“So . . . ,” he said.
“So . . . ,” she said.
“So do you know a lot of other people here? I don’t know anyone really,” he said. “Parties make me uncomfortable, there’s so much pressure to be, y’know, on the whole time. It’s like being on display.”
Lucy had to bite her lip to keep herself from smiling wider. She shrugged. “But that’s what’s fun about parties, isn’t it?” Did she sound as fake as she felt? He looked so uncomfortable. Just the way she had at every party she’d ever been to. She leaned in. “Actually, I shouldn’t tell you this, but this here?” She motioned toward the house just at the moment that cheers broke out inside and a hot pink bra flew through the open window and landed on a bush. “This is a surprise party for you.” She looked up at him. He looked confused. She let her mouth spread into a slow smile. “The fact that it is not your birthday and that you don’t know anyone is meant to make it extra surprising.” She threw her arms up in the air. “Surprise!”
Colin laughed. A real laugh. He didn’t even cover his teeth this time.
“Just think about that if you’re uncomfortable: They’re all here for your party and if you feel like they’re ignoring you, that’s only because they’re gearing up for the big moment later.”
Colin was staring at her with his head tipped to the side.
Suddenly there was a commotion behind them, and Lucy turned. Olivia, Liza, and Gil were walking out of the house. Behind them was a guy in a bright red T-shirt with a bright red face. “You!” he shouted. He might have been cute if he wasn’t so red and yelling, “You, you, you, you, you.” And so obviously, sloppily drunk. “I have been looking for you. I thought you might be here!”
Olivia, Liza, and Gil stood on the lawn below. Olivia stared at him. She shrugged.
“Oh, so you’re going to pretend you don’t know me?” The guy snorted and sputtered. Spit was spraying everywhere. “Is that how it is? We were together for the entire winter, Olivia! I first met you here.” He started stumbling down the stairs. Colin put his hand on Lucy’s arm and pulled her gently back, just as the guy went tumbling in front of her.
“I don’t know.” Olivia shook her head slowly. “That was a long time ago.”
“You horrible, horrible, horrible bitch.” He was shaking his head. Behind him, everyone was staring. “And you two”—he pointed at Liza, then at Gil—“I know just who you are.” He turned to address the crowd. “Stay away from these bitches,” he yelled. “These stupid, horrible, evil bitches will get you. They’ll take everything out of you and then when there’s nothing left, they’ll leave you to die!”
“I think it’s time for you to rest now, sweetie,” Gil said quietly to him. “Go back inside.” She reached out and put her hand on his arm.
Liza was laughing a little bit.
He started to step away.
“That’s a good boy,” Gil said. “Just keep going.”
Suddenly he lunged toward Olivia, hands out grasping blindly. Like he was trying to grab a piece of her to keep.
But before he could reach her, Gil’s thin arm slipped around his neck, and with one little squeeze he dropped to the ground. As he went down, his hand shot out and grabbed Olivia’s tangle of necklaces. A chain broke with a tiny pop and fell into the grass with no sound at all.
Olivia looked down at his crumpled face, his mouth opened in an O of surprise. She inhaled and shook her head coolly. She hadn’t noticed the necklace.
“Thanks, Gilly.” Olivia leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
Lucy stood there, heart pounding, so confused by everything that had just happened, by every single moment of it.
Gil smiled. “I have a lot of brothers,” she said. She shrugged. Lucy looked down at the guy on the floor, curled on his side, moaning.
“He’ll be okay,” Gil said.
The broken necklace lay in the grass, a delicate gold chain on which was a small black key. Lucy reached for it. But a fist closed around it first. “Not for you,” Liza said. And she slapped the back of Lucy’s hand.
“I was just trying to . . .”
“Not for you,” Liza said. She handed the necklace back to Olivia who quickly slipped it into the front pocket of her giant leather bag.
Lucy stared at the guy, who was still moaning on the ground. Her heart was hammering.
