“What’s with your pants?” Em said first thing when I walked into class. So much for nobody noticing how short they were. But I was glad I could count on my new friend to be honest with me—at least when it came to fashion.
“They shrunk in the wash,” I lied.
“Come here.” She lifted my shirt up a little. “The waist is big. Just pull them down.”
I grabbed the waistband and settled them as far down on my hips as they would go. They still didn’t touch the tops of my shoes.
“You want to talk about who should get a room?” I heard Sarah J.’s voice before I saw her. “New York just told Ham-burglar to pull her pants down,” she announced. Maggie and Joyce started laughing like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
“It’s like a lesbian love affair over there,” Maggie added, backing Sarah up. Had she really been friends with the nice red-haired enrichment-program girl last year? Now that I thought about it, Maggie did used to do stuff like collect the money on pizza day. She also brought doughnut holes for everyone at lunch once. It seemed crazy that someone could turn so evil so fast.
“Seriously, you want to talk about disturbing displays of sexual behavior,” Sarah said, making a gagging noise.
Then again, with Sarah J. as an influence, maybe it wasn’t that hard to imagine.
My cheeks were burning, but I started to take my books out of my backpack, fully prepared to ignore them, when Em spoke up. “Oh my God, Margot.” She tilted her head to one side like Sarah had just done the cutest thing. “Sarah is pretty much repeating everything I said yesterday word-for-word. I think she wants to be like me.”
Just then, Mr. Learner walked in and set his briefcase on the desk. “Good morning, eager young minds,” he said sarcastically, clapping his hands together.
Sarah was glaring hard at Em, but Em just smiled back, giving her the finger underneath her desk. Then she turned to face the front. As for me, I gave Maggie a tight, satisfied smile before flipping open my copy of Lord of the Flies.
For the rest of the morning I heard people talking about the sandwich incident wherever I went. But unlike the enrichment-program girls, most people seemed to be siding with Sarah J. “I think it’s so immature to throw food, not to mention wasteful. I mean, hello. People are starving in foreign countries,” I heard Michelle Cobbs tell her best friend Bethany as they walked around the bend and past Sarah’s locker on their way to volleyball practice.
“That new girl is wack,” Ken said to Gorgeous George, motioning toward Em as she took a drink from the water fountain after math. “I heard she’s like, mentally deranged.”
As usual, Em had “a personal thing to take care of” when the bell rang for lunch. She left me at our lockers and disappeared down the hall, turning right before the bathrooms. I couldn’t help myself. I mean, if getting called lesbian lovers, then hitting the most popular girl in school in the head with a sandwich and living to tell about it wasn’t a bonding experience, I didn’t know what was.…We were friends. There wasn’t any reason for secrets between us. I followed, hiding behind a group of eighth graders when Em stopped to check her reflection in the trophy case. Then I watched as she slipped into a room and closed the door behind her. As soon as the coast was clear, I wandered over casually, stopping to tie my shoelace. The nameplate on the door read: MRS. MARTINE, STUDENT SUPPORT OFFICE. So this was Em’s “personal thing.” What were they talking about in there? Was she honestly mentally deranged? I decided enough was enough. She owed me an answer. And I didn’t waste any time. The second she came out to the yard, I paused War of the Druids level three, looked over to make sure Andrew, Mike, and Amir were still busy doing free throws, then turned to face her.
“What do you do in the Student Support Office at lunch every day?” I asked. She stopped midway through taking her Whole Foods sandwich out of her bag. “Are you seeing the guidance counselor or something?”
“No!” She began to unwrap the cellophane angrily, and I glanced down, worried that I might end up being the one covered in mustard today if I didn’t say this just right.
“I just saw you go in,” I said as gently as I could. “Are you in trouble for something? You can tell me if you are. I told you about the ham.”
“I’m not in trouble for anything,” Em said, bunching the plastic wrap into a ball and throwing it hard at the garbage can, where it bounced off the rim. “Why would you even say that?”
