Paula Stokes - The Art of Lainey

I spend a moment reviewing my game plan. I decided to hang on to Jay’s jersey and letter jacket for now, but I’ve brought all of the DVDs he left at my house. That’s my “legitimate” reason for stopping by. The muffins are just extra, to remind him of how sweet I can be and to score a few extra minutes with him, to show him just how sweet I can be. I can’t help but feel like Dead Chinese Warlord would be proud.

Now all I have to do is not chicken out at the last second. There is no backing down once you have committed to a course of action. You have to rush forth like floodwater or strike like lightning or something. Besides, getting busted doing a stalker drive-by would be an epic-fail move. I’d have to transfer to a new school.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Bianca asks.

“Nah. What if he’s outside and sees you?” I say. “Or what if things go so well he skips his ride-along shift so we can have delicious makeup sex? I don’t want you to have to wait for me. That’d be awkward.” Really I’m thinking more like what if he laughs in my face or walks right past me like I’m invisible, but I can’t say that or I might start crying. And I’ve done more than enough crying at Denali already.

Bee pets both sides of my silky flat-ironed hair. “I’ll be here all morning, maybe behind the counter if it gets busy. Come by afterward and share the good news, okay?” She walks me up to the front door.

“I will. Thanks.” I throw my arms around her neck, give her a squeeze, and then turn to leave. I open the door halfway, but then hesitate. The coconut wind chimes dance above my head. “What if this doesn’t work?” I ask, my voice so quiet only Bee can hear me.

“It will,” she says. “And if for some reason it doesn’t, well, I always thought you could do better than Jason anyway.”

Better? Jason might be going through a thing right now, but he loves me—I know it. And he makes me stronger. Not to mention he’s hot, popular, and superathletic. We’re practically two halves of the same person. There is no one better, not for me. Bee’s just being a good friend, building me up.

It gives me the confidence to keep going.

On the drive over to Jay’s condo, the bad feeling returns. I try to shake it off as the blocks fly by. Maybe it’s just because Bianca’s not here to be my cheerleader. I envision her sitting next to me in a pep squad outfit, chanting, L-A-I-N-E-Y. Time-to-go-get-your-guy. It’s ridiculous, really. She would probably rather get nipple piercings and a sleeve of tattoos than be a cheerleader. She doesn’t like when people stare at her. Even in soccer, she’s the girl who passes instead of taking the shot.

I used to be that girl too, before I started hanging around with Kendall.

My stomach feels like it’s full of angry hummingbirds. I try to think of what Kendall would say if she were with me. Probably something about how Jason is just a guy, and I should grab him, flash my girly parts, and then lead him to the bedroom. The problem there is that I’ve been doing that since I turned sixteen, so if it quit working for some reason, why would it work today?

And why did it quit working in the first place?

The traffic signal in front of me turns red. I sit at the intersection for what feels like a million years. I cycle through my brother’s radio presets. Red. I check my reflection in the rearview mirror. Still red. Pretty sure the stoplight has broken. It’s like the universe is conspiring to keep me and Jason apart. Suddenly I need more than a pep talk. I need divine intervention. If only my mom were here to do one of her readings.

I glance at my black plastic travel mug. It’s worth a try, I guess. Grabbing the mug from the cup holder in the center console, I roll down the window and pour out most of my tea as the light finally turns green.

I pull over around the corner from Jason’s condo, where I can see the front of his building but hopefully he can’t see me. The soggy tea bag is stuck to the bottom of my travel mug. I rip the tea bag open and squeeze the wet pulpy leaves into the mug. I swish them around with the half ounce of liquid still hanging out in the cup. Then I invert the whole mess onto the lid, splattering my bare legs with droplets of tea in the process.

I swear under my breath. If form counts for anything, my cup is going to be full of skulls and tombstones. Laying the lid gingerly on the passenger seat so as not to make more of a mess, I pray for a symbol of happiness or good luck. A bell. A dove. Maybe a kite that means my wishes will be granted. As I look down at the tea leaves that stayed stuck in the cup, I see . . . wet leaves. I rotate the cup slowly, looking for anything familiar. Nada. Crap. The story of every teenage girl’s life—I should have paid more attention to my mother.

