A Little Help From My Friends (Miracle Girls Book 3)

by Anne Dayton

  47

  I’ve helped Nick pack up every last article of clothing he owns and drive it over to his new apartment. I’ve helped Dreamy vacuum and straighten up his room. I’ve slogged though all my homework, even double-checking my answers in trig. And then, when the sun starts slipping behind the ridge of the treetops, I know it’s time. I’ve put it off for as long as I can.

  The fastest way to get to the Farcus house is a path Marcus cut through the woods when he first moved in. He drove me crazy that first summer, always showing up at the most random times with some kind of flimsy excuse. He had to borrow a cup of sugar, or he found some new kind of insect he just had to show me, or he would like me to watch Trekkies with him. Eventually I couldn’t remember what my life was like before he came along.

  The April air is warm and dry, and it’s already starting to feel like summer again around here. The path is a little overgrown, so I pick my way over it carefully, but I still make it to the hard-packed dirt road sooner than I want to. Twilight casts a purple glow over the forest, and as I get close to Marcus’s house, I hear the sound of splashing water, just like I knew I would. Marcus is nothing if not consistent.

  I break through the trees into the clearing around the house and lift the latch on the gate. Marcus is cutting through the shimmering surface of the water in smooth, even strokes. When he gets to the end of the pool, he executes a perfect flip turn and starts heading back the other way, a regular Michael Phelps in training. He turns his head to breathe every other stroke. I know he sees me, but I also know better than to think he’s going to interrupt his workout. I sit down on one of the wrought-iron chairs placed around the outdoor table. I can wait.

  The soft sound of the water lapping up around the edge is soothing in its regularity, its familiarity. I’ve missed lazy summer evenings by the pool. I watch as Marcus crisscrosses the water, slicing into its surface cleanly with each stroke.

  I’ve only been waiting about ten minutes when Marcus slows his pace, does a few more leisurely laps, and touches the wall triumphantly. He stands up and lifts his goggles off his eyes, then drops them on the cement. Without a word, he steps out of the pool, wraps himself in a beach towel, slides his feet into flip-flops, and walks toward me.

  Maybe I haven’t really looked at him recently, or maybe he finally hit that magical growth spurt boys seem to stumble upon, but he’s taller now, and not nearly as lanky. He’s still Marcus, still thin and pale, but there are signs of change . . . particularly growing out of his chest. I look away, trying not to notice.

  The chair scrapes against the pavement when he pulls it back, and he sits down and waits.

  “Marcus.” His hair is slicked back by the water, and there’s something wiser around his eyes. I frown, realizing that I fed him his first bite of betrayal. “I’m sorry.”

  He lifts his chin and pulls his towel around his shoulders tightly.

  “I never meant to hurt you, but I did, and I know it, and it was horrible of me. I—” I have the urge to reach out and touch him, but I’m afraid of having him pull away, so I leave my hands twisting awkwardly in my lap. “I care about you. But—” I’m digging myself into a hole here. “I’m sorry. I guess that’s what I really came here to say.”

  Droplets of water are dripping off Marcus’s swimming trunks and collecting in puddles at the base of the chair.

  “I know, Zoe.” Marcus runs his hand through his hair, squeezing out the water. “I know you’re a good person, and I know you were trying to do the right thing.”

  My breath catches in my throat. How could I have broken up with this guy, who is better to me than I ever deserved? I’m a fool to let him go. For one crazy instant, I have the urge to lean over and kiss him, right here and now, just to see. Maybe sparks would fly. Maybe I would discover that I love him with every cell of my body after all.

  But before I can stop it, Dean’s face pops into my head, and I understand with a certainty I could never explain that it’s not going to work with Marcus. I may never find another guy like him, but it’s over. I have to let him go.

  “I just . . . I would do it all over again, if I could.” I shake my head. What am I saying? “I would have done it better, and I would have been more honest, and I would have . . .”

  Marcus’s eyes are watering, and I don’t think it’s from the chlorine.

