Ch. 22: Weekend Plans

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
After class I waved to Kyle and made my way out to the courtyard in search of Ally. I couldn’t find her right away and started to text her, asking her where she was. As I waited for her reply I ran into Maxine and Marsha on their way to their favorite bench. Maxine still looked like something weighed on her, even with the small smile she wore while listening intently to Marsha. Ally hadn’t messaged back and I thought I could use this time to check in on Maxine a little.
“Hey,” I said to both of them, and sat down next to them.
“Hey!” Marsha said in her usual cheery tone, Max smiled at me in greeting.
“So, how goes it?” I asked them.
“Well, Maxie here is having a rough day, but I think she’s wiped out talking about it?” she pushed her shoulder into Maxine in question.
“Yeah, I need a break,” she decided, “Someone distract me.”
Marsha looked at me and I motioned for her to go first.
“Well I guess my skill for endless chattering does actually come in handy every once in a while. Hmmm… let’s see. Oh! My dad is coming home after spending a month visiting his siblings in Brazil. And yes, before you ask, I requested snacks for you both. You’ll have so many snacks you won’t need to bring lunch for like a week. Hmmm… What else? Ugh, I really wish I had more going on, my powers of chatter are weakening…” she ended, pretending to shrivel upon herself.
“Well snacks are always great, thanks Marsha, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten anything straight from Brazil. I promise to do the same next time one of my relatives goes back to Peru,” I added.
“As you should! We’re practically distant cousins, culturally speaking. No offense to Swedish Maxine over here, you are my soul’s sister,” she continued. “Rachel, you go.”
“Uh, well I hung out with my new friend Kyle at Break?” I was at a loss for new news to share with them.
Marsha had a suspicious look on her face, and asked, “Friend?”
“Seriously, just a friend. He’s really great. Saved me today from a creeper, you guys would’ve appreciated it,” I explained.
Maxine eyed me, then seemed pleased with my response. “Well, it’s always clutch to have several knights in your corner, defending your honor and sh**, or whatever the modern day version of that is.”
I snorted at her dismissive tone and odd visual she gave me of Kyle, the enigma, further made odd by slapping a knight’s helmet to him.
My phone buzzed. Ally wanted to hang out in the library at our table if I was finished with lunch. Apparently she had something exciting to tell me. Maybe Simon made a move?
I let Marsha and Maxine know I had to go meet Ally and they waved me off as they argued about the whole ‘knights’ comparison. I was glad to have been able to distract Maxine for a bit, but was still curious as to what she had wanted to talk about earlier today.
I entered the library and noticed a few other people in there, including Mr. Waller, who was heating up his lunch in the little back hall for staff the library had behind the main desk. He waved and I waved back.
At Ally’s table I put both hands dramatically on the table and demanded, “Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Smile plastered on my face.
I mentally crossed my fingers for Simon.
She looked at me, a small embarrassed smile, “Shhh!” and laughed, telling me, “Girl, please! This whole library doesn’t need to know!”
“There’s like four other people in here and they’re all the way over there,” I waved my hand towards the front door. “Tell me,” I said again, elongating my words dramatically.
“Alright, alright,” she resigned. I sat down as she started, “So. You know how I’ve been commenting now and then about how like, nothing happens to me here, and have had to live vicariously through you and this Sean stuff?”
I didn’t say a word, I was so happy for her, she looked so excited.
“Well, something actually happened to me today!” she squealed, then took a breath in to center herself, making us both laugh.
“Well tell me already!” I responded, pushing her arm with my hand playfully.
She took a breath, “His name is Joey. He is super cute, and he basically asked me out today.” She finished, grinning.
Joey? Not Simon? This was the first I was hearing of this guy.
“Oh,” I paused, “Joey? Do I know him?”
She shook her head, “No, he’s a Sophomore. We’re in PE together. I really hadn’t paid much attention to him before this morning but he just came right up to me after our mile run when I was stretching and we got to talking. He used to be on the tennis team here and they had played in Melbourne once so we got talking about Melbourne and tennis, and the great court Melbourne has up by our old school, and he asked if he could meet me there on Sunday morning!”
