Boy Swap Read online

  “Sure,” Carter says. “Then we should maybe read a couple of poems. And tell the class the meaning behind them and stuff.”

  “Excellent idea,” I say writing everything down as fast as I can.

  Carter and I make awesome project partners. We have an entire outline done in like ten minutes. We spend another fifteen talking about various poets and poems (ok, I let him do most of the talking, but then readily agree where I can and nod a bunch). Carter knows so much about poetry. I’m way impressed that a guy—scratch that—a seventeen-year-old, super popular, wrestler guy, knows so much about poetry. Like really insightful stuff. He’ll tell me a line about a bird and a dark sky and a dead branch. And I’m thinking, got it, bird, sky, branch. Yawn. But then he’ll explain to me how it really represents a lone soldier returning at the end of the war without his platoon to a town that basically died from extreme poverty and sickness. Whoa, right? I don’t even know how he sees all that. He’s so smart. Not to mention, just an overall really cool guy.

  “So where do we go from here?” I ask, looking over our completed outline.

  Carter moves to my side of the table and leans over my shoulder to look at my list. A black rope necklace with a small clay cross swings from his neck, right by the side of my face. And he smells absolutely YUMMY. I wonder what cologne he’s wearing. It’s kinda like sexy outdoorsy guy with a hint of cinnamon. He writes our names down the page, assigning us different sections from the list.

  “Okay,” he says, still leaning down by my face, “how about you do those sections and I’ll do these? Then we can meet again Thursday after school, compare notes, and practice the presentation for Friday.”

  I turn my face toward his, which is seriously about three inches away and totally within kissing reach, and breathe, “Sounds good.” The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up.

  “Ahem,” we both hear from our left. Carter straightens up. Blech. Cassie’s back. “Are you about done, Sweetie?” she says to Carter in a maple syrup voice, draping an arm possessively around his waist.

  “Just a sec, Cass.” He leans down to my notebook and scribbles something at the top of the page. “Here’s my IM handle and my e-mail address. If you want to talk over anything else tonight or tomorrow or whatever, I’m online a lot in the evenings.”

  “Great, will do,” I say. When Carter moves back to his side of the table to collect his things, I give Cassie a satisfied smile. Funny, she doesn’t smile back.

  Chapter 17: Last Year’s Coach Bag

  “Do you think if Jacob and I got married, our kids would be really musical? I mean, since we both are?” Lizzie asks with a far-off, daydream look on her face.

  “Wow,” I say, resisting the urge to laugh, “you’ve been dating for what…four, five days? And you’re already talking marriage?”

  “Shh!” she says, looking around to see if Jacob has come into the band room yet. It’s still ten minutes before first period band starts and Lizzie is sitting with me in the flute section chatting. “Don’t let anyone hear you say that. Jacob would freak. I’m not sure we’re even official. I think he has a bit of commitment phobia.”

  “Seriously? You guys are making out like, every time I see you in the same room together. He’s definitely committed to taste testing your mouthwash.”

  Lizzie giggles. “He’s such a good kisser.”

  “Apparently.”

  I glance behind me toward the trumpet section and wrinkle my nose. Someone is greasing their slides and it smells disgusting. I pull out my navy men’s handkerchief and start cleaning out my flute head.

  Lizzie looks at me expectantly.

  “What?” I say.

  “You didn’t answer.”

  “Oh…the musical thing? Yeah, you’ll have a little Beethoven and Mozart running around the house before you’re twenty, I’m sure.”

  “Nah, I have to at least finish college first.”

  I roll my eyes. “You’re seriously lucky I didn’t eat breakfast this morning or you’d be wearing it.”

  Lizzie laughs. “Okay, okay, I’ll curb the Jacob talk. It’s hard though, he’s so cute!”

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s dreamy,” I say and she knocks me in the shoulder with hers.

  “How are things with Chris?”

  “Good, good,” I say, probably a little too quickly. I have absolutely zero desire to discuss Chris right now.

