The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “How come?” I persist.

  “How come what?” he asks, sighing. He seems annoyed.

  “How come you told Kim you have a thing for Lexi?” I repeat, trying to keep my tone light.

  “Because I do.” This conversation is beginning to feel like a merry-go-round. It’s moving, but it’s definitely not going anywhere. I decide to try a different tactic.

  “Right, but remember how I told you that Lexi doesn’t like guys to fall all over her?”

  “That’s not really falling all over her.” He leans over the back of his seat then, like he wants to tell me a secret, and I lean in to meet him halfway. “If you want to know the truth …” He trails off and looks around to make sure no one is listening. I’m so close, I can feel his breath against my face. It smells like peppermint. Probably because he’s always chewing gum in school, even though we’re not supposed to. “I’ve been kind of mean to her.”

  “You’ve been mean to her?” I wonder what it would be like to kiss him. His lips look soft, like two plump pink pillows. Wait. If I’m this close to him, that means he’s that close to me. I suddenly feel self-conscious about my lips. I hope they look kissable.

  “Oh, yeah,” he says, looking almost proud. “The other day when we were walking out of school, I completely ignored her.”

  “Great!” I say. “That’s the way to go, seriously.” I wonder if I can discreetly reach into the bag by my feet and pull out the lip gloss I got at Sephora yesterday.

  “You’re definitely right,” he says, nodding. His face is still mere inches from mine. I start reaching toward my bag slowly with my right hand.

  “I am?” Stretch. Reach.

  “Yeah,” Jared says, leaning in even farther. “It’s like when I saw her with Matt yesterday in the cafeteria. He was all over her, and she didn’t seem into him at all.”

  “Exactly,” I say, nodding. My fingers brush against my bag. I reach my hand in and try to grope around discreetly for my lip gloss. Keys, pink wallet with nothing in it (thanks to yesterday’s big shopping spree), gum, a CD of stuff I downloaded illegally off of Limewire, a jump drive that has the draft of the script for my project with Luke … I’m touching everything but my lip gloss. Why do I have so much stuff in here, anyway? Eww, what is that? A tissue? I hope it’s not used. My palm touches the tube of gloss. Finally.

  “It’s not that hard, actually,” Jared says, shrugging.

  “What isn’t that hard?” I uncap the tube of gloss and get ready to smear some on, drawing attention to my lips, thereby drawing attention to the fact that I’m kissable, thereby making Jared want to kiss me.

  “To be mean to her.” He shrugs again. “I dunno why. I just pretend she’s anyone, like any random girl. Like you or someone else. Not Lexi.”

  “Oh.” I know he didn’t say it to be mean, but still. He turns back around then, toward the front of the classroom, before I have a chance to put on my lip gloss and make my lips kissable.

  “What do you want on your pizza?” Mel asks later that afternoon. We’re in her room, trying to pick out a movie to watch. Mel has more than three hundred DVDs. Every time her parents go to the video store to get a new documentary, they let Mel pick out DVDs from the used DVD bin. She hasn’t even gotten around to watching some of them.

  “Pepperoni,” I say, scanning the huge rack of movies. Hmm. Something that’s not too depressing.

  Mel calls to her mom, who appears at her bedroom door as if by magic. “Mom, can you order us a pizza, half pepperoni and half green pepper and onions?” Mel and her family are vegetarians, which always makes me feel a little weird, having meat in their house. They don’t seem to mind, but still.

  “Sure,” Mel’s mom says. “How are you, Devon?”

  Oh, great. I’m just a big liar, though. “I’m great,” I say.

  “Melissa, please make sure you take your laundry down later tonight,” Mel’s mom says.

  “I will,” Mel says. Her mom leaves to go order the pizza, and Mel crosses the room to her hamper, pulls out her dirty clothes, and drops them into a laundry basket. “Today’s laundry day,” she explains.

  “Right,” I say. We don’t have laundry day at my house. Although my mom (and my dad) have been way better lately about doing chores around the house, we definitely don’t have a specific day dedicated to laundry We just kind of wait until our hampers are full.

