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Mother—and you were just gone.  No
note, no nothing.  How do you think that was?”
    “Honey, I’m sorry—”  She must have
covered the phone with her hand.  I heard the muffled sound of her crying.
    Good.  Time to go in for the kill.
    “You just left me, Mom.  And what
about Mikey?  How do you think he feels?”
    “Shut up,” Mikey urged, grabbing
for the phone.
    I wrestled it away.  “Hope you’re
having fun, Mom.  Have a great life.”
    I hung up on her.  It felt good to
do.
     
    [2]
    “Posie.  Put.  The newspaper. 
Down.”  I said it like I was disarming a crook.
    We had been hanging out in her room
for the past few hours, spending far too much time hating priests.
    Posie sighed.  “It’s all so sad.” 
She switched her focus to me.  “Okay, so where do you think they went?”
    “Probably out for ice cream.  Mikey’ll
forgive anyone for ice cream.”
    My mother had called back after I
hung up on her.  I let Mikey take it, and next thing I knew they had made a
date for that night.  He’s so easy.
    “And she’s saying what?” Posie
asked.
    “I love you, I miss you, boo hoo,
where’s Lizzie?”
    “It’s so good you didn’t go.  She
doesn’t deserve you yet.”
    “I wouldn’t be able to handle it
anyway,” I said.  “I’d throw up if she got all lovey dovey on me.”
    The doorbell rang.  I looked at the
clock by Posie’s bed.  Nine-thirty.
    We heard Mrs. Sherbern talking to
someone male.
    “Who’s that?” I asked.
    Posie shrugged.  “Jason, I presume.”
    My body felt like it dropped about
twenty degrees in temperature.  “Why?”
    Posie said nonchalantly, “He’s
finished.”
    “With what?”
    “With whom, that is.  Marlena
Hazard.  She’s only two houses down.  Sometimes he likes to come here
afterwards.”
    “Why?”
    “You know why.  She puts out, but
she’s stupid.  He needs a real conversation before he goes to bed.”
    Which brings us to the other
problem with Jason Wilder.  He’s not just charming and sexy and hot, he’s
actually smart.  Really smart.
    Both his parents are engineers, and
he obviously inherited some special Math Gene, because he can do equations and
proofs in his head as easily as some of us can spell.  There must be some sort
of dividing line in the gene pool:  Math and Science people here, Literature
and Arts people there.  Like an orchestra where the only way we can make music
is if everyone plays a different instrument.
    The fact that Jason is a genius is
why Posie first noticed him.  She had seen him around freshman year, but
assumed he was just another pretty face.  That never impresses Posie.  She’s
going for substance.  I think she’d date a troll so long as he discovered a new
galaxy or maybe wrote a decent novel.
    She told me being in Algebra with
Jason was like sitting next to a computer in jeans and a T-shirt.  It couldn’t
have hurt that he was so easy on the eyes.  Posie doesn’t like to admit it, but
she must have had a crush on him at first.  How could she not?  It was only
when they got to know each other that they decided being friends was far better
than dating.
    Or so she says.
    Posie and I became friends in sort
of the same way.  I was just a freshman, and she was a sophomore, so there’s no
reason we would have met except for the fact that I wrote a play that she ended
up starring in.
    It was The Fortune Teller ,
that play that won second place.  Our school’s Drama teacher, Mr. Farmer, heard
about it from my English teacher, and asked me if he could put in on.  Well,
duh.  What playwright wouldn’t want to see her work performed?
    Posie read it and loved it and
decided she had to play the lead.  She also decided she had to know me.  We’ve
been best friends ever since.
    A brief history of Posie and Lizzie.
    But back to Jason.
    Posie’s bedroom door swung open and
Jason strode in like he lived there and plopped down on the bed beside me.
    I hadn’t seen him since I left