Choke (2 page)

“She's sure going to need it,” Alicia said.

The class laughed again till Mrs. Campos put up her fist. “That's enough!” she said as she counted with her fingers — one, two, three. We knew there'd be detention if she reached five before we hushed, so we quickly settled down. Mrs. Campos held the silence a little longer, and then she turned to me. “Windy, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

I shrugged. “I don't know.”

“Well, what are your interests?”

“I don't have any,” I said.

“None at all?”

“I just want a job that won't make my feet hurt.”

The class chuckled.

“I'm not trying to be sarcastic,” I quickly told Mrs. Campos. “I just want a job that lets me sit down all day, so I won't be tired when I get home.”

“Maybe you can research office jobs,” Mrs. Campos suggested.

I nodded and wrote “office jobs” in my notebook.

Just then, the dismissal bell rang. “Enjoy your lunch,” Mrs. Campos said as we filed out. I picked up my things and headed to the door, and as I passed Nina's desk, I realized she hadn't spoken at all. I left the class wondering what she'd like to be, which magnet school she'd apply to. Maybe I could apply there, too.

I
n the cafeteria, seats are determined by status. The in-crowd sits by the windows overlooking the courtyard. The out-crowd sits by the trash cans and the big plastic vat where we dump our milk before pitching the cartons into the recycling bin. The milk sours fast, so the whole corner stinks, and since it's close to the exit, it buzzes with flies.

The GP sits everywhere else.

Our cafeteria has a serving area with two lines, hot and cold. The cold line offers soggy sandwiches wrapped in cellophane, a variety of chips, apples or oranges, and milk or water. The hot line offers a different menu each day, usually a meat, a vegetable, a fruit, and milk or water. If we want
soda or Gatorade, we have to go to the vending machines and spend an extra dollar.

Elena and I prefer the hot line, especially when it features lasagna, which was on the menu on Nina's first day.

“Check out Ronnie,” Elena said, nodding toward the vending machines. “He's getting a Dr Pepper, Doritos, and a Snickers bar.”

“I thought he wanted to be a trainer,” I said. “You can't be a trainer if you're a junk food junkie.”

“He's guilty of junk-luttony, that's for sure.”

“Not another new word,” I pretended to complain.

“Yeah. Junk plus gluttony. Get it?”

“Let's just call him a junkie jock,” I suggested.

“Junkie jock versus junk-luttony …”

While Elena thought about it, Nina stepped in line behind us. The guys nearby were checking her out, but she didn't seem to notice. She must be used to the school yard paparazzi.

“Hi,” she said to me, extending her hand. “I'm Nina.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, offering my hand in return. “I'm Windy. I'm in your speech class.”

“Office jobs, right?”

“Yeah.”

She looked at Elena. “And you're Elena, the ice-skater.”

“That's right.”

I couldn't believe she remembered us. Like I said, being GP usually makes us invisible.

As I wondered how to keep the conversation going, Alicia and Courtney cut in front of us. I could smell their tangerine lip gloss, vanilla-scented body lotion, and coconut-infused conditioner. They both had Coach purses, identical except for the big, brass initials of their names.

“Excusez-moi,”
they said, nudging us aside to get their trays.

“That's not fair,” Elena said.

“That's not fair,” Alicia repeated in a baby voice.

“But we were here first.”

This time Alicia and Courtney didn't bother to say “whatever.” They simply flashed the
W
sign.

“What's up with them?” Nina whispered.

Elena and I shrugged. We honestly didn't know why Courtney and Alicia picked on us, but we had our theories. Elena said they were jealous. Maybe they were. After all, Elena gets lots of school awards. But I never get any, so why give
me
a hard time? Besides, Courtney and Alicia get their own recognitions — in the yearbook, they were Best Dressed, Most Popular, and Most Likely to Land a Spot on a Reality TV Show. Those are the awards that matter, that will be
remembered at reunions ten years from now. No, they weren't jealous. If they were, they'd pick on the other successful GP, too. I think they can read our minds and know we want to be part of the in-crowd. They probably think we don't remember our proper place, so they act mean to remind us.

“Hey, Miss,” Courtney said to the cafeteria lady, “make sure you give my little friend here some applesauce since it's the closest thing you have to baby food.”

“Maybe you could warm up some milk for her, too,” Alicia added.

Elena's face got red, but she didn't have a comeback. Neither did I. Neither did Nina, who seemed to be studying Courtney. Something in Nina's eyes, maybe because they were hazel, reminded me of a cat watching birds at a feeder.

