Being Friends With Boys (5 page)

“You can’t smoke that here.” My whole body is on alert, looking around for anyone who might see us. Coaches, stray teachers, Principal Hammersley.

“You’re right,” he says, putting the joint to his lips and withdrawing a lighter from somewhere.

“I’m serious.” I put my hand over his, stopping the lighter in its path. “I am not doing this if you are going to be high.” I’ve heard enough of Abe, Oliver, and Trip’s stupid pot-hazed
conversations to turn me off the stuff forever, if I was interested in smoking anything, anyway. “It’s not part of the contract.”

Benji’s brown eyes level at me. “Contract?” The joint bounces on his, I notice, very plump red lips.

“I just—” I take my hand off of his. Part of me wants to wipe it on my pants. “I mean, I’m not
drunk
, so—”

“You could be.”

I don’t know if that means he thinks I might be, or if he’s giving me permission.

“You can smoke when we’re done, whatever. I don’t care. But while we’re working, I need your actual brain.”

“You need my actual brain.” His eyes are still on mine, unmoving. I stare him down. My hands are uncomfortably sweaty.

Eventually he shrugs, finally taking the joint out of his mouth and burying it back in the depths of his jacket. There’s a tiny white speck of rolling paper left on his lip, but I’m certainly not going to tell him.

Instead we sit there, side by side, our notebooks splayed across our laps. I’m amazed, looking at Benji’s tidy handwriting. He’s got everything from Dr. Campbell’s notes, plus little sidebars in the margins, tying in things our teacher mentions in his lectures. The ones that might be useful.

“You don’t need me,” I tell him after a minute. “Your notes
are perfect.” Meanwhile I’m copying the parts I apparently missed in class.

“So, okay?” He is already reaching into his jacket, arching his eyebrows at me.

I could be a prude, or I could have him think I’m at least a
little
cool. “Whatever, I don’t care.”

I keep copying his notes, waving away the drifts of Benji’s smoke as they head in my direction. At one point he offers the joint to me. I glare at him.

“Just being polite,” he mutters.

That’s all we say. When I finish I hand Benji back his notebook, tell him thanks. I feel weird that he didn’t look at my own notes for more than a second or two.

“My pleasure,” he says. His eyes are loose. He leans back on the seat behind us, and I see his gaze pause in the general area of my chest. “So, what now? You want to—make out a little or something?”

“You have got to be kidding.” I’m glaring at him, but I also want to giggle.

He shrugs again, leans down to put the joint out on the heel of his shoe. The stubby, stinky butt gets put inside the folds of his jacket.

“Just sayin’,” he goes, aloof. “We’re out here, there’s time to kill, I’m gonna save your Twentieth Cen. grade. . . .”

I arch my eyebrow at him, trying to joke back. “You still have to prove that part.”

He can’t really think that I am going to make out with him in exchange for his notes? I feel blood thumping in my neck, the backs of my knees.

“Okay, then.” He stretches, climbs forward, starts heading down the bleachers. Like nothing just happened. “You need a lift home?” he offers.

“I’ll walk,” I say, firm, though I’ve never done it before.

“Suit yourself.”

His indifference is a little startling. I push my hair back from my face, try to shake some sense into my head.
DO NOT HANG OUT WITH BENJI MCLAUGHLIN
is behind my eyes. I follow Benji off the bleachers, and for a second I consider accepting a ride from him, but there’s nowhere for me to hurry to. Plus, I could probably afford to burn a few calories.

“Well, thanks, Benj,” I say, to say something, when we get to the upper lot.

He veers off toward his car and holds up his hand in a wave without saying anything else. I’m not sure if I’m glad he hasn’t insisted on driving me or if it’s rude. I decide to blame it on the pot, and take out my phone, text Dad to let him know what I’m doing. I’m half a block away from school when Benji passes by me in his old brown Volvo. He beeps and waves, but he doesn’t slow down.

