One

It was geography class, a day after Thanksgiving vacation, and my friend Trisha Burke was singing Christmas carols.

“Deck the halls with boughs of hoollllyy, ’tis the season to be jolllyyy—”

I don’t know what was worse—that it was a day after Thanksgiving vacation or that Trisha was singing Christmas carols. I’ll be frank—Trisha couldn’t sing if her life depended on it. Her voice is low and obnoxious and screeches horribly off-key at any of her miserable attempts to hit a high note.

As for Christmas? Well, let’s just say that at the time I would have given Ebenezer Scrooge a run for his money.

“Now we all are . . . um . . . now we all are . . . darn, I totally forgot the rest,” Trisha sighed. I tried to look disappointed, for her sake.

Trisha’s temporary gloom quickly vanished, and she went back to her regular old smiling self. If there was any word to describe Trisha, it’s “smile.” She’s a smiler, one of those irritatingly happy people who smiles all the time. Sometimes it makes me smile back, but mostly it just makes me more pissed off.

That day, I was not smiling. And for a good reason. Well, okay, a horrible reason, but certainly plausible. Dave Oreskovich, the guy who had been my object of obsessing for, oh . . . three months or so—the only guy I even had a slight chance with—had reportedly asked out Wendy Rovitz, and she’d said yes. Of course she’d said yes. Who wouldn’t say yes to Dave Oreskovich?

Even now, in fifth period, after this horrible information had run through my mind hundreds of times, I still couldn’t figure out why.

Why had Dave asked Wendy out? What on earth was he thinking? I knew a brain fart wasn’t an excuse, for Dave was the kind of guy who was never vacant-minded and was always thinking, always pondering something-or-other.

It was usually easy for me to connect dots together in life. As much I loathe math, I like real-life equations that fit simply and easily, no questions about it. a b c. 1 1 2. And so on.

There was no mathematical equation that solved this puzzle.

Why Wendy? She certainly wasn’t the prettiest girl in the world. Tall, rod-thin, flat, she had way too many freckles and this wide, leering Jack-o-lantern smile that could be downright scary at times. Yeah, she was really sweet and all, but the thing is, Dave wasn’t. His view of life was cynical and realistic, acerbic and cutting on occasion—much like mine, which logically made us more perfect for one another than him and Miss Sunshine. They were absolutely awful together—like if Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz had hooked up with Kurt Cobain. A total mismatch. An oxymoron.

I stopped my thoughts right then as they starting heading past bizarre. I mean, when anyone starts picturing old storybook characters and deceased rock’ n’ roll icons together, well, that’s when it’s just plain weird. Sure, I’m a twisted person every so often, but not that twisted.

“. . . Yeah, so, I want to go to Christa’s party but Jennifer also invited me to hers, so I’m kind of at a loss,” Trisha’s voice flooded into my head. It was then I realized that she had been talking to me the entire time.

“Oh, really?” I said.

“Yeah,” said Trisha. Her smile faded a moment. “What do you think I should do, Flora? They’re the same night. I mean, I can’t go from one party to the other. I tried that once with Kyle and Adrienne’s graduation parties last summer, and I missed out on some real juicy stuff at both of them. The best stuff! It was dead when I was at their parties, but as soon as I left, the action picked up. Doesn’t that suck? Anyway, I’m better friends with Christa than Jennifer, but Jennifer’s going to have her hot tub running and her air hockey table set up, and you know how I can’t pass up on air hockey.”

Oh, poor baby, I thought sarcastically, but asked out loud, “Who invited you first?”

“Huh? Oh—Christa.”

“Then go to Christa’s party.”

“But what about air hockey?”

“What about it?”

“I want to play air hockey.”

Could she really be that shallow? “There’s air hockey at Fun ’n’ Games,” I said, referring to the local laser tag/arcade/miniature golf/go-kart/paintball/whatever place. (What are they called, anyway?)

I continued, “We can go there with a bunch of people next Friday and play lots and lots of air hockey. It could be like a tournament. And maybe we could even get dinner beforehand at Taco Bell or something?”

“Hey, sounds like a plan!” Trisha enthused, her broad grin returning as quickly as it had vanished. She changed topics equally as swiftly. “Last night my dad took me driving around the high school parking lot. I actually didn’t crash into anything this time! Isn’t that cool? Anyway, I just can’t wait to get my permit. . . .”

At this point I tuned out once more and went back to the particular situation that had been on my mind all day.

Dave and Wendy. Ugh. What could sound worse? Dave and Wendy. It left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Dave . . . Oh, goodness, just at the thought of his name I felt all warm and gooey and tingly and . . . Aggghh! It was so pathetic. I’m not exactly a romantic person. Make me sit and watch all of While You Were Sleeping and you’d better hope I don’t have a gun, or I might go and shoot myself in the head.

But with Dave . . . I liked it. I enjoyed the mushiness.