  “How was lunch?” Mel asks.

  “It was okay,” I say. “We’re going to practice the skit tomorrow at Jared’s if you want to come.” Luke and I spent most of our lunch period going over the script with everyone, and I realize now that since Mel was making up her test, I didn’t think to assign her a part. At the time, I didn’t even realize Mel wasn’t there. I was distracted. Matt O’Connor kept flirting with Lexi, and Lexi was flirting back. Plus Kim kept yelling about how she didn’t have enough lines, and if she was going to give up her Saturday to work on some dumb project that she wasn’t even being graded on, someone better give her a bigger part. But I’m sure I can work Mel into the script somewhere. Or she can hold cue cards or something.

  I pull Sixteen Candles out of Mel’s DVD collection and throw it on the bed. “I want to watch this,” I say.

  “Again?” Mel asks, rolling her eyes.

  “Yes, again,” I say. Sixteen Candles is this really great movie about a girl named Sam. Her whole family forgets her sixteenth birthday, but it turns out okay because the hottest guy in school, Jake Ryan, ends up falling in love with her, even though she’s a sophomore and he’s a senior and he pretty much didn’t know she was alive until he decided he wanted more than his ditzy blond girlfriend. It is a very good movie.

  “Fine,” Mel says. She crosses the room and plops down on the bed. “But first show me the CosmoGIRL! article.”

  I pull the magazine from my bag and show her the article, which is called, “Hello There! How to Use His Body Language to Decipher Exactly What His Greeting Means.”

  “Read it,” Mel instructs.

  “‘A nod accompanied by a hi can mean one of two things,’” I recite. “‘If he nods down toward you, it’s a friendly, you’re like my bud kind of hi. But if he tilts his chin upward, it means he sees you as someone he wants to flirt with, and possibly more.’”

  Mel squeals. “Do you think it’s true?”

  “Of course it’s true,” I say “They quote a body language expert and everything.” How does one get to be a body language expert, anyway? Do you need a college degree, or is it just like a course you can take? Because that skill could really come in handy.

  “So what does it say to do?” Mel asks.

  “It doesn’t,” I say.

  “Then what good is it?”

  “Well, you have to build upon it,” I say. “For example, now we can move on to this article, about if you should make the first move or not.”

  “Okay.” Mel nods.

  “Oh, good, it has a quiz.” I clear my throat. “‘Number one. If you’re in a class with your crush, he (a) ignores you, (b) says hi, (c) spends the whole period talking to you.’”

  “Um, a,” Mel says. “Brent ignores me in class.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask. “He doesn’t say anything to you?”

  “Not really,” Mel asks. “Sometimes he asks me for answers.”

  Hmmm. I mark down a. This isn’t looking good.

  “Next question. ‘If you saw him outside of school hours, he would most likely (a) say hi to you, (b) ignore you, (c) introduce his friends to you.’”

  “B,” Mel says. “He would ignore me.”

  “Mel!” I say. “He said hi to you in the library.”

  “That was in school,” she points out. “And the question says ‘outside of school hours.’”

  We take the rest of the quiz, tally up her score, and then Mel reads the result. “‘This guy knows who you are, but if you want something to happen, you’re going to have to do it yourself. Watch out, though—it doesn’t seem like you’re on his
radar. So be careful about setting yourself up for a disappointment. You may want to wait until you he gives you some kind of sign.’” Mel frowns. “So basically it’s telling me I have to make the first move, but that if I do, it’s going to be a disaster.”

  “Not necessarily,” I say quickly, not wanting her to feel bad. “Plus it’s just a dumb magazine.” I throw it across the room.

  “But what about the head nod?” she says. “The magazine said the head nod meant he was being flirty.”

  “Well, they were right about that” I say. “I mean, they had a body language expert.”

  Mel’s mom knocks on the door then with the pizza, and we spend the rest of the afternoon watching DVDs and eating. By the time I get home, I’m exhausted and in a pizza coma. Thank God it’s Friday and I don’t have to worry about getting my homework done or waking up early tomorrow.

