by Mary Strand
“Man, you’re even later than me.” Josh looked sideways and grinned, taking some of the sting out of his words. “This is my lucky day. Now I get to talk you into working on the roller coaster project.”
I groaned, but school was just a few minutes away, and I could pretend to be gracious. After all, I didn’t want to end up back on the pavement, walking.
“You act like it’d be torture to design a roller coaster with me.” Josh looked at me again and winked. “Almost as if the thought of it makes you wanna barf.”
“Funny.” The lengths of licorice were balled up inside my fist, which had been my immediate and silly instinct when Josh pulled up. I uncurled my hand now, plucked out a licorice, and chomped on it. Breakfast of champions.
“Got one for me? I skipped breakfast.”
It was probably covered with sweat from my hand, but I gave him one anyway.
After all, I should be grateful. But I was late for school, Cat had swiped the Jeep, and Josh’s Camaro came with a price tag: he wanted me to be his Physics partner, which would give me an even more close-up view of Josh’s big romance with Penelope.
If Josh actually knew something about roller coasters and wasn’t just using me, it’d be one thing. I might actually have a shot at winning the science contest Liz mentioned and a long-shot chance at a scholarship to MIT. But Josh was a skateboarder whose biggest talent seemed to be finding girls with big boobs to hang all over him.
“What can I do to talk you into it?”
“Why do you want to talk me into it?” Other than the obvious, of course: a good grade. “You said you already had an idea for a design.”
Which was way more than I had.
Josh shrugged. “It’s not much fun working on it alone, which I figured out when Kyle got his football scholarship. Besides, I think I know what the roller coaster should look like, but I have no idea if it would actually work. Do we just turn in drawings, or are we supposed to build a model?”
Kyle wasn’t the only guy not paying attention in Physics class. “Mr. Gilbertson said a drawing was okay, but it wouldn’t get more than a B.”
“So most kids will go for the B, right?”
“Or not even.” But who was I to get snotty about kids who settled for a drawing? I didn’t even have an idea, let alone a drawing, and I wasn’t exactly at the top of my game with wires and batteries and such. Maybe Liz could help me. At least, if I thought of a totally different design from whatever she’d done.
Josh pulled into the school parking lot and climbed out of the Camaro, leaving me to open my own door. Nope, definitely not interested in anything other than roller coaster designs.
Thanks to no willpower whatsoever, I caught up to him. “Are you just going to do the design?”
He shrugged. “I’d like to do a model. I could use a more personal reference from Mr. Gilbertson on my college apps than the usual “I had so-and-so in my class, blah blah blah.”
Yikes. I still hadn’t really thought about college apps, not even for the U of M. “When are they due?”
“Depends on the school, and whether you’re going for early decision or a scholarship or whatever.”
We both fell silent as we headed to class, splitting up to dump our backpacks in our respective lockers when the warning bell rang. I was lost in thought about the roller coaster project and scholarships and college applications. Josh was probably lost in thought about Penelope. She grabbed him by the sleeve when we walked into English class, trying to drag him over to her side of the room to sit. He shook her off and headed for his usual desk behind me.
What was wrong with the guy? Was he so hung up on the roller coaster project that he didn’t notice when Penelope obviously wanted him? Especially when he didn’t want me? Josh probably wouldn’t even notice me if I wore a short skirt.
As I pulled out my English textbook, I smiled to myself. It’d be hilarious if Liz were actually wrong about something for the first time in her life.
I’d consider it a bonus birthday gift.
When Mr. Skamser left the room for a minute to deal with a stink-bomb-assisted rebellion in the hallway, I quickly looked back at Josh. “Wanna work on the roller coaster tomorrow? After school?”
His jaw dropped. “No way.”
“Way.” I shrugged. “But if you don’t want to . . .”
He leaned forward in his desk, almost as if he were zeroing in for a kiss. But not quite.
“I definitely want to. Give you a ride tomorrow? Do it at my house?”