  Speak of the two-timing devil, Chris walks into the band room and heads for the percussion section. He sees me talking to Lizzie up front, waves, and starts walking in our direction.

  “Here comes your lover boy now. I’ll get back to my chair and warm up so you two can talk.”

  “Warm-up, schwarm-up,” I say. “You know you’re going to be composing a mental list of names for Baby Vivaldi.”

  “Shh!” she says again and walks back to her seat.

  Chris slides into the vacant seat Lizzie left and gives me a kiss on the lips. “Hey, Hon,” he says. “I would have given you a ride this morning.”

  “I know, but Lizzie and her mom picked me up on the way. No biggie.”

  “Yeah, but I miss you. I feel like I haven’t seen you in days.”

  “We see each other at school every day, Chris,” I remind him. Not to mention your social calendar seems rather full these days.

  He gives me a tiny frown. “Not the same.”

  For the briefest moment I want to reach out and hug him but I resist, clutching my hands tighter around the body of my flute instead. We both stare at each other for a few seconds.

  “Go out with me tonight,” he says. “Are you already busy?”

  I think for a moment. “Well, not really. I do have some homework I need to do.” Like, write out my part of the presentation for my Thursday study-date with Carter. But, I suppose I could go out. For a while. “What time are you thinking?”

  “How about 7:30? Will that give you enough time to do your work? My mom has a few paintings in this community art show thing. She wants me to show up. We can eat some cheese and walk around ripping on the different art pieces.”

  Aw, kinda like the old days. Chris is really good at walking around ripping on things. Or people. He’s always cracked me up at least.

  “Sounds like fun,” I say. “I’m sure I’ll be done by then.”

  “Cool.” He gives me another kiss and then walks back to his drums.

  * * *

  One of the totally awesome perks of being a member of the BSC is my newfound fondness of gym class. What once was a dreaded, lonely fifty-minute chunk of my day has become a highlight. And it’s all because of Missy. I probably never would have gotten to know her, let alone ever even talked to her, if it wasn’t for BSC. And now we are totally buds. We hang out in every gym class, whether it’s being on the same team when it’s girls’ floor hockey or partners for badminton. Under all that big beautiful fluffy blond hair is a really sweet girl.

  “Hey, B,” Missy says, lowering herself into a criss-cross applesauce next to me.

  And yes, Missy is the only one allowed to call me “B.”

  “Hey, Miss,” I return.

  “We’re practicing for that President’s fitness test stuff today.”

  “Oooh, fun.”

  Missy sets to work on gathering all of her hair into a ponytail holder, which does not look like an easy task.

  After attendance, Coach Brown tells us to take turns counting how many sit-ups we can do in a minute’s time.

  Missy goes first and I hold her feet. She finishes with an impressive fifty-two sit-ups.

  “Hey, Miss,” I say as we switch positions on the mat. I look around to see if anyone is within earshot. No one is.

  “Yeah?”

  “I was just thinking about BSC stuff. Do you swap a lot yourself?”

  “Heck yeah,” she says, pushing some stray hairs back behind her ears.

  “Really?” I say, a bit surprised.

  “Of course. I take full advantage of my membership.”
/>   “Well,” I begin, forming my next question carefully, “how do you go about swapping? I mean, have you ever gotten backlash from the girlfriend of the…swapee?” Is that the right term?

  Missy sits back on her knees and looks at me with her head tilted a bit. “Why? Are you thinking about it already?”

  “What do you mean, ‘already’?”

  “No…nothing really. It’s just, I didn’t really start swapping until my second year. When I was really sure of how everything worked.”

  “It seems pretty clear,” I say.

  “It is. You just have to be careful,” she says thoughtfully.

  Missy places her hands on my feet, to signal that I should start my sit-ups but I’m not quite ready to end the BSC talk.

  “What about your boyfriend?” I ask, laying back on the mat but not starting my sit-ups.

  “What about him?”

  “Does he go out with a lot of the BSC members?

  “Oh sure.”

  “And you don’t care at all?” I sit back up to look at her.

  “No, of course not.” She lets go of my feet and sits back on her knees.

