Cat Bennet, Queen of Nothing

by Mary Strand

  He waved in my direction. “Cat here is a pro when it comes to portraits, as a number of you probably know by now. If you have any questions and I’m working with another student, feel free to consult with Cat.”

  Crap. But despite what he said, no one was going to ask me anything, so I opened my sketchpad, grabbed a drawing pencil, and got to work.

  “How do you get the proportions right? You know, the eyes relative to the mouth and—”

  I glanced sideways at Megan. “Funny.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “What’s funny?”

  “You know way more about art than I do. Your mom’s an art professor. You probably figured out proportion when I was just doodling in my English notebook.”

  “You still doodle in your English notebook.”

  I blinked. “How would you know? You sit on the other side of the room from me.”

  She pointed at her sketchpad, which was blank. “I think the reason I avoid portraits is proportion. I can get it right on a car or boat or landscape, but never on a face.”

  I glanced back at the model, then around the room to see where Mr. Reiman was. When I did, I realized the kids around me were listening intently to every word Megan and I were saying.

  Groaning, I turned back to Megan. “I don’t think about proportion. I just try to find something interesting, and I focus on that. I even make up stories about it.”

  “Like?” Megan nodded at the guy up front, who slouched on the edge of Mr. Reiman’s desk.

  I dropped my voice. “Like his crooked nose, which probably came from a girlfriend punching him when he showed up reeking of another girl’s perfume. Or that tiny scar by his eye.”

  “Same girlfriend? Pulled a steak knife on him?” Megan laughed, then covered her mouth when Mr. Reiman glanced at us.

  I shook my head. “Nope. His mom was still cutting his hair when he was thirteen, and he flinched once too often.”

  Someone tapped my shoulder. “And that gives you proportion? I don’t get it.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the guy behind me. “All I do is try to make it interesting. Then maybe people won’t notice that the mouth is a little big or the eyes are too close to the nose.”

  “And that works?”

  I shrugged. “Works for me.”

  “No kidding.” Megan opened her mouth to say something else, but she picked up a pencil and started sketching when loud footsteps headed in our direction. “You totally get proportion right, but you don’t have to think about it. You’re good, Cat. Everyone else sees it even if you don’t.”

  I bent my head and started drawing, ignoring Megan and her sweet but pointless attempts to make me feel good about myself.

  “You’re good, Cat. Believe it.”

  “Thanks.” My mouth twisted in a grimace that had nothing to do with how hard it was to capture the sparkle in the model’s eyes or the way his eyebrows grew in every direction. “But I just can’t.”

  When Megan didn’t say anything else, I glanced at her—and wished she were today’s model. Even without a crooked nose, her face was a lot more interesting than the guy Mr. Reiman had invited here today. She looked upset. And worried and hurt and puzzled and maybe even a little bit disgusted.

  All of it at me.

  I shrugged, then leaned close to Megan and dropped my voice. “I appreciate what you say, honest, but it just doesn’t mesh with everything else that’s gone down in my life lately.”

  Megan grabbed an extra sketchpad beneath the one she was working in and handed it to me. “Like Ms. Mickel said, you get a blank slate. Whenever you want it.”

  Frowning, I flipped through the empty pages of the sketchpad she’d just handed me. A lightbulb flashed in my brain. “Or whenever you want to swipe my sketchpad so you can enter me in the art show?”

  She flashed me a big grin. “Whatever works.”

  Chapter 21

  “What is the matter Mamma? What do you keep winking at me for? What am I to do?”

  — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume III, Chapter Thirteen

  When the bell rang at the end of Drawing, I grabbed my stuff and headed for the door, hoping Mr. Reiman would be too busy talking to the guy who modeled for us today.

  No such luck.

  “Cat?” He caught my arm as I tried inching past him. “Can we talk now?”

  “Sure.” I glanced at the modeling dude, who smiled at me. Encouragingly. Like I wasn’t about to get killed.

  Mr. Reiman thanked the guy, who took off. “Cat, Megan told me you hadn’t entered your work in the art show.”

