“You ever been to Missy Hart?” she asked, taking the cigarette back from me.
“The clothing store over on Sixth Street?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded. “Sure. Once or twice.”
“You wanna go with me after school?”
“Okay. I can’t stay long though. I have a nail appointment at four-thirty,” I said, looking down at my dry cuticles. I didn’t have to tell her that the appointment was with her dead former leader.
“Doesn’t your mom drive you to school?” Danielle giggled.
My cheeks felt hot, and I hoped the makeup was doing its magic. “Yeah, but I can get the car whenever I need it.”
“Don’t worry about it. You can ride with me.” Danielle tucked the cigarettes back in her purse as the first bell rang. “Don’t you have study hall after algebra?”
“Yeah.” I was almost flattered that she knew.
“I have history with Mr. Charles. His vision is so bad, he never notices when I slip out early. You could cut out of study hall early too, and we could get a head start.”
“Okay,” I said, trying not to squeak as I broke out in a light sweat. I’d never cut class before. I’d never had a reason or a desire to cut class before. I didn’t know if I even had the nerve to attempt it, but I couldn’t tell Danielle that. I was going to have to figure something out and fast. I’d be getting a gold star from Matilda if I managed to pull this stunt off.
I stayed in the bathroom after Danielle left, just long enough to text my mom and tell her that I was going shopping after school and had a ride home. She messaged back, telling me that was fine and to shut my phone off before class so I didn’t get it taken away. She didn’t even ask who I was going shopping with. She probably just assumed it was with Chloe, since she was my only girlfriend. Until now.
I knew Danielle wasn’t really my friend. I knew she’d gossip about me the second I was out of range, but that didn’t stop the excitement from boiling through me as if I’d just drank three Redbulls in a row. I was going shopping with one of the Ds after school. Unless this was all a sick joke, said the little voice in my head. It was a logical possibility. Maybe she thought she was going to teach me a lesson for trying to look cooler than she did. After all, this was someone who had probably encouraged Matilda when she filled my locker full of spray foam.
I was careful not to mention the shopping trip to anyone all day, not that I really talked to anyone. Well, other than Eddie and Wayne, but they were oddly quiet at our lunch table today. Mitch dropped by to ask us about the party again and said something about baseball signups to Wayne. He also complemented me on my hair. I was barely able to say thank you, I was so shocked.
Eddie’s silence was more obvious than Wayne’s, seeing as how he usually couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He picked at his lunch and couldn’t manage to maintain eye contact with me for more than half a second. At one point, he missed his mouth and nearly shoved a spoonful of pudding up his nose.
I skipped my visit with Chloe, since she was obviously not talking to me. Matilda would have killed me dead if she caught me groveling to an art geek. Instead, I walked to algebra with Wayne. Thankfully, Eddie didn’t tag along this time.
“So, who’s this mystery man you’re going on a date with Friday?” Wayne finally asked when we were by ourselves.
My shoulders tightened. “You don’t know him. We dated for a couple of months at the beginning of the school year.” There had to be a special place somewhere for people who lied as much as I did lately.
“Oh, really? How did I miss that?” He sounded skeptical, almost chiding. It didn’t make me feel particularly warm and fuzzy towards him.
“Well, you were pretty busy playing fetch with Matilda, if I remember correctly.”
“Ouch. Really, Janie?” Wayne’s mouth drooped into a hurt scowl, and I suddenly felt like a stick of dynamite had gone off in my chest.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I stammered. “You were just too preoccupied with your own dating life to take notice of mine. It’s okay.”
“Right.” Wayne stepped around me and disappeared inside our algebra class, just as Danielle snagged my sleeve and tugged me towards the girls’ room, presumably for another smoke break.
“Oh my god,” she hissed under her breath. “You’re never going to believe what I heard Mitch say about you in bio.”
I frowned at her and sighed. “What?”
She lit a cigarette and passed it to me before answering. “He’s totally planning on asking you out. Denise is going to flip, by the way. She’s been turning him down for a month solid now.”
