by E. K. Blair
There was only one seat left, and I took it even though it was directly in front of Emma. I prayed I could endure the close proximity. With only thirty minutes left in class, it was possible. But when the teacher left the room to make extra copies, she started kicking the back of my desk.
Perhaps growing tired of my muteness, she called out in her snotty voice, “So bee girl, the janitor said he’d go out with you again, if you’d let him sting you!”
Defiance flared. Why had I taken her shit for so long? Why had I let her put me down and call me names?
I turned around. “Emma, if I’m the bee girl then I’d be the one stinging him. Maybe you should think about repeating freshman year science class. But thinking really isn’t your strong point, is it? Sometimes I wish I had a lower IQ so I could enjoy your company.” I smiled sweetly at her.
Because she wasn’t a mean girl for nothing, she smirked back at me, unfazed by my sudden backbone. She brushed an invisible piece of lint from her sleeve. “Wow, impressive speech,” she sneered. “Too bad it doesn’t get you a boyfriend. I truly pity you, having to screw old Mr. Bronski in the cleaning closet at school just to get a date.” She laughed, and I heard her pseudo-friend April join in.
I stood and walked around to stand beside her, enjoying the surprise on her face. “Here’s a little tip: the art of insulting someone takes brains you don’t have. And it takes a bit of creativity to offend me, so the next time you want to bully me, please come up with something better than ‘bee girl,’ or ‘nerd,’” I said, making the air quotes motion. “Maybe you should worry about yourself from now on Emma. After all, your dear friend April there is screwing your quarterback boyfriend.”
Now, I didn’t know this for certain, but while I’d been people watching last year, I’d intercepted several secret sultry looks being passed between Matt Dawson, Emma’s boyfriend, and April Novak. It was a BA-educated guess.
“I really wanted to save this info for your party, but I think you need to know.” I glanced over at Matt whose mouth was parted in shock. “Matt touches April every chance he gets. In last year’s Euro class, in the hallways, in the lunch line. Maybe he even goes to her house after he leaves yours.”
She gasped and looked at April whose face had flushed a deep red. Matt, whose desk was suspiciously close to April’s, bent his head and covered his guilty eyes with his hand.
Damn that felt good.
***
Two hours later I walked into Calculus class and picked out a table that didn’t have anyone else sitting there, which wasn’t hard considering the room was mostly empty. The room smelled like pine cleaner, and the floors gleamed with the sheen of a new waxing, reminding me that this first day of class was a fresh start for me.
Neither Sebastian nor Mila were in this class, and I didn’t know who would be. Engineering Calculus was an upper level class for serious math people only, only available to students with an SAT of at least 650 in math or a 29 on the ACT. As I looked over the syllabus, I studied the coursework: techniques for integration of trigonometry, exponential and logarithm functions, and polar coordinates applications. All that sounds like Greek to most people, which is funny because the word calculus is actually derived from Latin. I chuckled at my nerd joke.
There was an empty seat beside me until Drew sat down, easing his long legs under the table. Surprised, I stared over at him, and the tension that had lingered between us since New York flared up. We hadn’t really been alone since the night . . . I counted back in my head . . . eight months ago.
“What’s up?” he asked casually and set his books down on the table. He pushed a hand through his wavy brown hair and smiled. I’d always liked his crooked smile, and when he used it, it used to send tingles down my spine. It used to get me hot. Now, it just pissed me off.
“I’ve been dreading this class, but now that you’re here, it’ll be much better.” He paused uncertainly. “Uh, unless you’d rather I didn’t sit here?”
I yanked opened my notebook. “No, that’s fine.” It wasn’t.
“Okay,” he said, staring down at the syllabus on the table.
Long seconds passed, and, of course, I couldn’t stand the silence. I gave in and tried to chitchat. I said inanely, “I heard this class is tough.”
“Nah, we can handle it,” he said, turning his hazel eyes on me. “We can study together if you start having trouble.”
“Pft. Me, have trouble? Please. Tell you what, if you need some extra help, I’d be glad to tutor you, Mansfield.”
