Who cares? I want to shout.
“Sebastian Kydd,” Jen S exclaims.
“Hall of Famer for sure. Right, Carrie?”
“Who?” I ask, just to annoy her.
“Sebastian Kydd,”Jen P says in a huff as she and Jen S exit.
“Maggie?” I ask. She hates the two Jens and won’t come out until they’ve left the bathroom. “They’re gone.”
“Thank God.” The stall door opens and Maggie heads for the mirror. She runs a comb through her hair. “I can’t believe Jen P thinks she can get Sebastian Kydd. That girl has no sense of reality. Now, what were you going to tell me?”
“Nothing,” I say, suddenly sick of Sebastian. If I hear one more person mention his name, I’m going to shoot myself.
“What was that business with Sebastian Kydd?”The Mouse asks a little later. We’re in the library, attempting to study.
“What business?” I highlight an equation in yellow, thinking about how useless it is to highlight. It makes you think you’re learning, but all you’re really learning is how to use a highlighter.
“He winked at you. In calculus class.”
“He did?”
“Bradley,” The Mouse says, in disbelief. “Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t notice.”
“How do I know he was winking at me? Maybe he was winking at the wall.”
“How do we know infinity exists? It’s all a theory. And I think you should go out with him,” she insists. “He’s cute and he’s smart. He’d be a good boyfriend.”
“That’s what every girl in the school thinks. Including Jen P.”
“So what? You’re cute and you’re smart, too. Why shouldn’t you date him?”
Rule number three: Best friends always think you deserve the best guy even if the best guy barely knows you exist.
“Because he probably only likes cheerleaders?”
“Faulty reasoning, Bradley. You don’t know that for a fact.” And then she gets all dreamy and rests her chin in her hand. “Guys can be full of surprises.”
This dreaminess is not like The Mouse. She has plenty of guy friends, but she’s always been too practical to get romantically involved.
“What does that mean?” I ask, curious about this new Mouse. “Have you encountered some surprising guys recently?”
“Just one,” she says.
And rule number four: Best friends can also be full of surprises.
“Bradley.” She pauses. “I have a boyfriend.”
What? I’m so shocked, I can’t speak. The Mouse has never had a boyfriend. She’s never even had a proper date.
“He’s pretty nifty,” she says.
“Nifty? Nifty?” I croak, finding my voice. “Who is he? I need to know all about this nifty character.”
The Mouse giggles, which is also very un-Mouse-like. “I met him this summer. At the camp.”
“Aha.” I’m kind of stunned and a little bit hurt that I haven’t heard about this mysterious Mouse boyfriend before, but now it makes sense. I never see The Mouse during the summer because she always goes to some special government camp in Washington, D.C.
And suddenly, I’m really happy for her. I jump up and hug her, popping up and down like a little kid on Christmas morning. I don’t know why it’s such a big deal. It’s only a stupid boyfriend. But still. “What’s his name?”
“Danny.” Her eyes slide away and she smiles dazedly, as if she’s watching some secret movie inside her head. “He’s from Washington. We smoked pot together and—”
“Wait a minute.” I hold up my hands. “Pot?”
“My sister Carmen told me about it. She says it relaxes you before sex.”
Carmen is three years older than The Mouse and the most proper girl you’ve ever seen. She wears pantyhose in the summer. “What does Carmen have to do with you and Danny? Carmen smokes pot? Carmen has sex?”
“Listen, Bradley. Even smart people get to have sex.”
“Meaning we should be having sex.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Huh? I pull The Mouse’s calculus book away from her and bang it shut. “Listen, Mouse. What are you talking about? Did you have sex?”
“Yup,” she says, nodding, as if it’s no big deal.
“How can you have sex and I haven’t? You’re supposed to be a nerd. You’re supposed to be inventing the cure for cancer, not doing it in the backseat of some car filled with marijuana smoke.”
“We did it in his parents’ basement,” The Mouse says, taking her book back.
“You did?” I try to imagine The Mouse naked on some guy’s cot in a damp basement. I can’t picture it. “How was it?”
“The basement?”
“The sex,” I nearly scream, trying to bring The Mouse back down to earth.
“Oh, that. It was good. Really fun. But it’s the kind of thing you have to work at. You don’t just start doing it. You have to experiment.”
“Really?” I narrow my eyes in suspicion. I’m not sure how to take this news. All summer, while I was writing some stupid story to get into that stupid writing program, The Mouse was losing her virginity. “How did you even figure out how to do it in the first place?”
“I read a book. My sister told me everyone should read an instructional manual before they do it so they know what to expect. Otherwise it might be a big disappointment.”
I squint, adding a sex book to my image of The Mouse and this Danny person getting it on in his parents’ basement. “Do you think you’re going to…continue?”
“Oh, yes,”The Mouse says. “He’s going to Yale, like me.” She smiles and goes back to her calculus book, as if it’s all settled.
“Hmph.” I fold my arms. But I suppose it makes sense. The Mouse is so organized, she would have her romantic life figured out by the time she’s eighteen.
While I have nothing figured out at all.
“I