I took a drag of the cigarette and passed it back. “Well, he’s not going to have any luck with me either. I told you, I have a boyfriend.”
Danielle blinked at me. “Seriously? You’re going to reject Mitch Brown?”
I licked my lips and laughed, doing my best to summon Matilda’s classic disdain. “I don’t date high school boys.”
Danielle sucked on the cigarette, giving me an appraising look. “Well, at least you won’t have to worry about the wrath of Denise.”
“Thank goodness.” I rolled my eyes. “Denise Mavery won’t hate my guts. My life is now complete.”
“She’ll probably still hate your guts. Denise hates everyone’s guts.” Danielle gave me a serious nod, and then we both laughed.
Lightning strike me dead, I was actually starting to like her. I still kept my guard up all through algebra class, even though she passed me a note and whispered little jokes when the teacher wasn’t paying attention.
Plenty of people were taking notice, but no one seemed quite as baffled as Wayne. He watched mine and Danielle’s exchanges with a painful intensity, and he didn’t look thrilled.
After class, Wayne caught up to me in the hall. “Did I miss something, Janie? When did you become friends with Danielle Adams?”
“I dunno.” I shook my head. “Why?”
“She was best friends with Matilda, and she wasn’t a very good influence on her.”
I frowned at him. “When did you become my mother?”
“Hey, I’m just looking out for you,” he said, holding his hands up defensively.
“It would have been nice if you could have done that when Matilda was busy terrorizing me.” More dynamite went off in my chest. It was like I couldn’t turn the monster off now that Matilda had unleashed it.
Wayne’s brows pinched together as he backed away from me. “What happened to you?”
“I don’t know.” I put a hand on my forehead. “I mean, I do know. I just can’t explain it. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“Whatever,” he mumbled and walked away.
I wanted to go after him and apologize, but Chloe was suddenly blocking my path. “Tell me you’re not going shopping with Danielle after school,” she demanded.
“What do you care? I thought you weren’t talking to me.” I put my hands on my hips.
“Have you lost your freaking mind? The Ds hate you. How in the world does going shopping with one seem like a good idea?” Chloe was almost screaming now. We were drawing attention. I could see Mitch Brown’s curious face glancing back at us from a circle of jocks near the lockers.
“If Danielle hates me so much, then why did she ask me to go shopping with her? And how is it any of your business who I go shopping with?”
Chloe made a sound deep in her throat. Then she noticed everyone staring at us. She waved her hands in the air and jumped at the nearest observers, making a noise that crossed somewhere between a turkey and Tarzan. “What are you looking at?” she snapped and then stormed off. I stormed off in the opposite direction for study hall.
I don’t know why I was so worried about cutting class before. Ms. Nelson was notorious for leaving us on our own. She liked to preach about how young adults needed more freedom and trust. Really though, she just liked to disappear to the teacher’s lounge, where she could eat all the leftover donuts in
peace. The teacher’s lounge was right next to the restrooms, and more than one student had reported her location on their return.
I sat in the back of the classroom, since we didn’t have assigned seating, and no one said anything when I slipped out twenty minutes early. The ruined Dr. Who bag didn’t seem like such a bad idea now. It was certainly less suspicious than the backpack when I had to dodge into the bathroom to avoid Mr. Hammond as he came out of the principal’s office.
I waited just inside the door and counted to ten, hoping enough time had passed for him to make it around the corner. When I stuck my head out, the hall was empty again. I held my breath and made a mad dash for the exit, gliding alongside the lockers with the Mission Impossible theme song humming through my head.
Danielle was waiting by her car when I made it out to the parking lot. “I didn’t think you’d show,” she said, stomping out her cigarette.
“I didn’t think I would either. Mr. Hammond almost busted me.” I laughed and climbed inside her little blue Volkswagen bug.
Danielle climbed into the driver’s seat and gave me a wide smile, like I had just passed some final test. “Today’s on me. I swiped my mom’s credit card.”
