My Fake Boyfriend is Better Than Yours (3 page)

Sienna is giving me a look like I'm full of it. The other girls are looking at me too, waiting for my response. I glance at the table next to us—a bunch of guys from the seventh-grade football team. They're clowning around, throwing an aluminum foil ball back and forth, and I'm kinda hoping it lands over here. Something to distract all of this attention away from me.

“Well, my, um . . .” I pause. Who? Who serenades me? I have to say something. Wait. I've got it. I sit up straighter and look directly at Sienna. “My boyfriend,” I answer matter-of-factly.

“Your boyfriend?” she says, giving me a doubtful look. Like she doesn't believe me. “What boyfriend?”

I smile widely. Why didn't I think of this earlier? If Sienna can make up a fake, conveniently long-distance boyfriend, then I can too. “
My
boyfriend,” I say smugly.

Sea narrows her eyes at me. “What's his name?”

I feel like we're in a Ping-Pong match and the other girls are all sitting in the stands watching us volley the ball back and forth.

“Sebastian,” I answer quickly. I've always loved that name. I named my first boy Barbie doll Sebastian and I plan on naming a kid Sebastian. If I ever have a kid, that is.

“Sebastian what?” she counters.

Oooh. That's harder. I've never thought about fake
last names. I look off to the side, and into the big window of the kitchen where the lunch ladies are cooking. One of them is pouring a huge pot of boiling water into a metal bowl full of holes. “Colander!” I practically shout, proud of myself for thinking something up so quickly.

“Sebastian Colander?” Sienna says slowly, scrunching up her nose.

“Yes, it's Italian.”
For spaghetti strainer
, I think, and stifle a giggle.

“Why are you only mentioning him now?” she asks.

“Well, you've been talking a lot about your trip and Antonio. And I didn't want to brag,” I add. Oooh, burn. Okay, normally I wouldn't be trying to zing my best friend but she totally started it. Coming back to school with fake hair, a fake tan, and a fake boyfriend doesn't make you a different person. Maybe just a fake person.

Sienna suddenly has nothing to say. She purses her lips and studies my face, like she's hoping I'll crack and give something away. The girls are eyeing me now too.

“So tell us about Sebastian, Tori,” Avery prompts. “Where did you meet him? What's he like?”

“Oh, well, he's perfect. Gorgeous. Funny. Brilliant,” I lie, laying it on thick. But hey, as long as I'm going to have a fake boyfriend, I should have a rockin' one, right?
Who makes up a fake boyfriend covered in zits with swamp breath?

Sienna crosses her arms and leans back in her chair.

“We met at art camp,” I continue, “in Chicago. Remember that one my mom sends me to for two weeks every July, Sea?”

Sienna nods but still gives me a skeptical look.

“He's in eighth grade, and we were both taking this two-hour landscape class and I accidentally spilled some green paint on his lap, and, well, the rest was history.” Okay, that story came rolling out a little too easily.

“Wow. That's
so
romantic, Tori! Why doesn't stuff like this ever happen to me?” Avery whines.

Because you almost failed creative writing last year
, I think.

“Seriously, Tori,” Natalie pipes in from next to Avery, “you and Sienna both had these great summers and now you both have these awesome boyfriends. You guys should like, double-date or something.”

“Yeah, we totally should. Right, Sea?” I briefly smile and then frown. “Oh, but both of our guys live out of town. Shoot. I guess it wouldn't work.” I hope my disappointment in this convenient fact is really coming across.

“I guess not,” Sienna agrees.

Judging from her expression, it's obvious that this new development is bothering the heck out of her. But there's not a whole lot she can do about it. I guess if she wanted to be the first to hear about Sebastian and me, she should have, I don't know, taken a minute to call me over the summer.

I jump off the last step of the afternoon bus and trudge toward my house, fishing for my key in the front of my backpack. Mom won't be home until after five, so I'm on my own until then. Last year at this time Sienna and I would be sitting at my kitchen counter smearing peanut butter on apple slices and swapping stories about who at school had changed the most over the summer and who we thought was cute. But that was last year. I didn't feel like inviting Sienna over today, and anyway, it's not like she stopped and said, “Oh, hey, Tori, my mom can give you a ride back to my house in our big fancy new car and we can play my new Wii and order pizza.” Nope. She just climbed into the passenger seat of her car with a casual “IM you later?” tossed over her shoulder. I nodded and boarded the giant yellow bus of gloom.

Once inside, I call Mom to let her know that I got home okay and then pull two tangerines out of the
fridge and set them on the counter in front of me. I check the clock. 3:05. I'm already bored. I contemplate going online even though Mom told me I couldn't but then decide against it. She's always a sneaky one with those parent spy programs and she'll just find me out and yell at me later if I do. I consider calling Dad. It's not Sunday or Wednesday, the days we have scheduled calls, but I want to talk to someone, so I pick up the phone and dial.

“Hello?” his warm voice greets me.

“Dad! Hi!” I feel my cheeks pop into a smile.

“Hey, sweetie, everything okay?” He sounds a little surprised to hear from me.

“Yeah, good. I just got home from school,” I say.

“Oh that's right, first day today. How'd it go? Was it everything you ever imagined?”

“Oh . . . you know. It was okay.”

“That good, eh?” He laughs.

I laugh too. “Yeah. I miss you.”

“Well, you're coming up to see me this weekend, right? I'm all set for your visit. I thought we could hit a museum on Saturday and do lunch near the lake. It'll be great.”

That does sound great. “Yeah,” I answer. “Wonderful. Well, can we chat more later, hon? I'm kind of covered in paint at the moment.”

“Oh, sorry, Dad.”

“No problem. I'm glad you called. Love you, sweetie. See you Friday night.”

“Love you,” I say, and hang up the phone.

