Confessions Of An Angry Girl

“If you didn’t smoke cigarettes,” I yell back at him as I run faster, “you could probably catch up with me!”

“Come on, Rosie! Rosie the Rose! Just wait up for a second!”

I stop running. He drops his cigarette and keeps walking toward me. I point at it. He stops, turns, steps on it and starts toward me again.

“You’re such a Goody Two-shoe.”

“Two-shoes. Two. Shoes. Plural.”

“Want me to carry your books for you?”

“What is this, the 1950s?” I ask.

“Going to homecoming?”

I bust out laughing. “You’re chasing me down the street at 7:00 a.m. to find out if I’m going to a dumb dance that’s, like, two months away?” I say, walking faster toward school. I’m well aware that I am being unnecessarily mean, but I can’t help it. “It’s only October, Robert. Homecoming is before Christmas.”

“Yeah? So?”

I sigh. “Just ask me if you want to ask me,” I say bitchily. Robert has the ability to bring out the absolute worst in me. Lucky him.

The fact of the matter is, all the freshmen are talking about homecoming already. We started talking about it in elementary school because of the big fight that happened during Peter’s freshman year. Well, not just because of that—also because it’s the first big dance in high school, and it’s cooler than prom because all the alums come back. But the fight was a big deal.

Most normal schools have homecoming at Thanksgiving, but Union High had to change its homecoming after a bunch of alums from rival high schools practically started a riot. Now all the neighboring towns stagger their dances so that no two homecomings are on the same night. This year, ours is right before Christmas break. There are still fights, but at least the fights don’t involve morons from multiple schools. Only morons from one school.

“I don’t want to ask you,” Robert says. “Jamie Forta asked me to find out.” My teeth suddenly hurt from the cold air, and I realize my mouth must be hanging open. “Huh. So it’s true.”

If I’d thought about it, I would have guessed that a) Jamie would rather die than go to homecoming, and b) he would never ask Robert to do anything for him. He probably has no idea who Robert even is. If I’d thought about those things, my mouth would have stayed closed. “You’re a jerk, Robert.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not.”

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“All right, what, then?” I say, so annoyed with him that I want to shove him like I did in sixth grade when we had a fight over a game of four-square on the playground. He wanted to shove me right back—I could tell—but instead he lectured me about how a gentleman does not shove a lady. And he did it in the bad British accent that he used for the school’s abridged production of My Fair Lady that year. Girls from that year still call him Henry occasionally, and he loves it—“Good day, Ladies,” he replies, sounding like Prince Charles. In junior high, girls giggled when he did that—now they roll their eyes and make fun of him. But he keeps doing it.

“I’m talking about you and Forta,” Robert answers, reaching into his pocket for another cigarette.

“Don’t smoke those things around me. It’s too early in the morning.”

“I can do whatever I want.”

“Fine. Start killing yourself at fourteen—”

“Fifteen. Soon to be sixteen.”

“Whatever. See if I care.”

“Are you going to homecoming with him?” Robert asks.

“Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know. I just get the feeling that he likes you.”

“He doesn’t like me, Robert. He doesn’t even know me.” My face is getting hot.

“I saw him watching you at track tryouts yesterday.”

I’m kind of astounded, but not so astounded that I can’t correct Robert. “Cross-country. Track is in the spring.”

“Well, yeah, but you were running around the track.”

“Where did you see him? And what were you doing there?”

“I was just hanging around,” he says a little sheepishly. “I saw him going to his car in the parking lot, and he just stood there for a minute, watching you run.”

My brain is so scrambled that I don’t know what to say. The thought of Jamie watching me run is too much to process. I try to remember what I was wearing yesterday. My favorite gross sweatpants; a Devendra Banhart T-shirt; my old Union Middle School sweatshirt. Hopefully, by the time he was watching, I’d taken off the middle school sweatshirt. Although that would mean that I’d been feeling pretty hot and sweaty at that point, which is not when I’m at my most attractive. Not that I have any idea when I’m at my most attractive. Or if I even have a most attractive.

“Do you know how old that guy really is, Rosie?”

Not this again. “Why are people obsessed with how old Jamie is? He’s a junior.”

“He’s an old junior.”

“Aren’t you the oldest person in the freshman class, and about to become the first person in our class who can drive? Isn’t that a little unusual?”

He looks at the sky, squinting into the morning sun. “My credits didn’t transfer,” he mumbles.

“That’s why you had to do sixth grade again when you moved here? It wasn’t because you were held back?” I ask. He doesn’t respond. “Stop talking about Jamie like you’re automatically better than him, okay?”

He lights his cigarette and turns his head to the side to exhale while keeping his eyes on me. I am sure he saw Chuck do this on Gossip Girl, and I bet he’s been practicing in the mirror ever since. I suddenly hate that stupid show.

Apparently I hate everything these days.

“I don’t know what you see in that guy. Especially since you could have me.”

Robert has crystal-blue eyes and jet-black hair. There’s no doubt that he’s cute. Last year, he had gaggles of little drama-department geeks trailing him like a Greek chorus. Actually, after he played Jason in Medea, he literally did have the Greek chorus following him around, giggling over everything he said or did. Of course, the irony is that Jason is not exactly the most honorable character in Greek tragedy. He left his wife Medea for another woman, and she went mad and killed their children to piss him off—or, more accurately, to destroy him.

You would think that the actor playing Jason would become less attractive due to his character’s misdeeds rather than more attractive, but the Greek chorus could not get enough of Robert. Maybe the anachronistic biker jacket and leather boots he wore on stage canceled out the fact that he played a two-timing jerk.

Sometimes Robert used the Greek-ettes to try to make me jealous. It never worked.

In June, Robert came to my father’s memorial service. He sat right behind me and handed me a clean tissue every few minutes. My mother will always love him for that. I try to remind myself of that kindness every time I want to tell him to get lost. I usually end up telling him to get lost anyway.

“You could have me, you know,” Robert repeats.

“You’re just what I need, Robert. A convicted felon.”