What's Your Status? (18 page)

“I don’t know about Schuyler,” Lisa said. She shook her head, looking worried again. “She was being
trop
weird with me. The way she was acting, it was kind of a…” She shrugged. “
Je ne sais quoi.
Just call me when you’re off with her.”

“Will do,” I said. Then I closed Lisa’s chat and brought up Nate’s. “Hi,” I said, feeling out of breath, even though all I’d been doing was talking and clicking.

“One more second?” he asked, looking apologetic.

“Sure,” I said, “me too.”

“BRB,” he said, giving me a faint smile before disappearing again.

“Hey, Shy,” I said when I’d brought up Schuyler’s chat. She looked up at me from her keyboard, and I leaned closer to the screen. Schuyler looked terrible. Her face was red and blotchy, and her eyes were red, too, making it look like the color on my computer monitor was just a little bit off. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Schuyler said, obviously lying. Her voice sounded strangled. “I just…well…wanted to tell you that you’re a really good friend, Mad. You’ve been a great friend to me, and I appreciate it.”

“Oh. Well, sure,” I said, getting more worried by the second. “But what’s going on with you?” I asked, racking my brain for what could be wrong. “Is it Connor?”

Schuyler let out a sob and looked away. “No,” she said, her voice shaking. “Connor’s wonderful. And so trusting, and honest…”

She was beginning to scare me now. “Shy, I’m worried about you,” I said. “Lisa is, too. Maybe I should come over or something.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” she said. “I just wanted to say…thanks. And that I’m sorry. Look, I’ll see you in school tomorrow….”

“Shy, come on,” I said. “Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Schuyler said, her voice still sounding choked. “I was just…I just wanted to tell you that your friendship…it’s meant a lot to me. See you tomorrow.”

Schuyler disappeared, leaving me staring at the screen. I was with Lisa—that had been
trop
weird. I thought about heading over to Shy’s house, or at least seeing if I could get my parents’ permission to head over there. But the last time I’d dropped by Schuyler’s, the security guard who patrolled her private road had pulled me over for twenty minutes of questioning, and that had been in the middle of the afternoon.

I took a restorative sip of my CFDDP and clicked on Nate, who gave me a slightly weary smile. “Hi there,” I said.

“Hey,” he said. “So sorry about that.”

“Is everything okay?” I asked. “Was Melissa having…um…boyfriend problems?”

“No,” Nate said, then looked thoughtful. “You know, it’s funny. She’s not dating anyone, and hasn’t dated anyone since we broke up. I don’t get it. She’s such a great girl.”

I felt my stomach drop again, and took a deep breath. “Oh,” I said, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

“Yeah,” Nate said. “She’s just kind of upset about the prom being canceled. I think she was looking forward to it.”

“There’s this website,” I suggested. “Brian’s been using it. It’s called Save the Last Dance. It pairs up people who are looking for prom dates.”

“I’ll suggest it,” Nate said, smiling, and I could see him writing the website name down. I was secretly hoping that Melissa would meet someone at a prom in Darien, or somewhere, and start dating that guy, and stop taking her problems to my boyfriend.

Nate looked up at me and I decided to try once more to find out what had happened with them. “You guys…I mean, you must have had a lot of fun last year,” I said.

“Yeah,” Nate said, without a great deal of enthusiasm. He looked away, as if picturing something else. I hoped that it wasn’t Melissa, naked. “It was okay. Not…exactly what I’d been expecting.”

I blinked at him, trying to figure out what that had meant. I was happy that he didn’t seem to have had the best time at the prom with Melissa, but I didn’t know
how to ask him how—or if—sex had fit into the picture. “Oh,” I said finally.

“Yeah,” he said. He focused back on me and smiled. “But I’m really looking forward to Saturday.”

