by Barbara Dee
“Omigod,” she said. “Jules had an accident!”
The word “accident” was not my favorite in the dictionary. My heart zoomed. “Should we call an ambulance?”
“No, no, not that kind of accident. A period accident.” Abi’s eyes were wide. “She wasn’t expecting it today. And her pants are light blue.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. She can’t leave the bathroom like that, and she’s too tiny to borrow Mak’s gym pants or mine. So she needs yours, okay?”
“Sure. I’ll keep on my yoga pants; she can have my jeans.”
“And a pad?”
“What?”
“You know . . . a pad. Mak only has tampons for the pool, and Jules won’t use them. You keep some extra pads in your locker, right?”
Um.
“Let me look,” I said, rummaging through my messy locker. “Oh no. Sorry. I must have run out.”
“Really? That’s weird,” Abi said.
What did she mean by that? Could she tell I was lying?
“Can’t she borrow one of yours?” I asked, beginning to sweat.
“Nah, my period was last week; I didn’t bring any new pads.”
“Last week?”
“Huh?”
“Your period. I thought you said you got it over the weekend.”
Abi’s eyes flashed. “Are you serious, Lia? The weekend is last week; Monday is the start of the school week, right? And why are you arguing over something so ridiculous while Jules is in the bathroom freaking out?”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Just give me the jeans, okay? I’ll ask someone else.”
“Try the gym office. Or the nurse,” I suggested helpfully.
“Lia, I know,” she growled.
♥ ♥ ♥
By lunch, everything was back to normal. Except for the following:
1. Marley wasn’t at our table. As far as I could tell, she wasn’t even in the lunchroom.
2. Jules was wearing my jeans, which meant I was stuck in my sweaty yoga pants.
3. Abi may have figured out I’d been lying about my period.
4. Although she may have been lying about her own period. At least, that was a possibility, considering the way she’d lost track of the calendar.
5. She may have suspected that I suspected she was lying. And if she did, she was probably furious. Even if she’d been telling the truth.
Which explained the weird mood at the table as I sat down with my veggie pizza. Nobody was talking: Mak was reading her phone, Jules was nibbling chocolate chips off her cookie, and Abi was watching me with this twisted little smirk on her face.
Finally she said, “Hey, don’t eat too much of that pizza, Lia. It has garlic.”
“What’s wrong with garlic?” I asked.
“Makes your breath stink. Then Graydon won’t want to kiss you.”
“Haha, really funny,” I said. “And he definitely doesn’t want to kiss me anyway.”
“Sure he does,” Mak said, suddenly looking up from her phone. “Come on, Lia. Everyone knows you guys have a giganto crush on each other.”
“Excuse me, what?”
“It’s not a secret, okay? He’s always staring at you. And you’re always turning all these crazy colors. Like right now.”
There was no point denying the crazy-color part; I could tell my cheeks were blazing hot. And what was the point of denying the rest of it? I mean, if it was that obvious.
“Although, actually, I think he hates me,” I said. “Or at the very least, he’s been kind of avoiding me lately.”
“Really? Why?” Jules asked sympathetically.
“I don’t know. I tried to explain why Marley gave him that poem. It just came out wrong, I guess.” I took another bite of pizza and thought about Marley, how much she’d put up with just to be my friend. “Can I ask you something, Abi? How come you dared Marley to give Graydon that poem? And then to kiss him?”
Abi laughed. “Because we knew she wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you like him, doofus. But, of course, you wouldn’t kiss him, either.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Lia.”
“Come on what?” I looked at Mak and Jules, but they were both watching Abi and me, like we were playing a ping-pong match. Her turn, my turn. “Come on what?” I repeated.
“Lia,” Abi said. “You wouldn’t kiss Graydon because you never kissed Tanner. You’ve never kissed any boy, right?”
“What? Where did you get that?”
“Oh, then you’re saying it’s true? You did kiss Tanner?”
“Abi, I told you—”
“Then prove it. Kiss Graydon.”
