Operation Beautiful

“Bye, guys! Thanks, it was really fun.” Haley smiles and waves as she slams the car door shut and walks into the house.

“It was fun, wasn’t it?” Spike asks as we back out of the driveway.

“Mhm. And that Thai food is just sitting in my stomach like a rock.”

“A highly delicious rock,” Spike agrees, licking his lips.

“How long do you think before they get back together?” I ask.

Spike keeps his eyes on the road. “I don’t know. A week, maybe? At most. Haley’s pretty brave to pull something that big.”

“Yeah.” I watch the trees pass as we move further into suburbia. “I wonder what Matt did today?”

“Why? Did he have anything special planned?”

I shrug. “He offered to smash Christa’s face in.”

Spike laughs. “Sounds like a job for Janice.”

“That’s what I said!” I agree. But then the thought strikes me. “I wonder if he actually did.”

We pull into my driveway and I unbuckle my seat belt. “Well, tell me when you find out,” Spike says.

“Of course. See you!” I slam the door shut and walk up to the house.

“You were gone a long time,” Jessica comments from the dining table.

I just shrug. “Do anything exciting?”

She shakes her head with a smile. “No. Emma and I just hung out and stuff.” I highly doubt they spoke at all, but Jessica speaks again before I can comment. “What about you? Did you have fun?”

“Yeah. Walked around, had lunch. Just fun stuff, you know.”

“Sound nice,” she replied. And then there was silence. I was out of things to say. And apparently so was she.

“Ho-ney, I’m ho-ome!” Matt calls from the front door. He walks into the kitchen and stops short when he sees us.

“Where did you go?” I ask.

“Well, I took your advice and called Janice,” Matt begins, eyeing Jessica suspiciously. “And the two of us went down to Christa’s house.”

“Christa’s house?” Jessica asks. “Why? Janice hates her.”

“How do you know?” I ask, surprised.

“We’re all on the cheerleading team,” she reminds me. “They’ve been arguing a lot lately.”

“Why?” Matt asks. “Janice was saying something about that earlier, too.”

“Janice doesn’t like change,” Jessica says simply.

“And I don’t like Christa,” Matt says. “So stay away from her.”

“Yes, big brother.” Jessica rolls her eyes and flaunts her way upstairs.

“So what happened at Christa’s?” I ask eagerly.

“Well...” Matt says, scratching his neck in embarrassment. “Trevor was already over there.”

“What?!” I yelp, standing up suddenly. “What do you mean ‘Trevor was already there’?”

“I called Janice and she said she knew I’d screw it up so she’d come with me and we were about to pull up when we saw Trevor leave the house all shifty-like.”

“All shifty-like?” I ask scornfully.

“Yes,” Matt says with confidence. “Shifty-like. In a shifty manner. As if something weird was going on.”

“And what, pray tell, was this weird thing?”

“Who says ‘pray tell’ anymore?” Matt raises an eyebrow.

“Oh shut up,” I say, suppressing a smile. “Just tell me what happened.”

“Well, we don’t know. We decided to go chill out downtown instead since Trevor seemed to have taken care of it already.”

“I thought you said he was acting shifty,” I say, confused.

“Yes, well, Janice said he’d taken care of it and that we didn’t need to be there.”

“Girls,” I say with patronizing scorn, remembering his words from this morning. “She’s not even your girlfriend. Why are you listening to her?”

“Oh, ha ha,” Matt replies. “You know how forceful Janice can be.”

“So...you guys had a date?” I continue to tease, noticing how red Matt is getting.

“No!” he says, a little too forcefully. “I’m pretty sure she’s going out with Steve by now.”

“But you don’t know for sure,” I wheedle. I can tell from his expression that he’s thought this over.

“Hello,” Emmaleigh says with a smile, coming down the stairs. “Jess said you guys were home. How was...whatever it was?”

“Eventful,” I say, eyeing Matt. “I think we both had fun.”

Matt smacks my arm. “I said to shut up.”

I just laugh and run upstairs where Matt and I play video games until dinner.

