How to Hook a Hottie (5 page)

Seven

T
hat night, around a lopsided homemade chocolate cake at the dining room table, Suzannah and I attempted some sisterly harmony.

“. . . happy birthday, dear Daaaaad . . . happy birthday to
you
!”

Our end note was
so
flat that both Suz and I burst into laughter. Even Dad chuckled.

Still, I told myself we were throwing him a great little bash. Next would be presents and hunks of cake—which would hopefully taste better than it looked—followed by a board game of Risk that might go on for hours. Days, even. Who knew?

It was the perfect celebration inside the perfect home with the perfect family who was perfectly happy.

Father, daughter, and daughter.

No one else was invited (or missed). Especially not a certain someone who hadn't been home since Thanksgiving. Who had told us, in a no-nonsense, you-should-be-mature-enough-to-understand tone, that Christmas was too close to the semester end to be away from classes. And that Easter would be here “before you know it.”

Whatever. Besides, I'd spent seventeen years in the presence of that woman. I'd done my time.

Back before she got the diploma bug, I
had
rather liked her. I'd thought she was sweet and fun and pretty—and way better than the mothers who obsessed about refined sugar and violence on TV.

Pam DelVecchio had always been different. For one thing, she was much younger than other mothers. She and Dad had met in high school. My sister and I were both born before my parents could even order a beer.

Instead of carrying a purse or diaper bag, my mom always seemed to have a book. Not a paperback, but a big, honking textbook on whatever serious subject she was studying. We grew up with her telling us about her courses, sometimes reading passages aloud while we played. I don't remember understanding much of it, but it didn't matter. I just liked to hear her voice.

By the time I was in middle school, my mother had a couple of BAs and had moved on to grad school. And sure enough, one master's degree wasn't enough. She went for a second, and was considering a third when she learned about a particular PhD program in Frankfurt, Germany.

Her persistent interest didn't surprise me. It was the timing I didn't buy. Was my mother running to this European program—or running from us?

Dad was blowing out his candles when the telephone rang. We all knew who it was. Suzannah, dropping about five of her years, let out a little-kid squeal and skated across the room for the cordless.

I felt a frown etch itself into my forehead, one angry line at a time.

“Hi, Mom!” Suz yelled, loud enough for us and all of Germany to hear, grinning like an idiot.

Suz actually bought the parents' spiel. That this PhD program was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Mom, and that she would be back for good next summer. That they didn't want to wrench us from our friends—especially me from my senior year—and that space between mother and daughters in the teen years was a good thing, anyway.

But I was sure there was way more to this other-side-of-the-world thing than they were telling us.

“Put her on the speakerphone,” Dad instructed.

And as soon as my mom's voice hit the air, he smiled, too.

Not me, though. Long gone were the days when her thoughts and her read-alouds filled me with warmth and a sense of security.

Suz and Dad did most of the talking on our end. Then, finally, my mother turned the bright light on me.

“I haven't heard much from you, Kate. And you didn't answer my last e-mail.”

I studied my sneakers, feeling like an employee who hadn't made her sales quota. “Yeah, well . . .”

“She's been busy,” my sister jumped in. “With her new boyfriend, Brandon Callister.”

I rolled my eyes.

“What's this?” my mother said, although her voice showed no emotion.

I paused, wondering how to best spin Brandon. While our mother encouraged Suzannah and me to date and have fun, she'd warned us a gazillion times about getting serious. You know, to protect us from following the dead-ended, miserable early marriage path she had chosen.

“He's
so
gorgeous, Mom,” Suz answered for me. “You should see him.”

“Wow,” Mom simply said. But caution edged her words. “What do
you
think, Kate?”

I was tempted to tell her that Brandon and I were mad for each other's bods and were already secretly engaged. Just to see what she'd say. But my life was “complikated” enough without my mother's big, long-distance nose in it.

Despite my urge to freak my mom out, I went with the truth. “He's overrated. And we're not really going out, anyway. He's just my lab partner.”

