least not much. We had that testy moment about the weight and BMI thing, and we've had other spats. But in general, we get along well and we keep the drama to a minimum. That's mostly because of Kate, I think. She's just so easygoing and not at all competitive. I depend on her yoga voice and generally chill attitude about life. Not so on this particular day. She texted me:

KATE
: Why is there a VIDEO on OUR Web site?

That was my fabulous idea. Our Web site, www.pinklockersociety.org, could host Bet's show on the Fat or Not list. In fact, I thought the PLS site could host her show permanently. I mean, who needed Margaret Simon TV when you had the whole Internet? So I just went ahead and posted it up there. I thought Kate and Piper would be impressed with my creative decision-making skills and my technical ability to make the video work on the PLS site.

The report was brilliant, I thought. Classic Bet. She had really gone in-depth and interviewed tons of people—students, teachers, our school nurse, and a doctor. She explained body mass index. She gave all sides—kids who wrote in the book said they just did it for fun and didn't really think anything much about it. The people who were called out as fat—even people who got only one star in the fat column—were pretty upset.

Emma Shrewsberry was so brave to be interviewed.

“I know I'm overweight and I'm working on it,” she told Bet. “I'm going to the doctor and I've lost twelve pounds. I don't like being made fun of, so I didn't appreciate that list,” she said.

I wondered if my tips (eat more fruits and veggies, etc.) had helped her.

“What I would say to anyone who knows they're overweight is that they need to find real friends. Maybe you'll lose weight and be healthy. But you'll never get there without friends who like you right now, as you are,” Emma said.

Bet then interviewed Emma's two best friends. They were not overweight, but they said they now exercised as a trio and tried to do simple stuff for Emma, like eat healthier foods when they had sleepovers together.

It was such an upbeat story, it was hard to understand why Principal F. didn't want to air the piece. I received an immediate congratulatory text from Piper. So it surprised me to receive the exact opposite response from Kate.

KATE
: Thanks a lot, Jemma. YOU ARE NOT A GOOD FRIEND!

I immediately called Kate's number.

“Kate, what is going on? Why are you so upset?”

“Aren't we the Pink Locker Society, as in we're all part of the group and we should make important decisions together?”

“Yes, but I thought you would like that I put Bet's video up there. You were the one always encouraging me to be friends with her.”

“Be friends with her all you like, but did you see her show?”

“Yes, I saw it.”

“Stop it, Jemma. You know exactly what I mean.”

“No, Kate, I really, seriously do not.”

“When Bet showed the pages of the Fat or Not list, in the notebook, my name was there. It was
first
on the page. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“Kate, I didn't even see it.”

“It's not bad enough that everyone in the eighth grade saw the notebook. Now anyone who has a computer will know I was in that book as a fat chick.”

I remembered the shots of the notebook. They went by so quickly, I didn't see anything.

I heard Kate sigh loudly. And she was sniffing some, too. I worried that she was crying.

“Can you get her to take it off?” Kate asked, her voice quieter now.

“Well, she'll be really disappointed because she was just kicked off MSTV. And this seemed like a place where she could put her
You Bet!
shows without any hassles,” I said.

“Jemma, you just do not get it.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“I used to look in the mirror and see myself—not perfect but a normal-looking girl. Now, every time I see myself I see my worst parts.”

“Kate, you're beautiful. Everyone says so.”

“Yes, but eighteen people also said I'm fat.”

“Who cares?” I said. “People aren't really thinking when they fill that list out. It's just a stupid thing, for fun.”

“It's not fun for me,” Kate said. “I did that BMI thing and my number was too high.”

“Don't be mad at me, Kate, please.”

“Then help me.”

I asked her, “What would you do, if you were in my position? Whatever it is, that's what I should do.”

Twenty

Now I really felt like a bad friend. Not only had I been lying, for weeks now, to Kate about me and Forrest, but I just accidentally humiliated her in front of the entire Internet. I needed to fix it, but how could I do it without devastating Bet? She was so happy when I said I'd post her videos on www.pinklockersociety.org. She hugged me and said I was the nicest person she'd met since coming to Margaret Simon Middle School. But how was that possible when Kate saw it all so differently?

Luckily, Kate never held grudges. She was still my friend and she didn't send me any more mean texts. But she did bring up Bet's video more than once and asked when it would come down. Kate knew it would not be hard for me to remove it. She could have done it herself even, but she was waiting for me to do the right thing.

I couldn't bend the truth like I might with, say, my mother. My mom was technologically stuck in 1985. She still has one of the original Walkman cassette players. She also has a cell phone without texting capabilities and says she's fine with that.

But it was not fine with me—especially on Thursday when I never got her phone calls telling me she'd be late picking me up from running club. I usually don't put my ringer on, because I mostly text and I don't want it going off in school. But all Mom does is call the regular way. I didn't hear her calls and I sat there after school, wondering where she was.

She wanted me to try to get a ride home from someone else. But I didn't notice the messages until too late. Running club had long ended. It was already dark and everyone had left except for Mrs. Percy in the office. I was out in front of the school and I could see her puttering around in the glass-enclosed front office even though it was after five thirty. Then a few minutes later, with Mom still not there, I saw the lights turn out and figured she'd be coming out soon. I secretly hoped that she'd exit through some side door.

Mrs. Percy had a reputation. Ms. Russo told me, “She doesn't suffer fools gladly.” She was blunt and direct and did not seem to edit her thoughts much. I heard the scrape-scrape of the heavy front school doors and knew she'd stop and say something to me.

“Jemma Colwin, what in heaven's name are you still doing here?”

“My mom's coming. She'll be here soon.”

“Would you like to go inside and call her?”

