Pants on Fire

by Meg Cabot

  “You could say that,” I said miserably. “A boy, anyway.”

  “Is it Seth?” Mom asked, dropping the smile and looking worried. “Katie, is he pressuring you to—”

  “Oh, God, Mom,” I cried with a groan, realizing belatedly what she was getting at. “I am not having sex with Seth. Or anyone else, for that matter. I don’t even like Seth enough to—”

  Oh, God. I dropped my pillow over my face. I couldn’t believe I’d even said that. Of course I liked Seth. I loved Seth. It’s just that…well, Tommy had sort of had a point: If I loved Seth so much, what the heck was I doing out there behind the emergency generator with Eric Fluteley every day?

  God. Tommy’s right. I probably do have some kind of psychological inability to stick with one guy at a time.

  But why should I, when neither of the guys I’m making out with is completely…well, right for me?

  “If it’s not Seth,” Mom said curiously, “who is it? You said it had to do with a boy.”

  I took the pillow off my face and stared bleakly up at the white ruffled canopy over my bed. “If I tell you,” I said, “you’ll never believe it.”

  “Try me,” Mom said, leaning against my door frame.

  I looked at her. “Tommy Sullivan is back in town.”

  She blinked once. Then twice. Then she said, “Oh,” her lips staying pursed even after all the sound had left them.

  “Yeah,” I said. And dropped the pillow back over my face.

  “Well, honey,” Mom said after a while. “That was a long time ago. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then. I’m sure no one still holds all that stuff from four years ago against him.”

  “Uh,” I said from beneath my pillow. “My boyfriend does.”

  “Oh,” Mom said again. “Well. Yes, but…I mean, after all, it was wrong of Jake to cheat. Surely even the Turners—”

  “Jake and his parents—along with Seth, Coach Hayes, and the rest of the Quahogs, past and present—still insist it was all a conspiracy to force them to forfeit the state championship,” I said beneath the pillow.

  “Honey, take that thing off your face. I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

  I took the pillow off my face.

  “You know what,” I said to her. “Never mind. Forget I brought it up.”

  “Now, Katie, be fair,” Mom said, glancing at her watch. “I want to talk about this. I really do. But it’s going to have to be later. Daddy and I have a showing. But I want to hear more about this Tommy thing. I’ll be back later this afternoon—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “Katie, honey, don’t—”

  “Seriously, Mom,” I insisted. “It’s fine. Forget I brought it up.”

  Mom glanced at her watch again, then chewed a little on her lower lip, even though I’ve told her again and again not to do this, as it scrapes off her lipstick.

  “Well,” she said. “But we’ll talk about it over dinner tonight—”

  “Can’t,” I said. “I’ve got Quahog Princess rehearsal, then my shift at the Gulp.”

  “Oh, Katie. Can’t you cut back on your shifts a little? I feel as if I’ve barely seen you this summer.”

  “When school starts,” I said. Providing I live that long. “I’ve already had to give up all my shifts this weekend because of Quahog Princess.”

  “Oh, but, honey—”

  “I need the money,” I insisted.

  She rolled her eyes. “The way you go through money. What on earth do you do with it all?”

  Oops. Yeah. That’s another lie I’ve been living with, along with all the others. See, I can’t really tell Mom and Dad what I’m actually buying with the money I’ve earned this summer at the Gulp.

  That’s because they got me a camera at Christmas. And if they knew I’ve been putting money down on a new camera, they’d be all, “What’s wrong with the camera we got you for Christmas?”

  The truth is, there’s nothing technically wrong with the camera Mom and Dad had gotten me for Christmas. It just isn’t a professional photographer’s camera. How am I going to take professional photos if I don’t have a professional camera?

  But I don’t want to hurt their feelings. They can’t help being completely clueless.

  “You should see the cute new velvet jackets for fall from Nanette Lepore,” I said. Which isn’t even a lie. Sidney told me Nanette Lepore does have totally cute velvet jackets for fall.

  I just don’t happen to be interested in buying one.

