The True Meaning of Cleavage by Mariah Fredericks

Author:Mariah Fredericks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2003-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

That night, I get out my sketch pad and sit on my bed, propped up by three pillows. I want to try another picture of Nomi, to replace the one I gave Danny. But when I start drawing, it turns into something else entirely, a whole other scene, and I get lost in that. So lost, I don’t really hear the phone ring, until my dad yells, “Jess? Sari for you.”

I pick up, say, “Okay,” and wait for my dad to hang up. When he does, I hear Sari whisper, “Jess?”

“Hey.” Then I remember and ask, “How’d it go?” Like I’ve been waiting all this time for her to call.

“Oh, my God.” Sari’s so excited, she can hardly breathe.

“Oh, my God, what?”

“Oh, my God, everything,” she says. “Oh, my God, I’m in love. Oh, my God, he’s amazing. Oh, my God, this has been the most incredible day of my entire life.”

“What happened?”

“Well …” From Sari’s voice, I can imagine her in her room. She’s on her bed, probably sitting up so she can give me the whole story. “We went to his house.”

Sari has been to David Cole’s house. I should say, Wow. This is a wow thing. But somehow, I can’t bring myself to say it.

So instead, I say, “Was anybody else there?”

“At his house?”

“Yeah.”

“No,” Sari coos. “It was just us.”

“Wow.”

“Definitely wow.” She giggles.

“So what then?”

“We talked … a lot. And then we played.”

From the way she says this, I have to ask, “But you didn’t …?”

“What? No. God, I would’ve told you that.”

I smile. Good. Sari still thinks it’s important to tell me things.

“So, what did he say?”

“Oh, like … a million things. We talked about everything.”

“Yeah, but …” Suddenly I can hear it, like a hum in the silence. Don’t.

I try to ask nicely. “Was he waiting until Valentine’s Day to talk to you?”

There’s a long pause. Then Sari says, “You know, I didn’t really want to get into it. It doesn’t matter now anyway.”

Weeks of torment and misery don’t matter. Okay.

Sari knows what I’m thinking, because she says quickly, “He said maybe I could come around next Thursday.”

“What’d you say?”

“I said yes. What do you think I said?”

I don’t say anything.

Then I ask, “So, what happens with Thea?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t talk about her.”

“But she has to know, right?”

“I don’t know. Whatever.”

“Won’t that bug you?”

“No.” Sari’s voice is definite, like she’s been waiting for the question and knows just what to say. “It’s totally none of my business.”

How do you tell your best friend you think she’s lying?

“But there is one thing,” says Sari.

One thing? Try a million. “What?”

“You cannot tell anybody about this. About David and me. I mean, nobody.”

“I’m not going to.”

“I mean it. Not a living soul.”

Yeah, I think, because then a living soul might tell Thea.

“I won’t.”

“Swear.”

“I swear,” I tell her, feeling moronic. “I will tell no one.”

There’s a long pause while, I guess, Sari tries to decide if I’ve sworn enough. Then she says, “So, the Book was right. That’s kind of cool.

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