“We’ve covered school. What else is going on in your life?” her dad asked, pulling her away from her thoughts. Mostly. There was still a little part of her brain chanting, Tori is going to kill me, Tori is going to kill me, Tori is going to kill me.
Maybe she’d feel better if she just blurted out how bad and guilty she was feeling. But then maybe her dad would want to take her to meet Tori, and Natalie so, so didn’t want to give up her time with him.
“Um, well you know I had a boyfriend,” Natalie began.
“Logan,” her father said.
“Right. Well, we kinda broke up,” Natalie told him. How mad is Tori right now? she couldn’t stop herself from wondering.
“Kinda?” Her father maneuvered around a curve.
“No, we did. It was too hard with us living so far apart. Maybe if we lived in the same city, we’d still be together. Probably. I mean, Logan’s great,” Natalie explained.
“You sound pretty okay with it,” her dad observed. He was good at that—knowing how people were feeling. Natalie thought it was probably an actor thing. Actors had to understand emotions.
“Right before I came out, I was feeling bad. Lonely. I had the Logan Lonelies,” Natalie admitted. Is Tori going to be able to forgive me?
“But spending so much time with your old dad took your mind off all that, am I right?” her father joked.
“Actually, not spending time with you helped a little,” Natalie teased back.
“Ouch.” Her dad slapped one hand to his chest.
“One day when I wasn’t with you, Tori and I went to the Santa Monica Pier with her boyfriend and this other guy, Reed,” Natalie explained. Now she really wished she’d spent more time with Tori that day. It was great hanging with Reed, but she and Tori had hardly talked.
She and her dad had hardly talked this trip, either. And now that she was with him, actually talking, she was thinking about how little she’d talked to Tori. Arrgh!
Her father laughed as he pulled into the parking lot of the tiny sushi place. “That was fast. How many days between old boy and new boy?”
“He’s not my new boy,” Natalie protested. “And maybe about eighteen days.” She climbed out of the car and followed her dad around to the back of the restaurant. She tried to resend her text message to Tori as she walked. No signal.
She’s going to kill me, Natalie thought. Tori is totally going to kill me.
“We have to eat out here,” her father said. “The patio is the best thing about this place. Well, other than the food.”
“It’s great.” Natalie looked around the patio—it was almost as big as the restaurant itself—trying to take in everything at once. The fountains, the flowers, the mosaic table tops. “I love how those morning glories wrap around the trunks of the palm trees.” Enjoy this place. Enjoy this lunch with your dad, she ordered herself. Deal with the Tori fallout later.
Her dad took off his sunglasses and gave the nearest waitress what Natalie called The Smile. He used it at least once in every movie.
“Sit anywhere,” the waitress said. She looked ready to kick people out of their seats if Tad Maxwell wanted her to.
“Here?” Natalie’s dad asked Natalie, gesturing to the nearest table.
Natalie nodded. “I’m just going to run inside for a minute.” She hurried inside the restaurant. “Do you have a pay phone?” she asked the bartender.
“What’s a pay phone?” the guy asked. He looked kind of like Bingley. A lot of SoCali guys looked kind of like Bingley.
“One of those machines that you can put metal discs in and then talk to somebody who’s not even in the same room with you,” Natalie answered. With guys like him, guys who thought they were funny, it was usually better—or at least faster—just to play along.
“Sorry. This isn’t a ye olde antique shop-pe,” the bartender told her. He laughed. Guys like him, severely corny guys, always cracked themselves up. “But we’ve got one of these.” He pulled a phone out from behind the bar and set it in front of Natalie. She reached for the receiver. The bartender grabbed her hand to stop her. “Local?”
“Local,” Natalie promised, managing not to grit her teeth. As soon as the bartender released her hand, she punched in Tori’s cell phone number. The cell rang and rang…and rang.
The mountains must be messing up her reception, too.
Slowly, Natalie hung up. There was nothing else she could do.
“Thanks,” she told the bartender.
“I hope you live,” he said solemnly.
