Chapter 17

I watched my sister start through the gate onto the school grounds.

"Hey Mary, hang on a minute."

She hesitated and I caught up to her.

"What was all that about?"

"All what?"

"You know, the cat sound."

"I was just commenting that Jill had her claws out."

What do you mean?"

"Couldn't you see? She was watching Sara like a hawk. Waiting for her to make some kind of move toward you. She would have torn her eyes out if she had."

"Wait a minute. Who would have torn whose eyes out?"

"You told Jill about Sara, didn't you?

"Yeah, I told her we had a good time at lunch and she invited me to the dance. And I told her if Jill and I went I'd dance with her for one song and that she and Chris seemed to like each other."

"You're pretty stupid for a brainiac, you know?"

"What do you mean?"

"Jill likes you. I mean she really likes you. She's also afraid of losing you. You've convinced her that it's all temporary until some time down the road when you'll suddenly know who each other is and then if you like who she is, you'll stick around. She lives miles from you and goes to another school. So you call her up and all you can talk about is this girl you've known forever, who's in most of your classes, lives around the corner and wants to go out with you. That's why she showed up at our door this morning."

"I don't get it. Why did she show up?"

"My God. You are so dense. She was threatened. You've got this girl who's got the hots for you in most of your classes, you've told Jill how much fun you had with her, Jill's afraid you're going to get to know this one and decide a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. She came to check out the enemy. And to warn her that she's willing to fight to the death if necessary."

"Oh, I don't think..."

"Boy, you can say that again. You have no idea how much you don't think. You never, Never, NEVER tell a woman about another woman. You definitely don't go on and on about how wonderful she is but how you're only friends."

The warning bell for class went off so we didn't have time to go into it any more. Why couldn't they have warning bells when I was about to do something stupid?

"Mary? How about sitting with us at lunch so we can talk about this some more?"

"How about us sitting alone at lunch? I don't think you want Sara and your loser friends talking about this."

"You're right. See you at lunch."

For the first day this week, Mr. Hansen didn't ask for my attention. He must have figured it was a losing battle because I was nowhere around. I was going over what Mary had said.

The thing that bothered me the most was that Jill had gotten the idea I hadn't made up my mind whether or not I wanted a relationship with her. Talk about getting the wrong impression. Last night I was telling Mary that I thought Jill was the woman I was going to marry. But the two of them had talked for 20 minutes a couple of nights ago in Mary's room and I'm sure Jill put her feelings for me on the line. She would have been up front with her in an attempt to get Mary to accept her. So if Mary said Jill thought I was unsure, I was pretty sure it was true.

Still, Jill had to feel something for me to get driven over to our house, then walk to school with me and check out the competition. Well, competition as far as Jill was concerned.

I hadn't had a chance to talk to Sara before history because I was with Mary. I waited for her after class.

"Sara, need someone to walk to your next class with?"

"Is your girlfriend around?"

"No, she went to her school."

"You know, Jack, maybe you and I shouldn't talk to each other too much. I wouldn't want Jill to be mad at me. Sorry."

She took off as I stood there, confused. She evidently picked up on the same thing Mary did. Was I really that blind?

I started to review the past few days. I obviously missed something with Mary when I screwed up and suggested we could "grunt and moan together." She said everything was fine. Hell, I even asked her if she was all right and she said she was.

But as soon as I told Jill about it, she got this look on her face like I really fucked up and said "Uh, oh." When I asked her what was up she told me nothing. Which I took at face value, just like I did Mary's comment about being OK. And Mom seemed to understand what was up with Mary when I told her about our talk.