  He said it like it was my fault. Even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I started shaking. “She never told me. I told her I wasn’t—”

  Mr. Reiman held up a hand. “I’ve spoken with her. I was especially concerned that she took your portraits without you knowing, but she assures me that you lent them to her.”

  What? I don’t know if I was more shocked that Megan had managed to swipe them from me or that she’d actually lied to a teacher, but when Mr. Reiman stared hard at me, I coughed up a feeble smile. “Um, yeah.”

  “You did? Are you sure?”

  “Totally.” My smile got bigger. Still totally fake, but confident now. After all, I could always kill Megan later.

  The skeptical look on Mr. Reiman’s face told me he didn’t believe either Megan or me. “Fine. But I encouraged you to enter the show. Can I ask why you didn’t want to?”

  “Because I—” Because I didn’t want to be labeled an art freak and lose my friends and be the total joke of the school? Even though it all happened anyway? “I can’t really say.”

  Besides, by now everyone in school had heard I was the so-called star of the art show, and I didn’t need the embarrassment of pulling out of it.

  “Do you want to be in the art show?”

  I stared at him. “You’re not kicking me out of it?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Uh . . .”

  Mr. Reiman grinned as he shooed me out the door. “I’ll take that as a no. Congratulations, Cat. Nice work, both on the portraits and on finding a friend like Megan.”

  I still wasn’t so sure about the portraits, but Megan? It took me too long to figure out, but if being a friend meant she knew me better than I knew myself, I had to agree. Definitely.

  After school, I trudged to the Lamborghini after first staring at the inside of my locker for five minutes, Alex’s keys in my hand. By the time I made it outside, half of the parking lot was empty, and most of the cars still here probably belonged to kids in sports or other after-school activities. No one would see me leave in the Lamborghini.

  Except . . . Jeremy?

  He was standing next to the Lamborghini, right by the driver’s door. Not slouching against it, the way I’d seen him with his own car or all his friends’ cars, but he probably didn’t want to scratch it. I knew the feeling.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  So much for conversation.

  I jangled the keys in Jeremy’s face, hoping he’d get out of my way. It wasn’t as if he wanted to talk to me. He was still frowning, like in English class and the cafeteria, even though it wasn’t my fault his mom made him cut his hair and take the dye out of it.

  I couldn’t decide if I liked him better this way. I mean, it should’ve been a no-brainer. He looked more normal. Like he wasn’t trying to make a statement. In my experience, most statements didn’t work.

  “Nice car.”

  I sighed. It hadn’t done much for me today, but maybe Alex had better luck with it. “Thanks.”

  “Is it your boyfriend’s?”

  I rolled my eyes. Jeremy might have normal hair now, but he was still the class clown. Still picking on me, just like he’d done at the start of this term in English class. I’d almost liked him better when he had the crush on me. Okay, no. That had been annoying, too.

  But I had to work at Nickelodeon Universe in less than an hour, and the d
eal with Alex didn’t include taking his Lamborghini to the Mall of America. Ignoring Jeremy, I hit the button on Alex’s key ring to unlock the car, then jangled the keys in Jeremy’s face again.

  He moved an inch.

  “Sorry, but I gotta get home.”

  He ran a hair through his newly short blond hair.

  “Seriously, Jeremy. I have to work.”

  I was mildly stressed about getting there. I hadn’t seen Mary since lunch, and I didn’t know where she was or if I could take the Jeep to work.

  No movement. “Where do you work?”

  “Nickelodeon Universe.” As if he hadn’t heard. I mean, the guy sat at my old table and hung out with my old friends, and Tess wouldn’t keep a good joke like that quiet.

  Shaking my head, I walked right up to him, my hip brushing against his, and opened the door. He jumped when it banged him in the butt.

  “Sorry.” Not. “But I really have to get to work.”

  “You were gone last week.”

  No kidding. “Yep.”

