Mazy smiled at her as the fuming girl shoved a piece of paper in her face.
Then, Mazy laughed. Actually laughed. Maggie tried not to show that it unnerved her. It wasn’t that the laugh sounded like a supervillain or anything; it wasn’t a wicked witch’s cackle or the chortle of an evil genius. It was like a real laugh, so much so that many people in the busy hallway had yet to notice that anything was amiss.
The other girl’s voice was angry, though, and even angrier for being laughed at, so she raised it, so much so that Maggie could grasp snippets of what she was saying as crowds began to disperse for the day. Maggie knew what was going to happen. She could not look away. The girl was actually threatening to fight Mazy for putting a note and balloon with lipstick kisses on them in Mark’s locker—Mark, she surmised, since that was the name being shouted.
The smack across Mazy’s face was loud and made the entire hallway fall silent. Maggie winced, almost feeling the sting herself.
There was a minor explosion of voices and the angry swishing of hair as the two girls threw themselves at each other, their small figures clashing with palpable fury. Maggie stepped back as to not become a casualty.
Hearing jeers and the unmistakable sounds of a fight, Mr. Garrett and the tall female teacher Maggie had seen on her first day but did not have class with, rushed in and pulled them apart, disgusted.
The crowd of onlookers laughed and made the usual calls and jeers of excitement. It lasted a couple of seconds, tops. When they were being held by the arms a few feet apart from one another, Maggie had a clear view of Mazy. The cheerleader smirked.
Everyone else seemed to be too focused on her attacker to notice.
“What are you thinking?” the female teacher demanded of the now-quiet aggressor. She got no response.
The other cheerleaders then moved forward to check on Mazy, huddling around her with low, cooing voices of concern. Mazy dove headfirst into the attention, abandoning her smirk for an expression of pain and shock, holding her face where it had been struck.
For a second Mark had looked almost amused. He did not look the least amused then. As Mr. Garrett escorted the other girl to the principal’s office, the football player unnecessarily raised his voice to her back and broke up with her, in the hallway, without warning.
“It’s totally over, Ashley.”
“Why?” she asked tearily, with a tone of betrayal and shock.
It was for embarrassing him, apparently, and for being nuts, and for getting suspended over something that stupid.
Maggie wondered if he realized he sort of called himself stupid.
Anyway, the scandalous breakup was big enough news that no one watched her at the ill-fated locker. No one cared that Tommy shrugged and said, “See you later,” after emerging from a deep conversation with Becca. No one noticed how Mag’s face looked like she had poured a bowl of cereal only to realize there was no milk.
It was kind of nice to have privacy again. Maybe she was fading into the school already.
That hope was dashed as she entered the parking lot, following Becca, and neared the other girl’s car. Maggie could not resist the glance over toward Tommy’s truck where she saw that Mark was animatedly talking to him. She wondered vaguely how they were friends, as Tommy was not on the football team, but that question was answered before she could ask. Tyler, who was wearing his matching letter jacket, with a big fierce Wilbur Whatsit in green and white on the back, came over to their conversation. He was clearly on the team with Mark.
Whatever Tyler was saying, Mark disregarded it the second he spotted the two girls walking. He smiled a sick sort of smile, like a predator licking its lips, and sauntered over.
Becca saw him approach and stopped expectantly, driver’s door open. Maggie rounded the car, figuring Mark wanted the other girl and she could let them converse in peace, but he crossed in front of the silver Lexus quickly and met Maggie at the passenger’s side door, leaning against it so she couldn’t open it, arms crossed against his wide chest.
Becca watched carefully. Maggie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Hey, Mags,” Mark said casually, as if he had spoken to her a million times already.
“Uh, hey,” she said uneasily. He laughed at her discomfort, shaking his straight blonde hair as if to say it was silly for her to feel uncomfortable around him. He was only the size of a small boulder, after all. Not a big boulder.
“You want to go out with me tomorrow night?”
