Red (12 page)

T
o Felicity’s dismay, people continued to talk about Gabby and the prom court throughout school on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, a senior on the football team was suspended for selling pot in the parking lot, and just like that, the prom court was old news.

By the time the last bell rang, Felicity was in high spirits. She hadn’t heard anyone whisper her name or Gabby’s all day. She was back in her best friend’s good graces. Brent was planning to sneak through her window for an after-dinner visit. And tomorrow, when she went to Rouge-o-Rama, she planned to gather some good dirt on Gabby by pumping Rose for embarrassing childhood stories. If all went well, she’d finally have some ammunition of her own when her enemy initiated the next battle.

Felicity stopped at her locker, then headed for the squash courts to meet Jonathan and take down the art show. He was already there, struggling to remove Gabby’s enormous painting from the wall. Felicity rushed over to help—taking down the hyenas felt symbolic of the way she hoped to take down their creator.

“Oh, hey, thanks,” Jonathan said as they lowered the canvas to the ground. “This thing is ridiculously huge. How’s it going?”

“Great. Everything’s going great. How’re you?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Pretty good, pretty good. Busy. I feel like there’s so much stuff I have to get done before graduation.”

“God, that’s only three weeks away, isn’t it? Thinking about leaving must be so weird.” Felicity removed the Skittles photograph from the wall and started peeling the adhesive strips off the back. “You going to prom?”

“Sort of. I mean, yeah, but I’m just bringing my sister Marissa. She’s a freshman, and this senior asked her, but my mom won’t let her go out with older guys. And it’s not like I had a date to bring, so she’s using me as her cover. It’s fine. I’m not really into the whole limo-corsage-souvenir-photos thing anyway.” Felicity glanced at the portrait of Lucia across the room, wondering if a transatlantic love affair was what stood in the way of Jonathan taking a real date to his senior prom.

Jonathan moved on to the next painting. “Oh, so I wanted to ask you—”

He broke off midsentence when Gabby walked into the room. Her presence altered the very quality of the air, thickening it and sucking out all the oxygen, but Jonathan didn’t seem to notice. He just said, “Oh, hey, Gabby, you here to pick up your painting?”

“Yeah, I thought I’d take it now so you don’t have to lug it back to the art room. I know it’s kind of unwieldy.” She smiled her hungry-cat smile. “Felicity, would you help me carry this to my car, please?”

Felicity’s good mood shattered. When Jonathan saw her face, he said, “It’s okay, I can help you, Gabby.”

“No, you look busy. Felicity can do it. Right?” Gabby picked up one end of her painting and waited for Felicity to grab the other. With extreme reluctance, she took it.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

Gabby didn’t speak as she led Felicity through the gym wing. When they reached the bathroom by the weight room, she abruptly stopped walking, and Felicity crashed into the canvas, the corner jabbing her painfully in the ribs. “You can just lean this against the wall,” Gabby said. “We’re going in there.”

“I thought we were going to your car.”

It was amazing how small and stupid Gabby could make her feel with just one scornful look. “I don’t
really
need help carrying this, Felicity. I just need to talk to you, and I didn’t want to do it in front of Jonathan. Now get inside.”

Felicity did as she was told, but her heart was in her throat. One more day, one conversation with Rose, would have left her ready to fight back. But she didn’t have one more day. And that meant that yet again, she was completely unprepared.

“So, what do you want from me this time?” Felicity asked when Gabby had blocked the bathroom door shut. “A blood sacrifice? My firstborn child?”

Gabby crossed her arms. “Actually, I’m going to need your prom date.”

“I’m sorry, you need my
what
?”

“Your prom date. Brent. You know, tall redheaded muscular guy? Kind of dopey?”

Felicity couldn’t believe she’d heard Gabby right. “But what do you need Brent for?”

“Why is this hard for you to understand? I just told you. I need him as my prom date.”

Gabby couldn’t possibly be serious—it was just too ridiculous. Felicity’s nervous laugh echoed off the tile walls. “Brent’s not going to take you to prom,” she said. “That’s insane.”

Gabby shrugged, totally unconcerned. “He will if you tell him he has to. He wouldn’t dare disobey you. The guy has the mental capacity of a collie.”

