Playing the Field (11 page)

“Yeah, let’s,” Anna said. She was glancing at
Tony.

Serena grabbed my hand and pulled me out onto
the floor. Tony and Rachel grudgingly followed us, and Anna
followed them. Serena walked to an empty spot on the floor, then
began dancing. She looked smooth and self-confident, but of course,
she would have looked that way doing anything. I probably looked
like I was trying to stomp out a fire. I still wasn’t sure if I was
supposed to say anything while I was dancing. Tony wasn’t saying
anything, although that may have been because he was mad. I hoped
Serena didn’t think I was rude because I wasn’t talking.

The song ended and another one started. No
one made any moves to leave the floor, so I kept dancing too. I
tried to be more creative with my dance moves. I most likely looked
like a guy who was not only trying to stomp out a fire, but also
trying to punch someone out in the process.

Then a slow song came on. I looked over at
Serena. She looked back at me. I cleared my throat and took a step
toward her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony take Anna’s
hand. “Come on,” he told her, “let’s dance.”

Rachel’s lips pressed together into an angry
frown. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to her. “Let’s dance,
McKay.”

What could I do? Rachel had already put her
hand on my shoulder and was getting into “sway” position. I glanced
at Serena to see what her reaction was. She’d already turned and
was walking toward the bleachers. Before she got there, Brian
intercepted her. They talked for a moment. She smiled up at him,
and then he led her back onto the floor. They went up toward the
front of the room and melted into the rest of the crowd. I swayed
slowly back and forth with Rachel and hoped Brian broke something
during the next football game.

I still wasn’t sure whether or not I was
supposed to say anything while I danced, so I leaned closer to
Rachel and said, “It’s a nice song, huh?”

She grunted out something which sounded like,
“Huwuff,” and I figured she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. I
didn’t say anything else. Besides, it was for the best that we were
quiet. If she had said anything, it most likely would have been
something bad about Tony. Maybe he deserved it, but Tony was my
best friend, and you’ve got to stand by your best friend even when
he acts like a jerk.

Ahh, that old Manetti charm.

Tony and Anna were dancing really close and
talking. Anna’s face was tipped up toward him and she was laughing
at something he said. Probably something stupid.

When the song ended, Rachel didn’t say
anything to me. She just turned and walked toward the gym door. I
looked over at Tony to see if he’d go and get her. He watched her
for a second and then turned back to Anna. Rachel was almost to the
door before I saw Serena break away from the crowd and go after
her.

Tony and Anna stayed out on the floor to
dance the next song. I went back to the bleachers and sat down.
After a few minutes a girl from my social studies class asked me to
dance. Then after that a girl from my church found me, and I danced
a couple of dances with her. All in all, quite a sample of the
girls in my grade got to see me do my stomp-fire, punch-someone
routine. Somewhere in heaven I’m sure a bunch of cavewomen got a
good laugh.

I kept an eye out for Serena but didn’t see
her again until about an hour later. She walked back into the gym
alone. I had been sitting on the bleachers talking to a couple of
guys, but I got up when I saw her.

A slow song started to play. It was perfect
timing. I walked toward Serena, and when she saw me she waved for
me to come over. “There you are,” she said. “I have something to
ask you.”

“I have something to ask you too.” It’s
funny, at that moment I wasn’t worried about asking Serena to dance
at all. I was just relieved she hadn’t left.

She motioned for me to walk with her toward
the door. I followed her out of the gymnasium into the hallway.

Once we got away from the blare of the music,
Serena leaned against the wall and sighed. “Rachel is really
upset.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that.”

Serena looked at me like she expected me to
say more, although I wasn’t sure what. I mean, what could I do
about Rachel being upset?

“What has Tony said to you?” Serena
asked.

“Nothing.”

She tilted her head in question, so I added,
“I haven’t talked to him. He’s been busy dancing.”

“Oh.” She seemed surprised by this, like
she’d thought that after their fight, Tony and I had immediately
gotten together and discussed our feelings about relationships and
life. Maybe that’s what she and Rachel had just done.

