Shut Out

by Kody Keplinger

  That won’t be happening anytime soon, I thought guiltily, before following him down to the living room, where we ended our date with a little couch cuddling and a Leonardo DiCaprio movie.

  chapter nine

  “Hey, Lissa!”

  I was on my way to AP US History the next Tuesday afternoon when Susan Port, girlfriend of Luther, a linebacker, caught my arm. Before I could jerk away, she dragged me into the closest girls’ bathroom.

  “You,” she began, letting go of my arm and spinning to face me. I flinched, thinking I was in trouble. Like maybe she was mad at me for some reason—and that wouldn’t have boded well for me. Susan was on the girls’ basketball team. She was, like, five-eleven and built. If she wanted to, she could have really hurt me.

  But when our eyes met, a huge grin spread across her face.

  “You, Lissa Daniels, are a fucking genius.”

  I sighed with relief, and Susan laughed.

  “For real,” she said. “Luther and I went out on Saturday night. We went to The Nest, and I looked good. I mean, Beyoncé good. He wanted to take me up to Lyndway Hill for a little fun afterward, but I totally made him drive me home instead. He was so confused. He would have done anything.”

  “I’m glad it’s working,” I said, tugging on the bottom of my shirt. I was also glad that her reservations about the ethicality of using sex seemed to have faded. “I knew it would work, of course, but it’s nice to hear other people are, uh, having success.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  She moved to face the mirror, searching for nonexistent blemishes on her perfect complexion. I was sure she was right about how she’d looked Saturday night. Even in her sweatpants and oversized T-shirt, Susan looked like a queen, her black hair pulled up into a simple ponytail at the top of her head, accenting her high cheekbones. Poor Luther.

  “Actually,” Susan said after a moment, “I was thinking: Maybe the other girls would feel the same way. Like, it might make them more confident if they heard everyone else’s stories.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Oh, we could e-mail our stories to one another through the e-mail chain I set up. That would be—”

  “I was actually thinking more along the lines of slumber parties,” she cut in, turning back to me. “With all twelve of us, plus whatever soccer girlfriends joined. It’ll be crowded as hell, but it might still be fun. I can host the first one. This weekend? Like, after the game Friday?”

  I hesitated. Images of pillows being tossed and furniture being overturned coursed through my mind. I wasn’t exactly a slumber-party expert, but I could just picture the chaos of twelve-plus girls piled into one room. I mean, I could barely sleep sharing a room with just Chloe. Twelve girls? It wasn’t something I thought I’d particularly enjoy.

  But the other girls would. Susan was looking at me with such excitement, such certainty that this would help the others. I had to put the cause before my own control issues. I had to think of Randy and Pete and the other boys who had been hurt in this feud.

  Knowing I would likely regret it later, I said, “That sounds like a great idea, Susan.”

  So that afternoon I sent out an e-mail to all the girls who had taken the oath in the library last Tuesday, instructing them to be at Susan’s house on Cherry Drive no later than nine on Friday night, once the football game ended. After double- and triple-checking the e-mail for spelling and punctuation, I wrote a postscript to Ellen that she should forward the message to the soccer players’ girlfriends she’d convinced to join us. Then I clicked send.

  “You okay?” Cash asked when I’d shut off the library computer from which I’d sent the e-mail. Our shift was about to start, and this time, he’d arrived early.

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked a little too harshly.

  Cash shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “You just look really stressed.”

  “I always look stressed,” I told him.

  “Well, we should do something about that,” he said, giving me a smile as he brushed past me, carrying a stack of autobiographies.

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked. “And how do we plan on doing that?”

  He looked over his shoulder at me. “I could think of a few ways.”

  I gaped, shocked that he was being so suggestive.

  Cash’s face shifted into an expression of horror and he spun around to face me. “Oh—I didn’t mean it like that.” He shook his head and adjusted the books in his arms. “I was going to say, like, yoga or journaling or whatever it is people do to relieve… Yeah. Sorry.”