“But he can’t take you. He’s taking me. Everything’s already arranged. Besides, he has no interest in brunettes. I can’t force him to like you, Gabby.”

“He doesn’t have to
like
me. He just has to take me to prom. Good thing arrangements can always be changed.”

“What if I can’t get him to agree?” Felicity choked out.

“Then everyone finds out about your hair color before the end of the night. Just think how exciting it’ll be. Everyone loves a good prom scandal.”

This wasn’t a joke—Gabby really wanted to take her beautiful, adoring date away. An image of Brent doing the prom court dance with her enemy sprang to mind, and Felicity started to feel sick. She stood very still, trying not to hyperventilate as she watched her prom night go up in flames. Her mom snapping photos of her and Brent, groomed and primped and grinning—gone. The moment Brent would wrap his strong arms around her and pull her close for the first slow dance of the evening—gone. The after-party at Haylie’s, followed by a whole night of sleeping with her head resting on her boyfriend’s chest—all of it gone in an instant.

Of course, it was technically possible to go to prom by herself. But no redhead ever showed up without a date. That alone could undermine her red cred. And how could she ever hold her head up if Brent was right there in the same room with another girl? Whispers and pitying looks would follow her all night.
Did you see how Felicity’s sexy boyfriend ditched her? And for a brunette, of all people. What kind of girl can’t hang on to her boyfriend on prom night?

They would wonder why he had left her. And if they tried hard enough, maybe they’d find out.

Tears of fury and frustration pricked at the corners of Felicity’s eyes, and she dug her nails into her palms and tried to concentrate on the pain. No matter what happened, she couldn’t let Gabby see her cry. “You won’t get away with this,” she hissed. “You can’t just go around terrorizing people and expect there not to be any consequences.”

Gabby smirked at her. “Ooh, I’m paralyzed with fear.”

“I’m serious. You’re not the only one who can spread rumors. I could have the whole school talking about you in a second if I wanted to.”

“What could you possibly have on me, Felicity?”

“Why should I tell you?” Felicity held her head high, hoping Gabby couldn’t tell she was grasping at straws. “I could say anything—it wouldn’t even have to be true. I could tell everyone you’re pregnant. Or that you’ve been texting naked photos of yourself to the football team. Nobody around here even cares if the gossip they spread is real.”

She expected to see fear flicker across Gabby’s face, but instead her enemy broke into a radiant smile. “Oh, that’s perfect,” she said, more to herself than to Felicity.

“What? I’m serious. I’ll do it unless you leave me alone.”

“Fine. Do it. I dare you. Tell them I cheated on my SATs. Tell them I have an after-school job at the strip club on I-80. Tell them I’m a crack addict. I can’t wait to see what people will believe.” Gabby picked up her bag and turned to go. “And in the meantime, have your boy toy call me so we can make arrangements. I’ll be wearing red, so a corsage of red roses would look nice.”

Felicity stared at the closing door, more confused than ever. Gabby wasn’t just being stoic—she seemed genuinely delighted at the prospect of having her character defamed. If Felicity went ahead and spread malicious rumors about her, it seemed she’d be playing directly into her enemy’s hands. Was Gabby really so desperate for attention that she’d stoop to this? What could she possibly be trying to achieve?

Of course, this meant that Felicity had only two choices: give up her boyfriend on prom night, or give up her secret, her shot at winning the pageant, and her dream of going to art school.

Her tears finally spilled over.

She let herself cry quietly for a few minutes, then gathered a wad of toilet paper and patted her eyes dry. Personal crisis or not, she had to go back to the squash courts. The art show had to come down, and she couldn’t make Jonathan do all the work himself. She inspected her face in the mirror. Her eyes were a little red and her mascara was a bit smeared, but she didn’t look too awful. It was possible Jonathan wouldn’t notice anything was wrong as long as she kept her distance. She took a few deep, calming breaths and tried to rearrange her mouth into a convincing smile.

Unfortunately, Ms. Kellogg had arrived in her absence to help take down the show, and she waved Felicity over immediately. “Do you have nails?” she called. “I can’t peel off these sticky strips.”

