February 9
Taylor
M aybe for most high school seniors, sitting at a table outside the cafeteria during lunch period to sell valentine wishes for the Tribune would be easy. For me, it’s an act of courage I repeat several times a year: In fall, the paper sells “boo-grams,” at the holidays it’s “Christmas wishes,” and for the February edition, we sell “heart wishes,” messages that appear inside heart graphics in the paper.
While kids are giving me their dollar bills and writing out friendly or romantic Valentine’s Day wishes, I’m sitting there acting normal but really wondering if I’m wearing the right jeans, if my shoes are cool enough, and if my curls are tame or comically out of control. Deep down I know none of it matters, but after years of ridicule, of people acting like it matters, well…it ends up mattering.
The only fun part is that it’s become a wonderful use for my valentine box. The wishes are dropped inside so that anonymous ones really remain anonymous.
Last year, I clumsily spilled water in the box while working on the wishes at home and part of the bottom warped. Fortunately, though, it only showed on the inside, and over the past few days, I’ve given the whole box a makeover. I painted it red, and then last night Mom helped me decoupage the whole interior and lid using old school valentines I’d saved.
Now I wonder if she noticed they were all from the few girls who’ve ever been nice to me—and Luke Montgomery. “ Woof you be my valentine?” Mom read out loud with a smile as she brushed the Mod Podge over it. “That’s cute.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Cute.” But what I really meant was tragic . As in sad. As in I’ve saved all the childish little valentines he gave me from fourth to eighth grade, as if they meant something. As in I’ve never had a boyfriend and the one I long for would never look at me like that, and besides, in a few days he’s moving away forever.
“Hey, bestie,” says Caroline in greeting, her eyes widening on me as she exits the lunchroom. Then she digs in her purse for a dollar. “One heart wish please.” She looks very pleased with herself as she’s writing it out, and I already know it’s to me and will say something like: To my very bestest friend . She’s a little clingy, but I love her for it. She’s the only person who’s ever clung to me in my life.
As she pushes it through the slot, it gets a little hung up, not dropping down. I make a face and tell her, “It’s freshly decoupaged, so maybe it hasn’t completely dried.” Then I unlatch the lid and flip it over to look, touching a few spots with one fingertip. “But seems okay.” Whew . Crisis averted. I’ve got enough problems without having to deal with an angry high schooler whose wish got mucked up and didn’t appear in the paper.
“Okay, well, have fun!” Caroline says merrily and heads off down the hallway.
As if. “See you in biology,” I answer instead.
Jasmine mostly quit bothering me after the eighth grade box-stealing incident but is still the queen bee of Sweetwater High. She’s been chasing Luke for a couple of years—and could teach a course in how to talk to boys—but I’ve always noticed he doesn’t date much, concentrating mostly on sports and horses. So Jasmine flirts with Luke but dates other guys.
Me, I’m always happy when she has a boyfriend, because it gives her something to focus on when life as cheerleader and prom queen isn’t enough. For her, boredom equals bullying.
I heard yesterday that she broke up with Shawn Morell, and it must be true because as hallway traffic picks up, giving me a steady stream of customers, I spot her and a small swarm of worker bee girls gathered slightly down the hall, giggling and whispering with repeated looks in my direction. Great.
It could be anything. My previously-worried-about jeans, shoes, or hair. The top I’m wearing today. The fact that I’m still using the heart-shaped box she’s always found so strangely hilarious. It’s not my glasses because I talked my mom into contacts last year. (Though Jasmine found a way to make fun of that, too, on the first day of school. “Aw, red’s trying to be like the rest of us. Isn’t that just so cute?”)
I ignore the stares and whispers, at least on the outside. On the inside, they grate. On the inside, they turn me back into that fourth grader with ink all over my shirt being laughed at by the other kids.
“It’s a dollar,” I reply when an underclassman asks.
“ It’s a dollar ,” I hear Jasmine mimic me. Like there’s something ridicule-worthy about my answer.
When the traffic disperses a minute later, but the bees are still at it, I feel a little like I did that day in eighth grade. Like maybe she’s gonna push me to a point of responding. Like this, added to Luke’s impending departure and the center-of-attention vibe I suffer from sitting at this table, is just one thing too many.
That’s when my eyes fall randomly on a warped spot on one of the wooden lunchroom doors directly across the hall from me. It’s shaped like a heart on its side. It’s probably been there longer than I’ve been a student here, but I’ve never noticed it until this moment.
I still see them, all the time. Usually when I need them, when I’m down or afraid or seeking answers. They always keep me going, and I’ve continued to believe they’re from my dad, there to help me through life. And whereas the one I saw on the day Jasmine took my box inspired me to be brave and go after her, this one is giving me the opposite impression. It’s telling me not to stoop to her level, that she’s not worth it.
“If it’s not Taylor Mulvaney, keeper of the heart wishes.”
I look up to see Luke. He’s stayed pretty glum since finding out he has to move, an emotion reflected in his eyes right now, but he’s trying to be cheerful. I smile up at him, a natural response, but it’s not lost on me that Jasmine and her friends are watching. “Keeper of the heart wishes. I like that. I’ll have to remember that for my future resume.”
When he smiles back, it turns my skin hot. But then my heart sinks. Because he’s almost out of my life. I feel the need to commiserate some more. “I still can’t believe you’re leaving.”
He gives his head a discouraged shake. “Me neither. Sucks.”
“This is your last week?”
He blows out a sad sigh. “Yep. The ballgame Friday night and the sweetheart dance on Saturday will be my last official acts as a student of Sweetwater High.” Then he tilts his head. “You coming?”
He’s never asked me that before—about anything. “Yeah, I’ll be at the game.” I go to every game, Caroline in tow, to watch him play.
