บท 5: Purposeful Eavesdropping

Lydia had stars in her eyes as she gleefully pranced around her favorite store in the mall.

'Everything is a minimum of 30% off! This one looks pretty! Ohhh but this one's cuter…that's really soft, I think I should try that on! Stripes or floral? Or stripes WITH floral? There's too much to choose!'

Ivy stood back and watched her energetically hop from rack to rack as she munched on a pizza-inspired soft pretzel with pepperoni and Parmesan cheese baked onto it. She wasn't exactly unfashionable but she wasn't nearly as into clothes as Lydia was.

She glanced down at her blue and white striped sweater and jeans with brand name sneakers. No, she wasn't unfashionable, but this store was a bit much for her. Everything had weird extra straps or was off-shoulder or otherwise made more difficult to tell which limbs went through which hole.

What exactly was the point of that? Who decided wearing a shirt needed to be more complicated?

"Ivy, come help me decide which one to try on!" Lydia implored, holding up two nearly identical blouses.

The only differences were the color—light pink vs maroon—and the way the straps were set up. The floral pattern and general fit looked the same.

'Light pink is such a bad color on me…it totally washes me out. But I don't know, it's so cute!'

Ivy, who knew little of such concerns, decided to go with what Lydia was already thinking. "Choose the maroon."

"Okay!" she chirped and her inner monologue agreed, proving that Ivy made the right choice to follow it.

'She's right, the maroon would look better on me…more striking against my hair and all. I'm so glad to have a second opinion!'

Ivy, who didn't have an opinion at all, chuckled as her friend went off to the dressing room. Her attention wandered to the shoe store across the way. People over there were just as indecisive as Lydia.

'Do these make my ankles look fat? I'm afraid to ask.'

'I can't really afford these but it's buy one get one half off!'

'Light up shoes or not? What do kids like these days; I can't remember!'

'This one is cuter but costs $10 more…ugh, I hate being poor.'

"Ivyyy, how do I look?" Lydia asked, calling her attention back. The redhead struck a dramatic pose an Ivy stifled a laugh.

"It looks good on you. You should get it."

"I should, shouldn't I?" she agreed happily.

Her inner monologue continued, 'But if I get this, I'll only have twenty dollars left after the other things I picked! That's only enough for one more item! How could I possibly choose?!'

Ivy sighed. She couldn't afford to buy anything here, on sale on not. Most of her money went towards comprehensive language learning software packages.

She wanted to improve her French because that would help with both Portuguese and Italian. Her mom bought her clothes when she outgrew her old ones and that was enough for her needs.

"Oh, I talked to that boy in my math class. He said yes! So now I need a costume too. Don't think I can find that here though. It's superhero themed! Isn't that fun?" Lydia asked as she continued searching the clothing racks for her last item of the day.

More like ironic, considering how much time Ivy spent researching fictional superheroes less than 24 hours ago.

"Please ask someone to come with you!" Lydia begged. "We don't have a group to go with and that's half the fun for more casual girls' choice dances. It's not like prom. You're my best friend; I need you to have my back here!"

Her best friend, huh? If Ivy really thought about it that was probably how she would describe Lydia too. But who would she ask?

Ideally, it would be her mystery boy so she could try to figure out how he ticked but the odds of finding him again so soon were extremely slim. Especially since it would be super awkward to ask someone out whose name she didn't even know.

The only other person she could think of was Carson but she didn't want to give him any weird ideas. His thoughts weren't depraved like most of the guys' in school but she didn't want him thinking she liked him or anything.

Although…if they went out to dinner before the dance that could be how she repaid him for his unwitting help keeping her grades up in half her classes. They were both on the honors/AP track after all. They ran in similar academic circles.

With a sigh she relented. "I actually do have someone I can try asking but no promises."

Lydia squealed and clutched Ivy's arm in excitement. "Oooh, do you like him?"

"No, but I know him so it probably wouldn't be too weird to ask."

"You won't regret this, I promise! We're going to have so much fun!"

===

That was what Lydia said but Ivy sat through two classes she had with Carson without saying a word the following Monday. She monitored his thoughts like a hawk to see if she could find the best opening.

In AP Literature:

'The Great Gatsby was such an annoying book…all of the characters were terrible people! How is this considered classic literature?!'

'Do I really have to write an essay analyzing these people's motivations…their motivations all suck.'

'Could I get away with using summaries to write this? I've done it before…'

In AP Biology:

'Why does it have to be frogs?! I'm going to pass out and everyone's going to laugh at me and I'm going to fail the assignment. What do I do? Breathe. Breathe!'

'Okay, so my lab partner's doing it. I don't have to look. I don't have to—THE SMELL. I'm going to puke. I'm going to puke and then pass out onto my puke. Help.'

'That was the worst forty-five minutes of my life. Why did I take this class?'

In APUSH:

'There's got to be a song out there to help me memorize all the presidents…there's one for all the states. Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut…why is it stuck in my head?!'

'Wasn't there a cartoon when I was a kid that had a presidents song? I think there was. I'll look it up when I get home.'

'I have so much homework…why did I take all AP classes. Oh yeah, because I hate myself.'

Did he ever think about anything other than school?! Although the bit about the song getting stuck in his head was slightly amusing. Until it got stuck in Ivy's head too. Countless songs over the years had been stuck in her head because they were in someone else's first.

'…is Ivy looking at me? I feel like she's been looking at me. Why? What does she want?' Carson fretted.

Crap, she was caught. She had been looking at him on and off all throughout class because they sat in the same row on opposite sides of the classroom. Welp. That was as good of an opening as she was going to get.

When class ended she marched up to him and gave him her most winning smile. "Do you want to go to the Sadie Hawkins Dance with me?"

He stared at her, frozen in panic. 'She WAS looking at me! She wanted to ask me out? ME?! Answer, you idiot, don't just stand there!'

Clearing his throat, he smiled back. "Yeah, that would be great."

Carson was totally freaking out despite a fairly convincing outer appearance. Did he have high functioning anxiety or what?

'I've never been to a dance before in my life. What do I do? How do you even dance? What if I make a total fool of myself in front of her? We have half our classes together! I'd never be able to look her in the eye again. But it might be fun! If I don't die of embarrassment first…'

Ivy gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "Awesome! The theme is superheroes so if you have any ideas let me know. I can try to come up with some too."

'She just touched me. SHE JUST TOUCHED ME. Wait, phone number. Ideas. Exchange phone numbers! Say something!'

"We should exchange phone numbers, it might be easier to brainstorm that way," he said nonchalantly, belying his disjointed inner thoughts. Carson Summers had just become more interesting.

"My next class is across campus so can we do it tomorrow? I'm going to be late," she said after hearing a passerby that checked their phone and realized that there were only three minutes left of passing period.

"Of course! I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you then!"

'Another brilliant social interaction, Carson, really top notch,' he berated himself as she headed in the opposite direction.

Ivy chuckled to herself. He wasn't as dull as she thought. This might actually be fun!