All Pepped Up (Pepper Jones) (20 page)

“Yeah, Dorothy’s not exactly a nice girl herself. Think she learned her lesson?”
                                                       

“Doubt it.”

Jace is even more attentive than usual the next few days. He texts me throughout the day and meets me between all my classes. He brings me treats – donuts, brownies, muffins – each day. It helps make up for all the curious stares from other students.

I know that Jace was right, in a way, that what happened on Saturday night was a result of us being together. And it could have been a whole lot worse. But I don’t blame him.
Yeah, he was an idiot to deal drugs – especially with so many shady characters – but he stopped. And he never thought it would come back to hurt me.

As for jealous girls like
Madeline coming after me… well, Jace can’t exactly help being drop-dead gorgeous. Maybe he didn’t need to sleep with so many girls, but he never made them any promises.

But Jace still acts like he’s done me wrong. Like he was the one who hurt me. He’s not as confident around me.
Despite his attentiveness, he’s acting almost ashamed of himself, as though he doesn’t deserve to let his guard down and be himself with me.

When I finally get around to telling him,
Jace likes my idea to just race relays the rest of the season. He says it’s bumming him out that I don’t get excited about racing anymore, and maybe taking a break from individual events is what I need. It gives me enough confidence in my decision to bring it up to Coach.

“If that’s what you need right now, Pepper, then I’ll support you,” Coach tells me. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about though.”

“Something else?” I can’t imagine what it would be.

“Have you entered your info on the NCAA website?”

“What do you mean?”

Coach shakes his head with a look of disbelief. “So that college coaches can contact you. To recruit you,” he adds, when I give him a blank look.

“Oh, right.” I laugh at myself. I hadn’t even thought about college recruitment. “Is now when they start recruiting? I guess I thought I had until senior year to think about it.”

“Coaches have been
calling me trying to get through to you over the past month. I can’t give them your info without your permission. It didn’t seem the best time to bring it up with you, but you need to start thinking about it. You’re going to have a lot of choices.”

I sigh. “Maybe. But I already know I want to go to UC
, so there’s not a lot to think about.”

Coach puts his hand on my shoulder. It’s something he always does when he wants me to pay attention. “You should at least take advantage of the recruiting trips to visit other colleges, Pepper. See other parts of the country and get a feel for what other teams and
colleges could offer you. Then you’ll be able to make an informed decision.”

I shrug. “Maybe,
” I say again. I can agree with getting free trips to visit other schools. It might not be entirely morally sound, if I know I won’t go to their school, but they can always advertise that the national champion showed interest in their program. So it’s a win-win. “We’ll see.”

The following Saturday is our only home meet. We don’t have the best track in the area, so it’s just a
low-key meet with three other schools. My only race is the 4 x 800. Jace’s game is earlier in the day and he’s able to come by to watch.

He’s with Remy, and the two of them attract a lot of attention sitting in the stands. It’s not often the most popular guys in school come to watch our meets. I catch the girls from the other schools ogling Jace and I grin. I’m lucky that he’s all mine.

His presence makes me want to race well. But it doesn’t make me anxious and nervous the way expectations from others do. I wish he could come to all my meets.

And I do race well. Nothing spectacular – I’ve never been awesome at the 800 distance – but not a disaster either. I’m able to move the relay from second to first, and it always feels good to win.

“Hey guys, how was your game?” I jog over to Remy and Jace before starting my cool down.

“Tha
nks to your boy here, we won 8-6. He hit a triple in the last inning,” Remy tells me.

Jace tugs me into his chest and kisses my forehead. “Nice race, Pep. You killed it.”

“Thanks.” I close my eyes and smile at the feel of his lips on my forehead, his strong arms around my waist.

“You should head over to the tennis courts when you finish up here.”

I lean back and raise my eyebrows. We don’t usually watch tennis matches.

Jace gives me a
mischievous smirk. “Kayla and the girls told us to watch. They’re playing Lincoln Academy.”

A shiver runs through me. Madeline is the captain of Lincoln’s tennis team. Did the Barbies pull another laxative prank? I’m not sure I want to witness that.

Still, curiosity compels me to show up thirty minutes later with Zoe, Claire, Charlie, Rollie, and Ryan. When I told Zoe the Barbies asked us to watch the game, she spread the word. There’s a hill overlooking the courts and it’s scattered with spectators. Jace and Remy have prime seating at the top and center of the hill, and they clear space for us when they see us coming.

I’m surprised to see Wesley sitting next to them.

“Sorry I missed your race, Pep,” he says, standing up to greet me with a hug. “Just got here.”

As far as I know, Wes doesn’t normally watch girls’ tennis either. He must be here for the same reason we are. In fact, looking around, the crowd seems unusually large.

“Madeline and Emma are playing Lisa and Andrea in doubles,” Jace tells me as he settles me between his legs.

Well, that
match-up alone will be entertaining.

The girls have just finished warming up, and Lincoln serves first. The teams are fairly evenly matched and it
’s point for point. But the close match and rivalry between the schools can’t be why we’re here.

It’s fifteen minutes into the match when I start to notice Madeline’s game changing. She doesn’t get to the balls quickly enough, and when she does, she hits them out of bounds. Like,
way
out of bounds.

I glance around, trying to determine if anyone else notices the difference. Is it all in my head because I’m looking for it? I glance back at Jace, who leans forward and whispers, “
Just keep watching, Pep.”

I turn my eyes back to the court, and watch Madeline walk slowly to the line to take her serve. Emma is crouched in position by the net, but keeps glancing back nervously, clearly wondering what is taking Madeline so long.