Serena took a folded piece of paper out of
her pocket along with the bracelet Tony had given Rachel. “Can you
give these to Tony? Rachel isn’t breaking up with Tony. She’s just,
you know, upset.”

“Okay.” I put the note and bracelet in my
pocket.

Serena surveyed me. “So if you didn’t want to
talk to me about Tony, what was it you wanted to ask me?”

Suddenly I felt awkward. I was out in the
hallway where the lights were bright, and we were all alone. “Um, I
was going to ask you to dance.”

“Oh.” She smiled, and somehow that smile made
me feel completely transparent, like she could look into my mind
and see what I was thinking. “Sure,” she said, “let’s dance.”

We walked back into the gymnasium and I took
her hand in mine. As we danced, I took small steps to make
absolutely certain I didn’t step on her feet. I was standing so
close I could tell her hair smelled like strawberries, and I
wondered why it was that girls always smelled so good. The song was
almost over when we’d come in, so we only danced for about
forty-five seconds. It was a nice forty-five seconds though. Then
Serena stepped away from me. “I need to get back to Rachel. She
called her mom, and I’m riding home with her.”

I nodded. “I guess I’ll see you at math
class.”

She hesitated. “You want to get together
after school on Monday to do our homework?”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

“All right. I’ll meet you after school by the
front door, and we’ll walk over to my house.”

I watched her leave, then turned back to the
dance floor. An upbeat song was playing, and I sung along under my
breath. Dances, I thought, were not so bad after all.

I danced a few more dances; then after the
last song was over, Tony came and found me so we could ride home
together. He was still with Anna. I knew they hadn’t been together
the whole time because I’d seen him dancing with other girls, but
she was with him now. “See you at school, Tony,” she said, dragging
out the word “Tony” until it sounded like she was saying,
“Toe-neeee.”

Tony gave her a smile. “See you later,
Anna.”

I waited until she’d walked out the door and
then said, “That reminds me. Serena gave me this to give to you.
They’re from Rachel.” I took the note and bracelet out of my pocket
and handed them to him.

“It’s too dark in here to read,” he said, so
we went into the hallway. He took a minute to read the note, then
folded it back up and put it in his pocket.

“She’s mad at me, and she’s not sure if we
should go out anymore.” He shook his head. “Does she think she
deserves some big apology or something? It’s not my fault she ran
out of the gym. I was going to ask her to dance the next slow
dance, but she took off. After all, she’s the one who said it was
no big deal to slow-dance with someone else.” He looked at me as
though he expected me to chime in and agree with him.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “She did say that.”

“I wanted her to know how it feels to see
your date with someone else.”

We walked slowly down the hallway and out
toward the parking lot. I kept my voice low so no one would
overhear us. “You danced with Anna a lot.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, “She’s really cute, and I
think she likes me. She kind of, you know, looks at me a lot.” He
was silent for a moment and then said, “Anna seems nicer than
Rachel. Do you think I should break up with Rachel and ask Anna to
go out with me?”

“Rachel and Anna are friends.”

Tony got a big smile across his face. “I
know, but I’m pretty sure Anna would go out with me anyway.”

“Don’t you think Rachel would get mad at Anna
if she went out with you?”

Tony shrugged. “It’s not my fault Rachel is
being mean and Anna is being nice. I didn’t tell Rachel to write
this note. She’s practically already broken up with me. It would
serve her right if I asked out her friend.”

I pushed open the door, and we walked out
into the cool evening air. “Tony,” I said, “I think it’s my duty as
your best friend to tell you that you’re being a jerk.”

Tony laughed like he thought I was joking.
“Just because you date one girl doesn’t mean you can’t ever date
any of her friends. Girls understand that. They do it too. It’s all
part of the game—all part of playing the field. You’ll understand
when you start dating.”

I wanted to say, “Tony, now you’re being an
even bigger jerk,” but I didn’t. He obviously thought he was the
authority when it came to girls, and he wouldn’t listen to me
anyway. Besides, maybe he was right. Maybe even as we stood in the
school parking lot waiting for my parents to pick us up, Rachel and
Anna were somewhere talking about Tony. They might be discussing
trading him like baseball teams traded around players.

