“Yep, well it has,” Alice drawled sarcastically, snatching the bag which ripped and left me holding what had been a handle and nothing else. She immediately resumed the task she’d set herself and moved around the room again, picking up more trash from my bedroom floor. “You have only seen us because we’ve come here. You haven’t called any one of us. Actually, come to think of it, you haven’t made the tiniest amount of effort with us,” she continued, staring me down. When I hadn’t bitten and answered back, she continued. “You haven’t even been interested in anything we’ve said when we have been to see you. To be honest, if it hadn’t been for the long history we’d had as friends I’d have told you to go to hell by now.”
I watched Alice pushing the garbage down until she couldn’t cram any more in and tied the bag off at the top in frustration.
It wasn’t a great feeling being roasted by my best friend in the world and my heart sank to my stomach. My chest felt tight at how disappointed she sounded with me. Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I knew I looked dishevelled and pale, and I realized I appeared on the outside pretty much how I’d felt on the inside.
An immediate thought struck me, and I felt less guilty for spending time with Donnie without telling Bradley about it. It wasn’t as if I’d gotten dressed up to go meet with him. Math tutoring was a pure act of kindness toward Donnie, nothing else.
The reason I hadn’t told my boyfriend was because he’d have been mad at me on the phone, and I thought there could be nothing worse than arguing with him from a distance. I sighed, my suspicious eyes darting from Jenna to Sandra and finally back toward Alice. A pang of regret shot through me, and I knew in part I’d ignored how hurt she was by what she’d perceived was my withdrawn behavior.
“Look, I’m sorry. This summer vacation has been tough on me with Brad being away. It’s the first time we’ve been apart in the two years we’ve gone out together. I never meant to neglect all of you.” My eyes scanned the room as a sense of embarrassment washed over me. “That wasn’t my intention at all.”
“I get it, you’re lovesick, Tricia, and perhaps you’re right, we don’t understand because we don’t have Bradleys of our own. However, you really shouldn’t sacrifice all of your relationships with other people for the sake of one. You’re sixteen, and if this boyfriend doesn’t last, you’re going to need your friends to nurse you through a broken heart,” Alice said in a much kinder tone, which would have sounded patronizing had I not known her as well as I did.
“Don’t say that,” I mumbled, hugging myself. Jenna stepped forward immediately and wrapped me in a hug.
It would have been funny because at five feet to my five feet nine, she had gone on to her tiptoes and wobbled as she tried to stay in place.
“Alice, you can be tactless at times,” Jenna scolded, smoothing my hair. Breaking away, I shook my head because I couldn’t think of anything else to say at that moment.
“So are you still insistent on staying home, or are we going to get out of here and have some fun for the rest of the day?” Alice asked, pointedly, a challenge in her eyes.
Although I’d been reluctant, I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right … all of you. Why don’t you give me fifteen minutes? I’ll make a better effort… freshen up my appearance and meet you?
“Yay!” they all said in unison.
“Finally,” Alice added. Their smiles alone made my change of heart worthwhile.
One by one they filed out of my window, along the branch, and into the tree house my father had made for my sister and me as kids. I was sure if my mother caught on that Marnie and I used it to sneak out of the house at night, it would have been dismantled in a heartbeat.
Once the girls had gone, I slipped out of the old T-shirt and overall shorts I had on. I’d noted how nicely dressed and made up they all were so decided to surprise them by wearing a dress.
During the previous trip to the mall, the girls had coaxed me into trying on a tight-fitting lilac dress, telling me it would look amazing against my fair hair. After slipping it over my head and tugging it down over my frame, a little thrill of excitement shot through me when I glanced at myself in the mirror.
In normal circumstances, my boyish, straight up and down body with my two fried eggs for boobs had looked less than flattering in a dress. That was the reason why I’d always worn loose-fitting sweaters and jeans. However, for twenty-nine dollars and tax, not only did the little stretchy number cling to curves I hadn’t known existed before I’d tried it on, it gave my skinny frame the illusion that I actually had breasts.
