Virtually in Love

Chapter
One

“A
esop's, anyone?”

I glanced up at Kazuo Aratani's grinning face, which had just popped into view over the top edge of my music stand. As usual, his black hair was sticking up in random tufts, making him look like a Muppet with better cheekbones.

“Sure,” I said, already salivating at the thought of the amazingly greasy fries at our favorite diner. “We've got time before the S&D meeting. But give us a chance to put our instruments away first, okay?”

My other best friend, Vanessa Bennett, giggled from her seat across the way. “Seriously, Kaz,” she said. “Did you even take your trumpet apart, or did you just shove it into your backpack?”

I grinned as Kaz stuck out his tongue at her. Everyone says I'm pretty peppy, but when it comes to excess energy, I've got nothing on Kaz, the world's most hyper tenth grader. At least that's what our science teacher, Ms. Farley, always calls him.

Me? The teachers just call me Chloe Bell, Spaz Girl. Okay, kidding. Only a few of them actually call me that. The rest are probably thinking it, though. You crash into one little tower of donated food cans in the school lobby freshman year, and you're branded forever. For a while Vanessa called me the Tiny Tornado, but thankfully, that one didn't stick.

In any case, I figured the ten seconds or so since rehearsal had ended was plenty of time for Kaz to break down and put away his trumpet. And check his e-mail. And possibly cure cancer. You just never knew with Kaz.

“Okay, I'm ready. Let's eat,” Vanessa said. “We'll need extra energy to deal with the S&D kids, right?” She snapped her flute case shut, then stood up so fast, she almost knocked over her music stand. Kaz caught it just in time.

But not before our band director, Mr. Graves, noticed the commotion. He glanced at Van over the tops of his wire-rimmed glasses. Or, rather, his spectacles—that's what Vanessa calls them, since they're so old-fashioned and proper looking, just like Mr. Graves himself.

“Everything under control, Ms. Bennett?” Mr. Graves asked in his dry, dusty voice. He might be a pretty good music teacher—and a freakishly great tuba player for such a skinny guy—but he looks and acts more like a librarian from an old movie.

“Fine, yeah,” Vanessa said, blushing bright pink. Van is an open book. Every emotion she feels is painted right there on her pale cheeks and reflected in her big blue eyes. She's also crazy shy—always has been. I don't get that. She's smart and sweet and artsy and talented, not to mention beautiful—tall and willowy, with wavy blond hair that always behaves itself, unlike my own unruly mop of brown curls. But no matter how many times I point out her perfection, she just waves her hand and changes the subject.

Mr. Graves swept his cool grayish-blue eyes over the three of us. We smiled innocently back at him. Finally he turned away with a soft
harrumph
, returning to shuffling through his stack of sheet music.

“Okay, hurry up.” Kaz started dancing from one foot to the other, his battered canvas shoes squeaking on the linoleum. “I'm starving to death.”

“Yeah, right.” I carefully tucked my mouthpiece into its velvet slot in my clarinet case. Spaz or not, I'm always careful with my instrument. “Mr. Graves might not have seen you scarfing those Cheez Doodles during the movie medley, but I did.”

“Seriously.” Vanessa glanced up and down Kaz's lean form. “I don't know how you eat so much and stay so skinny, Kaz.”

“Look who's talking, skinny girl,” Kaz shot back with a laugh.

I didn't hear whatever Van said next, because just then my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I'd turned the sound off during band practice, which meant no hints from the ringtone—I have a different one programmed for just about everyone I know.

When I pulled out my phone, I smiled at the name on the screen. “Hang on,” I told my friends. “I just got a text from Trevor.”

“Uh-oh, it's Chloe's almost-boyfriend.” Vanessa rolled her eyes dramatically. “Hope you're not really starving to death, Kaz. Because this might take a while.”

“I still don't think this Trevor dude is even real,” Kaz commented. “I mean, we've never seen him in person, right? Maybe it's like one of those romantic-comedy movie situations where she's trying to act all cool by sending lovey-dovey texts to herself from some alleged out-of-state dream guy, or . . .”

I didn't hear the rest. My attention was on the tiny screen of my phone.

Hey, Chloe, what's up?

Okay, it wasn't exactly a Shakespearean sonnet. But that was okay with me. Trevor and I were way past the point of needing to impress each other with clever texts. My thumbs flew over the touch screen as I responded.

Hi! Just finished after-school band practice. How was your day?

Vanessa peered over my shoulder. “Just send a few kissy lips and heart emojis already and let's go, okay?”

“Hang on.” I waved her away, my eyes trained on the phone as I waited for a response to pop up. Moments later it did.

Good. Just wanted to check in before rehearsal. Might be late since we need to figure out what to do about our drummer situation.

