Harper waited for me behind the school, already astride her bike. She could use her granddad’s car whenever she wanted, and she drove me to school on the rare occasions when it rained. The rest of the time, she biked. Voluntarily. She said it helped her feel more a part of the community. Harper was kind of a kook.
“Hey!” she called. “You told me you were keeping your stuff in Will’s car. Why do you still have your drum?”
“He kicked me out of his trunk. I’ve got to dump this in the band room, but I’ll just be a sec.” I dropped my purse and backpack beside my bike in the rack, then walked through the entrance of the school, into a courtyard full of palm trees where people hung out during midmorning break and lunch. This was a bad design on the school’s part, because the courtyard was walled in by classrooms with windows that definitely were not soundproof. Teachers let us escape out here, then shushed us constantly. It was like standing next to Will in band.
All the frustration of the last thirty minutes—or the last week, more like it—hit me suddenly. I felt an uncontrollable urge to make some noise. Marching through the courtyard, I tapped out a complicated salsa beat while singing a Marc Anthony tune at the top of my lungs. He was born in New York City and was about as Puerto Rican as I was, but the dude could really write a salsa. And though drumming was second nature to me after years of practice, when I really listened to myself, I was surprised at how good I was and how fast my sticks could strike the drumhead.
I saw movement behind one of the windows. Though school was out, the teachers were still here, planning our demise for Monday. They wanted quiet. In the next second someone would slam open a window and tell me to be quiet. Until that happened, I beat my drum as loudly as I could, even threw in some rim taps that would take the skin off an unprotected ear canal. As I backed through the band room door, I saw Harper had stopped her bike a few yards away. She frowned at me with both hands over her ears.
“Sorry,” I said. Feeling a little better, I dumped my drum into the storage room and came back outside. “So, what’s this I hear about you being the perfect couple with Brody Larson? You’re both dating other people, and you hardly know him. You move fast, don’t you? Slut.”
“Shut it.” She removed one of her hands from the side of her head and placed it over my mouth. Then, as I walked through the courtyard to retrieve my own bike, she pedaled beside me. “The artistic side of me says, ‘How cool and random for a boy I hardly know, some jock who isn’t on the yearbook staff or the newspaper staff or even in the drama club, to be chosen as my perfect boyfriend!’ The artistic side of me wants to write a poem about it. Meanwhile, the rational side of me is saying, ‘What the f**k?’ Also, ‘His girlfriend is going to kick my ass.’ ”
“I’m not rational at all,” I pointed out as though this were not obvious, “and I’m saying ‘What the f**k?’ also. But the difference between you and me is, the second he and Grace broke up—and this is probably going to happen, because Brody never dates anyone for long—I would try to hook up with him just out of curiosity.”
“You’re forgetting Kennedy,” Harper said.
I was not forgetting her boyfriend, Kennedy. I simply thought if her choice was between responsible Kennedy and wild Brody, there was no contest. Bring on the hot mess! But that was me, and Harper was Harper. I figured I’d better let the subject drop before I got myself in trouble.
As we emerged from the courtyard again, I gazed across the parking lot, which was almost empty of students’ cars now. Of course Will had not waited to watch me emerge from the school so he could rush over and apologize. His car was gone. He’d probably picked up old Angelica on his way off campus. I bet she’d slipped her little hand in his before they even passed the HOME OF THE PELICANS sign.
“Worry about your own mismatched boy,” Harper said. “Tell me what happened between you and Will. You were elected Biggest Flirts, and that’s why he kicked you out of his trunk?”
“Yes! He broke up with me!” As I unlocked my bike from the rack and launched myself down the palm-lined street, I told her all about my argument with Will.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You want him to like you enough that he doesn’t ask anyone else out, even though you’ve turned him down because you don’t want a boyfriend.”
“Correct.”
“That’s just selfish of you.”
“I agree.”
“You’re not a selfish person.”
“Apparently Will’s my downfall.”
“But . . .” Harper pondered this for a couple of blocks before finally asking, “Don’t you think it might be worth considering bending your no-boyfriend rule for Will? People at school are talking about you two a lot. It’s hard to believe this is just a passing hookup.”
“A past hookup,” I clarified. “I’m sure he wouldn’t even take me back now. He wants exactly what he has. Angelica is a tiny blond girl. I’m a gangly puertorriqueña.” We’d reached a row of shops where we had to get off the sidewalk and stick to a narrow bike lane. I shot ahead of Harper, trying to escape this discussion.
“Tia,” Harper called, “that’s just weird. If Will has a problem with you being part Puerto Rican, you don’t want him anyway.”
“I don’t want him anyway,” I threw over my shoulder.
“And you’re not gangly. You’re tall, which would be an asset on the modeling runway.”
“I am not on the modeling runway, however. I am riding a bike through suburban Tampa/St. Petersburg, and my knees are touching my ears.” As I pedaled, I bent my head to try to make this happen. I swerved dangerously toward the comic book store we were riding past and straightened just in time to avoid crashing through the window and shocking the nerds.
Harper was laughing her ass off behind me. “I promise you’re not gangly. To be considered gangly, you would have to walk funny. In that case, Kaye would have shown up at your house before now to conduct an intervention.”
We talked about Kaye then. Harper hadn’t seen her after school. I told Harper how happy Kaye had seemed at being elected Most Likely to Succeed along with Aidan—as if either of them needed to be reassured.
Harper asked me how closely I’d listened to the announcements. She said she was taking the Senior Superlatives photographs for the yearbook starting Monday morning, and Will and I should meet her in the courtyard right at the beginning of second period.