Operation Beautiful

A couple weeks pass. Emma still comes over for tutoring. Sure, she no longer falls sleep in first period, but I’m not going to say anything and she hasn’t either at this point. In fact, she's coming over tomorrow night.

Favorite color? Umm...green, I think. Not what you’d expect from a girl, right? Especially since I use pink post-its. But don’t you think the olive green and pale pink go really well together? Okay, you probably never think about that kind of stuff, right?

Okay...here’s a question for you: if you could be any colored pencil, which would it be? (See, that’s so much more creative than your question XP)

Jessica and I still pass notes. It’s a lot easier to talk to her this way. She’s friendly and open and joking. If I ever have a bad day, just reading her notes cheers me up. Especially now that Emma barely talks to me at school at all.

“Hey, Haley!” I call on my way to fourth. She nods and falls into step with me, but I can tell that her mind is elsewhere. “What’s up?” I ask her.

She just shrugs and tugs at the heart necklace Trevor got her. She doesn’t wear it every day, but it’s on her more often than off. She won’t tell me what’s wrong, shaking her head at my questions.

Even when Trevor asks her in the car on the way to lunch, she shakes her head. Finally, once we’ve reached Subway and sat down, she puts her sandwich down and speaks.

“I got a call from my mom yesterday.”

“Really?” Spike asks, interested. “Where is she?”

“She’s in Shanghai covering that expo...what was it? The Vogue Lingerie and Swimwear Expo.”

“Niiiice,” Matt smirks with a nod.

“Shanghai? Isn’t that where your dad is?” Trevor asks.

“Wait, your parents don’t live together?” I ask, confused. It makes sense, seeing as I’ve only met her mom.

“My dad’s on a one-year assignment in Beijing,” Haley explains. “But...” she shifts awkwardly in her seat, “Mom says she saw him in Shanghai.”

“You dad?!” Clarice exclaims. “What was he doing in Shanghai?”

“And at a lingerie expo,” Spike smirks quietly. “Hubba hubba.”

“She doesn’t know,” Haley says with a sigh, ignoring Spike. “She only caught a glimpse of him. She said she’s gonna try to bring him back with her after the expo.”

“O-kay,” says Janice slowly, putting down her 6-inch sub. “Are we happy or sad?”

Haley frowns intently. “We are confused. And worried.”

“Why worried?” Matt asks from Janice’s other side.

“They didn’t leave on the...best of terms,” Haley explains.

“Okay,” I say. “I’m kind of confused. Explain all this.”

Haley looks around for a minute. “Uh...okay...” She ruffles her hair and looks at Trevor for help. He just shrugs and she tries again. “Well, my parents used to work and travel a lot but they stopped for a few years because they wanted to spend more time with me.” This, I’m sure, has something to do with Haley’s...condition.

“But, uh, it was pretty stressful, so they started fighting a lot. So eventually I told them that they didn’t need to stay with me all the time and that they should go back to work.”

“Ah. So they hate each other?” Matt asks.

“No, not really...at least, I hope not,” Haley says, wringing her hands a little. “My mom was a lot happier when she came back and I can tell she’s missing Dad. I just don’t know how he feels or if...or if he even has a girlfriend or something.”

“They didn’t get divorced, did they?” Clarice asks.

“No,” Haley says, shaking her head. She smiles brightly. “I guess I’m just over-reacting. He couldn’t have gotten a girlfriend in...” she counts on her fingers, “seven or eight months, right?”

“No,” Spike says comfortingly. “There’s no way.” We’ve all learned by now that not every one of Haley’s smiles is genuine.

All this talk of parents makes me thinking of my own. I last spoke to them a couple weeks ago. I wait until it’s nine am back home and make the call.

“Corey!” my dad says happily. “How’s it been, sport?”

“Good.” We chat for a while and then the phone is passed to my mom.

“Corey, darling! Hope you’re all right.”

“I am. How are you?”

“Good, good. How’s Haley?” My mom absolutely loves Haley. Why? Because we broke up. She sent me here specifically with the warning not to get involved with any girls. After all, I may never see them again. This mean, of course, that the naively delivered news of Haley was not well-received. But now that we’re over, my mom asks about her much more fondly.

“She’s doing well.”

“Good. Met any other nice girls?” This is a trick question. The same trick question that gave her the news of Haley.

“Um...no one new...” I say.

“Corey, be careful,” my mom warns. Apparently my tone is not very convincing.

“All right, Mom. So, how’s Tiffany and...” I inquire about some of my cousins and we chat for a while longer before we hang up. I’m just about to put the phone away when Jessica comes bounding down the stairs.

“Where the hell do you think you get off doing something like that, huh?!”

“I’m sorry...what?” I don’t recall doing anything to piss her off.

“Oh, don’t ‘I’m sorry, what’ me! You know exactly what you did. I can’t believe I ever even liked you!”

“Jessica, if you’re going to yell at me, you should probably tell me what I did wrong.”

Jessica just stands in front of me, her arms crossed. “You made Emmaleigh cry.”

I stand up suddenly. “What? When? Is she okay?”

“Why?!” Jessica yells, throwing her arms down in exasperation. “Why are you acting all concerned now?!”

“Wait...what are you talking about?”

“I’m just...” she lets out a deep sigh and looks me straight in the eye. “If you make Emma cry ever again I am going to kill you with my bare hands.”

It occurs to me, at this point, that Jessica never officially yelled at me for the post-Valentine’s Day fiasco. Despite my promise that her confession wouldn’t change anything, we were both pretty awkward around each other. Maybe she was just waiting until she was comfortable before yelling at me.