Free Klepto by Jenny Pollack Page A

do not to turn my head and just stare at him the whole period.
    The first time Madame Craig turned her back to us to write the verb partir on the blackboard, a tiny crumpled-up ball of notebook paper landed on my desk.
    Written in the note was Julie’s script: Oh my God, Josh Heller said hi to you and shook your hand! Are you dying?
    I quickly glanced at Josh, who was scribbling something and didn’t look up, so I just gave Julie a quick look back to say, Yes! But be cool about it, okay?
    Then I saw Julie writing me another note. Oh God, I thought, I don’t know if my heart can take this. I caught Julie’s second note like I was catching a firefly cupped in my hands just as it hit my desk and Madame Craig turned back around to face us.
    “ Excusez-moi. Julie?” Madame Craig said. We both looked up and my chest tightened. “ Pardon. Julie B.,” she said, and I exhaled.
    “Oui?” Julie said, and I stopped listening to read my note as secretly as I possibly could. Madame Craig asked Julie to conjugate partir. The note said, What would you do if JH asked you out????!!!!! Oh my God, I was going to have to kill her. How could I be expected to concentrate on French verbs?
    Then another balled-up note landed on my desk, only this time it came from my other side. WHAT ARE YOU GUYS WRITING NOTES ABOUT? it said in Josh Heller’s block-lettered-all-capitals penmanship. But thank God I heard what Madame Craig was asking just in time so that as she said, “ L’autre Julie,”—even in French, I’m the other Julie—by some miracle I knew the answer. First person plural: nous partons.
    I looked over at Josh, who was smiling at me and clearly waiting for my response. First I scribbled on a little piece of paper, balled it up, and threw it to Julie. It said, Josh wants to know what we’re writing about!
    Julie wrote back, Tell him, HIM!
    Then I wrote, You must be high. I can’t do that!
    Then Julie wrote, Yes you can, I dare you. So I ripped off a tiny new piece of paper and wrote on it YOU , and I passed it to Josh. I couldn’t believe I actually wrote that. I must have gone crazy. I caught the tail end of the two seconds it took him to open the note, and I saw him read it and laugh quietly. Oh my God, I loved his teeth.
    He wrote back, I had a feeling. Do you like coffee? It was the last note before the most annoying thing happened. Madame Craig caught us and made Josh move his seat to the front of the classroom.
    “Monsieur Heller!” she said angrily. Then she said some more stuff in French that I didn’t really understand, but I think it was something like, did we think she was born yesterday, and she pointed to an empty chair in the front row. Poor Josh gathered up his stuff and slunk off to the front before I could tell him my answer. Yes, I love coffee. With lots of milk and sugar.
     
     
     
    I obsessed about what I would wear on Wednesday. Was he going to ask me out for coffee? I finally decided on my regular Fioruccis with my cutoff white sweatshirt and the earrings that Natalie gave me that were made out of chandelier parts. I had the clothes all laid out on my orange pillow chair.
    But on Wednesday, Josh wasn’t in French. He wasn’t there on Friday, either. Where was he?

8
    I Absolutely Loved Rhinestones
    The Sunday before Christmas, Mom said from behind the Lord & Taylor catalogue, “I know just the thing for Marty.” Aunt Marty was Mom’s younger sister, and she had “fun jewelry” on her Christmas list. Mom was lounging in bed with the Book Review and various other sections of The New York Times , as she always did on Sunday mornings. This was her Sunday morning routine: get out of bed, wash her face and brush her teeth, eat some Wheaties with half-and-half in the kitchen (she didn’t like milk) and maybe some Branola bread toast, get back in bed, and read the paper.
    Marty and Mom were not particularly close—probably because Mom picked fights with her sometimes—but they talked almost every