Liza stood over him, nudged his shoulder with the toe of her boot, and slowly turned her beer upside down, right over his crotch. The beer spread out over his shorts. “Tasted like piss anyway,” she said.
But Olivia shook her head, reached out, and gently moved Liza’s hand away. “Come on, ladies, let’s go back inside.” Olivia looked down then one last time at the body on the grass. “Good-bye, Ricky,” she whispered. His eyelids fluttered at the sound of her voice.
Chapter Sixteen
Hours later, Lucy lay in bed, cheek pressed to her purple flower pillow, brain stretching, skull pounding, as though her head had eaten an enormous meal that it did not know how to digest.
So much had happened at the party, but that’s not what she was thinking about.
She was not thinking about the way Colin had looked at her, while girls all over the party were staring at him, which he seemed not to notice. Or how a guy had started hitting on her while she was in the bathroom line (which incidentally Colin had seen and was probably the reason for his hasty exit, which Lucy actually felt a tiny bit bad about). Or about how three separate guys had asked for her phone number. Or how funny it had been to be a ray of sunshine for the dude in the I’LL STOP FROWNING WHEN THE WORLD STOPS SUCKING T-shirt. And then moments later to be a very deep and introspective wallflower for the perky party host.
She wasn’t even thinking about the wonderful moment when Olivia dropped her back at home and said that the next night they had something “really special in store for her,” in a way that felt like a promise. A promise that meant something.
No.
What Lucy was thinking about, lying in her bed, as the sun came up on that early Saturday morning, a day that was supposed to be her first day as a nonvirgin, her first time waking up in a bed curled against Alex, was this:
Everything she’d done during her entire relationship with Alex had been wrong. Starting with that first googly-eyed look she gave him, right up until yesterday at school.
The problem wasn’t that she’d loved him too much; it was that she hadn’t loved herself enough. She’d never really understood why he liked her. She tried to be a nice person, and Tristan said she was smart and funny, but Alex was Alex.
So to make up for the great distance between what she was and what he was, well, she just ended up doing whatever he wanted all the time, complimenting him constantly, and telling him over and over how he was the most wonderful person the world had ever known.
She’d been his biggest fan.
But he didn’t need a fan.
Looking back now, she realized he’d often shrugged off her compliments the way one might do with those of an overly doting aunt.
He wanted the world to be more interesting and exciting. What he was looking for was not a soft place to land, but a cliff to jump from and someone to fly through the air after.
Suddenly Lucy knew that with such intensity that she sat straight up in bed, heart pounding.
She could be the lurch, the tingle, the breathless feeling of hurtling into vast empty space. She could be that free fall. Starting now.
Lucy reached for her phone; she had an idea.
She wrote a text.
Alan, great meeting you too. Sneaking in tonight was fun, but if you think that’s crazy just you wait. . . .
She sent it to Alex before she had a chance to change her mind.
Then took two deep breaths. She counted to five. Then wrote another.
SORRY!! Oops, meant to send to someone else. Hope I didn’t wake you up J
Was that too obvious? Would he know she’d meant to send it to him all along?
A second later her phone buzzed, which meant Alex was sitting right there with it. Which he almost never was. Lucy gasped. What was he even doing up?
It’s cool.
What did that mean?
Her phone buzzed again.
Glad you had a fun night tho. Oh, and don’t worry, I was up anyway. Couldn’t sleep. . . .
Lucy’s breath caught in her throat.
The old Lucy would have texted back immediately, asked him why, suggested warm milk, wished she had enough guts to offer to sing him a lullaby.
But the new Lucy wouldn’t.
So the new Lucy didn’t.
Instead she just tucked her phone away and forced herself to concentrate on the feeling of speeding through space, of the wind rushing by her. Of pulling that into herself. Of sending it back out.
Chapter Seventeen
“Do you need help steering that thing toward your mouth hole, my friend?” Tristan pointed to her motionless fork, and grinned.
