In My Shoes (32 page)

“Thanks,” Jessica said, flashing a smile at
Mike.

We all said our goodbyes as we headed to our
lockers. Jessica was already seated when I arrived in calculus.
It’s interesting…Jessica is in physics and calculus. She’s not the
best student, but she’s obviously not the worst. She gets
decent
grades. I wonder if she’s just trying not to be the
smartest girl in school. Like Mike, but much less drastic.

In calculus, Ms. Clark also gave us a pop
quiz. What’s up with all of the Friday love? The good news was
that, so far, it had been quite easy to keep my mind off of
everything else.

As the bell rang, Jessica looked over at me.
“So, another
A
I suppose?” she asked.

I smiled. “How did you do?”

“I think I did okay. I’m a little distracted
today.”

“How come?”

“I’m just nervous about tonight.”

“Me too.”

“Why are you nervous?” she asked.

Uh-oh. I guess I shouldn’t have said that.
“I…I just mean that I’m nervous for you.”

She looked at me funny, but didn’t say
anything more on the subject.

We headed to lunch and got in line for our
food. Everyone else was at the table when we made it over. For a
group of people who couldn’t seem to stand each other a week ago,
they sure seemed to be getting along now.

“Hi guys. How’s it going?” I asked.

“Good!” They all said, pretty much at the
same time.

“We were just talking about tonight,” Caryn
said. “It should be fun!”

“So,” Mike chimed in, “where are we going to
go for dinner?”

“Where do you want to go, Jake?” Jessica
asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Where do you all want to
go?” Nicole replied.

“Do you want burgers or Italian or Chinese?”
Meredith asked. “Are we doing formal or casual?”

“Let’s do casual!” Nicole offered, a little
too enthusiastically.

“How about the Pasta House?” Mike offered.
“It’s close to the theater and it’s pretty casual.”

“That sounds good to me,” I agreed.

Everyone else seemed agreeable. “Okay, Pasta
House it is,” Jessica said. “Do we want to meet at six?”

“What time’s the movie?” Caryn asked.

“Seven forty,” Jessica said. “That should
give us enough time to eat and get to the theater, right?”

Everyone seemed in agreement. There was a
pause, and then people broke into their own conversations. Jessica
turned toward Nicole, who was eating and staring out across the
cafeteria.

“So, I’ll pick you up at about five thirty,
Jake?” Jessica asked.

“Oh, uhh…yeah, that would be great.
Thanks.”

“Sure. I’m looking forward to tonight. The
movie’s supposed to be pretty funny.”

“Yeah, the previews looked pretty funny,”
Nicole said.

There was another pause in the conversation,
and Jessica turned my way and shifted gears. “So, whose house are
we getting together at tonight?”

Mike, who had been talking to Caryn and
Meredith, perked up when Jessica asked the question. “Huh?”

“Not you, silly. The girls. We usually spend
the night at one of our houses on Friday nights. My house is
available,” Jessica offered.

“Sounds good to me,” Caryn said.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Meredith offered.

I didn’t know what to say. I looked at
Nicole. I think she gave me a subtle nod as she looked down.

“Sure,” I said. “That’s fine by me, too.”

The rest of lunch didn’t seem to last very
long. We talked about our classes and how most of us seemed to be
getting a lot of quizzes or tests today.

It was still raining outside, but it didn’t
seem like most of the group shared my enthusiasm for the rain. I
knew Nicole liked it, but for as little as we get it, nobody else
seemed to be enjoying it.

“Well,” Jessica said as we packed up to go to
our next class, “I just hope it dries up by tonight.”

“How come?” I asked, apparently
foolishly.

“Because,” she said giving me a ‘how could
you not already know the answer to that question’ glare, “I don’t
want it to mess up my hair.” She gave Nicole a sideways glance.

“Oh, right,” I said, smiling. I have to
admit…there have been some times, during this switch, where it has
been kind of fun to be on the other side and see the things that
girls sometimes do. They can be so funny.