“It’s the reason most people see a guidance counselor, or a social worker.” I added that last part, waiting to see how she’d react.
“What do you mean social worker?”
“I heard you talking to Mrs. Vandanhoover in her office,” I admitted.
She took a bite of the sandwich, staring off into the distance for a while before sighing. “Okay. Fine. I did something bad at my last school. I cut class a lot. That’s all. To spend time with my dad.”
“Why?” I knew people cut class to go to movie theaters or malls—but not to hang out with their dads. Actually, most people our age went out of their way to avoid their parents. “I mean, don’t you see him enough at home?”
“No. He’s a really busy person.”
“Is he a stockbroker?” I asked.
“No,” she said simply.
“Oh. Well, why’s he so busy?”
She sighed like I was asking too many questions. “He’s an agent for musicians. So he’s like, at shows all the time. And he travels a lot. He didn’t even move here with us. He stayed behind in New York to work. So, not that it’s any of your business,” she went on, “but I go to the Student Support Office to talk to him on the phone. Mrs. Martine lets me use her desk so I can have some privacy. Okay? Are you happy now?”
I didn’t get why she was so pissed off, or why she’d been trying so hard to keep it a secret. I only wished my dad cared enough to want to talk to me on the phone every day—or even once in a while. She was lucky!
“Are you mad at me for snooping?” I asked.
“I’m not mad.” She kicked at a pile of leaves. “I just don’t want anyone to make a big deal about my dad.” She turned to look at me.
“Why would anyone make a big deal?” Just then I noticed Andrew waving me over. Mike and Amir were crouched down in one corner of the basketball court, looking at something on the ground. It was probably an old robin’s eggshell or something. There was a nest on the school roof, and sometimes they fell.
“My dad represents some big names, okay?” she said suddenly, just as I was about to stand up and go see what Andrew wanted. “Like huge. Like, SubSonic, just to name one.” Okay, so I still hadn’t actually listened to their music, but I had Googled them after Em mentioned liking the band the night before, and this was amazing news. All of their albums had gone platinum and their videos were topping the charts. “One sec,” I mouthed to Andrew, then turned to face Em.
“I don’t want anyone to know,” Em went on seriously. “I told you we moved to Darling to get a break from the entertainment industry, right?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“So swear you won’t tell anyone.” She fixed me with a steady stare.
“Okay,” I said again. “I swear.”
And I really, really meant it. It was just that my big mouth sort of got the better of me. It happened on Wednesday morning in the yard.
I showed up a full fifteen minutes early (a new record for me), wearing the Parasuco jeans again, but this time with the ketchup-stain cami. Still, underneath Em’s green jacket, you couldn’t even see the stain. I looked good, which was a lucky thing since, little did I know, I was about to have my first actual conversation with the guy I’d been in love with since third grade.
“Hey,” Em said, catching up to me in the yard just as I was about to walk over to see Andrew, Mike, and Amir. “You’re early. Come on.”
“Come where?”
“Over there.” She pointed to the far end of the yard, where Ken and Gorgeous George were standing near the bike r
acks. Ken was balancing on some kid’s banana seat while George leaned against the fence.
“No way,” I said. They were popular. It wasn’t like we could just walk up to them anytime we wanted to.
“How are you going to kiss him if you can’t even talk to him? Seriously, come on.” I didn’t budge, even when she grabbed the sleeve of the green jacket and pulled. Or at least I didn’t until she started shouting, “Hey, guys!” and they both turned to look at us.
“I’m going to kill you,” I said under my breath, but I followed her over.
“Can we ask you something?” she said as we approached.
Ken narrowed his eyes at us, and George looked surprised, but he nodded once.
“I’ve seen you reading those magazines about cars,” Em went on. “Margot and I have this question. We were hoping you could help us. What handles better? A Porsche Nine-eleven or a Camaro?” Ken gave us a strange look. You could tell he didn’t believe we really cared, which was funny because he was right. I barely knew what a Porsche or a Camaro looked like, and the subject of cars hadn’t come up once in the time Em and I had known each other. “My mom’s getting her driver’s license this year,” Em explained, “and she’s looking to buy something. She said we could help choose.”
