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Amber.
Mm-mm
.”
    Gabriella and the girls had rounded the far corner and were strolling along the end zone. I saw that if they continued walking around the field, it would bring them directly in front of the stands, and despite my rational expectation of what might happen—which was nothing—I grew excited to see her coming our way. I tugged my shirt from my chest, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and sat up straighter.
    Peter said that the least I should do was to try and kiss Gabriella. That would be a reasonable plan for the ninth grade, he said. Freshmanyear, kissing and deep French kissing. Then sophomore year, I’d want to be making out with her. By sixteen we should be having oral sex, and by seventeen or eighteen, full frontal sex. Of course, it could go faster than that, but basically, he said, that was the standard progression. Before I finished high school, I should be having full frontal sex with her.
    “Full frontal sex. You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
    “More than you do.”
    “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    Gabriella and her group were heading our way down the edge of the field. “Here they come,” Peter said, and eagerly rubbed his knees.
    I knew I didn’t stand a chance with Gabriella Martello, and I told Peter so. Girls like her didn’t even notice boys like us. We moved in completely different circles. It was like a law of nature, something that should’ve been taught in school but wasn’t. I tried to explain it to him.
    “It’s obvious. Look—see? The black kids are over there hanging out with the black kids. The jocks have their territory. Mary Ida and those other sorry girls are standing over there at the water fountain where you know they’ll always be. We’re sitting here on the bleachers, where boys like us always sit. It’s only the first day of school, but we’re already stuck where we’ll all be for the rest of the year. Who said you had to go there? Nobody. But you did. You went automatically. You had no choice. It’s like, I don’t know, in your blood cells or something. That’s what I mean, a law of nature. The universal law governing the motion of bodies at school.”
    “The law governing … Where the hell’d you get that?”
    They were approaching the bleachers now. Gabriella walked in the middle of the group, her head held high; she’d obviously passed the interview, and with flying colors. You could practically see the other girls already trying to model themselves after her, eyeing her walk and gestures, the way she lifted her shoulders and flopped her head back when she laughed.
    As they crossed in front of the bleachers, Gabriella turned and lazily scanned the stands. I felt my heart quicken. When her gaze drifted over me she hesitated, as if she’d caught sight of something that she recognizedbut couldn’t quite name. I sat up. I started to wave; my hand got as far as my chest. But then a football tumbled into the girls’ legs, and as quickly as that, I disappeared.
    The girls skipped out of the way, squealing and complaining, as Mark Mingis came jogging after the ball. The girls shouted insults at him, but you could tell they all secretly adored this tall handsome boy with the blond hair and blue eyes. Mark stopped to talk to them, tossing his head to shake the hair out of his eyes while he bounced the ball from hand to hand. Gabriella was introduced and they spoke for a minute. Then the girls moved on, huddling together excitedly like birds fluttering over crumbs.
    “Look at him,” Peter said. “God, I hate him. Don’t you hate him?”
    “Observe. The universal law in action.”
    I shaped my two fists into a spyglass and aimed it at Gabriella’s back. By squeezing my fists closed I could cut out everything else from the picture but her and her long dark hair bouncing back and forth across her shoulders in time to her steps. How could anyone look at her and not be astonished? She was lovely … remote …