Gimme a Call (2 page)

“Is that your sis?” Karin asks while slurping down a chocolate milk. “Tell her I say hi.”

I get a quick glance at the Banks name on the caller ID and hit send.

“Hey, Maya!” I say, trying not to open my mouth too wide when I talk, as I suspect that a wedge of cheddar might be lodged between my two front braces. I hate these things. Yes, I have clear brackets, so it’s not like I have a mouthful of metal, just a metal wire, but ever since I got them on last week, I’ve been constantly getting food stuck in there. Cereal, grilled cheese, undercooked fries—if it’s on a plate, it’s most definitely in my braces. “Hi!”

“Hello?”

“Finally! I’ve left you two messages this week! I know UCLA has a three-hour time difference, but I’m sure a smarty-pants like you can figure out how to get in touch,” I tell her.

“Excuse me?” a girl says. A girl who isn’t Maya. Huh? I look again at the caller ID but now it’s blank.

Hmm. I have no clue who I’m talking to. But her voice sounds familiar, so maybe I should. It’s like I’m watching a game show and I know the answer, I do, but it’s on the tip of my tongue and I can’t get it out. “Who is this?”

“Sorry, I think I called the wrong number,” the girl says.

“No problem,” I say, and hang up. I return to my grilled cheese.

“So what are you guys doing this weekend?” Karin asks.

“Nothing,” Joelle says with a sigh. She adjusts her denim mini and off-the-shoulder blouse. “There is nothing to do. Maybe we should take a shopping road trip.”

“To where? Buffalo?” Tash asks.

“Noooo, Buffalo is so lame. Let’s go to Manhattan.”

“Shall we take our flying bicycles?” Tash asks, rolling her massive and stunning green eyes. I don’t know why she hides them behind glasses instead of wearing contacts. She hunches over when she sits too. I’d tell her to sit up straight and show off her height and supermodel’s body, but I don’t know her well enough yet.

“I wish we didn’t live in the middle of nowhere,” Joelle whines.

“You can’t be bored two weeks into high school,” Karin tells her.

“I can and I am,” she says. “I’m thinking of joining yearbook. Anyone want to do it with me?”

None of us respond.

“You all suck.” She sighs. “I have to find out if there are any parties this weekend. See where my future husband, Mr. Jerome Cohen, will be.” She wiggles her pierced eyebrow.

I would definitely not mind going to a party with cute boys. I haven’t had a boyfriend since Jarred Morgan, last year. We were together for four months. Before that was Anthony Flare. His name should have been warning enough. I should never have gone out with him. Karin liked him but she didn’t tell me until after the two months we were together.

There are a few hotties in my classes. There’s Harry Travis, who has gorgeous eyes, but doesn’t hide them like Tash. His hair is dark, and he has the rosiest, softest-looking skin. He looks like he could play a TV heartthrob. And there’s Joelle’s Jerome Cohen, who’s obviously off-limits, being Joelle’s future husband, but still adorable in his low jeans and nineties band T-shirts. And there’s this one guy I’ve noticed in the halls a few times, whose name I don’t know. He doesn’t usually stay in school for lunch, and I have no classes with him, but he has cute spiky hair and a big smile. I’ve never been on the receiving end of the smile, but I’m working on it.

My phone vibrates again. Another wrong number?

Joelle picks it up and squints at the caller ID. “You’re calling yourself,” she says.

I’m not sure what she means until I glance at the screen and see that it says my number. And my name. Now that’s just weird. “Hello?” I say again.

“Oh, hi,” the same girl as before says. “That’s weird. I was trying to call my voice mail. I don’t know why I keep getting you.”

“Don’t know why either,” I say. I hang up again and take another bite of my sandwich.

The phone vibrates again.

Joelle leans over the table. “Who
is
it?”

I take another look at the caller ID. Still says my number. “Me again,” I say. I take a quick sip of my apple juice, trying but failing to unstick the piece of cheddar in my teeth.

“There’s something wrong with my phone,” the familiar-yet-still-unidentified voice says. “I dialed my mom at work and I still got you. Can you tell me who I called?”

