“Sure,” I said. I recited the list from oldest to youngest. Told her all about
how everyone was excited to see my crazy cousin Devon, who’d spent the
past year studying art in Italy and then come back and acted so superior
we’d all ended up throwing canapés at him until he finally broke and
launched a counterattack. I told her about Leanna, who had sent in
applications to be on The Bachelor for five years in a row and had finally
made the cut, so she refused to consume anything other than celery and
water. When I told the story of how the toddlers had tried to use my uncle’s
old waterbed as a trampoline she laughed so hard cof fee came out her nose.
“Omigod!” she said, lifting a paper towel to her face. “I’m so gross!”
That was it. She didn’t squeal, scream, run for the bathroom, or leave the
school never to return. She sniffled and got back to work, telling me all
about her chill Christmas and how her mom had loved her present.
This girl was effing awesome. As I listened to her relate the details of the
Christmas tree and the dinner and the presents, I realized I wasn’ t bored.
“Then, of course, we spent the day after Christmas with the Nathansons,”
she said, shaking her head. “This is a new tradition, apparently . Day-after
dinner with le boyfriend. Exc ept this time it was at their place, so I got the
full tour of Quinn’s very pink, very huge bedroom suite. Not that she
wanted to show it to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say I’m not so sure Princess Quinn is too psyched about
having to hang out with a Crestie reject like me,” Ally said, then blushed.
I felt hot all of a sudden, too. Since it was my friends who had made her a
reject. I sat back on my butt and fiddled with the putty knife. “Is that weird,
your mom dating someone?”
“Everything’ s weird,” she r eplied, sitting back as well.
“What do you mean?”
She dropped her knife and leaned back on her hands. Her gloves made
squishy , squeaky noises on the floor. “I don’t know . . . it’s like I’m back
but I’m not back. I’m here . . . I’m home . . . but nothing’ s the same. My
friends are here but they’re not my friends. My house is here but it’s not my
house.”
I looked down at my hands, feeling responsible somehow . I would’ve
given her her room back if I could.
“And my family . . . it’s just weird being here without my dad.
Everywhere I go it’s like I expect to see him there waiting for me. There are
all these memories, but he’ s not here.”
Her voice broke, and she stopped. My heart did this weird clenching
thing at the mention of her father. But I couldn’ t tell her what I knew.
Because I didn’t really know anything for sure. And it also was none of my
business. Wouldn’t it freak her that someone she barely knew kind of knew
where her dad was?
I wished my friends were here listening to this. They’d never be able to
blame her for all the crap her dad did if they knew what it was doing to her.
And they also wouldn’t be able to laugh about where her dad was now. Or
about the fact that they all knew and she didn’t. Not that there weren’t other
reasons for them not to like her, but only Shannen and Hammond knew
about those.
“You know that box score?” she said suddenly . “The one from the JV
championship?”
“Yeah.”
“That was the night we left. I wrote that in while my dad was yelling at
me to get in the car,” I said. “I had this, like, need to record it there before
we left. Like it would somehow mean something if it was there. It should
have been the best night of my life, but instead it was the worst. I never got
to go to the banquet and get my championship ring. I never even got to go
over the play by play with Shannen and Hammond like we always did.
Instead it was all just over . My life as I knew it was just over .”
“Wow. That sucks,” I said. “Y ou never even got your ring?”
She cracked a sad smile. “Nope. I figured they’d mail it to me, but . . .”
She shrugged and looked down at her hands.
“Sorry. I shouldn’ t have asked,” I said.
“No. It’s okay. Maybe we should just change the subject.” She quickly
reached for her putty knife, but it slipped out of her hand. We both grabbed
for it, and my gloved fingers closed over hers. We froze. I stared down at
our plastic hands, my heart pounding.
“Well,” Ally said. “That’ s romantic.”
And we laughed . Suddenly my palms were sweating under my gloves. I
slid my hand away and we got back to work, but I felt as if my whole body
was on high alert. There was no getting around it anymore. I was falling for
this girl.
Big-time.
“What about this? You’d look hot! ” I sang, holding out a brown suede
jacket to David in the middle of the men’s section at Macy’s. “Your
groupies would be all over you.”
David looked at me dubiously , and I paused, suddely hot with guilt. Did
he realize I was trying too hard? When he’d asked me to come to the mall
this afternoon to help him construct a new look for his band, I’d practically
pole-vaulted at the chance, feeling like I somehow had to atone for all my
Jakesession over the past week of morning detentions. But all I’d been
thinking about since arriving at the Garden State Plaza an hour ago was
how I had to break up with him. How I liked him too much to do this to him
anymore. My stomach was in knots, my heart was in pain, and my brain felt
like it was going to explode from trying to make myself appear chipper
when I was anything but.
I k ept thinking about that moment before Christmas. When he’d held my
hand and jokingly made me promise that if I went to the Crestie going away
party, I’d come back. He was so cute and clueless to the fact that I was the
most awful girlfriend ever. And now it looked like I was never coming
back.
“I don’t know. It’s kind of seventies,” he said. “Besides, do you really
want my groupies to be all over me?”
He looped his arms around my waist and gave me a quick kiss on the
lips.
I was a horrible person. A horrible, dishonest, nefarious person.
David turned away without waiting for an answer. As he flipped through
a rack of plaid cowboy-style shirts, I felt like I was going to cry .
“What about this?” He lifted a distressed waf fle-knit T -shirt of f a s eparate
rack.
“Jake has that shirt,” I said, before I could edit myself.
David’s face fell. He turned and jammed the shirt back on the rack.
“Never mind.”
“Sorry. I just . . .” I followed after him, my underarms prickling. Was it
always so damn hot in this place? “Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing,” David said facetiously . “But do you even realize that’s,
like, the tenth time you’ve mentioned Jake today?”