  The house is quiet when I walk in, and I find my dad in the living room, flipping through the channels.

  “Hey,” I say, plopping down into the chair next to him. “Where is everyone?”

  “Your mom went grocery shopping and she took Katie with her.” He flips a little bit more, settles on a Seinfeld rerun, and then sets the remote on the coffee table. I start to feel a little worried. If my mom is out of the house with Katie, that may mean she wanted to get away from my dad.

  “Hey,” my dad says, seeing the expression on my face. “Relax.” He laughs. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask, swallowing hard.

  “I’m positive,” he says. “They just went grocery shopping, that’s all.”

  “And you would tell me if it wasn’t, right?” I ask.

  “Of course,” he says. He looks me straight in the eye.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m sorry if I’m being paranoid.” Even though I knew my parents were fighting a lot, I never thought they were getting to the point where they were thinking about separating or even getting a divorce. So when they told Katie and me that we were going away for the summer, I felt kind of blindsided.

  I can still remember the conversation. They pulled us into the kitchen, sat us down, and told us they were thinking about separating and needed time to themselves to figure things out. Katie immediately burst into tears. I almost did too, but I waited until later, when I was up in my room, thinking about how horrible it was going to be to have to be away from Mel and my parents for the summer. I remember how relieved I was when my parents decided to stay together. There’s no way I want to go back to that feeling of not knowing what’s going on.

  He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. “I’m sure it seemed like the stuff that happened this summer was sudden,” he says. “But it was really building up for a while. Your mother and I should have been more honest with you.” I don’t say anything. “But we’ve learned from our mistakes.”

  “Okay,” I say. I start to get a little choked up, even though he’s telling me everything is fine. I look down at my hands.

  “Devon,” he says. He reaches over and tilts my chin up so that I’m looking at him. “I promise I will always be honest with you about this stuff.”

  “Okay,” I say, forcing a smile.

  “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes,” I say, wondering what my dad would think if he knew I’d been lying to everyone about everything.

  “Good,” he says, standing up from the couch. “Now what do you say we make some popcorn and watch some trashy reality TV?”

  “Hmm,” I say, pretending to think about it. “Extra butter?”

  “Sure.”

  “Extra butter and cheese?”

  “Are you tryin’ to give me a heart attack?” he jokes, clutching his chest and pretending to fall onto the couch. I giggle, then happily skip off to the kitchen with him.

  chapter seven

  “There’s not a part for her, though,” Lexi says on the phone later that night, when I bring up asking Mel to come to Jared’s to work on the project.

  “We could probably work one in,” I say. “Or she could do the camera work.”

  “Matt’s going to do the camera work,” she points out.

  “Well, maybe Mel could hold cue cards or something.” Aren’t there like five million people who work on movies? How can there not be one job for Mel?

  “We’re not having cue cards,” Lexi says, sounding exasperated with me. “Besides, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to have her there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, first of all, it doesn’t even really seem like she’s friends with anyone except you.” Uh-oh. “In fact, Kim hardly even knew her name.” Lexi sighs.

  “Well, she is definitely more like my friend,” I say carefully. “She’s not really close with anyone else in our group. She’s shy.”

  “Plus,” Lexi goes on, “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea that she’s around Jared all the time. I think it just adds a lot of stress on your relationship.”

  “On whose relationship?”

  “Yours and Jared’s.” It does?

  “What makes you say that?”

  “It just doesn’t seem like you two are getting along lately.” It doesn’t?

  “It doesn’t?”

  “No,” she says. “He hardly even looks at you, and I think it’s because Mel’s always around.” Actually, Mel’s hardly ever around, and he hardly looks at me because he’s not really my boyfriend. But I don’t say this. Obviously. “Besides,” she goes on. “Have you and Jared even hung out since we all went to the mall?”

