However, these are teachers. They are used to filling an hour-and-fifteen-minute class period with musings on the subject of light and dark imagery in Hamlet, causes of the French revolution or emulsions. They tend to ramble
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on. And Parents' Day is not like the Academy Awards. No music comes on to tell the long-winded it's time to shut up.
So the senior-his name was Sky Whipple, but everyone called him the Whipper-he had this idea to make odds on how long the teachers would talk. You could place a bet, a real money bet, on a particular department head. Depending on general tendencies to blather, the activities of the department and placement in the evening's program, the Whipper gave you odds. A long-winded teacher, early in the night, whose department had undergone radical changes? He'd be the favorite, paying out maybe two dollars for a dollar bet. A shy teacher speaking last might earn you fifteen bucks on the dollar as a long shot.
Jackson explained that he was taking bets and wanted a central yet unobtrusive location where people could find him before school. Could he hang for a couple of mornings at the Baby CHuBS recruiting table? Then, on Parents' Day night, after the speeches, he could sit at the bake sale table and pay out to the winning bettors as if he were innocently making change.
"What's in it for us?" asked Meghan.
Jackson shrugged. "If you're trying to get guys to sign up, maybe me sitting here would help? You've got a very girly operation, otherwise."
That was true. "You'd add manliness to the bake sale," Meghan said.
Jackson laughed. "Exactly."
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My heart was pounding, like it always did when Jackson was around.
Was he flirting with me?
Was he talking to me to get back at Kim for something? Was he trying to be friends?
"If you're going to sit here, you have to talk to everyone who comes by about how cool Baby CHuBS is going to be and how we're going to raise all this money for Happy Paws," Meghan was saying. "You have to encourage people to sign up."
"I could do that."
"Guys. Get the guys to sign up," she clarified. "Can I get a commission?" Jackson asked. "What do you mean?"
"Like, for every guy I rope in, you give me a free cookie?"
"No way," Meghan said. "It's us doing you a favor. And after what you did to Roo last year, you should count yourself lucky we're willing to help you out at all."
Jackson blushed. "Point taken," he said. Then he nudged me with his elbow. "I'm older and wiser now," he told me. "So can I sit at your table?"
My face was hot. I nodded.
"Okay, we have a deal. I can give you a tip: Ms. Harada is a long shot with a good chance this year. Wants support for her art and wilderness program." Jackson popped the last of his second magic cookie into his mouth.
As he chewed I looked at him hard. If I was over him, why couldn't I concentrate whenever he was around?
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Why did it hurt so much when he flirted with me?
Or when he flirted with Meghan?
Why did I feel guilty for just talking to him, as if I was betraying Kim, who didn't even like me anymore?
He was chewing, and digging in his backpack to find his pen, and I wished on the magic cookie.
I wished for everything to be easy between us.
To feel relaxed around him.
For all the leftover pain to disappear.
Bad move.
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12.
I Embark on a Doughnut Enterprise
Roo,
It's been more than a week since Crystal Mountain, and still, Noboyfriend.
Should I ask him out? Maybe to go watch the boys' lacrosse game? Circle one: Yes or No.
You will notice I am writing you a middle school-type questionnaire note. I guess I'm desperate.
Say you'll still be my friend despite this failing. Nora
--crumpled in a small ball and passed to me during Am Lit while Wallace was trying (and failing) to make his laptop show us a PowerPoint slide show.
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R: Of course I am still your friend.
N: You didn't circle Yes or No!
R: This is 21st century. Hello? So Yes.
N: But I asked him skiing already.
R: Not the same thing. That was a group event.
N: You're right. I'm going to ask him. I have liked him for way too long to wait anymore.
R: Yay.
N: What if he says no?
R: Don't angst. He will say yes. You are gorgeous. And he already loves your cinnamon buns.
N: Cinnamon buns not enough.
R: Plus you like to watch sports on TV. You are every guy's dream.
N: What if he's busy? Then I won't know whether he wanted to say yes or no.
R: At least you will have asked.
N: Gideon was flirting with you the other night.
R: A little, maybe. He is out of my league.
N: Not.
R: Yah. It was just a mercy flirt.
N: If you get together with Gideon, and I get Noel, we can all hang out together.
R: I'll just hold my breath for that one.
N: We'd be like sisters! R: You know I only date pod-robots.
Of course, most of what I wrote was a lie. Well, not precisely a lie, because I do think girls should ask boys out and I do think Nora is gorgeous and any guy
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would be lucky to have her, but what I wanted to write was "Can't you just move on and like somebody else instead of fixating on Noel, especially when you are a nicer person than I am with better hair and way bigger boobs? Because even though I ate dumplings with Gideon, and even though I wished his leg to press against mine, if Noel starts liking you back, I might die of sorrow."
But I didn't write any of that. I wrote what I wrote.
Because I loved Nora.
And I wanted to her to be happy.
And I had been flirting with Gideon, and it was so nice of her to want me to go out with her brother. It was ridiculous and wrong for me to act like I had the slightest claim on Noel.
But was it so bad to want Nora to be happy with someone else? Some nice basketball muffin, or a student government type?
And why was it that I had to lie to my friend in order to do the right thing by her? In order to be a good person, I had to pretend I didn't feel the way I felt.
Was that what good people did? Denied their feelings and acted fake?
Nora didn't ask Noel out that day anyway. Or the day after that. She kept saying "Today is the day," but the boys' lacrosse game came and went without her asking him. So much for the Imitate Nora Van Deusen Program for a Happier Mocha Latte.
"If you ask Noel to Spring Fling, I'll ask a sophomore," Meghan said to Nora at lunch Friday.
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"Spring Fling again?" I said. "Meghan, it's not even Valentine's Day."
"Which sophomore?" Nora asked.
"I don't know," said Meghan. "Which do you think?"
"If you don't know, it doesn't matter to you like it matters to me," said Nora. "It's not a fair trade."
Meghan laughed and ate her taco.
Nora didn't ask Noel out.
***
Thursday night was my night to cook for the Baby CHuBS recruiting table. And yes, I decided to make doughnuts. Call me pathetic, I won't deny it. Jackson had implied he doubted my baking abilities, and now I was going to make doughnuts. Just to show him I could.
I got a recipe off the Internet, rode my bike to the corner store for ingredients and started mixing dough. I expected Mom to throw a fit about deep-frying activities in her raw-food kitchen, but she just said, "I have to go over to Juana's for a bit now."