“You said I did a good job!”
“You’re ok for a learner but you can’t be out on the road. My dad would kill me if he knew you took my car. He bought it for me and he still pays my insurance.”
Willow answered something that sounded pouty, but we were too far away to hear it. We did catch her boyfriend’s next words, though: “She’s a big girl. She can handle it.”
“But she’s so naïve!” my sister answered him, and I knew that they were talking about me. “She’s never even been kissed.”
“That’s not true,” I told Jannie, who shushed me.
“So let her learn the hard way,” Boyd said. “It wouldn’t do her any harm to get dropped down a couple pegs. She thinks she’s perfect and messing with that guy will show her that she’s not.” He spoke louder, drowning out her next words. “I don’t want to fight. Did you eat dinner? We could go to the sushi place you like and get avocado rolls.”
I watched her nod instead of defending me any further and he backed up out of the dusty lot, nearly hitting Jannie’s van. Hewasn’t such a good driver either and I was now very, very glad that I hadn’t asked Everett to get extra tickets for them.
“I have been kissed,” I told Jannie, and she told me that was good. She also told me to be careful about Everett, but for a different reason.
“Sometimes the cute ones are selfish in bed,” she cautioned. “Make sure you don’t leave unsatisfied. Put him to work.”
“We’re friends. There are no beds and no sex anywhere else,” I said, and she shook her head like I was whacko.
“Why not?” she asked, and then pointed to the customer, who was now vocalizing some displeasure. “Get him his drink and shut him up.”
I found it hard to sleep that night. It was a little strange to be alone in the big house but mostly, I was very nervous about the game the next day. When this happened, when my heart was beating hard and I felt the usual headache, I only had one real solution. I reverted to that now. I pictured how things would go perfectly at the game, both for him and for me. The Zoey in my mind was wearing something nice, although I wasn’t able to pin that down. Clothes were Willow’s thing, but I knew that I looked very good in an outfit that I left as a bluish blur. The color would make my eyes stand out. My hair fell in a silky, shiny sheet like how she always managed to style it.
Everett would be happy to see me and maybe it would have been time for a kiss—number three for me, since there really had been others. As Jannie had said, why not? It depended on whetherhe was interested in kissing me back, which wasn’t something I’d picked up on from him.
But his previous lack of interest didn’t matter in my daydream. He was happy to kiss me, and I put my arms around his neck and he used his tongue. After that, Willow would never be able to claim that my experience wasn’t “real.” And then the Woodsmen would go on to win the game, because Everett would throw for a thousand yards…I wasn’t sure if that number made sense, but it didn’t have to. I was finally able to fall asleep with those good thoughts in my mind.
It took me a long time to get ready the next day. I wore my nicest shirt, which I’d also worn the first time I’d gone to the stadium with Mrs. Pauker’s class. Then I reconsidered the idea, since it hadn’t been a great day for Everett and this shirt had ended up in a plastic bag, reeking of puke. It didn’t smell anymore, but I picked a different one and then I started on my hair. Without my sister, it was pretty hard to style but I thought that I got it close to her level of straightness and gloss. I watched a few of the videos that she’d previously sent to me about makeup and I did my best to emulate the women in those.
It all would have gone better if Willow were here and I thought about texting her—but then I also thought about her telling me that I was naïve, which basically meant childish and dumb. She had insulted Everett, too, by saying that he was going to hurt me somehow, that he’d use me and throw me away, careless of my feelings. He wasn’t like that, and I didn’t text.
Yes, it took me a long time, but I was finally ready and I arrived early enough at Woodsmen Stadium that traffic wasn’tyet gridlocked and terrible. I drove in and, with the pass Everett had gotten for me, I was able to park near the players’ lot where I could see his truck. Somehow, I felt better that it was also here, although…I wished that my sister was, too. Maybe people were right that I was pathetic and hung on her. Maybe that was why she’d wanted to move in with Boyd, not because she loved him so much but mostly to get away from me.
I went inside and tried to feel excitement and anticipation instead of noticing the headache above my eyes. This was going to be great, just like my daydream except that my outfit was actual clothing instead of a blurry blob around my body. I wasn’t sure about how it looked and I wished I had my sister to ask. But it was ok. Everything was ok.
At my first game at this stadium, I had seen families and friends of the players down on the sidelines before the action started, as well as some other lucky (or well-connected) people. Now I was one of them, and I watched as various Woodsmen walked over to greet their wives and girlfriends, moms and dads, and kids. There were lots of kids here. I didn’t recognize any of the players and I thought that if I was going to come to these games on a regular basis, it would have been a good idea to study up on them.
Well, I did recognize one of the guys. Dallas Laforet jogged over and to my surprise, he talked to the woman standing right next to me. “Hey, babe,” he greeted her, and he gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“How are you doing?” she asked, and they talked quietly. I stepped a few paces away and felt…terrible. I had wished for anankle injury for him—not a bad one, but now I was sorry that I’d even thought it at all. I had also hoped that he wouldn’t do well in practice, that he would miss receivers, and that he would decide he hated Michigan and would move away, leaving the pathway to the starting QB job clear for Everett. I had met Laforet briefly at Fan Day and had thought he was normal and nice, but I had still hoped for those things. I hadn’t been considering him as a person, but only as an enemy.
I thought of my first-grade cooperating teacher, Sarah Pauker. “We don’t have to be friends with everyone,” she had often told her class. “But we will be friendly, and we’re always kind to each other.” The six-year-olds had done a better job at that than I had lately.
When Everett ran over, he and Dallas nodded but didn’t speak, and I saw the other woman glaring daggers at him. I understood that, and he didn’t seem to notice or care. “Hi,” he told me. “You look nice.”
“Do I?” I checked my outfit and then felt my hair. “Thank you. I usually don’t spend as much time on my preparations.”
“Yeah, you’re not like other girls.”
“What?” I asked, puzzled. “Yes, I am.”
“Not the girls I knew, not like my sister or my mom and definitely not like my wife. They always spent hours getting ready.”
“That was what I did today, too,” I said. “Most of us are the same in more ways than we’re different. Not everyone is good with hair and not everyone has had four husbands, though.”
“Who had four husbands?”
I had been thinking again of Jannie and her question about the man standing in front of me: why not?