The line had been moving steadily, but Courtney and Alicia, with all their questions, had really slowed it down.

“Do you have a low-carb version of lasagna?” they asked.

“Can we have whole wheat toast instead of French bread?”

“Why do you call this ‘salad' when it's just lettuce? Shouldn't salads have lots of different veggies?”

“Yeah, different veggies. And where's the low-fat dressing?”

Finally, they filled two glasses with ice water, paid the cashier, and left the serving area. Meanwhile, the line had backed up, so the people behind us started complaining.

“We don't have all day,” we heard.

“Hey, don't give
us
a hard time,” I said. “We weren't the ones acting like this is a five-star restaurant.”

“Oh, shoot!” Elena shook her head. “I really wanted some applesauce, but I don't want to give Courtney and Alicia the satisfaction.”

“Here,” Nina said, “I'll put it on my tray, and when we get to the table, I'll pass it to you.”

“Really, you'd do that?”

“Sure. What are friends for?”

Elena and I were speechless. We'd never had an in-crowd-worthy friend before.

We finally got through the line, but just as we left the serving area, my foot slipped on something. I quickly lost my balance, so I released my tray and tried grabbing Elena to catch myself, but her foot hit something slippery, too. Ice cubes! A whole bunch of ice cubes! I fell back and got that queasy feeling — like when I used to play airplane by propelling myself off the swings. Only, when I played airplane, I was in control, I was graceful, I was having fun. But here, in the cafeteria, my legs and arms were totally flailing, and
as much as I tried to land as gracefully as a cat, I couldn't help landing on my butt. Yes, smack down on my butt, which got wet from the ice cubes, which meant that people would think I peed. Elena and I also had cheese and pasta all over our clothes. Tomato sauce got on my glasses, too, and when I tried to wipe it off, it smudged. To make things worse, Ronnie stood nearby. I was too embarrassed to glance up at him, but I knew it was Ronnie because he was the only one who wore lime green Nikes. This had to be the most humiliating moment of my life. Everyone was having a laugh riot.

“Did you throw this ice on the floor?” Elena asked Courtney.

She took a while to answer because she was giggling so much. “Just wanted to see if you could ice-skate,” she said.

This got people laughing even harder, and even though she was a victim, too, I was angry with Elena. I had
begged
her not to tell the class about her odd career choice. Honestly, Elena couldn't even in-line skate, so I
knew
she'd humiliate us somehow. And this wasn't the first time, either. Last semester, while everyone else made volcanoes and terrariums for science projects, Elena crash tested eggs in various landing capsules. She had one with a parachute, one with a bouncy framework of straws, and one with lots of cushioning. She painted scared faces on the eggs, and named them
Snap, Crackle, and Pop. Only Snap survived the drop from the second-floor window.

Okay, I admit that she had a cool project. Double cool since the teacher gushed with pride and gave her the highest score in class. But that was the problem. Being double cool in science meant being double nerdy everywhere else.

That's why Elena had one foot in the out-crowd, and the last thing I wanted was to go down with her.

Thank goodness, Nina didn't think the prank was funny. She walked right up to Courtney and Alicia, invading their precious personal space. She looked down on them because she was so much taller.

“Why don't you go fix your makeup or something?” Nina said.

“Makeup” had never sounded like a bad word before, but it did right then.

“Catfight!” someone called, and a few extra people gathered around.

“If that's what she wants,” Nina said, looking directly at Courtney, challenging the leader of the eighth-grade in-crowd.

Courtney glanced at the expectant eyes around her. She wasn't a catfight kind of girl, so she answered with her
W
sign and mouthed the word, “Whatever.”

“What's that?” Nina said, cupping her ear. “I didn't hear you.”

No one had ever stood up to Courtney. She swallowed hard. She seemed nervous but reluctant to back away.

“Come on,” Alicia said, tugging Courtney's sleeve. “We've already wasted too much time on these losers.”

The two walked off. Most of the gawkers left, too, but not Ronnie. I finally glanced up. Thankfully, he wasn't laughing. Was he being compassionate and kind, or was his mouth too full of Doritos? A few girls stood around, too. They had laughed earlier, but now they looked totally confused as they glanced at Nina, then Courtney, then Nina again.

Finally, Liz, one of the in-crowd girls, asked if we were okay. Elena and I nodded.

