The Perfect Couple

16

"Where's Kim?" Marcus asked.

"She called and said she was running late, so told us to go on. I think maybe she had the idea it would be better if we started out alone. She sure is a terrific friend. You, too." I shot him a smile as we started down the street.

He didn't answer. For a minute he looked kind of angry about something, but then he lightened up. "You think we should hold hands? There are some kids on the next block."

"I . . . don't know," I said. I had a strange feeling it might change things between us if we held hands. I remembered what Marcus had said about responding to girls these days. I was a girl, even though we were friends and now I looked like a girl with my new clothes and makeup and permanent.

"We want to make this look good," he urged, "in case Alan drives by. The sooner he gets interested in you, the sooner we can go back to being pals, instead of Romeo and Juliet."

For a second I felt a tiny bit hurt. He didn't have to hate being Romeo to my Juliet all that much, did he? Still, I slipped my hand into his. I was surprised at how big his hand felt around mine. His skin was warm and soft, except for the callouses on his palms. I had some callouses, too. I wondered if he'd notices. Then I thought of something a lot more important. I'd better not hold hands with Alan for awhile. Callouses would turn him off even faster than broken fingernails.

The kids we caught up with had all been part of our crowd since grade-school days. They all picked up on my changed appearance. Debbie Conklin told me I looked nice, but Jean Sorenson tried to cut me down.

"Who are you supposed to be Miss Bayside High of October?" Her smile was more like a sneer.

Remembering that only a short time ago she'd asked me when I was going to grow up and get interested in something besides sport, I didn't bother to answer her. She'd never been one of my favourite people.

A minute later Becky Hodges came running out of her yard. She was my second best friend, although we hadn't seen much of each other since she'd gotten on the school paper. She'd already made up her mind she was going to be a journalist, so when she looked me over I knew she was thinking as a reporter.

"You got a permanent," she observed. When I nodded she asked, "why?"

That was one of the five words she'd told me were the first laws of journalism. A good reporter was supposed to find out, who, what, where, when and why.

Her dark eyes seemed to look right through me and I was sure I hadn't fooled her a bit. She knew there was something more involved probably a boy. But she was sensitive as well as sharp and all she said was, "It looks great."

As soon as we turned in at the school, Marcus nudged me. I followed his glance and saw Alan on the front steps, a place that was practically reserved for upperclassmen. But with Alan, the football hero, you throw out the rules. Everyone was looking at him and listening to him, especially the girls. Gloria Putnam hung on his arm like a charm on a bracelet.

"Come on, let's go into our act," Marcus whispered.

Somehow he managed to shake the kids we were with and at the foot of the stairs he slipped his arm around my waist. Bending over, he looked into my face and from his expression you would have thought he was saying something romantic, instead of reciting the Gettysburg Address.

Oh, this was silly! It was never going to work. Alan wouldn't pay the slightest attention to us no matter how we carried on. We were just an ordinary couple, bit players in a cast of hundreds, while he and Gloria or some other spectacular girl were the stars of Bayside High.

I had just enough confidence left in my scheme to give a toss of my head as we reached Alan and to let one one of my carefully rehearsed laughs ring out.

"Oh, Marcus!" I said in a voice the whole group had to hear. "You shouldn't say things like that! There are people around." He was getting onto the end of the Gettysburg Address now and I felt like a traitor to Abraham Lincoln, but then I crossed my fingers so it wouldn't count.

"How can I help it?" Marcus came back with a wicked chuckle which he broke off in the middle as if he'd just realized there were other people around. The next minute he 'discovered' Alan and Gloria, a theatrical term I'd learned from Kim's mother.

"Hey, Rogers, how you doing?" He said, speaking so heartily anyone would think they were best friends. "Have a good weekend? Oh, you know Kelly Black, don't you? Kelly, this is Alan Rogers." "Yeah, sure," Alan mumbled. He turned his shining head to see who Kelly Black was and for just a second I thought I saw a glimmer of interest in his bottomless dark eyes. "Hi," he said. Then he looked down at Gloria, smiling in a way that seemed to say, Don't pay any attention to these people and maybe they'll go away.