now?”
Matt slowly puts his pizza down. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem, Matt, is that you’re being a jerk! And you’ve been a jerk for, like, two months now.”
“Anything else?” he asks.
I’m on a roll, and when this new me is on a roll, nothing can stop me. It feels so good to say exactly what I’m thinking.
“Yeah, actually, there is something else. Stop treating my best friend like dirt. Introduce her to your friends when you’re talking to them and she’s standing right next to you. And you might want to—”
“Stop!” yells Tracy, kicking me hard under the table. Matt looks from me to Tracy and back, and then gets up and goes to sit with his swim thugs. Tears pool in Tracy’s eyes.
“You don’t get to just say whatever you want, no matter what happened to you this summer,” she hisses as she grabs her bag and marches out the door. Matt watches her leave but doesn’t go after her. I’m suddenly really, really embarrassed.
“Nice work,” Robert says.
I’m trying to backtrack in my head and figure out what set me off and made me act like a lunatic. The waitress comes over.
“You’re Peter’s little sister, right?” she asks. I nod. “Sorry about your dad, hon. Soda’s on the house.” She slaps the bill down on the table and walks away. If I were in a better mood, I might laugh at how one dead dad equals four free sodas here at Cavallo’s.
“Rosie, I think you should go after her,” Robert suggests, reaching for the bill, an unlit cigarette already in his mouth. “And you should probably say you’re sorry.”
He’s right. I should. And I do.
lachrymose (adjective): sad; tearful
(see also: being a crybaby)
4
JAMIE HASN'T BEEN in study hall since Friday. It’s now Wednesday. Since Monday, I’ve spent the period pretending to read A Separate Peace while trying to come up with something to say to him, something that will right the wrong I committed on Friday by stupidly pretending I didn’t know his name. As lame as it sounds, I’m not used to having to come up with answers to these kinds of dilemmas by myself. I usually talk to Tracy, but I can’t do that this time.
I ran after her on Friday night, catching her just a few blocks from her house. I told her I was sorry for what I did but that I meant what I said—Matt was acting like a jerk. She didn’t agree, but she didn’t disagree, either, and we’ve had a truce since then. She hasn’t asked me any more questions about Jamie, and I’m not about to bring him up. She’ll want answers, and I don’t have any.
I look across the cafeteria and see her sitting next to Matt, looking up at him adoringly while he barely acknowledges her existence, as usual. She waves at me, and if I had to guess, I’d say that she kind of likes the sight of me sitting by myself. Freshmen at the end of the alphabet always get screwed when it comes to assigned seats in study hall. You get stuck anywhere there are leftover seats, which is at the juniors’ and seniors’ tables. They get to pick their tables first, which is considered a privilege, and then tables are assigned to the sophomores and then the freshmen. The freshmen at the top of the alphabet end up at the few remaining empty tables together, but the freshmen at the end of the alphabet—like someone named, say, Rose Zarelli—get assigned wherever there are leftover seats. Jamie and Angelo and I have a whole table for six to ourselves.
I wave back at Tracy, and she frowns, pointing behind me. I turn.
“Hey, Sweater. I got those quarters for ya.”
Angelo shaved this morning, and it didn’t work out so well. He has little dots of dried blood all over his face, and his stubble is already growing back.
“Oh. Um, that’s okay. You don’t have to pay me back.”
“Really?”
“Keep them. I don’t need them.”
“I don’t need them, either, Sweater.”
“No, I mean, I have money today.”
“So do I. Whaddya think, I’m poor or something? I got paid yesterday.”
“I mean, my mom never kicks me out of the house without letting me finish breakfast, and she always gives me lunch money,” I say, instantly cringing at the fact that I just said lunch money—couldn’t I have just said money, without the lunch qualifier? No, of course not. “Um, so you should keep it in case your mom does that again.”
He says nothing.
“I’m…I didn’t mean… Sorry.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Well, um, I mean, that was Friday.”
“I told you about that?”
“Not exactly.”
“I was talkin’ to Jamie,” he says suspiciously.
“Yeah, but I sit here, too.”
“I guess you do, dontcha.” He leans over me, and I notice that he opted not to wear Axe today. “You’re listenin’ even when you pretend you’re not, ain’t ya?” He takes his jacket off and hurls it on the table, revealing a Metallica T-shirt as ratty as his Nirvana shirt, and a lighter falls out of the pocket. He grins at me. “Want anything? I’m buying today.”
“No, thanks.”
“You sure? I’m gettin’ a coffee for Jame.”
My stomach drops like I’m on the first plunge of a roller-coaster ride. “He’s here today?”
“Yeah. Even vo-tech guys can only cut so many times before someone catches on.”
“Where is he?” I say too quickly. Angelo, who was walking backward toward the food line, now stops.
“Outside,” he says, looking at me very carefully. “Why? You miss him?”
I’m blushing, but I’m too busy backtracking to pay much attention.
“I just didn’t think he was here, that’s all.”
“You been looking for him.”
“No, I haven’t—”
“What’s the deal with you two? You doin’ it?” He sits down and whacks me too hard on the shoulder. “Come on, you can tell me. I know everything about him. He won’t care.”
“Why are you asking me if you know everything about him?” I say, sort of proud of myself for a second.
He’s a little puzzled until his brain catches up with his ears. “All right, I don’t know everything about him. But he tells me about all the girls he bangs, so you can
