This Is Me From Now On Page 2

  We got in line. As soon as we did, the door opened again, and two girls I knew from school walked in: Kayla and Gaby. Definitely cooler-than-me types, but I’d say lower-medium-nice

  “Hey, Evie,” said Kayla, finger-combing her fakely highlighted long brown hair. “What Team are you on? Hard or Easy?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t read my letter yet.” This was true; I’d gotten my Seventh-Grade Team Assignment Letter last week, but I’d just stuffed it into my desk drawer.

  Kayla smiled like she didn’t believe me. “We’re both on Hard. What about Nisha and Lily?”

  “Hard,” I said. “Like always.”

  “Poor them,” Gaby commented. “Hard has Espee.”

  I nodded. Oh yes, I knew all about the Espee business. When my sister, Grace, took seventh-grade U.S. History, all she did—I mean literally, ALL SHE DID—was research and write bibliographies, sometimes until two in the morning. Her social life basically ended that year; the only thing she cared about was satisfying this insatiable monster she referred to as SP. I was, like, seven years old then, so I thought “SP” stood for something too horrible to call a teacher out loud, like Scary Person or Sour Pickle. Finally I asked Grace what SP meant, and she said, “Stephanie Pierce. She signs everything SP, so that’s what we call her.” “To her face?” I’d asked. “Of course not,” Grace had said, hooting at my stupidity. “She’d vaporize you.”

  Francesca, who I could have introduced at that point, was standing on her tippy-toes, even though she was nearly six feet tall with those all-of-the-above shoes. “What does that sign say?” she asked too loudly. “Mochaccino Supremo? What’s that?” And then she turned around and grinned at me. “Deeply gorgeous boy. Behind the counter.”

  In back of me, Gaby started giggling. I’ve always hated the way she sounded when she laughed, kind of like a car alarm

  “That’s Zane,” Kayla announced. “He’s in eighth grade.”

  “Zane,” Francesca repeated still-too-loudly. “What an odd name.” Then she stared at me with her huge, smoky green eyes. “You’re in love with him, Evie, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “I’m psychic about these things. I should have warned you.”

  “Yes? Next in line?” Zane called out

  “Oops, my turn!” Francesca walked right up to Zane, gave him a dazzling smile, and asked, “So, Zane, what do you recommend?”

  I could have died. What did he recommend? Gah. Didn’t she even know how to order ice cream like a normal human being? I could hear Gaby and Kayla laughing, maybe about Francesca, maybe about me. And then I saw Zane hand Francesca a tiny plastic spoon and one of those little paper cups they used for free samples

  Francesca took a spoonful of whatever-it-was. “Ooh, lovely,” she said. She pointed to some other kind of ice cream in the case. “What’s that?”

  “Triple Fudge Marshmallow Chunk. Try it,” said Zane, handing her another paper cup

  “Yumyumyum,” said Francesca when she’d taken a bite. “What’s that?”

  He read the label upside down. “Um, Golden Brownie with Caramel Fudge Ripple.”

  Francesca clutched her chest like she was having a heart attack

  So Zane handed her another free sample

  “Bliss,” Francesca said. “I’ve never tasted anything so epically delish!”

  “Aaaa, come on, dude, we’re waiting here,” snarled some high-school-looking boy three customers behind me.

  “Be right with you,” Zane answered. But he just kept handing Francesca free sample after free sample. And Francesca just kept pointing at the ice cream freezer and saying “lovely” and “yummy” and “Ooh, what’s that?” Finally a grouchy mom with one of those sticky camp kids called out, “Excuse me, but is this line ever moving?” And then the sticky camp kid yelled at her, “Mommy, you said I could have ice cream NOW!”

  I felt a jabbing poke on my shoulder

  “Hey, Evie, aren’t you with that girl?” Kayla was asking

  “Who?”

  She tilted her highlights toward Francesca. “Her. The one eating up half the freezer.”

  “Her name is Francesca,” I said. I was about to add, “I don’t even know her,” but I stopped myself. After all, they’d heard her call me Evie; they’d almost definitely also heard about her psychic powers.

