The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth (15 page)

“Okay, then, maybe you can tell me something.”

She glanced at me, her dark eyes made up with a faultless hand. “What?”

“What are you going to do when the baby comes?”

For a split second I expected her to (a) get up and leave, (b) throw something at me, or (c) spit in my eye. But she didn’t. The look in those eyes changed, though, to something more penetrating and dangerous.

“How is that any of your business?”

“It’s not. I’m asking as a friend.”

“A friend.” She looked away. “A friend who will blab it far and wide, with pictures at eleven.”

“No. I might be convinced to offer a little moral support, though.”

“Moral.” She snorted. “Right. I so need that.”

“Bit late now,” I quipped.

She paused, and then to my surprise, she laughed. “True. Well, to answer your nosy question, I have so many options I can’t pick one, thanks to our helpful school adminis-tration.”

“What do you mean?”

“They assigned me a private counselor practically the minute I missed my period. I’m supposed to talk to her once a week, and if I miss the appointment, Ms. Curzon is on the phone five minutes later. At the moment I’m doing what I’m told by Dr. Vallejo. She’s freaking. Keeps telling me she’s not an obstetrician and I should be under the care of someone at Stanford. Then she hands me lists of vegetables and vitamins.”

“You mean you haven’t been to a proper baby doctor yet?”

“No.”

“But how else will you know what to do?”

She shrugged. “Why bother when I may just get an abortion?”

My jaw sagged and hung open. Was she saying this to shock me, or did she really mean it?

“Don’t look like that. There’s still time.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s wrong, that’s why.” On so many levels. “And what do you mean, there’s still time? Nobody would do the procedure when you’re so far along.”

“You’d be surprised who will do what, given enough incentive.”

My stomach rolled and I wondered if I was about to throw up.

“Good grief, Lissa—chill. It’s not that big a deal.”

“Having an abortion is a huge deal. I can’t even say how huge it is. Please don’t do it. Please.”

“It’s my decision.”

“I know, and you must be having a hard time making it or you would have done it three months ago.”

Her lips, wearing pale pink lipstick, thinned to a grim line. “Mind your own business.”

“Hey, you wanted to talk.”

“Talk. Not be told what to do.”

“Someone has to tell you. If Dr. Vallejo and your counselor aren’t all over you about it, then… what about your family? What do they say?”

She stared at me. “What do they have to do with it?”

“Or the baby’s father’s family. Do they even know?”

“No, of course not.”

“You didn’t tell the dad?” I asked in amazement.

She scrambled to her feet. “How dare you talk to me like you know anything about it! I thought you’d be understanding, but you’re just Christian Barbie, all plastic and fake. Push your button and you preach.”

“Vanessa!” Tears prickled in my throat. How could she think that? “Help me understand. Why won’t you let anyone help you?”

“Like you’re helping me? Dishing out accusations and making me feel even worse than I already do?” Her cheeks had flushed red and furious tears glittered in her eyes.

That made two of us.

“I’m sorry. Please. I hate that I made you feel that way when I didn’t mean to. But…” I gestured at her belly. “That’s a baby in there. I don’t understand how you can talk about flushing him out like a hairball in the drain. He’s a
person
. He deserves to be taken care of.”

“Great,” she snapped. “You can adopt him, then.”

I might have been shaking, but I didn’t back down. We faced each other across a verdant few feet of lawn. “That’s a better option than the flushing. I’m not accusing you, honest. I’m just telling you the truth. It would be wrong to do what you’re thinking. Please don’t kill the little guy. Give him his chance.”

I couldn’t believe we were even having a discussion about killing anything. I couldn’t even kill a spider—if I found one in our second-floor room, I carried it to the window and encouraged it to go outside.

Vanessa dragged in breath after breath as if she’d been running. Then her jaw dropped and all the expression fell from her face. Her eyes gazed into the distance—or into the future, I couldn’t tell. She covered her belly with both hands.

“Hey. Are you okay?”

“He moved,” she said in a faraway voice. “Just now. He’s swimming. I can feel him.”

“Sit down.” I pulled her down next to me. “You’re all right? No water breaking or anything?”

She slid me a glance and pursed up her mouth. “We have a few months to go before that happens, you goof.”

Whew.
That
was normal, at least. What a relief.