“Devorah Banks,” I answer in my polite voice, the one I use with teachers, new people, and dogs. I don’t know why I use it with dogs. It might be because the very sight of their big mouths and sharp vampire teeth makes me break out in hives and I hope they’ll interpret my courteous tone as a peace offering.

“Oh, good, you know me,” she says.

“I do?” I ask.

“Well … you just said my name.”

I press the phone hard against my ear to try to block out the chaotic noise of the caf. Am I missing something? “What are you talking about?”

“Who is this?” she asks again.

“This is Devorah Ba—” I stop in midname. Why am I giving out personal info to a stranger on the phone? “Sorry, but who is
this
?”

“Look,” she barks. “My jeans are sopping in green goo and I’m having a really bad day. Can you please just tell me who I’m talking to?”

“Um …,” I say, and then giggle.

I giggle a lot. When I’m nervous, when I’m happy, when I’m around boys, when I’m sitting in class. Seriously. On Monday, I was at Karin’s house and I pressed play on her tape recorder. She tapes all her classes, including American history (one of the two classes I have with her)—she’s kind of a perfectionist that way—and the next thing I heard was my giggling reverberating around her bedroom. Like a hyena. He-he-he-he-he-he. So awful. Giggling, in American history! There’s nothing funny about Ms. Fungas’s history class. Except her name, which is downright hilarious. Fungas! Tee-hee. There I go again.

“Obviously you know me. You just said my name,” the girl on the phone snaps. “Are you going to tell me who you are?”

Er. Is this some kind of scam? A telemarketer trying to get my information so she can steal my identity and charge a Thanksgiving trip to Panama on a fake credit card? If only I had a credit card. Maybe I should steal my own identity. Instead, I ask, “Would you like to tell me what number you’re trying to call?”

“I tried to call my mom’s number at work! And before that I tried to call my voice mail! And before that I just hit the send button!” she says, her pitch rising. “But each time, the display just has these weird symbols on it!”

“Well, you called me,” I say, starting to get annoyed.

Joelle waves at me from across the table. “Do you know who it is yet?”

I shrug. “No idea.”

“Then hang up,” she orders. “You’re wasting your minutes.”

“I think it’s a prank,” I whisper back. I take another sip of juice to clear my braces.

“Want me to tell him to get lost?” Joelle asks.

“Her,” I say, correcting her, and reach across the table to hand her the phone. If someone wants to take control of the situation, I’m happy to let ’em.

“Watch the—” Tash warns, but her voice is too soft and I hardly hear her.

“What?”

“I said watch the … French fries.”

Too late. I’ve just dragged my beige sleeve directly through the ketchup-soaked fries.

I jerk my arm and the phone back toward me … and right into my Snapple bottle. The bottle teeters—don’t spill, don’t spill!—then decides to go for it. It tips over, and gushes down the table.

“Whoops!” Fantastic. Must not try to do multiple things at once. Talking on the phone while checking e-mail? I end up typing my conversation. That game in which you try to pat your head with one hand, rub your stomach with the other, click your tongue, and make the
uhhh
sound at the same time? If I tried it, I’d end up in the emergency room in a pretzel position.

“Sorry! I gotta go,” I tell the stranger.

I hang up and sprint toward the lunch line in search of napkins.

The phone vibrates inside my backpack when I’m leaving school for the day. I dig around, but my cell has somehow ended up at the bottom of the bag, buried under seven hundred loose pieces of paper, my French conjugation book,
Jane Eyre
, and my American history binder.

“Ready?” Karin asks me. She’s waiting for me at the front door.

The phone vibrates again. I scrape my hand on a pencil but finally find it. Maya? I glance at the caller ID.

It says my number. My number is calling me
again
. What is going on? “Hello?”

“It’s you,” the girl from before says. “Good. I must have misunderstood you earlier. When you said, ‘This is Devorah Banks,’ you meant
me
, right? As in I’m Devorah Banks? You recognized my voice?”

What is she talking about? “This is Devorah,” I say slowly. “Me.
I’m
Devorah. Who are you?”

“This is Devorah Banks!” she screams. “I am Devorah Banks! Just tell me who this is!”

