by Meg Cabot
"Yeah," Trina muttered in a voice audible only to me, "but if they break up, then he'll be free, and you can finally ask him out, Jen, the way I told you to way back at the beginning of the year."
"Trina!" I was shocked. I mean, poor Geri! Poor Scott!
Mr. Hall, who was the one collecting all the money, came over just then and clapped his hands.
"That's enough chitchat!" he said, his goatee all atremble. "Work, people! Work!"
It was right then that Luke appeared, seemingly from nowhere. I mean, I hadn't seen his limo anywhere.
"Luke!" I couldn't help crying out when I saw him. Then I added, hastily, "Us. I mean, Lucas."
"Hey," Luke said, grinning in a kind of lopsided way as he strolled up to us through the parking lot. Unlike the rest of us, Luke wasn't wearing a swimsuit and shorts. He was fully dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. It seemed a little warm for flannel, but maybe that's what Luke thought a high school boy would wear to a car wash. "Sorry I'm late."
"Wow, you came," Trina cried, bouncing up to him. "That's so great, Jen wasn't sure you'd be able to make it."
The truth was, Luke and I had never discussed his weekend plans. I'd just figured he'd stay at his condo at the lake and show up at school on Monday. It had never occurred to me he might . . . well, want to hang out with a bunch of high school kids instead. I felt a little guilty for not asking if he'd like to join us.
But Luke obviously had needed no invitation.
"Change of plans," Luke said, still grinning easily at Trina. "Besides, looks like you guys need all the help you can get. You got a line of cars all the way back to Rax."
Trina ran and got Luke a bucket and sponge, and soon, right before my disbelieving eyes, he started washing away right there with us, laughing and joking and having what looked to me like a genuinely good time. Everybody was. Having a good time, I mean.
Everybody but Scott and Geri, that is. They were still arguing down at the other end of the parking lot. I was trying not to stare and all—also trying not to tell myself that it was all my fault—but it was kind of hard not to when Geri suddenly shrieked, "Fine! If that's how you feel, it's over?" and started storming for Chi-Chi's—I guess so she could go into the ladies' room there and have a good cry.
Scott called after her, but it was no good. Geri went tearing into the building, sobbing almost as loudly as Cara after a particularly rough mooing.
I laid down my sponge. I had a pretty good idea where I was going to be spending the rest of my afternoon.
But before I had a chance to go rushing off after Geri—before I had a chance to utter a single word of comfort to a visibly stricken Scott as I went by him on my way into the restaurant, before I could even so much as take a single step—Luke, who'd apparently missed the fight, went, "Man, it's hot out here."
And took off his shirt.
Ask Annie
Ask Annie your most complex interpersonal relationship questions.
Go on, we dare you!
All letters to Annie are subject to publication in the Clayton High School Register.
Names and e-mail addresses of correspondents guaranteed confidential.
Dear Annie,
I am seriously in love with my best friends girlfriend. What do I do?
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
Nothing, if you want to preserve the friendship. The only way you can make a move is if your friend and his girlfriend break up. Then, and only then, may you ask her out, but only after a suitable period of mourning has passed.
Don’t be surprised if your friend gets mad at you anyway, even if you do wait until they’ve broken up. Friend do not date their friends significant others…..even their exes.
Annie
EIGHT
At first I didn't think anything of it. You know, Luke taking his shirt off. Half the guys at the car wash had their shirts off.
So the guy took his shirt off? Big deal. I had way more important things to worry about, such as Clayton High's. It Couple apparently breaking up before my very eyes and possibly—I know not solely because of, but partially, maybe—because of me.
Still, Trina's sharp intake of breath stopped me in my tracks just as I was about to race off after Geri.
I don't know why it stopped me. But it did. I stopped right where I was, then turned around slowly.
I looked at Trina. Her gaze was riveted on Luke. And not just on his truly impressive six-pack . . . the light smattering of fair hair that covered his chest before snaking down that six-pack and disappearing into the waistband of his Levi's . . . his thoroughly impressive biceps.
Not that all of those things weren't worth staring at. Because they totally were.