Once again we said our goodbyes as Caryn,
Meredith and I headed to Spanish class. Ms. Contreras didn’t have
any pop quizzes for us. We spent the class time reading a story in
Spanish. We took turns reading paragraphs out of the story. We
didn’t really need to even remember what we read. It was more of an
exercise on pronunciation.

The class bell rang, I said goodbye to Caryn
and Meredith and then I headed to government class.

It seemed like I could watch each second of
class tick off the clock. Government was excessively boring today.
Everything was review of what we had been studying the last several
weeks. I wasn’t even in this class a week ago, and I’m not missing
a beat. Of course, I do have the same teacher, normally in fifth
period, but it’s pretty apparent she doesn’t change it up from
class to class.

Personally, I think Ms. Canterbury had her
sights set on the weekend already. We could have skipped the class
today, and I would have been in just as good of shape.

Normally I’m not like this, but I was already
packed and ready to go when the final bell rang. I quickly headed
to my locker to gather all of my books for the weekend.

Mike and Nicole met me at my locker as I was
shutting the door.

“Boy, I’m glad to see this day end,” I said.
“If I had fallen asleep in government, it would have been an
improvement today.”

“If only the day were over,” Nicole said.

“It’ll be okay,” I offered. “At least it
won’t just be the two of you.”

“Yeah, maybe that should be making me feel
better right about now, but it’s not.”

“Maybe,” Mike said, “but you’d feel a whole
lot worse if it
were
just the two of you.”

“True,” she said.

“You know,” I said, “you could have used my
mother’s car so you could have driven.”

“Well, that’s good to know now. That bit of
information would have been really good a few days ago.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know this was going to
happen. It didn’t occur to me to tell you until today.”

“Well, something to look forward to for our
next date,” Nicole said sarcastically.

“Look, just stay together with the group.
It’s not like a whole lot can go wrong if we are all there. She’s
not going to attack you…right?”

“No, probably not,” she conceded.

“Hey,” Mike said, “if you want I can offer to
take you home tonight. I’ll just ask if you want to hang out at my
house afterward.”

“That would be great! Thanks, Mike,” she
said, seeming relieved.

“Sure. So, what are we going to do in the
meantime?”

“I don’t know,” Nicole replied. “Normally, I
would get all of my studying done for the weekend, but I’m not sure
I will be able to focus right now. I’m a little ramped up.”

“Why don’t we just go to my place and hang
out,” Mike offered. “Then, one of us can take you to Jake’s house
before Jessica picks you up.”

“Okay,” she said.

We started heading out to our cars when Mike
broke the silence. “You know, it’s too bad that Jessica has a thing
for you, Jake. I could totally go for her. She’s pretty cute.”

“Really?” Nicole asked. “That’s funny. A week
ago, I would never have thought she would have gone for either of
you, but now…I could kind of see her being into you, Mike.
Actually, I could see her with you a lot more than I could see her
with Jake.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“I just mean that, now that I’ve gotten to
know you both better, I think Mike and Jessica have more in common
than you and Jessica do. Another bit of information that would have
been good a few days ago. We could have probably set the two of you
up, and I wouldn’t be a wreck today.”

“Yeah, well, if you two don’t get married,
maybe I’ll ask her out,” he said with a laugh.

“Funny, Mike,” I said.

“Yeah,” Nicole added, “real funny.”

“Hey, I have my moments.”

Mike and Nicole both drove in his car, and I
followed in Nicole’s car to get to Mike’s house. I was sure Nicole
would have preferred to drive with me, but it seemed more
appropriate to have
Jake
ride with Mike.

It was actually kind of a nice distraction
for the next couple of hours. Mike and I got to play video games
for most of the time. Nicole actually tried a couple of games too.
She probably figured she should be better if she’s going to be
playing games as me in the future. At least, that’s what I was
hoping she was thinking.

At a little before five, Nicole’s mother
called to update us on Tyler. He continued to improve, which we
were all thankful for. We kind of have our hands full tonight
without having to worry about Tyler, too.

