The Girl Who Invented Romance

  Jeep stood up and took the quizzes from an unprotesting Ms. Simms. He was back in no time to pass the papers out. He was already laughing. “Wait till you read this, guys,” he warned everybody.

  “Take this seriously,” cautioned Ms. Simms.

  Everybody laughed raucously.

  I wondered if a person could blush to death. Perhaps my death certificate would read, Overheating from blushing caused her central nervous system to—

  “Because,” said Ms. Simms, and her squeaky voice suddenly dropped an octave into normalcy, “to love and to be loved are the greatest joys on earth.”

  There was complete silence.

  It was a truth. More than we’d ever learn in science or math or history.

  But who can tolerate the truth? Especially in front of her friends?

  People wrote their names obediently at the top of their quiz sheets. They began reading the directions. Laughter began to riffle over the room, little brooks of giggles becoming torrents.

  “Whipped cream?” said Angie. “Whipped cream, Kelly?”

  I’ll go live with Grandma, I thought. I’ll never set foot in Cummington again.

  “Chocolate, kitten, dancing, violin,” read Honey. “Does anybody think that Kelly is just a little bit deprived?”

  “Boots,” read Kenny. “I don’t see my other romantic favorites here, Kelly. Where is my leather? My whips?”

  “Class!” cried Ms. Simms in her tiny pitiful scream. Brief silence settled. But the laughter had not vanished, just been muffled. “You’re all envious of Kelly,” said Ms. Simms. “She has sufficient character to attack the important parts of life. What you care about and dream about and struggle toward. Match her bravery with your honesty.”

  For a minute I thought she had saved me. I was able to breathe in without that jagged edge that is the start of tears. I let go of my pencil a little and released the cramps forming in my hand.

  And Will said, “Crap.” The single syllable was fierce and angry. “Flowers? Sparkles? Velvet? None of that has anything to do with love. This is stupid, Kelly. Love is promises. Generosity. Sharing. Forgiveness. Listening. Kindness. Love is important.” Will looked at me with contempt. “Every single thing you’ve listed is shallow and stupid.”

  Of all people to say this—Will. He was right. The quiz was shallow and I was shallow. After all, I was the one with the intimacy quotient of forty-seven.

  Of all people, it was Wendy who stepped up to the plate to save me. “Will,” she said, “Kelly did not write a quiz on love. She wrote a quiz on romance. What’s so bad about romance? Romance is the backdrop to love. Don’t be so high and mighty. If you’d relax a little, you might have romance in your life too, instead of sweatpants and sneaker laces.”

  Will looked uncomfortable. “I guess I see what you mean,” he said finally.

  “Of course you do,” said Wendy. “Romance is soft music and sleek cars. Holding hands and pretty dresses. Love is none of those. Love is profound and vast, not mere objects and textures. But romance is half the fun, Will.”

  For a moment, the entire class was caught up in Wendy’s voice. We shared faraway looks and the dream was almost visible. Let me have love.

  “That’s interesting from you, Wendy,” said Honey. “So let’s see, Parker’s car—the one he has to borrow one day a week—isn’t sleek. And Jeep’s car—the one he owns—is sleek. I guess you and Jeep were all romance and no love, huh, Wendy?”

  Jeep didn’t blush and fade like me. He simply ceased to breathe or be there.

  Half the class attacked Honey for Jeep’s sake. Ms. Simms had to yell for quiet but quiet never came. Even when the final bell rang, we were still saying ugly things and taking sides and stabbing each other.

  What is this thing called love, I wondered, that turned this dull group into an emotional mob?

  I got up last, wanting to see nobody, talk to nobody, be reminded of nobody. Wanting to be dead, actually, but there was an important test next class that I couldn’t skip.

  Will held the door for me.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled, stumbling through it, hating him for being there.

  “Romantic of me, wasn’t it?” he said sarcastically. As if doing romantic things were bad. He faked a smile and I had to tell him what his smile was like. “You’ve got a smile like an attack dog,” I said.

  We stood a moment staring at each other. I was so drained, I could hardly raise my chin, and looking up at the basketball player who was a star because of his inches required considerable raising of the chin.