  “I know, Zoe.” He stands up suddenly and adjusts his towel on his shoulders, and before I know what’s happening, he leans in and places a light kiss on my cheek. Then, without a word, he turns and walks back around to the other side of the pool. His heels squeak against his wet flip-flops, and he leaves a trail of footprints across the cement as he makes his way toward the door. The glass door to his living room slides closed behind him, and I sit there for a few minutes, watching the lights from the house play across the glassy surface of the water before I head for home.

  48

  “Dean, wait up!” I wave good-bye to Christine after class and jog after him. Now that I’ve apologized to Marcus, I can deal with this. I catch up to him, and he keeps his eyes on the exit of the hall.

  “Hey, I need to talk to you.” I poke his shoulder with my finger.

  Dean scrunches up his nose. “I’m late for class.” He makes a break for the door, but I chase after him.

  “Listen,” I catch his arm, and he stops. “I’m sorry about everything. I was upset, but I can see that you’re sorry and that you get it now.”

  He turns back to me, his top lip in an ugly snarl. “You want to know why I was calling?”

  I swallow, suddenly aware that it wasn’t any of the reasons I had secretly hoped. He shakes his head at me. “I wanted to tell you you’ve been right from the beginning. I was wrong, and I shouldn’t have treated you like that. Either of you.”

  A bit of my hair falls in front of my face, and I look up at him from under it. “Right, but I was kind of—”

  “And I wanted to say that I get the message, and I’ll stop.” He takes a few strides into the morning light.

  “No. Wait.”

  “Also, I’m emancipating the poor citizens of Zoeville.” He pulls a stack of papers out of his bag and holds them up. It’s our constitution. “No more serfs.”

  “What?”

  “Forty acres and a mule for everyone.” He rips the paper in half, hands me the scraps, and turns on his heel and walks off. He’s almost to the corner before I manage to make my mouth work again.

  “It was a democracy!” I yell. He doesn’t turn around.

  He always does this. He gets me so turned around I can’t figure out what I was trying to say in the first place.

  ***

  “You know what I heard?” I can’t take this silence anymore. I have to talk about something, even if it is the weather. “Ed called this morning and said it was supposed to rain . . . hard.”

  Christine shields the bright afternoon sun from her eyes and snorts. “I’ll believe it when my trick knee starts acting up.”

  Around us people are cheering, slapping hands, and blaring music from their car stereos. School will be out in just a few weeks, and you can feel the excitement in the air. But even though everybody else is high on the promise of summer freedom, the Miracle Girls are shapeless lumps of self-pity—and I’m probably the biggest lump. I have nothing to look forward to but a hot summer of shoveling horse poop and marinating in meat fumes.

  “It must be bad if we haven’t heard anything yet,” Riley says. No one has to ask who she’s talking about. “Surely she’s had her interview by now.”

  “Of course she has, and they’ve probably snatched her up already.” Ana adjusts her sweatshirt. She’s balled it up and is using it as a pillow against the windshield of Christine’s car. “She has an Ivy League degree, and she’s any administrator’s dream come true. We might as well start getting used to the idea of not having her around anymore.”

  “Maybe she won’t get the job. Maybe they’ll hear about the case and be scared off.” My feet
rest on the front bumper.

  “I’m not sure whether to hope you’re right or not. Both options seem pretty disloyal.” Christine blows a bubble with her chewing gum. Ana reaches out to pop it, but Christine sucks it in at the last second.

  I let my eyes rest on the high gray walls of the gym at the other end of the lot. The student government has already started hanging decorations inside for the prom. It still doesn’t feel real. Prom is one of those things you always dream about as a kid, but it never feels like it will actually happen.

  “It didn’t exactly turn out like we hoped, huh?” Riley says quietly. I’m not sure whether she means the Ms. Moore thing or the year in general. Both are true enough, I guess. I remember the four of us lying here on the first day of school, our heads filled with big dreams about what we were going to do this year. We were so sure we were going to save Ms. Moore. We were the Miracle Girls, and we could do anything.

