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  When I walked into the party, though, the first thing I saw was the dessert table, and I cheered up immediately. (At some bar mitzvahs—the good ones—the dessert table is out all night. Dinner becomes kind of an afterthought.) Along with the chocolate fountain, which is an old standby and was its usual magnificent self, there was this awesome make-your-own-popcorn-sundae bar, called Pop-a-palooza. You get a bucket of popcorn, and then you have your choice of a bunch of toppings: melted chocolate, melted marshmallow, melted toffee, melted caramel—it was heaven. None of us had ever seen a popcorn sundae bar before, and we were all kind of mesmerized by it, in a good way.

  I’d eaten about four pounds of chocolate popcorn when the lights went down and the screaming started.

  Suddenly a loud chord jolted the room, the lights went back up, and there was Katie’s band.

  The first thing I noticed was that I’d never seen Katie so happy. The second thing was that her band was good. I mean, REALLY good. I mean, if I didn’t know better I would have said that Katie Friedman was going to be a rock star one day. The music was intense and catchy—and if you ask me, intense and catchy are the major food groups of good music.

  They did about five songs, then Katie said, “We’re CHICKMATE, thanks for listening! Coming up next, Spinster the DJ.”

  Then she raised a cup of soda. “A big shout-out to Jake Katz, the bar mitzvah boy!” She was a natural—it was like she’d been giving shout-outs to bar mitzvah boys all her life.

  Everyone went wild as CHICKMATE left the stage. The girls in the band were so freaked out by how much people liked them that they didn’t know what to do, so they just jumped on each other and screamed. Even polite, reserved, but huge and therefore still scary Becca Clausen, the rhythm guitar player, squealed like a five-year-old girl.

  Katie hugged Nareem, then came over to talk to me.

  “So?” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

  I didn’t really know what to say. I was just so impressed, and proud of her, and proud to be her friend, and feeling so cool that I was the first person she came over to that I literally just stood there, shaking my head and smiling.

  Katie punched my arm. “Wow, you’re totally speechless. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. That bad, huh?”

  But she was laughing. She knew exactly what I was thinking.

  Just as I managed to stammer, “That was incredible,” I was immediately drowned out by the unmistakable scream of a middle-school-aged girl bearing down on us at top speed.

  I turned to see who it was, expecting one of the usual suspects—one of Katie’s kind of weird friends, who wear black sweaters and odd-shaped glasses and stuff—but instead found myself face-to-face with a blast from the past.

  Zoe Alvarez.

  Yup.

  That Zoe Alvarez.

  Let me back up a minute: Zoe Alvarez is the girl who almost became my girlfriend, until she moved away at the end of last year.

  She was also the first girl in the world who made me realize that Hannah Spivero wasn’t necessarily the only girl in the world.

  I hadn’t seen Zoe in like five months, but I still thought about her every once in a while. Okay, fine—slightly more than every once in a while.

  Our eyes met, and it was immediately weird. I’d spent a lot of time wondering what I would say to her the next time I saw her, but now that she was actually standing right in front of me, I couldn’t come up with a single word. And I think she was having the same problem. So we ended up having a staring contest. It seemed like thirty seconds, but was probably more like five.

  She gave up first, by turning to Katie and giving her a huge girly hug and letting out a huge girly scream. Then they talked a mile a minute to each other about how awesome it was to see each other.

  “Jake called me earlier today with this awesome idea to invite Zoe,” Katie announced. “He was still worried about having enough girls. And she came! Isn’t that awesome?”

  I looked at Zoe, she looked at me, and finally we did this weird half-hug thing. “Wow, cool. It’s really great to see you, Zoe.”

  Zoe flashed that smile I remembered from the first time I met her, in Mrs. Massey’s art studio. “Katie’s been filling me in on everything,” she said. “She says you’re still always asking her for advice, and she still bails you out over and over again.”

  It took me a minute to wrap my head around the fact that Katie and Zoe had been in touch the last couple of months. I thought Katie told me everything. Guess not.

