Teen Idol (24 page)

And if the thin strand of gooey marshmallow that ran from Kwang’s mouth to Cara’s was any indication, I knew that they weren’t exactly feeling guilty over having gone off their diets.

But none of us chose to go there. At least not then. Instead, everyone gathered around, clamoring for their own sticks and marshmallows, yammering on about what happened at the Spring Fling. The story of me winning Spring Fling queen proved to be a crowd pleaser I heard a familiar laugh and turned around . . .

. . . and there was Scott, sitting on a log on the other side of the campfire.

And I knew. Just like that.

Well, not
just
like that I mean, my heart did some pretty serious turning over in my chest. And suddenly I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Those were pretty strong indicators.

It’s just that at that moment, I finally knew what they were indicators of:

That I was in love with Scott Bennett. That I had been in love with him my whole life, practically. Suddenly, all of these images flashed before my campfire-dazzled eves—

Scott’s name above mine on the checkout card for
The Andromeda Strain;
Scott getting out of his car in the parking lot, years later, that day we left for the retreat, Scott lifting me toward that log; Scott going over my ad copy layout, Scott chasing me around the Chi-Chi’s parking lot with that bucket; Scott helping me rescue Betty Ann . . .

And I knew. I finally knew What Trina had known all along. Luke, too, apparently.

But until that moment, I’d had no idea.

But I did now.

Which is why I did what I did next. Which was walk over and plunk myself right down beside him, resolutely ignoring my staggering pulse, suddenly shallow breath, and, most of all, the nagging conviction that I might be too late. Again.

"Hi," I said to Scott. I don’t even know how I got the word out, but I did.

"Hi," Scott said. "Is that the Hope diamond? Or an uncannily realistic replica?"

I went, "What?" Then, "Oh," as I reached up and was embarrassed to realize I was still wearing my crown I took it off and set it on the log between us "Sorry I’m a queen."

"I always thought so," Scott said gallantly. "Marshmallow?"

He presented me with the one he’d been carefully roasting on the end of the stick he held.

"Sure," I said, and peeled it gingerly from the stick. "Thanks."

"So " Scott slid another marshmallow onto the stick and put it in the flames "Spring Fling over?"

"Oh, no," I said. "It’s still going on."

And suddenly I remembered who was still there. At the Spring Fling, I mean Luke. And Geri Scott’s ex-girlfriend. What if he asked me? What if he asked what had happened to my date? Was it really true about him being in love with someone else? What if it was Geri he still cared about?

"Weren’t you having a good time?" he asked.

"Oh, no," I said, more lightly than I actually felt. "I was."

"What happened to Luke?"

And there it was.

"Well," I began slowly.

But it turned out I didn’t even have to go on. Because Scott went, "You know, don’t you? About Geri?"

I hadn’t eaten the marshmallow he’d given me. I don’t think I could have eaten anything just then if I’d tried. So when he said that, well, my hands went sort of numb, and the marshmallow, even sticky as it was, slipped from my fingers and fell into a gloppy mess at my feet.

"
You
know?" My voice cracked.

Scott looked down at the marshmallow. "Yeah. Geri told me."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

Yesterday
? "Why didn’t you tell me?"

"I tried to," he said. "In the car, remember?"

That
was what that had been about?

"I guess I should have tried harder. But—" Scott presented me with a new marshmallow, perfectly golden on the outside. "I thought . . . well, I thought you might get upset."

I dropped the second one, too.

"
Upset
? About Luke and Geri?" I stared at him. "Why would
that
make me upset?"

He looked surprised. "Well, because—"

"Oh my God," Trina said, collapsing onto the log next to me. "Did you get a load of that strand of marshmallow goo between Cara and Kwang? 'Fess up, Scott. Were those two making out before we got here?"

"I don’t know," Scott said.

When I glanced over at Scott again, I found him looking at me, not Trina. I would venture to say he was looking at me intently, but the truth was, I could only judge that from the fact that his head wasn’t moving. I couldn’t see his eyes, because the flames from the campfire had cast them into deep shadow.

