Some guy. Right. I think about explaining this to Len. That Rob is notsome guy. That I’m not the kind of girl that cries over boys. That this is different. That he was the one. But that sounds ridiculous, even in my head, so I know how it would sound coming out of my mouth. To Len.
“See ya,” he says, and then he’s hoisting his backpack onto his shoulder and heading down the stairs before I even have a chance to say good-bye.
“Where have you beeeen?” Olivia asks when I get to upper. She’s leaning against her car, and Charlie is inside, in the front seat. Charlie has her sunglasses on even though it’s completely cloudy out. The telltale sign that she’s pissed or upset about something.Probably the fact that I’m late. I went and dropped my books off at my locker after rehearsal, but it didn’t take more than five minutes, and I told them that we would probably run over.
“Sorry,” I say. “Rehearsal. You knew this.”
Olivia huffs, and I climb into the back seat. “Hey,” I say to Charlie, poking her in the shoulder.
“Jake is taking Big Red,” she says. “They’re meeting us there after surfing.” She turns around and slides her glasses up. Her face is blotchy. “I saw Rob get in with them.”
Olivia apparently has not heard this before now, because she spins around and puts her hand on my knee, right where Rob touched me after dinner the other night. It makes me jump.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie says. “I’m so fucking pissed at him.”
Charlie rarely curses. One of her theories is that people respect you less if you curse. Plus, she reasons, this way, when you really need a curse word, you pull it out and bam, it works like a shotgun.Everyonelistens. Charlie is very into everyone listening to her.
“At least Juliet won’t be there,” I squeak out.
“My feelings exactly,” Charlie says. The red is fading from her neck, and she looks at Olivia and lets out a long breath. “We could totally call Jake and cancel, but maybe Rob just needs some time away with us to realize he’s a moron. And we can enact Project Get Rid of Juliet.”
“Guys are stupid,” Olivia says, like she’s contributing something revelatory.
“Rob misses you. I’m sure he does. Maybe this Juliet thing was just a phase. Like the time Jake decided he was into flannel,” Charlie says.
Olivia wrinkles her nose and starts the car.
“Should we pick up bagels on the way?” Charlie asks.
“One step ahead of you.” Olivia reaches behind her and pulls up a bag from Grandma’s. She wags it in front of Charlie’s face.
“Olivia Diamond, I adore you,” Charlie says, snatching it out of her hands.
I slump back in my seat as we pull out of the parking lot. What if Charlie is right? I mean, it’s a long shot, and I know that. But what if some time away might make him realize his mistake? We have serious history. You can’t just throw all of that away on a whim. And he must be missing me. I know he is. I keep opening my phone to text him or pulling up my email when something funny happens. It feels like the entire world is composed of our inside jokes. Everything reminds me of him. Even just seeing the mailbox this morning made me think of the time in the sixth grade when we snuck out in the middle of the night to switch our mailboxes. We thought it would be a funny April Fools’ joke on our parents. We ended up breaking both of them, though, and had to use four months of our allowances to replace them.
Grilled cheese makes me think of the time we tried to make some with my hair straightener. Math class makes me think of last spring, when Rob swore he had helped Mr. Stetzler pick out Converse at Foot Locker. My room reminds me of watching DVDs together. Even my parents are reminders of Rob. Like the entire world is reflecting him back to me in every single surface. He must be seeing me, too.… How could he not?
“Music, please,” Charlie says, holding her palm up like she’s asking me to slap her high five.
I spot Olivia’s phone on the seat next to me and hand it to her. She puts on “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and we all start singing along. When we were younger, Juliet and I would put on performances for our parents in my living room. We would dress up in my mom’s cocktail dresses, the old ones from her brief Hollywood days, and make everyone gather around. Inevitably I would get shy right before, though, and Juliet would have to sing the entire thing herself.
Thinking about that now, it feels like thinking about a different person. The Juliet I knew isn’t here now. She’d never do this.
“Can I talk to you guys about something?” Olivia asks. She turns down the music, and Charlie makes a sound like she’s choking in disbelief.
“Be still my heart,” Charlie says. “She has silenced the Supremes.”
Olivia frowns, and Charlie holds up her hands. “Okay, okay,” she says apologetically. “What’s the what?”
“I really like Ben.” She glances nervously at Charlie, who rolls her eyes.
“We know, we know,” Charlie says. “You’re crazy about my hugely lame brother. So what?”
“So could you pretend he’s not your brother for a second?”
“How do you think I make it through the day?”
Olivia looks at me like she’s not sure if Charlie’s kidding.
