Forget Green Gables

Chats With the Bestie

"Lemme see your schedule," Jamie greets me two weeks after the Fourth of July, yanking the bright orange paper from my desk. Jamie reaches into the back pocket of her worn carpenter style jeans and pulls out a piece of paper in the same vibrant orange color, folded into eighths. Holding the two side by side, Jamie compares our schedules aloud, oblivious to my complete lack of interest:

"Well, you have your honors physical science class first hour while I'm in Marching Band. Second hour we both have English, but you're with Mr. Gilmore in Advanced and I'm in Gerber's class. Nerd. Third hour I've got advanced math and you have Spanish 2." Jamie stops and squints at her paper. "After that, you go to math and I go to German 2. Fifth hour we both have gym. All right, finally a class together! And sixth hour we both have World History I with Mr. Ball. And then after school, you'll run off to cheer practice and I'll go to volleyball, so we can still ride home together."

Jamie seems to finally notice I am staring up at the glow in the dark stars stuck on my ceiling, not paying one iota of attention to her. "What's with you? We've been waiting all summer for our schedules. You can't color-code your binders until you have your schedule. You practically stalked the mailbox all summer waiting for your schedule and now that it shows up, you haven't even opened it."

She's right, but what are binders and color coding and school when something so momentous has happened? I roll onto my side and look at my best friend. "Something happened last night with Danny."

Jamie sits in the desk chair, her entire focus shifted to me. "What happened?"

"He kissed me."

"Is that good?"

"I think so."

"Wow...your first kiss. That's a big deal. Where was it?"

Where was it? What the hell kind of question is that? What on earth does she mean, where was it? It was my first kiss! Isn't it obvious? "My mouth..." I resist the temptation to tack a "DUH" onto the end and Jamie knows it.

Jamie rolls her eyes. "I know that. I mean, where were you guys when it happened?"

Now I feel stupid. "Oh. We were sitting on the swing at his parents' house. He held my hand, and then leaned over and kissed me."

"Then what did he do?"

"Ran back into the house. I figured he was embarrassed, so I got on my bike and came home."

"Have you talked to him since?"

"No! I'm not the one who ran away."

"Actually...you kinda did run away. You didn't do it first or anything, but you are the one who bolted on her bike."

At that moment, I hate my best friend's honesty. "Shoot," I mutter. "You're right."

"So..." Jamie began, "is Danny a good kisser?"

I freeze, six of the seven digits of Danny's home punched into my phone. "I don't know. Oh, gosh, what if he left because I'm a bad kisser? I can't call him!" I practically throw the phone to its base and fall face-first onto my bed. "Why couldn't we just have stayed friends? What was wrong with that? We made good friends! We made great friends! We've known each other like, forever!" Despite desperately wanting feedback from my best friend, I say the words directly into my pillow.

"You two made lousy friends-all flirty and mushy. It's like a real-life Anne and Gilbert. Anyway, it's not like you guys will have that many classes together. Isn't he in all the advanced classes?"

"And Spanish 2," I mumble into the pillow. "There's only one section of that for freshmen. No bueno." I grumble some Spanish slang and pull my head up."That's like 50% of our day together!"

The loud, shrill noise from my phone cuts off Jamie's answer. "Do you want me to pick that up?" Jamie asks.

"Check the caller ID first."

Jamie squints. "Algrim. Danny calling you. His ears must have been ringing."

"Crap," I mumble. "Hand it over."

Jamie presses the 'talk' button. "Cheyanne's room, designated best friend speaking." I bury my face back into the pillows. Jamie switches the phone to speaker.

"Hi, Designated Best Friend. I was hoping to talk to Cheyanne if she was around."

"She's here. Let me make sure you're not persona non grata. Do you want to talk to Danny?"

Time to face this, whatever it is. What's the worst he can say?

I choose not to answer myself.

Jamie hands me the phone, making kissy faces. I switch the phone off speaker, place it to my ear, and roll on my right side, my back to my best friend.

"I can still hear you!" Jamie hisses.

I ignore her. "Hi," I say.

"Hi!" he chirps. "Are you mad at me?"

"I, um...I don't know." I roll over and look up at the stars on the ceiling again.

"Well, you should be," Danny states in his usual blunt way. "That was awful of me, leaving you like that with no explanation. I'd have left my sorry ass too."

"You make it really hard to be mad at you. Now I'm just confused."

"Don't be. I like you. You like me, I think." He pauses and then speaks again. "You do like me, don't you?" For the first time in a very long time, Danny sounds a tad insecure. Like him? I think I love him. I certainly love that he adores me and is totally unashamed to show it, even before we progressed from friends.

"I do," I whisper. "I do like you."

"Well, then, we're good, aren't we?"

"That depends?"

"On?"

"Are you going to kiss me again?" I impress even myself by being bold enough to say it.

Danny pauses, and then says slowly, "Only if you want me to."

I smile at Jamie and give a thumbs-up sign. "That would be a yes," I answer. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"Can we meet at the park tonight? Compare schedules?"

"Sure. Usual time?"

"I'd love that. See you then, Cheyanne."

"Bye, Danny." I hang up the phone and grin up at Jamie. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough to know that you've got a boyfriend."

"I do, don't I? It's nice to be starting the school year with a boyfriend. Someone to do stuff with. Maybe even eat lunch with."

"Because you didn't have a best friend for that or anything," Jamie replies, tossing me my softball glove. "Let's go play catch. We don't have practice tonight, so we need to keep in shape."

"Aye aye boss," I reply, peeling off the lacy tank top and short denim shorts I wear. Any sense of modesty I had with Jamie was gone long ago. I throw on my standard workout gear, a sleeveless shirt, and volleyball shorts. "Bring it."