No, it was the tattoo on Luke's arm, just beneath his right shoulder, that seemed to be holding Trina's attention.
The tattoo that said Angelique.
"Oh my Go—"Trina started to say. She didn't get to finish, however, because I slapped a hand over her mouth.
"Mmm, mmm," Trina said urgently into my palm. But I had her in a grip of iron.
"Shut up and come with me," I hissed in her ear, and started dragging her toward the doors to Chi-Chi's.
"Buh mmm," Trina tried to say, but I wouldn't let go of her.
"Girls," Mr. Hall said irritatedly as we went by, "this isn't time to play games. We have a lot of cars to wash."
"Yeah, I know. We'll be right out, Mr. Hall," I assured him. "We just have to go to the ladies' room."
Then I pulled Trina into the Chi-Chi's vestibule, and shoved her into the ladies' room . . . where I finally released my hand from her mouth.
"Oh my God, Jen!" she screamed. "That's Luke Striker! The new guy is Luke Striker!"
"Shhhh " It was taking a little while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the restaurant after having been out in the bright sunlight for so long. Still, I didn't need to be able to see to tell that we weren't in the rest room alone. I could hear Geri sniffling in the last stall. . . .
At least until she heard the words Luke Striker.
"I knew it!" Geri Lynn came bursting out of the stall like a bucking bronco from its pen. "I knew he looked familiar! Lucas is Luke Striker?"
"Listen," I said, looking from one girl to the other. Trina's face was flushed with excitement and sun. Geri's was puffy from crying. But both wore expressions of eager interest. "Okay. Yes, Lucas is Luke Striker. He's here to research a part. And Dr. Lewis himself asked me to please keep Luke's real identity a secret, so you guys have to—"
But it was like talking to a couple of two-year-olds. Because instead of a rational conversation taking place, Trina and Geri turned toward each other and started jumping up and down, shrieking at the top of their lungs: "Luke Striker! Luke Striker! Luke Striker!"
"Hey," I said, really afraid half the people in the restaurant were going to come running in. "Cut it out. I told you, it's supposed to be a secret—"
"Oh my God, I knew it was him," Trina stopped jumping long enough to say. "I knew it the other day at lunch, when he said he was a vegetarian. Because you know I stopped eating meat when I read in Teen People that Luke has been a vegetarian since his days on Heaven Help Us."
"I knew he was Luke Striker," Geri said, "at last night's Register meeting. You know, Jen, when he started talking about a celebrity's right to privacy? I swear when he said that, I was actually thinking to myself, 'You know, he looks so much like Lancelot from Lancelot and Guinevere, I wonder if he IS Luke Striker?"
"You guys!" I yelled in my meanest voice, the one I only use when I'm baby-sitting and the kids start squirting ketchup at each other or whatever.
It did the trick, though. Both Trina and Geri stopped talking and looked at me.
"Listen to me," I said in a low, even voice. "Luke's real identity is supposed to be a secret. Nobody is supposed to know the truth, understand? That's how Luke wants it. He's here because he's researching a part. He can't research a part if people don't act normally around him. And if
it gets out that he's really Luke Striker, nobody is going to be acting normally around him, now, are they?"
Trina and Geri exchanged glances.
"I wholly respect that," Trina said. "Luke has such deep appreciation for his craft that, as a fellow artist, I could never do anything that might in some way interfere with his creative goals. I won't say a word to anyone."
Not to be outdone, Geri made the Girl Scout sign with her fingers. "I'll take it to the grave."
For the first time since Luke had taken his shirt off—no, since Geri had started yelling at Scott—I felt myself relax a little.
"Okay," I said. "Good. Then it's agreed. Neither of you is going to say a word to anyone about Luke not really being—"
"Oh my God," Trina said, smacking herself in the forehead. "Why did I tell Steve I'd go to the Spring Fling with him when I could have gone with Luke Striker?"
"In your dreams," Geri said. "He's taking me."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Did you two listen to a word I just said?"
"Yeah, sure," Trina said. "Pinky swear to secrecy, yadda yadda yadda. I can still dream about him, can't I?"