  Suddenly, Sticky Camp Kid started screaming his head off, and Grouchy Mom was telling him, “You’ll get your ice cream in TWO MORE MINUTES, buddy,” like it was a threat aimed right at Zane, and I thought: Okay. If I don’t do something NOW, Francesca Pattison is going to start a riot in here. Everyone in this line is going to leap into that freezer and start scooping ice cream with their bare hands And maybe throwing it at her like snowballs. And even though walking over to Francesca was like posting on YouTube that we had some kind of official connection, at this point I really didn’t think I had too much of a choice

  So I went over to her. She was pointing at a melty-looking tub of Rainbow Cotton Candy. “Ooh, that looks interesting,” she was commenting to Zane. Then she noticed me. “Have you ever tried that flavor, Evie?”

  “Not really. But I bet it’s great.” I added under my breath, “Just order something, Francesca. Okay?”

  “Are you all right?” she asked me, scrunching up her forehead like she was worried about my health

  “Yes! Just please, please hurry up.”

  “Oh, sure.” She put her tiny paper cup and her plastic spoon on the counter, smiled at Zane, and said, “It’s all spectacular, Zane. But I’m afraid I’m absolutely stuffed. I’ll have to come back for a cone some other time.”

  He blinked his gold-hazel eyes. “You mean you’re not buying anything?”

  “Oh, no thank you. But Evie will, I think.”

  We watched her clomp to the door.

  “I’ll have a chocolate chip cone,” I said quickly. “Single scoop, please.”

  When Zane handed it to me, our knuckles sort of banged into each other, and it shocked me just how freezing his hand was. I mean, he was scooping ice cream all day; of course his hand would be icy cold. But it made me feel weird, like I wanted to run home and knit him some gloves. And the crazy thing is, I don’t even knit.

  So instead I reached into my pocket and gave him every bit of money I had—four dollars and fifty-three cents.

  “That’s for Francesca too,” I said. Then brilliantly I added, “Uh, sorry, Zane.”

  “No problem,” he muttered. I watched him stuff the money in the register without even counting it. Then he did this cool little head-jerk to toss his long, wavy bangs out of his face. “Next?”

  “Bye, Evie, see you at school!” Gaby called out

  “What school?” I answered. I grabbed a fistful of napkins and walked out into the scorching heat

  Francesca was standing right in front of the door, shading her eyes. “What kind did you get? Chocolate chip? I adore that flavor. It’s my absolute favorite!”

  “You said that before.” Already it was starting to drip down the sides of my cone, so I licked it fast. “Then why didn’t you get any?”

  “Because . . . well, chocolate chip is always exactly the same.” She did that heart-clutching thing again. “And there were so many other flavors. And they all looked so scrumptious. Evie, don’t you ever get utterly bored—”

  “No.” I wrapped a napkin around the soggy cone. “The thing is, Francesca, I’m pretty sure Zane thought you’d pick a flavor. Eventually. And then pay him for it.”

  She looked shocked. “Oh, I would have. But of course I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t have any money.” She pulled out her shorts pockets. They were totally empty. “See?” she said, smiling sweetly.

  Okay. Okay. I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that. Because what did she think she was doing just now? Ice cream research? And why hadn’t she just told me that on the way over? I’d have loaned her some money; I’d pretty much paid for h
er anyway. I mean, I didn’t even know what to think about a person who could act the way she just had.

  And in front of so many people. Including people I knew. People I’d be going to school with in just a few more days

  Gah. It was just too horrible. And embarrassing. And weird. So for the entire walk home I tried really, really hard to tune her out. She was going on and on about some gelato place she went to once in Rome or something, but I just made myself think about Zane, and whether or not he blamed me, and also how much longer I could go without opening my Team Letter. And I concentrated extremely hard on my lopsided ice cream cone, trying to catch the drips before they splattered on the sidewalk

  chapter 2

  When I walked into the kitchen, Mom was on the phone, sitting in front of a bunch of real estate papers.

  “Shirt,” she whispered, pointing to my lemon-yellow tank top. I looked: Right in the middle of my chest was a melted chocolate chip smear, which probably wouldn’t even come out in the wash. And this was my best tank too, the only one that made me feel as if I had a right to wear a bra.

  “Is that chocolate?” Mom asked in a normal voice, frowning at my chest. “So close to supper?”