Hotness erupts at the base of my neck and spreads to my cheeks like a bad rash. “I’m. Devorah. Banks.”

“You can’t be,” she says. “That’s impossible! I’m hanging up!” The phone goes dead. A second later, it vibrates. Again, my number.

“Still me,” I sing.

“You’re crazy!” she screams.

“Alrighty then.” I press end, turn off the power, and toss the phone back into my bag. What, am I going to stay on the phone with some nut job who calls me names? I don’t think so. There’s a tingling on the back of my neck, and I try to scratch it away. I hurry to catch up with Karin. “Sorry.”

The mid-September air cools me down like a glass of ice water. Or like wet cotton, which is what I’ve been wearing since lunch, when I tried, unsuccessfully, to rinse the ketchup out of my shirt.

We spot a pack of students playing softball on the baseball diamond and pause outside the wire fence to watch.

“Tryouts,” Karin says, pointing to the scoreboard. “Baseball, basketball, and soccer today; cheerleading, swim, and gymnastics on Monday. I’m so nervous.”

“Don’t be. You’re definitely going to make the gymnastics team.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” She twirls a blond ringlet between her fingers.

“Oh, please. You’re a shoo-in. You’ve been doing gymnastics since you were six. You’re gonna make it.”

“You should try out for something too,” she tells me.

“Sure,” I say. “Maybe cheerleading.”

“I can see that,” she says seriously.

I burst out laughing. “Oh, shut up, you cannot. I’m the most inflexible person in the history of the world. And I can’t dance and sing at the same time. Plus I’m too short. Those girls are all gazelles. You be the athlete. I’ll be the …” My voice trails off. I don’t know what I’ll be. “Why don’t
you
try out for cheerleading?”

“Yeah, right,” she says.

“Why not?” I ask.

“First of all, I don’t think you can be on both the gymnastics team and the squad. Travel conflicts. And second, I’m not pretty enough to be a cheerleader.”

I flick her on the arm. “You are so!”

“Am not.” She shakes her ringlets.

Karin will never admit she’s pretty—even though she is. She’ll say, “My nose is too wide and crooked,” or “My eyes are too far apart,” or “I have no boobs,” even though her nose is fine, her eyes are normally spaced, and a 34B is
not
nothing. I’m a 34B, thank you very much.

“You are so,” I tell her.

“Well, so are you,” she says.

“Of course I am,” I say with an overdramatic toss of my hair. Then I giggle. It’s not that I think I’m gorgeous or anything, but I’m not insecure about it. Sure, I break out on my nose and forehead, but whatever. Who doesn’t? I’m fine with my looks. Or I will be after I get my braces off. I point to the fence. “Wanna watch?” Maybe watching cute boys will cheer her up. It usually cheers me up.

“For a sec. But then my mom’s taking me to the mall. I need some new sneakers. Wanna come? We’ll treat you to a Cinnabon.”

It’s not like I’m going to hang out here by myself. “Sure.”

Karin points to Celia King, who’s sitting on the bleachers. “Joelle got us all invited to her party tonight.”

“Seriously?” I ask, impressed.

“Yup.”

“Celia’s so sparkly,” I say. “It’s like she bathes in glitter.”

“Switch it up!” the referee on the field screams, and everyone in the outfield runs in. A crew of new guys take their places.

Karin holds on to the fence and leans back. “So do you want to go to the party?”

“Obviously,” I say. “It’s a good thing your parents are friends with Joelle’s parents. ’Cause she’s certainly connected.”

“Yeah. She knows people from all the different middle schools. And I know she can be a bit bossy, but she means well.”

“I like her,” I say. “I like Tash too. I thought she was snobby at first, but I think she’s just shy.”

“I know. It’s because she’s so gorgeous. With a little styling—”

“Don’t you dare. I’m going to tell her what you did to my bangs.”

“That was in the third grade.”

“You’re lucky I forgave you.”

Karin grins. “I’ll keep my hands to myself. Promise. You know, Tash is supposedly a science genius.”

“Seriously? I have chemistry with her. She hasn’t said much yet.”