The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth (16 page)

“I didn’t get a chance to say anything. It would be lame to send him a text saying no, huh?”

“Um, yeah.”

“I guess I’d better track him down tomorrow and apologize for being such a gumball. Hey, speaking of Jeremy, I take it you haven’t had The Conversation with him yet?”

The smile faded from her face. “No. I have to do it, though, before he asks me to Cotillion.”

“You mean he hasn’t yet?”

“Why would he? I mean, if I didn’t have this hanging over my head, I’d assume we were going together. It would be natural, right?”

I nodded. “But what are you going to do if you give him the talk and he asks someone else?”

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take. Is it selfish to hope he doesn’t? I want to go like you and Kaz are going. As good friends. Though I’ve gotta say, it sure takes some of the sparkle out of it.”

“Why should it? It’s going to be a very sparkly party.”

A wistful look seeped into her eyes. “What’s a dance without romance? I’d have to skip all the slow songs, unless I wanted big gobs of awkward.”

That had never occurred to me. But then, neither had I ever slow-danced with Kaz. Ballroom stuff, sure. But romance is the last thing on your mind when someone is counting out the beat in your ear and saying things like, “Get off, Liss. I need that foot.”

Gillian eyed me. “Are you sure Kaz isn’t expecting a little romance with his dance?”

“Of course not. You guys need to stop thinking that way.”

“You are so weird. Kaz is hot. I just don’t get why you can’t see it.”

“Hot?” Wow, she hadn’t even given Jeremy the speech and clearly the mourning period was already over. “Of course I know he’s hot. And he has a nice smile, which is even better.”

“And eyes that adore you, and all that thick wavy hair to run your fingers through.”

“Gillian!”

“Well, he does. And he’s tall and toned and—”

“If you want him,
you
should take him to the dance. Sounds like you’ve got enough romance on your mind for both of you.”

“Temper, temper.” She was enjoying this, the rat. She held a hand to her ear. “Is that barking? Do I hear a dog in the manger?”

“Shut up.”

“We don’t want him for ourselves, but we don’t want anyone else to have him, no, my precious-s-s-s.”

“It’s not like that at all!” I protested.

Then what was up with this tight, angry feeling in my chest? And the sudden urge to growl at her for even thinking about Kaz’s surf-toned self? Huh?

No, no. I couldn’t be this way. If I got all jealous and possessive now, just talking about it, what would happen if Kaz danced with someone else the way I had thought of dancing with Derrik? What if I made Ashley feel like this? How crummy would it be to do that to a girl I considered a friend?

Grrr. Argh.

I pulled my phone out of my tote.

As soon as I hit Send on that last text, I wished I hadn’t signed off that way. Would he take it wrong? Then again, I signed off on e-mail that way all the time. He might think I was mad at him if I didn’t include a hug. Should I have just done the “o” and not the “x”?

Should I stop overthinking now?

I’d better get my feelings together before the weekend. Kaz was no dummy. If my emotions were bouncing all over the place, he’d see it and want to know what was going on. We’d always been honest with each other, and clearly I needed to talk things out with him.

Just as soon as I figured them out myself.

“Kaz and Danyel will be here Friday night,” I reported. Gillian had brushed her teeth and climbed into bed while I was texting. “We need to plan something fun.”

“Then you’d better plan for Shani and Danyel to disappear. They haven’t seen each other since spring break.”

True enough. “Okay. Nothing that requires tickets bought in advance. Or a car, since they’ll probably use his truck.”

“We can rent a car. Even if Carly and Brett come with us, the Camaro can only take two extra.”

“Three if you sit on the hump in the backseat.”

“If anyone sits next to Kaz, it’ll be you.”

“Why not you? You were all hot for him a minute ago.”

“I wasn’t hot. I was just pointing out the positive.”

“Hmph. Can we not talk about this?”

She snickered. “Sure. Let’s talk about your second favorite subject. Vanessa Talbot. Please tell me the rumors aren’t true.”

With a sigh, I took the bait. “What would those be?”

“That you’re giving her Christian counseling so your mom and dad can adopt the baby.”

An incredulous hoot of laughter shot out of me. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“That was the
nicest
rumor. I’m not passing on the other ones. You should be careful, Lissa. I really hate hearing stuff like this about you. It hurts.”

My heart softened. “I’ve only had, like, three conversations with her. She’s going back and forth about getting an abortion. If I can convince her not to, then all this talk will have been worth it.”

“I’m glad you’re talking to her about that. But where’s Dr. Vallejo in all this?”

“Dr. Vallejo talks about vegetables. Vanessa needs a friend. And at the moment she seems to be listening to me.”

“Have you ever asked yourself why?”

“Uh… because I’m the only one in the school who’s speaking to her?”

“I just think you should dial it back a bit, that’s all. I mean, what does she want? A friend to talk to? Or to latch onto your popularity and hope it spills onto her? How can anybody really know what that girl wants—or what she’ll do to get it?”

I stared at her. Since when did Gillian care about popularity? Wasn’t she the one who was always telling me that people’s opinions didn’t matter, that it was who you were in God’s eyes that counted?

