weekend performance of Dracula were today, during her last period Drama class), and she’d gotten into a verbal fight and shoving match with Eugenia Ridley.
According to Lia’s side of the story, Ridley had taken offense to Lia “accidentally” bumping into her outside the administrative offices on the first day of school. Before Lia knew what’d happened, the two of them had been trading insults at high volume and pushing one another back and forth until the vice principal’s secretary emerged from her office to pry them apart. It was probably a combination of Lia’s stellar academic record and her parents’ community clout that got her off the hook with only a reprimand.
“Where do you want me to start?” Lia pouted.
“Honestly, I wish you wouldn’t.”
Undeterred, Lia explained to me why her world was collapsing. “I just found out Yamir’s practically engaged to some chick that plays oboe in the orchestra.” She gathered cookie crumbs from the paper towel, leaned her head back and poured them into her mouth.
“Engaged, huh?” I opened my brown paper lunch bag and pulled out the peanut butter sandwich I’d slapped together the night before.
Lia had decided Yamir Bandi would be her senior year crush. A quiet, bespectacled transfer student from Bart, he fit Lia’s nerdy type to a tee. Unfortunately for her, that meant he was also shy as a colt and found Lia terrifying. She’d tried all week to corner him long enough to ask him out.
She nodded sadly. “Can you believe it?”
“Not really, no.” It was true. I had a hard time picturing Yamir speaking to a member of the opposite sex, much less asking her to marry him.
“Katrina told me he and Addy Chandler met at some Educational Decathlon thing and have been seeing each other since, like, the beginning of junior year. And that he lives in the Bartholomew district but transferred to Carreen just to be with her.” She sniffed at the oatmeal cream pie before taking a bite. “His parents had to put in a special request and everything. Can you believe it?” she repeated, chewing.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” I tore off a piece of sandwich crust and tossed it at her.
“You don’t even care, do you?” she whined, throwing the bread back at me.
“There are more pressing concerns on my mind,” I admitted. I turned the conversation to weekend plans and soon Lia was scowling, remembering she had an assortment of anniversary-party-related errands to run with her mother on Saturday. She’d be standing up at her parents’ vow renewal and her final dress-fitting, among other things, was set for the afternoon.
I watched her move on to the next snack cake in her pile. “If you don’t watch it, they’re gonna have to let the waist out,” I warned.
“It’d serve my mother right.” She bit angrily into a Twinkie. “You should see the thing,” she said, meaning the dress. “It’s freaking hideous. Pink. Jake gets to wear black. I have to wear pink!” It especially wasn’t fair she had to look so girly, she said, since Elyse herself wasn’t even wearing a dress to the ceremony, but a pant-suit. “And you’d think she’d want to. Wear a dress, I mean. Since the first time they got married, she was big as a house and couldn’t fit into one. You know she was already pregnant with Jake, right? My grandma almost disowned her. Well, I guess she can’t ever say anything to me if I show up on her doorstep with a bun in the oven...”
“So when are we going to practice?” I interrupted her diatribe to ask.
Saturday night, she promised.
***
M y class schedule looked like this: Biology I, English, Art IV, and lunch, followed by study hall, Spanish II, and Government/Economics. Biology was the only class Lia and I shared this year. She’d already taken Chem I and Physics I and II and figured she’d round things out with Bio because she liked science so much. I, on the other hand, hadn’t taken any since Earth Science in
According to Lia’s side of the story, Ridley had taken offense to Lia “accidentally” bumping into her outside the administrative offices on the first day of school. Before Lia knew what’d happened, the two of them had been trading insults at high volume and pushing one another back and forth until the vice principal’s secretary emerged from her office to pry them apart. It was probably a combination of Lia’s stellar academic record and her parents’ community clout that got her off the hook with only a reprimand.
“Where do you want me to start?” Lia pouted.
“Honestly, I wish you wouldn’t.”
Undeterred, Lia explained to me why her world was collapsing. “I just found out Yamir’s practically engaged to some chick that plays oboe in the orchestra.” She gathered cookie crumbs from the paper towel, leaned her head back and poured them into her mouth.
“Engaged, huh?” I opened my brown paper lunch bag and pulled out the peanut butter sandwich I’d slapped together the night before.
Lia had decided Yamir Bandi would be her senior year crush. A quiet, bespectacled transfer student from Bart, he fit Lia’s nerdy type to a tee. Unfortunately for her, that meant he was also shy as a colt and found Lia terrifying. She’d tried all week to corner him long enough to ask him out.
She nodded sadly. “Can you believe it?”
“Not really, no.” It was true. I had a hard time picturing Yamir speaking to a member of the opposite sex, much less asking her to marry him.
“Katrina told me he and Addy Chandler met at some Educational Decathlon thing and have been seeing each other since, like, the beginning of junior year. And that he lives in the Bartholomew district but transferred to Carreen just to be with her.” She sniffed at the oatmeal cream pie before taking a bite. “His parents had to put in a special request and everything. Can you believe it?” she repeated, chewing.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” I tore off a piece of sandwich crust and tossed it at her.
“You don’t even care, do you?” she whined, throwing the bread back at me.
“There are more pressing concerns on my mind,” I admitted. I turned the conversation to weekend plans and soon Lia was scowling, remembering she had an assortment of anniversary-party-related errands to run with her mother on Saturday. She’d be standing up at her parents’ vow renewal and her final dress-fitting, among other things, was set for the afternoon.
I watched her move on to the next snack cake in her pile. “If you don’t watch it, they’re gonna have to let the waist out,” I warned.
“It’d serve my mother right.” She bit angrily into a Twinkie. “You should see the thing,” she said, meaning the dress. “It’s freaking hideous. Pink. Jake gets to wear black. I have to wear pink!” It especially wasn’t fair she had to look so girly, she said, since Elyse herself wasn’t even wearing a dress to the ceremony, but a pant-suit. “And you’d think she’d want to. Wear a dress, I mean. Since the first time they got married, she was big as a house and couldn’t fit into one. You know she was already pregnant with Jake, right? My grandma almost disowned her. Well, I guess she can’t ever say anything to me if I show up on her doorstep with a bun in the oven...”
“So when are we going to practice?” I interrupted her diatribe to ask.
Saturday night, she promised.
***
M y class schedule looked like this: Biology I, English, Art IV, and lunch, followed by study hall, Spanish II, and Government/Economics. Biology was the only class Lia and I shared this year. She’d already taken Chem I and Physics I and II and figured she’d round things out with Bio because she liked science so much. I, on the other hand, hadn’t taken any since Earth Science in