I knew my mother wouldn’t understand about Macon Faulkner. He was the furthest I could get from her, Noah Vaughn, and the perfect daughter I’d been in that Grand Canyon picture. This world I was in now, of high school and my love affair with P.E., with Michael Sherwood gone, had no place for my mother or what she represented. It was like one of those tests where they ask what thing doesn’t belong in this group: an apple, a banana, a pear, a tractor. There wasn’t anything she could do about it. My mother, for all her efforts, was that tractor.

Chapter Four

Macon finally asked me out on October 18 at 11:27 A.M. It was a monumental moment, a flashbulb memory. I hadn’t had a lot of incredible events in my life, and I intended to remember every detail of this one.

It was a Friday, the day of our badminton quiz. After I handed in my paper, I pulled out my English notebook and started to do my vocabulary, at the same time keeping a close eye on Macon as he chewed his pencil, stared at the ceiling and struggled with the five short questions of the same test Coach had been giving out for the last fifteen years.

A few minutes later he got up to hand in his test, sticking his pencil behind his ear as he passed me. I braced myself, reading the same vocab word, feuilleton, over and over again, like a spell, trying to draw him over to talk to me. Feuilleton, feuilleton, as he handed his test to Coach, then stretched his arms over his head and started back toward me, taking his time. Feuilleton, feuilleton, as he got closer and closer, then grinned as he passed me, heading back to where he’d been sitting. Feuilleton, feuilleton, I kept thinking hopelessly, the word swimming in front of my eyes. And then finally, on the last feuilleton, the sound of his notebook sliding up next to me, and him plopping down beside it. And just like that, I felt that goofy third-period P.E. rush, like the planets had suddenly aligned and everything was okay for the next fifteen minutes while I had him all to myself.

“So,” he said, lying back on the shiny gym floor, his head right next to my leg, “who invented the game of badminton?”

I looked at him. “You don’t know?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m just asking what you said.”

“I said the right answer.”

“Which is?”

I just shrugged. “You know. That guy.”

“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, grinning, running a hand through his damp hair. “Right. Well, that’s what I said too, Muddy Britches.”

“Well, good for you.” I turned the page of my English notebook, pretending I was concentrating on it.

“What are you doing this weekend?” he said.

“I don’t know yet.” We had this conversation every Friday; he always had big plans, and I always acted like I did.

“Big date with old Noah?”

“No,” I said. Noah’s P.E. class had come in for a volleyball tournament with ours, and of course when he grunted hello to me I had to explain who he was. Why I said he’d been my boyfriend I had no idea; I’d been trying to live it down ever since.

“What about you?” I asked him.

“There’s this party, I don’t know,” he said. “Over in the Arbors.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. It might be lame, though.”

I nodded, because that was always safest, then lied, which was second best. “Oh, yeah. I think Scarlett might have mentioned it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she knows about it.” Scarlett was our middle ground. “You guys should come, you know?”

“Maybe we will,” I said, having already made up my mind we would be there even if God himself tried to stop us. “If she wants to. I don’t know.”

“Well,” he said, looking up at me with a shock of blond hair falling across his forehead, “even if she can’t make it, you should come.”

“I can’t come by myself,” I said without thinking.

“You won’t be by yourself,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

“Oh.” That was when I looked at the clock, over his head, marking this moment forever. The culmination of all those badminton matches and volleyball serves, of laps run around the gym in circles. This was what I’d been waiting for. “Okay. I’ll be there.”

“Good.” He was smiling at me, and right then I would have agreed to anything he asked, as dangerous as that was. “I’ll see you there.”

The bell rang then, loud and jarring and bounding off the walls of the huge, hollow gym as everyone stood up. Coach Van Leek was yelling about bowling starting on Monday and how we should all come ready to learn the five-step approach, but I wasn’t hearing him, or anyone, as Macon grabbed his notebook and stood up, sticking out a hand to me to pull me to my feet. I just looked up at him, wondering what I could be getting myself into, but it didn’t matter. I put my hand in Macon’s, feeling his fingers close over mine. I let him pull me toward him, to my feet, and my eyes were wide open.

After school Scarlett and I went to her house, where Marion was busy getting ready for a big date with an accountant she’d met named Steve Michaelson. She was painting her fingernails and chain-smoking while Scarlett and I ate potato chips and watched.

“So,” I said, “what’s this Steve guy like anyway?”

“He’s very nice,” Marion said in her gravelly voice, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Very serious, but in a sweet way. He’s the friend of a friend of a friend.”