One Night That Changes Everything

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “What?” I demand. I narrow my eyes at the both of them. “What do you two know about this?”

  Marissa bites her lip. “Wel-l-l-l,” she says. “I’m not sure if it’s true.”

  “Not sure if what’s true?” I say.

  “It’s nothing,” Clarice says. She gives Marissa another look, one that says, “Let’s not tell her, we’re going to freak her out too much.”

  “Totally,” Marissa says. “It’s nothing.”

  “Someone,” I say, “had better tell me exactly what this nothing is.” I put my hands on my hips and try to look menacing.

  “I heard it from Marissa,” Clarice says, sounding nervous.

  “I heard it from Kelsey Marshall,” Marissa says.

  “HEARD WHAT?” I almost scream. I mean, honestly.

  “Wel-l-l-l,” Marissa says again. “The rumor is that Cooper didn’t get into Brown because of what you wrote about him on Lanesboro Losers.”

  “But that’s … that doesn’t make any sense.” I frown, and Marissa and Clarice exchange another disconcerting look.

  Lanesboro Losers is a website that my older sister, Kate, started last year when she was a senior. The concept is simple: Every guy in our school is listed and has a profile. Kind of like Facebook, except Kate set up profiles for every guy—so basically they’re on there, whether they like it or not. Under each guy’s picture is a place for people to leave comments with information they may have about that guy and how he is when it comes to girls.

  So, like, for example—if you date a guy and then you find out he has a girlfriend who goes to another school, you can log on, find his profile, and write, “You should be careful about this guy since the ass has a girlfriend who goes to another school.”

  It’s pretty genius when you think about it. Kate got the idea when a bunch of the boys at our school started this list ranking the hottest girls in school. Only it wasn’t just like “the top eight hottest girls” or whatever. They ranked them all the way down to the very last one. Kate, who was number 1 on the list, was outraged. So she decided to fight back and started Lanesboro Losers. Even though she’s at college now, she keeps up with the hosting and has a bunch of girls from our school acting as moderators. (I would totally be a moderator if I could, but again, another thing I’m afraid of—the moderators take a certain amount of abuse at school from the guys who know what they do.)

  “What do you mean he didn’t get into Brown because of what I wrote about him?” I ask now, mulling this new information over in my head.

  “He didn’t get into Brown because of what you wrote about him,” Marissa repeats.

  “I heard you the first time,” I say. “But that makes zero sense.”

  “It totally makes sense,” Clarice says. “Apparently the Brown recruiter Googled him, and when they read what you wrote about his math test, they brought it up at his interview and basically told him his early decision application was getting rejected.”

  I sit down on the bed. “That thing I wrote about his math test was true,” I say defensively.

  Well. Sort of. Last year before his math final, Cooper got a bunch of study questions from his friend Tyler, and when he showed up to take the test, it turned out they weren’t just study questions—it was the actual test. Cooper had already given the packet back to Tyler, and for some ridiculous reason, he didn’t want to get Tyler into trouble, so he didn’t tell anyone. So see? He did cheat, even though it was unintentional.

  “It was totally true,” Marissa says, nodding up and down. “Which is why you shouldn’t feel bad about what you wrote.” She gives Clarice a pointed look.

  “Totally,” Clarice says. “You shouldn’t feel bad about it.” She keeps nodding her head up and down, the way people do when they don’t really believe what they’re saying.

  I close my eyes, lean back on my bed, and think about what I wrote about Cooper on Lanesboro Losers. I have pretty much every word memorized, since I spent a couple of hours obsessing over what I should write. (It couldn’t be too bitter, but it couldn’t look like I was trying not to be too bitter either. It was a very delicate balance that needed to be struck. Also, I couldn’t post the truth about what really happened between me and Cooper, since it was way too humiliating.) I finally settled on, “Cooper Marriatti is a total and complete jerk. He cheated on his final math test junior year just so he could pass, and he also might have herpes.” The herpes thing was of course made up, but I couldn’t help myself. (And, as you can see, despite my best efforts, I totally missed the balance.)

