Four-Letter Word

by Christa Desir

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later I was back in Cam and Aiden’s driveway, smiling a little to myself. I’d won two of three rock-paper-scissors games, and Josh had reluctantly given me his letter, mumbling that Cam was going to kick his ass but grinning like we had a secret. Which we sort of did.

  Chloe Donnelly called the girls over. “How’d you do?”

  “I got Cam’s letter. It’s B,” Holly said, wiping her mouth in an obvious way, which I hoped to heck was fake because . . . gross.

  Eve grinned, all smug and self-satisfied. “I got Aiden’s too. A.”

  I looked at her and for a second wondered if she’d picked up more than I thought from Holly’s influence, but then she blushed and whispered, “I offered to bring him a plate of Mom’s chocolate Rice Krispies Treats.”

  I laughed and so did Eve. We high-fived, and for a second we were back in our freshman year, trying to learn the “Thriller” dance in gym class and bumping into each other every single time. Chloe Donnelly crossed her arms. “Well, I guess that was inventive. It’s fine for a practice game.”

  “You said, By any means necessary. Eve’s way was genius. You should’ve tried those Rice Krispies Treats yesterday afternoon. We probably could’ve even got the word from the guys if we offered them a month’s supply,” I said.

  Chloe Donnelly’s fingers drummed, but she was shaking her head and laughing a little. “Well, Other Chloe, when we play for real, I’m not sure Rice Krispies Treats are going to cut it, but whatever.” Then her face got all serious and she looked right at me and said, “I got Mateo’s letter. N.”

  I froze, waiting to hear how she’d done it, what tactic she’d used to get quiet Mateo to give up his letter, but she didn’t offer an explanation. Instead, her face went all bright and friendly again, and she asked, “You didn’t happen to get Josh’s, did you?”

  She was looking at me, but I couldn’t choke out an answer. My mind was too busy clicking through all the ways Chloe Donnelly might’ve gotten Mateo’s letter—simple things like offering to do his Spanish homework, and much grosser things like hand jobs—but my brain couldn’t settle on one that seemed feasible. I couldn’t picture him giving up his letter easily. God knew he didn’t give up anything else about himself.

  “Other Chloe? Hello?”

  I blinked. “Oh. Sorry. Yeah. I got Josh’s letter. It’s K.”

  Eve clapped and high-fived me again. “Oh my God, this is so great. We all got letters. I love this game.”

  I wasn’t sure I totally shared her enthusiasm, but Josh’s words knocked around in my head. We’re not on a spy mission going across enemy lines. We’re playing a word game. Yes. I was with my friends. Playing a word game. And after flipping through the catalog of options for how Chloe Donnelly might’ve gotten Mateo’s letter, I decided that he probably gave it to her because it was friends playing a game, and who really cared anyway. This was the first time I’d been fully included in something in so long, the first time I felt like a real part of anything. My whole body hummed and buzzed with excitement. And maybe it was dumb how I’d won Josh’s letter from him, but Chloe Donnelly didn’t need to know how I did it.

  “Yeah,” I agreed with Eve. “The game is fun.”

  Chloe Donnelly stared at me for a long minute, then finally said, “So you like the game after all? That’s unexpectedly pink. I wasn’t sure you had it in you to get someone’s letter. Way to surprise me, Other Chloe.” She turned to Eve and Holly. “B. A. N. K. God, the guys are so dumb. They didn’t even pick an anagram.”

  “What’s an anagram?” Eve asked, and I winced a little. She really needed to brush up on her vocab if she was going to do well on her ACTs, which was maybe a little judgy of me to think, but she had parents who would get her extra tutoring and she wasn’t taking advantage of it. How did she not see that?

  Chloe Donnelly patted Eve’s arm. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. Leave the big words to the grown-ups.”

  I blinked. Ouch. It was one thing to think she was squandering a chance to do well on her ACTs, but this? Chloe Donnelly’s words were cruel and harsh, and Eve looked stung. I felt stung on her behalf. I took a small step back, glancing at Chloe Donnelly. Her face didn’t seem plain anymore, it seemed meaner and older. Way older than us, and for a second I wondered if she was different from what I thought she was, if she wasn’t a girl who understood me at all, but someone who only pretended so she could get what she wanted. But then she pulled Eve into a hug and said, “Oh my God, I’m kidding. Do you really think I’m that bitchy? We’re on the same team. I told you where Aiden was. I was totally messing with you. Anagrams are when you can mix letters up so they form different words, like team can also be tame or meat. Captains don’t have to pick an anagram for their word, but it makes it harder for the other team.”