  Since we’ve gone to the mall? That was just a few days ago. I try to remember what I told Lexi over the summer about how often Jared and I hung out. I think it was a lot. Crap. I quickly try to come up with a time Jared and I have hung out that wouldn’t conflict with a time I was hanging out with, IM’ing, or talking on the phone with Lexi. “Of course we’ve hung out,” I say, deciding to leave it at that.

  “When?” she asks. “When did you guys hang out?”

  “Um, the day before yesterday.”

  “But didn’t he have practice?”

  “Practice for what?” I ask before I can think.

  “Soccer practice,” she says, sighing. “For his league!”

  Jared plays on a league? “Um, we hung out after.” I’m losing it. This is not good. And when did Lexi become so versed in knowing Jared’s schedule, anyway?

  “Well, whatever,” Lexi says. “I’m just saying that it seems that when Mel’s around, it definitely puts a strain on you guys. And like I said, it doesn’t really seem like she’s friends with anyone else.”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “It’s not a big deal.” I can just tell Mel that there’s really no reason for her to go. Why should she give up her Saturday just to work on my stupid project?

  “So what’s the deal with you and Matt O’Connor?” I ask Lexi, anxious to change the subject.

  “What do you mean?” Lexi asks, sounding excited that someone’s noticed their flirtation.

  “You guys have been all flirty and stuff in lunch,” I say. “And he’s pretty cute.”

  “He is really cute,” Lexi agrees. “I’m going to ask him to hang out after we work on the project this weekend.” I breathe a sigh of relief. If Lexi is interested in Matt, that means she doesn’t like Jared. Which means I’m not keeping them apart. Which means I have nothing to feel bad about. Well, besides the fact that Jared’s being mean to her for no reason. But she doesn’t seem to care too much about that. Still, when I hang up the phone with Lexi and run off to my bedroom to look for something to wear to Jared’s the next day, I have a bad feeling in my stomach. And I don’t think it’s from all the pizza and popcorn.

  “Devon.”

  Zzzzzz.

  “Devonnnn!”

  Mmmmm.

  “DEVON!”

  I open one eye slowly. Katie’s nose is pressed up against mine. She’s staring at me, her eyes wide.

  “What are you doing in here?” I ask, rolling ove
r. I can see a faint amount of light through the blinds on the window by my bed, which means it’s way too early to be awake. It’s Saturday. Which means I get to sleep in as late as I want. Which means noon.

  “I’m coming to get you,” Katie says, jumping into bed with me.

  “What time is it?” I ask. I hope she doesn’t think I’m waking up to watch DVDs with her. Katie likes to get an early start on her day by watching DVDs. Over and over. The same movie, I mean. She picks one and keeps watching it until she knows it by heart.

  “I think it’s like …” she considers. “Ten o’clock.” This could be true, or it could be grossly off the mark. Katie has trouble figuring out what time it is.

  “Too early to get up,” I say. She’s quiet for a minute, and I start to drift back to sleep when she starts shaking me. “What?!”

  “I came to get you,” she says, sounding exasperated. “Because you have a phone call.”

  “Someone’s on the phone for me?” I ask, pushing my sheets off. They tangle around my legs and almost make me trip. Katie giggles. Is it weird that I’ve created a whole new secret life for myself and yet I still think my sister may be crazier than me?

  “Who is it?”

  “I dunno.” Katie shrugs. She pulls my covers over her head.

  I run down the stairs and into the kitchen. My mom’s at the stove, cooking scrambled eggs. The clock on the microwave says 10:02. I guess I didn’t give Katie enough credit for her time-telling skills.

  “Who’s on the phone for me?” I ask, glancing at the phone in the kitchen, which is on the receiver.

  “It was Luke,” my mom says, pushing the eggs around the frying pan. She reaches up and pushes a strand of hair out of her face. “But you were taking so long to get to the phone, I told him you would call him back. Really, Devon, you have to be more aware of your bad sleep habits.”

  “I don’t have bad sleep habits,” I say. I pour myself a glass of orange juice and sit down at the table. “Did you get Luke’s number?”