  “But you,” he said softly, “have the smile of a pixie.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  A pixie?

  Now, what, exactly, is a pixie?

  I think of a feathery elf with button features who is fluttering on gauze wings among magic toadstools.

  At home I stared at myself in the hall mirror. The day’s blush had finally faded and I could see my features again. I do have a perky nose and a small chin. Is a pixie smile a good thing? Was Will being sarcastic when he held the door for me or did I read that into his voice because I was so upset?

  “I don’t want to wonder!” I cried aloud. “I want something to happen!”

  I sagged into a chair. In the next room, my parents were making supper, Mom chopping onions for spaghetti sauce while Dad minced garlic. He was teasing her.

  There is romance, I reminded myself. I’m a witness.

  I flung myself onto the sofa and began to cry and Parker came in.

  That’s the way it is with families and classrooms. No privacy. Always somebody watching.

  “What’s the matter?” said Park. He didn’t come sit next to me or hug me. We aren’t physically close, Parker and I. He did stand in the door, though, and wait patiently for an answer.

  I shrugged.

  “Has to be something,” he said. “Maybe I can help.”

  The last thing I would ever do was admit what had happened in sociology. Or describe my romance game or Will or my feelings about life in general. Especially to Park, who didn’t know any more than the rest of us did why Wendy liked him. “I was thinking of Mother and Daddy,” I lied. “How romantic they are. Did you see the little heart bookmark?”

  “Romantic?” said Park irritably. “Garbage. There’s nothing romantic about that or about them either.”

  “Nothing romantic?” I repeated.

  “He doesn’t bring those presents because it’s romantic. Don’t you know anything, Kelly? He’s just spreading oil on the waters.”

  “What waters?”

  “Of their marriage. It’s such a dumb marriage. I’m never going to have a fake marriage like theirs.”

  I was outraged. “A fake?” I sputtered. “Mother and Daddy?”

  “They’ve been married eighteen years and any fool can tell Dad adores Mom, but she’s so insecure, he has to go through this endless charade of proving himself week after week, year after year, gift after gift, bookmark after bookmark, flower after flower.”

  I could not think of my own mother as insecure. Insecure is a word for kids. Mothers are solid.

  “And all because of Ellen, who could be dead now for all we know.”

  “Ellen?” I said. “Dad’s high school girlfriend?”

  We’d heard all about Ellen. She shared eight years of Daddy’s life. His first car. His first trip to Europe. His first plane ride. His first weekend in New York. His first time on the West Coast. All with Ellen. Right after college, Ellen jilted Dad. Just up and said good-bye. Have you met somebody else? my father said. No, replied Ellen, I just don’t want to spend my life with you.

  Dad was shattered for about a month but then he met Mother and the romance of the century began between them.

  “What could Ellen have to do with anything?” I said crossly. If Parker was going to make up some cheap story about how Daddy was really having an affair with Ellen on the side, I would kill him.

  “Dad and Mom got married when they’d kn
own each other six weeks. Talk about falling in love on the rebound. Dad had been seeing Ellen for years. She was the first and only girl Dad ever dated. Dad worshiped Ellen. And less than three months later he’s married? Think about it.”

  I thought about it. Bewildered, I said, “But, Parker, Mother and Daddy fell in love at first sight.”

  Parker spoke to me slowly, forcing himself to be patient. “Kelly, Dad would have married Ellen in a heartbeat. Mother was his second choice. And only because she was there. All this time, Mother has never felt sure that Dad really loves her.”

  “Ridiculous. He brings her presents every five minutes. She must have noticed by now.”

  “Okay, don’t believe me. But there’s no romance in those gifts, Kelly. He just has to keep shoveling this junk at her in order to keep her happy. She’s a grown woman acting about fifteen. Wendy doesn’t act like that,” he finished contentedly. “I tell Wendy I love her, she believes me and that’s that.”

  I resented his making Wendy sound better than Mom.

