Populazzi (6 page)

"For you. I made them myself."

Archer slowly pried off the top. "Is this a fast-acting poison, or will my death be lingering and painful?"

"Lingering and painful, for sure."

He peered into the box, which I'd lined with wax paper and filled with one of my favorite delicacies.

"Is that peanut butter and ... cream cheese?" Archer winced.

"Spread on green apple slices, then rolled in Cap'n Crunch cereal. Try one!"

He looked like he'd rather eat mud, but he lifted one of the apples to his face, cringing away from it until he closed his eyes and forced himself to bite.

He didn't want to admit it, but I could see he was hooked. He even took another bite.

"See!" I crowed. "I know what I'm doing. Two weeks, tops, and you'll be
begging
to dip your fries in my shake."

"You think?"

It took me a second before I realized I'd done it again. My mouth seriously needed a chaperone.

After school I assumed we'd head to the mall, but Archer had a different idea. "Ping-Pong," he said. "What are your thoughts on Ping-Pong?"

"As a general rule, or are we talking about something specific?"

"Do you play?"

I laughed. I may have even cackled. "'Play' is far too friendly a word for what I do at Ping-Pong. We had a table in our basement in Yardley. I am an unstoppable Ping-Pong machine."

"That is a stunning coincidence," Archer said, "because
I
am an unstoppable Ping-Pong machine. Which means one of us is going to be in for a very rude awakening this afternoon."

"You know where there's a table?" I asked.

"My house. Follow me there?"

Follow him to his house? His
house?
Wasn't this a step beyond meeting at the mall? Was Archer trying to tell me something? There was mischief in his eyes, but that could just have been his wild misconception that he could possibly beat me at my ultimate sport of choice.

I met his gaze. "You're on."

It killed me that I couldn't talk to Claudia while I drove, but I had to follow Archer closely to find his place. After about ten minutes, he pulled into the driveway of a cute brown townhouse in a row of other identically cute brown townhouses.

"Ready to meet your destruction?" he asked, opening my car door.

"I'm assuming you were asking that of your own reflection."

Despite its cookie-cutter exterior, the inside of the house was vibrant and alive, its décor a wild mix of colors and textures. A large gold statue of a many-armed woman sat in a corner, tapestries and framed canvases draped the walls, and a host of curiosities fought for space on every horizontal surface.

"It's a little messy," Archer apologized.

"No, it's beautiful!" I crossed to a quilted and beaded art piece that looked like an umbrella, but there was no way you'd ever take it out in the rain. I ran my hand over its soft golden tassels. "I love this."

"Really?" a woman's voice called from the kitchen. "I'm so glad! I got it on my last trip to see my mother in India and had to fight Lila tooth and nail to stop her from taking it back to school with her."

The woman was a little shorter than me, with thick, straight black hair that fell all the way to her rear end. She wore jeans and a white cotton shirt with a bit of embroidery at the collar. It was simple, but on her it looked lovely and breezy. She wore no makeup, but her smile and eyes sparkled as if she found the whole world endlessly amusing.

"I'm Bina, Archer's mom," she said in her slight British lilt. "You must be Cara. I can't even tell you how happy I am to meet you; we've heard so much about you!"

"You have?" I asked.

"Of course! Come." Bina took my arm. "If you like the umbrella, you'll love this tapestry—it's from the same artisan. And these little dolls were made for Archer's father, Edward, by
his
grandfather, back in the Philippines."

"Mom, Cara and I were actually going to go down to play Ping-Pong..."

"Of course! Of course! Go. I'll bring you some tea. Cara, do you drink Indian tea?"

"I don't know," I said. "I've never had it."

"You'll like it," Bina assured me. "If you don't, I'm sure Archer will drink it. I'll get the phone, too, so you can ring your parents and tell them you're here. Unless you've already called..."

I could've lied and said I had, but I already liked Bina too much to do that. Truthfully, though, I hadn't intended to call my parents at all. As long as I was home by dinnertime, Mom and Karl knew I was okay and staying out of trouble. But Bina wanted me to call, so...

"Hello?" my mom answered.

"Hi, Mom! It's me. I just wanted you to know I'm at my friend Archer's house—"

"Is everything okay?" Mom knew this wasn't our usual MO.