“Me too,” Natalie said as she headed back out to the patio.
“I ordered you a blackberry iced tea,” her dad told her.
Natalie took a long, long drink. She really had done everything she could to get in touch with Tori. Now she had to forget about her friend and have a fun lunch with her father. It was practically the first time they’d had a meal together her whole visit.
“So tell me more about this new boy, Reed,” her dad urged.
“Reed, he’s—”
“Stop,” her father interrupted. “First tell me what’s wrong.”
He was good.
And Natalie couldn’t hold all the bad feelings inside one second longer. She took a deep breath and let it spew. “It’s just that I was supposed to get together with Tori yesterday, and I forgot. I just…forgot. So we made plans to get together today. But then you—”
“Decided to take you to lunch with no advance notice,” her dad filled in. “I didn’t even ask you if you had plans.”
“I wanted to go with you. I did. But now Tori’s going to think I forgot all about her. I tried to text her and call her, but the texts didn’t go through and then I got her voicemail,” Natalie went on. “She’s probably sitting on Surfrider Beach right now, planning the most painful way to massacre me.”
“Nat, Surfrider Beach is only about ten minutes from here. Let’s go,” her father said.
“Seriously?” Natalie asked, a wave of relief breaking over her.
“Of course, seriously,” he answered. “I’ll take you both out to lunch.”
She was going to get to spend time with Tori and her dad. The perfect solution.
Her father stood up. “We’ll be back in twenty,” he called to the waitress. “And we’ll need another place setting.” He gave The Smile.
“You got it,” the waitress answered.
“She might not even be there,” Natalie said. “I was supposed to meet her fifteen minutes ago.”
Natalie’s father gave Natalie The Smile. “She’ll still be there.”
chapter
EIGHT
Tori strode through the front door and went directly to her room. No passing Go. No collecting two hundred dollars. She logged right on to her computer. She had a lot to say, and she absolutely could not wait to say it. She just cracked her knuckles, then began to type.
Posted by: Tori
Subject: Natalie is dead to me
REMEMBER THE OTHER DAY WHEN I WAS LOOKING FOR NATALIE? WELL, SHE WAS OUT WITH A BOY. A BOY I FOUND FOR HER, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. SHE DIDN’T EVEN REMEMBER WE WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET UP.
BUT I FORGAVE HER. I DID. I MADE PLANS WITH HER AGAIN. WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GO TO THE BEACH TOGETHER. SO I SAT THERE WAITING AND SHE NEVER SHOWED UP. SHE IS THE WORST PERSON EVER! SELFISH AND INCONSIDERATE AND EVERYTHING BAD!!
AND YES, I KNOW I’M SHOUTING. I NEED TO SHOUT. AAAAAAGH!!!
TORRRRRIIIIEEE
“Aaaaaagh!” Tori screamed. She jumped up from the computer, paced back and forth across her bedroom four times, clicked on the TV, flipped through all the channels, clicked off the TV, turned on the radio, trolled through all the stations, turned it off, put her iPod on, listened to half of five songs, turned it off, and then sat down to check the blog. She wanted to read all about how everyone now hated Natalie as much as she did.
Posted by: Grace
Subject: Don’t scream
Don’t scream at me, Tori. I know you don’t want to
hear this right now, but I think you should wait and see what Natalie has to say about not showing up. She could have a good explanation. Even though she didn’t the other time. (Unless the boy she was hanging with was shirtless. Tee hee.)
Natalie is really a good friend. She completely talked Brynn through a problem yesterday. Just give her a chance, okay?
Grace
Posted by: Priya
Subject: What’s Brynn’s problem?
Jordan didn’t say anything to me about any prob. And those two tell each other everything. It’s kind of nauseating!
Priya
Posted by: Valerie
Subject: Missing Natalie
Um, just go read my other “Missing Natalie” message. I know that it turned out that she did sort of ditch you last time. But it really isn’t like Nat to forget about her friends. Maybe she a) got sunstroke which led to amnesia, b) never learned why one hand on the watch is big and one is little, c) there has to be a c. I’ll write again when I think of one.