She blinked. She processed the facts quickly. He was a football player and, she was willing to bet, the quarterback. She was the new kid.
This was a prank. They’d happened before: wrong directions, fake secret admirers, the whole nine yards, as they say. Clearly, they were trying to get a reaction, and she wasn’t going to give it. She stayed cool, feeling others watching in the parking lot.
“Pft.” She rolled her eyes, pulling on the handle while attempting her sweetest smile. No hard feelings, she was trying to convey.
He didn’t move away, but leaned down a little, giving her an earnest look as blonde hair fell into his eyes. There was a silent pause that hung awkwardly between them until she asked, “You’re serious?”
“Yeah. I’m single. It’s homecoming week. Tommy and Becca said you’re cool. So do you want to go?” He shrugged, being rather nonchalant about the whole thing.
“Um, didn’t you just break up? Like ten minutes ago?” What was this guy getting at?
He sighed, glancing up at his friends before continuing: “Well, you don’t know Ashley, but she’s pretty nuts. We’ve been off and on for a while now, but she’s just so much drama. She used to cheer and now she doesn’t, so she doesn’t really get along with my friends.”
Becca nodded as if to confirm his story. Clearly, she was not a fan of Ashley either. Maggie didn’t have a good history with Ashleys in general, so for some reason she took this news easily, returning her gaze to the star athlete.
“Besides, if I think to ask you out ten minutes after breaking up with her, it’s probably not the first time asking you occurred to me, Mags.”
She hadn’t really noticed anything about Mark but his size, scowl and red sports car, but bending down close to her, the scent of his cologne swirling around them, his voice low and playful, his blonde hair falling into his eyes... and that hair, the way it fell, and the way he made his eyes look peeking through the sun-catching curtain. The blue irises weren’t as beautiful as Tommy’s, but Mark had a way of making them look vulnerable. Nothing that darn sad or small belonged in a frame that large.
“I don’t take rejection very well, Maggie,” he laughed. But he was nervous. She wriggled a little, thinking.
“I don’t want crazy Ashley coming after me.”
Becca and Mark both laughed aloud at that. He actually tossed his head back a little. That darn hair swished a bit. “You think I’m going to let her mess with you? Or Tommy is?” He raised an eyebrow. “Or even Tyler and Becca for that matter? Hell, even Sarah can get a little pushy when it comes to her friends.”
She swallowed, finding a lump in her throat big enough to demand medical attention.
“You’re one of us now,” he grinned. It was a sly grin, or maybe just a suave one. She didn’t have a lot of experience with this much… alpha.
Half grimacing, she threw out her last protest, hoping she didn’t hit a nerve. “You didn’t save Mazy.” She could still hear the slap.
“Mazy had it coming. She knew what would happen,” he said sternly. Well, she couldn’t exactly argue with that.
Anyway, it didn’t matter; she was in, one of them, as he’d put it. Done deal. She sort of felt like she was selling her soul, but Mark just wanted a date, no big deal, clearly; it would be a big deal, she figured, if she rejected this guy.
“So?” he huffed, half-feigning impatience. “What do you say? Ready for me to show you the other side of Wilbur Mason entertainment?”
“Sure.” She tried to match his
carefree tone. “Sounds fun. Where we going?” She thought she should sound more excited.
“It’s a surprise. You’re gonna like it.” He smiled and winked, opening Becca’s door for her. Something in his eyes was too keen. She hesitated, fighting the desire to look at Tommy.
She pulled a smile. “Cool,” she said, for the second time that day. The conversation saver. Sometimes, when people said cool, they meant it. Sometimes they didn’t mean it, and sometimes they meant the exact opposite, so there was no way to tell. Sometimes it meant: I don’t have anything to say at the moment, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m done talking to you.
“Cool.” He nodded once, pushing himself off the car. Maggie thought he should sound more excited as well.
He threw Becca a satisfied smile over the car before he walked off; she just stared at him. Maggie was usually good at reading expressions, but once again at Wilbur Mason, she found herself stumped.
