But when we get to the Ford Focus, in addition to Max there are two seniors and one sophomore inside.
Did you know about this, Maggie?
“Hey.” Jackson smiles and slides to the middle.
“We’re taking Greer home,” Maggie says to Max.
“Cool.”
Maggie squeezes tight into Jackson, leaving me three inches to wedge myself. They all smush harder, but these are big guys and it’s not going to work. “Just sit on top of me,” Maggie says, patting her lap.
I am not sure, but I think Jackson turns slightly pink. I’m sure I do. I stand there, blinking at her for a minute, until she says, “Fine, I’ll sit on you,” and leans forward so I can get under her.
Now I’m wedged between Jackson and the door, with Maggie’s bony butt poking into my thigh. Her legs are draped over Jackson’s. I am simultaneously glad I am not sitting there and jealous that she is.
Up front they are talking about the disappointing end to the World Series, and who should be traded to whom. The kid on the other side of Jackson hasn’t looked up from his phone the whole time. Maggie’s on her phone now, too. Jackson and I can’t take ours out because there’s a girl in our laps.
“Tryouts?” Jackson says.
I nod and squeeze my arms in even tighter, trying to preserve the millimeter of space between us. I’ve been wearing the same Zoo shirt at tryouts every day and it’s beginning to smell like the zoo. If I wasn’t already sweaty from practice, I’d be sweaty now, because I don’t usually like people touching me, and now one is literally on me (thank god it’s Maggie) and the other (oh god it’s Jackson) is one fast turn away from careening into me.
“When do you find out?”
“Monday.”
“You doing anything this weekend?”
It’s very subtle, but I notice Maggie’s body tense. She doesn’t look at us, but she’s holding perfectly still, like she doesn’t want to miss my response.
“I, um, I’m, I have to help Maggie rewrite the script for the musical.” She raises her eyebrows at me. I swear my shirt gives off an entire wave of stink.
I am wrong about Max Cleave not knowing I exist. He jerks to a stop in front of my house without asking which one.
“Good luck with the script,” says Jackson, as I peel myself out of the back seat.
“Yeah, Greer. I’m looking forward to your help,” says Maggie, who has scored herself an accomplice.
CHAPTER 27
None of the furniture is where it was when I left for school.
The couch is where the chairs used to be. One chair is next to it, instead of facing it. The other chair is missing altogether, and the rug is rolled up in the corner. Everything, including the end tables, is lined up in a row.
I walk through the living room to the dining room, where the table has been rotated 90 degrees. My mother is chewing on the side of her thumb. She won’t bite her nails—she keeps very nice nails—but she will chew on her actual fingers if she’s really bothered.
“Hi?”
“Oh hi, sweetie.” She doesn’t look at me. She tips her head sideways and frowns at the table. She should frown. There is no space to get around the sides, like if you tried to shove a shoe in a shoebox the perpendicular way.
“Did you try out one of those feng shui consultants?” I bet it was the lady who had a bird on her shoulder in her headshot.
“No, I just read a couple of articles and tried some things myself.”
Even better. Mom is a feng shui consultant.
“I think the table was better the other way,” she says. “Or we need a shorter table.”
“It was good the other way. It had a nice flow,” I add, and pick up one end of the table. The two of us reorient the dining room and the world feels slightly more logical again.
She looks satisfied and walks me back to the living room. “What do you think about the couch there?”
“I guess it’s fun to change things up sometimes,” I say. One of the bookcases is half emptied; the books are stacked in three piles on the floor. Snow White and six dwarfs are still where they’ve always been, and I wonder if I’m ever going to see Grumpy again. Maybe one of the other dwarfs has had to take on his personality to keep things in balance. Maybe Bashful has started acting like a dick.
She takes my comment to mean I approve. “Yeah, I think so. Just get out of your comfort zone.” For Kathryn Walsh, moving the couch represents a move from her comfort zone.
“What are you doing with those books?”
“Oh! I’m de-cluttering.”
“Books aren’t clutter, Mom.”
“When there are so many of them, they are.”
I completely disagree. I start sliding the books back onto their shelf. Most of them are my old ones.
She goes on. “Have you heard of the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up? It’s about the Japanese art of organizing.”
“You read that?”
“I didn’t read the actual book . . .”
“But you watched the show?”
“Not really, but I get the drift.”
Perfect. My mother believes she has gotten “the drift” of an ancient Chinese philosophical view of space and energy flow and a modern Japanese take on what to put in a garage sale, and has arranged our house like a weird obstacle course. “Well, please don’t ‘tidy up’ my books.”
“You’re supposed to get rid of all the things that don’t bring you joy.”
“Does that thing give you joy?” I say, as Tyler blows in like a blast of nuclear energy.
Tyler doesn’t even notice that the furniture is all wonky. He just drops all his crap where there isn’t a rug anymore, sniffs the air, and says, “Are we having cabbage for dinner?”
If Tyler can smell me, I really need to change this T-shirt.
CHAPTER 28
I reach for my phone when it beeps and remember that I plugged the heating pad into the outlet next to my bed last night. I might have been too enthusiastic at tryouts on Friday, because it’s Sunday and I’m still sore.
So the phone is all the way over on my dresser, beeping. “Accio phone.”
Still a Muggle.
The things that hurt hurt even more when I drag them out of bed. Dad says there’s a good kind of sore, the kind you feel when you gave it your all. If that’s true, Jessa must feel delightfully agonized all the time. He neglected to mention that sore is still sore.