Madeline rolls the tennis ball around in her palm, staring at it with concentration. It must be minutes later when she sighs, finally tossing it in the air and swinging her racket. She completely misses the ball and almost falls on her face after swinging her racket blindly in the air. I hear gasps from those watching around me.

The expression on her face is one I’ve never witnessed. She’s lost her cool. And Madeline Brescoll actually looks embarrassed. That alone is satisfying. But it gets worse. A lot worse.

Madeline pulls a ball from a hidden pocket in her tennis skirt and takes a second serve. She successfully connects her racket with the ball, but it hits Emma in the bum. Emma squeals and grabs her bottom while jumping in the air. The crowd roars. I have a hard time controlling my own laughter.

There’s something satisfying about seeing such
girls who are usually so put-together and cool acting ridiculous.

Madeline keeps attempting to serve, usually whiffing, but occasionally connecting with
the ball only to hit it backwards or out of bounds. The funniest thing is that she seems oblivious to her horrendous playing.

“What did they do to her?” I ask Jace.

“I have my suspicions.” The corners of his mouth turn up. “But let’s wait and see.”

When Brockton Public serves, Madeline’s play continues to deteriorate. At one point, she runs right into the net in an attempt
to get to a ball. She flies over the net, half her body on Lincoln’s side of the court, and half on Brockton Public’s.

Emma helps her off, and
pulls her aside, talking animatedly. They’ve now attracted attention from players on the other courts, who have paused in their own matches to watch the spectacle.

Suddenly, Madeline erupts in
ear-splitting laughter. She falls to her knees, the sound so screechy it pierces the air. Emma tugs her up to her feet, and places her hands on her hips, apparently scolding Madeline, but we can’t hear her words.

They attempt to resume the game, Madeline’s play becoming increasingly erratic and pitiful. When she hits herself in the head with her own racket and twirls around looking for the ball, their coach intervenes. After a brief discussion with Madeline and Emma, he announces a forfeit.

“
Now
are you going to tell me what you think they did to her?”

Jace
speaks quietly in my ear, aware that others are probably trying to listen in. “My theory? They somehow got pot into something she ate.”

They drugged her. Like they drugged Dorothy. If this is part of their wicked game, what will be Madeline’s next move? And will
I
be the victim? The blood drains from my face.

“Hey, hey,” Jace soothes, stroking my cheek. “No one’s going to mess with you anymore. That’s what
the point of all of this was.”

I want to believe him, but I don’t.

Jace was right
about the pot. Kayla, Lisa and Andrea baked muffins and granola bars with pot butter. They wanted to make sure Madeline would eat at least one of the baked goods, and she ended up eating both. One of Madeline’s teammates, whom Madeline apparently pissed off when she slept with the girl’s boyfriend, helped the Barbies out. I could see that plan going
very
badly wrong – with the whole team accidentally eating the baked goods – but the teammate orchestrated it flawlessly.

We learn all this over pizza at Lou’s. Kayla is especially proud of herself, and by the time we’re ready to leave, she is plastered. Her cousin waited on our table again, and she convinced him to serve her whisky shots in celebration of their successful prank.

I’m not sure how I feel about all of it. I know it wasn’t my idea. But I laughed along with everyone else, and I’m hanging out with them while they celebrate. Does that make me just as mean?

In the parking lot outside Lou’s, Jace’s friends decide to meet up at Ben’s
house.

“Pepper and I are heading to my place,” Jace tells them.

The guys give him a hard time about it, but he says we have plans to hang out with Wesley. It’s true – Wes didn’t want to come to Lou’s with us, claiming the tiff between the Lincoln and Public girls puts him in an awkward position. He doesn’t want to be seen as taking sides.

“I side with you and my brother,” he’d told me in a low voice after the tennis match.

Wes is already at the Wilders’ house by the time we get there. He sits with Jim in the kitchen, drinking a beer. Jim doesn’t try to pretend that his sons don’t drink. It still surprises me sometimes to see the two of them together like father and son. But once they started hanging out again, their relationship came easily.

It’s
rare that I hang out with the three of them at the same time, and I feel a bit like an intruder. Even though Jace made his friends believe he ditched them for alone time with me, it was really for family time. No one else knows that Wes is his half-brother.

I stop wondering whether I should leave so they can have father-son-brother bonding time
once we settle in for a game of poker. Jace holds my feet in his lap, and the guys include me just like I’m part of the family. It feels good. Warm and fuzzy. Gran would fit right in too. Maybe next time I’ll invite her.

They’re giving me a hard time about how I pretend to be clueless but I keep winning when we hear several phones beep with text message alerts. Wes, Jace and I look at each other in anticipation.

There’s no way she retaliated that fast.

“Well, is anyone go
ing to check their messages?” Jim asks.

None of us move, and we continue to glance at each other.

“What’s going on, guys?” he asks.

“We’ll have to check it eventually,” Wes says. He’s right.

I remove mine from my sweatshirt pocket and see it’s a video. Oh joy.

“I’ll look first.” The guys watch me as I click on it.

It’s dark and there’s a rustling sound as the picture comes into focus. An object is moving back and forth. No, up and down. The video zooms in, and I see it’s a head, with long dark wavy hair. Her head is between two legs.

Oh no.

But I can’t stop watching as the sound of heavy breathing comes through my phone. The video moves up the legs to show the body lying on a bed, his arms behind his head. And then he lifts his head up to say something to the girl. The chiseled cheekbones and messy black hair are unmistakable.