Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Planet Girl (10 page)

“What do you guys want to do?” I asked. “Wanna watch TV?”

George shrugged. “I don't watch TV.”

Jack and I looked at George, then at each other. We shook our heads sadly.

“What?” George said. “I never get to see you guys. Let's just hang out and talk.”

You know something? He had a good point.

So we talked about everything—school, parents, friends, movies, sports—but avoided the one topic that we all knew was the most important one of all. I'm not sure
why
we avoided it—probably because they were waiting for me to bring it up, and I didn't want to.

Finally, George couldn't take it anymore.

“I thought maybe, uh, we could, uh, you know, talk about…”

“Talk about what?” Jack asked.

George took a deep breath. “Girls.”

There it was.

“I'm not sure there's that much to talk about,” I said.

“I'm still going out with Cathy,” George said, totally ignoring me. “We've seen each other twice since the summer. She's awesome, but I'm not sure what to do. I like this other girl at school, and there are these two other girls who like me.”

So George was the superstud among us. I needed a minute to let that sink in.

He punched Jack in the shoulder. “And how about you? After that whole thing you pulled with going on strike to protest your parents overscheduling you, and refusing to get off your couch, and going on TV and everything, I bet the girls must be all over you!”

“Kind of,” Jack admitted.

I stared at my two camp friends. One was tall and dorky with a slight skin condition, and the other was quiet and shy and wore nothing but college logo shirts. And they had girls coming out of the woodwork! If I told them the truth about me, I'd be the laughingstock of the reunion. I'd be the camp joke. I'd be—

“I've never actually had a girlfriend,” I heard myself blurt out.

You know something? It was a relief to be able to tell them.

George and Jack looked at each other.

“Seriously?” George said.

“But you're the man,” Jack said.

“And at camp, you gave me tips about kissing,” George said.

“And you're so funny and confident,” Jack said.

“And you—”

“Yes, seriously,” I said. “Never. Never ever ever.”

I let that bomb do its damage for a second, then I added, “And all my friends have one.”

No one talked for a minute.

“Oh,” George said, finally.

But I still wasn't finished. “And it's not just that. It's worse. I'm having major girl problems. It took me a while but I finally admitted to myself that Katie was the girl I really liked all along. But then, she saw me kissing this other girl that I used to totally like, and now Katie hates me and won't even talk to me, and I don't know what to do because I've never really felt like this before and it feels totally horrible.”

For a minute, the only sound in the room was George scraping the bottom of his sundae bowl with his spoon.

“Oh, now I get it,” Jack said, nodding his head sadly.

“What about Zoe Alvarez?” George asked. Ah, Zoe. She was the girl I'd talked about at camp, since we kind of liked each other before the summer.

“Zoe moved, and I was going to go visit her, but I didn't have any money, so I tried to raise some money by having a fake bar mitzvah, but I ended up almost destroying my house and getting grounded for about half a century,” I said. That put an end to all discussion about Zoe Alvarez.

George got us three sodas out of the little refrigerator in his room.

“Don't we have to pay for these?” Jack asked.

“Nah, it's all included,” George said. I guess he wasn't a genius about everything.

Jack took a big swig. “So what are you going to do about the Katie thing?”

Just then there was a knock on the door. Jack suddenly looked panicked, like it was the soda police coming to arrest him for stealing.

“Who could that be?” he asked.

George and I shrugged.

When George got up to open the door, Nareem was standing there. Nareem, as in Katie's ex-boyfriend.

My heart jumped up into my mouth.

“Hey,” Nareem said. “Jack's mom told my mom you guys were here.”

“I thought you went out to dinner,” I said.

“We just got back.” Nareem came over and sat down on the couch. I tried to smile, but inside I was wondering how I could change the subject to something Nareem liked talking about. Quantum physics, maybe—

“Charlie Joe was just telling us that he likes Katie, but she doesn't like him,” George announced.

“Hold on a second,” I said, but it was too late. Nareem was staring at me. If you looked closely, you could see his head barely nodding up and down.

“I'm glad to hear you finally admit it,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “Even if it was George who actually said it.”

“Oh, dang it,” George said. He was finally realizing that this might be a sensitive subject for Nareem, considering that Katie had broken up with him a few months earlier. Definitely scratch that whole George-is-a-genius thing.

“Yeah,” I said. Which I think was an answer to both George and Nareem. “I'm—I'm sorry about that, Nareem.”

Nareem got up and stared out the window, at the lit-up city. “Have you said anything to Katie? Have you been very clear with her? Instead of avoiding it, like you have been doing practically since I've known you?”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“It was very obvious to me that you liked Katie!” Nareem said. He wasn't whispering anymore, not by a long shot.

George coughed nervously. “Hey, does anyone want to order cheesecake?” he asked. “My mom said it would be cool if we wanted to order cheesecake.” He waited for someone to answer him, but no one did. “Or not.”

