The Vow

I look up.

“What’s going on?” she asks, genuine confusion on her beautiful face. Cheer-fest over. She’s got her hands on her hips and those movie-star lips in a pout as she closes the distance between her and Tia with long bare- legged strides. Chick fight. I shut the textbook. Ferdinand can wait.

“Nothing, baby.” Douchebag has already taken several steps away from Tia and is pulling Maya to him, expertly spinning her around and away from Tia. “Should we go get you some custard?” he asks, and of course Maya follows, instantly tranquilized.

She deserves better. Also, a little hair pulling would’ve made this scene a lot less lame.

Honesty moment: Mr. Twister’s probably isn’t a white-supremacy hub. Despite the Hitler vibe I’m still getting from the mascot, I doubt anyone who hangs out at this place is capable of feeling strongly about anything more substantial than, I don’t know, The Bachelor.

Music, something twangy and grating, starts up from a few cars down, and several girls on the lawn start singing along. Then several more. Soon every girl on the lawn is belting lyrics about dying young and being buried in satin, like one big redneck choir. I’m considering trying to start the truck with my bike-lock key so I can roll up the windows, when a Frisbee collides with the windshield. It’s like a thousand volts straight to my heart. The clatter echoes in my ears, and after an eternity in that frozen state of shock, my heart resumes beating.

I look up to see who threw it, then reach my arm out the window and give a choice gesture to the deserving recipient. It’s just Bryce.

“What are you doing in there?” he calls, jogging over to retrieve the Frisbee. “Aren’t you dying?”

“Studying, and yes.”

“Sometimes I really wish I could beat the crap out of you, you know? It’s not right to be such a loser and not get punished. Put the books down and get out here.”

“I’ve gotta read this. Remember reading? The thing with the letters and the words?”

“Yeah, I remember,” he says with a grin. “Your mom’s been tutoring me. She’s incredible, by the way.”

Ah, yes. Bryce’s your mom shtick—not classy but comfortable. Like old sweatpants. Like Red Lobster. Like South Park reruns. I’d tell him how lame it is, but I’d hate to neuter his personality completely.

Plus, Bryce and I have a little something I call court synergy that can’t be screwed with. He’s Crick to my Watson, Jerry to my Ben, Diddy to my Donkey Kong. It’s this melding of rhythm and flow and intuition that I barely understand. We would have taken State this year if it weren’t for a team of seven-foot ’roid-ragers from Louisville.

All of this, as he said, is why he doesn’t beat the crap out of me and why I put up with a friend who is a barely functionally literate. That’s the beauty of basketball. I don’t know why it’s not being used to resolve global unrest.

Just the thought of pebbled leather under my fingertips pulls my muscles tight, and I force my eyes back down to Ferdinand. I won’t be benched by the venerable Dr. Hussein for one single A-minus.

“Come on, man,” Bryce says. “You gotta be roasting.”

“I’ve gotta be roasting?” Bryce’s skin is pink and glistening. Another ten minutes in the sun and he’ll be a walking blister. “I can practically hear your skin sizzling.”

“I’m fine.”

“You smell like bacon.”

“Where’s your girlfriend?” he asks.

“No clue. Probably back at your house, making your dad’s dinner.”

It takes him a second; then he grins appreciatively. “Your other girlfriend.”

Annie is not my girlfriend, and she never will be. Bryce knows this, I know this, and Annie knows this. As for the rest of the world, they’re all idiots. It’s not one of those faux-platonic friendships where one person is secretly obsessed with the other one. And it’s not one of those things where hanging out is peppered with random make- out sessions and periods of hating each other. We just are what we are.

Annie isn’t ugly. And over the years there’ve been a string of guys, mostly jerks, intrigued enough to pursue, date, and get dumped by her. But that waify, translucent-skinned thing doesn’t do it for me. I need a girl with something to hold on to. A girl with sway in her hips. Like maybe a certain cheerleader who’s temporarily distracted by a passing douchebag, but who will come to her senses any day now. For example.

The only sway Annie’s got is accidental. I love her and all, but she walks like a double-jointed robot, and she’s so skinny a gust of wind could level her.

Besides, if Annie and I ever got together like that, the inevitable breakup would kill us.

“Fine,” Bryce says. “Where is that chick you’re always with who isn’t your girlfriend?”

“Interviewing.”

“In there?”

“No, at your proctologist’s.”

“I don’t know what a proctologist is.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Yeah, she’s in there.”

“Seriously? Mr. Twister? Why would anyone do that to their summer?”

I shrug. Bryce is from tobacco. Every year he watches the Derby from the shaded seats at Churchill Downs. I’ve seen him on TV, positioned between his mother (wearing an acid-trip-inspired hat) and his father (red-faced and drinking mint juleps until they become jint muleps). If Bryce doesn’t understand the economics behind employment—as in, people have to work to eat—it’s because his parents can pay for the horse, the stable, the riding lessons, and the summer polo camp in Argentina, which is what he’s doing for the entire month of July.

“Hey, didn’t Annie work in your dad’s lab last summer?”

I clear my throat. “Yeah, he’s working on a different project this summer.” In reality, my dad’s prosthetics research company has taken an economic kidney shot and is barely solvent. Not worth explaining to Bryce. “Are you finished with finals?”

“Yeah. I just took precalc.”

“How’d it go?”

He chews his lip. “I’m still not exactly sure what precalc is, so . . .”

“Hmm.”

“Hey, where’s your sister?” he asks.

“My sister? Poach elsewhere, idiot.”

“Chill out. Yesterday she told Natalie she’d bring some old ballet shoes for her to see, and now Natalie won’t stop bugging me about them. And if you haven’t noticed, Sarina’s not exactly my type. A little too ethnic. No offense.”

No offense. I hide the wince. It’s just Bryce. 180-pound Bryce, who’s afraid of spiders. Bryce, who brings his sister Natalie, who has Down syndrome, along on 7-Eleven runs and to the movies. Yes, he’s undeniably stupid, but he isn’t a bigot, even if he does open his fat mouth and insert his size-thirteen foot all the time, without even knowing it.

“None taken,” I say.

Bryce has his qualities. He’s loyal. He punched that Taylorsville dropout who called me a towelhead. And he’s the best alibi in the world when I’m hanging out with Annie, who my parents are convinced is plotting to trick me into getting her pregnant. It’s typical Muslim-American paranoia, and even though they’re barely practicing (as in the last religious thing they did was name me Mohammed), the thought of a baby out of wedlock with a white girl makes them physically ill.

Bryce, however, they love because he’s rich and there’s very little chance I’m going to get him pregnant. He doesn’t mind lying to them, and he does a pretty convincing job of it too, except when he forgets that he’s supposed to be covering. But even then he just comes across as stupid. It’s very believable.

“Maybe you’re right,” he says. “Maybe I am getting a sunburn. Let’s go in.”

I slide the textbook into my backpack. A little AC would be nice. “I don’t know if Annie wants me in there. It might make her nervous.”

“We’ll sit in a corner. She won’t even see us.”

I get out of the truck. Sunlight hits my eyes, and I force myself to squint through the glare, following Bryce