Her hands still lay on her belly. “He stopped. Wow. That was weird.”

“Is that the first time you’ve felt him?”

“I woke up a couple of nights ago from a dream about giant goldfish. Maybe that was him.”

“It could be a her.”

She shook her head. “It’ll be a boy. I know it.”

I took comfort from the fact that for the last few seconds, she’d been using the future tense. Like maybe the little guy was going to have one.

I
TRACKED DOWN ASHLEY
Polk after dinner, before I got started on my horrid chemistry homework. She texted me that she was out at the playing field, so I jogged over there to find her in the bleachers, watching the boys’ soccer practice.

I filled her in on the revised plan for the Cotillion.

“Good thing we haven’t sent the tickets to the printer yet,” she said, writing notes on her ever-present PDA with a slender stylus. “Summer Liang can change the price and add a line about the charity. And what a great idea about the video! If I’m elected senior consultant next year, that’ll be the first thing I show the new team of juniors.”

“If I weren’t graduating, you’d have my vote,” I told her with complete sincerity. “You’re so good at this.” I thought she blushed, but the setting sun was behind her and I couldn’t tell for sure. “If you ever want to intern with a charity organizer, I can put in a word with my mom.”

“Thanks, Lissa, that’s really nice of you,” she mumbled, slipping the PDA back into her bag. She jumped to her feet to cheer a spectacular save by the goalie, then settled down again.

“Friend of yours?” I inquired. He looked familiar. I blinked my contacts into place.

“Derrik Vaughan.” She sighed. “I wish.”

Of course it was Derrik. I’d just never paid that much attention to the boys’ soccer team before. “He seems nice,” I said. “He came with us for coffee last night after prayer circle.”

“Prayer circle?”

I nodded. “Every Tuesday night at seven in Room 216. He’s come the last few times. You’d be welcome, too, if you felt like it.”

“Oh, no.” The words sounded like a groan, and she actually moved a couple of inches farther down the bench. “I thought it was just a rumor.”

“What? That he’s coming to prayer circle?” Wow. The rumor mill must be over Vanessa and hurting for new material.

“No. That he’s going there for you.”

I stared at her. “You lost me.”

“Word is he’s going to ask you to Cotillion.”

“That’s silly,” I said firmly. “First of all, he’s never said more than hello and good night to me, and second of all, I already have a date to Cotillion.”

“You do?” Like a parched flower that has just gotten a shower of life-giving rain, Ashley straightened and the brightness came back into her face. “You don’t like Derrik?”

“Of course I like him, the way I like everyone in prayer circle. But I don’t
like
like him. I like—” I stopped.
I like Kaz.

Well, of course I did. He was my best friend. But did you have to like someone as a boyfriend to go to Cotillion with him? Of course not. That would complicate things way too much.

But all the same, I’d better shoot him a note to confirm who was going in which direction this weekend to celebrate his book deal. And maybe we’d find some time for a little talk. I needed to prepare him for what people would think if he came as my date. I mean, he’d pretty much saved my skin last year at the Benefactors’ Day Ball, turning up at the last minute so I wasn’t left standing partnerless and pathetic in the spotlight. So it probably wouldn’t surprise anyone to see me on his arm this time. But it might surprise
him
if people made assumptions about us that weren’t true. I didn’t want him to be embarrassed.

And if a girl wanted to dance with a nice-looking guy like Derrik who seemed to appreciate her, well, it would be better if that was ironed out beforehand, too. I mean, technically I was a free agent.

Not that I’d ever steal Derrik if Ashley were interested in him. We’d worked together enough that I’d come to like her as a friend. Her support on the Committee was half the reason I was able to lead it. And, let’s face it, my Public Speaking grade depended on her cooperation. Three very good reasons not to poach. But there was nothing wrong with a dance with him, was there? Or being friends? If there was one thing I was good at—besides shopping and organizing stuff—it was making friends.

Ashley and I parted ways, with her looking cheery and promising to do everything she could to help with our video project. Guess I should have let her know I had a date to Cotillion ages ago. In any case, I was feeling pretty cheery myself by the time I got back to our room to face horrid chemistry.

Gillian looked up as I came in. “Hey.”

