Page 17 of Notice Me, Jameson Hart
Eventually, my eyes grow heavy, and I climb back into bed, burrowing under the covers. For the rest of the night, all I see is Jameson pointing at me with the mustard bottle and saying my name like it’s the best thing he’s ever said.
CHAPTER 6
how d’ye do and shake hands
“Do you hate me?” Rita adjusts the floppy straw hat she bought from one of the overpriced souvenir shops near the pier. It’s enormous and casts her whole face in shadow except when she tilts her head to the right. “I’m serious, Kevin,” she says when I don’t answer her. “Do you hate me? Because I’d completely understand if you did. Missing your eighteenth birthday for Great-Aunt Mildred’s funeral—who I’ve never even met—is unforgivable.”
“I don’t hate you.” I dig my toes into the warm sand and think about how I could never hate her. We met freshman year in the drama club when we were paired up as townsfolk in the school production ofBeauty and the Beast.She was the first person outside of my family that I came out to. “You couldn’t control when your great-aunt died, Rita.”
“But I could have skipped it! Mom said so herself. She was all, ‘Rita, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’ But then Dad gave me that look. You know, the one where his eyebrows do that thing.” She demonstrates, scrunching her face in a way that cracks me up.
“It’s fine.” And I mean it. Having Rita here now, with her ridiculous hat, her hair as red as the sun at dusk, and hertendency to turn everything into high drama, is better than any birthday party I’ll ever have.
Still, she studies me from beneath the brim of her hat, clearly unconvinced. The ocean breeze catches the edge of it, and she has to hold it down with both hands to keep it from flying away. “Okay, but I need you to tell me again exactly how he said it.”
“How who said what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Kevin Pryor. You know exactly who I’m talking about. Jameson Hart. In your kitchen. The ‘Happy birthday, man.’” She leans forward, her blue eyes piercing through me, and nearly loses her hat completely. “I need the full breakdown. Tone. Inflection. Body language.Everything.”
Groaning, I fall back onto my beach towel. Today, we’ve claimed a new spot—halfway between one of the lifeguard stands and the volleyball nets. We’re close enough to watch all the action around us but far enough to avoid getting hit by stray balls or kicked-up sand. Above us, seagulls circle, waiting for someone to drop some fries. “Rita, I’ve told you this story three times already.”
“And you’ll tell it three more.” She pokes me in the ribs with her slender finger. “This is important investigative work I’m doing, Kevin. I’m building a case.”
“A case for what?”
“That he fancies you, obviously.”
I sit up so fast I get dizzy. Placing a hand on my head, I squeeze my eyes shut. “He doesn’t—he was being polite. It was my birthday. People say ‘happy birthday’ to people on their birthdays. It’s a social convention.”
“But the way he said it?—”
“Like a normal human being acknowledging another human being’s existence?”
She shakes her head, and the hat flops comically. “You said he smiled. Was it a polite smile? A genuine smile? An ‘I’ve secretly been in love with you for years’ smile?”
“That’s not a real category of smile.”
“It absolutely is. I’ve seen it in movies.” She pulls her phone out of her beach bag and scrolls through her downloaded apps. “Look, I made a spreadsheet for all your future Jameson Hart interactions.”
“You made a what?” I lunge for the phone, but she’s too quick and holds it out of reach.
“It’s color-coded. Green for positive interactions. Yellow for neutral. And red for—well, there won’t be any red ones, so don’t worry your pretty little head over that color.”
Sometimes, Rita can get overzealous. Normally, I have no problem with that. But today, I do. “Please delete that spreadsheet,” I beg her.
“Absolutely not.” She clutches her phone to her chest. “This is for your own good, Kevin. You need to document these things.”
I grab a handful of sand and let it slip through my fingers. The grains are warm and rough, nothing like the smooth certainty Rita has about my nonexistent love life. “There’s nothing to document. He said two sentences to me on my birthday. That’s. It.”
“Two sentences that changed everything.”
“They didn’t change anything.” The words come out sharper than I intend.
Rita’s eyebrows disappear beneath her hat. “Okay, what’s really going on here? The Kevin I know would be over the moon that a boy noticed him. He’d be singingSouth Pacificat the top of his lungs and doing cartwheels down the beach. This”—she waggles a finger up and down my body—“is not him.”
I turn my head away from Rita. Down the beach, a group of kids builds a sandcastle. They’re maybe seven or eight. Still young enough to believe that if they make it tall, it won’t get washed away by the tide.
“I don’t want to turn two seconds in my kitchen into some grand romantic gesture when it wasn’t. And even if it was, then what? I walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, remember when you wished me happy birthday at my birthday party that I didn’t invite you to? Want to see a movie with me?’”
