Going Vintage by Lindsey Leavitt Read Free Book Online Page A

learned.

Jeremy and I always sat together at lunch. Not by ourselves—we kind of worked our way around the different tables and benches, but always together, especially this school year. Junior year was to be Our Year of the Couple. I’d mentally dubbed it as such when Jeremy told me he loved me in July. He even cried when he said it. Cried .
I can sit most anywhere and be fine. Relatively fine. There is the dilemma of trying to find something 1962-ish to eat from a menu filled with Papa John’s pizza and vending machines. I finally give up and grab an apple, not overly hungry.
I survey the quad, considering the large trees, circular tables, and rows of bleachers facing the outdoor theater. If I really wanted to avoid people, I could head inside to the actual cafeteria, since no one eats in there, not in sunny California. Well, no one worth sitting by.
There aren’t Imperial cliques at our school, not like you see in old teen movies with jocks and nerds and cheerleaders. I mean, we have all those, but most people aren’t just that one thing, so all the groups bleed into one another. You can be an A student (The Stars) who also does drugs (Burnies, which, if you include dabblers, is almost half the school) and plays the harp (Unusual Instrumentalists—ha, just made that one up). I guess the exception would be the handball courts on the east side of the cafeteria where lots of Hispanics hang. Jeremy always called that Little Tijuana, which I never liked, but he also called the Asian table Chinatown and he is Asian and we always sat there, so maybe that makes it okay? Maybe not.
So, lunch. The dominant identifier—whether that be a talent or religion or family income—usually decides table selection, which is why I spot Jeremy sitting with The Kids With Nice Cars, a group we didn’t usually visit, since Dad’s 1994 Ford Escort I occasionally get to drive would not suffice.
“I heard about the breakup. How’s it going?” My friend Paige Santos is next to me, a turkey sandwich in one hand, a Coke Zero in the other, and a severe look of concern on her face.
“Fine.” I’m still staring at Jeremy. He’s laughing at something his cousin Oliver said. He never laughs like that with Oliver; he never even sits with Oliver. Oliver drives a fricking Nissan that’s older than he is, so he’s breaking the social-class table rules anyway. Jeremy thinks his cousin tries too hard to be indie and quixotic, not that Jeremy would ever use the word quixotic , and … what do I care? The thing that really bothers me is that Jeremy can laugh at all right now, that he can even so much as fake a smile after what he did to me.
How can I hate someone and still love him at the same time?
“Your dress is adorable,” Paige says. “Did you get it at the Circle?”
Orange Circle is the old town shopping area, sort of a Main Street USA that’s been frozen in time. My dad has a small booth in one of the antiques malls. All the hipsters shop in the vintage stores, but it’s expensive, so I usually pray for a find at Goodwill. “It’s my grandmother’s.”
“Wow, that’s even better.” Paige tugs at the sleeve. “Good for you for looking so put together after being dumped.”
I shoot her a look. “Don’t believe everything you read on Friendspace. I didn’t get dumped.”
“Then what happened? I texted you and tried calling.”
“I got rid of my phone.”
Paige recoils, her long black hair swishing behind her shoulders. “Got rid of it? Did your parents take it away? I was over my text limit once and my father—”
“No. It was, uh, voluntarily retired. I’m simplifying my life by giving up modern technology—”
“What?”
“—and trying to live more like teens did fifty years ago, when communication was more, uh, communicative,” I say.
“So, this is a sort of social experiment then?” Paige bites at a hangnail, calculating. Paige is more interested in high school hierarchy than anyone I know—last year she had a