“I meant the dance.”
Oh. “Um, probably not.” Definitely not. “Not really my thing.” It’s couples or big groups of friends, and I’m not part of either.
“ Could be your thing. You should come.”
I just look at him, eyes slightly narrowed. Does he truly not get it? Is he so accustomed to life as Luke Montgomery, popular guy, that he doesn’t understand how, for me, a high school dance would equal walking in alone, standing alone, drinking punch alone, and then leaving alone? With maybe a few friendly words from a teacher chaperone who feels sorry for me? Or maybe I could drag Caroline kicking and screaming, but then we’d just be two losers standing by ourselves in a corner. “Like I said, not my thing. I don’t really have anyone to go with. And I wouldn’t have anything to wear.”
“It’s not formal or anything,” he counters without missing a beat. “Just in the gym. And I’m sure you could find someone to hang out with.” He’s flashing me this cute—dare I even think almost flirtatious?—smile that suggests it really matters to him, that he wants me there. Is he saying he’d hang out with me?
But it’s not enough. He’ll cruise in with his buddies, and soon enough Jasmine and the other cheerleaders will be flocking around. And I’d walk in—again—by myself. (I’m really not sure I could talk Caroline into going.) So if he’s thinking he’d come say hi, or even dance with me, it would still never work. No matter how tempting a dance in Luke’s arms might be.
I’m not sure he realizes how different our lives are. He can saunter into an event and find dozens of people to chat with. Whereas my entire social circle consists of Caroline, the few girls in the baking club, and a handful of people on the newspaper staff who may or may not actually like me. Not good odds for a fun evening.
So I level with him—sort of. “Can’t say I’d look forward to more of what’s happening at this very moment that you aren’t even aware of. Don’t look now,” I say, smiling yet frank, and breaking out the air quotes, “but your friend is doing that laughing-at-me-for-just-existing thing she enjoys. I get enough of that when I have to be on the premises.”
He tosses a quick sideways glance in Jasmine’s direction, then turns a playful expression back my way. “I told you, she’s not my friend. She’s?—”
We say it together. “ Part of my friend group. ” And both laugh. It’s been our ongoing joke all through high school. Even if it’s not very funny.
I know he’s between a social rock and a hard place—but it still stings to know he hangs out with her despite how awful she is, even if it’s in a group. I’m not sure what I expect him to do; I’m not sure what I’d do in his position—it’s pretty easy to follow the path of least resistance. Yet it’s still difficult to watch.
It’s then that he drops a glance to my valentine box, then raises his eyes to the poster board sign taped to the wall behind me. “So these wishes are a dollar, huh?”
I nod.
Digging in his pocket, he hands me a dollar bill and starts to write one out.
Of course, I suffer the wild urge to know what it says. I’m praying it’s not for Jasmine. But I’m too smart to think it’s for me. Guess I’ll find out when I go through them after school.
“Two wishes please, Taylor,” says a freshman girl in our baking club named Fiona, stepping up to hold out two bucks. “How long can they be? And when will this issue of the paper come out?”
I answer her questions, vaguely aware of Luke doing an awfully lot of writing the whole time. I only get to glance back his way when he’s stuffing the paper slip through the slot.
“I better get going. Lunch break’s over,” he tells me with another small grin, pointing vaguely up the hall.
Fiona wrote hers out quick and now shoves them in as well—and they get stuck a little, too, like Caroline’s. So instead of leaving, Luke reaches down to push the protruding slips of paper the rest of the way in—at the exact same time I do, and our fingers touch. It’s only a few seconds, during which I try to act normal, but it ricochets through my body like a tingly pinball, the best feeling I’ve ever had.
Fiona has already walked away, and I’m suddenly overcome by…everything. Loss. Desire. Intense affection. And fear. But I move past the last one to say, “I’m gonna miss you, Luke.”
“I’m gonna miss you, too, Taylor.”
And then he’s gone. Up the hall.
Word of the day: Sadness . It’s not a funny word—but like when Luke was angry, just what’s overwhelming me right now.
And even as my chest aches with the anticipated loss, I become aware of Jasmine Dupree in my peripheral vision, rolling her eyes at her friends as if to say: She can’t seriously think he likes her.
Do I?
Or maybe the bigger question is: Does it even matter?
In a few days, I’ll never see Luke Montgomery again.
That night, after a call from Mom on her break and some leftover meatloaf from the diner, heated in the microwave, I sit down at our little kitchen table, ready to get to work on the heart wishes. Unlatching and sliding the lid carefully off the box, I set it aside, then dump the wish slips into a big pile on the table. I return the box’s lid and carry it to my room, situating it on a shelf like a knickknack and feeling a little down because I’m not sure what else I’ll ever use it for. I’ve always liked that it had a purpose, even if only a once-a-year purpose, because my dad was a man who took pleasure in knowing the things he built were utilized in some way. But maybe the valentine box will only be a decoration now.
On my way back to the table, I grab a notebook and pen, ready to transcribe the wishes. Tomorrow I’ll collect the ones sold by the rest of the staff and stay after school, typing them up before the following day’s deadline.
But after I write out the first few, I realize I’m hoping every slip I pick up is Luke’s, because I want to know who his wish is for. It’s stayed in the back of my mind all afternoon, and part of me can’t believe I resisted looking until now.
So I start rifling through them. Seems like I’m always searching the communications dropped in that box for something from Luke Montgomery.
Then I find it:
From: Luke Montgomery
My wish: Hope all my friends and classmates have an awesome Valentine’s Day. I love this school and I’m going to miss you all!
Well, it was a lot to write, which explains why he took so long. And the wish makes perfect sense. Not sure what else I was expecting.