Well, That Was Awkward Page 7

  Manuela was yelling, “Those are eggs, not balls, gorditos! Put them down! In the carton, not on the floor!” while I argued with my mom through the doorman (“No, really, please tell her I will come right down!”).

  “I gotta go,” I told Sienna.

  “Take me with you,” she whispered.

  “Cupcakes!” one of the twins started chanting.

  “Cupcakes?” the other twin shouted. “I need cupcakes!” Distracted by the cupcakes, the boys abandoned their eggs, which rolled in opposite directions across the counter, just missing colliding in front of one platter of cupcakes. Manuela somehow caught both eggs as they rolled off the counter. She is really coordinated and fast.

  “No cupcakes yet,” Manuela bargained with the boys while holding one egg in each hand as if they were grenades. “Go wash your hands first. With soap! I want to smell soap!” she yelled, flashing us a game grin and then following the boys out and down the hall toward their bathroom.

  Sienna was shaking her head, muttering, “Crazy monsters,” while we put the two cupcakes we’d made especially for them on the purple glass dessert plates I love from their dish cabinet. We always make the twins special treats. This time we had decorated one cupcake for each of them with their initials in sprinkles.

  We could hear them in the hall bathroom, having a loud splashy time of it, while I gathered up my stuff. Sienna’s apartment is huge and always spotless except wherever the boys have just been, and matchingly decorated, all of which is very unlike my book-filled cozy mismatchy home. But like mine, it’s shoes-off, so I’d have to grab my sneakers on my way out. They were way down near the door. The door is very far from the kitchen. Sienna’s apartment has stairs in it, up to her parents’ room, and a huge private deck overlooking the park.

  I was about to say bye when her phone buzzed again: Ugh.

  Sienna and I stared at those three letters AJ had texted back.

  “What does that even mean?” Sienna asked. “Ugh?”

  “He’s not in the mood for a math test tomorrow?”

  “What should I say?”

  I turned off the oven and opened the door. The cupcakes looked great, the best batch yet.

  “You don’t mind frosting these alone?”

  “No, it’s fine, but, Gracie, what do I say to AJ? What’s the right answer to Ugh?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe just: Yeah?”

  “Again?”

  “Good point.” I looked at her phone. No brilliant responses were occurring to me. “I gotta go or my mom will come up.” Her brothers were rumbling toward us.

  “You have to tell me what to say,” Sienna said. Her cute face scrunched up all sad and adorable. “This is too weird! I’ve been friends with AJ since forever, but now it’s all awkward just texting about a stupid math test and it’s your fault, Gracie!”

  “My fault?”

  “Yes! Fully! If you hadn’t told me that he—”

  “Okay, sure, true,” I said.

  “Gracie,” she begged. Her frown got all huge and blobfish-like. She really is adorable. Good choice, AJ.

  “You should just take a selfie and send that. Your face is so cute and worried.”

  “You’re the worst!”

  “Me?” I asked. “I’m the best! No insulting ourselves!”

  “True,” she groaned. “But . . .”

  We started laughing a little. I looked at the phone again. “Maybe say, Seriously.”

  “Okay, yeah,” Sienna said, brightening. “That’s good.”

  “I’m a genius.”

  “You are. Okay. Seriously.” She typed it. “Yeah?” She showed it to me.

  “Yeah,” I said, and pressed send for her.

  “Ahhh!” She dropped the phone onto the counter like it was too hot to hold.

  “No, it’s good. You can just, like, bat it back at him, whatever he says.”

  “Yeah?” she asked.

  “Just like that!” I shrugged. “That way, you don’t, you know, get out too far ahead of it. Of the, you know, flirting.”

  “Ugh,” she moaned. “Everything was normal until today.”

  “You got this. You’re great. He already likes you, so . . .”

  “My hands are shaking!” She held them out to me.

  “Do you like him back, then, you think?”

  She shrugged one shoulder and blinked her dark eyes twice. “I guess?”

  “You can remind him to bring money for the bake sale, if you have to say something else,” I suggested.

  “Oh, that’s good! Thanks.”

  “Any time.” I grabbed my shoes from the pretty iron shoe rack and called good-byes to Manuela and the boys. “Good luck!” I added to Sienna.

  “Keep your phone charged and with you,” she said, leaning against the doorframe, one foot balanced on the other. “This is your fault and you have to help me!”

  “You know I always have your back,” I said, waving without turning around.

  “Yeah, I do know,” I heard her say as the door between us closed.

  It was suddenly quiet, out in the cool carpeted hall. I pushed the elevator button and checked my phone. Nothing. No texts from anybody wondering if there was a math test tomorrow or whatever. Sure. I wasn’t expecting anything, just checking. I put the phone into my pocket as I stepped onto the fancy elevator. I had it to myself. Good. Long day. Better that I didn’t pour out my whole story to Sienna about what Riley had said to me. Sienna had enough going on. My job is to be sunshine for her, too.

  Good thing I am so sunshiney!

  I pressed the button for the lobby and sagged against the back wall as the doors slid silently closed, and felt myself standing still but still sinking down, down, down.