  No one answers her.

  I let my eyes focus on the long chain-link fence that runs around the perimeter of the parking lot. What will Marina Vista look like now that she’s gone? I try to imagine it, and it surprises me how easy it is. The thing is, Ms. Moore has been out of the classroom for a year now. We raised some attention for her cause at different points this year, but she’s been away for a long time. We’ve moved on without her. We didn’t want to do it, but we have learned to survive.

  I’m so lost in my thoughts I don’t even notice when the huge white Hummer pulls up next to us.

  “Get in.” Ashley doesn’t even wait for the window to roll down all the way before she starts talking.

  Christine props herself up on her elbows and squints at her. “Huh?”

  “I’ll explain on the way.” Ashley pushes a button, and I hear the back doors unlock. “Just get in the car.”

  Ashley’s hair is scraped back into a messy ponytail, and while she’s not exactly what I would call calm even on her best days, she is very agitated now. I look around, but the other girls seem to be as confused as I am.

  “Where are we going?” Ana says, shaking her head.

  Ashley bites her lip. “Please. I need you guys.”

  Riley glances at me and raises her eyebrows. I lift my shoulders. I have no idea what to do either. Finally, Ana jumps off the hood.

  “How much more trouble could we get in anyway?” She yanks open Ashley’s back door. “They already threw the book at us.” Ana’s already in some serious trouble, and if I’m honest, it could be a lot worse, but if Ana’s in, I’m in. That’s the thing about being a Miracle Girl. We’re not just all in this together. We’ve all been in this together from the beginning, even before we knew it.

  Riley scrambes into the front seat. A second later, Christine is crawling into the backseat, and I’m right behind her. I’ve barely had a chance to close the door before Ashley guns the engine and takes off across the parking lot.

  ***

  I’m starting to understand the appeal of SUVs. They’re still gas-guzzling monstrosities that are terrible for the environment, and Dreamy would never in a million years approve if she knew where I was right now, but man oh man is this leather soft. And even though there are five of us in this thing, there’s tons of room for us to spread out.

  Still, I can’t relax until Ashley gives us some sort of hint about where we’re headed, and even then, her answer isn’t exactly comforting: San Francisco.

  Dreamy and Ed are going to kill me.

  She fills us in on the details as we zip around the steep mountain curves that lead out of town toward the big freeway. The way Ashley is taking these bends, I’m thankful this car is basically a tank.

  She just discovered that her dad has to file the final papers to settle the case against the school board by five p.m. today. That gives us—I crane my neck to see the numbers on the stereo—an hour and a half to convince him to change his mind.

  As we race up the freeway in the carpool lane, Riley tries to get as many answers as she can out of Ashley. No, her dad doesn’t know we’re coming. No, she didn’t realize there was still time to make him change his mind until today, when she found some messages in his inbox. Yes, she logged into his e-mail. No, she didn’t have a plan for what we would do once we got there.

  But as the dry, rolling hills of the South Bay morph into the cityscape around us, there’s still one question that stands out in my mind.

  “Ashley?” My voice sounds thin and high-pitched, but Ashley navigates the snarling traffic with ease. We turn down California Street and the canyon-like walls of the buildings surround us. “What about us?” She swerves around a taxi stopped in the right lane, and I grab the door handle. “I mean, I’m thrilled, don’t get me wrong, and it’s awesome that you’re finally going to stand up to your dad, but why did you need us to come?”

  Ashley doesn’t take her eyes off the road as she weaves through the jam-packed traffic. “You guys didn’t tell anyone. Even when you could have, you didn’t. If it had been the other way around, I don’t know if I would have been as loyal.”

  She yanks the wheel to the left and barrels into the entrance to an underground parking garage. Seconds later we’re careening down a ramp into the bowels of a big San Francisco office building.

  “Maybe I just need someone there with me to make sure I go through with this,” she finally finishes. “AndI have this sense that whether I like it or not, we’re all in this together.”