  But I was laughing now. I couldn’t help it—he just looked so abashed. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be gentle.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I remembered that I was referencing our night over the summer—the night I was pretending never happened.

  Cash chuckled and winked at me. “How do you know I don’t want it rough?”

  Okay, that time it definitely wasn’t an accident.

  But Cash walked away toward the bookshelves, leaving me with my eyes clenched shut in embarrassment. It wasn’t like I could tell him off for flirting with me when, admittedly, I’d kind of started it.

  I grabbed a few children’s books and ran upstairs to shelve them, putting an entire floor between Cash and me. Unfortunately, less than ten minutes later, Jenna found me hiding out.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “Nothing,” I said, pretending to re-alphabetize the shelf in front of me. “My job. Why?”

  “That shelf is fine,” she said. “But Cash needs your help downstairs. I just checked in a bunch of books and I need you two to put them away.”

  I sighed. I’d hoped to avoid him for the rest of the afternoon. I should have known it wouldn’t work.

  I started to walk toward the stairs, but Jenna called after me. “Hey, Lissa?”

  “Yes?” I was hoping she would change her mind, assign me to do something away from Cash.

  “Is, um… Is your brother picking you up tonight?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “No reason… Okay, what are you waiting for? Chop, chop. Cash is waiting for you.”

  I rolled my eyes and kept walking. Oh, God, Jenna had a thing for Logan. I so didn’t need to know that.

  Cash smiled at me when I reached the first floor. “Hey,” he said. “I’ve already piled the returned books here.” He gestured to the cart. “Now we just need to put them away.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything. It seemed like every time I opened my mouth around Cash, I said things I shouldn’t. I had a boyfriend, after all. One I really loved. I didn’t know what it was about Cash, either. I wasn’t normally the flirting type—far from it. And I didn’t even like him. Not anymore.

  I also didn’t understand why he was working at the library with me right now. Didn’t he have soccer practice? Friends to hang out with? Other girls to reject?

  “Why are you here?”

  Crap. The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. We’d just pushed the cart against the wall of the Fiction section, and I was crouched on the floor, staring up at Cash as he handed me a copy of It by Stephen King that needed to go on the bottom shelf.

  “Huh?”

  I bit my lip, taking the book and putting it on the shelf, making sure the spine was even with those around it. “I-I mean… Why are you working today? Don’t you have soccer practice or something?”

  “Oh.” Cash laughed. It was a deep, mature laugh. Not like Randy’s loud, goofy cackle.

  I shouldn’t have been comparing the two. God, I was a terrible girlfriend.

  “Well,” Cash said, handing me another Stephen King book, “I do technically have practice, but I’ve talked to Coach Lukavics and he’s agreed to let me miss for work on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Don’t you need the practice? I’m not saying you’re bad and need practice—you’re good at soccer—I mean, when I’ve seen you play bef
ore, which was, like, once when I was passing by the field to get to the concession stand during a football game, so I didn’t see much, but…” I took a deep breath. I was a babbling idiot. I hated it. “I just meant, don’t you need to go to practice with the other guys?”

  Cash grinned at me—a smug, teasing grin, like the one he’d given me when he knew he was winning that cheesy Star Game of his over the summer. I looked away, wishing I could stop thinking about that night.

  “I’m actually working here to help out my parents,” he said as I checked to make sure all of the books on the shelf before me were in the correct order. “My dad just got laid off, so we need a little more money around the house. My mom didn’t want me to, but I decided to get a job to help pay the bills and stuff until Dad can get work again.”

  I looked up at him, surprised. “So the money you make here is going to your parents? Wait, sorry, that isn’t my business, I guess.”

  “You’re fine,” he said, reaching down a hand. I took it reluctantly, and he pulled me to my feet. “But yeah, it will go to them. They’ll hate taking it from me, but it’s the least I can do to help. I don’t make much here—well, I guess you know that—but I plan to cash the checks and sneak the money into Mom’s purse every two weeks. She’ll find out I’m doing it, but money’s tight, so she can’t really afford to fight me.”

