Boy Swap (11 page)

“What did you guys see?”

She thinks about it for a moment. “I can’t remember,” she says sheepishly and I laugh.

Chris and I have been to a lot of movies where I couldn’t name the title, who was in it, or what it was about. Sigh. Chris. I feel a pang in my chest. How did things change for us so quickly? Why did he have to give in to Cassie’s advances? Why isn’t he the guy I thought he was when I fell in love?

Chapter 16: Study Buddies

I enter the public library at five to four and head for the classic literature section where Carter and I agreed we’d meet. I take a seat at one of the thick wood tables in a back corner where we won’t be disturbed by other patrons. Carter should be here any minute. I tug my shirt down a bit and check my makeup in my compact one last time.

“Hi, Brooke,” a female voice sings and I snap my compact shut. It’s Cassie. What the heck is she doing here? Carter walks up behind her a few seconds later.

“Sorry,” he says. “Just dropping off some books.”

“No problem,” I say, purposely directing my attention at him and not Cassie.

“I hope you don’t mind that I tagged along, Brooke. Carter told me he was meeting you at the library and it was such perfect timing because there were a few things I needed to look up online.” She narrows her eyes at me and flashes a wicked smile.

Right. Like she doesn’t have an Internet connection at home? Liar. I look at her and then look off to the side. And then do it again. Just like she did to me that day at the football game when she wanted me to leave so she could talk to Chris alone. But Cassie doesn’t budge.

“Are you okay, Brooke? Is there something in your eye?”

Witch, witch, witch!

“No, I’m fine, Cassie. Thanks for asking,” I reply sweetly. “I’m still getting used to my new contacts.”

“You should really get laser surgery.”

“Thanks. I’ll think about doing that.”

“Well, we gotta work, Cass. Why don’t you go do your online stuff?” Carter says.

Yes! You rock Carter!

“Oh. Well…okay,” Cassie says, looking the tiniest bit hurt that he asked her to take a hike.

Hee hee. I’m doing a mental happy dance.

“Nice talking to you, Cassie,” I add, feeling an incredible urge to get in a few last words.

Cassie slowly walks toward the row of computers at the front of the library, occasionally throwing glances over her shoulder until she is out of sight. I open up my paisley pink composition notebook and look at Carter expectantly.

“I couldn’t believe it when you asked to do Graves for the presentation,” he says. “He’s like, one of my favorite poets.” Chris closes his mouth and looks thoughtful for a moment. “But, don’t, like, let that get around. That I have a favorite poet. I’d get razzed by the guys pretty bad.”

“Oh, no problem,” I say, motioning like I’m zipping my lip. Which is totally like a nine-year-old motion and probably makes me look L-A-M-E. But Carter doesn’t seem to notice this. “Robert Graves is one of my favorites too. I’d have to say, as far as the British poets go, my favorites are him, Dylan Thomas, and Thom Gunn. In that order.”

Carter gives me a super impressed look.

Yes! God bless you, Wikipedia.

“Nice list,” Carter says with a nod. “Gunn was a bit of a freak if I remember correctly. I think I read somewhere that he used to participate in huge wild orgies on some hill somewhere. Maybe in California.”

Great, Brooke. Tell him the orgy guy is your third favorite poet. Mental note, next time I prepare for a study date online, explore past the first page of hits.

“Yeah,” I finally say. “I think you’re right. That was a little interesting piece of his history, huh?” Please don’t think I’m a freak.

“Most poets are out there. Take Bukowski—he’s one of my favorite American poets. He was a raving drunk.”

Bukowski, Bukowski, Bukowski. Ugh. Who is that? Sounds like the name on a package of sausages.
Try real homemade Bukowski Polish Sausage. Fresh in your grocer’s deli case.
Mental note #2, look up Bukowski tonight. I’ll just nod and agree for now.

“Oh no doubt!” I say with a little laugh, like I’m part of some inside joke. “Total alchy.”

Carter laughs. I must have said the right thing. Whew.

“So should we start with like, an outline or something? Decide what the main parts of the presentation should be?” he asks.

“Great idea.” I pull a pen from my purse and write, “I.” at the top of a fresh page in my notebook. “We should start with some kind of intro and tell everyone what is going to be in the speech.”

Carter nods.

