“Gym teacher?”
“Personal trainer?”
“Firefighter?”
“Navy Seal?”
“He could be a model.”
Jackson lifts his eyebrows, curious, and I wish I hadn’t said it. I figured Max being attractive was a given. A fact. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the teachers had his senior portrait in their cubbies. Now it looks like I’m into Maggie’s brother. “I mean, everybody likes Max.”
“Ah.” He nods.
“No, I mean, not me. He’s just Maggie’s brother.”
“Right.” He doesn’t buy it.
“I mean, I’ve known him since third grade. When their parents took them out of Catholic school. He’d pitch pine cones to us, and we’d try to hit them with our American Girl dolls. He’s like a brother to me.” This is not entirely true, because if I accidentally fell into Tyler’s lap on the way home from practice, I’d try to fart on him, not have a heart attack.
“He’s the hot older brother. Got it.”
I roll my eyes and pick up some pecans that have fallen off our roll.
“So if you’re not into Max Cleave, is there anybody you are into?” Jackson says.
He’s looking right at me, not blinking. Maybe not breathing. Is this Jackson nervous? Does Jackson even get nervous?
The butterfly is having a conniption. Now! she says. Say something! Carpe the goddamned diem!
What she wants me to say is:
You, obviously. Only you. I can’t wait to get to school in the morning to see if you’re waiting for me outside of math. I look for you in lunch, just to check you’re still there. When you grabbed my hand to cross the street, I felt it in my feet. I know if I kissed you right now you’d taste like chai and caramel rolls.
But I also know that if I did, one day soon you’d hold my hips and you’d touch my hair and then you’d slide your hand up my back and feel the four steel hooks that hold my bra together. And you’d be as polite as you could be and make a joke about a fortress and I’d laugh, but Maude and Mavis—they have names, I named them—would be so sweaty already that I’d want to die instead of let you near. I would be embarrassed, and you don’t think you would be but you would be too. And then we couldn’t just joke around in the hallway or talk about Quinlan or trophies or wistful poetry because that moment would always be there, and I would rather have those minutes with you before math every day than anything or anyone else.
“I’m pretty focused on school right now.”
“Right. Of course,” he says, and looks down into his chai.
I know and I don’t know and I don’t want to know that it wasn’t the thing I was supposed to say. Like there was a turn in the path that maybe we could have taken, but I don’t know where that one goes and I don’t know if there’s a way back if it goes nowhere.
The butterfly can’t even stand to look at me anymore.
Jackson can’t either.
“So do you want to know what I was really doing last night?” I finally say. I let it sit there a minute, a tiny tease, ready to throw myself under the bus. “I watched three straight hours of baking shows with my dad.”
He looks up and smiles. “Seriously?”
“Eric Walsh loves baking shows. He doesn’t love baking, but he absolutely loves baking shows.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“He keeps it on the DL. But this is the best time of year for it—there’s a Christmas cookie competition and a gingerbread house one—”
“Isn’t your dad Jewish?”
“Not when it comes to Christmas bake-offs.”
We find our way back from the precipice to easy conversation, the kind you can have when it’s clear you’re not on a date, which I’ve just made sure we’re not.
We talk about which ages we were when we read each Harry Potter, our parents’ rules for phones, some of the million different places he’s lived and what’s weird about each one (once he lived in Tennessee and his teacher called the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression).
He tells me that Quinlan hasn’t been lashing out as much but that she seems almost too quiet. I’m about to ask if he thinks she’s planning a terrorist attack, but I’m glad I don’t because he says, “Do you think somebody can be depressed in third grade?” and I realize he’s actually worried about her. And for the record, yes, I do think somebody can be depressed in third grade.
I’m not sure if I blew a chance at something or if there wasn’t any chance anyway, but if it’s ever only this, I hope I can convince myself it’s enough.
CHAPTER 43
Maggie didn’t show up to school this morning. I get the story from Amara and Keely, two other brides, about dress rehearsal last night.
Apparently, everything was going just fine—or as fine as it could, since five of the brothers can’t dance and four of them can’t sing either. But everybody was in costume for the first time, and it made it all seem better.
Until the first scene that Maggie and the other girls are in. They came out, one after another, in their gingham dresses and braids (thank you, Lizzie Barnes). Even Keely, whose mousy hair is pretty short, managed to tuck it into little French braids, glued down with a can of hairspray. Lizzie’s own hair grew six inches longer and three shades lighter overnight, thanks to several hundred dollars’ worth of extensions, according to the girls. And then Maggie appeared, stage left. With a ponytail straight out of the top of her head like a whale spout.
“CUT!” yelled Lizzie. “CUUUUUUUTTTTTTT!” The cast was confused and the pit orchestra went on for several measures before they realized that no one was singing anymore.
A couple of the boys thought it was funny, but the rest of the cast was mad. They were tired and just wanted to get through the rehearsal.
There was a mini-conference with Mr. Coles and the other directors, Maggie, and Lizzie. Maggie stomped off and came back a few minutes later in the middle of the next number wearing two acceptable braids. She didn’t say anything to anybody after rehearsal, just left the second it was over.
Now Amara, Keely, and a few of the other girls are freaking out because Maggie hasn’t shown up to school and tonight is opening night.
“Oh no. Does Lizzie have to sing all her own lines if Maggie doesn’t show?” says Amara.
If Amara is legitimately worried, Keely is just pissed. “None of us like Lizzie, but come on. Maggie’s being really stubborn.”