“How about … independent?” I said.
No answer.
I looked up from the book. Charlotte was staring into space, her brow creased. “Char?”
“Um … independent,” Charlotte repeated. “I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-A-N-T.”
“Almost,” I said. “It’s E-N-T.”
We worked for a while longer, but one thing was clear. Charlotte was not herself. She’s usually quick with her homework and super enthusiastic. But she was neither that evening. She could barely focus on her spelling.
I was about to ask her what was up, when the phone rang. I ran downstairs and picked it up in the kitchen. “Johanssen residence.”
“Hello, Johanssen residence, it’s me,” Claudia’s voice answered.
“Claud, hi! What’s up?”
Claudia sighed. “I just did my math homework with Janine the Genius.”
“Uh-huh. So?”
“Well, she went into this big thing about how you have to ‘look at the problem the right way.’ So I listened. Then I looked at all the problems the right way.”
“Well … that’s great. Isn’t it?”
“Fabulous. The trouble is, I still can’t get the answers.”
I sat down, found a pencil, and helped Claudia with her homework. When I was done, I went back upstairs.
Charlotte was not in her room. I figured she was in the bathroom, but I could see that the door was open and the light was out.
Tssst. Tssst.
The noise came from her parents’ room, down the hallway. I walked down the carpeted hallway and peeked inside.
There she was, sitting at her mom’s dressing table. Blush, eyeliner, and powder were all lined up neatly in front of her. She was holding a crystal atomizer, filled with perfume.
“Char?” I said gently.
“Oh!” Charlotte turned to face me. She put down the atomizer, then picked up a crumpled tissue and started wiping her face.
I smiled. That was why her cheek had looked so strange. She’d been experimenting with makeup.
I sat down on the foot of the Johanssens’ bed. Charlotte looked very worried. “You’re not going to tell on me, are you, Stacey?”
I shook my head. “Nah. I remember doing the same thing when I was younger.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. It was around the time I first discovered boys.”
“Discovered boys?” Charlotte’s face started turning a deep red — and it was not a reaction to the makeup.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
Charlotte clammed up, but I had a feeling I knew what was going on. “Charlotte, I don’t mean to be nosy, but may I ask why you’re doing this?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess … well …”
“Yeah?”
Charlotte took a deep breath. Looking down at the floor, she mumbled, “I … guzzala booskminzalil.”
“What? Charlotte, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“I said, I guess I like Bruce Cominsky … a little.” She rushed to add, “But I don’t love him.”
“Ohhhhh.” I couldn’t help smiling. First me and Wes, and now Charlotte and some boy! Spring was definitely in the air. “That’s great, Char! You have a crush — there’s nothing wrong with that! Tell me about him. Is he cute?”
Charlotte giggled in a way I’d never heard before. Then she nodded a bit guiltily and said, “Yeah! He really is. He has red hair.”
“Mm. That’s nice,” I said.
“And blue eyes,” Charlotte quickly added. “And he says he hates girls, but I know he doesn’t. His friend George told me he doesn’t. And today he came all the way up to me on the playground. He said he just wanted to know if I saw his brownie, because someone took it. But I think he really likes me. Stacey, how can you tell if a boy likes you?”
I wanted to laugh. Boys are so strange, at any age. When Sam was first interested in me, he showed it by insulting me. “Um … well, sometimes it isn’t easy. But sometimes you can just feel it. From the way he looks at you, or the things he says. Or if he goes out of his way to be near you —”
“He stuck out his tongue at me last week. But this week he did smile at me. Except he might have been laughing at me, because I stepped on some gum.” Charlotte was talking a mile a minute now. I recognized the symptoms of acute crushitis. (I was very well acquainted with them myself.) “I don’t know. Do you think I should say something to him? I mean, more than, like, ‘Hi’? Every time I say that he kind of rolls his eyes.”
