“Nope,” Morgan whispered. “Boy.”
Isabel raised her eyebrows. “Stand up straight.”
“He can’t see me,” I hissed, covering the mouthpiece.
“So we could get together and see a movie, or something. You know, before school starts,” Josh continued.
So did Isabel. “Just do it. And don’t give him your number, even if he asks for it.”
“Isabel,” Morgan said.
“Don’t,” she repeated. “I’m serious.”
“That would be great,” I said to Josh. “I won’t be home till mid-August though, probably.”
“Oh, okay,” he said. “You want to just give me your number now?” Someone guffawed in the background—another boy—and I heard Josh cup his hand over the receiver.
“Um,” I said, and Isabel narrowed her eyes at me, one hand on her hip, “you know, I just got slammed with a bunch of tables. But you can get it from Caroline. She lives right next door.”
“She does?” he said. “She didn’t tell me that.”
I bet she didn’t, I thought. Morgan laughed out loud, but Isabel just nodded and got her lunch out of the window.
“Look,” I said, “I should go. But call me, okay? In August.”
“In August,” he said. “I will.”
I hung up the phone and looked to Isabel. Norman had put down his book and was watching from the kitchen. Since he’d come back from the bazaar he’d acted strange, ducking his head and not meeting my eyes. I didn’t know what his problem was.
“Our Colie,” Morgan said proudly. “Look how she’s grown.”
“You’re still slouching,” Isabel said.
I smiled at Morgan, who sighed and filled another salt shaker. “Young love,” she said. “It makes me really miss Mark.”
“Ugh,” Isabel said, pouring herself a Coke. “Don’t start.”
“It was so nice of him to surprise me like that,” she said for at least the hundredth time. Mark’s unannounced visit had settled her doubts once and for all and left a perpetually dreamy look on her face: Isabel said it could only be love—or gas. “I want to do something to surprise him, you know?”
Isabel just rolled her eyes.
“He’s calling me in August,” I said, wrapping the phone cord around my wrist.
“Don’t accept his first offer for a date,” Isabel told me, pulling a magazine out from her stash by the bus pan. “Say you’re busy at least once. Twice is better. You call the shots, Colie.”
“Right.” I wondered how I would handle things when she wasn’t around.
I heard the kitchen door slam shut. Norman was gone, his book lying open on the prep table. When I looked outside he was standing by his car, which was packed full with things he’d gotten at the bazaar. Mira’s beanbag chair was stuffed in the back seat, a bit of orange fake leather poking out the window.
“Sheesh,” Morgan said. “What’s going on with Norman?”
Isabel turned another page of her magazine. “He’s jealous.”
“Of what?”
Isabel looked at me. “What do you think?”
“Not me,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“He likes you. Didn’t you see his face when you were talking to him at the fireworks, Colie? It was obvious.”
“No,” I said. “You’re wrong.”
“I am never wrong about these things.” She glanced outside at Norman, who was now sitting in the front seat of his car, fiddling with the glove box. He slammed it shut; it dropped open. Again. And again.
“Shit!” he yelled.
“See?” Isabel said simply. “He’s jealous. He probably had a whole plan for winning your affection. He probably,” she said, thinking, “was going to ask you to sit for a portrait.”
The portrait. Hot chocolate. “Oh my God,” I said, slowly. “Last night. I totally forgot.”
“Forgot what?” Morgan said.
“He was going to make me hot chocolate.”
“Was he really?” Morgan said, sitting up. “Man, that is good stuff! I am not lying to you. He makes it with milk, not water, and then he—”
“Morgan.” Isabel put down her magazine.
“Yes?”
“Shut up.” She turned to me. “So? What do you think about him?”
“Norman?”
“Duh.” Isabel rolled her eyes at me. “Yes. Norman.”
I looked outside. He was sitting on the back tailgate of his car now, in his orange T-shirt and black Ray•Ban sunglasses. What did I think of Norman? Yes, he was cute. And he’d been nice to me since my first day in Colby. But he wasn’t Josh. On the other hand, he wasn’t Chase Mercer, either.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I like him a lot, but he’s just so . . .”
“So what?”
I thought of Josh, with his easy good looks. Then of Norman’s uneasy sleep under all those mobiles. “I mean, he’s kind of . . . he’s not really my type.”
“Your type,” Morgan said.
Isabel arched her eyebrow. “And what, exactly, is your type?”
“You know what I mean,” I said. “All that collecting he does. And the sunglasses, and his car . . . I don’t know. He’s just . . . Norman. You know.”