I nodded. Trevor is in a band—not a concert-and-marching high school band like mine, but a supercool indie rock band he started himself. It's called Of Note. Clever, right? There are five members—or at least there were until a couple of weeks ago, when the drummer's family moved back to Puerto Rico.

Cool,
I typed back.
Have fun, and text me later!

Def. Bc I might have something big to tell u. More later maybe.

What do u mean? Something big like what?

LOL, be patient, impatient girl! Don't want to tell u until I'm sure it's happening. Gtg. Catch u later.

I sighed with frustration and smiled at the same time. Trevor knew me so well! He was probably cracking himself up, knowing I was already going crazy wondering what his big news might be. Meanwhile, he was probably just going to tell me he'd bought some new guitar strings or something.

Then again maybe not. He'd said he wanted to wait until he was sure it was happening. Could there really be any doubt about new guitar strings? Maybe he really did have big news. But what? My thumbs hovered over the keypad, tempted to demand more right then and there.

But I knew better. I'm pretty good at wheedling what I want out of people, but Trevor is no pushover. Besides, he always turns his phone off when the band is rehearsing. Which meant I could send him the most charming and persuasive text in the world, and he still wouldn't see it until later. I'd just have to wait and wonder.

Okay, have a great practice
, I typed, then turned off my phone and tucked it away.

Only then did I look up at my friends. Most of the other band members had left by then, and Mr. Graves was carefully sliding some papers into his battered briefcase as he prepared to leave too. Kaz was tapping his foot and watching me. Vanessa was scrolling through messages on her own phone.

“So, what's up with Mr. Wonderful today?” Kaz asked. “Did the Rolling Stones beg him to join yet?”

“Get real. Like he'd really want to jam with those old geezers.” I smirked, knowing that would bug Kaz. He loves classic rock—the older and moldier, the better. Then again he also loves bluegrass, Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and hardcore punk. That's Kaz for you. He's interested in everything, even stuff nobody else cares about. It's one of my favorite things about him, even if it means I have to put up with his creaky old music sometimes.

Vanessa looked up from her phone. “Oh good, you're finally done. Can we go already?”

So we did. I quickly finished packing up my clarinet, and soon the three of us were in the quiet hallway, which as usual smelled like a combination of bleach and dirty sweat socks. Just one of the joys of a school where the gym and the music wing are right next to each other.

Kaz was whistling as he walked, juggling two instrument cases along with his overstuffed backpack. He plays three instruments in the band—trumpet, oboe, and clarinet. But there are plenty of other good clarinet players, including yours truly, so he doesn't even bring his clarinet with him much anymore. He'd started out as first chair clarinet in the elementary school orchestra, and I'd been second chair. But we'd goofed around so much that the music teacher ended up separating us by introducing Kaz to the oboe. It's similar to the clarinet but much harder to play, so she probably figured it would keep him busy enough to stay out of trouble. Little did she expect him to master it in about a week and a half—okay, I'm exaggerating, but only a little!—and start using it to make fart sounds during the slow parts of songs.

Anyway, in fourth grade Kaz went through a brief phase where he got all self-conscious about hanging out mostly with girls—that would be me and Vanessa, who'd joined our little nerd clique when her family moved to town in second grade—and took up the trumpet. He'd been switching around ever since.

“So, what did Trevor want?” Vanessa asked.

“He was just checking in.” Thinking about Trevor made me smile, as always. “He's off to rehearse with his band.”

Kaz stopped whistling. “Let me guess. They're going to perform variations on that lame pop song you like so much.”

“You mean the
totally awesome
song ‘True Romance' by the Sly Guys?” I said. “Possibly. Of Note already covers it, and their version is even more amazing than the original.”

Vanessa giggled as Kaz let out a snort. “Come on, Kaz,” she said. “You have to admit, it's a pretty catchy song.”

“I suppose it's okay musically, if a bit derivative.” Kaz swung his oboe case back and forth. “But the lyrics? Lame and full of clichés.”

“If you say so.” I checked my watch. “Come on. Let's hurry. We don't have that much time before the meeting.”

•  •  •

Aesop's Diner doesn't look like much from the outside. Actually, it doesn't look like much from the inside, either. The floor is dingy, the seats battered, and the lighting bad. But the place has the most extensive menu I've ever seen, and almost everything on it is good.

“Who wants to go first?” Kaz asked as he slid into our favorite booth, sitting across from me and Vanessa.

I reached for the stack of menus the waitress had dropped on the table before she'd hurried off. “Me!” I sang out. “Here goes . . .”

The menu is enormous, like I said, but whoever designed it apparently didn't believe in wasting paper. So the print is tiny, cramming hundreds of choices onto just two large, laminated pages. Kaz opened one of the menus flat in front of me and then started slowly spinning it around on the table. Closing my eyes, I waited a moment. Then I stabbed downward with my finger.

When I opened my eyes, Vanessa was leaning forward to see where my finger had landed. “Lemon meringue pie,” she read.