“All right, then,” Liz said. “We better get going.” She and the in-crowd girls with her hurried to catch up with Courtney, but before they got too far, Liz turned around to wave goodbye. I started to raise my hand, but she wasn't saying bye to me. She was saying bye to
Nina
.

“See you later,” Nina called. When the girls finally reached their seats at the far end of the cafeteria, Nina said, “Hey, Ronnie. Come help us, will you?”

Like us, he seemed surprised that she remembered him.

“Sure thing,” he said.

He picked up my tray, his fingers still orange from Doritos. I didn't know whether to feel grateful or mortified. Like I said, we talked every day, but that was because Ronnie was nice to
everyone
. Not because he
liked
me or anything.

“You sure you're all right?” he asked.

“I'll recover.”

“I know. You're a real trouper,” he said.

He might have winked at me, or maybe he had some dust in his eye. In any case, he didn't say anything else, just picked up our trays and walked off.

“Thanks for sticking up for us,” Elena said as Nina gave us a wad of paper towels so we could wipe the cheese and pasta from our shirts.

“Yeah. Thanks,” I said.

“No problem,” Nina told us. “Every school has mean girls like that. If you let them get to you, they just act worse. Eventually, someone will put them in their place. Trust me.” She helped us up. “Besides,” she added, “those girls don't know the meaning of breath sisters.”

Elena and I glanced at each other. We didn't know the meaning, either, but we weren't about to admit it.

E
lena came to my house after school. I'm a latchkey kid, which is a good thing when you have tomato sauce all over your clothes.

“So what do you think ‘breath sister' means?” Elena asked as we turned onto my street.

“I have no idea, but I'm sure it's something cool.”

We got to my house, and just as I put my key in the door, we heard meowing in the nearby bushes. We went to investigate, and as I pushed aside some branches, a beige kitten scrambled to hide.

“Hello, there,” I said. “Where's your mommy?” The kitten stared at me and blinked. “Keep an eye on it,” I told Elena. “I'm going to get some food.”

“But shouldn't …”

Before she could finish her sentence, I rushed into the house.

Sunny, my orange cat, and Cloudy, my gray cat, ran figure eights around my legs, while El Niño, my black cat with a white, lightning-shaped mark on its forehead, lounged on the windowsill. Even though
niño
means “boy” in Spanish, the name has nothing to do with my cat's gender. Instead it refers to a warm water current that causes crazy weather patterns. My dad is a meteorologist, so you can guess who named them all (and where
my
name came from).

“I'll feed you guys in a minute,” I promised as I grabbed a bowl, whipped an egg, and returned outside.

“Don't,” Elena warned.

I ignored her. “Here, kitty, kitty,” I called.

The kitten peeked out. I set down the bowl and slowly stepped away. As soon as the kitten felt safe, it tiptoed out, sniffed the bowl, and lapped up the egg.

“How can I ignore the big blue eyes of a hungry kitten?” I asked Elena.

“You made a cross-my-heart-hope-to-die promise about leaving stray cats alone. I was there, remember? Your mom made me a witness. You're going to get in a whole lot of trouble if you do this.”

“Maybe, but like you always say, sometimes you have to riskify.”

We watched the kitten for a little while, and then we went inside. Sunny, El Niño, and Cloudy meowed as I prepared their food.

“I'm going to your room to put on a clean shirt,” Elena said. Luckily, she had left an extra shirt at my house the week before.

“Bring one for me, too.”

I put the cat food in three separate bowls, since they'd rather fight than share. Then I sat beside them and scratched behind their ears. I love how soft cats are and the contented way they purr.

“Here,” Elena said, throwing a clean T-shirt to me. I changed and put the stained shirt in the hamper. Then we grabbed some sodas from the fridge and plopped onto the couch in the living room.

My dad also decorated the house, so the prints on the walls are panoramic cityscapes of Chicago, New York, and Houston, all with stormy skies and lightning bolts striking tall buildings. He framed newspaper articles, too — about different natural disasters like the tsunami in Indonesia and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. His prized possession is an article from 1900 when a hurricane hit Galveston and
completely destroyed the town. He bought it on eBay. I don't know how much he paid, but it must have been a lot, because right after that, Mom threatened to cancel his eBay account.

“Do you think Nina wants to be our friend?” Elena asked.

“Not really,” I said. “She doesn't like Courtney or Alicia, but I can tell she thinks Liz is cool. I'm sure she'd rather hang out with the in-crowd.”