My crush, my unrequited love, or whatever you want to call it with Dave Oreskovitz came as quite a surprise to me. I met him on the third day of school at lunch upon sitting at a table with him and a few friends of mine. We were introduced and talked briefly. I thought he was funny in a dry way and had a nice smile, but that was basically it.

Then he transferred into my ceramics class a week later, from woodshop. When the art teacher asked Dave what had driven him to this decision, he just smirked and said, “I’m dangerous with a hammer.”

That was the moment I fell in love.

Okay, maybe not love-love. I was only fourteen, after all. Far too young to harbor such powerful feelings. But what I felt for Dave was stronger than anything I’d ever felt for any guy before. The emotions came in a tidal wave. On the outside I played nonchalant, while on the inside I was giddy and stupid, melting like a Popsicle in the hot summer sun.

“Flora!” Trisha whispered loudly.

I blinked. “Wh-what?”

Trisha rolled her eyes. Her smile was gone, replaced by a thin, grim line very unlike Trisha. “I was talking, you know . . .”

“Trish!”

She laughed, and her smile spread across her face once again. “I’m just playin’! Gosh!”

“Oookay.” I glanced up at the blackboard to realize that Mr. Hendrikson, our nerdy, oblivious geography teacher, was still lecturing. Poor man. How blind could he be? No one actually listened to him. We talked and goofed around and Mr. Hendrikson just kept on talking, completely unaware. He gave us quizzes that didn’t count, and we only had homework two nights a week.

I loved this class.

Trisha bit her lip. “Hey, Flora,” she said quietly, “did you hear about O and Wendy?”

“O” was the code name Trisha and I had for Dave. Lame, yes; juvenile, of course; straight-out-of-sixth-grade, I won’t deny. But it worked.

“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “And I don’t feel like discussing it.”

“Oh. Of course.” Trisha waited a few seconds, looked around the room, then turned back to me and started chattering again. “But why not? I mean, I just can’t believe Da—I mean, O and Wendy are going out! I know she just said yes, but still! It’s so weird!” Trisha always did this—blabbering on incessantly like some kind of lunatic. And she had a nosy streak I didn’t care for.

“Huh,” I said tersely. Reminding her of what I’d said earlier would be of no use.

Two periods later—the last period of the day—I was forced to sit through a class with him.

I used to love ceramics, look forward to it with the craziest hope. Now I dreaded it. How was I supposed to feel with Dave only two seats away to my left for forty-five minutes that felt like days?

It’s a miracle I survived.

My survival tactic? Simple. Arms crossed, face tense, piercing glare as I was forced to endure a period with the ex-guy-of-my-dreams. I didn’t let myself glance once in his direction. Well . . . maybe that’s not true, entirely. But they were pure accidents. Was it my fault when I looked over at the clock and Dave just happened to be in my view?

No, of course not.

After school, I didn’t both to go home the customary way with my friend Haley Alisse and her older brother, Justin (whose only matter of worth to me was his wheels), just for the simple fact that I wanted to torment myself. Exhibit one: the wrestling motto at my school—“Pain is weakness leaving the body.” Stereotypical, but I believed in it. Somehow I felt that more agony would cover the vulnerability and leave me as nothing but a hardened shell.

So I rode the bus.

Exhibit two: a mobile torture chamber. The lowest form of human transportation (besides a motorcycle, that is). A stupid yellow hunk of crap I hadn’t written since—shudder—eighth grade.

I trudged up the thin black steps and stood face-to-face with immature freshmen yelling “Penis!” and other sorts of profanity and stuck-up frosh girls redoing their makeup for probably the tenth time that day. Please save me.I felt just like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles.

I sat down to some kid burdened with the weird name of Giovanni and fumed the entire way home. At one stop I happened to look out the window and see a house completely decked out in holiday decorations. Lights, lights, lights everywhere—spun around palm trees, laced through bushes, tracing the rooftop, in fake little icicles dangling from the porch. A giant blow-up Frosty. A miniature Santa whose paint had faded sitting in a sleigh with three reindeer. A manger, complete with one black Magi (we must be politically correct, you know). Tinsel glittering inside the windows. Kitschy, tacky, tasteless.

It looked like Christmas had barfed all over it.

Giovanni turned to me and said, “That’s my aunt’s house. Isn’t it awesome?”

There was a pause, which probably meant I had to say something.

So I did: “Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, but Christmas is my favorite holiday.”

“Too bad it’s not Christmas,” I snapped dutifully.

The poor boy’s face fell, and I felt some remorse. Only some, though. Well, I thought, screw him! I just wanted to wallow in my own self-pity and not give a crap about anybody else.

Only temporarily, though.

“Who shoved a stick up your butt?” asked Giovanni, probably thinking he was so cool for thinking up a stupid cliché like that just to defend America’s #1 commercialized holiday (besides Valentine’s Day).

“I don’t know.” I stood up.

“What—”

“It’s my stop,” I explained just to shut him up. “Bye. Whatever.”

Giovanni smirked. “Merry Christmas . . . Scrooge.”

“Bah humbug,” I replied and got off the bus.