“Are you joking? What does kissing Tanner have to do with—”
“Okay, fine, Lia. Then don’t.” Abi’s voice was as sharp as a pair of scissors.
I was so mad I almost laughed.
And I knew I could get up from that table and storm off with my pizza. I didn’t have to answer to Abi or take her obnoxious dare! Because that’s what it was, a dare, even if we weren’t playing the Truth or Dare game anymore.
But right away I thought this: If I stormed off the way Marley had, I wouldn’t be leaving all my friends behind—it would be more like they were leaving me. And then I’d be stranded on the beach without even Marley, just myself and a bunch of reject sea glass.
Also, I couldn’t help noticing how Jules and Mak were eyeing me, like they were reading a book and wondering what would happen next. Like I was probably just Poor Nice Left-Behind Lia. But what if I wasn’t? What if I could surprise people—especially my friends? What if everything about me was true?
“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
Abi smiled in a way that made my insides twitch. “I guess we’ll have to see,” she said.
The Kiss
THE QUESTION WAS WHERE TO do the kiss. It had to be private enough for Graydon to feel as if his buddies wouldn’t suddenly appear, but public enough for my friends to witness. I told myself that if I could just think of the perfect place at the perfect time, Graydon would probably let me kiss him. After all, he let me borrow his homework, and he’d asked me to dance that one time. He had to like me; if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have felt so bad about my role in the love poem prank.
As the afternoon passed, though, I was running out of chances. I couldn’t kiss him in math, because he sat at the Nerd Desk, in the front of the classroom. (I’d chosen a desk in the back, so I wouldn’t be distracted too much by Mrs. Crawley’s nose job.) In science he shared a lab station with Ben and Jake, and there was no way I’d do it in front of them. In English we had an in-class essay about Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, a book I liked, even though everyone else called it boring. And because I wanted to do a good job on the essay, I stayed in my seat an extra five minutes at the end of class, which meant I didn’t see Graydon at his lockers at dismissal.
But I did catch up with him just before he got on the school bus.
“Graydon!” I called a few decibels too loudly.
He cringed. “Yeah?”
“Can I please talk to you? For a second?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
This would have been the perfect opportunity to kiss him. Except none of my friends were there to witness it, so it wouldn’t count.
“Graydon, I was wondering: Would you possibly like to go the diner? For a milk shake, maybe?”
“With you?” He squinted. Or maybe scowled.
I nodded.
“I dunno,” he said. “I have a tutoring appointment.”
“You get tutored?”
“No. I tutor Marley. In math. You didn’t know?”
I shook my head.
“It isn’t teaching her stuff; it’s more like practicing. She’s smart, but she needs to drill. And her mom pays ridiculously well.”
I wondered if this was the “expensive tutor” Marley was always talking ab
out.
“Anyway,” I said. “We would be quick. So you can still be on time for your tutoring.”
He blinked at me. “Well, I am kind of hungry,” he admitted. “Sure, why not.”
“I just need to do something first. Can you wait a sec?”
He unzipped his backpack and took out a book: The Martian Chronicles.
I ran inside the building. Abi, Mak, and Jules were still at their lockers.
“Okay,” I said breathlessly. “Graydon and I are going to the diner. So can you meet us there? Well, not meet us; we’ll need privacy. But I mean, can you guys go there? Now?”
Mak looked unsure. “I have to be back at the Y pool by three forty-five.”
“It’ll be fast,” I promised.
Abi shrugged a yes. I didn’t even wait for Jules’s response; I knew that if Abi would do it, so would Jules.
I ran back outside to Graydon. It was a five-minute walk to the Maplebrook Diner, but Graydon was a surprisingly slow mover. I say “surprisingly” because everything about him was so quick and direct. Also, he didn’t waste energy by talking. Mostly he listened while I described the plot of the HiberNation trilogy, which I’d just finished.
“And in the end Bree goes off on her own without an army?” he asked, just as we arrived at the diner. “That’s slightly implausible, don’t you think?”
“Not really. I thought the ending was cool.”