He laughed. “You always make me smile, Nora.”
My mouth tightened. “Is that so?”
“Hey, remember that time when Mr. Bray fell asleep during debate practice and his toupee fell off, so we started calling him—”
“Mr. Bray-Toupee,” I interjected rudely, not wanting to share in his little joke.
In the past I wouldn’t have let him know I was hurt by him, but now I wanted him to be uncomfortable. How dare he sit here and talk to me after the way he’d treated me? “So how’s Lori? She’s a junior this year, right?”
He squirmed. “She moved to Miami in June,” he told me, his eyes trained on my face, assessing. “Her dad got a job with a new company there. So, I guess we’re taking a break.”
I nodded my head, thinking of that other time he’d taken a break from Lori. When he and I had been together in New York.
“Can I ask you a question, Nora?” he said, tapping his pencil against the table, like he was nervous.
“What?”
“Do you ever think about our night in New York?”
I turned red, some of it embarrassment, but most of it anger.
“I have. I mean, I felt guilty, because I went back to Lori. And I know I ignored you afterwards,” he said, staring down at his notebook. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to ever talk to me again.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m sorry for being an asshole to you.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, finally letting what I’d wanted to say for months pour out of my mouth. “Yeah, you were. And what hurt the most was I thought we were friends. I was just a one-night stand for you,” I snapped at him. “And I do want you to sit somewhere else, please.”
He frowned as he stood. “I still want be your friend, Nora.”
He moved to another table and class started. When Mr. Foreman started lecturing about the importance of writing multiple paragraphs and supplying graphs and tables to support our answers, I zoned out, glad to not think about Drew.
After class, he walked with me to my locker. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“No,” I said tersely, thinking about Leo and our “date” at the movies.
“Maybe we can go to that bookstore next to Portia’s you like?”
“How’d you know I go there?” I asked, cocking my head. It was always the nice ones who fooled you. Oh wait, he wasn’t nice.
He shrugged. “I saw you a couple of times.”
“You never said hi.”
“I was with Lori,” he said, looking away from me.
“Great, just great,” I said, glaring at him. “You were there with your girlfriend and checking me out at the same time.” I opened my locker, shoved my books inside and slammed it. “I’m sick to death of being second choice,” I muttered under my breath.
When would I be first?
Drew never got to reply because Sebastian walked up and put an arm around me. “Okay, we gotta talk about this hair color, ’cause I like this look on you, Buttercup.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, feeling a pang at hearing Leo’s name for me.
“Wasn’t my name for you anyway,” he reminded me tartly, poking me on the shoulder with a pencil.
I poked him back. “Maybe you should call me Nora like everyone else?”
“Um, yeah, I think not. Not my style at all. How about Rosebud ? Oh, or Flame Brain?”
I shook my head because he really was fun. “My brain is not on fi
re.”
“Okay, what about Cherry or Towering Inferno?”
I snorted. “Are you saying I’m an Amazon? Because that’s been overdone.”
“Okay, okay, I can see you’re hard to please. Wait, I think I have one since you don’t like my nicknames. How about girlfriend?” he asked suggestively, making a face at me.
“Now, I know you’re joking.”
“What? I’m serious all the time. Do you have a boyfriend I don’t know about, ’cause if you do, I’m gonna challenge him to a duel . . . with pistols at dawn or swords . . . or whatever the they do here in Texas.” He flicked his eyes at Drew.
“We mostly fight with our fists in Texas, Mr. LA,” I said, pointing down at his loafers. He and I needed to go shopping. “And wear cowboy boots while we do it.”
“Easy peasy. I know Kung Fu, you know,” he said, jumping into a karate stance and chopping his hands around.
I chuckled and my eyes lingered over to Drew who appeared grim as he watched our banter. I sighed. “Sebastian, this is Drew. He’s super smart and a basketball player. Drew, this is Sebastian. He’s wicked funny and plays football. Now bond,” I said, having a gut feeling these two would hit it off.