  17

  SOMETHING GOOD

  Down in Sienna’s elegant lobby, my mom was frowning the way she does when she’s worried about something and doesn’t want to show it. Or sometimes when she’s trying not to smile. Hard to tell.

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I lied. We both called good-bye and thank you to the doorman, who clicked the magic button to auto-open the door for us. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Your day was good?”

  “Sure,” I lied again. “Is something—Why are you frowning?”

  “I’m not,” she lied. We are quite a pair. “Do you have a lot of homework?”

  “Not a ton,” I said. A truth! Yay!

  “How was your day?”

  “Did somebody call you and tell you I had a bad day?”

  “No!” She laughed, as if that were an impossibility, my having a bad day.

  When I got home, Dad was there. Usually he stays at his office late on Thursday nights. Again I asked what was going on.

  “Come down the hall,” Dad suggested.

  “Am I in trouble?” I asked.

  “Did you do something bad?” Mom asked, like she was teasing.

  Uh, yeah. Kind of. Did school call home to tell my parents about me telling off Riley? I was just trying to defend Dorin! And myself!

  Oh, Bret, why do you have to be dead instead of warning me what they are up to?

  I kicked off my shoes, dropped my backpack inside my bedroom door, and started down the hall, asking, “Seriously, what?”

  And then I saw it. On the kitchen counter. A huge blue Tupperware bin and, inside it, the speed-demon tortoise from the funky pet store just past Ninety-Ninth. I recognized her immediately. Partly, okay, because she was desperately trying to dig her way down and out of the bin, through the brown mulchlike stuff in the base of the container. But partly just because, well, I just recognized her.

  “What . . .” I managed to ask, my mouth hanging open. “What is . . .”

  I turned my head and then my eyes away from the speed-demon tortoise
and toward my parents, who were standing together in the kitchen, smiling expectantly.

  “But . . .” I couldn’t even formulate a sentence.

  “Happy birthday,” Mom said, clapping her hands a little in front of her neck.

  “Do you like it?” Dad asked.

  “Is it . . . Is she really . . . She’s mine?”

  They nodded.

  And I managed to hug them both, so tight, before I even picked up the speed-demon tortoise.

  My tortoise.

  Mine.

  18

  HEAD-DOWN IN A BOOT

  Could there actually be such a thing as love at first sight?

  I know I told my parents that a tortoise would not just be like a pet rock, but maybe I had been a little bit worried that having a tortoise might be like having a pet rock.

  If I ever got one. Which I never thought could happen.

  But now . . .

  This tortoise just killed me. When I took her out of the bin and put her gently onto the floor, she marched up the hall like she was on patrol, and then back down again. We gave her a string bean, which she chased after like a slow-motion cheetah wearing a mobile home. She was so funny. The pet store guy told my parents when they went to pick her up that the tortoise could have one string bean, occasionally, as a treat. There’s too much protein for her otherwise. Too much protein in a string bean.

  Crazy amounts of information, but what I really wanted to know was: What finally convinced them to get this tortoise, and when, and how did they know she was the One?

  “Sometimes you just know,” Dad said. “And then you think: Of course. Of course.”

  “Okay,” I said. “If you say so.”

  “It’s true,” Dad said.

  Mom kept taking pictures and videos, and cracking up with me every time the tortoise went sprinting around, her legs moving so fast, she ended up doing clonking belly flops onto the hardwood floor. Dad suggested naming her either Champ or Hildegard. Mom said either Plautus or Lightning, because of a play she likes—I can’t remember the name—that had a tortoise in it named both of those names. I said, “Or maybe Thelonious,” which Dad was completely on board with, but Mom said Thelonious was maybe a mouthful. “Completely up to you,” Dad said. “Name her whatever you want.”

  I gave him a hug and then gave Mom a big one too. “This is the best birthday present anybody ever got,” I said. They were smiling such happy smiles. Then my tortoise bit my toe. It hurt a tiny bit but mostly just surprised me.

  “Maybe I’ll name her Jaws,” I said. “Or Maniac.”

  I Snapchatted a shot of myself next to the tortoise to a bunch of my friends, with hearts drawn all around us.

  In about five seconds Emmett responded, a selfie with his mouth hanging open and blue question marks over his eyes.

  I texted that he should come up and see. Since he lives just four flights down in my building, he was knocking on our door by the time I got to it.

  He agreed with me right away that this was the most amazing tortoise in the history of tortoises, and also that we needed to race her against his pet rabbit because tortoise and hare. We bet a 16 Handles frozen yogurt with as many toppings as you want.

  “I so obviously win,” I boasted. “Have you never read Aesop?”

  “Yeah, but they call it a fable for a reason,” Emmett said.

  “Marketing?”

  “Yeah,” he conceded. “Fully. Fricking marketing.”

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and stared at the screen.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing. AJ.”

  My phone buzzed. It was Sienna, saying: were you completely surprised?

  YES! I texted back. you knew? were you in on this?

  maybe . . . she texted back.

  “What’s up?” Emmett asked.