  I didn’t bother to explain. I knew exactly how well the school grapevine worked, and he played in the band with Mary. He knew where I’d gone and what I’d done. And he’d been at the jam session where everything went down, so he had a pretty good clue why I left town.

  I slid past Jeremy and into the car, but when I tried to pull the door closed, it didn’t budge. As it turns out, Jeremy has a pretty strong grip.

  “Jeremy? Was there something you wanted?”

  “Whose car is that? Did you say?”

  I shrugged. “A friend’s.” I guess I could call Alex that. Actually, based on what he’d done for me, he might be my best friend at this point.

  “He’s too old for you.”

  I frowned. “Who is?”

  “And Kirk’s a total waste of your time. And I don’t know what you’re doing with Zach, but—”

  “Whoa.” I held up a hand. “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “No clue, dude.” I tried again to shut the door. No luck. “But I’ve really gotta go. Honest. I don’t know how I’m getting to work, and I start work at—”

  “Won’t he let you take his car? I mean, you’ve got it now, don’t you?”

  “He? Alex?” I shook my head. “I just borrowed it, okay? I’ve gotta get it back to him.”

  “So he’ll give you a ride. But he’s way too old for you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re—” I stopped mid-sentence, suddenly realizing with a bubble of laughter exactly what he was talking about. Alex. And me. Together.

  “You can’t go out with—”

  I kept laughing, drowning out his words. Was this what I’d wanted when I borrowed Alex’s Lamborghini? To make people think I had a rich boyfriend? Hadn’t I just wanted them to think I had a hot set of wheels? Duh! My family didn’t have that kind of money, and everyone at school knew it.

  But why did Jeremy give a rat’s ass? His crush on me was long gone. He told me not to sing with his stupid band, he hadn’t stopped me from crashing and burning at the band fiasco, and he’d spent all day today glaring at me.

  Guys! Definitely from Mars!

  I wiped the tears of laughter pooling in my eyes and starting to run down my cheeks. “You’re hilarious, Jeremy, but really. I gotta go now.”

  “So are you? Going out with him?”

  He wasn’t letting go of the door. He wasn’t even hilarious anymore. He was just annoying. “With who? Alex?”

  He gave me a tight nod. Jeremy-the-class-clown was long gone, and I almost told him to go dye his hair again and get normal. If that was possible.

  I didn’t have time for this. “Hey, I really have to leave. Let go of my door, okay? Besides, why would you care if I’m going out with someone?”

  “Because.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Because why?”

  “Because I want to go out with you.”

  As I sat there blinking, not knowing what to think—including whether or not this was another of Jeremy’s stupid jokes—my door slammed shut. And Jeremy walked away.

  The Jeep was parked at the curb when I got home, and Mary had even tossed the keys on my bed. But the house was quiet. I didn’t want to talk to Mary about my love life, or what Jeremy had said, but for once in my life I wished Jane or Liz would show up. Even if they didn’t know what I should do, they’d at least know if he’d been joking.

  As I replayed the whole thing in my head, I figured it out for myself. Jeremy was serious, maybe for the first time in his life. He wanted to ask me out, but he thought I had a boyfriend. Or several boyfriends, based on all those references to Alex, Kirk, and Zach. If I hadn’t stopped him, he might’ve mentioned even more guys.

  He really was nuts.

  I finally hopped into the Jeep and drove to work, muttering out loud about my luck at being liked by the craziest guy in school. It kept me from having to face the real question: did I want to go out with Jeremy?

  He wasn’t Drew. He wasn’t a bit like Drew. Of course, based on the Drew I’d seen since Christmas, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  I punched in, joined Pete behind the counter, and got to work. Maybe I didn’t need to figure it out. Jeremy didn’t actually ask me out, he just said he wanted to go out with me. Which was totally different, right?

  I had no idea.

  Toward the end of my shift, as I was straightening a row of SpongeBob dolls some kid had knocked over, I felt a tap on my shoulder. A soft tap. It had to be Megan.

  Whirling, I started to smile.

