Can You Say Catastrophe? (4 page)

For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.

—Judy Garland

Saturday, May 11
11:30 A.M.

Billy has not spoken to me since Wednesday.

Sunday, May 12
5:43 P.M.

Billy has still not spoken to me. No calls. No texts. Nothing.

I went over to Brynn's house this afternoon to ask her what she thinks about Billy not talking to me just because he kissed me and he knows I told her. Brynn says I had to tell her because I'm her best friend. Then she said that Billy is just “processing” and all he needs is a little time.

I asked her how much time she thinks he needs. Brynn said she thinks he'll talk to me at school tomorrow. She said that all the three of us ever do in school is talk, and if Billy doesn't talk, the only thing left to do will be his schoolwork. I reminded Brynn that Billy likes doing schoolwork. She said I had a point.

I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Monday, May 13
7:47 P.M.

Tomorrow, which is now today, brought nothing. The only thing Billy did at school was a lot of schoolwork.

Tuesday, May l4
8:56 P.M.

Today Billy did even more schoolwork.

8:58 P.M.

Billy didn't talk to me today, but Matt Parker did. I was walking by the baseball field on the way back from P.E., and Matt said hi. For once, I wasn't a total blubbering idiot around him. I just smiled (in a pretty cute way, I think) and said hi back.

Ugh! I can't believe I just wrote that. It's pathetic that I'm proud of myself for just saying hi, but it was kind of an accomplishment given the fact that every other time Matt Parker has even looked in my direction, I've said something stupid. I don't even know why I'm writing this. I'm sure Matt saying hi meant nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Wednesday, May 15
4:45 P.M.

I made a decision. If Billy's not going to talk to me, I'm going to talk to Billy. The only problem is that I'm not sure what to say to him, because I'm not even sure why he's not talking to me. It could be that he's mad because I told Brynn he kissed me. But I don't think that's the problem, because he wasn't talking to me before he thought I'd told Brynn. Or it could be he doesn't know what to say to me. That's what Brynn thinks it is. She said she read in
Seventeen
that it's normal not to know what to say to people after you kiss them. But Billy always knows what to say. It could be that he's upset he kissed me in the first place. Maybe kissing me was one of those things that falls into the things-you-do-without-thinking-first category. Except that when he kissed me, he said he'd wanted to do it for a long time.

I'm confused. I'm going to brush my hair, put on lip gloss, and hope I get un-confused.

4:59 P.M.

I'm still confused, but at least I have smooth hair, shiny lips, and a plan.

I'm going to walk Gilligan over to Billy's house. I'm going to say I was just out walking my dog and happened to pass his house. But while I'm pretending to walk my dog past his house, I'm going to talk to Billy and find out exactly what's going on.

10:47 P.M.
In my room
My door is locked
My brain is spinning

What I'm about to write is CRAZY!

I never found out what's going on with Billy. I took Gilligan out for a walk like I'd planned, but then something completely unplanned happened.

I saw Matt Parker. He was walking his dog too and he was like, “Want to walk our dogs together?” He didn't even wait for an answer. He just started walking beside me and telling me all this stuff about how the best thing about living in Faraway is that they have a really good baseball team and that it's a lot better than the team he was on when he lived in California, and how he misses living near the Pacific Ocean because he liked surfing there, and that he used to take all these cool pictures of the beach there, which he said looks totally different from the beaches here.

One minute, it seemed like Matt Parker hardly knew I was alive, and the next minute, he was telling me all this stuff about himself.

I wanted to say the right thing back, so I tried to think hard and fast. “The beaches around here are pretty cool,” I said. I thought that still sounded kind of stupid, so I kept talking. “But I've never been to California. I bet the beaches there are awesome.”

Matt smiled. “Want to see some pictures?” he asked.

And the next thing I knew, I was in Matt Parker's family room looking at the pictures he took of the beaches in California. I couldn't even believe it was me, sitting on a couch next to him, looking at pictures on his laptop. We looked for a long time, and then the most unbelievable thing happened.

Matt put his hand on my leg. At first, I thought maybe it was a mistake. But then he didn't move it. He looked at me in this way that's hard to describe, because no one's ever looked at me like that before. This sounds really weird, but it felt like he was trying to look inside me. I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. It was like Matt Parker's brain was talking to mine and telling it I should keep looking at him while he looked at me.

I'm not sure exactly what happened next. I remember thinking the room felt too warm. I wondered where Matt's parents were, but the house was quiet. It was just the two of us. After that, everything became a blur.

Matt put his laptop down. He squeezed my leg. Then he kissed me.

It wasn't anything like the way Billy kissed me. It wasn't soft, like I was a fragile doll. Matt Parker's lips were pressed against mine, and it was so intense. Part of me felt like I shouldn't be kissing anyone like that, but part of me liked it.

Matt put his hands on my waist. My cell phone vibrated in my back pocket. “Ignore it,” mumbled Matt. He kissed me again. I tried to focus on kissing Matt, but my phone vibrated again and it was hard to ignore the buzzing of my phone against my butt.

In the corner of my brain, I heard Gilligan bark. Matt's lips were still locked against mine. His hands were tight around my waist. I felt the vibration of my phone again.