I swear, though, the way he was looking at me, for a minute, I almost thought . . .

Well, I almost thought maybe I was the mystery girl he was supposedly in love with. And that, you know, he hadn’t said anything because—

"Well,
I
think they were making out," Trina went on, "and with their mouths full. I’m sorry, but if Steve ever tried to kiss me with his mouth full of 's'mores, I’d be all, See ya, dude. Even if he is, you know, my soul mate and all."

"Jen," Scott said to me suddenly. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

Trina looked at him like he was crazy.

"Don’t go for a walk
now
," she said. "The fireworks are about to start."

But if anybody thinks I was going to give up a walk with Scott for an illegal fireworks show . . . well, I’d have to say they’re nuts.

"Sure," I said, somehow managing to sound casual, even though my heart was in my throat. "I’ll go for a walk."

Ask Annie

Ask Annie your most complex interpersonal relationship questions.

Go on, we dare you!

All letters to Annie are subject to publication in the Clayton High School
Register
.

Names and e-mail addresses of correspondents guaranteed confidential.

Dear Annie,

But I really love him. And I really need your help. Do I make the first move? Will that make me seem like a slut? But what if I wait for him to make the first move, what if some other girl gets to him first? I don’t want to be too pushy, though, because you always say that’s a turn-off. WHAT DO I DO
???

More Desperate Than Ever

Dear Desperate

I DON’T KNOW!!!! I’m still trying to figure it out myself
.

Annie

S
cott didn’t go
very far, I noticed. Just far enough so that no one else could listen to our conversation.

I could still hear the music—although now the chirping of crickets in the grass beneath our feet was louder than the strains of John Mellencamp. I could still see the people gathered around the campfire, but I couldn’t make out their features. We were walking, I noticed, toward the little woods near Kwang’s barn. The copse with the stream running through it.

It was kind of funny how Scott and I kept ending up in the woods together.

"If society as
we
know it ended, and I had to rebuild it," Scott said, leaning down and picking a piece of Queen Anne’s lace, "I wouldn’t let any actors into my new civilization "

I have to admit, I smiled a little at hearing that. In spite of my hammering heart.

"Oh, yeah?" I said. "What about journalists?"

"Oh, I’d let in journalists," Scott said, spinning the Queen Anne’s lace around in his fingers. It looked like a tiny parasol. "Because there has to be someone to record what’s going on. So the new society doesn’t make the same mistakes as the old one."

Even in the distant glow of the fire, I could see the fingers of his free hand go toward the tiny purple cluster of petals in the center of the flower he held.

My mind instantly flashed back to an afternoon at the retreat. Mr. Shea had told us the old wives’ tale that if you pull out the purple part of the Queen Anne’s lace, you kill it, because the tiny purple flowers are the flower’s heart.

So I went, not even thinking about what I was doing or saying, "No, don't, you’ll kill it."

Then I put one of my hands over his to stop him. . . .

And the next thing I knew, Scott had dropped the piece of Queen Anne’s lace. And his hands were cupping my face. And he was kissing me like he never wanted to stop.

And I was kissing him back.

And I wasn’t even imagining it because I couldn’t possibly imagine details like Scott’s hands smelling of marshmallow and Queen Anne’s lace . . . and feeling so rough against my cheeks, even though they were holding me so gently . . . and the way his lips tasted, sugary at first and then not at all sugary . . . and the way they felt, soft at first and then not at all soft. . . .

And then his hands weren’t cupping my face anymore but had gone to my waist and were pulling me toward him until our bodies banged together and were flush with each other, and I could feel his warm skin against mine, and my arms were around his neck, and Luke’s corsage was getting crushed against Scott’s chest—

—and the pin that held it to my dress dug into my chest.

"Ow," I said and let go of Scott and took a step back.

"What?" Scott’s gaze looked unfocused, and some of the hair on the back of his head was sticking up a little from where I’d run my fingers through it. "What’s wrong?"

