Free Jane Jones by Caissie St. Onge

little. And Eli Matthews? Let him be all enthusiastic and polite. Let him keep making stupid jokes and laughing at
my
stupid jokes and staring at me when he thinks I’m not looking at him.
    I had caught him staring a lot during our study date the night before. No, not a date. Appointment. It was a study appointment. But Eli sure acted like he wished it had been a date. He arrived at seven o’clock on the dot, and he was wearing a clean button-down shirt and some of that body spray that’s supposed to make women throw themselves at guys and tear their clothes off. It smelled like medicated dog shampoo. Luckily, I was able to tune that out because of his real scent, which reminded me the slightest bit of these cinnamon-clove cookies I remember Ma making at Christmas when I was very little and we still had plenty of food to eat. Not enough to be overpowering or sickening—just enough to make me remember, when I leaned close to him accidentally and took a big enough whiff. Ma let us work in my room, which was fine, except for when Eli flicked on my incredibly bright sleeping-lights. I made some dumb excuse about the high-wattage bulbs being there since we moved in and how I’ve been bugging my dad to change them. The only other light I had was a dim little desk lamp, which I snapped on instead. Thinkingabout it now, I realize that between the low light and the way I tried to casually throw open the drapes on my bed, it might have looked like I was trying to set some kind of mood. Ridiculous.
    Ma was ridiculous too. She made a tray with some cheese we’d bought and some free crackers my dad had brought home from the plant that had been stashed in an otherwise empty cabinet. She cut vegetables into little sticks and poured cola into a glass for Eli. I had to say, “Ma, it’s not a cocktail party,” to get rid of her, but before she left he said, “Really, Mrs. Jones, thank you for the snacks. Truly. They look great,” and grinned so wide his top and bottom braces showed. I think he really did like the food too, or he was a nervous eater, judging from the amount of crackers and crudités he put away.
    I mean, it’s possible he was nervous because it’s possible he kind of liked me. I think that was kind of safe to assume, although I know it’s bad to make assumptions. I mean, maybe the way I kept refusing to eat anything at all caused him to assume that I was too nervous to eat. And that wasn’t the case. I mean, I
was
too nervous to eat, but not because of him. I was too nervous to eat because of how I’d violently regurgitated human food once already that day.
    Besides, all I was really interested in was getting thisproject over with. Eli seemed to like Ms. Smithburg as much as I thought I did before recent events had me questioning her intentions. He had taken her Dust Bowl idea to heart and had obviously been thinking a lot about how we could make it our own. His idea was that we could create a kind of fictional video diary of a kid our age who was living on a Midwestern farm in the mid-thirties. He suggested that we write the script together, and that he work the camera, while I did the acting. “Then I can edit the whole thing on my laptop,” he said. “Add some old folk music and title cards. It’ll have tons of pizzazz!”
    “Pizzazz? Did you really just say ‘pizzazz’ on purpose?” I was teasing him, but I felt like a ball of ice was forming in my stomach. I wished I could just put my foot down and say I absolutely would not work on this topic, but we were already committed. Besides, it would be difficult to refuse without giving a reason, and what would that reason even be? Lying about shopping for bras is one thing, but I couldn’t think of a lie that could possibly work in this case, and I didn’t really want to. Maybe I was just being foolish. Maybe it was all a crazy coincidence that Ms. Smithburg had suggested a topic that hit so close to home for me. Maybe it would be therapeutic to relive