  “How do you do that? Not care.”

  “I guess I’m just used to it. Brad is fun and cool to hang out with. More like a nice accessory, you know?”

  I raise one eyebrow at her.

  “You know,” she begins, “he’s kinda like, last year’s Coach bag. Yes, it matches a lot of your outfits and it is comfortable and familiar. And it is still in really nice condition—no frays or dents in the buckle. But, it isn’t so valuable that you wouldn’t let your best friend borrow it when she needed it.”

  Interesting. I never thought of it like this.

  “Besides,” she continues, “it is probably on sale in the outlets by now and not so rare that everyone can’t have their own anyway.”

  Okay. She lost me at the outlet talk.

  * * *

  PrincessBrooke: Hey Carter.

  Tinman99: Hey Brooke. How’s it going?

  PrincessBrooke: Pretty good — working on the project now.

  Tinman99: Me too. Guess what? Graves worked with the dude who wrote Lord of the Rings.

  PrincessBrooke: Wow! “My precious…”

  Tinman99: :-) Yeah. They were both professors at Oxford. Cool.

  PrincessBrooke: Interesting. Did you know he tried to kill himself? Over a woman he was in love with?

  Tinman99: I knew he attempted suicide—didn’t know the details.

  PrincessBrooke: Reading now… he loved her… she loved another guy… who loved another woman (brain hurting) so she tried to kill herself by jumping out a window and he jumped out another one after her. Aww…so sweet! Kidding.

  Tinman99: Wicked. We have to put that in the presentation.

  PrincessBrooke: Definitely.

  Tinman99: What time do you want to meet tomorrow?

  PrincessBrooke: Right after school? Want to meet @ the café in Bookends? That way we can get drinks while we work?

  Tinman99: Sounds good. See you then. And at school of course.

  PrincessBrooke: Later!

  Okay, coffee with Carter definitely counts as a date date, right? Maybe?

  Chapter 18: Love You, Love You Not

  There. Done. I’ve finished my part of the presentation and I’m ready for my study date with Carter tomorrow. Now to get ready for my date with Chris tonight. Since we’re going to an art show, I should probably dress up. I pull on my long-sleeved brown dress and a pair of tights. I zip up my brown boots and tie my BSC pink scarf around my neck for a splash of color. Technically I don’t need to wear the scarf on our date, since I doubt we’ll run into other BSC members at a Community Art Show, but it looks really cute with this outfit.

  I walk into the kitchen to see what Mom made for dinner. Tonight is her book club and she left early for it, mumbling something about having to pick up coffee cakes on the way. I take the waiting plate out of the refrigerator and look at it. Chicken Broccoli Alfredo. Not in this dress. I need something less messy to eat. I put the plate back in the fridge and get to work making a PB&J.

  Sigh. I’m having the worst time trying to muster up some enthusiasm for this date with Chris. I know I’ve been distant with him lately but who could blame me? I’m totally pissed at his behavior. More pissed that I was wrong about him. I thought he was so faithful. Ha! And having to keep up this whole “everything is normal” routine is freakin’ hard. I wonder if Chris is completely clueless or if he feels me pulling away? He acts totally normal so I’m leaning toward the clueless theory. He’s probably so preoccupied with trying to find ways to see Cassie without getting caught that he doesn’t even realize that I already know. Or maybe Cassie told him that I knew and I was cool with it? That would be right up her alley. So help me if Chris asks me to do a manga tra…manage twa…whatever it’s called.

  Ding dong. I open the door and Chris is standing on my front porch in dark brown cords and a navy sweater that makes his gorgeous blue eyes somehow even more gorgeous. He gives me one of his hello-the-love-of-my-life smiles and my heart beats faster. Why does this have to feel so familiar and wonderful? Before I can even say hello, he pulls one long-stemmed red rose from behind his back and hands it to me.

  Ack! Away from my frozen heart with your hammer and chisel, you! Too late.

  “Ohhhhhh Chris! It’s so beautiful! I love it!” I hear myself gush. I’m such a girl.

