My Own Worst Frenemy (5 page)

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Authors: Kimberly Reid

BOOK: My Own Worst Frenemy
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Chapter 7
“I
seriously need a trip to the mall after school,” Bethanie says, slamming her lunch tray onto the table. Honey-balsamic glaze from today's chicken entrée goes flying, just missing my shirt.
“Tough day?”
“That's an understatement. Come with?”
“I'll pass. Retail therapy doesn't do it for me, not that I could afford it. I prefer a Baskin Robbins fix. You could definitely talk me into getting ice cream.”
“We can get ice cream. My treat.”
She gets distracted when Ms. Hemphill walks by our table, as do half the people in the cafeteria. Every school has that one teacher who makes you wonder why she's a teacher: they're too hot, too cool, too stylish. At Langdon, that teacher is Ms. Hemphill and she's too everything. She even drives a brand-new Mercedes, which means she also has too much money to be a teacher. The boys lust after her, I'm pretty sure the other teachers hate her, and girls like Bethanie want to grow up and be her.
“She always wears the cutest stuff—trendy but classic at the same time. You know what I mean?” Bethanie says.
“No, I really don't. Wouldn't you rather go shopping with one of your friends, someone who actually likes shopping?”
She gets quiet for a second, then says, “I don't know that many people. Besides, I thought
we
were friends.”
Wow, she must not have a whole lot of friend-making experience if she thought that's what we are. At this point, what we have is more like an alliance—two countries surrounded by a bunch of other countries that don't want us as neighbors. But it does give me a little more insight into who she might really be.
“So when you said you hate being the new girl, you meant totally new, like new to Denver?”
“I never said that,” she says, sounding more defensive than my comment called for. “I never said we just moved here. Where'd you get that idea?”
“Whoa, I was just trying to get to know you better. That's what new friends do. I just figured if you didn't know that many people, it was because you haven't had a chance to meet any.”
“Sorry. I guess I'm just peeved that I have to buy a new phone.”
“I saw you on your phone just this morning. And you sent me a text about some cute guy in first period.” Bethanie has a brand new BlackBerry that makes my free-with-contract-renewal phone look like two paper cups and a string. Did she steal that, too? “What happened between first bell and lunch?”
“Ms. Reeves is what happened. She confiscated it and refuses to give it back.”
“She did the same thing yesterday with Lissa's face cream.”
“She's doing it to everyone. Only a few days into the school year and she must have a serious stash already.”
“Were you using the phone in class? She told Lissa she had the right to take her cream because she was showing it off and being disruptive to class.”
“Not even. I was standing outside her classroom door and only pulled it out to check the time. She walks by and just snags it right out of my hand.”
“You were in the hall when she took it?”
“Yeah, and class hadn't even started. She called it a preemptive move because she knew I'd try to use it in class.”
“I wonder what she's doing with all that loot.”
“She says I can get it back at the end of the quarter. Can you imagine—no phone for three months?”
“You should fight it. Maybe take a look at the Langdon handbook and see if she violated the confiscation rule.”
“It isn't worth the hassle. It's easier to get another phone.”
I guess that's true if you've got money to blow. Or you're not averse to “borrowing” a phone from the AT&T store.
“Well, I can't go with you anyway. I have a job interview after school.”
“Where?”
“Mitchell Moving and Storage. Lissa's dad owns the company and he offered Marco and I a job yesterday.”
“Why do you have to work for Justin and Lissa's father? They're like the king and queen of Langdon. Surely there's some less conspicuous kids' parents you could work for.”
“I have cash-flow issues. Doesn't matter to me if I'm slinging burgers or working for madame president.”
“I never thought of it like that. You
are
kind of working for her, aren't you? That's just weird.”
Right then I'm thinking that Bethanie and I are probably never destined for friendship. I have friends at home. I don't need her, although it's nice to have an ally in enemy territory. But how great is an ally who's all the time trying to figure out how to defect to the other side? And who thinks the world is coming to an end because you'd stoop so low as to work for the king and queen of the other side.
“I don't see why you have a problem with me working when you're in the same situation I am. Isn't that why you're here on a scholarship—because you don't have Lissa and Justin's money?”
“Work where you want to work. None of my business,” she says, poking at her chicken with her fork.
“Are you going to eat that?” I ask because there's no sense wasting good food.
“You know what? Let's go off-campus for lunch.”
“Only seniors can do that.”
“I'll buy, you pick the place,” she says, which, of course, are the magic words. Why should seniors get all the perks? Isn't it enough that they only have a year left of high school?