“Then what?” I say. “Go into his life? Like when he was born, where he worked, that type of stuff?”

“Definitely,” Carter says. “And we have to talk about his love life for sure.”

“Of course!” I agree, nodding eagerly. “He was a top love poet—we have to cover his actual love life. His inspirations. I can do that part if you want.”

“Sure,” Carter says. “Then we should maybe read a couple of poems. And tell the class the meaning behind them and stuff.”

“Excellent idea,” I say writing everything down as fast as I can.

Carter and I make awesome project partners. We have an entire outline done in like ten minutes. We spend another fifteen talking about various poets and poems (ok, I let him do most of the talking, but then readily agree where I can and nod a bunch). Carter knows so much about poetry. I’m way impressed that a guy—scratch that—a seventeen-year-old, super popular, wrestler guy, knows so much about poetry. Like really insightful stuff. He’ll tell me a line about a bird and a dark sky and a dead branch. And I’m thinking, got it, bird, sky, branch. Yawn. But then he’ll explain to me how it really represents a lone soldier returning at the end of the war without his platoon to a town that basically died from extreme poverty and sickness. Whoa, right? I don’t even know how he sees all that. He’s
so
smart. Not to mention, just an overall really cool guy.

“So where do we go from here?” I ask, looking over our completed outline.

Carter moves to my side of the table and leans over my shoulder to look at my list. A black rope necklace with a small clay cross swings from his neck, right by the side of my face. And he smells absolutely YUMMY. I wonder what cologne he’s wearing. It’s kinda like sexy outdoorsy guy with a hint of cinnamon. He writes our names down the page, assigning us different sections from the list.

“Okay,” he says, still leaning down by my face, “how about you do those sections and I’ll do these? Then we can meet again Thursday after school, compare notes, and practice the presentation for Friday.”

I turn my face toward his, which is seriously about three inches away and totally within kissing reach, and breathe, “Sounds good.” The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up.

“Ahem,” we both hear from our left. Carter straightens up. Blech. Cassie’s back. “Are you about done, Sweetie?” she says to Carter in a maple syrup voice, draping an arm possessively around his waist.

“Just a sec, Cass.” He leans down to my notebook and scribbles something at the top of the page. “Here’s my IM handle and my e-mail address. If you want to talk over anything else tonight or tomorrow or whatever, I’m online a lot in the evenings.”

“Great, will do,” I say. When Carter moves back to his side of the table to collect his things, I give Cassie a satisfied smile. Funny, she doesn’t smile back.

Chapter 17: Last Year’s Coach Bag

“Do you think if Jacob and I got married, our kids would be really musical? I mean, since we both are?” Lizzie asks with a far-off, daydream look on her face.

“Wow,” I say, resisting the urge to laugh, “you’ve been dating for what…four, five days? And you’re already talking marriage?”

“Shh!” she says, looking around to see if Jacob has come into the band room yet. It’s still ten minutes before first period band starts and Lizzie is sitting with me in the flute section chatting. “Don’t let anyone hear you say that. Jacob would freak. I’m not sure we’re even official. I think he has a bit of commitment phobia.”

“Seriously? You guys are making out like, every time I see you in the same room together. He’s definitely committed to taste testing your mouthwash.”

Lizzie giggles. “He’s such a good kisser.”

“Apparently.”

I glance behind me toward the trumpet section and wrinkle my nose. Someone is greasing their slides and it smells disgusting. I pull out my navy men’s handkerchief and start cleaning out my flute head.

Lizzie looks at me expectantly.

“What?” I say.

“You didn’t answer.”

“Oh…the musical thing? Yeah, you’ll have a little Beethoven and Mozart running around the house before you’re twenty, I’m sure.”

“Nah, I have to at least finish college first.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re seriously lucky I didn’t eat breakfast this morning or you’d be wearing it.”

Lizzie laughs. “Okay, okay, I’ll curb the Jacob talk. It’s hard though, he’s so cute!”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s
dreamy
,” I say and she knocks me in the shoulder with hers.

“How are things with Chris?”

“Good, good,” I say, probably a little too quickly. I have absolutely zero desire to discuss Chris right now.

Speak of the two-timing devil, Chris walks into the band room and heads for the percussion section. He sees me talking to Lizzie up front, waves, and starts walking in our direction.