  Mom rolled her eyes again—which is ironic, coming from a woman who owns six pairs of Manolo Blahniks at five hundred bucks a pop.

  “All right, well, we’ll talk tomorrow morning, then,” Mom said, giving up. “See you later. Have a good day.”

  She closed my bedroom door again, after taking one last curious look at me. I guess she could tell. I mean, that I wasn’t quite myself.

  Have a good day. Ha. Right. Yeah, I was going to have a good day, all right. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Let’s see: Tommy Sullivan, class outcast with whom I’d nevertheless been friendly and whom I cruelly betrayed four years earlier (though he doesn’t seem to know it), is back in town, and is not only aware that I think he’s hot now, but also caught me cheating on my boyfriend, who happens to be the little brother of the guy whose life Tommy ruined when he exposed his cheating in a middle school newspaper exposé….

  Oh, yeah. No problems there. Everything’s going to be fine.

  I. Am. So. Screwed.

  Especially since, that first part—about Tommy not seeming to know how I’d betrayed him?

  I’m not totally sure it’s true.

  Something tells me Tommy might actually know perfectly well what it is that I did.

  And that might be why he’s back here in Eastport.

  Because what if the reason Tommy’s back is that he wants revenge?

  And I’ve managed to hand him the perfect way to get it, on a bright, shiny, silver platter: All he has to do is tell Seth about what he saw behind the Gull ’n Gulp emergency generator, and my life is over.

  Because when Seth confronts me about it, I won’t be able to lie. I can lie to Seth about having e. coli. And I can lie to Seth and tell him that I love him, when the truth is I’m not so sure that’s true (because if I did love him, what am I doing with Eric?).

  But I can’t lie—to Seth’s face—about what Tommy saw.

  The thing is, I can’t even say I blame him. Tommy, I mean. For wanting to even the score. What I did to him—even I can’t believe it, sometimes. He has every right to hate me.

  And yet, last night, when I’d been in his arms, I could have sworn…

  Obviously I was wrong, though. Especially when it turned out that the whole time, he’d just been laughing at me.

  Tommy’s evil laugh was still ringing in my ears when I stumbled downstairs a little while after my chat with my mom. Liam, I saw, was gone. He had probably snagged a ride to the Y with my parents. He was bound and determined to bulk up a few inches more before Quahog tryouts. I’d never seen anyone more excited about anything than Liam was about that stupid tryout.

  After downing an energy bar from the pantry for breakfast, I dragged my bike from the garage, strapped on my helmet, and tried to tell myself I was being ridiculous. Tommy Sullivan was not back in Eastport to get even with me. Because if he were, he wouldn’t have warned me. Right? He wouldn’t have told me he’d seen me with Eric behind the emergency generator. He’d have just snapped a shot of the two of us together, and e’d it to Seth.

  Or maybe to the entire school.

  Oh, God. I am so dead.

  It was hard to enjoy my ride downtown that day. I mean, really. How could he? How could he have taken advantage of me like that, by sweeping me into his arms that way, then laughing instead of kissing me? I am no Sidney van der Hoff, it’s true. My mom isn’t a former model, and Rick Stamford didn’t fall in love with me at first sight that very firs
t assembly our freshman year (only to dump me three years later).

  But still. No guy had ever laughed instead of kissed me.

  Except Tommy Sullivan.

  Whom there was obviously something very, very wrong with. I mean, besides the part about having been born Tommy Sullivan.

  Comforted by this thought, once downtown, I locked my bike up to one of the bike racks—designed to look like an old-timey hitching post—outside of Eastport Old Towne Photo and went inside the redbrick, decoratively shingled shop.

  Inside, Mr. Bird was, as always, unhappy to see me.

  “You again,” he said grumpily. Because grumpy is his way.

  “Hi, Mr. Bird,” I said, taking off my bike helmet. “Can I see it?”

  “You gonna make a payment?” Mr. Bird wanted to know, still sounding grumpy.

  “You bet,” I said, opening my backpack and reaching for my wallet. “I got another fifty right here. Oh, and I need to pick up my prints from last week.”

