Social Lives (39 page)

“Next week. I'll call you.”

Barlow smiled without answering, then got in his car and started the engine. Jacks walked slowly back to her own car and climbed inside, her mind and body reeling from the truth that was staring her down. And as the heat
began to warm her, she could feel the desperation grabbing hold. She was sinking into a hole of uncertainty, and the rope that she had counted on to pull her out had just been yanked up. She hadn't held on tight enough. Or maybe it was inevitable. She didn't love him, and it was only a matter of time before he began to feel it. Either way, it was gone.

 

 

 

 

 

C
AIT WAITED OUTSIDE THE
Bear's classroom. It was on the fourth floor, the junior/senior floor, where she had no business being as a ninth-grader. But she had to know. She had convinced herself that TF was someone in this school, and she had to know who. This new obsession was almost as bad as the first. Almost.

The bell rang, and she stood against the wall just down the hall. They shuffled out, talking and laughing, boys and girls, there were too many to take in. TF had said her ass was the size of Texas, but there wasn't a legitimately fat girl in the Academy. She'd mentioned being a size 10, but that could mean she was tall, or busty. Size 10 wasn't exactly the size of Texas. Hair color, length, breast size, shoe size—it was all a mystery. It could be any one of those girls.

Studying their faces, she looked for someone out of place, someone who felt like a nobody, because that was what TF had said. That she was a senior nobody. But no one fit that profile. They all seemed happy; they were all talking to someone. Even losers could fake it here, and Cait knew first-hand how easy it was to hide in a place like this. The second bell rang.
Shit!
She had to get to class. She started walking for the stairs when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey.”

She knew that voice like her own. She could feel the energy from his body surging through the hand and into her core.

“Hey,” she said casually, turning around.

He was as beautiful as ever, and her mind was instantly back in that car. She could not stop the flushing of blood through her cheeks.

“Heard there was some trouble at your place over break. You didn't say anything.”

Cait waved it off. “Not really. My brother and I were partying and had a little mishap with my dad's car.”

“The orange Corvette? No way.” Kyle seemed impressed.

Cait went with it, shrugging her shoulder and smiling. “Yeah, afraid so. It's cool.”

“Damn. Who would have thought. You're full of surprises.”

Cait was silent. This was a good moment, and she was certain anything that came out of her mouth now would ruin it completely.

“Got a class to get to?”

Cait shrugged again. “It can wait. What's up?”

“So I've been thinking about our rain date. Got any plans next Friday?”

Her heart stopped pounding. It stopped altogether. “Nothing I can't break.”

“Good, 'cause all the parents are coming to some school assembly. That leaves a lot of open houses.”

Some assembly?
Could he really not know? Was there a chance that he had not been told the assembly was her mother's brainchild, that they would all be discussing the hallway blow job she had given him in the fall? It seemed impossible, and yet his face was dead serious.

“Sounds great. Should I get a ride with someone?”

Kyle gave her a smile that she would remember forever. “No, silly. Just you and me. A rain date from before. We never got a chance to be alone over break. My bad, I know. I called so late that night.”

“No, forget about it. I went out with my brother anyway.”

“So Friday? I'll text you when I come up with a plan.”

Cait nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Okay. Later.”

As he walked away, Cait turned for the stairs on shaky legs. This was
it. There was no more doubt. He wanted her. She wanted him. She was ready.

She hurried down two flights to her history class. Amanda Jamison was already inside waiting for her along with the rest of the class. “You're late,” she whispered.

Cait mouthed back
I know
, then looked up at the board, where their teacher was too busy scribbling out an assignment to notice her slip into her chair.

She tried to focus on the board, pulled out her notebook, and began to write. Soon there was a buzzing from her phone. It was a text from Amanda, which she read from beneath her desk.

Have you talked to Kyle?

Cait replied.
Why?

The response came back a few seconds later:
Did you say yes to Friday?

Cait looked at the phone, then back at Amanda, who was trying to seem happy for her but getting it all wrong.

Cait wrote back:
How do you know?

Everyone knows.

Cait wanted to throw up, right then and there, but her stomach was empty. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, all the while fighting to keep a steady expression as Amanda watched her. It was early payback, she imagined, for capturing Kyle's attention, for making him choose her over Amanda or Victoria Lawson—or any of them, for that matter. Still, it stung like a bitch.

Cait deleted the last entries. What was she, some kind of prisoner who was about to be subjected to scientific experimentation? The date had been set. All the parties had been notified. Caitlin Barlow would lose her virginity next Friday night. And although she would be alone somewhere with Kyle, the rest of them would be there with them in spirit, waiting for the full report.

Was it a conspiracy? Is that what it was? Was she a big fucking joke? It was back again, that feeling that life was nothing but chaos, cruel chaos where nothing was what it seemed, not words or feelings or the looks on people's faces. She wanted to run from this room right back home to her computer where she could IM TF. Only TF was probably two stories above her struggling through her class with the Bear. More deception.

