He Loves Me Not by Caroline B. Cooney Page B

Mollison.”
    “I thought that might be you. I saw the by-line on the article about the citizen’s protest on environmental budget cuts.” Townsend H. Mollison, I thought. It was a name that cried out for an important door and brass letters on it.
    “It’s kind of a heavy name for high school,” said Ted, “but it’ll look great someday when I win a Pulitzer Prize.”
    We didn’t laugh at that one. Should I tell him about the dream I had? I thought. About going to Nashville and cutting a record?
    But down below me the organ salesman was signaling furiously. There was no time in my schedule to share anything. There was only time to thank Ted and run down the stairs. I felt like Cinderella leaving the ball. The prince stayed and she had to go back to her cruel stepmother’s and work and slave.
    At least I knew I would have an appreciative audience for this part of my concert. I slid onto the bench and put on violins and flutes instead of marching band trumpets. I began filling the mall with my engagement party repertoire.
    I played for so many engagement parties and weddings that I have them on the brain. I guess any girl daydreams about them, but I have more to go on. Sometimes, when I’m in a bad mood, I daydream that my boyfriend and I skip all that junk and just get married. Sometimes, though, I plan this extravaganza with all the lace and flowers and hearts imaginable.
    It was difficult to imagine Ted in a lace and flowers setting.
    He was definitely the type to go to a judge some afternoon and wrap the whole thing up in five minutes.
    Quit daydreaming about a wedding, you dodo, I told myself. The boy so far has bought you one frozen yogurt.
    I wondered what Ted was daydreaming about. He must still be up on the balcony, eating his yogurt in peace. Perhaps he was having a second one, since he liked them so much. I decided next time Daddy and I went shopping I would stock up on frozen yogurts. Just in case.
    After all, if nobody at Ted’s house ever bought any food, he might come to mine to eat.
    I played “Some Enchanted Evening” and hoped that Ted was duly enchanted. I could not twist around to look up and see.
    “…arrange monthly payments if you like,” said the organ salesman to a plump elderly lady who was loving every note I played. I wished I could read the expression on Ted’s face as easily.
    “…makes it look easy,” said the old lady doubtfully, “but I’m not so sure it really is.”
    I thought that the next time Ted and I got together I would point out to him that we wore the exact same kind of watch: a big fat Timex with a sweep hand and numbers you could read from a yard away. All the girls I know have these itty-bitty watches that don’t tell time; they just decorate the wrist. Then I started thinking about wrists, and how mine looked so slender and fair against Ted’s, which was almost twice as large.
    Within half an hour the camellia crowd had vanished. There was just a girl in gaudy red, an organ, and a thousand camellias on a stage. The organ man decided it was time to call it a day.
    I ended my last love song with a flourish and looked up for Ted.
    “Thanks a bunch,” said the organ man. “You were terrific, honey. Give me your phone number. I’ll want to have you regular, okay?”
    All over the mall stores were closing down after the short Sunday hours. Huge metal gates clanked and great glass doors slid closed. The mall emptied.
    There was no Townsend H. Mollison anywhere.
    Beside me on the bench, yogurt was melting in a paper cup.
    The only man who’d stayed around was, as usual, somebody who wanted me for my music.

12
    T HE NEXT MONTH WAS like a seesaw. I didn’t go anywhere, but I had motion sickness.
    I could not believe how many times my mind ran over my few conversations with Ted Mollison. Kept pretending I had not knocked him over or crashed heads with him or had trouble chewing in front of him. Kept working and reworking the talk we had had over the frozen