Operation Beautiful

“So Matt,” Jessica says during our unusually early dinner. “I was talking to Emma today.” Matt looks up and glares at her, but she doesn’t back down. “And she said she was having some trouble in math. She was looking for a tutor.”

Just that sentence. That one sentence and everything goes Jessica’s way. Mr. and Mrs. Hansen immediately coo and say that since Emmaleigh is over so often anyway, why doesn’t Matt help her out? Matt eyes his sister but can’t really say no to his parents. She just smirks at him.

“Speaking of Emma, when are her parents taking their honeymoon this year?” Mrs. Hansen asks.

“Honeymoon?” I question. “Isn’t that a newly married thing?”

Mr. Hansen rolls his eyes. “He asked. Why did he ask?”

“It’s so romantic!” Mrs. Hansen gushes, smacking her husband lightly on the arm. “They were too poor to have a proper honeymoon when they got married so now they take a week off every year for their anniversary, just the two of them. And then Emma comes to stay with us!” She turns to her daughter. “Usually it’s around January/February, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” says Jessica, putting a forkful of peas into her mouth. “Emma said something about two or three weeks from now?”

“I’ll call Bob and ask,” Mr. Hansen says. “That seems right. You’d think we’d have had the dates memorized by now.”

The rest of the dinner is silent, Matt still glaring at his sister for the tutoring set up.

“That wasn’t the deal,” he mutters to her as the three of us climb the stairs. I pretend not to have heard.

“Well, if we’re going to do it, we might as well do it right,” she smirks.

“You are just plain evil,” Matt hisses.

“I get it from you.” And with that, Jessica disappears into her room, presumably to call Emmaleigh and tell her the good news.

“What was that about?” I ask as Matt sits down with a flop onto his bed. He eyes me for a minute then gets up and starts pacing. I stay silent.

“Corey,” he says finally, looking me in the eye. “I need you to do me an enormous favor.”

“What favor?” I ask. He starts pacing again.

“When does soccer season end?” he asks, not looking at me. I think about it carefully.

“Well, technically, it ended last semester. But there’s an inter-scholastic tournament thing next week we’ve been training for.”

“So at the end of next week you’ll be done?” he asks. I can see the gears turning in his head.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he says slowly. “This could solve everything.” He nods his head quickly. “Yeah...Corey, you have to swear you won’t tell Jessica about this.”

“About what?”

“I need you to tutor Emma.”

“What?!” I stand up in shock, annoyed at the twinge of pleasure in my stomach. “Why? I thought you and Jessica made a deal!”

“Forget the deal,” he says, shaking his head. “I didn’t sign up for extra math, okay? And you’re pretty good at math and you and Emma seem to get along all right. Jess won’t even know. You can set up the tutoring sessions to be during cheerleading practice.”

“Matt...” I say uncertainly, looking at him. One part of me doesn’t mind the idea, the other part feels bad for Emmaleigh.

“Please,” he begs me.

“Why do you want me to do this so bad?” I ask finally. “I don’t see why you have to beg.” He sits down and looks away from me.

“I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like what?”

“This whole you-and-Jessica thing.” That makes absolutely no sense, but I decide now’s as good a time as ever to figure this out.

I look at him hard. “Matt, does Jessica like me?”

“I’m gonna get a drink.” And with that, Matt leaves. I’m taking that as a yes.

“Corey!” I hear Jessica’s voice a few seconds before she bangs my door open.

“What’s up?” I say cautiously. It’s hard to act the same way around her now.

“So, I called Emma and she wanted to go shopping or something. But I have to go somewhere. Think you can push her off on Matt for me?”

“Yeah...” I say, not looking at her.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, her voice concerned.

“I’m fine, really. I’ll tell Matt. You have fun.”

She smiles down at me. “Thanks! See you in a couple hours!” She whirls around and bumps straight into Matt’s chest. Her brother glares down at her.

“I’m not--” suddenly his eyes snap up to meet mine and a smirk plays on his face. “Fine. I’ll go shopping with Emma. Have fun.”

Jessica reaches up to pat his cheek. “I knew you’d see it my way.” When she’s safely out of the house, Matt turns to me.

“I’m going out.”

“Hold up, hold up!” I say suddenly, reaching out and grabbing his elbow. “You can’t just leave me here. What am I supposed to do with Emmaleigh?”

He just shrugs. “I dunno. Call her and tell her its off. Oh, and tell her that if Jess asks, we went and had a good time.” He turns and leaves the room, grabbing his bike helmet off the bed-side table.

“I don’t have her number!” I call down the stairs. Matt just raises a hand in a wave.

What to do, what to do. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Emmaleigh that Matt and Jessica bailed on her. What to do, what to-- Haley. I’ll call Haley. It’ll be awkward, but I guess if I go too it’ll help a bit.

I pick up the phone to dial Haley’s number, but stop. It would probably be a good idea to warn Trevor. If I’ve learned anything during last semester, it’s that Christa is vicious. And if she sees me and Haley at the mall together, even if Emmaleigh’s around, goodness knows what she’ll do.

So this time I call Trevor’s cell.

“Hello?”

“Hey...Haley?” That’s a surprise. I thought she had stopped living with him after her mom got back from Milan.

“Yeah, Trevor’s in the shower. What’s up?”

“I thought your mom was home. Are you still living with Trevor?”

“Mom’s out doing an interview for the magazine this week. There’s some fashionista in Tokyo who makes clothes out of recycled glass.”

“That’s...odd.”

“I know, right? Anyway, do you want me to give Trevor a message or have him call you back or what?”

“Oh, uh,” I’m not sure how to explain this. “See, Emmaleigh wanted to go shopping but Jessica totally bailed on her and I was thinking I would take her but...”

“That would be awkward,” Haley muses.

“Exactly! So I thought you and I could take her. I think the two of you will get along really well.”

“Sounds like fun,” Haley says. Then her voice gets a hard edge. “And you called Trevor why?” Ah. I don’t know how to respond. “Corey?” I don’t say anything. Her voice increases in iciness. “Corey, do you mean to tell me that you decided to call Trevor to see if I was allowed to go shopping with you?”

“Well, I mean, if you put it like that...”

“I’ll be over in five minutes. And if you insult me like that again you can consider us mere acquaintances instead of friends, is that clear? I am my own person, not Trevor’s pet.” She spits out the last word in disgust.

I nod, even though I know she can’t see me. “We’re, uh, we’re clear.”