Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens CHAPTER 1 The first time Ginny Woodland spoke to me, I vomited all over her Reeboks. At the time, I was a haphazard assortment of fourteen-year-old body parts--frizzy black hair sprouting from an unruly ponytail, bug eyes, wide nose, ashy dark skin, practically inverted breasts, and a variety of other genetic hilarities. She, on the other hand, was a year older, and her body parts were decidedly better suited to one another. Fair skin, freckles, a cascade of fiery red hair--from the neck up alone she was a Botticelli to my Picasso. Her artistic head bobbed along beside me now--even more beautiful three years later. She''d just finished her shift at Old Stuff, the thrift store where she worked part-time, and I''d biked over to meet her and walk her home--part of a petrifying plan I was no longer sure I could carry out. Sneaking sideways glances at her as we walked, I could tell she was in a good mood. She was humming some tune I didn''t know and tapping a pebble forward with her toe each step she took.
I wished I was as at ease as she seemed. But as my bike rattled along beside me, my heart rattled even more inside my chest. I was trying to generate some magical source of courage to say what I came here to say, but all I seemed able to do was plod along beside her like a dolt, listening to her hum. Though we''d known each other for three years, somehow that initial nausea had never fully disappeared, even though our relationship had managed to move past that early, revolting debacle. When I''d first laid eyes on her in the ninth grade, Ginny had been playing basketball in the schoolyard, her lean arms and legs accentuated by a sporty top and knee-high socks, and my heart just about leaped out of my mouth. Up to that point, my heart hadn''t experienced much in the way of leaping, or thumping, or any similar exertions. Life had been crammed with more "existing" and "observing" than other, action-related verbs. In fact, that September, my best friend Charles and I had made a habit of sitting at the same table at lunch in the schoolyard, under a forlorn cottonwood tree, watching and waiting.
We didn''t mind the tree''s patchy shade or despairing limbs--the heart-shaped leaves abandoning their branches and floating down around us felt like a shield against the pandemonium of more boisterous teenagers nearby. Our tree also provided a great vantage point from which we could safely observe all the high school "flora and fauna," as Charles called the school''s cliques. He''d fabricate scientific-sounding categorizations for them while I''d invent extended metaphors--two nerdy kids playing a lunchtime game to distract us from the fact that our only friends were heart-shaped leaves. "Ah look, Nima, there''s the dividas et conquer-ass," Charles would say, pointing to one of the popular kids in grade eleven who swept past the courts with a trio of minions tailing him. Charles''s full lips would twist into grotesque shapes as he used an unidentifiable accent. "These trees are known to grow in tight clumps for protection, but will easily turn upon one another if forced to fight for the sun, scraping their way past each other''s tough bark and branches and displacing their own flowering blossoms in the process." He''d curl his fingers into claws and force them upon one another in a simulated attack, his eyes going cross-eyed. "Notice," I''d add, "one member has separated from the group--a single fallen petal from a tree of deceivingly delicate blossoms.
What fate will follow for our forgotten friend? Will the damp ground seep into her fine features? Or will some romantic soul pass by, pluck her off the pavement, and savor her forever?" Admittedly, I could get carried away. When I did, Charles would throw a Froot Loop at me--he always had Froot Loops in his lunch, sometimes for his lunch--and we''d dissolve into giggles. This was less exciting than some high school experiences, I suppose. However, it was from the sparse shade of our cottonwood tree that Ginny Woodland--with her athletic body and radiant smile--took hold of my heart and sent it spiraling into a whole host of action verbs. I''d had crushes on girls before. I''d realized in sixth grade that girls did something to my body and brain that boys never seemed to when Cassidy Grims dared a bunch of us to touch the tips of our tongues with one another''s. My tongue touched the tips of three girl tongues and four boy tongues that day, and let''s just say I had zero interest in touching any more boy tongues, but the flutter in my heart and the warm surge in other parts of my body made me want a lot more girl touching of all kinds. Unfortunately, no more touching had taken place by the time ninth grade rolled around, but those warm and fluttery feelings perked up considerably when I saw Ginny.