  “Sienna,” I said. “I think she was somehow in on the whole get-the-tortoise thing with my parents.”

  “Did she say that?”

  “Were you in on it too?”

  “I was at opera all afternoon,” he said, but with such an innocent face, it made me completely suspicious. “But hey, I wanted to say, about what you were saying to Riley?”

  Both of our phones buzzed again, so we groaned at each other and dealt with our separate issues. Sienna said AJ had texted her, asking her what she’s doing this weekend. Ack! What should she say?

  “Sorry—what were you saying?” I asked Emmett instead of answering Sienna.

  He shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Nothing. I should go, I guess.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said. “Was that your mom?” His mom hates when he doesn’t respond right away, like mine.

  “Nah, she’s at the art gallery.” His phone buzzed again. He ignored it. “Did you name it?”

  “Name what?” I asked. “I think that’s you buzzing again. . . .”

  “Your tortoise,” he said.

  I told him all the choices we were considering. He liked Lightning and Hamburger best but said, “Let’s see which one she comes to, if you call her.”

  “Great idea,” I said. “Wait! Where is she?”

  We jumped up and started looking around. I’d had the tortoise for what, twenty minutes? And I’d already lost her. Wow, that’s gotta be a record. Maybe my parents had the right idea with not letting me have a pet after all.

  “Am I the worst tortoise person ever? I had this image of myself as, like, you know, decent at—”

  “No way. You’re the world champion tortoise person,” Emmett said, peeking into my bedroom for her.

  “Or at least not the worst?” I bargained, flopping onto my floor to look under my bed. Lots of books, some socks, some mystery things, possibly underwear, oops, embarrassing. No tort.

  “Absolutely,” Emmett agreed. “I’d put money on you not being the worst.”

  “Thanks, Emmett. That means a lot to me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I looked behind my door. Just a sweatshirt on the floor. The soft red hoodie I love. Emmett has the same one. I hung it on the hook and went back into the hall. “A, not the worst ever,” I asked him, “are you saying? Or B, not the worst tortoise person currently alive?”

  “No,” Emmett said, peeking behind my laundry hamper. “Definitely A. Assuming you didn’t lose the tortoise already, because I’m pretty sure we’ll find her eventually, I see you going all the way to the, you know, World Series Super Bowl of Not-Worst Tortoise People Ever this year. Final Four, at least.”

  “You’re just saying that because you want free tickets to the Tortoise World Series with . . . Oh!”

  “What?”

  Emmett looked where I was pointing, toward the front door. There, poking out of the top of one of my dad’s boots, was the butt of my new tortoise.

  The rest of her was plunged deep inside.

  Emmett and I both doubled over laughing before I could even rescue her. I reached in and lifted her carefully out. She looked at me, world-weary and resigned.

  “Hey, pal,” I said. “What were you looking for?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Emmett answered for the tortoise.

  “Rough first day?” I asked her.

  “Nah,” Emmett answered for her. “Sometimes you just end up head-down in a boot, you know?”

  “Story of my life,” I said, and placed my tortoise down gently on the floor.

  Emmett and I watched her head toward the kitchen. His phone buzzed in his pocket. Mine buzzed in mine.

  “Maybe Lightning,” he said. “Suits her.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “Or Flight Plan.”

  “That could be her nickname.”

  “Or Dash,” he said. “Maybe Flash?”

  I laughed. “Lightning, and her nickname could be Flash?”

>   “Perfect.” His phone buzzed again. He said, “I should—”

  “Yeah, okay, later,” I said. “Thanks!”

  “Anytime somebody’s head-down in a boot up here,” Emmett said, “just call me!”

  “Better keep your phone with you,” I said, “at all times, in that case.”

  I heard him laughing in the stairwell behind the closed door while I followed my tort down the hall, challenging her to a race, ignoring for one more second the texts coming in from my best friend, asking for flirtation help.

  19

  TESTING, TESTING

  Riley came early, as we were setting up for the bake sale. I took a deep breath.

  “Hi!” She smiled at Sienna and me so sweetly, I wondered for a second if it was her sister, Amelia, instead of actual Riley.

  “Hi,” we both answered.

  “What are you raising money for this time?” she asked.

  “Kids who have no books,” I said.

  “Very noble,” Riley said, and handed me a crisp five-dollar bill. “It’s so cute how ‘noble’ you two are.”

  “Thanks,” I said, unconvinced she meant it as a compliment.

  “You can take ten cupcakes,” Sienna said quietly.

  “Oh, I don’t eat that stuff,” Riley said, fluffing her hair. “It’s a donation. For your ‘cause.’”

  “Listen, Riley,” I said, still holding her money in my hand. “About yesterday.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” Riley said. “Everybody knows you get loud sometimes. Let’s just forget it. I already forgot all about it; don’t worry. But—Sienna!”

  “What?” Sienna asked.

  “I heard about you and AJ!”

  “You did?”

  “Gracie told me yesterday!” She winked at me. “That’s so cute. Have you ever gone out with anybody?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Hmm. Or you, either—right, Gracie?”

  “No.”