On Friday night, Jeremy stayed at my house for dinner, but there was a mix-up, and he was supposed to be at his cousin’s with the rest of his family. I guess they kept texting him and calling his cell for an hour. But typical Jeremy. His phone was out of power and he didn’t even know it.
Sometimes I think Jeremy is a Martian or from some other planet because his head isn’t always on Earth. He has a spacey quality, which I have to admit I like. He’s a good guy, funny and smart, but sometimes he just zones out.
His mind drifts away on its own. Sometimes when a bunch of us are together talking about something, I glance at him and I can see that he isn’t hearing a word.
What is he thinking about? I always accuse him of thinking about things back on his home planet. Jeremy says he’s a royal prince on his planet and he could have me beheaded for making fun of him. Then we both laugh because we have the same twisted sense of humor.
He’s not just a little flaky. Jeremy has a lot of good qualities. He will sit through all the terrible reality TV shows I love to watch, even The Bachelor. He doesn’t make fun of me—too much—for believing everything I read in the gossip magazines and talking about those celebs as if they are my closest personal friends.
And he pretends he enjoys helping me bake cookies or a cake every weekend. I love baking things. I love the whole process. And I make an awesome treat for my family every Saturday, and Jeremy pretends he enjoys helping, when I know he’d rather be watching baseball or some other sport, or hanging out with Manny Kline, playing World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto on Manny’s enormous flat-screen TV.
Those are his good qualities. Of course, I have to put up with all his allergies. The poor dude. He’s allergic to nuts and peanuts and some dairy products and some flowers. He’s even allergic to flea bites—and a mosquito bite will make his whole arm swell up and make it hard for him to breathe.
Can you imagine?
What a way to go through life. If I had those allergies, I’d just crunch myself in a corner and not go anywhere and not be any fun at all. So, in a way, Jeremy is very brave, I think.
But tonight he was an idiot, forgetting about his cousin’s dinner. And why did I get blamed?
I mean seriously. My parents blamed me for inviting Jeremy over. And he blamed me, too. He said I distracted him and caused him to forget where he was supposed to be. That’s kind of sweet, but of course, it’s ridiculous.
And then Mom served ham tonight, and Jeremy is horribly allergic to ham, so she had to make him a tuna-fish sandwich. The whole night was basically a disaster. Not to mention I was having a bad hair night. I just couldn’t get it to fall properly, and I ended up tying it back with a hair band, which I don’t like to do. And it felt creaky to me. Like I hadn’t entirely washed the conditioner out. You know the feeling.
I hate it when my hair makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s all I can think about. I know I’m weird about it. Poppy never stops being in my face about how I’m obsessed with my hair.
So I shampooed it as soon as Jeremy left. And then I was up in my room, breezing through the new Us Weekly on my iPad when I knew I should be checking the English assignment. My phone rang—my new phone—I hadn’t even had time to download half my stuff. And I couldn’t hide my surprise that Keith was calling because Keith never calls me.
The new phone felt heavy in my hand. I’d bought the biggest model. A mistake? “Hey,” I said. “Everything okay?” I normally wouldn’t ask that, but like I said, Keith never calls me.
“Yeah. Sure. How you doing?”
“Fine. Just finding ways to put off doing any homework.”
He snickered. “Is Poppy there?”
“Huh? Here? No.”
“Oh. I thought maybe . . .” His voice trailed off.
“No. I haven’t seen her.”
“I’ve . . . been texting her, and she hasn’t answered,” he said, a little breathless.
“Maybe her phone is dead,” I said. “It’s been going around. It happened to Jeremy tonight.”
“Ivy, have you noticed? She’s been acting weird.”
I hesitated. Where was he going with this? I knew Poppy was thinking of breaking up with him. We’d talked about it more than once. Actually, Poppy talked about it a lot. She was so conflicted. After our last discussion, over two-dollar double cheeseburgers at Lefty’s, I’d actually thought she wanted me to decide.
“Well . . . I think Poppy is a little depressed about her audition for the play. She doesn’t think she’s going to get the part she wanted.”
“I waited for her after school,” Keith said. “I thought we could talk about it, or maybe I could try to cheer her up. You know. But she seemed in a big hurry. She didn’t even want to talk to me.”
“Because of the audition,” I said. “And her sister. Heather showed up. Did you know that? Heather showed up and auditioned, too.”
“I didn’t know. Poppy was surprised?”
“Uh . . . yeah.”
“Poppy likes her own space,” Keith said. “She probably hated Heather showing up like that.”
“Probably,” I said. “I think Heather is okay. I mean, she’s a little whiny, you know. A little drippy. But I always think Poppy should give her a break.”
“Has Poppy said anything to you?” Keith asked. “About me?”
“About you? Like what?” I started to feel it getting awkward. I’m Poppy’s best friend, and I’m not going to betray any trust between us. Besides, it’s not my job to break up with Keith for her. If she wants to dump him, she has to do it on her own.
“Has she said anything about . . . you know . . . her and me?” Of course, he felt awkward, too. “I know she was honked off at me because I didn’t stay for the pet-shop prank. But I have to be careful, Ivy. Seriously. I’m on the waiting list at Tufts, and I can’t do anything crazy that’ll screw me up.”
“Keith—”
“My dad went to Tufts, and he’s already disappointed that I’m only on the waiting list. So if I got caught in a joke like that pet-store thing, and the store owner pressed charges, and it ended up on Facebook or Instagram or something . . .”
He wanted me to say it was okay that he ran off and didn’t help out with our prank. I didn’t care. But I knew it had really annoyed Poppy. She’s always so enthusiastic about things. I think it reminded her of just how different she and Keith are.
Keith is a nice, straight-arrow kind of guy, but he’s definitely lacking in fun.
“You should talk to her,” I said. The phone suddenly felt heavier in my hand. I was ready to click off.
“I’m trying to,” Keith said. “But do you think there’s a problem?”
“You should talk to her,” I repeated. Then I had a thought. “I’m going over to her house,” I said. “Maybe I could tell her you’re trying to reach her.”
“You’re going over there?”
“Yeah. I just got a new phone, and Poppy is so good with phones. I need her to help me get back some of my apps.”
“Maybe I’ll swing by, too,” Keith said.
“No. Why not let me talk to her? I’ll tell her to give you a call.”
“Oh. Okay.” His voice became soft. “You know, I think Poppy is awesome.”
“Me too,” I said. Was he going to get all gooey? I think I liked him better when he was a stiff.
A long pause. He coughed. “Okay. Well . . . see you.”
He was gone. I stared at my phone screen for a long moment, enjoying the silence. Poor guy. He was going to take this hard. And I knew it was in the cards. I’d seen the gushy look on Poppy’s freckled face whenever Jack was in view.
Jack was the bad boy. The troublemaker. The wild one.
How could Keith stand a chance?
I drove to Poppy’s house. I really did need help with my new phone. But I stopped when I saw the pickup truck in her driveway. Jack’s truck. Jack dropping in on Poppy at ten-thirty at night.
I decided to drive on.
Poppy and Jack. Was this big news? A life-changing thing?
As it turned out, it changed all our lives. And not in a good way. Not at all.