  Mr. Bird sighed, then shuffled away from the register, into the back of his shop. A few seconds later he came out carrying an envelope of photographic prints, and a camera.

  My camera. The one I’d had on layaway forever.

  “Here,” Mr. Bird said with a grunt, and set the envelope—and the camera—down on the glass case in front of me.

  I picked up my camera—or the camera that will one day be mine—very gently, and examined it. The Digilux 2, by Leica, was still as gorgeous as the day it had arrived in Mr. Bird’s shop, just waiting for someone to come along who could appreciate its outstanding optics, meticulous fabrication, and high-grade materials.

  Someone like me.

  “Hello, baby,” I said to the camera. “Don’t worry, Mommy hasn’t forgotten you.”

  “Please,” Mr. Bird said tiredly. “Don’t talk to the camera unless you intend to pay for it in full today.”

  “Not today,” I said with a sigh, and put the camera down, then opened the envelope he’d brought out.

  “What’d you think?” I asked him, as I flipped through the prints he’d made me.

  “Give up the sunrises and the seagulls sitting on piers,” he said crankily, “and you just might make something of yourself.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I plucked out a photograph I was particularly proud of, a picture of a pelican sitting on a boat prow, cleaning its feathers. “This stuff is gold.”

  “This stuff,” Mr. Bird said, tapping the photo behind it, which was a picture I’d snapped just for fun, of Shaniqua and Jill having a quahog fritter fight one afternoon during a lull, when Peggy had taken the afternoon deposit to the bank, “is gold.”

  “I agree,” said a deep, male voice behind me.

  And I couldn’t help from letting out a groan.

  Nine

  “This,” I said, sounding almost as cranky as Mr. Bird, when I turned around and saw who was standing behind me, “is too much.”

  “What?” Tommy asked innocently. He’d swiped the photos from the envelope in front of me, and was flipping rapidly through them. “He’s right. You’ve got a great eye for capturing people. Pelicans? Not so much.”

  “S’what I been tellin’ her for years,” Mr. Bird agreed. “Any hack can take a picture of a pelican. Sell it as a postcard for twenty-five cents. Big deal.”

  “Whereas this”—Tommy pulled out a picture I’d taken of Liam and my dad tossing a football out on the lawn, my dad’s expression intent, Liam looking a little frightened—“tells an actual story.”

  “Are you following me?” I demanded, snatching my photos back from Tommy and then giving him the evil eye. Which wasn’t easy. Giving him the evil eye, I mean.

  Because he looked even better today than he had last night, even though he clearly hadn’t put much effort into getting dressed. He was just wearing a pair of baggy cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a Billabong slim tee.

  Which was even more annoying given that it was essentially what I was wearing, minus the baggy part.

  And he looked much better in it than I did.

  “Wow,” Tommy said. “You used to be able to take artistic criticism. What happened?”

  “You aren’t my editor anymore,” I snapped, stuffing my photos back in the envelope Mr. Bird had given me. “Now, seriously. Are you so hard up for female companionship that the only way you can get it is to stalk people?”

  “What, I can’t shop in downtown Eastport if you’re in the same five-mile radius, or something?” Tommy looked more amused than insulted.

  “Right,” I said sarcastically. “You aren’t following me. You just happened to walk into Eastport Old Towne Photo because you needed film.”

  “Um, no,” Tommy said. “I noticed your bike parked outside. I was in the pharmacy next door, picking up a prescription for my grandmother.” He held up a white plastic bag that did, indeed, have a prescription bottle inside it.

  “You think I don’t have anything better to do,” he asked, “than harass you?”

  “Well, what am I supposed to think?” I demanded, flushing. “You show up where I work, you show up here…” I looked over at Mr. Bird. “Do you think that constitutes harassment?”

  Mr. Bird shrugged grumpily. “What do I know about it? All I want is my twenty-seven dollars for the prints, and whatever you’re putting down today on the Digilux.”