  Eve looked mollified and hugged Chloe Donnelly back, but I couldn’t completely shake the strange kick in my gut. Something felt off. But I ignored it when Eve grabbed my arm and squeezed. “We won. We won. We won,” she singsonged. “I can’t believe you got Josh’s letter. We won!”

  The guys walked over to us. Josh and Cam were smiling, but Aiden and Mateo both seemed serious. Of course Aiden would hate to lose; he was so competitive about everything. But Mateo’s expression troubled me. Maybe Chloe Donnelly had gotten his letter in some sketchy, underhanded way. I should’ve asked her, but it made me feel inexperienced and childish, and I didn’t want Chloe Donnelly to think of me that way.

  Mateo’s gaze landed on me, and after a second his face changed into a warm smile. A real one, like maybe his serious expression was because he was worried about me. Though probably that was just a lot of wishful thinking. I wanted so much from him.

  “Bank, guys. Really? So easy,” Chloe Donnelly said.

  Cam shrugged. “You said it was a practice game. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t give a shit that we didn’t get any letters. I feel like I won here.” He pulled the zipper of his fly—double gross—and I wanted to bleach my brain. I couldn’t figure out how someone like him could be related to someone like Aiden. And the worst part was that Holly seemed to like the attention, to like that she was Cam’s sex toy or whatever. She walked right over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, with tongue, like we all weren’t standing right there!

  Holly had started dating Cam her third week at GHS. It was as if she was looking for a way to scuff the shiny Catholic school vibe she’d carried with her, and Cam was perfect for scuffing. Holly’s older sister had gone to the Catholic school and was now on a full-ride scholarship to Michigan State. Holly told us she hated every minute of her Catholic education and begged her parents for an entire year to let her go to the public school, claiming there’d be no commute and her school friends would actually live in the same town. They finally agreed after their divorce went through and they were both stuck with lawyer bills too high to afford private school.

  She’d told me and Eve all of this her second week at school. At first I thought it was something we’d had in common, me not wanting to be in Burkina Faso and having to beg my parents to let me live with Nan and Pops so I could go to GHS. But when I mentioned it to Holly, she flared her nostrils and told me our parents were nothing alike. Then she decided Eve was the only one worth being friends with and I was a sad sack to be ignored.

  If I were a better friend, I might’ve sat Holly down and explained that no guy was worth how Cam treated her, that being liked wasn’t worth sacrificing yourself. But the whole lecture would’ve been a bunch of platitudes I’d been told by my mom, capped off by Nan’s succinct No one is gonna buy the cow when they can get the milk for free, and I was certain Holly would ignore me. I wasn’t her friend. And anything I had to say about Cam would likely ostracize me from both Holly and Eve even more.

  So I kept my mouth shut when Cam’s fingers slipped down to Holly’s ass during their ridiculous kiss. Though I internally cheered at Mateo smacking Cam on the arm and mutter
ing, “Don’t be such a douche,” which thankfully ended the PDA.

  “So you guys get how to play now, right?” Chloe Donnelly asked.

  Mumbled yeahs and a bunch of nodding.

  “Good. Because we need to make it bigger and better for our real game.”

  “What does that mean?” Josh asked.

  Chloe Donnelly tightened her lips and put on a weird smile. “We play longer. And we set up boundaries for the game that are wider. Maybe the college campus. And”—she paused, building the anticipation enough so we all seemed to be holding our collective breath—“each person on the winning team earns one platinum favor from someone on the losing team.”

  “What’s that?” Eve asked, her eyes lit up still from our victory.

  “A platinum favor is a favor asked that the loser cannot say no to. No matter what.”

  “Wait . . . what?” I said, hating how my voice sounded sort of squeaky.

  “A favor where the loser has to say yes.” Chloe Donnelly enunciated her words slowly.

