The Perfect Couple

6

"Don't worry about it," Kim said. "That'll give you a good chance to talk to him and find out if he'll go along with your scheme."

"He'll go along with it," I assured her.

She looked skeptical and I could understand her doubts. She didn't realize the kind of friendship Marcus and I had. She'd had lots of boyfriends, but she'd never really been friends with a boy since she was a little kid and hardly knew the difference between boys and girls.

"Just be sure you're home by noon," she said. "As soon as you've showered and changed, we'll take off. Oh and make sure you bring a fistful of credit cards."

"Sure thing," I told her. Just then we heard my mom's car pull into the driveway. "I'd better go," Kim said, heading downstairs. We reached the front door just in time to open it for my mother.

"Oh, hello, girls," Mom said. "What mischief have you two been cooking up?" That had been her standard greeting for us ever since Kim and I had been alone in the house when we were six and had tried to make cookies. We'd lost control of the mixer and I don't think mom was convinced yet that she'd gotten all the dough off the walls and ceiling.

Kim and I giggled, mostly to please mom. When my mother had gone upstairs Kim said we'd have to remember to buy some nail-mend the next day. "Fixing Marcus's bicycle tire has not done your nails any good, Kelly," she said, glaring distastefully at my hands. "You can't go around with broken nails if you want to attract a boy like Alan."

"What's nail-mend?" I asked. Being a tomboy hadn't prepared me very well for being a femme fatale.

"You'll find out tomorrow," Kim told me. As I closed the door behind her I had the feeling that the next day I was going to be initiated into some mysterious female cult and that I'd never be quite the same again.

That night at the dinner table I sprang it on mom that I had to do some heavy shopping. "How's my credit?" I asked. "A-one," she told me. "You didn't spend nearly as much as I thought you would at the beginning of the term. Remember, I told you that as a sophomore you'd need something dressier than jeans and T-shirts, but you said it didn't matter. What's up a party?" "Not exactly," I said, "although I probably will be going to parties and dances before long."

Dad looked up from the casserole we always have the day Mom spends at the Courier. "Of course you will, Kelly," he said. "You'll be the belle of the ball, too."

Everyone should have such a fan. I was glad when my parents began to talk about my older sister, Maz, who was a freshman at a San Francisco college. They were looking forward to her coming home for Thanksgiving.

"I just hope she isn't getting run down from all the dating and that heavy schedule she's carrying," mom fussed.

Suddenly it occurred to me that Maz hadn't started dating until she was almost sixteen. She wasn't a tomboy, but she read a lot and was satisfied to go around with other girls until she'd gotten interested in Dean Lasko. It didn't last long with Dean, but after going with him for awhile she had plenty of other dates. That's the way it worked. You just had to break in. I smiled asi picked at the salmon casserole, thinking that the second Black girl was about to make her mark at Bayside. Except there was just one boy I cared to date Alan Rogers.

Mom and dad almost always went to a movie on a Friday night. I usually went with them, although I felt funny sometimes if someone from school saw me at the movie theatre with my parents. Tonight I definitely didn't want to take that chance. "You run along," I told mom. "I'll take care of the kitchen."

"Are you sure, dear?" She gave me a long look and I knew she could see I was growing up. I couldn't be sure if she was happy about it or not. Her lips were smiling, but there was sort of a misty look in her eyes. "I'm sure," I said.

While I stacked the dishwasher and cleaned the stove and sink, I went over my plan and for the first time some nasty little doubts crept into my mind. What if Marcus, for some reason, let me down? Or what if he went along with my scheme, but Alan still didn't notice me? What if I were doomed to live the rest of my life without Alan's dreamy, dark eyes ever gazing into mine? What if I never got to speak to him, or my heart fluttered in my chest feel his kiss?

I cut a picture of Alan from the school paper after the last football game. Game Hero was the caption under it.

When I went up to my room I unlocked my diary and took out the picture. Carefully smoothing it out, I looked at it for a long time, adoring each perfect feature of Alan's face.

"Goodnight, sweet prince," I whispered at last and then I gently folded the picture and placed it back between the pages of my diary.

Suddenly I thought of Marcus, who was important to my plan. I went to the window and though I couldn't see his house which was on the next block, I smiled in that direction. I wondered if he could sense that tomorrow our friendship would undergo a drastic change.