After that, we decided we should get Nicole
to my house. Nicole informed me that I needed to go to her house
and get clothes for the sleepover at Jessica’s house tonight. I
would need night clothes and clothes to change into tomorrow
morning. She told me she usually showers at Jessica’s house, so the
routine would be pretty much the same as at her house. She wrote
down a list of things to bring and directions to Jessica’s
house.

“Good luck,” she said. “Just remember, the
less you say, the less trouble you can get into. If you get in a
pinch, go to the bathroom and text me.”

“Right. See you guys in a little while,” I
said.

I drove off to Nicole’s house while Mike took
Nicole to my house. When I got inside, I walked straight up to
Nicole’s room and packed up the list of items that Nicole gave me.
I could have probably figured it all out on my own, but I was still
happy to have the help.

Once I had everything together, I headed
downstairs and out to the car. I had about thirty minutes to get to
the restaurant. I figured it would only take about fifteen to
twenty minutes to get there from here, but it was still raining,
and I figured it would be good to have the extra time.

Mike and Caryn were the first ones to arrive
at The Pasta House. I arrived after them, and then Meredith showed.
Finally, Jessica and Nicole arrived.

Nicole looked nervous, like she didn’t know
what to do. Jessica was fine, walking close to Nicole with a big
smile on her face.

“Hi guys!” she said enthusiastically.

Everyone smiled. Nobody had made
reservations, so we had to wait about ten minutes to get a table,
which wasn’t too bad considering it was a Friday night.
Fortunately, Mike had put his name in when he arrived. He had
apparently already been waiting for about fifteen minutes.

Dinner was interesting, to say the least. I’m
not sure Caryn and Meredith would have felt the same way, but they
weren’t seeing things from my point of view.

It started with Jessica asking Nicole what
she was going to have. Nicole looked at me before deciding on the
lasagna. As a matter of fact, it seemed like Nicole looked at me
after every question or decision she needed to make. I couldn’t say
anything, but I was trying to give her a look that said ‘just relax
and do what you want.’

When Nicole said she was going to have the
lasagna, Jessica decided that sounded good and ordered the same
thing. Nicole ordered iced tea to drink and so did Jessica.

While we were waiting for our food, Jessica
kept trying to start conversations with Nicole. I could tell Nicole
was trying to be conversational, but she hesitated before every
answer. I’m sure she was trying to be careful not to say the wrong
thing, but she just ended up looking really uncomfortable.

“So,” Jessica started, “have you ever been
here before?”

“Oh, uhh…yeah. I’ve been here a couple of
times before, with my…mom.”

Actually, I’ve never been here before, but
it’s not like Jessica is going be verifying this somewhere later. I
wasn’t really worried about how Nicole answered these types of
questions. She seemed worried, though.

“So, what’s your favorite thing here?”
Jessica continued.

“Uhh…the lasagna.”

“Oh, right. That makes sense.”

“Is lasagna your favorite, too?”

“Well, no…my favorite is the fettuccine, but
I thought I’d try the lasagna tonight. It sounded good when you
ordered it.”

I’ve always thought first dates were awkward.
Not that I’ve been on a lot of them. But, from what I’ve noticed,
people just seem unnaturally uncomfortable. They try so hard to say
and do the right thing because they are afraid the other person
won’t like them.

If people could just be themselves, there
would probably be a lot more successful first dates. Of course,
Nicole can’t be herself, since she’s trying really hard to be me.
So, this date was kind of shot from the beginning.

The food arrived, which was a relief. They
both ate without any real issues. Nicole seemed a little more
comfortable talking about the food than everything else.

“Do you like your lasagna?” Jessica
asked.

“Yes. It’s delicious. How about you?”

“Yeah, mine is good too. Is this what you
usually get?”

“Mmmhmmm,” Nicole said with a full mouth.

“Yeah, like I said, I usually get the
fettuccine, but everything I’ve had here has been delicious.”

For a while it seemed as though they were
starting to relax a little. Then the bill came. Nicole reached for
the bill first. I would have done the same thing, but Jessica had
other ideas.

“Let me get that,” she said.

“No please, let me,” Nicole countered.

“Yeah, but, I asked you out, so I should get
to pay.”

“You drove. Let me buy.”