“Well, boys can be funny —”
“I think another girl named Diane Dumschat has a crush on him, but he always says, ‘Ew, Dumschat’ every time she comes near him. So I know he doesn’t like her.” Suddenly Charlotte looked me straight in the eye. “Have you ever had a crush, Stacey?”
“Yes,” I said. Now it was my turn to blush. “As a matter of fact, I have one right now.”
Char’s eyes lit up. “Really? Who?”
“A student teacher in my math class. His name is Wes.”
“A teacher? Wow. Do you love him?”
“Well, no. I mean, it’s too early to tell, Charlotte. Love is different than a crush. Deeper.”
“Yeah? How can you tell if you’re in crush or in love?”
I groped for an answer. “A crush is … something that hits you right away. Love takes longer. It has to grow.”
“How long does it take? Does it feel like a crush? How do you know when it comes?”
“You just … know, I guess.” I exhaled. “Uh … Char? Don’t you have homework to do?”
A look of panic shot across Charlotte’s face. “Uh-oh!”
She carefully put away the makeup and went into her room. I was off the hook. At the rate we were going, we’d have been up all night.
I helped Charlotte finish her work and get ready for bed. (We had a little more love/crush talk, and I found out about that daisy she had hidden. She’d been playing “He loves me, he loves me not” with it.)
After I said good night, I went downstairs to finish my homework. But Char’s questions were sticking in my mind. How could you tell the difference between a crush and love? And what was this feeling I had inside? I assumed it was a crush, but it was so strong. All I could think about was Wes, Wes, Wes:
Wes and me in a rowboat on a romantic lake, floating to a mossy bank, where we set up a picnic and sit in the shade of a weeping willow.
Wes and me skiing on a crisp winter evening, schussing to the bottom of a mountain. We hang up our skis and then go inside for a candlelight dinner in a chic restaurant. Our faces are windburned, and we can’t stop smiling and laughing …
By the time the Johanssens finally came back, Wes and I had traveled to Greece and Egypt, seen a Broadway show, kissed in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and had a brush with death on an African safari.
Getting paid and going home was an anticlimax.
But there was always Thursday. My homework was ready, my outfit was laid out.
I could not wait.
I had three Hallway Sightings on Thursday.
One was on my way to homeroom. Wes was walking into the administration office, sipping coffee from a paper cup. Two was in the hallway between third and fourth period. Three was right after lunch, when I saw him through the open door of the teachers’ lounge.
Yes, I spent the day on Wes Alert. And each time I saw him, he looked just as wonderful as he had the day before. He was wearing a navy blazer and khaki slacks. I love that look — and I was convinced that because we were both wearing navy, it had to be a sign.
I could also tell he liked my outfit. He didn’t actually say he did, I just had an instinct.
But here’s the best part. During class, he kept picking on me to explain math problems. The first time was a hard problem, and he seemed impressed when I got it right. Later he called on me to correct a wrong answer Erica Blumberg had given.
The third time was also to correct a wrong answer. When he said, “Th
at’s exactly right,” he put on that smile, and I thought I would faint.
At the end of Thursday’s class, he said good-bye to me — by name! I spent the rest of the day in a fog.
All in all, Thursday was a day of progress. I could sense a little electricity in the air.
I was sure sparks would start to fly on Friday.
From my secret psychological study of Wes, I had reached an important conclusion. He preferred dresses to slacks. So on Friday I wore a light, springlike sundress. As I walked into math class, Wes was shuffling through a stack of papers.
After the bell rang, he announced, “Today I want to talk about the homework assignment.”
I froze. He didn’t look happy. Obviously the class hadn’t done well. Maybe the problems were all trick questions. Maybe I’d really blown it.
My stomach fluttered like crazy. Wes handed the assignments back in alphabetical order, so I was in the middle of the pile. The wait was excruciating.
When he came to my desk, I barely noticed the expression on his face. He placed the paper upside down, and I left it there for about a minute.
