Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys)(11)

I start to agree with her, but my brain gets stuck on the idea of divulging secret inner-band opinions to her of all people and—sweet merciful gods of timing, Reid is calling.

“I have to go,” I say. “Sorry. Mom needs my help downstairs.”

“See you tomorrow,” she says. “Are you doing anything after school?”

“I don’t know, I’ll check,” I say as if I actually will. “Bye.”

I click over. “Hey. How did the Sad Animal Project go?”

“Oh man, Riley.” He is smiling so wide I can hear it. “I’m so in.”





CHAPTER FIFTEEN



The Sad Animal Project, Continued, by Reid


Last night may have been the best night of my life.

I’ll back up. When I walked by Paws for People, I didn’t see Jane at all. There was a guy working, but he wasn’t a douchebag--he was like a dad type. So I started to go in. But then I thought, wait, maybe that guy actually is Jane’s dad. So here are the problems with that:

If Jane and I end up going out, I want to plan out what to say and what I’m wearing when I meet her parents. It can’t just be some random day when I have on a random T-shirt and when I have nothing composed to say to them.

I actually always get along really well with people’s parents. One of the worst things that ever happened to my rep was when I went to Darcy Levien’s party freshman year and ended up talking to her parents all night about their vinyl. Come on! They had a freaking awesome collection! Original Nirvana! Sub Pop Bleach! They were way more interesting than anyone else there. But on Monday morning, even though stuff went down like Ryan Holland and Michaela Brewster hooking up, and Logan Perry throwing up in Jesse Torres’s good-luck hat, all these people were talking about what a loser I was for staying in the house all night and not going out to the backyard where the party was. Writing it out now, I guess I can see how I was kind of a loser. Still--the Slits’ “Typical Girl” 7-inch! The Voidoids’ Destiny Street--and not the Razor & Tie reissue, the Red Star Records original pressing. Amazing. My point’s that if Jane walks out of the back room or wherever else she could be while I’m bonding with her dad, any forgotten memories of me being a loser and hanging out with parents are going to rush to the surface and she will never fall in love with me.

I’m only doing this to talk to Jane in the first place. I’m not wasting time pretending to love disabled pets for any other reason.



So I walk over to Silverlake Coffee and the barista’s pretty cute so I try to talk to her but she seems busy and I don’t want to be disrespectful to Jane so after I kill some time I walk back and she’s there.

I go in and she smiles and says, “Hi, Reid,” which is awesome. She knows my name! We talk about world history, and how Mr. Agos’s tests don’t seem fair but we do okay on them so we’re not too worried. She asks me about the Gold Diggers, and I tell her how we might play at the fall formal, and she tells me to let her know for sure because she’s not usually into dances but she’d go if we were playing. Which is amazing. I tell her I’ll let her know, and I give her a Gold Diggers button, which she pins to her jacket. Without hesitation!

The dad-type guy comes out of the back and says Jane has to walk some of the dogs, and I think he’s waiting to get me alone so he can yell at me, but I guess Jane did have to walk dogs because this guy just takes over answering questions about dogs, and he decides I would get along really well with this dog with only one eye for some reason. All the dogs there have something wrong with them so there’s probably no symbolism in that.

I hang out with the dog for a while so that Jane comes back in before I go, and I act like I’m going to go home and talk to my mom and I make a big deal out of how much I love this dog and so Jane seems happy and actually so does the dad-type guy and Jane is still wearing the button (not like I thought she’d take it off outside but I did think it was a possibility) so I say good-bye because it feels like I’m leaving on a high note.

Jane says to hang on, and she puts all the dogs back where they’re supposed to go, and she walks out with me and hugs me! She says it’s great I care about animals, and she’s crossing her fingers everything works out for me and this dog. So I thank her and act like I feel the same way about the dog and leave.

It was an amazing evening.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


Saturday night I stop at Albertsons on my way to Garrick’s to buy some root beer and Nerds because I feel like being a good guest. Garrick’s house is up in the hills past the Shakespeare Bridge, which is not that fancy or big a bridge to be the namesake of the most famous writer of all time. It’s like naming our guesthouse the Beatles Manor.

“Hi, Riley.” Garrick opens the front door of the sage-and-white house tucked behind a ridiculous number of palm trees. You have no idea whose parents think stuff like extra palm trees are important when you’re at school together, but the second you walk up to someone’s house for the first time, all these details come spilling forth.

“I brought Nerds,” I tell him. “And root beer.”

“Cool. I love root beer,” he says with a big smile. “Come on in.”

“Thanks for inviting me over,” I say. “This is way better than the library. I don’t trust any place with a Leonardo DiCaprio computer wing.”