“It may be cool, but it doesn’t make any sense.”
Maggie the waitress walked over to us. “Same booth as usual?” she asked with a bored expression. I nodded. Although I immediately realized I’d made a mistake: Our regular booth was right by the door, so Graydon would be able to see my friends when they walked in. Also, when I kissed him, I didn’t want the whole street to see.
“Can we please sit in the back instead?” I asked Maggie.
“I’m still your waitress wherever you park yourself, hon. Same order as usual? Chocolate shake?”
“Um, yes,” I said as I slid into the seat facing the door. “Please.”
“I’ll have a chocolate chip hot fudge sundae with two squirts of whipped cream and no maraschino cherry,” Graydon said.
Maggie rolled her eyes, like, Great, another charming Maplebrook kid.
“What’s wrong with maraschino cherries?” I asked Graydon as soon as Maggie walked off.
“They’re so uncherrylike,” he answered. “They don’t taste anything like real cherries—they just taste red-flavored. Just like ‘grape flavor’ tastes purple and ‘blue raspberry’ tastes blue. And of course there’s no such thing as a ‘blue raspberry,’ anyway. . . .” He shook his head disgustedly.
“You should talk to Marley about fruit,” I said. “She has this thing about raisins. All shriveled food, in fact.”
“Shriveled food is fine with me. It’s only fake food I object to.”
I crossed my arms in front of my fake chest.
By now I’d run out of conversation. I kept glancing at the door, but my friends weren’t walking in. If they didn’t get here very soon, Graydon would leave for Marley’s house. Finally Maggie showed up with our orders. She put Graydon’s sundae in front of him. In front of me she put a cookie dough sundae with butterscotch syrup, whipped cream, and gummy bears.
Abi’s usual, not mine. Maggie had gotten us mixed up.
“Wait,” I protested. “I didn’t order this.”
“Yeah, I know, you’re the chocolate shake,” Maggie said. “Coming right up.”
“But why did you bring me this?”
Maggie smirked. “It’s a secret message from your secret admirer.”
“What?”
“Look, that’s what she told me to tell you, okay? You girls don’t tip enough to make me deliver sundae-grams, or whatever that’s supposed to be.” Maggie walked off in a huff.
“You should read the napkin,” Graydon said, swirling the hot fudge into his ice cream. “There appears to be writing.”
I slipped the napkin out from under the parfait glass. Graydon was right. In letters smeary from the drips of butterscotch syrup and ice cream, there was a message, presumably for me: MEET IN BTHRM. NOW.
I crumpled the napkin. “Excuse me, Graydon. I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back,” I mumbled.
“Take your time,” he said, licking his spoon.
I speed-walked to the bathroom. Abi was waiting for me.
“You’ve been here the whole time?” I squeaked. “Where are you guys?”
“In the front. You walked right past us. So what’s going on?”
“Now? I’m in the bathroom, talking to you.”
“Haha.” She checked out her sideways ponytail in the mirror. “Well, hurry up! Mak has to leave.”
“Abi, I can’t just attack him. I haven’t even gotten my milk shake yet!”
Abi raised an eyebrow. “You need a milk shake before you kiss a boy? Is that how it went with Tanner?”
“What? No. There were no milk shakes; we were on a beach, remember? And truthfully, Abi, I don’t appreciate being pressured.”
“No one is pressuring you, Lia. If you don’t want to kiss Graydon—”
A stall opened. Out came Ruby Lewis. “Hey, guys,” she said.
Oh, perfect. She’d heard the whole thing!
“Hi.” Abi greeted her with a weird sort of cheeriness. “Don’t you love these mirrors? You can really get a sense of how you look in them.”
“Yeah, that’s usually how it goes with mirrors,” I muttered. “We should leave, Abi.”
“Wait a sec. I want to see how I look from different angles.” Abi turned to the left and pretended to inspect her profile. Then she turned to the right. “Oh good, I’m all tucked in.”
Ruby soaped her hands in the sink. “Yeah, don’t worry. You look fine. Bye, Abi.”