  “Wendy and I,” said Parker loftily, “have an honest relationship. No pretenses like Mom and Dad.” He pranced off to his room, singing scraps of melody. Love songs to Wendy. I gathered up my quizzes. Lace, chocolate, laughter, candlelight, dancing … not romantic?

  I rejected Parker’s theory.

  Because if my parents’ romance was fake, then whose could be real?

  Parker thought his with Wendy was real.

  It had lasted three months.

  But how long does love have to last to be real? If Daddy had loved Ellen for eight years and nothing came of it, then what was love anyhow?

  Somebody made five hundred copies of my romance quizzes and passed them out in the halls the next day at school.

  Public humiliation builds character, I told myself. I smiled when people teased. I agreed that plaid and whipped cream were pretty weird words on a romance quiz.

  Parker pounced on me in the halls. Waving a quiz in his hand, he said furiously, “I cannot believe my own sister actually did this.”

  “It seemed reasonable at the time.”

  “Kelly, the whole school is—”

  “I know, don’t say it. Just stand next to me in a supportive fashion like a decent old big brother.”

  “It would be easier if you were a decent little sister. Do you know how people are laughing?”

  “Yes, Park. I know.”

  He relented. Park hadn’t been voted Nicest Boy for nothing. Putting an arm around me, a rare move for us, he said softly, “Good luck, Kelly. I think it’s going to be a long week for you.”

  By the end of the day, however, teasing had tapered way off. By the final class, not more than ten or twenty people even mentioned the quizzes.

  I stole a look at Will.

  He was not stealing one at me. He was listening to the American history teacher. How can anybody concentrate on the Last Frontier when there are important things happening, like the girl next to you being totally humiliated, needing a new compliment? One she can put on the shelf next to You have the smile of a pixie.

  Wendy came on with her soap.

  I relaxed, thinking it would take some of the heat off me.

  “It’s been a long sorrowful day for our beauteous Allegra,” said Wendy. “Allegra”—Wendy’s voice rose—“has taken”—Wendy’s voice became frenzied, as if Allegra had taken an overdose or a flight to New Zealand—“a quiz on romance. Her score is forty-seven. She has failed miserably. The entire world knows now that Allegra is totally lacking in romantic appeal.”

  I stared at Will’s back. How could he have done that? How could he possibly have told Wendy about my score?

  “Taking to her bed,” cried Wendy, “Allegra will eat nothing but classic SPAM. No whipped cream. No violins playing. In vain, Greg pounds upon her front door.”

  “Way to go, Kelly,” said Honey.

  Wendy played sound effects, stringed instruments and ratta-tap-tap of knuckles on wood.

  I had sound effects of my own to endure. Laughter from every classroom at Cummington High. At me.

  I put my head down on my arms and hid from my world. Which of them was worse—Will or Wendy? Bad enough that Will told. But my own brother’s girlfriend using me like that? Turning me into material? Just the day before she had defended me and I had trusted her. She was definitely paying me back for riding in the backseat when she wanted to be alone with Parker.

  Will’s back remained motionless, broad and, in annoying coincidence, plaid. A wool plaid shirt I would gladly have strangled him with.

  “Greg is not a man to glance backward,” Wendy continued. “Jumping into his midnight blue car, Greg takes to the road. As he cruises past her house, the alluring Octavia, gowned in ruffles and velvet, redolent of lilac, rushes out into the street.” Every time she used one of my words, she leaned into it and laughed slightly. “Greg slams on the brakes and shouts, ‘Octavia! What is your romance quotient? Come! Take a test ride with me.’ ”

  Faith said, “I think this is the best dialogue she’s done in weeks.”

  Everybody else said, “Shhh!”

  “But Octavia is beyond romance.” Wendy’s voice turned throaty. She rasped, “ ‘Forget romance, Greg,’ says Octavia. ‘I’m pregnant.’ ”

  There was no need to say “Shhh!” this time.

  “ ‘What I need is money,’ says Octavia.”

  I don’t suppose our teen pregnancy rate is different from the rest of the nation, but here in Cummington, we certainly don’t refer to it. Teen sex, if indeed there is such a thing, occurs beyond the city limits.

