Maine Squeeze (24 page)

She shook her head as if she couldn't believe what she'd heard.

“I know, I know,” I said. “Isn't it awful?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “God, Colleen. You really have been acting like a royal jerk.”

“What?”

“You deserve to feel this bad.” She tossed my crumpled tissue onto the porch. “You deserve everything that's happened tonight. If I were Ben, I'd hate you, too.”

“What?” How could she talk to me like that? I knew she could be mean, and stubborn, with other people, but she'd never been this way to me. Never.

“As soon as Evan got here, you acted like Ben was just … runner-up. You know that?” she asked. “As if you had a contest: Who can date the great and wonderful Colleen—”

“There was no contest,” I said, her words stinging me. “That's a terrible thing to say to me.”

“Well, you treated Ben terribly. You completely dropped him. Like, summer boyfriend, winter boyfriend. Like you can just shut off feelings, like—like—like it's as easy as closing all the outdoor taps over the winter. Ben really, really cared about you—”

“And I cared about him!” I cried. “I
still
care.”

“Obviously
not
,” she said. “You know what? You're just like Richard.”

“What? I am not.”

“No, you are. I didn't see it before, but now I do.”

Haley stood up and walked into the house, the screen door slamming loudly behind her. I'd forgotten to make Richard help me repair that loose hinge.

Me—just like Richard? Since when? And where did Haley get off, telling me I was holding a contest and that I didn't care about Ben? I wasn't, and I did.

I sat on the porch for a while, thinking about everything that had happened that night, listening to the crickets, watching moths fly around the porch light. I was glad nobody else would be home for a while. I needed time to recover.

Chapter 20

The next morning I was in my room, lazing about in bed, enjoying my dictated day off. I had no reason to get up early because I had the whole day ahead of me. And I hadn't slept well the night before, so if I dozed back to sleep, who cared?

“Suspended.” Who gets suspended from a waitress job? I'd made it through high school with no suspensions, but apparently I couldn't make it through the summer without one.

As if my life weren't bad enough right now, with Ben hating me, Haley disapproving of me, and Evan … hugging me. Okay, so that last one wasn't bad. In fact, it had felt pretty good at the time.

But it was horrible that it came about because Trudy suspected me of stealing. As if I would. I'd worked for her for four years now, and suddenly I couldn't be trusted? What kind of sense did that make?

If Trudy wanted to think I was a thief, after everything I'd done for her, after the countless Bobb's bibs I'd fastened, the silverware I'd bundled, the onions I'd chopped until tears streamed down my face—to say nothing of the way I pushed the cups of chowder (not that I needed to, really) to customers and the fried seafood Fisherman's Platter—well, I wasn't so sure I wanted to go back to work tomorrow, even if she said it was okay. Maybe I'd just take the rest of the summer off.

And do what, exactly? I thought as I stared at my drafting table and work area. I'd go crazy after a couple of days without working.

Okay,
more
crazy.

There was a knock at the door, and I sat up on the bed, not wanting to be seen looking as hopeless as I felt. “Yeah?”

Samantha strode into the room and put her hands on her hips. “Are you
ever
going to get up?”

“Eventually,” I said with a yawn as Erica walked in behind her. “Why?”

“We have great news!” Erica said.

“What?”

“Blair's gone!” Erica cried.

It was funny to hear someone as nice as Erica say something that catty. “What do you mean, she's gone?” I asked. “I can't believe it. She
left
?”

“Her room's cleared out,” Erica said. “In fact, I think I could even move in right now.”

“Would you please?” Sam asked her. “Because one lying, cheating, deadbeat housemate is enough for one summer.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What?”

“You won't believe this,” Erica said, sitting in my desk chair.

Sam grabbed a pillow off my bed and sat on it on the floor. “Yeah, she will,” she predicted.

“You know that whole thing yesterday … about the catering? And the missing jewelry?” Erica asked.

I nodded. “How could I not know? I took it, remember?” I rolled my eyes. “Trudy. How could she—”

“Blair was the so-called witness,” Erica said.

“No. You're kidding,” I said.

Erica shook her head. “Not only that, she's the one who stole the stuff. And Sam's the one who busted her.”

“How?” I asked. “Come on, I haven't seen you guys in like twelve hours. And all this happened?”

“I just had a feeling about her, you know?” Sam said. “A very, very
bad
feeling. I mean, first I considered the whole theft story could be made up, or a setup or something. You never know when someone's going to have a grudge against someone on this island.”

I thought about Mrs. Boudreau's feud with Trudy. There were numerous long-standing disagreements like that around here.

“Then I thought about the group of us who went on the job. You, me, Evan, Blair. Who else would be a witness?” Sam asked. “That cranky old guy who insisted on
prawns
? And it just didn't make sense to me. And remember how we didn't see Blair for like ten minutes at one point, and when we did, she said she had to use the bathroom and she went on and on about the house and how rich they were? So I had Erica distract her with some bogus credit card mistake, and I snooped in her backpack at work. I know I shouldn't have, that it was
completely
wrong. That stuff never holds up in court or whatever. But I just couldn't stand her anymore. I couldn't stand that she was accusing
you
, of all people.”

