“Text you tonight,” she said after class.
That happened in all six classes. Well. Some version of it happened. It happened with girls I didn’t know at all. It happened with girls I’d known since kindergarten, who’d never spoken to me except to say, “Excuse me could you please get out of the way” or, “Stop eating all the cupcakes that are for the whole class.” It happened with Jessie Alvarez, who I’d sort of considered a friend, but who now wrote her phone number on my hand in pink Sharpie with a heart around it. And it happened with Megan—“Berkie”—Berkowitz, who had once cried at being assigned as my partner on an eighth grade science project but now wanted to be “study buddies” in American history (I’d politely declined that one).
By the end of the day, I had six girls’ numbers in my phone, not counting the one on my hand.
And when I got to practice that day, I found out that not only was I on varsity. I was the starting middle linebacker.
I never did text Amanda, but walking out to the parking lot after practice, I saw her. I ran up to her to tell her about making varsity. My car was parked next to hers anyway.
“Hey! Think I’ll be able to get the assigned space next to yours?”
She laughed. Her hair was a little sweaty. She’d just come from volleyball practice, and her face was flushed pink. “It’s really only fair.”
“So guess what?” I said.
“I heard! I’m so happy for you!”
She was smiling, walking toward me.
“Chris!” Sydnie was waving blue-and-white pompoms in my face. I didn’t even know how she got there without me seeing her, except that she was so tiny that she sort of just showed up like a cat.
“Hey, Sydnie,” I said. “Amanda, do you know Sydnie?”
Amanda smiled. “Sure. Hey.”
“Hey.” Sydnie turned her attention back to me. “Any way I could get a ride with you? I usually go with Ireland, but she had a doctor’s appointment.”
“Um, sure.” I looked at Amanda and shrugged. “Can I text you later?”
“Sure. But I’ll be driving Casey around, so I might not be able to text back. ‘It can wait’ and all.” I saw her eyes flick to Jessie’s number on my hand.
“Okay.”
Amanda and I always had a long talk on the first day of school, to compare schedules. This year, we had no classes together. That had only happened once before, in seventh grade, and I’d actually switched my elective to chorus so we could be together there. It turned out I was actually good at singing, and I stayed in it for eighth and ninth grades too, even getting a few solos and an invitation to join Matt’s garage band, but I’d dropped it last year to take weight training. Amanda had dropped it too.
“I’ll text you late? Maybe ten?”
Sydnie sighed and was pulling on the door handle. I clicked on the lock button so she could get in.
“Sure.” Amanda waved. “Gotta go. The princess doesn’t like when I’m late.”
“Hey,” Sydnie said when I got in the car. “Do you want to come over for a while? Our maid, Minnie, makes these incredible conch fritters, and we could organize our notebooks for Perez’s class.”
“Uh, sure.” I looked back at Amanda, but she’d already gotten into the car.
“This is such a cool ride.” Sydnie stroked the leather seat, her hand accidentally brushing my shoulder. “You’re so lucky.”
“Thanks.”
We ended up going shopping for school supplies. When we got to Office Max, the whole school was there, and I got to tell everyone I made varsity. Then we went back to Sydnie’s house and organized our notebooks. Or, rather, she organized mine for me.
“Let me write the dividers for you,” she said. “I have super-neat handwriting.”
“Won’t it look girly?” I said.
“Yeah, like a girl did it for you.” She giggled.
Her mom invited me to stay for dinner, but I told her my mom always had a big first-day-of-school dinner. “My brother started at FIU today too.”
“That’s so cute,” Sydnie said. “Can I text you later?”
“Sure.”
She did. So did Jessie. And Berkie. And Emma Jordan. And Ally Garcia. Seven different girls texted me, all wanting information about the nonexistent assignments, all congratulating me on making varsity.
By the time I realized I’d never texted Amanda, it was eleven.
I texted her.
Hey
She didn’t text back.
I tried:
Do you think there are alternative universes?
Nothing. I figured she must have been asleep.
In the next few weeks, I found out what life was like for a swan. It seemed that there were tons of parties at my school, parties I’d never heard of, much less attended. The first was an apparently annual back-to-school beach bash on Saturday.
“Are you going to beach bash?” Sydnie asked me on Thursday. She’d started hanging around after cheerleading practice to grab a ride with me. So we were walking to my car, and she was gushing about how great I’d played.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been invited.”