Although maybe Maggie was being paranoid, Becca watched as if waiting to see, if she would chance a glance back at Tommy. Giving up, she climbed inside the passenger’s seat.
Luckily, once they were sitting inside the car, Becca’s rearview mirror fatefully revealed Tommy. At his truck. Looking directly at them. There was no mistaking it. He was tossing his keys up and down. He looked sad. Maybe even a little angry.
Maggie muffled a sick scream of delight internally. Maybe a little jealous.
“Where did that come from?” she asked instead, still reeling from the shock of Mark’s invitation. He had not even seemed to like her.
“He’s curious.” Becca smiled.
“I don’t even know why I said yes.”
“Why not?” Becca shrugged. “You have a boyfriend or something?”
Maggie gave her a skeptical, sideways look that made Becca laugh.
“You like someone else?” she asked.
“I don’t know anybody else.” She scrunched her nose.
“You know Tommy.”
Yep, Maggie was definitely not imagining Becca’s aversion to the Tommy possibility, which was to be expected. She needed to squash that conversation because she wasn’t very good at bald-face denial. Thanks to Tyler, she had A-grade material.
“Yeah…” Now was as good a time as any. “Tyler kissed me.”
“What?” Becca gasped, delighted.
“Yep. Out of nowhere.”
“Wow.” Becca stared at the road, turning to head towards Mulberry Street. “You’re popular.” She winked with a smile.
And there is was, those fateful words at last. Maggie had only ever heard them before as sarcasm.
But after twelve other schools, twelve other chances to reinvent herself, she had finally convinced people she belonged with the high school elite. Trouble was, she realized, she had convinced them of something that wasn’t entirely true.
It’s funny how pretending to be someone else is sometimes the only way you realize you’re pretty much stuck as you.
“Can we not mention that to Mazy? The Mark thing,” Maggie blurted. “I don’t typically like to get into fights in the first week.”
Becca shot her glance to see if she was kidding. Maggie didn’t deny it explicitly, just smiled. Best to keep her guessing.
“Sure. No problem. You kind of have to watch out for her. Mazy gets really smart when she wants something. A plotter, you know?”
“Sure,” Maggie nodded, careful not to say anything that might be repeated later. Sometimes, people, often female people, told you things so you would agree with them, only to repeat it as though you had said it begin with, and she wasn’t in the mood to make an enemy of Mazy just yet. Little but fierce.
Maybe, Maggie thought, she was being too hard on Mazy. That thought was forever abandoned when she later opened the door of her house on Mulberry Street.
“Cute.” Mazy gave it the condescending compliment as she and Sarah stepped inside the new place.
“Thanks.” Maggie gave Mazy a look no one else saw, so quick that the other girl wouldn’t even be sure she saw it, but Maggie knew what Mazy had meant. She meant it was small.
“You ladies want something to drink?” she offered, using the only hospitality she really knew. She didn’t usually have guests over; it was more often the other way around. Her houses were never very homey.
They sipped, surveying the house for a moment. There wasn’t much to see.
“My room is in there. Have at it.”
They jumped on the opportunity, digging into her things. She’d never had strangers do that before, and it sort of made Maggie feel naked. She never thought much about her choices on what to keep and bring with her—but suddenly, she was forced to wonder what others would think.
“This is amazing.” Sarah picked up a collage Maggie had made. It had her own photos—school pictures, a clipping from the newspaper, pictures with her and different groups of friends over the years. It had tickets to attractions, national parks, for planes and ships. There were postcards and pictures clipped from magazines of things she’d done or seen.
It was packed, edges overlapping, photos cropped, busy and colorful, not a single spot of the white poster board underneath peeked through. She wasn’t into scrapbooking; collages were closer to how memories were for her. They didn’t fit neatly into the pages of a book with themed paper and dried flowers. They were chaotic and messy. They were overwhelming and jumbled, and she liked to keep them all close where she could see them.
“Thanks,” she said in earnest.
