Populazzi. Part 4

Why was I so bad at this?

I glanced at Archer to see if he could tell how socially inept I was.

He had his hands in his pockets.

I let it go. I wasn't going to get weirded out about hand-holding that maybe should or maybe shouldn't be happening. I might get weirded out about the fact that we'd now been walking through the mall for several minutes and we hadn't said anything to each other. Conversation wasn't usually an issue for us.

Of course, I was basing "usually" on just over twenty-four hours of knowing him.

I really needed to get over myself.

"Is this the food court?" I asked, though it was plainly obvious to anyone with a brain stem that we had indeed arrived at the food court. "I mean, where do we get the fries?"

Archer led me to his stall of choice and bought fries and drinks for both of us. His treat: real date behavior. Ten minutes later we had all our stuff spread out over a four-top table and munched as we bent over our homework.

At least, I was bent over my homework. Archer didn't seem to be. I lifted my head and saw him staring at me, slack-jawed.

"What?"

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"My homework. Precalc."

"No, with your food."

"What do you mean?" I asked. I picked up a fry and swished it through my chocolate milk shake, then took a bite. "I'm eating it. You're right, the fries are really good."

"But you're dunking them in your shake."

"Mm-hm." I held out a newly coated fry. "Want a bite?"

"You're committing a crime against food. You're lucky I don't report you to the Hague."

"Haven't you ever heard of chocolate-covered pretzels? It's the same thing: salty and sweet."

"A hot fudge pickle is salty and sweet, too. Would you eat that?"

"That's salty, sour, and sweet. There's a difference. I've eaten chocolate-covered bacon, though."

"That's disgusting."

"And this isn't salty and sweet, but sometimes I'll take raw oatmeal-rolled oats; it doesn't work with steel-cut-and mix it up with strawberry jelly."

"Then you cook it?"

"No," I said, pausing for another bite of milk-shake fry, "you just stir it really, really well until every piece of oatmeal is coated with the jelly, then you spoon it up and eat it. It also works with brown rice. You can mix in a little cottage cheese, too, if you want it more pudding-y. But not too much-you want it to stay pretty dense."

Archer looked like I'd poisoned his dog.

"I'm serious! It's good!"

"It's a biohazard! How can you possibly like that?"

I shrugged. "It's a textural thing. I like the feel of interesting things in my mouth."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Like Cool Whip with raisins and Grape-Nuts mixed in with a little chocolate syr-"

Archer was staring at me with one eyebrow raised. Only then did I realize what I'd just said. I felt the blush heat my face.

I wasnt saying ... I just mean...

Archer's grin spread wider. He knew what I'd meant. He was just having fUn watching me squirm.

It happened a lot with Archer. We went back to the mall every afternoon that week, and it never failed. My mouth always moved faster than my brain when I was around him, so at some point I'd end up saying something ridiculous or something I'd meant to keep to myself. Like the time he did a goofy voice that was almost exactly like one he'd used in my dream the night before. I was halfway through a long, twisted story about the two of us on this weirdo globetrotting spy mission before I realized I'd admitted I was dreaming about him. Once I got it, I was so embarra.s.sed and fl.u.s.tered and worried about how he'd react that I couldn't even finish. The whole story devolved into incoherent stammers until I just gave up and changed the subject.

It drove me crazy, but Claudia didn't think it was strange at all.

"You like him," she said. "You're not thinking clearly. You're too distracted because you're secretly dying to jump his bones."

"I'm not!"

And I wasn't. I'd only known him five days; bone jumping seemed a little extreme. I just loved being around him. I looked forward to seeing him every morning. My heart gave a little leap when I saw him sitting in the hall across from my locker, waiting for me. Or when I found him at the lunch table, the seat next to him always reserved until I got there. He didn't even ask me after that first time-it was already a given we'd sit together, just like in Mr. Woodward's English cla.s.s.

But it wasn't as if we were a couple. We hadn't even touched. At least, not intentionally.

Except once. Just yesterday. Archer was making fun of my chocolate-shake fries again, so I gave one an extra-thick dip and ran over to his side of the table.

"That's it! You're trying one! You'll love it!"

"No!" he'd screamed, and grabbed my wrists before I could get the fry anywhere near his mouth. We'd wrestled like that, Archer pushing me back while I'd strained to feed him the french fry. At first it was purely a battle, but as it went on, I became acutely aware of his hands touching my skin and how close our faces were as we struggled.

Archer won the fight. All the shake dripped off the fry until it was just soggy and gross and I agreed to throw it away.

I could still remember the exact feel of his hands, though.

"I'm not saying you want to actually jump his bones," Claudia clarified, "only that you want him. Probably as more than just a Ladder rung."

I winced. Was she upset?

"Maybe," I admitted. "Would you hate me for that?"

"Are you insane? If you really like him and he likes you, that's huge! It's bigger than the Ladder-it's epic! I love it!"