Suzannah let out this dramatic sigh—for our mother's benefit, I was sure—and announced she'd take Brandon off my hands whenever I was done with him.

“Ha! That's Kate's call,” our mother responded emotionlessly.

Urg! And since it seemed I couldn't win on the subject of Brandon with anyone, I changed topics.

“I made some extra money this week,” I said after clearing my throat. “Helping a girl from the rink.” I held my head a little bit higher. “Bringing me closer to what I'm going to need at graduation.”

In other words . . .
There, lady!
See, I
am
going to make my goal, get that college money, and do things my way. You're not the only one who can call the shots.

“Really?” our mother responded, noncommittal. “How was that?”

“Matchmaking,” my dad offered.

Huh? I shot a look at him and then turned to Suzannah, who gave me a guilty shrug.

“Matchmaking?” my mother repeated, then laughed.

I exhaled. First of all, it wasn't matchmaking. I'd read an article about those ladies. Mostly older women, they took their business very seriously, researching suitable mates for their unmarried clients and introducing them over tea or something.

What I'd done was embark on a covert mission, like James Bond. Okay, maybe more like Austin Powers. Or like Will Smith in that movie
Hitch.
But still, I'd treated it like I would any business venture, with seriousness, flexibility, and multiple points of contact, and I'd even outsourced some of the work to a top-notch contractor. Best of all, I'd succeeded.

And the fact that my mother was laughing . . . well, I'd get that five thousand dollars if I had to wade through sewers for pennies. Okay—yuck. If I had to take Lexie to that New York City qualifying competition myself. Actually not such a bad idea.

“I'm surprised that little scheme didn't blow up in your face, Kate,” my mother said. “Didn't I tell you not to mess with affairs of the heart?”

No, Mother Dearest, I must have missed that lecture while you were showing me how to grocery shop and vacuum under the couch and all the other duties you should be here doing.

“Well, I did just fine,” I answered, and braced myself for a slam.

But it didn't come. In fact, her voice took on some warmth. “I'm glad, honey. And . . . you know I'm proud of you. After you get the right degrees, the Fortune Five Hundred companies are going to be breaking their necks trying to get you.”

The right degrees! She
still
wasn't hearing me about how I wasn't going to do things her way.

I felt the blood rushing to my face. And who was she to tell me what to do, a woman who wasn't even here to make her husband his birthday cake?

Dad shot me a warning look.

Suzannah shook her head.

So I took a deep breath and gave my mother a dose of her own medicine. I laughed.

The party wasn't quite the same after that. We did presents and cake, but then Dad wanted to go watch TV. Suz called a friend, and I ended up in my room, surfing the Web.

I couldn't concentrate on anything, and eventually I fell asleep on top of my bedspread. At some point, I kicked off my sneakers and crawled under the covers. And at another, I woke to the sound of my IM message chime. I ignored it and rolled over.

•

In the morning, I wasn't sure if I'd dreamed the pesky IM chimes or imagined them in a falling-asleep hallucination. But as I climbed out of bed, I squinted at my laptop to see if I had a waiting message. And sure enough, the text box was open on my screen, and there was a message from SPEEDBALL:

And then another:

A shiver ran down my spine. Brandon, feeling anxious? Brandon, wanting to talk about his feelings? With me?

This was a whole new animal from the guy I knew in chem lab. One I didn't particularly
want
to know. It felt too . . . personal. Too connected. And what could
I
possibly say to help?

Just as well that I'd kept sleeping.

Eight

I
snagged a premium space in the senior lot when I got to school. It was on an end, which cut the risk of getting dinged, and I took it as a sign that the day would go my way. Good thing, because I had an essay test that could have been the death of my A, and after school I had my bimonthly Future Business Leaders meeting.

Suzannah was leaning against the car, trying to stuff a lunch sack in a too-full compartment of her backpack, when a shrill female voice rang out from the next lane.

“There she is!”