  My gaze skidded to Mateo. A million scenarios erupted in my brain. God. What would I do if I had a guaranteed yes from him for anything? It would be like a perfect song that came on at just the right time. Yes, Chloe. Sure, Chloe. Of course. Yes.

  Josh’s face went from smiling to concerned. “I don’t know. That seems a little intense.”

  “That’s the point. And since you guys were the losers tonight . . .”

  “What?” Cam started. “No way. You didn’t explain what the stakes were. I wouldn’t have given up my letter.”

  Chloe Donnelly lifted a shoulder, her bright eyes almost dancing. “Whoops. My bad.”

  “I’m not agreeing to anything.”

  She crossed her arms. “It’s not that hard. Cam, will you give me a ride to Walmart tomorrow? I need to return a scarf.” She glanced at Mateo and then tipped her chin slightly at me. I stuck my pinkie in my mouth and gnawed on the nail.

  “What?” Cam asked.

  “Will you give me a ride to Walmart?” She did that slow-enunciation thing again.

  “Sure. I guess.”

  She spread her arms wide. “See? Platinum favor completed. Easy.”

  I looked at Mateo. Will you take me to prom? I whispered in my head. Will you hold my hand? Will you walk with me to my classes? Will you ask how I’m doing? Will you ask me to come see you play baseball? Will you call me your girlfriend? So many yeses I wanted from him, so many I didn’t think I could ever ask for, even with a platinum favor dangling between us.

  “Come on,” Chloe Donnelly said. “What else do you all have going on? Seriously. Ice cream at the Dari Barn? The game is fun. Didn’t you guys have fun tonight?”

  Aiden stepped forward. “Yeah, it was all right. But a platinum favor? Really?”

  Eve laughed. “Imagine how many unlimited desserts you could get from my mom. You’d have to run twice a day to keep your six-pack abs.”

  Holly said, “Unlimited desserts are a terrible platinum favor, Eve. The poor baseball groupies will be devastated if he doesn’t maintain his deep investment in that six-pack.”

  It was cheesy, but everyone laughed. Even Aiden. And like that, things were casual again. The atmosphere flipped and we were all just people who went to high school together, people who understood what it was like living in Grinnell. Chloe Donnelly and her bigger and better didn’t really understand how we worked. But I felt it and knew it would be okay because we were definitely a we again, including me. And that made all my nerves disappear.

  “Come on, Aiden, pretty please with Rice Krispies Treats on top,” Eve pleaded.

  Her Aiden crush was long-standing and well established but, from what I could tell, on a fast track to nowhere, same as all the baseball groupies. Aiden was way too focused on his studies and a future at the Naval Academy to mess around with dating. We all knew that, probably even Eve. I was surprised he’d agreed to play with us in the first place, though we did sort of just show up and not give him much of a choice.

  Aiden glanced at each of the guys and it looked like he had a definite no about to come out of his mouth. Cam leaned forward and mumbled something that made Aiden’s expression turn hard and a little angry. He scrubbed his face, all put out and annoyed, then finally said, “Sure. Fine.”

  “Yay. I’ll be in charge of game refreshments,” Eve said, though I wasn’t sure if she meant alcohol or her mom’s pastries.

  I looked around the circle. Josh was staring at Mateo. “Do you want to do this?” he asked Mateo as if we weren’t all standing right there.

  Mateo was quiet for too long. I held my breath. I wasn’t going to play if he wasn’t, that was for sure. He had the same face he’d had on before, not fear but resignation. He glanced at me and there seemed to be something there, a request maybe, or an out, but I wasn’t sure which. Finally, he shrugged and looked at Chloe Donnelly. “Sure, let’s play for real. It could be fun.”

  Then he met my gaze for another second and it felt as if he were looking inside of me. As if all the things I wanted and all the things I was afraid of were right there out in the open for him to pull apart and study. As if he’d say yes to every favor I asked. As if he wanted me to say yes to him. My cheeks warmed and I looked down, letting my hair drop in front of my face again.

  “Perfect. This is going to be so pink,” Chloe Donnelly said. “Are you both working on Friday?”

  “I’m off,” Mateo answered, at the same time Josh said, “I’m working till eight thirty.”

  “Okay, we’ll meet in front of the college library at nine,” she said.