Do it at his house? Ha! But I could hang out in his room and work on my roller coaster—all while wearing one of my new short skirts as a very different sort of science experiment—even if I had to eat two burgers at lunch tomorrow to fortify myself against the slightest possibility of fainting. “Sure.”
“Wow. Cool.”
Then why did I suddenly feel so warm?
Chapter 15
“That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.”
— Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter Eighteen
What was I thinking?
Tuesday morning, I drove to school in the Jeep with a scowling Cat, trying to ignore the fact that I felt naked in my short black skirt and that my bony knees were tapping a staccato rhythm against each other.
Liz and Jane saw me before we all left for school, Jane nodding with approval and Liz just whistling. Cat didn’t exactly seem to share their opinion.
“I can’t believe you’re actually wearing that ho outfit.”
I doubted that many ho’s toted Physics and Calculus textbooks in their Army-camouflage backpacks, but Cat wasn’t into fine distinctions.
“I don’t look like a ho.” Besides, a ho would’ve actually kissed someone at least once in her life. And Jane had talked me into buying this skirt, and no one would ever accuse Jane of looking like a ho. Or hanging out with one.
Cat’s nose wrinkled. “You look like you’re trying to hook a guy.”
I rolled my eyes, even though Josh’s face flitted through my brain. “Isn’t that what you’re always trying to do? What’s the matter? No luck?”
I’d scored a dig, I could tell, but it felt weird. I mean, even though Cat and I were stuck driving to school together most days, we never talked. Now that we were finally speaking, we just took swipes at each other.
Cat stared out the passenger window of the Jeep as I pulled into the school parking lot and headed for the closest open spot.
“Don’t park there!”
I frowned at her. “Why? You like to walk?”
A couple of spots away, a carload of guys tumbled out of a station wagon that looked like it belonged to a soccer mom. I pointed at the guys. “Do you know them?”
Cat grabbed my finger and shoved it down in my lap. “Don’t point! For God’s sake, I don’t want them to see me.”
“Too late.” I shrugged. “We stopped ten feet from them, and we’re in the only hot-pink Jeep in Woodbury, if not the entire world.”
“Don’t remind me.” Cat slouched down in her seat, her eyes level with the glove compartment. “I am, like, so busted.”
“Because you saw some guys you know?” I frowned but drove on, past the guys, and swung wide to turn into another free spot halfway down the row. “Won’t you see them in school?”
Cat’s head bobbed up just long enough to glance out the rear window, but I’d already checked. The guys hadn’t noticed us, as far as I could tell, and were halfway to the school building by now.
A tiny voice came out of Cat, a little less snotty than usual. “You wouldn’t get it.”
“You don’t want them to know we have a hot-pink Jeep. Sorry, but I think everyone in school already knows, especially after some of the things Lydia has done in this Jeep.”
“Oh, sure. Cut on Lydia when she’s not here.”
“It’s her own fault she’s not here, but I wasn’t cutting on her.” I pu
lled the key out of the ignition and stuck it in my backpack. “Just stating a fact. Everyone knows this Jeep.”
“But they don’t all know—”
She broke off, and I waited for her to continue.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay. What don’t they know?”
Still slouched down, Cat looked away from me. “That you’re my sister.”
Stung, I sucked in a breath. “Actually, I think they do.”
Cat ignored me, but when I grabbed my backpack and opened my door, she finally opened hers. “It was bad enough when you were a geek. But now everyone’s talking about you. When they see that skirt—”
I frowned. “What are they saying?”
“Oh, you know.”
I didn’t have a clue. In fact, everyone had eventually stopped talking after I showed up in new clothes and a new haircut. They still stared, sure, but that was it.
As far as I knew.
“I have no idea.” I bit out the words through clenched teeth, wishing Jane were here, or even Liz. “Tell me.”
Cat climbed out of the Jeep and headed toward school but walked a few feet away from me. As if we weren’t together. Had she always done that? Had I been too absorbed in my own problems to notice or care?