“Your mom doesn’t have a driver’s license?” Ken asked.
“We’re from New York,” Em explained. “Nobody drives there.” I was learning more facts about New York by the minute.
“She probably wants to start with a Ford Pinto or a secondhand station wagon, then,” Ken suggested, and they both laughed, although I had no idea why that was funny.
“Oh. Ha-ha,” Em mocked them. “You haven’t met my mother. She wouldn’t be caught dead in a crappy car—even in this town. Anyway”—she grabbed my coat sleeve again—“let’s go, Margot. These guys don’t know enough to help us.” That seemed to do the trick.
“Hey, hey. Hold up.” Ken raised his hands. “Is that a challenge?”
Em turned. “You want to make it one?”
“The Porsche Nine-eleven comes with a six-speed manual transmission. If she’s never driven before, she’ll probably want an automatic. The Camaro SS looks like a sweet ride. I’d go with that.”
“Regular V-six powered or SS?” Em asked.
“SS,” Ken replied. “More horsepower.”
“You agree?” she asked, turning toward George.
“Totally,” he said. “My dad test-drove one once. He said it was nice.”
“All right, then.” She nodded. “Thanks.” It looked like we were about to turn and go, which made me panic. This was my big chance to make an impression and I hadn’t said a single word to George yet. Because what could I say? I didn’t know anything about cars…unless you counted knowing how to jiggle the stuck seat belt buckle in our minivan to get it undone. I was an expert at that.
“Hey,” I said instead, changing the subject as I motioned to the earphones hanging around George’s neck. “What are you listening to?” I don’t know why I said it. I didn’t know the first thing about music, either…unless you counted Eternal Crush, which Em clearly didn’t.
“SubSonic,” he said.
Then the words leaped out of my mouth. “Oh my God. I love them. Especially their last album, The S.U.B.” From my Google search two nights before, I’d learned that the band was made up of two big black guys who wore sunglasses and suit jackets, and a blond girl in a push-up bra who wore a lot of eyeliner and looked mad all the time. They also had a serious thing for too much punctuation. One of the guy’s names was K.wack’ed and the girl’s was something like Des.ti.nee. Their old English teachers must have wanted to write directly on the screen with a red pen every time they saw them interviewed on TV.
“Yeah. They’re awesome, eh?” George said…to me!!
Which is maybe why, in a fit of stupidity fueled by true love, I said this: “Em’s dad actually knows them.”
The second the sentence left my mouth, I wanted to pull it back in. Em turned to glare at me. George’s mouth fell open in disbelief. Ken smirked. “Yeah, right,” he said.
“Margot!” Em said in a sharp, exasperated tone. “I told you not to tell anyone that.”
“Sorry!” I squeaked. But the truth was, I didn’t get why it had to be such a big secret. So what if a few people knew that her dad was their agent? She could still lead a quiet life in Darling. Plus, wasn’t the greater good of my love life and our reputation worth something to Em?
“What?” George said, looking between us. “Is it actually true?”
I’d already pretty much spilled it. It didn’t seem like it could do any more harm. “Yeah. Em’s dad is their—”
She cut me off. “Friend. My dad knows them. My whole family does. We’re family friends with K.wack’ed. But we call him Shane.” Family friends? Em had definitely said her dad was their agent, but there must be a reason why she was covering that up, and I knew better than to open my big blabbery mouth again.
“Shane Marlowe,” George said, obviously recognizing the singer’s real name. “So you actually know him?”
“Yes,” Em answered.
“You’re not for real,” Ken said, like he still wasn’t sure he believed it.
“Yeah,” Em said, glaring at me again. “I am for real. But I don’t like to tell people because they go all insane and bug me for autographs and stuff. Shane hates that. Anyway,” she said, tugging at my jacket again, much harder this time, “if you guys don’t mind, don’t spread it around. Like I said, people go nuts.” The bell rang, and she dragged me away.