"It's fine. Bina—Archer's mom—just wanted to make sure you knew I was here."

"She did?" Mom sounded both surprised and intrigued by this idea. "Put her on for me, please."

"Really?"

"Yes! If she's looking out for my daughter, the least I can do is say hello."

"Hello" would be fine, but I had a feeling Mom would say something far more mortifying than that. It was my own fault. I should've lied.

I handed the phone to Bina. "She'd like to talk to you."

Bina beamed and slipped back to the kitchen, but we could still hear every word. "Hello! It's so good to speak with you! Your daughter is just darling..."

I shot Archer a pained look.

"Ping-Pong?" he asked.

"Immediately."

"Your mom's probably smart to check up on me," Archer said as we trotted down to the basement. "My reputation precedes me. Especially when I have a paddle in my hand."

"Bring it."

Archer hadn't been lying about his Ping-Pong skills. He was good...
almost
as good as me and just as fiercely competitive. We played for two hours straight, pushing each other with endless volleys that had us both running around the room, sweating and panting and gasping until I finally squeezed out match point on our tie-breaking third game in a row.

"You're a worthy foe, Cara Leonard," Archer said. He took my hand for a postgame shake.

"As are you, Archer Jain."

The shake was done. This would be the part where we'd let go of each other's hands.

But we didn't.

At least Archer didn't, and I wasn't going to pull away before he did.

Archer was only an inch or two taller than me, but his hand was much larger. It cradled mine. His palm felt soft against my skin.

My heart started to speed, and I hoped he couldn't feel it in my pulse. I was grateful we'd just played Ping-Pong, so my palms had a legitimate reason to be sweaty.

I smiled, but Archer didn't do the same. He looked serious. He looked ... nervous?

Was he getting ready to kiss me? What if my breath was horrible? What had I eaten for lunch? Oh God—pork rolls with mustard. So not okay. But that was hours ago. Didn't food-breath neutralize itself after a certain period of time? And what about my lips? I hadn't put on gloss since before school ended; what if they were too dry? I could purse them to check, but then Archer might guess what I was thinking. And if he did kiss me, what would I do with my tongue? I couldn't just shove it in his mouth, but if I kept it in my own, would he think I was a prude? Would he be able to tell I didn't know what I was doing?

I wished I had a mint.

I suddenly had to pee.

Really badly.

I considered ignoring it, but then I had a horrible image of me bouncing around to hold it in while Archer tried to kiss me.

This sucked.

I looked into Archer's eyes, filled with ... longing? Desire?

"I'll be right back," I said.

Afterward, I desperately hoped we could pick up where we left off, but the mood was broken. Archer was back on his side of the Ping-Pong table, counting how many times he could bounce the ball on his paddle.

I had never in my life been so filled with self-loathing.

"It's six," I said, glancing at my watch. "I should go."

"Okay," he said.

That was it. "Okay." Clearly, any romantic feelings he might have had for me were wiped out forever. Stupid bladder.

Archer walked me to my car and held the door as I got in. "Think maybe you could come back tomorrow?" he asked. "We were really close ... I'd love another chance."

For a split second I stopped breathing. His voice sounded casual, like he was talking about Ping-Pong, but what if he wasn't?

"I'd like that," I said.

I called Claudia the second I was out of eyeshot.

"He was going to kiss you and you stopped to
pee?
" Claudia shouted.

"What was I supposed to do?"

"I don't know ... hold it in?"

"Like in kindergarten?"

As always, The Incident required a moment of respectful silence.

"Your bladder seriously has it out for you, Cara."

"I know! I totally ruined everything."

"You didn't," Claudia said. "He asked you to come back tomorrow."

"To give him another chance, he said."

"Exactly. Breath mints and lip gloss. And nothing to drink after lunch."

"You really think he's going to try again?"

"He definitely will," Claudia said. "But if he doesn't,
do not
kiss him."

"If he doesn't, I'll assume it's because he's mortified. There's no way I'd try to kiss him."

"I'm sure he's not mortified. But he
would
be if you made the first move. It freaks guys out. People pretend that's not true, but it is—I know from my Ladder research. Even if it takes him a while before he tries again, you have to be patient."