They eyed each other warily and must have decided the other was cool, because they started talking sports. I said my goodbyes and headed out to my car at twelve fifteen in the afternoon, leaving them to the mercy of BA.
Chapter 12
Nora
“Even after all that has happened to me, I’ve never given up wishing on stars.” –Nora Blakely
Sometimes, you just need a badass song to get you moving in the right direction, to pump you up. Like a theme song. All the superheroes have them. Even the Power Rangers have a hardcore guitar anthem. So, I may not be Wonder Woman with her invisible plane, but I have been called brilliant before. In fact, I have a collection of theme songs for different days, depending on what was going on in my life, and tonight my theme song was “Perfect” by Pink. I blasted it in my car, listening to her sing about a girl who’d been mistreated and misunderstood.
It was Saturday night and Emma Easton’s party, but first I was swinging by Club Vita to pick up Sebastian and Mila. Sebastian and I had eaten lunch together every day at school this week, and I’d told him all about my passion for sewing and how I planned to wear one of my creations. Tonight I was wearing last year’s Dior black prom dress, or at least part of the dress, since I’d chopped off the long skirt and the sleeves. Now it was strapless and super short. I’d worn my hair braided and twirled up low in the back with loose curls hanging down the sides. I’d put on more make-up than usual, too, coating my eyes in dark liner and smoky eye shadow. On my lips I’d worn the deep red color that matched my hair. Did I look trashy? I shrugged. Who cared. Tonight’s goal was to get drunk and get fucked.
“Sweet,” Sebastian said, whistling as he let me in. “Got a hot date tonight?”
I wiggled my eyebrows like he always did. “I might get lucky.”
“Mm-hmm,” he said, watching me with an interesting expression. I started to ask him what that look meant . . .
Just then the buzzer rang.
“That’ll be Mila,” I said eagerly. Since I’d been leaving school early, we hadn’t had a chance to catch up.
She bounced in, and I swear she looked like a teenage Laura Bush, wearing pearls, a pink velveteen tailored jacket and a pleated chiffon skirt. She’d flung a pink Coach bag over her arm, and I wanted to hug her she was so cute.
I introduced them and her eyes widened, taking in Sebastian’s tall form and blue eyes.
Wait until she met the full-sized version.
“Alrighty then, let’s head up to the loft. Leo’s date brought appetizers for us to try, and he wants to meet Mila,” he said. I noticed when he had said date, his eyes had locked on mine, like he was assessing my reaction.
“You didn’t mention how frickin’ hot Sebastian is. I’m pissed I don’t have any classes with him. By the way, your hair is sweet. So glad you went the Monte Carlo Red and not the blue,” Mila whispered to me as we followed Sebastian up the stairs.
“It was called Midnight Indigo.”
She scrunched her nose. “Whatever. Blue hair is strange.”
When we walked in the spacious kitchen, Leo was laughing down at the petite twenty-something-year-old that had been with him at the park. Up close, I could see she was pretty in polished, confident way, with lots of make-up and manicured nails. She looked relatively normal, too; I couldn’t compete with that.
I watched them, remembering how he didn’t want me. Even though he wasn’t mine, I wanted to pummel her with my fists; I wanted to rip out all her long dark hair. Which looked like extensions.
I stood there uncomfortably until Sebastian eased up beside me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I leaned back against him.
Leo saw us, stiffened, and quickly looked away. I wondered if it was going to be weird between us. It’d been a week since our movie. I’d seen him a couple of times, once when I’d dropped off Sebastian from eating out and once when I’d come to deliver some muffins he’d ordered from Aunt Portia’s. He’d been cordial then, yet detached, his eyes looking everywhere except at me.
He sat down his bottle of Corona. “Guys, this is Tiffany. She works for the catering company that’s doing the food for the grand opening,” he said. “Tiffany, this is Nora and her friend . . . Mila?”
Mila nodded, a dazed and goofy expression on her face. I wasn’t surprised my normally loquacious friend was suddenly struck quiet. Leo could do that.
“They’re both attending Briarcrest Academy with Sebastian.”
