“Shoot, it’s my boss. I gotta go. I already smarted off to him once today, and he’s paying for my haircut tomorrow. I waited a month for the appointment.”
“Chase-Doogle-is-picking-you-up-today,” she says in one breath.
“Wait a minute, what did you say?”
“Daisy!”
“Just a minute, Gil!” I yell back. “Why is Chase picking me up?”
“He said there’s been a misunderstanding between you two and he wants to talk. There was obviously a real drug in Amber’s system, and he totally wants you to know he didn’t do it.”
“There’s no misunderstanding. He left Amber to die.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “He didn’t know Amber was up there. She took something that made her sleepy and she’d gone to rest. Amber’s such a tease, who knows where she got that med? It would be just like her to frame Chase. He never knew she was there.” Claire stands up straight. “Don’t you see? You’re giving her exactly what she wants. You’re questioning Chase, not her. Come on, in all our years of knowing Amber, list one good experience we’ve had with her.”
“Chase left before the firemen got there. Even before the cops after Angie called! He ran away like a coward.”
“He’s seventeen. What did you expect him to do? Find the nearest bedroom to don his cape?”
“I thought about that. Did I expect too much? I mean, we know I have issues with perfection, but we’re talking immediate selfish action. Even if he were innocent of ever asking Max a thing about a pill. And what about that? Max tells me about the pill, which I’ve never heard of, and then the hospital says it again that night. Is that a coincidence?”
“I’m sure there’s a rational explanation.”
“Chase is not who I thought he was, it’s as simple as that. Getting in trouble for being at a party is one thing, but if he knew Amber was upstairs and he left before he told anyone that . . . well, you do the math.”
“It’s your perfect thing again. You expect people to be perfect, just like your parents. No one could meet your standards.”
“Possibly drugging someone to take advantage of them and being perfect are a long way from one another, even for you.”
“Look, I’ve never understood your thing for Chase Doogle. I mean, if your taste is for high-octane milk, then yes, I guess I get it, but Daisy, he’s not a criminal. Would you just make up with him so we can show our faces at school again? You know, without people wanting to throw rocks at us?”
“Even if he’s not a criminal, he’s not a man with integrity, and he shouldn’t be allowed in the Air Force, much less their prestigious academy!”
“So what are you planning to do? You’re going to tell on him? Go running to the principal?”
I hate to tell her that’s exactly what I have planned. If only my father will listen.
“You’re just mad because Amber’s dad got him in there. You didn’t think he was going to go and you want him punished.”
“Claire, I’m not mad he got in, I’m mad because he doesn’t belong in the academy if he’s not willing to fight for what’s right. I need you to believe me that this isn’t about revenge. He should at least be asked about that night, and he hasn’t been asked any questions or owned up to his actions. No one has even considered the fact that he was there!”
“Greg’s known him forever. We’ve known him forever. He just wouldn’t do what you’re saying. He got nervous and left the party. Big deal. You’re making a federal case out of this, and we’re all paying for it.”
“Daisy!” Gil is at the door. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
Gil checks around the corner and laughs at Claire’s appearance. “What are you supposed to be?”
“I’m a goth chick in trouble,” she says, patting her stomach.
“You kids and your drama.” He pulls the door shut. “Goodbye, Claire!” he yells through the door. “I don’t want to see you here again!”
“What is it with you and guys taking a fatherly role? So annoying. So Amber is there, and—”
“Amber’s where?”
“At the club. Aren’t you listening?” Claire sighs. “Listen because I have to pick up my dad at the airport before I come to your house.” She draws in a deep breath. “Amber’s got her tennis whites that barely cover her bum. What is with that girl and her need to show her cheeks? Seriously, remember her bikini this summer? I mean, leave a little to the imagination, you know?”
My heart is pounding. Claire is going to tell me Chase kissed Amber on the tennis court. I can see him dipping her and smacking his lips to hers in this throes-of-passion way, and I prepare myself for the worst. What if Amber was fine with taking the pill? If she ended up in trouble, would she even know?