  “I know, Mom. But I didn’t have a choice. Francesca insisted—”

  “Go clean up,” she ordered. “Dad’s on his way home and we’ll be eating at six thirty.” Suddenly her face got all delightful, the way she always looks when she’s on the phone with her clients. “Caroline? Great news. I think we finally have an offer!”

  I went upstairs to my room, took off my sweaty, smeary tank top, and put on this cute but way-too-enormous San Diego Zoo T-shirt Lily brought me back when she visited her mom a few months ago. Then I opened my desk drawer. Right on top of my Team Letter was the choker I’d bought last week at the mall: a tiny chunk of real amber on a black silk cord.

  “You’re buying that?” Nisha had screeched at me while we were standing at the cash register. “That’s how you’re blowing your entire Mother’s Helper money?”

  “It’s beautiful,” I’d answered. “Besides, I earned it. You know how many times this summer I had to play Candy Land with Ashley Scavullo?” She was four years old; basically her mom was paying me to come over in the mornings so she could talk on the phone

  Nisha grabbed the necklace out of my hand and stared at it. Then she pushed it back at me. “Evie. Listen to me carefully. It has a bug in it.”

  “That’s because it’s real amber,” I told her. “It’s supposed to be that way.”

  She made a face. “Supposed?”

  “It’s a mosquito fossil. It could be, like, a billion years old.”

  “Uh-huh,” she replied. “Cute. And would you wear some gross woolly mammoth tusk around your neck too?”

  Now I held up the necklace to my desk lamp. I examined the floating mosquito, which actually was kind of gross, I had to admit. But the amber around it reminded me of Zane’s eyes in a certain kind of light, so it was worth every single penny. I fastened the silk cord around my neck and snuck into the bathroom to look at myself. The amber glowed; amazingly, so did I. For the first time all day I felt happy and calm and unweird

  Then I took off the necklace and opened my Team Letter. Fast.

  Dear Eva J. Webber

  Welcome to Team F (“THE HARD TEAM”). For the next ten months, your life (to the extent you’ll have one) will be a total nightmare. We can’t wait to begin! Here is a ridiculously specific list of miscellaneous junk you’ll probably never use but will need to buy anyway—

  Okay, so maybe that’s not what it actually said. But I knew what it meant: Of the two academic teams for seventh grade, I was placed on the tougher one, the one that got assigned all the work, the one that had Espee for U.S. History. I tried not to freak out too badly, even though under Stephanie Pierce’s name it said we needed to buy ten spiral notebooks. (TEN SPIRAL NOTEBOOKS? TEN???) Plus, we needed ten packs of index cards, and twelve different folders in twelve different colors. As soon as I read all that, I speed-dialed Lily so she could try to calm me down. But her line was busy, so then I called Nisha. First she screamed into her cell when I told her I was on the Hard Team. And then even she admitted: Just from the supplies list alone, you could tell this was going to be a nightmare year in U.S. History

  And now that I’d finally opened the Team Letter, summer was officially over. Which meant that the Espee nightmare had already begun

  Around nine the next morning, Nisha’s mom drove up to take us to Staples. I knew they were here because Nisha started beeping the horn.

  “Not so loud,” I muttered to Nisha as soon as I got into the car. “Hi, Mrs. Guptil.”

  “Good morning, Evie,” Mrs. Guptil said. “I told Nisha not to beep, but you know she never, never listens.”

  “Sorry,” Nisha said. “Did I just wake your entire family, Evie?”

  Mrs. Guptil turned around. “That’s exactly what I told her: You’ll wake the entire family. And it’s Saturday; Evie’s parents work very hard all week and need to sleep as late as possible.”

  I smiled. “Actually, they’ve been up for hours. I just meant, don’t wake the neighbors.”

  Nisha raised her eyebrows at me. “Really? Why not?”

  “No reason. I’ll tell you later.”