"Nothing," I said. Because nothing
was
wrong. For the first time in my entire life, it seemed, everything was suddenly, fantastically right. "It’s just that—"

"I’m sorry," Scott said. Although he didn’t actually sound sorry at all. "But I
had
to do it, Jen. Because because I know I’ll probably never get another chance."

I’d been unpinning Luke’s corsage as he spoke. Now I dropped it. It disappeared into the long dark grass.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, not all that certain I wanted to know.

"I know you said you were just friends," Scott said. He sounded more upset than a guy who’d just been doing some pretty serious kissing should have. Especially considering the fact that I’d definitely been kissing back. "But . . . well, I mean, I’m not stupid. He’s
Luke Striker
, Jen."

"What does . . .
this
. . . have to do with Luke?" I asked, genuinely bewildered . . .

. . . and starting, from the anxious tone of his voice, to feel less like everything was perfect at last and more like there was something
I
should be anxious about, too.

"I’m just saying," Scott said, like he hadn’t even heard me. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking back at the campfire. "When I met you again—at the retreat last summer, I mean—I thought you were . . . well, I thought you were really cool. But I couldn’t tell whether or not you felt the same way about me. I mean, you were so nice. But you've
always
been nice. To
everybody .
. ."

If he had stabbed me in the heart, it could not have hurt as much
. Little Jenny Greenley, everybody’s best friend
.

"It was really hard to figure out what was going on with you," Scott went on, speaking fast and low, like he was trying to get it all out before he changed his mind. "If you liked me—I mean,
really
liked me—or just liked me the way you liked everybody else. And then Geri told me you don’t really date—"

Oh my God. Geri was so dead.

"—and I just figured, you know, it wasn’t meant to be. And Geri, she was really sympathetic and all, and one thing just led to another, and—"

So very, very dead.

"Well, you know."

Oh, did I ever.

"So I decided, Well, that’s that. But it was like—" Here Scott, still not looking at me, ran a hand through his hair in a gesture not unlike one of Luke's. "I couldn’t ever really get you out of my head. And the more time I spent with you—you know, at lunch and at
Register
meetings—the more I realized
you
were the one I wanted to be with, and that Geri and I . . . we just weren’t right for each other."

Okay. I might let her live. Barely.

Scott finally turned back toward me and, looking down at me with eyes that were unreadable in the darkness, said, "But then Luke came along."

"Right," I said, still not understanding what Luke had to do with it. "And?"

"And . . . Well. He’s
Luke Striker
, Jen."

"So?"

"Don’t
so
me, Jen. You’re the one who agreed to go to the Spring Fling with him!"

"Yeah . . ." I said.

And then slowly . so slowly it began to dawn on me. What Scott was trying to say.

Suddenly, so many things that had confused me before made sense. Like the Dairy Queen napkins. The reason Scott had handed me those napkins instead of kissing me hadn’t been because he wasn’t attracted to me.

Oh, no. It had been because he thought I was in love with Luke Striker.

He thought I was taken.

That was what he’d wanted to ask me, that day in his car. I knew it now. That’s what his question had been. Was I, or was I not, in love with Luke Striker?

And suddenly it was like, even though it was still dark out—and to tell you the truth, a little chilly in my chiffony dress—the sun had come out.

Seriously. It felt like the sun had come out and was pouring down all over me, warming me.

"I went to the Spring Fling with Luke," I explained, feeling dazzled by the way he was looking down at me . . . like I
mattered
, "because he
asked
me to go with him. Not because I’m in love with him, Scott. In fact, I’m probably the only girl in this entire town who
isn't
in love with him. And never was."

"Is that really true?" Scott reached out and grabbed one of my hands, then held it—not tightly but not exactly like he was going to let go of it anytime soon, either—in both his own. "Then you’re okay with him and . . him and Geri? You don’t . . . You were never …?"

"No, of course not." I couldn’t help laughing. I felt like I was in a movie. The sun was shining, little birds were tweeting around my head. I thought any second a rainbow might break out, and a show choir would appear singing "Day by Day " "I was never in love with Luke—"