He’s leaving in June, I remind myself. It’s not my responsibility if Amber gets herself in trouble. But I feel the prick of guilt. It’s as though my mother’s over my shoulder! It is my responsibility. If I could simply eliminate my distrust, it would be one thing. But I can’t, so in good conscience, I have to follow through. Although I may not like Amber, what happened to her could have been disastrous, and even if she wouldn’t do it for me, I want to do the right thing because that’s who I am.
Claire is going on and on, but I’m barely listening. “Then Amber walks out onto the court, where I proceed to cream her because if she spent more time on her backhand and less time on her backside, she might stand a chance. So after the match—”
“You already played a whole match?”
“I told you, I creamed her.”
“Chase. Get back to Chase! Did he admit to anything? Is he seriously dating her now?” My throat tightens. I imagined I could keep Chase away from Amber, but can I possibly sway Amber in any direction other than toward him? It’s like she has a beacon signal around her neck.
“So Chase, who I know you’ve been pining over since sixth grade, is golfing at the club.”
Kindergarten. I’ve been pining since kindergarten, and I promise you, I am no longer pining. “I have not been pining. He kissed me in kindergarten, that’s as far as it goes. Sure, I may have wasted some of my romantic dreams on him, but it was nothing. It’s over.”
“You can’t have turned on him that quickly. Come on, Greg and I are going to prom.”
“You and Greg are over!”
“Yeah, but we both look good and dress well, and we don’t want to mess up the picture with any half-wits, so we’re going together. We’ll share a limo with Chase.”
“Chase and who?” I ask, knowing she can’t mean me since I have yet to be asked. Chase and anyone besides me is callous, isn’t it? “You’re not seriously going to let Chase go with Amber. She’s suing your parents and you’re going to share a limo with her?”
“Do you know what those things cost? It’s just a ride, Daisy. Besides, I’m not here about Amber, I’m here for you. Your prom date.”
“I’m not going to the prom. I’m going to help my dad emcee,” I tell her. “I knew he’d get around their rules, but he agreed to let me go. As his date.”
“Tell him you’re pregnant, then anything else will sound tame by comparison.” Claire shrugs. And in Claire’s world, this would probably work.
“My parents would chain me in the basement until I reached adulthood. And we don’t even have basements in California.”
“What are you talking about? I get you your fantasy moment, and you’re talking about basements. Come on, forget about the party. You’re going to let one moment change your entire perspective? That’s just weird. We’ve known Chase since kindergarten. You’re willing to throw that all away on something you think happened?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“I’m serious, Daisy. You should totally be kissing my feet. Chase Doogle is picking you up from this crappy job of yours. Hello? Can I at least get a thank-you? Not to mention I have to schlep all the way over here because I can’t text you like a normal person—or call you f
or fear your perverted boss will pick up. You, Daisy, are not the easiest person to be best friends with. Do you get that?”
“I get that.” My dad took away my BlackBerry soon after it was discovered in the hospital bed. I thought I should have gotten credit for enduring a house fire, a third-degree burn, and an ambulance ride and still having the phone with me, but my father disagreed.
It suddenly dawns on me that if Chase got drugs for the party, he didn’t get them from Max. Which means he might have more. “Do you have any makeup?”
“It’s always more with you, isn’t it? Never satisfied.”
“Hey!” I point my finger at her. “The spider snot-plunged into your nose doesn’t exactly make you perfection as a best friend either, you know what I’m saying?”
“I don’t have my makeup, only my goth stuff. You need black nail polish? Kohl eyeliner? I’m your girl, but no makeup today.”
“You need to get a real job again, Claire. You wouldn’t have time to dream up this kind of trouble if you worked.”
She shakes with a shudder. “I have a job. It’s called annoying my parents for Jesus.”
“Interesting ministry.”
“Totally brilliant. I gotta run. Say hi to flyboy for me.” She shakes her head. “Such a dork. I will never understand your taste in guys.” She’s still mumbling as she makes her way back to her car. “But I better not be in that limo with Amber.”
