“I know, right?” Kelsey laughs and slips her arm around Jamie’s waist. “Twinsies! Omigod, do you remember when . . . ?”
“Oh, that’s right . . . yeah, totally!” says Jamie, and the two of them share a sparkly eyed, just-between-us look that twists my heart right out of my chest. Kelsey starts off toward the car with her arm still around Jamie’s waist, and says, “So okay, I’m so sorry, but it turns out my parents have this thing tonight, so they can’t make it, but . . .” and then they’re too far away for me to hear any more. I watch them as they cross the parking lot, hair bouncing, hips swaying and bumping together as they walk. Kelsey says something that makes Jamie throw her head back and laugh. They get into the car, slam the doors, and peel out of the lot, dragging my twisted-out heart behind them.
Janet’s still standing next to me, and I can feel her looking at me. “Ho-ly shit,” she says. “Who says on fleek?”
She doesn’t know about me and Jamie, I remind myself. She doesn’t know. But I feel like I’m broadcasting my dismay in big silent waves, like those pictures of radio antennas, so that everyone around me is receiving the signal and knows exactly what’s going on in my head. Stop it. Stop it or people will figure everything out. I will myself to shut down the radio signal, look Janet in the eye, and plaster a grin on my face. “Right? Oh. Mygod.”
“That car, though,” she says, but before she can get going, I interrupt her.
“Actually, I gotta get home. I’ll text you later, ’kay?” And I head off with a spring in my step and a stone in my stomach.
I take an extra lap around the block, to make sure I’m not too much on edge when I enter the house. Reggie’s coming in half an hour to take me to Bowl-O-Ramen, this cool bowling alley-slash-ramen shop where we’re meeting Caleb and his friends.
Mom may not like Jamie’s friends, but she’s now a hundred percent okay with Reggie and Elaine, whose moms she met randomly at 99 Ranch Market, the Asian superstore, the other day. “Reggie is good girl,” she said approvingly, when I asked yesterday if I could go out bowling with her tonight. “And Elaine is top piano player.” Which surprised me. I knew that Elaine was taking piano lessons. I had no idea that she was actually good at it, though it kind of makes sense, now that I know how determined she can be when she wants something.
As I head out the door (“Ittekimasu!”) I have to squash a little pang of guilt at leaving Mom home alone, waiting for Dad to return from a night out with That Woman. But once the guilt is gone, it’s replaced with irritation at Mom for not doing something about Dad. The irritation is sharper than the guilt—pricklier—and it’s still sputtering at the base of my skull when I get in the car.
I go to open the passenger-side door and I’m surprised to see Elaine riding shotgun already. “Jimmy’s having a boys’ night,” she explains, “so I got my parents to let me go with you.”
“Cool.”
I get in the back and settle in, and while I’m buckling my seat belt, Reggie says, “So, Janet texted us. Kelsey came by herself, huh?” Wow. She did not waste time. Can nothing be kept private? My irritation threatens to expand to Elaine and Reggie but I manage to rein it in. It’s not their fault that Kelsey is a beautiful, rich, conniving snake.
“We’re so sorry!” Elaine says. “She’s a total bitch. I could tell just by looking at her.”
“Really, it’s no big deal. I’m fine with it,” I lie. “Jamie’s totally over her, remember?”
“Well, I wouldn’t be fine with it,” says Elaine. “I mean, did Jamie even introduce you, or like, say good-bye or anything? Janet said she just took off.”
“It would be weird if she only said good-bye to me. We’re not really out to everyone yet,” I remind her.
“That doesn’t matter. Has she texted you?”
I check my phone for the hundredth time since Jamie drove off with Kelsey in the BMW. “No.”
“See? I mean, don’t you think she would’ve texted at least once? Just to let you know things are chill?” Another good point. “Plus, you know, they have history,” she says, as if this is the clincher. “Couples in movies get back together all the time because of history.”
“Elaine, shut up.” Reggie says exactly what I’m thinking. “You don’t have to make it worse.”
“I’ll just text her right now,” I say, and I type, Hey, girlfriend! How’s it going? That’s good. Light. Not jealous. Just a casual check-in. A subtle reminder to leave history in the past, where it belongs. I show it to Elaine and Reggie and send it.
It’s a struggle, but as the evening goes by, there are longer and longer stretches where I forget about Jamie and Kelsey entirely. The sound system at Bowl-O-Ramen is blasting cheery oldies music, Caleb and his friends are friendly and funny, the ramen is yummy, and we all get along great. There’s no undercurrent of suspicion, no worries about saying something racist, no need to prove anything to anyone.
I think Caleb’s friend Thom might be interested in Reggie. He certainly seems to be paying a lot of attention to her, and there’s a lot of playful pushing and shoving going on. Reggie looks so happy. I hope something happens between them.
Meanwhile, Caleb is paying an awful lot of attention to me. He teases me about ordering extra seaweed in my ramen. He gives me tips on my abysmal bowling technique (he’s bizarrely, scarily good at bowling). He somehow ends up sitting next to me every time I sit down, with his arm slung casually over the back of my seat. Elaine keeps nodding and widening her eyes significantly at me. Ever the master of subtlety, she even gives me the thumbs-up at one point. It could be about Reggie and Thom. But it’s probably not. And even though I’m not into guys, not even nice ones like Caleb, it’s kind of nice to feel like he likes me. In fact—even though I’m not into guys—if I weren’t with Jamie, I might even consider him. Just to see.
At eight o’clock, I check my phone for a text from Jamie. It’s been two hours, a bowl of ramen, and three rounds of bowling, and only one text from her: Hey, sorry about earlier. All good now. ttyl Not that I’m counting. Not that I’m worried. I trust her. She couldn’t help it if Kelsey’s parents didn’t show up, and she’s got every right to a private evening with her ex.
I know I’m just torturing myself, but I open my Instagram and do a search for Kelsey Bowman. Sure enough, there’s a picture of the two of them—taken tonight, judging from their outfits and the fact that it was posted about thirty minutes ago. Squeezed together to fit into the frame, arms around each other, both looking beautiful and perfect and happy together in a darkened restaurant. Underneath, it says,
hot date! #lafondue #rambo #flomobabes
It’s already got a bunch of likes, and a couple of comments:
omg yum!