With the dress on, I tackled my long dark blonde hair, which had more than its fair share of knots. After several minutes of untangling and restyling, it looked far more presentable in a long French braid. Finishing my hair, I applied moisturizer to my face, mascara to my eyes, and finalized my natural look by adding a small swipe of lip gloss.
One last glance in the mirror brought a smile to my face when I’d imagined how Bradley would likely react when he finally saw me wearing my new dress.
“I’m off to meet the girls, Mom,” I shouted when I was halfway out the front door of our house. I’d timed my escape perfectly because she’d been out on the patio at the back of the house and by the time, she had come into view I’d made it halfway up our long dirt driveway. From there it had been easy to pretend I hadn’t heard her calling me from the distance I’d put between us.
All eyes were on me when I walked into the coffee shop, and for once I didn’t mind being the center of attention for my looks. “Good grief,” Sandra said, while Jenna gasped and Alice stood smiling, speechless.
“I told you that dress was made for you. Now that you’ve styled your hair like that, it makes the whole look even better,” Jenna added.
“I’m glad you had the foresight to put on something fancy because we’ve been invited to a party, and we’re not taking no for an answer since we’ve gotten you out of that house.” Alice folded her arms and flashed me a look of determination.
“You never said anything about a party,” I shrieked, suddenly wishing myself back home. “Please, girls, don’t make me go. I won’t enjoy myself knowing Bradley won’t be there.”
“Are you saying you need a man to have fun? Go on, Tricia, what harm can it do? You’ll know some of the kids from our school. What’s wrong with playing catch-up, finding out their news, it’ll be fun. Linda Bell just came back from Paris, David and Gary, the twins … from Italy. Best of all, Tanya Roberts met that rock band you like. I can’t wait to hear what they said to her. She’s so lucky—”
“Jenna, take a breath,” Sandra said, stopping Jenna from rattling on, gushing about everyone’s vacations that summer.
“I didn’t mind coming to hang out for a while, but I’m not in the mood for a party,” I muttered, knowing my mom would be angry if I went off to some grad party without her permission. She would have never approved.
“An hour ago, you weren’t in the mood to come out. You’ve managed to talk yourself into being here with us, so I’m sure if you try hard enough, you can give yourself the go-ahead to come to the party with us.”
“I’m not going to get out of this, am I?”
“No,” they all said together. I shrugged, but I couldn’t hold back the small smile that curved my lips when I looked at their expectant faces. They were fabulous friends and they had made it their mission that day to cheer me up. After a pregnant pause I nodded, figuring the least I could do was to meet them halfway.
“All right, you win. Where is this party and how am I getting home?”
“Kent’s agreed to take us. He can’t drink alcohol because he’s on antibiotics, so he’s our ride home as well,” Alice informed me. Kent was Alice’s brother who had graduated that summer. “The party is at Gideon Lassiter’s house on the hill, he’s Kent’s buddy… you’ve seen him, the hot-looking guy that transferred in last fall?”
“The Lassiters are so rich, Sandra’s been to their house already. They have
an awesome pool and Gideon’s dad is DJing, isn’t that right, Sandra? You know his dad is an events DJ, right?” Jenna piped up, and Sandra nodded.
I vaguely remembered seeing a new good-looking guy hanging around with Kent, but I hadn’t heard anything about the family.
“Alice, are you sure we’re invited? Isn’t he going off to college this year?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry he has a younger sister, Angela. She invited Sandra.”
Sandra nodded. “She did, and when I mentioned you guys, she’s excited to meet and get to know all of you too. You’ll love her, Tricia. She’s so funny and a really nice down-to-earth girl. We were teamed up for that last science lab project. At first, I felt pissed at being given the newbie, but she’s been amazing, I really like her.”
“So you’re coming right? Please? Give us this one night of fun to remember from this vacation,” Jenna asked, with a pleading look that defied me to refuse her.