Was that because he thought we were going to be having sex? I really, really needed to know but had no idea how to ask him. And if I was going to be honest, I was afraid of what his answer might be. “Me too,” I said. It was the truth, despite the recent drama. After all, there was still going to be a prom. Nate in a tux. And we would slow dance, even if we didn’t have a song. Yet. “So,” I said. I took a breath. I hadn’t known how to bring up this next topic without feeling like I was implying something, but I figured that I should just tell him. “You know, the afterparty is at Dave’s. And I was planning on staying over. Especially since…I just found out that my parents are going to be out of town all weekend.”

“Oh, yeah?” Nate asked. “Are they having someone stay with you guys?”

“Nope,” I said. “They’re leaving us alone.”

“Oh,” Nate said.

“Yeah,” I said. I looked at Nate, and he looked back at me, neither of us saying anything. It felt like suddenly we were on the edge of a precipice, and the slightest movement might send us over the edge. “So…I just wanted to tell you that.”

“Right,” Nate said. He looked at me intently, and without meaning to, I found that my eyes kept drifting back to his bed. “Well, I’m glad you did.”

We looked at each other for a moment longer. Something seemed to be happening, even though I wasn’t sure what it was.

Then he smiled, breaking our eye contact. “I’d better get cracking on your mix, my Mad,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re all going to be dancing to death metal on Saturday.”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling back at him, feeling that my heart was suddenly so full of something that it scared me a little.

“My pleasure,” he said. “Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Definitely,” I said. “Night.”

“Good night,” he said. He smiled at me again, then signed off, leaving me staring at my computer screen, trying to figure out what had just happened.

CHAPTER 10

Song: When I Fall/Barenaked Ladies

Quote: “Trust everybody, but cut the cards.”

—Finley Peter Dunne

INBOX 4 of 60

From: Schuyler

Date: 5/22, 12:35
P.M
.

Hey, Mad. So I was just wondering. Do you still have the crown? You probably brought it to the hotel already, right?

OUTBOX 1 of 75

To: Schuyler

Date: 5/22, 12:36
P.M
.

Um, not yet. It’s safe and sound in my car at the moment—I no longer trust my locker
Dropping it off after school, want to come with?

INBOX 5 of 60

From: Schuyler

Date: 5/22, 12:37
P.M
.

Maybe. Are you going to gym today?

OUTBOX 2 of 75

To: Schuyler

Date: 5/22, 12:37
P.M
.

Unfortch. Are you?

OUTBOX 3 of 75

To: Schuyler

Date: 5/22, 12:37
P.M
.

Shy??

And then she didn’t respond to your text?” Lisa asked, eyes wide. We shoved our clothes and bags into the gym locker she, Schuyler, and I shared. Gym lockers were very hard to come by, given out in the beginning of the year through a lottery system. Lisa and Schuyler had each gotten one, but Schuyler could no longer remember where hers was, and at any rate, wanted to avoid it at all costs, since she was pretty sure she’d left a sandwich in there. And I had shared one with Ruth, until recently. So now the three of us squeezed our stuff into Lisa’s. It was a little crowded, but it worked out. I slammed the door and leaned all my weight against it until I heard the lock catch. Then Lisa and I headed out of the locker room and toward the back gym.

“No response,” I confirmed, shaking my head. “And why would she ask if I was going to gym? I’m always in gym these days.” That, sadly, was the truth. I hadn’t
missed a single class since I found out that I’d dropped a letter grade in the tennis portion of the semester, probably due to the fact that I’d spent most of the time talking to my friends and no time at all playing tennis.

“Something’s going on,” Lisa said. “But we’ll find out what. We’ll have plenty of time to talk. We’re playing badminton today, for
l’amour de Dieu.
”

We walked through the empty, echoing gym and I could see most of our class waiting outside by the volleyball court, which meant that Lisa and I were a tad bit late. Which normally I wouldn’t care about, but I wasn’t about to have to repeat junior year because I failed
gym.
We hustled outside and tried to blend in with the class and look as though we’d been there from the beginning. Thankfully, Mrs. Bellus was talking to Coach Petersen, who taught boys’ PE at the same time. I looked around for Schuyler, figuring that she’d just gotten changed more quickly than we had. But, thinking about it, I couldn’t remember seeing any of her things in our locker. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be seriously late for class. Though, due to the fact that she actually could play tennis well, her grade was not at all in danger.