"Well, I don't have a Spring Fling date anymore," Geri said, opening her purse and taking out her lipstick. "So my dreams are about to come true. I'm going to go out there and ask him right now."
I stared at Geri in horror. "Ask who? Luke? To go to the Spring Fling? But—but I thought you were going with Scott!"
"Not anymore, I'm not," Geri said, expertly applying a layer of gloss.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I mean, I'd suspected, but to hear her just blurt it out like that . . . "You and Scott broke up? For real? Just now?"
"That's right." Apparently satisfied by what she saw in the mirror, Geri dropped her lipstick back in her purse and turned to me. "And don't try to talk me into taking him back, Jen. I know you thought we were a great couple, but the truth is, it's better this way for the both of us. I'm leaving for UCLA at the end of the summer, and he's still got another year left here in Clayton, and . . . and it's just easier this way."
I could tell by the set of her jaw that Geri meant it.
Still, in spite of her warning me not to, I felt like I had to say something.
"But you guys have had fights before, and you've always worked it out. Maybe you should sleep on it, Geri. You might feel different after you've had some time to think about it."
"Not this time," Geri Lynn said. She reached back into her bag and pulled out her date book. The date book. The one she'd shown me, the one with all the hearts in it. She opened it and, taking out a pen, put a big black X through today's date.
I couldn't help noticing that the number of hearts on the month At-A-Glance pages had diminished somewhat drastically over the past six or seven weeks. Like, to nothing. Either Geri had slacked off recording their most intimate moments, or she and Scott hadn't had any in quite some time. . . .
Her next statement cleared up the mystery.
"No," Geri said, "this has been a long time coming, Jenny. I've felt as if Scott and I were drifting apart for some time now. We just don't have the same interests . . . the same goals. Can you believe he didn't even want to go the Spring Fling? He wanted to go to some anti-Spring Fling party Kwang is having—"
I knew all about Kwang's anti-Spring Fling party. I was planning on going to it myself.
"So you're just going to ask him?" Trina demanded. Trust Trina to completely ignore the fact that Geri's—not to mention Scott's—heart might very well be broken. All she wanted to know was what Geri's plans for Luke Striker were. "Luke, I mean? You're just going to march up to him and ask him to the Spring Fling?"
"You better believe it," Geri said, throwing back her shoulders. "Get outta the way."
"Wait a minute," Trina said. "Asking Luke Striker to the Spring Fling was my idea. I thought of it first!"
"But you already have a date, don't you?" Geri reminded her sweetly.
"Not for long," Trina declared, and bolted for the bathroom door.
"WAIT!" Geri practically broke her neck pelting after Trina.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I mean, here were two people whom I'd basically always thought of as mature young women—two people whose keen intellect and independence I had always envied and respected—and they were practically at each other's throats. Over a BOY, of all things!
"You guys," I yelled, running after them through the Chi-Chi's vestibule and then out into the parking lot. "You guys, remember, you promised not to—"
But I never got to remind Trina and Geri not to tell anyone about Luke's identity. Because by the time I caught up with them, they were standing on the outer fringes of this huge crowd that had gathered around Luke and the sedan he'd been washing.
Only now Luke was on top of the car's roof, shouting frantically into a cell phone while he tried to fend off the grasping hands of about seventy-five Troubadours, Chi-Chi's waitresses, random housewives who'd been on their way to the mall, and even a few of the guys from the pickup trucks, all of whom were screaming "Luke! Luke! LUKE!"
"Oh my God, you guys," I yelled at Trina and Geri as I watched Luke struggle to avoid the groping hands all around him. "What'd you do?"
"It wasn't us," Geri said with a shrug. "We came out and they were already at it."
"I guess I'm not the only person in Clayton who knows about Luke Striker's Angelique tattoo," Trina said glumly.
Geri stamped her foot. "How am I going to ask him to the Spring Fling now! I can't get anywhere near him!"
As if that were the worst of anyone's problems! Poor Luke was about to be torn limb from limb, and all his most diehard fans could worry about was how they were going to ask him to the Spring Fling!
