The One That I Want(41)
Author: Jennifer Echols

I knew I was in trouble when Addison looked triumphant. “Your boyfriend is Carter!” she crowed. “If you like Max now, you stole my boyfriend! You have been double dipping!”

The crowd gasped.

“I have not been doing any such thing!” I hollered at her. “That is dirty. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

She put her hands on her hips, uncomfortable for the first time. “Oh yeah? And how do you know all these expressions if you haven’t been doing something dirty?”

“Because I am in band, and I am friends with trumpets!” I must have sounded as crazy as I felt, screaming this at her, because someone stepped behind me and put a steadying hand on my back.

“You are in big trouble, Gemma Van Cleve,” Addison sneered at me. She touched her nose with her fingertip. At first I thought she was reminding me that she’d broken my nose so long ago. Or she was rubbing in how ugly my nose was now.

Instead, she said, “You didn’t keep your nose clean.”

She turned and flounced across the yard and into school. Toward the band room. Toward Mrs. Baxter.

“Ooooooh,” said the crowd.

The person attached to the calming hand on my back stepped forward. It was Robert. “Show’s over, folks. Nothing to see here.” He waved his hands like he was shooing cows. Several of them actually mooed as they dispersed.

He bent to look into my eyes. “Are you okay? What was that all about?”

“Yeah!” The head majorette leaned close, bringing the rest of the majorettes with her. “You always keep calm and carry on, Gemma. If you’re involved in drama, it must be serious.”

I was going to brush it off and tell them, “Nothing,” but that would be a lie. And as I looked around and saw their concern, I realized they really were my friends. I wanted them to know what had happened.

So I told them the bare bones of the story. The truth, so that Addison couldn’t accuse me of spreading rumors about her.

“And she’s going to try to get you kicked off the majorette squad for that?” Delilah squeaked. “She can’t do that!”

“I guess she can,” I said, defeated. “We all knew what Mrs. Baxter’s rules were when we tried out.”

The bell rang, and we hiked up the stairs to the school. As I sat in a series of quiet classrooms, alone with my thoughts except for the occasional Pythagorean theorem or genealogy of the British royal family, I calmed down. I felt better about what had happened. I was relieved that I had confronted Addison. I had accused her of this one transgression, but that was all it took to purge my bitterness about a six-year friendship full of insults and slights. I was gratified that Robert had taken up for me and the majorettes had not abandoned me. I hoped that only a few people had witnessed the fight.

That hope was dashed as I walked from class to class. I was almost late for dance because so many people stopped me to ask if I’d really dated the quarterback and the kicker from the rival team. Technically I had never gone on a date with Max, so I said no. Which felt like a betrayal of him, even though our night together had ended awfully.

I dreaded going to band. Addison would be there, and she would confront me again. Mrs. Baxter would be there, and she would tell me I was off the squad. Expecting something horrible to happen was almost worse than it actually happening. I spent the whole sweltering hour in that excruciating limbo. I was so distracted that I dropped my baton. Twice.

Mrs. Baxter never called me out of the line. But she seemed to scowl at me more disapprovingly than usual. I couldn’t be sure because she and the band director viewed us from so high in the stands. But Addison was only five yards away from me, with the other majorettes gathered around her. She was definitely scowling.

The next time the band ran the drill, we all moved to new positions on the field, and I was a long way from Addison. I looked around for Delilah to ask her what was going on. She was already walking toward me.

“You told us you liked the kicker for East in the first place, instead of the quarterback,” she said. “But you’re not with the kicker now. Are you?”

I tried to read her expression. When we’d gone to the vintage store, she’d guessed that I’d fallen for a guy I was going out with that night. I just hadn’t clued her in that the guy was Max instead of Carter. I hoped she understood that I couldn’t have told her then, because Max had belonged to Addison. Or so I’d thought.

“I’m not dating either of them now,” I said. Seven words, and so much behind them.

“Good,” she said. “If you were dating the kicker, I would have been worried. Since you’re not, this is probably good news.”

I doubted it.

“This morning Addison was talking about turning you in to Mrs. Baxter,” Delilah said. “Now she’s talking about getting revenge on the kicker instead. Maybe you’re off the hook.”

“How is she getting revenge on him?” I hated to ask.

“She says he’s really superstitious about game days.”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“She’s sending flowers to his house this afternoon,” Delilah said. “She acts like that’s going to get him good, but I don’t see how it will ruin his game, do you? Are flowers bad luck?”

“Only in context,” I murmured. “He’s superstitious about kicking, and his game day has to go like every other game day. I’d be willing to bet nobody ever sent him flowers before.”

Delilah touched my arm. “You really care about him.”

I nodded as tears filled my eyes. I was not going to cry. Not while Addison was glaring across the field at me and talking behind her hand to another majorette.

“Then you should discuss it with Addison,” Delilah said. “I’m sure she’ll listen to reason. Come on, I’ll go with you.” She tugged at my shirt.

I shook my head. If Delilah thought Addison would listen to reason, she didn’t know Addison very well. “I have another way to take care of it.”

My first idea was to camp out at Max’s house and wait for the florist truck so I could intercept it. But I didn’t know when Max would be home. I couldn’t be there when he arrived. I was the girl he’d gotten together with and made out with and dumped the night before. Finding me in his driveway would probably be even more unusual and traumatic for him on game day than receiving a bouquet of flowers. I didn’t have Dr. Hirayama’s number or the other Dr. Hirayama’s number, but I had Carter’s.