  She shrugged. But I was positive she knew what I was thinking; I mean, we’d talked about it a million times. Nisha’s mom was incredibly nice to be taking us out for school supplies, but you had to watch every single word you said in front of her, because she gossiped like crazy. (Actually, the truth was, she just about never stopped talking.) That was definitely the bad side of hanging out at Nisha’s, but of course, everybody’s house had Pros and Cons. Even mine, I told myself, although right then the only Pro I could think of was Freezing Air Conditioning

  And now we were driving up to Lily’s house, which was the farthest away from town (definitely a Con). Mrs. Guptil was going on and on about how unfair it was that we had to buy our own pencils, when I noticed Lily standing in her driveway with her dog, Jimmy. I poked Nisha

  Lily came running up to the car. “Is it okay if I bring Jimmy? His stomach is a little funny, and I really don’t want to leave him alone.”

  “Lily, my darling,” said Mrs. Guptil, “I’m really very sorry, but I can’t have that stinky old dog in my car.” She made a bad-smell face and waved her hand in front of her nose.

  “Oh, I thought of that,” Lily said quickly. She reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a travel-size bottle of spray detangler. Then, before anybody could stop her, she sprayed Jimmy’s butt

  “Omigod, I can’t believe you did that!” Nisha cried. She looked at me in shock, and then we both started laughing

  “See?” Lily said to Mrs. Guptil. “Now Jimmy smells like—what’s it called? Jasmine Orange Blossom. Isn’t that so much better?” She opened the car door, and Jimmy hopped in beside her, smelling so jasminey and orange blossomy, he made my eyes tear

  Mrs. Guptil fanned the car air, but I could see in the rearview mirror that she was smiling. She always spoiled Lily, probably because Lily’s parents were divorced and Lily hardly ever saw her mother. That was another nice thing about Mrs. Guptil, I had to admit

  About ten minutes later we were at Staples. The parking lot was mobbed, not surprising for the Saturday before school. Lily gave a few private instructions to Jimmy, who she left curled up on her car seat with a still-flower-smelling butt and a half-eaten chew toy. Then we grabbed a shopping cart and did our annual mad dash through the store, yanking supplies off the shelves and tossing them into the cart while Mrs. Guptil checked things off the Team F Supplies List and scolded us for making her lose track

  Aisle Six, Notebooks & Binders, was where I nearly crashed into Francesca. She was standing there with a completely empty shopping cart, studying her supplies list as if it were some kind of treasure map. Today she was wearing a halter sundress the color of those traffic cones you see on the highway, and gold chandeli
er earrings like the kind you wear to the Oscars, but at least she was wearing normal-looking flip-flops. Well, okay, semi-normal: They had ginormous patent-leather daisies on the toe-dividers

  She was just about to turn in my direction when Samantha Pattison came racing down the aisle with a huge stack of loose-leaf paper.

  “Found it,” she sang out. “Aisle Three, next to Index Cards. Oh, look, sugarpie, is that our neighbor Evie?”

  “Hi, Ms. Pattison,” I called politely. “Hi, Francesca.”

  Francesca looked up, obviously thrilled to see me. “Oh, Evie. Did your plans fall through?”

  “What plans?”

  “Your mother said you had plans today. With old friends.”

  I felt myself blushing. “Right. No, we ended up here. Like everybody else. So do you need any help?”

  She looked surprised. “With what?”

  “Your supplies list. I know it probably looks sort of overwhelming.”

  “Oh, no thanks—I’ve decided not to buy all that stuff. I’m really fine with just paper and pens.”

  “Actually, you aren’t.” I tried to catch Samantha Pattison’s eye as she inspected the binders. “They’re incredibly strict about supplies.”

  Francesca laughed loudly, as if I’d just said something hilarious. “Oh, help, I’m absolutely terrified. What do you think will happen—I’ll get arrested by the Spiral Notebook Police?”

  “It’s not a joke, Francesca.” Suddenly something occurred to me. “Okay if I see your list?”

  She handed me her Team Letter. WELCOME TO TEAM F, it said. FOR THE NEXT TEN MONTHS—

  I smiled vaguely and handed it back.

  Just then Nisha came running over. “There you are,” she said, panting. “I might have just seen Zane in Aisle Five, Mom’s going completely nuts, and Lily thought she heard barking, so she went back to the car.” She suddenly realized I’d been talking to Francesca. “Hi, I’m Nisha,” she said, smiling. “Evie sucks at introductions.”