What Are Friends For? (3 page)

My best friend?

“Cornelia Jane Hurley,” Mrs. Shepard called.

I knew better than to look at her, poor CJ. I kept my eyes on my desk and willed her the strength to get up there and do her report. Nothing happened, nobody moved. I reread Morgan’s note and wondered what
URGENT
thing Morgan might have to tell me, and hoped it wouldn’t be more nasty things about poor boy-crazy, tongue-tied CJ.

CJ still hadn’t budged. I quickly wrote back to Morgan,
Want to come over after school today?
and flipped the note back to her.

Finally, CJ passed me, walking slowly, but of course gracefully, toward the front of the class. It was clear she was terrified. I don’t know what it is that scares CJ so much about talking in public. It’s ironic because she performs in ballets in front of hundreds, but getting up in front of nineteen kids she’s known her whole life is torture.

While CJ presented the contents of her bag—basically one ballet prop after another—I imagined what I would do with Morgan after school.

My best friend
.

We have a pool table, but Morgan can’t play and I think doesn’t like to. We have plenty of board games, but it seems to me that it is suddenly not the thing anymore to play games. Over the summer, everybody grew out of being a kid, everybody except me, and now they’re no longer interested in anything but bodies and boys. My brother is a year older than I am, so I’ve always watched what he does to see what I’d be doing the next year—like I knew in second grade that I’d get to play violin in third grade, and then that year I found out I’d start team sports the year after—but Dex is still playing board games with his friends, and sports, and pool; not talking about the opposite sex all the time, at least that I’ve heard, and not saying all the time,
I’m so ugly
, or
I’m so stupid
, or, my least favorite,
Who do you like?

It’s not that I want desperately to be popular or anything. In fact I usually prefer to be alone, but I know that it’s important to have friends and for the past week I’ve been feeling very clumsy in that way. I was actually planning to go to the library after school and try to find a book on seventh-grade girls.

I could tell Morgan I like Lou. She’s very big on the
Who do you like
question, and until now, I’ve always just said,
I don’t like any of the boys much at all,
because I don’t, or didn’t. I always tell the truth, it’s a vow I’ve made to myself. If Morgan asks me that question today, though, I’ll have to answer that I might actually like Lou Hochstetter. For the first time, I can see how that’s an interesting question to turn over and over in your mind.
Do I like him? Does he like me?
I could spend some time on that.
What if he likes me, too?
Lou Hochstetter and Olivia Pogostin. They sound good together, actually.

Those thoughts made me jittery. CJ finished her presentation, which was very boring, but Zoe the Grand One (I have nothing against her; I just like that) applauded. People looked back at her, surprised.

As Zoe applauded, I wondered again what the
URGENT
thing was that Morgan wanted to tell me, and then, I realized—Morgan likes Lou, too.

Of course. She did pass me the note after Lou’s presentation. Obviously his vulnerability up there with his World War Two paraphernalia had touched Morgan just as it had touched me. How could I not have realized? It was so obvious. My heart was thumping.

As CJ took her seat, I turned to look at Morgan. Morgan’s head was ducked down almost to her desk. Lou sits behind her, and since Lou is very tall, I saw his face instead. We made eye contact. He tilted his head a little to the side, so his shaggy brown hair swung down into his eyes. I smiled a little. He began to smile, too, and the silver of his braces peeked out from between his lips. I blinked, then glanced at Morgan.

Caught.

Morgan’s eyes had tears in them. Obviously she’d seen me staring at Lou, smiling at him, flirting, if I’m honest. That’s what I was doing, I have to admit; I was flirting. A flirty girl. That’s who I’d suddenly become, of all things, exactly the opposite of how I’d always thought of myself, exactly what I’ve always sworn I’d never be. Nobody ever wanted me for a best friend before. Morgan suddenly did, which was odd enough, and then practically confided that she liked Lou—now here I was, betraying her already.

Morgan stood up abruptly, banging her knees into her desk, which tilted forward onto my chair. I caught it before it fell over and dumped her stuff. She was clutching her crumpled Sack and asking Mrs. Shepard if she could go to the bathroom. Before Mrs. Shepard could finish reminding her to leave her Bring Yourself in a Sack project, Morgan was out the door, her Sack still in her fist.

