There was something I needed to know before I could sleep that night. “So . . . we’re still friends, right?”
“Of course,” Mary Jane said, smiling warmly. She grabbed the container of cookie dough and dug in.
“For real?” I asked, and they nodded.
“Okay, hold that thought . . . ,” I said and then ran to my room to fetch the tank tops I’d made them. “’Cause I don’t give these to just anybody, you know.” I held up the custom-made tops, and Whitney grabbed the red one without a moment’s hesitation.
“Oh, Poppy.” A huge smile spread across her face. “I wanted one, I really did.”
“These are awesome,” said Mary Jane. “You are awesome.”
I sat back and enjoyed their reactions to the tops I’d made them, and though I was relieved we were still going to hang out, I knew things would likely change between us. I’d seen Ellen go from the Third Musketeer to just another somebody Mary Jane and Whitney said hi to in the halls and sat next to at lunch. As much as I’d miss hanging out with them as often as I had been, I reminded myself that I’d have more time to spend with other people, maybe even David.
My biology class had barely started when Mr. Kanab peered over his monitor and said, “Poppy, please come here.” I walked up to his desk, racking my brain for a reason why he’d singled me out. “I just got a notice that your mother is in the office to pick you up. You’re excused.” He rummaged through a stack of papers and handed me last week’s bio lab, with a big green A-plus on it. I’d been waiting for an A-plus to soften the blow when I showed Mom the non-A’s I’d received of late, and there it was. My heart swelled with pride.
I gathered my things and headed to the school office, wondering what Mom wanted with me. Had I forgotten about a doctor’s appointment? The dentist, perhaps? Nothing came to mind, but I wasn’t surprised, given all the crazy shit I’d been preoccupied with.
The instant I walked into the school office, I knew something was horribly wrong. Mom stared straight at me, but it was as if she was looking through my skull at someone or something else directly behind me. Her face looked all blotchy and stone cold, her mascara smeared, like she’d been crying or rubbing her eyes.
The sign-out binder was open on Mrs. Winstead’s desk, and I saw that Mom had written “personal” as the reason she was taking me out of school early.
“. . . and you also have to take into account the humidity whenever you have a cake to bake . . . ,” Mrs. Winstead babbled, but as soon as she realized Mom wasn’t listening, she turned to me and said, “So have you asked anyone to Sadie’s yet, dear? I’m sure it would make one of our boys very happy.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I think so.”
“Do you have your things, Poppy?” Mom asked, her voice so monotonous that it sounded like a robot.
I nodded, afraid that if I spoke out loud, my voice would crack. I walked with her out to her Volvo, which was parked with a front wheel on the curb. When I got in, I buckled my seat belt. “What’s up?” I asked in a small voice.
“I need more time to collect my thoughts, Poppy. Just shut up for now.” She sounded exhausted. I scrunched against the back of my seat, wishing I knew what the hell was going on so I could be prepared for whatever Mom was “collecting her thoughts” about.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
After a long, blaringly silent drive home, Mom got out and slammed the car door. She scooped up the newspaper, then unlocked the front door with shaky hands. I followed her into the house. My nervousness and fear suddenly gave way to resentment. How dare she treat me like this. If she had something to say, say it already. “What have I done this time, Mom? Is this about my grades again?”
She whipped around. A section of her chignon came loose and flopped into her livid eyes. “I received a very disturbing call this afternoon.” She hurled the newspaper clear across the living room. It smacked against the wall, knocking and skewing her grandmother’s heirloom mirror. “Abigail Portman called to tell me my daughter is a criminal.”
“What?” I felt the blood drain from my face and I fumbled for a place to sit, certain my knees would give out any second. Lowering myself onto the cream-colored sofa we never actually sat on, I tried to wrap my head around what she’d just said.
Mom sat down beside me, leaving enough space between us for another whole person, and stared out the window. “She sounded so concerned, and she asked me to let you know that she and Mary Jane were praying for you.” Her pale, chafed lips quivered. “Naturally, I wanted to know what was going on, and though she wavered between telling me everything, and giving you the chance to come clean on your own accord, she eventually told me that you have a very bad habit of . . . shoplifting.”