  Riley meets my eyes in the rearview mirror, and I nod. I guess we’ve probably all known that for a while. Somehow, in these past few months, Ashley has wound her way into the middle of everything and brought us together in a way we never would have predicted. She’s not really one of us, but she’s a part of it too.

  Ashley whips the wheel to the right and pulls into a space much too narrow for her giant car. She stomps the brake, puts the car in park, and turns off the engine.

  “Maybe, when it comes down to it,” she says in the silence that follows, “I need a miracle too.”

  49

  The elevator doors open on the fifth floor, and we walk into the waiting room. This place smells like flowers and antiseptic. The heavy-set woman at the front desk smiles at us, but Ashley doesn’t stop; she walks right on by the patients waiting on plastic chairs, opens the door to the back of the office, and barrels down the hallway that branches off to the right. The receptionist calls after us, but we don’t slow down. I turn and give her an apologetic wave before we disappear around the corner.

  There are exam rooms on our right, but Ashley walks past them, directly to the office at the end of the hallway and steps inside. The rest of us fill in the doorway behind her. Dr. Anderson sits behind a heavy wooden desk, and he looks up from the computer screen, wearing a white lab coat, his eyes wide

  “Hey there,” he says, turning to face her. “Good to see you. Uh . . .” He nods at the rest of us. “I don’t know if this is the best time for a visit. I have a few patients waiting.”

  “Dad, I want you to drop the case,” Ashley says, planting her hands on her hips. “I never wanted you to sue the school in the first place, but this has gone way too far.”

  Dr. Anderson rears back in his office chair, and the metal wheels roll back a few inches on the tile floor.

  “I know you think I’m only a kid and don’t know what’s best for me, and I know you think you’re out there righting wrongs or whatever, but I cared about Ms. Moore. She was the only one who ever listened to me, and now because of you she’s gone.”

  Dr. Anderson waits for her to finish, then sits back up slowly. He takes a pen out of the pocket of his lab coat and rolls it around in his fingers.

  “Ashley, why didn’t you say something before?” His brow wrinkles. “I thought . . .” He shakes his head. “You’re the one who told me about it. You seemed so certain she was in the wrong.”

  “I know,” Ashley says, letting out a breath. “I did, and I was wrong. I was angry about—well, about everything, and I thought this would
be a way to make it better.” She takes another step closer to his desk. “But I never expected her to get fired, or for this whole thing to go as far as it has. I should have said something to you a long time ago, I know, but I was afraid to—I was afraid of having you be mad at me and disappointing you, and now I know maybe it’s too late, but I want you to stop.”

  Ashley stops to catch her breath after her tirade, and though I’m not sure I totally understood much of what she said, I’m proud of her. A month ago she was scared to death of telling her father the truth, and now she’s managed to get it all out in one breath.

  “We do too,” Christine says.

  Ashley’s dad narrows his eyes at her. I brace myself, waiting for him to start screaming. He’s been the maniacal bad guy in my mind for so long I hadn’t envisioned any other possible reaction. But he’s sitting here now, staring at his daughter, looking for all the world as if he’s only trying to figure out how to make her happy.

  “Would you excuse us?” Dr. Anderson says, gritting his teeth. He gestures at the four of us in the doorway. “My daughter and I need to have a talk.”

  Ashley is chewing in her lip, but she nods, and the rest of us step out of the way. A moment later, the office door slams.

  “Would you care to wait in the reception area?” A woman in mint green scrubs appears behind us. She gestures toward the waiting room, her hand encased in a rubber glove. We take the hint and troop back into the lobby, falling down on the overstuffed chairs arranged around a miniature coffee table. The receptionist politely offers us some coffee, then leaves us to page through magazines while we wait.

  The others page through copies of House Beautiful and Good Housekeeping. Riley scores an old People with a smiling blond couple on the cover. The receptionist calls the other people in the waiting room up to the desk one at a time and explains that Dr. Anderson has been delayed.