“Who are you and what have you done with Gillian Chang?”

I
SHOULD HAVE KNOWN
things could only go downhill from there.

“Okay, so that was shallow,” Gillian said. “But, seriously, I’m only thinking of you. Hanging with Vanessa isn’t good for anyone—look at Emily and DeLayne. I’ve heard they were fairly normal before they got sucked into Vanessa’s group. DeLayne and Shani actually used to be friends when they were freshmen. I just don’t want to see you turn into a clone like they did, that’s all.”

“If you think that would happen, you don’t know me very well,” I said. “And there’s more to it than this Public Speaking project we’re doing together… or the baby.”

“The project I understand, but I’d really like to know about the baby,” Gillian said. “What do you mean, there’s more to it?”

“I don’t know. This pregnancy thing makes her seem more human.” I amended that. “She
is
more human. I’ve seen her mocked and hissed at in the hallways, and I know at least twice it’s made her cry. I mean, yeah, she’s been horrible to me since the day I started here, but I’m trying to do the right thing. Not dish nastiness back, you know? After all, didn’t Jesus say we aren’t supposed to give someone a stone if they ask us for a fish?”

“Vanessa isn’t asking.”

“I think she is. She just doesn’t know how to do it without losing face. Anyway, she hasn’t even seen a proper doctor yet. I don’t know why. She’s got a private counselor; you’d think they’d be on her constantly about it.”

Gillian slid under her brightly embroidered quilt and pulled it up to her chin. “Okay, I get that she needs a friend. But I still think you should protect yourself in case she decides friends are overrated and she doesn’t need you anymore. I mean, ‘Come out from among them and be ye separate,’ not to mention ‘Touch not the unclean thing,’ are in the Bible for a reason.”

“That was talking about Egyptians and food, not doing things for people out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Was not.” Gillian sat up and took her Bible down from the shelf above her pillow. “That’s from Second Corinthians, and Paul was talking about the people of God hanging out with unbelievers. See?” She showed me the chapter and verse.

“Oh.” Still. “Being kind to her will go a lot further than just pretending she doesn’t exist. Which would be hard, now that we’re doing this project together.”

“I’m not saying don’t be kind to her. We all should do that. But my problem is with watching you go further and trying to be friends. I know it’s going to backfire and hurt you, and that’s what upsets me. You heard what Brett said. Vanessa isn’t capable of being a friend. She doesn’t do things out of the goodness of her heart. All she can do is look out for Number One, no matter who she climbs over in the process.”

“She reads to underprivileged kids, Gillian. That has to say something.”

“For community service credit. You might stick up for her now, but you know the first time push came to shove, there you’d be, out in front of the speeding bullet with her handprints on your back. I just don’t see how you can forget that she posted your make-out session with Callum on the school server for everyone to laugh at.”

“I’m trying to forget it. But it’s not easy when you keep bringing it up.”

“Can you honestly say you’ve forgiven her for doing that?”

Okay, that wasn’t fair. “We never proved it was her.”

“Of course not. She’s too smart to get caught. But we all know she set you up to use her room, and then accidentally on purpose left that webcam running.”

“So now you don’t want me to forgive? You want me to disobey what Jesus said?”

“Of course not,” she said impatiently. “Forgive her. Pray for her. I certainly do. Just don’t hang out with her and let yourself in for whatever her end game is.”

“Doesn’t that make you a hypocrite?” She stared at me. “You pray for a person and forgive them, but you won’t be friends with them?”

“I pray for Rory Stapleton, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be in the same room with him,” she retorted. “That’s not hypocrisy. That’s just understanding him and being smart.”

“Oh,” I said in a bright tone. “Now I’m not smart. Not like you, the smartest person in this school now that Lucas Hayes, your
other
ex-boyfriend, is gone.” Her face smoothed out and set into that expressionless look she gets when she’s hurt.

My stomach went hollow as I realized what I’d done. But still my mouth kept talking, spilling stuff out while my brain screamed,
Stop!
“It’s nice to know how you really feel about me. Maybe I don’t have as much in the brains department as you do. Maybe if you’d tried for the Hearst Medal, you’d have come in first, not second. Fine. But don’t quote the Bible at me when all you want to do is sit around and judge someone. Meanwhile, I’ll be off trying to show the fruit of the Spirit to somebody who’s never been exposed to it before.”

I stomped into the bathroom and slammed the door closed between us.

“I’m not judging her,” Gillian shouted. “I’m trying to protect you from her. Why are you mad at me for caring about you?”

But I turned on the water in the shower as hard as it would go and drowned her out.

CARLY CLIMBED UP
the bleachers and sat next to me in the top row. Out on the field, the center forward from Sacred Heart, the city’s defending champion, made a breakaway and blasted toward Derrik in the Spencer goal mouth. Our defense closed in to stop him, but he twisted like a greyhound and drilled the ball over Derrik’s left shoulder. The home crowd groaned while Sacred Heart clapped their center on the back and jogged back toward the line.