Dad's an artist, so he's covered in paint most of the day. He has this great little apartment in Chicago with a view of Lake Michigan from the bedroom. He always lets me have his room when I visit, and I spend a good chunk of the time watching teeny-tiny people walk up and down the bike path lining the lake. Dad's a really, really good painter and has these art shows that important snooty people attend. They talk about lines and strokes while drinking wine and eating cheese cubes. He's not super well-known yet, I guess, but he will be huge someday. I'm sure of it.

I peel my first tangerine and check the clock. 3:10. It's going to be a long afternoon.

Mom comes through the door at 5:15 on the nose with what smells like Chinese food. “Tor? Tori?” I hear her call. I close the book I'm reading and head into the kitchen.

Mom's mascara is smudged under her eyes and she looks tired, but she's smiling anyway. “Well? How was it?” she asks.

Glorious! Stupendous! Best day of my life! All answers she's waiting for. “It was okay,” I reply.

“How are your new teachers?” she pushes, setting a paper plate and a bag full of plastic utensils in front of me.

I shrug. “Well, Mr. Matthews has some kind of anger issues. I heard his wife just left him. And Mrs. Wittler kept topping off her coffee with something out of a small silver flask throughout science. I'm thinking whiskey.”

“Tori!” Mom scolds, slamming down a carton of beef and broccoli on the kitchen counter.

“What? You asked.”

Mom shakes her head in one of those “what am I going to do with her?” ways while scooping some of the beef and broccoli onto her plate.

“Did you catch up with your friends?” she asks. If Mom paid closer attention to me, she'd know my BFFs of late have been Jade, Isabella, and Aubrey, the main characters in the Thornwood Prep books. I read the entire series this summer.

“Yeah.”

“How was Sienna's trip? Did she have a great time? Does she look different?” She plucks two egg rolls from a carton, depositing one on my plate.

Ha! She wouldn't believe me if I told her. “Uh-huh,” I say. “She had fun.”

Mom stops fixing her plate and looks at me and my
mostly empty one. “What's wrong, Tor? Just wiped out from the first day?”

“Yeah, I think so. I'm not hungry. Mind if I go to my room now?” I ask.

“Go ahead, sweetie. We can talk later. Oh! And take your fortune cookie with you. You know you love those.” She smiles.

I turn and leave, taking the little cellophane-wrapped cookie with me. I
don't
love fortune cookies. Not at all, actually. There is no chocolate or raisins or any other remotely cookielike goodness to them. Might as well eat a foam cup. I do, however, love the fortunes.

Safely behind my bedroom door, I rip away the plastic wrapper and crack open the crescent-shaped cookie.

 

“It is better to be deceived by one's
friends than to deceive them.”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Pssh. That's what he thinks.

I toss the cookie and the fortune in the trash and take a seat at my desk in front of my computer. I want to Google this restaurant in Chicago I heard about so Dad and I can go there this weekend. It's something with the word
fondue
in it. I heard you can dip everything from pretzels to pickles in the cheese they give you. I
love
cheese. I'm just saying.

Flash. An IM window opens up. Sienna. I glance at my crumpled fortune in the trash can.

 

SiennasHeart:
Hey, Tori

TorItUp:
Hey

 

Doo da doo.

Crickets. Lots of crickets.

Hearing pins drop . . . Well, I have no pins in my
room but I have a pink cup of pens on my desk. I knock the cup over. Hearing pens drop . . .

 

TorItUp:
You IMed?

SiennasHeart:
Hey, sorry about that. So, what's up? I didn't get to talk to you much after lunch. How was the rest of your summer?

 

How was the rest of my summer?
How was the rest of my summer?
Okay, I need to calm down. She's trying here. She wants to know about me.

 

TorItUp:
Really good. Just, you know, hung around and stuff.

TorItUp:
Spent a week at my dad's after art camp.

TorItUp:
Marnie Johanson had a pool party. That was fun.

TorItUp:
Went to Six Flags twice.

 

Um, distracted much? What, am I talking to myself here?

 

TorItUp:
Are you still there, Sea?

SiennasHeart:
Sorry! Yeah, I'm here. It's
just Antonio's IMing me too. He's so funny. He has me LOLing like crazy.

 

Oh, isn't that special? She's talking to
Antonio.
And he's
so
funny in addition to being wonderful. Imagine that. She's just about worn the L and the O right off her keyboard. Yippee. Why did she IM me then if she's busy talking to her make-believe boyfriend? Just to show off? Well, two can play at that game.

 

TorItUp:
Oh, me too. Not IMing with Antonio, ha ha, but with my boyfriend. Sebastian.

SiennasHeart:
Tell him I said hi.

TorItUp:
Ok.

 

Yeah. I'll get right on that. I cross the room to the silver makeup crate on my bed stand and rummage through it. Ah, there it is. My Enchanting Espresso nail polish. I got it one day over the summer when I was just about to keel over from extreme boredom and I walked up to the Walgreens at the corner of Washington and Monroe. I sit back down in front of my PC and set to work on my nails. Soon I have one hand finished and I'm blowing on the second coat of my other hand.

 

SiennasHeart:
Still there, Tori?

 

I blow on my nails one more time and then carefully type.

 

TorItUp:
Yeah. Sorry. Sebastian was telling me a story about this kid at his school. He's SO funny. LOL.

 

Yeah. I can have a funny fake boyfriend too, Sea.

 

SiennasHeart:
Oh. Well, you probably want to talk to him. I'll IM you later. Or just see you at school tomorrow. Bye.

 

Oh. She signed out. Well, geez. I didn't want to hurt her feelings or anything. I mean, she was talking to her fake boyfriend too. Or pretending to. Whatever. Shoot. Now I feel sorta bad.