I sighed heavily, I wasn’t one-hundred-percent sold on hanging out at a party somewhere I’d never been, hosted by someone I’d never met, and without my boyfriend. However, when I took in the hopeful faces of my girlfriends staring back at me, I knew there was no way I’d have let them down.
“All right, I’m in, but it better be good after that buildup,” I warned, smiling. The grins on their faces told me I’d made their day.
As Kent drove along the exclusive zip code of Shawnee Run, I figured my mom would have peed her pants if she’d bagged an invite to any party at such an exclusive address.
I had even thought if she’d ever had found out that I’d gone there, her focus would have been on the family and how well-to-do they were rather than that I’d put myself in a precarious position by attending as a vulnerable sixteen-year-old girl.
Turning, we entered the stone pillars that signaled the start of the long driveway up to the house, and I could even imagine her boasting to Donnie’s mom that I’d been mixing with her sort of people. It wouldn’t have mattered to her how those people had come by their money, just that they had enough to impress her and for her to want to know them.
Mom was a snob of the worst kind, always comparing what we had against everyone else. Everything was a competition and during the times when she found we’d fallen short, she’d used those shortcomings to emotionally beat my father up for not being wealthy enough.
All my dad had wanted was for us to be happy. He had worked damned hard to provide a good standard of living for us, but whatever we had was never enough for my mom. My father obviously felt inadequate, with her constantly highlighting his failings, so he’d resorted to buying her jewels she’d never worn. After that it was new fully loaded cars with the upgrades she had never used nor knew what half of those were for.
“Tricia, I hope you’re not moping back there,” Alice warned from the front seat, as she flipped down the visor and stared at me through the tiny rearview mirror stuck to the back of it.
“I wasn’t,” I said, objecting to her accusation and glancing toward Jenna and Sandra, who were looking directly at me. I hated Alice had drawn attention to Bradley not being there again. “I was thinking how much my mom would have loved to have come here as well.” The girls knew what a pain my mom was and chuckled.
“Wow,” Jenna said, in a breathy, impressed tone, as she looked out of the windshield ahead. Following her gaze, I almost swallowed my tongue when I saw the gorgeous grand doorway of the Lassiter’s house.
“Are you sure Gideon’s parents know he’s having this party?” I asked, as I noticed more than a few old shabby hand-me-down trucks, a beat-up old Corolla with different colored doors, and worst of all, there was a rusty truck parked on the grass. I couldn’t help thinking my mom would never had allowed any of those cars to park on the driveway of such a property.
Nearer the front of the house, the class of cars changed markedly with a few, pristine, new high-end 4x4s, a classic Ford Mustang, and another shiny muscle car I didn’t know the make of.
Glancing up at the entrance porch with its grand oval-shaped glass door, I felt a shot of nerves run through my body. A normally confident girl contradicted the sudden tension I felt at being in that unfamiliar situation for some reason. It wasn’t as if I’d gone there on my own. My girls were all right there with me, but I had felt uneasy just the same.
“Make sure you girls stick together and don’t take drinks from guys. Get your own, don’t put it down anywhere, and if anyone comes over to talk to you cover it.” The warning look in Kent’s eyes made my back stiffen, and I had felt it a tad dramatic, given we were all school kids and not kidnappers, rapists, and murderers.
“Sandra,” a pretty raven-haired girl, with massive dark blue eyes, gushed from behind the well-built man who’d answered the door. I sensed instantly he was their home security.
“Hey, Angela,” our friend replied, stepping around the huge bodyguard and hugging Angela tight. “These are my friends I told you about, Jenna, Alice …” Pointing at each of us to identify who was who.
“Tricia,” Angela finished pointing to me. “We have English and math together,” she remarked, with the same friendly smile she’d flashed me when we’d passed one another in the hallways or in the cafeteria at break or lunch times. Guilt immediately ran through me, and I had wished for a second or two I’d tried harder to welcome her when she’d joined the school two weeks into the last semester before summer break.