While we walk the quarter mile to Bethanie's favorite parking spot, I can't decide if I'm terrified or thrilled to be breaking the rules. I always hear that cops' kids are like preachers' kids—always looking to rebel—but that's never been me. Until last summer anyway, and even then I wasn't looking for trouble. Leaving campus for lunch feels like I'm inviting it.
“You still have your uncle's car? You must be his favorite niece.”
“Want to drive it?”
I tell her no, but I absolutely want to drive this car.
“You know you want to.”
“I probably shouldn't,” I say, but she's already thrown me the keys and gone around to the passenger side.
It doesn't take a lot of coaxing before I'm in the driver's seat and cruising down the street like I own it
and
the car. I even glance up into the rearview mirror to see if I look any different from behind the wheel of a car that could cover a year's room, board, and tuition at my Ivy League school of choice. That's when I go up the curb, into someone's yard and come to a stop in the middle of a flower bed, after I take out a birdbath. I always wondered about those news reports of people driving into houses and buildings and wondered how that could possibly happen. Now I know.
“Are you okay?” I ask Bethanie.
“Yeah, how about you?”
“No, I think I'm dead.”
“I'm pretty sure you aren't dead.”
“I will be if my mother finds out about this. I only have a learner's permit and I don't even have it on me. Plus I'm off-campus. I'm so very dead.”
Just then we see the owner of the birdbath coming out of his house.
“Quick, jump over me,” Bethanie says.
“What?”
“You jump over, I'll slide under. Then it'll look like I was driving.”
I do what she says and not too soon because the man is already halfway down his driveway.
“Are you kids okay?”
“Yes, sir,” Bethanie answers for both of us.
“Good, because I'm calling the cops. You kids took this curve entirely too fast.”
I get out of the car and look at the damage. The birdbath is in a couple of pieces and the car has flattened all the flowers. Plus there are two very long tire marks where grass used to be. I am in so much trouble, especially after the summer I just had. Lana's going to kill me, then ask God to raise me from the dead just so she can kill me again.
“Sir, I am so sorry for this damage. Calling the police and having them make a report would just be such a hassle—” Bethanie says before the man interrupts her.
“A hassle for you, especially when your parents find out you've damaged their car.”
“It's her uncle's car,” I offer because I feel like I should contribute something.
Bethanie cuts her eyes at me like she'd prefer I'd shut up.
“Tell you what. Let's just not involve the police or exchange names or anything like that.” She points to the birdbath and says, “It's a thing. Things can be replaced.”
“That
thing
was custom designed and cost me five hundred dollars. Plus you've ruined about a thousand dollars worth of prize rosebushes.”
“So two thousand dollars would more than take care of it, right?”
“You have two thousand dollars lying around?” the man says, looking at Bethanie like she's crazy, same way I am.
“Let me just check,” she says, reaching into the car to open the glove compartment. I don't know what she's going to pull out of there—a gun, Monopoly money, a tire pressure gauge—but not two thousand dollars. Except she does.
“Hold out your hand.”
“What the . . .” the man says as he obeys her command and lets her count twenty hundred-dollar bills into his palm.
“Let's make it double your cost—three thousand dollars and zero questions,” Bethanie says handing over ten more bills. To me she says, “In the car.”
Like the stunned homeowner, I obey. She gets in, backs up to the street, and drives off, tires screeching.
“Let's hope he didn't get a chance to get my tag,” she says.
“What just happened?” I ask.
“I saved your butt.”
“And I'm grateful for it, but what's up with the ATM inside your glove compartment?”
“You know what the best thing is about secrets? Well, the only good thing really,” she says, but doesn't wait for me to answer. “When someone knows your secrets and you know theirs. It brings you closer together.”
It's true. Anyone who keeps me from getting arrested, expelled, or getting killed by Lana is going to have my loyalty. That's how MJ and I became friends. I mean, before we stopped being friends. But the stopping part was MJ's doing, not mine.
“Now your mom won't ever know about you driving without a license, and now you know I'm not really broke.”
“So why pretend to be?”
“Langdon doesn't let anyone in after ninth grade and I really wanted to go there so I applied for the scholarship.”
“So are you not broke, or are you rich? There's a big difference.”
What I really want to ask is why all the cash in the glove compartment. The only people I know who keep a stash like that are thieves, dealers, and people on the run from the cops. But the only people I know with real money got it illegally since I only know them from Lana's cases, so my experience is limited.
“One secret at a time,” is all she says.
Chapter 8
T
o show her solidarity, or to prove we really are bonded after what happened at lunch, Bethanie gives Marco and me a ride to Mitchell Moving and Storage when Marco's car refuses to start. We have to leave his ancient Pontiac Grand Prix in the student parking lot. During the long walk to her secret parking place, she explains the car to Marco using the rich-uncle storyline I'd inadvertently given her. The fact that I'm the only one she trusts with her secret life of bling may be something we can build a friendship on, unless it turns out she stole it all. She even wishes us luck before she drives away, leaving us to get home on our own. Good thing I have a bus pass.