  “God, Cash, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “It’s okay,” he assured me. “We all have tough times once in a while, right?”

  “Yeah. You’re right.”

  I couldn’t help but think of Logan. He’d given up going to grad school to come home and help take care of Dad and me after Mom died. And Cash was doing the same thing—giving up his time, his practice, to help out his family when they hadn’t even asked him to.

  Suddenly I realized that my hand was still in his from when he’d pulled me to my feet a few seconds before. I jerked my arm away and stumbled backward, accidentally ramming my hip bone against the nearly empty cart of books. “Ouch! Damn it.” I rubbed my hip, hoping it wouldn’t bruise.

  “You okay there?” Cash was staring at me, looking a little amused, with one eyebrow raised like he was about to laugh at me.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Careful,” he teased. “Those carts… They can be dangerous.”

  “Ha, ha,” I mumbled. “All right. We should get back to work; we’re moving too slowly, and there will be other things to shelve soon.”

  “Okay, Jenna Junior.”

  I buried my face in my hands. God, he was so right. I sounded just like her. “Ugh, sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said, reaching around me to grab a John Grisham book off the cart. “To be honest, Lissa, there is no one I’d rather shelve with.”

  Right, I thought. That’s some consolation there. He liked me enough to work with me but not enough to give me a real chance. Not enough to call me back.

  We worked in silence as we put away the remaining sixteen—yes, I counted—books. No matter what I told myself, I knew I couldn’t hate Cash, especially now that I knew his reason for working here. The fact was, he was a good guy.

  A good guy who just… didn’t want me the way I’d wanted him.

  Even though I loved Randy and didn’t want to be with Cash anymore, I knew it would be a while before I completely got over his rejection. It was out of my control.

  chapter ten

  “Pass the popcorn over here, Chloe.”

  “Keep your panties on. Let me get a handful first.”

  “Is there any more Diet Coke?”

  “Here you go…. Don’t you dare spill it on my rug, or my mother will kill me!”

  Sixteen girls squeezed into Susan’s bedroom on Friday night after the Hamilton Panthers lost to the Oak Hill Tigers (I said my boyfriend was a quarterback, not that he was a good one). Sixteen girls in one bedroom—and believe it or not, that wasn’t even everyone who’d taken the oath. Ellen reported that she’d gotten all of the soccer players’ girlfriends to join the cause. But, as to be expected, a few girls couldn’t make the sleepover for various reasons.

  But sixteen of us showed up, and that was more than enough to have me on edge. I found myself on the floor, in the corner of Susan’s room, with my knees pulled up to my chest, counting and recounting the girls, the tiles in the ceiling, the Lakers posters on Susan’s wall—anything just to relax a bit. But with everyone talking over one another and tossing pillows and carelessly passing around overflowing bowls of food, relaxation seemed pretty far out of the realm of possibility.

  I knew that the strike was my idea and that meant I should be the leader here, but I couldn’t shake the thought that I would have had a much better time on a nice, quiet date with Randy.

  “Hey, listen up!” Chloe shouted over the chatter. Everyone fell silent and turned to look where she was standing, right in the middle of the room. She was dressed in her skimpy pink pajamas, with her curly brown hair pulled up in an alligator clip. “All right,” she said. “So Lissa asked us all here so we could have a little fun and share stories about our scheming and shit, and eat brownies and… and what the fuck? Why am I doing this? Lissa, get your ass up here. You’re the one running the show.”

  She reached over to me, her reassuring smile like a secret between us as she pulled me to my feet. Then she dragged me into the center of the room.

  “Take it away, babe,” she said, plopping down on the floor and grabbing her fifth brownie from the Tupperware box I’d brought from home.

  The girls instantly began forming a circle around me, like first graders during story time. A few sat on Susan’s bed. Others were lying on their stomachs or sitting cross-legged on the carpet at my feet, looking up at me expectantly.