“Yeah, I thought that … sorry we haven’t had the chance to hang out—" I replied, mortified that she’d give me an out. I scanned the gorgeous marble entrance hall with a gallery hallway upstairs, and my eyes settled on the huge antique crystal chandelier hanging from their ceiling. My mom would have gladly died for that.
“That’s okay, I could see you had your hands full with that cute guy you’re always with. Not here with you tonight?” she asked, craning her neck past the bodyguard, who had been closing the door by then.
“No, he’s been gone all summer helping his grandpa in Illinois.”
“That’s a shame, you must be missing him,” she remarked sympathetically. Addressing all of us, she gestured behind her with her thumb. “Shall we go party?” she asked tentatively, but I knew she was dying to take us back there.
“Absolutely,” Sandra replied, while Jenna and Alice giggled like the immature schoolgirls they were.
“Let’s go. You did bring swimsuits or bikinis with you, right?”
Alice patted her purse, “I did, but I had to sneak it out of the house. Would you have an extra towel?”
The rest of us shook our heads, and Angela told us she had some spares her mom had bought for that summer but they’d never worn. By the time she’d turned away and began to walk toward the back of the hallway with us in tow, I knew I wouldn’t be taking her up on her offer.
Chapter Ten
Tricia aged sixteen
Walking through the kitchen, us girls stared open-mouthed in awe at its modern luxury, white cabinets, and fancy upscale appliances. It looked like something out of a magazine. My mom would have had a coronary just stroking the laminate on those, I had thought.
Stepping through the French doors at the back of the house, nothing could have me prepared for their incredible backyard. It took my breath away with its sculpted designer swimming pool with fancy mosaic tiling full of partygoers.
From the front of the house, as plush as it looked, no one could have imagined the huge dedicated party area, with its massive patio hidden within the secluded surroundings of the thick row of conifer trees that served as a privacy backdrop.
“Guess who?” A boy’s hands covered my eyes, but I knew the voice immediately. I’d been listening to it all summer long.
“Donovan Clark,” I mumbled, as my heart beat fast in my chest at the unexpected surprise.
“Wow, Tricia, that was spooky, how did you guess correctly right off the bat?” Jenna asked. Crap.
I shrugged, my heart raced faster because I’d put both him and me on
the spot. “Lucky guess, or… that I’d already seen him out of the corner of my eye right before he did that?” I suggested, making light of him singling me out in public.
Donnie had been my boyfriend for a few months right before I had gotten with Bradley. I was only thirteen and he was a year and a half older. We were kids playing house at that age, nothing serious… not on my end at least, but after I’d started to date my boyfriend, Donnie had continued to find reasons to keep calling on me.
At one point I had begun to feel harassed and Marnie intervened. She’d warned him to quit his stalking and meddling in my business or we’d tell his dad or go to the sheriff. After that he appeared to back off for a while.
However, a year or so after that he intercepted me on my way to school one day, and begged me to coach him in math. I had been regarded as something of a freak when it came to the subject, and his grades had been slipping all that year as the lessons had gotten harder.
As a very talented football player, Donnie had set his sights on the NFL, but because of his slipping grade in math, he’d been in danger of losing the opportunity of a full scholarship to college. None of his friends had wanted to see that happen, he was a star player in our school football team and deserved to do better, therefore, although I knew Brad wouldn’t have liked it, I had agreed to help.
As time passed, I knew how serious he was about doing better and as a result of the studies we became good friends, but neither of us mentioned to Bradley what I’d been doing, because he would have insisted I stop. At the same time, I knew Brad had no problems in school and had been blessed with a super brain, which I knew would have given him the opportunity to do exactly as he wanted.
Although I had hated keeping it from Brad, I couldn’t see why his jealousy should have stopped Donnie from getting the help he’d asked for.
During that summer Brad was away, I’d spent a lot of time improving Donnie’s grade and by the time our school vacation was almost over, he’d come a long way. His understanding had improved to the extent whereby, I’d felt confident his ability would allow him to sit and pass any test his math teacher set for him.
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