The streets between school and home are surprisingly trashed: Chic-fil-A bags, empty plastic bottles, and, gross, a discarded diaper. At first I’m indignant about the neglect, but before long I’m imagining Sad Jackal doing some kind of neighborhood cleanup, maybe with a performance at the school at the end? I’m taking my phone out to text Oliver the idea when it rings. I’m surprised but thrilled to see it’s Jilly.

“Did you ever walk home from school?” I ask her, without saying hey.

“I don’t think so, why?”

“The whole way is covered with trash. It’s alarming.”

“You’re walking? From school? What time is it?” I can hear her looking at her watch.

“It’s fine. I’m almost home,” I lie.

“Okay, well” is all she says. She can’t do anything about it anyway, even if she wanted to. We both feel it in the air between our voices.

“So what’s up?” I ask.

“I just wanted you to know that I’m not coming home for fall break,” she says, voice switching to her serious-and-practical tone.

“You have fall break?”
How many breaks do you
get
in college?

She charges through, fast, like she’s trying to convince herself:
“Adele and some other girls are going to Savannah that weekend, and it just seems like fun, so . . .”

She needs me to tell her it’s fine.

I step over some broken-up sidewalk, a plastic bag filled with what is either mud or— “Well, I didn’t even know you might come home, so it’s not like it’s a disappointment.”

“I’ll be home for Thanksgiving,” she offers as an apology, not even hearing what I just said.

“It’s fine, Jill. Really. Hey, Hannah’s letting us choose our own cereal again. No more Kashi, ha!”

“No faaaaair,” she whines. But I can tell she wanted to have to soothe me a little more than that.

“Yeah, well, me and Darby managed to wear her down. Only took a little over a week, actually.”

I hear her say something to someone else with her. It makes me feel insignificant. And also like she’s not listening to me at all.

When she comes back she says, “Well, we have Cap’n Crunch here too, so. But, I mean, are you okay? With the break thing? I don’t want you to feel like I’m . . .”

What she doesn’t say is
abandoning you
.

“You aren’t,” I insist, too fast, though somehow, with her bringing it up like that, it’s suddenly like she
is
.

“Don’t worry” is all I say.

“Well—” She sounds unsure. Ever since Mom left six years
ago, it feels like I’ve always had to assure Jilly that there’s no
way
she’d ever turn into her. It’s annoying and a little unfair.

“Send me a postcard or something, okay?” I try to say lightly. But immediately it’s the wrong thing to say, because it brings up all the postcards Mom sent, at the beginning. How we read them over and over, trying to decipher what more she might be trying to tell us in between those few lines.

“I mean,” I go on, trying fiercely to repair everything, “just have a blast and Thanksgiving is practically around the corner, so.” Although, it’s still September. Halloween—our favorite holiday together—lies between now and when I’ll see Jilly next. The only way I’ll see her costume is if she posts pictures. The only way she’ll know about Sad Jackal’s performance at the dance is if I do the same. Instead of just being a part of each other’s lives, we have to make time to report on them. Which makes me not want to be on the phone anymore. Why did she bother telling me? I didn’t even know she was getting a fall break. I should’ve just let it go to voice mail.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay, then.” My voice has started cramping up in the top of my throat. I am such a stupid baby.

“I’ll call this weekend. Give Dad a kiss.”

“Love you,” I mumble. I’ve turned onto our street and I can see our house now. The streetlights have all come on around me, even though it’s just starting to be dusk.

“Love you, too. So much,” she tells me.

And then she is gone.

When I get to our driveway I just stand there, by the mailbox. Actual tears start to fall, hot and embarrassing. I don’t know why I’m crying. Jilly’s not coming home, but it’s no big deal. She’s in college. I didn’t know she even
might
come home. And this is what she’s supposed to do. I’m fine, really. I’m really absolutely fine. She can’t be involved in every tiny aspect of my life anymore. I knew that. I know it. It doesn’t mean she’s turning into Mom.

Which makes me, immediately, want to talk to her. Mom.

