Read Playing the Field for Free Online Page B

attractive,
loyal, and understanding?”
    “Definitely.” He surveyed the field and
nodded slightly. “I think she likes me. I told her I played ball
and she ought to come and watch one of the games sometime.” Now he
looked over at me with half a smile. “She said she’d bring Serena
with her.”
    I felt both dread and excitement. It was
flattering to think Serena might come to one of the games. I liked
the idea of her sitting in the bleachers rooting for me, watching
me do something I did well. The next Monday at school she would
look at me admiringly and say, “I never knew you were such an
athlete, McKay. Suddenly I find you the most interesting boy in the
eighth grade.”
    But then there was the dread. What exactly
had Tony said about me? I could just imagine his conversation with
Rachel. “Yeah, McKay really likes Serena. Just today in algebra I
was telling him he had to name their first born after me . . .” And
of course, Rachel would immediately pass on any information she got
from Tony to Serena, which meant that rather than face her every
day, I would have to go live in a monastery in Tibet.
    I lowered my voice so the other guys wouldn’t
hear me. “What did you tell Rachel about me?”
    Tony’s smile grew. He knew he had me gripped
in suspense, and he liked it. “I didn’t say a whole lot to her
about you, but I did tell her you thought Serena was cute.”
    On one hand this wasn’t as bad as it could
have been. Thinking someone was cute was not as bad as say, telling
a girl you were already planning what to name your children. Still,
it made me angry that Tony had talked to Rachel about me at
all.
    I stared at Tony. “Great.”
    Tony looked surprised. “You think she’s cute,
don’t you?”
    “It’s as good as telling Serena I like her. I
might as well walk around with an I Have a Crush on Serena sign on
my shirt.”
    “Well, don’t you want to know if she likes
you? Rachel said she’d ask Serena what she thought of you.”
    I put my hands over my face and groaned. I
could almost feel my ego shrinking as we spoke. “No, I don’t want
to know. I’ve only had two conversations with her and one of them
was about the letter x. I know what she thinks of me. She thinks
I’m strange. I wanted to have a few more conversations with her
just to prove I’m a normal person before I even asked her to help
me with my homework, and now Rachel is going to tell her that I
like her. Double great.”
    Tony got that don’t-be-a-baby-McKay look on
his face again. “You need help with your homework right now. If she
doesn’t like you, then we’ll have to find someone else in our math
class who does.”
    “No, we won’t, because I’ve decided to pay
for a tutor.” After the last few days, an expensive, funny-smelling
guy who spits seemed like good company. “And from now on, don’t
tell anyone anything about me. I don’t need your help when it comes
to girls.”
    “You need somebody’s help. Unless you plan to
run for the most-likely-to-wind-up-a-loser award.” He shook his
head, then stood up to take his turn at bat.
    Usually I loved baseball practice. Nothing
made me happier than seeing the ball soar through the sky. It made
me feel like I was soaring too. Today everything felt heavy. Tony
and I didn’t say anything to each other for the rest of practice. I
was so mad at him, every time I threw the ball to third I purposely
aimed for his stomach. He always caught the ball, but he gave me
dirty looks, like he knew what I was doing.
    Isn’t that the way life goes? I hadn’t been
in a fight with Tony since fifth grade when he wouldn’t believe
that Baby Ruth candy bars weren’t named after Babe Ruth. We’d
argued about who knew more about baseball and ended up not talking
to each other for a week. Three years we’d gone without fighting,
and now after less than a week of trying to impress girls we were
mad at each other.
    Girls just had a way of changing everything.
That was a good enough