“Jackpot.” There was definitely a special place for people whose morals shed off as quickly as mine had.
Rumors
Chapter 14
I bought a pleated miniskirt, a silk scarf, and a chunky wooden bracelet at Missy Hart. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to wear any of it, since I was pretty sure my soul would rot out from the guilt.
After we went shopping, we stopped by Starbucks and Danielle bought us each an iced coffee. We sipped at our drinks and gossiped on the ride to my house. Danielle didn’t ask for directions. She knew from Matilda that I lived next door to Wayne.
Even through the guilt, I was so relieved that the shopping invitation hadn’t turned out to be a cruel joke. I was beaming when I came home and found my mom waiting in the living room, sitting on the couch with her arms and legs crossed.
“Chloe stopped by,” she said.
“Oh?” I stopped slurping on my latte.
“I thought you were shopping with her.” She looked down at my Missy Hart bag.
“No, I went with Danielle.”
“Danielle? Danielle Adams? Wasn’t that one of Matilda Hunt’s friends?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” I shrugged.
“Also, Chloe says that she’s going to Chicago with her parents this weekend for some big art exhibit. I thought you said you two were going to see a movie?” Crap.
“Did I say Chloe? I meant Danielle.” I chewed on the straw of my drink, hoping I didn’t look as guilty as I felt.
My mom unfolded her arms and sighed. “Are you and Chloe doing okay? She seemed tense. Do you want to talk about it?”
I rolled my eyes. “She’s just jealous that I’m making new friends.” It was a realistic enough excuse. I hoped.
“Maybe you should do something special with her, so she doesn’t feel like she’s being left behind.”
That was my mom, the Yoda of motherhood. She always had the right answer. Sometimes she felt like a June Cleaver carbon copy. I don’t think she meant to be. I’d seen pictures of her college years. She had been a wild Joan Jett groupie with choppy, blue-streaked hair. I think she had been going to school to be a psychologist, but she dropped out after she met my dad. He was finishing up an accounting internship at the bank where she had taken out a loan for a lemon of a car. They still joked about the seedy car salesman who sent her his way.
They were married in less than a year, and they had me less than a year after that. Somewhere along the way, they morphed into the typical suburban parents. They never exceeded the speed limit, they paid their taxes, and they flossed. If they had something more exciting than that going on in their lives, it was lost on me.
“That’s a good idea, Mom. I’ll think about it.” I gave her a smile and headed up to my room.
Matilda sprang out of my closet once I closed the door. “Where the hell have you been? Is that Starbucks? Is that a Missy Hart bag? Did you know that stupid art geek friend of yours stopped by? She was in your room. I had to hold the closet door closed to keep her out.”
“What?” I set my drink down and tossed the shopping bag on my bed. “What was she doing here?”
Matilda folded her arms. “You tell me. She was snooping around like she was looking for something.”
I looked around and thought really hard about what Chloe would have been doing in my room. My first thought was the sketchbook. I threw back my pillows in a panic, and my chest tightened when it wasn’t there.
“Looking for this?” Matilda held up the sketchbook with a laugh. “I can’t believe you actually told someone else about this. I mean, it’s beyond creepy. Do you really think this is what she was after?”
I sucked in a sigh of relief. “I don’t know what else she would have been looking for.” I took another look around the room, and my eyes froze on the vanity mirror. There in Matilda’s bright red lipstick and Chloe’s sharp handwriting was written the word TRAITOR.
I couldn’t believe it. Chloe had really gone off the deep end. Any trace of guilt I had for dodging her was suddenly gone. At least I wouldn’t have to pretend I wasn’t friends with her now.
Matilda picked up the spent tube of lipstick and huffed. “Well, that was twenty bucks well spent.” Then she smiled. “I guess you’re putting on quite the show, especially if your own best friend is convinced.”
“She’s not my best friend. Not anymore,” I said.
Matilda peeked inside the Missy Hart bag. “Danielle took you shopping?”