She closed her eyes hard, then opened them again. Fuck it. This was high
school. People talked. Surely not
everyone
knew. If everyone knew, then her mother would know, and then her father, and she would be wearing a metal chastity belt with the key locked in a vault at their Swiss bank. Maybe Kyle was as nervous as she was. Maybe he had confided in a few friends and they had told a few more and now Amanda knew and was making her feel like shit because that was what Amanda did. She hadn't called once over break, not even after returning from her trip. So screw her, and screw everyone who knew and couldn't keep a damned secret. She closed her eyes and saw Kyle's face. She remembered the smell of him, the way his hand had electrified her. And then she opened them again and talked herself back into the only version of the story she could stand to live with.

 

 

 

 

 

T
HE HOUSE WAS QUIET
, leaving only thoughts to play in Jacks's head. Over and over they played, as they had been for weeks. It was merciless, this time when Beth was napping, the girls were at school, David was at work, and Jacks was alone with her memories, and her fear.

She straightened the covers around her daughter, gave her a kiss, then slipped out of the room. This would be the last year for these afternoon naps. Next year she would be in school all day, and Jacks was already beginning to feel the loss. She had planned on enjoying this time with her youngest, on taking her to lunch and the playground, on doing everything that she used to do with her older girls at this age. There were so many things she was eager to savor now, precious moments she would never get back and time was slipping away.

But none of that could concern her at the moment. There was too much to do. Tonight was the night, the assembly at the Wilshire Academy, and in many ways she was thankful for the distraction. Rosalyn had assigned her the RSVP list, which had created nearly two hundred e-mail responses and phone calls. People coming, then not coming, then maybe coming. Social lives were hard to manage, even at this dead time of year, and it was a Friday night. That was all part of the plan, placing the event on a night when husbands would be
dragged along. Rosalyn wanted this to be more than the usual gathering of the hens to squawk on and on about the minutia of their children's many issues. There were several of those throughout the year, coming and going without the slightest impact. She wanted this to be an important event, and in Wilshire, that meant the inclusion of the husbands.

Jacks walked downstairs to the kitchen, poured the last of the coffee, got the milk from the fridge. She was at her computer when the doorbell rang.

Out of instinct, she got up and headed for the foyer. She was halfway there when she realized she hadn't buzzed anyone in through the gates. And where was Chester? Barking at strangers was what he lived for. She stopped suddenly, her head flushed with adrenaline. The doorbell rang a second time. She thought about Beth, asleep upstairs.

Struggling to steady her nerves, she backtracked through the living room. Then she slipped behind a curtain to shield herself from view as she looked out the window. It was just the deliveryman, dressed in a brown uniform. The package was in one hand, the clipboard in the other.
Thank God.

Moving quickly now, because she felt like a complete idiot, she unlatched the door and opened it, letting in a burst of cold air.

“Mrs. Halstead?”

“Yes, sorry. I was upstairs,” she lied.

She smiled and reached for the clipboard, but the man pulled it away. “Actually, it's for your husband. He needs to sign it himself.”

Jacks looked up and studied his face. He was young, clean-cut, and wore a pleasant expression, not quite a smile but something close. Still, she saw no truck outside, only a small blue sedan.

“It's the middle of the day. He's at work in New York. I'll sign for it.”

The man pushed past her and into the foyer, shivering and rubbing his arms. “Mind if I step inside? It's cold out there.”

Jacks held her fears at bay. There were so many of them now, real and unreal, that she couldn't tell them apart. “Sure. Just for a minute. I was on my way out.”

The man smiled. He knew she was lying, and he looked at her as though she was a complete amateur at it. “So, what should we do?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Well, I suppose you can come back another day. I'll be sure to tell him.”
Jacks reached for the door, but the man was walking now, toward the living room.

“Nice house,” he said, and that was when Jacks knew. Her eyes went right for the stairs along with her thoughts of her sleeping child. There was no way to get Beth and get out. She was at the door. She could make it alone; he'd left it wide open for her. Which meant he knew. He knew that she had a child in the house.

But she still wasn't ready to believe any of this. “I really need you to leave. David will be home later. Can you come back?”

She followed him as far as the stairs, watching him as he took a seat on her sofa. She would not remove her body from the line between this man and her daughter.

“Actually, I think I'd rather wait. But if you want to call him, feel free.” He was smug now, his expression polite but terrifying at the same time.

Jacks looked at the hallway that led to the kitchen, to the phone, but she could not leave the foot of the stairs.

The man smiled because he knew this, too. The offer had been little more than a joke.

Jacks felt the fear turn now to anger. This was her child, her house. “What are you going to do, wait here all day?” she said defiantly.

The man shrugged and settled deeper into the cushions. Then he pulled out a cell phone, dialed a number, and pressed the phone to his face. “David Halstead, please.”