Getting Over Garrett Delaney(17)
Author: Abby McDonald

It’s a text. Tried calling, got your voice mail. Can you talk?

Garrett. How did I miss his call?

“ . . . don’t you think?”

My head snaps back up. “Um, what was that last part?”

Kayla sighs. “Do you need to call someone? You’ve been checking that thing, like, every two minutes.”

I can tell from her face that “Yes, I have to go, now!” wouldn’t be the right answer. “It’s fine,” I lie, snapping the phone shut and stowing it in my back pocket. “It can wait.”

“OK. Hey, can you hold these? My lips are crying out for ChapStick.” She passes me her shopping bags and Slushie until I’m laden with handles and cups in both hands. “Man, where is that thing? I’m sure I saw it in here somewhere. . . .” Kayla digs through her purse while I juggle our collected junk.

“Um,” I murmur, trying to keep hold of everything. “I don’t think I can keep . . .”

“I swear, this thing is like a portal to some other dimension.” Kayla grins, still rummaging in the cavernous confines of her pale-blue shoulder bag. “It swallows everything whole.”

And then I feel the buzz of my phone again.

“Kayla?”

But she’s upended her bag and is dumping makeup and spare change and tampons out onto the floor. I edge over. “Could you . . . ?”

“Sure, just a sec!” ’

My phone buzzes again, this time with Garrett’s ringtone, an obscure Belle & Sebastian song he loves. He’s calling!

That second drags into an eternity as I watch Kayla hunt for the mythical missing ChapStick. Garrett’s ringtone sounds again. And again. This is torture. I can’t focus on Kayla, the mall, anything! Not when Garrett is waiting on me, somewhere out there. . . .

What if he can’t deny it anymore? What if he has to tell me how he feels?

Enough! Carefully, I move one of the Slushies over into the crook of my right arm, so I’m clutching it to my chest. Then I set about transferring shopping bags out of my left hand, hooking two onto my pinkie and trapping the handle of another between my teeth. There: my phone hand is free! Now, if I can just stay very still, I might be able to reach around. . . .

I grope across my body for my left back pocket and reach my ringing phone with the very tips of my fingers. Gently, gently, I nudge it closer, until I can almost —

“Found it!”

Kayla suddenly bounces to her feet, proudly clutching the pink tube of ChapStick.

“No!”

But it’s too late. She knocks into me; I teeter, losing balance, and then — as if the world has slowed — I realize in a split second that I have a terrible choice to make: answer Garrett or keep my load stable.

Phone or Slushies. Phone or Slushies.

So I choose.

8

I’m not proud of what happens next: the horrifying arc of lurid red liquid spilling through the air, Kayla’s squeal of disbelief. But what was I supposed to do? Destiny doesn’t wait for a convenient moment to call, and if you’re too slow, then you risk letting it pass you by forever. No, you’ve got to cling on to fate — or your cell phone — tight with both hands, and to hell with the consequences. Which in this case are a ruined outfit, and Kayla fleeing from me as fast as her cute blue sneakers will take her.

Even the next morning, I still feel bad, and after all that, Garrett only wanted to know the name of the guy who wrote that book about all the sad young literary men. At least, that’s what he says he was calling about, but who knows what emotional truth was lingering on the tip of his tongue, had I only picked up the call sooner?

I’m saving all the notes and handouts for you. Garrett’s IM bubbles to life on my screen. Early mornings are the best time for him to chat, before classes get started. I’ll mail them this weekend — I promise.

No problem, I type back, wistful. For the first time in years, I don’t know exactly what he’s doing; the stories he tells me are all at a distance, secondhand narrations of what he’s been seeing, and doing, and thinking. Are the classes fun?

More work than fun. His reply comes a moment later. But worth it. I’m learning so much.

“Honey, I’m leaving in two minutes!” Mom calls upstairs.

“OK!” I yell back, typing a quick good-bye. Text if you want to talk! I even allow myself a casual x sign-off before I log out, grab my bag and my comfiest pair of sneakers, and hurtle downstairs.

“You look nice.” Mom smiles as I burst into the kitchen, but she can’t stop herself from reaching out to rearrange my hair. I bat her hand away. “I’m glad you’re finally growing those bangs out.”

“Nope, I just forgot to trim them,” I tell her, taking a slice of leftover apple strudel from the fridge and then — at her expression — adding a real apple.

“But they’ll be so cute longer.”

“Cute is for six-year-olds,” I tell her as I nibble at my cold, delicious breakfast. “Cute is only one step away from adorable.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

I sigh. If she had it her way, my mom would still be braiding my hair and tying satin bows on the ends, but there comes a time in a girl’s life when she has to take other things into consideration when it comes to her hairstyle choices. Male things. And so when I sat down to watch Amélie with Garrett back after we first met and he commented on how stylish she looked, I figured, why not? The blunt-cut bob works for me, kind of. It balances out this nose of mine, and on good days, I even look foreign and interesting.

“We should get going,” I tell Mom before she can segue from my bangs to my clothing, demeanor, and general life choices. “I don’t want to be late for work.”

No such luck. My mom can segue with the best of them. “Are you sure you want to serve coffee all summer?” She follows me out to the car. “It’s not too late to quit, and I still need an assistant for the Positivity Now! seminars next week.”

“No, thanks,” I tell her carefully, rather than explaining why handing out name tags to a flock of lost souls in search of purpose via seven-step plans is pretty much my idea of hell. I’d rather wrestle with the Beast than hear how a simple organizational chart can save the world. “Anyway, there’s a whole literary tradition I’m following. Garrett says even Trotsky wrote in the coffeehouses of Vienna.”

Mom doesn’t look convinced. “I can pay ten dollars an hour. And you’ll have free entry into all kinds of motivational talks.”