“We got a call from Aunt Mary today,” Mrs. Hansen says after we’ve begun eating.

“Really?” Matt asks. “What did she say?”

“Well...let me give you a hint. What’s happening this coming Wednesday?”

“I don’t know. What is it...Wednesday February 9th, right?” Jessica asks, counting the days off on her fingers.

“Grandma Sylvie!” Matt cries, standing up. “It’s her birthday!”

“That’s right,” Mr. Hansen says with a grin. “And instead of a regular party the following weekend like we normally do, we’re throwing a surprise party!”

“On Wednesday?” Jessica asks, surprised. “But isn’t Granda Sylvie’s house, like, three hours away? We have school.”

“Well, you guys can either come with us and we’ll leave the party early or you can stay home.”

“Oh...” Matt and Jessica share a glance for a second.

“I...I think I’ll stay with Emma,” Jessica says tentatively.

“And if Jess is staying, I’m staying,” Matt agrees. “Besides, that way you can stay longer.”

***

The days pass quickly. I help tutor Emmaleigh, since she still keeps falling asleep in first period math. Matt took Janice to the movies the other day. “As friends,” he insists, though I know better. I don’t know how Janice feels, though. She’s as distant from all of us as ever.

Haley sits with us at lunch, next to Trevor in her usual seat. But they don’t talk much, and they don’t touch. Haley is paler now, her eyes tired. Sometimes she’ll nap during lap. Trevor is jittery now, anxious. He knows Haley’s having trouble sleeping and it kills him, I think, to know that the best he can do is nothing.

“Ready for tutoring?” I ask Emmaleigh. I think she’s missing her parents a bit. She hasn’t said anything, but she looks a little thinner. That and it looks like she hasn’t been sleeping well.

She nods and shuts her locker door. We start walking down the hall when I see another sticky note.

“Look,” I say, pointing. “Another one.”

Emmaleigh’s gaze follows my finger. “Yeah. I thought she would’ve given that up.” As we brush by the locker, I quickly peel the note off and shove it in my pocket, hoping Emmaleigh doesn’t notice.

“Hey,” Matt says as we get in the car. Emmaleigh sits in the back with Jessica while I sit shotgun. I pull the note out of my pocket and smooth it out. Matt’s eyes flick from the road ahead to the paper in my lap. He opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off with a shake of my head.

Smile! it says, just like the last one. You’re beautiful!

I flip it over expectantly, looking for the words telling me where the empty note will be. I don’t know why I want to do this. It’ll just be Jessica all over again. Another game of 20 Questions and then nothing. I put the note back in my pocket.

“Cosine of pi over two?” I ask.

“Um...oh, geez. I forgot,” Emmaleigh mutters.

“Don’t worry just think about it. Try drawing the graph in your head or something.”

She looks adorable like this: her eyes squeezed shut in concentration, her fingers drawing a little graph in the air. I watch her for a minute, completely lost in her...well...her.

“Zero,” she says, looking up at me.

“Sorry?”

“It’s zero.” She rolls her eyes and smiles a little. “I’m an idiot!”

I focus my eyes on her face, suddenly remembering the question. “Yes! Yes, that’s right. Um...sine of pi over two?”

“One.”

“Good!”

Emmaleigh has a quiz on all the sine and cosine values this week, so I’m helping her study.

“Okay. I think we’re done,” she says with a sigh, leaning back and putting her hands behind her head.

“No we’re not. Cosine of five pi over six?”

“Um...same as cosine of negative pi over six, so...” She moves her hands around, drawing something weird in the air. “Negative one half!” She says triumphantly, her glittering eyes looking into mine.

“Y-yeah,” I stutter. “Good job!”

“Okay. It’s time for a break,” Emmaleigh insists.

“I don’t think so,” I say, being difficult on purpose.

“What do you want me to do, pout? Come on, Corey, we’re taking a break.” And she ups and leaves. That was unexpected.

I leave the game room after her. “Emmaleigh, where are you going?”

“A snack,” Emmaleigh says. “I’m hungry.”