  “Drew?” I frowned as I looked past him and didn’t see Chelsea or Tess or anyone else. “What are you doing here?”

  He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Just wanted to stop by.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d talked to him. Oh, wait. Yeah, when he danced with me until Chelsea showed up, leaving me with no option except running. Better than passing out, but not by much.

  Pete started toward me, almost as if he wanted to protect me, even though he didn’t go to our school and didn’t know Drew. How could he? I went to our school and, as it turns out, didn’t know Drew. Not one bit.

  As Drew stared at me, I couldn’t think of a thing to say. But my hands weren’t clammy and my heart wasn’t doing a staccato beat, and it slowly dawned on me that something had changed.

  Drew licked his lips, nervously, something he’d never been in his life. “I heard you were working here, and I finally realized what Tess did.”

  “Finally?” I rolled my eyes. Drew had been right there at the jam session when everything went down, including me. He knew exactly what happened. “Give me a break. It’s not like Tess hid what she did.”

  “I’m not talking about the band.” Drew looked past me at Pete, who was still hovering. “She said you weren’t interested in me. She even, uh, said you’d been playing me.”

  That’s why he’d been all over Chelsea practically since she moved to town? Right. “That’s so not true. You’ve hardly spoken to me since we, uh, got together that day. Last September.”

  September 9. Not that I’d admit it to Drew.

  “She told me before school the next day.”

  “No way.” She couldn’t have. Tess still liked me then. “I mean, it’s not like Tess was trying to hook up with you. Why would she lie like that?”

  Drew shrugged. “Why would she take you down? Why did she go out of her way to hook me up with Chelsea?”

  “No one put a gun to your head.” I frowned. “Besides, Tess just introduced you guys. She and Amber introduced Chelsea to a ton of people.”

  Drew shook his head, but he didn’t fill in the blanks. I started to fill them in for myself.

  “But . . . why?”

  “My guess is, when Lydia left, she wanted to be queen of the school. And you were the only one standing in her way.”

  It didn’t make sense. I’d never be queen, o
r even lady-in-waiting. “But why would she tell you—”

  He held up a hand. “No clue, and I really don’t care about Tess. I was wondering if you—”

  Pete tapped me on the shoulder. Blinking, I glanced behind me and finally realized that half a dozen people had come into the store since I’d started talking to Drew. Just like the old days, I lost track of everything when he spoke to me.

  Including, probably, me.

  Smiling, I touched Drew lightly on the arm. No buzz of electricity, the way it’d always been with him. Had too much time gone by? Or had he just screwed things up too much? I mean, Tess couldn’t have broken us apart if Drew really wanted us to be together, could she? He could’ve talked to me. He could’ve asked. Anytime in the last five months.

  “I have to get back to work. Sorry.” I kept smiling, but it didn’t feel much different from the smile I’d give a customer. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  He grabbed my hand. “But I wanted to—”

  “Sorry.” I turned to help the closest customer. “This isn’t a great time.”

  But it was a great feeling. Drew liked me again, I was pretty sure, and I didn’t give a rat’s ass. At all.

  Jeremy didn’t say anything or even look at me in English class on Wednesday morning. Tess looked at me, several times, but I kept my focus on Ms. Mickel. We were finally hitting the home stretch of Pride and Prejudice, and Ms. Mickel didn’t say another word about Kitty Bennet, which gave me something to be grateful for.

  At lunch, I grabbed a table by myself. Maybe Zach would join me again. Or maybe Megan would stop by.

  The chair across me from scraped against the floor as Jeremy pulled it out, slammed down his tray, then sat with a thunk.

  And didn’t say a word.

  Sighing, I kept eating my salad. Guys were weird, and Jeremy was at the top of the list.

  “So do you wanna?”

  I frowned at him, wondering if I’d somehow missed part of that sentence. He wasn’t glaring, but he didn’t exactly look happy, and he wasn’t touching the tacos on his tray.

  “Do I wanna what?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, and his right hand curled into a fist. “Go out with me.”