“If that's true, then why did she help us?”

“Because she's a decent person. But that doesn't mean she wants to be our friend. She probably felt sorry for us. Besides, she'd have a lot more fun with the in-crowd girls. I'm sure they do cool things like giving each other super-model makeovers or crank-calling the principal's house.”

“How's that more fun than looking at ice-skating videos or playing Monopoly and Jenga?”

“Are you serious?” I said. “Where's my notebook?” I pulled it out of my backpack and turned to the next blank page. “The Top Five Reasons Elena Is a Nerd.”

“Spare me, Windy.”

“Five, her collection of Disney movie sound tracks.”

“You mean the ones you borrowed last month?”

“Four,” I went on, “her bunny rabbit slippers. Three, the encyclopedia of ice-skating stats she's got stored in her brain.”

“At least I have a good memory.”

“Two, Jenga and Monopoly on a Friday night.”

“I don't play by myself, remember?”

“And the number one reason she's a nerd …”

Just then we heard a key in the front door.

“Hi, girls,” my mom said as she came in.

We scooted over to make room for her on the couch. Like I said before, my mom is pretty. She has naturally arched brows and curled lashes that accentuate her dark eyes. Her face has no scars, zits, or freckles. She has the straightest, whitest teeth, which means she smiles a lot, which makes her even more beautiful. Usually, she wears her hair in a French twist, a braid, or a bun, but when she wears it down, it never frizzes like mine.

As soon as she sat down, she took off her shoes and socks. “My feet are killing me,” she complained. “Do me a favor, Windy. Set up the VibraSpa, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

The VibraSpa is a little tub Mom bought at Walgreens. I put it beside her feet, poured in a pitcher of hot tap water, and turned it on. It made a light buzzing noise as Mom rolled up her pants to soak her feet.

“Oh, good. Nice and hot,” she said when her first toe hit the water. She rubbed her soles against the little bumps on the bottom of the tub. “I feel a whole lot better.”

“Nursing's too hard,” I said. “You should have accepted that promotion last year. That way, you could work in an office instead of on your feet.”

“So I could push papers around all day? I'd be bored.”

“Better bored than tired.”

She glanced at me. I could tell she wanted to scold me, but instead she grabbed a strand of my hair.

“What's this?” she asked when some red gunk got on her hands.

“I don't believe this,” I cried. “I still have tomato sauce in my hair!”

“Do I still have some, too?” Elena ran to the bathroom mirror and I followed.

“Girls,” Mom called. “What's going on?”

We returned to the living room. “We had a little accident,” we said, and then we told her everything — how we tripped on the ice, how the kids laughed at us, how the new girl Nina helped out.

“It's all Elena's fault,” I said.

“No, it isn't,” she snapped back.

“You mentioned ice-skating. Where do you think they got that idea to trip us?”

“From their evil little minds,” Elena said. “Besides, I'm proud of my dreams. I can't wait to do my presentation.” She
turned to my mom. “We're supposed to talk about our dream career.”

“And which career did
you
pick?” Mom asked me.

I shrugged. “I don't really have any interests,” I said.

“Yes, you do,” Elena teased. “You've got a really, really
special
interest.” She giggled. “His name's Ronnie.”

“Elena!” I punched her arm. “I can't believe you said that.”

“Ronnie?” Mom raised an eyebrow. “We'll have to discuss him later. But what about your speech? What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Do I have to decide right now? I'm only in the eighth grade.”

“When I was your age,” Mom said, “I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to take a rocket ride into the sky.”

Elena and I cracked up immediately. “Sorry, Mom,” I said. “I can't imagine you traveling hundreds of miles per hour when you always drive
way
below the speed limit.”

“And I can't imagine you floating in space with your hair all sticking up,” Elena said.

“Floating in space sounds heavenly right now. At least my feet wouldn't hurt.” Mom nodded toward the bathroom, her way of telling me to bring a towel. When I came back, she added, “Maybe I
am
afraid of going fast, but I seriously wanted to be an astronaut. The point is,” she said as she
lifted her feet from the tub to dry them, “I had an interest, a dream, something to work for and fantasize about.”

“Like my ice-skating,” Elena said.

Mom nodded. Then she looked at me. “There are a lot of careers related to the health field. Some people are nurses, but others are respiratory therapists, nutritionists, lab techs, or pathologists.”