Mary Jane’s mom ratted me out? That would mean Mary Jane ratted me out to her mom. But why would Mary Jane do that? We were best friends . . . weren’t we?
“There was a time I would have laughed at such an accusation,” she continued. “I would have told her she was delusional to think my daughter could ever do something like that. But then I went into your room.” With the effort of someone who’d inexplicably gained 200 pounds in the last few minutes, she hoisted herself off the couch. My heart raced, and it took a huge amount of constraint to keep my feet from running right out the door. Though I didn’t want to, I followed her into my room. “And I found these.” She indicated my bed.
Suddenly dizzy, I couldn’t make sense of what I saw. Were there really test papers scattered all over my bed? Some I remembered and some I didn’t, but they were all bad grades—B’s, C’s, D’s, and F’s. Then I blinked a couple times and saw that it wasn’t tests strewn all over my bed—it was the stuff I’d lifted. Clothes, jewelry, DVDs . . . everything. Plain as day. Proof that I was guilty of the terrible sin—the crime—Mrs. Portman accused me of.
My stomach dropped.
When had this happened? How had I lifted that much stuff? How had it gotten so out of control?
I’d hid all that stuff under my bed, waiting to gradually incorporate it, item by item, into my wardrobe, so Mom wouldn’t notice. Or maybe I’d planned to give it away to kids at school, like Mary Jane did. But whatever the reason, the tags and packaging were mostly intact, and if I really dug deep into the depths of my mind, I might realize I never thought of any of it as mine. I might also find a place in my heart that was heavy with guilt.
I’d never felt such shame.
Mom turned her gaze on me, her pupils tiny specs in a sea of icy aqua. “Did you steal those things?”
I was responsible for her heartache. I’d let her down.
I felt sorry for Emily Browne, having to have me for a daughter.
The air in my room felt deflated and heavy. My entire body was crying, yet not a single tear eked out. There was nothing I could do but tell the truth. “Yes, I did.”
Mom stood there like a tragic statue, seemingly letting it sink in. “I know you don’t have everything your heart desires, like your friends Whitney and Mary Jane do . . .” She waved her hand over all the stuff piled on my bed. “But I’ve always worked hard to make sure you have everything you need.”
“Oh, Mom. It’s not about that . . .”
She stood and ran her hands down the sides of her suit. “Then tell me, Poppy. Help me understand. Tell me why.”
A sob stuck in my throat, making my voice sound wobbly. “I don’t know. I . . . shoplift something and it feels good. I feel happy. And then afterward, not so much. And I want to—no, I have to—steal something else.” Saying it out loud made it sound so pathetic. So stupid.
“Well.” Mom swallowed, apparently searching for her next words. “This is quite a predicament we’re in.” It seemed like hours before she said, “You are grounded, is that clear? You will not be going to your Sadie Hawkins dance Saturday night. No Internet, except to do homework. And hand over your phone.”
I reached into my backpack. My fingers grazed the A-plus lab paper and twined around my cell. In the flash of time betw
een glancing down at it and surrendering it to her, I noticed I had a new text message: I heard Emily came to get you early. Is everything okay? Mary Jane wanted to know if everything was okay. Okay? How could anything be okay?
“Poppy, you will return every last item to the stores you stole from. I will go with you, and it’ll be up to the store managers whether they press charges or not. I don’t know. I don’t know.” She ran her trembling hand over the things I’d lifted. “You can’t keep any of this. If the stores can’t take something back, we’ll find a charity or something. Maybe the Hurricane Phillipa victims. I just can’t believe you did this.”
With that, Mom spun on her heels and stomped into the kitchen, mumbling something about “consequences.” I heard the clanking of glass, followed by a shrill buzzing noise I knew was only in my head.