  Anyway, the thing about Lanesboro Losers is that once you post something on there, they won’t take it down. It’s a fail-safe, just in case you end up posting something about a guy when he’s being a jerk to you and then try to log on and erase it when you guys are back together. Kate set it up so that it’s totally not allowed.

  “Whatever,” I say, my heart beating fast. “I don’t feel bad.” I hope saying the words out loud will make them true. And for a second, it works. I mean, who cares about dumb Cooper and dumb Brown? It’s his own fault. If he hadn’t done something totally disgusting and despicable to me, if he hadn’t lied to me and been a complete and total jerk, I wouldn’t have written that, and he would be going to Brown. So it’s totally his own fault, and if he wants to blame anyone, he should blame himself, really, because it’s no concern to me if he wants to—

  My cell phone starts ringing then, and I claw through the blankets on my bed, looking for it. Some books clatter onto the floor, and Clarice jumps back. She’s wearing open-toed silver sparkly shoes, and one of the books comes dangerously close to falling on her foot.

  “Hello,” I say. The number on the caller ID is one I don’t recognize, so I try to sound super-professional and innocent, just in case it’s someone from the dean’s office.

  There’s a commotion on the other end, something that sounds like voices and music, then the sound of something crinkling, and then finally, I hear a male voice say, “Eliza?”

  “Yeah?” I say.

  “Eliza, listen, I didn’t …” Whoever it is is keeping their voice really low and quiet, and I’m having a lot of trouble hearing what they’re saying.

  “Hello!” I repeat.

  “Who is it?” Marissa asks. “Is it Jeremiah?” Sometimes Jeremiah calls me looking for Marissa, if he thinks we might be together, or if he can’t get through to her for some reason. Clarice’s theory is that he does this so he can relay messages to me instructing Marissa to come over for a hookup, while not having to actually talk to her.

  “Hello?” I say again into the phone. I put my finger in my other ear the way they do sometimes on TV, and it seems to help a little.

  “Eliza, it’s me,” the voice says, and this time I hear it loud and clear. Cooper. “Eliza, you have to listen to me, the 318s and Tyler …” There’s a burst of static, and the rest of what he’s saying gets cut off.

  “Cooper?” I ask, and my heart starts to beat a little faster.

  Marissa and Clarice look at each other. Then in one fast springlike movement, they’re on the bed next to me, huddled around the phone.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he says. There’s another burst of commotion on the other end of the line.

  “Eliza, listen to me …” he says. “You’re going to have to—” And then I hear him talking to someone else in the background.

  “What do you want?” I ask, my stomach dropping into my shoes. “If this is about you not getting into Brown, then honestly, I don’t even care. It’s all your own fault that you didn’t get into Brown, and I don’t regret—”

  “Eliza,” Cooper says. “Listen. To. Me. You have to meet me.” His voice is low now, serious and dark. “Right now. At Cure.”

  Marissa and Clarice are falling all over themselves and me, trying to get at the phone, and Clarice’s earring gets caught on my sweater. “OW, OW, MY EAR!” she screams, then reaches down and sets it free. I pull the phone away from my ear and put it on speaker in an effort
to get them to calm down.

  “Cure?” I repeat to Cooper incredulously. Cure is a nightclub in Boston, and they’re notorious for not IDing. I’ve never been there. But Kate used to go all the time, and most of the kids at my school have gone at least once or twice.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Eliza …” I hear someone say something to him in the background, and then suddenly his tone changes. “Meet me there. At Cure. In an hour.”

  “Tell him no,” Marissa whispers, her brown eyes flashing. “Tell him that you never want to see him again!”

  “Ask him if he really turned you in to the dean’s office!” Clarice says. She picks up the letter from the dean’s office and waves it in the air in front of me.

  “Are you there?” Cooper asks, all snottylike.

  “Yes, I’m here,” I say. “Look, why do you want to meet me at Cure?”

  “Don’t ask questions,” he says. “You’ll find out when you get there. And make sure you wear something sexy.”