She finally glanced at me. With a sneer. “They think you might be Lydia’s successor.”
I halted in the middle of the parking lot. After a long moment, I laughed. “Me? Like Lydia? She doesn’t even read books.”
Cat nodded, utterly serious. “I know, right? I tell them you’re not the next Lydia. It’s my turn. My turn to be the girl everyone wants.”
She wanted to be like Lydia? She wanted guys to want her that way? “I think you can aim higher.”
She brushed me off with a duck-face look I privately called prune face. “And now you’re trying to dress all hot, and you have that skirt on, like you want every guy in school to notice. You’re just trying to take it away from me.”
Was Cat on drugs? “I’m not trying to be like Lydia. Or like you.” Understatement of the century. “I’m just wearing new clothes because Jane and Liz thought it’d be a good idea. You can wear short skirts, too, if you want.”
“I don’t have long legs.”
“So don’t wear skirts. But I’m not trying to hook a guy.”
“Oh, really? Then why’s that guy staring at you?”
My head twisted, and a groan escaped. Josh. So far, I hadn’t seen Josh and Cat at the same moment in school, so her wild tales of Josh and me hanging out together at the Mall of America were technically rumor. Sure, I’d told Jane and Liz all about it by now, but they hadn’t seen him. No one in my family had. I didn’t want that to change.
I turned back to Cat, pretending I hadn’t noticed Josh, even though I’d glanced long enough to see his wide eyes and his tongue hanging out of his mouth.
I couldn’t help it. I tugged my skirt down in back.
“I don’t think he wants it lower.” Cat smirked, and I might’ve kicked her if I weren’t afraid my skirt would fly up in back. “Who is he, anyway?”
I didn’t look at Josh again. Maybe he’d walk right into school without stopping or saying anything.
And maybe Mom would buy me a Corvette for my birthday.
“Mary? MB?”
I froze a moment, then slowly turned at the sound of his voice. Argh. Josh was ten feet away now.
“Did he call you MB?” Cat half-whispered the question, which meant everyone in the parking lot could hear her.
Josh looked from me to Cat and back again. “Isn’t that your sister? Doesn’t she call you MB?”
I shrugged, even though all the air left my lungs and I felt like fainting. Even on Josh’s bed. “She’s not—”
Cat chomped harder on the gum in her mouth, smacking it loudly. “I’m not what? Your sister?”
I hissed between my teeth. “A minute ago, you said you didn’t want anyone to know.”
“That was before I met your friend.” She batted her eyelashes at Josh, reminding me in a really annoying way of Penelope. “Hi. I’m Cat.”
“Josh.” Then he turned to me, totally blowing her off.
Cat stomped into school ahead of us.
“You said you’d work on the roller coaster project after school, but you didn’t say you’d be wearing—” He broke off, frowning.
The warning bell rang, and we both picked up our pace. I turned to Josh, trying to act casual, even though my heart was thundering in my chest. “Wearing this black top? Is there a problem with it?”
I glanced down, pretending to be brave but secretly terrified I’d find raspberry jam slathered down the front of me. My snug, scoop-necked black top was jam-free, though, and Josh didn’t answer. After a quick stop at my locker, I walked ahead of him into class, which probably didn’t help.
It also gave the entire class a full frontal look at me. The room went silent. Then someone whistled.
It definitely wasn’t Mr. Skamser.
I glanced at him, nervous, just in time to catch him sighing and closing his eyes. I think male teachers don’t like seeing short skirts on high school girls any better than dads do.
“Take your seats, please.” He cleared his throat. “We have a lot to, ahem, cover in class today.”
I hoped he wasn’t referring to my butt.
I sat down, Josh behind me, but he didn’t lean forward to ask me about the roller coaster project or our Calculus homework or anything else. I thought I heard a tiny groan coming from behind me at one point, but it could’ve been Josh’s reaction to Mr. Skamser’s latest lame joke.