I thought of Mary Jane and Whitney and how much more stuff they’d lifted and how devastated their parents would be if they knew. How the entire student body of Calvary High would be floored to find out two of their elite were shoplifters. Hell, how the entire town of Pleasant Acres would be in an uproar. However, as livid as I felt, I didn’t want to think about any of that.
I ducked into my bathroom and scrubbed my face—the drain slurping every last trace of light-colored, shimmery makeup down its deep dark hole. Trembling, I yanked the cross necklace off my neck and threw it on the floor.
Why did Mary Jane do this to me? And what about Whitney—was she in on it as well? Did it have anything to do with Andrew making the moves on me?
If I could go back in time knowing Mary Jane would pull this on me, I would’ve listened to Bridgette Josephs and stayed the hell away from her.
Then, something Bridgette had said burst into my consciousness: “The weird thing is, she acted like nothing was wrong. Those days before her betrayal were the days I felt the very closest to Mary Jane. Solid, you know? Like nothing could ever, ever come between us.”
Well, it looked like Andrew had come between Mary Jane and me, too. Only this time, Mary Jane had something on me that she knew would ruin me.
Why?
Why?
WHY?
Midnight, and I was still wide awake. I didn’t want to face Mary Jane at all, but I knew I had to, and I sure as hell didn’t want to deal with all of this as a sleep-deprived zombie. Maybe Mom’s sleeping pills would help. I padded down the hall and into Mom’s bathroom for a sleeping pill. Since she wasn’t in her bed, I figured Mom was in her office, slaving away. But the lights were still on in the kitchen, and they drew me in like a moth.
Mom was slumped at the kitchen table, her back to me. Her left palm propped up her inert head, and her whole posture reminded me of someone on a plane who needed to sleep, yet couldn’t get comfortable enough. Though she was awake, she didn’t move or say anything, so I doubted she sensed my presence.
She still wore her “Professor Browne” clothes—a lavender chiffon blouse and a charcoal gray skirt—only she’d let down her hair and taken off her shoes. Once I glimpsed the bottle at her right elbow, I couldn’t rip my eyes away from it. It was rectangular, with a black-and-white label slapped across its face. The bottle went up, up to her mouth, and then back down to the table with a clunk. Her hand trembled as it let go.
I wandered over to the table and sat across from her. Her pallor and the bluish-black shadows under her eyes made her appear old and frail and sick. She didn’t look like herself at all. But the longer we sat like that, just looking at each other, the more familiar she seemed.
And then it hit me, squeezing my heart and taking the very breath out of me. She reminded me of Grandma.
“You’re drinking,” I said lamely. Mom used to have a glass or two of white wine at social gatherings. But, to my knowledge, she hadn’t had a drop of alcohol since Grandma died. Except for at the going-away party her CU Boulder colleagues had thrown for her before we moved.
Even then, she said she only drank ’cause people kept toasting her and she didn’t want to be rude. And apparently toasting with water was bad luck. Though she claimed to be above superstition, she wanted to start our new lives in Texas with the very best luck possible. All I knew was, by the time one of them dropped her off, they must’ve done a hell of a lot of toasts. She couldn’t walk straight and she kept laughing. She laughed, but I cried, because as I helped her into her bed, all I could think of was Grandma.
Mom shook her head slowly, like she feared the motion might cause her neck pain. “Shoplifting, Poppy?”
“I’m sorry. I know I messed up,” I said. “I hate myself for it. I hate that you’re mad at me. And I hate that you’re drinking.”
She studied the bottle of whiskey. “It’s nothing, Poppy. Don’t worry.”
“That’s what Grandma used to say.”
“Fine.” She clenched her hand into a fist. “Pour it out if it’ll make you feel better.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I took the bottle and poured the amber liquid into the sink. The drain glugged it down as its sweet, biting stench infused the air. I ran the water for a few seconds, feeling so, so tired.
“Is the shoplifting . . . is it a cry for help? Are you having boy trouble? Has this move been too stressful for you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” I said without turning around. Actually, I kind of liked living in Pleasant Acres.