“Zoe Grandon, you’re next,” Mrs. Shepard said, but I raised my hand before Zoe had a chance to stand up.

“Yes, Olivia?” Mrs. Shepard asked me.

“May I go to the bathroom, too?” I asked.

“When Morgan returns,” she answered, and turned to raise one eyebrow at Zoe, who was clattering around at her desk.

“I wanted to, um, see if Morgan needs help,” I said in as confident a voice as I could manage.

“Doe she have an injury?”

I thought about it.
An injury?
“Not exactly,” I answered.

“Well, then.”

I sunk low in my seat as Zoe walked toward the front. I closed my eyes. Five minutes into adolescence and I’d already fallen in love, gotten a best friend, betrayed her, and lost her. If things continue at this pace, I’ll be dead by tomorrow.

five

A
t the end of Zoe’s very funny
and creative presentation, Morgan returned to class. Her eyes were red and her jaw was clenched, but she stood straight and crossed the room with those long steps she always uses. I tried to catch her eye, but she wouldn’t look at me.

When Morgan’s name was called next, to give her report, she dropped the note on my desk as she passed. She had written, under my invitation to come over after school,
Yes
. I was so surprised I had to reread it a number of times. It kept saying
Yes
, and I kept being surprised.

Morgan’s stuff was different from mine and most people’s—instead of souvenirs from vacations or tokens of her interests, Morgan’s Sack was full of her personality: a box of red-hots represented her sweet tooth; one of her baby teeth was there to symbolize the babyish parts of herself, parts that she’s done with. The last item was the best, in my opinion. It was the bag itself, once it was emptied, as a representation of the parts of herself that she hasn’t yet created.

I turned quickly to look at Mrs. Shepard. She looked blown away. She even complimented Morgan.

I never realized Morgan was so deep.

We didn’t talk after class or on the way to gym, and she didn’t drag me by the elbow, which I realized I had already gotten used to. We were in different groups for gym, so after school at the lockers was the first time we were pretty much forced to deal with each other since the Lou thing.

“You ready?” Morgan asked, slamming her locker shut.

“I walk home,” I said, unsure if she already knew that.

“I have my bike,” she said, starting to walk toward the front entrance of school. “I’ll ride you.”

As I was hurrying to catch up with Morgan, Lou Hochstetter slammed into her. He’d been running toward the front door from the band room with his trombone case held in front of him like a shield. “Oof,” he said, tripping but continuing toward the door.

“Watch where you’re going!” Morgan grumbled. She turned around to me, shaking her head and smiling a little. I smiled back. She slowed down, and when I caught up with her, she whispered, “His presentation today, didn’t that kill you?”

I nodded. We nodded together, holding each other’s eyes, and Morgan covered her heart with one hand, the way CJ and her mother do sometimes. She leaned even closer to me, until her forehead tapped mine.

“Ouch,” I said, and she said
ouch
at the same exact time. Then I lifted my hand to rub the spot that had clonked against her, although it didn’t actually hurt, and she was doing the same exact thing. We smiled at each other and started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Roxanne Luse asked, angrily, from across the lobby.

I was about to assure Roxanne that we weren’t laughing at her, when Morgan said, “Nothing,” and grabbed me by the elbow to drag me outside.

“Your face is funny,” Roxanne called after us, which made both Morgan and me laugh. Morgan used to laugh that way with CJ, bending over each other, in on the same joke that nobody else in the room picked up. I’m not usually much of a laugher, but I was practically choking, doubled over there in front of school.

When Morgan gasped, “Do you think she meant my face or your face?” a snort came out of my nose, which knocked Morgan over onto her knees, and I fell down laughing right beside her.

“You OK?” asked my brother, Dex, who was suddenly standing above me. When I looked up into his concerned face, it convulsed me with hysterical laughs all over again. Morgan, too. Dex just stood there, waiting for us to collect ourselves. Dex is used to girls falling all over themselves giggling in front of him; he’s learned to be patient about it.