“This should be the focal point,” Sarah decided, picking a wall.
“Well, since your bedspread is white, we can go with white basics and color accents!” Mazy explained.
Becca helped Mazy unpack along the color scheme while Sarah took over as master of organization, practically spinning through Maggie’s room, folding t-shirts vertically, somehow fitting everything in her closet, and even setting up her desk like an honor roll student would keep it. Feeling useless as Mazy carefully placed accessories, Maggie just cleaned around them, answering questions.
“Did you really zipline that high up?”
“Do you stay in touch with your old friends without being like online at all?”
“Is this your boyfriend?”
“Where are all your family pictures?” Becca asked.
“We don’t have a lot. It’s just me and my mom, and we’ve lost some during the moves over the years…” she drifted off.
“Oh.”
“Ice cream?” She offered when the room started to look finished. It looked like someone lived there , and even though it was the same stuff, it looked different than she had ever arranged it herself. They took her up on the offer, eating happily for a few moments at the kitchen window seat until Sarah saw the time.
She stood up suddenly. “We have to go get ready for Friday’s dance. Want to lend a hand, Maggie?” Sarah asked.
“Sure,” she said with a shrug. Nothing else to do.
Moments later, the girls left. Maggie rode with Sarah back to the school to help get stuff ready for the dance.
Soon they were in the cavernous gym, busy with activity and covered in mess. In broad daylight, it was hard to picture an important, romantic evening taking place here, but Maggie wasn’t dumb enough to say that to Sarah.
As it turned out, Sarah appreciated the help, and Maggie was good at taking orders. No one there felt like she was trying to take over, and except for being a little anal-retentive, most of the girls on dance committee were very friendly and less competitive than the cheer squad crowd. Sarah seemed happier, her face brighter and more relaxed around these girls. She was in her element, her soft voice firmly giving orders, compliments, pointing out imperfections.
They weren’t allowed to set up the decorations yet, since they’d need the space during the week, so Sarah ran through inventory, assigning someone to make a run for additional paper supplies and another person to search of a specific light. She handed receipts the treasurer to
reimburse and update where they were on budget. Maggie helped count and move tables and chairs, organize supplies, and pass out schedules.
The dance was going to be pretty simple, decorated with the school colors, with some tables for food and punch—the typical set-up. There was a vicious looking bull created by the art department, a bullfighter having slain him. The matador wore a Wilbur Whatsits jersey; the bull, she assumed, was because they were playing the Battoon Bulls. Looking at the thing made her cringe.
“I’ll need to get it back in there early and then return to put the blood on right before.” the girl with black nail polish told Sarah.
“Okay.”
“It’s gory, don’t you think?” Mags asked. Sarah shrugged.
“Blood bother you?”
“Doesn’t it bother everyone?”
“Not me,” the girl jumped in to say, smiling at Maggie.
“Right,” Maggie said, unimpressed. Sarah seemed to like that response, though she didn’t say.
“Oh no, Maggie. I have cheer practice for the pep rally now. I can’t drive you back until later. It’s usually not on Tuesdays and—” Sarah seemed legitimately sorry.
“It’s okay,” Maggie told her. “I can get a ride.”
Sarah gave her another unreadable look, somewhere between curiosity, appreciation, and pity. “Hold on. I’ve got an idea.”
She stepped away for a moment, texting someone. Packing up, Maggie followed Sarah outside, heading back toward the front of the school. She didn’t really dare believe the leap in her stomach like a jumping fish as she saw a familiar truck pull up. She even felt the plop. Sarah smiled.
“There’s your ride. Least I could do. Figured he wouldn’t mind since he’d already offered.”
“Thanks. See you tomorrow.” She tried not to smile too big.
“See you.”
Maggie reminded herself she owed Sarah.
She walked up to the truck, and the door swung open.
“Couldn’t stay away, huh?” Tommy asked, leaning over toward her door.
She hurried forward and climbed in happily. “Nope.”
Keep Your Friends Close Page 5