“Hey, stranger. I hope you’re in a coaching mood, because I’m going to need it.” I got my chemistry books out and thumped them on the desk, then fished out my Air. Through the open window, I heard someone down on the lawn give a high-pitched giggle, and the smack of a ball against a guy’s hands. Clearly they were not in my chemistry class.

“Sure,” Gillian said. “Thirdterm prep, huh?”

“Yes. And Milsom hates me, so that always makes it worse.”

“You’d think five months of marriage would have mellowed him out.”

“Marriage to Ms. Tobin?” I gave her an are-you-kidding face and we both laughed.

For two hours I suffered through the prep sheets of questions Milsom had handed out that morning, and by nine thirty could take no more. “I’ll finish the rest in free period tomorrow,” I groaned. “Must seek chocolate. Do we have anything in the fridge?”

“I ate it all while I was doing my Mandarin essay translation. Sorry.” Her apologetic expression told me all I needed to know about how difficult
that
had been.

“Back in a minute.” I grabbed my change purse and headed down to the vending machines that lived under the staircase. Once I had a Snickers bar in hand, though, I decided that with thirdterms coming up next week, I’d better stockpile some more. In between the sounds of quarters dropping in the slot and candy bars thunking into the tray, I heard murmured voices out on the staircase.

“Go on. Now’s your chance,” a guy’s voice said.

“I can’t,” somebody else whispered.

“The chick is never alone. It’s now or never.”

By the time I’d straightened, hands full of chocolate in all its blessed incarnations, Derrik Vaughan stood in the doorway of the little room, his face beet red. “Hi.”

Ashley’s happy face flashed in my mind’s eye. “Hey, Derrik.” I held up my treasure. “I’m recovering from chemistry burnout. I hope you weren’t looking for Snickers bars, ’cuz I just cleaned them out. Unless you want to work out a deal.”

“No, I, um… I was looking for you.”

I smiled at him. Poor guy—he looked so uncomfortable. Even though he was six two in his stocking feet and could call the captain of the rowing team one of his best buds, he was kind of cute when he blushed. “Here I am.” When he didn’t say anything, I filled in the silence. “Was Brett okay? Last night after prayer circle? I still feel kind of bad that I opened my big mouth about Carly’s plans.”

“Yeah.” Then alarm flared in his eyes. “I mean, not yeah, you have a big mouth. Yeah, he’s okay. At least, he didn’t mention anything about it after that.”

Of course not. He was a guy. Did guys ever talk?

“He and Carly will work it out,” I said with confidence. “See you later.” I angled past him in the cubbyhole doorway.

“Um, Lissa?”

“Yes?” Now both of us were wedged into the cramped space. He needed to back up or go forward. “Why don’t you—”

“I was wondering—”

My armful of chocolate bars began to slip, like a fan opening.

“Are you going to Cotillion with anyone?”

“I—no, ack, help!” The bars tipped out of my hands and began to slap on the linoleum, one, two, three. We both bent to pick them up at the same time… my butt hit the doorframe by accident… I bounced off it, straight into his arms with my hands full of rescued candy.

My foot landed on his and I lost my balance, staggering against his chest. “Oof!” His arms closed around me and I pulled back to apologize. I mean, could there be a bigger klutz in the entire school?

I heard a telltale click as somebody’s camera phone went off in our faces, freeze-framing us for posterity locked in each other’s arms, gazing open-mouthed into each other’s eyes.

I was so dead. Ashley Polk was going to murder me.

By the time I’d gathered up the landslide of chocolate bars and gotten myself upstairs, a fit of the giggles had set in. Poor Derrik had vanished at top speed, not that I could blame him.

I let myself into the room and dumped the candy onto the end of my bed.

“It’s about time.” Gillian, in her pajamas, sat cross-legged checking e-mail. “Did you have to go all the way down Fillmore to find a shop that was open?”

The giggles burst into a real laugh as I told her what had happened. “I doubt poor Derrik will be asking me to Cotillion again…. After all, if I can create a disaster in a four-by-six space, just imagine what I could do in a ballroom.”

Gillian’s full-throated laugh was music to my ears. I’d missed that sound. “You know, Jeremy said something about Derrik and you, but I was rehearsing and he was talking and I didn’t pay attention. So he really asked you? What did you say? Before the chocolate bars escaped captivity, I mean.”