by Meg Cabot
There was silence as Tory listened to whatever Zach was saying to her. Then her face broke into a big smile.
“Great,” she said. “Thanks, Zach. You won’t regret it. Yes. Here she is.”
She handed the phone back to me, mouthing, He said yes!
I couldn’t believe it. Smiling, I put the receiver to my ear. “Zach?”
“She’s either a stark raving lunatic, or trying to pull something over on you,” Zach said. “But I don’t know how we’re going to prove either of them. So I say we just go. At least if we’re all together, we’ll be able to keep an eye on her. Besides, how much trouble could anyone cause at a school dance?”
“True,” I said, darting a nervous glance at Tory, worried she might have overheard. But she was looking at the concerto on my music stand, and didn’t appear to be paying the slightest bit of attention. “That sounds good. So…” I wanted to ask him about what he’d said at the game, about Petra, but I found that I couldn’t, with Tory still in the room.
“She still there?” Zach wanted to know.
“Yes,” I said.
“Look, I’ll talk to you tomorrow at school,” he said. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I said, relieved. Relieved because I wasn’t going to have to bring up the Petra thing after all. Because there was a part of me that really, really didn’t want to know. “Bye.”
“Bye,” Zach said. And hung up.
I put down the phone.
“Well,” I said to Tory. “That’s that.”
“He really did say yes?” Tory asked eagerly.
“He really did,” I said.
“Yay!” Tory jumped up and down, clapping her hands, looking so much like her old, former self—the Tory with whom I’d had so much fun, five years ago—that it was impossible to think Zach could be right about her. Maybe he was just being a jaded New Yorker about the whole thing. Maybe Tory really had learned a lesson, and changed her ways.
But I was thinking about what she’d said earlier, about putting the Zach doll she’d made in the trash. Had she really?
Not that I—unlike Zach—didn’t believe in her transformation.
But I hadn’t been able to get that look she’d given me—Saturday night, on the stairs—out of my head. It was great that she’d had this change of heart, great that she’d given up the witch thing—which, in her case, hadn’t been empowering, the way it ought to have been, but more dangerous than anything else.
But what if it wasn’t true? I mean, what if it was all an act?
I felt AWFUL that I could even think such a thing. I mean, it was so obvious Tory was ready to make a new start. She even asked if she could sit and listen to me practice. I let her, of course—I was much too flattered to say no.
And then, when she’d suggested we go downstairs and make ourselves hot fudge sundaes and watch some reruns of The Real World, well, I hadn’t said no to that either.
But later that night, after dinner—the most pleasant meal I’d ever had in the Gardiner household, seeing as how Tory chattered away happily all through it, instead of making sullen comments about everything everyone else said—I stepped out onto the front stoop and skipped down the stairs and onto East Sixty-ninth Street.
Where I started going through the Gardiners’ garbage.
It didn’t take me long to find it. It was in an I New York shopping bag, all by itself. Tory’s Zach doll. She really HAD thrown it away.
She really HAD changed.
And even though she’d said she didn’t want to play at being witches anymore, I snuck the Zach doll, in its bag, back inside with me. Not because I didn’t trust her—it wasn’t that AT ALL. It was just that…well, whether Tory had the gift of magic or not, it was still a doll with Zach’s hair on it.
And there was no way I was going to let it mold in some landfill out on Staten Island.
I brought the doll into my room and unwrapped it from its plastic bag.
It really was the most horribly made doll I’d ever seen. Still, it was supposed to be Zach. Who knew? Maybe I would give it to him someday (after swearing him to secrecy about where I’d gotten it) for a laugh.
But then, just as I was about to fall asleep that night, something occurred to me. It was stupid, I knew.
But it nevertheless compelled me to get up and pull the doll from the hiding place I’d found for it.
Just as I’d suspected, Tory had left her hair entwined on top of the doll’s head with some of Zach’s hair.
And I know this was probably the dumbest thing in the world to have done. But I also knew I’d never get back to sleep unless I did it: I carefully separated out all of the strands of Tory’s hair, leaving only Zach’s on the doll’s head, and flushed Tory’s down the toilet.
