“Jack’s available.”
Meghan looked thoughtful. “He’s not bad-looking.”
“Right,” Laura said. “Because that’s all that’s important.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“We’re all still going shopping this Saturday?” I piped up.
“Hells yeah.”
*
All day long the girls were talking about our impending shopping trip until I was sick of hearing the words dance, dress, and date. Adrian caught a whiff of our conversation at lunch and looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights.
He leaned over. “Do you want to go?”
I answered around a bite of peanut butter and jelly. “Well, since I’ve been working on a dress nonstop for two weeks, it might be a good idea to have something to wear it to.”
“Ah,” he replied, and cleared his throat. “Am I supposed to ask you officially, then?” I stared at him. He took that as confirmation. “Will you go with me to winter formal?”
I narrowed my eyes and looked thoughtful. “I was actually thinking of going with one of Trish’s brothers.”
I was teasing, of course, but for a moment, I could have sworn I saw Adrian’s eyes flash silver. Could have been a trick of the light, I suppose; the sun was actually out for once.
“Of course I’ll go with you,” I said quickly, and he relaxed.
He nodded and went back to his sandwich, which sucked away all my enthusiasm about the dance. At least I had a full night of sleep to look forward to—Trish and Adrian had coordinated another fake sleepover so I could crash at the mansion.
I grew out of my funk during choir when Trish spent the entire class playing Obscure Hangman with me on the back of an old math test. She said she and her brothers made it up one time when they were stuck in the car.
“‘Jellybeans must die’?” I whispered when I was down to one leg.
“Damn straight.”
And that’s why it was called Obscure Hangman.
I left with Trish after school got out. Adrian picked me up about a mile away from her house.
“What were you two giggling about during choir?” he asked when I got in.
“What? Oh, nothing. We were just playing Hangman.”
He looked at me, and I felt like a five-year-old. “What’s Hangman?”
I realized he hadn’t ever been a five-year-old. Well, at least not like everybody else had been a five-year-old.
“It’s a kid’s game,” I said, trying to explain. “You guess letters and try to figure out the phrase or sentence the other person has written down. Except in the obscure version, the phrase is … obscure. Like ‘please tickle my earlobe with yarn.’”
We blinked at each other.
“I’ll show you when we get to your place,” I said, giving up.
When we arrived, I felt, as usual, that the sign that read PRIVATE PROPERTY should instead read ENTERING DE LA MARA–LAND, or WELCOME TO A HOUSE THE SIZE OF A SMALL COUNTRY, or even THE ENTIRE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY WAS FILMED IN OUR LIVING ROOM.
He parked and we headed inside.
“Time to connect with your inner child,” I said, dragging him into the library. We sat down on the couch near the humongous fireplace and I pulled out a sheet of paper and scribbled a stick-figure gallows, thought a moment, then underlined the spaces I wanted for my phrase. “All right, guess a letter.”
He looked at me. “Which one?”
I stared back. “Any one.”
“How do I know which one is right?” he asked seriously.
“You don’t,” I replied. “That’s the point of the game. If you guess wrong, I draw in a body part.”
“Excuse me?” He looked appalled.
“Just guess a letter.”
He looked down and contemplated the blank spaces on the paper.
“E,” he said finally, looking up. “It’s the most commonly used letter in the English language. I’m assuming this is in English?”
I stared at him in disgust. “You would know that. And yes, it is.” I bent down and filled in four Es. He looked entirely too pleased with himself.
“A,” he said.
I wrote in two As.
“O.”
“Sorry, my friend.” I drew in a head at the end of the noose. “No Os.”
“What does that mean?” He pointed at the head.
“That means that you have a spine and four limbs to go before you lose.”
He stared at me. “This is a children’s game?”
I nodded. He shook his head. “I.”
“Two Is.”
He contemplated the paper. It read: i ea e ie ea .
He guessed a couple more letters, all correct, before saying, “G.”
“No G.” I added a spine to the hangman and wrote the letter G off to the side. Adrian narrowed his eyes, his competitive edge starting to come out.
He guessed a few more rounds, ending up with two spare limbs and the phrase “c _ i n s eat refried _eans.”
“What on earth?” he whispered under his breath. I grinned. “U,” he said finally, and I knew it would be a matter of seconds before he got it. He stared at it a moment longer, then looked up at me slowly. “‘Chipmunks eat refried beans’?”