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Previously: "Big Mouth at the Lake"  The late lunch is good—Mr. Harper is a dab hand with the grill—despite it being your second round of hamburgers (plus sausages-in-a-bun) in less than an hour. The visit is pleasant as well, perhaps because Mr. Harper makes sure that Cassie doesn't talk the whole time on everyone's behalf. So you learn that he is teacher at Proctor Middle School, and that he remembers a number of the students that you know. Some of what he says is pretty surprising: for instance, that Steve Patterson of the WHS basketball team was a skinny, gawky nerd when Mr. Harper had him for eighth-grade math. (These days Patterson is a jacked and towering bully boy who can intimidate other students with just a glare.) But he also remembers Kelsey Blankenship, the snobby queen-bee of the Advanced Placement set, who drives a BMW because her daddy owns a car dealership, as a snobby know-it-all who couldn't stop bossing the other girls around, so you suppose that not everyone changed dramatically in the last few years. He also asks about you and your classes, but you can only shrug awkwardly because you don't think you've got anything really to say. So it's Cassie who tells him about you: for instance, of the one-act/one-scene playlet that you and another girl put on for your sophomore English class, and about how you were great and you should have gone in for drama because you've got a lot of stage charisma and you'd probably be a natural at it. (That earns you some amused but skeptical looks from Caleb and Keith.) "So we had a really great time," Cassie enthuses afterward as you're packing up. "Well, I had a really great time, and I think my dad did too. You know he doesn't ever really have a chance to talk about his old students, or to talk to them outside of school, but I guess you weren't really his students, were you, since you went to Schuyler. How's Astronomy treating you, by the way?" (That's one of two classes you share with her.) "I'm never gonna be able to remember all that stuff. Maybe we could get together to go over it, drill each other? That's one of my classes where I don't know anyone. Except you. Same in English." She turns to Caleb, who is also in your fourth-period English class. "We could work on it, the three of us, if you don't mind if me and Will do some Astronomy too. I know! If Ms. Gladstone ever assigns us a group project class presentation, we could do a play thing like Will and Laura did last year! Wait, I mean—" * * * * * Cassie had lots of time after lunch to talk, because neither Caleb nor Keith seemed in a hurry to go. This surprised you: Keith had been grousing about the coolness of the weather and the lameness of the lake, and Caleb didn't seem very enthusiastic about Cassie showing up. Neither are very talkative on the drive back to town. It is left to you to make small talk about how good the food was, how cool Cassie's father is, and how Mrs. Harper seemed aggravated by the weather and the wind. They only reply with grunts. Later that evening, after texting back and forth with Keith awhile, you call him directly. "So what were you talking about earlier, about me asking Cassie out?" "I 'unno," he says. "Just talking." A snicker comes into his voice. "Maybe how you should ask her out before she asks you." "You think she's interested in me?" A hard shiver shakes you, inspired not by Cassie particularly but just the idea that a girl might be so seriously interested in you as to make the first move. It is a frightening idea, and also a delicious one! Keith laughs, dryly. "Well," he drawls, "you know, she talks so much she's bound to run out of words eventually, and then she'll have to pop the question because she'll got nothing else to say!" "That's a mean thing to say, dude," you retort. "Oh, I don't mind Cassie talking, long as she's talking at someone else so I don't gotta pay attention. Let someone else soak up all her talk. But she ain't seein' anyone, you know, and neither are you." You make a face. It's a brutal reminder of your recent break-up. Lisa Yarborough is a girl you had known vaguely for a couple of years. She is a quiet girl, a modest girl, a respectable girl, a pretty girl. Well-dressed and well-groomed, pleasantly sociable, whose parents are members of the country club. (She is so pleasant and so presentable, in fact, that Keith nearly queered your growing interest in her by telling you that "she reminds me of your mom.") You had never really thought of her as "girlfriend" material. But at the end of your junior year and into the early weeks of summer you wound up spending more and more time together, until it began to dawn on you: It was less that you were hanging out with her in the casual way you and Caleb and Keith hang out, but were dwelling in time with her the way boyfriend and girlfriend do. At one point, when you were sitting on the grass out in the sun, you even kissed her on the hair, which drew a warm but quizzical smile from her. And then, just two weeks ago, in the middle of a school corridor in the middle of a school day, she tossed your arm off her shoulder and told that you had