I pulled away and reached into my back pocket. I freaked. Mom had called three times.

I looked at the time. “My mom is going to kill me!” I told Matt. “I was supposed to be home an hour ago to go to my grandma's birthday dinner.”

Matt did this head bob like I'd better go.

I grabbed Gilligan and raced home. And just like that, my unbelievable moment with Matt Parker ended, and my nightmare with my parents began.

The minute I walked into the kitchen, Mom said, “April, where have you been?”

My whole family was sitting there, dressed and ready to go.

Fortunately, Mom didn't wait for an answer to her question. She crossed her arms. She didn't look happy. “April, I told you to be back by 6:00 to go to Gaga's birthday dinner. What do you have to say for yourself?”

I tried to pull myself together. I prayed I didn't look like I'd been kissing my next-door neighbor. “I told you I was going to walk Gilligan,” I reminded Mom. “I just forgot about the time.” Which is true, I did forget about the time.

But that didn't seem to be good enough for Mom or Dad.

They went crazy. I couldn't even take in everything they were yelling about. Responsibility. Attitude. Punctuality. Consideration for others. Answering my phone whenever they call. I was trying to listen, but the only thing my brain could focus on was kissing Matt Parker. All I wanted to do was touch my lips and see what they felt like.

The yelling went on and on and on. Mom and Dad finally stopped, and we went to the dinner. But honestly, I don't understand why they were getting so upset. Gaga was celebrating her 79th birthday. After all that time, does starting an hour late make that much difference? And if we were so late, why were Mom and Dad wasting even more time yelling at me?

11:45 P.M.

I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about kissing Matt Parker.

I close my eyes and pretend like I'm still kissing him. I want to be kissing him. I feel like I just drank ten Mocha Frappuccinos. I'm buzzing. I could be a poster girl for Starbucks. I could levitate. When Matt kissed me, it felt like something inside me changed. I think I look different. My fingers look longer, my nail beds look whiter, and my ankles slimmer. When I point my toes, I don't even feel like they're mine. My skin is sparkling. Is that possible?!

It sounds crazy! I sound crazy!

I keep thinking about Matt. I want to kiss him again.

Then I think about Brynn. I have to tell Brynn.

Then I think about Billy. For the first time since this afternoon, when I was going over to his house to find out why he's not talking to me, I think about Billy.

I'm just not sure what I think about Billy.

Love can sometimes be magic. But magic can sometimes just be an illusion.

—Javan, poet

Thursday, May 16
Study Hall
Pretending like everything's OK
But it's NOT

Telling Brynn what happened with Matt was a BIG mistake.

I thought maybe it would be another instance when she wouldn't say what she was thinking, but it wasn't. After homeroom, I told her what happened with Matt yesterday and she had a whole lot to say.

“How could you kiss Matt Parker? You barely know him! What about Billy? How do you think Billy will feel after he kissed you, then you kissed Matt? Did you consider Billy's feelings?” I tried to explain to Brynn that I hadn't planned to kiss Billy or Matt, and that I had been on my way to try and find out what Billy's feelings were when Matt stopped me, showed me some pictures, and kissed me. But Brynn didn't want to hear any of my explanations.

She wanted to know if I'd thought about her feelings. She asked if I'd stopped for one second and thought about how it makes her feel that we're best friends and I've kissed two people before she's even kissed one. Then she asked what kind of friend it makes me that I would do that!

Brynn was making me feel like I should apologize for kissing two people who both technically kissed me. I tried to tell her I hadn't done anything to her, but Brynn was not in the mood to listen.

“You know, you're not my only best friend,” she said. “Billy is my best friend too. And if he kissed any other girl and I found out she kissed another boy after he kissed her, I would tell him.”

I froze. Sometimes I think being an only child, Brynn forgets the rules of sisterhood. I reminded her that she's like a sister to me and that when sisters tell each other their deepest secrets, they aren't supposed to share them with ANYBODY! Then I made Brynn promise she would never tell Billy that Matt and I kissed.

Brynn promised, but honestly, I wasn't convinced it was a promise she was going to keep. “Billy is probably thinking that the two of you are going to be boyfriend and girlfriend, which means you would have a boyfriend at camp,” Brynn said. “Having a boyfriend at camp would be so much fun!” She asked me if I'd thought about that and said that if I had, she didn't see how I could have kissed Matt.

Then, Brynn said something I can't get out of my head. “I don't know if you've noticed, but Billy is the cutest guy in our grade and any girl would want him as her boyfriend.”

She looked at me like it was my turn to say something. But I didn't know what to say. Part of me was thinking that Billy is cute and funny and sweet and smart, and having a boyfriend at camp would be fun. But another part of my brain, a big part, wasn't thinking about Billy. It was thinking about Brynn, and how she said that any girl in our grade would want Billy as a boyfriend, because what it made me think is:

Would Brynn?

