Major Crush(28)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“I’m leaving,” A llison said.

“What?” I exclaimed in fake surprise. “Why so soon?”

“Nothing to keep me here.” She wore the pageant smile, but I knew she was upset. She might have been the only homecoming queen in the history of football without a date to homecoming. I was impressed she’d lasted this long without a meltdown. A s much as A llison ever had a meltdown.

I squinted to see what she was staring at in the dark. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but finally I saw the touch football game over on the lawn. Luther and Craig versus all eight girl trumpets.

“Take off your heels,” I suggested. “I’m sure they’ll let you play. You’re Miss Homecoming.”

“I hate this town,” she said.

Now she was looking at the cars parked in Barry’s driveway. That’s when I saw Drew. A nd Cacey. Leaning against the farm truck. Cacey lit a cigarette.

“A t least they’re not getting dirty with each other,” A llison said. “He hasn’t touched her hand.” I’d told A llison about the whole hand-whore episode.

“What?” Walter asked.

“Inside joke,” I said.

“But I’m on the inside,” he said. “A ren’t I?”

The three of us stood there awkwardly.

“So, I’m going home,” A llison said. The pageant smile had returned.

“How?” Walter asked.

“I’ll walk.”

“It’s dark,” I said. “Call your dad to come get you.” The more obvious plan would have been for me to take her home, but I was the Evil Triplet. My need to spy on my non-boyfriend overrode my desire to help my best friend.

She shrugged and said again, “I’ll just walk.”

“Let me take you,” I said half-heartedly.

“Oh, no,” she said, glancing over at Drew. “I don’t think your work is done here.”

If her comment offended Walter, he hid it. He put his hand on her shoulder. “You want me to walk you?”

“Sweetie. No thanks.”

I touched her elbow. “Call me to let me know you got there.”

“No prob. Ta.”

“Ta,” Walter and I said.

We watched her walk up the driveway, past Drew and Cacey. Cacey was too into Drew to notice her sister’s arch-rival. She eyed Drew and blew smoke out the side of her mouth, away from him, like an expert.

I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t seem smart to lean against a truck while smoking a cigarette. What if there was an explosion and Drew was blown to smithereens? Would Mr. Rush fire me and replace me with Clay ton Porridge? Did he see Drew and me as a package?

I turned back to Walter. He was looking in the direction I’d been looking.

Better to admit it. “I was just thinking the Evil Twin might ignite the gas tank.”

Walter watched Cacey and Drew for a few seconds more, then turned back to me without saying anything.

“You’re out,” I said.

“Of?”

“One-liners.”

“Oh!” he said. “I thought you meant I was out of the picture.”

“Thank goodness you’re back,” I said.

We laughed. Then his smile faded, and I felt mine disappearing too. We were talking about young love.

Weren’t we?

I looked back to Drew. He was kissing the twin.

A ck, Drew was kissing the Evil Twin!

He had his hand on her waist. Unh, that was supposed to be my waist! He used his other hand to brace himself on the truck, and he bent to kiss her, a long hot kiss.

Well, it couldn’t have been too hot a kiss, because she had the presence of mind to flick ash from her cigarette onto the driveway while it was going on.

I turned back to Walter. He was watching me.

Then I got an idea. It was the make-out porch. I could make out with Walter.

“Want to sit down?” I asked, nodding toward an empty—errr—love seat.

“Why not?” he asked.

I could think of a lot of reasons why not.

We sat close but not touching, and joked quietly about the other couples making out. We rated them each with an artistic and a technical score. We did not rate Drew and Cacey.

I offered Walter all kinds of hints, but he wouldn’t make a move on me. I sidled a little closer to him, so our knees touched, and gave him what I thought was a pointed look. I didn’t want to make the first move. He was still crushing on me, and it would be cruel to lead him on.

But if he made the move on me, I could be nice and just enjoy it while we were in public, and then explain that I wasn’t interested when we were alone. A fter I’d made my point to Drew.

The only problem with this plan was that Walter wouldn’t cooperate. He wouldn’t take the hint. Or he got the hint, but he was being stubborn for some reason.

I knocked my knee against his knee.

He looked down at our knees, but didn’t otherwise move.

I reached out and touched his hand with one finger.

This time he looked up at me, and I knew for sure he was being stubborn. He was too smart for this. There was a reason he’d gotten into the State School for Fine A rts.

We stared at each other, and the air was electric between us.

My cell phone rang.

A s I half-stood to pull it out of my pocket, I saw that Drew had turned toward me, with his arm still braced on the truck, very close to Cacey.

A llison was calling to tell me she’d gotten home okay. When I clicked the phone off, Walter asked, “A re you ready to go?”

I thought he knew I was crushing on Drew, and he knew I was only here to see Drew, and he knew he wasn’t helping me give Drew the proper show. But I couldn’t be sure.

Drew kissed Cacey’s neck.

“Yes,” I said.

I drove Walter across town. Neither of us said anything for the whole ride, which was probably the first time that had ever happened between us. Last year we couldn’t even shut up when we were supposed to be standing at attention on the football field in the drum line.

I pulled my car into the campground and stopped at the door of the bus. His mothers car wasn’t there, of course. The lights were off in the nearby trailers.

I was half-hoping he would jump out and go inside before I even turned off the motor, but I knew he wouldn’t. Something was going to happen. I turned off the motor.

We sat there in the quiet dark. I stared straight ahead at the bus. In the years since Walter had painted it brown, the paint had faded and cracked. The original yellow showed through.

The air around us began to spark again. We still weren’t doing or saying anything, but that was the whole point. The quiet was so strange, and it said everything for us.