  In her bright wrap-up voice, Wendy continued, “Tune in tomorrow to find out if romance can—”

  The mike went off.

  There was time for everybody to notice that Octavia had not asked for marriage but for money. I could think of things she could do with Greg’s money but regardless of her final selection, Octavia was not going to make Cummington happy.

  Dr. Scheider read a few more announcements in a shaken voice.

  Then the final bell rang and the class instead of leaving school burst into a discussion of the soap dialogue. They had forgotten my quiz. They talked about Octavia and Wendy.

  When everybody was too caught up speculating about Wendy’s future to be aware of him, Will turned around and held up his hand like a stop sign. “I didn’t do it,” he said fast.

  I snarled at him.

  “Really. I didn’t tell her. Honest.”

  “Right. Wendy overheard us from the principal’s office. Two floors and a half mile of hall from here.”

  “I don’t blame you for suspecting me. Any detective would. But I’m innocent. It’s coincidence. She picked forty-seven out of thin air.”

  “No air is that thin.”

  Will didn’t give up. He was long enough to lean across the space between our desks, put both enormous hands on my books and look mournfully into my face. I considered smacking him but it would just draw more attention my way.

  He was truly upset. I looked into the conceited eyes that had never bothered to focus on me and realized that Will Reed really wanted me to believe him. He cared about my opinion of him.

  I could not understand. He had told Wendy—nobody else could have told her—and he could only have done it to be mean, so why care about me now?

  “Could she have found your magazine?” asked Will. “Maybe you left it out and she and Park found it with your answers written in.”

  I had left the magazine in Park’s car. Maybe she and Parker had taken the quiz. Jerk that I am, I had circled my answers. Wendy could add. Wendy would love adding up that she, Wendy Newcombe, was a Queen of Romance, and I, Kelly Williams, had failed the course.

  I sighed and nodded. “Could be, Will. Okay. I believe you.”

  Will’s anxiety faded. He smiled a real smile, a boy’s smile, a warm and wide true smile at me.

  For a moment as long as a crush, our eyes locked. My heart was pounding. I struggle
d to say or do something—anything!—to keep him looking at me like that. (Invite him over to make fudge? Throw a Frisbee? Ask to see his baby pictures?) But Will unfolded himself, reached his height of six feet four inches and loped silently out of the room.

  At home, trauma was waiting.

  My mother was holding a letter in her hand, staring at it as if it were a bomb. “What’s wrong, Mom?” I said, frantic, thinking death, dismemberment, fatal disease, the relatives in Ohio.…

  “Your father’s high school reunion,” said my mother bleakly. “He wants to go. He can’t wait to go. I have to send in our acceptance.”

  “Oh, but, Mom! That’ll be such fun. Even I can’t wait for my high school reunion and I’m not even a senior. It’ll be such fun to find out what happened to everybody. Whether they got what they hoped for. Whether our class had anybody famous in it. If the Most Likely to Succeed really did. Oooooh, Mom, you’ll have a great time.”

  My mother flopped onto the couch and drooped all over the throw pillows.

  “No, huh?” I said. “Why not?”

  She shrugged, getting looser and floppier and more depressed all over the sofa. My brother’s dumb lecture on Mother and Daddy’s marriage came back to me. “Because of Ellen?” I said dubiously.

  She leaped to her feet. “Kelly, what made you think of Ellen? Does Daddy talk about her? Why did you think of Ellen so quickly? How do you even know about Ellen? What is there to know?”

  She was pale. She ran her tongue over her lips and I thought, Park was right! She’s afraid of Ellen. “Because Daddy talks about her now and then when he’s telling stories about when he was a boy,” I said, trying to be casual. “That’s all.”

  Mother shivered and sat down again.

  “Oh, Mother, Ellen’s probably fat and repulsive. Has five kids who are all delinquents. Thinks a big day is making instant chocolate pudding.”

  “No, she isn’t.” An involuntary shudder rippled over my mother’s face and body. “Ellen already got her reunion invitation. She wrote to your father. She enclosed a photograph. She wants us to get together before the reunion.”