Just Friends (7 page)

It’s a very small ponytail. More a My Little Pony tail. You’d think he’d be okay with that. “You had pink hair.”

“That was just a fad. He could live with a few streaks now and then.”

“Right. So that’s why he doesn’t like me? Because I tie my hair back? Is that a crime somewhere?” Thank God he hasn’t seen Josh when he holds it back with a hair band.

“No, of course not. It’s just, you know, odd. Kind of hippie.”

“Hippie? The Founding Fathers wore their hair tied back.” Though not with hair bands. “They weren’t hippies. You’ve never seen a picture of Jefferson in a tie-dyed T-shirt.”

She doesn’t laugh; maybe he’s stopped being funny. “Well, no…” She’s on her third sugar packet. “But also … you know … he noticed the yoga mat.”

“The yoga mat?” A right the Founding Fathers with their ponytails forgot to put in the Constitution. “What made him so sure it wasn’t a rifle?” You can bear arms but not yoga mats.

This time he does make her laugh again. “Because if it was a rifle my dad would’ve shot you out of that tree.”

Here’s a valuable piece of information that could come in very handy in future encounters with the General. Don’t do anything to provoke him.

“So what’s wrong with the yoga mat?”

“Nothing. Not really. I think it’s cool you do yoga. Totally. You’re the only guy I’ve ever known who does it.” Obviously, she’s never met Sting, rock legend and yogini. “Only, you know … my dad doesn’t think it’s very masculine. Not like qi gong or kung fu. He can tell you’re not military material.”

A man as perceptive as he is opinionated and large.

“You mean you’re only allowed to talk to trained killers? Isn’t that a little limiting?”

She tugs on her hair. “Oh, you know what I mean. The General thinks boys should be clean cut and play football and stuff like that. You’re a little—”

“Short?” guesses Josh. “Bent-nosed? Pointy-eared? Near-sighted?”

“Oh God…” Suddenly her laugh sounds like an itch. “I wasn’t being critical. I wish I’d never said anything.”

She isn’t the only one. If they keep this up the General isn’t going to be alone in thinking that Josh is substandard. Before he completely loses every drop of confidence he has, Josh volunteers to get their drinks. She wants a cappuccino and a banana-split brownie with two forks – they’re so good he just has to try it. He decides not to mention his lack of enthusiasm for both bananas and chocolate.

She stares at the tray as he sets it on the table. Curiously. As if she was expecting something else. “What’s that in your cup?”

“Tea. It’s the ancient drink of the Chinese, believed to have medicinal properties.”

“Wow.” He can’t tell if she’s impressed or simply astonished. “I didn’t even know they had tea here.” She peers into his cup as if it might be filled with grubs. She sniffs. “What kind of tea is that? It smells funny.”

“It’s green tea.” He hands Jena her cappuccino. “With jasmine.”

“Green tea? Really?” She couldn’t sound more astounded if he’d told her it was yak milk. “You don’t drink coffee?”

“It’s against my religion.”

“Really?”

“No. I just don’t like it.”

“See, that’s another thing the General would think is weird.”

Tea, yoga and enough hair to wrap an elastic band around. It’s amazing Josh’s mother lets him go out by himself.

“That I don’t drink coffee?” The General’s spectrum for normal behaviour is clearly a small one. “Is that what he thinks I am? Weird?”

She answers the question he didn’t ask. “But I don’t. I don’t know anybody like you.”

He thinks she means this in a good way. Hopes; hopes she means it in a good way. “That’s not the same as weird?”

“Of course not! It just means you’re different. You know, to the people I’m used to.” If her smile were an ocean he would definitely drown. He would probably drown if it were a puddle. “My dad has all these rules. Rules for every occasion. It’s like everything has to fit in a box. And I get it. I understand why.”

He doesn’t say,
Really? You do? Could you explain it to me?
He nods as if he gets it, too.

“But I think you’re kind of cool.”

“Only kind of?”

“Cool and funky.”

Funky is absolutely good. Bluesmen are supposed to be funky. And cool. Eat your heart out, General Capistrano. Go put that in a box.