“Here comes your lover boy now. I’ll get back to my chair and warm up so you two can talk.”

“Warm-up, schwarm-up,” I say. “You know you’re going to be composing a mental list of names for Baby Vivaldi.”

“Shh!” she says again and walks back to her seat.

Chris slides into the vacant seat Lizzie left and gives me a kiss on the lips. “Hey, Hon,” he says. “I would have given you a ride this morning.”

“I know, but Lizzie and her mom picked me up on the way. No biggie.”

“Yeah, but I miss you. I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.”

“We see each other at school every day, Chris,” I remind him. Not to mention your social calendar seems rather full these days.

He gives me a tiny frown. “Not the same.”

For the briefest moment I want to reach out and hug him but I resist, clutching my hands tighter around the body of my flute instead. We both stare at each other for a few seconds.

“Go out with me tonight,” he says. “Are you already busy?”

I think for a moment. “Well, not really. I do have some homework I need to do.” Like, write out my part of the presentation for my Thursday study-date with Carter. But, I suppose I could go out. For a while. “What time are you thinking?”

“How about 7:30? Will that give you enough time to do your work? My mom has a few paintings in this community art show thing. She wants me to show up. We can eat some cheese and walk around ripping on the different art pieces.”

Aw, kinda like the old days. Chris is really good at walking around ripping on things. Or people. He’s always cracked me up at least.

“Sounds like fun,” I say. “I’m sure I’ll be done by then.”

“Cool.” He gives me another kiss and then walks back to his drums.

*      *      *

One of the totally awesome perks of being a member of the BSC is my newfound fondness of gym class. What once was a dreaded, lonely fifty-minute chunk of my day has become a highlight. And it’s all because of Missy. I probably never would have gotten to know her, let alone ever even talked to her, if it wasn’t for BSC. And now we are totally buds. We hang out in every gym class, whether it’s being on the same team when it’s girls’ floor hockey or partners for badminton. Under all that big beautiful fluffy blond hair is a really sweet girl.

“Hey, B,” Missy says, lowering herself into a criss-cross applesauce next to me.

And yes, Missy is the only one allowed to call me “B.”

“Hey, Miss,” I return.

“We’re practicing for that President’s fitness test stuff today.”

“Oooh, fun.”

Missy sets to work on gathering all of her hair into a ponytail holder, which does not look like an easy task.

After attendance, Coach Brown tells us to take turns counting how many sit-ups we can do in a minute’s time.

Missy goes first and I hold her feet. She finishes with an impressive fifty-two sit-ups.

“Hey, Miss,” I say as we switch positions on the mat. I look around to see if anyone is within earshot. No one is.

“Yeah?”

“I was just thinking about BSC stuff. Do you swap a lot yourself?”

“Heck yeah,” she says, pushing some stray hairs back behind her ears.

“Really?” I say, a bit surprised.

“Of course. I take full advantage of my membership.”

“Well,” I begin, forming my next question carefully, “how do you go about swapping? I mean, have you ever gotten backlash from the girlfriend of the…swapee?” Is that the right term?

Missy sits back on her knees and looks at me with her head tilted a bit. “Why? Are you thinking about it already?”

“What do you mean, ‘already’?”

“No…nothing really. It’s just, I didn’t really start swapping until my second year. When I was really sure of how everything worked.”

“It seems pretty clear,” I say.

“It is. You just have to be careful,” she says thoughtfully.

Missy places her hands on my feet, to signal that I should start my sit-ups but I’m not quite ready to end the BSC talk.

“What about your boyfriend?” I ask, laying back on the mat but not starting my sit-ups.

“What about him?”

“Does he go out with a lot of the BSC members?

“Oh sure.”

“And you don’t care at all?” I sit back up to look at her.

“No, of course not.” She lets go of my feet and sits back on her knees.

“How do you do that? Not care.”

“I guess I’m just used to it. Brad is fun and cool to hang out with. More like a nice accessory, you know?”

I raise one eyebrow at her.

“You know,” she begins, “he’s kinda like, last year’s Coach bag. Yes, it matches a lot of your outfits and it is comfortable and familiar. And it is still in really nice condition—no frays or dents in the buckle. But, it isn’t so valuable that you wouldn’t let your best friend borrow it when she needed it.”