The Boy I Love (6 page)

She glided right up to me, her face all quivery. “I can't tell you how sorry I am about your hand, Wren,” she said. “Does it still hurt?”

“Not as much anymore,” I said. “I'm taking Ibuprofen instead of the hard stuff. I just have to keep it covered and it'll be fine.”

“Is it going to scar?” She looked really worried, staring at my bandaged hand, and so nice that it would've taken all my might to stay mad at her. At this point we were walking into the cafeteria. So far one of my least favorite things about Williamsport High was walking into that big cafeteria and not knowing where to sit. I told Caroline how James had said some of the lines on my hand might be gone once it healed. “So no more palm readers for me,” I said.

“I'm so sorry, Wren,” Caroline said. Wow, I'd only been joking. She sounded like she might cry.

“Hey,” I said. “Except for the bottom of your foot, can you think of a better place for a scar?”

Finally Caroline smiled. “I guess not,” she said. “But you let me know if there's anything I can do for you, okay?” And then she disappeared into the crowd, leaving me standing there with no place to go. Luckily, at that moment my eyes fell on Tim, sitting alone at a table and staring intently at a white piece of paper.

“Is this seat taken?” I said, pulling out the chair across from him. He looked up like I'd startled him, and I plopped down even though he didn't say anything. “What are you reading?” I asked.

He pushed the paper over to me. “It's an e-mail from my church,” he said. “I printed it out in the library because there was a line for the computer.”

It seemed kind of weird that he'd print it out instead of just saving it for later, or even deleting it. What could a church have to say that was so important? Truthfully, I wasn't especially interested in his e-mail, but I looked at it to be polite.

Maybe Tim could tell I was hardly reading it, because he said, “Our pastor's all mad because the national branch of our church voted to let gay people be ministers.”

“What's wrong with that?”

Tim shrugged. “I guess he doesn't like gay people.”

At almost this exact moment, Devon appeared at our table with Allie by his side. They joined us. “Gay people?” Devon said. “As in
homosexuals
?” He said the word like it was the funniest and stupidest thing you could say. He said, “Tim, we're trying to eat here,” and then took a bite of his cafeteria burger.

Allie and I looked at each other. She was as uncomfortable as I was, but the glance she gave me was the same as the other night—pleading with me not to say anything. But I just couldn't let Devon's joke slide.

So I said, “I don't get it. Why can't you talk about gay people and eat at the same time?”

Tim reached out and took the paper away from me. He folded it up real neat and slid it into his backpack. Devon looked at me like I'd said I didn't know two plus two equaled four. Then he said, “Well, excuse me, Miss Politically Correct.”

“It's got nothing to do with politics,” I said. “It's about people.”

“Yeah, people.” He half laughed. “Like that poofter over there.”

I turned my head to where he was pointing. Allie said, “Oh. Jesse Gill.”

Jesse Gill had gone to Cutty River with us through middle school. He had pink streaks in his hair and wore
a black T-shirt. He was also sitting all by himself. Allie waved at him, but he didn't seem to see her. Devon took another bite of his burger. It was weird—even though he was saying really mean things, his tone and expression were so lighthearted and friendly that it wasn't hard for me to argue with him.

“Jesse?” I said to Devon. “I know Jesse. But I don't know if he's gay or not, and neither do you.” Truthfully, I was pretty sure Jesse was gay, but no way would I say that to Devon. “Even if he is, what do you care?”

Devon didn't get a chance to answer, because a couple of girls came over to the table to tell Allie that cheerleader results hadn't been posted yet but would be later that afternoon. I watched Allie talking to them, looking all smiley and energetic, and I thought how much happier she'd be once she was on the squad. I hoped she wouldn't forget all about me.

The girls moved on to another table, and we all went back to eating. Nobody much felt like reviving our previous conversation, though Devon kind of smiled at me like he didn't have any hard feelings. As if I was the one who'd said something offensive! I hoped Tim didn't think like Devon. I kind of worried he did, because he hadn't had a chance to tell me how he felt about that e-mail from his church. But he sat there looking at me, real thoughtful, in a way that made my stomach give one of those happy little
flutters. And it dawned on me that I had barely thought of Ry once since I burned my hand.

