Curse of the Wickeds (The Cinderella Society, Episode 2) (10 page)

The wheels in my head turned as she got into her car and drove away. Corrine was nice, but she wasn’t a power player that I knew of. And Leah definitely wasn’t a Wicked. She was more of a loner like Heather.

If the Wickeds were using Reggies to get dirt on other Reggies, they could expand their reach exponentially. No wonder they’d been able to take their game to the next level so fast.

Double the Wickeds plus an entire network of spies at their disposal? It might just be a hunch, but my hunch was telling me things were about to get ugly in a hurry.

Chapter Sixteen

With Gaby’s introduction to Personality—the daunting Cindy brand—under our belts, we spent our next Alpha class diving into our packet of new
CMM
projects.

Mission number one was the Image Analysis Project. I had to choose three people and do a complete image analysis including both parts of the Image Plan we’d covered so far: Appearance (signature style) and Personality (Cindy brand).

I chose Sarah Jane, Kyra, and Nan for my project. I decided to use my original guesses for Sarah Jane and Kyra’s signature styles. I knew what they actually were thanks to Sarah Jane and our reconnaissance at the ballpark, but that would be cheating.

I started with Sarah Jane because I figured she would be easiest. But even when you know someone well, it’s hard to condense an entire person down into only a few words. The image analysis worksheets included a massive list of descriptive words—bold, spunky, conservative, outgoing, shy, go-getter, thoughtful. It was overwhelming at first glance, but came in handy when I couldn’t think of exactly the word I was looking for.

When I got stuck, I would close my eyes and picture Sarah Jane in different situations with different groups of people. At school, at tryouts, or working on her binder in the Club. With her boyfriend, Mark, or the Cindys or random people from school. The thing was, she was pretty much the same with everyone. Put her in any situation with any group of people, and she was still Sarah Jane.

SARAH JANE PETERSON

Appearance: All-American classy prep

Personality: Gracious, supportive, serene

With Sarah Jane out of the way, I turned my attention to Kyra. I ended up circling some words on the list for Nan while I was looking for Kyra words, so I worked on both of their images at the same time.
 

KYRA GONZALEZ

Appearance: Fun and flirty girl-next-door

Personality: Funny, energetic, thoughtful

ROSEMARY BENNETT (Nan)

Appearance: Bohemian and eclectic with a funky flair

Personality: Outgoing, caring, no-nonsense

It wasn’t many words on the page, but it had taken me well over an hour to finish. Word choice was everything. (Who knew there were so many synonyms for cheerful or outgoing?) Gaby was right, though. It was kind of fun when you got into it. I only hoped it would be as fun when I had to do it for myself.

I handed Gaby my completed Image Analysis Project as she retreated into her office after a bathroom break, and I closed up my
CMM
. I seriously needed more hours at Mosaic if I was going to spend every meal at the Grind. No idea how I’d manage that with my
CMM
work, my newly-launched social life, cheer practice, volunteering, and Mom’s ever-growing—excuse the pun—need for my baby prep services while Dad crisscrossed the country on business.

But I’d find a way. I always did.

Chapter Seventeen

“Can you wait the counter while I take these boxes to the back?”

“No problem, Nan.” I slid the duster into the basket under the cash register and plopped down on the stool as the bell above the door to Mosaic jingled.

An older guy came in, holding a small black notebook in his hand. “Is Rosemary around?”

“She’s in the stockroom. Do you need me to—?”

“In here, Stan.” Nan stuck her arm out the door and waved him back, her thin metal bracelets jangling.

With Nan in the back and no sign of Heather, my mind wandered to its usual place.
Welcome to the land of Ryan.
I knew I shouldn’t get my hopes up, but I wanted Ryan to be at the banner party. It would be the first time we’d be together with our friends since we’d started dating. And I could say that now. I was dating Ryan Steele. In fact, I could say it over and over and never get bored.

I was dating Ryan Steele.

I was dating
Ryan Steele
.

As much as it gave me a case of the golden giddies just thinking about that fact, I wasn’t sure if it qualified me as his girlfriend. We hadn’t talked exclusivity or anything. But our late-night chat left me feeling like he wasn’t interested in dating anyone else, so that had to be a good sign.

My butterflies gave a cheer.

“I haven’t heard anything,” Nan said as she and Stan came out of the stockroom a few minutes later, “but I’d rather you leave that business to the police and write something positive for a change.”

“Reporting the news is my job, Rosemary. Not all news is rosy.” Stan rolled his eyes at me as if to say,
Women
. Like I wasn’t one of them.

“More of it is than you print. Look at the boy Jessica is dating.”

“Nan!”
Please don’t print that I’m Ryan’s girlfriend!

Nan gave me a startled look. “It’s a prime example of what I’m talking about. Jessica’s date last night saved a little boy from being run over in the street. But did that make the front page?”

“At the amusement park?” He shrugged. “We ran that one, but the rescuer wasn’t identified. You know him?”

“Ryan Steele,” Nan said. “His mother, Elizabeth, was killed at the corner of Green and Main a few years back.”

“Sure. I know the Steeles. Ryan’s the quarterback over at the high school.” Stan turned to me, suddenly interested. “You’re his girlfriend?”

“We’re just friends,” I clarified, nailing Nan with a glare. “But Nan’s right about last night. It was at the Fun Zone.”
 

I relayed the story as I remembered it. It still stung that I hadn’t been able to get Ryan to feel good about what he’d done. Shouldn’t he trust my opinion more? If enough other people supported him, maybe he’d finally accept that it was okay to be a hero. The world needed more guys like Ryan Steele.

“Sounds like a good kid,” Stan said, his pen scribbling on the pad. “Anything else I should know?”