Then I put the doll back where it belonged, and fell into the soundest sleep I’d experienced since moving to New York.
Maybe the lady from Enchantments was right after all:
Everything really was going to be all right.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Willem—Petra’s Willem—arrived that Wednesday, bringing with him gifts—a tiny, playable accordion for Alice; an authentic German soccer ball for Teddy; perfume for Tory; catnip for Mouche; a little figurine of a girl playing the violin for me—and a general air of good humor and joie de vivre.
He was, of course, devastatingly good-looking. I wouldn’t have expected Petra, who was so gorgeous, to date a troll, and she definitely didn’t. Willem was even taller than Zach, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a quick, easy grin. I overheard Aunt Evelyn say to my mom, during their weekly phone call, “My God, I’m half in love with him myself.”
Petra was, of course, over the moon at having him there.
“He is sleeping on the couch,” was what she told Teddy and Alice. And, indeed, there was even a pillow and a blanket folded up on the couch in her snug little basement apartment.
But I still saw the telltale sign of beard burn on her face at breakfast every morning. I wondered how I was going to break the news to Zach that Willem’s visit appeared to be going swimmingly—if he even cared anymore. There had never seemed to be a good moment, since that afternoon on the baseball field, to bring up what we’d talked about there—Zach’s new, non-laissez-faire policy toward Tory, and how that was going to impact his relationship with Petra…
…especially since Tory now seemed to be okay with the two of us being friends, and Zach dropped by the house as often as he used to, to play catch with Teddy or hang out in the kitchen with me. (This afforded me ample opportunity to slip Lisa’s sachet into his backpack. Not that I didn’t believe Tory’s claim that she’d given up witchcraft. But I still had Gretchen and Lindsey to worry about. The two of them were throwing me meaner looks than ever every day in the caf…especially now that Tory had apologized to Chanelle, as well, and had been forgiven and was eating with me and Chanelle again, and ignoring them.)
I knew I should have come right out and asked Zach, “Are you still in love with Petra?” But every time I thought about doing so, the knot in my stomach—which, since Tory’s transformation, had been putting in fewer and fewer appearances—would return in full force.
So I just kept my mouth shut about it. Certainly Zach never brought it up. Although that might have been because he was around enough to see for himself how happy Petra and Willem were together…
Not that I had much time to worry about Petra’s love life. With the dance coming up in a few days, all of us girls were freaking out over what we were going to wear.
“You have to wear black,” Chanelle said.
“Everybody wears black,” Tory agreed. “It’s like, tradition.”
“I don’t think my mother would let me wear something black,” I said worriedly. My parents, having heard about the dance—but nothing about Tory’s suicide attempt (as Aunt Evelyn put it, “God forbid Charlotte should hear about any of that. She’ll have you home in a New York second. Maybe it would be best to, er, shield her from the truth.”)—
had sent fifty dollars to go toward a dress. I wanted the money to stretch as far as possible. Which was why I was planning on heading to H&M on Fifth Avenue.
But Tory, who’d stopped teasing me about my family’s relative poverty, seemed appalled at the idea.
“You can’t wear a dress from H&M to the formal,” she said, shocked. “Everyone will know you only spent fifty bucks on it.”
“But that amount of money won’t go very far at a regular store,” I said, having scanned the dresses at Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s already.
“Leave it to me,” Tory said.
And that day, she came home from her therapist’s office with a bag from Betsey Johnson.
“She has a shop next to Dr. Lippman’s,” Tory explained excitedly, as she pulled a long, slinky gown out of it. “I saw this in the window, and knew it would be perfect for you. Don’t worry, it was on sale. More than fifty dollars, but consider it, you know. My official thank-you gift for all you’ve done for me.”
I stared down at the dress. It was beautiful. But…
“It’s black,” I said.