Dex is very good-looking. We don’t talk about it much because physical appearance is not what matters, my parents both say, but I know people can’t help staring at my brother. One time this past summer, when we were waiting in line for the movies, a woman in pink pants and a hair scarf was staring and staring at us, which we ignored—we’re multiracial and Boggs is very white, so sometimes ignorant people are rude—until she finally met up with us at the refreshment counter and said to my mother, “Your son is stunning.”

My mother smiled slightly and answered, “I have two beautiful children.”

“Of course, of course,” the lady said, shuffling away with her box of Dots gripped tightly in her meaty hand.

It’s not the first time something like that has happened. Dex has big brown eyes with thick, long eyelashes, a small, straight nose just like my mother’s, curvy brownish lips like my dad’s, and a slow smile that shows mostly his bottom teeth. He’s on the tall side, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, and he wears his hair really short. His skin, like mine, is the color of tea with milk, a combination of Mom’s half-Filipina khaki and Dad’s half-African-American brown. I know I’m not repulsive-looking—I’m sort of cute, actually—but my looks aren’t especially remarkable except maybe for being small for my age, and light brown. People stare at Dex.

As Morgan and I sat there on the pavement catching our breath, Dex asked, “Where’s your other half, Morgan?”

“It’s Monday,” I reminded him. “CJ has dance.” Dex always makes fun of CJ when we go away, our two families—
Where’s your other half, CJ?

“She always has dance,” Morgan added. “We barely see her. So I don’t know what you mean, other half.”

“No offense intended,” Dex said. “Sorry.”

“Can we go?” Dex’s friend Andrew asked him.

“Yeah,” Dex said, but instead of leaving asked me, “How was the Sack project, Oblivia?”

“Fine,” I said. That’s what he calls me, Oblivia. He thinks I’m oblivious to social situations, just because I’d rather read than hang out.

“Did Shep like the soccer ball earrings?” Dex asked me. He’d helped me plan the Bring Yourself in a Sack project over the weekend and let me practice presenting it a few times to him. I’m his favorite person in the world, he always tells people. The soccer ball earrings were his idea.

“I guess so,” I said. He’s the only one who calls Mrs. Shepard Shep. I noticed Morgan tilting her head when he said that. “Morgan’s was really good,” I told Dex.

Morgan pulled her knees in to her chest and said, “Mine was stupid.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I said.

She glared at me, then ducked her head down to her knees and looked up at Dex through her bangs.

“How stupid?” Dex asked her.

“Totally embarrassing. I hate stuff like that, being on display.”

“I know it,” Dex said, poking the crew-cut, muscular boy next to him. “Last year, Travis brought ten pictures of himself. Shep tore him apart for it.”

“Don’t remind me,” groaned Travis.

Morgan nodded. “That’s like Lou Hochstetter. Shep ate him for lunch.”

“The kid whose mother is running for mayor?” asked the other boy with Dex, a skinny blond-haired guy named Andrew. “My mother is working on the campaign,” Andrew explained, kicking a stone.

“Yeah,” Morgan mumbled. “His project was really boring. Ten World War Two toys.”

Andrew smiled. “I remember him. Wasn’t he on TV or something?”

“It wasn’t boring,” I said. My voice sounded a little screechy. I retied my sneaker, thinking maybe I should sign up to work on Lou’s mother’s campaign, too. When I looked up, Dex and his two friends were grinning at each other, raising their eyebrows. “What?”

“Sounds like love!” Travis taunted. His mother died three years ago, so now he lives with his father and two older brothers and one younger sister, who wears about twenty barrettes all over her hair every day. Dex says you have to make allowances for Travis because with what he’s been through, anybody might get in fistfights. I feel bad for him but still he’s obnoxious. He was making kissy faces at me, saying “Lou and Olivia sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”

“Shut up, Travis,” I said, standing up and dusting myself off.

“Don’t be ashamed,” Travis taunted.

“I’m not,” I told him, my voice shaking just when I needed and expected it to sound strong and certain.

Andrew pushed his glasses higher on his nose and said, “If you like him . . .”

“If I liked him, I’d say so,” I interrupted. “I just said his project was good. What I meant by that was, his project was good.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Travis said knowingly. “First comes love . . .”

Dex caught Travis in a headlock and told him, “You don’t know my sister. If Oblivia liked a boy, she’d march right over and ask him out. Trust me, she would. Right, Oblivia?”