"Okay. I can totally be patient."

"Didn't I tell you, Cara? This will be the year everything changes."

It was the same thing she'd said a couple weeks ago ... except this time I believed her.

I learned something about myself over the next few weeks.

I am not a patient person.

It was crazy because, seriously, I was still only just getting to know Archer. But once you're sure something good is going to happen, you want it to happen
now.
It's why waiting for chocolate chip cookies to cool is so brutally painful—and probably why I prefer eating the raw dough.

That next day, despite everything, I was positive Archer would kiss me. He had asked for another chance, right? Of course he was going to kiss me. I wore a cute outfit and armed myself with mass quantities of meltaway breath strips and pomegranate lip balm. I was so excited, I couldn't trust myself to speak to him at school. I said the bare minimum so he wouldn't think anything was up.

That afternoon I followed him home. I knew the way now, so I could stay a few cars back and talk to Claudia. She was sure he'd kiss me, too, but she reminded me to be patient if he didn't. Specifically she reminded me "how poor are they that have not patience." I figured it was Shakespeare, since she pronounced it "pay-shee-ence" so it would scan.

Bina met us at the door with two mugs of Indian tea. It smelled delicious, but there was no chance I was drinking any. I pretended to take a few sips so I wouldn't hurt her feelings.

"Come on," Archer said. "I have a surprise for you."

There was something wicked in his voice. I followed Archer downstairs. Before I'd reached the last step, he leaned in close to my ear and said, "Close your eyes."

My heart started thumping so hard it hurt. Archer took my hand and gently led me down, then a few more steps forward. He gave my hand a little squeeze. It was coming now. The anticipation was brutal. I leaned toward him just a bit, my lips seeking his...

"Behold the Wall of Degradation!" Archer declared.

Huh?

"Open your eyes," he said.

I did. Archer was standing in front of a huge yellow poster board he'd mounted on the wall by the Ping-Pong table. It was indeed labeled
THE WALL OF DEGRADATION
, and was split into two columns:
ARCHER
and
CARA
. My name had two hash marks under it; his had one: our games from the day before. A circle of Velcro held a pen to the sign.

"At the moment it's the wall of
my
degradation," Archer said, "but you see there's plenty of room for me to redeem myself."

Part of me was still waiting for him to kiss me. It took me a minute to shift into this new reality. I'd be lying if I said I wasn' t disappointed, but there was a plus side: the poster was enormous and 99 percent of it was blank. Archer was clearly expecting me to be here for many weeks of Ping-Pong.

"Let the continued degradation begin." I grinned and grabbed a paddle. Pretty soon I was so involved with the game that I wasn't thinking as much about whether or not Archer wanted to kiss me. I did hope he'd try before I went home, but when he gave me a high-five instead of a handshake, I figured it wasn't happening. I wondered if he'd lost interest overnight. But I'd promised Claudia I'd be patient, so I pushed those thoughts out of my head. I had plenty of breath strips and lip balm—I could wait.

Wednesday afternoon Archer couldn't concentrate on Ping-Pong at all. We didn't have a single volley; he missed every other shot. I was sure I knew what he was thinking. I wondered how I could get him to admit it.

"You know I love slaughtering you, but it's not fun when you don't even put up a fight," I said.

"Sorry. I just keep thinking about auditions."

Oh. Fall play auditions. Of course. Sitting with Archer and his friends at lunch every day, I'd heard all about them. The play was
Cyrano de Bergerac.
I'd never read it, but the lead was a role Archer had been dying to play for as long as he could remember. All his friends thought he was a shoo-in, but Archer himselfhad seemed pretty philo sophical about the whole thing—until now.

"Friday after school, right?" I asked.

Archer nodded.

"Do you think you're ready?"

"I think so. We've known all summer this was going to be the show, so it's not like I haven't been practicing, but ... Would you listen to me do it?"

"Of course!"

"Great." He raced upstairs to grab a dog-eared copy of the text, then opened it and pointed to a section. "Right here. This is the part I'm going to do. You can follow along and make sure I have the lines right. Just ... picture me with a really big nose."