  Chris steps into the house, closes the door behind him, and wraps his arms around me. I tilt my head back to look at him and he gives me a long, slow kiss. We stand like that in the front hallway, kissing, for another couple of minutes until he finally breaks it up.

  “Are you ready to go, Babe?” he asks.

  I nod my head yes, still dizzy from the kiss. He helps me on with my jacket, takes my hand, and we walk out into the night.

  * * *

  The art show really isn’t bad. I mean, I envisioned that it would be far sillier than it actually turned out to be. I didn’t imagine the Rosehill community having a whole lot of artistic talent but some of these pieces are pretty good. Especially the paintings that Mrs. Donnely did. She has six on display at the show, each one depicting a different part of the enormous family farm she grew up on. Looking at them lined up next to each other is cool, like a super wide picture. When Mrs. Donnely spots Chris and me she gasps and claps her hands together. She races over to us and throws her arms around me. I can tell she’s proud of her paintings and happy we’re there showing support.

  After we spend a sufficient amount of time looking at Chris’s mom’s paintings and pretending to talk about color and lighting, which neither of us has a clue about, we take a complimentary small paper plate of cheese and a Dixie cup filled with a red punch-looking liquid. Both the cheese and juice are warm and we dump them at the nearest out of sight trash can. We walk around the rest of the show checking out the wide variety of things on display—everything from a giant ear-shaped collage of what looks like five hundred photographs of different people’s ears entitled, “We All Have Ears Here” to a large doll house made entirely of cut up books, right down to the tiny little furniture. We round the corner into a big room marked “Sculptures.”

  “Looks like my mom’s meatloaf,” Chris announces as we approach the first in a row of sculptures.

  I giggle.

  “This one looks like my mom’s meatloaf, too,” he says as we walk past another sculpture.

  “Chris,” I hiss, looking around to see if anyone else heard him.

  We approach a third sculpture. “Now this one looks like my mom’s meatloaf after I’ve thrown it up,” he says, pointing his finger. An older woman with big wire glasses and thin orange lips looks at us and frowns.

  “Ohmigod,” I whisper and bury my head into his shoulder.

  Chris just laughs and wraps his arms around me. He steers me away from the sculptures and into the next section. Quilts.

  “You’re so bad,” I say, pretending t
o protest even though I’m actually having a lot of fun.

  “The worst,” he replies and kisses me on the tip of my nose. I wrap my arms around his waist and lean into him as we continue walking.

  We step up to examine the first of a long hallway of hanging quilts. It consists of a ton of blue, red, and purple triangles that form bunches of stars on a cream background.

  “This one’s pretty,” I say.

  Chris moves us closer to the quilt, looks it over, and then kneels down to read the card at the bottom. “‘Stars’ by Betty Smith. This quilt took Betty two years to complete,” he reads. He straightens up and looks at me. “Now that’s just stupid.”

  I give him a quizzical look. “What is?”

  “Spending two years making a blanket. Hasn’t Betty ever been in a Bed, Bath, & Beyond before? She probably could have picked up something similar for thirty bucks.”

  I shake my head at Chris but I’m laughing too. I’ve got to get him out of here before we’re thrown out.

  “You want to get going?” he asks.

  “You read my mind,” I answer affectionately.

  We stop and say goodbye to Chris’s mom and she gives us each a hug and thanks us for coming. I’m really glad we did this. Tonight reminded me of how much I still do love Chris…how funny he is…how loving he is…how nice his butt looks in dark brown cords.

  The sounds of “We Are the Champions” via Chris’s cheesy ringtone fills the air. Who would be calling him now?

  Chris checks the phone number on his display, flushes a bit, and then takes a few steps away from me to answer. He has never stepped away from me to take a call before.

  Grrr. Cassie.

  I can feel the pissiness rise in my chest and I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hand. Ouch! I open my hands and rub them together to get out the nail marks I just left.

  Chris steps back toward me and puts his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “Hey, you said you had a class thing to work on tomorrow after school, right?”