Handcuffs (27 page)

Mom and Dad come home. I hear them talking to Paige, and I feel a little nervous. I’m still grounded. The one grounding has just kind of morphed into an ongoing punishment. They didn’t address my cutting school with a specific punishment, because there is nothing left to take away. Did I overstep? Was I wrong to think they wouldn’t stop me? Will they make a fool of me in front of Raye, with Paige laughing at me? I’m starting to wish I hadn’t been so confident when I told Raye that I could get out tonight.

At four-thirty, I put on my favorite jeans and a pink Old Navy perfect-fit T-shirt, layer it with a white cashmere sweater, pull my hair back into a casual knot, and put on just a dab of lip gloss. Raye and I have nothing but disdain for people who dress up to go to the mall. Girls who put on red lipstick complete with lip liner to stalk the mall for boy-prey.

Raye pulls up at exactly five. I walk downstairs. My parents are in the kitchen, sounds like they’re fighting again. I clear my throat a couple of times. This won’t work if I sound nervous.

“I’ll be home by ten,” I call in to them.

“Have a good time, honey.”

Okay, my feelings are mixed about this. Relief that I’m getting the crap out of here, confusion, disappointment that I didn’t try this earlier. Was getting out of being grounded as easy as walking out the door?

33

I
n my pocket, I have my cell, the bronze lip gloss, and one of Mom’s deposit slips, carefully folded. In the other pocket, I just have my house key. I ought to carry a purse, I guess.

Raye doesn’t even ask me why I need to go to the bank. She just pulls up and starts fiddling with the radio before I’ve even opened the door to get out.

I go up to the ATM and try to remove all of Kyle’s money. The machine will only let me take out five hundred dollars. That means I’ll have to come back to the bank three more times. The cash comes out fast, crisp. I hold the bills in my hand. All these twenty-dollar bills. I have never had this much cash in my possession before in my life.

I hold it for several minutes. Mostly nobody in the bank notices me, though the young guy who was behind me at the ATM is kind of staring at all the money in my hands.

The deposit slip is already filled out, so I have to scratch out the
$1970
and write in
$500.
I don’t have to sign it because I’m not withdrawing any money.

I hand the cash to the teller. The line is long because it’s Friday night, so lots of people just got their paychecks, but that’s actually good, because nobody pays any attention to me.

“Do you know that your account is overdrawn?” the teller asks.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. I don’t know what else to say.

Raye is on her cell when I get back in the car, but as I’m buckling my seat belt, she snaps her phone shut and puts it in her purse. “Campbells Lane Mall, here we come,” she says.

I look out the window at an empty field that will soon be a row of stores. Someday when I’m old I might tell my children how I remember how the whole area around the mall was just fields and barns and stuff. And they won’t care.

Despite the Friday-evening traffic, we arrive fairly quickly and get a magically close parking spot.

“Any luck with your dad?” I ask her.

“No, he just wanted to talk about spring break. I’m supposed to spend it with him, and he wants to take his girlfriend to Europe or something.”

“Oh. Did you ask him about . . . ?”

“No. Maybe after his dumb spring break trip he’ll feel guilty and want to donate to the Rachel Tannahill college fund. You never know.”

We walk into the mall and toward the food court.

“Raye, I need to go to Victoria’s Secret,” I tell her.

“Good lord, Parker. You don’t have to have a matching bra for every single pair of panties you own. Really.”

“I don’t need panties or a bra.”

I remember the way he looked at me when he asked if he bought me something lacy and see-through if I would wear it. Should I wait for him? I know I should wait. But if I buy something on my own, he’ll give me that surprised look, that slow appraisal. I want that.

“Okay, well, you don’t have to have a different pair of pajamas for every night of the week either, especially with Paige cutting your closet space in half.”

“I don’t need pajamas, either.”

Raye looks at me. “All right, then, but I reserve the right to veto your purchase if it’s too sleazy. No fishnet, no mesh, and no edible panties.”

“Um, Raye, I think you’re thinking about Frederick’s of Hollywood. I don’t think Victoria’s Secret sells edible panties.”

“Whatever.” She makes a face at me, and I laugh.

Most of what they have in Victoria’s Secret are bathrobes and white lingerie appropriate for a wedding night. Not exactly what I was looking for.

“Maybe I do need to go to Frederick’s.” I hold up a purple see-through nightie with matching G-string panties. “At least these match.”

I know Raye is rolling her eyes, even though she is standing behind me shuffling through the panties.

“Oh my.” I look up into the always-admiring gaze of Zara Thorpe. “Oh my, Parker. Wow. I’ve got to say I’d put my money on you over Kandace any day.”

“Are we in competition?” I ask in my coldest voice. Zara blinks at me. I feel Raye behind me.

“So you guys aren’t going to the party tonight?” Zara says.

“We aren’t really into the party scene.” Raye glances at me. The party scene was Paige’s scene. It turned her into someone who drinks Jack Daniels straight out of the bottle in the middle of the day. She had more fun in high school than I’ll probably have my entire life, but I know when I don’t belong.