I reached to help Suz with the bulging zipper, not bothering to look up. Sorry to say, but neither of us had ever achieved that level of
she
-dom.

But the voice grew louder. “Hey!” That was followed by the sudden rush of footsteps. “Hey, Kate!” that same high-pitched voice called out.

I glanced over to see four girls heading straight for us, smiles plastered across their faces. I'd been in classes with all of them at one time or another, but the only name that stuck in my head was Aimee McDonald, who was the ringleader.

Aimee was one of those people whose skin was so pale it was almost translucent. But since she exuded such a supernatural sense of self-confidence, you pretty much looked past her washed-out complexion to her dazzling blue eyes and dynamic aura.

Chewing gum and smiling at the same time—which was gross, take my word for it—she stopped in front of me.
“So . . . ,”
she said, like we talked every day. “How's our guy doing?”

I was tempted to ask, “Who?” But I wasn't a fool—even if I wasn't a girlfriend, either. “Fine, I guess.”

She looked as shocked as if I'd said diet soda had been banned from the campus. “You
guess
? You haven't heard from him?”

Truth was, I couldn't be bothered to respond to the IMs he'd sent and I'd turned off my laptop. I wouldn't boot it up again until this afternoon at the rink.

My sister must have read my mind, because she pushed ahead of me. “Brandon probably left her a hundred messages. She'll find out when she gets around to checking.”

Aimee's palm went to her cheek in one of those clichéd gestures. “You haven't checked them since he's been gone?”

“Not really,” I admitted.

“Omigod.” She laughed, then shook a finger. “You are
so
bad, Kate!”

I just stared at her. What was I supposed to say? Sorry? Or explain for the hundredth time that I was not Brandon's girlfriend?

“Actually, she's smart,” my sister piped up. “While half the girls at school were throwing themselves at him, she was sitting back, playing it cool. Now she's got him. So why change what's working?”

Surprised, I turned to Suz. For someone who could be so blind about what was going on in our home life, she was killer on these defensive comebacks. I might have to hire her to do my PR someday.

Aimee smacked her gum. “Try checking your e-mails on a class computer. And go off campus during morning break and turn on your phone. Then come by our table at lunch and give us the absolute latest, okay?”

I nodded, although I knew I'd do nothing of the sort. And where
was
their table, anyway?

“Remember, us first, okay?” she said, then threw her arms around me.

I nearly gagged on her bubble gum scent.

“We're so happy for you, Kate,” a husky-voiced girl added, and almost sounded sincere.

“I mean, okay,” Aimee said, pulling back from me. “
Some
of us wouldn't have minded getting our hands on Brandon Callister ourselves.” She laughed, a little too loudly. “But you got him fair and square. Playing hard to get or whatever. Plus people say you've got some get-rich-quick scheme that's going to make you a millionaire, like, tomorrow. How could he
not
love that?”

“Well,” I said, suddenly on more comfortable ground. “It's more like a plan. And it'll be a few years, for sure.”

“Whatever.” She patted my arm, as if I'd been tried and found worthy of being Queen to His Royal Hotness. “So . . . later, right?” She turned away, and her friends fell in behind her.

Mrs. Quack and all her little ducklings.

I just stared. Then I leaned toward my sister. “What,” I asked, “was that?”

Suz rested her head on my shoulder. “I don't know how to tell you this, Kate. But I think you're popular.”

•

In the halls, people I barely knew nodded at me. Those I did know flashed smiles. Some said my name.

I wondered if Katie Holmes had gone through something like this when she'd first hooked up with Tom Cruise.

Arriving at my locker, I found my locker-mate, Yvette DelaCruz, holding court with a few girls. She and I had been sort-of friends since elementary school, even though she was one of the most hyper people I'd ever met. Not in a needs-meds kind of way, but in a needs-a-life kind of way. Yvette got totally pumped up at school and was forever moving, whether it was doing a pretzel-twist thing with her legs or gesticulating wildly with her hands. I swear, she was like a performance artist.