*   *   *

As we walked over to the gym to see the cheerleading roster, Allie said maybe I should be a little quieter about my opinions. “Look, Wren, don't take this the wrong way, 'cause I always like how you're so confident and everything. But you don't have to say every little thing that comes into your head. I mean, you don't want to embarrass anyone.”

“Who did I embarrass?”

“I think you embarrassed the guys,” she said. “You know how they can be weird about . . . homosexuality.” She pronounced the word like it had eighteen syllables. She sounded like she was thirty years old, and I told her so. Allie laughed.

Ahead of us a group of girls gathered all around a list that was posted on the bulletin board outside the gym. Some of them were already crying, others were high-fiving and hugging. Allie gave me her backpack, then moved sideways through the crowd. I stood there, waiting for her to come back so we could high-five and hug too. Instead she came elbowing out of the crowd with this dazed look on her face.

“I'm not on the list,” she said, like she couldn't believe it. “I didn't make the squad.”

“What?” I said. “No. That couldn't be right.” I left her standing there to elbow
my
way through the crowd. Very carefully, I ran my finger down the list, certain she had
somehow missed her name. I did it twice before I finally had to admit she was right: Her name wasn't there. It wasn't even on the list of alternates. Allie had not made the cheerleading squad.

“I can't believe it,” she said, when I got back to her. I could tell she'd had a hope that I would find her name where she hadn't. “I just can't believe it.” Her eyes started filling with tears.

“Maybe they only let juniors and seniors on,” I said. She turned to walk out of the gym, and I followed her. “Maybe they wanted to make sure and give the older girls a chance, so they didn't choose any freshmen or sophomores.”

“They did let sophomores on, and freshmen, too,” Allie said. “I saw the names of two girls who I know are freshmen, and three sophomores.”

“Well,” I said. “That's not very many.” Probably a lot more than five underclassmen had tried out. “Maybe for most girls, they wait till they're a little older.” At this point we were walking across the lawn toward the bleachers by the baseball field.

“I know why they didn't choose me,” Allie said, suddenly sounding ferocious. “It's because I'm so damn tall.”

I don't know anything about cheerleading, but in that moment it struck me that Allie might be right. Maybe the coach thought it would look weird with her towering over all the other girls. Plus, didn't they have to pick each other up all the time?

“I'm too tall,” Allie said furiously. “I'm too tall to be a cheerleader, and too tall for Tim to like me. I'm a freak. The only thing I'm right for is modeling, and I can't even do that.” She burst into tears and sat down on the bottom bleacher.

“That's totally wrong if it's about height,” I said, sitting next to her. “That's discrimination. We should talk to the coach about this.”

“Don't,” Allie said. “Don't you dare.”

We sat there for a while, Allie crying and me not knowing what else I could say. I felt just terrible. Cheerleading was the whole reason she'd wanted to leave Cutty River School. I wondered if the same thing would happen to me and I wouldn't get a part in the play. I decided that if it did, I would work even harder and try out again for the next one. I started to tell Allie she should do the same thing, but before I got a chance she said, “And don't you tell me I can try out again next year. I am never trying out for anything again. Never.”

I knew she'd feel differently next year, so I just let her cry a little bit more, and then I said, “Well, and anyway, who says Tim doesn't like you? Maybe he does.”

At this she wiped her eyes and looked straight at me. “It doesn't seem like he likes me,” she said. “It seems like he likes
you
.”

“We're just friends,” I assured her, but in that moment
I got a distinct hand-in-the-cookie-jar feeling, and hoped I didn't sound as guilty as I felt. “Buddies.”

“Yeah?” she said. “So maybe you should ask him if he likes me.”

I thought about this for a moment, trying to imagine how the conversation might go. Mostly I worried he might say he didn't. I sure didn't want to be the bearer of
that
news. And much as I hated to admit it, the way I'd started to feel meant I didn't particularly like the idea of him telling me he
did
like her, either. So I said, “Give me a week or two to get more comfortable.”