5:15 P.M.
In my room

The rest of the school day was a disaster. Billy didn't speak to me, and Brynn could only talk about how I could have kissed Matt. When I told her I didn't want to talk about it anymore, she just rolled her eyes and shook her head like it would be hard to talk about anything else. The one person who did talk to me was Matt. When I passed him in the hall by the math classrooms, he stopped and made a joke about how certain things add up. But I freaked when I saw him and totally didn't get what he was saying, so all I did was ask if he'd made a bad grade on a test. He just shook his head and walked off.

OMG! What's wrong with me? I have to show Matt Parker I can be normal.

5:45 P.M.
In my backyard

Mom just left to go to the diner. She said she has to go help Dad with something and she left me in charge of May and June. Since I'm the one in charge, I just told my little sisters to walk to Winn-Dixie to buy stuff to make s'mores. While they're gone, I'm going to drag out our fire pit and make a fire in it.

My plan is simple. My sisters will be gone long enough for me to get the fire started in the little part of my driveway that curves around behind the house, which you can't see from the street, but you can see from Matt's house. When Matt sees what I'm doing, he'll think it's cool and come over and hang out with me by the fire. Maybe he'll say something sweet about how girls in California never do cool things like make fires in their driveways. Can they even have driveway fires in California? Who knows? Who cares? Momentarily, Matt Parker and I will be snuggled up by the light of the fire.

Sometimes my sisters actually come in handy. If Mom hadn't asked me to babysit, I'd still be thinking about how I always say and do the stupidest things when Matt's around. But now I'm thinking about my genius plan.

6:02 P.M.
Fireside

It's a good thing I went to camp all those years. Otherwise I would have no clue what I'm doing. My fire is glowing nicely. All I have to do is wait.

6:12 P.M.
Still waiting

I look at my watch. I try to visualize sitting next to Matt at my driveway fire. I read in a magazine that the way to make things happen is to visualize them.

But the thing my brain keeps visualizing is sitting around a fire at camp next to Brynn and Billy. I've sat with them at dozens of campfires. I try to push all thoughts of them out of my head. I want to think about sitting next to Matt. It will be fun and cozy. Then, when my sisters are back, I'll get to eat s'mores, my all-time favorite food.

Matt Parker + s'mores = my definition of a perfect day. I'm just getting a little sick of waiting for perfection to begin.

6:42 P.M.
In my room
Where I will be for a long time
By choice

My parents are furious with me. I am more furious with them.

Obviously, some people do not know genius when they see it. My mother is one of those people. My father is another. While I was sitting around the fire, waiting for Matt Parker to come over, my parents pulled into the driveway. I have never seen parents look the way my parents looked. They were crazy-eyed, foaming at the mouth, rabid mad. I hope I never see anyone look like that ever again.

As they got out of the car, Mom was clutching May and June and a Winn-Dixie bag like they were precious little things (which, clearly, they are not, especially my sisters).

Dad slammed the driver's-side door so hard the car was shaking. No kidding. When Dad saw the fire in the fire pit, he ran and grabbed the hose and sprayed the fire like he was putting out a wildfire.

Then he started yelling. My dad yelled so loud I'm sure anyone within a ten-mile radius (including Matt Parker) could hear.

He yelled for so long, I started to think I might be spending the rest of my teenage years in the driveway, with my dad yelling and my mother clutching my sisters and a shopping bag.

Here's the short version of what Dad had to say:

Could I imagine how it felt when my parents got a phone call at the diner that someone had found their two young daughters wandering the streets of Faraway? Two young girls, who I was supposed to be taking care of, were alone on a busy street. It was my job to protect them and keep them safe, and then what do my parents find when they come home? A fire in the driveway! My actions are grossly irresponsible!

Then Mom chimed in. Her face was all red and puffy. She honestly looked like she was having an allergic reaction. “April, your sisters could have been lost or hurt or even worse. You're going to be punished!”

But a) none of those things happened, and b) why am I going to be punished for not “taking care” of children who aren't even my children? I didn't have those children. I would never have had those children. God help me if I ever have children who turn out anything like my sisters.

I could sum this up in one word: OVERREACTION! My parents should be embarrassed.

I'm supposed to be in my room thinking of a punishment that fits the crime. But I don't think I'm the one who deserves to be punished.

7:13 P.M.
Let the punishment fit the crime

I have thought of a punishment that fits the crime, and it's perfect.

The crime: My parents yelled at me, in public, with no regard for my feelings.

The punishment: I'm boycotting my parents. I won't look at them or talk to them. When they talk to me, I won't answer. When I want or need something, I will no longer use terms of endearment like Mom and Dad. From now on, I'm calling them Flora and Rex (but only when I want or need something). This punishment extends to any and all spawn of Flora and Rex Sinclair. Which means, in addition to boycotting my parents, I'm also boycotting my sisters. This punishment is to be enacted immediately and will cover the period of time from now until June 15, when I leave for camp. When I return home from camp four weeks later, I will consider revoking the punishment if, and only if, my parents and my sisters can treat me with the love and respect I deserve.

Hallelujah. I really am a genius.

10:14 P.M.

When my parents came in to tell me goodnight, my light was already off. I was waiting. I knew they'd come knocking. But I'm not talking. Not to them.

When Dad bent down and gave me a kiss on my forehead, I let out a loud pretend snore. Only thirty days till camp. I seriously can't wait.