I hear a door open and I look up, forgetting all about my leaves as Jason appears from the entrance to his building. My chest feels like it’s being crushed in one of those blood pressure thingies the old people are always using at the Supermart. As he heads across the grass, my breath catches in the back of my throat. I pause just long enough to consider the likelihood that I may, in fact, be having a heart attack at age seventeen. Not. Likely.

Inhaling deeply, I grab the bag of muffins from the passenger seat and start to slide out of the car. And then the condo door opens again and an arm wearing navy blue appears. Jason isn’t alone. He must be with the EMT who is training him. Alex. Yeah, that was the name. It conjures up images of a short, slightly pudgy, thirty-year-old guy. But when Alex comes into view, he’s anything but a boring old dude.

For starters, he’s a she.

The bag of muffins slips from my fingers and hits the street with a deafening crunch. Or maybe that was my heart breaking? I snap out of my shock and realize Jason and Alex haven’t noticed me. Slipping back inside the car, I pull the door closed slowly, praying neither of them will look in my direction. I slouch down in my seat, my eyes peeking out the bottom of the side window.

Alex is a few inches shorter than me, with hair so long and shiny that mine probably looks

like yarn in comparison. Hers is movie-star red, definitely from a box, but still gorgeous. Even through her EMT cargo pants and high-necked uniform shirt, I can tell she’s built like a lingerie model. Suddenly my stunner bra doesn’t seem very stunning.

I realize I’m gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles have blanched white. My whole body is shaking and my inner warlord is screaming things like attack and kill. I need to calm down before I punch a window and they see me. I try to channel my inner Bianca instead.

Maybe they’re carpooling. She probably has a boyfriend. How could a girl that pretty ever be single?

I loosen my grip from the wheel and shake out my fingers. Everything is going to be okay. My inner Bianca has to be right. He’s only been doing ride-alongs for a couple weeks. There’s no way he dumped me for a girl he just met.

I almost have myself convinced. Until Jason and Alex make it across the lawn to Jay’s convertible Mustang, and he presses her up against the side of the car playfully. And she laughs. And then he kisses her.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Image deleted,” I whisper. But it doesn’t go anywhere. It’s like a movie playing on the back of my eyelids. Jason and Alex kissing. Jason and Alex kissing. I squeeze tighter, scrunching up my whole face until I hear a car engine purr to life. It’s probably the Mustang but I’m taking no chances. I cannot handle one more second of them together. I stay slouched down in the driver’s seat for a count of one hundred. When I open my eyes, Jason and Alex are gone.

Bianca sits in our usual spot at Denali, the big, round table by the bookshelf. She’s sipping from one of Dad’s ceramic painted eco-mugs. It’s probably a skinny chai. Bianca loves chai.

As I approach, she looks up, a concerned frown forming on her face. “Do you want to go back to your house?” she asks immediately.

I can tell by the hippietastic music that my dad is here somewhere. He’s really big into tribal drums and monks chanting and stuff like that. Apparently it adds to the ambience.

“Nah, let’s stay here. My mom is at home, writing. Even if my dad comes around, you know him. He likes to steer clear of the girly drama.”

“Okay,” Bianca starts as I slide into a chair. “So was Jason mad you came over?” She toys with the end of her braid.

“I don’t know. I didn’t even talk to him.”

“Why not?”

I lower my voice. “He was leaving when I got there.” I sigh dramatically. “And he wasn’t alone.”

“What?” Bianca sucks a straw full of chai straight into her lungs. Her tan face turns bright red and she coughs for about three straight minutes.

“His ambulance partner,” I say. “Alex? Well, Alex is a girl. And they were leaving his place together at six thirty in the morning, so . . .”

“Are you sure he wasn’t just giving her a ride to work?” Bee takes another sip of her drink.

I wait until she swallows. “He kissed her.”

She gasps. “No way.”

“Yeah way.” Reality starts to set in for me. My life. My epic summer. It’s gone. It’s like I’m back in eighth grade, not making the soccer team. And this time it’s even worse because I didn’t mess anything up. I didn’t fall on my face at tryouts. I just . . . lost. I’m a loser.