  Still blushing—what is it about this guy that I can’t stop turning red when he’s around?—I reached into my backpack and pulled out my wallet, counted out twenty-seven dollars to pay for my photos, and laid an extra fifty-dollar bill on top.

  “Here,” I said to Mr. Bird. “What’s the balance on the Leica?”

  Mr. Bird took out his little layaway book (he’s one of the only merchants left in the historic seaport district who’ve yet to computerize his business, or even learned how to use a computer), looked up my page, and carefully calculated my new total.

  “Four hundred twenty-eight dollars,” he said. “And seventeen cents.”

  Tommy whistled. “Four hundred bucks,” he said. “For a camera?”

  “Actually, it’s a two-thousand-dollar camera,” Mr. Bird said, adding, almost as if he were defending me (but then, seeing as how he was Mr. Bird, I knew this wasn’t possible), “She’s paid off almost sixteen hundred dollars of it already.”

  Tommy shook his head.

  “No wonder you’re going for Quahog Princess,” he said to me, almost pityingly.

  Something about the way he was looking at me made even more blood rush to my face. It was almost like—I don’t know—he felt sorry for me, or something.

  Which is ridiculous, because if there’s anyone on the planet Tommy Sullivan should be feeling sorry for, it’s Tommy Sullivan.

  “Thanks, Mr. Bird,” I said, throwing my prints and my wallet into my backpack and zipping it up. “See you next week.”

  Then I headed for the exit, ignoring Tommy, who trailed along behind me.

  It wasn’t until he sauntered over to where I was unchaining my bike from the ornate iron rack it was locked to that I lost it.

  “Seriously, Tommy,” I said, straightening up from where I’d been bending over my combination lock.

  “It’s Tom now,” he said calmly. He’d slipped a pair of Ray-Bans over his eyes, so I couldn’t see what color they were today. But I was guessing amber.

  “Tom. Whatever,” I said. “What do you want from me?”

  He didn’t look the slightest bit ruffled by my question. He didn’t even bother to answer it. “What are those prints for? The ones you just picked up?”

  “I—I don’t know.” The question threw me. We weren’t talking about me. We were talking about him. And what a freak he is. Still is. “Are you trying to get back at me for not hanging out with you anymore after the whole cheating scandal came out? Is that it?”

  “So are you going to have a show?” Tommy wanted to know. “A photography show? As your talent for the pageant?”

  I kept right on staring at him.
“A show? What are you talking about? No, I’m not going to have a photography show for my talent. Are you insane? Did you even hear what I said before? What was I supposed to do, Tommy? You were a social pariah.”

  He ignored my question about his mental health. Also the part about being a pariah.

  “Why not?” he asked, apparently in reference to my having a photography show. “You should. Those photographs are really good, Katie. Well, the ones with people in them.”

  Okay. Now this was just too weird. He was giving me pageant tips?

  “First of all,” I said, bending down to yank my bike lock from the rack, “since when do you know anything about photography? And second of all, you have to perform something at a beauty pageant. You have to sing or dance or something.”

  Tommy’s eyebrows went up. “Wait…you’re singing?”

  I glared at him. I can’t believe he remembered that I’m tone deaf.

  No. Wait. I can, actually. Leave it to Tommy Sullivan to remember every negative thing there is to know about me.

  “I’m not,” I said. “I’m playing piano.”

  His eyebrows went up even further. “Oh, God. Not ‘I’ve Got Rhythm.’”

  I couldn’t believe it. Truly. I couldn’t believe he remembered.

  “What?” I demanded. “I’ve gotten a lot better at it since eighth grade, you know.”

  “I’ve never understood your obsession with that song,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “Especially since you don’t have any.”

  “Any what?” I asked.

  “Rhythm,” he said.

  “I do so!” Now I really couldn’t believe it. “God, Tommy! And for your information, I did not want you to kiss me last night, okay? I already have a boyfriend.”

  “Two of them,” Tommy reminded me.

  “Exactly. Whatever you think was going on last night…well, it wasn’t. It was all in your imagination. I mean, don’t even flatter yourself.”

  “And here comes one of them now,” Tommy said.