He sits across from her, sipping his tea and wielding his fork, not worrying about what chocolate does to his skin or whether or not the eggs were free-range or came from chickens who lived short, miserable lives in tiny cages – which he would be if Carver were here. So this must be what it’s like to be an average teenager, hanging out in the trendy coffee bar eating cake sweet enough to make your teeth scream. Another song he doesn’t like and didn’t know he knew pops into his head: “If My Friends Could See Me Now”. Though not Carver; Carver would be in the kitchen, checking out the eggs.

Jena does most of the talking.

Josh is used to talking to the guys. Movies. Games. School. Funny stories. Music. TV shows. Bulletins on hunger. Families and extraterrestrials. How many species go extinct every day, how much plastic is in the oceans and the ethics of artificial intelligence (Carver); the difficulties of intergalactic colonization, conspiracy theories, arthouse vs Hollywood movies and whether or not Martin Scorsese is past it (Sal). None of them are really into cars or motorcycles, but they make up for that with conversations on bicycle maintenance and space travel. Indeed, if you don’t count Josh’s mother, Ramona is the only other female he’s ever conversed with regularly and at length – and Jena, of course, is nothing like Ramona. Ramona’s interests are eclectic, to say the least – ranging from the history of clothes and the development of music to
barro negro
pottery and
The Simpsons
. When they were up at the Minamotos’ cabin last summer, he and Ramona had a two-hour discussion one evening about anchorites. It was interesting at the time – she knew a lot more about them than he would have thought – but it wasn’t what most people would expect from a teenage girl. Jena, however, talks about regular, everyday things – movies and TV shows he’s never watched, bands and singers he’s never heard of, books he’ll never read – never once mentioning an obscure composer or the Coen brothers or the latest scientific report on the effects of habitat destruction. She does, like Ramona, mention the school play – but, unlike Ramona, she loves
Bye Bye Birdie
. Jena has to be the most normal person he knows. Which is something else he likes about her. Normal people don’t usually gravitate towards him. He doesn’t wonder why she does.

“You know, I’m really glad you climbed our tree,” says Jena over their second drink. “Or we might never have become friends.”

Friends. They’ve become friends. It wasn’t so hard after all.

“Me, too.” He’ll never say another bad thing about the Minamotos or their dog – not even if Georgia O’Keeffe bites him again.

“You’re easy to talk to. You know, for a boy.”

Josh laughs. “Right.” Like Jenevieve Capistrano has had no practice talking to boys. “Is that because I look more like an owl?”

“No, you idiot.” She flicks a brownie crumb at him. “It’s just – I don’t know, boys…” She shrugs. “It’s nice to just be friends with a guy, without wondering what his motives are. ’Cause there’s always something. You think you’re just watching a movie together and the next thing he’s sticking his tongue in your mouth.” From her expression you’d think her coffee was sour. “Or you send them a picture or tell them a secret and the next thing you know it’s all over the Internet. I mean, that never happened to me, but it’s happened to girls I know. It can be really creepy and gross. So it makes you cautious, you know? Only, I can tell you’re not like that.”

He couldn’t be, not even if he was really as devious as the Snake in the Garden. He doesn’t do social media.

“Not at all? Are you serious?”

“Absolutely.” And he paraphrases Emily Dickinson’s poem about not wanting to be public like a frog and admired by the bog. “Rititnitit.”

Her smile feels as if she’s squeezed his hand. “Wow. You are really different. Maybe that’s why talking to you is like talking to a girlfriend.”

Is that a compliment? It has to be a compliment. Maybe. He thinks of the popular boys at school, but can’t imagine anyone telling any of them that talking to him is like talking to a girl. Not without getting hit.

“You do know I’m not a cross-dresser, right?” Leaning forward with a mock-serious face. “There’ll be no borrowing my clothes or anything like that.”

Jena grins. “You see what I mean?”

No. He might as well be blindfolded with a bag over his head. “I’m not sure. Not a hundred per cent.”

“Well…” There is a thin moustache of foam over her upper lip. If it were on him he’d look like a clown; on her she just looks cuter. “I guess what I mean is because I know you’re not going to hit on me, I can just chill. You know, be myself.”

This is good. It has to be good. He doesn’t make her feel like a hunted animal. He doesn’t even have to ask himself how she knows this about him. It must be obvious. Which means that, on the other side of the coin, this isn’t good. He doesn’t stand the chance of an ice cube in a pizza oven with a girl like her. If he ever does get a girlfriend it will have to be someone who can’t get anyone else either.

