style="font-size:15px;"> “Aren’t you the oldest person in the freshman class, and about to become the first person in our class who can drive? Isn’t that a little unusual?”
He looks at the sky, squinting into the morning sun. “My credits didn’t transfer,” he mumbles.
“That’s why you had to do sixth grade again when you moved here? It wasn’t because you were held back?” I ask. He doesn’t respond. “Stop talking about Jamie like you’re automatically better than him, okay?”
He lights his cigarette and turns his head to the side to exhale while keeping his eyes on me. I am sure he saw Chuck do this on Gossip Girl, and I bet he’s been practicing in the mirror ever since. I suddenly hate that stupid show.
Apparently I hate everything these days.
“I don’t know what you see in that guy. Especially since you could have me.”
Robert has crystal-blue eyes and jet-black hair. There’s no doubt that he’s cute. Last year, he had gaggles of little drama-department geeks trailing him like a Greek chorus. Actually, after he played Jason in Medea, he literally did have the Greek chorus following him around, giggling over everything he said or did. Of course, the irony is that Jason is not exactly the most honorable character in Greek tragedy. He left his wife Medea for another woman, and she went mad and killed their children to piss him off—or, more accurately, to destroy him.
You would think that the actor playing Jason would become less attractive due to his character’s misdeeds rather than more attractive, but the Greek chorus could not get enough of Robert. Maybe the anachronistic biker jacket and leather boots he wore on stage canceled out the fact that he played a two-timing jerk.
Sometimes Robert used the Greek-ettes to try to make me jealous. It never worked.
In June, Robert came to my father’s memorial service. He sat right behind me and handed me a clean tissue every few minutes. My mother will always love him for that. I try to remind myself of that kindness every time I want to tell him to get lost. I usually end up telling him to get lost anyway.
“You could have me, you know,” Robert repeats.
“You’re just what I need, Robert. A convicted felon.”
“Stealing from H&M is not a felony.”
“You mean stealing from H&M twice is not a felony.”
“Sure, that, too.”
Robert has a crappy life, and sometimes he does bad things, like steal and lie. He lives with not one but two stepparents. His mother bailed and his father got remarried. Then his father bailed, and his stepmother remarried, and Robert ended up with her and her new husband. Is that even legal? I have no idea. But it definitely seems crappy to me. As annoying as Robert can be, even he doesn’t deserve that.
He makes another big show of inhaling and exhaling, blowing the smoke through his nose. “Forta likes you.”
“I am not the kind of girl he likes. He likes the Regina Deladdos of the world.”
“Tracy said he carried your horn and opened the car door for you that time.”
“Maybe he was raised well.”
“He doesn’t look like it. He wears the same clothes to school every day.”
“That’s the kind of thing a girl would say.”
“Tracy said it,” he admitted.
“She would notice.”
“Robert and Rosie sounds better than Jamie and Rosie.”
I look at him for a second, this guy I’ve known since I was eleven, and he looks hurt. To be honest, I like the sound of Jamie and Rosie. Robert and Rosie is too much alliteration for me. But I’m not going to say that. I’ve already been mean enough for one day, and it’s only seven-fifteen. Besides, I don’t feel like reminding him what alliteration is.
“I’ve always aspired to select my relationships based on how they’ll sound inscribed on the wall in the lavatory,” I say.
“Stop talking like that, AP English.” He grabs my coat to make me stop walking. “Will you go to homecoming with me?”
I knew this was coming. And even though homecoming is two months away, I’m kind of surprised it took him this long, considering he’s been suspicious of Jamie since the first week of school, and also considering that everyone we know has already decided who they’re going with. Tracy’s going with Matt, who still isn’t speaking to me, which is fine, because I’m not speaking to him, either. Stephanie is going with the swim-team thug that Tracy and Matt set her up with this summer, Mike Darren. Everyone knows who they’re going with except me. And Robert.
To be honest, I don’t want to go. I’m not in the mood for dancing these days—go figure. But I have to, or I’ll never hear the end of it from Tracy. Or my mother, for that matter. My mother expects me to go on living as if everything were still completely normal. She seems incapable of understanding why I might not feel like going to a dance right now. She seems incapable of understanding me in general.
I look at Robert. “Do you promise not to lie to me ever again?” I ask, knowing full well that this is not a promise he’ll be able to keep.
“I didn’t lie about anything!”
“You told me Jamie Forta asked you to find out if I was going.”
“That wasn’t a lie, that was a tactic.”
“It was a lie.”
He drops his cigarette and concentrates hard on putting it out with his thrift-store Doc Martens. I wonder if he paid for those boots or if he acquired them on one of his “excursions.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “But I was only using it as a tactic. It wasn’t going to stay a lie.”
I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I get the gist. I start walking again. He follows me.
“Do I have to wear a dress?” I say.
“It would be nice.”
“Do I have to wear makeup?”
“I don’t care.”
“High heels?”
“Rosie!”
“Okay, I’ll go.”
“Don’t sound so excited,” he says.
“I don’t like dances.”
“What are you talking about? You love dancing!”
“Dances and dancing are two separate things.”
He rolls his eyes. “But you’ll go?”
“Yes, Robert. I’ll go.”
“Okay,”