  “Some things never change,” I said.

  “Yup,” Zoe said, before she was dragged away to say hi to some other old friends.

  Hmm, I thought to myself. This is turning out to be an interesting night.

  30

  When the DJ took over, I headed straight back to the Pop-a-palooza, which seemed like the perfect place to avoid dancing. Pete Milano joined me, and we were in the middle of stuffing our faces with melted goodness when the first dance wranglers appeared.

  “You guys ready to boogie?” asked one dance wrangler, a pretty curly-haired girl who had some sort of earring in her belly button.

  “I’m totally ready to boogie!” Pete Milano replied, spilling some of his sticky popcorn all over the floor. He looked down, thought about it for a second, then scooped it up and ate it.

  “Five-second rule, dudes,” Pete mumbled through a mouthful of popcorn and dust.

  “Ew, gross,” said a voice behind us.

  I turned around—Zoe.

  Uh-oh.

  Standing there with Hannah Spivero.

  Double uh-oh.

  Hannah and Zoe hadn’t exactly been best friends when Zoe went to school with us. I’d like to think that it was because Hannah was jealous of Zoe, but that would be giving myself too much credit.

  “Look who I ran into,” Zoe yelled to me over the music.

  “That’s great,” I yelled back. “She’s worth running into.”

  Zoe put her arm around Hannah, as if to make sure there were no leftover hard feelings. “She told me she’s still going out with Jake, isn’t that awesome?”

  “Couldn’t be awesome-er,” I said.

  “Do you want to dance?” Zoe asked me, out of the blue.

  It took me a minute to answer, even though I shouldn’t have been surprised by the request. Zoe was never the shy type. I tried to think of an excuse, but then realized for the first time in my life, I actually wanted to dance.

  “Okay.”

  We got out there and shuffled around for a few minutes without saying anything.

  “You’re a good dancer,” Zoe said finally.

  “Very funny,” I answered, and she laughed.

  After a few more (mis)steps, Zoe said, “I’m sorry I didn’t write you back over the summer. I kind of knew my parents were getting back together, and that I’d be moving back to my dad’s house, and I wasn’t sure how to tell you. That was really lame.”

  “It’s totally fine,” I said, momentarily forgetting how totally unfine I thought it was at the time. “How’s your year going so far?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Mine, too.”

  We semidanced for another minute or so, and then Zoe spoke again. “Are you still totally in love with Hannah?”

  Luckily the song ended right there, and I could clap instead of answering.

  * * *

  Then it was time for the slide show, which was a twenty-minute tribute to the guest of honor: baby pictures, family pictures, school pictures, vacation pictures, goofy pictures, sports pictures.

  Considering Jake was the guest of honor, I was kind of surprised there were no reading pictures.

  I was sitting there, pretending to thoroughly enjoy myself, when I felt a tug on my arm. “Come on, let’s go,” someone whispered.

  I turned around to see Zoe squatting down behind me. She pulled my arm again.

  “This is boring,” she said a little bit louder. I think she was losing the patience required to
whisper. “Let’s go get a soda.”

  “Sssssh!” someone said. I looked around at all the other kids who were sitting on the floor, being good little children and quietly watching the tribute to Jake, knowing that it was a small sacrifice to make for all the dancing, jumping, eating, drinking, and flirting to follow. Then I looked back at the screen, which was scrolling through an adorable group of pictures that showed Jake winning first prize at the tri-county science fair for some experiment that involved a hamster, a Ping-Pong ball, some superglue, and a large block of cheese.

  I decided to make a run for it.

  I scrambled to my feet and followed Zoe out to the main hall, trying to ignore all the heads swiveling in our direction. I felt like an outlaw fleeing a bank robbery. I have to admit, it was a pretty good feeling.

  We headed over to the bar.

  “Scotch and soda, hold the soda,” I said to the guy serving drinks. Zoe laughed, which gave me a warm feeling inside.

