~
Despite having
craved an L.J’s Diner slinger since moving home, Amanda steered clear of the
place and drove in the opposite direction. L.J’s was a place to be seen,
where people went to show off fresh blowouts and go public with new
relationships. It was where the town convened to eat and make small talk
before separating into cliques and gossiping in hushed voices over greasy food.
For that reason,
Amanda opted to go to her usual safe spot, The Donut Basket. Since middle
school, she’d known and loved Gail, the shop owner. Not only that, people
only went to The Donut Basket between 7AM and 10AM, which made it an ideal
place for Amanda to quietly visit and fill her quota of going out once a
week. Not only would Gail throw in a few free vanilla Long Johns, she
would also tell the town the next morning that Amanda Nathan had been by and
was doing just fine. No one would believe her, of course, but it made
Amanda feel like she wasn’t a complete
hermit.
Gail had been
partial to Amanda since she’d been in eighth grade, walking over to the shop
with Megan a few days a week after school. It was all for Jake Pearson, a
then-sophomore at Merit High School who stopped by the place on Mondays and
Wednesdays before football practice. He was Megan’s first big crush,
similarly jet-haired and blue-eyed. She liked to think that she could
always get what she wanted, so despite having no interest in doughnuts, she
made herself a regular at The Donut Basket. Amanda’s role was always to
join and keep her company for the days when Jake and his teammates brought high
school girls with them, ruling out the chances of flirting or even being looked
at.
But on the
days that the older girls didn’t come along, Megan had the ability to make Jake
late for practice. They’d flirt as if two days ago, he hadn’t ignored her
for being a thirteen-year-old who still attended middle school. While
they giggled and arm-wrestled and teased each other, Amanda sat on a stool at
the counter, allowing herself to be either ignored or heckled by Jake’s two
ruddy teammates.
“What’s up,
Third Wheel?” the redheaded one would ask, holding his hand up for a jeering
high five. Amanda did her best to ignore them, especially as they went
into their routine of lamenting and wondering where Megan’s “hot friends”
were. Like the rest of Merit, they couldn’t understand why a pretty girl
would continue to stick with the average best friend she’d chosen on a whim in
fifth grade.
“Five more
minutes, Mandy, please? You can’t
leave without me!” Megan would plead whenever Amanda flashed a look that said, Get me out of here. “Five more
minutes, I promise.”
Though five
minutes always became fifteen or twenty, Amanda could never bring herself to
leave. Megan needed her moral support. Her crushes on boys never
lasted more than two weeks, but her obsession with Jake was on its third month, so Amanda knew it was
important. And as a friend, it was her job to weather the storm of
insults from Jake’s teammates and just be there for Megan. That included
sticking around till the boys left for practice, listening to Megan’s stories
during their walk home, and helping her analyze all the cute things that Jake
had said and done. One day when a boy liked her, Amanda would need Megan for the same thing. That was just
how friendship worked.
So as the high
school boys taunted her, Amanda would flip through a People Magazine and
politely decline Gail’s pep talks. Running to an adult for sympathy would
just make her look like a dork – though she couldn’t help liking Gail when one
day, she taunted the two boys right back. Since they’d dubbed Amanda
“Third Wheel,” Gail dubbed them “Training Wheels” – the two sidekicks who would
get left behind once Jake grew out of them.
The nickname
proved prophetic by the next year at MHS. Jake and Megan became a couple
and the Training Wheels were cut from the varsity football team. Amanda
remained Megan’s best friend and stayed up on the phone with her past 12AM
every night, listening to all the stories and romantic details of her first
relationship.
“I can’t wait
till you have a real boyfriend!” Megan would gush.
“If or when that
happens,” Amanda always said. Her five-week “relationship” with Jake’s
quiet cousin, Phil, was supposed to be her chance. But the set-up was
mismatched from the start – forced for the sole purpose of double dates – and
Phil was always too mesmerized by Megan to say a single word anyway.
“You will find a boy one day, Mandy,” Megan
promised. “And when you do, we’ll have so much fun together.”
She was right
about that, Amanda realized as she chomped down on a doughnut, sitting at the
same counter she’d always sat at in middle school. I did find a boy. And she had a lot of fun with him.
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