See You at Harry's(9)

Sometimes I think Holden imagines a whole other world for himself, being part of this other life of rich kids from the private school nearby who treat our restaurant like another McDonald’s and not a place you can only afford to go to for a special treat, like most people around here. I bet he imagines driving to Boston to go school shopping instead of having to shop at the crummy outlet mall near our house.

“Fern,” he says, expertly kicking another stone across the road. “I need you to promise me something.”

“OK,” I say. Holden likes me to promise stuff. He’s always making me swear to things, like not telling anyone (especially Sara) about the shoe box he keeps full of cutout J.Crew models wearing outfits he tries to copy.

“You have to sit at the front of the bus, behind the driver.”

“Isn’t that where all the nerds sit?”

He looks up the street again, all tense. “Nah. It’s not like that on this bus. Trust me. All the losers sit in the back.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I swear. So when we get on, sit in the second or third row behind the driver. No matter what. Don’t pay attention to where I sit, OK? Act like you don’t even notice me.”

“But — why?”

He won’t look at me. “Listen. There’s stuff . . . stuff you don’t understand. People are horrible enough in grade school. But in middle and high school? Those same jerks will look like your best friends compared to the new crop. You have to figure out how to survive. Sitting at the front of the bus is one way. Pretending you don’t know me is another.”


“Why not know you?” Holden looks so cool and put together, I can’t imagine not wanting to be seen with him.

He sighs. “I just have a feeling. OK?”

I give him the tell-me stare. This is what we call the face-down. It’s when we look each other in the eye to see if we’re being straight. When our eyes meet, I can see how hard it is for him not to turn away. He looks scared.

“OK,” I say. “I promise to sit at the front.”

Brakes squeak in the distance, and the top of the bus appears at the end of the road. It looks like a big yellow monster peeking up over a hill. When it stops in front of us, the door folds open. Holden makes me go first. The bus driver looks down at us as we climb the steep steps onto the bus. She has a woolen blue and gold ski hat on, which are our school colors. But instead of our school name, it says trudy trudy trudy all around it. She nods but doesn’t say hello. There’s sweat beaded at her forehead. I wonder why she’s wearing the hat if she’s so hot. Maybe she doesn’t have any hair underneath. Maybe she has cancer and lost all her hair like Ran’s mom. I look away from her and scout out a seat.

The first two seats behind the driver are taken, so I slip into the empty third. I don’t turn around to watch Holden, but I can see him in the driver’s huge mirror. He’s going toward the back, where he said the losers sit.

The second he sits down, two boys in the seat behind him cuff his ears. Holden’s face turns bright red.

I can’t help it. I swing my head around, desperately wanting to help. But he gives me a death glare that says, Turn around. Now. I quickly face forward again, but I can’t help watching in the mirror. He stares hard out the window as the two boys lean over the seat and say things in his ears I can’t hear. The bus lurches forward, my heart breaking a bit more with each bump in the road. Every time I hear laughter behind me, I cringe.

After a few stops, a girl I’ve never met before sits next to me. I think she’s older. She doesn’t say hi, and neither do I. I squeeze the straps on my backpack and try to focus on the dark green vinyl seat in front of me instead of the bus driver’s mirror. There’s a rip in the seat and someone wrote F school below the rip. There’s some sort of glue on the rip to try to keep it from tearing anymore, I guess. F school, I repeat in my head. F those boys back there.

When we get to school, I know Holden won’t want me waiting, so I follow the crowd inside and start looking for my homeroom.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and swirl around.

“Hey, Fern,” Ran says. He smiles the way he always does when we meet up. A certain smile that’s just for me.

“Hey,” I say.

“You seem sad.”

I look down at his chest because I know if our eyes meet, I will cry.

I was wrong about his chill T-shirt. Instead, he’s wearing a light-green one that says be in purple letters.

He doesn’t take his hand off my shoulder. I wish I could say the words that describe what I’m feeling. But all I can think of is hurt.

Our friend Cassie comes over to us and blushes as soon as Ran looks at her. When Ran underwent his transformation from strange sick kid to cool, very cute, and mysteriously-odd-but-in-an-acceptable-way kid, Cassie and every other girl in my class fell in love with him. I think of any of them, Cassie would have had the best chance because:



Cassie is really pretty but doesn’t act like she knows she is, even if she does.





Cassie is nice to everyone, including pre-transformation Ran and me.





Like Ran, Cassie is always in a good mood.





Unfortunately for Cassie, she made the mistake of calling him Randy at lunch last year, and ever since he’s sort of looked at her in a suspicious way.