It was morning and there was Lucy, sitting with Tristan in their favorite booth at Pancake Land, totally unable to eat her pancakes. She knew she’d done a good job the night before. But she’d woken up that morning to the ticking of the clock on her nightstand, with a ticking in her belly too, suddenly all too aware of the passing time, which she’d let herself ignore up until now.
Tick tick tick.
It was the start of the fourth day. How had she squandered so many of her seven days already?
Tick tick tick.
Time was passing much too fast.
Tristan reached out, grabbed the soggy pancake piece off her fork, and popped it in his mouth.
Lucy pressed her hand to her belly. There had been four days since her heart had been cracked open. And somehow she’d managed to survive them. But only because she had had hope and time. She was quickly running out of both of them. . . .
“So what happened to you last night, eh?” Tristan said. “Dog ate your homework?” He grinned.
Lucy shook her head. “I’m really sorry, I . . . ,” was trying to get these magical girls to give me some potions, “. . . completely forgot.”
“It’s okay, you’ve got a lot going on up there.” He lifted his coffee and motioned toward her head. Then drained the last sip. A half second later a cute red-haired waitress appeared to refill his cup. She gave him a big, blinky-eyed gaze and brushed against his arm as she walked off.
Lucy gave him a look. Tristan shrugged. “What?” He opened his eyes wide and grinned. “The service is just really good here!”
At least half the waitresses at Pancake Land had crushes on Tristan, a fact he vehemently denied (but only denied as a joke, since it was so completely obvious).
“So what’d you end up doing anyway?” Tristan grabbed a handful of sugars and ripped the tops off, dumped half in his coffee and the other half directly into his mouth.
“I was hanging out with . . . those girls actually . . . ,” Lucy said. “We went to some party.” It was funny how normal it sounded when she put it just like that.
Tristan raised his eyebrows. “Hey, good for you, dude. If popular movies and TV shows have taught me anything, that’s how a person’s supposed to get over a breakup. Get out there and do a bunch of Jell-O shots off strangers. Nice.”
“Ha-ha,” said Lucy. “No, it wasn’t like that. It was weird.”
“Cuddle party?”
“The party was just a regular party, it’s just . . . what happened at it was a little funny. . . .” Could she tell him this part? She blushed.
“Spill it, blushy.” Tristan smiled. “Sounds like someone met a boooooooy.”
Lucy blushed more. “Three guys asked for my number.”
“Awesome!” said Tristan. He raised his coffee and waited for her to clink with her peppermint tea. “Good for you, kiddo. Total hotties?”
Lucy just smiled and shook her head. How much was she allowed to tell him? “I’m not actually trying to date anyone. It was more like . . . practicing.”
“Huh?”
“Practicing stuff with boys, I guess.”
“Practicing for the purpose of what? If you’re not trying to date anyone . . .”
Lucy shrugged. She definitely needed to stop here. “Those girls were helping me,” she said, as though it was an answer. Even though it obviously wasn’t.
“So what’s the deal with them anyway? That little one seems nice enough, but I always sort of got the feeling that something odd was going on with the wolfy-faced one and the hot one.”
“Well, they’re . . .” Lucy paused. “They’re, yeah, they’re definitely weird.”
“Look, Lucy,” Tristan said. His expression went suddenly serious. “If they’re recruiting you into a lesbian sex cult you can tell me.” He paused. “So long as they let me join too.” Tristan drained his coffee cup again.
Lucy had a sudden troubling thought. “Promise me you’ll never date any of them,” she said.
“Um, okay?” Tristan said. He raised his eyebrows. “I definitely won’t ‘date’ them, especially not the big, hot one.” He made air quotes around “date.” Then winked. “But seriously, when do I get to hang out with your new buds?”
“Soon,” said Lucy. Even though she didn’t mean it.
“Want to invite them to the fair tonight? I will make a special exception for our Lucy-Tristan Tradition if you want. Big-hottie looks like she has good aim. Maybe she can win me one of those giant teddy bears I’ve had my eye on.” Every year since they first became friends, Lucy and Tristan went to their town’s fall fair together on the first Saturday of the school year.
“Oh, Tristy . . . ,” Lucy said.