“You're right,” I said to Nareem. “I think I liked Katie longer than I realized. I don't know, we were just regular friends for so long, and I had this crush on Hannah Spivero for like forever. Then suddenly it seemed like everything changed, and I didn't know how to deal with it. Especially since you were kind of going out with her at the time.”

“That's true, I was,” Nareem said, his voice soft again as he remembered.

“Um, I have a crazy idea,” Jack said.

We all looked at him.

“Why don't you just tell her the truth?”

George nodded his head in agreement.

“I've been trying!” I said. “It's not that easy!”

Nareem took off his glasses and started cleaning them with his shirt. I think he just needed something to do. “Love is never easy,” he said. “It is hard work. Which is also what makes it so rewarding.”

Sometimes it was hard to believe he was only in middle school.

“You should tell her before we all leave tomorrow morning,” George said to me. “That way, we can be there for moral support.”

“You should,” Jack said.

“Indeed you should,” Nareem said.

I stared at my three friends, knowing they were right. Ugh! Couldn't I just stay up here in George's room forever, where it was safe and we had ice cream and satellite television, and there was no danger of rejection?

Love is never easy.

“Let's order that cheesecake,” I said.

 

22

Sunday morning breakfast
was everyone's last chance to hang around together before heading back home, so it was completely mobbed by the time I made it downstairs to the restaurant. I saw Katie in the distance, out of the corner of my eye, sitting at a table with a bunch of our friends. I started to walk over, but then I had a better idea.

The better idea involved doing anything else.

I went up to the buffet and got some eggs, poured myself a glass of juice, and started looking for a place to sit. The first person I saw was Ms. Domerca.

“Charlie Joe!” she exclaimed. “Come eat with us!”

It wasn't until I sat down that I realized she was sitting with Dr. Mal and a bunch of adults and kids I'd never seen before.

Dr. Mal didn't look all that thrilled to see me, to be honest.

“Good morning, Mr. Jackson,” he said.

“Morning, Dr. Mal,” I said back.

“Charlie Joe,” Ms. D. said, “this is perfect timing. I'm not sure if you know this, but we also use these reunion breakfasts to meet with families who are not yet part of the Camp Rituhbukkee community, so that we might give them a sense of who we are and what we're about.”

I introduced myself to the three kids. They smiled awkwardly. Nerds-in-training, for sure.

“Perhaps you can tell them what Rituhbukkee is like, from a camper's perspective,” Ms. Domerca continued.

Dr. Mal made a face like he'd just eaten a rotten egg.

“Well,” I said, “let me just start by saying, Camp Rituhbukkee is not for everyone.”

Dr. Mal made a face like the rotten egg had just laid new rotten eggs inside his stomach.

“It's not for kids who aren't interested in the world,” I continued. “Or kids who don't want to improve themselves. Or kids who don't want to be around other kids that are so curious, and so interesting, that it will make them push themselves to be more curious and more interesting themselves.” I smiled brightly at the adults, since they were the ones who were going to be writing the checks. “Like I said, this camp is not for everyone. Which is what makes it the best camp in the world.”

“Well, that's very impressive,” said one of the parents, a guy who seemed like one of those Dads who wouldn't be satisfied unless his kid grew up to be president of the United States.

Dr. Mal let out a big, relieved breath, while Ms. Domerca looked at me like,
I knew you could do it
.

I looked across the restaurant and saw George waving at me, like,
Stop stalling!
Then Jack saw me, and he started waving me over, too.

“Well I'm going to go join my friends,” I said to the table. “They're the greatest group of guys in the world, and the fact that I'm not going to see them again until the summer fills me with great sorrow and regret.”

“That'll do, Charlie Joe,” Dr. Mal said, that rotten-egg look flashing across his face for a quick second.

“Right.” I got up and headed over to my friends' table. Everyone was in the middle of a loud conversation, which immediately stopped as soon as they saw me coming.

“Hey, you guys,” I said. I shuffled my feet, while everyone waited for me to sit down. “Um, Katie? Could I talk to you for a second?”

She was taking a sip of juice, which turned out to be the longest sip of juice ever recorded. Finally, she put the glass down. “Sure.”

I pointed at a bench in the corner of the room. “Could we maybe … go over there?”

“Sure,” she said again.

I put my tray down on the table, and we walked over to the bench. I sat down. Katie didn't.

“Are you going to sit down?” I asked her.

She barely rolled her eyes—just enough so I could see it—then sat down.

“What's up.” She said it less like a question and more like a demand.

“I just thought we should talk.”

“Can't we talk at home? We don't have a lot of time left with the camp kids.”

“I want to talk now.”

“Fine.”

Then she looked at me, finally, directly, intensely, for the first time since she saw me kiss Hannah.

And she waited.

And I thought of everything I'd wanted to say for the last five days … everything I felt … every truth I wanted to tell her … and I froze.

“Um…”

She kept staring. And I kept saying nothing.

“Uh-oh, my bad,” I finally said. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

And I ran out of the restaurant.

I could feel the sweat trickling down my back and I dashed into the men's room, to get myself together. I was so frustrated, I threw my backpack down in anger, and the whole thing spilled open.