Finally, slowly, I picked it up and read the grade.
It said two things, in bright red ink:
A.
And Perfect!
I felt so relieved. My fluttery stomach was gone. I was smiling so hard my face hurt.
Then, after all the papers were handed out, Wes turned toward me. I grinned. He grinned back. He began walking to my desk.
This was it. I knew it. There, in front of the whole class, he was going to ask me out.
I put the idea from my head. It was ridiculous. But still …
He reached toward me, then gently picked up my homework assignment. Holding it up, he said, “These were not easy problems. I didn’t expect anyone to get them all correct. But Stacey McGill had the one perfect paper in the class.”
“Yay, Stace!” cheered Kara Mauricio.
“Big whoop,” I could hear Irv mutter. (That’s “whoop” as in “whoopee.”)
The truth was, I felt kind of embarrassed to be singled out. But the moment I looked up I completely forgot my embarrassment. Wes was beaming at me!
A whole new world opened up that day. Okay, I’m exaggerating. But my homework assignment paid off. I had become Wes’s star pupil. Every time a really hard problem came up, he would pick me to work it out. I must have gone to the blackboard a dozen times.
The period whizzed by. When the bell rang, I felt depressed. I didn’t know how I would make it through two whole days without math class.
On my way out, I passed Wes’s desk. “ ’Bye,” I said. “Have a nice weekend.”
He laughed and looked downward with a helpless expression. “If I’m not here the whole time.”
I followed his glance. His desk was a disaster area. There were mimeographed notices, attendance sheets, homework assignments, open textbooks, and handwritten lecture notes on looseleaf paper. You’d think he had never heard of a paper clip.
“Whoa,” I said. “It looks like a tornado came.”
Ugggh. How could I have said that? I had made fun of his mess. Just what he wanted to hear. I felt like shrinking into the cracks between the linoleum tiles.
“Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “You know, being a teacher is a lot different than being a student. In my dorm, I never put papers and books away if I’m working. Stuff piles up much faster here.”
“You just need a system, that’s all,” I suggested.
He nodded. “Too bad I don’t have a file cabinet.”
“Can’t you use Mr. Z.’s?” I asked. “Maybe there’s room in it.”
Wes looked behind him at the old olive-green metal cabinet Mr. Z. used. “I hadn’t thought of that. I mean, it’s his.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but you’re the teacher now.”
“Hmm. You’re right.” He pulled open the drawers, one by one. The bottom one was almost empty, except for about a dozen hanging file folders. “Heyyy, you are a genius!”
Genius?
The love of my life. The most beautiful girl I ever saw. The answer to my prayers. Those were some of the things I wanted him to say.
But genius was good. It was a start. I had to take what I could get.
Then Wes asked, “Um … do you have any plans right after school?”
Well, I almost died. The floor seemed to be moving and I felt as if I were about to keel over, out for the count.
But I stayed on my feet and thought fast. I was supposed to walk home with Mary Anne and Dawn, help prepare dinner, then go to our Friday BSC meeting.
“Nope,” I said. “No plans.”
“Good,” he replied with the dimpliest smile in the world. My mind raced. What movies were playing? Did I have enough cash if we did dinner double-dutch? Were there still a few breath mints in my purse?
“Would you mind staying after a few minutes to help me sort these papers?” he asked.
And …
And …?
There was no and. That was it. He was waiting for an answer, and I was staring and gawking like a dork. “Oh … uh, sure,” I said. “No problem.”
Get a grip, I told myself. One step at a time. Let it build. First paper-sorting, then maybe a walk home, then a date for lunch at the mall.
Then Acapulco.
We worked for about forty-five minutes. I found Mr. Z.’s supplies, and Wes and I made a filing system. We figured out categories for all his junk, and organized it into file folders with color-coded tabs.
You know what? All talk of love and crushes aside, I really liked him. He made me feel comfortable. He was so gentle and relaxed. When we finished, he thanked me, we said good-bye, and I left.