When I went back to the table, she looked up at me and pressed her lips together. “Are you addicted to it?” She raked a hand through her tangled hair and smiled a lazy, drunken smile.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe?” Then I fumbled my way back to my room, the sleeping pill turning my world to mush.
The next morning, Mom’s Volvo idled in front of Calvary High School. The flags still flapped in the breeze. The bushes were trimmed exactly the same as they had been on the first day of school. Students in ironed shirts and shiny shoes filed into the building, talking and laughing, just like every day. Nothing looked different. But everything felt different.
I knew I needed to confront Mary Jane, to see why in the world she found it necessary to make my life a living hell, but I wasn’t ready. In the past eighteen hours, I’d hardly had time to come to grips with what had gone down, let alone to move forward.
“Mom, please don’t make me go to school today.”
“You’re going. Now get out.” Those were the first words she’d uttered to me all morning. I saw her popping Advil earlier, so I figured she had a headache—probably hung over from her little Jack Daniel’s bender last night. I didn’t feel all that great, either. The sleeping pill had knocked me out like it was supposed to, but I still felt groggy and shaky (though the shakiness could’ve been from nerves).
It killed me that Mom’s and my relationship was on the rocks. We’d made so much progress the past few weeks. She’d stopped calling my school to check up on me, and I could tell she had been making an effort not to hound me about my grades quite so much. It might not be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it meant a lot to me. Now, however, it was worse than before we moved. Would she ever trust me again?
As I walked into the building, I tried to clear my head. But from the GOV Club poster on the bulletin board to the giggling girls who’d unwittingly accepted stolen hats, purses, and jewelry from them, reminders of my friendship with the beautiful, crazy-fun Mary Jane Portman and Whitney Nickels slapped me in the face. By the time I made it to the commons, I’d become a walking, sobbing disaster. Before anyone could see me, I sought refuge behind a big “Last Chance for Sadie Hawkins Tickets” sign.
“Who are you hiding from, little girl?” David asked in a wolfish voice.
“Just wanted a minute to myself, that’s all.” Mortified, I blotted my eyes on my shirt and attempted to regain my composure.
“Does that mean you don’t want any company behind that sign?” He waggled his eyebrows.
I almost laughed, but I caught myself. “Okay, what the hell.” I really could use a friend right about then. A tr
ue friend. “Come on back.”
He stooped over in an obviously uncomfortable position. “So how’s it going?”
“Oh, I’ve had better days. You know, like when a bee flew into my can of Sprite at summer camp and I didn’t know and I took a sip and it stung my tongue and I went running to the nurse’s office through a patch of poison oak and—”
“There’s more?”
“Oh, yes. You see, the boy I was crushing on was at the nurse’s office—with a splinter—and he got to see me in all my swollen-tongued, red-legged, tear-stained-face glory.”
David quirked his mouth. “Hmm. Sounds like you need to talk to the son of a preacher, and this is your lucky day, ’cause I happen to know one. I also know a great little park just up the street with some kick-butt swings. Perfect for chitchatting. What do you say?”
“I can’t ditch, David.” All I needed was to get caught and have Mom be even madder at me. “I’m already grounded for who knows how long.”
“Grounded?”
“Yeah, it sucks.”
“It’s cool if you don’t wanna tell me what for,” David said. “I’ve done things I wouldn’t want you to know about. Like when I put habanero peppers in my big bro’s pimento cheese sandwich and we had to rush him to the hospital.” He slapped his hand over his lips and widened his eyes, acting like he couldn’t believe he just said that.
“You’re terrible,” I said. “Thanks, David.” My smile came naturally. Neither of us said anything for a few seconds. I wished I could go with him, get out of the school and into the fresh air. Plus, it would be good to sort out my feelings before I confronted Mary Jane.
“Now, back to my brilliant idea of going to the park. Let’s see . . . if memory serves, once upon a time I clobbered you in a bike race. And the loser was supposed to eat three hot dogs. But you—aka the loser—told me you didn’t like hot dogs, and I graciously allowed that terribly un-American comment to slide.”
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