“Okay,” she said. I could almost hear her thinking that she might not have made the cheerleading squad, but at least she still had a chance at being Tim Greenlaw's girlfriend.

Allie and her family came
over to watch the alligator get removed from our river. Dad made it clear he was against this process. He kept telling us about an ornithologist he knew in Florida who had an American crocodile living in his driveway. The man traveled a lot, and people would ask him if he worried about leaving his wife alone in the house with that crocodile lying under the porch stairs. “Are you kidding?” the man would say. “She's the safest woman in Florida. Who's going to break into the house with that crocodile standing guard?”

“We've got Daisy,” Mom said. “We don't need a crocodile. Or an alligator.”

Dad ignored this and went on to say how somebody built a fancy trophy home next door to his friend, with a big pool, and then got upset when the crocodile started sunning itself on the dry deck. Three times they tried to move the crocodile
to an island south of there, but every spring, guess who was back sunning himself by the fancy pool?

If Dad was trying to talk us out of removing the alligator, he only doubly convinced me to never go anywhere near the river ever again, because now I knew the alligator might come back. And Mom said she had enough to worry about without adding a seven-foot reptile to the equation. So on Saturday afternoon Mom, Dad, and me, plus Allie and her mother and little sister Sylvie, all stood in our driveway. Allie's brother was away at college and her father was in his office grading papers, which seems like exactly where he's been every minute of his life. The same cameraman from the local news came by, along with one of their anchors. The cameraman made a joke about the bandage on my hand. “Did the gator get it?” he said.

The cameraman was kind of cute, and I could tell Allie was annoyed he was paying attention to me instead of her. You know, I sometimes think being so pretty works against Allie. The cameraman could kid with me and it just seemed like razzing a teenager. But if he'd paid attention to Allie, it could have been taken the wrong way. I decided I would tell her that later; that'd make her feel better.

Although Dad was against the whole thing, he dressed in his forest service uniform so the alligator removal team would let him help. I had to admit the removal almost made me wish we'd just left the poor thing alone. They fished him
out of there with these long white poles that had hooks on the end, while Sylvie kept yelling, “Don't hurt him!” The alligator barely struggled, just opened his mouth real wide. When they hauled him out of the river, one of the men sat right on his back.

As they loaded the alligator into the back of their truck, I felt so sad and disappointed. I also felt guilty. Probably that alligator had been in the river all summer, and it had never bothered a soul. All those times I'd gone swimming it never even thought about eating me. Now it was getting carted off to someplace far from home, who knew where, just because I wasn't brave enough to live nearby it.

Once the alligator was loaded, the main removal guy turned to wave at us. “Don't you worry, little lady,” he said to Sylvie. “We didn't hurt that gator one bit.”

Watching them drive away, I couldn't help feeling that the alligator would probably not agree.

*   *   *

That afternoon Allie's mom drove Allie and me downtown so we could have lunch and walk around. On the drive nobody said anything about cheerleading tryouts, which surprised me a little.

“I didn't tell her,” Allie explained as we headed over to the music store. “She'll try to be comforting, but I'll be able to tell she's happy about it. So I told her they weren't posting it till Monday. I wish they could understand,” she added,
“that just because a thing is not important to them doesn't mean it's not important.”

The door on the music store jingled as we walked in. My mother had already called Ry to tell him I wouldn't be taking lessons for a while, but I wanted to use this opportunity to show him my bandage and tell him to watch for me on the news that night. Allie saw him before I did. She gave a little gasp and reached out to grab my elbow.

There was Ry, all right. He stood over by the ukuleles, talking to a girl who was clearly not just a friend. They were smiling at each other with particularly shiny eyes, and all the while they were talking they had their hands twined together. I stepped back, but then Allie cleared her throat. I wished she hadn't of. I just wanted to get out of there. Ry looked over at us like he'd been woken out of a trance. It took him a couple of seconds to even remember who I was.