“I know it’s black,” Tory said, with a hint of her old asperity in her voice. “But look at it. It’s perfect for you. With your white skin, and that red hair—”
“But…it’s black.” I looked up at her. “My mom would kill me. She says I’m too young for black. And you know Aunt Evelyn’s going to e-mail her pictures…”
“Tell your mother to get with the twenty-first century,” Tory said with a laugh. “This is Manhattan, not Hancock. No one wears pink to dances here.”
I fingered the dress. It wasn’t that I didn’t WANT to wear it. Low-cut, with spaghetti straps, it was nothing but two pieces of clingy black fabric, sewn together on the bias. Hanging around the hem were dozens of shiny black beads that made a clicking sound every time they moved.
It was gorgeous.
It was also so not me.
“Just put it on,” Tory said.
I knew if I put it on, I’d never be able to let it go.
“No,” I said. “I really shouldn’t. YOU wear it to the dance, Tory. You would look fantastic in it.”
“I already have a dress I look fantastic in,” Tory said. “Just try it on. It can’t hurt to try it on.”
Embrace that which you fear.
She was right. It couldn’t hurt to try it on.
So I did.
And just as I suspected, I knew I had to have it. It fit me perfectly, like a glove, showing off my arms and most of my back, and way more of my chest than I’d ever shown off before, outside of a swimming pool.
But it made me look…it made me look…
“NOT like a preacher’s daughter,” Tory said. “When Zach sees you in that, no way is he gonna want to be ‘just friends’ with you anymore.”
And with that, I knew I was keeping it. Not that I said anything to Tory to make her think I agreed with her. Because I didn’t. Zach was never going to think of me as more than just a friend….
But it couldn’t hurt to look a little sexy for a change. Mom was just going to have to deal. Or maybe I could talk Aunt Evelyn into saying her camera was broken….
The morning of the dance, Tory’s mom surprised us—Tory, Chanelle, and me—with an all-expense paid trip to her favorite spa in Soho. A manicure, pedicure, and our hair and makeup done by real professionals. Aunt Evelyn said she did it because, “You girls are getting along so well. And, Tory, you’ve made so much progress this week.”
There were actual tears in Aunt Evelyn’s eyes as she said this at the breakfast table. It was so sweet, I practically got tears in my own eyes…just not for the same reason as Aunt Evelyn.
The truth was, for the first time in my life, things were going really well. I don’t know if Lisa had done something to turn my luck around, or if, by some miracle, I’d done it myself. All I knew was that not only was I getting along great with Tory, but I also had a good friend—Chanelle, who’d graciously agreed to let Tory back into her social circle, so long as she continued to abstain from discussing toadstool collection from headstones at the lunch table—and even, if not a boyfriend, then at least a guy friend.
It was Zach, in fact, who’d shown me the flyer he’d found in the school’s administrative office, announcing a scholarship—full tuition—for the next school year to any student with a high enough GPA who could show financial need.
The catch? The student also had to show that he or she could play an instrument. You had to audition, and everything.
“It’s perfect for you,” Zach said. “You’ve got it in the bag.”
I didn’t know about that. But I did know how much I had come to love New York. Not the Chapman School, so much, which I still thought was filled with mostly preppy snobs—quite a few of whom still blamed me for Shawn’s expulsion…not that it bothered me so much anymore. I knew the truth and, more importantly, so did the people I actually cared about.
But I loved living with the Gardiners—now that Tory was being so nice to me at last—and I loved, loved, loved the city. I loved the busy streets and the gorgeous shop windows and the tall buildings and the Met and Carnegie Hall and the gyoza from Sushi by Gari and the bagels from H&H and the lox from Citarella. I had even gotten over my subway jitters, and could (almost) take the Number 6 train without the slightest hint of a knot in my stomach.
I was still hopeless at figuring out any of the other trains. But I had the 6 down pat.
And okay, I missed Stacy and my family.
But Hancock? I didn’t miss Hancock a bit.
Especially not certain aspects of it.
And if I got the scholarship, I wouldn’t have to go back. I knew Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ted would let me stay with them. Sure, my parents would be sad (though Courtney wouldn’t—one less person to hog the bathroom from her).