I waved.
“What part of ‘don’t tell anybody’ did you not understand, Margot?” she hissed as soon as we were out of earshot.
“Sorry! I was just…trying to think of something to say to him.”
“Yeah. Well. Next time, say something else.” She squinted like her head was about to explode.
“Em. Honestly. I didn’t think it was such a big secret. So what if your dad’s their agent…?”
“Shhh,” she said, glaring at me. “Family friend. From now on, it’s family friend.”
I looked at her in confusion.
“It’s bad enough that people are going to find out I know K.wack’ed. If they know my dad’s their agent, do you know how many people are going to bug me for free SubSonic stuff?”
“Okay,” I promised. “Family friend. But anyway, you told Ken and George not to tell…so I’m sure they won’t.”
“Right. Just like you didn’t tell.”
I winced. She had a point.
“Sorry,” I said again. “Em, I’m so so sorry.”
“Margot, be quiet,” she said, rubbing at her temples. “Just please stop talking, for once, and let me think of a way to fix this.”
16
I Make a New Resolution
OVER THE YEARS, my habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time has had different kinds of consequences…from not-so-serious ones (like when I was in first grade and my grandpa Button laughed the whole way home after I asked this scruffy man wearing a bandana outside the liquor store if he was a pirate) to more serious ones (like being arrested after opening my big stupid mouth and volunteering to shoplift a glazed ham), but it had never before helped to make me more cool.
“Big news,” Em said, coming to join me at lunch the next day. “Can you give us a minute?” She turned to Andrew. He’d been leaning over my shoulder, coaching as I used my teleporter star to zap myself to the enchanted forest of Orr to do combat with a troll. I handed him the Nintendo.
“Sure,” he said, shrugging. “I’ll keep it paused, Margot.”
Then he went over to join Amir and Mike, who were playing one-on-one. I’ll admit, I breathed a small sigh of relief as Em threw her bag down and sat beside me. She’d barely said a word to me all morning, and after my giant screwup the day before,
I’d been expecting the worst.
“What’s up?”
“We’re having a party,”
she said.
“What?”
“A party. My mom’s going to visit a friend out of town next Saturday morning. She won’t be back until Sunday—and besides having her new friend Conrad check in on me once in the day, she’s letting me stay on my own. Next Saturday night my house will be completely empty. We’re having a party.”
I could picture it now: us, sitting all alone at Em’s house, drinking pop with the music turned up loud while we waited for nobody to show up. “No offense,” I answered. “I think it sounds fun, but who would come? Besides you and me? And them?” I motioned toward Andrew and Amir, who were doing some sort of chicken dance to psych Mike out and make him miss his shot.
“Lots of people. Anyone we want. We have a rec room with built-in speakers and a pool table. And anyway, this isn’t going to be just any party. It’s going to be the party. Things are going to change around here. We’re about to get noticed, Margot. In a big way.”
She was obviously in denial about how popular we weren’t. I didn’t say anything, though. I was happy enough that Em was talking to me again, and I didn’t want to make her mad.
“My dad’s going to help us out,” she went on, taking her lunch out of her bag.
“What do you mean?”
“I was just talking to him, in the Student Support Office,” she said. “Now that it’s out, we can’t do anything to stop people from talking about how I know SubSonic, but at least we can use it to our advantage. My dad’s going to send some stuff for our party.”
“Like decorations?”
“No,” she said, as if it should be obvious, and I shifted a little on the bench. I wasn’t about to admit it, but I didn’t have any experience with parties…other than the pin-the-tail-on-thedonkey or pizza-party-sleepover kinds. What kinds of stuff would we need? “Just stuff. I’ll tell you when it’s all confirmed. Don’t take this personally, but I don’t need you starting any more rumors.” I bit my bottom lip and looked down at the pavement.
As she’d predicted, Ken and George hadn’t kept their mouths shut either. By lunchtime the day before, everyone seemed to know that Em was claiming to know SubSonic, and nobody seemed to believe it.
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