  “You mean hold the scotch,” said the guy, who was obviously born without a sense of humor.

  He poured us a couple of cokes.

  Zoe clinked my glass. “I’m really glad Katie called me to come to Jake’s bar mitzvah.”

  “I’m glad, too,” I said. “And I’m extra glad you actually came.”

  I hate it when the truth sounds lame.

  We headed outside to the lawn. Since the theme of Jake’s bar mitzvah was baseball (sports was by far the favorite theme for boys; girls were all over the map, with pop stars and nightclubs being two of the leaders), the whole outside of the club was decorated with bleachers and flags and artificial turf. There was even a hot dog stand and a batting cage.

  “I love batting!” Zoe said, spotting the cage. “Let’s go bat some balls.” Then she took my hand and led me over.

  Let me repeat that: THEN SHE TOOK MY HAND.

  (I should probably stop here and point out that while I may talk a good game, and occasionally try to sound like I know what I’m doing in terms of girls, this was maybe the fourth time a girl had ever taken my hand voluntarily. As opposed to being forced to, on some third grade field trip.)

  Zoe got into the batting cage and started smashing balls all over the place. She was a regular girl Babe Ruth. (Hannah was also a girl Babe Ruth. Why did I always fall for girl Babe Ruths?) The batting cage guy and I just stood there, staring at her with our mouths open.

  After twenty pitches, she handed the bat to me. “Your turn.”

  Oh, fantastic.

  I swung and missed. Then I swung and missed again. Then I foul-tipped one.

  “Nice!” Zoe yelled.

  Finally, on the fourth pitch, I got ahold of one! Kind of. It dribbled weakly up the middle and came to a gentle stop underneath the pitching machine.

  “Sweet!” Zoe screamed.

  I decided to quit while I was ahead and I handed the bat to the guy. “We should probably go inside before the slide show ends,” I said, but Zoe was already at the hot dog stand, ordering two with everything. She took the first one and ate it in two bites. Then she handed the other one to me and did a cartwheel, a back handspring, and two roundoffs.

  Right then, it occurred to me that girls were fascinating, unknowable creatures.

  We sat down in the fake dugout and didn’t say anything for a minute or two. Then she turned to look at me. “Charlie Joe, remember at the end of last year, when you kissed Hannah on stage during the school play?”

  My face turned red. Remember? How could I ever forget? First of all, there was the fact that the entire town was watching. Second of all, there was the fact that I’d panicked and run off stage right before the big moment. And third of all, there was the fact that I’d finally gotten my act together and KISSED HANNAH! (Well, technically, she’d kissed me, before I had a chance to wimp out again.)

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  Zoe leaned in closer.

  “Well, I kind of wished that it was me up there with you.”

  I looked at her. She looked like she was waiting for me to do something. Maybe even kiss her. And I wanted to do it, I really did. But for some reason, I hesitated—just like in the play, with Hannah.

  “I wish you would just make up your mind,” Zoe said, annoyed.

  Then she ran back inside, leaving me standing there, trying to make up my mind about what she meant by making up my mind.

  31

  Every middle school party goes on about twenty minutes too long, and Jake’s Big Baseball Bar Mitzvah Bash was no exception. By the time we’d all eaten dessert, eaten dinner, eaten a second dessert, jump danced a lot, maybe slow danced a little, grinded when the adults weren’t looking, watched the slide show, used the batting cage, posed for pictures with some professional minor league baseball player nobody had ever heard of, and eaten a third dessert, everyone was completely wiped out. The only thing left to do was to wait for our parents to pick us up.

  A bunch of us decided to go outside and hang out in the bleachers. Now that the dancing was over, boys and girls separated again—boys on one bleacher, girls on the other. The boys were using their ties as whips and having whipping fights. The girls, who because of some weird fashion thing were forced to wear unbelievably uncomfortable shoes, were sitting down and rubbing their feet.

  The only kid missing was Jake, who was inside with his relatives, getting kissed on the top of his head a lot.