“What party?” I ask.

“Some girl from school whose parents are out of town,” Raye says.

“Were we invited?” I ask.

Zara shrugs. “I wasn’t officially invited. Don’t know if it’s that sort of thing. I do know that there were whispers among Kandace’s friends about something big planned for tonight.”

“Aren’t you one of Kandace’s friends?” Raye asks.

“Kandace and I are friendly”—Zara smiles—“but that doesn’t mean I can’t be friendly with you and Parker. It isn’t like we’re dating or anything.” She smiles at me. She has dimples. “I think Kandace’s whole trying-to-get-a-guy-who-isn’t-into-her thing is just pathetic, especially when the guy is in a relationship. But she can’t seem to let it go. I hear Ellen and Marion are staging some kind of intervention. Should be funny, if nothing else. She would absolutely die if you were there to witness her humiliation.”

“I don’t know.”

“We’re heading over there as soon as I’m done here.” Zara takes the purple negligee from my hands. “Are you going to buy this? Because if you aren’t I think I’ll take it.”

“There’s a whole rack of them over there.” My voice is still cold. I want Marion and Kandace and all of their friends out of my life.

“Yeah. I think I’ll take this one.” She gives me a lopsided smile and takes the ensemble to the checkout girl. A couple of minutes later Zara saunters out of the store, giving us a little wave.

“What, does everyone in school have the hots for you now?” Raye sounds bothered. More than that, she almost sounds jealous. “Ian called and told me about the party. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

“Your opinions about what and who I would be interested in have been a little bit askew lately.” My voice is still cold. I grab another little lacy number from the rack, double-check that it’s really a size XS—sometimes they put them on the wrong hangers—and hand it to the cashier.

“Wow, did I see crotchless panties on that number?”

I laugh. “Get your mind out of Fredrick’s of Hollywood. You know they don’t sell crotchless panties at Victoria’s Secret.” The ice is still between us, but it’s cracked a little. “You know where this party is?”

“Ian’s there. I can get directions.”

“Let’s go.”

“No mall pizza?”

“You want to eat it in your car?”

Raye sighs. There is no way she’s letting mall pizza be eaten in her car.

“Okay, we’ll just grab a few cookies.”

In the car, loaded with cookies and iced cappuccino, I turn to her. “Raye, I hope we can get things back to where they were before, that we can talk about anything and everything again. The worst part about being grounded is never getting to talk to you.” She doesn’t say anything, and there is silence for a long time. She takes a drink and puts the cup back in the cup holder.

“It’s all so stupid, isn’t it?” she says finally.

“What?”

“Oh, high school and everything. The first day I met you, you were almost crying because those guys were teasing you, and it was just because they thought you were cute. You hate attention, that’s a given. But I like it, okay? I like to get some attention at school and when we go out. I’m kind of jealous of you, Parker.”

“Why would you be jealous of me? You have cool hair. You can dance in public. You can say anything to anybody without the fear that you are going to freeze up and look like a moron.”

“Yeah, and you got the hottest guy in school.”

“You don’t even like him. I mean, if we broke up would you even want to go out with him?”

“No. I can’t stand him. Smug little prick. But I do know that since you have him, the entire school is fascinated by his fascination with you. You are suddenly the most interesting girl at Allenville, and that’s just a little different.” Raye turns sharply, and though she’s the outgoing one, I can tell this is hard for her, painful, maybe.

“I hate all that stuff. I just want to be with him, to be your friend, to drift along under the social radar. Same old Parker Prescott.”

“You may be the same old Parker Prescott to you, but not to anybody else. He’s done things to you and to your reputation that even I don’t understand.”

I look at her. The interior lights in the Honda make a greenish glare. What things? What has he done to me?

“Look, Parker, it’s my fault, the jealousy thing. I’ll deal with it. We’ll go back to being Raye and Park, the girls who go to the mall every Friday night.”

“Except this Friday night we’re going to an Allenville party.”

“Yeah. Who would have thought it?”

34

A
llenville has a
very
active party scene. It goes with the frenzied-rich-kids-trying-to-pretend-they-aren’t-in-a-school-for-dorky-smart-kids kind of vibe we have going on.

I went to a party once with Paige, when she was a junior and I was a freshman. It was before she started hating me for being the good one. In fact, I was hopeful that night. Here we were, Paige and Parker Prescott, in high school together, and here Paige was taking me to a party with her. I know, pathetic, right? It isn’t like I made her bad, or it was my fault she was so wild. But I couldn’t change from being a nervous freshman who stood in the corner and sipped her drink and wished she had something to say, just because my sister was laughing and everyone at the party wanted to get close enough to talk to her.

That party was the first time I ever saw two people having sex. I mean, really doing it. They were in the corner. Most everyone was drunk, but I wasn’t, and I took in everything. I usually avoid the party scene. Not because I’m a prude, just that as an official ice princess, I don’t really know where to look or how to react when I have to step over two people locked together in “the act of love” to reach the restroom.