I check the time. She’ll be in her studio in the warehouse she rents with a bunch of other artists just outside of Taos. In exchange for answering the phone there, plus paperwork and maintenance things for everybody, Mom sleeps in a tiny loft upstairs. When she told me and Jilly about it, we made up all these stories about sophisticated artist parties and dark-of-night incidents with coyotes that we imagined Mom must be having. When we finally went to visit two years ago, though, Jilly said not even college students lived that way anymore.

Wiping tears off my cheeks and clearing my throat, I dial the studio phone. Mom has a cell, but it’s never on. That, or she forgets and leaves it in her beat-up Jeep.

“Hello?” she says, after eighteen or something rings.

“Mom.” My throat is still twitching a little, from talking to Jilly.

“Hi, sweetie. How are things?” She is breathy, loose. Like it hasn’t been almost a month since we talked.

“They’re okay. Classes aren’t wretched yet.”

“That’s good. I forget—you in them with anyone?”

I tell her (again) about psych with Oliver, and then jump over school (so she won’t ask about Lish) to the band, the upcoming auditions.

“I’m glad it’s going well,” she says. “Though I’m sorry Trip and Oliver have had a falling-out.”

“They haven’t had a falling-out.” Irritating. “It’s just that—”

“Well, I’m sure everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”

She says this. Always. I know she’s trying to be reassuring, but sometimes, like now, it feels more like she’s just bored with my problems.

“How’s your dad? And your sister?” she asks.

“They’re fine. Jilly likes her roommate, and her classes. Dad has a lot of clients.”

“I’m glad to know that.”

It was a mistake to call, and I don’t want to be talking to her anymore, but I don’t want her to think I’m ending things because she asked about Dad and Jilly, either. Dad and Jilly aren’t exactly fans of my mom. Mom tried at first to be Dad’s friend after she left, sending postcards and calling every week and things like
that, but now Dad only talks to Mom when he absolutely has to, and he’s still kind of curt when he does. Jilly’s a little better with her—I think she and Mom talk every few months now—but after Mom’s shouting and weeping on the phone on Jilly’s seventeenth birthday, things between Jilly and her have been pretty broken. This means I’m the one who has to tell Mom what’s going on with them, and I don’t like being in that position.

“How about you?” I ask, just to say something else.

“Oh.” She sighs. “Really busy, actually. I’ve been doing a lot of painting, still, and some pottery, too. I’ve got a show coming up.”

“Really?” This is supposed to be more exciting than she sounds about it. Apparently shows are harder to come by than she thought they’d be when she left us to become a real artist.

“We’ll see how it turns out.” Still so breathy. “It’s a lot of work right now, and the gallery owner isn’t exactly what you’d call cooperative, but it’s a show.”

“It’s what you went out there for. It’s great.”

“It is a really good, well-established gallery,” she goes on. “Downtown and everything. It’s promising. And the other artists are all very good.”

“Not your own show?”

“Well, no.”

This explains her lack of enthusiasm. Mom’s done group shows before, and they haven’t gone quite the way she hoped. But
maybe that’s because they haven’t been in good galleries, like this one sounds.

“Well, I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, honey. That means a lot.”

There’s a small pause between us. She isn’t, I notice, asking me to fly out for it.

“I should let you get back to work, then,” I say.

“Okay, hon. Well, good luck with the songs. I’m proud of you, too.”

It’s stupid but it does feel good, hearing her say that. Just good enough to get past my earlier funk, but I’ll take it.

F
our guys respond to the audition flyer. Three of them are bassists. Only one does synth stuff. During lunch period Friday, Oliver and I talk over our possible backup plans. Redoing the poster, putting yet another call out on Facebook, and waiting for another week (Oliver’s ideas) are all out. Trying to get Trip back, and seeing if our school’s band director has any suggestions (mine) are out, too. Eventually we settle on finding out how good these four guys are, and then looking for alternatives if we have to. I’m not excited about this plan, but by the end of the day Oliver’s no-worries attitude has, as it usually does, bled onto me and I feel decent.