I scrunched up my nose at him, even though I knew it was rude (and not very flattering). “Isn’t that enough?”

He looked at Nan and laughed. “Like grandmother, like granddaughter.” He flapped his pad at us. “Thanks for the tip, ladies. You let me know if you hear anything about the shoplifting ring.”

Nan patted my shoulder as he left. “Some people need to be trained to see the good that’s around them. You remember that, Jessica. All it takes is a little redirecting of their energy and”—she snapped her fingers—“magic.”

I thought of Ryan.

Magic.

Chapter Eighteen

With Nan back out on the floor, I excused myself to finish dusting and take out the trash. I’d just tied the bag and dragged it to the back door along with the broken-down boxes for recycling when I heard a scuffle outside.

I looked through the peephole Nan had installed for safety and saw Lexy, Tina, and Morgan. I so did not want to deal with them today. I looked to the side to see what they were focused on—

Oh, no.

I reached for the handle to put a stop to it once and for all.

“What do you mean you won’t tell us?” Lexy barked at Heather. “Who put
you
in charge?”

Heather was standing up to Lexy?
You go, girl!
 

I plastered my ear against the door, not wanting to save a girl who was ready to save herself. I could hear Heather sobbing. “He’ll hate me.”

“You should’ve thought about that before you went slumming with a freakin’
janitor
, Clark Bar.”

I gave Lexy the evil eye through the peephole, my hand on the doorknob in case Heather needed me.

Heather straightened as the tears continued to fall. “I won’t let you do this anymore. What you saw was a private thing between two people. A
private
thing,” Heather argued, and I pumped my fist in the air at her nerve. “It was an innocent kiss and a mistake. You have no right to use it as blackmail!”

“Is that right?” Lexy smirked. She reached into her shocking pink bag. “Doesn’t look so innocent to me.”

Heather took the large envelope Lexy shoved in her face and pulled out some sheets of paper. Heather’s face crumpled, and her body followed, sliding down the side of the steel dumpster until she was sobbing and hugging her knees to her chest.

“You didn’t think he actually liked you, did you?” Tina jeered. “He only liked the hundred bucks.” Morgan laughed along with her.

Lexy plucked the papers from Heather’s hand and slid them back into her bag. “Do we have a deal?”

Heather rocked back and forth. She nodded in response and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“That’s what I thought. Keep your cell on.”

Lexy, Tina, and Morgan were already disappearing around the side of the building when I yanked open the door and dragged Heather inside. Makeup ran down her face, and she was crying so hard I was afraid she’d start dry heaving. I pulled her straight into the tiny break room, giving Nan a quick
I’ll explain later
look. I closed the door behind us, pulled out a chair for Heather, and set a box of tissues on the table. I grabbed a chair for myself and hunkered down to wait.

If you think there’s a limit to the amount of liquid a human tear duct can produce, let me clear that up for you. Heather cried so long and so hard, going through eleven tissues (not that I was counting), that she could have filled a two-liter bottle.

Her tears finally ebbed to a trickle, her sobs more like hiccups. She blew her nose, a couple of hard toots that would’ve made me laugh if she hadn’t been such a mess. She took one deep breath, then another. The firestorm had subsided. It was time.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked her gently.

She sniffed and hiccupped, and her voice caught when she tried to speak. I thought we were in for a fresh parade of tears, but Heather pulled it together enough to shake her head.

I reached across the small table to squeeze her hand, making sure it was the one without the tissue. “I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

She exhaled on a long breath that sounded eerily like her soul deflating. “You can’t help me anyway.”

“You don’t know that.”

She looked up at me, smeared mascara circling her eyes like a pirate mask, and my heart gave a little tug on her behalf. She looked lost.

I waited.

She shredded the tissue in her hand, then a second. Another long-suffering sigh. She balled up the tissue confetti and threw it back on the table. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

Finally, an opening. “But it did?”

“Cameron and I were fighting. I thought we were breaking up. He and his dad don’t get along. That’s how we started talking. We bonded over alcoholic dads and moms out of the picture. Romantic, huh?”

“Not the greatest way to build a relationship?”

“It is what it is. Things with Cameron were going great until he and his dad started fighting about the money Cam was making playing gigs with his band. Cam wants to save it to get his own place, and his dad wants it for ‘the house.’ That’s alkie speak for
booze
.” She shifted in her seat, her hands gathering the tissues into a neat pile. “Cam’s been getting more and more distant. He won’t talk to me about what’s wrong, and we had a big blow-up about some stupid concert tickets.” She shook her head. “And then he was there.”

“Cameron? Or his dad?”

“Rick.” She looked like she was going to be ill. “Janitor Joe’s assistant?”

Oh.
Ohhhhhh.

“He’s not that much older than us, you know. And he was so nice, and he listened and said all the right things. I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

Janitor, mistake, blackmail evidence. Oh, crud.

“You and Rick got together?”

Heather nodded.

“And Lexy saw.”

Her head bobbed like a marionette.

Double crud.

“At first she was going to tell Cameron unless I did what she wanted. But it turns out she has pictures too.” Heather fisted away a fresh batch of tears. “It makes it look a lot worse than it was. We only kissed under the bleachers, but the angle of the pictures makes it look like he was lying on top of me. There’s no way Cam’s going to listen to my side when he sees those.”
 

I gritted my teeth, wanting a piece of Lexy more than ever.

“I thought Rick would support me in standing up to them,” Heather went on. “And to tell Cameron the truth.”

“But he didn’t.”

Heather shook her head and the tears started anew. “It was all a lie.” She hiccupped again. “They paid him to do it.”