But even my mom and dad would understand that graduating from the Chapman School was going to look better on my admission application to Juilliard than Hancock High—because why shouldn’t I try to get into Juilliard, with the way my luck was beginning to turn around? There were so many advantages to staying in the city over returning to Hancock…and I wasn’t even counting the fact that Zach would be at Chapman—for one more year, anyway—too.
At six fifty-nine on the night of the dance—after having spent the day being pampered and styled to within an inch of my life (although the hairstylist, Jake, had taken one look at my hair and said, “No. Nuh-uh. We’re not doing a thing to it. Maybe put a little bit of it up in the front with a clip—oh, yes, that’s great—but no one is going near this girl with a flat iron. Do you hear me, people?”)—I was fastening the jeweled strap to my evening sandal when the doorbell rang.
Then I heard Teddy—always the first to reach the door—cry, “Zach!”
“He’s here, he’s here,” Alice came running into my room to announce.
She skidded to a halt on the threshold, though, and stared at me, openmouthed.
“Oh my gosh,” she said. “Jean, you look like a princess!”
“Really?” I tugged nervously on my dress, staring at my reflection in the full-length mirror on my bathroom door. Suddenly, it all seemed too much—the dress was too tight, the neckline too low, my makeup too heavy, my heels too high, the pentacle around my wrist…yes, I was still wearing it, for luck, because if I ever needed luck, it was RIGHT NOW. But I thought wearing it on my wrist might be a little more discreet, since it was normally hidden beneath my shirt collars…especially since my neckline was so low, making the pentacle so noticeable when it was around my neck.
“Oh, Jean.” Petra joined Alice in the doorway. “She’s right. You look beautiful.”
“The dress isn’t too tight?” I asked anxiously.
“Not at all,” Petra said. “Oh, I hope Mrs. Gardiner finds her camera!”
I said a silent prayer that Aunt Evelyn wouldn’t find it…especially since I’d hidden it in the dryer.
“Well,” I said. “Here goes nothi
ng.”
And I left my room and started down the stairs to the foyer.
Zach was there, looking impossibly handsome in his tuxedo, chatting with Uncle Ted. One hand was in his trouser pocket, while the other held a clear plastic box with a flower in it. He looked up the stairs when he heard Alice—who was trailing sneakily after me—let out a giggle.
And all of my nervousness about my looks disappeared. That’s because whatever Zach had been saying to my uncle Ted, he no longer seemed to remember, as his voice trailed off and his gaze, seemingly locked on me, followed me down the stairs. When I finally got to the bottom of the staircase, Zach still didn’t move. At least, not until Teddy, still hanging on to the front doorknob, cried, “Wow, Jean! You look great!”
Then Zach seemed to rouse himself. He said, “Yeah. Yeah, you look really…really—”
I stood there, my stomach suddenly in knots—what was he going to say? Surely not that I looked gorgeous or anything. That’s not the kind of thing friends say to each other….
“You look beautiful!” It was Aunt Evelyn who finished the sentence for him, holding her arms out to hug me. And Zach—I couldn’t help but notice—didn’t look in that big a hurry to correct her. “Oh, Jean, I wish I knew where I’d left the camera. Your mother’s going to kill me!”
“That’s okay, Aunt Evelyn,” I said, rolling my eyes at Zach over Aunt Evelyn’s shoulder as she hugged me. He finally managed a grin at me. “I’m sure she’ll get over it.”
“But I won’t.” She let go of me, then looked at Zach and me with tears in her eyes. “Oh, you two just look so…so…”
“Mom,” Tory said, in a warning voice from the landing. “Don’t you start crying. Then I’ll start crying, and you’ll make me ruin my makeup.”
We all stared up as Tory, a vision in white (but hadn’t she said everyone wore black to the spring formal?), descended the staircase. Her dress was, by Tory standards, almost modest, a froth of snow-white tulle with a satin bodice she’d paired with over-the-elbow gloves. If anyone looked like a princess, it was Tory. In comparison, as a matter of fact, I thought I looked…well, a little slutty.