Val
Posted by: Alyssa
Subject: Nat
Natalie is a great friend. Listen to Grace’s advice, okay? Just wait and see what Natalie says about why she didn’t show. It’s weird that this happened twice.
Nat, is something wrong? Is something going on we should know about?
Even Alyssa thinks there’s something wrong with Nat, Tori thought. And Alyssa’s her best friend at camp.
Tori exited the blog. She didn’t need to wait around and see how Natalie answered Alyssa’s question. Tori already new exactly what was wrong with Natalie. She was a horrible, selfish, inconsiderate, bad, bad person.
Brynn sat on the edge of the fountain in the middle of the mall. Where was Jordan? They were supposed to meet here—she checked her watch—four minutes ago. Four! And she didn’t have any minutes to spare. She should be going over her lines right now. The first performance of the play was in two days. Two!
Tonight was a dress rehearsal. Ms. Milligan said they had to go on no matter what happened—just like it was a performance. Brynn thought she had her part down. She’d been working on it almost nonstop. But she didn’t want to make a single mistake. Why hadn’t she brought a copy of the script with her to the mall? And where was Jordan?
In a way, Brynn wished he’d pull a no-show, the way Nat kept doing to Tori. That way, she could just get really mad at him and break up. Instead of actually having The Talk and telling him she couldn’t be his girlfriend—at least not the way he wanted her to—and be in the play at the same time.
A few droplets of water hit Brynn on the back of the neck, startling her away from her thoughts. She looked over her shoulder and saw Jordan and Priya grinning at her.
“He did it.” Priya pointed to Jordan.
“She did it,” Jordan said at the same time, pointing to Priya.
Oh, no, Brynn thought. What is Priya doing here? There was no way she could have The Talk with Jordan if Priya was around.
She flashed on what Grace had said in the chat room. About Priya being mad at Brynn if Brynn broke things off with Jordan. Brynn looked over at Priya. Was that true?
“Hey, you guys,” Brynn said.
“Hope you don’t mind that I came with Jordan. We’re going to a Bar Mitzvah party for a kid in our class. We wanted to go in on a present together,” Priya told her.
“Sure. Great,” Brynn answered. Priya was her friend. It’s not like Brynn could tell her to get lost. That would definitely make Priya mad!
“Sorry about the other day. When I, you know…” Jordan said.
“When he hung up on you,” Priya explained.
Brynn and Jordan hadn’t seen each other face-to-face since the hang-up. They hadn’t talked on the phone, either. They’d made arrangements to meet at the mall via e-mail.
“I know it bothers you how much time I’m spending on the play,” Brynn answered. That’s all she thought she could say without starting The Talk.
“Vacation is supposed to be when you can hang with your friends,” Priya commented, making it clear whose side she was on. As if there was ever any doubt she’d side with Jordan.
But that didn’t necessarily mean she’d be angry if Brynn broke up with Jordan. Just that she’d think Brynn was wrong and Jordan was right. But that didn’t mean Priya wouldn’t want to be Brynn’s friend anymore. Did it?
“So what kind of present do you want to get?” Brynn asked. She definitely needed a subject change.
“Kyle is into science stuff,” Jordan answered.
“So we should hit the Discovery Store,” Priya said.
“It’s upstairs, I think,” Brynn told them.
Jordan and Priya looked at each other and laughed. “It’s about fifteen feet from where you’re sitting,” Jordan told her.
“It’s okay, Brynn. We know you’re not a science kind of person,” Priya said as she led the way into the store.
“Just like we’re not drama kind of people,” Jordan added.
Wow, the two of them talk like they’re identical in every way, Brynn thought.
“Remember when we were trying to come up with smart stuff for you to say to Brynn when you two went to that play together in D.C.?” Priya asked Jordan. They laughed together again.
“I remember that what you two came up with was pretty silly,” Brynn said.
“But you still ended up with Jordan,” Priya reminded her.