Claire squeals off without looking, and some guy honks at her as he just misses her dad’s car with his newer and bigger Beamer.
“Oh my gosh, Chase is coming.” I hurry back into the office, where Gil meets me.
“Something the matter, Daisy? I mean, I hate to get in the way of your social life with work and all. Especially when you’re handicapped.” He looks at my bandage.
“Gil, I have no social life. Is that your idea of a joke?” I’m not feeling good enough to take a ribbing. I look like heck, I don’t even own tennis whites—much less have my bum hang out of them—and maybe Chase Doogle thinks of me as a charity case. Maybe he wants to go to prom, so I’ll shut up about what he did, but I’m not that easily bought off.
Gil’s expression softens. “A social life is overrated in high school. Get your grades and move on. Your life is just beginning, Daisy, and all these people who make your life dramatic will be gone from your memory someday.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
He leans against the wall and crosses his arms. “Actually, Daisy, it isn’t. I work in my dad’s business, and I’m still doing what everyone expects of me. You’re smarter than me, kiddo. I can’t wait to see all you’ll accomplish.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a dumb kid. I’m hardly smarter than you, Gil.”
“Stronger than me, then. You’ll do the right thing, even if it costs you. Go on, get back to work. I left the ledgers on your desk to get started on. You can file later.”
I wander back to my desk, where the girls are all aflutter over what’s going on.
“So your boyfriend is picking you up, huh?” Kat’s gravelly voice is excited. “We get to see him? What do you think he’s like, Lindy? I imagine a prep because Claire thinks he’s a dork.”
I look out the door. “How did you—”
“That foyer echoes, don’t you know this by now?” Kat asks. “I love how everyone goes out there for privacy, and we get a show. It makes life here more interesting. Come on over here, baby. You look like—” Kat stops herself before saying what would naturally come out of her mouth. She takes out her makeup bag, and I’m feeling scared. Shaking like a cartoon character, in fact. I love Kat, but the last time she took a makeup lesson I wouldn’t even venture to guess.
I push her hands away. “This is not my boyfriend. This is the guy I believe drugged a girl at the party and left her for dead.”
“Don’t they have easy girls at your school, Daisy? In my day, the guys just went with the girls who were easy. No need for drugs. Life is so complicated anymore.”
“If there are easy girls, I thought this one would have been her, but the hospital said she’d been drugged with Flunitrazepam.”
“With what?”
“It’s a drug that makes you forget, but she wasn’t hurt, apparently.”
“Thank God,” Lindy says.
“But it means someone might be at my Christian high school with roofies that sedate and then make you forget.”
“It sounds like her daddy’s problem, honey,” Kat says.
“Her daddy is a senator. He’s the one who killed any questioning.”
Gil comes out of his office again. “Daisy, get in here!”
I run in, fearful he’s killed the computer again.
“You stay out of this or you tell your father the whole truth.”
“My father can’t handle—”
“Daisy, I mean it. You tell him or I will. I may not agree with him on everything, but he needs to know this.” He points to the door. “Now go, and shut the door behind you.”
I stumble out of Gil’s office. Kat is there to greet me with her makeup bag. “My dad won’t let me wear makeup, and I’ve got to get started on these ledgers for Gil. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“Your dad won’t let boys pick you up either. Do you think we’re deaf?” Kat asks. “Come on, I’m sure this is all your imagination, and you want to look pretty for Chase, don’t you?”
“I was sorta hoping—”
“Get over here.” She smacks her desk with her transparent neon pink makeup bag. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Kat looks like a linebacker, so I’m not going to argue, but I’m sincerely worried that I’m going to meet Chase Doogle looking like a drag queen. And worse yet, I’ll meet my father looking like some fiendish, Camaro-driving party girl from his high school days. If I want to get to the truth, I have to move Chase slowly, eloquently, seductively.
“Don’t make me look like Tara Reid.” This is the closest I come to an objection. “My father will kill me. Subtle. Can you do subtle?”