  Mateo smiled at me again, and for a second I thought it’d be okay. We’d had fun playing. I’d rock-paper-scissors’d myself into Josh’s letter. Gestapo was different and I needed different, something to break up my loneliness and a way to hold on to my friends. But when I saw the strange glance Mateo threw toward Chloe Donnelly, I couldn’t shake a hint of dread at what exactly bigger and better could mean.

  5

  The girls all walked up Pearl Street together. The guys were staying at Cam and Aiden’s for some sort of video game marathon. Holly pouted when Cam wouldn’t drive her home, but he shrugged and countered with, “Babe, I’ve still got to replace the clutch on the car.” Babe. It sounded so gross when Cam said it.

  “My mom is gonna freak that I’m out this late,” Eve said as we turned onto Third Avenue. “And I left my book bag at school so she’ll for sure know we weren’t studying.”

  “It’s not your mom, it’s your dad,” I said.

  Eve spun around. “I know, Other Chloe. You don’t need to remind me.”

  I flinched. Sometimes it seemed everything I said to her hit the wrong note. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  Holly nudged Eve’s shoulder. “Ignore her. I’ll go in with you and tell your parents I was having a crisis and needed you.”

  “Really?” Eve’s puppy-dog look made me feel like I should’ve done that, covered for her with her overbearing parents.

  “Yeah. My mom won’t care,” Holly said. “She’ll lie for the both of us if your mom asks.”

  I’d seen Holly’s mom at a few of her dance performances; she looked like an older and much heavier version of Holly. I’d never seen her dad, but I didn’t exactly blame him for wanting to bow out of a dance show with his ex-wife. Holly’s parents’ divorce didn’t seem very amicable when she’d first described it.

  “You’re the best, Holls,” Eve said, and I looked at my feet.

  Chloe Donnelly stepped toward me and linked her arm with mine. I had to shift to counter the weight of my bag. “That was totally pink tonight. I can’t wait to play with you again.”

  “What’ll you ask Cam for when we win the platinum favor?” Eve asked Holly, linking their arms too, and making a big deal out of touching their charm bracelets. As if everything weren’t completely clear.

  Holly grinned. “I don’t know. There are so many possibilities. I mean, you have no idea how many times I wish Cam
would have agreed to something I asked him for.” She laughed in this innuendo way, but it was ridiculous and too show-offy for me to believe. Probably he said no to lots of basic stuff, too busy working on his car or doing whatever else he did that kept him from agreeing to Holly’s demands. For a second I felt bad for Holly that she didn’t have the kind of boyfriend who would just do her a favor because he was a nice guy, that she needed a platinum favor to get what she already deserved.

  Chloe Donnelly chimed in. “When we played in Chicago and my team won, I made my boyfriend do his homework in only his boxers every time we were studying together at my house.”

  “No. Way,” Eve said, but she sounded slightly thrilled by this possibility. To me, the thought of it was a little horrifying. As much as I wanted to see Mateo’s chest, and maybe even see him in only boxers, I couldn’t imagine casually studying with him while he sat next to me in his underwear. The blurting that would happen in that scenario . . . God.

  Chloe Donnelly laughed. “Yeah. It’s a good thing our team won, because he would have had me doing homework with him in no clothes at all. Although both ways we ended up naked.”

  I gasped. I’d been thinking so much of Mateo’s unconditional yes, I hadn’t thought enough about my own. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself not to blurt. Would any of the guys ask for nakedness? No. They were my friends, it was fine. They weren’t those kinds of guys. I didn’t think.

  As we walked through the main part of town, I saw Melissa McGrill coming out of the pharmacy with her mom. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, just baggy pants and a fleece, her hair in a low ponytail. I wanted to call out to her, maybe jog over and have an acquaintance conversation with her like we sometimes did in church. Nothing big or serious, but maybe something dumb about how much it sucked that Grinnell still didn’t have a Starbucks. But she was hunched in on herself, and her mom had her arm around her like she was a little kid again.

  Eve looked back at me, her eyes shifting to Melissa like maybe she thought I should go say hi too, but Chloe Donnelly tightened her hold on my linked arm and started in on another story about when she’d played Gestapo in Chicago. And before I could do anything, Melissa was in her mom’s car and gone.