“Hey,” I said as I walked up to her squirming body.

Yvette stopped moving. Completely. She and her friends turned toward me and said hello. Her stillness was unnerving.

I managed a smile, then threw some books onto my shelf.

“Where is he now?” Yvette asked. Once again, the identity of “he” being implied.

I was frozen in place by her calmness and had to think for a few seconds before I could answer. “Arizona.”

“I know that,
silly
. Where in Arizona?”

How in the world would I know? Sure, he'd told me some details over dinner, but my head had been spinning from having Mama herself seat us, and from seeing all the craned necks and stares. Plus—who really cared?

“I'll have to get back to you on that,” I said, reverting to a safe, businesslike tone. Then I nodded a quick goodbye.

Yvette turned back to her friends, and I heard her say, “She'll keep us posted.”

As I blended into the passing crowd, people kept nodding at me, smiling, and saying my name. I didn't want to be rude, so I formed something like a smile on my face and shot it like a laser at everyone in my path.

Dakota Watson was standing in the doorway of my classroom and brightened up when she saw me. I guess she didn't think I looked like a dog
this
morning, either.

“Well, well, Miss Thing,” she said, and did this so-fast-you-barely-saw-it swoop of her long, dark hair so it hung to one side of her neck like a dark scarf. “I hope you're proud of yourself.”

I kept myself in check, didn't act surprised that she was lowering herself to speak to me, or bring up Friday's too-loud commentary. “And I hope you're ready for the meeting later, Dakota. You're reporting on hot trends, right?”

She put a manicured nail in her mouth. One thing about Dakota—her shiny-haired beauty wasn't enough. She always went the extra mile with cosmetics and clothing.

“I'm surprised you had time to remember, DelVecchio, after the weekend you had. But yeah, I'm totally ready.” She leaned in, like we were BFFs. “And actually, after the meeting, I'd like to talk to you.”

“Sorry,” I said, a little flattered, a little curious. “But I'm
so
out of here afterwards. Have to get the Hoppenfeffer kid to practice. What's up?”

She puckered her pinker-than-pink lips. “Nothing I want to talk about here. Maybe I'll call you tonight.”

I shrugged and moved on by, happy for once to go into history class and lose myself in other people's lives.

•

I spent lunch with Dal. We munched on soft tacos from the food truck and talked about everything and nothing, but one thing was distinctly different about the day. People kept stopping by to congratulate me and to ask about Brandon. I answered their questions but sensed that Dal was getting as annoyed as I was.

After lunch, a short girl was waiting by my locker. I was tempted to offer her my autograph if she'd go away.

A closer look and I recognized her from Suzannah's grade, probably from some school project committee Suz had once worked on. As I noted her French braid and cupid's-bow mouth, “cute” was the word that came to mind.

“Hi, Kate,” she greeted me as I walked up. “I'm Vince's sister. Jenn.”

Ah, yes, Baseball Vince, who'd IM'd Mark with the news that Brandon and I were a couple. My, my, how small Franklin Pierce really was.

“Have you heard from Brandon?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Well, I've got a message for him.” She went on to give me some story about a DVD that Brandon had left at their house, and how some friend wanted to borrow it, and was that okay.

It was enough I'd been labeled his girlfriend—now I was his secretary, too? But I swallowed my irritation. I was, after all, a cooperative person. His e-mail address was pretty much the same as his IM, so it was easy for me to remember. I figured she could just give him the message herself, so I rattled it off to her.

Then, before I could say bye, Chelsea suddenly replaced Vince's sister in front of me, wearing makeup and a great pair of earrings.

“Mark smiled at me twice in the hall,” she said, and did a dreamy eye roll. “And came and sat with me for a few minutes at lunch. Kate, I could just die!”

It wasn't every day I made someone happy. And it was almost
never
that I helped send someone over the moon. It was weird, but I really did feel warm inside. “Don't die, Chelsea,” I said, and laughed. “At least not until after the banquet. I worked too hard.”