“You really have them figured out, don’t you?”
“Denise would have taken you to Yvette’s. It’s way pricier. Danielle likes to pretend that she steals her mom’s credit cards, but she has an allowance on it. She goes to Missy Hart to make it last longer.” Well, at least I didn’t have to feel guilty about my new purchases. “But don’t let on that you know,” Matilda added. “She likes the bad girl illusion. She won’t be happy if you burst her bubble.”
I nodded.
“Danielle is a good start. Denise will be harder to impress. You’ll have to work on her.”
“Well,” I grinned, “Danielle told me that she’s been snubbing Mitch Brown’s advances for a while now.”
“Typical.”
“She also says that he’s planning on asking me out.”
Matilda laughed. “She probably made that up.”
“I don’t know. He did compliment my hair today, and he stopped by my lunch table again, too.”
“Hmmmm.” She rolled her head from side to side, cracking her neck far more than it should have cracked if she were still living. “I imagine you told her that you were going to turn him down, seeing as how you have an imaginary college boyfriend.”
“Yeah, that I have a date with Friday.”
“What exactly do you plan to do about that, by the way? I mean, you can’t stay home. What if Wayne decides to go to that party and Mitch comes to pick him up? If you’re spotted at home, your story will be completely blown.”
“I know.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “I told my mom that I was going to the movies with Danielle. I have the car for the night and everything.”
Matilda sighed and plopped down on the bed next to me. “Man, don’t you know anyone?”
I thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, maybe I do.”
My cousin Benny was as gay as gay could be. Our dads were brothers, but his dad, my uncle Bill, was still stuck in the seventies. He and his wife owned a music store, and they had seven children. Benny was the oldest. They had been completely loving and supportive when Benny had revealed his big gay secret, which really wasn’t much of a secret. They were hippies, and they were all about freedom of expression, peace, and love.
Benny hated it. He had been hoping for some tragic eighties montage, and instead, he got a Woodstock cheerleadin
g squad. When he graduated, he immediately moved out and enrolled in theater school. He was twenty-two now and about to graduate. He wrote to me every few months about his escapades and starring roles, and he gushed on and on about his big Broadway dreams. I knew I was grasping at straws, but he was my only option.
I clicked open my cell phone and dialed his number before I lost my nerve.
“Disneyland. Prince Charming speaking. How may I make your dreams come true?”
“Benny?”
“Janie? Oh my god, girl. How are you?”
“Good.” I laughed. “You sound like you’re doing alright too. We missed you at Christmas.”
“Mmmm. I know, but we had such a big turnout for our winter production, and I got to direct this time! Oh, you should have seen the man meat I got to boss around back stage.”
“Wow. That sounds exciting.”
“So what’s going on, cupcake? I mean, I’d like to flatter myself and assume you’re just calling to catch up, but something in your voice tells me otherwise.”
I sighed. “I need a really big favor.”
“Does it involve boys?”
“Sort of,” I laughed nervously.
“Well, let’s have it, sugar.”
“What do you have going on Friday night?”
By the time it was all said and done, Benny had agreed to drive to Jasper and pick me up in a rented convertible. We were going to go to a fancy restaurant, though not Cleopatra’s, even though he really wanted to. Then we were going to drive around town and try to be seen by as many people as possible. He even promised not to flirt with any “man meat” while he was in town. Wayne had met Benny a time or two before, but Benny was certain that he could pull off a mystery man act by putting his stage makeup and costume expertise to work.
Matilda was staring at me with her wide fishy eyes when I hung up. “That was brilliant,” she said in a soft, eerie voice. “You would have made an excellent D.”
“Whatever.” I blushed in spite of myself.
I had spent too long chattering with Benny, and I hadn’t left any time to do my homework before dinner. My dad called me downstairs, and Matilda stood and started to wipe away the lipstick on my mirror with a tissue. “Do you eat dinner with your family every night?” she asked.
Crazy Ex-Ghoulfriend Page 9