From the outside, the place seems to be a big nondescript warehouse, but once we're inside, the main lobby looks like it belongs in some office building downtown—cool and modern with lots of steel and glass. Marco and I are ten minutes early for our interview, so the receptionist hands us both a job application on a clipboard and asks us to have a seat, then disappears down a hall, leaving me completely alone with Marco for the first time since we met. I've had plenty of daydreams of what I'd do in this moment, but now that I have it, I can't think of a word to say. So I study him like I do everyone else, and try to learn things about him I'm too nervous to ask. Like I noticed at lunch today he used his left hand to carry his tray to the table, but used his right hand to open his soda. Now he's filling out the application with his left hand, but he took notes in French class with his right. He's ambidextrous. This doesn't reveal the secrets of his heart, but now I know something about him that I didn't this morning.
I notice a faint tan line around his wrist, from something he wore recently when the summer sun made him darker, but not since school started because his wrists have always been bare. Believe me, I would have noticed. Times like this I wish my conversational skills were as subtle as my ability to watch people, but they aren't, so I'm just out with it.
“You usually wear a bracelet. One too small for your wrist, probably.”
He looks up as though he's already forgotten I was there. I guess he was really focused on that application.
“Not a bracelet, but one of those friendship things, you know—the kind someone makes you from yarn or something.”
Someone like
who
, I want to ask.
“How did you know that? I lost it right before I started Langdon.”
“I noticed you have a faint tan line there.”
“How do you know it wasn't a watch?”
“See?” I just realize I've reached out and touched him where the bracelet used to be. My face grows hot and I pull my hand back. “The size of the band is uniform all around your wrist. No watch face. And the line is too thin to be a man's watchband, anyway.”
“That's crazy. You're pretty observant.”
Now he thinks I'm a freak, one who stares at his wrists.
“I just pick up on things around me, that's all.”
“Well, I don't pick up on things like that. Most people don't. But that's cool, like ESP or something. Kind of special.”
I am the least special person I know, so I don't know whether he's trying to make me feel better about being a freak, or if he really believes what he's saying. But the way he's looking straight into me makes me know he believes it. He thinks I'm special.
“The clues are there for everyone to see, I just notice them when others don't. More like being a detective than having ESP.”
“Well, however you do it, maybe you can help me solve the case of the missing friendship bracelet.” His phone beeps and he pulls it from his pocket, quickly reads a text, and puts it away again. “I need to find it soon because I've run out of excuses to give my girlfriend. That's the umpteenth time she's asked if I found it yet.”
Of course there's a girlfriend. There always is. I don't want him to see my disappointment, so I just go back to my application and hope he doesn't notice I hadn't even filled in my name yet because I was too busy checking him out.
After we finished the applications, Paulette, the office manager, shows us around the warehouse. I'm wondering how she can work around a bunch of guys all day wearing a low-cut slinky dress and still get respect, but somehow she does. Every guy we pass calls her
Miss
Paulette and shows great restraint by looking at her face and not her cleavage. There isn't much to see on the tour—the storage area, the loading dock—all of it kind of dark and gloomy. The ceiling in the warehouse is so high that the lights up there don't seem to make it down to ground level. It smells of wood palettes and diesel fuel. It's hard to imagine Lissa or her brother anywhere near this place. I can see why Mr. Mitchell is so disappointed. He knows it ain't ever gonna happen.
The interview turns out not to be one, really. Back at the administrative area, Paulette tells us we have the jobs and she wants to team us with an experienced mover. She makes a call and a minute later, a guy shows up at the door.
“Malcolm, I'd like you to meet Marco and Chantal, your new team. They'll be starting with us this weekend.”
It's an understatement to say Malcolm does not look thrilled to meet us. When Marco extends his hand, Malcolm just looks at it until Marco gives up. I guess Malcolm isn't as impressed by formality as Mr. Mitchell. He greets my “Nice to meet you, call me Chanti” with silence. The only movement from him is his left hand. He has it down at his side, but he's holding what looks like a ball of modeling clay or Play-Doh. He presses his thumb into it until it begins to squeeze through his fist, then shapes it into a ball again, all with one hand. He does this over and over. It reminds me of Lenny and his mouse in
Of Mice and Men.
Eeek.
“Malcolm's a little quiet,” Paulette explains.
Malcolm's also a little weird.
“He's been with Mitchell's for years, but just came back after a short break, right, Malcolm?”
“I liked my old team,” Malcolm says.