I looked up at Luke. He didn't seem scared or anything—though I would have been, if I were in his shoes. He'd hung up the cell phone and was trying to speak rationally to the horde of screaming women around him.
"Listen," he was saying. "You can all have autographs. Really. Just one at a time, okay?"
Nobody listened. Girls were thrusting pens and Chi-Chi's menus at him from all sides. The sopranos were the worst. Karen Sue Walters wanted Luke to sign her chest, I guess because she couldn't find any paper.
But the altos weren't behaving any better. I even saw Bored Liz—only she didn't look so bored anymore—climb up over the hood of the car and fling her arms around Luke's legs. He nearly lost his balance and fell, but Liz didn't seem to care. She was sobbing into his pant legs, crying, "Luke! Oh, Luke! I love you!"
It was way pathetic. I have to admit, I was totally embarrassed for my gender.
But the girls weren't the only ones. Even some of the guys were acting like complete fools. I heard this one guy in a John Deere baseball cap say to his friend, "I'm gonna get me an autograph and sell it on eBay!"
And Mr. Hall? Mr. Hall, a teacher who should have known better? He was the worst of all! He was screaming up at Luke, "Mr. Striker, Mr. Striker, would it be all right if I gave you the screenplay I've been working on? It's a dramedy about a young man's coming-of-age while working in the chorus of a major Broadway musical. I think you'd be perfect for the part!"
Only a couple of people in the parking lot were hanging back that I could see. One of them was Scott. He was leaning against his car, just watching, a pillar of sanity in a sea of total wackos.
I rushed over to him. I'd completely forgotten about the Geri Lynn thing. All I could think of was the fact that if somebody didn't do something, and soon, Luke was going to be torn in two, just like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, only by his fans, not the British.
"Do you think we should call the police?" I asked Scott worriedly. "I mean, I don't want to call the cops on my friends, but—"
But the only alternative I could see was trying to help Luke myself—except that I didn't see how I could. I mean, the crowd around the car he was standing on was about ten people deep. No way was I going to be able to get to him. . . .
&nb
sp; "Don't worry," Scott said. "Already done."
I blinked up at him. "Already—you called the police?"
He held up his cell phone. Even as he winked at me, off in the distance I could hear the wail of a police siren.
"Oh, thank you," I said, feeling a huge wave of relief.
"So I take it he's not really enrolled," Scott said, putting his cell phone back in his pocket.
"What?" I'd been watching a Chi-Chi's waitress lunge for the autograph Luke had just given her. "Oh, no. He's just doing research for a part."
"Do Lewis and those guys know?"
"Yeah. It was their idea."
Scott shook his head. "They'll probably refuse to comment. Too bad. Still, this'll make a great story."
The fact that Scott could think about the Register at a time like this made me think he wasn't too concerned for Luke.
Or upset over the whole thing with Geri.
"Scott, I—"
I'm sorry about you and Geri Lynn. That's what I'd been going to say.
Except that right then three different things happened. The first was that a Duane County squad car pulled into the parking lot, its siren blaring. The second was that a long black limo—the same one, I guess, that picked Luke up from school every day—appeared from behind the restaurant, almost as if it had been there all along.
And the third was that Geri Lynn came running up to us, her eyes shining.
"Can you believe this?" she wanted to know. "I'm killing myself that nobody's got a camera. Something finally happens in this hick town, and we've got no way to record it!"
I couldn't tell if she'd managed to ask Luke to the Spring Fling or not. I was guessing not, as the crowd around him was still pretty thick. A lot of people had backed off at the sight of the squad car, and even more were milling away as the police officer, who was a really big guy, strolled confidently into the fray. Still, Luke hadn't gotten down from the top of the car.
"If only Kwang were here!" Geri said regretfully. "He has one of those digital cameras on his cell phone!"
The police officer had fought his way through the crowd and made it up to the car. He said something to Luke, who smiled gratefully at him, then climbed down from the car roof, while the officer held back the really diehard fans, the ones who were just not getting the point. I'm sorry to say that a good number of the sopranos, Trina among them, were in this group.