Tiffany smiled at us, showing her super white teeth. She raked her gaze over me and Mila, and I assumed mentally dismissed us as no competition. “Oh, really! How charming!” she exclaimed in a true, slow-talking Texas drawl.
Charming. Seriously, do people in their twenties use that word in conversation? I mean, I had a large vocabulary and used words no one else did, but charming just seemed pretentious. I cocked my head and studied her, trying to see what he saw in her.
She kept talking in her dulcet tones. “By the way, it’s Tiffani-with-an-i,” she said, giving us a smile that showcased her dimples. Gag.
As she chatted about her own years in high school, I did the calculations in my head and figured she was only three or four years older than me. I glared at Leo. This was the kind of girl he went for: fake with big tits?
He finally glanced at me, his eyes scanning over my skimpy dress and when he raked both hands through his blond hair furiously, I knew he was fuming about something. I shrugged and took a page from the stupid girl book and flicked my hair over my shoulder.
“Leo,” Tiffani-with-an-i purred, running her hand possessively across his shoulder and down to his bicep, “you’ve got to tell me what machines you use to get this defined. You feel so hard,” she told him teasingly and glanced over at me with a smug look. I looked back in confusion, not understanding her sudden animosity.
She pouted at Leo. “But I only want you to show me how to use them, not one of those mean trainers I’ve seen,” she said, shuddering theatrically.
“Tiffani here is a big fan of astrology,” Sebastian stated suddenly, his mouth twitching. “She’s getting an online license to be an accredited astrological consultant.”
“What like a psychic?” Mila scoffed. “Is that a real thing?”
Tiffani-with-an-i sniffed. “For your information, tarot cards are a science, and I can tell the future.”
“All for nineteen ninety-nine per minute,” Sebastian muttered under his breath, and I covered my laugh with a cough. Mila patted me on the back.
“Hey, aren’t you Ellen Blakely’s daughter, from Good Morning, Dallas?” she asked, her eyes squinting at me.
I stiffened. “Yes.”
“I knew it! I worked with your mother once when she did a cooking segment, and I got to make my spinach quiches on her show! She’s classy,
absolutely divine.” She smirked, her eyes flashing over my dress. “Funny that you look nothing like her.”
“Yes.” Thank God.
“You were there that day,” she said as she shook her finger at me, “but I almost didn’t recognize you with the red hair. And, wow, you were a bit of a chunk then, no offense. How much weight did you lose?”
“I just got taller,” I said politely.
“Sorry if that came out all wrong,” she said in a sugary voice. “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings?”
I laughed. Fat chance. She’d hurt me enough just by being with Leo. “No, I did have a big butt. I had buck teeth and braces, too,” I said as Sebastian started singing Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.” I reached over and popped him in the arm while he laughed and tried to get away.
When Mila grinned at Tiffani-with-an-i with a sly gleam in her eye, I knew her fur had been rubbed the wrong way by Tiffani’s comments. She was going to bite back. “Speaking of being classy, Nora would never tell you herself, but she won the Miss Texas Rose pageant last fall. I saw the whole thing. Big honking diamante crown on her head, and a big-ass sash over her shoulder. It was sweeeet.”
Sebastian’s mouth gaped. “No way. Nora’s no pageant princess.”
I shrugged, not sure what to say.
Sebastian grinned. “Are you going to be in the Miss America pageant because that would be kinda cool. You’d be famous. Which reminds me: do you really glue the bottoms of your swim suit to your ass cheeks? You know, so it doesn’t move?”
They all turned to stare at me, and Leo had the strangest expression on his face, and it frightened me because I couldn’t interpret it. I hated the thought of him thinking I liked pageants. I didn’t want him thinking I needed people constantly telling me I was pretty. I knew I wasn’t.
My pageant experience didn’t start when I was a child, like those freaky kids you see on Toddlers and Tiaras, who tap dance in cowboy gear to “I’m Bringing Sexy Back.” No, I was fat then and a total embarrassment to Mother. Instead, I’d have been a shoo-in for the dreaded title of Best Personality.