“I was born subtle,” she croaks. “Your father is going to kill you anyway when you come home with one of these prep kids driving a foreign sports car.” She points eyeliner at me. “Look up.”
“A Camry,” I say, blinking desperately. “He drives an old Camry.”
“Hold still, for goodness’ sake. I’m trying to give you a makeover.”
“I’ve got my stuff,” Lindy says. “All natural. None of it is tested on animals like that garbage Kat’s using.”
“It’s not tested on animals, Lindy. What use does a rat have for eyeliner anyway?”
“That’s not what that means.” Lindy holds up her hand. “Truce! Let’s get back to work, all of us. Her makeover is tomorrow with Gil’s sister, not on company time.”
I’ve had enough of the girls’ bickering, and I get to work on the ledgers, looking for a respite from the backbiting.
A while later I walk into Gil’s office. “I finished. I’ll start inputting everything into the computer on Monday night, and then you won’t have to add this up anymore. Excel will do it for you.” I put the files on his desk. “The numbers look good, Gil. You’ve really done a good job with the business since you’ve come. You’d forgotten to enter a few contract numbers, so I took the liberty—”
“I can’t believe you’re still in high school. If I could clone you, this business would be a rousing success.”
A car drives up outside and kills its lights. “He’s here,” I say shakily. My stomach flips. “Gil, let me practice on you. Do I look interested?” I gaze at him from the side, sucking in my cheeks.
“You look jaundiced. Just go be yourself.”
I have to maintain my cool because it’s dark outside, which means I am lit up like a Christmas tree in here and I have no idea what Chase might be thinking. Maybe he’s thinking how sad it is that I have to work every day. Maybe he’s thinking that it’s a total waste of his time to have to pick me up. And maybe . . . I gnaw on my lower li
p. Just maybe he’s thinking, Wow, she looks completely hot, and what a coup that I get to pick her up from work today.
“Daisy,” Gil says.
“Yeah,” I say absently.
Gil whispers, “Go wash that eyeliner off. You look like a raccoon.”
I run to the bathroom and look in the mirror. I look like someone who died in a horror movie, and I can’t believe Gil is the only one who said anything to me. Traitors.
Chase is waiting in the lobby when I get back. He’s got a bunch of red roses pressed tightly together, woven to look like the most money spent. He stands up and smiles when I come in the door. My stomach flips. I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for this moment. For Chase Doogle to notice me, to hand me flowers . . . and now I have to wonder if it’s all an elaborate scheme to protect his future.
“Hi, Daisy,” he says softly. “I know you’re mad at me, but this is crazy. We have to get past this.” He puts his hand on his heart. “I am so sorry that I left. I simply wasn’t thinking. I know it’s been really hard on you.”
Before I get lost in those hazel eyes, I force myself to ask the question. “Did you try to buy a pill off of Max?” I place the flowers on the table. “Tell me the truth.”
He doesn’t look me in the eye, and I think of the fact that liars look to their left. Chase fidgets and wipes his mouth. A couple times. His nervousness makes me tense.
“I can’t believe you’d even ask me that, Daisy! It’s ridiculous and you know it’s ridiculous! There’s a reason that guy isn’t at our school anymore. If he didn’t have something to hide from, where is he? I’m back. I owned up to my mistake, and I’m going to the Air Force Academy. I did not even know Amber was in Claire’s room.”
My heart jumps. “I never said Amber was in Claire’s room.”
“You did. You totally did. You said that night, ‘Run up and get her, she’s in Claire’s room sleeping.’ You were so stressed, and see, now you can’t remember anything. You were in shock.”
“I wasn’t in shock,” I tell him. “That night I thought Claire was in her room, but she wasn’t. Somehow you knew that, didn’t you?”
Chase’s face is getting red, and I want to stop myself. I want to go back to the way things were, where we forget all about my ridiculous accusations and he’s just Chase Doogle, prom date of my dreams. But something won’t let me drop it, and my mouth keeps talking, keeps accusing as though it’s got a mind of its own.
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