Free Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman Page B

suppress her feelings, it should be me. After all, I was much better at it than Ashleigh. I would prove to myself, if it killed me, that I could be as generous as my friend.
    Still, if Parr didn’t see me in a romantic light, it didn’t necessarily follow that he had chosen Ashleigh. She and I were far from the only ones who admired the handsome fencer. I remembered the Wharton girl in the bathroom with the crush on Parr. She considered him beyond her reach. She thought he was already taken. Well, perhaps he was—not by me or Ashleigh, as she seemed to assume, but by someone else!
    And even if Parr’s heart was free, did Ash or I stand a chance with him? Impossible to say. For, as I gradually realized, he was stuck in Forefield, and we would have no chance to get to know him better.
    Hopeless, hopeless, all of it. The world that had seemed so bright and sharp faded to gray. Even the leaves blazing outside the window looked washed out, as if fall no longer mattered. I lay back on the bed, closed my eyes, and let tears leak into my ears.

    “Jul—Oh, napping?” said my stepmother disapprovingly, coming into the room with a perfunctory knock. “Would you mind helping me downstairs, sweetie? I’m not supposed to lift anything.”
    I awarded myself half a dozen imaginary dollars: one for not answering snappishly that Amy had interrupted a period of quiet, mindful contemplation; two more for not telling her she could perfectly well carry her own groceries; and the rest for not smashing the furniture in my despair.
    I spent the afternoon stowing bulk packages of toilet paper, diet soda, and other scintillating commodities in the laundry room and hauling junk from the other basement room up to the attic. Although I didn’t have the emotional strength to ask what it all meant, I hoped the I.A. was preparing a new home for her sewing machine, so I wouldn’t have to live with it in my room. She had been using it quite a bit over the last few weeks; the table next to it was covered with pastel-colored fabric scraps.
    I worked obediently, the physical activity distracting and soothing me. Still, my sorrow preyed on my mind, killing any urge to socialize; when Ashleigh called on Sunday, I even let Amy tell her I was too busy to talk.
    It wasn’t until Monday evening—Columbus Day—that I summoned the strength to check my e-mail. I found this message waiting:
    From: Downing, Ned
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, 2:21 P.M.
Subject: upsidedown headmasters
     
     
    hi julie,
    hey it was fun dancign with you and ashley. if you guys snuck into the great hall and turned the headmasters upside down would that make them feetmasters? if you hung them on teh stairs would they be stairmasters? i hope you’ll come help i have a plan but i’m not sure it’ll work. pleaes say hi to ashley for me. do you have her email address?
    best wishes
ned
    Oh, great, I thought. The first time a boy ever invites me to hang out with him (or, more precisely, hang pictures with him), it’s (a) the wrong boy, who (b) can’t type, and (c) has the world’s least romantic ulterior motive—a practical joke.
    For a painful minute I considered going along with his plan, whatever it was: since it would have to take place on the Forefield campus, there was a chance I would see Parr again. But such pleasures, I told myself sternly, were not for me.
    How, then, should I answer Ned’s message? Sending him Ashleigh’s e-mail address could only lead to more excruciating escapades. Given half a chance, the Enthusiast would surely insist on flipping the portraits, not only from her love of mischief, but from the same motive I was resisting: the hope of seeing Parr. However, it seemed cruel not to respond to Ned at all—what if I was right that he had fallen for Ash? And if he had, I caught myself thinking, perhaps he could win her away from Parr, leaving the field open for me. Hastily I squelched the thought.
    After some hesitation,