Gimme a Call Read Online Free PDF Page B

Maya. She is the smart one. I’m the pretty one. She takes after my dad, I take after my mom. Not that I’m pretty by a Florence West standard. Just a Banks standard.
    Maya hates when I call her the smart one. “You’re just as smart as I am,” she always tells me. “You just need to focus on school instead of only boys.”
    I miss having her in the next room giving me constant advice. During our quick pre-party phone call, my stomach ached at the sound of her voice. “When are you coming home for a weekend?” I asked.
    “Already? I just got here!”
    “But I miss you! It’s not like Mom or Dad will make up new words to songs and sing them with me in the backyard at the top of their lungs.”
    “So visit me. Wanna come for Columbus Day weekend? Supposedly the dorm throws crazy parties. Lots of cute boys,” she added, laughing.
    “Yes!” I hollered.
    “We’ll look for tickets,” she promised, before saying she had to get off to get ready for a dorm party.
    I hoped she’d stake out a cute boy for herself. Last year, I peeked at her diary—she should not have left it under her mattress if she didn’t expect me to read it—and I discovered that she had never kissed a boy on the lips.
    While I had already kissed two boys on the lips.
    Maybe Maya will find a boyfriend at her party.
    I follow Tash into the living room.
    Maybe I’ll find a boyfriend at this party.

    I’m sitting on Celia’s couch, minding my own business, laughing, giggling, whatever, about to deposit a tortilla with a dab of salsa into my mouth when I hear “Hey, Sands!”
    Bryan Sanderson, the spiky-haired, passionate yet average baseball player with the fabo smile, is standing in the doorway to the living room. He’s wearing faded jeans and a soft-blue T-shirt layered over a long-sleeved gray one.
    As my stomach does a little jumping jack, my chip somehow frees itself from my fingers, flies through my legs, and lands on Celia’s living room sectional.
    Celia’s white suede sectional.
    Splat! Omigod. Why would someone with a white suede sectional serve salsa? If I had a white suede sectional, I’d serve only white party foods, like french onion dip and cauliflower. Better yet, marshmallows. Is serving salsa not asking for trouble? Why would a couch be white, anyway? What if you have dirt on your jeans? Or an open pen in your pocket? What then?
    No, no, no. I mustn’t blame the victim, aka the couch, for my inability to eat and spot a cute guy at the same time.
    What do I do, what do I do?
    I slam my legs together while keeping them elevated—to avoid smearing the stain—and debate my next move. Jump up and try to clean the couch? Act clueless? Confess to Celia?
    Deep breath. Deeeeeeep breeeaaaaath . First I must assess the damage. Perhaps I imagined the whole thing. Perhaps I in fact ate the chip but, because the salsa was so mild, I barely noticed. Yes!
    I reopen my legs and peek through. No! The chip is still there, planted on the couch cushion like a flag. I oh-so-casually reach below and yank it out, praying that it hasn’t left behind any rogue salsa. Has it?
    There is a fortune cookie–shaped red smudge on the couch.
    Shoot .
    I glance up to see if anyone else has noticed the disaster.
    “Isn’t it ridiculous?” Joelle is saying, her arms flailing. Karin is laughing, head bobbing along, and Tash is quietly chomping on a peanut.
    Why didn’t I have a peanut?
    None of them are paying attention to me in the slightest. None of the million other people in here seem to have noticed me either. Maybe my braces give me the superpower of being invisible.
    “Karin,” I whisper, but she doesn’t seem to hear.
    But Bryan Sanderson—cute, sporty Bryan Sanderson—is looking right at me. Looking right at me and grimacing. Fantastic. I haven’t even been introduced to him and I’ve already managed to disgust him.
    “Saw that,” he mouths.
    I’m pretty sure my cheeks are the color of the salsa, but I mouth back, “What do I