  I pull the phone away from my ear and look at it for a second, sure I’ve misheard him. “‘Wear something sexy’? Are you crazy?” I ask. “I’m not going.” This doesn’t sound like a “Come to Cure so I can apologize to you and make sure you forgive me for the horrible things I’ve done” kind of request. It sounds like a “Come to Cure so that something horrible can happen that may involve humiliating you further.”

  Marissa nods her head and gives me a “You go, girl” look.

  “Yes, you are,” Cooper says.

  “No, I’m not,” I say.

  “Yes, you are,” Cooper says. And then he says something horrible. Something I wouldn’t ever even imagine he would say in a million years. Something that is maybe quite possibly the worst thing he could ever say ever, ever, ever. “Because I have your purple notebook.” And then he hangs up.

  Chapter Two

  7:37 p.m.

  “What the hell is in the damn thing?” Marissa asks. The three of us have piled into Marissa’s car and are on the Mass Pike traveling at about eighty miles an hour. Usually I’m not a fan of Marissa (or anyone, really) driving that fast, but at this point, speed is the least of my worries. My first being, you know, that Cooper has my notebook, and the second being that I am on my way to Cure, and that I am wearing a ridiculous outfit.

  “It’s just … I need it, okay?” I’m rummaging through my purse for my Passion Pink lip gloss. I slide the visor mirror down and smear the gloss on. Just because my life is potentially over doesn’t mean I don’t want to look good. Plus I’m going to see Cooper, and even if he is a total bastard, I might as well look my best when I see him. Not that I care about Cooper, of course. But there will be other guys there too. Guys that might potentially be my future husband.

  Plus, lipstick goes with this outfit, which consists of:

  • tight skinny leg jeans

  • gray shoes with platform heels and studs on the sides

  • a backless silver shirt that plunges down so far in front I’m afraid my boobs are going to fall out

  All of these items were left in my sister Kate’s closet when she left for college. Marissa insisted I wear them, since apparently nothing I owned was Cure-appropriate.

  “Why are you putting lipstick on?” Clarice pipes up from the backseat. One of the good things about Clarice and Marissa having their little rivalry is that I always get to ride shotgun.

  “Because we’re going to a club,” I say. I glance in the backseat. “You’re wearing lipstick,” I point out. Of course, this isn’t really the same thing. Clarice always wears lipstick. She’s mostly always dressed up. I think it’s part of her Southern upbringing. Like right now, for example. She’s wearing a sleeveless long white eyelet shirt over black leggings and delicate silver open-toed sandals. Her long blond hair is curled perfectly, and her makeup is flawless. This is how she showed up at my house this morning. At 9:00 a.m. When most normal people are dead to the world.

  “Yeah,” Clarice says. “But I already had my lipstick on. You’re putting yours on now, like you’re getting ready for the club.”

  “We are going to a club,” I repeat. “There’s nothing wrong with putting on makeup before we get to a club.”

  “It’s because of Cooper, isn’t it?” Clarice asks. She flops back into the seat, her long blond curls bouncing. I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but she almost seems … happy about it. That I might be dressing up for Cooper. Which would kind of make sense. Clarice is an eternal romantic, and she gets very caught up in the idea of people getting back together. Plus she always loved Cooper. I glare at her.

  “Whatever,” Marissa says. She signals and changes lanes. “Are you going to tell us what’s in this notebook or what? That was part of the deal, remember?”

  It took me a while to convince Marissa that we needed to go to Cure. One, she’s not really supposed to be driving her car into the city. Two, she didn’t understand why I was in such a rush to go off and meet Cooper. Which makes sense, given everything that he’s done to me. The only way I could get her to take me was to promise to tell her what was in the notebook.

  “Look,” I say, taking a deep breath. “We are going to Cure, I am going to get the notebook back, and maybe then I will tell you what’s in it.”

  “So I’m just supposed to take you down there, without any idea what’s going on?”

  “Um, it’s called having faith in your friends, Marissa,” Clarice says from the backseat. She’s opened a bottle of nail polish and is painting her toenails a dark crimson color.

  “Thank you, Clarice,” I say.