I squirmed at the thought of working with real live sick people. “Mrs. Campos said I should research office jobs,” I said.

“That's a start. You might consider being a health insurance code specialist or a medical transcriptionist.”

“A medscriptionist!” Elena announced, excited by her new word.

“I'll stop by the human resources department next week,” Mom said. “I'll get some brochures for you.”

“Wouldn't that be great?” Elena said. “You can work in the health field with your mom.”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed my notebook, flipping to a list I had written weeks ago. “Five Good Reasons for
Not
Working in a Hospital.”

Mom crossed her arms, as if daring me to continue.

“Five, bland hospital food. Four, cranky patients. Three, the alcohol smell. Two, killer germs. And one, tired feet.”

“Ha, ha,” Mom said, throwing the towel at me. “Just for that, I'm going to insist you volunteer this summer.”

“Volunteer? You want me to work for free?”

“It's a good way to figure out your interests.”

Elena jumped in, “That's a great idea! Maybe I can volunteer, too.”

Honestly, sometimes I couldn't understand why she was my best friend. Best friends aren't supposed to sentence each other to a whole summer of work.

Just then, my father stepped in. He had a bunch of department store bags. “Hello, hello,” he said as he placed the bags on the coffee table. “Just a sec.” He went back outside and returned with even more bags.

“Alfonso,” Mom said, a bit worried. “What have you been up to?”

“I left work early and went shopping.”

Mom and I glanced at each other. Dad
never
went shopping.

“Let me show you what I got,” he said, all excited.

He took out a shoe box and showed us a pair of black patent leather dress shoes. Then he unwrapped three suits. Three! Black, navy blue, and dark gray. He reached into a J. C. Penney bag and took out five white dress shirts and five pairs of black socks. Finally, he showcased a bunch of new
ties — yellow with a blue paisley print, gray with navy swirls, a flowery tie, a striped tie, and a solid maroon one. Elena
ooh
ed and
aah
ed, but Mom and I were speechless.

“So what do you think?” Dad finally asked.

Mom scratched her head. “Well,” she tried, but couldn't finish the sentence.

“I'm tired of wearing polo shirts and khakis all the time,” he explained. “I need to look more professional.”

Mom shrugged. She was as confused as I was.

“Watch the six o'clock news,” Dad said, “with the new weatherman.”

“The cute one with blond hair?” Elena asked.

“Yes. Him. He's good-looking, right? And he wears a suit every day.”

“He
has
to wear a suit,” Mom said. “He's on TV. But you're on the radio. No one sees you, so it doesn't matter what you wear.”

Dad frowned. For the past ten years, he's been reporting the weather for a radio station — not the cool, pop station my friends listen to, but an AM station that makes local announcements like “mystery book club meets Tuesday at Westfall Library” or “please take your school supply donations to the yellow bus at Crossroads Mall.” But now he says he wants to point at the high and low pressure systems,
explain the satellite pictures, and announce his forecasts on TV every night. So when a television job came up, he applied. He got through his initial interviews, all the way to an audition tape. Only two applicants got that far, so my dad's chances were fifty-fifty. Unfortunately, he didn't get the job, which really confused us because sometimes the guy who
did
get the job stumbled over his words — something my dad would never,
ever
do.

“You bought this stuff in case another job comes up, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Dad admitted. “Remember last week, when the new guy predicted rain the same day I said that rain was unlikely? And
my
forecast was the right one?”

We nodded.

“You see? I do a better job of forecasting the weather. So why didn't I get the job? Then I realized — I didn't get the job because I don't look the part. So next time there's a position, I'll be ready.”

“That's ridiculous,” Mom said.

“It's the only explanation,” Dad countered.

He was right. He
had
to be. All the popular girls wore headbands and plucked their eyebrows and used lipstick. They were “looking the part” just like the new weatherman.

“I don't believe it,” Mom said.

“But it makes total sense,” I added. “Right, Elena?”

Elena's face went blank. That girl could be so smart about numbers and science, but so dense about life.

“Why do you think we came home with tomato sauce all over our clothes?” I asked. “If we looked better, no one would pick on us.”

“I don't know about you,” she said, “but I look just fine.”

“What's this about tomato sauce?” Dad wanted to know.

“Long story,” I said, not wanting to explain again. “But since you're changing your style, can I change mine, too?”

“Sure,” he said.

“So I can bleach my hair?”

“We've already discussed this,” Mom replied, “and the answer is still no.”