never really been going out. You had crawled away, bent double mentally if not physically by the gut punch, with a comical expression on your face. You have been pestering your friends for insights into what happened, insights they don't have and don't seem interested in gaining. And it occurs to you, after Keith has said it, that they would just as soon you shut up about Lisa by getting a new girlfriend. * * * * * You don't hear from Cassie until Sunday, when she sends a short text saying she had fun on Saturday and that maybe you can do it (or something else) again this weekend. You chew a long time on your lower lip as you ponder a reply, and finally just send a short note saying, Sure, I had fun. Then, on an impulse, because that sounded too abrupt, you add: Maybe talk about it after school tomorrow. Immediately after hitting "Send," you feel knocked sideways by doubts. Why did you do that? As Keith has said, Cassie is a sweet girl. She is also bright and pretty and alert and alive. (More alert and alive than Lisa, who sometimes came across as half-asleep.) You have the impression that she likes to do things, and you wonder if maybe all her talking is just frustration when not being active. You yourself are not the most active person in the world—witness how you are spending Sunday afternoon up in your room, playing on your gaming console, instead of going out in the world—and maybe you couldn't keep up with her. But doing stuff with her would surely be more healthy than moping about. And if things don't work, well ... If Cassie is as active a doer as she is a talker (and you know she's got lots of other friends) then she will have introduced you to lots of other people: girls who might be more compatible with you. You wince at the thought that you might only be using Cassie to meet other girls, and tell yourself firmly that if you're going to do stuff with her, it will be with the intention of getting to know her and maybe going out with her. * * * * * Cassie wants to talk to you in English the next day about after-school plans, and she even moves over to sit next to you and Caleb, but you tell her you'll talk about that after school. Maybe we can go someplace and talk about what where we want to go, you say, meaning it as a joke, but Cassie turns a very happy pink. She replies by saying that she was going to talk about it with you at lunch, but she'll save it for later when you get together, and will have lunch as usual with her friends. Caleb keeps a poker face all through this, and says nothing about it when you and he and Keith are eating later in your usual spot behind the school. Doubts are beginning to settle heavily on your shoulders, though, when you go into your last period of the day, the Astronomy class you share with her. She looks up and grins and gives you a little wave as you come in. You smile back, but your thoughts are of the more ghastly, Oh God what have I done? variety. "I'll just stop by my locker to change my stuff out and then I'll meet you at your locker," she bursts out when she joins you at the classroom door when the final bell has rung. You nod and turn down the opposite corridor as her, wondering how she knows where your locker is, and wondering if you will lose her in the school if she doesn't. Of course not, you chide yourself. She'll just text me, and why am I even having these thoughts? And when your phone buzzes while you are at your locker, you expect it will be Cassie. But to your surprise, it's your mom. "Will?" she says when you pick up. "Are your classes out? Good, I wanted to catch you before you leave. You got a phone call here around noon, a man was looking for you. It's about a book you found at the used book store? Do you know what he might have been talking about?" It takes you a moment to recall, but you tell her that you do. "Well, he wants you to come talk to him about it at his office today." She gives you the address for a company called "Parsons Collegiate Media." This would be a perfect way of shaking off Cassie. But it would also be a mean thing to do to her. * "Go see the guy." * "Forget it, concentrate on Cassie." How the Poll Works To vote in this poll (the Free Poll) click on one of the choices below. To give even more weight to your choice, click on one of the links above (the link you'd like to see continued) and use the "Tip the author!" form at the bottom of the chapter to send the author GPs. In the final vote tally, each vote in the Free Poll will be worth 1/5 the average of the GPs contributed during the round. GPs voted for losing choices will be refunded in full to those who voted. GPs voted for the winning choice will be divided among those who voted for losing choices, in proportion to their share of GPs voted for losing choices. In other words, if you vote GPs for a losing choice, you will get your GPs back and will likely collect a dividend proportional to the size of your GP vote. If you vote for the winning choice, your GPs will count as a kind of commission payment for seeing that storyline continued. This poll will close on Wednesday, April 2, at 12:00 PM Eastern Time. |
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