“All right,” Mrs. Bellus called. “You girls will have a choice today. You can continue with the badminton practice that we began last week. Or you can do the climbing course with Coach Petersen’s class.”

I looked over at the rock climbing wall, where various boys were already harnessed in and rappelling up and down at what seemed to me to be highly unsafe speeds. I turned to Lisa. “Badminton?”

“Um,
oui
,” she said firmly, and we took a step closer to each other. The class started breaking up, with most of the girls heading toward the badminton nets and only a couple walking over to the rock wall. Lisa looked around. “Okay,
where
is Schuyler?”

“No, no, no,” Mrs. Bellus said, striding up with her clipboard, pointing at me and Lisa. “I’m splitting you two up. MacDonald, go do the ropes.”

“But…um…” I tried to think quickly of some excuse that would get me out of rock climbing. Failing to come up with anything, I sighed and gave a small wave to Lisa.

“Good,” Mrs. Bellus said as I started to walk away. “Go spot Miller.”

My feet slowed as she said this. I looked ahead and saw Ruth standing by the wall. I glanced around to see if there was anyone else I could partner with—or at least get to join us and help this be less awkward. But everyone else was paired up. And I really didn’t think I could protest again, unless I wanted to go to summer school for gym, which was just about the most humiliating thing that I could imagine.

I walked over to my former BFF, slowing my steps even more. Ruth was standing alone, hands in the pockets of her gym shorts, her white T-shirt ironed and neatly tucked in. Her dark blond hair was back in a perfect, bump-free ponytail. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, and I wondered if she’d gotten contacts. There would have been a time, not that long ago, when I would have known. She gave me a small smile as I got closer.

I smiled back, trying to think rationally. I knew, logically, that Ruth and I weren’t really friends anymore, and certainly not BFF. But there was nine years of habit that made it hard to remember this. My first instinct was always to run up to her and start talking. My first thought of her was always as my best friend.

“Hi,” she said as I reached the spot by the wall where she was standing. There were three people climbing it—two boys and one of the girls from our class. There were also three people on the ground beneath them. I think they were meant to be spotting, but at the moment, all of them were texting. “You’re doing the ropes?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“Not by choice,” I said. “I was coerced into it.”

“Ah,” Ruth said. “Well, all the harnesses are being used right now, but as soon as one is free, we can take a turn.”

“Great,” I said, trying to sound as though this was a good thing. Silence fell and I looked down at the ground and bit my lip, hating this, hating how things had changed.

“So,” I said after a moment. “Are you going to the prom?”

“I am,” she said, nodding. “No date, though. Flying solo. And you—I think I heard you’re going with Jonathan? I mean, Nate?”

“Yes,” I said. “You got it.” Silence fell again and I tried to think of something else to say. “Hey,” I said, remembering, “you know what I found the other day? That picture of us dressed up as prom queens for Halloween. Remember that?”

Ruth smiled. “I do,” she said. “I love that picture.”

“We got a lot of candy that year,” I said.

“And everyone thought we were princesses and we had to tell them we were
prom queens
….”

“That’s right,” I laughed, remembering how the whole idea of the prom had seemed impossibly glamorous at the age of nine.

“So I guess you’re going with Lisa and Dave and Schuyler and everyone?” Ruth asked, her smile beginning to fade.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re all, um, sharing a limo.”

“Got it,” Ruth said. She looked up at the climbers. “Well, that sounds fun. I hope you all have a good time.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And you, too.”

Ruth let out a short laugh, still looking at the rock wall. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Sure.”