“Yeah, I can do it.” Felicity tried to keep her tearstained face averted as she picked the adhesive off a painting. “Where’s Jonathan?”

“He’s carrying stuff back to the art room. Hey, are you okay? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.” Felicity sounded about as convincing as she had when she was six and tried to blame the cat for the crayon drawings on her bedroom walls.

Ms. Kellogg gently tilted Felicity’s chin up and looked into her bloodshot eyes, and Felicity didn’t fight her. “You want to talk about it?”

She did. More than anything, she wanted to spill out the whole story. Ms. Kellogg was a strawbie herself. She would understand. But the words stuck in her throat like a glob of peanut butter, and she couldn’t get them out.

Instead she said, “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Of course. Anything at all.”

Felicity looked back down at her hands. “I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but … do you ever wish you were a real redhead?”

Ms. Kellogg laughed, a quick, surprised cascade of notes. It wasn’t the reaction Felicity had been expecting. “Felicity, I know this will sound weird to you, but everywhere except Scarletville, I
am
a real redhead.”

“What? But you’re a— I mean, your hair’s strawberry-blond. It’s totally different.”

“That’s not really a distinction the rest of the world makes. When I was growing up in Philadelphia, I got called Pippi Longstocking and Carrot Top all through grade school. I had the reddest hair in my class. I had this photography professor at NYU who used to talk about my ‘Pre-Raphaelite copper locks’ all the time. I feel like a redhead, and I’ve always considered myself one.”

Felicity looked at the strawberry waves falling around her teacher’s shoulders. She couldn’t imagine a strawbie getting called Carrot Top. It just didn’t make any sense. “But why’d you move to Scarletville if you knew your hair would look less red here?”

“Teach for America sent me here. It was a total coincidence. And then Principal Atkins hired me full-time when I was done with my assignment. My hair color has never factored into my decisions at all. This is just what I look like, and I don’t really have the time or energy to be self-conscious about it.”

Felicity couldn’t fathom the concept of a person’s hair color being unimportant. Rarely did an hour go by when she didn’t think about her own.

“Huh,” she said. It was less than articulate, but it was all her addled brain could manage.

Ms. Kellogg reached out and tucked a lock of Felicity’s vibrant hair behind her ear. “Just wait till you get out into the world, Felicity. I think you’ll be surprised by how big it is.”

As Ms. Kellogg moved on to the next painting, Felicity knelt there on the floor, trying to make sense of her teacher’s words. It felt like her world had just stirred in its sleep, stretched, and settled back down in a different position, taking up a little more space than before.

Felicity had been looking forward to her rendezvous with Brent all day, but now the prospect of seeing him filled her with dread. By the time he texted that he was coming up the tree, she was so nervous she felt sick; the spaghetti she’d eaten for dinner seemed to be braiding itself around her organs. She had worked out what she would say to him, but she wasn’t sure she could successfully force the words out of her mouth. For a moment, she considered telling him she couldn’t hang out after all. But this conversation would have to happen eventually, or there would be unspeakable consequences. If Brent found out Felicity was a strawbie, he’d probably break up with her, and she’d lose him forever. This way, she’d only have to give him up for one night.

She texted back and told him to come up.

A few minutes later, Brent slid through the window. He paused just long enough to say hello before he swept Felicity up in his arms like a Disney prince rescuing a damsel in distress. Then his mouth was on hers, urgent and thrilling, and everything ceased to exist except for his tongue and his wintergreen breath and his strong hands running up her back. The speech she had so carefully prepared flew from her mind like a pigeon in the path of a rampaging toddler.

After a few blissful minutes, they fumbled toward the bed, struggling out of their shirts on the way, and fell into each other’s arms on top of the covers. Felicity’s heart was beating so quickly it felt like a continuous hum in her chest. She pressed against Brent, wishing they could melt together. Even with no space between them, he didn’t feel close enough.

Just then, Felicity heard her brothers race down the hall, screaming something about a plane crash. She froze with her mouth an inch from Brent’s and waited for them to move on. “Can we keep going?” Brent whispered against her lips.

“Hang on a second,” she whispered back. “I don’t want my brothers to come in here.”

“No, I mean, can we keep
going
.” Brent pressed his hips against hers for clarification.