  “Okay,” I said, tapping my fingers against my leg. I could do this. Now that the girls were still and quiet and attentive, I could handle it. “So Susan thought it would be interesting to share our stories about what has happened so far in our efforts to end the rivalry. Does anyone have a good story?”

  “I do,” Kelsey said, raising her hand.

  “Bet you ten bucks it’s boring as fuck,” Chloe whispered, much too loudly, to Susan.

  Kelsey shot her a death glare before turning back to me. I gestured for her to continue.

  “So Terry came over Saturday night unexpectedly. I’d mentioned that my parents weren’t going to be home, but I hadn’t, like, invited him or anything. So he just shows up out of nowhere with this big goofy grin on his face and a bottle of wine he’d convinced his brother to buy him. He totally thought my saying my parents were out of town was a cue that he was going to get some. Which, duh, is stupid anyway.” She shook her head. “Whatever. When I told him no, he looked like a hurt puppy. He just kept asking if I was mad at him. I told him no, but he didn’t believe me. So you know what he did next?”

  I looked at Chloe, silently begging her not to say anything.

  She stayed quiet.

  “He totally made me dinner. Like, he went into my kitchen and cooked me a fucking meal. Since when can he cook? But anyway. Yeah. He was so sure I was pissed that he would do anything to suck up. It was so cute… and lame. Mostly cute.”

  “So, in other words, Kelsey has a girlfriend now,” Susan joked.

  A few girls laughed. Others called out things like, “Lucky! Seth never cooks for me!” Even Chloe smiled and shook her head. I wondered if, like me, she was imagining Terry—a stout, muscular boy with a constant five o’clock shadow—wearing a pink apron and bustling around a kitchen.

  “Wow, Kelsey,” Chloe said, grinning at her. “Your boyfriend becomes a housewife and Lissa’s turns into a canine. Interesting transformations for the first week.”

  Suddenly everyone was looking at me again, expecting an explanation. I felt the heat creeping up my neck. I hadn’t intended to share my experience. I preferred to keep my private life private, except when I decided to share with Chloe.

  “Tell them,” she said. “Come on.
It’s hilarious.”

  Traitor.

  “Randy, um, begged like a dog. Literally.”

  The girls laughed, and Chloe nudged my leg, urging me on. I sighed.

  “He rolled over onto his back, showed me his belly, gave me doe eyes. He made puppy noises and everything.”

  “Gives ‘doggie style’ a whole new meaning, huh?” Chloe said, and everyone busted out laughing again.

  Even I cracked a smile.

  “I doubted you before, Lissa,” Kelsey said, her usual sneer contorted into a—holy crap, sincere?—smile. “But now, I think you’re right. I bet it’ll work, and thank God, because this fight needs to stop. This was a good idea, Lissa. Seriously.”

  Coming from Kelsey, that was huge.

  And she wasn’t the only one with a story to share. I watched as several of the girls stood and told their stories. All of them smiling at me when they reached the end. All of them laughing and proud and confident. All of them really believing that my plan was going to be the one to end the rivalry. Their confidence made me confident.

  “I wish I had a story to tell,” Mary murmured to me as we filled up another bowl of popcorn in Susan’s kitchen. Since she and I had eaten the last pieces, the other girls decided it was only fair that we make the next bag. I was more relaxed away from the crowd, and the air in the kitchen felt much cooler than it had in Susan’s packed bedroom.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I told her, shaking the hot bag of popped kernels into the orange bowl we’d been using. “Having stories isn’t what really matters.”

  “I know. And I haven’t kissed Finn since we started the strike, like you told me. But it’s just…” Mary trailed off, twisting the fingers of her left hand in her chocolate-colored hair. In her right she gripped the can of Diet Coke Susan’s mom had forced on her, knowing Mary would never ask for it.

  “Just what?” I asked, picking up my own Diet Coke and taking a sip.