The bell rang, finally, and I got up to leave for Gym class. At the door, I glanced behind me. Josh was still sitting at his desk. With a glazed look on his face.
The votes weren’t all in yet, but Liz seemed to be right about guys and short skirts. Unfortunately, I’d already agreed to work on the roller coaster at Josh’s house after school, and I hadn’t brought something to change into. I pictured his room. One chair, filled with books. And a bed.
We could work at the dining room table. Or, if we absolutely had to work in his room, I could drape his bedspread over myself. Including my head.
I somehow survived Gym class and, more important, changing clothes in the locker room. Even Chrissie was speechless when she saw my skirt, although she managed to rediscover her acid tongue when I stripped down to my undies. Plain white, as usual. Liz hadn’t been able to talk me into changing that, no matter how many times she dragged me past Victoria’s Secret and the lingerie section of Macy’s.
As I stood there in my undies and glanced down at my skirt and top lying on the locker-room bench, I realized that Liz might be right about the undies. Even if a guy didn’t see them—and I wasn’t ready for that—there was something weird about wearing cute clothes on the outside and drab undies underneath.
I surreptitiously glanced around the locker room and noticed that I seemed to be the only one wearing plain white. I bit my lip. Where was the manual they’d written for teenage girls, and why hadn’t I ever received a copy of it?
I felt Josh’s gaze on me all through Calculus class. By now, the whole thing gave me the creeps. I had legs. Big whoop. A lot of other girls wore short skirts to school, and I didn’t see guys having heart failure wherever they walked. Talk about being objectified!
Shaking my head, I wandered in a daze into the cafeteria, found my table—empty, as usual—and sat down. Penelope wandered by, looking almost as lost as I felt and scanning the room. So Josh wasn’t sitting with her, either. I finally saw him, sitting at a table halfway across the room, eating lunch with Kyle and other football types. And staring at me.
I turned away. I’d changed my clothes and my hair, even worn a short skirt today just to get a reaction. Everyone noticed, but I still sat alone at lunch and no one talked to me in class, unless you counted Chrissie picking on me in Gym class. Which I didn’t. Short of getting a lobotomy, I didn’t know what else I could change.
&nb
sp; Liz had been right, but so had Jane Austen.
I sighed, wondering if this was how Mr. Skamser felt when he sighed so much. Hopeless.
By sixth period, the startled looks on the other kids’ faces started to fade, but I couldn’t get used to Josh. Josh, who’d sat with me on the first day of school, when I wore overalls and a ponytail. Josh, who’d asked me to ride a roller coaster and be his Physics partner.
Until I puked on him.
Josh noticed me before only for my brains, and now he just noticed my looks. Did he even remember I had brains?
By the time the final bell rang, my skin was crawling. I held my breath, wondering if I’d remembered to tell Cat she could take the Jeep home today, wondering even more if I had the guts to go through with this.
But I had to. The truth was, I was turning eighteen tomorrow. I’d been sweet sixteen, I was still sweet seventeen, and I refused to be the only sweet eighteen at Woodbury High. Thanks to Josh and a skirt that could get a girl arrested, I wouldn’t be sweet eighteen.
Because I was going to get kissed. Today.
Whether I liked it or not.
Even though I’d driven the Jeep in this very same skirt this morning, I had no idea just how high a skirt rode when I sat in a car. Especially a guy’s car!
Josh managed to start the Camaro and drive through the streets of Woodbury without hitting any dogs or small children, but I could feel every time his eyes glanced at my legs.
“Sure you can still come over to my house?” His voice cracked.
I turned my head to look at him. Sure enough, he was staring at my legs. In fact, at the very top of my thighs. If my skirt crept up any higher, he’d be staring right at my undies.
My white undies.
The thought cooled me down, but that made only one of us.
I willed him to look me in the eyes. “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to anymore?”
He met my semi-amused, semi-frustrated, semi-nervous gaze a moment before his eyes flickered south again. “I want to.”