Tristan’s face dropped. “You can’t go?”
Lucy shook her head. “I’m so sorry. . . .”
“S’okay,” he said. “This girl Janice wanted to do something tonight anyway so . . .” He looked down at his phone and pressed a few keys. Put his phone down.
They stared at each other for a second. It was awkward. Things between them were never awkward.
“Well,” said Tristan. “What are you doing tonight, Miss I’m-suddenly-too-busy-and-important-for-important-traditional-friendship traditions?”
Lucy frowned.
“I’m joking my friend, joe-king. Do what you gotta do.”
“I’m just going to hang out at home tonight,” Lucy said. “My parents are away this weekend, celebrating their anniversary.”
“Georgie and Suzanne doing the happy couple thing again?”
Lucy nodded. “For the next ten minutes at least. So I think I’m just going to relax tonight, eat a lot of ice cream on the couch or something. Sulk alone.”
“You want a sulking partner? I’ll text Jan-Jan back, tell her I’m busy. There was something I wanted to show you anyway. This cool thing I think you’ll really like . . .”
Lucy’s stomach tightened. “If you were there I wouldn’t be alone then, now would I?” She tried to make her voice sound light.
Tristan blinked and scratched his head in mock confusion. “I don’t follow . . . ,” he said. He moved his hands back and forth between them and moved his mouth around and squinted and shook his head. Then grinned.
Lucy picked up her camera and snapped a picture, Tristan, head tilted to the side, eyes squinting, pointing at the lens.
“All right, enough with the picture taking, Ms. Clicky. Finish your pancakes. . . .” He reached out with his fork, stabbed a pancake, and brought the entire syrup-dripping thing into his open mouth. “Orfsomfonefish going to finif them forfyoo.” A line of syrup dribbled down his chin. Lucy lifted her camera again. The flash went off the moment before the syrup hit the plate.
Chapter Eighteen
Tristan dropped Lucy off at home, where she spent the next few hours pacing from room to room, putting on makeup, and trying to sing loud enough to drown out that clock. It was how the background sounded to everything she did: Tick tick tick. But there was just no drowning it.
Finally, O
livia picked her up. And then a few hours after that, Lucy was standing with Olivia and Liza and Gil in front of an old theater.
“What’s this place called?” Lucy asked.
“It isn’t called anything,” Olivia said. “This is where Pete lives.”
“Wait, seriously? But what about . . . ?” Lucy pointed to the line of people snaking around the building.
“He has a lot of friends,” Olivia said, and she shrugged.
Lucy looked at the people, each one of them so perfectly something in their leather, vinyl, fishnets, tattoos, thick bangs, cat’s-eye glasses, tuxedo pants, bloodred lips. Lucy stared down at her yellow eyelet dress and little brown purse and the camera around her neck with the SAY CHEEZ camera strap and shook her head.
She glanced back up at the giant building. There was what appeared to be a box office out front with a very skinny man inside wearing a top hat.
“Who’s that guy?” Lucy asked.
“Scarecrow.” Lucy felt Gil’s arm link through hers. “Not a real guy. Don’t believe everything you see here tonight,” Gil said. “This is a strange place and funny things can happen.” She turned toward Lucy and gave her a meaningful look and pulled her forward.
Olivia led them up past everyone to the front of the line. “Oh, so I guess they think they’re special,” someone in line called out.
Lucy turned. Three girls were glaring at them.
“Oh, honey, it’s not that we think we are,” Liza said. She blew them a kiss off the tip of her middle finger.
At the front of the line, standing next to the box-office scarecrow, was a guy a few years older than them, in a white tank top, all big, square jaw and rippling muscles, and thick, dark hair.
“A pleasure as always, ladies,” he said to Olivia and Gil. His voice was so slow and deep it sounded like a recording of a regular person’s voice played back at the wrong speed. His eyes settled on Liza. “And you,” he said. “Get up in this.” He pointed to his massive chest.
The Secret Sisterhood of Heartbreakers Page 13