It didn''t even matter that she seemed, as I discovered, to prefer boy tongues. But after barfing on her shoes, those feelings remained concealed, I remained an unfortunate assembly of features, and Ginny continued to be a distant desire. Today I''d finally decided to bridge the gap. In my mind, it''d been long enough since the Barf that I''d replenished whatever minor amount of self-respect I had in order to finally divulge my everlasting love for her. On top of that, she''d be graduating and leaving behind our small West Coast town for a university at the other end of the country when the summer ended. It had felt like a now-or-never situation. But here, in the late afternoon light and with her smiling and laughing beside me, too many obstacles were presenting themselves. For one, I''d apparently been rendered speechless.
As preparation, I''d envisioned the love scenes I read during my brief romance novel phase and practiced the conversation in my head over and over again. Ginny, it''s time you knew: I''ve loved you for three years. Make me the happiest girl in the world? Ginny, I know you haven''t shown any interest in dating girls, but gender is a construct. Be my girlfriend? Ginny, before you leave for university, you need to know I loved you even before I barfed on your shoes. Ginny, you''re perfect. I love you. Those all seemed preposterous now. How was it that I had all the words in the world to refashion life into metaphors, but still couldn''t form a damn sentence around this girl? Another obstacle was her current attire.
It was June, and warm (and getting hotter by the second), so Ginny wore a spaghetti-strap tank top, revealing her adorable freckly shoulders. I swear, those freckles would be the death of me. They''d been part of my downfall from the beginning. That woeful, pukey day in ninth grade, I''d been staring blissfully at them as she sat in front of me on the gymnasium bleachers. After watching her (in an innocent, non-stalkery way) play on the outdoor courts each lunch hour throughout September, I''d somehow convinced myself that attending basketball tryouts would give me ample opportunity to win Ginny over with my wit and literary flair. If you ask me now to check my math on that particular equation, I might politely decline the request, but at the time, it all made perfect sense in my pubescent brain. So it was on a chilly fall day in October that I found my scrawny self in a group of mostly tenth-grade girls who looked like they had more justifiable reasons for being in that gym than I did. I''d strategically situated myself just behind Ginny.
Her hair soared from the top of her head in a high ponytail, the red, precisely trimmed tips reaching the nape of her neck. The light brown freckles that dotted her shoulders were perfectly visible because she was wearing an actual basketball jersey, not a cotton T-shirt that said SCREAMING WEENIES--NO MESSIN'' AROUND! on the front and had a cartoon on the back of a serious-looking hot dog in a cowboy hat hollering and waving around a smaller hot dog like a gun. This is what I was wearing, by the way. I was busy counting each freckle on her right shoulder when Mrs. Nicholls, our PE teacher and coach, marched in bouncing a basketball and carrying a clipboard. Tossing the ball to one of the girls in the front row, she told us to call out our names one by one so she could write them down. Just the sound of Ginny''s voice on a normal day sent my insides rolling, and at her enthusiastic "Ginny Woodland!" my stomach performed a full backflip. It was still trying to find its footing when my turn arrived, and my own name toppled from my mouth sounding like "Numatark" rather than "Nima Kumara-Clark," which is my actual name.
A few girls snickered, but Ginny looked back at me, and the freckles on her cheeks lifted in a friendly smile. I almost threw up right then and there. But "the Great Basketball Barf," as both Ginny and Charles so cleverly christened it later on, occurred about halfway through the tryouts, which were moving along fabulously. And by fabulously, I mean I''d never been exposed to such torture in my life. One such agony occurred when Mrs. Nicholls forced each of us to shoot a free throw, the consequence of a missed shot resulting in a "suicide"--an inappropriately named procedure requiring you to run back and forth between each important line on the court. Of course, I missed my fre.