By that time, of course, Dawn and Mary Anne had gone home. Which was just as well. I probably couldn’t have put together a coherent sentence if I had tried. I walked home alone, feeling ten miles off the ground.
At the BSC meeting later that day the first thing I did was explain what had happened and apologize to Dawn and Mary Anne for standing them up.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Mary Anne said. “We figured something like that had happened.”
“Who’s going to be the maid of honor?” Kristy asked with a sly grin.
“Can we bring Elvira to the ceremony?” Dawn said.
I could feel myself blushing. “Come on, nothing happened —”
“Yet,” Claudia added.
“What were you doing all that time, hmmm?” asked Dawn.
“Just filing papers, that’s all,” I said.
“That’s good,” Kristy said. “Because you would not have believed the looks on the faces of the other girls in your class.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“They came out while we were waiting for you,” Kristy replied. “Erica was saying, ‘I don’t know why she has to hog him!’ and stuff like that.”
“Really?” I replied. “But I wasn’t hogging him. He asked me to stay after.”
Mary Anne suddenly spoke up. “Oh! Guess what? I finally saw him today. Wes, I mean.”
“What did you think?” I asked.
Mary Anne raised her eyebrows. “Well, I guess you were right when you said he is hunkified.”
“But?” I said. “It sounds like there’s a but coming.”
“Well …” Mary Anne shrugged. “I mean, you know, I guess I prefer younger guys. That’s all.”
“Yeah,” Jessi agreed. “You know what I figured? When you get out of college, Stacey, he’ll be in his thirties.” She said thirties as if she were talking about a geriatric.
Rrrrrrinnggg!
“Baby-sitters Club!” Claudia said in a businesslike voice.
We were off and running. During the rest of the meeting, the phone rang constantly. We didn’t get a chance to talk more about Wes. As far as I was concerned, that was just fine. I didn’t need to hear how old he was, or how many enemies I was making in class.
Frankly, I didn’t care if Wes had a walke
r and a hearing aid. He and I had a relationship. It was starting slowly, but it was there.
Me? I was on Cloud Nine. Without a parachute.
“Ow!”
Mary Anne pulled her thumb away from the barn’s doorjamb. The nail she’d been holding clinked to the ground.
“Careful,” Dawn said.
I picked the nail up and handed it back to Mary Anne, who was standing on the top rung of a ladder. “You sure you don’t want me to do that?”
“Let me try one more time.” Mary Anne held the nail against the wood again and drew back her hammer.
It was Saturday morning, the long-awaited day of Elvira’s arrival. (Actually, we’d only met her four days before, so short-awaited would be more like it.) Dawn’s mom and Mary Anne’s dad were off running errands, so we had the whole place to ourselves. Dawn and Mary Anne had made a long banner that said WELCOME ELVIRA, and I was helping them drape it across the barn door. Inside the barn we’d hung some balloons, laid out some brand new tennis balls, and arranged a few baby bottles, wrapped in white ribbon.
I couldn’t wait to see Elvira. Goat-sitting was going to be a new experience. Who knew what it could lead to? Especially if Kristy got involved. She’d probably want to tack up flyers on all the barns in the area. I could just see it: THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB — EXPERT CHILD CARE … and now, GOAT CARE!
Sort of gives “Kid-Kit” a new meaning.
I was enjoying the excitement about Elvira. It was keeping my mind off Wes.
(Well, not totally, but at least the weekend separation was less traumatic.)
Whack! Whack! Whack! “Ta-da! I did it!”
Mary Anne smiled at her expert nailing job. The banner was now in place.
She climbed down and we folded up the ladder. As we were storing it in the back of the barn, we heard the tooting of a car horn.
We ran out so fast, we almost broke our necks stepping on the tennis balls. Mrs. Stone had arrived in her pickup truck. Peeking out the passenger window was a tiny, bearded face.