  “Oh, I have faith in my friends, all right,” Marissa says. She pushes her bangs out of her face, and pulls the car onto the off-ramp. “But I also like to know what they’re doing so that I can watch out for them.” She glances in the rearview mirror and tries to catch Clarice’s eye, but she’s too busy with her nail polish. “You’d better not spill that,” she says. “My mom will kill me if my car gets messed up, and then I’ll kill you.”

  “You won’t be able to kill me if you’re dead,” Clarice says sweetly. “And besides, I’m not going to spill it. I’m very good with balancing things.” She rolls her eyes like she can’t even fathom the possibility of spilling her nail polish, just as Marissa goes over a pothole, and the bottle almost drops onto the floor.

  “Oops!” Clarice says holding it up triumphantly. “Close one.”

  When we get to Cure, we breeze right by the bouncer without any sort of ID check, and once we’re inside, I become instantly grateful I took the time to change. Even though it’s mid-November and forty degrees outside, everyone in here is scantily clad. Most of the girls are in tight black pants or short skirts, with low-cut tops. In fact, it seems like the more skin and/or tightness, the better.

  Marissa, Clarice, and I huddle in a corner and look around for Cooper.

  “Do you see him?” Marissa asks, as we all scan the crowd. Dance music is pumping through the speakers at a ridiculously high volume, but no one’s really on the dance floor yet, and the tables set up around the perimeter of the club are mostly empty. At the bar, two guys are ordering drinks, and the bartender, a short girl with a lip piercing and a tight tank top, is laughing loudly at what they’re saying. I guess it’s too early for things to be really crazy in here.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t think he’s here.”

  “I’m going to get us some drinks and then we’re going to wait for him,” Clarice announces. She disappears and returns a few minutes later with two cosmopolitans (virgin for her—Clarice doesn’t drink, so she always orders cranberry juice and then calls it a virgin cosmo) and a bottle of water wedged under her arm for Marissa, since she’s driving. This doesn’t seem like the kind of place in which one should order a cosmopolitan, but I can’t really imagine Clarice ordering a rum and coke or a Bud Light or anything like that, and besides, I like cosmopolitans, so I’m not going to complain. We find a table in the middle section of the club, with a good view of the crowd
, and sit down with our drinks.

  “Now it’s important to be haughty,” Marissa is saying. “Don’t let him think he’s going to get one over on you.” Hmm. That’s great in theory, but I don’t think Marissa really has a good grasp on what’s in that notebook, a.k.a. all the information you’d possibly need to ruin my life.

  I start to feel a little faint thinking about it, and so I take a big sip of my drink. It’s cool and sweet going down, and I instantly feel better. Although I don’t think drinking cosmos is going to be a very good long-term solution because (a) alcohol dehydrates you, which is not a good thing when you’re already feeling light-headed, and (b) it’s going to do me no good to be drunk, since I’m going to need all my wits about me to deal with Cooper.

  Marissa pulls her cell phone out and sets it down on the table next to her.

  Clarice gets a disapproving look on her face.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Marissa asks.

  “Because you’re taking your phone out just so you can wait for Jeremiah to call.”

  “So?” Marissa asks. “Jeremiah is a guy I am dating; of course I’m going to wait for his call. There is nothing wrong with wanting to talk to the guy you are dating.”

  Clarice takes a dainty sip of her drink and doesn’t say anything. Since Jeremiah and Marissa spend most of their time making out, their relationship goes against everything Clarice believes a true-to-life romance should be. (That’s Clarice’s term, by the way. Not mine. I would never say anything like “true-to-life romance.” Especially since I’m not the best one to be speaking about any kind of romance, true-to-life or not.)

  Marissa opens her mouth to say something else, like maybe she’s going to defend her relationship with Jeremiah, when I see him. Cooper. Sitting over in the corner at one of those big round booths. He’s by himself, wearing a navy blue long-sleeved T-shirt, and he’s sipping what looks like a soda, but if I know Cooper, there’s definitely some rum in that drink. Or maybe even tequila. Actually, that’s not true. Cooper’s not really a big drinker. I mean, he drinks, but he’s not one of those people who’s always falling all over themselves drunk every weekend. But for some reason it’s better if I assume he’s over there with some hard liquor. It makes him seem shadier. Not that he really needs any help in that department.