Brynn nodded, thinking about how much fun she and Jordan had had together since that day in D.C. And now she was breaking up with him. At least she was if she ever had the chance to talk to him alone.
Don’t think about it now, Brynn told herself. It’s pointless. She picked up a box from the closest display. “Hey, they have an electronic Deal or No Deal,” she announced.
“That’s so not Kyle,” Priya said.
Jordan picked up a game. “How about this? Brainiac in a Box?”
“That so is Kyle,” Priya said. “How much?”
“Less than we thought we’d have to spend,” Jordan answered. “Want to get it?”
“Let’s look around a little more,” Priya told him. “Is that guy Martin going to be at the party? Because if he is, I’m not going.”
“You don’t even know him,” Jordan protested.
“I don’t need to know him,” Priya shot back. “I know what he did to you that time at the soccer game. That’s all I need to know.”
“It wasn’t that big a deal. And it was almost a year ago,” Jordan reminded her.
“Who cares? It was still a rotten thing to do to you,” Priya said, her voice hard.
Yikes, Brynn thought. I really might lose a friend and a boyfriend when I break up with Jordan.
Natalie shoved the laptop off her stomach and onto the bed beside her. She felt like throwing it out the window and into the swimming pool.
The things Tori had written about her…Just reading them had made Nat feel battered and bruised.
It was so unfair. She’d tried to text Tori. And Natalie and her dad had gone to Surfrider Beach looking for her. They’d gotten to the beach twenty minutes late. Just twenty minutes! Tori could have waited that long. She didn’t know that Natalie had tried to cancel. None of Natalie’s voicemails or texts had gotten through.
She could have waited until she’d talked to Nat before she posted all that trash on the camp blog, too. Not just could have. Should have.
Now everyone from camp was taking about Natalie and what could be wrong with her. At the very least, Tori should have put her tirade in a private e-mail.
Natalie sat up on the bed and pulled the laptop in front of her. The camp blog still filled the screen. Tori’s screaming post was near the top.
Was she really supposed to apologize to Tori in front of everyone—after Tori had called Natalie all those names? Nat hesitated, her fingers poised over the laptop keys.
Natalie had definitely done something she should apologize for. But now so had Tori. Did the two needed apologies
basically cancel each other out? Nat wasn’t sure.
All she knew was that she wasn’t ready to post to the blog. Not yet, anyway. Instead she began to compose an e-mail to her best Camp Lakeview friend.
To: Alyssa11
From: NatalieNYC
Subject: nothing’s wrong
hey, lyss
i know you think something might be wrong, since i went no-show on tori—twice. but nothing’s wrong.
well, actually, the first time i was supposed to meet up with tor there was maybe a little something wrong. i was supposed to do something with my dad that day (tori and i had agreed to get together if my dad couldn’t hang with me) and when my dad canceled on me, i was pretty upset. and this guy reed that tori had introduced me to had left me a message. i called him, and he cheered me up and we decided to meet up. and i forgot about tori. i just forgot. maybe if i hadn’t been so mad and sad over the dad sitch i would have remembered. i don’t know.
today my dad finally had time to take me to lunch. it was almost the first time we’d been able to see each other since i arrived. there was no way i could say no to him. and i didn’t want to.
i kept trying to call and text tori, but there was no signal. the santa monica mountains should be burned to the ground. except that i don’t think you can burn dirt. my father realized i was upset, and when i told him why, we went to the beach where i was supposed to meet tori. she wasn’t there. even though i was only a few minutes late.
i’m really sorry that i wasn’t there on time. at least i was sorry until i read that nasty post tori wrote about me on the blog. now i’m almost as mad at her as she is at me.
help, alyssa. what am i supposed to do here?!
confused in california,
nat
A reply from Alyssa popped into Natalie’s inbox almost immediately. That’s the kind of friend Alyssa was.
To: NatalieNYC
From: Alyssa11
Subject: Confused in California
Dear Confused,
I’m no Dear Abby or anything, but I know what you need to do. Apologize.
And the Winner Is...#18 Page 6