  I was still replaying the Zoe conversation in my head, where she basically said she wanted to kiss me. Wow. I started thinking … she didn’t really live that far away … we could maybe see each other on weekends … try another double date with Jake and Hannah (the last one didn’t go so well, BTW) … in other words, actually be boyfriend and girlfriend.

  “Zoe Alvarez,” Pete said, reading my mind.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  He snorted. “She totally still wants you. She was giving you a tonsillectomy with her eyes.”

  “Stop being a turd,” I told him.

  Timmy came up to me and smacked me with his tie—which was a clip-on, by the way. “This was a pretty good party.” He was feeling good because Kelly Gaspers, a girl he liked, said that he was “getting cuter every day.”

  “Charlie Joe thought it was a great party, too,” Pete said. “Didn’t you, lover boy?”

  Timmy smirked. “So what’s the deal with Zoe? Are you two going to pick up where you left off?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Girls are weird.”

  That launched a whole long conversation about how annoying girls could be—a topic that never gets old.

  Pete was in the middle of telling us one of his random theories—this one was something about how girls only like guys who get only one haircut a year—when Katie came over to our side of the bleachers.

  “What are you guys talking about?”

  “Girls,” said Timmy.

  “Mostly one girl in particular,” added Pete, elbowing me in the ribs.

  Katie laughed. “I knew it. If you two got together once and for all, that would be so great. It’s time you officially got over Hannah anyway.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Really, really.”

  “But Zoe lives in Kenwood.”

  Katie swatted me on the arm. “And you live in Eastport. So what? Don’t be a dolt.”

  I looked at her and thought I saw a tiny trace of irritation cross her face. Or maybe it was jealousy? The jealous face was something I was familiar with, since I saw it in the mirror every day last summer, when I was jealous of Katie and Nareem at Camp Rithubukkee. It was really weird: Katie and I had always been best friends, and everyone knows that best friends and romance don’t mix; so the fact that I’d been jealous of her last summer, and she might be jealous of me now, made absolutely no sense.

  But since when does life make sense?

  “Okay, fine,” I said.

  I went over to the girls’ bleachers and walked up to Zoe, heart pounding. After a second, she looked up at me.

&n
bsp; “Hi,” she said.

  Amazing how one simple word can make your heart start beating normally again.

  “Hi,” I said back.

  “It was great hanging out with you again,” Zoe said. “We should stay in touch this time.”

  I nodded. “We totally should.”

  Cars were starting to pull into the parking lot. The official end of the night. We kept an eye out, but neither of our parents were there yet. A few more minutes.

  Suddenly she looked back at me.

  “So, this is totally crazy, but do you maybe want to come visit me sometime this year?”

  “Definitely,” I said. “Kenwood is only like twenty minutes away.”

  Zoe smiled. “Yeah, well, that’s the thing. I’m not going to be in Kenwood. In like a month we’re moving to Ohio, to be closer to my grandparents. I’m not going to know anybody, obviously, so I’m hoping some friends will come visit me. Do you think maybe you could?”

  Wait. What the what?

  I stared at her. “Seriously? You’re moving again?”

  “I know,” she said. “I’d never moved before in my life and now I’m about to move for the second time in a year!”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked in shock. I wanted to add, Like out at the batting cages, when you basically said you wished I’d kissed you, but I didn’t.

  Zoe looked at her feet. “I didn’t know how to tell you, I guess.”

  “Well, yeah, no,” I said. “There’s no way my parents would let me go somewhere by myself. Especially to visit a girl.”

  “I totally get it,” Zoe said quickly. “I shouldn’t have brought it up, it was a stupid idea.”

  “Not stupid. Just not realistic.”

  Neither of us said anything for a minute.

  Zoe took a deep breath. “It was really fun seeing you, though. I’m really going to miss you. All over again.”

  And she gave me a big hug.

  Great, I thought. Another thing to lie awake in bed thinking about.

  A car horn blew, and we all looked up.