Free Pass/Fail (2012) by David Wellington Page A

kissing Megan again.
    “What if my feet smell?” he asked Cody. “What if I say something stupid because I’m so distracted I can’t think? What if I get so excited I try to grab her and she freaks out and thinks I’m molesting her?”
    “She’s making it as easy on you as she can,” Cody said. “I think she’ll give you a real chance. I think maybe she actually likes you. Did you think about that?”
    It had occurred to him. Some of the things she’d said certainly suggested it. It had seemed so impossible good though, such an amazing, beautiful, desirable thing, that he had immediately doubted it. The tests had gotten him so worked up and paranoid he was doubting anything that looked easy or good.
    “Do your best. Don’t molest her. Tell her she looks nice, girls love that,” Cody said.
    “I have to start getting ready,” Jake told him, and they ended the call.
    An hour later he came down the stairs and found his Mom waiting for him in the hall. “Very impressive,” she said, looking him up and down. She was smiling very brightly. She’d been smiling like that since he told her he had a date—his first ever. “Only…” she went on, scratching her chin.
    “What?” he asked. He had showered and shaved and put on more deodorant than he normally wore. He had brushed and combed his hair. He looked down at his clothes. “She said I should dress up. Is there a stain somewhere?”
    “It’s just—is that the suit you wore to grandma’s funeral?”
    “It’s the only one I have,” he told her.
    “Mm-hmm. And… lilies, huh?”
    He raised the bouquet to his nose and sniffed them. “I got them at the supermarket on my way home from school. Are they the wrong color?”
    “They’re not… traditional… for a first date. Maybe you can take her flowers next time.” Jake’s Mom took his arm and led him back up the stairs. “That tie is a little too formal, as well.” She went into his closet and took out a blazer and a clean pair of bluejeans. “I think this might work better,” she told him. “Now. As for etiquette. Just try to be a gentleman, and don’t talk all the time, listen to what she has to say. That’s all a girl really wants on a first date. Don’t try to kiss her when you bring her home. It just makes you look desperate.”
    Oh my God, Jake thought. This date means everything to me, and look at me. I need my mother to dress me. And I already look desperate before it’s even started.
    As he drove toward Megan’s house in his Dad’s station wagon, he could only think: this is going to be a disaster.
     

Chapter Seventeen
    Megan was wearing a print dress and knee high boots. She had completely changed her hair, cutting it much shorter so that her neck was exposed. She was wearing makeup, too—not much, just a little lipstick and eyeliner—but the effect was dramatic. She was standing on the brick path that led from her house down to the street, and she came straight over to the station wagon when he pulled up at the curb.
    He rolled down the window. “You look great,” Jake said. “I mean—”
    “Open my door for me, Jake,” she told him. She had a patient little smile on her face.
    He nearly knocked her over getting his own door open. Then he had to remember to take off his seatbelt. “Yeah, of course—what did you—what did you do to your hair?”
    “I had them cut out the scorched bits. Then they had to even everything out. Do you like it?”
    “Yeah,” he said.
    They stood there looking at each other for a while.
    Finally she said, “You look pretty good yourself. You dress up well. Shall we go? The movie’s at seven.”
    “Um, sure,” Jake said. “Don’t you want me to come in first, though, and meet your parents or something?” His Mom had been very clear on how he should address Megan’s parents. He was supposed to try to call her father Sir, which showed respect.
    “Why? They would only embarrass us both, and that’s not what I want tonight.” She