“Me too.” He winks. “I know you won’t believe this, seeing as I’m so handsome, charming and sophisticated, but talking to girls isn’t really my area of expertise.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You seem to be doing okay to me.” She takes another sip of her coffee. “What about Ramona? I see you talking to her.”

“Minamoto?” As if the school is crammed to the roof with girls named Ramona. “Ramona and I are just friends.”

Her smile is a wink. “You mean, she’s like your guy buddies?”

“Except that she’s taller, wears dresses and is more discreet about farting, yeah.”

“She sure doesn’t look like a guy,” says Jena.

She
calls him the next morning. His mother is at the kitchen table, rewiring an old lamp she bought in the summer, so Josh and Charley Patton are sitting side by side at the breakfast bar, sharing a slice of toast. When the landline rings he is wiping blueberry jam from Charley Patton’s nose and doesn’t even look up since it can’t be for him. His friends only call him on his mobile.

His mother answers, thinking it’s for her. “Hello.” Her eyes dart to Josh. “Just a minute. He’s right here. I’ll get him.” She puts her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s for you.” She already has that mother’s what’s-going-on? look on her face. “It’s a girl.” Said with the same restrained surprise as if she’d announced
It’s the President
.

So it isn’t Mo. Not counting girls who ask him questions about the math homework (who would never think of calling him) and Aya and Hazel from the chess club (who would also call him on his mobile), Josh only knows one other girl who might possibly want to speak to him. But of course it can’t be her. There’s no way on this planet it could be her. It must be someone who wants to join the chess club and was given this number by the advisor. Nevertheless, he gets up so fast he nearly knocks Charley Patton off his stool.

“Hi!” says Jena. “It’s me. I hope you don’t mind. I got your number from Ramona.”

Of course she did. Why look it up when you can just walk across the street and ask Ramona?

“Oh, hi. No, that’s okay.” He turns his back on his mother. “What’s up?”

“Nothing really. I was just wondering if you’re doing anything tonight.”

As unlikely as it seems, she has to be talking to him. “Me?”

“It’s just that I have this DVD of some really old Hitchcocks. And you know, I was thinking maybe you’d want to watch them with me.”

Do birds sing?

“You said you like old movies, right?”

“I did say that. I do.”

“If you aren’t busy. But probably you already have plans. It’s pretty last-minute. Saturday night.”

Should he play it cool?

“Well … I don’t know… I’ll have to consult my calendar… Hmmm… Looks like you’re in luck, I think I can squeeze you in.”

“That’s great,” says Jena. “I’ll see you around seven? You remember where I live, right?”

“Sure,” says Josh. “The house with the tree.”

As soon as he hangs up, his mother says, “So who was that?”

There are many advantages to being an only child – privacy, no one with whom you have to share everything, no one who borrows your things all the time or bosses you around, no rivalry for affection – but there are times when Josh wouldn’t mind having a few siblings to distract his mother’s attention from him. And this, of course, is one of those times. If he had nine brothers and sisters the President really could call him and she wouldn’t notice.

He turns around. She’s smiling as though she asked an innocent question, but the screwdriver’s pointing at him like a finger.

“Nobody. Just a girl. From school.”

“And does this girl have a name?”

No.

“Yeah, sure she does. It’s Jena.”

“Jena Capistrano?” How does she know that? How can she know that? Josh stares at his mother as if she has just revealed herself as the ancient goddess Isis. Disguised as a mild-mannered school librarian… “The girl who just moved into the Featherlanes’ old house? Across from the Minamotos?”

He could have saved a lot of time by asking his mother to introduce him to Jena.

“Yeah. That’s her.”

“She’s cute.” Hannah smiles as if she’s trying not to laugh out loud. Smirking. That’s what she’s doing; his mother’s smirking at him.

“It’s nothing like that,” says Josh. “We’re just friends.”

“Jade says the father seems a little rigid and authoritarian.”

“He was in the army.”

“And the army’s still in him, according to Jade.” She puts down the screwdriver, ready to chat. “So what’s the daughter like? It can’t be easy for her, losing her mother like that. And I bet he’s not easy either – or used to being the go-to parent.” Is there anything this woman doesn’t know?

This time it’s his phone that rings. Thank God. He grabs it from the counter as if he’s snatching it from the path of an oncoming train, and turns his back on his mother again.