Tease(5)

I have two classes with Emma, too—American History and PE—even though she’s a year younger. For some reason the school she transferred from back in October has American History as a sophomore class. So Elmwood decided she should keep taking it, which messed up her schedule for gym, blah blah blah. She’s already dated a bunch of juniors and she’s always trying to suck up to the girls in our class too. Everyone knows she’s a head case, always starting pointless drama. Brielle pretty much hated her at first sight.

“So. Irish,” Brielle says, pointing a beaker at Seamus. “Is your brother getting us that keg this weekend?”

This is the first I’ve heard of Seamus having a connection, and I raise my eyebrows at him hopefully. The party is going to be at Brielle’s house while her parents are on a cruise to Bermuda. As far as I knew we were just going to steal what we could from their liquor cabinet, and maybe some beer from Alison Stipe’s dad’s basement fridge. And I didn’t think Seamus or Jeff were even invited.

“Aye, me lassie,” Seamus says in a thick brogue. He loves that Brielle gave him a nickname and he always plays along. Boys love Brielle in general—she’s got that rich-girl shine, with the super-long hair and the Abercrombie wardrobe, but she’s also so ballsy and bossy that boys never get bored around her. She laughs at their jokes before they even realize they’ve made any. Because she actually makes the jokes for them.

It’s pretty amazing to watch, but basically impossible to imitate. I’ve tried.

“Groovy,” she says, flashing him what anyone would think was a genuine smile. Then she swings her hair back around, shutting him out.

She looks me in the eye and goes, “We need to resume our discussion of the party.”

Ah, yes. The discussion. The debate, more like, over whether I should lose my virginity to Dylan at the party—or, like, after the party, I guess, possibly in Brielle’s guest room—or not.

I’ve been kind of leaning toward not, but ever since Brielle lost her V-card last summer with a college guy at her swim camp, she only wants to talk about my sex life. Or lack thereof. I never met the guy she was with, but I saw pictures, and now I totally see why she’s always complaining about how lame high school boys are.

Still, it’s easy for her to say—she’s the brave one. And the one who’s already had more than one real boyfriend, even if they have been the lame high school variety. Dylan is basically my first, and I kind of feel like I’m still getting the hang of just making out with him. He’s older, he knows what he’s doing. He’ll know that I don’t know what I’m doing. It sounds like a good idea, and I know everyone does it, but when I’m actually with Dylan and everything, I don’t know. It’s freaking scary.

But like I said, Brielle doesn’t get scared, and even if she did, I wouldn’t know how to explain why I am. And just like in eighth grade, Brielle has a killer argument ready:

“He obviously won’t be texting Emma Sluts-a-Lot if he’s getting the good stuff from you,” she whispers, snorting a little at her new nickname creation.

I don’t get a chance to come up with a counterpoint for this, because Ms. Enman shows up and we have to pretend to pay attention for a few minutes.

As soon as Ms. Enman turns back to the dry-erase board, though, I hear Brielle say in a low, singsong voice, “You know you want to!”

My mom works at a big insurance company and is never around after school, so I’m in charge of making sure my little brothers, who really aren’t that little anymore, eat something and do at least enough of their homework to not flunk fifth and sixth grades, respectively. I kind of like that there’s a bigger age gap between us—for one thing, I got to enjoy being an only child for a while, and most of that time was before my parents started hating each other. I think they had Tommy (who wants to be called Tom) and Alex (who wants to be called A-Rod) to try to feel like a real family again. But it didn’t work. About five seconds after Alex was born, Dad moved out and I got promoted to full-time babysitter–slash–co-parent.

But the boys are cool. They love it when I pick them up from their after-school stuff, which is sometimes a sport and sometimes, like today, just an extra study period at the elementary school. Volunteers from the university come over and help with their homework, so half my job is done by the time I pull around the Pleasant Hill Elementary circular drive.

Tommy, the sixth grader, flops into the backseat after losing a shove-match with fifth grader Alex, who’s gotten kind of husky in the last couple of months. Maybe I’m not helping. I mean, like, today, as soon as they’re in the car I go, “Whoever can find some loose change in here gets to pick between Taco Bell and McDonald’s!” And then I get practically slammed into the steering wheel as Tommy dives onto the back floor and his head shoves into my seat.

Alex opens the glove compartment and starts tossing out pieces of paper and crap I didn’t know was even in there. “Yeah!” he yells. “A dollar bill!”

“How the hell, Alex?” I say, but I’m smiling.

“Ta-co Bell! How the hell! Ta-co Bell!” he chants triumphantly.

“Dude, language,” I say, but by now we’re both laughing. Even Tommy’s face is just a big grin in my rearview mirror.

Luckily for the whole childhood-obesity deal, we still only have enough for everyone to get one taco each, so it’s not like we’re having an extra dinner there. And I make them go into the restaurant, so there’s some exercise involved too. If walking across a parking lot counts.