“Have a fine day, sir.”
“You as well.”
“Hey, I'm not a sir!”
“You might as well be!” he says. “I don't look at you like a woman!” He's talking obnoxiously loudly. “I don't think of you that way at all!”
“You're going to get us figured out in like five minutes.”
He does one more shirt hem push-pull. “See you in study hall.”
“You better. Sir.”
I do see Theo in study hall, and we do a very good impression of two people who are Just Friends, which in a way is funny since we've been awkwardly flirting-not-flirting with each other every study hall for a month, and now that we actually are something we're buttoning it all up. I don't think anyone in my grade has given us any notice, though. Josey was right; all juniors care about is college. I should probably get on that.
Or, you know, Theo should get on that, since he clearly didn't when he was a junior, but hopefully we'll be together long enough for me to nag him about that plenty.
I don't see either of them at lunch, though, because they have a meeting for Guys and Dolls. Theo's playing Nathan Detroit, one of the male leads, and he smiles like a lunatic every time it comes up. I haven't heard him sing, but when I asked him if I was good he shrugged and nodded but Josey did a so-so gesture behind is back, so who knows. There are so few boys at this school interested in theater that the show should really be called Dolls and Dolls, so I don't get the feeling Theo had a whole lot of competition. And Josey's running the light board. It's the first show where she's in charge of it all by herself, so it's a very exciting show for both of them, which is great and all.
It's a very lonely lunch for Taylor.
They have their first rehearsal right after school—God, Guys and Dolls, calm down—and my swim practice lets out early, so I take advantage of the time to myself and call Aanya. “I can't believe you called just now,” she says. “This is like some kind of best friend telepathy thing.”
“Oh yeah?” I'm in the locker room in underwear and my sweatshirt, waiting for my legs to dry enough so I don't get that awful slurping feeling when I put my leggings on. The other girls have already all cleared out. Our football team's playing tonight so everyone either wants to go home and clean up and come back or to get the hell out of here before the parking lot gets gridlocked.
Aanya says, “Total telepathy. You'll never guess where I am.”
“Where?”
“Simon's!”
“Ha, no way!” This isn't actually that surprising. Simon's is the ice cream place a few blocks from my old school—her school—and we used to go there a couple times a week. They switch out the flavors all the time, which is simultaneously exciting and heart-wrenching.
But still, it's sweet that she thinks me calling while she's there is a big deal. (Especially if I push back the ugly part of me that's going how dare you go there without me!)
(Clearly I'm going to be excellent at this no-jealousy thing.)
“How's Jake?” I say.
She sighs all theatrically. “He's with his cousins.”
“Oh, the uh, country ones?” Jake has a bunch of cousins that are from some place in the midwest with a lot of dirt bikes, and twice a year or so their parents haul them and all their dirt bikes down to Miami, and Jake turns into Country Jake for a few days, chugging cans of beer and saying weird stuff like knee high by July.
“So you're there alone?” I say.
“Oh, no, I'm with Nina Q. and Julie and Kevin and Marta and Pilar and Natalie and Tamika and Rachel and Other Taylor and Nina V.”
It occurs to me that I have all of four friends, and Elisha is nice and everything but we have nothing to talk about outside of swimming and gas money, Mike is awkwardly in love with me, I'm still semi-awkwardly in love with Theo, and I'm just awkward everything with Josey.
Meanwhile Aanya's out with Other Taylor from our wood shop elective last year, and I wonder if they even call her Other Taylor anymore.
“Is that all?” I say.
“Yeah, we couldn't fit any more in Kevin's van.”
I can't even tell if she knows I was being sarcastic. God, when was the last time I talked to her? We text all the time, but maybe we can't read each other's voices anymore.
When I was okay with being away from her, I don't think I knew this was going to happen. I wasn't worried about long distance because I didn't think long distance had anything to do with us.
I thought about having my brand new life, but I didn't ever think about Aanya having one too. Hanging out with people we used to barely say hi to. Filling up the spaces that I left with new people until they're so much overflow that they can't even all fit in a van.
Or something.
“Can you extricate yourself for a minute?” I say. “I need to talk to you.”
“Hey, sure. Hang on.” I hear her talk to someone, hear her laugh. After a minute she says, “Okay, I've commandeered the van. Jesus Christ there's a lot of room in here now.”
“So I'm kind of dating someone.”
“Taylor Sara Cipriano!”
“You're definitely making it sound like I've never dated anyone before.”
“Could you get excited about something for once in your life?” she snaps. “This is a big deal!”
“I guess.”
“Tell me everything.”
“Well, he's a senior.”
She squeals.
“His name's Theo. He's kind of tall. Brazilian. He has a little brother and he had no idea how to