I felt so relieved. Even though I'd been telling her things, I'd been holding back, too, so I wouldn't hurt her feelings. Now I had a million things I wanted to ask her.

"So it's Friday," I said. "Do you think he'll ask me to do something over the weekend? And if he doesn't, is it okay if I invite him to do something over the weekend?"

"Absolutely not. You invite him and you look too eager. If he wants to see you, he'll do the inviting."

That made sense. When Archer and I went to the mall that day, I didn't even mention the weekend. I said neither the words "week" nor "end." I simply channeled all my concentration into the words "invite me," then shot them toward Archer in a continuous beam of psychic energy.

"Cara?" he finally asked.

Success!

"Yes?" I batted my eyes. No, really, I did.

"Are you okay? You're holding your head and your face is all scrunched up. Do you have a headache or something?"

"Oh. No. I just ... precalc. Hard problem. I'm having tangent issues."

So much for psychic energy.

Maybe he forgot it was Friday.

Just before we got into our cars I said, "See you Monday!"

"Yep. Have a great weekend."

So he knew it was Friday, but he still didn't say anything. And yet he opened my door and waited as I drove off, just like a chivalrous prince.

Or a highly competent valet.

This was not a good sign.

Chapter Six.

I called Claudia on my way home from the mall, and she tried to talk me down. While she agreed the lack of a weekend invitation wasn't ideal, she didn't think it was a disaster. She invited me to spend the next two nights at her house, where we could sift through every second of my first week with Archer and see if we could figure out ways to maybe adjust my approach and get better results. We didn't come up with anything brilliant Friday night and had just woken up Sat.u.r.day morning when my phone chirped.

"Imagining your breakfast.." read the text from Archer. "Cotton candy dipped in Tabasco?"

"He texted me!" I screamed to Claudia. "He's been thinking about me!"

She and I debated far too long over my answer before I texted back, "That's lunch. Breakfast a chocolate-chip-and-swiss omelet. Make you one?"

We'd agonized over the last sentence, worried it was too suggestive and implied he'd be with me for breakfast because we'd spent the night before together. I wondered if maybe I wanted to imply it. Not that I was actually suggesting we do anything like that ... but maybe it was okay to let him know I thought about him that way.

I bit my nails until Archer texted back. (:-P). A grimace face. If he'd noticed the innuendo, he didn't say anything about it. I didn't either. We spent the rest of the weekend texting more and more bizarre food items to each other-until Monday morning when I walked into school and handed him a s...o...b..x.

"For you. I made them myself."

Archer slowly pried off the top. "Is this a fast-acting poison, or will my death be lingering and painful?"

"Lingering and painful, for sure."

He peered into the box, which I'd lined with wax paper and filled with one of my favorite delicacies.

"Is that peanut b.u.t.ter and ... cream cheese?" Archer winced.

"Spread on green apple slices, then rolled in Cap'n Crunch cereal. Try one!"

He looked like he'd rather eat mud, but he lifted one of the apples to his face, cringing away from it until he closed his eyes and forced himself to bite.

He didn't want to admit it, but I could see he was hooked. He even took another bite.

"See!" I crowed. "I know what I'm doing. Two weeks, tops, and you'll be begging to dip your fries in my shake."

"You think?"

It took me a second before I realized I'd done it again. My mouth seriously needed a chaperone.

After school I a.s.sumed we'd head to the mall, but Archer had a different idea. "Ping-Pong," he said. "What are your thoughts on Ping-Pong?"

"As a general rule, or are we talking about something specific?"

"Do you play?"

I laughed. I may have even cackled. "'Play' is far too friendly a word for what I do at Ping-Pong. We had a table in our bas.e.m.e.nt in Yardley. I am an unstoppable Ping-Pong machine."

"That is a stunning coincidence," Archer said, "because I am an unstoppable Ping-Pong machine. Which means one of us is going to be in for a very rude awakening this afternoon."

"You know where there's a table?" I asked.

"My house. Follow me there?"

Follow him to his house? His house? Wasn't this a step beyond meeting at the mall? Was Archer trying to tell me something? There was mischief in his eyes, but that could just have been his wild misconception that he could possibly beat me at my ultimate sport of choice.

I met his gaze. "You're on."

It killed me that I couldn't talk to Claudia while I drove, but I had to follow Archer closely to find his place. After about ten minutes, he pulled into the driveway of a cute brown townhouse in a row of other identically cute brown townhouses.

"Ready to meet your destruction?" he asked, opening my car door.

"I'm a.s.suming you were asking that of your own reflection."

Despite its cookie-cutter exterior, the inside of the house was vibrant and alive, its decor a wild mix of colors and textures. A large gold statue of a many-armed woman sat in a corner, tapestries and framed canvases draped the walls, and a host of curiosities fought for s.p.a.ce on every horizontal surface.

"It's a little messy," Archer apologized.