Rachel was saying, “Okay, you can have Tony,
but I get to borrow your new blue sweater whenever I want to.”

“All right,” Anna answered. “But when I’m
finished with Tony, I get my sweater back too.”

Maybe dating in junior high was always like
playing a game. You won by getting someone new to like you. Only I
hated to think of it that way.

Tony rubbed the back of his neck, still
considering his dilemma. “Then again maybe I should try to work
things out with Rachel. After all we have been going out for a few
weeks. I don’t know. I guess I’ll call them both tomorrow and see
who’s nicer to me.”

I didn’t get the chance to comment on his
methods of choosing a girlfriend, because my dad pulled up in his
truck. But I did wonder, as I climbed into the front seat, if my
dad had ever decided on a girlfriend by calling a couple girls to
see who was nicest to him. I hoped not.

Chapter 9

The school confiscated cell phones if they
saw them, so on Monday Serena and I were drafted into Tony and
Rachel’s fight. Before we walked into math class, Serena slipped me
a folded piece of notebook paper. With a serious expression on her
face she said, “It’s from Rachel. Give it to Tony.”

“All right,” I said. I handed it to Tony as I
sat down in my desk. “It’s from Rachel.”

He read it silently, then shook his head.
“She’s so dramatic.”

“I guess this means Anna was nicer to you on
the phone.”

“Yeah, I guess she was, but I still don’t
know what I’ll do.” He shrugged as though it didn’t matter a whole
lot to him and got out his books.

I glanced over at Serena’s seat. She was
watching Tony with the same serious expression she’d had when she
talked to me.

* * *

After school, I waited for ten minutes before
Serena showed up. I had almost decided she’d forgotten we were
getting together to study when she walked out the door with her
backpack.

“Sorry I’m late,” she told me. “I was talking
to Anna and Rachel.”

“Oh.” I headed down the steps with her. We
walked silently for a few moments. I could tell by the way Serena
kept glancing over at me that she expected me to say something. I
just wasn’t sure what.

After a few more moments of her giving me
“the glance,” I decided talking about anything would be better than
walking all the way to her house in silence. “We’ve got game three
of the tournament tomorrow,” I told her. “We play the team from
Queen Creek. Their star pitcher just moved to California. Queen
Creek’s loss—our gain. Coach Manetti says it should be an easy
win.”

Serena walked beside me, her gaze on the
sidewalk.“Is he a good coach?”

“He’s the best in the league.”

“Is he nice, though?”

This goes to show you what girls know about
coaching. “He’s tough. That’s why he’s the best.”

“Oh.” She looked contemplative. “I was
wondering about Tony.”

“Wondering what?”

We had reached Serena’s house. As we went up
the walk, she said, “I was wondering what kind of family Tony comes
from.”

I shrugged. “A normal family, I guess.
Why?”

“I just wonder why he acts the way he
does.”

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
After all, she could have meant cocky, or sports-crazy, or a dozen
other things that Tony frequently was. “Acts what way?” I
asked.

Serena shrugged and opened her front door. I
followed her into the kitchen. We set our backpacks on the table,
and I thought she’d finished with the subject of Tony, but while we
got our books out, she said, “I don’t understand why a guy would
simultaneously go after two girls who used to be best friends.”

Now I understood. We were talking about that
old Manetti charm. I sat down at the table and opened my book. “I
don’t think Tony is actually going after Anna . . .”

Serena opened her algebra book so hard the
cover thunked against the table. “He called her on Saturday, and he
talked to her today in the hallway. She said he was really nice.”
Serena said the words really nice like it was a criminal
offense.

“Well, that’s probably because Anna was
really nice to him first.”

Serena gasped at this as though it were an
accusation. “She was not.”

“Yes, she was.”

“How has she been nice?”

“Well. . .” I was at a disadvantage in
defending Tony. We’d only talked about Anna in a general sort of
way, but it was clear Serena knew every detail of both of her
friend’s love lives. “She looks at him,” I said. “A lot.”