I was slightly sad about this not going the way I had thought, but I was so happy for Ally. She looked so excited, and I wasn’t about to rain on her parade.
“That’s awesome!” I beamed at her.
“Could I ask for a favor?” she said in a lowered voice.
“Of course, what is it?” I replied.
“Could I stay over your place Saturday night so I can walk there after? I don’t want my mom to know about this whole thing… Could you cover for me too?” she asked, hopeful.
I of course agreed.
“Awesome!” she exclaimed. “Plus, that means we can go to the City Concert tomorrow evening together, right? Evan told me everyone’s going to be at the skatepark then. I think Lana is going too.”
Evan was our friend from middle school, he was more Ally’s friend to be more accurate. He thought we (Lana, Ally and I) were just way too silly together and he used to tease us about it all the time. Everyone had always ‘shipped Ally and Evan, and while I think he probably did have a crush on her, she was always very adamant about not feeling that way, despite everyone’s pushing. They were both tall, well he was crazy tall - he was almost 7ft tall by the 7th grade. Ally was always so mad when someone told her she should date him, and she wasn’t wrong. Tall people don’t need to just date tall people for the hell of it.
I thought about what Ally said and agreed to go. We spent the rest of our lunch break catching up on other things, like Ally’s parents’ latest disagreement about the division of their joint savings accounts and other things. She seemed exhausted by all of it. The fact that Ally knew so much detail about their divorce proceedings meant to me, that they were putting way too much on her. If anyone knew what that felt like, it was me. I listened to her talk a little more about Joey and she shared other things she knew about him, and my mind wandered a bit to the City Concert tomorrow.
By ‘everyone’ Ally had meant our whole middle school group. That meant Sophie. That meant Jake. At least it sounded like that meant Lana. I took a mental note to text her before my next class to confirm she was planning on going. Lana and I used to be incredibly close in 6th and 7th grade. In 8th grade we were more part of a group of friends, but people still ended up voting us ‘Bestest Best Friends’ our 8th grade year for the yearbook. She went to Westview High now, in another city nearby. We stayed in touch over the summers but once school started again, we texted each other less and less. Contact was infrequent now. It would be good to catch up with her. Lunch was nearing an end and we decided to start walking out. My phone buzzed.
<< From UNKNOWN to Rachel: don’t go tomorrow >>
I just about dropped my phone. I stopped dead in my tracks and my head whipped around looking at everyone around. I looked back towards our table and didn’t see anyone. Mr. Waller was by the desk checking a book out to two girls I didn’t know. There was a group of friends at the computers by the door, all looking at notebooks. I didn’t see anyone I recognized, or anyone on their phone.
“Rach?” Ally asked from up ahead, she was ahead of me, right at the exit.
I turned back to her and walked quickly out the door, Ally followed. The hall was bustling with people starting to head to where they needed to be.
I turned to Ally and decided to tell her, at least the short version.
“I- I didn’t want to ruin the mood earlier, but I think I need to talk to you about something that’s been going on,” I told Ally and pulled her aside. “I won’t get into everything right now, but here’s the highlights.”
I told Ally about Vance in my other Humanities class, and about how he had grabbed me yesterday before my date with Sean. She was really concerned and asked me about why I hadn’t reported him. I brushed off the question then showed her the text message I had just gotten.
“What the living hell?” she asked aloud, reading the message twice. “Did you see Vance in there? Do you think it’s him?”
“I don’t know. I mean it’s right up there in ‘Creepville’, like it's written in The Creepville Magna Carta, but no I didn’t see him in there. That’s why I was so freaked. I didn’t see anyone on their phone, and there’s no way we were that close to anyone. I mean we were sitting on opposite sides of the table, there’s no way we wouldn’t have noticed someone nearby! It’s just a bunch of tables, nothing to hide behind. Like what is this?” I spoke in a panic, honestly super creeped out.
The bell rang.
“Ugh, OMG we have to get walking. But I hope this means you’re going to tell someone now right? Like right now? Or right after school?” she pushed.
I nodded without saying a word for a second, looking at the faces passing by, suspecting everyone around as some sort of Vance spy? Was he somehow actually in there? And if it wasn’t from him, then who was it from?