Free Quite an Undertaking - Devon's Story by Barbara Clanton

near them? If not, you should try to move closer. If you can do it without making it obvious that is.”
    “Yeah, sh—” I stopped myself just in time. I almost said, “she.” Talking in code like this was tricky. “Actually,” I tried again, “they moved their seat next to me last week.”
    “No kidding, Squirt. I think you’re already in. I think they already like you if they moved seats.”
    Missy had my attention. “You think so? But what do I do now?”
    “Well, have you invited them to hang out with you and Gail? You know, do something in a group of friends? That way it won’t seem like a date.”
    A date? The word scared me to death. “Um, I went out with some of her friends to the mall last weekend.” Oh shit, shit, shit. I just said, “her.” I held my breath hoping Missy hadn’t heard it.
    Maybe she hadn’t heard my slip because she said, “Squirt, that’s awesome. Keep doing stuff like that, and if it’s meant to happen then it’ll happen.”
    “Yeah, okay.”
    “But don’t push it. You could always...”
    “What? Always what?”
    “You could always wait for them to make the first move, you know.”
    Oh, God. Maybe Rebecca had already made the first move when she changed her seat. Maybe she made the second move by asking me to go to the mall. I rubbed my forehead when I realized she had probably already made the third move by asking me to go to Bruster with her. How many more hints did I need?
    I guess I hadn’t said anything while these thoughts sloshed through my brain because Missy said, “Hey, Squirt, you still there?”
    “Yeah, sorry. I’m just...I don’t know. I’m new at this.”
    Missy laughed. “It’s scary, liking somebody when you don’t know if they feel the same way.”
    Missy then started to tell me about a new guy she was seeing, but she used definite pronouns this time. “His name is Brandon. He’s a chemistry major. He’s a junior, too.”
    Travis and Gail came back to the car knocking me out of my thoughts. Travis lifted the grocery bag. “We scored,” he said triumphantly. He put the brown grocery bag filled with what looked like two six packs of beer on the seat next to me.
    “Cool,” I said. I hated beer, but everybody went to Bruster to drink beer, so that’s what we were going to do, too.
    From the passenger seat, Gail said, “The cashier hardly looked at Travis. She just glanced at the ID.” She gazed at Travis with such admiration that once again I felt like a voyeur, a spy, a fifth wheel. When Travis got in, closed the driver’s side door, and looked back at Gail the same way, I decided that, yeah, I was intruding. Gail only asked me to tag along because she felt guilty about spending so much time with Travis and not with me.
    “Hey, guys,” I called from the backseat. “You know what? I don’t feel so hot all of a sudden. Maybe I should go home.”
    “Oh, Devon.” Gail turned full around to look at me. “Are you sure? Do you want us to go back in and get you something? Aspirin?”
    “No, I’ll be okay. I need to go home, I think.” I didn’t like lying to her, but I would have been uncomfortable hanging out in the backseat knowing they wanted to be alone together.
    “Okay,” Gail said. “If you’re sure. We’ll try again another time.”
    Travis drove the couple of miles back to my house and dropped me off. Before he backed out of the driveway, watched Gail lean over and give him a long kiss. Yup, I’d definitely read the signs right. Was I reading Rebecca’s signs right?
     
     

Chapter Six
     
     
    Stranded
     
     
    I BRUSHED MY hair in front of the bathroom mirror debating whether to wear it up or down. Down, I decided. Rebecca wouldn’t see much of me in Jessie’s dark car anyway, so why bother.
    I looked at myself for an extra second in the mirror. Grandma always said I was pretty. I wasn’t so sure, but at least I had a good nose—kind of straight, not too big and not too small. Okay, so maybe I had one good