“So you found the missing things?” I asked.

Samantha nodded. “Oh, yeah. Plus three CDs of mine and a shirt I think is yours.”

“So … what happened?” This was sounding too good to be true. I still couldn't believe it, though. I had invited her into my house, and she'd framed me?

“I confronted her with it as soon as the restaurant closed. She had to confess. She apologized to Trudy for everything, and then Trudy fired her,” Erica said. “We all just stood there, totally speechless for a second. Then after she walked out everyone was all buzzing about how you should never have been suspended and I don't know what happened, but I think Trudy gave Blair a serious earful.”

“Why didn't you guys wake me up last night to tell me all this?” I cried.

Erica and Samantha looked at each other. “I didn't think you were home, actually,” Sam said. “I thought you were with Ben.”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“And I don't know where Blair went last night—I never heard her come home—but she's gone now.”

“Do you think she left the island?” I asked.

“It would have been too late last night to get a boat out. But we can easily find out if she left this morning. We'll just go ask Ben.”

“Um …” I murmured. “Maybe not.”

“Uh-oh.” Sam shifted on the pillow and leaned back against the bookcase. “This doesn't sound good. Tell us what happened.”

I gave them a brief description of our talk, skipping over the really painful parts. Which made it extremely brief, actually. I explained what Ben had seen, and what he had said. They knew part of the story already, because of last night.

“You really broke up with Ben?” Erica asked. “You're kidding.”

“No. Actually, he really broke up with
me
,” I said. “And now Haley's mad at me because she thinks I was mean to Ben. She's like … furious, in fact. She was sort of mean about it.”

“Well, she and Ben are really good friends, too,” Erica said. “I mean, you guys did everything together. Right?”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“She's sort of stuck in the middle,” Sam said.

I sighed, thinking about how much damage Blair had done with her stupid, unfounded allegation. “I can't believe Blair got me in trouble, which is why I was hugging Evan, which is why Ben broke up with me, which is why Haley hates me. That all happened for nothing—for no reason!” I said.

Erica and Samantha glanced at each other.

“What?” I said.

“Maybe she did cause things to speed up,” Sam said tentatively. “But it did happen for a reason. I mean, that's what prompted you and Evan to hug … but maybe that was going to happen anyway.”

“What are you saying? That I
wanted
to hug Evan?”

“Well … yeah,” Erica said. “It seems like you did.”

If even Erica, the nicest person in the world, thought that about me, then it must be close to true.

“Didn't you?” she asked when I didn't respond.

“I don't know. In some ways, yes.” I thought about how attracted I felt to Evan, how I'd been sort of fighting that feeling ever since he came back. But then I thought about how I didn't approve of the way he treated me, and how he was about as reliable as his friend's car that had broken down on the highway. When Ben said he'd be somewhere, he was there—early. When Evan said that, I knew I couldn't believe him. He might be there, and he might not. And he wouldn't pick a time.

So the question was, how important was that to me?

“And in some ways, no?” Erica pressed, sounding a little hopeful that I wasn't being completely sucked into the Evan phenomenon again.

The telephone rang just then, and I reached over to grab it. “Templeton residence,” I said.

“Templeton? As in Colleen Templeton?”

“Mom!” I felt a huge smile spread across my face. I'd E-mailed her last night, just before I went to bed, that I hoped she could call me today.

“Everything all right?”

“Sure, everything's fine.” I waved at Erica and Sam, who were leaving my bedroom so that Mom and I could talk in private. I wanted to celebrate being unsuspended with them as soon as I got off the phone. Of course, that meant I'd be going in to work, and I'd kind of been excited by the prospect of spending the day by myself, gluing, pasting, maybe visiting Betty again.

“Are you sure?” Mom asked. “Because you don't sound fine, and neither did your E-mail.”

“I'm all right,” I assured her. “It's just … certain things aren't going all that well, actually, Mom.” I didn't want her to worry, and I didn't want to ruin any fun they were having. I didn't want them to come home, either. I could handle this, but I just needed to talk to her. I definitely wasn't going into the whole evil housemate/Colleen's-nearly-getting-fired-and-jailed story. She didn't need to know that until she got home. And maybe not even then.

“Oh, no. Why not?” She sounded immediately concerned.

“Ben and I … well, we broke up,” I said. “Last night.”

“What?” Mom sounded completely shocked, as if all the breath had gone out of her. “You and Ben? Are you joking? I'm sorry—I take that back. Of course you wouldn't joke about something like that. Oh, honey. I'm sorry. What happened?”

How could I possibly explain long-distance? And did I even want to? “It's a long story,” I said. That sounded ridiculously vague, though, so I went on. “But remember Evan? Of course you remember him. Well, he's around again this summer.”

“Evan.” I could hear the disapproval in her voice, coming all the way from overseas. Across an ocean, after a year, Evan was still doubted. “That Evan?”

“Yeah. That Evan,” I said.

“Ah. That must be awkward.”