Her grin widened.

In fifth period, a couple of girls got out of their seats to come and talk to me. But my sixth period was much calmer, which kind of surprised and disappointed me. (Oh, how quickly fame goes to one's head!)

Walking to my Business Leaders meeting after school, I thought about the accomplishments portion, when members mentioned their successes, and wished I could announce how I'd hooked up Chelsea and Mark. Closing that deal had required many of the strategies we discussed in meetings. But it had also required confidentiality.

I could hear club members' voices filtering down the hall. One thing I'd learned about budding entrepreneurs: we liked to talk. About ourselves and those we admired. And often all at once. So despite my best efforts, most meetings ran like water through my fingers. I just hoped today's didn't.

The noises got louder as I pulled open the classroom door. The usual twelve or fifteen people were milling in small groups around the classroom. Mr. Packard sat at his desk, beneath a few of his favorite motivational posters.

I dropped my backpack in a corner and nodded hello to him, then moved to his podium. I grabbed hold of the gavel and gave it a couple of hard bangs.

What happened next stunned me. Delighted me. Reminded me that this day was like no other in my entire life.

All heads turned my way. And the voices died. I mean, there was a huge possibility you could have heard a pin drop.

“I am calling this meeting of the Future Business Leaders of America to order,” I said, and watched the most driven, hardheaded group of people in the school slip obediently into their seats.

Life was good!

I got through announcements and new business in record time. No interruptions, no arguments, no paper airplanes to duck. Then Dakota stood up and gave her hot trends talk on the effect of interest rates on the current real estate market.

While she spoke, I studied people's expressions, tried to read their eyes. Girls like Aimee McDonald might go giggle crazy over Brandon (and by association, me), but
these
were the movers and shakers. Honor students, student government reps, the ones most likely to get into Ivy League schools and armed services academies.

I knew they respected my Millionaire Before Twenty plan, even though none of them had the guts to jump feetfirst into the business world yet themselves. So why would my supposedly dating a jock increase their respect for me?
What
was I missing?

“I just want to end this with a special thank-you to our club president,” Dakota said, shooting a grin at me. “For all the hard work she does for us.”

The members broke into applause. Jon Keller—who ever since losing the senior class president bid to a girl with purple hair had been far more prone to put-downs than compliments—even got to his feet.

I just didn't get it.

I glanced over at Mr. Packard, but he seemed engrossed in correcting papers.

Red-faced, I walked back up to the podium, but I couldn't keep up the ruse any longer. “I take it you guys are referring to my new friendship with Brandon—”

A voice rang out from the back of the room, the first sign of normalcy we'd had all meeting. “Forget him! Tell us about your Six-Point Plan!”

“Yeah,” called out Gracie, who summered as an intern at our congressman's office. “Your
secret
formula that's going to make you rich.”

My lips parted, and my fingers raced to the neckline of my T-shirt.

“And make us rich, too!” someone else shouted.

Okay, this was
worse
than a naked dream. This was one of those terror dreams where you need to scream, need to run, but you're frozen. You simply have to stand there and take it.

How could they have heard about my Six-Point Plan? (Not that it even existed.) Who had I even mentioned it to? Chelsea, to be sure. My sister? Dal?

“That's confidential,” I managed to reply.

“Come on,” Jon shouted. “There's money enough out there for all of us. Spill the beans!”

I swallowed, several times. “I—I don't know what you're talking about. Now, moving along to our next—”

Jon jumped up. “If you're not going to share it, then I'm outta here. I've got things to do.”

Gracie stood. “Me too.” She turned and started talking to someone across the room about homework.

Another guy put his sweatshirt hood up.

Dakota sighed loudly and rolled her eyes.

Questions raced through my head. How did they know about my Six-Point Plan? How did I regain order? How could I get them to listen to me again, to respect me?

“Everybody,” I said. But nobody looked. “Hey, people!”