Yull went on and on about colleges. Casey excused herself early, went upstairs, and sat in bed with her guitar on her lap. But instead of playing she stared at the phone sitting on the other side of the bed. At nine thirty, she called Alex Deal.
He answered on the fourth ring. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Sorry I didn’t call today,” he said.
“That’s okay.”
He paused. “First day of school’s tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“Workload this fall’s going to be intense, and I have to apply to college.”
“Oh.”
Then he said it. “I’m not really sure I have time for a girlfriend right now.”
“You…?” She tried to process. Did that mean she had become his girlfriend in those two days? If so why was he ending it now? And since when did college applications keep people from having girlfriends? “Oh.”
A moment passed. “I gotta go,” he said.
When she got off the phone with him she cried quick and hard like she was five years old. Then she called Leigh and told her what happened.
“But,” Leigh said, “you guys had a sleepover.”
Another tear ran down Casey’s face.
“I bet he’s just stressed because he’s a senior,” Leigh continued, “They all get stressed in the fall. Maybe when school starts and he sees you around every day he’ll remember how much he likes you and then you guys’ll start going out again.”
“Really?”
“Why not?”
Casey wore her shortest skirt on the first day of school. It was so short Tricia would not let her wear it to school. She placed it under a baggier one for the purpose of escaping the homestead.
All day long she walked through the halls with an anxious look on her face. He had to be there. No one ever skipped the first day of school. Just before the last period of the day, she thought she saw him, down at the other end of the hall. He was walking away quickly and seemed to have just turned.
She did not see him at all on the second day of school. But on the third, she did. It was after last class of the day ended. She took an alternate hallway. He was leaning against a wall of lockers talking to a guy. She slowed as she passed. But he did not pause his conversation. His eyes caught hers and he gave her a half-nod. She quickened her pace and walked away.
On the fifth day of school, the same day she and Mr. Cole had their discourse about N.W.A, Leigh dropped the bomb. She told Casey she overheard that Alex Deal was going out with Melanie Corcoran. Apparently they hooked up Labor Day weekend, on Saturday, at a seniors only party. Everyone knew who Melanie Corcoran was. With shiny black hair, gem-like blue eyes, and designer clothes passed down by her older sister, she was one of the most noticeable girls at Walton.
Casey went to the bathroom and puked, and Leigh declared they would never mention Alex Deal’s name again.
And they had not. Up until that day, anyway.
6
The following day Casey came to the conclusion that Ben’s elbow needed to be surgically removed.
It was the only solution she could fathom. For the past two days he had angled it in a way that made it impossible for her to copy his Spanish homework. That, in turn, translated to three missed homework points. For the first few weeks of the school year his elbow had been perfectly lined up against his rib cage. But that week it began jutting out at an annoying angle. She had a feeling it had something to do with him seeing her eyeball his notebook.
Ben was new that year. He and his mother moved to Bethesda over the summer from California. Everyone in class knew this because on the first day of school Señor Griffin asked everyone where they were from. Everyone, except Aisling Cheng, said Maryland. However Aisling Cheng moved to Bethesda in junior high. It was old news that she was from China and her Dad worked at the World Bank. But then Señor Griffin got to the gawky new kid whose hair stuck up at the scalp line.
Casey also noticed that sometimes Ben put his hand under his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and then left his glasses crooked. Once, during the first week of school, she was watching him eat lunch alone on the far side of the cafeteria and Leigh saw.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Just this new guy in my Spanish class. Do you think he’s cute?”
“Not yet.”
Anyway on the first day of school