The Pretty One(8)

At lunch the next day, Simon is staring at me. Not that this is unusual, since Simon and I always sit by ourselves at lunch, so there’s really no one else to look at. “Is everything okay?” he asks. “You seem distracted or something.”


I haven’t told Simon I am obsessing about this whole Drew thing, but I’m pretty sure he knows anyway. He can read me like a book. He and I have been inseparable ever since our first day of high school when we met in the nurse’s office, both using the same lame excuse to escape the scene in the cafeteria: a stomachache. We immediately launched into a conversation about the difference between Ding Dongs and Ho Ho’s and my stomachache miraculously disappeared. By the time the nurse informed Simon that his mother wasn’t answering her cell phone, it no longer mattered. We have sat across from each other at lunch every school day since.

“I’m thinking about what Drew said yesterday,” I say, putting down my sandwich. I can’t stand the awful-tasting glop they serve in the cafeteria, so I always bring my lunch. “About trying out for a play.”

“And?” he asks.

“I was thinking it might be more fun if you tried out, too.”

Simon laughs. “Not this again.”

I play with the strings on my hoodie as I look behind Simon, toward the corner of the cafeteria where Drew is eating lunch. He never eats lunch in the cafeteria. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever seen him in here. He’s sitting next to Lindsey and has his arm draped casually around her shoulders.

“I just think it might be fun,” I say.

“No thanks, Arse,” he says. “Or do you prefer Mr. McDoody?”

The thing about Simon is that he really possesses an amazing sense of self. Unlike me, Simon has a life completely separate from school. Every summer he attends band camp, where, according to his stories of all the girls he has made out with, he is the campus stud.

“Miss McDoody, if you please,” I say mechnically, as I continue to stare at Drew.

“What are you looking at?” Simon asks. He twists around in his seat, following the direction of my gaze. “Oh,” he says, “dream boy.”

Dream boy. Ha-ha. I get it. Like it’s just a dream that I’ll ever be able to go out with him. How hilarious. Slap my knee and hold me back.

I know Simon isn’t trying to be mean, because although he’s ornery he’s actually very sweet (in a kind of bitter, cranky grandpa sort of way), but I still feel like I stepped on a jellyfish. “I’m just thinking about what he said about the dance.”

“Refresh,” Simon says, turning back to face me. “What did he say about the dance?”

“Just that we should go.”

“And that’s why you want to go? Just because of some offhand comment Drew made?”

“No,” I say, as the jellyfish becomes a piranha. “I want to go to the dance because I think it’ll be fun. And also…because…because I’m tired of sitting home alone.”

“Alone? Excuuuuuse me! I thought we were going to watch Star Wars, with Portuguese subtitles this time. In fact, I just bought you a Princess Leia costume online. I was going to surprise you.”

I do my best to crack a smile as I keep my eyes focused on Drew. “I told you I want to be Luke.”

Simon tucks the rest of his cheese and guava jam (his mom has it shipped from Brazil) sandwich into his bag. “All right. If it means that much to you, fine.”

“Fine what? I can be Luke?”

“Fine, we can go to the fall festival.”

“You’ll go?” I ask excitedly. I suddenly see myself making the grand entrance, complete with new eyebrows and physique-shrinking dress. “Thank you,” I say.

“On one condition,” he says, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his napkin. “I get to be Luke.”

That’s the thing about Simon: He always knows the perfect thing to say.





three

bleed-through (noun): transformation from a scene downstage to another scene upstage by adjusting the lighting of a thin piece of gauze draped across the stage. Depending on the direction of the light, the gauze can either appear solid or can disappear altogether.

Lucy is beside herself when I tell her that Simon and I are going to the dance. And then she tells me the supposed good news: Dad, not Mom, is taking us shopping for our dresses.

This does not make me happy.

Not that I don’t love my dad, but my relationship with him has always been a bit, well, stiff. The problem is that I’ve always had the feeling that he’s embarrassed about the way I look. He’s never come right out and said it or anything, but there are subtle things that I’ve noticed over the years. Like when he opens the kitchen cupboard and can’t find the cookies or something, he’ll always ask me (in an accusatory sort of way) if I know where “they went.” The “hey, fatso” is implied.

And he’s always pointing out the benefits of exercise when he thinks I’m being a slug, like when I’m watching TV. Which is really pretty nervy considering my dad, with his double chin and big belly, is not exactly an Adonis. He oversees all the Lucky Lou restaurants on the East Coast, which has him eating tons of hotel food and the burgers Lucky Lou is known for, not exactly a great job to have if you love food, particularly greasy food. And my dad loves food even more than I do. He was downright fat as a kid, and even though he lost a ton of weight a million years ago, these days he’s not exactly thin enough or fit enough to be doling out advice. And in my defense, I’m not fat. At least, not that fat. But he doesn’t see it that way.