Not Anything by Carmen Rodrigues Page A

sweet smile. “’Cause I want to ask you something.”
    Ask me something? Ask ME something?
    And that’s when I start praying with my eyes open. It’s ridiculous and utterly girly, but I can’t help it. I start praying: Please ask me to homecoming. Please ask me to homecoming. Please ask me to homecoming.
    “Yeah?” It’s about all I can get out right now.
    “Well,” he starts out, and suddenly he seems less confident than I’ve ever seen him before. He’s looking down at his knee and picking at his jeans. In the kitchen, I hear his mother start making all kinds of noise, and I wonder, how long does it take to find aspirin and get a freaking glass of water? And why won’t she go away already?
    “I just,” he continues, still picking away at his denim jeans, “I just…Um…”
    Why is he so nervous? My stomach tightens. Could it be?
    “Yeah,” I prod, unusually bold.
    “Um.” He looks up, and I nod. Finally, he says, “I just want to know what you think about homecoming.”
    “Well—” And despite the fact that I want more than anything for him to ask me to homecoming, I can’t stop the knee-jerk response that railroads out of my mouth. “It’s kind of lame and elitist, don’t you think?”
    Crap! Why did I say that? I mean, I think it’s true, but why did I actually say it aloud? Am I so used to being excluded from these types of events that my self-protective responses have become automatic?
    “Oh.” He starts to pick at the lint on the sofa. “Oh,” he says again. And then he just shakes his head, like now it all makes sense to him. Only I don’t want what I’ve said to make sense to him. I want him to ask me the question all over again, because clearly I answered it COMPLETELY wrong.
    “Oh,” he says, “so you don’t want to go? Do you?”
    I vigorously shake my head no—because that’s not true, I do want to go. I mean, I’d want to go, if someone like Danny asked me.
    I mean, sure, before today, I didn’t even really know about homecoming. I didn’t even really know about guys asking girls out. I mean, I knew that guys asked girls out. Of course, I knew that. But I never knew that guys asked girls like me and Marisol out. But now that I know that girls like Marisol (and, therefore, girls like me) could get asked out to things like homecoming, I definitely want to go. I don’t have the power to articulate it, but I definitely want to go.
    “Susie?”
    “Yes, Danny?” Okay, this is the moment. This is the moment. I try to focus, so I can get it right this time.
    “You can stop shaking your head no. I get it.”
    “Huh?”
    At first, I don’t understand what he’s saying.
    “You,” he says, and he physically grabs my head to hold it in place, “can stop shaking your head no. I get that you think homecoming is a stupid, elitist event. Okay?”
    And then I realize the whole time that I’ve been shaking my head no, but meaning yes, Danny thought that I meant no. I just said no twice to the same question! I’m retarded. Clearly, I’m retarded.
    In the kitchen, Mrs. Diaz finally turns on the faucet, and just the sound of water running makes me cough, my throat is so dry. A little farther off, a door opens and slams shut, and I can’t help it; my head automatically shoots up at the sound, and I hear Danny say, “Dalia’s home.” Then he shifts a few spaces away from me and stops talking and picking altogether. And I realize that it’s over. The moment is gone. I blew it.
    I look over my shoulder. I can barely speak; my throat’s like sandpaper. “Will she come in here?” I ask, and then I move more than a few spaces away, I move a mile away from him, because if he’s going to reject me, then I’m going to reject him, too.
    “Probably.” Danny shakes his head and squints his eyes at me, but his voice stays pretty neutral. “But first, she’ll change and call her boyfriend. You’ve never met Dalia, right?” he asks, rubbing his temple.
    I shake my head no,