Another low-tech woman, Mrs. Percy was. At home, she probably still had a phone that was hooked to the wall with a twisty cord.

“No. Thanks. I have my cell phone. She called me earlier. Now she's not answering,” I said.

I was thinking I'd just add this to the list of weird behavior Mom was exhibiting lately. I hoped she was OK.

“Well, I'll just wait here with you until your mother comes,” Mrs. Percy said. “Can't have you all alone out here.”

She sat down with a
harrumph
on the wooden bench next to me, my backpack the only buffer between us. This was even worse than talking to Forrest. I had no conversation ideas for me and the crabby school secretary. I had hardly ever thought of her except to hope and pray that she'd be on vacation if I ever got my period at school. When the school nurse was off at a district conference or working a half-day at another school, Mrs. Percy filled in. I had once heard a boy in my class tell her he had a headache.

“Me, too,” she had said, without looking up from the high counter where she stood. “Now, go back to class.”

I couldn't imagine a safe topic for the two of us so I stayed quiet on the bench.

“You run track?” she asked.

“Yeah. I just started this year.” I looked down at the patch of pavement between my two sneakered feet. My running shoes were neon orange so cars would see me. (Mom's idea.)

“Do you know there was a time when we had no girls' track team whatsoever?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Back in the day, there was a girls' basketball team, but they didn't travel or have uniforms.”

I turned my head to face her and nodded. Why was she telling me this? And more importantly, I knew I had heard this before. Was it in a pink chain e-mail?

“There was cheerleading, but it was that ‘rah-rah-sis-boom-bah' kind of cheerleading. Not throw yourself up thirty feet in the air and dance like a hootchie-cootchie girl cheerleading.”

I laughed at “hootchie-cootchie.” She seriously sounded like my grandma. And then it hit me.

“You're Patricia,” I said quietly, almost to myself.

“Who, me?” she said, and smiled. Then she winked at me.

“Patricia” wasn't her real first name. It was Adele and people called her Addie. Patricia was the fake name Bet gave her when she interviewed her on camera about the original Pink Locker Society. Bet had shown her only as a silhouette behind a curtain and even computer-synthesized her voice so that no one would know who she was. At the time, I thought I recognized that rat-a-tat way of speaking, even with the scrambled voice.

“I'm actually glad you know,” she said. “You're doing a nice job with the Pink Locker Society.”

“Thanks,” I said.

It was so weird to be taking a compliment for this, especially from her. She had told Bet all about the PLS getting shut down in the 1970s. It was after they had openly supported some female athletes at Yale who protested so they'd have locker rooms like the guys.

“I want to help you with this bookmark problem you have,” Mrs. Percy said.

She said she knew about the “Stop the PLS” bookmarks and how they continued to be slipped into books. Whoever it was had slipped them into books by Meg Cabot, Judy Blume, Laurie Halse Anderson, and even
The Daring Book for Girls
.

“Janet—I mean Mrs. Kelbrock—has been on the lookout, but she hasn't caught the person yet. She thinks it's happening after school.”

“I think it's someone in library club, probably a sixth-grader,” I said.

“Could be. I hope we can rule out grown-ups, but people of all ages can be cruel,” she said.

Was she referring to Principal F.?

“You must be the person Ms. Russo has been talking to,” I said.

“You got it,” she said.

“You sent me the Kathrine Switzer race number. You were in the old PLS.”

“You're putting it all together now,” she said. “Do you want to try your mom again?”

I did and got her.

“Mom? Where are you?”

“I'll be there in three minutes. I really wish you'd pick up your phone once in a while,” she said.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“A doctor's appointment. See you soon.”

Now I was worried. I wanted to know and I didn't want to know why Mom was at the doctor. She'd been weepy and tired and now needed to go see a doctor?

But Mrs. Percy wanted to tell me her plan. She said she and Mrs. Kelbrock would set up our pink laptop to monitor the security cameras in the library. They'd keep an eye on the cameras, too, and maybe we'd catch the villain.

OK, so Mrs. P. wasn't clueless in the technology department. I didn't even know there were security cameras at school.

“Good” was all I said because, at that moment, my mom appeared at the curb. She rolled down the passenger side window.

“Oh, Mrs. Percy. I'm so sorry to make you wait. It's been a crazy day.” She smiled, shook her head, and her hands left the steering wheel in a flapping gesture to indicate just how crazy.

“No worries,” Mrs. P. said. “Jemma and I had a nice chat.”

Twenty-one

In the car, I finally blurted out what I had been thinking about and worrying about: What was going on with Mom?

“Why are you late? Why were you at the doctor's?” I asked.

She only smiled and said she had something exciting to share, but she wouldn't reveal it until dinner. I was happy to see she looked fine and she seemed more cheerful than she had in weeks.

Dinner was quick because we just picked up a pizza. At home, Mom set the table and I made a salad. I tore the lettuce, sprinkled in the carrots, and chopped some red peppers. Then I topped the whole thing with cranberries and pecans. An artful, professional job, I must say. Except that Mom kept dipping her hand into the big salad bowl and stealing the pecans.

“I just can't get enough pecans for some reason,” she said. “I've been craving them all week.”

My dad laughed out loud in response and I tried to figure out why that was funny. I've been hungry for certain foods before and no one found that hilarious. Around the table, I was only a bite into my pizza when she revealed the big news.

“Jemma, we are going to have a baby. I'm pregnant.”

My dad smiled at me and took Mom's hand. I stopped in mid-chew. This seemed impossible. When you're thirteen and you've been an only child for thirteen years, you kinda figure that's just how it's always going to be.

“I know. I know,” she said. “I'm shocked. Your father's shocked.”