“We discussed that Malcolm. When you went . . . on your break, we had to team them with someone else. The world keeps spinning, you know.”
“Make
that
guy work with these two. They're just kids.”
“That's why I'm putting them with you. With your experience, you can teach them to be quality Mitchell employees.”
I can see how Paulette got her job. Her customer-service skills are excellent. She probably never had to, but I'm sure she could talk down a meth-head who thinks his Tastee Treets value meal is out to get him. Of course, that may be what she's doing right now. I'm beginning to think Malcolm's break was at a rehab clinic or maybe one of those rest homes for people who just lose it one day while standing in line at the bank. At least I'll always be in the van with Marco. If I had to ride around with this guy by myself, I'd just decide to stay broke.
Paulette's still talking as though Malcolm is as enthusiastic as she is, instead of nuts.
“You'll start with smaller jobs, like clearing out a kid's bedroom for empty nesters or partial moves to a winter home. Since Marco is seventeen, he can only drive the small van, anyway—employment laws, you know. At sixteen, Chantal can't drive at all.”
That works out great since I won't actually be sixteen for a couple of months. One benefit of being the smartest kid in elementary school is being skipped a grade, which happened to me when I went from first to third. I'm a year younger than your average high school junior, but Paulette doesn't need to know that yet. I fudged my age on my application, but I figure by the time Paulette learns my true age, I really will be sixteen and by then they'll be so convinced I'm a model employee that it won't matter I didn't tell the whole truth. Or any of it.
“If you do a good job on those, we'll put you on full-house moves with Malcolm as the team driver and supervisor. We get lots of those in the summer—you kids could make good money if you work full-time.”
She sends poor Marco away with rehab Malcolm so he can learn proper packing technique and get a uniform. A uniform ! First Tastee Treets, then Langdon. If I have to wear another uniform I will scream. It turns out I get a reprieve. I'm supposed to dress business casual, which I hope is nothing like Paulette's outfit—a little too trendy and a whole lotta clingy for someone her age.
“You two might be our youngest employees yet,” Paulette says, looking over my application. “You must have really impressed Mr. Mitchell.”
Younger than you think, in my case.
“So what is the job exactly?” I ask, hoping I sound mature and businesslike.
“You'll be the face of Mitchell Moving and Storage to our customers. First you'll meet with them to assess the job—what they want moved, how they want it stored, what they want us to pack—that sort of thing. Do you have customer-service skills?”
“Definitely. I have worked in a retail environment where I assessed our customers' needs and delivered the appropriate product in a timely fashion.”
See, that's what you call embellishing. I was a cashier at the Tastee Treets, but I just made it sound better without really lying. As long as it doesn't involve a cute boy, I can talk my way into, around, or out of anything. Like the time Crazy Moses came in ranting he was going to sue Tastee Treets, scaring the customers. He said whenever he walked in, he heard voices and they were driving him insane. Instead of telling him the boat had sailed on that one, or that the voices he heard were just the Muzak system, I told him if he heard the voices whenever I was at the counter, it was a code that I'd give him a free coffee. With my discount, it only cost me a buck or two a week. Since I quit, I wonder if Moses is now threatening to sue because he stopped getting free coffee.
“Wonderful,” Paulette is saying. “On moving day, you manage the move—make sure items are packed to our standards, keep the guys on schedule, and deal with any issues that may arise.”
Uh-oh. I detect some BS. “Issues?”
“Well, our clients are all high-end. They're paying more for our services and they have . . . let's just say they have high expectations. That's where your customer-service skills, and a dose of maturity, will really help.”
Translation: rich people going off on me when we scuff their credenza. But I got this. At my old job, I had people going off all the time. Like I said before, I bet Paulette never had to deal with a meth-head coming off his high.
“Don't worry. I'm used to working with challenging personalities.”
“I think you'll do just fine, Chanti. I'll go with you this weekend on your first project assessment. I'll just need to get a copy of your driver's license to file with your employment paperwork.”
“But I thought because of the law I was too young to drive at work.”
“You won't be driving, but we need something on file for identification. Don't you drive?”
“Yes, ma'am. I'm an excellent driver, first in my driver's education class.”
That doesn't mean I have a license, though. In all my excitement about the new job, and slight fear of working with weird Malcolm, I'd forgotten I'd have to show proof of my age. I don't even have my learner's permit with me since Lana is holding it temporarily. I borrowed her car without permission a few weeks ago and she got a little ticked off about that. So I make a big show of looking in my wallet and being surprised not to find my license, but promise I'll bring it with me Saturday. I just hope Lana will be so happy I found a job nowhere near our neighborhood that she'll give me back my permit, and that I impress Paulette so much on Saturday that she won't mind I tweaked my birth date.

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