“See you,” Abi said.
“That was subtle,” I murmured as we left the bathroom.
“You think?” Abi asked, laughing. “Maybe I should go back in there and do jumping jacks or something. Joking,” she added, when she saw my horrified expression.
I let Abi return to her table first, then I slid back into my seat. While I’d been in the bathroom, Maggie had taken away the sundae and delivered my chocolate shake instead.
I took an extra-long sip of it. The sweet coldness numbed my brain, and I felt grateful.
“Everything okay?” Graydon asked. By then his sundae was just a small puddle in the bottom of his bowl.
“Yep,” I answered.
“You got everything straightened out? Synchronized your watches?”
“Excuse me?”
“With your friends, I mean.”
I looked up at him.
“Your friends are here,” he said, as if I’d been in a coma. “In the diner.”
“They are? Huh.” I sipped more milk shake. “Well, everybody’s here today. There’s Ruby. Oh, hi, Ruby!”
I waved to Ruby as she exited the bathroom. She gave me a look, like, Lia, did you forget you saw me thirty seconds ago?
“I meant your other friends,” Graydon said. “Abigail, Julianna, and Makayla. It’s so funny that they just happen to be here right now.”
“I know, right? What a coincidence.” My heart was banging. Kiss him already. Go. “So, Graydon. There was something I wanted to ask you.”
“Yeah? Shoot.”
I took one more huge sip of milk shake. I wiped my mouth with a napkin—but not completely, so my lips would taste chocolaty. “I was wondering—would it be okay if I please kissed you?”
He pushed away his empty sundae glass. “No, actually.”
NO? HE SAID NO?
OMIGOD, HE SAID NO.
FLOOR, JUST SWALLOW ME WHOLE.
“Nothing personal,” he explained. “I’m just not kissing you in front of your friends.”
“But—”
“I’m not stupid, Lia. This is obviously a part of that game you’re playing, and I refuse to let you all make
fun of me. Again.”
I was probably dripping quarts of sweat into my milk shake, but I didn’t care. “Oh, but we’re not playing that game anymore!”
“Right.”
“No, I swear!”
“Really? Then why the sudden invitation? And why did your friends just happen to be here? And why did I see Abi coming out of the bathroom just before you?”
“Graydon, really, I really do like you. I promise. They couldn’t make me kiss you if I didn’t!”
“Too bad for you, then.” He reached into his wallet for a five-dollar bill and tossed it onto the table. “I don’t get why you hang out with those girls, anyway.”
“They’re my friends,” I said weakly.
“Yeah, you think so, Lia? Anyhow, thanks for telling me about that book. I might read it, even with the dumb ending.”
As soon as Graydon was out the door, Abi, Jules, and Mak came running over.
“What happened?” Jules asked. Her eyes were popping.
I winced. “Nothing. Didn’t you see?”
“We sure did,” Abi said cheerfully. “You never kissed.”
“But it’s totally unfair!” I shouted it so loudly an old lady at the next booth frowned at me. So I lowered my voice. “The only reason we didn’t was because Abi sent over that stupid sundae. It made him suspicious!”
“Well, what were we supposed to do?” Abi argued. “We can’t text you if you don’t have a phone!”
“Why did you need to text me, anyway?”
“Because Mak has to leave for swim practice now,” Jules said. “And we all wanted to see.” She put her hand on my shoulder as if she were consoling me. “You’ll do it some other time, Lia, okay?”
The three of them left while I pretended to finish my shake. Things were just getting worse and worse. Marley had stopped being my friend. Graydon pretty much hated me now; at the absolute least, he didn’t trust me. Abi was on the warpath, and Mak and Jules were just going along with whatever she did. I was hanging on to my group of friends by a thread—and the truth was, I didn’t even know why I wanted to be friends with them anymore.
Honey
WHEN I GOT HOME ABOUT an hour later, Val’s car was in my driveway. As soon as she saw me, she got out of her car with three full shopping bags. Oh, right. Today is Tuesday.